Ever felt like business numbers were a beast you couldn't tame? Fear not, because this time, I'm pulling back the curtain on the mystique of financial data, sharing the journey from trepidation to triumph. We'll explore the essential role of financial literacy in business success, using vivid metaphors to illustrate two distinct approaches: the precision of the 'driller' and the creativity of the 'butterfly collector'. Whether you're averse to arithmetic or a numbers nerd, I promise you'll walk away with the tools and confidence to tackle the analytics of your business like a pro.
Strap in as we dive into the heart of client conversion rates within a therapeutic practice. You'll hear firsthand how to track the path from a curious caller to a committed client, and the stumbling blocks that can sabotage success. We'll equip you with strategies to fine-tune your communication, sharpen your client engagement, and leverage tech to make your practice as efficient as it is effective. This episode isn't just about crunching numbers; it's about crafting a thriving practice that stands out as an indispensable pillar in your community.
Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.
Ever felt like business numbers were a beast you couldn't tame? Fear not, because this time, I'm pulling back the curtain on the mystique of financial data, sharing the journey from trepidation to triumph. We'll explore the essential role of financial literacy in business success, using vivid metaphors to illustrate two distinct approaches: the precision of the 'driller' and the creativity of the 'butterfly collector'. Whether you're averse to arithmetic or a numbers nerd, I promise you'll walk away with the tools and confidence to tackle the analytics of your business like a pro.
Strap in as we dive into the heart of client conversion rates within a therapeutic practice. You'll hear firsthand how to track the path from a curious caller to a committed client, and the stumbling blocks that can sabotage success. We'll equip you with strategies to fine-tune your communication, sharpen your client engagement, and leverage tech to make your practice as efficient as it is effective. This episode isn't just about crunching numbers; it's about crafting a thriving practice that stands out as an indispensable pillar in your community.
Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.
When we think about counting things for our business, it often makes us counselors kind of recoil a little bit because we don't like to think of numbers and I'm being very general here. So if you love math and you love numbers, please know that I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about folks that when they think about counting dollars and cents or counting clients or counting conversion rates or calculating conversion rates, and you're just like, oh, that's too much, I don't get it, it just overwhelms me. Today I'm really talking to you. So if you're not feeling numbery today or businessy today, these might help you because I'm using metaphors and we all know counselors love metaphors and it's a great way to communicate complex concepts to someone who may have an emotional defense against that.
Speaker 1:I can remember the first time I sat down with a financial advisor I was sweating. I felt like I wanted to puke. I was like, oh my gosh, this person is going to know what a terrible number person I am, how scared I am of money, all of the things. This was probably 15 years ago and I remember sitting through that conversation with him and feeling just like the worst business person on the planet. Well, you know, fast forward 15 years, and whether I'm used to it now or I just have amazing people who surround me and they do the things that I know I don't have a strength in. So I know I'm not an accountant, so I hire an accountant. I know I'm not great at understanding investments, so I hire someone to help me with that. Today I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the part of the business that nobody can do except you, I mean. And if you want to hire it out someday, that's fine. But this is one of those things that if you don't learn it first, it's going to be hard to hire it out. You won't know what you're hiring.
Speaker 1:So I took some notes and so I divided this into two perspectives. So here they are. I hope you like them. So number one perspective is the driller. Number two perspective is the butterfly collector. All right, so we have the driller.
Speaker 1:And so if you come from Southeast Texas, like I, lived in Southeast Texas, houston area for 20 years and you know the oil and gas industry and we have folks who get out there and they drill, or if your favorite movie, like me, is Armageddon, and you want to see somebody actually drill into an asteroid someday, well, anyway, I digress. We know what a driller is. This is someone who will take a set of numbers and they'll drill down into them. And why do we do that? We do that in business in order to locate a problem and fix it Right. If we're drilling down into numbers and we don't know really what those numbers mean, that can set up our first line of defenses, like I don't know what I'm doing. Okay, here are all these pretty numbers. I don't want to look at them again because it's going to say something awful about my business and everyone else is better at this than I am. So, as you take a deep breath, if you follow perspective one, the driller, then I'm going to give you a set of data points and I'm going to let you know how to drill down into these numbers. I'm going to take a similar set of data points and we're going to analyze them through the lens of the butterfly collector. So don't hang up on me yet. Don't give up on the podcast or the recording or the video or however. You're consuming this yet.
