Nurturing Referrers: The Forgotten Marketing Strategy

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 your host, Jim McDannald. Joined as always by my trusty co host, Tyson Franklin. Tyson, how are you doing today?

I'm fantastic today, big Jim. Just a little bit nasally, so if anyone hears that in my voice, I do apologize. I don't have a flu or a cold. I feel absolutely fantastic, But my sinuses, I think from being bashed around the head too many times when I played rugby league and just other things that I do, I think there's been a little bit of damage there and it's starting to play up a little bit.

Those things can happen. Those things can happen. No worries about that.

Yeah. Somebody said to me a while back, they said, you could go back and do everything over again, sport, all the things that you did and all the injuries you had, would you do all the same sports again? I went, hell yeah. Of course, I would. I just probably do them smarter, train harder, be more prepared.

I think everybody looks back and they they wonder what your, you know, 15 through 25 year old self was doing back then. You know, I think I felt like I trained hard, and I didn't initially train smart. I think I trained a little bit smarter than I than I did in the past. And I never played. My brothers played soccer growing up.

I think I would have liked that sport, but it wasn't it wasn't really a thing where I grew up. But but otherwise, you know, yeah, definitely no regrets with the sports I chose, but definitely could've been a little bit training could've been done a little bit smarter, I think.

Yeah. Well, I think that, like, what this conversation, even though it's not the topic for today, but it does relate to having a podiatry business, is you can go through having a podiatry business. You could ask anyone after five years or ten years if you could go back and do things different, would you? Everybody says yes because you don't get the experience until you have the experience. Yeah.

And so I look back at sport and I and I think of how hard I used to play with rugby league and the injuries that you got from it, which weren't I didn't get a lot of injuries, surprisingly. But even if you go back and learn from it, even if you did it the second time around, you'd still come out of it with new experiences. You go, oh, if I did it again, I'd go back. I think that's what this podcast is all about, is we're sharing our experiences in business and marketing with podiatrists that are prepared to listen and hopefully they can avoid some of the mistakes we've made and learn from it.

Absolutely, hopefully they can kind of fast forward through some of those tough early times and they'll get to the good times more quickly by listening to us and implementing some of the things we talk about.

Okay, so I'm gonna dive into today's topic which is nurturing your referrers, the forgotten marketing strategy. And the reason I bring this up is because a lot of podiatrists, they spend a lot of time wanting to attract new patients while completely overlooking the people who are already sending them patients. There's something that I think everyone needs to consider, or there's some stats that people need to consider. The first one, say for example, you went and visited a 100 professional referrers. Could be doctors, it might be physios, sports therapists, whoever you would class as a professional referrer.

50% of those people are never ever going to refer to you. It's just the way it is. You could do the best song and dance. You could give them the best information, but 50% are what I class as never freaking going to refer. It's that simple.

For whatever reason, it might be they already have podiatrists they work with, they might have a family member, they may hate podiatrists. Just accept that that's going to happen. 5% that you go and visit will probably refer someone to you by the time you've got back to your clinic. You'll go there and they just happen to have a patient. As soon as you left the next patient, they go, oh, I'm gonna refer them to podiatrist.

I just met them, bang, and they're gonna be referred to you. But it's the forty five percent in between there. Fifty percent never, 5% straight away. The forty five percent are the ones that I'm talking about today. The ones that they've met you, but you need to nurture them over a period of time before they start referring.

And it could be over a week or a week or two, or might be something over twelve months you have to just build this relationship. So that's what I wanna focus on today.

I think this is a great topic. I'm I'm really excited to hear because I think sometimes, you know, when I'm working with clients and marketing people, it's like, you know, one new patient at a time or one new lead or something comes in at one at a time. But if you can get a good referral source, this could be, you know, they could have a significant amount of patients to refer your way. So I'm I'm excited to kinda dive in those with you today.

Yeah. And sometimes, see, you may have a meeting with someone and you go, that went so well. This person's gonna refer so many people to me, They do not refer anyone. You might meet someone, you have the meeting with them, you walk out the room and you go, oh, they hated me. I don't know why.

Could just tell they hated me. Was it my shirt? Do I smell? Something about them they didn't like, and they've referred someone to you within twenty four hours. So you can't always base it on the actual meeting.

So what I'm going go through is 10 different things where I just think you can just nurture and improve that particular relationship.

That sounds good. What's number one off the list?

