Maximise Your Clinic’s Success: Fix This Key Metric Before Investing in Marketing!

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Treat Your Business EP97

[00:00:00] Katie Bell: Fix this before you spend any money on marketing. I am really excited to welcome Ben from Jane App back onto the podcast this week. We are going to be discussing one of the most important metrics in your business. I

[00:00:17] Katie Bell: think I would argue it is probably the most important metric and as a result of focusing on this, you will see more profit in your business.

[00:00:27] Katie Bell: Profit is a really important metric to track, of course, but without this one thing, profits can be really hard to come by. Without further ado, let’s dive into this week’s episode and explore a little bit more.

[00:00:41] Katie Bell: Welcome to the podcast, Ben.

[00:00:43] Ben Holeyman: Hi, thanks for having me back.

[00:00:46] Katie Bell: I should say welcome back to the podcast, Ben.

[00:00:49] Ben Holeyman: I know, I’m like part of the furniture now, back on.

[00:00:52] Katie Bell: You really are. Ben we are going to talk loads today around retention, this word retention. And we’ve specifically chosen this because I think what I, this is something we’re working really hard on in my own clinic and I obviously like to Talk to our listeners about things that are happening on the ground and what we’re seeing and what we’re doing to improve and how I, how we support our members in teaching them tried and tested methods, not things that might work or you could try this or you could try that.

[00:01:23] Katie Bell: Things that we know really work. And we’ve been delving into how do we improve our patient retention because they cost a money to acquire into the clinic. And before you spend a lot of money on marketing or you grow your marketing budget or you diversify your marketing streams and you start getting clients from different places.

[00:01:48] Katie Bell: It’s really important, isn’t it? That your retention process and systems and things that you have in your clinic to main to mean that clients that come in through the door become loyal clients and spend with you, not just on that one session, but on repeated sessions. It’s really important that this part of the funnel and such gets fixed first before you then invest in a lot of marketing.

[00:02:13] Katie Bell: So Ben, you’re here because Jane, the clinic booking software that we, also use in our clinic has lots of features that allow you to, really develop this side of stuff. But for, a lot of us, we’re so busy, aren’t we, that we don’t actually use the software in the way that Jane does.

[00:02:36] Katie Bell: that it’s designed to promote that loyalty and that customer retention. You can get the system doing a lot of it for you. So we’re going to talk today about how do we retain, how do we use our systems and software, not just Jane, but other your own booking system that you might be using. How could, how can our Clients use that more effectively.

[00:02:56] Katie Bell: And then you’re going to talk a little bit more about kind of creating experiences for patients and clients and maybe collecting reviews. Ben, let’s dive in on this big term of patient retention, client retention. What do you see as one of the biggest challenges for clinic owners when it comes to retaining their clients?

[00:03:17] Ben Holeyman: I think it’s where to start a lot of the time data is huge and like having a software that can support your business gives you the data you need to then turn a single appointment into multiple appointments, returning appointments. So often we see people come over and they’re on paper and it’s first time taking on a software and they can even tell you what the email address for their clients are just having things like that on tap is like huge.

[00:03:45] Ben Holeyman: But yeah, I think it’s more. Knowing where to start more than anything else. And a good way just to start that is trying to get people to rebook at their current appointment. Just creating that experience at the end of having them to rebook that follow up appointment straight there from the outset is your first step.

[00:04:03] Ben Holeyman: And then knowing what tools are available to you in terms of re engaging them when they’re not with you in the clinic or business, whatever remit you work within and how to get them back on board at that point would be. The next step from there. So I’d say your first, maybe obvious one is to send them a reminder to rebook.

[00:04:23] Ben Holeyman: Lots of softwares out there have this ability to send, we call them return visit reminders at Jane. So you can make your way through those clients that might have just fallen off the radar and just give them that little nudge that they might need to come over the line and then book the next

[00:04:37] Ben Holeyman: appointment with you and keep them re engaged that way.

[00:04:40] Katie Bell: Yeah, and that is something that can be so easily forgotten and so we’ve introduced something in our clinic recently which is that every patient, client, whatever you call it, whatever you call them, every patient has to have an outcome and when they come to the desk the outcome has to be Follow up appointment is booked.