Speaker 1:So let's look at calls made and if you want to insert emails, right, however, you get your clients email or phone calls. I'm just going to use calls just because I don't want to have to say all kinds of different things Versus calls returned, versus booked sessions, versus folks who come back after that first session. Alright, so we have four data points the number of phone calls made to your office, the number of phone calls returned by you or someone, the number of booked first sessions from that list of calls and the number of second sessions, so folks who actually sat across from you and got therapized and then decided to come back. So a driller is gonna look into these numbers. Let's say you had 10 phone calls to your office, you returned and actually made contact. When I say returned, you can return all of them. So when I say returned, I mean actually made contact with five. Out of those five, two booked a first appointment, but out of those, zero showed up. So that means your conversion rate is a whopping goose egg. You got no conversion. You did not convert any of those phone calls into first session clients. Alright.
Speaker 1:So a driller is going to drill into these numbers to try to figure out the problem. What do we need to fix here? And if you're not a driller, you might say oh well, I just need to put more ads out there. I need to have more Instagram posts. We need more phone calls Instead of 10 phone calls. We need 20 phone calls or we need 50 phone calls. Y'all. 0% of 20 is still zero. 0% of 50 is still zero.
Speaker 1:If you have 10 phone calls but only zero people actually show up to the first session, ad money isn't your problem, and yet that's what so many of us do. We're gonna go get Google ads or we're gonna pay someone to do some kind of magic something. So a driller is going to look at problem number one, playing email or phone tag. So they may say, oh, okay, wait a second, we're only returning, we're only making contact with 50% of these folks. And they may say, okay, I'm gonna do 10 minute consultations instead of email tag and phone tag. Awesome, good job, driller. You're solving a problem here. You're not gonna throw your money at ads. You're gonna throw your money at some scheduling software that guarantees that instead of 5 out of 10 returned, you may get 9 out of 10. Yay, go you All right. Well, they may drill down even further and say, yeah, but our conversion rate is awful If, out of 10 phone calls, 5 returned. Only 2 people actually book a first session. So let's just say that was the end of the story. That's your conversion rate. Well, that's 20% sort of right. Or if you're just being optimistic, you could say well, no, kate, 2 out of the 5 people I talked to actually booked. Yeah, I gotta still remind you. 0 showed up. So the driller is going to say you know what? We've got spokes calling. We are answering the phone, we are contacting them via email, we're reaching them, but our conversion script sucks right.
Speaker 1:Something about how we're talking with these clients is not resonating. That doesn't mean that you're not a good fit, I mean, and of course, the usual that your price is not what your client is looking for. The day of the week is not what your client's looking for. Your expertise isn't what your client's looking for. I'm talking about these folks actually went to your website. They read all the things and they made the phone call anyway. In my business we call that a warm lead. These folks are already in your court. They're reaching out, they want to contact you.
Speaker 1:So if they're not making their first appointment, that means or the driller would say okay, we've got to get a better phone script or email script that helps these clients choose us. Remember our two choices they're gonna choose us and become a first client or they're going to become a raving fan who recommends us to colleagues and families and friends. So if we have those numbers right 10 calls, 5 contacted, 2 booked let's say let's, let's change the numbers a little bit. Let's say that one showed up right before we were the big goose egg, but zero Rebooked. So that means when you finally got this person in front of you and you had a session and Then they didn't come back, the driller right there drilling down. They've got their 10-minute consultation software. They have tweaked their script. Now they're going to look at wait a second, how do I conduct a first session?
