Registered dietician Laura Schoenfeld attracted such ideal clients with an application process built on Practice Better that she’s now in high demand as a business coach. We caught up with her to find out more about her secret sauce — a rigorous and automated application process before each discovery call. 

Meet Laura Schoenfeld

Laura Schoenfeld, a registered dietician, nutrition business coach, and online entrepreneur with 10 years of experience, runs a thriving practice with 300 clients. While discovery calls are important in her (and her clients’) sales processes, they do come with risks. 

Calls with poor-fit clients led to low conversion rates and high frustration. Tire kickers and brain pickers took up valuable time on her calendar. She had less time and energy to solve high-value problems for qualified clients. Once she had solved the problem with the application process, she seized on the chance to help others as a business coach.

What an application process does for her business 

She’s refined the art of attracting and selecting her ideal clients using Practice Better’s application form, booking page/calendar, and discovery call service. Automations ensure her process is efficient while delivering an application process that both educates leads and reserves discovery calls for ideal clients. She uses this process in her own business, and she teaches her clients how to do the same.

A tight application process ensures that the people booking calendar time are the right fit for the work, solutions, and particular areas of expertise involved. It answers three important questions before her first discovery call:

1. Do they have a problem she’s qualified to solve? 
2. Can they invest time and money in solving it? 
3. Are they ready to start work on it now? 

Each application process reveals their specific problems, their goals, whether they can invest in the solutions she offers, and if they’re ready to get to work now. It saves time. People she can’t help with their specific problem, who aren’t a good fit, or who just aren’t ready to get resources to do the work on their own. Ideal clients get a discovery call. 

During the process they also learn more about her work, anticipate what to expect, and feel more confident she’s the right person to work with.

Her practice thrives because before each discovery call she’s established that she can: 

“...solve a high-value problem for people who are ready to invest time and money in getting a proven solution. By pre-screening clients with an effective application process, you can maximize the chances that the person both has the problem you are best qualified to solve, and is ready to invest resources in getting the problem solved.”

How to screen potential clients

It’s simple — just ask them to apply to book a discovery call. Laura recommends connecting a form to the booking page for your discovery call service where the form must be filled out to book. The form could also just redirect to your booking calendar once filled out. She doesn’t recommend sending the form after they book — they might miss or skip it.

Structure your form with 6-12 short, long, multiple choice, and even numeric questions that cover the essentials (challenge, goals, what didn’t work, importance, readiness, and investment). Get a broad sense of their challenge with a long-form question and then get specific with a checklist to narrow the focus on challenges you solve. Ask about their goals, timeframe, and what they’ve already tried. Ask them to rate the urgency they feel in solving the problem. Be specific about timing, readiness, and willingness to invest time and money in a solution. 

“You can also ask if there needs to be another financial decision maker on the call (and can they be there if so), and you can also ask them to agree to show up to the call prepared to make a decision that will best support their specific goals. You’ll also possibly want to collect basic demographic information.”

Get more for your practice

Could an application process help your practice thrive? Here’s some of Laura's most valuable advice:

DO:

• Keep your application form under 12 total questions

• Use multiple choice and checkboxes for as many questions as possible to reduce how much thought has to go into the application and to give potential clients a clearer picture of the problem you solve or the results you help clients get

• Double check the tech — to ensure that everything works to get calls booked, you should go through the application process yourself, and even ask trusted colleagues to test it.

DON’T:

• Don’t ask a ton of questions or questions that make it hard to fill out the form

• Avoid vague and super open-ended questions that aren’t clearly focused on your niche and your solution

• Don’t send the application after booking and hope for the best. Don’t let someone book without filling out the application. Use the application process as a gatekeeper for booking a discovery call. 

• Don’t be afraid to cancel calls that aren’t a good fit. Have some free resources or lower cost options you can offer to folks who aren’t ready to commit.

Expert tip for advanced practitioners 

Do everything you can to automate and streamline application, booking, and call prep.

• Integrate Practice Better with other tools and platforms - a paid form like Typeform can automatically screen applications for you. Only right fit clients proceed to the booking step
• After booking, automated pre-call communications set client expectations so the right people attend the discovery call ready to commit.

Talk to us about increasing your conversion rates while preserving your time and energy

“(An application process) ensures that people are prepared ahead of time with a basic understanding of how you work with clients, including your fees. It’s one of the biggest time wasters to get on calls with people who you actually don’t want to work with or can’t help with their specific problem, or who are not ready or able to invest money or time in solving their problem.”