The Private Practice Success Podcast

46. The Rapid Refill: 3 Simple Strategies to get Booked Out

• Gerda Muller • Episode 46

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In episode 46, Gerda shares three simple, high-impact strategies to quickly fill open appointments - without slipping into '911 marketing'.

You’ll learn how to pair consistent, foundational marketing with smart, rapid-response tactics that protect your margins, support your team’s billables, and get clients the care they need now.

Gerda breaks down exactly how to run an effective client recall, reactivate current but inactive clients, and strategically shift bookings to weekly where appropriate - all with scripts, guardrails, and practical tips drawn from real-world implementation in her group practice.

In this Episode, you will learn (among others):

  • How to use a Client Recall Email to bring past clients back - ethically and effectively.
  • How to run an Inactive Client Report, spot red flags, and stop clients falling through the cracks.
  • How to make the Weekly Booking Shift in order to build momentum, reduce clinician load, and stabilise cash flow.

Who This Episode Is For:

  • Allied health practice owners who need fast, ethical ways to fill the diary without panic marketing.
  • Practice Owners who want simple systems for client re-engagement, clinician accountability, and sustainable billables.
  • Practice owners looking to balance proactive marketing with reliable 'rapid refill' levers they can pull any week of the year.

Tune in for a super practical, ready-to-use strategies that help you fill appointments quickly, while building a practice you can’t stop smiling about.

Want Gerda's Help with your Business?

Gerda helps allied health group practice owners go from overwhelmed, overworked, and underpaid to fully empowered and financially thriving. If this is you, then make today the day you reach out. Complete this super short Triage Form here bit.ly/triageformpps and Gerda will personally reach out to you. 

Here to help you build a practice you can't stop smiling about :)

Connect with Private Practice Success & Gerda here:

 Well, hello there fabulous private practice owner. My name is Gerda Muller, and you are listening to the Private Practice Success Podcast, and this is episode number 46.  The topic for today is The Rapid Refill: 3 Simple Strategies to get Booked out this week. 

Now, before we jump into the amazingness that are the strategies that I'm going to share with you. I just need to make a quick point, and that is the words rapid refill - it really sounds like something that is going to be quick and fast, and there's this sense of excited urgency to it, which is all true. But, and this is the point; this does not give you permission to engage in what I refer to as 911 Marketing.

911 Marketing

Now, you would've heard me talk about 911 marketing. So to refresh your memory, very briefly, 911 marketing is when you look at your diary and you go, ‘Oh my goodness, there's all these open appointments and I've got wages to pay, I've got bills to pay, and I need to do something because my team isn't fully booked.’ Then you start scrambling for work.

It has this nervous, panicked energy behind it, and that is not how we do marketing. Marketing has to be planned, it has to be structured, and the most important thing is it has to be consistent. And there's a range of what I like to refer to as fundamental marketing strategies relevant to the business of Allied Health private practice that should always be happening in the backend.

And if you fail to do that, you will always be experiencing those ebbs and freaking flows that people tell me about in private practice. Because the truth of it is there's no such thing as ebbs and flows in your referrals. There's only ebbs and flows in your marketing, and that has a direct impact on the ebbs and flows in your business.

So it is up to you to make sure that you do consistent marketing in an emergency, or 911 marketing doesn't lead to clients next week. Traditional fundamental marketing strategies, which is really important. You know, those time intensive stuff, collaboration, networking, relationship building, that can take one to even three months for it to pay off.

And I'm not saying because it takes time you don't do it. That's the type of marketing strategies that leads to long-term relationship building, that will protect your business from competition entering into the market. That will protect your business from those market forces that people that don't have those fundamental strategies won't be protected from. But that's that first level of marketing.

As a clever business owner, you most certainly also want to have those rapid refill strategies that when something happens and it's like, what's going on here? There's these open appointments, and it doesn't make sense because everybody really is fully booked. What's going on here? 

As a business owner when you need to protect the margins in your business and you need to support your team to reach their KPIs and to reach their billables, and to make sure that clients get the help that they need, you need to have go-to strategies to fill those appointment slots. And that is what today's topic is all about.

