Founder-led
Jamie Carter
I have spent 25 years building digital marketing and acquisition systems. The last few have gone into UK private clinics and accountancy practices, which are more alike than either would admit. The Funnelsmiths is small and deliberately so: you deal with the person who designs the system, not an account manager between you and them.
Why clinics and practices
Both live or die on the same three things: enquiry volume, conversion and whether the client comes back. That makes them rare, because the commercial system and the operational system are the same system. A missed call is not an admin problem, it is a revenue problem, and it shows up in the diary a fortnight later.
They also share a shape: a single client is worth years rather than one transaction, the decision is slow, and the enquiry usually arrives outside working hours. I have built acquisition systems for that shape for most of my career. The trade changes; the problem does not.
Stated plainly
I also run a clinic marketplace
Alongside The Funnelsmiths I operate ThinkBetter UK, a marketplace connecting patients with private mental health and assessment services. It is worth saying plainly, because it cuts both ways.
What it gives you
I am not only a supplier to this sector. I run patient acquisition inside it, at volume, and I see what actually happens to an enquiry after it is made. Most agencies selling to clinics have never done that.
Where it could conflict
I will not put two clinics in the same town in direct competition with each other, or with a ThinkBetter partner. Assessment and mental health services are exactly who I build for, so this is a question of named clinics and catchments rather than of sectors. If there is a real overlap I will say so on the first call, before anyone has spent anything.
What I turn down
I won’t run ads for a business that cannot answer the phone
It burns your budget and my reputation in the same month. If the enquiries you already generate are ringing out, more of them will ring out too, and we will both have paid to find that out.
So the enquiry handling goes in first, always. Not as a separate project you get sold later, but as the first thing we build in the same engagement, before a penny of advertising spend goes anywhere. Plenty of agencies will take the budget either way; I would rather tell you at the start than explain it at the end.
Where I am
Burscough, working UK-wide
Martland Mill, Mart Lane, Burscough, L40 0SD
I work UK-wide, and I am happy to be phoned, +44-1695-661345. Given what this business does, not answering the phone would be an awkward look.
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Find out what's recoverable in your clinic
We mystery-shop your clinic the way a patient would, by search, phone and web form, then show you the patients you could be winning. Scored on three things: are you found, is the enquiry answered, does anyone chase it.