Speaker 1:And we have podcast episodes about that, about that first session doing an, doing an assessment, either with a couple or an individual, that invites buy-in, that lets the client know what to expect and how you're going to be a good fit, or how you can help them right that first session. And if you're coming from Perhaps a school or an agency setting where nobody really sat and taught you how to do a first session that invited client buy-in, then it's super easy to get training out there right. Lots of different modalities. You've got Texas counselors creating bad-ass businesses podcast episodes and I'll put those in the link so that you know when we talk about that first session. So the driller, he has, or she has, drilled down into these numbers and instead of kind of freaking out and saying, oh I need to hire a social media manager, no, no, no, that person who's going to drill down is going to solve the game of tag, they're going to solve their terrible phone script and they're going to solve their first session Missteps. So when we identify specific problems, the driller is like yay, now I have a solution. All right, now let's look at the other perspective, the butterfly collector, and this is a little bit different because the data, as you can probably guess, is going to be a little less numbery and it's going to be more about what's fulfilling, what's satisfying. We're going to tap into some emotion here, but I think you're going to see, we're going to come up to come up with similar conclusions in areas where you can fix things pretty quickly, pretty easily and Efficiently. So, at the butterfly collector.
Speaker 1:What I want you to imagine is you're looking at your client load For the week. Let's say you have 20 appointments in the in the week and you're looking at them and You're looking at Monday and you kind of get a little tightness in your stomach. And then you look at Tuesday and that tightening kind of tightens a little bit more. And then Wednesday You're like, oh, wait a second, oh, that's this group and you you feel that loosen a little bit. But then Thursday and Friday it's tightening right back up.
Speaker 1:What you're doing is you're looking at your client load and you're thinking about wait a minute, it does this client load? Look how I want it to. Is this my happy space? Is this where I feel like my expertise is? Do I feel like I'm using my talents the best that I can? Or maybe, on the flip side, is this particular population actually triggering some counter-transference in me that's making me super unhappy and super hard to live with when I get home and it's affecting my life outside of work? I'm not able to leave my stories in the room or on the screen, right.
Speaker 1:So when you are a butterfly collector and you're looking at your clients and you're thinking, okay, which one it's I'm gonna use a Marie Kondo thing which one of these cases or clients or people sparks joy or sparks that feeling of efficacy Like I'm good at this. I know how to do this. Well, the problem is and I'm gonna say this as gently as I possibly can or might be the problem might be you're not good at what you think you're good at. Okay, sit with that a minute, let's breathe, and I want you to think I'm using counseling language on purpose, but I'm smiling. So, one of the stories I like to tell about being marriage and family therapist at AchieveBalanceorg. By the way, I want to point out if you're not able to see me right now, I'm pointing at the actual trademark that I have on the wall behind me. I trademarked my name AchieveBalance. It's so cool, so proud of that. I put it on the wall. Obviously I'm proud of it.
Speaker 1:So when I started out as a therapist owning my own practice AchieveBalanceorg is my practice name I pretty much thought I was going to help parents of teenagers. That's where I was in life. I had one teenager with two right behind him and I thought, yeah, that's gonna be my thing, I'm gonna help parents of teenagers. Well, I looked at my caseload and I was like, ooh, this doesn't look like how I thought it would. And what I found when I kind of did this butterfly collector exercise. The parents with teenagers were not my happy days. Those were not the days when I left the office feeling fulfilled. Those weren't the days when I went home and I was the best mom I could be.
