For many nutrition and wellness professionals, offering a free discovery call or short consult is a great way to qualify if a new client is the right fit for your practice. It also gives you the opportunity to showcase the value of your services, and convince your prospective client that working together will help them achieve their wellness goals.

The key to successful free consultations is helping your prospective clients truly understand why they need to work with you now. After all, as a nutrition and wellness professional, you started your business to help people. Your clients come to you to help them solve a problem.

If you are truly looking to grow your wellness business, Healthie’s practice management software can help through client retention strategies, facilitating partnerships and more. Get started for free today!

To help you elicit the honest emotional responses you’re looking for during these calls, we’re sharing the 3 questions to ask prospective clients during your free consultations.

These questions will help convert these free conversations into cash, but one word of caution: don’t use these questions as a checklist. They are meant to guide a conversation and reveal how working with you is the solution to their health obstacles.

We suggest starting your conversation with an open-ended statement: “Tell me about yourself.” This gives your client permission to share what they wish with you. Then, you can use the questions listed below as they seamlessly fit into your conversation.

Of course, these questions should fit seamlessly into the conversation you’re having, so be sure to tailor them to fit your audience.

Questions to Ask Potential Clients During Initial Consultations

1. How is ____ impacting your quality of life?

In order for your prospective clients to fully understand that their health obstacles are impacting their daily life, this is a great open-ended question to start with. It gets them thinking about the weight their health ailments have on their life.

Elaborating on this question, you can further probe into how their health concerns impact:

• Relationships
• Work
• Life goals
• Priorities

For example, if a client tells you that her daughter is pregnant, this is the perfect opportunity to ask how their health will impact their role as a grandparent. Of course, a new grandparent wants to be there for their own child and new grandchild, so this will have them thinking not only about themselves, but others too.

2. What is ____ like for you on a daily basis?

To follow up your quality of life question, probe deeper into how health obstacles impact your prospective client on a daily basis. Oftentimes, it’s the day-to-day, not the big picture, that encourages someone to seek help. What would be different every single day if this particular health ailment wasn’t an issue?

For example, if you specialize in gut health, your client may say not running to the bathroom in the middle of food shopping or being able to get through the work day comfortably as their pain points.

Identifying their trigger points is your goal here. You want to be able to then explain how your solution can improve their daily lives.

3. How will your life be different if ____ was resolved?

This question is so important because it paints a picture of a transformation, which is exactly what you are providing for your clients.

You are the vehicle helping your prospective client achieve the “after” they are looking for.

This may be a given, but be sure to carefully listen to the answers your clients provide. If you are able to pick up on the subtle cues your clients are hinting at, you will be able to connect on a deeper level, which shows your prospective clients just why they should work with you.

With Healthie, this relationship can continue by checking in with clients through convenient client messaging or by setting up food, lifestyle, or activity journaling. Click here to learn how to set up these features with Healthie’s Free Starter Plan today. 

Finally, don’t forget to ask “Do you have any questions?” You likely went over a lot of information on this call, so be sure to give your prospective client an invitation to ask questions. Every provider finds their favorite time to ask for questions, whether it’s before you dive into explaining your services or at the end of your call. Test it out and see what works best for you.