E861 | The $30,000 Mistake: Why 60% Of Your PT Clinic Leads Never Book

Speed to Lead: The $30K Mistake Killing Your Clinic Growth

A clinic owner recently told Danny their numbers:
50 people booked calls or filled out contact forms.
Only 20 came in for an eval.

That’s a 40% throughput — which sounds okay until you realize 30 people never showed up.
If the average plan of care is worth $2,000, that’s $60,000 in potential care. Even if half of them would’ve followed through, that’s still $30,000 lost in one month.

And it’s all because of one thing: slow follow-up.

The Hidden Leak in Your Funnel

In most clinics, follow-up speed is a silent killer.
The average healthcare practice takes over two hours to respond to a lead.
Meanwhile, the average consumer expects a response in 10–15 minutes.

That gap?
It’s the difference between booked evaluations and missed opportunities.

Studies show that if you respond to someone within five minutes of them reaching out, you’re 100 times more likely to convert them into a paying client.
Not 100% better — 100 times.

Fixing It Isn’t Complicated

You don’t need another ad campaign or new software to fix this.
You need a system.

1. Auto-responder: Confirm every inquiry immediately with a text and email.

2. Manual follow-up: Have someone call within 5–15 minutes — even if they just leave a voicemail.

3. Text after the call: More people answer texts than calls.

4. Add value: Send a short email or video that helps them right away (“3 tips for low back pain” goes a long way).

5. Follow up 5–7 times: Mix calls, texts, and emails across two weeks. Persistence wins.

You’re not pestering — you’re serving. People get busy, lose motivation, and forget why they reached out. You’re just helping them follow through on what they already wanted.

The Bigger Picture

If your clinic improves its contact-to-eval conversion from 40% to 70%, that’s an extra $15,000–$30,000 per month — without a single new lead.
That’s the difference between hiring a new team member or not.

And the best part? It’s free.
You’re just being faster, more consistent, and more human.

Your Challenge This Week

1. Track your current lead-to-eval conversion rate.

2. Set up a notification system when new leads come in.

3. Create a follow-up script your admin can use immediately.

4. Commit to responding within 15 minutes for the next 30 days.

5. Watch your schedule fill faster — without spending another dollar on ads.

Final Thought

Most clinics don’t have a lead problem.
They have a follow-up problem.

Speed to lead isn’t sexy — but it’s the difference between thriving and surviving.
Because when you respond fast, you’re not just closing leads… you’re proving you care.

“Fortune is in the follow-up. Most clinics just forget to do it.”

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Podcast Transcript

[00:00:00] Hey, Danny Matta here, founder of PT Biz, and today we're gonna talk about [00:00:05] one area in your clinic that literally might be costing you tens of thousands of [00:00:10] dollars and how you can start to work on correcting that. [00:00:15] So recently I had a conversation with a clinic owner that was walking me through their [00:00:20] numbers on their contact request forms.

Now with most of these clinics, what happens is [00:00:25] people find your business through. A search of some sort. Maybe they're looking on a [00:00:30] map for. Businesses like yours within a certain proximity, or maybe they see it from an ad [00:00:35] from there, they usually go to some sort of contact request, either form [00:00:40] or self booking Time to talk to your team now, just [00:00:45] 'cause somebody fills out a form or somebody.

Book's, a time to talk to you doesn't mean that they're gonna show up. [00:00:50] Okay? People are busy. People miss appointments. People lose [00:00:55] motivation for making some of these hard changes that they know that they need to make in their life. [00:01:00] So this clinic owner was walking me through the data that they had, and the numbers looked basically [00:01:05] like this.

They had about 50, either self booking. Uh, slots to talk to [00:01:10] their team on an auto calendar, or they had, uh, that plus a combination [00:01:15] of contact requests. People submitted a request to talk to their team. So combined there were 50 of those. [00:01:20] They had a 40% throughput of those people becoming, uh, [00:01:25] new, new patients or coming in for initial evaluation.