[00:04:59] Katie Bell: That’s the number one choice, because, we, either want to be bringing them into our programs of treatment, so that’s a great way of moving away from pay as you go and this huge churn rate, but if you are still on pay as you go, it’s about making sure that, if you still know that you can help that patient, you are having that Open, honest, direct conversation with them, and you’re not means testing them.

[00:05:22] Katie Bell: You’re not deciding for them if they can afford it or not. You’re telling them how you can support them. So it’s the follow up appointment is booked. Number two, if they are one of those patients that you see that are 95 percent better and they go, oh, do you know what? I’m gonna just stop. See how it goes, and then, I hate that.

[00:05:42] Katie Bell: I absolutely hate that.

[00:05:43] Ben Holeyman: It’s a common one, isn’t it?

[00:05:44] Katie Bell: Oh, yeah. It just makes me want to cringe because it’s like why, are we seeing how it goes? Our job is to make sure we get you back to optimum health. So let us take control of that. So if it’s one of those scenarios, then what we do is we go, okay so what we will do is we will book you in for a follow up.

[00:06:04] Katie Bell: a courtesy phone call in, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, whatever the therapist decides and where we will check in on how how you are. So that’s option number two. Or option number three is we discharge them on the system. So it almost feels like there’s none of this Oh, just see how you go, come back when you feel ready, because this can happen.

[00:06:29] Katie Bell: And when you look at your data, as you’ve said, there can be hundreds of patients that are sat just in this kind of never land, not really doing anything.

[00:06:38] Ben Holeyman: Absolutely. It’s, huge. Even like the example you gave there of a phone call, it’s Not much time, it’s low cost as well, and it’s just a way of you giving them that prompt to maybe just take those next steps.

[00:06:51] Ben Holeyman: Keeping you in their mind is one of the biggest things that you can do, because equally, if they have a great experience, they’re going to tell other people that might be good for your business as well, that they’ve had a great experience, and that can just, it has a snowball effect, because the more people are told, the more people it reaches, the more your name is in people’s heads.

[00:07:11] Ben Holeyman: So yeah, that’s huge, a phone call. If you can’t stay on top of things like reminding people, maybe getting them to rebook on the spot because it’s a busy environment to be in you might not have that two minutes to try and figure out or try and get them over the line to book that next appointment.

[00:07:28] Ben Holeyman: But yeah, a phone call can be huge.

[00:07:30] Katie Bell: And I think we, we have a process in our clinic where we actually have somebody that’s responsible for our return visit reminders. We have a cancellation list pulled on a Monday for the previous week for all of those clients that, got COVID. I can’t even believe I’m still mentioning that word, but I’ve got COVID.

[00:07:48] Katie Bell: We’re having a spurt of it again in Sheffield. And they come back or they ring they cancel and they don’t have the diaries or I’m just going to have to see how we do. When I get better and I’ll bring you back. And it just leaves it too open. Now I am quite a, as you are then, highly motivated person.

[00:08:07] Katie Bell: I’m quite an organized person. But if that would slip my mind as well, that would be something that I’d be like, Oh God, I’d not run the physio back and book back in. And now three weeks have gone by and now my, that Achilles tendinopathy or whatever it is, not my biggest priority because something else has that place.

[00:08:25] Katie Bell: And then it’s easy

[00:08:26] Katie Bell: for me to just disappear. And never return back for treatment.

[00:08:30] Ben Holeyman: Yeah. Like you said, like putting people on plans and what we’d call like a package or a membership can be really helpful with this as well. There obviously has to be some kind of pinch that you have to take with this because we’re in the remit of looking after people and generating more money and more business.

[00:08:48] Ben Holeyman: Knowing when somebody’s had enough, I think is also important and but putting them on a package of, treatments where you don’t even necessarily need to take the money up front or just. So that you know that they are on a plan of this is where you’re at, this is where we’re going next, and this is going to be the end destination.

[00:09:04] Ben Holeyman: Can be a really effective tool for this as well because they will know in themselves, okay, I haven’t had enough, I’ve neglected speaking to my physio or whoever it is, and I really need to get on this and get back on, on my my journey.

