Daniel Fava: Many practice owners think tracking their marketing means just checking their website traffic. And if that number looks good, well, things must be working, I guess. Well, here's what often gets missed. The place you're actually losing clients is not necessarily your website. There's a whole host of other things that happens after someone reaches out, right? My guest today is Whitney Owens, and she's built a system for tracking all of it. Whitney runs Water's Edge Counseling, a group practice in Savannah, and she also coaches practice owners through Wise Practice Consulting. This is her third time on the show, and one of my favorite people to talk shop with. Today she walks us through what to track beyond your website, how to spot where you're losing clients, and what to do once you see it. Excited for this conversation, but first, let's hear from our sponsors. Well, hello again, and thank you so much for joining me, Daniel, as always, here at the Private Practice Elevation Podcast. Now, before we get into today's conversation with Whitney, I want to share a little bit about some of the processes that we've been changing here at PPE that I'm pretty excited about. So recently we started offering what is what we're affectionately calling as part of our brand a digital trail map session. Now, when folks get in touch with us, you know, some of you have likely heard me talk about our clarity call. So yeah, we definitely still offer a free 15-minute clarity call. And that call is really just to learn a little bit. know about you, your challenges, what you're looking for help with, and just make sure that you're a good fit for the services that we offer here at PPE. And so if you come to us and you know it sounds like this is going to be a larger project. This is likely going to be a website redesign or a copywriting project. We're doing this digital trail map session after that. And so I just want to share a little bit of what that looks like, why we do it. Let me start with the why. So I found over the years, as we were doing these large projects, these you know, full website redesigns and copywriting projects, they're big projects. I found that at times, sometimes we get into the process and feel like, you know what? There's more information that we need here, and we need to also make sure that we are really understanding this private. practices vision mission history and really dig into their ideal clients a lot further you know we were doing some of that but our process was you know just kind of a short call to make sure that I understand all the move moving parts for a project and you know we give you a proposal and then hey let's get started so I felt like I needed to really d dig in you know a lot deeper with someone before we started these larger projects and want to make sure that you know everybody throughout the process is on the same page of what we're creating and who we're creating it for. So these digital trail map sessions that we're doing now and and these happen after that 15 minute call. If you're a good fit we're gonna say hey let's jump into a digital trail map session and get that booked in. So these calls are two hour calls where I am really basically interviewing. You know it's kind of like a podcast episode. In a way, where I'm interviewing a private practice owner about their history. Why did they start their practice? What do they wish that their ideal clients knew? What are the challenges that their ideal clients are facing? Why do they reach out? Why do they not reach out? Why are they hesitant? and then also, yeah, digging into What services they offer, the modalities that they offer, really all of the moving parts for their practice, and then obviously information about the website, like what's working now, what's not working now, what are the goals you want to hit in the next one to three to five years, versus where are you at now? And from that two-hour call, that gives me all of the information that I would need to put together recommendations and a plan for the practices market. marketing, you know, and so this goes really beyond like, hey, here's just a website, we're gonna redesign the website. You know, like we want to be partners with our clients. And so this gives us a chance to really look at the bigger picture and make more recommendations that look more like phase one, we need to rework and rewrite the copy on the website. So we're going to work with our copywriter and that's going to give you that baseline of great SEO as well as copy that converts. Phase two is then yes, we're going to redesign your website, you know, based on your vision, your branding and how your ideal clients want to feel when they show up on the website. And then phase three might be SEO or phase three might be hey having somebody who you can lean on to make updates to the website and content changes. Yeah. So from this two-hour conversation, I'm going to make those recommendations where we schedule another call to dig in and say, hey, this is where you're at, this is where you want to go, this is how private practice elevation will help you get there. And other things, too, that I'm really excited to deliver after these digital trail map sessions are number one is a brand guide. So we are going to provide is I think it's about 40 pages now. It's this deep dive PDF that outlines everything about your brand. Really. puts together everything that we spoke about in these conversations in these digital trail map sessions and then you have this PDF that whether you work with PPE or not, you have a plan for how you talk to your ideal clients, what services you offer, the do's and don'ts around your brand and your positioning. It's also going to have information in there about content and even blog post titles that you could write to help reach your ideal clients. So there's a little bit of strategy in there as well. So that's number one. And then number two is like I said that recommendation call where we'll say hey here's what we recommend for your practice so if you're thinking about working with private practice elevation and I hope you are and would be happy to talk with you that's going to be our process is that free 15 minute call and then that digital trail map session is a 400 call again it's two hours long And you'll get that brand guide, you'll get the recommendations for your marketing and how we would tackle your challenges. And then if you do decide to work with us, we'll comp that $400 as part of the project. But this way it affords us the time to really dig in and make sure that we're making specific recommendations for your practice. So super excited to be offering that and just wanted to mention that up front. We're gonna get more information about that on the website so you can learn a little bit more. in the future. All right. So let's get into today's episode. So I'm talking to my friend Whitney Owens and really excited about this one. So we're going to talk all about optimizing conversions, converting website visitors into clients. And what's great about Whitney is that she is in the trenches of this stuff. And so she shares a lot about how she's grown with tracking conversions, what she's currently doing in her group practice. So let me just read you her bio and we'll jump right in here. Whitney Owens is a licensed professional counselor, group practice owner, and faith-based private practice consultant based in Savannah, Georgia. She leads a thriving multi-location private pay group practice, a seven-figure business she has built and continues to run without sacrificing her faith, her family, or her joy along the way. What sets Whitney apart is simple. She's doing the work. She's not just teaching from borrowed playbooks or strategies that once worked years ago. She's in it every day, applying what she knows her real current experience in a growing practice. In addition to running a practice, Whitney consults faith-based practice owners across the country on how to start and grow thriving businesses of their own. Through Wise Practice, she hosts summits, a weekly podcast, and a membership community dedicated to helping clinicians build practices that honor both their calling and their life. She has spoken at events including the American Counseling Association Conference, the Maryland Professional Counselors Conference, and multiple years at the Georgia Counseling Association Conference. When she's not working, Whitney is exactly where she wants to be, with her husband and two daughters, out for a run, lost in a good book, relaxing in the backyard, or making memories at Disney World. Well, here is my conversation with Whitney Owens. Well hello again and welcome back to the Private Practice Elevation Podcast, Whitney Owens. It's so good to have you back on.
Whitney Owens: Always a pleasure to meet with you.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, and this would be is this your third time being on the podcast, I think.
Whitney Owens: I don't know. Maybe.
Daniel Fava: I think we were we were emailing back and forth. I was like, I think it's been since twenty twenty two, which I thought you were on more recently, but that's too that's too long to be away. So I'm I'm excited to
Whitney Owens: That's right.
Daniel Fava: to have you back on and we reconnected recently when you came through Atlanta. I was like, Hey, you need to be back on the podcast, so here we are, welcome back.
Whitney Owens: Thank you.
Daniel Fava: are how are things going in you know in your world and you have two businesses really that you're you're running. Why don't you just talk a little bit about that, you know, for folks who don't know who you are.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, most definitely. Like like Daniel said, I'm Whitney Owens. I live in Savannah, Georgia. so Daniel and I are not far from each other. you can hear my southern accent as well.
Daniel Fava: Ha ha
Whitney Owens: I run a group practice here in Savannah called Water's Edge Counseling, started it in two thousand and fourteen. now we have two locations, one on Wilmington Island as well, which is just outside of Savannah. I have fifteen to twenty therapists, give or take the week, right? And yeah. It's really great. We're all private pay as well, which is something unique about us. and then when I'm not running my practice, I'm running Wise Practice Consulting, which is an agency that helps start growing scale private practices specifically for faith based practice owners. So people who'd say faith is an important part of their lives. Sometimes they're incorporating into their business, sometimes it's just part of who they are. And and that can really influence the way we make decisions. In fact, your your lovely wife is a part of the community as well,
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: which has been really special. So yeah, that's what I'm doing. I've got two kids, open houses tonight, you know, and they're starting school. One's gonna be in
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: eighth grade and the other's gonna be in fourth grade. so
Daniel Fava: Wow.
