E713 | One Discovery Call Tweak That Makes A Massive Difference

In this episode of the podcast, Doc Danny delves into the crucial role that discovery calls play as the entry point into a physical therapy business. Drawing from insights shared in a recent mastermind group discussion, he highlights the importance of setting up staff for success with these initial calls.

One key strategy discussed is the idea of pre-framing the plan of care or package of visits for new patients before the initial evaluation. By establishing clear expectations upfront, businesses can improve patient retention and conversion rates, particularly as the practice grows and involves multiple providers.

Doc Danny stresses the importance of having the business owner or a designated team member conduct these discovery calls, as they can effectively build rapport, establish authority, and set the stage for a successful patient experience. This approach allows clinicians to focus on providing top-notch care, rather than having to navigate extensive sales training.

Using a hypothetical scenario involving a patient with lower back issues, Doc Danny illustrates how pre-framing the plan of care during the discovery call can lead to improved conversion rates and revenue growth for the practice. By effectively communicating expectations and partially selling the treatment plan, businesses can significantly enhance their success rates.

Ultimately, Doc Danny encourages listeners to reevaluate their discovery call process and consider integrating the strategy of pre-framing the plan of care to drive positive outcomes for their physical therapy practice. By prioritizing patient education, setting clear expectations, and empowering staff to excel in their roles, businesses can boost patient retention and overall success in the long run.

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Podcast Transcript

And what you're doing for your staff member is you're basically partially selling a plan of care for them. In many cases you're selling the majority of it, right? It's that you're getting them like 80 percent of the way there. The other 20 percent is them building rapport, being a great clinician.

And that's really what you want them to focus on. Hey, are you a physical therapist looking to leverage your skillset in a way that helps you create time and financial freedom for yourself and your family? If so, you're in the right spot. My name's Danny Matei and over the last 15 years, I've done pretty much everything you can in the profession.

I've been a staff PT, I've been an active duty military officer, physical therapist, I've started my own cash practice, I've sold that cash practice, and to date, my company, Physical Therapy Biz, has helped over a thousand clinicians start, grow, and scale their own cash practices. So if this sounds like something you want to do, listen up, cause I'm here to help you.

Hey, Dr. Andy here with the P. T. Engineer podcast. And today we're talking about discovery calls, the entry point into your business, and one way that you can actually set your staff up for success. Now, this comes off the back of a conversation that I had recently in our mastermind. So we actually have monthly calls where we'll get.

Businesses of different sizes together and we get to learn from each other and talk about wins and things that maybe they're struggling with and all that. And one of the groups that, that I got together with and chat about their businesses, we were talking about the discovery call and something that a few of them were doing where they were really doing a good job of teeing up the plan of care or the package or the plan or whatever you want to call it for.

People coming in as new patients to their business, but prior to their initial evaluation. So oftentimes this sort of idea of a plan of care, which is, a a bolus of visits they're paying for, like a package of visits they're paying for on the front end to, solve a problem long term is a big part of a sales process that most people are.

Are going to implement in a cash practice. There's lots of different ways to do it. We just find that if you do this correctly, the likelihood that somebody sticks around, buys another package, moves into a continuity offer, and doesn't drop off around visit two or three, it goes up exponentially. Can some people make it work without that?

Yes. But. Most folks, this is going to be a better model for them, especially at scale with multiple providers, because you might be some sort of unicorn that just is such a great job of building rapport with people and they want to stick around forever, but not everybody's like that. So as you scale past yourself, this seems to be a really important cornerstone of the business model to really build a grow past yourself and to help create density in your staff clinician schedules.

So with that initial discovery call. Many of our business owners that we work with are really prioritizing taking those calls. They want to be the entry point into the business. They want to really create that rapport, build that initial goodwill, and it really increased the conversion percentages, which is awesome.

The other thing that they can do is they can tee their staff up for success. At the initial visit by really pre framing for them what they can expect And based on the conversation they have a rough idea of what that person's probably expecting So for instance if i'm talking to somebody that has let's call it acute on chronic lower back issues That have been going on for a few years And I say listen, this is something that's you know, we see all the time We do a great job with injuries like this within our practice.

