Career Counseling Connecticut is a mission, driven, passion business. The good fortunes of having great career counseling clients through the years tell others about their success with us has created a wonderful challenge: we are continually booked.
This is true for all our counselors but has led to a personal challenge for me. I am a people pleaser by nature. While that certainly has some benefits as a service provider, it also creates some internal challenge as it is tough for me to say “no” when someone makes a request. I want to help. I really do. But giving away my time for free is something that I cannot do out of both the reality of my schedule and fairness to other clients.
“Can I have a free career consultation?” I hear this question about once a week. I want to say: call almost any other service provider be it a plumber or a doctor and see what they say! Busy service providers cannot give away free time because they are too busy serving their clients. Most – including me – have an extensive wait list. It would not be fair to give away my time to someone who is “not sure” they want an appointment over someone who desperately wants a meeting.
The problem in the career counseling space is that there are career counselors who give free consultations. I want to be careful here as I do not want to insult anyone. But as a potential career counseling consumer, you have to ask yourself “why?”
If there is one amazing thing about the market, it is that the “best” are voted upon by the consumer. Let’s say you went to a new town and you saw two similar style restaurants in the same location: one that was packed and one that was empty. What conclusion would you draw? The market has determined that one is superior.
In the service industry, the best doctors, hairdressers, accountants, carpenters et al do not give away their time because they are fully booked with paying clients. Those that have the time to give away are not. The market has voted on them as well.