#863: 3 Tips for Upping Your Internal Referral Game

The Dental A Team Podcast

Tiff and Dana are wrapping up their series of marketing-focused episodes. This week, they discuss internal referrals. They talk about three things to ramp up success with these referrals:

1. Identify your why

2. Know your patient avatar

3. Bring a competitive spirit

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Transcript:

The Dental A Team (00:07.85)

Let's go. Hello, Dental A team. I am so excited to be here with my girl, Dana, again today. We are wrapping up some marketing conversations that we've been having with you guys. And today, we thought it would be really fun to talk about internal referrals. Dana, I know you chat with your practices a lot about this. And you train teams constantly from a virtual aspect and in-person aspect on how to really get those referrals from your.

your patients and how to build the business and new patients based on internal referral styles as far as asking for referrals, asking for Google reviews, you come up with, I know you come up with fun contests and different things that the team can do to get involved and caveat for my doctors, it doesn't always have to be a financial gain for everyone participating. Dana, you have a ton of ideas that you come up with that are actually not.

bonus related at all. They're just fun. And I think anytime we can gamify stuff, anytime we can get people really working as a team against each other to just kind of bring that sports mentality in there, we see really cool results. So Dana, thank you for being here with me today. How are you? Doing good. You know, I'm always excited that you let me hop on these with you. Because it's always a good time. I agree. I agree. And thank you for saying, letting me I feel like sometimes I force it into your schedule. And I'm like, I hope this works.

So thank you for always being open to it. I think internal referrals are actually something that can be really, really fun, but I think that there's something that's daunting for teams. Do you agree, Dana? Yeah, yeah, I do. And I think you can make it fun, like you said, and I think the daunting part is they feel like they're asking something of their patients, and it can sometimes just feel unnatural, right? Or, you know, I'm asking,

And to me, it's patients don't know it's important to us unless we ask, right? Of course, if somebody is in the grocery store and they're like, hey, do you have a good dentist? I'm sure they would recommend you, right? But knowing that you want them to be intentional, that's what comes from the ask. Oh, for sure, I totally agree, totally agree. And I feel like it sometimes feels like we're asking for something without giving something back, right? So it's like asking for $5 from a friend knowing you're never gonna pay it back, right?

The Dental A Team (02:24.962)

So I think the mentality around it, I 100% agree. It's very easy when it's organic and someone asks you for it. Like, hey, do you have a recommendation for it? But when you're saying, hey, do you have friends or family that you could send to us, that feels different, right? It doesn't feel quite as organic. So I think one of those spaces that I like to help jump over that hurdle is for team members and doctors to really work on remembering what it is that you are giving.

to your patients and to the community and the reason and purpose on why we're here. Because when we're asking for it, we're asking for those referrals, it feels like help me. So like, if we wrap it around the reason that we're here, we're here to positively impact the dental community and your physical community where you guys are in a very positive way, right? We're here to bring them dentistry that they might not be able to get down the road. If you truly believe in where you work, you believe in your doctor, you believe in the healthcare.

that you're invested in there in your practice, it's a no brainer that you would rather your patients, their friends, their family, the community come there because you know they're getting good quality dentistry, right, from a good quality dentist. And you don't know what they're gonna get if they go down the street. I used to think that a lot when I was in practice. And Dana, you live an hour and a half-ish south of me, so I think we're kind of like similar dental communities here.

in Arizona where it's just there's dentists on every corner. And I remember knowing the dentist down the street, we would see work from that dental practice. And I would just kind of sometimes cringe like, oh my gosh, like people don't know what good dentistry is, but we do. So for us to not share that or not ask our patients to share that information makes me so sad because I would see these things and Dana even.

You've probably seen this even more than I have because you're further south, but I've seen work come from other countries, well, say, right, come up from other countries that I'm listed in tears, like, gosh, this is so scary to me because it's just so far off base of what this patient needed, and now they're in a bad situation. And so I think, Dana, for me, one of the key pieces that I work with teams on is really diving into why are we here? Why do we want more? Because...

The Dental A Team (04:44.882)

Dana, I think that sometimes it gets flipped in our brains of like, that desire, that egotistical, like we always just want more. But flipping it for the teams and really seeing what we're doing, and then we benefit from it. Dana, do you feel like that helps you to connect with the teams as well? And like takes out that ask, we'll say it's like, we're giving them something. But Dana, how do you do it with your teams too?

