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Ep.129: What is a Good Conversion Rate

What is a good conversion rate?

Welcome to “Beauty and the Biz”, where we talk about the business and marketing side of plastic surgery, and what a good conversion rate is.

I’m your host, Catherine Maley, author of “Your aesthetic practice – What your patients are saying”, and consultant to plastic surgeons to get them more patients and profits. ​

What is a good conversion rate

What is a good conversion rate?

It’s a question I’m asked often enough so I’m assuming other surgeons also experience this, so I’ll address it in this episode.

Here’s the question:                                                        

Dear Catherine,

I had the same patient consultant for many years and she did a great job.

We made a really good team. I performed several procedures on her through the years so she was a great testimonial and she knew how to credential me as the best. She was also very good with my patients and really good at closing consultations.

I never realized how good she was until her husband was promoted and she moved away.

My current coordinator has been on the job for the past year and we are getting mixed results.

She’s nice enough but we don’t get the same results I used to get.

My consult conversion rate used to be in the high 70’s for years and it’s dropped significantly. My coordinator says that’s because the patients are price shopping our competitors and our prices are too high.

I’m not sure that’s true. I don’t know if it’s the patients or the coordinator or something else.

Can you tell me what is a good conversion rate?

Dr. W

Since that’s a loaded question, we need to unpack it before I start throwing out percentages.

Lots of plastic surgeons are experiencing sporadic conversion rates. Or “feast or famine” months and they’re not sure why.

This inconsistency can wreak havoc on your day, your attitude and your pocketbook.

You start questioning yourself and doubting your staff and that’s a path to even more frustration.

So, what’s really happening?

What is a Good Conversion Rate

Well, the bad news is, there’s no one easy answer. So many variables go into your success (or lack thereof) when converting consultations and trying to figure out what is a good conversion rate.

One practice can play the QUALITY vs. quantity game and experience an 80% conversation rate because the coordinator only works with the hyper interested. So, she sends one follow-up email and if they don’t respond, she drops them, but that same practice who is “cherry picking” also can experience big highs and lows in the schedule because they need a lot more leads to cherry pick the best ones..

Or a practice experiences a 25% conversion rate because they play the “QUANTITY vs. quality” game so they see everybody. They don’t charge a consultation fee, they have lots of no-shows and frankly, lots of flaky price-shoppers who are not yet ready to to action so the coordinator has to sift through who is a real candidate and who isn’t.

So given that, here’s a short list of why your conversions “could” be off:

  • Your SEO isn’t working like before because google changed the rules again or you changed your SEO/website provider and lost ground on your Internet presence so the new Internet company has to build your rankings back up; or
  • A new competitor came to town and is out-marketing you;
  • You changed up your marketing strategy and while you’re getting more Internet leads, they are poor quality leads;
  • Your new coordinator is nice and friendly but doesn’t have the converting skills needed to get to a YES and so on.

Because the reality is not about how many leads you get.
It’s about how many prospective patients say YES and PAY for your services, right?

Which is why your coordinator must be on her game to convert these consults so if she needs training, check out The Converting Club for Coordinators on my website and I’ll train her for you.

Because after consulting with surgeons for 2 decades, here is what I find most often:

You don’t have a lead problem.
you have a converting and retention problem. Just saying..

But back to the question what’s a good conversion rate. Here are guidelines to help you figure that out:

Leads coming from “Internet stranger patients” convert at 5-20%

Leads coming from word-of-mouth referrals convert at 70-85%

Leads coming from your current patients who want more from you convert at 85% and higher

And to break it down even more:

Breast aug leads convert much less than facelift leads so I would separate those out so the data is not skewed.

BTW, if you question my stats, no problem. Do this exercise to get the real numbers for YOUR own practice.

Have your staff look up the last 50-100 surgeries you performed and fill out an excel sheet by noting

The procedure performed

The revenues collected
The referral source: did they come cold from the Internet, were they a word-of-mouth referral or were they your current patient coming back for more.

Also note their age and zip code to determine if they are local or out of town and which demographics of patients seem to gravitate towards you.

I’ve had surgeons from all over the country do this exercise and they are always surprised to discover where their conversions and revenues came from so see for yourself and let me know your results so we can see what is a good conversion rate for your practice.

That wraps up this Beauty and the biz episode so please do me a favor and subscribe if you haven’t done so already and a review would be super helpful as well.

And feel free to pass this along to your colleagues and staff

Of course, it would be great if you subscribed to Beauty and the Biz so you don’t miss any episodes and a review would be much appreciates.

Thanks so listening and we’ll talk again soon.

