MHM#39 The ebbs and flows of enquiries. When is it time to start panicking?

It's not always easy to stay calm when enquiries suddenly drop, but enquiry ebbs and flows are a normal part of a therapy practice.

There are the more predictable ebbs and expected seasonality - Christmas time in Australia, summertime in the USA, etc.

But there's also a significant amount of randomness. You might have a really busy week, and then for no obvious reason, enquiries drop off.

When that happens, it's easy to assume something is wrong, and it's time to panic and make some changes to marketing. But enquiry ebbs and flows are very normal. Too many frequent changes to your marketing and it becomes hard to know what’s working and what’s not. 

1 - 2  weeks is a very short period of time in business. It's more helpful to focus on longer-term trends.

Were these six months higher than the same six months last year? Are you trending upward year on year? This data is a much better indicator of Practice growth than looking at what's happening week to week.

When is it time to start panicking? 

Okay, so I don't recommend ever actually panicking about anything in business. Most business/practice issues can be solved, it’s just about identifying what the issue is and finding a solution.

But if enquiries aren't picking up again after 3 weeks, then it's time to start reviewing things:

• Is your website functioning properly on both desktop and mobile devices?
  
  
• Test your contact and booking forms to ensure they're still working okay.
  
  
• Has anything changed with your availability?
  
  
• Did you change any messaging on your website or directory profiles before the ebb started?
  
  
• Have your main referrers made any changes to their Practice and what clients/patients they see? Have they been on leave? 
  
  
• Has there been any major changes to the directories you're on? It's possible your Psychology Today profile changed position overnight, so you're receiving much fewer profile visits. 
  
  
• Did you change, stop or pull back on any marketing activities? There is often a lag with marketing. Stopping a marketing activity or reducing your Google Ad budget, for example, doesn't always show up instantly. 
  
  
• Review your Google Business Profile - is it up to date with the correct information? Is it verified?
  
  
• Check-in with some fellow therapists to see if they're experiencing the same thing. For whatever reason, I noticed a drop in enquiries in the first few weeks of June for several therapists this year. Therapists I work with appreciate knowing that it's not just them, and by the third week of June, enquiries were picking back up again. 

Appreciate the ebbs

Some downtime with enquiries and initial consults is a great opportunity to catch up on some non-clinical tasks like administrative or marketing tasks. You could review your website to make sure it's speaking to and resonating with your ideal clients. You could spend the time contacting and meeting with some new referrers. Or take a breather before it picks up again.