Yeah, I always, and I agree with you, it's like figure out what your why is, and in most cases your why is to impact the community around you and your patient base. There is an office nearby that their slogan is like, your smile is our priority, and I loved their Care to Share card because it said let their smile be our priority too, and it was just like that light bulb of, that's exactly what you want to do. By asking for that referral, you're saying, hey, let me take care of the people that you care about.

And so I think remembering that it is bringing people in to give them the same experience, to maybe reduce their anxiety about dentistry, and to truly, truly improve their oral health, that's why we ask. Yeah, I love that. I love that card, that's so cute. And I love care to share cards. I think those are like super fantastic ways to get your name into the community. So I love that. So on one hand, just making sure we know what our why is. Why are we here? Why are we trying to reach these people? Like, what are we trying to?

impact in the community around us. And then on the other hand, Dana, I think I'm not prone to setting like a wide fishing net, right? Like I'm not the fisherman out there that's like, I just need to make a big catch of whatever I can. Like I'm out there for the tuna. Like I want this giant tuna because that's all I want to eat, right? I'm not casting this net to just eat whatever. I want just the tuna.

So I think one thing I work on with teams, and I actually did this with a pediatric practice of mine last week, is go through and dial in the avatar of the person that you love seeing in your practice. Who is it that you want to attract more of? And for this practice in particular, we're working on reviews and referrals simultaneously because I think they just go hand in hand. So I started asking them probing questions. Like, who is it that...

The Dental A Team (06:56.834)

fills your day with joy. Who is it that you love when they come in the door? Who is it that really just like gives you energy instead of takes the energy from you? And they started dialing in this kind of personality type. And for the pediatric practice, you know, we focused in on the mom because it's typically they're seeing the moms, they're bringing the patients in for their treatment and for their appointment. So we focused in on that mom. And I'm like, okay, so we know.

what we want to do, we know our why, we know what we're doing. We're trying to get kids a safe place to come. That one's easy, right? We know what it's going to take to do it and what it will look like if we don't do this. So that's a piece I think that a lot of practices don't always think about our people in general, like what this is like the root canal, right? If you don't get a crown, you're going to need a root canal. This is the root canal piece. So if you don't do this, if you don't push on your on your community to come to a safe place, what will happen?

We don't know. So we got those things dialed in. And then we started talking about what this person looks like. What does she do? What is she wearing? Where does she shop? What are her hobbies? They started saying like, maybe she's a stay at home mom or she works from home so her schedule's more flexible. She can come in any time. She's wearing Lulu leggings and she's carrying her Stanley cup, but she's also got her coffee in the other hand and she's flying in just on time and she's happy to see us.

She, you know, let their kids go to the back and when they act up, she puts them in their place. Like all of these things, they had it so dialed in. They said she plays tennis, she plays pickleball, she just brunch on Sundays with her best friends. Like they could picture this person. They could feel what it would be like to hang out with this person. They named her Courtney. And so we knew, we knew who we wanted, right? We knew who we wanted to target. And I said, great. When your Courtney's come in, you're gonna know.

And when Courtney comes in, I want you to ask for a review or referral every time. And two days ahead of your schedule and a day ahead of your schedule, I always want you guys looking at your schedule and identifying your court needs. Because Dana, something you said to me earlier is right. We are typically going to refer people who are just like us because we are the combination of the five people we hang out with the most. So if Courtney's coming into their practice, she, I, we called that, I mean, we had to name people, right? So, you know,

The Dental A Team (09:17.918)

the quote unquote Kiera, I said they said Francine and I was like, Oh my gosh, that's funny. So do we want to Are we looking at our court needs? Are we looking at our friends? Like Courtney's not hanging out with a friend scene who's late to brunch and always has baggage and drama like Look for your court needs ask them for these things and Dana. It was so cool The next day the next morning. I'm now in a whole different state Whole different practice. I get a text message from the practice

And she says, we have a Courtney fighting. This is not a drill. She's in our practice. And I was just so happy. It literally was less than 24 hours. It was, I mean, it was probably 14 hours, right? With, in reality. And they knew who she was. And this woman, and I truly believe like, you put it out there, you understand, you see it in your mind, and that's how you attract things, right? Like, you know what you're looking for, so you see it. It's been there the whole time.

