The Therapy Business Podcast
We know how challenging growing a therapy practice can be, and don’t think it should require an accounting degree just to run your business. If you own a solo or a group practice, we’re here to help you build a business that creates more time, makes more money and serves more people.
The Therapy Business Podcast
Mastering Follow-Up to Convert Leads into Loyal Clients
Unlock the secrets to converting leads into loyal clients. In this episode we share why many therapy practice owners miss out on potential clients by not following up enough.
Learn about structured systems and processes that ensure no potential client slips through the cracks, and discover how follow-up can be a genuine offer of help rather than a pushy sales tactic.
We delve into effective email tactics and timelines to make your follow-up process seamless and engaging. From the first call-to-action to final prompts and monthly check-ins, our proven methods ensure you keep the conversation going until you receive a definitive response.
Consistent follow-up not only fosters business growth but also shows potential clients that you genuinely care about their well-being. Get inspired to revisit past inquiries with renewed vigor and a structured approach.
Get our plug and play follow up email template
Our Profit Coaching program is enrolling new practices now.
We specialize in helping therapy practices like yours achieve financial clarity, so you can focus on what you do best—helping your clients and managing your team- while we help handle all the businessy stuff they didn’t teach you in grad school.
To see if your practice might be a good fit, schedule a free consultation at therapybusinesspod.com.
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*Intro/outro song credit:
King Around Here by Alex Grohl
The sale happens in the follow-up, and when we talk to a lot of practice owners, what we find out is that they're not following up with new leads and after sales conversations. This means that a lot of new clients are falling between the cracks and people are not getting the help that they're looking for. Today, I'm going to guide you through a process that we use with our systems to reach out to leads that are coming in and follow up with them enough times to make sure that they are taking action. My name is Craig and I'm the CEO of Desi Financial Coaching. Our goal is simple to help you run a therapy practice that is permanently profitable. If you own a solo or group practice, we're here to help you build a business that creates more time, makes more money and serves more people. This is the Therapy Business Podcast. If I were to ask you are you following up with your leads, you might tell me yeah, craig, we are. We follow up with our leads. We try and reach out to them and we just don't hear anything back or we haven't really seen a lot of success with it. And when I ask new clients this, or when I'm talking to somebody in a consultation about this and I'll ask that question and I hear that answer. I'll follow up with. How much are you following up? How many times are you reaching out to them after they've reached out for help? And usually it's once, maybe twice. Well, what we found is, statistically speaking, it takes eight touch points on an average, eight times of reaching out to someone connecting with them before they will even get into a sales conversation with you. So what we find is that usually, practice owners are just not reaching out enough, that they are giving up on a lead before they've even reached this point where we could convert that lead into a client or even get a sales conversation in the books. We could convert that lead into a client or even get a sales conversation in the books. This is a huge, huge area of opportunity, especially if you are trying to increase your client load or your clinician's client load.
Speaker 1:Now, what we believe in is having systems and processes for everything, and so in our business, we have a follow-up sequence. We have an action plan that all of our coaches know that they need to go through when a lead comes in. So if we get an inbound lead through our website, these are things we are doing to get that person on a consultation. If we get a referral, they go through the same sequence with us to get them on a consultation call. And then, of course, after a consultation, we want to have a follow-up sequence there too. If they have not signed up for coaching or they have not told us no, we have a sequence in order to get an answer from them.
Speaker 1:Now, when it comes to sales, this can be a sticky topic and it can feel icky, right. Sometimes we feel like we're pressuring people, and when you're talking to them about getting help with their mental health, there can be a lot of blocks that we have that we don't want to pressure someone into buying from us. What I believe is that we are giving people an opportunity. They have raised their hand If you're reaching out to them. We're not talking cold emails right now Not that there's anything wrong with cold emails. We're talking about people who have raised their hand to you saying I want some help or I'm interested in learning about what help looks like. So they have raised their hand to us, so it's almost our duty. We're doing them a disservice if we don't pursue them, if we don't try and encourage them to take this action step, because I'm going to guess that you truly believe what you do works and makes a difference and can help those people. If you don't believe that, then that's a whole nother conversation in your business. If you do believe that, we believe wholeheartedly that our services are so beneficial to business owners and to individuals so we believe that so heavily that we don't want to give up on somebody. Now somebody can can tell us no, thank you, we're not interested, it's not the right fit, it's not what I'm looking for, or I'm no longer want help and we're not going to push further. However, if somebody is not answering, we're getting just crickets on the other end. We're going to keep pursuing them because we know on the other side of that, especially when it comes to talking about your money, there can be fear, there can be anxiety, there can be stress, there can be embarrassment, shame.
