I've stopped calling them discovery calls
I have a confession. I've been calling my first consultations the wrong thing and thinking about them the wrong way. It clicked for me last week.
I sat down with two business owners and asked what's been going on, and they told me.
Every time they slowed down, I asked them to keep going. What else bothers you? What's hardest right now? What's most frustrating? Where do you feel limited? Where are you overwhelmed?
They got it all out. Almost an hour and a half of it.
One told me something that should take her 2 days takes a week and a half, so work starts before anything is agreed or paid for. The other said she loses half a day on a task her customers don't even know exists. She also said if I handed her too much at once, she'd shut down. After we met, she sent me one more: she's always stuck in the middle, keeping the peace between people, and she doesn't know how to stop.
I've noticed this is what every great first conversation is naturally. So that's what I call them now: Vent to Me meetings.
People don't vent about the things that are fine. They vent about what's costing them sleep, money, and hours, and they're more honest about it than most people are on a form.
Everything I needed was in what they said. A few days later, each of them had a written read on their business. Neither one was about the work they're known for, which they're both genuinely good at. It was everything around that work, landing on the owner.
The best finding was the cheapest. One of them already paid for tools that did most of what she wished she had. And the one who was hard on herself about not delegating had been blaming herself for something I don't think was about her. Handing work off felt slower because her standard only lived in her head, so every handoff had to be explained from scratch and then checked.
If you're too busy working to fix how you work, you don't need a plan before we talk. Book 30 minutes and vent. I'll take it from there.