So that means of the 50 people that contacted [00:01:30] them, only 20 made it through the door to actually do their initial evaluation. And now obviously [00:01:35] there's drop off there as well of people not coming back after that. So that [00:01:40] means there's 30 people that didn't end up coming in. Now, if you can take [00:01:45] that number from 40% to 70%, you're gonna end up with [00:01:50] 35 new patients instead of 20.

Now let's do the math on [00:01:55] that. Let's assume the initial plan of care is $2,000 per person. [00:02:00] That means that you have 15 more people potentially that are coming in [00:02:05] and are gonna be have, are going to have a $2,000 plan of care. This is assuming [00:02:10] everybody converts at that point, which is obviously not the case, but this makes my math easier.

So this is 15 more [00:02:15] people times an initial value of. $2,000. That means that you have left [00:02:20] $30,000 on the table in this example. That hurts me to say that out loud. [00:02:25] That hurts anybody that is dealing with a low throughput through the [00:02:30] very top of their business funnel. Okay? This is where people are reaching out to you.

This is where people are starting [00:02:35] their relationship with you. And we gotta talk about the numbers around healthcare in [00:02:40] general, in terms of speed in which we are contacting people. It's abysmal in our [00:02:45] profession in general. And I'll share some statistics with you because [00:02:50] one of the benefits to being in the healthcare world is we don't actually have to be.

The best in the [00:02:55] world at this one variable because our industry is so bad at it. Okay, [00:03:00] so here are some basic numbers, right? When you look at the average time it takes [00:03:05] for a healthcare clinic to reach back out to a lead, it's two hours and five minutes. So a little over two [00:03:10] hours. The average consumer is expecting for you to reach out to them within 10 to 15 minutes.

So [00:03:15] here's the dis, the disconnect the consumer says. I, I expect somebody to reach out to me in 10, 15 [00:03:20] minutes. I'm interested right now the average clinic doesn't do it for two [00:03:25] hours and five minutes if they, frankly, probably do it at all. Okay. [00:03:30] Clinics on average have an 11%, 11% conversion rate. Now you gotta, you gotta [00:03:35] keep in mind this is also looking at hospital clinics and, and big clinics where, I dunno if you've ever gotten [00:03:40] on like a traditional, you know, hospital site or a bigger clinic site, it's very [00:03:45] hard to get in touch with anybody.

Um, you know, if you submit something, who knows where it's gonna go. You get any [00:03:50] confirmation about that whatsoever. And only about one in, uh, [00:03:55] nine. People end up converting. So only about 11% are gonna come in. And in fact, [00:04:00] uh, only about 3.2% of people that actually submit a [00:04:05] request on a medical site end up coming in to be seen by that practice [00:04:10] because the follow-up is so abysmal, it's terrible.

So here's the other thing that's [00:04:15] really interesting. We, we call this, you know, in, in, um. In PT [00:04:20] Biz, the business that that I run now, uh, we're very big on something called speed to [00:04:25] lead. So if someone engaged with us, it's the speed in which we reengage them [00:04:30] or follow up with them right to, to facilitate a conversation.

If someone expresses [00:04:35] interest in talking to our team, we wanna reach out to them as quickly as we. You can't. Now, [00:04:40] if you can respond to somebody within five minutes, it increases the likelihood they'll become a client by a [00:04:45] hundred times. Not a hundred percent. 100 times. Okay? [00:04:50] 100 times increase in the likelihood they become a client.

And again, like I said, keep in mind [00:04:55] people are busy. They lose motivation, they forget about things. They have a lot going on. Everybody is like that. [00:05:00] So. If you know that you can respond within five minutes and it increases the likelihood they'll become a customer by a [00:05:05] hundred times, it's probably worth doing that right now.