You're definitely in the right spot. Here's what that looks like Most people that we end up seeing If it are in your shoes and have this kind of an injury, we tend to see them need to stick around for about a two month plan. So it's two months of them, working through different things to improve range of motion and strength and whatever it is that you're talking about, right?

But you're basically letting them know Hey, this is what you can expect based on what you're telling me. Obviously we're going to really make a final decision about what this looks like. And. Once they're done with the initial evaluation and they have far more information and objective testing that they can do But i've seen a lot of these I talked a lot of people have this type of injury Here's what you're looking at just so you're aware one visit with us isn't going to solve this problem just so we're you know as transparent as possible and what you're doing for your staff member is you're basically Partially selling a plan of care for them In many cases you're selling the majority of it, right?

It's like you're getting them like 80 percent of the way there. The other 20 percent is them building rapport, being a great clinician. And that's really what you want them to focus on, right? You don't necessarily want to have to do sales training constantly with your staff. If you can tee them up to not even have to be that great at sales, because you're pre selling them into something that they're going to need to do anyway to get the outcome that they want.

So not to say your staff shouldn't be able to carry those conversations and be able to feel confident about what you're charging. Okay. But if you can make this small tweak on the front end of the discovery visit, you can really set your staff up to have an increase in overall conversions to plan of care packages without them really having to do anything different, which is what you want.

So this is assuming that you're taking these front end calls. And if you're not, let's say you have another staff member or a front desk person, they really need to be thinking about doing the same thing. There's not going to carry as much attention. as the business owner. So keep that in mind and that's okay cause it may not be worth it for you to take those at a certain point.

But that front end call not only is important from a conversion percentage from a standpoint of a lead to somebody coming in for an evaluation, but you're also helping that staff member increase the conversion of initial valuation to a plan of care. And as we look at that over the course of an extended period of time, those numbers, Those adjusted numbers can make a big difference over the course of a year.

I mean you very well might be able to double revenue just by Tweaking this one metric if you're not doing great there Let's say you're 40 conversion and you can move it up to 80 on the discovery call And you have another 40 conversion when they come in For a plan of care. And all of a sudden you move that up to 80 percent because you're doing such a better job of the entry point.

You can double your business with this one skill that maybe you don't think is as important as it probably is for you to really focus on and make sure that you're doing a good job of indoctrinating people into what they can expect, like building rapport, building authority, and then handing that off to a staff member that can be an amazing clinician, and then finish.

Really the last 20 percent of making sure that they commit to solving a problem. And that's really what it's about. Like we know if people commit to solving a problem, we're going to get them a better outcome. There's accountability associated with that. When you pay attention. They're going to put more work in because they're pot committed to it.

There's a lot of reasons why it works really well. And if you can help your staff just be great clinicians, and that gets them to a spot where they can have better conversions. You're going to help a lot of people, a lot more people get over the injuries that they have on a chronic basis and get back to the activities that they love the most.

So take a look at your discovery visit, see what your numbers look like and start adding in a little bit of pre framing to make sure people know one visit isn't going to solve this with this type of injury, whatever it is for the appropriate ones that they're looking at. X number of weeks or months with a plan with your team and that you help people like that all the time.

Hey, peach entrepreneurs. We have big, exciting news, a new program that we just came out with. It is our PT biz part time to full time five day challenge over the course of the five days that We get you crystal clear on exactly how much money you need to replace by getting you Ultra clear on how much you're actually spending We get you crystal clear on the number of people you're going to see and the average visit rate You're going to need to have in order to replace your income to be able to go full time We go through three different strategies you can take to go from part time to full time You can pick the one that's the best for you based on your current situation Then we share with you the sales and marketing systems that we use within our mastermind that you need to have as well.

If you want to go full time in your own practice. And then finally, we help you create a one page business plan. That's right. Not these 15 day business plans. You want to take the small business association, a one day business plan. It's going to help you get very clear on exactly what you need to do and when you're going to do it to take action.

If you're interested And sign up for this challenge. It's totally free. Head to physicaltherapybiz. com forward slash Challenge get signed up there. Please. Enjoy. We put a lot of energy into this. It's totally free It's something I think is going to help you tremendously As long as you're willing to do the work if you're doing the work you're getting Information put down and getting yourself ready to take action in a very organized way.

You will have success, which is what we want. So head to physicaltherapybiz. com forward slash challenge and get signed up today.