I remember working in a hotel and they got a new marketing manager who promptly went down to the front desk and stopped the receptionists selling unbooked rooms on the night at a cheap price. Her logic was - people who haven't booked in advance - they don't have a room booked - they are in pain because all they want is a room - now is the time they will pull out their credit card and pay top dollar because they don't want to phone up or walk to the next hotel to see what is on offer.
Now yes, some people will shop around, but generally if someone is in pain and they want their pain fixed there and then - they will pay whatever it takes to get a result.
I learned a lot about marketing in my other life as a hotel financial controller, because this type of logic showed up directly in the profit line of the hotel's books.
Discounting at the time of consumption is K-Mart territory.
Charging full price at the time of consumption is the domain of hotels and airlines.
As therapists we want to be like the latter not the former.
Its not widely known outside the industry but Hotels and Airlines start to discount a room or seat around 18 months out at events like ATO (Australian Tourism Exchange). All the tourism brokers from around the world come in and bid on blocks of rooms. They get the rooms at rock bottom prices but only have access to those rates for a negotiated period of time. Anything not sold by then, well the hotels take those rooms back and up goes the price.
That's why the tourism industry can do those knock down deals that encourage you to book and buy early.
Then once the hotel knows how many rooms they have left from that discounting exercise, they will put the price up and start either trying to advertise the rooms themselves or they will try to sell them off to other buyers.
All the while the prices go up.
Then closer to the consumption date (the day the room gets used) they offer what's left out on discount sites like Wotif.
Then have you noticed how hard it is to get a deal close to the day of consumption.
If you walk up to an airline counter and want to fly NOW - the price of that ticket will be astronomical, because they know you need to fly that day and that you have few choices at that time .... so they hang out to sell that ticket at a high price. It also messes with their admin if they have to change the loading of the plane, so guess who pays for the cost of that admin - yep you guessed right - the late booker.
This is the model therapists could consider adopting. Fill early at discount and fill last minute at a high price.
This is why packages work so well - people buy their session up front and you can then manage any space left over spaces weeks out.
But those packages need to be discounted off what hotels call your "rack rate". "Rack" is rarely charged to anyone, except if they are trying to book on the day of consumption. "Rack" is rarely charged but it is always there.
Your price funnel needs to reflect that "rack rate system".
So your top end price will be really high - no one really expects to pay it, but there is always a chance someone will be desperate enough to pay it. Then your package rates are what you DO expect people to pay. Then you have another rate, which is the discounted rate, which only gets given out if you haven't sold the top two rates. That would be what's called "back filling" - dates and times you always struggle to fill.
Wotif is a great example of last minute discounts - I LOVE Wotif but I also know if I want a specific hotel and room type on a specific date - then I better book up front with the hotel and pay the price.
Build on Expertise NOT on Price
The aim of any therapist should be to be building as fast as they can toward being seen as the "go to person" for their particular area.
It's a delicate balance in the early days between filling those empty diary spaces by opimising your cash flow AND building a high end practice. But when you start discounting too much, people start to see you like K-Mart - cheap, hi availability and open all hours. Won't take you long to figure out that will wear you out personally.
The ideal is hi end, hi demand, hi attendence in the limited spaces your treatment room is open. That way you are in optimum health and giving 120% to your clients and are not worn out trying to make a dollar seeing heaps of people each week.
In order to push prices higher further down the track, you can't be out discounting every week - and if you do, you need a reason to discount - one airline has Friday Fare Frenzy and its is totally random. You will notice they RARELY discount their hi end business class seats in these types of offers, they are "back filling" cattle class and keeping the hi end part of their business in tact.
I'd recomend you create a "cattle class" type of treatment for the discounted spots - I say that with love of course, I'm not encouraging you to treat your people like airlines treat their customers - but do have a clear definition between a full fare treatment and a discounted treatment. That way when your diary is full, you simply pull the discounted treatment off the menu and all those full fare high paying, high tipping, fabulous "A" type clients don't even notice anything has changed.
"C" type clients will always just find someone else - "A" type clients stay loyal and will often book the same spot each week or month and are happy to pay for the privilege of having the same regular time slot.
I want you to have a highly abundant practice full of clients who know and love you and are willing and able to pay your fees, treat you with respect and keep coming back.
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