Kelsey Marksteiner: I don’t think I want to post it in the Facebook group, but let me see if I can post it here just so you guys can see it. Seriously, it’s the simplest thing in the world. Let me pull this up here. You could make it way more intense. You could have a ton more questions on here. What I would recommend is unless you know right off the bat that someone is going to be a great fit, I would recommend having a quick conversation with them if that fits into how you run your practice. Maybe just do, like, a 15-minute free call with a person you think is going to be a good client. That will give you a lot more information as well. Typically I use the questionnaire to weed people out. If I really think you’re not going to be a good person for my practice, this is what I use to determine that.
You guys can see here it’s really simple. I mean, this is just a Google form that I put together. It just asks them, “What health issues would you like help with?” “What treatment options have you pursued thus far?” and “What brought you to me? Why do you feel we would make a great team?” That, I think, honestly, is the most important question to ask, and that’s what I look the most at. I also like to know, generally, are you trying to work on things that I am an expert at, that I feel like I can help you with? And what have you tried so far? Maybe you’ve tried everything that I think I would do with you anyway. I want to know that too because if they’re well beyond what I can offer as a practitioner, we’re not going to be a good fit either because they’re not going to feel like we make any progress because I’m just recommending things that they’ve already tried with other practitioners.
But then beyond that—that’s just the basic information that I need—I ask, “What brought you to me? Why do you feel we would make a great team?” This tells me two things: It tells me where they’re finding me. That’s a really good thing to look at for your practice because if you’re seeing that you’re getting referrals just from one person, it’s kind of like putting all your eggs in one basket, so you really want to diversify where you’re getting referrals from. Hopefully it’s a lot of word of mouth as well. That can be really, really great. Or if they’re just finding your website, that can be great because it means they’re Googling all the right stuff that you want your great clients to be Googling to find you. Then when they answer, “Why do you feel we would make a great team?” that’s where you get a sense of whether they’ve been following you for a long time. Typically when I look for a great client, they’ll know who I am as a person. Like, they probably listen to my podcast. They just sort of get me, and they understand my process and how I probably am going to interact with them as a client. So they’ve already self-selected as someone who jives with that. That’s what you really want because those people make the best clients. They already understand your process and how you work, and so you’re not constantly fighting with them throughout the process. That is really what makes or breaks a good client interaction.
This does not have to be intense. You don’t have to have somebody fill out, like, a five-page questionnaire to really get a sense of whether they’re going to be a good client or not. But then from here, if it works out for you, I would say use this as a way to weed people out. If all these answers just kind of tell you, no, this person probably isn’t going to be a good client, I would just shoot them an email and say, “Hey, you know, based on what you told me in your questionnaire, I don’t think that we’re going to be a great fit to work together, but here are some other places you can look for a practitioner.” Or “I have a great recommendation that might work really well for you.” For example, I don’t really work with gestational diabetes clients, but if I got someone who fills this out and says, “I have gestational diabetes. I really want help with that,” I’d say, “I don’t think we’re a great fit to work together, but I have this colleague who is amazing at this, and you would be a great fit.” Give them something else to do. Don’t turn them down with no other options. People don’t like that. Give them something else to look at or a place to go to find someone else. My go-tos for that are PrimalsDocs.com and Paleo Physicians Network. Then at least I’ve given them another place to look for someone that maybe they haven’t before.
Then if you think that they may be a good client, but you’re not sure based on these answers, you could offer a free consult. Again, it doesn’t have to be long or intense. Ten or 15 minutes is usually adequate. Just have a conversation with them about what they’re trying to accomplish, and you’ll get a sense of them as a person, they’ll get a sense of you as a person maybe if they’re not super familiar with you yet, and you’ll be able to tell pretty easily if they’re going to be a good client. In your email where they’re going to schedule this call, just say, “I’d like to get a little bit more information to help me determine if we’re going to be a good fit,” because you don’t want to give them false hope if they end up not being a good fit for you.
Then if you get one of these questionnaires filled in and it just looks like an awesome client, you can either choose to give them that free consult if you want to, or you can just say, “Hey, we’re going to be an awesome fit. I’m really ready to go. I hope you are too. You can either sign up for your first session right here, or if you’d prefer to have a quick free chat with me, you can sign up for that here.” Then if you don’t want to do any free consults, you can just say to anyone who looks like a good fit, “Here’s where you can sign up for my package.” If you have a longer package, like if it’s a three-month package or something like that, I would say, in general, you’re going to convert more people if you do offer a free consult, but if you have just like an initial consult as the thing that you’re selling to your clients first, you typically don’t need to do that because it’s a low enough price point that people are willing to just go with that right off the bat.
Yeah, that’s my process and it works pretty well. I definitely have gone through many iterations of taking clients and the way that I do that, and having a questionnaire or some sort of application process, I think, really makes a huge difference because you end up with people who are better clients for you, and you’re going to get better results for your clients, and they’re going to be happier because of that.