Speaker 1:So many feelings under the surface. And I'll tell you this we have been told more times that people will say thank you so much for not giving up on me or thank you for following up with me regularly. We hear that way more than we do. Oh my gosh, stop calling or texting or emailing me. It's so rare. I can count on one hand how many times somebody has been annoyed with our follow-up and, truthfully, I would personally risk annoying a couple of people with our follow-up if that means we can reach someone who says thank you so much for not giving up on me and then they end up getting the help that they need. So I want you to reframe that mindset. That follow-up is you helping someone who has raised their hand saying I need help. You're just trying to help them take that action, which we know is the hardest part of anything. So what I want to guide you through is I'm going to walk you through our email sequence, our touchpoint sequence.
Speaker 1:Now, this is going to be downloadable, because I know, as I'm talking through this, some of it you're going to actually just want that copy. So I have a Word document that you can get in the show notes. I'll put a link there. You can snag it. We'll just need your email address so we can email it to you. But that way you can copy and paste this. You can tweak it to your systems and then you can start utilizing it. If to your systems, and then you can start utilizing it. If you have a CRM, you can plug it in, it can send automatic emails out. If you have an admin, this is something that they can be doing. But this is our process when we get a lead that comes in.
Speaker 1:So what I'm going to use today for our example is let's say, somebody visits your website and maybe you have a contact form, maybe, hopefully, you have your calendar there ready and available for them to just book into so that you don't need to do this first sequence. But this is really somebody who maybe shoots you an email saying, hey, I'm curious, can you help with this? Or I'm interested in hearing more. Or they fill out a contact form. Or maybe you have a networking partner who sends you this person's contact info and says, hey, this person is looking for some support in X, y and Z. So we go through this follow-up sequence and it's going to feel like we're reaching out a lot, but just remember, that's important. So day one we get that email. Let's say an email comes in from our website saying I'm interested in hearing more about profit coaching. Our therapy practice is struggling financially, we're stressed, we need some help. So we get that email.
Speaker 1:We do three things that day and in any contact form that we might have. We're going to get their. We'll definitely get their email address. If they've emailed us. We're also going to try and collect their phone number, and so we want those two things as much as possible. So the first thing I do day one is we email, we text and we call. I told you there's an average of eight touch points, that's three right there, right out the gate.
Speaker 1:That first day is so important because that's when the emotions are high, that's when it's fresh, they want that help. Maybe something happened, maybe they're feeling overwhelmed, or and that's what caused them to finally start looking and getting that help. And so if we can catch them in that state, while they are primed for action, then they're going to be more likely to schedule time with you and more likely to have that conversation. And oftentimes, even if I have time on my calendar when I call them, we'll turn that into the consultation on the phone. It's a great chance for you to talk and maybe get to know them and decide is this a good fit? And then you can tell them.
