How to Increase Podiatry Referrals (Getting on their Radar)

You're listening to podiatry marketing, conversations on building a successful podiatry practice with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald. Welcome back to podiatry marketing. I'm host, Jim McDannald. Joined as always with my trusty co host, Tyson Franklin. Tyson, how are you doing today?

I'm fantastic. Today, big gym hot enough in North Queensland.

Nice. Nice. I'm yeah. Still cool here in Canada.

And when's it start snowing where you are?

November, like, into Jan or into December. Kinda that that time frame is pretty normal.

You always have a white Christmas?

Most of the time. Yeah. Most of the time.

That'd be nice. Well, where I'm gonna be in The States this Christmas, we're gonna be in Phoenixville, fingers crossed, fifty fifty chance of snow usually. There there go. So we wanna wake up. Know, one get to bed that night and go, no.

We're not gonna get snow. And then you wake up the next morning, you see the snowflakes coming down like those Christmas miracle American TV shows where it always snows on Christmas day.

Yeah. For sure.

Anyway, let's get on to today's subject, which is how to increase podiatry referrals pretty much by getting on your professional refers a nonprofessional refers radar. That's what we're gonna be talking about.

I I love hearing about these different referral opportunities and your insights here. So, yeah, let's let's get into it.

Yeah. And even when I put this one together, there's a few things that I mentioned here a lot. We've talked about referrals in some of the other episodes, but when I was putting this one together specifically, there's a few new ideas sort of popped in my head. So if you think you've heard it all before, you are wrong. So the goal of this episode is just to pretty much help podiatrists get on the radar of the doctors, physios, chiropractors, could be personal trainers, might be running coaches.

Just anyone that can actually refer patients to you, you you want to be seen and heard. You wanna get on their radar. You want them to know who you are, and that means that you're actually being noticed plus, not just being noticed, but it's being watched. When people start to notice you and they see you again, then they start to actually pay attention. And then they start watching to see what you're doing.

And this long term does increase referrals. I don't believe that referrals are just gonna flock into you overnight from one visit or one talk or just doing one thing. It's an accumulation of things over a period of time.

Yeah. You've gotta build momentum through consistency. It's not yeah. You're just it's not gonna be one blow with the the stone and knocks down mighty Goliath and all the patients come flocking to the clinic. It's consistency over time for sure.

Yeah. And I've seen a lot of things recently where somebody go, oh, we've got these four AI hacks that will just have patients flowing through your practice. 74 new patients next month. Yeah. Here's Stan.

Stan will tell you how many he got. And they'll be talking about, oh, referral marketing is dead. That is the biggest BS. Referral marketing to me is still one of the best types of marketing that you can do. And once it's set up and like I said, this is a long term game.

It's not something you do once and and think you don't have to do it anymore because when someone's referring someone to you, it's it's all about trust and reliability. They wanna know that their patients safe or in safe hands. So when a doctor refers a patient to you, they're putting their they're putting their kahunas on the chopping block. Because if they see you and you're an idiot, then that reflects on them because the patient will thinking, how dare you refer me to that person who was unprofessional, didn't know what they're doing, couldn't answer my problem. It'd be a waste of time and a waste of money.

So that take you've gotta get into the the mindset of the referrer of why it's so important to them that they make the right decision.

Yeah. It's it's a huge opportunity for them to, you know, kinda pass along that trust to you, and you have to be aware of that. It's it's kind of a sacred thing. If you if someone a patient has multiple patients have bad experiences after referring to you, maybe it's just one, more than likely that kind of referral stream is not gonna be there much longer.

No. And it's also most health professionals are really busy, so you you need to make it easy for them to remember and recommend you. And that's why just doing one visit, they might refer someone to you the next day, and you can high five yourself and high five your front desk person and go, hey. That's great. Look at that.

That one visit worked. That'll probably be the only visit you'll get. Because once they did it that day, they get busy and they forget. So you you need to maintain that relationship.

Yeah. Definitely have to maintain that relationship, but also just awareness that you're there in kinda all the different types of care you provide.

Yeah. And that leads me on to my second point, which is about building visibility and awareness. So you might introduce yourself to yeah. Introduce yourself in person for starters. You know, you visit your local GP or it might be a gym or might be a physio clinic.