Whitney Owens: keeps your hands full. I know you know that.
Daniel Fava: absolutely, yeah. So our our kids start on Monday with some like back to school celebration before they actually like fully start school. So our Monday is kinda filled with that. And we've got a kindergartner this year and and also like you have fourth grader. So yeah, juggling businesses and family and it's it's wild and it's fun.
Whitney Owens: Definitely.
Daniel Fava: Right. Well, I do want to say, you know, before we jump in, you know, Whitney's been just such a a great support to private practice elevation. We connected early on when you, you know, started hosting summits and and conferences for you know for your wise practice consulting. And so, yeah, it's just been so much fun just to get to know you and the community that you've built. It's just amazing people. So I just want to shout that out, you know, before we even jump into into what we're talking about today. So thank you, Whitney, for all that.
Whitney Owens: truly my pleasure. And it's, you know, people like yourself that make the community possible. You know, the support that y'all give back. it's really it's a great relationship, so I appreciate it.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, yeah, and and we'll have you share a little bit about that before we wrap up today. But let's let's jump into our conversation. So we're gonna talk about optimizing conversions, you know, getting clients and and I think that one thing I'm I'm super excited to hear your take on I know I've heard you speak about this before and I know that there's different places where we can be tracking our numbers in order to you know get more clients into our practice. And I think you know for a lot of people listening to this, you know, we pr PPE we're really focused on websites obviously. So you know I think a lot of therapists probably start there. Like, hey, let me just track my website traffic. So do you feel like that's like the best starting point or is there some other place that we need to start when we're thinking about you know where Where are we leaking conversions? Where can I improve conversions?
Whitney Owens: Yes, good question. There's so many things that are important to be looking at, but I do think looking at your website is really important. And one thing, you could probably be the expert on this part, but one thing I've noticed I was spending a lot of time looking at my analytics, which I don't think really gives a great picture, especially your SEO work and what you're doing. So really looking at Google Search Console as well and understanding how are people coming to your website, right? So those things are important. Right. And that's that's the stuff you help with the website on. But I I think that one place where people get stuck is they think that that's the whole picture. You
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: know? And and so then they blame whoever because whatever doesn't look right, or we don't really have all the information or we're trying to figure it out. But so much is really about the experience of the client on the website or the potential client. And
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: are you pushing them appropriately? Are you tracking how they're reaching out? And then when they do reach out, are you tracking what they need, what they're asking for? Are they converting? Are they becoming a good client? Like I think all that, and we can jump into whichever part you want, but like getting the journey from the beginning of looking at the marketing, looking at your website, are they coming in all the way to did they actually show up for their appointment?
Daniel Fava: Right. Yeah. So really tracking like every every stage from start to finish to becoming a website
Whitney Owens: Mm, mm.
Daniel Fava: becoming a new client. So I
Whitney Owens: That's right.
Daniel Fava: I I you made a really good point, you know, what you said are like, then then they blame this or that and the other thing. And so I could certainly, you know, speak to that as being in this space now for over ten years, because it's I mean it's such a good point because there's so many There's so many of these stages and this is something that I learned myself early on when it came to tracking what we were doing as far as you know, dealing with a website and converting folks, it was always people usually start with that sort of vanity metric of like, how much traffic am I getting? Like, well, like you said, starting with Google Search Console, you know, the things that we're looking at and our SEO team is looking at is number one, you know, it starts with an impression. So somebody sees your website on a Google search result page or maybe now in in an AI, you know, result. And so you may be getting a lot of impressions, but then are people actually clicking on those things over to your website. And so that's one thing that you can start to look at is the that gap. Okay, people are seeing a lot, seeing us a lot, but not clicking. And then okay, well they're clicking, but then maybe they're not reaching out. Well why are they not reaching out? Like there's all these sorts of gaps that you can really start to to hone in on. And I think too there's also a there's a there's a risk of getting kind of overwhelmed because yeah like well what should I look at first? Do you have any Any guidance for folks, you know, w when you're looking at the whole picture, like where you kind of really should not well worry about for lack of a better term, like first before anything else.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, yeah. I I think if we're gonna kinda if we have somebody who's like, my gosh, that was too much, right? Like what can they start doing?
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: I think the first thing is really watching their intake process because seeing that data will allow you to either go backwards and look at, okay, where was my marketing? What does my website look like? But also helping you push forward and where am I gonna continue to invest in my practice.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: I can't tell you how many clarity calls I get on with practice owners. And I will say how many, you know, inquiries have you gotten this week or in the past month? They have no idea. They just base it on a feeling.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah. Same. Mm.
Whitney Owens: Or they say, Well, my EHR tracks new clients and how they found me. And I'm like, Yes, it does, but it doesn't track all the people who didn't schedule. Right? So
Daniel Fava: Right. Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: I think that first point is looking at just tracking every single call. And when I say call, I mean that very broadly. Inquiry. It could be
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: a call, it could be an email, it could be a contact on the website, it could be a social media. Okay, all the different ways people reach out, that you are actively tracking that in your practice every single week.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so is that I mean, that means we we gotta be scheduling some time to do that, obviously. I think that's maybe the big issue.
Whitney Owens: Yes we do. Or totally, totally. Or you have someone on your team that does it.
Daniel Fava: Yes.
Whitney Owens: so I could share a little bit about kind of what that process is like for my team if that would be helpful.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, absolutely, 'cause I want this to be kinda like real life scenario, you know, someone who's who's running a practice. Yeah, so share a little bit more about your team and how this how this all works for you.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, yeah. So when I was smaller or just starting out, I used a Google form. Real simple.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: It's like a month monthly, we would change it. And it would have all the metrics. And the great thing is if you wanna track something specific. So let's here's my here's what I ended up doing. And I laugh because it's kind of funny that I thought I was so cool. so
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: the Savannah magazine comes out every year and there's like a healthcare edition. And I was like, wow, to get my practice in the healthcare edition. And they bring like some a photographer to come take pictures of you and your team and they you answer questions. You felt like so special, right?
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: It was eight hundred dollars at the time to do that. This was a while back. And guess how many clients came from that? Zero. Zero. Right?
Daniel Fava: See you out.
Whitney Owens: So this thing that just sounded so shiny was
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: did absolutely nothing really for me. I mean, I guess you don't ever really know, but no one said I found you in the Savannah magazine. So we can specifically track that though. So during that time, one of the metrics on the form was the magazine. Did anybody say they found us through that? Because that'll help me know. Should I do this again? Right?
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: So what I have noticed that Google, SEO, that's it. I mean, that's how people find us. So it used to
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: be like fifty percent of people found us that way. And then I started putting more and more money and energy into SEO. Now it's like 70% come from the website.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Wow. It's great.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, yeah. So that's a really important thing for me to know. So so we take that Google form and you can edit it as you need. actually in the membership community that I run, the wise practice community. This is something we talk about all the time and I have the template in the community that people can just grab and and use. But it basically goes through the caller's name, their contact information, the day they called, how they heard about you, and then more details about the call, you know, what they're looking for, like drop down menus, and then did they schedule it and w who did they schedule with? And then did they not schedule and why didn't they?
Daniel Fava: Mm.
Whitney Owens: Because I wanna know, hey, is it that they want an eating disorder therapist? Is it that we didn't have the right hours that they needed? Because that's important data for me to know how to change things at the practice. Also being cash pay, I have to really watch that conversion of how many people didn't schedule because of insurance. That
Daniel Fava: Mm, yeah.
Whitney Owens: number is always twenty percent or less. Usually it's around fifteen. So if
Daniel Fava: Okay. Hmm.