Speaker 1:Next steps is let's schedule a session and however you structure yours, a lot of times I know therapists that first session is a little bit longer. So go ahead and schedule them in and likely it's a paid session and you can start getting the ball moving there. So the email I usually will send out first and it's just an introductory with a link to our calendar. I keep it short and sweet. It's just hey, this is Craig, I'm a profit coach. If they referred to me through an organization, so let's say you got yours through Psychology Today, hey, I'm Craig, I'm a therapist that you connected with on Psychology Today. Or if it was a referral, hey, I'm Craig, therapist, this person sent you my way. So thank you for reaching out for help. So I like to add that into thank you so much for reaching out for help. I commend them on their courage there. Then it's just let's hop on a free call to unpack things and get you some clarity on the next step best next steps, very short and sweet. And then I put a link to my calendar. So it's here's who I am. So that way there's no confusion when the email hits their inbox Um, here's how they know me. Uh, so this is me, this is how you know me. And if they just found you on their website, hey, this is Craig. You put, you submitted a form on my website so that way they know who I am when I'm coming in. Because there's a chance they reached out to a bunch of people there's. There's a chance that they just need to be reminded of where you're coming from. I thank them for reaching out and then I tell them the next step. Let's hop on a free call to unpack things and get you clarity on the next steps. And then here's my link.
Speaker 1:Once that email is sent, I will shoot them a text, a very, very similar text. This is Craig with X, I just sent your. Sometimes I'll say I sent you an email. Usually it's the same. I won't even mention the email. But I'll say let's set up a free call. Here's a link. I might even say I'm gonna call. Call you in a couple minutes, just so you know who this is.
Speaker 1:So there's a couple ways to go about that. But we like to text and call, so there's two ways to go about it. The first one is to text them first, and so sometimes we'll say hey, this is Craig with X, I'm about to call you in a couple minutes. I just wanted you to know who this was. So basically it's letting them know. Answer the phone it's not spam Then we'll call. Sometimes we like to call first and we go back and forth. There's not a right or wrong. We just like to toy with to see what gets better results for us and we've kind of seen a 50-50 split that they both work. Sometimes we'll call first and if they answer we'll have that conversation. If they don't answer, we'll leave them a voicemail and in the voicemail we'll let them know we sent them an email and then we'll say we're about to send you a text with a link to our calendar and that's where we'll send that text. That's pretty much the same copy as the email.
Speaker 1:Most important thing is that we're calling, we're emailing and texting. The only reason you wouldn't need to do all three is if you call them and they answer and you shoot them an email and a text after that. So we do those three things in the first day and hopefully we get them on our calendar or we get a consultation done. Then the next day, if we haven't heard from them, we're going to email them back and we're going to reply to that first email. Just say hey, this is Craig. Again, here's how you know me. So this is Craig, referred by X or whatever it is circling back to get you help with your request. Here's the. You know me. So this is Craig, referred by X or whatever it is Circling back to get you help with your request. Here's the link to my calendar. Let's book a free call. So it's just reminding them who I am.
Speaker 1:Again, it's two, maybe three sentences, short and sweet. We're not giving them a novel, we're just very quickly saying you reached out. Here's some help. I might text as well. On the second day too, same thing. I might text them again or maybe phone call. I usually won't do all three again.
Speaker 1:It's okay to Again. There's nothing wrong with reaching out too much. But usually I will always send an email and then I might call or I might text. So just play with what your vibe is, what your feeling is. Everyone has their own preference here. The key here is just for following up what your feeling is. Everyone has their own preference here. The key here is just for following up.
Speaker 1:If they still haven't answered, then on day three I'm going to email them again. So I'm staying on top of them. Until I get a yes or no, I'm going to stay on top of them. I'm not going to give up on them. So this one is the way I like to do. A subject is did you get some help? And it's hey, did you get some help with X, y and Z, whatever they said in their email. And then I even like to say I know you have a thousand and one things on your plate, so it's easy for this to get pushed back. If you still need help, book a call. I promise it'll be worth your time. So it's just a little bit more encouragement. It's acknowledging that maybe they're busy, maybe that's why they're ignoring, haven't answered your emails yet. If you wanted to acknowledge even just their emotional state. Hey, I know it can be overwhelming talking to someone about this. I promise you you'll be glad you did it. And so just that level of encouragement.
Speaker 1:On day three, usually I will just send the email, but again, there's nothing wrong with giving them a call or a text yet again. So you can see, by day three we've sent three on the first day, we've sent two on the second day, day three, we're already at six touch points and, like I said, eight is the average of what it takes to get somebody on a call. Now, sometimes, obviously, you're going to get people on day one, that first touch point boom. It's going to get people on day one, that first touch point boom. It's going to work. Some people, that might take them a little bit longer, but I want to try and get as many of those eight touch points in in that first few days as possible because again, that's the best window of opportunity. All right.