So these are those strategies to make sure that you can get your diary fully booked. I am always mindful that in business we do not want to be reactive, right? So that baseline fundamental strategies, that's the proactive marketing. But sometimes we also need to know how to react - be reactive, although I hate that word - but as a strategic business owner, sometimes you need to look at your diary and go, okay, I know I've been proactive, something's happening here. And when there's something happening, it tells you there's something you need to look at.  But if I have to be reactive, what are the best, most cost-effective strategies that I can easily implement to fill the diary. 

So today I'm going to share with you three of my go-to strategies that I use at my very own private practice and that I teach my clients within my PPS Academy and my Founder's Club.

So let's get stuck into strategy number one. 

Strategy #1: The Client Recall Email

Rapid Refill strategy number one is: The Client Recall Email. Not text - email. And I'll tell you in a bit why it's an email and not a text. But let's start by defining what is a client recall?

So recalling clients or patients is a very common strategy utilised by well run GP surgeries. For example, if I go to the GP and I'm telling my doctor I'm feeling very lethargic, I'm really tired. It feels like I don't have any energy, and there's no obvious reason for feeling like that the doctor might go, ‘Okay, Gerda, I'm going to send you for some blood tests. We are going to check your iron levels and see what else might be going on there.’ So I go for a blood test, and then generally what will happen when the results get back to the doctor's office, they will recall me for an appointment to go in so that I can discuss my blood test results.

They do a very similar thing when they refer their patients to specialists or allied health professionals such as us, right? So for example, in my case, I've got a psychology practice, if a GP sends one of their patients with a mental healthcare plan to come and see one of our clinicians - if they have a well-run GP surgery 0 they will recall that client in about six months’ time and go, ‘Hey, I gave you a mental healthcare plan and I sent you to see a psychologist, and I wanted to check back in and see how you're traveling. Let's see how your mental health is.’ So that is called a recall by a GP Surgery. 

Now we as allied health professionals should also be utilising client recalls. And this is not about business generation, this is about making sure that clients know our doors are always open. So that is ‘the what’ of a client recall. But let's talk about the why. Yes. I'm saying this is a rapid refill strategy to fill your diary. But you know what? I started doing client recalls not for the purpose of filling my clinician's diary. That's actually not why I started it when I started using this in the first instance.

The thing is this, I  have a fundamental belief that the purpose of my psychology group private practice is to be the mental health home for each and every client that has ever come through our doors. What do I mean by that? I do not mean that I expect clients to be in sessions for their entire life. That's not what I'm saying here. What I'm saying is that I want clients to know that whenever they have a problem, whenever they need a listening ear, whenever they need somebody objective, whenever they are struggling with a new life challenge or with a similar life challenge that's popping up again -  that we, my practice, The Psych Professionals should be their first point of call. 

Their experience with my clinicians, with my admin team, with the business as a whole need to be such that they feel safe to come back to us time and time again. Whether the same clinician is there or not. The Psych Professionals, that brand, is the place that they think of first whenever they have an issue.

But it also means that I need to be proactive as a helping professional because I know what it's like being a parent of three kids. Being a business owner, being a mum, being a wife, being a friend, being that person that always puts other people first. Which means that sometimes I forget that help is available.

So as that business that sees itself as the mental health home, for any client that's ever walked through our doors, I want to remind them that we are here. We have not forgotten about you. You are not only important whilst you are coming through our doors and paying us money. Right. We are here.

So when we do a client recall, it's that little (not red flag in this instance), but white flag to say - remember us, remember we are here for you, and if something is happening in your life right now, we invite you to reach out. So that is the why behind it when I first started using it, and it's still the why behind it now. There's just the secondary gain that it fills our calendar with amazing clients. Clients that we value, that we've worked with previously, and that we can give back to once again. 

I clearly remember when I just started my practice back in 2007, and then it was around about 2008 that I had my first client written for therapy. And I remember when I saw the name and I thought, ‘Oh my goodness they're coming back, it must mean that I didn't help them properly because why are they coming back again? And it took me some time to realise that it's not that I failed them, it's that I actually helped. That's why they're coming back. They would not come back to me, my business if we didn't help them the first time round.

