New Patients Vs. Past Patients – Who Is More Important?

by · 30th November 2015

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On this Physical Therapy Profit Academy Tutorial we’re going to show you the importance of not JUST acquiring more new patients – but acquiring a patient who will want to buy from you forever.

It’s a common thought pattern amongst PT clinic owners (especially those just starting out, myself included when I first began my journey)…

To think ‘new patients, new patients’ is the sole focus when growing your business.

But the thing is, as you do a million things to try and grow your practice, do you ever stop to think about the value of your existing and past patients?

As PT owners, we often focus most of our attention on new patients and their acquisition while overlooking the needs and value of returning clients – the very people who help us REALLY build our profits.

Of course, flooding your clinic with more new patients is important for business too… but when we’re faced with statistics that state – successful businesses with 40% repeat customers generate 50% more revenue than businesses with only 10% repeat customers… it’s clear that returning patients are the foundation of a profitable PT clinic.

How Can You Turn Past Patients Into Returning Customers?

It’s all about the systems and marketing strategies you have in place in your clinic to transform a ‘one-time’ patient, into a ‘life-long’ client.

I spent the last year systemising my PT clinics so that everything is focused around getting a patient to buy from me for life (and not just become another future ‘no-show’).

Having these systems set up in your practice means that you can keep in touch with people forever.

And the best thing about returning patients? There’s no acquisition costs, they’re likely to spend MORE with us over time and happy patients will rave about your services to friends and family too.

So what made me realize this?

When I first started out, my number of new patients vs. returning patients looked like this:

9 new patients, 1 returning.

Whilst 9 new patients is still making me money, what happened to the other 8 that never returned?

And they didn’t NOT come back a second time because we weren’t delivering a great service… the problem was that we weren’t giving them reason to come again. Not only that, but we weren’t making it EASY for them to come back for more either.

How Can You Make Them Return?

Let me begin by telling you what the typical business owner says:

“Our patients come back and see us… Our clinic exists and relies upon the patients who come back and see us again.”

But what I most commonly hear business owners say when I ask – “How do you make people come back and see you?” is:

“Nothing! People just pick up the phone and make another appointment!”

Unfortunately, that’s just luck.

New Patients Vs. Past Patients - Who Is More Important-

And without solid systems in place, it’ll only be by chance that the phone rings again and someone books another appointment.

Do you want to run a clinic where you live in hope each day for that new patient you saw two weeks ago, to pick up the phone and request to see you again?…

I know I couldn’t sleep like that.

There are ways to avoid the dragged out waiting game…

In fact the list of ways to get past patients to come back is endless.

Before I realized the way that people make decisions, my business was at the mercy of someone who has been suffering for 6 months or so with a bad back, who thinks:

“Maybe I’ll give it another day before again”… “I’ll just take some more pills”… “I’ll just see how my back goes” – those are the decisions that all of our patients are making every single day.

So if you’ve got a clinic where people DO come back – good news! You’ve obviously got a great service (which most of us do, you know you can help people ease their pain)…

But even if you have a low percentage of people who show up for more than one session…

…the next crucial step is to set up systems that make it easier, and far more predictable for those people to come back and see you, so you can endlessly GROW and SCALE your practice.

And I show you the exact systems that I use here:

Screen Shot 2015-09-28 at 11.59.43

I spent years figuring these out.

Inside the course you’ll be let in on the same systems that I use in my PT clinics to constantly have a stream of a 60% new patient intake, and a 40% return rate (that keeps on growing!).

The strategies you’ll get inside this course work right now. These aren’t outdated or inaccurate strategies taught by the so called “gurus” who have never been a PT themselves.

This is a solution for your business that your colleagues and competitors don’t even know is available.

If you’re ready to build a solid foundation and keep your past patients coming back to you to leverage your income, take a look at this:

– 7 Low-Tech Ways To Get More New Patients

Be prepared to finally take control and “one-up” your competition by attracting patients to your practice for life.

– 7 Low-Tech Ways To Get More New Patients

About Paul Gough

PAUL GOUGH is one of the top Marketing and Business Coaches in the physical therapy industry and his Systems are helping clinic owners all across America run more profitable clinics. He is a published Author, Newspaper Columnist and before his stunning success in business was hired by top professional soccer teams. HIS SUCCESS STORY is one that inspires many pt's around the world - at the age of 26 Paul QUIT a high profile job in professional soccer to begin his own clinic. He had NO money, NO business or marketing skills and NO experience - and yet now owns and runs 4 pt clinics and has a proven track record of growing a physical therapy business from 0 - $2m in record time.
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