Stop chasing new ads! Ildi Arlette (Results Continuum) reveals 3 simple patient engagement behaviors to unlock hidden revenue from the traffic you already have.
In this tactical episode of Grow Smarter, host Andrew Hong sits down with 24-year clinic consultant Ildi Arlette to dive deep into the internal systems that turn marketing spend into real cash flow. Too many clinics waste money chasing new leads while ignoring the 80% of revenue hidden in their existing patient list.
Learn how to fix your broken marketing-to-sales handoff , why you must respond to leads in 3-5 minutes , and how to master the "3 Core Revenue Behaviors" (Track, Reflect, Act) to scale sustainably.
Here are a few resources that Ildi has shared with our community:
Free Conversion Calculator: Get Ildi's one-page tool to start tracking your consult-to-treatment numbers.
Free 30-Min Clarity Call: Book a complimentary session with Ildi Arlette to get clarity on your biggest operational gaps.
Connect with Ildi: Website: resultscontinuum.com | Instagram @Ildi_Arlette
Connect with Tobe: Head over to tobeagency.co to get a personalized assessment of your clinic's marketing today
Andrew opens with a common problem: clinic owners with 3,000-4,000 patient emails who have never marketed to them. They want to spend more on ads but haven't "shaken revenue loose from their existing tree". Ildi confirms this is the biggest mistake.
Andrew shares a case study of a new practice where ads generated great clicks, but zero appointment bookings. The problem wasn't the marketing; it was the internal process.
Ildi outlines three simple, actionable behaviors (Track, Reflect, Act) clinics must adopt to scale revenue.
Ildi provides a brilliant, zero-cost patient engagement tip: treat your voicemail or on-hold message as a "digital billboard".
Ildi Arlette is the go-to business consultant and certified coach for medical aesthetics clinics, spas, and wellness clinic leaders across Canada and the US. With 24 years of experience working with over 450 clinics, she's known for her clear, proven, and practical strategies that help clinic owners run profitable businesses.
Andrew Hong: Welcome back to Grow Smarter, brought to you by Tobii Marketing Media. As a founder, you know the pressure of making every marketing dollar count. My mission at Tobii Agency is to help healthcare and wellness entrepreneurs have more confidence, waste less, and grow smarter in their marketing and media investments.
In our last episode with Ildi Arlette, we tackled the Q4 rush, learning how to create profitable offers without relying on deep discounts. But what happens after the holiday season? How do clinics build sustainable, year-round revenue without constantly chasing the next big marketing campaign?
The truth is, many clinics are sitting on untapped potential. I talk about this all the time in my discovery calls. They focus heavily on getting new patients in the door, spending time and money on ads, while neglecting the fastest path to more revenue: optimizing the behaviors inside your clinic. Are your consultations converting? Is your team following up effectively? Do you even know your numbers? Today, we're diving into the critical internal behaviors that drive profit. Our guest, Ildi, is back to share the simple, actionable steps clinics often get wrong and the three core revenue behaviors you can implement now to unlock hidden growth using the traffic you already have.
So welcome back to the show, Ildi. How are you doing?
Ildi Arlette: Excellent. So happy to be here again.
Andrew Hong: Yeah, we just finished editing the last episode, and there were so many nuggets. I shared some content with our team, and they said your comments about the introvert entrepreneur who needs to throw an event... was a really important thing to note. A lot of entrepreneurs, believe it or not, are introverts, and that was a really actionable, relevant piece of advice. So thank you for all the insight there.
Today, I want to set the stage. As a marketing agency owner, I talk to a lot of prospective clients. They're wanting to spend money on Google Ads, on Facebook Ads, but I ask them, "Hey, do you have a CRM in place?" The reason I ask is that to track the effectiveness of my ads, I need a tool to measure performance. But I also ask them, "Are you emailing your existing patients?" And they usually say no. I ask how many contacts or patients have given them money more than once. Some say 3,000, 4,000... and my jaw just hits the ground. I'm like, "Wait a second. You've never emailed them? Not even something educational?" They're like, "No."
I'm like, "Okay, we need to fix that first. Let's generate revenue from there, then use that revenue to run ads," because ads are not always ROI positive from day one. If you haven't figured out a way to shake revenue loose from your existing tree, you're probably making a mistake. You argue a lot that clinics chase that next big thing. What's the biggest mistake you see clinics making when they prioritize chasing new clients instead of converting the ones already walking in?