We don't just have crises once and never again. Sometimes life just happens and there's always new things happening, and when people come back to you that is a great thing. And then it just cemented for me that, ‘Ah, that's the purpose.’ I am meant to be the mental health home for the clients that come to us, they need to know that we are always here for them, and it's not them that's failing their life and their world when they need help again. And it's not us failing them. It's our job to be here for them. And being a busy person, being a busy human, I also know that sometimes in the back of my mind, I know that I need a service, but I just don't make the time to book it in.

So another purpose of the client recall email is to remind people to look after themselves. The choice is up to them at the end of the day, whether they're going to engage or not. But I can tell you we always get people engaging.

I mean, I just need to look at my fingernails right now. It is in such a freaking state. I really need to get my nails done. But I just don't prioritise getting my nails done. Because it's like I work online. I don't have anywhere fancy to go to. I live in this little coastal town. Who cares what my nails look like? Well, I like having brightly coloured nails. It's pretty to me, and it gives me a lift. I love bright colours. But I just don't make the time. It's like, oh, I've got other more important things to do. But if my nail lady were to flick me an email and make it really easy for me to book in, I would book in right now. But she's probably going, ‘Gerda will reach out when she's ready, or I don't want to pester her or spam her.’ So she doesn't do that, which means she doesn't get my business, okay. 

So it's really, for us as the service provider, to take the risk. And let's say if somebody goes, ‘Why are you emailing me?’ Then you just take them off your email list, right? It's as easy as that. Don't take it personally. You should never let one person who goes, ‘please don't email me,’ put you off from standing on the mountain with your white flag saying, ‘Hey, we are still here. You matter. Our doors are open if you are struggling right now. Please reach out, because remember last time we were able to help. Okay? So that is so, so important. I really want you to deal with that mindset block that could be stopping you from using the Client Recall Email.

As I said, it is an email, not a text. Because you might be thinking, ‘Oh, isn't text better Gerda?’ And generally, I actually love texts. I am also generally more inclined to see texts versus emails, because my email is this big abyss of lots and lots of emails. But with this specific one, I prefer email because I can use more words. You could probably have a really long text, but it will become really expensive if you want to do that, whereas email is inexpensive. So from a cost perspective, email is a better option for this specific strategy.

When I say email, I also mean you send them an email - no images, no image at the top - it shouldn't look like a freaking newsletter, alright, it shouldn't look like a marketing flyer. This is not what this is. A Client Recall Email is a check-in with a client. Yes, iIt is a broadcast email, so you can send it to all the clients on your system. Generally what we do is we will send it to clients that have been with us in the past, so this is not current clients, past clients, anybody that's been a past client for the last 24 months. You could even go back longer if you choose to do so, but I would say at least two years back. And just letting those clients know, ‘Hey, we are here’... and really you write it in a way like you emailing them personally.

Okay, so it needs to just look like an email that a friend or an acquaintance would send them. And please put a freaking name to that email. I hate it when people send me an email and it has the image at the bottom, like the email signature, and it's just the business or the admin team or customer service officer. It's like, who the hell are you?  Why is there not a name and a surname? Put your name and surname to it, even if it's your junior reception. Not that I would put your junior reception's name on this email. 

This email should come from the practice principle, whomever that is. So that person who currently is the leader, the manager, that face of the business on the ground, it should come from that person. That's the person that should email them, that person that is leading your team, that's the name that you put on there. You could, of course if you want to invest a bit more time into this email, do a separate email for each clinician within the practice. Okay? So you can do a big overall one, all clients that you've had the last 12 months from the practice principal, or you can do it caseload by caseload and send it from the actual clinician. So that is another option as well. 

I can guarantee you, I can guarantee you because we do this time and time again, it works each and every frequent time - you will get people reaching out saying, ‘Thank you so much for emailing. I've actually been thinking about making an appointment. Can I do that now?’  Alright. And it's like, I love that because that is what we are here for. We are your mental health home for you to come to when stuff happens, and I'm so grateful that you're putting your hand up and saying, I need help because this is what we do. Okay? We are here to help you live the life you deserve.

So that is the client recall email.