If you want to talk more about your specific situation, just leave me a message at:

https://www.CatherineMaley.com

…Or DM me on Instagram at:

https://www.instagram.com/CatherineMaleyMBA

📖 Get a Copy of Catherine’s FREE Book: https://bit.ly/CatherinesFreeBook​​

​📲 Schedule a FREE 30-Minute Strategy Call with Catherine: https://bit.ly/FreeCallWithCatherine​​

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Catherine Maley

Catherine Maley

Catherine is a business/marketing consultant to plastic surgeons. She speaks at medical conferences all over the world on practice building, marketing and the business side of plastic surgery. Get a Free Copy of her popular book, Your Aesthetic Practice: What Your Patients Are Saying View Author Profile.

BEAUTY AND THE BIZ

Beauty and the Biz is for Plastic Surgeons who know they don’t know everything and are open to discovering the pearls to grow and scale a sellable asset when they’re ready to exit.

Listen in as Catherine interviews surgeons who talk about the business and marketing side of plastic surgery and listen to Catherine’s pearls from consulting with plastic surgeons since Year 2000.

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TESTIMONIALS

5/5
"Catherine outlined a plan that put key metrics in place, gave us a clear plan to follow throughout the year and trained our staff to increase their conversions by at least 10%. Since engaging with Catherine, I’m happy to report that revenues are up 15% over the last three months - 22% in the last month alone! I highly recommend Catherine’s consulting services to any practice looking for “best practice” additions to their operation."
Robert Sigal, MD
Robert Sigal, MD
"I have finally tapped into the most efficient way to grow my cosmetic practice and that is to “fish in the pond of my own patients”. When patients return to my practice, over 85% will purchase another service, product, or procedure. Not only was it worth over $200,000 in revenues this past year, it also reminds my patients I’m still around so they don’t wander off to my competitors. Catherine’s group has far exceeded our expectations and goals we had set up for them to achieve."
Victor Ferrari, MD
Victor Ferrari, MD
"Our consult conversions were running at 40-50%. Then we attended Catherine’s online training and implemented her strategies. They immediately increased conversion rates to 75-80%."
Anthony Corrado, MD
Anthony Corrado, MD
"I know how to run a profitable practice; however, it was not without major staff issues, inefficiencies and unproductive drama. With Catherine's guidance, I reorganized staff, set up processes for them to carry more of the workload and hold them accountable so I have more time to focus on patient care. The changes we put in place and the staff training to convert more callers and consultations will easily increase my revenues by 15% as well as save us time, money and costly mistakes. "
Evan Sorokin, MD
Evan Sorokin, MD
"Working with Catherine and her team has been very profitable. We’re only half way through the year and I’m up $200K and I’m booked out for the next 2 months even though we typically go into our slow summer months now. Her recent promotion brought in an extra $63,782 with more surgeries scheduled. I never realized how much money was sitting in my patient list but I’m a believer now!"
Robert Langdon, MD
Robert Langdon, MD
"Catherine Maley has one of the best Marketing Minds in the aesthetic industry, bar none. She understands the aesthetic patient and she also understands the challenges and frustrations we face as aesthetic surgeons. You will benefit from Catherine's tools whether you are new in practice or a seasoned professional.Turn to Catherine for guidance - she knows what she's talking about."
Edwin Williams, MD
Edwin Williams, MD
“Catherine’s Cosmetic Patient Marketing Service has been a great addition to our practice-building overall plan. While we still invest in our online presence, we also found immense value in the internal marketing efforts. We especially like that all results are tracked so we know we are getting a great return ... last year it was 1,148% and no staff time was used. That’s a much easier way to grow my cosmetic practice.”
Mark Mason, MD
Mark Mason, MD
"Catherine Maley turned our practice around. We converted more consultations in one week than we did in an entire month. Our practice went from a painful 50% no show rate to a remarkable 85% show rate. Even more impressive was our close ratio - from 35% to 80% and still increasing. We would recommend her to any practice that’s looking to not only increase their profits today, but sustain a healthy flow of income for many years to come. Thanks Catherine!"
Sam Assassa, MD
Sam Assassa, MD
"Catherine found me the best patient care coordinator I could have asked for. She worked out a payment plan that was fair to me and motivating to my coordinator. She also provided training tools to help my coordinator convert better, even though she was already experienced. The results have been phenomenal. So good, in fact, that my income increased 250% and I’m booked out for 3 months. Don’t waste any more time or money doing it yourself. Outsource to someone you trust!"
Andrew Lofman, MD
Andrew Lofman, MD
"Since we’ve been working with Catherine and her team for the past 5 months, we’ve brought in $79K in surgeries and have booked an additional 17 surgical procedures and 20 non-invasive body procedures since then. This does not include the additional new patient referrals and revenues we are seeing from the on-going nurturing of my current patient database."
Verne Weisberg, MD
Verne Weisberg, MD
"I had given my staff the goal to convert at least $35K per week in surgeries AND I gave them the tools to help which was Catherine’s Online Learning Center at More Patients Academy. They watched Catherine’s modules and implemented her strategies and converted $80K! That equaled a 2,550% ROI. Nice!"
Adam Stein, MD
Adam Stein, MD
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