Ildi Arlette: Your answer is in your question, which is... the mistake is that literally every single client I've ever worked with says their main priority is to get more patients. I love that goal. I understand it. I've now come to call it an incomplete sentence. It should say, "I want more new client patients," or "I want more patients."
The existing patients are where the money is at.
I am so confident about this, and I have said it for 24 years: The money that you will make—every single person listening to this podcast—80% or more of their revenue will come from clients and people they already know. We call those your existing patients.
There are some clinics that are brand new, one, two, or three years old, and they haven't leveraged what they have yet. That's okay. They have time to learn. For those newer clinics, it may not be an 80/20 split. It may be 70/30. But I am here to bet everything I have and own for anybody ever to show me [that's not true].
I have worked with clinics for almost a quarter of a decade. I get to see what's happening behind the curtain. I'm in the weeds with clinic owners and their teams every single day. I get this amazing privilege to see the numbers. I have yet to have a clinic say the majority of their revenue this year came from new clients. For most clinics, it's actually higher than 80/20.
Think about it: if your business made $1,000, what I'm saying is that $800 of that $1,000 will be from patients you already know, who've already come to see you, who you may already have their email for. And $200-$300 will come from people who found you through an ad, social, or a random Google search.
We are so busy chasing new business, new business, new business, we're literally neglecting the ones we have. I don't mean nurturing them or being kind. I mean selling energy. We realize practitioners are uncomfortable with the words sales, selling, revenue, profit. But here we are. When you all see spreadsheets and numbers, you see numbers, and I see behaviors. That $1,000 you made is an outcome of behaviors you took to get that revenue.
That's as complicated as it is. It's the same with ads and marketing. That ad had elements that made a person take an action, and that action is a behavior—clicking a link, filling in a form. What we've done for all these years is track those behaviors. So I can tell you with confidence: Focus on your existing patients.
And the good news, although it is painful, Andrew, when someone says, "Yeah, we have 400 emails, we have 3,000 emails. What have you done with them? Nothing," I'd like to give everybody grace and say, "You mean nothing yet." The good news is, when you have those emails, that's the real gift. You're not supposed to know what to do with them. That's why you have a business and why I have a business.
One of our principles at RCI is "Use what you have." If you have those emails, use those emails. It's okay not to know what to do. That will come.
So, what behaviors do we take in-clinic to increase that revenue? If 80% of my income comes from existing patients, 80% of my energy should go there. 20% should go to trying to get new ones. What's beautiful about that 20% is I'm not saying you as a clinic owner need to become a marketing expert. You use that 20% to say, "We can do some things, like a referral program... but how about we give Andrew a call and say, what can we do externally?" 80% is internal behaviors of you and your team—small behaviors that can all be learned, that even if done semi-consistently, get you more revenue.
Andrew Hong: It's interesting you mention that. My approach to marketing is phased. Just because you have capital doesn't mean you have the resource to do it. One thing I notice is they overestimate what it takes to do marketing, and in many cases, they underestimate what happens if that marketing is successful.
I have a case study for you, Ildi. There's a new practice. They started from zero, got a physical location—a little risky, but they're true-blooded entrepreneurs. They launched focused on aesthetics (fillers, Botox) in a very competitive location. So, the next step, they said, "This whole hormone replacement therapy, weight loss... this is a big trend. Let's offer those."
When I came in, they had just started offering these NP-focused wellness services. The problem was they wanted to offer these services to the public to generate more revenue. More SKUs, more stuff to sell, more revenue, right? But they didn't have a full-time NP or provider on staff.
So what happened was we would start running marketing campaigns. Everything on my end—click-through rate, engagement rates, all the upper funnel stuff—looked great. But we were not seeing any appointment bookings. Zero. Big fat goose egg. I'm having a crisis of confidence. Do I know what I'm doing? I looked at it; we're running the playbook. We made adjustments... just could not get bookings from our marketing.
So I went through our funnel, ads, nurture... everything. Then I got to the appointment booking. It was the most friction ever. To find out when a provider is available, I had to enter my phone number, get 2-factor authentication, then put in my first name, last name, email address before I could even see a schedule. I got through all that, looked at the schedule, and sure enough, there's one day a week the NP is available.
I sat there and I'm like, "Wow, this is an issue." I can do the best marketing in the world, but if all these qualified people are hitting a page with a gazillion roadblocks, the best marketing in the world won't solve that. And it makes me look bad. I had this uncomfortable conversation: "Hey, did you know your schedule looks like this? If a patient sees one day a week and they don't fit... they're going to bounce."