[00:09:17] Katie Bell: Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things that my fabulous Pip, who is the person who is responsible for this in my clinic, what she often says is when I get on the phone to them and say, Oh you had an appointment with whoever last week, but you had to cancel it.

[00:09:31] Katie Bell: How are you? Are you feeling better? Yeah. Would you like to rebook that? Oh my God. I’m so glad you’ve rang me. I think it just slipped my mind. I’ve forgotten. And people make lots of these phone calls. And she says 95, 98 percent of the time, they are really thankful for you calling them and to check in with them and making sure that we’re not just offering that one time service.

[00:09:55] Katie Bell: This is, you are really important to us and we are going to see this through.

[00:09:59] Ben Holeyman: Yeah, absolutely. It’s it ties into what we were mentioning maybe at the start of this as well, of creating those special experiences for people. Like just even though you’re working through a list of people that you need to remind to Come back, and book in just then receiving a call on a random Wednesday in the afternoon or whatever it is and you’re saying, okay, how’s it been since your last appointment and have that little bit of dialogue back and forth on how their care is going and how they’re managing things that can really make somebody feel really special and like you’re there at the forefront of your mind more than anything else to create that special experience.

[00:10:38] Ben Holeyman: Like I said, and after that it’s You can just create them a little bit more with some person centeredness. Is that even a word? Person centeredness in mind? A little bit more person centeredness in mind. On that dialogue, it’s good to keep records of dialogues you’re having with clients, especially when it’s outside of the clinics.

[00:11:01] Ben Holeyman: Pick up on things that they mentioned, things that you can hone in on a little bit. They might’ve mentioned, Oh, actually Oh, my dog’s been unwell this week I haven’t been able to make it in. Make a little note, get something for their dog, get them a little bag of treats that you can give to their dog, something like that, where you can really create that special experience for them next time they do come back to the clinic.

[00:11:23] Ben Holeyman: And it can be really, small stuff. Which turn into a massive, thing for the client. I’m sure you’ve done these kinds of things before for people like on birthdays you name it, like in, there’s lots of different scenarios that you can use this kind of thing in. And

[00:11:38] Ben Holeyman: yeah,

[00:11:39] Katie Bell: I really like that because I think that separates you from the pack that stands you out. What we’re trying to do within my clinic, one of our values two of our values, everyone matters. And then underneath that we have exceptional authentic and empowering. Every one that matters is that every staff member matters. Every client matters. Every conversation matters.

[00:12:02] Katie Bell: Every email we send matters. Every exercise we give matters. Every one repetition somebody does in a Pilates class matters. And it’s really valuing those conversations, as you’ve said, and being able to weave that into their creating customers, exceptional customer service. which is going above and beyond because that is what’s going to create real loyal clients.

[00:12:25] Ben Holeyman: Yeah, it’s what creates positive working relationships with people as well, like going above and beyond just doing things within the remit of your job role doesn’t make you stand out from the cohort now you need to be doing these extra things to make people feel special, to get them back through the door and get them to become a returning client, rather than just somebody who’s tried your business and might refer somebody else to it.

[00:12:50] Ben Holeyman: But what’s to say that they’re not going to be a returning client as well, if they aren’t brought back through, through those special experiences.

[00:12:57] Katie Bell: And it doesn’t have to, as you’ve said, cost a lot because lots of clinics margins are being squeezed. And we this, we’re not asking you to spend lots of money on this, but we are saying that you can a use the software that you’re using and find out and explore what features it’s got.

[00:13:14] Katie Bell: So let’s talk about Jane for example. And one of the features I love about Jane is the, on their name on the clinic diary, it will be like a birthday present in the background. Yes. In the, I can’t describe it.

[00:13:29] Ben Holeyman: Yes, we call it the birthday ribbon. So like you would tie a bow on a present, it does it over their appointment if they’re booking on the same day as their birthday.

