4 reasons why you need to stop selling single sessions as a healthcare practitioner

Hands up if you left your training with the impression that you charged people per session.

I’m here to tell you that this approach is setting you up to fail as a business owner, and in truth when I’ve seen the backend of MULTIPLE nutritionist, naturopath and dietician’s businesses – their effective hourly rate, has worked out at about $30 per hour.

The real truth is that selling single sessions will keep you broke and exhausted.

Here’s why…

1. The only thing your customer sees as part of your value is the amount they’re spending for 45 minutes of your time. 

The reality of being a health practitioner is that there is so much that goes on behind the scenes from replying to emails, professional development, the marketing and visibility work that goes into actually getting clients, navigating questions about booking for appointments, bookkeeping – the list goes on!

For the client, it might feel like 45 minutes but the reality is that you’re probably spending all up 2 hours for every 45-minute session.

2. It gives your clients a subconscious impression that things can be ‘fixed’ in one appointment. Things can almost never be solved in a single appointment.

Even if deep down your client knows that there’s no way they’ll get everything fixed in one single appointment – they’re still going to be expecting to walk away with answers and action steps when you sell a single appointment (or even worse, expect one prescription for herbs or a meal plan) that they can walk away with and never have to return.

We all know that’s never the case. It’s usually going to take 6 – 12 appointments at least for someone to get the true answers and transformation that they’re seeking.

But when we have this single session what inevitably happens is:

You either don’t give them enough to chew on (because #literallyimpossible in the first session) and they leave feeling underwhelmed… and the awkward – ‘come back’ conversation has them not really feeling it (or worse yet. You don’t even ask them to come back again and rely on them to do that because you’re feeling uber uncomfortable even asking!)

Or

You try to blow their minds in one session so that they come back but what’s actually happened is that you’ve given them much too much information/action steps and they haven’t taken everything in. They’ve felt overwhelmed, and then still haven’t left feeling like they’re winning, so still don’t book in again.

3. You keep having to sell, again and again, to keep them coming back

It’s exhausting having to try and convert someone to come back again and again and again into your practice.

It creates massive dread for you and revenue uncertainty, and the customer has to then mentally commit to you at every single appointment. It creates a fuzzy mindset because sometimes you’re spending the entire appointment trying to psych yourself up for the ask.

For them, every appointment becomes a decision about whether or not they want to progress which…just like going to the gym, sometimes it takes 4 months of working through testing, elimination diets, and consistency—before they finally start to see results. It’s really hard to keep having this conversation when it feels like to them—do I just need to keep seeing you weekly forever until I die? 

If you primarily work on people and their mindsets – they don’t often understand that sometimes you’ll feel a bit worse before you feel better (especially if you’re finally starting to feel feelings that you’ve been pushing down for so long, or finally realise that your mother is a giant narcissist etc)

There’s massive uncertainty for you. And there’s uncertainty for them too.

4. The math doesn’t stack up

So much so, that it’s likely keeping you like a hamster on a wheel for minimum wage.

Let’s do some simple business math…

• If your business brings in $100,000 in revenue (excluding herbs and supplements etc)
• That’s going to look like: $50,000 wages for you.
• At 35 hours per week x 48 weeks per year, that would look like an effective hourly rate of $32.55 per hour
• If you charge an average of $150 per session, that’s 667 sessions per year
• = 14 sessions per week

Let’s say that your 32 hours per week look something like this:

• 14 appointments spread across 4 days
• 3 hours of professional development
• 1 hour of email x 5 days (=5 hours)
• 2 hours of business admin (bookkeeping, ordering, onboarding etc)
• 1 day of content creation and marketing (= 8 hours)

Let’s recap that:

You’re working 32 hours per week, for a wage of $32.55 per hour and need to sell 667 appointments per year. So underwhelming.

And doesn’t really encompass the time it takes to create client resources like meal plans and protocols, or the context switching and exhaustion that comes with seeing 4 – 5 clients per day.

In short. It’s a lot for not a little.

So what should you do? 

Sell a package (not a single session or a number of sessions) that is based on what it takes for you to give your clients the solution they’re looking for – and make it extra valuable, and become a specialist in ONE single type of transformation.

Instead of an example of seeing all types of women, you might specialise in corporate women who are navigating adrenal fatigue.

This means that… when you create meal plans – they’re all going to be similar.

When you create recommended resource lists… they’re all going to be similar

You’ll become KNOWN in the industry for something.

And you’ll become an absolute pro at helping women get a transformation.

So let’s say for example that instead of selling single sessions, you create a ‘heal your adrenal fatigue package’

(maybe initially it includes 1:1 but then later you move away from that)

You can always allow people to book their initial package, and then when it comes to the end of the appointment you can have an honest conversation about what healing their adrenal fatigue would look like.

i.e. So it looks to me like this is going on.

What you’d be looking at is about 4 months to help you get back on track

By the end of four months, you should be seeing big results in:

• How they’ll feel better
• How they’ll feel better
• How they’ll feel better

We have a package for that, which will help you save $$$ (and this appointment can come within that), $1,497 and within that is:

• 6 x fortnightly sessions with me
• 4 x seasonal recipe packs
• A weekly email check-in with me
• A progress log
• An online portal of training videos to help you meal plan, grocery shop etc
• A bonus interview series on how to navigate stress in the workplace, 
• Etc etc

Individually our package is worth $2,950 but if you join the package and you’ll save roughly half.

What happens when you sell that, is not only do you become an expert in your field, but you’re honest and transparent, it helps you step away from ‘per session’ selling and creates a sustainable business.

You become more profitable, and best of all – to reach that $100,000 revenue mark – you only have to secure 67 people on that package.

If you want to learn more about how you can create a more sustainable (money and time!) business, grab a copy of my checklist here with 59 things you can do to reclaim your time, energy and income!

LINKS + WORK WITH ME

• Free Case Study – How we got 1500 launch-ready email subscribers in 3 weeks
• Get a 30 Day Free Trial of Kartra – our Course, Email and Funnel Software
• Swipe our Manychat Setup (and our Instagram Story to Subscribers Sequences + more)
• Want to launch an online course? Jump on the waitlist here.
• Work with me in the Well Conceived Mastermind
• 1:1 Coaching

FOLLOW

• Daily tips on growing your audience, impact and revenue (without sacrificing your life): @robynbirkin