And one thing I wanna point out is stop complaining that these people will not see you. I've heard so many people say, oh, since COVID, I can't get an appointment to see the local GP or the local physio or the local gyms or personal trainers. Well, you can if you're persistent. You just need to be persistent, and you need to you can't ring up and say, oh, can I come in next week? You might need to plan three, four months ahead.

Professional affairs, yes, can be slightly more difficult. But gym owners, personal trainers, they are not hard to actually try try and see. You just need to actually go and do it. But if if you're finding it difficult to go and see them, then attend professional networking events or local chamber of commerce. A lot of these people attend those events.

So if you can't get into the clinic and see them, try and find out through your network where do these people go, where do they hang out, and then you just need to actually put some time aside and attend those events as well.

Yeah. Everybody's busy. Right? But if you're you're persistent and, like you said, kinda go where the money is or go where the people are at, you're gonna be much more successful in having FaceTime, getting some, you know, kinda interactions with these folks that kind of you know, where you can kinda show who you are, but also showing them that you you really are looking forward to, you know, helping them out as far as for the betterment of their patients and such. So it's, yeah, it's really something where, you know, the kind of the eager beaver mentality.

You can't just be Sorry. You know, can't just be like

The eager beaver got me. Sorry. We don't beavers, but I know what you mean.

But you you just can't be, like, you know, sitting in your office, you know, hoping patients are gonna flock in there. You have to be out there and meeting folks and being a part of the community.

I I know. You you get nowhere being lazy in this profession. Not if you're trying to build a business, but, like, you're a huge fan of LinkedIn. I know that, Jim. I see a lot of the stuff that you you post on there, but use LinkedIn to connect with health professionals that are in your area.

Find out if they're on there, send them messages, and try and connect with them. They will get the message come through. So that's that's a simple way to connect with them. But share educational posts and that tag a referrer's profession, for example. So you could do a post on LinkedIn, and it says, yeah, here's what a podiatrist can help physiotherapists with their patient's post op.

Now if you're a physiotherapist, you're gonna go, oh, I'm gonna have a read of that. And if those physiotherapists if you're already connected with the physiotherapists in your area through LinkedIn, they're going to see those articles. And all of a sudden, they'll be going, oh, I never even thought about that. Orthopedic surgeons are the same thing. They've done surgery on a patient.

If that patient came into you as a podiatrist, what would you do to help them post op? So that's an article you could write, and then somehow get it out to those health professionals.

Yeah. It's definitely relevant for those other health care professionals, and it's a way to engage with them in a, you know, kind of a relevant helpful way. So I think it there are definitely you know, ways of of making those connections online. If you like I said, if you you don't have the time or you prefer not not to go out into community, there's definitely ways online to to build community and to really connect with others.

Yeah. So here's an idea. I said we've I've got some new ideas. I'm gonna throw it. Write this one down, people, if you're not driving your car.

You could write to say, for example, a physiotherapist. You say, I'm writing an article for name the publication, or it might be just an online article. And I was wondering, if I emailed you, could I get your professional opinion on this? Because you wanna use part of their professional opinion in that article. If they say, no, sorry, bugger off, then you move on.

But if they say yes, send them the email and then follow-up and say, hey, can we meet for a coffee so I can show you the the final product that I've written? If they've already said yes to read your article, give you a little bit of a feedback on it, I reckon they will say yes to a coffee. And that's just a great way of once again, we're we're trying to get on their radar, and we're trying to build connections.

Yeah. It's an it's much more of a kind of a way to kinda ease into that that meeting or that kind of initial professional relationship. If you just, like, you know, sent them a a random direct message out of the blue saying, like, hey, let's go get coffee.

Yeah. Like, yeah.

Someone's gonna be like, okay, psycho. Like, no thanks. I'm I'm a busy person. But if it's you kinda show them, you know, a little bit of something that might be beneficial to them in a kind of a in that way, it it kinda warms them up in a way they might be a little bit more open to the idea of meeting up in the future.

Well, if I I I like to when I think of ideas, I like to turn it around and go, okay. If a physiotherapist reached out to me and said, hey. I'm a new physiotherapist in the area. I'm writing an article about ankle problems. I was wondering, can I email you my article?