I'm curious, do you see that? They want to scale up marketing, run ads, but they don't have a frictionless way to book? Or someone calls, no one picks up?
Ildi Arlette: You and I call them processes and systems. To settle everybody down, a system is simply a documented way to do something over and over again—repeatably, consistently, predictably. When systems are acted out, that's the behavior, and that's the behavior that drives revenue.
I hope I'm giving your listeners confidence that the other clinic isn't run by people raised with more money or better parents; they didn't take some secret course. They are finding ways to behave that more consistently have that person book an appointment.
The case study you presented is challenging, and I love it because it represents reality. This is my complaint about marketers... It's not only clinic owners who expect big results. For you, people who know what you're doing, you're used to good success. That's why our collaborations are great. Think of it like a three-legged stool: We have the clinic, we have the marketing (you), and we have us (internal operations). To remove either one of us is to take away a leg, and it falls over.
You can have the best marketing. When it works, you're doing your job. It lands at the clinic's doorstep: a text, a phone call, an inquiry form.
Andrew Hong: An appointment booking, a lot of time.
Ildi Arlette: Anything. Anything that leads a person to the clinic's literal or virtual doorstep—you've done your job. Then we take it from there. We have to prepare for your success, Andrew. Let's anticipate that out of 100 people who see this, four or five may click. My clients will email and say, "We only got six new clients." Excuse me, only? Do you know your peers would give a body part for six new clients to book? Last Thursday you had zero!
We are mesmerized by the Instagram reel where the printer is printing 1,000 labels. I'm happy for them, but you and I know that's less than 1%. The 99% of us who don't have a flood of a response? That's normal.
Ildi Arlette: We're trying to increase the surface area where people book. The only thing that matters is what we call conversion.
I don't think you should know all your numbers. I think you need to know some numbers, and conversion is non-negotiable. How many people called our clinic and converted from a caller to booking a consult? Listen to that again: caller-to-consult, not caller-to-treatment. Caller-to-treatment is like, "I've got this lunch tomorrow and I'm hoping to lose five pounds." Not going to happen.
Andrew Hong: Yeah, so many things happen between the consult and treatment that may not have anything to do with the front office.
Ildi Arlette: We're trying to get a consult—virtual, phone, in-person. How many called vs. how many made an appointment? That's worth tracking. Have a piece of paper, a "ticky sheet." Draw a line down the middle. When they call and book, put a tick on the "Yes" side. If not, "No." The mistake you all make is you throw out the "Nos." The "No" was really a "Not Yet." What do we do with the "Nos"? They're not gone forever.
The other conversion is consult-to-treatment. Both are worth tracking. The first is harder, so just do a ticky sheet.
Andrew Hong: The simplest practice is a spreadsheet with a drop-down: "Why are you calling?"
Ildi Arlette: As a person who's 50-plus, I argue for pencil and paper. I've been to clinics, and what I live is staff saying, "We can't have the spreadsheet and our software open at the same time." There are all these reasons. I just want people to know, anything you track, your genius brain will step back and go, "Wow, isn't that an interesting pattern?" Maybe more people call in the morning and say yes. Let's ask why. Don't arrogantly assume. Maybe you answered the phone. Maybe morning callers are more motivated.
The real gold is our Conversion Calculator (we'll share it). It's one page, comes with a video. It asks: "If I saw 10 people last month for a consult, how many said yes to treatment, how many said no?" If you saw 10 and 3 said yes, 7 said no... My biggest advice: Do not judge it. Our brain says 3/10 is a fail. We're not in school. We're grown adults running businesses. Turns out, we can do whatever we want.
I have clients: a huge clinic sees 10 consults/month, 3 go to treatment. The tiny clinic sees 6 people/month, 5 go to treatment. Who's winning? The smaller clinic. That's hope. The conversion rate is about the behaviors and quality of that consult. You can win. We're not there to judge 3/10. We're there to ask, "What do you think of 3/10?" People say, "Awful, we'd like it better." Our job is to show what happens if you go from 3/10 to 5/10. We're not aiming for 10/10. If Sally goes from 2/10 to 5/10, you win the Conversion Olympics. If Andrew, a rockstar, goes from 7 to 8, that's also winning. It's those tiny shifts.
The first step is using that calculator to understand your benchmark.
Andrew Hong: You have to know your numbers before you can diagnose what to do. 5/6 is different than 3/10.