Whitney Owens: it ever goes above twenty percent, I know that, hey, I got a problem. Like with how we're talking about it on the phone and the way we're following the script. And that
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: way we can go back and listen to the calls and provide more instruction on that.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, I love that. I think there's a few like really good points that that you made here that I just want to call out and like number one is where are people hearing about you? And you know, it that it's such a good idea that you had that in the drop down. Did you hear us hear f hear f about us from this specific magazine? I know sometimes people too will set up, you know, their own landing page on their website that might be, you know, Hey, you heard about us from this magazine and like kinda do a little showcase of like who you are and what you do, you know, just like making sure there's a way to get back to how many people are coming to you from these things that you're putting time or money into. And then yeah, and just like also too, you said like that form changes kind of over time. I think you realize, I it would be great if I knew more about this. You know, like why are people not scheduling? Like so just a great, you know, just I just want to pull that out so that people can realize, this changes over time. Like you refine this as you go. It sounds like you certainly have.
Whitney Owens: That's right. That's right. Now, as far as tracking, I mean there are so many ways that you can do it. The great thing about the Google form is you can see every response, but you can also like create a spreadsheet to see the responses if you need to count things up. But there's also the option to see like the summary, right? So you can see all the responses and pie graphs and things which really help you to get a good
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: glance. But there are a lot of great companies out there that have c RMs.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: you know, and we could rattle off all of them. Therapy Flow has a great one. Practice prop productive therapist. I was about to say pro anyway, I was about to say your company. but yeah there's a lot of different
Daniel Fava: We don't have that yet.
Whitney Owens: mm people out there that have those. we actually now created our own through Google. There's a Google app.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: It's called it's like Google app through Google Workspace.
Daniel Fava: Okay.
Whitney Owens: And you can like create things in there. So we created our own CRM now that's doing things
Daniel Fava: Cool.
Whitney Owens: a little easier for us. And we were able to automate like the GFEs and things like that, which was really great. so anyway, that's how we track it now. But the other thing I think is really important to track, which you and I have talked about this before in my work with Proper Practice Elevation, is this idea of what way converts best. Right? Okay. So on our on
Daniel Fava: Yeah, that was I was gonna get to that. Good good segue.
Whitney Owens: our form. It's like, how did you hear about us? You know, you know, I found you, or they call, right, and they tell us that. They do
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: the contact form on the website, they send us an email, social media, I feel like I'm leaving one out, but anyway, different ways, right? So everybody's got a way that people reach out. Now I track the percentages of of conversions based on the way they reach out. The the other one is booking online. So what we noticed was if somebody called, they were 80% likely to schedule if they call. That's significant.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Whitney Owens: If they fill out the if they go online and they book online, they are 50 to s 60% likely to show up. We actually have worked really hard to improve getting them to show up. So it moved from like fifty to sixty percent. If they fill out the contact form on the website. or email, they're basically the same idea. They're thirty percent likely to actually become a client.
Daniel Fava: Okay. Yeah. Good to know.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, so I'm at least two times more likely to schedule someone if they call than if they fill out the Google form. And so
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: everything on our website, call, call, call, call, like it's constant. You know, because
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: I I know that's how we're gonna convert people.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, yeah. And so that was one thing that that we we really dug into. It was like every if you look at w if you if you go and visit Whitney's Private practice website, we can put that in the show notes too. You'll see all the buttons say call and it's got your actual number right there. And you know, one thing to think about too, like sort of the technical website side of things, when you're on a mobile device, you click that button and it does call. You know, so that's it's a little different on the desktop because you know, if you left that functionality, it opens up like FaceTime or it gets weird and wonky, but I think it just drives you still drives you to the contact page, but it's kind of this subtle hint of like, I should probably call. That's the best. Way to get in touch with these folks, you know, and so really making sure that the majority of people are calling you know Whitney's intake team, and yeah, and so is that that's continues to work for you, I assume.
Whitney Owens: yeah, definitely, definitely. I think the other thing that people don't pay attention to is no shows for the intake session. And tracking that. Because if the person schedules, it doesn't really matter if they don't show up. And the average practice has about ten percent of people not show up for their first session. That's not good. That's
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: that's not only not good for the clients that need help, but also not good for your business.
Daniel Fava: Right.
Whitney Owens: And so working on ways to track that and to improve that. So that's something that our intake team, we just do that on a spreadsheet, but we track
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: it every week. They go in and they look at the previous week, you know, how many intakes did we have and how many people showed up for their intakes. and then based on that, we can find things. So like maybe some of the therapists are following up with their clients and some aren't. So then we can train
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: them better, or maybe Like one of our therapists, we went and we like, Okay, what's going on? Like why are her people less likely to show up than some of these other people? we noticed that her messages were just kind of businessy and not very friendly. And that's not what she d I of course she had no idea. And I like, Here, let's change some of this verbiage. so that
Daniel Fava: Hmm. Yeah.
Whitney Owens: made an improvement.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah. And are there other things too that like tell us a little bit more about like intake coordinator and and and like your team and like who's kind of doing what? Cause you mentioned about like the therapist following up. So like let's say like the brand new person who schedules maybe just schedules without calling, and you want to make sure they do show up for that first session, what are some of the things that your team then does?
Whitney Owens: Mm-hmm. Yeah, so when somebody gets an appointment scheduled, we put that into our the CRM that we've created. When that happens, they get an automatic email with kind of an explanation of here's where we're located, here's the therapist you're seeing, here's their phone number, here's your appointment time. They also get the GFE automatically sent to them, so the good faith estimate. and then my intake coordinator sticks them in the EHR, gets all that information in there, and then puts that populates them getting all that paperwork that they're gonna get, right?
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: so that's that's kind of how that works. I could kinda share a little bit about what it was like at the beginning and how this role has grown over time. So I think a lot of people are like,
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: well I can't answer and I don't know how to do that, right? Because there's just too much going on. So when
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: I first started and I I say this so strongly, taking intake calls is so important because people are going through a list and if you don't answer that phone, they are moving on.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: I would have my kids in the wagon walk into the park and my phone would ring and I know not everyone has to do that, but boy I answered that phone. And I know
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: people are thinking, well that's not professional or they're not gonna like that. People want to be heard. They don't care where
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: you are. So what I would s I just laugh it off and be like, Hey, you know, I'm actually off today. I'm but I'm really glad you called with the kids at the park and like I can chat a few minutes, but like let's let's get you scheduled, you know.
Daniel Fava: Mm.
Whitney Owens: And and they will feel grateful that you took the time to answer their call. my intake gal at one point, her my very first one, she would pull her car off on the side of the road and jump out and take the call while her kids were in the car. I was like,
Daniel Fava: Right.
Whitney Owens: Well, you do what you want to do. But that is what grows a business is those extra efforts that we take to care
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Whitney Owens: well for clients. And so so when I first started, I would you know, schedule as many as I could, call people back. I mean I would I'd be five minutes before my next session and that was really challenging because someone's about to see me. Phone is ringing, but I would take the calls and I'd get people
Daniel Fava: Mm.
Whitney Owens: scheduled because at least the person in the lobby has a therapist. The person calling doesn't. So it's not just about
Daniel Fava: Hm. Yeah.