Strategy #2: The Inactive Client Follow-Up

Rapid Refill strategy number two is: The Inactive Client Follow up. So strategy number one was all about clients that were not a current client. So they were clients in the past, AKA over the last 24 months, but they aren't a current active client. Now we are looking at active clients, but they're currently inactive, okay, hopefully I'm not confusing you with all this active, inactive, closed stuff.

But basically if I had to define an inactive client, it's a client that is currently coming to us for sessions, but they don't have an appointment booked. So when we look at an inactive client report, we would go into Zanda, previously known as Power Diary, so that's where we do all our bookings at my group private practice. And we will run a report and we will ask the system to generate a report for us that says - who's the clients within the practice that are currently marked and considered active clients. And I will talk to you about the various client status that we assign clients within our system. Hang on, maybe I'll talk to you about that right now.

So, in Zander, you can give each and every client a specific client status. So if the client status says active, it means that this client is currently in treatment, to use that word. Then let's say if they have had their final session with their psychologist, we will change their status from active to clinician admin. Which means that the clinician is currently doing the discharge report, which needs to generally go back to the GP. Then once the clinician has done that, the clinician will change the status to audit, which tells our admin team that I've done all the paperwork, you can now audit this electronic file because we want to make sure that everything is 100% done and up to date. Once that has happened reception will then change it to close so they have done it, and then there will be a final check before it gets archived. 

So there's a lot of checks and balances that happen when it comes to the paperwork side of running and allied health private practice. Why? Because if you actually dive into the research, you will see that the majority of complaints that get investigated and prosecuted, for lack of a better word, under AHPRA where we are registered as Allied Health providers is lack of proper paperwork and communication. Okay? It is so important for your paperwork to be 100% up to date.

I also have a child adolescent practice, which means that we actually get a lot of subpoenas. We probably get two to three subpoenas a week - I know crazy right - but we see a lot of kids. And when that subpoena comes, you don't want to have to spend hours making sure that sometimes a really large electronic file is up to date. You want to make sure that when you go into there and you have gone through the process and you know that you can release this electronic file - you want to know that everything is on there, all the case notes, it's signed, it's dated, it's ticking all the freaking boxes, so that you can just hand over that file.

And take it from me, I have learned the hard way to make sure that the electronic paperwork is done. And one of the biggest, and I know I'm going on a bit of a tangent here, but one of the biggest mistakes people make, is not auditing files.  Why? Because you trust your clinicians. And I'm not saying don't trust them. But what I can tell you is the best, most loved-by-clients-clinician on your team, is often the one who's the worst at the paperwork. And it's because they are such a dynamic person, they're so good with relationships. That generally means that that's their strength, which often means that their weakness is the mechanical part of the job - which is the case notes, the keeping everything up to date.

So please for the love of everything that's good in this world, make sure that you are auditing files - because this happened to me. I once had a clinician leave - and this is when you realise that you should have been doing this, it's generally when people leave, and now you start to go through that conclusion process and then you realise, ‘Oh my goodness, they haven't kept up to date with their case notes, with their reports.’ 

The first time this happened, I actually spent days and days going through client files after the clinician left. Because - unfortunately this is now many years ago, but that's when I realised it - I just trusted that, “Of course they're a good clinician. Of course they've done their paperwork. Why wouldn't they do this? Surely they know that they need to do their paperwork. Why wouldn't they do it?” And then I realised, no they didn't. And because my business' reputation was important to me, I spent days and days trolling through notes writing up Medicare GP conclusion reports to the doctor,

I so wish I learned my lesson the first time, but I just went - this must be a fluke, because surely this is not what people do, maybe they just didn't know, maybe I didn't make it clear enough. So I took a lot of accountability for the fact that it wasn't done. But for some reason I didn't change my behaviour. I just trusted that, of course if you're a good clinician, this is what you do. 

So it happened the second time. And I, again, didn't learn my lesson. I don't know why I didn't. It's so frustrating. But I can tell you when it happened the third time I went, this is obviously not a fluke, this is something that happens. I can choose to either continue getting annoyed at it, getting resentful at the fact that I'm the one that every time needs to fix it up and spend hours and hours of my unpaid time to fix up somebody else's lack of paperwork protecting their butt. Because under Medicare, it's their provider number that has the claims on, and Medicare can go and audit them, and yes, there's the shared liability.  But that clinician will have to pay at least half of those rebates.  So I'm protecting not only my butt, my business, but their butt as well. 