But now your vision is clear and you can see it. So you're quote unquote attracting it. So they could see it, they keyed in. This woman, this amazing soul came in with everything that they asked for and left the most beautiful review with pictures unprompted. They didn't even have to ask for it. It was incredible, but I believe that it's because we got dialed in. And so now they got that boost of confidence of who they're looking for.

and what it is that they're going to be asking this person to do or leave or whatever. And the universe was like, hey, guess what? We're going to give you a freebie. This is how easy it could be. And it was just really cool to see that. And Dana, you work on avatars a lot with practices. I know I watch you. You do it even in part of the operations manual stuff that you do. You're constantly working on avatars. And I think

That was just a really fun case and it just happened. It doesn't always happen where Courtney walks in the next day and leaves you an unprompted review, but we worked really, we spent a couple hours on building this personnel. So I think that it was just the universe giving them some kudos, but what else have you seen dialing that in? And I think a caveat too, and Dana, you probably have a lot of practices like this. That model that we built, Courtney, right? She's your typical, we've been to the age ranges, like she's your typical millennial mom.

The Dental A Team (11:37.322)

Right? I'm like, that's me. That's Dana. Like they're, they're all over the place. Right. And I would freaking, you fill my day with those people constantly. Heck yeah. But it's not always the model for where your practice is located. So sometimes, right. That the model that I'm like, heck yeah, let's go to freaking brunch. I want to, I want to brunch with all of these patients. I'm down. Let's go. Sometimes that's not the case. My practice that I worked in for years prior to consulting,

is in a retirement community. So me trying to attract courtneys isn't gonna work. So Dana, I know you do this a lot. Like I said, that's an easy, I did an easy version of an easy millennial to just spot and find that millennial mom. How do you go about that though with practices where it's full of people like us or people who want to attract fun, lighthearted young people but they're in an older community and that's just not the case. How do you help them work through that?

And I think when that happens, you look at your patient base and I always say, okay, start with the patients that are in your practice already that you love, right? That always come in, always fill your cup up. It may not be your ideal, like if you could choose anyone in the country, right? But of your patient base, get to that most ideal. Identify the patients who really, really do feed your energy bucket are aligned with you and you feel like always have a great experience and.

you enjoy when they're there in the practice and I think start there, right? Because we can't, again, like you said, create this avatar where like that avatar doesn't really exist in our community, right? We're certainly not going to like market four hours away and expect the patients are going to drive. So I think know your community, know your limitations on your.

Patient avatar and then go with most ideal and I think start with who do you have in your practice that you really do enjoy seeing what traits do they have what things are they interested in, and you can start to build from there. I love that I think that's beautiful I think starting the patient basis is so smart and like you said the people who bring you energy that fill your bucket that I always say like we'll get their treatment done who's like dang you're right Doc I got to get that done like who are you not.

The Dental A Team (13:49.21)

bending over backwards for like working so hard to convince why you're there for them. So I love that. I think that's beautiful. And then I think, I think once we get that dialed in, the team or once we did that, the team felt a little bit more confident on asking for those reviews or those referrals because it didn't seem like it didn't feel like that wide fishnet. Now it was like, I know who I'm looking for. I know who the big tuna is. Like I'm going to go for the big tuna. We're going to have this amazing meal at the end of the day.

So it made it easier for them. But at the end of everything, I still asked them. On a scale of one to 10, one is heck no, I refuse to ask for reviews or referrals. 10 is like, I could do this all day long. I could ask, where do we land? And when I went through the team, our median number was a six or a seven still. And so then I just had to remind them, it's not magic, it's not overnight, it's not something that you hear once and you're like, oh, I got this. This is something that you have to be insanely consistent on.

And just do it all the time so that you're practicing. You've got to role play the verbiage. You've got to find the verbiage that sits right with you and you just have to do it. I know I used to practice, I still do, I used to practice by like using people's names when I go out to restaurants, if they've got a name tag or the grocery store, the grocery store clerk is like, is there anything else I can do for you today? I'm like, no, Bob, thank you so much. And Bob's like, oh my gosh, what else can I do for you? Like.