You may have somebody sitting around [00:05:10] waiting to be able to respond to everything, and that's fair. That's okay. [00:05:15] But we can put systems in place that really help us improve speed to lead and improve our follow [00:05:20] up process. Because keep in mind in this one example, we're talking about the difference of, let's [00:05:25] call it $30,000 in a month.

Even if it's half that right. Let's say only half [00:05:30] those people, no matter what you do or would convert and become a client, you're still talking about [00:05:35] $15,000 in this example, or $180,000. In a year. That's a [00:05:40] difference of hiring a staff member or not. That's a difference in your staff schedule, being full or not.

And [00:05:45] also keep in mind, this is, this is happening like this. This isn't anything you have to change. [00:05:50] This isn't anything you have to spend more money on necessarily to get more leads. And that's usually where people [00:05:55] think that they need more help. They, they say to themself, I don't have enough leads. Well, do you not have [00:06:00] enough leads?

Or are you not doing enough to convert the leads that you already have? Because [00:06:05] if. If both problems exist, you have to solve the conversion problem first, right? [00:06:10] Even if you, you're say, well, I'm only getting 10 leads, but only three outta the 10 are coming in, [00:06:15] let's solve that problem first before, before we try to get you 20 leads.

Because if we don't, you're gonna have the [00:06:20] same percentage throughput, and we're gonna have an even bigger drop off of people that are not gonna end up working with [00:06:25] you, and you're paying for those leads, or you're working really hard to get those leads. And that is where [00:06:30] we gotta fix this problem first.

It's like having a a, a hole in a bucket. You're trying to fill up with water. [00:06:35] It just doesn't work. Okay. But if we can go from 40% to 70%, it [00:06:40] makes an astronomical difference in terms of the revenue that your clinic is gonna be able to, [00:06:45] uh, to generate with already established interest and inbound [00:06:50] leads.

Right? So number one, we have to increase. The, the [00:06:55] speed of follow up. And there's a few ways that we can actually do this. Okay? So number one, you can have [00:07:00] a auto response in place, and I highly recommend doing this is really important. Um, but [00:07:05] people expect an auto response, right? And that's fine. But if you don't have that, that puts [00:07:10] you in a really bad spot.

So if somebody signs up. To talk to your team, let's say [00:07:15] that you have a, um, you know, a, uh, talk to us page, a contact US page, [00:07:20] and on that they can self-select a time to talk to your team. That's already a big [00:07:25] upgrade from a contact request form, but they pick a time from there. [00:07:30] They should get an auto response, an email, and potentially a text as well, [00:07:35] confirming the time.

Confirming the details of everything and that, that, [00:07:40] that is something that, you know, they've signed up for. They've gotten a response to say, yep, we have this locked in. [00:07:45] We will call you at this time. Okay? That's one thing. Now, [00:07:50] after that, if you can have somebody, if manually reach out. [00:07:55] To that person within five minutes, let's say five to [00:08:00] 15 minutes, here's what's gonna happen.

That person has already expressed interest. [00:08:05] They've just booked a time to talk to you. Now, let's say that time to talk to you is in like [00:08:10] five days, something like that, right? The further out that it goes, the, the [00:08:15] further out there they go on the, the schedule, the less likely it is that they're actually gonna come in.[00:08:20]

If, if, if they book within 24 hours, it's far more likely that they're gonna end up actually becoming a [00:08:25] client versus if they book five days out. It also increases your no-show rate, your cancellation rate. [00:08:30] Um, you're gonna have few people, fewer people follow through on that because again, they're busy and they lose [00:08:35] motivation.

They forget other shit gets in the way. They cancel it or they don't even cancel it. They just move, they put something else there. [00:08:40] So if you can reach out to them while they're interested in booking. They're much more [00:08:45] likely to be interested in having a conversation about that. Right. Or at a minimum, [00:08:50] even seeing if you can bump that up.