And then I just went, I'm not doing this again. That's it. So I really pulled up my socks, put on my big girl freaking pants, and I made sure that there's a clear system, clear expectations, and that there's checks and balances in place. Okay? You have to check on people. This doesn't mean you're micromanaging them. And that's the thing, I didn't want to be a micromanager. I don't want to be one, and I'm not a micromanager. But don't let people shame you by saying that you are micromanaging, or don't shame your freaking self because we do it ourselves. We go, ‘Oh, I don't want to be a micromanager. I want to trust my clinicians.’  Well, even the best clinicians drop the ball. I drop the ball. I'm sure you dropped the ball, haven't you?

Are you really telling me that you never dropped the ball? What is your freaking paperwork looking like right now? How many reports do you have outstanding? How much of your work have you not done as the business owner? Uhhuh, we all drop the ball. So we are doing our team a disservice when we don't keep them accountable. And just like sometimes when people don't like what the business owner is doing, they throw the ethics card, right. And then you back off because it's like, oh goodness, they threw the ethics card. It's the same with the micromanagement card. It's not micromanaging, it is called accountability. So you need to keep your team accountable, and you need to make sure that you keep yourself accountable. Or maybe get somebody like me to keep you accountable for what you need to do in your business.

But let's go back to The Inactive Client Follow Up. So we go onto Zander, and we tell Zander: I need you to run a report of all active clients. So they're not closed. The clinician's not doing paperwork. These people should be in session. They should have appointments, but they've not had an appointment - so this is the second thing we tell Zander - they have not had an appointment in the last two weeks. And they do not have - this is the third thing we say - they do not have any future appointments booked. And then Zander will run a report on those clients. 

Now you can do this, and I encourage you to do this per clinician. So either want to see how many inactive clients are on this clinician's caseload? And this is really important, because if you've got inactive clients on your caseload, this is a red flag for a number of things. First, what this tells me as a business owner who is also helping professional, it tells me that these are clients falling through the cracks, and I will not stand for clients falling through the cracks. As a helping professional, clients that are active clients, they are our first priority. We have the duty of care to keep them in sessions. 

As a psychologist, I know how hard it is to come for therapy. As a trauma psychologist, I know that often when it comes to the crux of therapy, that's when clients avoid it, because therapy is freaking hard emotional work. Often people start to avoid when they really should be there. So it's our job to support them through that. To help them to go, ‘Hey, we've noticed that you're not booked in because you matter, because we are here to help you.’ So we want to make sure that people do not fall through the cracks.

It also tells me that somewhere maybe there could be a breakdown in the system. Because we encourage all our clients to pre-book at least six sessions in advance. It's not like a make or break. But our goal is to always make sure they've got six sessions booked in advance. I know if you are an OT or a speechie, you're probably booking people a term in advance. We do like six appointments in advance. Okay. That's just that that works for us.

So it's like, did the system break down somewhere? Because why does this person not have a session booked? Or maybe somebody's not following our client classification system where we give clients a specific status to say they're active or they closed or they archived. So it might be telling you, Hmm, somebody's not following the system, and therefore we need to address it.

So it's so important for you to run this report. Because the other thing is this, if there's inactive clients sitting on a list who should have sessions booked, our admin is looking at the diary and going, Hmm, there's open appointments. And our admin will fill those appointments with new clients. So we do not reserve ‘appointments for current clients.’ It's the responsibility of the clinician ultimately who is in charge of the caseload management, for their caseload to make sure that their clients are booked in and engaged. 

Client engagement is a clinician responsibility. Filling open appointments is an admin responsibility. So if the clinician's not engaging clients, admin will fill those appointment slots with new clients. And then the clinicians are going to go, no, no, no - don't give me new clients - but it's like you've not actively engaged your clients, so sorry, we've now booked in a new person. 