Okay. Number one is referrals are earned, they're not owed. So just because, like I said, a physio, chiropractor, GP, personal trainer has referred to you before, it doesn't mean that they will continue to refer because relationships need maintenance. And if you don't nurture them, this is the thing, somebody else may do it. And just because you visit them once doesn't mean that one time is enough.

It's something you must maintain this relationship over a period of time. And I know when I've set up clinics in different towns and I've gone and met some professional referrers, and they'll say, oh, yeah. I met a podiatrist once about four years ago when they opened up. Never heard or seen from them since. And then they wonder why they lose those referrers because the new people coming into town are now seeing those people and they may be maintaining a better relationship.

Yeah. Relations, like you said, about consistency. Right? It doesn't mean just one big grand gesture that one time and then five or ten years that they're gonna keep doing it. It's something where you need to be top of mind with these referrers.

And obviously, you don't wanna be, like, on top of them too much, but at the same time, you need to continue to nurture that relationship in different forms.

Yeah. You don't wanna be annoying. That's the last thing you got. So the second thing is make referrers look good. Every person who refers to you is putting they're pretty much putting their reputation on the line.

No different to when you refer someone to somebody else. Keep that in mind. They have sent someone to you, their reputation's now on line. When you deliver excellent care, if you achieve really, really good outcomes, you make that referral look smart for actually recommending you. And if you communicate well, this is the opposite to that.

If you communicate poorly, you run behind. You seem tired when you see that patient. If you do everything that is negative, even if the consultation goes well, that could reflect poorly on that referrer. And that patient will go back and go, Oh, I saw that podiatrist. You didn't tell me that I had to wait forty five minutes and they don't have really good communication skills, by the way, they had bad breath.

That is gonna reflect poorly, just gotta keep that in mind.

Yeah, when someone refers a patient to you, they're kind of extending the trust that they've built with the patient. And hopefully, you know, they're kind of passing that trust baton to you. And if you drop the baton, it's gonna not only reflect poorly on yourself, but also on that physician. So you wanna make sure that you do the best job you can to kind of continue to build that trust and deliver great results for that patient.

The third thing is thank people more often. So one of the simplest and most overlooked marketing activities is, of course, you'll thank them when they send you the initial referral, which I'm pretty sure everybody does that. But do you thank them for just their ongoing support, not necessarily related to that one specific, patient? It could just be a quick email. It might be just a hand a handwritten card, which people do not do anymore.

Very few people take the time and effort to actually write a handwritten just thank you card in general. You might if you know what their coffee order is, she's dropping dropping a coffee for the staff and for other people that work there just to just to thank them. And they're the sort of things that leave a lasting impression with somebody, not just they refer someone, you write back a report. Thanks for that. It's those little things that you do on top of that letting them know that you really appreciate the referrals over the long term.

Yeah. It might have started off with, like, a a lunch alone or something. Like, talked about, you don't have to these, like, big grand gestures. It's it's these little things about being consistent, you know, being seen as a as a team player kind of, you know, with them and kind of the best interest of the patient. By doing that, you're gonna build that rapport over a long period of time by the consistency of these what look like small gestures, but they they can compound over time.

Yeah. And the the next one I'll talk about, this sort of actually it's very real. It's quite close to the third one, but it's closed the communication loop. So many referrers, they'll send patients, but sometimes it feels like it just goes into a bit of a black hole. They'll get that initial report explaining what happened with the patient, but do you send updates?

Patients come in, you've done the treatment, you send the report to them, but as you're working with that patient over a period of time, and depending on the type of treatment you're offering, it could be a month, it might be two or three months that you're working with the patient, getting them back, making sure things are okay. Are you sending them updated reports to stay top of mind with them? Not just here's one report, and then from that point onwards, it is now just a black hole. The referrers got no idea what actually took place. And I've had that happen where I've referred not just patients, but friends to a certain business, and they may initially let me know they went there.

But other than that, I have no idea what actually took place. And it's sort of it's it's a bit of an unnerving feeling. You don't know whether you should be sending more people or not.

Absolutely. I think that's a great touch. You know, it's great to have that touch point by, you know, being in contact with the other clinic and just seeing how things are going. Right? If it's like I said, not only do you stay top of mind, but you can also get some information.

You know? And, obviously, you can also ask your own patients. Right? And I sent you to this doctor. You know, how did it go?

You can get some additional information in that way. But, yeah, just on your side of things, just keeping the referring physician kind of up to date and you staying top of mind is a is a powerful way to keep that that kind of contact information kind of going.