Right. So you could have your admin or. [00:08:55] Whatever it's that you wanna put in charge of this, have a notification that you just got a new [00:09:00] confirmation that somebody is scheduled a time and they're gonna reach out to them proactively [00:09:05] to talk to them to confirm that, to maybe even be able to get them scheduled, [00:09:10] uh, ahead of time or to maybe even bump up that conversation they have with somebody [00:09:15] else that you can then manually transfer them to.

So it's all about compressing the time in which they can have that [00:09:20] conversation if they can handle the conversation. Even better because cool. You know, we can talk about it. Oh yeah, we deal with this all the [00:09:25] time. Here's how, how we work. Let's get you in for an eval with doctor, whoever they're awesome on this [00:09:30] date.

How does that work for you? Cool. Now, think about you as the consumer. [00:09:35] If you're on, you know, you, you're at work and you, you, you're looking for [00:09:40] somebody to help you with your back pain because you're sitting all day or whatever and getting really stiff. [00:09:45] You find this clinic, you submit a time, you wanna talk to them, whatever.

You're still at work. And, and [00:09:50] they call you within five minutes. And they leave a mess. Even if you don't answer, they leave a message. Hey, this is [00:09:55] so and so from this clinic. I just wanna reach out. I saw that you booked with us. Um, we'd love to see if [00:10:00] we can, you know, ha handle what's going on and get you in earlier, uh, to talk to one of our [00:10:05] staff members or for an evaluation.

Um, go ahead and, you know, gimme a call back here if you get a chance [00:10:10] and uh, and if they pick up even better. 'cause then you can have that conversation right. Imagine that on the consumer [00:10:15] side, does that increase your likelihood of wanting to work with that business or decrease it? In most people's case, [00:10:20] obviously it's increasing it because you're showing that you are fast to reach out, you're [00:10:25] responsive, you're somebody that is like engaged as far as your business goes.

And keep in mind, they're comparing you [00:10:30] to other healthcare businesses. They're not comparing you to the Ritz-Carlton, they're [00:10:35] comparing you to other healthcare businesses. It's not that hard to beat traditional [00:10:40] healthcare. Remember, 11% of people that reach out actually become a patient [00:10:45] only 11%. Even in a, in not necessarily the best scenario.

This clinic was 40%. [00:10:50] They're almost four times the national average for healthcare clinics. So if you can just [00:10:55] take that extra step, do that non-automated thing that is so important, [00:11:00] that can make a massive difference. Now, let's say you call that person and they don't answer. What do you do after that?[00:11:05]

Well, we can have text message follow up. Uh, a lot of times people are [00:11:10] much better via text. Maybe they don't have time to get on a call, but they can [00:11:15] respond to a text. So you can call and then leave a text follow up. Hey, this is so and so from [00:11:20] this clinic. Just reaching out to you. Let us know, you know, if we, if, if you have any questions or if we can get you in any earlier, [00:11:25] do you have any time available to talk later today?

Uh, you know, a text. You'll get a [00:11:30] much, much bigger response from a text than you will from a callback, just from somebody leaving a, a voice message. If a lot of people don't [00:11:35] even check their voice messages, they just literally, uh, don't respond, uh, unless you send them a [00:11:40] text. So keep in mind that's huge as well.

And then you can follow up that same day. [00:11:45] With a follow-up email, hopefully something that adds some sort of value. You know, like [00:11:50] maybe it's like, Hey, we got your, you know, uh, your booking time locked in. [00:11:55] I wanted to share this with you. This is, um, you know, a couple videos that our [00:12:00] team has put together.

It's, you're, you're, you've, you've told us that you're having some sort of back issue. Here's a [00:12:05] couple exercises that our team put together that are just general things that can help people with, um, [00:12:10] with a stiff lower back, which sounds like you're dealing with. Maybe try these in the meantime. You know, something that is value [00:12:15] driven specific to that person, that's ideal.