And like I've just said, our duty of care is always towards current clients first, but we need to have an engagement strategy, which is the responsibility of the clinician. So we actually teach our clinicians to do this proactively. But sometimes, like I just said, we all drop the ball and that is where you as the business owner can instruct your practice manager to run an inactive client list. So when we run an inactive client list, we are pretty strict with the guidelines around it.

So this is the guidelines at my practice that every clinician can have one inactive client for every day that they consult at the practice. So if you've got an employee, they're working with you five days a week, they're allowed to have five inactive clients. Anything more than that, that's a red flag. Okay, we need to now talk about what is happening here.  If somebody consults for you two days a week, they can have two inactive clients.

So my challenge to you as a business owner today is to go and run this report for your team. Just go and run it and have a look, what does that look like? You might be surprised. You might be very surprised. And I would run it per clinician and you're going to see certain clinicians going to have very little inactive clients, and you're going to see some might have a hundred inactive clients. I've heard of people running this and there's a hundred inactive clients, you need to ask yourself, is this a system failure where we don't have a way of tracking this. Because maybe we didn't use the client classification, AKA client status system, or is this a client engagement failure, what is happening here? 

I would encourage you to flick me an email, my email addresses in the show notes and just let me know. Say, hey Gerda, I've run that inactive client report, this is my number and this is a bit of accountability for you. I'm not going to judge you. The fact that you actually are going to run this report, kudos to you, big respect. Because we can only change and improve our business. When we become aware of what the problems are. Just flick me an email and let me know. Because, there's probably a lot of clients that could potentially be falling through the cracks, and when you can actually get them back in, you are not only helping them, but you're also helping your business, because you are now making sure that you get to do the work that you are here to do.

Remember, you cannot help clients that're sitting on a list. They need to be in the therapy room, whether that is in person or virtually. Well, you just can't do what you studied six years as a psychologist for, to do. Okay? So run the freaking list, get the clients back in and fill those diaries. 

That was strategy number two.

Strategy #3: The Weekly Booking Shift

Strategy number three is what I call: The Weekly Booking Shift. Now if you're an OT or a speechie, you probably have this one covered, because most OTs and species will be seeing their clients on a weekly basis. However, for us in the psychology world, and I'm guessing possibly also the social workers amongst us, when it comes to mental health counselling I have found that in Australia we generally tend to see our clients on a fortnightly basis, which is a bit different. Yes. I've been here many, many years now, so I've gotten used to the idea. But you know, this is actually a very Aussie thing, fortnightly appointments. 

If you were to practice in the US, clients there attend, not fortnightly, but weekly sessions. Back in South Africa where I'm from, people attend weekly sessions with their psychologists. It is just here in Australia that it is fortnightly. And when I think about it, I totally get it. Here the demand for services has always outweighed supply. Right now, I must say in the last, I should say, two years, people are increasingly struggling with filling their books - hence also this podcast episode - but as a general rule demand is always outstripped supply. And as a helping professional who wants to be able to help as many people as possible, when you see your clients fortnightly instead of weekly, it means that I can now help double the amount of people.

So, I can now have double the amount of clients on my caseload because they're coming fortnightly instead of weekly. So I get that. I'm here for it. It works for me. I don't have a problem with seeing clients on a fortnightly basis. However, if your clinicians have got open appointments, you most certainly can encourage them to book clients weekly, because there's nothing wrong with seeing your clients weekly. In fact, I've just said, one of the biggest markets in the world - the US - sees clients on a weekly basis . South Africa's not a big market, but we do that too, right, because it works. 

It's a really great opportunity to go, let's support this client more intensively, even if it's just for a short space of time. What we do if we've got new clinicians coming on board, we will encourage them until such time that they are fully booked, to book their clients weekly, especially at the start of therapy where they can really build up that momentum and start to have improvements and results sooner rather than later. Because especially at the start of therapy, like two weeks can feel like a really long time between sessions. Especially when session one is intake, history, overview, that type of stuff, clients are chomping at the bit for some strategies that they can use at home. So it really makes sense to see them weekly at the start, so just do that. 