Just opening up that conversation and getting comfortable talking to people that you don't know, but you know their name. Like you don't know your patient super well, but you know their name. So just get comfortable talking to people and then remember your why. And so Dana, even if maybe as I'm talking, I'm like, what if they even talked about it once a week in a morning huddle? Like, why are we here? Or come up with a slogan.

kind of like your mission vision, but a little slogan, like the one that you just talked about with that practice, like why are we here so that we have that why just ingrained in our brains constantly? Because I think that feeds our soul to accomplishing something. Dana, real quick, and while I only wanna take a couple more minutes here, what are some of the games that you've come up with to help gamify and bring that kind of like sports mentality to asking for reviews and referrals?

The Dental A Team (16:07.762)

Yeah, sure. And I love what you said that like it isn't necessarily a bonus, right? Most of the time when I gamify this, it's more for accountability and consistency than it is to like incentivize the team. So I think how can you.

have accountability built in that is fun. So Tiff, you were at the practice with me and we did this and it was just a glass jar, right? A mason jar or something that you have on hand and different colored like craft beads, right? And each team member got assigned a color and then each morning we'd say, all right, who asked for a referral yesterday? Put your bead in for how many you asked for. And then at the end of the month, right? It was, we just tally them up and like who was our referral queen or king?

Right? And so it is, it's fun. It brings out competitive spirit. It does build an accountability. Cause if we all said, we're going to do ask for two, you better believe we hope that everybody's putting their two beads in and you don't want to be the one that doesn't have your beads out and putting it in the jar. Right? But there was no other incentive associated with that. And I think sometimes when we do these, right, we feel like we have to give discounts or give bonuses or give, and then I think it's truly sharing the science with team members or the statistics. And it's like,

really truly for every four asks, we typically will get one, right? So our ratio of asks has to be higher. I also loved how you said like verbiage oftentimes the barrier is it feels inauthentic or scripted. So having them figure out really, you know how they can say it and they can say it comfortably really, really helps. And so you can do star charts and as silly as they sound, right?

Star charts, even to somebody in their 40s can be really fun. And so I think build it in, but build it more for accountability, right? Or that challenge or that competitive spirit than incentive. I love that. I think it's the competitive spirit, like you said. And I think sometimes too, we forget to ask our teams what would make them happy or what would inspire the fun for them. I know too, I've seen like...

The Dental A Team (18:05.93)

depending on what time of the year it is. I think you've done it. I think I've seen Britt do it, like a little football will move across the game field or a basketball towards the hoop. And it's like for every, how many ever you get to move your ball. So it depends on what time of year it is. You could do a car for NASCAR. Like you can do anything under the sun that's gamifying it. Cause that competitive spirit really just brings the fun.

And I think the fun is taken out of things very easily, especially when there's a fear of rejection, a fear of judgment, all of these things are coming up when we have to ask for something. So if it's not fun on top of that, there's no competitive spirit, there's no spirit of fun invested, why would you do it? I mean, if a fear is holding me back or I'm afraid of rejection, there's no win for me at the end, I get it, I get it. But if I can just have that competitive spirit and move my little football or put my little beads in there.

that's gonna make it fun. So I love that. So I think internal referrals are huge, you guys, you know, that should be your biggest source of new patients. So watch those watch your ROI on them, make sure that your teams are always tracking where your new patients are coming from, and where everything is happening. And I think the three things I can think of today, you guys, is figure out your why? Why are you guys asking for new patients? What is it that you're trying to accomplish within your dental practice? Figure that out with your team, and then figure out who

Who is your avatar? Who is it that you're targeting? Who should they be looking for? Because guess what? When they're looking for that person, they're already there, you guys. I am a firm believer in the fact that everything you want, everything you desire is right in front of you already. You're just not clear enough on what it is so you can't see it. It's there waiting for you. It's just part of the vision that gets blurred in the background because you're focusing on other things. So when we can focus on what you truly want,

It's already there and now you can see it. And then bring some sort of game to it. Gamify it, bring that competitive spirit and make it fun. Dana, I know you'd have some gems. I love the games that you always play. And I love really truly how you dial in that avatar. So thank you for being here today. I appreciate it. And I know our community appreciates it. Community, if you have more questions, if you wanna pick Dana's beautiful brain over here on more ideas, send them in. Hello at thedentalateam.com.

The Dental A Team (20:26.486)

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