Why the rule of thumb is wrong for you
- It ignores capacity. A provider booked solid six weeks out does not need more leads; they need a second provider or higher prices.
- It ignores the leaks. Spend that fills a phone nobody answers is a donation.
- It ignores seasonality. Aesthetics has months with open chairs and months without. The budget should move with them.
- It is somebody else's number. Your new-patient value, your rebooking rate and your open hours are the only inputs that matter.
Three numbers set the budget
- New-patient value: your average first-visit ticket plus the visits in the first year, from your record system. Label it approximate until the records confirm it.
- Open capacity: provider hours unbooked per month, by month, for the next quarter. The calendar has this already.
- Cost to fill a chair, by channel: what you spent last quarter on each channel, divided by the new patients it booked. Where you do not know, the number is unknown, not zero.
What to fund first
- Answer the phone, every hour. Nothing else earns until the call is picked up and the lead is worked.
- Reviews and the profile. The cheapest new patients come from the map, and the map rewards recency and responses.
- The list. Patients past their treatment interval are the highest-return spend in the practice, because the money is already in your records.
- Paid. Ads, partnerships and events, once the first three are measured and the chairs are still open.
What each channel costs and when it earns
| Channel | Costs mostly time or mostly money | When it earns | How to measure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Answering every call and DM | Money for the system, little time | The first week | Bookings from calls and DMs that used to be missed |
| Reviews and the Google profile | Time weekly, little money | Over weeks to a few months | Treatment searches, calls and booking taps from the profile insights |
| Reactivating lapsed patients | Money for the build, little time after | The first month | Reactivated visits and their 90-day revenue, tracked separately |
| Social content and DM funnels | Time every week | Over a quarter | Comments, consents, consults booked, paying visits |
| Paid ads | Money, and time to manage | Within weeks, if the funnel converts | Cost per booked consult and per paying patient, not per lead |
| Events and partnerships | Time and some money | The month of the event | Bookings and rebookings attributed to the event |
A worked example, labelled illustrative
This is an illustrative example; every number is a placeholder for your own. Say your records put a new patient at $900 in the first year, and say the calendar shows 40 open provider hours next month that could hold 20 consults. Say your profile and your reactivation list are filling 12 of those chairs at almost no cost. The illustrative gap is 8 chairs, worth about $7,200 if filled. If a paid channel has booked a consult for $150 in your own history, that example channel earns its budget of about $1,200 for the month. If it has booked one for $600, in this illustrative case it does not, and the money goes to capacity or stays in the bank. Replace every input with your own before you spend.
How to set yours on Monday
- Pull new-patient value and open hours by month from your record system and calendar.
- List last quarter's spend by channel next to the new patients each booked. Mark the unknowns.
- Fund the order above until the chairs are full or the next dollar costs more than it returns.
- Review the same page monthly. The budget is a number that moves, not a line set once in January.
What to do next
NorthCore's Know your numbers solution builds the budget page: new-patient value, open capacity and cost per booked patient by channel on one dashboard, with the first leak closed by Answer every patient. Scoped in writing and covered by the promise on this site: results in 90 days, or we keep working until you have them.