[00:13:38] Katie Bell: That was described way more beautifully than I described it. But the birthday ribbon is, we then have a system and a process where we have some postcards that are branded, with a happy birthday and they’re signed for me. And we have a little, it’s like an organza bag with a little happy birthday shower gel in it and a chocolate or something like that.

[00:14:02] Katie Bell: And so when that patient arrives, new or returning on their birthday, I hope it’s happy, it’s your birthday today, happy birthday, here’s a gift from us that just blows everybody’s mind. It doesn’t have to be expensive. As if it doesn’t have to be, a massive bouquet of flowers, but it’s that acknowledgement of

[00:14:21] Katie Bell: everyone matters. You are really important to us.

[00:14:23] Ben Holeyman: Yeah, absolutely. And we at Jane operate in this way as well. That’s the reason behind this kind of, these kinds of features that highlight people’s individualness as well. I often think that something like a small, Gift or a small gesture or just something to say that you’ve acknowledged that day.

[00:14:40] Ben Holeyman: Like their birthday, if they’re coming for a massage or something like that it’s quite common, isn’t it? Giving somebody something that signifies that rather than I’m going to give you 20 percent off because it’s your birthday. It speaks way more volume than giving a discount. It’s better on the business’s revenue as well.

[00:14:57] Ben Holeyman: And it generates more revenue in turn of that because you’ve created that experience for them.

[00:15:03] Katie Bell: Yeah. And so what are the features would you be encouraging our listeners to look for within their software or within Jane if they’re a Jane user that could help take some of this burden?

[00:15:18] Ben Holeyman: I mean what goes hand in hand with what we’ve spoken about so far with prompting people to rebook and just keeping them engaged is I think like reviews like I catch myself doing it.

[00:15:28] Ben Holeyman: A lot when I go to new businesses is I’ll go to Google, I’ll scroll through the top 20 Google reviews and take a look at what people are saying. It’s huge. You have to put yourself in the mindset of if I was a person coming to this business for the first time, what would I do and how would I behave and what pre research would I do?

[00:15:47] Ben Holeyman: Do before coming. So I think plugging your reviews into this kind of workflow as well is like a massive thing as well. So on a lot of softwares, Jane included you can set up ratings and reviews emails to send out to your clients. A common one to do is it is after the first session, you can send them a review email and then you could do like recurring emails after that.

[00:16:07] Ben Holeyman: So it’s not so often after that. Just. Get those reviews on Google as well. Like we have a plugin where you can get those to go over to Google. So they can leave you an internal review, and then you’ve got a button that will send you over to Google for them to leave you a review there. And I know that as a consumer with my consumer cap on, I would be thinking, okay, I’ve had something amazing happen to me today at my appointment.

[00:16:33] Ben Holeyman: This is what constitutes a review. Just asking people to do reviews now isn’t enough. How many fall through the net if you ask them to? Oh yeah, I’ll do it when I’m home. Like sometimes it just doesn’t materialize. A lot of the time it doesn’t materialize. So having that integrated as part of your workflow with, okay, we’ve got them back through the door.

[00:16:52] Ben Holeyman: We’re going to create a special experience for them and now we’re going to get them a review email out so we can get this documented and in front of more people is, also something that I would use in in collaboration with that.

[00:17:03] Katie Bell: Yeah, it’s a great, it’s a great idea because we’re constantly telling our clients you need to be collecting views, social proof is one of the biggest marketing tools that you can use in your business.

[00:17:12] Katie Bell: So Set it up, get the system to work for you. And actually we have this set up as in Jane and we get weekly, we are getting reviews just dropping in all the time and ours just goes straight into Google. So it it’s great

[00:17:30] Katie Bell: that

[00:17:31] Katie Bell: it’s doing the work for us and it’s just using the software.

[00:17:36] Katie Bell: To do something automated, set it up and then set and forget and you don’t have to think about it again, which is brilliant.

[00:17:42] Ben Holeyman: Quite often with your software, there’s always going to be something that you didn’t know existed. In ours we, have a what’s new in the corner. So when things do get added, people are notified and changes are notified all the time, but it’s an important investment in yourself and your business to know your software inside out.