Would you be able to read through it just and put a little comment on if, yeah, if I referred them to a podiatrist, what the podiatrist do just needs to be two paragraphs. Could you write something for my article? I would not say no. I would go, not a problem. Send it over.

I'd read through it. I'd give them my 2¢ worth, and I would send it back. If they contact me and said, hey. Would you like to catch up and have a coffee? I really appreciate it.

I wanna buy you a coffee. I said, thank you. What morning would you like to meet? And straight away, I I would I would know who this person is. Put yourself if in the position if somebody was doing this to you, how would you respond?

And that's how I that's how I reckon you could normally know whether your your idea or way of connecting with them is a good idea because if you respond positively, then more than likely, it's a pretty good idea.

Totally agree.

So the third thing is position yourself as the expert. Provide clear referral guidelines when to send patients your way. I think it's important to let your professional referrers know what you want to see, and let them know what you don't wanna see. There's no point in referring patients to you, and it's a problem that you have no interest in treating whatsoever. And all of sudden, they're gonna get annoyed.

Oh, I've sent you three patients this month, and those patients have come back. You said, oh, you don't treat wounds, Tyson. No. Of course, I don't. So it'd be good to let them know you don't do that.

But develop brochures. It could be PDFs. Might be some short videos that are targeted towards GPs, physios, or or coaches if that's who you sort of wanna connect with. Share relevant case studies or success stories that highlight collaborative outcomes where you may have worked with another physio in the past. And present at local professional evenings or even go out and do lunch and learns if that's what you wanna do.

People wanna go out there and visit them. They are a little bit more difficult to organize, but can be done. Or you could start a podcast in your area. That's I always say that starting a podcast in your area, positioning yourself as an expert, inviting these health professionals onto your podcast to share their expertise. I'm yet to have someone on my podcast that I've done an episode with that I now that I have lost connection with.

Usually, all of them, I'm still in contact with them somehow. You'd be the same, wouldn't you, Jim? Oh, we had Don on. Oh, we had Don on. Yeah.

We had So Don's connected with us, but he already was.

Yeah. There's two man podcast, but I think that it's a great way to to to have open and honest conversations with people, but just get to know people by having them on the podcast. Like you said, it's gonna number one, it'll help showcase who they are, who they treat, if, you know, or who what or maybe what their business is like. So people get to know them more on a personal level, and it's a way for them to kinda promote themselves in a way. But then also, like you said, it builds a connection.

You've had, you know, a half an hour, an hour discussion with someone, and you feel like you know that person. So there's it's a little bit more of a stronger bond or a connection when you when you kinda have them on that way. And it could benefit both people. Right? Like I said, it it's visibility for the business or for their for the practice.

At the same time, you kind of, you know, build a build a kind of a personal or a professional connection there.

Yeah. I've been saying this for years now. And I know if I was a podiatrist in town and a local physiotherapist or chiropractor contacted me and said and once again, this is what I'm saying. You put yourself in their shoes. They contacted me and said, hey, Tyson.

Would you like to come on our podcast and talk about podiatry? I will be putting this in my newsletter and sending it out to, you know, four and a half thousand patients that this episode has dropped, and you're gonna be talking about heel pain, for example, and the common causes. I would, yes, I would walk over a broken glass to do that episode for a local chiropractor with four and a half thousand people in the database. It's going, you you you'd be crazy to say no. So they're probably gonna say yes to you as well.

You just need, once again, the structure on how how to set the podcast up.

For sure.

Such a good medium. So, anyway, the fourth point is communicate effectively after a referral. So send timely reports and thank you letters to the referrers. If you're not doing that, then you're crazy. Keep the communication short, professional, and relevant, showing that you respect the time.

Don't give them this big, long like, they've sent a patient and you say, can you just fix this up? And it's very basic what they've asked for. Write back to them when you fix them and say, yes. I fixed them up. Couple of pointers, but don't rave on with a whole pile of podiatry jargon.

They do not care. What well, they don't care, and they don't understand it. So it's easier just to not do that. Just keep it keep it simple so they just know that thank you for the referral. They've come in.