Or if it isn't an already existing or established clinician, tell them, Hey, who on your caseload would benefit from some intensive sessions because you've got these openings in your diary? Because if we don't fill it with those clients, we're going to give you new clients, and this is also why this is really great for new clinicians. Because if you think about it, if you've got a new clinician starting, when we've got clients for that first session, there's a lot of thinking that goes into it because you're doing your intake interview, taking all this history, but then you need to do a case formulation and a treatment plan for this client.

So there is a lot of mental work that happens for the clinician during that phase of therapy. So by minimising the amount of brand new clients - by now booking them weekly instead of fortnightly - it helps the clinician during those initial couple of weeks by slowing down that mental load of them having to do all of this case formulation and treatment planning, for double the amount of clients. 

From a burnout prevention exercise, when you've got a new clinician, I would always recommend getting clients to book weekly, for at least the first three sessions if they're happy to do that for the first six, even better. Because that really helps the client to get that momentum, really get into the thing and go, ‘Yes, therapy is actually really helpful. I can really start to see improvement.’ And it helps the clinician in terms of limiting the amount of mental work that they need to do in the backend, as part of preparing to provide great service to this client.

Now I know what you're thinking, because we are so good at putting up barriers for ourselves and our own progress. You're probably going, ‘Well, my clients can't afford to attend weekly Gerda.’  I will encourage you to not make financial decisions on behalf of your clients. It's not your job to decide what your clients can and can't afford. It is your job to recommend the best course of treatment for them, the best course of support for them. That's your job. They get to choose whether they come weekly or fortnightly or once a month. Okay? But you are the professional and you need to recommend to them what they need, and I can tell you people are very resourceful, and if somebody goes, this is what is important in my life right now, then they will pay for it. 

So don't take intensive levels of support away from your clients, because you are appointing yourself in charge of their wallet. You are not in charge of your client's wallets, they are. You are there to support them as best as you can, and to give them a choice to decide. So give them the choice and whatever they decide is fine. And I can tell you a lot of people love coming weekly. So I would encourage you to park any of those objections that you might have, and just test drive how the strategy will work for you. I can tell you your clinicians, especially new clinicians coming on board, will really appreciate it - seeing clients weekly and your cash flow will appreciate it as well.

So that was strategy number three. 

Now honestly, I can think of at least another three Rapid Refill Strategies straight off the top of my head - which I'm not going to share here today - because the thing about implementing strategies in your business is this: you can have all the strategies in the world, but if you do not take the time to implement it, and implement it properly and do it really well, it's not going to work. And that is also the problem that I often see with people just relying on free information out there, and asking questions and getting half baked answers in Facebook groups - and then they wonder why they aren't successful in running their own private practice.

And that's because, you know, even a podcast episode like this, we can only give you so much insight into these strategies. And even less so in Facebook groups. And even if you do a really good job at asking Google - or even AI - to give you answers to these things, there are a lot of nuances to what we do - particularly in Allied health, which is such a highly regulated area of operating a business - that is lost in those areas.

Which is why I do what I do as a business coach, mentor, and consultant, and of course I'm always here - please reach out if you need any help. But what I would encourage you to do. Based on these three strategies that I've just shared with you today, is to choose one. Choose one, and go: I am going to be doing a deep dive over the course of the next two weeks. And if it was me, the one that I would do fast is the Inactive Client List. Because I always have that responsibility towards current clients - clients that's already on our caseload. That's the one I would do first. 

The one that I would do second would be the Client Recall, and then third would be moving to Weekly appointments, okay. That's just how my brain works. I didn't take you through the strategies in that order because I actually just speak off the top of my head when I record this, but that's how I would do it. 

Just do a deep dive into that one strategy and really go: What are my results? What is it telling me? And what do I need to do now as a result of what it is that it's telling me? And implement that. And go: it's okay, I don't have to do all three, because only one of these might be exactly what you need to fill all those appointments that's currently sitting empty within your business. 

I would love to hear from you on how you go with implementing it. As I said, my email is in the show notes. Always feel free to reach out. This is what I do.  So thank you so very much for once again tuning in and for listening. If you feel so called and you really enjoyed this episode, please take a minute or two and leave me a review so that more people can hear this message. I appreciate you.

Remember that I am here to help you build a practice, you can't stop smiling about. 😊

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Gerda Muller

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