[00:18:01] Ben Holeyman: Like quite often people. Come to us and they’ll want a product demonstration where they say, okay, I want something to schedule my appointments. I want something to take my payments on, and I want something that’s going to send out a email and SMS notifications. And I challenged that. I pushed back on that a bit.

[00:18:18] Ben Holeyman: I’m like, that’s great. There’s a lot of softwares out there that will do that. But what specifically would elevate your business to the next level? Cause there’s one thing practicing and just getting a management system, but getting something that’s also going to help you grow and knowing the features that are going to help you grow is also really important.

[00:18:37] Ben Holeyman: And quite often you’ll show them things like their wait list and their reminders, forms, all these like features that kind of get hidden at first glance because people think it’s a diary system, not a business and clinic management system that kind of go unnoticed. But yeah, knowing your software inside out is also really important.

[00:18:55] Katie Bell: It’s really important. And I would say, Ben, for those listeners who are, you have team, who have practice managers or administrators that, that work with them, or VAs or PAs, then they, need to know it. I do not know Jane inside out. But I don’t need to know it, but I have people that do know it.

[00:19:15] Katie Bell: If you are listening to this and, you’re thinking, Oh, that’s just not my thing at all. Then it doesn’t have to be you that knows it all, but you need to be looking at, this is what I want to create. So I would say to my team, I want to be able to optimize our return visits. So how can we get the software to do that?

[00:19:33] Katie Bell: So they have to go and explore and understand how software can make that happen for us. So it’s about you as the clinic owner are focusing on the bigger picture. And then you’re getting the software , to do that for you, or you’re finding somebody to, that will help explore how the software can make it happen for

[00:19:52] Ben Holeyman: you.

[00:19:52] Ben Holeyman: Yeah, for sure. It’s like any task within your business. People that you employ and have working with you in your business, everybody’s going to have different strengths. If somebody is really great with people and good at engaging people and keeping a conversation going, get them to do the phone calls if somebody’s great at keeping on top of when we get insurance remittances.

[00:20:12] Ben Holeyman: Get them to do that. Play people to their strengths. Don’t try and get one person to manage your whole system. And then I just think it’s so important to get people to play to their strengths. Absolutely.

[00:20:26] Katie Bell: We talk about this all the time in Thrive. And one of the things that we do when clients join our program is that they have to do a strengths test.

[00:20:35] Katie Bell: And they do the color test. So we know what color they are, how they’re wired, and we know their top five strengths, so that we are starting to create a business. That really leans into those strengths and we’re then starting to see who is they need around them to support them who are not going to be wired exactly the same way that they are wired, but have that high level of execution, for example, which is a lot of.

[00:20:58] Katie Bell: What visionaries lack. We are the ideas people, but we’re not necessarily the implementers or the integrators of that.

[00:21:04] Ben Holeyman: So you’ll learn a lot about yourself as well. With this I’ve also done these two same tests that, you’re mentioning here and things about, they know things about you that you don’t even know.

[00:21:18] Ben Holeyman: And then you start practicing these things that they know about you that you didn’t know. And you’re like, Oh, I’m actually amazing at this and I never even knew so even investing in tools like that for your team is massive I also want to recognize that like having a team behind you is a luxury as well Not everybody’s gonna have a ginormous team, but just investing in yourself as well as your business is huge

[00:21:43] Katie Bell: It’s crucial because I always think on your own you can achieve, but when you surround yourself with people who are playing a bigger game or who’ve been there before you and walked that path before you, then you can achieve so much more.

[00:21:57] Katie Bell: Because we know what we know and we know what we don’t know, but there’s all of this stuff there that we don’t know that we don’t know yet. And so that’s when you, if you are a sole trader or you just work in your business, it’s on your own. You, It’s only your brain. It’s only the stuff that you know.

[00:22:14] Ben Holeyman: Absolutely. I think it’s, it also feeds into you should really take advice and ask questions of the people that you want to be like. There’s, People that I think will, be online and claim certain things, but being present with people that, okay, in five years, I want what this person has.

[00:22:37] Ben Holeyman: They’re the people you should be listening to more than anything else. I use the example of going to the gym. If you are a newcomer to the gym and you see someone who’s absolutely ripped and you want to look like them, you’re going to ask them how to do a certain machine, aren’t you?