This is what you treated. You did the review. These are the results you got, and everybody's basically happy.

That's all put. I think if we just talk too much about the things they don't care about, it's it's a waste of your time. It's a waste of their time. So just make sure you're brief and to the point and let them know how you've helped their patient and move on.

Yeah. I remember one of the doctors used to be here in Cairns, and he used to always say to me, he'd go, oh, can you tell such and such used to work for me? Can you just tell them, please, just I'd rather not even send a report if they're going to give me a full page of the whole biomechanical assessment and what the subtalar joint was doing and what this was and the whistle winless mechanism. And they just went, I don't care. All I wanna know is, have you fixed my patient?

That's all are they out of pain? That's all I really wanna know. And and that actually stopped that doctor referring to that particular podiatrist. They would refer to anybody else but them because they said, I'm just sick of their reports.

Wow.

Anyway, the fifth point is make yourself easy to refer to. So have a streamlined referral process. Whether you you you still wanna use referral pads or some form of online form or is there a QR code that you can send them, they can just click on that, and it'll go through to somewhere on your website. And I think this is really important, and not many people do it, provide a direct contact number and email address to you. If I was with a patient, if there was doctors that I had a good relationship with, they had my mobile number, and I had their details in my phone.

If they wanted to contact me, I'd say, just ring me directly. Your name will pop up on my phone. I will answer it every time you call. That didn't happen very often, but when it did call, and I just say, oh, just excuse me for a sec. The local physiotherapist has contacted me.

Patients were fine with it. Takes a couple of minutes, but that that is just something that not many people will will actually do. And I know if I had a a physio that said to me, here's my direct number if you need to contact me, and I had a patient in front of me that I thought needed to see them, knowing I could ring them, what makes me look good to the patient as well?

Absolutely. It it kinda shows that inner doctor communication, and it kinda can build some trust for sure.

Yeah. Well, imagine you saying to my guy, I've got a I've an inside guy. I know a guy. Everyone knows it loves it when someone says, ah, I know a guy. I can get you in.

I can get you those tickets. I know a guy.

Absolutely.

And I think when you first when you first open, this is important to remember, every referral is to you until further notice. So you open up your business, you're going out, you're seeing everybody, you're you're building up the reputation. Think every referral from every referrer is going to come to you. Even when you employ somebody else, every referral needs to come to you for a period of time until further notice. And and that way, I loved what one's coming to me, and then I might, yeah, have that patient see another podiatrist on my team.

And then we would slowly once I knew what the other podiatrist and they built up trust as well, then I'd slowly start letting the referrers know. Oh, just to let you know, I didn't see that patient. Yeah. John, who works with me, saw them, did a great job, and and then until they eventually got to meet them. So I think it's really important.

Your team and staff will come and go, but you will always be there. So to me, you always need to be the figurehead of the business. You need to be the the name that everybody thinks of. All the referral referrals come to you. Doesn't mean you have to see the patient, though.

You then can can palm them off. So ensure your clinic yeah. The location, make sure that you've got a great location, the parking's good, and like you we were talking about last week, just about having available appointments when somebody is actually having a problem an emergency.

Yeah. Especially when it comes to referrals, you wanna make sure they have the best of a chance to have a kind of that wow experience with you in your clinic. Because if you know, they're obviously gonna talk to their primary care or their physio or whoever refer that person about you. And the more glowing it can be and the more positive it can be, it's probably gonna lead to to additional referrals in the future if they've had a good experience.

Yeah. I I went somewhere the other day, had to get a had to get a test done. And they said, oh, we can't get you in till, like, end of the year, December. I went I said, jeez, I'd hate to be dying. And they went, oh, well, if you were dying, we'd get you in within twenty four hours.

I said, well, is there anyone dying? Has anyone rung up and died in the yeah. He's dying in the last twenty four hours? They're like, no. He said, can you just get me in then?

I said, obviously, you got some spots there. I'm like, oh, that's not really how it works. You gotta wait till December. You wait another six weeks. I'm like, okay.