Whitney Owens: me making money, it's about people that need help.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, that's a good point.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, and then and then I was kinda getting busy. I I hired my first two therapists, which I'm gonna recommend that you never hire a therapist before getting an admin if possible, because then you're really overwhelmed. So I was taking calls for three therapists, also have eighteen clients a week and I'm working part time and I'm raising two kids. Like it was crazy. So I posted at like midnight on Facebook. I think I was like nursing my baby in the middle of the night and I
Daniel Fava: He's
Whitney Owens: was like, Hey, I need somebody three to five hours a week to just take calls. And someone I knew responded and I just knew she was it. So anyway, she worked for me from about three to five hours a week until she hit fifteen hours a week, just taking calls and doing some other administrative things and and and she just tracked her time. Just yeah, in six minute increments on a spreadsheet. You know, when she answered the phone, she put her time down, sh but during the day she'd do whatever she wanted to. And so it worked out really well. A lot of people ask about that concept. Yeah, and so she started getting busy, and then her kids needed her more in the afternoon. So then I had another therapist that started was trying to grow her caseload, and I was like, Well, why don't we train you on phones? You could take half the day, she can take half the day. That helped her grow her caseload. It was good to have more people training on the phone. And then once she got a full caseload, I hired another part-time person to kind of take calls. and then Christina, the first girl, eventually left. when I was probably at about six therapists and I
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: begged the part-time person, that was Lisa. I was like, please take this job. So she went
Daniel Fava: Ha ha ha.
Whitney Owens: full time. So that's about when I got my first full time person at about six therapists. But she was taking calls and managing the office. and it was really not until I don't know, two years ago that we hired our next intake person.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: so that person was full time just taking phones and then Lisa could manage the practice. I can't remember exactly how many therapists I had then. It had to have been at least twelve. and now we have two intake coordinators actually, and then Lisa manages both of them.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. That's awesome. Thank you so much for sharing like the the trajectory
Whitney Owens: Yeah.
Daniel Fava: there. I think that's super helpful because I'm sure there's people listening who are maybe they're just solo or they're small group or they're going from solo to group. So I think it's always helpful just to hear how these things change over time as your business evolves and also too just the realness of life. Like you said, like taking taking those phone calls when when when the kids are around. That kinda honestly as an introvert that stresses me out 'cause my my kids are so loud, I'm like they would never allow that. But sometimes you gotta do you gotta do those those things, you know, especially in those early you know, those early times. And then but too, if you're doing those things, you know, back to kinda where we started, be tracking be tracking those calls and getting those at least into a spreadsheet.
Whitney Owens: That's right, that's right. And remembering that it's not forever. Like I did those things to get
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: my business where it needed to be. And the last time I took a call was six weeks ago. Both my intake team, it was a holiday and they were both off and I was like, I don't know,
Daniel Fava: Mm.
Whitney Owens: like I'd like to just do this a little bit. 'Cause it's kind of fun to get back into it and remember like you hear
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: the pain of clients and you're like, This is why I started this practice.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Mhm.
Whitney Owens: Grounding.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, definitely. It's it's good to stay connected connected to the people that you're trying to reach for sure.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, yeah. I mean I'm a huge proponent of answering those calls in real time. I think that's one of the reasons that I've had the success I've had. So another way to help with that is having a backup on the phone. So like phone
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: trees, I use spruce.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: You can go to my website if you want it tw I think it's a twenty percent off if you go to wise practice consulting. Yeah, if your first year. But I love spruce and it has like a phone tree system that's so easy to manage. So when someone's off or you need a backup person, you can just put them on there. So when the phone rings, one person's phone starts first, but then the other starts immediately
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: after. That way if someone's on a call, you're not missing calls.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, absolutely. And and yeah, thank you for kind of reiterating that point. Like being able to get to those calls when someone calls is is such a big part of it. And I think that there's so I I hear this a lot actually, like where a lot of people who do kind of have that same sort of value they hear that so much, like, you're the first person who actually got back to me or you're the first person who actually picked up you know, which again to kind of tie what you're doing as far as being the business owner and marketing back to these are the people who are trying to help and heal and they're in pain and they're searching and that's just kinda sad to hear like so many people either aren't picking up the phone or aren't getting back to them. So that is kind of like that first customer service, user experience piece that you can really just share, you know, a lot of value and care, you know, for people. So, you know, I just wanna kinda harp on that again.
Whitney Owens: I think you're right, yeah. And and oftentimes people will say they have to use their insurance and then we give them helpful referrals, you know, we've served them on the phone. They call
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: us back a day or two later. I still couldn't get anywhere and y'all are so kind, I just I'll I'll pay and get in, like I'm like, Okay.
Daniel Fava: Hm. Wow, yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Well kinda back to I wanna get back to like tracking again and as we kind of wrap up our conversation here, you know, we we talked about well you gotta make time, you know, to like sit down and look at these numbers. So like let's say we get started, simple spreadsheet, or maybe somebody uses you know, an an EHR CRM to start tracking these things. How often do you recommend somebody look at those numbers? Is it kind of like a weekly thing, once a month, once a quarter, and then
Whitney Owens: Yeah.
Daniel Fava: How are we kind of making those plans for okay, we see something's off, we gotta make those changes.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, I would say weekly on most things. For money, I would say biweekly or monthly. One or the other. If you look too much at your money, you're gonna just like go all over the place. You know, you're gonna make
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: decisions based on the money that came in that day or the expense that day, and you need to look at things
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: in a bigger picture. I love profit first, use it in my business, both businesses. I actually use a software called ninety to track my data and I got that because it's associated with EOS, which you and I have talked about, EOS. I love it. And so I actually have a leadership team that we meet every Monday morning and everyone has to put their own data in, which is really great. So I'm not responsible for everything. I'm responsible for the marketing data and the financial data. But I have someone else who does the intake data and my COO make sure all the therapists are hitting their numbers. and then following up when they don't And he also tracks like the churn ratio, retention, and average stay of a client. And all this is so important because if you don't know your data, you don't know where problem is. And so
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: when we have to report that data, not only does reporting it make your data improve because you're noticing it, but then
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: as a team we see the problems we can come up with solutions together.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Awesome. Alright, I love it. Well is there anything I know we kind of we we we dove in a little deep here and and moved around a lot. Is there anything else that you want to leave folks with when it comes to tracking your data and conversions and improving those conversions over time?
Whitney Owens: Yes, I'm gonna share a story of a practice center I talked to a few months ago that I think
Daniel Fava: Yay.
Whitney Owens: really is where a lot of people are at.
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: So she reached out to me and she was like, I think I need to cancel my marketing people. I don't think this is working. And I said, Okay, let's let's slow down. We don't wanna make big changes, like let's figure out what's going on. So I get on a call with her and she's like, I don't we don't have clients. No one's scheduling, not enough new clients, and I'm paying all this money to make it better. And I said, Okay, so let's what's going on? So we look at her g Google Analytics, some of her back end stuff on our website, and I was like, That all actually looks really good. In fact, since you started investing money, it's actually gotten better. You could see your website is trending up. She was like, but she didn't know how to look at it and most therapists don't, and that's okay. It's why you hire a company, right? To help you do that.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Right.
Whitney Owens: that can show you that. And then She we s I said, show me your intake calls. She pulls up her CRM. It's not tracking very well. They're not keeping up with it very well. But we noticed that she had gotten, I can't remember how many calls, but it was like 17 to 20 calls and I think converted three. It was very low. It was like somewhere between like ten and thirty percent.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: And I was like, Honey, this is the problem. Like, you know, if you could convert these, then you would have it. So you can make more money simply by learning a script and doing it correctly. And obviously this is something I help people with a lot. And she was like, wow. And so then she started working on it and it got better. But I'm like, my gosh, if she had fired that company and stopped putting investment into SEO, she would have been in a terrible situation. She would have had even less people reaching out, you know.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: And so I think that's so important. that you really understand what you're looking at as a practice center before
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: you're making big gut decisions about money, and really knowing that data and tracking it well.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, absolutely. Start tracking it and then you even if you don't I say this to a lot to people with when it comes to like Google Analytics and stuff like even if you don't know how to read it yet, get it connected, start tracking it, and then at least you'll have that history of data that you can then take to somebody who can come in, you know, like yourself and say, here's the problem, here's what we need to focus on. So
Whitney Owens: That's right.