Ildi Arlette: Yes! It could be provider-related. "I convert more than you." Then guess what? Let's job shadow. Have you sit in with me. I'm not saying practice on me. Go in and say, "This is Andrew, my scribe today." Andrew, pick up a clipboard, look like you're scribing. Listen to how I do the consult. Notice three things: What did you notice? What could be better? What behaviors led to "Yes"?
Most health professionals are taught a technical-based consult. You speak the jargon. I have news for you: If I worked in your clinic for a week, my conversion rate would be 80% or higher. Higher than the technical professional. Why? Patients are not buying according to the technical explanation. They're buying according to how clearly and impactfully you explain how what you do solves their problem.
Andrew Hong: What are the three sequential behaviors that enable a practice to maximize revenue from their existing base? What's the RCI methodology?
Ildi Arlette: Our process is: Know Yourself, Know Your Team, Work Towards the Goal. Y'all want to rush to the goal. Fine. I'll make you take two steps back. Let's look at yourself as a business owner. We look for key metrics. Then, let's look at your team.
I see the business owner is revenue-hungry but sales-adverse. We'd sell more if we had more opportunities to sell. Call it educating; fine. Education and sales meet at the offer. You need more offers. Our formula: Use what you have, use what you know, commit to imperfect action.
The team? Dedicated healthcare professionals who hate (with a capital H) sales. They literally say, "Andrew, we don't sell here." It's a bragging point. I'm like, "We're in trouble."
Andrew Hong: When people tell me, "I never had to do marketing," I'm like, "Yeah, that's great... until you do." Then it's a point of failure.
Ildi Arlette: We're helping people build "everyone sells" cultures, without the ick. This comes down to structures. Are you sending zero emails because it's "gross"? Your lens is "I hate getting those emails." But here we are, Andrew and I, saying if you had to pick one side for revenue—social media or emails? All my money is on emails, period.
Andrew Hong: I'd say that too. Email is the highest ROI channel. Anyone who says email is dead, I ask, "How many times do you check your inbox every day?"
Ildi Arlette: Let's sort out your resistance to sending emails. There are kind, authentic, generous, feel-good ways to communicate.
Andrew Hong: Give me examples. We set up evergreen email nurtures. A prospective patient considering hormone therapy isn't ready to book. They download an ebook. First email: provider intro, no sale. Second email: empathy. "If you're like me... I feel fatigued..." Education. "By the way, if you want to dig into symptoms, book a free consult." That's a non-icky way to sell. You might be helping them.
Ildi Arlette: Exactly. It still takes bravery. I love what you outlined. That's one way. Clinic friends: ask Andrew and me, "What are other ways?" There's not one way. We see trends, what's working now. Think less sales energy, more "we're here to help." That framework, Andrew, is: Track (conversion rates), Reflect (ask intelligent questions), and Act.
I caution people on acting on everything. This is where owners make huge mistakes. They roll up their sleeves: "Full marketing campaign!" They use words like "campaign." Only you use that word; you know how to execute it. The rest of us are like, "Campaign? Is there an election?"
If you, Andrew, are getting us leads... I have to hold my hands up... You've got three to five minutes to respond. We'll respond "in the hour."
Andrew Hong: Thank you for saying that. I argue with clients: "You cannot take an hour. That's not acceptable." Especially if they texted you. They should see those bubbles moving the second they text.
Ildi Arlette: 1000% yes. I'm here to meet your objection: "We can't. No resources, no staff, unrealistic." I get it. Bring it. To all those, I say: Yes, yes, yes. So, what would need to be true for any human at your clinic to answer in three minutes? Every single one of my clients, we figured that out. Sometimes we ask, "Who's the crazy person in your clinic? The driven one who can't stand to see a text?" "Okay, that's Tracy." "Maybe Tracy's that provider who works one day a week." "Great. Wednesdays solved. What about the other days?" If you tell me "I don't have time," then don't complain Andrew's team didn't do their job. They are getting you leads. Now there's a handoff.
Andrew Hong: This always existed: the marketing-to-sales handoff. Tactical question: What's your opinion on voicemail? Is it acceptable?
Ildi Arlette: No question, voice-to-voice human is best. But we humans got so poor at receiving calls that around 2015, I heard the shift: "I would prefer to go to voicemail." How does that inform us? We need to explore automation, the receiving voice. If you have the right voicemail, tested by an expert, you will hear patients say, "I love your new voicemail." Ask them, "What did you love?" Top answers: "Helped me get through faster," "I could leave the ball in your court," or "It gave me other options."