Fair enough. I'm just one of those whinging patients. So anyway, the sixth point is build your personal relationships. Drop in for a coffee with your local physios or trainers if you can. If you know they have a lunch break around 12:30, get to find out through the, you know, the gatekeepers where do they normally buy their coffee, how do they have their coffee.

Just come buy a coffee. When's their lunch break? You just rock up. The and especially the friendly you get with them is you need to maintain that friendship. Don't take friendships for granted because bump you don't bump into a friend for a couple years because yeah.

Are you still friends? You you should be maintaining that contact. Try and collaborate on joint workshops, joint programs, whether it's running injury preventions with different coaches. It seemed like you and I, Jim, doing this podcast together. This was a collaboration.

This is an idea that you had. You reached out to me. Went, yeah. Why not? What's the worst that can happen?

Three years later, you're like, a lot of bad

Three years later, I'm thinking. What's the worst

that can and a half. Almost four. So, yeah, it's going strong.

Time flies, doesn't it? So, yeah, 200 something episodes. So support local sporting clubs or events where trainers, physios are going to be involved. We used to go out and volunteer a lot of marathons and different races and cans. Because we knew the doctors and physios and the people we wanna connect with were also in those medical tents.

And when there's a downtime, you just all sit around and you talk. You you get to know each other, and this is all part of not being lazy. And make sure you you celebrate your wins, acknowledge, and thank referrers for trusting you. When you do get a really positive result, you make sure you make a big deal about it. You let the referrers know, and you thank them again for that referral.

And just because someone refers a patient to you and you you send a letter back, okay, that's okay. You've ticked a box. The person comes back six months later, might be reviewing something else. You can send a follow-up report just to say, hey, just to let you know, six months later, this problem's still great. But why why limit it to to one report?

That's a great point. I really resonate kinda with that we were talking about the you know, we've talked about in the past as far as, you know, trying to find a niche with a type of carrier you wanna provide. You know, where are those where those specific patients at. But it's like you said, it's also with kind of the the medical tent or finding these other places where, you know, who else is, you know, kinda interacting with these kinda ideal patients, you know, whether it's other doctors or physios or coaches, and what are those ways to collaborate with them, like you said, in a marathon tent. Maybe it's a workshop about running injuries.

You know, take some time to think about, you know, what are those people doing and, you know, how could you benefit them by doing something collaborative because that's these win win situations can be really fruitful for both parties. So, you know, take some time to think about that, and, you know, the the benefits can be more than you can really expect.

Yeah. And that was, like, my seventh point is just go beyond the clinic, being active in the community at all these different fun runs and give talks to gyms and participate in local health expos. I remember once we had a stand for the podiatry clinic at the the was it tropical North Queensland banana expo? Don't normally find a podiatrist at the banana expo, so you found out. And a lot of people who were there were saying, wouldn't have expected to see a podiatrist at the banana expo.

Expect to see a lot of bananas, which we did. A And lot of banana suppliers, and didn't realize how many things were related to bananas. But there was an opportunity to go there. We knew someone. They said, we got a spare site if you wanna use it for free.

Yeah. Why not? When you're out of these things, you you are noticed. Other health professionals notice that you're involved in all this. You can do co branded content with physios, chiropractors, and other running coaches.

But the bottom line, and this is what I'm gonna finish on, getting referrals is not difficult. It just takes work. But, and here's the big but, most podiatrists will not do it. It's that simple. So have you heard that?

If you're listening to this, most of you won't do this. You'll listen to this and go, oh, that was really good, Jim and Tyson. Was a great episode. And then you'll just move on. I was listening to a podcast the other day, and it said to me, if you're just devouring content and not taking any action, it's a waste of time.

So when you finish every time you finish a podcast episode, you need to write down one or two things you're gonna do, and actually just implement one thing from every episode, take some action, and you're gonna be way ahead of everybody else.

Yeah. That person that's actually gonna, you know with all the people that aren't gonna do anything, that one person that's actually doing something is gonna have a huge advantage over those others. So I think that's a pretty motivational way to to end things today.

Okay, Big Jim. I look forward to talking to you next week.

Sounds great, Tyson.

Okay. See you later. Bye.

Bye now. Thanks for listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDonnell. Subscribe and learn more at Podiatry Marketing. That's the website address, podiatry.marketing.