How to Ask for a Referral from a Patient

Asking for referrals from you super happy patients can feel pretty salesy, but if you have that viewpoint, you have the wrong viewpoint.

You are in the business of helping people live pain-free lives and I believe it should be to help as many people as possible.

We spend money on ads, we knock on doors, hold events and so many things, but do we ask a patient, "Who do you know who needs my help?" 

You might be surprised with the impact this simple question can make.

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Transcript

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One of the things I realized very early on when I decided to become a consultant, I was very excited about helping practice owners and I work with somebody who really helped me. And I thought, you know, this is just going to be really simple. I'm going to share some information with a practice owner and they are going to go. Oh, my God. And they would give me their money. They would just go like that be pretty simple, right? Anyone can do it. And I remember my very 1st client that I spoke to, you know, was like, when did a workshop? It went really well. I went to talk to them about becoming a client and, and it would just never go right. It would get right down to the dollar figure. And the guy said, Is, you know, I have to contemplate my navel. I got to talk to my spouse. I got to, you know, I got to see when the moon's in the seventh house, cause that's when I'm going to be really able to do such a thing, I would get all kinds of reasons why, and I never really kind of got my head around exactly what I was doing wrong. So, I got a phone call from a friend and she and I were chatting and she told me this 1 little trick. It was a bit of a sales trick and I found that it worked. And so I started to apply this 1 little sales trick. I'm going to tell you what it is. I'm not going to be 1 of those guys. And just for 999, you can find out what the sales trick is. I'm going to share with you what it is. Right? But she showed me this 1 thing and I started to apply this 1 thing and my very 1st client signs up. I apply this one little thing and my second client signs up. It wasn't a hundred percent, but it was like one tool. And it was one tool in the subject of sales that I learned how to do. And then started to apply that in, you know, my day to day consulting world. I thought that was pretty amazing. Now, looking back, you know, I had this thing that I would do when I was working with patients and trying to get patients to get on our team to basically get our patients in our organization, not necessarily directly on the payroll, but actually influencing business. And I was, you know, presenting quite a bit of dialogue back and forth with the patient to try to get him or her excited about, you know, working with me and referring patients to me and getting on the team and all this kind of stuff. I learned a couple of things. I want to share it with you and I think it will make a big difference. And I'm so much so that I believe that the power of our patient base is so untapped. We do a great job. Patients love us. They tell their friends and family, you know, they make us cookies. They give us gifts named children after us. They do a lot of different things to support how much we've cared about them and how much we've helped them. But what we really want is them to send their friends and family. Right? So, what I want to talk about today is how to put our patients on our team. And actually, a couple of things that you can say, just like the advice I was given some years ago as a consultant in sales, that was very, very beneficial to me. And it kind of fit along the lines of what I used to do with my patients. Here's how it works. The other patient who's super, super happy, you've treated them. Well, they like you. It's going super good. One of the things that we don't do is we don't ask the question that gets an answer earlier this week. I posted something about veterans versus rookies. And if you take a look, and hopefully some of you've done the work and took a look at last week's volume or last month's patients, or whoever you have active right now. And identify how, what percentage of them, or how many of them represent. Veteran patients, so. Patients who came back when care is needed patients who referred a friend or family member. You look at that and practices that been around while that number can reach up to 50%. Okay. Some might even go higher. Now, that's fabulous. It says everything about who you are. It says everything about the quality of the care that you deliver. It says everything about what you believe in. It says everything. But what we didn't do is give every patient a megaphone. Okay. We didn't give a patient a way of which they can sing, sing and sing loudly. Right? And that could be, of course, maybe it's reviews. We're not getting reviews. We should be getting reviews. Maybe we are getting reviews, right? Maybe that's not enough. Now, what we want to do is we want to make salespeople out of your patients. That's what you want to do. And you have to have the expectation that a happy patient wants to send you people. You have to have that expectation. Not like, I wonder if, because if you actually have that viewpoint of, I expect my patients to refer someone to me, then you won't be backed off in asking. I once had a lady send me 26 patients, 26 people, another 70 18. I talk about these people a lot and I've had many that would send me 10, several that sent me 5 and you don't get what you don't ask for. And it's not like you're putting anybody in an uncomfortable situation. People do refer to you doing nothing. 