Daniel Fava: Awesome. Thank you for that story, Whitney. And as we wrap up, why don't you just share a little bit more about what you've got going on, where people can find you, and all that good stuff.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, yeah. Well I tend to have a lot going on. there's wise
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: practice consulting dot com. There you can learn all about our community of faith based practice centers. We have a membership community. We meet every week. Like I said, Liz is a part of that, your wife. And and we meet every week and we talk about what it's like to grow a faith based practice. We have experts come in, do different trainings, we have Q and A's, we have workshops to really help you like hands on practical stuff. As you can tell, I I bring a lot of information, but I wanna just like Then that's when we slow down and we say, Hey, let's actually make our Google form right now. Like let's
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: actually create it together. I think a lot of times we learn, but we don't have action time or plan or we don't
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: know. So we do a lot of that kind of work together in the membership community. but then I also have the summit, which is an in-person event. So the idea would be the community meets virtually every week and then we come together in person once a year. we do that in the fall. We're actually going to Nashville this year, and Daniel will also be there and a lot of
Daniel Fava: Yes. Excited.
Whitney Owens: Amazing people, yeah. Just it's just so great to just c connect and you have those offhand conversations, right? Where it
Daniel Fava: Mm.
Whitney Owens: really helps you grow your business or you learn something that changes everything or you make a connection that you start I mean, there was one year where these two people met and they were like, let's start doing this marriage workshop retreat and then they started doing it together and there's you know, because you're gonna meet people that might be far away, might be close. Daniel, why do you come to the summit?
Daniel Fava: I think my number one reason I like you said, like the community is is amazing and it's like it's become like a reunion now, just getting to see a lot of the other consultants, you know, like l like us and you know, folks like Gordon Brewer and Uriah, and And yeah, and the other sponsors as well. It's just big like yeah, it's just always so much fun to get together and it's just different when you're face to face and everyone's like, Hey, we're going to dinner over here, you wanna come along? Sure, we're going to karaoke, there's always karaoke. So we're doing that, you know, and so that's that's number one is really for me is the the community, like you said. and there's you've multiple clients that we've worked with that come and it's great to see them face to face as well and catch up you know, with how how are things going with their practices.
Whitney Owens: Yeah. Well that's great. Yeah. Well thank you for that. And and I know you mentioned this and I'll just say again, Private Practice Elevation did my website. That was a a big thing that we did kind of last year, 'cause
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: I remember doing that before the event. And the website is so great. Like I couldn't be more pleased with it. so
Daniel Fava: Thank you.
Whitney Owens: a shout out to y'all and you know, if people are interested in doing getting their website done, like I think that you you do it, you know, because That is the impression people have of your company. My website was like ten years old, so I was really glad to get a nice update.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah, it it had some some old school stuff in there that we freed you from.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, well thank you.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for your time, Whitney. Appreciate you being on. And we'll put in links to all that stuff in the show notes. so really appreciate that. And you know, for folks who are listening and you feel like, yeah, I do need to upgrade, bring my website or my online presence into the modern era, please reach out to private practice elevation.com slash kickoff and would love to schedule some time together. Now go elevate your practice.
Whitney Owens: Always a pleasure to meet with you.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, and this would be is this your third time being on the podcast, I think.
Whitney Owens: I don't know. Maybe.
Daniel Fava: I think we were we were emailing back and forth. I was like, I think it's been since twenty twenty two, which I thought you were on more recently, but that's too that's too long to be away. So I'm I'm excited to
Whitney Owens: That's right.
Daniel Fava: to have you back on and we reconnected recently when you came through Atlanta. I was like, Hey, you need to be back on the podcast, so here we are, welcome back.
Whitney Owens: Thank you.
Daniel Fava: are how are things going in you know in your world and you have two businesses really that you're you're running. Why don't you just talk a little bit about that, you know, for folks who don't know who you are.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, most definitely. Like like Daniel said, I'm Whitney Owens. I live in Savannah, Georgia. so Daniel and I are not far from each other. you can hear my southern accent as well.
Daniel Fava: Ha ha
Whitney Owens: I run a group practice here in Savannah called Water's Edge Counseling, started it in two thousand and fourteen. now we have two locations, one on Wilmington Island as well, which is just outside of Savannah. I have fifteen to twenty therapists, give or take the week, right? And yeah. It's really great. We're all private pay as well, which is something unique about us. and then when I'm not running my practice, I'm running Wise Practice Consulting, which is an agency that helps start growing scale private practices specifically for faith based practice owners. So people who'd say faith is an important part of their lives. Sometimes they're incorporating into their business, sometimes it's just part of who they are. And and that can really influence the way we make decisions. In fact, your your lovely wife is a part of the community as well,
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: which has been really special. So yeah, that's what I'm doing. I've got two kids, open houses tonight, you know, and they're starting school. One's gonna be in
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: eighth grade and the other's gonna be in fourth grade. so
Daniel Fava: Wow.
Whitney Owens: keeps your hands full. I know you know that.
Daniel Fava: absolutely, yeah. So our our kids start on Monday with some like back to school celebration before they actually like fully start school. So our Monday is kinda filled with that. And we've got a kindergartner this year and and also like you have fourth grader. So yeah, juggling businesses and family and it's it's wild and it's fun.
Whitney Owens: Definitely.
Daniel Fava: Right. Well, I do want to say, you know, before we jump in, you know, Whitney's been just such a a great support to private practice elevation. We connected early on when you, you know, started hosting summits and and conferences for you know for your wise practice consulting. And so, yeah, it's just been so much fun just to get to know you and the community that you've built. It's just amazing people. So I just want to shout that out, you know, before we even jump into into what we're talking about today. So thank you, Whitney, for all that.
Whitney Owens: truly my pleasure. And it's, you know, people like yourself that make the community possible. You know, the support that y'all give back. it's really it's a great relationship, so I appreciate it.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, yeah, and and we'll have you share a little bit about that before we wrap up today. But let's let's jump into our conversation. So we're gonna talk about optimizing conversions, you know, getting clients and and I think that one thing I'm I'm super excited to hear your take on I know I've heard you speak about this before and I know that there's different places where we can be tracking our numbers in order to you know get more clients into our practice. And I think you know for a lot of people listening to this, you know, we pr PPE we're really focused on websites obviously. So you know I think a lot of therapists probably start there. Like, hey, let me just track my website traffic. So do you feel like that's like the best starting point or is there some other place that we need to start when we're thinking about you know where Where are we leaking conversions? Where can I improve conversions?
Whitney Owens: Yes, good question. There's so many things that are important to be looking at, but I do think looking at your website is really important. And one thing, you could probably be the expert on this part, but one thing I've noticed I was spending a lot of time looking at my analytics, which I don't think really gives a great picture, especially your SEO work and what you're doing. So really looking at Google Search Console as well and understanding how are people coming to your website, right? So those things are important. Right. And that's that's the stuff you help with the website on. But I I think that one place where people get stuck is they think that that's the whole picture. You
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: know? And and so then they blame whoever because whatever doesn't look right, or we don't really have all the information or we're trying to figure it out. But so much is really about the experience of the client on the website or the potential client. And
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: are you pushing them appropriately? Are you tracking how they're reaching out? And then when they do reach out, are you tracking what they need, what they're asking for? Are they converting? Are they becoming a good client? Like I think all that, and we can jump into whichever part you want, but like getting the journey from the beginning of looking at the marketing, looking at your website, are they coming in all the way to did they actually show up for their appointment?
Daniel Fava: Right. Yeah. So really tracking like every every stage from start to finish to becoming a website
Whitney Owens: Mm, mm.
Daniel Fava: becoming a new client. So I
Whitney Owens: That's right.