Well, if you referred a patient somewhere, you got the initial thing saying thank you, that's if you get that, and then the patient comes back and you say, Oh, how did it go? They go, Oh yeah, went and saw him and had to see him four or five more times after. Then he referred me somewhere else because he couldn't help me. Now, wouldn't that be nice to know that that person you referred me who sent your message back and said, saw him three or four times, did this treatment, I thought it was going to work, it didn't, but normally it would. However, there's somebody else who's even more specialized in this area, this one particular thing, and I've referred them there.

That would be great to know because then you could bypass them and maybe send them to the other person next time. So this is where the communication could be really helpful.

Absolutely. Kinda keep kinda closing that loop and just kind of knowing what's going on in the patient the patient journey that you're a part of as opposed to, like, you know, instead having to drag it out of the patient or just, like, find out in a surprising way.

Mhmm. So number five is don't only contact them when you actually want something. The fastest way to damage a referral relationship is to make every interaction about you. It's all about, Will you refer patients to me? I think there are times where you can just share useful information, something you may have learned in podiatry that could actually be beneficial to them.

Also, if they've done something where they've been recognised publicly, is congratulate them on the public achievement. It could have been they may have moved their clinic somewhere else, they may have taken over some extra room in the building they're in and expanded. I think they might have a number of new staff members join them. But also comment on social media posts and actually support their business. If you are following them and they are posting something, like it.

Comment. If you support their business, they're going to support your business. It's not always just about that next referral.

I totally agree. You know, if you're just always kind of coming to someone else or coming to referral, you know, kinda with your hands out, you're gonna look you're gonna look needy. You're not gonna look like you're kind of coming from a position of, you know, confidence or a position of power. So the more you can, you know, kind of shine the light on them and their accomplishments and just kind of be there as a positive person and just kind of being there, not necessarily asking for something, it definitely is a a long term benefit for for you and for your practice. Because like you said, you you just don't want to, like, to show up when when it's time for to try to like grab a referral here, referral there.

You just wanna be present in helping support them and show support for the the accomplish they have. They're gonna be very appreciative of that kind of recognition you're giving them.

Yeah. And I remember over the time of having the clinic when we when we moved to a new location, if we'd done a renovation and expanded, if we had won a local or state business award, I knew the people we had a good relationship with because they would send you emails congratulating you on what you've done. Sometimes they'd even drop in a bottle of wine and say, here's here's to help you celebrate the expansion. So you knew that these people, you weren't just a referral source to them either. They actually were watching what your business was doing and they were they were supporting it.

Absolutely. I think it's it's that kind of reciproc there's kind of a law of reciprocity. Yeah. You know, if you're supporting someone and you're showing giving them adulation and giving them their their props when they do well, very likely that when it's your when it's your turn to come around that they'll reciprocate in ways that will be helpful to you, and it's just a it's just a good way of go about doing things.

So number six is understand their ideal patient. Different referrers will have different priorities and challenges, but try to learn, ask them, who is their ideal patient? If you can actually refer someone back to them, who is it that they would like to see? Just as important, ask them the type of patients that they struggle with that they may not like or you might actually be able to help them more. I used to make it really clear with doctors when we were talking to them, I'd try and find out what they liked.

So if I had patients with this particular problem that I knew that they could help with, I would definitely send them over. But I'd also let them know what I didn't like because there'd be no point sending someone to me that was like a diabetic, high risk foot that needed routine foot care when that was not something that I really was passionate about. So I think it's important for them to know what you like and don't like, and also for you to know know the same information about them. And that way, you'll actually be able to help each other a lot a lot more.

No. Absolutely. I think there's the the benefit of them knowing that when you know what they want to send over and you send that stuff to them, they're gonna know you, number one, they'll be happy. But it's not just that you're kinda like making them happy is that, you know, if it's kind of like we talked about in some previous conversations about niching down. You know, if they want to do diabetic care or they wanna do sports medicine and you're sending patients there that, you know, they are the expert in that area, the patient's benefiting from that as well.

So it's not just like there is a nurture component to nurturing the relationship, but there's also the level of, like, you are helping you know, you're as part of the kind of medical care, like, kind of chain or something kind of a team for them overall, you're helping that patient get better care overall. So that's and that's what it's really all about. Right? Trying to make people better, trying to get people back to their activities. And if you can have know what people's specialties are, the areas where they they are the experts in, the better off the your local community is gonna be.