But even if it's generalized, this is better [00:12:20] than what most people are doing. Most people are not calling anybody in any sort of significant, you know, uh, [00:12:25] uh, fast period of time. Nobody is sending a text message and nobody's sending an email. And if they are, it's very, [00:12:30] very generalized. So even if you can do this in a somewhat non-automated way, more, more [00:12:35] individualized way, you're gonna have an increased response.

Now, a lot of people drop off there, [00:12:40] they stop there. The next day you gotta call 'em back or text them again [00:12:45] the third day, call 'em back or text them again. What we want to typically [00:12:50] have is five to seven touch points between email, text, and phone calls for [00:12:55] people to eventually. Cross that line. Now, once they have shown that they're [00:13:00] not over the course of one to two weeks, well that's when you move 'em into long-term follow up, [00:13:05] which is probably gonna be your newsletter.

So you having an ongoing newsletter where you're sharing value, you're [00:13:10] sharing content that you're doing, you're sharing updates on the clinic. This is where they go into long-term follow up, but the [00:13:15] vast majority of clinics are not doing five to seven touch points. Most of them are doing zero to [00:13:20] one.

You know, it's like zero. I get this automated stuff that went out. They didn't show up. [00:13:25] Oh, they're a bad lead. That's not necessarily true. Maybe they just lost motivation. Maybe [00:13:30] we could have followed up with them in a more individualized way and they would've been a great patient. We would've really been able to help them.

[00:13:35] So even if they do a call the day that it happens, maybe it's not for a few [00:13:40] hours, then they just say, oh, they didn't answer. Move them into. [00:13:45] Long term follow up, put, put 'em on the newsletter list. They're obviously not interested and that's [00:13:50] just not the case. You have to be more diligent about follow up five to seven times, and if you [00:13:55] don't have time to do this, this is a great opportunity for why you might wanna hire an admin, you know, or somebody [00:14:00] that can actually help with this process.

Now what if you hire somebody and they're not the best at having those [00:14:05] conversations? That's okay. They can take the low hanging fruit. People that are referred by other people and they're like, yeah, I [00:14:10] just wanna get scheduled. I wanna book, you know, whatever. Okay, cool. I'll get you set up. No problem.

People that [00:14:15] are coming from, uh, ads or maybe they're less, less, um, aware of your business, [00:14:20] that's where you can then set a time to talk to one of the phy or one of the physical therapists and you say, [00:14:25] okay, cool. Yeah, I would love for you to talk to, you know, uh, doc so and so. They can answer [00:14:30] these questions a lot more detail than I can.

I'm not a clinician. Um, how does that sound? Oh, great. Uh, let's [00:14:35] go ahead and do that. Okay. How about I have him call you today after his patients or, or over lunch or [00:14:40] after her patients, whatever, and, and they'll go ahead and give you a call and they can have a conversation about, you know, [00:14:45] what's going on with you and see if it's the right fit for us to work with you.

And if not, they'll be able to really give you a better idea of what you should look [00:14:50] to do next. And for a lot of people, that's a ton of value. I mean, how many people actually talk to the actual medical [00:14:55] provider they're gonna work with in a hospital before they come in? It's very, very rare. And if they are gonna do it, they're probably [00:15:00] charging you for it.

So these are where we can add value along the way. So. Overall, [00:15:05] the, the, the long story short, here's what you gotta keep in mind. Okay, number one, then [00:15:10] you track your numbers, track everything. In fact, this clinic owner, we wouldn't have even [00:15:15] known that there was a drop off problem if he wasn't tracking it.

'cause for a lot of people, they just look to see, is my schedule [00:15:20] busy? How many new evaluations do I have? All that stuff you need to track this stuff. Okay? So whether that's [00:15:25] in a Google sheet, in a CRM. You know, a, a, a tool that's like software or you're using [00:15:30] something like a Monday board. It's sort of like a, like, like a, like a Excel sheet on [00:15:35] steroids, whatever it is, you're tracking these things.