I called a camera store. The voicemail was amazing. Good is: "We appreciate your patience..." Great is: changing it quarterly. Don't make the mistake of recording it in 2022. Picture it like a digital billboard. You have 30 seconds.
Andrew Hong: Totally a billboard. Another point in the marketing funnel.
Ildi Arlette: Fun facts! "Did you know 7 out of 10 of our staff have been here 15 years?" "Did you know we're now offering laser services?" "We've introduced two new providers." The camera store said, "Peter and I have been working on a couple of exciting projects..." Notice the difference: "what we're working on" vs. "We have the Laser GT4X..." Or, "We've opened Saturday hours. Those appointments go quick. Ask us about it." We call those actions and behaviors. Systems. Initiatives. These are the things that have worked.
To the NP who works one day a week: Sometimes that's who we can get. One tip: Open a lot of Wednesdays—three to four months out, not one or two. Second: People aren't working 5 days/week. You haven't failed. In my experience, when you fill that provider's schedule, they lean in. 80% of the time, people who contractually said "Wednesdays only" are willing to make an accommodation. You just have to ask.
Andrew Hong: We covered tactical info. You can systematize Track, Reflect, Act. I'm most interested in Track. You can't get to the next steps if a client has no numbers. Does your project start by systematizing data collection?
Ildi Arlette: Great question. It speaks to that conversion calculator. There's literally never a situation where we don't have numbers. We set it up... you have your phone, your other screen has your CRM. We say, "When do you want to track from?" "September 1st." Great. We literally count if we don't know how to run a report. You're like 90% of normal clinic owners. We count: "Week 1, three consults. Week 2, five. Week 3, zero." You just have to count on a screen. That's where great ideas come from: "Gosh, I wish new patients were color-coded." Ding! Put a ticket in.
We open those charts: "Did these three go to Yes or No?" You put ticks in. That's the Track. It's a counting exercise. It's magic when you see your numbers and you're like, "Holy mackerel, out of five of us, Andrew and Marcus are biggest revenue generators. What on earth is happening with Tim, Leslie, and Sally?" That's where we reflect. Are we ever going to turn Sally into Marcus? No. The answer is no. If Sally goes from 2/10 to 5/10, you win the conversion Olympics.
Andrew Hong: That's a 120% increase, right?
Ildi Arlette: You should be messaging me, "Ildi, where is my prize?" If Andrew goes from 7 to 8, that too is winning. It's those tiny shifts. It connects with you: you're doing marketing to send us people. It matters what we get out of that consult, that voicemail, to capture people. That's where marketing budgets stabilize.
Andrew Hong: Gives me time to build the pipeline organically. I hate projects where we must run a special. You resort to clickbaity, promotional campaigns. Time and place, maybe Black Friday, but you don't want to cheapen your brand.
My biggest takeaway: Ildi laid out two parts of the patient journey you can easily track in a notebook. Get that data. Second nugget: the voicemail idea. Brilliant. I thought voicemail was a lost customer. But no, people engage. Make it a better experience. Change it every quarter. These easy things let someone like Ildi start further ahead.
Ildi Arlette: We'll help you collect the data, get from A to B faster. You're not doing trial and error on your own, isolated, DIYing. That's the best way to waste time, energy, money. People may want to go back to our last podcast on Q4/Black Friday. My message is the same: whether you do a Black Friday promo or not, it doesn't matter. Success doesn't hinge on it. PS: You can do Black Friday in July. It's your business.
I want people to know: Andrew and I work together, in tandem. Your marketing and clinic operations work hand-in-hand. You don't need to turn into a data analysis campaign business. Ask us, "What do these numbers mean? What are they telling us?" Let us look. "Here's what we see. Here are options. What do we want to do?" Because only action is rewarded.
Andrew Hong: 100%. Ildi provided tons of resources. The Conversion Calculator—go check that out. Implement it today. Second, Ildi offers a complimentary Clarity Call. You may have a practice issue. She has experience in marketing, operations, patient engagement, systems. If you don't know what you don't know, but you know there's a gap, book that call. It's like getting your first hormone consult for free. No risk. I can do my job better when this groundwork is laid. Ildi, thank you for spending time and sharing free resources.
Ildi Arlette: Thanks, Andrew. Always great to do this with you.
Andrew Hong: Great, thanks, Ildi. Take care.