Oh, definitely. And this leads on to number seven. You wanna become a resource, not just a referral option. So you wanna be the first person they think of when certain foot and lower limb problems arise. Provide education.

Provide them articles. Send them videos. If you're doing a presentation somewhere, maybe send them an invite. Hey, I'm doing this presentation at this spot at this time. Would you like to come along?

If you want more sports referrals and all the information you send them is sports related, more than likely, you're gonna get more sports referrals. But if you're saying you want more sports referrals and you send them just random stuff that there might be the odd sport thing in it, but there's all this other information, then that gets confusing them. They don't know exactly what it is that you want. So just make sure you you educate them, become the resource in the areas that you actually want more of.

Absolutely. Like we talked about, there's nothing wrong with being a generalist. Not everyone needs to niche down, like, to to to very kind of narrow subspecialty, but you you as the provider know that three to five different diagnosis or treatments that you like to do. So it's really important that, you know, for your clinic and for yourself and for the community that it's apparent to everyone that those are the things that you do and that you're the best at. So when having that kind of different forms of communication with your referral base, that they recognize those things and you're top of mind when it comes to sports medicine or whatever that, you know, or ingrown toenails or diabetic care, whatever it is you want to be known for, yeah, you have to be top of mind.

Yeah. Especially like what you said then. If you wanted more ingrown toenails and you want to be doing more surgeries, then letting your referrers know and giving them information about ingrown toenails and the type of surgery you do and the success rate and before and after photos, and they could look at all that. And it might be something that they do in their clinic, say a general practitioner, but they may not like doing it. So if they can look at yours and you're showing far better results, I'll tell you right now, they're going refer those patients on because not every GP wants to be doing them even though they can.

I think there's a example I mentioned on a previous podcast, but I'll bring it up again because I think it's very pertinent is that there's potentially like levels of referrals out there you don't even know about until you maybe even it's not just what you tell them you want to have, but it's how you brand your clinic and how you market your clinic. Right? If you're called the running clinic or the the toenail, you know, fungal treatments clinic, you know, for example, there's a clinic that I think it's in Iowa that is branding themselves like the the Iowa Nail Clinic. Right? And their biggest form of referrals is is dermatologists.

Oh, maybe you mentioned that.

Dermatologists wanna do dermatologists wanna do skin and acne and maybe some small biopsies and those things. They don't really want nail fungus. Right? But they're getting that stuff into their clinic. So you don't have to necessarily tell them that you do that.

But if you're top of mind, you have the branding where that's what you do, There's a lot of different ways to communicate. It's not all just like broadcasting to people. You know, it's sometimes it is branding and and kind of how you present yourself in in more ways than just broadcasting at people.

Yeah. No. I agree. Number eight is build personal relationships. People refer to people they know, like, and trust.

Everybody knows that. You're not going to refer someone to someone you don't know, don't like, and don't trust. It's just never going to happen. Get to know your professional referrers. Learn about their interests, their family, hobbies.

What are their business goals? And like I said, this isn't something that you're going to maybe find out in that one visit, but just pay attention. When you're in the room with them, instead of focusing on yourself, is look around the room. There's usually hints of what they do. So they got they got a photo there, and there's a there's a woman standing there with a couple of kids.

More than likely, it's his wife and his kids or her kids. It's not gonna be some random person down the street. So you look at oh, is that your wife and kids or is that your husband and kids? They will start talking about them. You might see a couple of photos.

You may have noticed in the reception area, there was a boating magazine and then you see a photo of a boat on the wall, and you go, oh, no, it's a magazine out the front. Are you into boating? And they will just start talking about it. So a lot of the times, getting people to know, like, and trust you is letting them talk about themselves. But being observant about what's around the room and and and paying attention to that.

Tap into those things, and those people will definitely know, like, and trust you more.

No. Absolutely. I think sports for me has always been a connector, and I think a lot of people that go into health care, you know, understand the importance of exercise and diet and those things. And that bodes well as far as maybe someone has an athletic background. You can kind of, you know, share experiences or share stories and listen to them and understand where they come from and how they got interested in, you know, doing whatever form of medicine they provide.

But I think there's also an opportunity just to be a good person and a beneficial member of the local medical community. Right? So, you know, are you part of the medical staff? Do you, you know, do you volunteer or do you spend time? I think in The US, especially, like, you can be, you know, part of things like surgical centers or, you know, kind of being in leadership at hospitals and those things are gonna build a lot of goodwill with other specialties, obviously, and being supportive of those different, you know, organizations can be a great way.