Speaker 1:Day four I will usually send a. If I emailed only the day before, day four is when I will try calling again. So on day four I'm only going to pick up the phone and call or have your admin pick up the phone and call and obviously leave a voicemail just letting them know who you are, similar to that first email, just who you are, why you're reaching out. Day five I will shoot them another email. This one is, and I title it is everything okay, and I kind of call it out a little bit. I say I haven't been able to get ahold of you since you reached out a few days ago. Is everything okay? Were you able to get some help? This is just a.
Speaker 1:The goal of this email is just to get an answer from them hey, everything's fine, I ended up working it out, or oh no, I'm sorry, I've been busy. I would love to connect with you. So this is just to get a email response out of them. And this is the day. So we're, I believe, on.
Speaker 1:Day five is when we've hit that eight touch points. Once we've hit that eight, this is where I'll stop doing daily reach outs. So for about five days straight we have been pummeling them with follow up. So I might give a day break, give it a little gap, a little space, and then I'll email them again. And this subject is did you change your mind? So I'm kind of giving them an out.
Speaker 1:And here's why I'm not hunting for the yes. I mean yes. The goal is to get them on a consultation call, but deeper than that, my goal is to get an answer. The worst place that somebody can be is in that in-between, that land of, maybe, that land of not doing anything. So if I even can get them to say no and in sales it's a technique is to hunt the no, go for the no, and by doing that you're asking questions. That gives them the opportunity to say no, I'm no longer interested. That's better than never hearing anything. And this is where we can go wrong a lot of times because we're dancing around the way we're typing, we're not being direct because we're afraid of them saying no and we don't want to be afraid of the no. So that's a mindset shift that I encourage you to take.
Speaker 1:When you're writing these emails out, try to get a no, because they can say yes to anything you're writing. If you're trying to get the no, of course they can say yes to it as well. Now, obviously, don't be rude in trying to get them to not like you, but frame questions in a way that they could say no if they wanted to. So this email says did you change your mind? I haven't heard from you since you reached out for help. Did you decide you don't need help after all?
Speaker 1:If you still need help, here's the link to book a call. If not, let me know. So I want them to either schedule the call or just let me know. Then I'll usually wait a couple days again. I'll send another email Sometimes we'll do a three-day gap for the email and I'll put all this in that download. You'll see a timeline on there. So I know, as I'm talking through this, if you're taking notes it might be hard to follow. Just know on that download. It'll have a timeline here's what to do day one, here's what to do day two, et cetera. So we will send an email a few days later. We might call them one time in between just to touch base. But this one is just quick favor and again going for that. No, I hope your week is off to a great start.
Speaker 1:I've been trying to get in touch with you regarding your request for blank. It's important to us to make sure you are able to get some help. Could you do me a quick favor? Could you reply to this email letting me know if you still need help? I know you're likely busy, so you can just simply reply by number One yes, I still need help. Two, I no longer need help. Thanks, ps. Here's my calendar if you need it.
Speaker 1:This is probably the best email that we send, and what I mean by that is we get the most response from this, because all they have to do is send a one or a two, typically the people who are not interested. If they're not answering you, it's just because they don't want to. They are just kind of hoping you'll go away. It'll resolve itself. So this is an easy out. They can just hit to reply and we're done, and then we'll stop following up with them. If they say, yes, I need help, usually this is where sometimes they'll respond with an apology Like I'm so sorry, I've been busy, yes, I still need help, and then they'll schedule something with that link in the PS. So our goal is to get that yes or no and we're making it as easy as possible for them so they don't even have to come up with the words to tell you whether they are going to move forward or not, whether they're interested or not.
