If you don’t already have your copy of my newest book titled The 5 Golden Rings Dental Practice Referral System – WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?! It’s been flying off of our shelves and the feedback has been incredible. Of course this is a hot topic because everyone knows a new patient coming through referrals is the best patient ever. They have implied trust, they have been recommended, usually that is an indicator they are serious and of a reasonable quality, and intent to proceed with treatment.
The question is – why do people refer and are there secrets to making it happen, more, better, faster. ABSOLUTELY!
And good news, I’m going to tell you…of course you need my book…because it outlines my 5 REFERRAL CONCEPTS each with SEVERAL systems included in them anyone of which would dramatically impact your number and quality of new patients pretty much overnight.
Here’s the thing, when you think about it, it’s really not that difficult to get more referrals. I mean, instead of getting one patient to refer you one patient, you want to get them to refer you two patients…from every person, source, initiative or relationship you want to multiply or at least double resulting in turning one into to two or two into many.
The reason why this doesn’t happen or at least not consistently is because we are expecting the patient to do all the work and taking no responsibility for cultivating or making this magic happen.
Today I’m going to share with you how your team can stimulate more referrals with my 2 referral magic secrets – since this is the Monday Huddle, it’d be a great focus for your week to get everyone thinking about it and put it on top of their mind.
Let’s go backwards.
#2 Magic Referral Secret = Incentivize your Team and make it a game or contest. Your Team Members should be your sales force, your advocates, your ambassadors in the community. Usually it’s the last thing they think about – why – because there’s nothing in it for them. They think asking a patient for a referral is good enough because it’s all they’ve ever known.
What about places they know and go, where their spouses work, what about where their kids go to school, what about other healthcare professionals they visit.
Probably at any given time (or all the time) your team members “need” more money and if you want to keep their focus on their job then give them ways to make more money. Not just your bonus system for production – BORING, necessary, but not the way you’ve been taught most likely – it’s doubtful they are still motivated by something you’ve done a long time ago. A topic for another time.
This is different. They should be referring more patients to the practice than anyone else…if they aren’t you really have to ask yourself – why not.
#1 Magic Referral Secret = it’s the ultimate referral multiplier – ENTHUSIASM – yes of course – MORE ENERGY in your office. If everyone is smiling, happy, cheerful, if everyone is excited about dentistry and patients then your patients will be too.
I have to tell you something…come closer, listen carefully, remember this…
(your patients really don’t ‘like’ dentistry, they don’t come to visit for fun, it’s interesting to you, not to them, otherwise, guess what, they’d have become a dentist or at least a team member inside of a dental practice)
THAT MEANS YOU HAVE TO GET THEM EXCITED ABOUT IT
Here’s the most amazing tip I will ever give you and piece of advice, if you and your team aren’t excited about what you are doing and who you are doing it with then you darn sure aren’t going to get your patients excited about it.
So…
Rally the troops, pep up the team, load up on the caffeine, whatever it takes – LOOK ALIVE and HAVE SOME ENERGY. To y’all it might just be another day, to your patients, it’s the only visit that matters.
When you transfer your enthusiasm onto your Patients they can’t help but want to bring other people back with them. Add that to the systems in my book and you’ve got a winning formula that’ll let you have the cream of the crop or blow the doors off with more patients than you can handle, whichever of those objectives matches your mission.
Remember all the strategies are in the book…the secrets make each of my strategies work even better like miracle grow on your spring gardens or a good rain on those freshly planted crops. You do have to nurture these things to happen and there is no better way than the 2 secrets listed above.
At the end of the day it’s not just about the action it’s about the execution – have fun with these and I can’t wait to hear what you do with them.