You're tracking touch points, you're tracking where they're coming from [00:15:40] and whether they're converting or not. You need to know these numbers so you can be very clear about how you're doing and [00:15:45] what you might need to actually improve. Now, once you have a clear idea of how these [00:15:50] things are going, that's when you can start to make some of these changes and you can start to implement faster.

Follow up, [00:15:55] better follow up. Automated, you know, responses. If you don't have those already, those are [00:16:00] the easiest thing to start with. 'cause it's at least lets people know, Hey, you're verified. We're gonna talk to you at this point in time [00:16:05] and this date, whatever it is. But then having people on your team that can actually reach out in a [00:16:10] non-automated way to have conversations faster.

Speed is really important. It's step [00:16:15] number one. Then it's about consistency. It's just, and, and people say, well, I'm, I [00:16:20] just feel like I'm pestering them. I'm bothering them. No, that's not the way the consumer looks at it. [00:16:25] Now, if you do this every day for years, or you do this every day for a month, yes [00:16:30] you're bothering them.

But in the first one to two weeks you need to pastor them because they've [00:16:35] obviously showed you they're interested. And keep in mind, physical therapy is delayed gratification. [00:16:40] Nobody wants to come to see us, nobody. You think people want to go to the dentist? [00:16:45] They do not, they don't like going to the dentist.

They do it 'cause they don't like, they dislike cavities more [00:16:50] than they dislike the dentist. Okay? They, they want to keep their teeth, but they don't like to go to [00:16:55] the dentist and they don't want to go to physical therapy either. You understand that we are not [00:17:00] a, a pleasant option for people. If they're coming to see us, that means they're hurt or they're dealing with [00:17:05] something that they can't actually do.

They can't run, they can't jump, they can't play a sport with their kid. They're [00:17:10] not necessarily. Booking themself a spa day. Okay? They're not looking forward to it, [00:17:15] so we have to follow up with them and keep that in mind because if they don't come in to see us, what happens? [00:17:20] They deal with the same shit.

They ignore the same shit, they avoid all the same stuff, [00:17:25] and they, they miss out on using their body in life for the things they love [00:17:30] most, the people that they love doing them the most with period. And your team needs to understand that [00:17:35] your team needs to keep that top of mind. That's what we help people with and they don't want to come in to see us.

But [00:17:40] damnit, we're helpful. We're very, very helpful. So it's our job to get them in the door. Follow [00:17:45] up, follow up, follow up. Fortune is in the follow-up, and so many people are not doing it. They're not [00:17:50] prioritizing it, and it's because they forget that we're here to serve people and help people. [00:17:55] And sometimes those people aren't jumping at the chance to work with us, and that is [00:18:00] totally normal.

So remember. Speed to lead. Get on the phone with 'em within [00:18:05] five to 15 minutes if you can. Massive increase in the likelihood they're gonna become a client. It's worth [00:18:10] it to try to do so, and I know you may not be able to do it because you're busy with other things. That's fine. Try to get in touch with 'em [00:18:15] as fast as you possibly can.

Then follow up, follow up, follow up. Multi [00:18:20] multitude of different touch touchpoints between text, email, and phone call. And then make [00:18:25] sure that you try to get them on a call. Get them on some sort of like touchpoint with you. [00:18:30] Faster so that they can then make a decision to either come in to work with you or maybe it's not the [00:18:35] right decision.

But either way, they will lose motivation. You want to catch them while that motivation is the highest, so you can get them in [00:18:40] the office and really help them make the change they're looking forward to making. So hope this helps you. [00:18:45] Remember these small changes can be the difference of literally. [00:18:50] Six figures in revenue, if not multiple six figures in revenue at scale in your clinic.

It's [00:18:55] worth it for you to look at. It isn't the coolest shit in the world, I get it, but it is the operational stuff that makes a [00:19:00] big difference between whether your business is functional or whether your business is mediocre and just sort of limps [00:19:05] along. So hope this helps. As always, thank you for watching and listening.

I'll see you next [00:19:10] time.