Daniel Fava: I I you made a really good point, you know, what you said are like, then then they blame this or that and the other thing. And so I could certainly, you know, speak to that as being in this space now for over ten years, because it's I mean it's such a good point because there's so many There's so many of these stages and this is something that I learned myself early on when it came to tracking what we were doing as far as you know, dealing with a website and converting folks, it was always people usually start with that sort of vanity metric of like, how much traffic am I getting? Like, well, like you said, starting with Google Search Console, you know, the things that we're looking at and our SEO team is looking at is number one, you know, it starts with an impression. So somebody sees your website on a Google search result page or maybe now in in an AI, you know, result. And so you may be getting a lot of impressions, but then are people actually clicking on those things over to your website. And so that's one thing that you can start to look at is the that gap. Okay, people are seeing a lot, seeing us a lot, but not clicking. And then okay, well they're clicking, but then maybe they're not reaching out. Well why are they not reaching out? Like there's all these sorts of gaps that you can really start to to hone in on. And I think too there's also a there's a there's a risk of getting kind of overwhelmed because yeah like well what should I look at first? Do you have any Any guidance for folks, you know, w when you're looking at the whole picture, like where you kind of really should not well worry about for lack of a better term, like first before anything else.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, yeah. I I think if we're gonna kinda if we have somebody who's like, my gosh, that was too much, right? Like what can they start doing?
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: I think the first thing is really watching their intake process because seeing that data will allow you to either go backwards and look at, okay, where was my marketing? What does my website look like? But also helping you push forward and where am I gonna continue to invest in my practice.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: I can't tell you how many clarity calls I get on with practice owners. And I will say how many, you know, inquiries have you gotten this week or in the past month? They have no idea. They just base it on a feeling.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah. Same. Mm.
Whitney Owens: Or they say, Well, my EHR tracks new clients and how they found me. And I'm like, Yes, it does, but it doesn't track all the people who didn't schedule. Right? So
Daniel Fava: Right. Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: I think that first point is looking at just tracking every single call. And when I say call, I mean that very broadly. Inquiry. It could be
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: a call, it could be an email, it could be a contact on the website, it could be a social media. Okay, all the different ways people reach out, that you are actively tracking that in your practice every single week.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so is that I mean, that means we we gotta be scheduling some time to do that, obviously. I think that's maybe the big issue.
Whitney Owens: Yes we do. Or totally, totally. Or you have someone on your team that does it.
Daniel Fava: Yes.
Whitney Owens: so I could share a little bit about kind of what that process is like for my team if that would be helpful.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, absolutely, 'cause I want this to be kinda like real life scenario, you know, someone who's who's running a practice. Yeah, so share a little bit more about your team and how this how this all works for you.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, yeah. So when I was smaller or just starting out, I used a Google form. Real simple.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: It's like a month monthly, we would change it. And it would have all the metrics. And the great thing is if you wanna track something specific. So let's here's my here's what I ended up doing. And I laugh because it's kind of funny that I thought I was so cool. so
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: the Savannah magazine comes out every year and there's like a healthcare edition. And I was like, wow, to get my practice in the healthcare edition. And they bring like some a photographer to come take pictures of you and your team and they you answer questions. You felt like so special, right?
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: It was eight hundred dollars at the time to do that. This was a while back. And guess how many clients came from that? Zero. Zero. Right?
Daniel Fava: See you out.
Whitney Owens: So this thing that just sounded so shiny was
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: did absolutely nothing really for me. I mean, I guess you don't ever really know, but no one said I found you in the Savannah magazine. So we can specifically track that though. So during that time, one of the metrics on the form was the magazine. Did anybody say they found us through that? Because that'll help me know. Should I do this again? Right?
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: So what I have noticed that Google, SEO, that's it. I mean, that's how people find us. So it used to
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: be like fifty percent of people found us that way. And then I started putting more and more money and energy into SEO. Now it's like 70% come from the website.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Wow. It's great.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, yeah. So that's a really important thing for me to know. So so we take that Google form and you can edit it as you need. actually in the membership community that I run, the wise practice community. This is something we talk about all the time and I have the template in the community that people can just grab and and use. But it basically goes through the caller's name, their contact information, the day they called, how they heard about you, and then more details about the call, you know, what they're looking for, like drop down menus, and then did they schedule it and w who did they schedule with? And then did they not schedule and why didn't they?
Daniel Fava: Mm.
Whitney Owens: Because I wanna know, hey, is it that they want an eating disorder therapist? Is it that we didn't have the right hours that they needed? Because that's important data for me to know how to change things at the practice. Also being cash pay, I have to really watch that conversion of how many people didn't schedule because of insurance. That
Daniel Fava: Mm, yeah.
Whitney Owens: number is always twenty percent or less. Usually it's around fifteen. So if
Daniel Fava: Okay. Hmm.
Whitney Owens: it ever goes above twenty percent, I know that, hey, I got a problem. Like with how we're talking about it on the phone and the way we're following the script. And that
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: way we can go back and listen to the calls and provide more instruction on that.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, I love that. I think there's a few like really good points that that you made here that I just want to call out and like number one is where are people hearing about you? And you know, it that it's such a good idea that you had that in the drop down. Did you hear us hear f hear f about us from this specific magazine? I know sometimes people too will set up, you know, their own landing page on their website that might be, you know, Hey, you heard about us from this magazine and like kinda do a little showcase of like who you are and what you do, you know, just like making sure there's a way to get back to how many people are coming to you from these things that you're putting time or money into. And then yeah, and just like also too, you said like that form changes kind of over time. I think you realize, I it would be great if I knew more about this. You know, like why are people not scheduling? Like so just a great, you know, just I just want to pull that out so that people can realize, this changes over time. Like you refine this as you go. It sounds like you certainly have.
Whitney Owens: That's right. That's right. Now, as far as tracking, I mean there are so many ways that you can do it. The great thing about the Google form is you can see every response, but you can also like create a spreadsheet to see the responses if you need to count things up. But there's also the option to see like the summary, right? So you can see all the responses and pie graphs and things which really help you to get a good
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: glance. But there are a lot of great companies out there that have c RMs.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: you know, and we could rattle off all of them. Therapy Flow has a great one. Practice prop productive therapist. I was about to say pro anyway, I was about to say your company. but yeah there's a lot of different
Daniel Fava: We don't have that yet.
Whitney Owens: mm people out there that have those. we actually now created our own through Google. There's a Google app.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: It's called it's like Google app through Google Workspace.
Daniel Fava: Okay.
Whitney Owens: And you can like create things in there. So we created our own CRM now that's doing things
Daniel Fava: Cool.
Whitney Owens: a little easier for us. And we were able to automate like the GFEs and things like that, which was really great. so anyway, that's how we track it now. But the other thing I think is really important to track, which you and I have talked about this before in my work with Proper Practice Elevation, is this idea of what way converts best. Right? Okay. So on our on
Daniel Fava: Yeah, that was I was gonna get to that. Good good segue.
Whitney Owens: our form. It's like, how did you hear about us? You know, you know, I found you, or they call, right, and they tell us that. They do
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: the contact form on the website, they send us an email, social media, I feel like I'm leaving one out, but anyway, different ways, right? So everybody's got a way that people reach out. Now I track the percentages of of conversions based on the way they reach out. The the other one is booking online. So what we noticed was if somebody called, they were 80% likely to schedule if they call. That's significant.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Whitney Owens: If they fill out the if they go online and they book online, they are 50 to s 60% likely to show up. We actually have worked really hard to improve getting them to show up. So it moved from like fifty to sixty percent. If they fill out the contact form on the website. or email, they're basically the same idea. They're thirty percent likely to actually become a client.