[00:22:51] Ben Holeyman: Like it’s that same comparison.

[00:22:54] Katie Bell: Yeah, absolutely. Exactly. So coming back to the, I guess this kind of hole in the bucket that we see a lot it’s like when, we talk to our members and our non members about your conversion rate, your retention rate, it’s one of those. I think it’s probably the most important metric in your business, period.

[00:23:21] Katie Bell: And people say, Oh no, it’s profit. It’s yeah, profit. Absolutely. It’s really key, but profit comes as a result of improving your retention rate.

[00:23:31] Ben Holeyman: Absolutely.

[00:23:32] Katie Bell: So it, I feel like if I was to have to measure one metric in the business, This is what I’ve been measuring because most of our clinic owners are, we have you’ll have heard me say this on the podcast before, we are undercharging, we are undervaluing how amazing we all are and what transformations we create for people.

[00:23:56] Katie Bell: What I do know is that nobody’s charging a thousand pound for an hour’s session. So you therefore can’t just see them once because your business is not going to make any money. And you also for most things that people come in to see is about most things can’t be fixed in one session. And also most people aren’t living in their optimum health zone, as I call it.

[00:24:23] Katie Bell: Most people are in some way in this compensatory capacity where they’re just coping. They’re just we’re spending more and more time sat at desks, looking at iPads, looking at iPhones. We’re in this information technology age where we’re all hunched over. And this in 10, 20, 30 years is going to create absolute carnage.

[00:24:46] Katie Bell: And so we’ve got people who need our help more than they’ve ever needed it. And we’ve got an NHS that isn’t coping. So we’re in exactly the right place. But if we don’t retain, and if your churn rate is massive, It creates a very, unsustainable business model.

[00:25:08] Ben Holeyman: This is the perfect time to be getting on top of client retention, I think, because the paradigm is changing here in the UK quite a lot.

[00:25:15] Ben Holeyman: We’re becoming progressively more towards preventative care. Whereas we’ve been very much a nation of reactive care in the last, I’d say 10 years or so. So this is a perfect time to be doing this stuff, but keeping on top of your client retention you need to be using these features to, to do that.

[00:25:35] Ben Holeyman: Even in Jane, we have a report that says like client retention. We give you those figures from the outset of okay, in this month, how many of my visits were return visits? What percentage of that overall was that and how many people have repeatedly booked within this date range as well?

[00:25:50] Ben Holeyman: So not just how many people have I had returned within. The last month, for example, how many have booked more than one appointment during that month. And then you can see patterns on people as well. What’s the most, popular days for people to book you might be deciding, okay, I need to open up more availability here because I’ve got more people on my wait list here.

[00:26:10] Ben Holeyman: All of these separate features that your software is going to have, you can tie them together to, to create something amazing with that.

[00:26:17] Katie Bell: And that is knowing your numbers. That is coming back to getting the system to tell you stuff that you need to know and understand why you need to know it so that you can make informed decisions on your business.

[00:26:30] Katie Bell: So you can train, Certain team members in the right way I could tell you per practitioner everybody’s metrics in my business. And Jane provides me most of that. We take some other stuff and put stuff together but we pull reports and we do fancy things with it. But that allows me, in our reviews, quarterly reviews to lead with, This is your conversion rate.

[00:26:51] Katie Bell: This is your retention rate. And we have a company standard. So when our therapists join, we have a conversion rate expectation of 85 percent or more, and we have a average follow up rate of five within three months. And the reason, so for me to have that, we’ve got to be able to measure it. So you’ve got to use your software.

[00:27:11] Katie Bell: You’ve got to use the systems to allow you to do that. But that also means. We, say within three months because I believe people want quick, fast solutions to their pain and problems. They don’t want it to be dragged out. And one of the things I can’t bear is when I hear two to three weeks for when I next see you.

[00:27:33] Katie Bell: I’m thinking, I’m coming in two days if this is going to help me get better faster.

[00:27:37] Ben Holeyman: Yeah, absolutely. And explaining those benefits to patients is also really important. I think empowering your staff to follow these kinds of things that you want to implement in your business, empower them to pick up the phone.