Speaker 1:Then, finally, we send our final email. Now, this usually is around 10 to 14 days. We try and get all of our touch points within about two weeks, ideally within a 10 day span, this final email and we title it final email. This is kind of a hey, this is your last chance. It's not really, but we haven't heard from you. So this is kind of we're going to stop contacting you, we're going to stop reaching out for a while. This can a lot of times spark people to take action, because maybe they've just been reading your emails like, oh, I need to do that. I need to do that. This final one's like hey, I'm done reminding you, and so that can. This is the second best one. When I was saying that last one is our most responded one, this is our second most responded one. We title it final email.
Speaker 1:Hey, prospect, it's been a while since you submitted your request through X. Since I haven't heard from you, I wanted to check in one final time. If you still need help, click here to book a free call. If you were able to get things worked out, simply just reply to this email with I'm good and let me know. Otherwise, I'll check in again in a month or two. Best of luck and I'm here if you need anything. Final email. I'm not going to be tapping their shoulder, however. I'm not going away forever. So that's the follow-up for us is after that. We put them into this scheduler, so once a month it shows up that we need to touch base with them. Now you can automate those emails if you want to. We personally just have it pop up in a task list to check in on them and we'll just shoot them a quick email message or give them a call or shoot them a text, and we do that once a month. I'm a firm believer that we will follow up until someone tells us to stop. That's what we're gonna do.
Speaker 1:Like I said at the beginning of this episode, I would rather annoy some people if that means somebody says thank you so much. We have had multiple times where somebody reached out for help and it was a year, two years later that they finally answered one of our monthly emails and they ended up becoming clients. They ended up getting help and they always say I wish I would have answered that first one. And they usually well, the ones who have signed up for sure have said thank you so much for not giving up on me. There's a lot of opportunity there. We never want to give up on them. Somebody could have reached out for help today and a year from now. They never found someone. They never took that action. And you can reach out to them a year from now Say, hey, it's been a year since you reached out saying you were struggling with this. Have things improve for you? Are they better, are they the worst? Are they the same? And most of the time when somebody stops and goes, oh my gosh, it's been a year and I'm still struggling that can sometimes spark that action they need to take. So that is the key to the follow-up from somebody reaching out for help till getting them on a sales call.
Speaker 1:In the download I'm not going to guide you, walk you through it, but in the download I'll also include some of our follow-up after a consultation. Those are a little bit easier Now. Sometimes people will ghost you after a consultation. For us, we are pretty adamant about asking them to give us an answer on that consultation and I'll tell them. It's okay, you're not going to hurt our feelings if you decide this is not a good fit. So at the end of a consultation I will tell them hey, I'm going to send you the proposal. I'm going to reach out and follow up with you in about 24 hours.
Speaker 1:If I haven't heard from you before, then my commitment to you is that I'm going to send you this info and I'm going to follow up with you. The only commitment I ask from you at this time is that you give me a yes or no answer in about 24 hours. So it's okay. If the answer is no, I completely get it. You won't hurt my feelings. But what I don't want is for you to get stuck in the middle of inaction. I want you to take action, whether it's I'm going to go tackle this on my own, or I'm going to go in a different route, or, yeah, I'm ready for help. I know it's scary, but I'm going to take the plunge. So that's the email sequence that we do. I hope it serves you well.
Speaker 1:Follow up, follow up, follow up. It doesn't have to be perfect. If you don't want to use our process, that's okay. The key here is reach out to them eight times within a 10 day span. That's my challenge to you, and if you're not doing that, start now and start by going back to a list of people who have reached out to you in the past that maybe you dropped the ball on, and it's okay to send them an email saying that hey, you reached out a while ago for help and, I'll be honest, we dropped the ball.
Speaker 1:We didn't stay on top of you. We would love to help you if you still need it. How are things going? Give them a call, check in on them, see if they got the help they need, if nothing else, to make sure that life has improved for them and that they haven't just been sitting there struggling, waiting for some help. Thanks for joining us on the Therapy Business Podcast. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with a practice owner that you may know. If your practice needs help getting organized with its finances or just growing your practice, head to therapybusinesspodcom to learn how we can help.
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