Sometimes outside of medicine as well, maybe it's a local charity or some other thing as well. But are you a good community member? Are you someone that is is is more out than just for for yourself? Right? Are you out for the the goodwill of the the hospital or the the the local community or charities?

Those are great ways to build rapport and build a reputation and get to know other people in the community.

Yeah. And that's why it's important to pay attention. Like I said, you're in the room, you can look around the room, you can tell by the books they have on the shelves whether if it's medicine, what type of medicine they may be more interested in because there's probably gonna be more of those books. But even though we don't have no one looks at newspapers as much as they used to, so you flick through the social sections. But just being on social media and having a look and paying attention to what people are posting and different events that are being on.

And when you see an event, there might be 50 photos. Actually, have a look through those photos and pay attention to who's in the photos. You may find some of the people it could be a rotary event that somebody that you know attended, but then also you notice three or four of your professional referrers actually have that rotary event. It's almost like becoming a detective. And it's not doing it the wrong way.

It's just pay attention to all the information that's actually out there.

Absolutely. Could put it better.

And this leads on to the line, which is track where your referrals come from. Now, know a lot of clinics well, there's a lot of clinics, I think, that have got no idea who the best referrers are. And if I if I stop and said right now, who is your best referrer? Who are your top three referrers? They should know the answer straight away and shouldn't have to go and look up a spreadsheet or a dashboard to find out who the best referrers are.

It should just be they should just know, who it is. So it's really important to measure referrals to identify who your top supporters are, focus your relationship building efforts where it matters most. And sometimes patients may actually say or you might ask them, how did you find a person? On the Internet or Google. A Google search.

But if you dig deeper, you might find they're at the doctor. The doctor said you need to see a podiatrist. They didn't exactly say who, and then they started doing the Google search. So what what that's telling you is the doctor's actually done the referral. They've just used Google to actually find you.

So if you dig a bit deeper and then that doctor that may see a podiatrist, you may not have a relationship with them yet, but you will because they're obviously podiatry friendly.

Absolutely. I think it's a great point. It's one of those things where you just have to, you know, spend a little bit of time, but it you should know who those top three are for sure. There's, there's no doubt about that.

Okay. And the last one is create a referral experience that's worth talking about. The best marketing is when patients go back to their doctor, their physio, their specialist, whoever referred you, and they say, that podiatry you referred me to. They were absolutely fantastic. That's what you want patients to come back and say.

Every patient interaction either strengthens or weakens your referral network. An exceptional service that you give those patients just creates this amazing momentum. So if got patients constantly going back to the referrers and say, you are fantastic, they are never gonna send them anywhere else.

Absolutely. I think that reinforcement is something that's a positive word-of-mouth where I think it's it's probably the most powerful way to to to show that they put they put your trust their trust in you, and you delivered, and you hear back from the patient. Once they hear back from the patient, they're that kind of cements you as their kind of go to person for sure.

So in closing, just yeah, you don't need to find constantly find new referrers. A smarter approach is just take care of the ones you already have. The people that you're referring to, just make sure you're nurturing them and you've set that up right before you move on to finding new ones. Because if you don't, and you constantly just keep looking for the new ones, other podiatrists or other people are gonna come into town, and they're gonna take all those referrers that you've only ever met once. So you want to build a referral network, you want to build relationships, and remember that referrals are not just a transaction, they are actually a transfer of trust.

A GP who sends you 10 patients, even if it's only 10 patients, for a a year, and they do that for the next, yeah, the next decade, that's gonna that's gonna generate more inquiries than you do in, yeah, Facebook ads. So just keep basically, keep that in mind.

No. That's a great point. I think it is about that consistency and the building relationship over time that are really gonna compound like you said. But once you get that momentum going, you build that trust. You have great results for their patients.

It's just gonna grow and grow.

So I think I'm done with that topic. Everyone who's listening to this, just go through those 10 things. Build just just make sure you nurture all your referrers. Remember, 50% never freaking go into refer. It's really simple to remember.

5% will refer straight away. It's the other 45%. That's the money is the money is always in the nurturing. So if they can focus on that, they're they're gonna they'll thank me later.

Absolutely. So, yeah, so thanks for this topic tonight, Tyson, and we'll talk soon. Okay?

Okay. See you next week, Jim. Bye.

Alright. Bye now.

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