Daniel Fava: Okay. Yeah. Good to know.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, so I'm at least two times more likely to schedule someone if they call than if they fill out the Google form. And so
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: everything on our website, call, call, call, call, like it's constant. You know, because
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: I I know that's how we're gonna convert people.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, yeah. And so that was one thing that that we we really dug into. It was like every if you look at w if you if you go and visit Whitney's Private practice website, we can put that in the show notes too. You'll see all the buttons say call and it's got your actual number right there. And you know, one thing to think about too, like sort of the technical website side of things, when you're on a mobile device, you click that button and it does call. You know, so that's it's a little different on the desktop because you know, if you left that functionality, it opens up like FaceTime or it gets weird and wonky, but I think it just drives you still drives you to the contact page, but it's kind of this subtle hint of like, I should probably call. That's the best. Way to get in touch with these folks, you know, and so really making sure that the majority of people are calling you know Whitney's intake team, and yeah, and so is that that's continues to work for you, I assume.
Whitney Owens: yeah, definitely, definitely. I think the other thing that people don't pay attention to is no shows for the intake session. And tracking that. Because if the person schedules, it doesn't really matter if they don't show up. And the average practice has about ten percent of people not show up for their first session. That's not good. That's
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: that's not only not good for the clients that need help, but also not good for your business.
Daniel Fava: Right.
Whitney Owens: And so working on ways to track that and to improve that. So that's something that our intake team, we just do that on a spreadsheet, but we track
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: it every week. They go in and they look at the previous week, you know, how many intakes did we have and how many people showed up for their intakes. and then based on that, we can find things. So like maybe some of the therapists are following up with their clients and some aren't. So then we can train
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: them better, or maybe Like one of our therapists, we went and we like, Okay, what's going on? Like why are her people less likely to show up than some of these other people? we noticed that her messages were just kind of businessy and not very friendly. And that's not what she d I of course she had no idea. And I like, Here, let's change some of this verbiage. so that
Daniel Fava: Hmm. Yeah.
Whitney Owens: made an improvement.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah. And are there other things too that like tell us a little bit more about like intake coordinator and and and like your team and like who's kind of doing what? Cause you mentioned about like the therapist following up. So like let's say like the brand new person who schedules maybe just schedules without calling, and you want to make sure they do show up for that first session, what are some of the things that your team then does?
Whitney Owens: Mm-hmm. Yeah, so when somebody gets an appointment scheduled, we put that into our the CRM that we've created. When that happens, they get an automatic email with kind of an explanation of here's where we're located, here's the therapist you're seeing, here's their phone number, here's your appointment time. They also get the GFE automatically sent to them, so the good faith estimate. and then my intake coordinator sticks them in the EHR, gets all that information in there, and then puts that populates them getting all that paperwork that they're gonna get, right?
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: so that's that's kind of how that works. I could kinda share a little bit about what it was like at the beginning and how this role has grown over time. So I think a lot of people are like,
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: well I can't answer and I don't know how to do that, right? Because there's just too much going on. So when
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: I first started and I I say this so strongly, taking intake calls is so important because people are going through a list and if you don't answer that phone, they are moving on.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: I would have my kids in the wagon walk into the park and my phone would ring and I know not everyone has to do that, but boy I answered that phone. And I know
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: people are thinking, well that's not professional or they're not gonna like that. People want to be heard. They don't care where
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: you are. So what I would s I just laugh it off and be like, Hey, you know, I'm actually off today. I'm but I'm really glad you called with the kids at the park and like I can chat a few minutes, but like let's let's get you scheduled, you know.
Daniel Fava: Mm.
Whitney Owens: And and they will feel grateful that you took the time to answer their call. my intake gal at one point, her my very first one, she would pull her car off on the side of the road and jump out and take the call while her kids were in the car. I was like,
Daniel Fava: Right.
Whitney Owens: Well, you do what you want to do. But that is what grows a business is those extra efforts that we take to care
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Whitney Owens: well for clients. And so so when I first started, I would you know, schedule as many as I could, call people back. I mean I would I'd be five minutes before my next session and that was really challenging because someone's about to see me. Phone is ringing, but I would take the calls and I'd get people
Daniel Fava: Mm.
Whitney Owens: scheduled because at least the person in the lobby has a therapist. The person calling doesn't. So it's not just about
Daniel Fava: Hm. Yeah.
Whitney Owens: me making money, it's about people that need help.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, that's a good point.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, and then and then I was kinda getting busy. I I hired my first two therapists, which I'm gonna recommend that you never hire a therapist before getting an admin if possible, because then you're really overwhelmed. So I was taking calls for three therapists, also have eighteen clients a week and I'm working part time and I'm raising two kids. Like it was crazy. So I posted at like midnight on Facebook. I think I was like nursing my baby in the middle of the night and I
Daniel Fava: He's
Whitney Owens: was like, Hey, I need somebody three to five hours a week to just take calls. And someone I knew responded and I just knew she was it. So anyway, she worked for me from about three to five hours a week until she hit fifteen hours a week, just taking calls and doing some other administrative things and and and she just tracked her time. Just yeah, in six minute increments on a spreadsheet. You know, when she answered the phone, she put her time down, sh but during the day she'd do whatever she wanted to. And so it worked out really well. A lot of people ask about that concept. Yeah, and so she started getting busy, and then her kids needed her more in the afternoon. So then I had another therapist that started was trying to grow her caseload, and I was like, Well, why don't we train you on phones? You could take half the day, she can take half the day. That helped her grow her caseload. It was good to have more people training on the phone. And then once she got a full caseload, I hired another part-time person to kind of take calls. and then Christina, the first girl, eventually left. when I was probably at about six therapists and I
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: begged the part-time person, that was Lisa. I was like, please take this job. So she went
Daniel Fava: Ha ha ha.
Whitney Owens: full time. So that's about when I got my first full time person at about six therapists. But she was taking calls and managing the office. and it was really not until I don't know, two years ago that we hired our next intake person.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: so that person was full time just taking phones and then Lisa could manage the practice. I can't remember exactly how many therapists I had then. It had to have been at least twelve. and now we have two intake coordinators actually, and then Lisa manages both of them.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. That's awesome. Thank you so much for sharing like the the trajectory
Whitney Owens: Yeah.
Daniel Fava: there. I think that's super helpful because I'm sure there's people listening who are maybe they're just solo or they're small group or they're going from solo to group. So I think it's always helpful just to hear how these things change over time as your business evolves and also too just the realness of life. Like you said, like taking taking those phone calls when when when the kids are around. That kinda honestly as an introvert that stresses me out 'cause my my kids are so loud, I'm like they would never allow that. But sometimes you gotta do you gotta do those those things, you know, especially in those early you know, those early times. And then but too, if you're doing those things, you know, back to kinda where we started, be tracking be tracking those calls and getting those at least into a spreadsheet.
Whitney Owens: That's right, that's right. And remembering that it's not forever. Like I did those things to get
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: my business where it needed to be. And the last time I took a call was six weeks ago. Both my intake team, it was a holiday and they were both off and I was like, I don't know,
Daniel Fava: Mm.
Whitney Owens: like I'd like to just do this a little bit. 'Cause it's kind of fun to get back into it and remember like you hear
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: the pain of clients and you're like, This is why I started this practice.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Mhm.
Whitney Owens: Grounding.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, definitely. It's it's good to stay connected connected to the people that you're trying to reach for sure.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, yeah. I mean I'm a huge proponent of answering those calls in real time. I think that's one of the reasons that I've had the success I've had. So another way to help with that is having a backup on the phone. So like phone
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: trees, I use spruce.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: You can go to my website if you want it tw I think it's a twenty percent off if you go to wise practice consulting. Yeah, if your first year. But I love spruce and it has like a phone tree system that's so easy to manage. So when someone's off or you need a backup person, you can just put them on there. So when the phone rings, one person's phone starts first, but then the other starts immediately
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: after. That way if someone's on a call, you're not missing calls.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, absolutely. And and yeah, thank you for kind of reiterating that point. Like being able to get to those calls when someone calls is is such a big part of it. And I think that there's so I I hear this a lot actually, like where a lot of people who do kind of have that same sort of value they hear that so much, like, you're the first person who actually got back to me or you're the first person who actually picked up you know, which again to kind of tie what you're doing as far as being the business owner and marketing back to these are the people who are trying to help and heal and they're in pain and they're searching and that's just kinda sad to hear like so many people either aren't picking up the phone or aren't getting back to them. So that is kind of like that first customer service, user experience piece that you can really just share, you know, a lot of value and care, you know, for people. So, you know, I just wanna kinda harp on that again.
