The Winter Dip

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Round about this time of year I find that trade drops off quite dramatically until Christmas. this year is no different, although not as bad as last year. I wondered if this experience is unique to me, or wether others suffer this seasonal dip. If so, what, if any, marketing strategies, do you employ to increase business during the quiet patches?

Many thanks,

Regards,

Tim

 

I believe that this is a common finding in Private Practice. My business is usually a slightly bit quieter (not dramatically so) in October and February. I simply use the time to work on practice improvements. This is either deep cleaning the surgery or working on advertising such as writing leaflets and dealing with other paperwork. So sometimes I am quite glad for the slacker period.

 

Hi Tim,

I live in the United States being retired from private practice, but used to have difficulty between the end of November (Thanksgiving) and New Years with people keeping their appointments. The holidays are a big distraction. I was then slower after New Years. What I would do is have my girls call my patients that we were not currently seeing to see how they were doing. It was a courtesy call to show an interest in their well being. If they were doing well we would note that in their chart. If they had a complaint about the office or wanted to speak with me I would promptly return their call. If they were having a problem we would schedule them for an appointment. We would start with the beginning of the alphabet and start working through systematically. It usually did not take long to fill my schedule. During the holiday season I would overbook a little more due to the increased number of no shows.

Joel

 

Hi Tim,

If you plot your income for the year at monthly increments you should find a peak in October (probably at the beginning) before the drop-off.

Peaks are usually April, June and October. Drop-offs are usually November through Christmas, and July through August.

Liking a challenge I've gone for work in which there are different peaks and troughs (med-leg).
If you know your busy and quiet times you can tailor your work and holidays to suit.

Cheers,

David

 

Hi David

Thanks for that. Funnily enough I don't get the July/August dip, just the November/December one. I do plan accordingly but am just curious as to what the economic or other factors might be, especially given that I have moved counties and changed the type of work I do along the way. Armed with this information I might be able to perhaps head it off a bit with some targeted marketing!

Cheers

Tim

 

Hi Tim,
How interesting, I always find October and February are my quieter months but the weeks leading up to xmas are really busy. I wonder if its the type of work we do? I do, what I call, basic podiatry (domicillary); perhaps its the type of client base that makes the difference? I have noticed over the years that I can guarantee no one will call on the day of the General Election, rarely on Budget Day but will continue to call xmas day, bank hols etc!

 

I'm spending today compiling a list of patients that I haven't seen in a while. My plan is to phone them up and try and get them booked in. For those that I cant get through to I'm sending a Christmas card with a voucher. I figure if I spend £20 on buying and sending cards I only need to get 1 person booked in to pay that back.
Last Friday I noticed that my Monday appointments were a bit thin so I announced on facebook and twitter that I would give 1/2 price treatments for any new patients that booked over the weekend. I got 1 booking and she will be coming back regularly for nail cutting.

I only get dip in Autumn till new year. This year it started to go quiet toward the end of November but last year it was as soon as September started, I put that down to the weather and the economy.

 

Well I certainly got caught up on a load of paperwork in early November! Things are getting busy again here so it has been a much shorter dip than last year. I too have increased my marketing on Facebook and Twitter so we will see what that brings. I think it reflects the general state of the economy rather than patient demographic as my case load is mixed and I believe sales on the high street were slightly up this year compared to last. I cant really think of any other reason that makes sense.
Anyway, wishing you all continued success in your businesses

Regards

Tim

 

You cannot fix the economy or change the time of year. You can fix your business.

I disagree that it is the time of year or economy that is responsible for slowdowns in our profession. It is our actions or inactions that make the difference, nothing more.

Do you want to see what changed, the real reason for the slowdown? Go through your books and compile your statistics if you do not already keep stats. Start with the bigger stuff like total number of patients, number of new patients, number of patients that failed to make their appointment, income generated, income received….. yearly, monthly, weekly. Graph the numbers so you can see them. Seeing is important. You will be surprised at what you find. When you find a point or points of change, either positive or negative, look at your practice just before the change(s) to see what is different or what occurred. Say you noticed a drop off the 3rd week of October. What happened in the 2nd week of October? There you will likely find your answer.

*Up and down turns are caused by actions or inactions within your business by you or your employees. They just don’t happen.*

The point is look IN your practice NOT at external sources. What action or inaction caused production to go up? Find out and do more of it. What caused the down turn? Find out and stop doing it.

If you have identified the incorrect reason there will be no change in your numbers or things will get worse. If you address the correct reason you will almost immediately see an improvement in your numbers.

Don’t justify what you think the cause may be without hard supporting data. Look at your numbers as they will tell the correct tale.

Concerning downturns in your business, you have two choices 1. Do nothing while helplessly watching and rationalizing as to why your income is falling or 2. Find the cause, fix it, continue to grow and expand.