Guides you can use this week.

Speed to lead is the time between a client’s first message and your first real reply. It’s the single number most worth knowing about your intake.

Pick your last 20 enquiries from every channel: web form, email, WhatsApp, phone and social. For each one, note the time it arrived and the time someone replied. Ignore automatic acknowledgements; count the first human or genuinely useful reply.

Work out the median, not the average, so one very slow reply doesn’t distort the picture. Then split the list into business hours and after hours. Most practices find the after-hours number is the problem.

Write the numbers down and measure again in a month. Whatever you change, this is how you’ll know whether it worked.

Many practices run client WhatsApp from a single staff member’s phone. It works until that person is sick, on leave or leaves.

The WhatsApp Business Platform lets a team share one business number, with conversations visible to the people who need them. It requires a verified Meta business account and is accessed through an approved provider.

Plan the move: tell clients the number isn’t changing (if you keep it), agree who answers which conversations, and write the message templates you’ll need. Messages sent more than 24 hours after a client’s last message must use templates WhatsApp has approved.

Ask clients to opt in to WhatsApp updates, and record that consent in your CRM.

The longer a client waits for a proposal after their consultation, the more time they have to keep shopping around.

Start by standardising: one proposal template and one fee agreement per practice area you serve, with your approved wording locked in. Most delay comes from rebuilding documents from old versions.

Capture the variables during the consultation: stream, fees, inclusions and any special terms. If notes are structured, the proposal can be assembled in minutes and reviewed by the practitioner the same day.

Offer a card payment link for the deposit alongside bank transfer. Removing a step at the moment of commitment matters.

Clients don’t leave because of bad news. They leave because of no news.

List the stages every matter moves through, then write one short, approved update for each: what just happened, what happens next, and whether the client needs to do anything. Keep case-specific detail for the practitioner.

Send updates when the stage changes, not when the client asks. Even “no change yet, here’s what we’re waiting for” prevents most update calls.

Review the templates every quarter, and whenever processing arrangements change.