Whitney Owens: I think you're right, yeah. And and oftentimes people will say they have to use their insurance and then we give them helpful referrals, you know, we've served them on the phone. They call
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: us back a day or two later. I still couldn't get anywhere and y'all are so kind, I just I'll I'll pay and get in, like I'm like, Okay.
Daniel Fava: Hm. Wow, yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Well kinda back to I wanna get back to like tracking again and as we kind of wrap up our conversation here, you know, we we talked about well you gotta make time, you know, to like sit down and look at these numbers. So like let's say we get started, simple spreadsheet, or maybe somebody uses you know, an an EHR CRM to start tracking these things. How often do you recommend somebody look at those numbers? Is it kind of like a weekly thing, once a month, once a quarter, and then
Whitney Owens: Yeah.
Daniel Fava: How are we kind of making those plans for okay, we see something's off, we gotta make those changes.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, I would say weekly on most things. For money, I would say biweekly or monthly. One or the other. If you look too much at your money, you're gonna just like go all over the place. You know, you're gonna make
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: decisions based on the money that came in that day or the expense that day, and you need to look at things
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: in a bigger picture. I love profit first, use it in my business, both businesses. I actually use a software called ninety to track my data and I got that because it's associated with EOS, which you and I have talked about, EOS. I love it. And so I actually have a leadership team that we meet every Monday morning and everyone has to put their own data in, which is really great. So I'm not responsible for everything. I'm responsible for the marketing data and the financial data. But I have someone else who does the intake data and my COO make sure all the therapists are hitting their numbers. and then following up when they don't And he also tracks like the churn ratio, retention, and average stay of a client. And all this is so important because if you don't know your data, you don't know where problem is. And so
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: when we have to report that data, not only does reporting it make your data improve because you're noticing it, but then
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: as a team we see the problems we can come up with solutions together.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Awesome. Alright, I love it. Well is there anything I know we kind of we we we dove in a little deep here and and moved around a lot. Is there anything else that you want to leave folks with when it comes to tracking your data and conversions and improving those conversions over time?
Whitney Owens: Yes, I'm gonna share a story of a practice center I talked to a few months ago that I think
Daniel Fava: Yay.
Whitney Owens: really is where a lot of people are at.
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: So she reached out to me and she was like, I think I need to cancel my marketing people. I don't think this is working. And I said, Okay, let's let's slow down. We don't wanna make big changes, like let's figure out what's going on. So I get on a call with her and she's like, I don't we don't have clients. No one's scheduling, not enough new clients, and I'm paying all this money to make it better. And I said, Okay, so let's what's going on? So we look at her g Google Analytics, some of her back end stuff on our website, and I was like, That all actually looks really good. In fact, since you started investing money, it's actually gotten better. You could see your website is trending up. She was like, but she didn't know how to look at it and most therapists don't, and that's okay. It's why you hire a company, right? To help you do that.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Right.
Whitney Owens: that can show you that. And then She we s I said, show me your intake calls. She pulls up her CRM. It's not tracking very well. They're not keeping up with it very well. But we noticed that she had gotten, I can't remember how many calls, but it was like 17 to 20 calls and I think converted three. It was very low. It was like somewhere between like ten and thirty percent.
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: And I was like, Honey, this is the problem. Like, you know, if you could convert these, then you would have it. So you can make more money simply by learning a script and doing it correctly. And obviously this is something I help people with a lot. And she was like, wow. And so then she started working on it and it got better. But I'm like, my gosh, if she had fired that company and stopped putting investment into SEO, she would have been in a terrible situation. She would have had even less people reaching out, you know.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: And so I think that's so important. that you really understand what you're looking at as a practice center before
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: you're making big gut decisions about money, and really knowing that data and tracking it well.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, absolutely. Start tracking it and then you even if you don't I say this to a lot to people with when it comes to like Google Analytics and stuff like even if you don't know how to read it yet, get it connected, start tracking it, and then at least you'll have that history of data that you can then take to somebody who can come in, you know, like yourself and say, here's the problem, here's what we need to focus on. So
Whitney Owens: That's right.
Daniel Fava: Awesome. Thank you for that story, Whitney. And as we wrap up, why don't you just share a little bit more about what you've got going on, where people can find you, and all that good stuff.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, yeah. Well I tend to have a lot going on. there's wise
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: practice consulting dot com. There you can learn all about our community of faith based practice centers. We have a membership community. We meet every week. Like I said, Liz is a part of that, your wife. And and we meet every week and we talk about what it's like to grow a faith based practice. We have experts come in, do different trainings, we have Q and A's, we have workshops to really help you like hands on practical stuff. As you can tell, I I bring a lot of information, but I wanna just like Then that's when we slow down and we say, Hey, let's actually make our Google form right now. Like let's
Daniel Fava: Mm-hmm.
Whitney Owens: actually create it together. I think a lot of times we learn, but we don't have action time or plan or we don't
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: know. So we do a lot of that kind of work together in the membership community. but then I also have the summit, which is an in-person event. So the idea would be the community meets virtually every week and then we come together in person once a year. we do that in the fall. We're actually going to Nashville this year, and Daniel will also be there and a lot of
Daniel Fava: Yes. Excited.
Whitney Owens: Amazing people, yeah. Just it's just so great to just c connect and you have those offhand conversations, right? Where it
Daniel Fava: Mm.
Whitney Owens: really helps you grow your business or you learn something that changes everything or you make a connection that you start I mean, there was one year where these two people met and they were like, let's start doing this marriage workshop retreat and then they started doing it together and there's you know, because you're gonna meet people that might be far away, might be close. Daniel, why do you come to the summit?
Daniel Fava: I think my number one reason I like you said, like the community is is amazing and it's like it's become like a reunion now, just getting to see a lot of the other consultants, you know, like l like us and you know, folks like Gordon Brewer and Uriah, and And yeah, and the other sponsors as well. It's just big like yeah, it's just always so much fun to get together and it's just different when you're face to face and everyone's like, Hey, we're going to dinner over here, you wanna come along? Sure, we're going to karaoke, there's always karaoke. So we're doing that, you know, and so that's that's number one is really for me is the the community, like you said. and there's you've multiple clients that we've worked with that come and it's great to see them face to face as well and catch up you know, with how how are things going with their practices.
Whitney Owens: Yeah. Well that's great. Yeah. Well thank you for that. And and I know you mentioned this and I'll just say again, Private Practice Elevation did my website. That was a a big thing that we did kind of last year, 'cause
Daniel Fava: Yeah.
Whitney Owens: I remember doing that before the event. And the website is so great. Like I couldn't be more pleased with it. so
Daniel Fava: Thank you.
Whitney Owens: a shout out to y'all and you know, if people are interested in doing getting their website done, like I think that you you do it, you know, because That is the impression people have of your company. My website was like ten years old, so I was really glad to get a nice update.
Daniel Fava: Yeah. Yeah, it it had some some old school stuff in there that we freed you from.
Whitney Owens: Yeah, well thank you.
Daniel Fava: Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for your time, Whitney. Appreciate you being on. And we'll put in links to all that stuff in the show notes. so really appreciate that. And you know, for folks who are listening and you feel like, yeah, I do need to upgrade, bring my website or my online presence into the modern era, please reach out to private practice elevation.com slash kickoff and would love to schedule some time together. Now go elevate your practice.