[00:27:51] Ben Holeyman: Why does it just need to be the receptionist that picks up the phone? If they’ve got five minutes between patients, call someone, just see how they’re doing. All of these little snippets of time added together can amount to something like really huge like my favorite quote of 2024 so far has been Don’t underestimate the power of small consistent efforts.

[00:28:11] Ben Holeyman: And it’s so applicable across. different areas of your life. And I’ve learned that a lot this year in different areas of my life too, but you can apply this to your business. You can apply it to pretty much anything and it will return whether it’s in three months, six months, a year, 10 years, you will see the returns compound.

[00:28:30] Katie Bell: Ben, that reminded me of something that, just recently we are this year we are celebrating our 10th birthday in my clinic. So we are 10 years old and we Congratulations. Congratulations, competi.

[00:28:41] Ben Holeyman: Thank

[00:28:41] Katie Bell: you. And we we are having a big party because Why not? And I wanted to, so we are having a sip and celebrate party and we’ve had a venue, we’ve got a we’ve got musicians, we’ve got a magician coming.

[00:28:56] Katie Bell: It’s gonna be fabulous. It’s about inviting those really loyal clients and my team and their partners and us all to celebrate what we’ve created, because what we have created is a community, it’s a community within a community, but, when I was doing my invite list and I was looking at all all the reports of who are our most loyal clients and, who’ve been with us the longest and who’s been here since day one, there’s just so, many of them.

[00:29:27] Katie Bell: And it made me realize that these, this small consistent effort, when I was very newly qualified and I worked for somebody else. I, used to call it working my list and I used to really work my list. So I used to do all of that, ringing, ring people, checking in on people, set myself reminders. I used to write them Christmas cards, birthday cards.

[00:29:48] Katie Bell: I, I slogged my If I had balls off! For about five years, Ben. But what it created was now a huge, loyal customer database. And I’m writing these invitations just only the other day, thinking Oh my goodness, that consistent effort, like you just said, has paid off 10 years later.

[00:30:11] Ben Holeyman: Yeah, it’s creating your own customer trail, isn’t it?

[00:30:13] Ben Holeyman: Of everything that’s gone before this moment of them being, as you describe, in optimal health. They might be coming to the visit to visit the clinic now maybe every other month, but everything that’s come before this has led to this moment of them being now a lifetime client instead of an every now and again client might not return after that.

[00:30:31] Ben Holeyman: So yeah, it’s huge. I

[00:30:33] Katie Bell: love that, a lifetime client. That is what they are lifetime clients. Because some of those people on that list they, definitely will be. They will come to my clinic as long as my clinic ever exists.

[00:30:43] Ben Holeyman: Yeah. Yeah. Yes, and it’s all down to creating relationships with people.

[00:30:48] Ben Holeyman: This isn’t, They’re not, now not attending just because they’ve got an ailment or they’ve got something that they need addressing. They’re coming because they’re part of, as you say, this community that you’ve created. So to tie that back into all of your attention and keeping people on, use your features in your software to do this.

[00:31:07] Ben Holeyman: They’re there for you to use if you’re not sure. Ask us at Jane. We’re here to always ask if you’re ever unsure, if you want some advice on something, if you’re looking for a certain metric, we are here to help you. If you do decide to go with our software but lots of softwares out there and there’s not a one size fits all.

[00:31:26] Ben Holeyman: So think about what your key things are that you’re looking for, key features that you want to have, and then go and shop on those key features. Don’t let anybody sell to you and know what you’re looking for.

[00:31:38] Katie Bell: Ben, this has been such a great episode. Thank you so much for giving up your very valuable time to impart some of your knowledge and for us to just have a nice little chat.

[00:31:46] Ben Holeyman: I know. It’s always great just to catch up and I really appreciate you having me back on. It’s always great to catch up with you and speak to all of your listeners. It’s great.

[00:31:56] Katie Bell: You will be coming back again, Ben. I can promise you that.

[00:31:59] Ben Holeyman: Oh, thank you so much. Might be an armchair.