Don't Wait for January: Build Your 2026 Engine Now
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Most clinic owners talk about "hitting it hard" in January. New year, new marketing plan, new patients… right? But if you wait until January 1st to start your ads, SEO, and systems, your Q1 2026 will be slower than you think. In this episode, Jeremy explains why November and December are the real starting line if you want 2026 to be your biggest year yet.
📌 Episode Topics
- Why January Isn't a Reset Button: Same systems, same problems, same empty calendar.
- The Google Ads Learning Period: Why you should "pay tuition" now, not in peak season.
- SEO as a Slow Burn: How to get your money pages ranking before the New Year search spike.
- CRMs & Backend Systems: Turning chaos into a predictable pipeline before 2026 hits.
- Action Plan for the Next 6–8 Weeks: Concrete steps to set up ads, SEO, and systems now.
💡 Big Idea
If you want a big Q1 in 2026, January is not the time to start—it's the time to cash in on the work you did in November and December. Marketing has lag time. So does SEO. So do systems. Treat Q4 like an athlete's preseason: build the base now so you can actually perform when the year starts.
📈 Why You Start Google Ads Before January
Most owners think Google Ads are "flip the switch and the phone rings." In reality, every new campaign goes through a learning period where Google figures out:
- Which searches actually lead to conversions (e.g. "physical therapist near me" vs. "knee exercises").
- Who should see your ad and who shouldn't.
- What counts as a true lead or booked eval in your account.
If you launch on January 1st, you're paying peak seasonal prices while Google is still "learning." You're not buying leads—you're buying tuition.
Start in November instead:
- Weeks 1–2: Launch campaigns, gather search data, fix obvious bad keywords.
- Weeks 3–4: See which keywords convert, refine ad copy and landing pages.
- Weeks 5–6: Add negative keywords, cut waste, tighten bids, improve quality scores.
By January, your ads aren't guessing anymore—they're dialed in and ready to catch the "New Year, new body, my back hurts" surge.
🔎 SEO: The "Quiet Kid" That Wins Later
SEO is slow on purpose. Google doesn't reward spammy, overnight behavior. When you:
- Rebuild your site structure,
- Add money pages like "Best sports physical therapist in [City],"
- Write targeted blogs and optimize your Google Business Profile,
Google doesn't instantly hand you page-one rankings. It crawls, indexes, tests, and slowly builds trust over weeks to months.
If you start SEO in January, real results may not show up until Q2 or Q3. Instead, use November and December to:
- Define your high-intent keywords (e.g. "sports PT [City]," "dry needling [City]," "back pain physical therapist [City]").
- Create dedicated money pages for each service/problem—not one generic "Services" page with 12 bullets.
- Plan and write 4–8 supporting blogs around your core topics.
- Clean up technical SEO: site speed, mobile friendliness, H1/H2 structure, metadata, and schema.
January shouldn't be when you start SEO. It should be when your SEO is already working in the background.
🧠 Backend Systems & CRM: Your Clinic's Nervous System
You can't hit consistent $30k, $50k, $80k+ months while running your pipeline out of your inbox and memory. A proper CRM is what keeps leads organized, follow-up happening, and reactivations rolling in—especially around the New Year.
With the right CRM, you can:
- Track every lead: new inquiries, free calls, evals, active plans, and lost leads.
- Automate nurture sequences when someone fills out a form or ghosts after an eval.
- Reactivate old patients at scale around key times like January.
- Send newsletters and campaigns directly to segmented lists (past patients, warm leads, etc.).
But here's the catch: CRMs take 1–2 months to set up, customize, and bake into your team's habits. If you start in January, you'll spend Q1 learning the tool instead of leveraging it.
🧩 What "Start Now" Actually Looks Like
1️⃣ For Google Ads
- Set up your campaigns and landing pages.
- Install conversion tracking and call tracking correctly.
- Let the learning period run while volume is lower and clicks are cheaper.
2️⃣ For SEO
- Decide which keywords you want to own in 2026.
- Build or rebuild your core money pages around those terms.
- Draft a small blog/content calendar (4–8 posts) that supports your main services.
- Optimize your Google Business Profile and ensure NAP consistency.
3️⃣ For CRM & Systems
- Choose a CRM platform and define your pipeline stages.
- Import leads/past patients so everything lives in one place.
- Set up simple automations: new lead nurture, post-eval follow-up, reactivation campaigns.
- Train your team to log deals, update stages, and live inside the system daily.
🚀 The 2026 Timeline (If You Start Now)
- November–December: Launch and refine ads, build SEO foundation, set up CRM and basic automations.
- January–March 2026: Ads are optimized, SEO starts to kick in, CRM is reactivating old patients and nurturing new leads.
- Rest of 2026: You're scaling—adjusting budgets and capacity—instead of waking up hoping the phone rings.
🎯 Your Challenge This Week
Before the end of the week, do one of the following:
- Book a call with whoever handles your Google Ads and set clear 2026 goals.
- Email your web/SEO person and say: "Let's get my core money pages live before January."
- Sign up for a CRM and sketch your pipeline on paper: lead → call → eval → plan of care → past patient.
Once you start, everything else becomes tweaks—not a massive, overwhelming overhaul.
📣 Share This Episode
Know a clinic owner saying "We'll hit it hard next year" for the third year in a row? Send this to them. Next year doesn't change until this quarter does.
📱 Next Steps
Want to close more of the leads you're already paying for? Check out Jeremy's Phone Sales Course for scripts, objection handling, and full call frameworks.
Ready to have the ads, SEO, and CRM built with you and for you? Book a Patch demo and see how the full engine works together.
Don't wait for January. Build the engine now—then spend 2026 stepping on the gas.