Speaker 1:What I really enjoyed were the days when I had clients who were couples and, in particular, couples who were making the effort to survive infidelity, and I was like what the heck? Well, I had been trained as a marriage and family therapist and so I was looking at this, going, okay, this client load doesn't look like I thought it would, and the things that are making me happy aren't the things that I thought would make me happy. And so I couldn't let the I mean the data don't lie right. We're looking at the data and it's saying, hey, kate, looks like you're not good at or, to put it more gently, you're not finding the client load that you thought you would find. How am I saying this? I'm really turning this around and it's not as fulfilling as you thought it was gonna be. And lo and behold, hey, this type of client, this type of struggle, this type of energy and strength, this is what's fulfilling for you.
Speaker 1:So I followed that. I got trained, I made sure that I knew how to really help these couples. Now we're gonna work backwards, right, which made me revamp my website content, which made me look again at my conversion script. Right, how I answered the phone and actually spoke to people, how I did my first and now if you've listened to me before, you know it's actually four initial sessions that I do with my couples it changed everything just because I looked at that client load and I saw what sparked joy and fulfillment in me as a practitioner. And so that again, if you're not a butterfly collector and you're just looking at this client load and you're like, well, it's a dollar and 20 clients is 20 clients, and you know what, I can just suck it up and I'll put self-care later, that'll. I'll look at that again in five years after I've made a profit. No, no, no, right, you're a person. You deserve to be happy too.
Speaker 1:And looking at the data and understanding that some clients aren't going to spark joy for whatever reason, for me it was counter-transference. I'll tell you right off the bat as a mom of a teenager, I was not in a place to be a good counselor of moms and dads with teenagers, and so I had to find that out for myself. But once I did, it was so amazing how my practice began to align with the content that felt true to me, to the way that I answered the phone, which, by the way, was one of the problems I solved. I had outsourced my phone answering and I was a small practice. I didn't have seven therapists at that time, it was just me and I had someone answering the phone. Well, when I solved the problem of yeah, I don't need you to answer the phone for me anymore, I'm going to do it myself. And I came up with my own conversion script that allowed me to address the concerns of the people on the phone who remember they were already warm leads because they found my website. They found the copy, the words on the website that resonated with them and they were setting the 10-minute consultation appointment. All I had to do was show up and show them who I really was, what I was interested in, how I could help them and if, for some reason, we were not a good fit because of cost, schedule or expertise, I could show them so many resources and they referred to me.
Speaker 1:So, whether you are so, to wrap up, whether you're feeling like you're a driller and you're going to take these numbers and you're going to make a spreadsheet and you're going to count all of your phone calls and you're going to count how many of those phone calls actually connected and you're going to count how many of those that connected that actually booked a session and then you're going to count how many of those people who booked actually showed up and wait I'm not done. And then you're going to count how many that showed up that actually came to a second session. You can find out some amazing data and solve some problems so quickly, really, really. I mean, I think probably about a month of doing this. You could solve probably five of the major problems.
Speaker 1:If you're dealing with building client load or marketing issues or things like that, if you're coming from the space of the butterfly collector and you have clients on your schedule perhaps you're working at an agency, perhaps you take insurance and you're like Kate, I'm not really worried about how many clients are on my caseload, I got enough Well then, as the butterfly collector, you can start to really hone your message, that message that's addressing those potential clients' pain points, helping them understand. You are the resource for them. Whether you become their counselor or not, you are the go-to resource in your community. So if it doesn't count sorry, let me scratch that If you can't count it, it doesn't exist. Now, I know that sounds harsh and of course I'm being very black and white thinking right now and of course I'm a musician, so sometimes I think that way, sometimes I don't.
Speaker 1:But in this case then you have to approach these numbers as a driller or as a butterfly collector, whichever way makes you feel the most comfortable. But by all means get the data, solve the problems and don't throw money out into the ether just because it's something right, that throw in the spaghetti at the wall just to see what sticks thing. That gets expensive, it gets old and it leads to burnout. So don't do that. Go back and listen to the podcast about first sessions. Listen to the podcast episodes about an amazing conversion speech that you can give or you can train your office staff to give. So I'll post all of those in the links and in the thread here or wherever this episode appears. I will get those links out to you.