50 percent of your caseload is past patients. So, let's just do something. Okay. And we can better our score versus doing nothing. Let's walk through. Got a happy patient. You're doing super well, they are communicating to you how much better that they're doing. Don't wait till the very last day to ask this question. You'd ask, who do you know that needs our help? And then you say nothing else. That's the sales tip. Say nothing else. Because one of the things that happens is when you ask that question, Who do you know that needs our help? And you look expectantly for an answer. That person kind of takes a look up into their mind and goes, I wonder, no, I wonder who I know or who should be coming in. They're like looking at something. They're thinking it through, right? You're trying to figure it out. Right. And so if you keep talking, like, who do you know that needs your help? Because, you know, we're about helping people. And when most of our business comes from referrals, and we'd love to get referrals from you and, you know, I know that you're happy and you got a big family for crying out loud. I mean, somebody's got to be hurt. You know, who can you send my way? You know, you can have all of this going on. But what happened as soon as you ask the question, they go to take a look and then you keep talking. So they quit looking and they come right back to paying attention to what you're saying. Right. And then they say something like, well, you know, let me think about that. But if you ask the question. And you shut up and wait for the answer, they will speak. It will speak, and they may say, I don't really know anyone. And you go, I totally understand, but it's your job now that your job now, and they kind of chuckle and then, you know, seriously, if you know, anyone that needs our help, we'd like you to send them our way. Now, it's not like you're going to toss them to the floor and cough up a name or something like that, but it is a thing that should be incorporated in practice. And it most commonly is not. It should be what every staff member should do. Particularly the clinicians. It's super easy. Most clinicians are not very good at the area sales are a little bit weak in this area, so they may have different different kinds of considerations about it. So, happy patients will refer write that down. Happy patients will refer number 2. they will refer if more if you ask them to refer. Number 3, they will refer even more if you show them how to refer. So, if you take a look at a patient who came to see the 1st time, the 1st time is the hardest time. 2nd time is easier. By the time the patient comes back the 3rd time, they got this thing down. Right? 1st time, they got a pain, they take blue pills, they go back to the doctor, they take red pills, they go back to the doctor, they get an x ray, they go back to the doctor, they get it sent to a specialist, they go to the MRI. Bye. Bye. And they get about 3 grand into bills, and then they get sent to P. T. And I hope it isn't like that, but it is like that a lot of time. And that's their experience to come in to see you. So, that might be the experience that they think it's like to come back. So, we start with education, we start with the simplicity that it takes to come to physical therapy. What is required? Don't make their job hard, make their job easy. You know, if you wish to come back after we're done, this is how we do it. Right? You make that simple to understand. You walk them through it, and then you show them at 1 point how to refer. Okay, so they have a runway that's complicated the 1st time. Easier 1 way if we educate them while they're there of how to come back and also how to refer people into the practice. Simple thing. I want to share with you about my 26 patient referral situation. I had a patient who had a neck problem and she played the flute in the symphony. She's a lovely lady and really bad neck injury. And we were able to get her better now, during the course of working with her, I said, Sally, who do you know that needs our help? And she says, oh, gosh, you know, a whole bunch of people. I mean, a lot of people in the symphony have some kind of problem and physically they're sitting in all kinds of awkward positions. I go, well, who do you think I want to ask you the question? That's always when someone says everyone, when you say, who do you know that needs their help? And they say, oh, gosh, I see so many people. That's a cop out. They're not answering the question. Who is not them? Who is an individual? Who do you know that needs? You know, my brother in law's got a bad shoulder that hadn't been for years. Can we get your brother in to see us? Or to see me? Right? Yeah, you know what? I can take a look at him for free if you like. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just haven't call and ask for me. We'll work it out. Right? You make it easy. You take the friction out. You look at a patient worth a 1000 dollars or more do those things versus, you know, paying for Mark Zuckerberg's retirement plan. You just need to tell them what to do and they'll send you business. Right? So, I have this lady. I said, who do you know? And she said, you know, a whole bunch of people. And I said, what did you think of? She was gosh, can't think of anything off hand. And I said, well, Sally, that's your job. Okay, if you know, anybody that needs our help, please send them our way. That's it. That's as hard as the crushing sales process really is. Right? So. We're down at the end, she's about a couple of days from being discharged. I said, Sally, it looks like Friday is going to be your last day and she begins to gosh, and she's like, oh, gosh, I can't think, you know, I thought this was a thing and all this. Stop and all I did is withdrew just a little bit of affinity. Just pulled it back a little bit. I didn't back at her. I just said, well, I'm glad I was able to help you and I'm glad that you got better. And it was just like, what, what do you mean? What do you mean? I got better. What is this? You sound like you're upset with me. I'm not upset. She was. Well, it seemed like you're upsetting. It's nothing really. She was no really. What is it? I know it's nothing Sally. I'm really glad you're better. This is what I do for living. I love helping people with healthier lives. That's what I do. No, really. What is it? Just tell me. I don't know how to say it, but during the whole time you were coming in, you never referred a single person to me. And then she said, I didn't know I was supposed to, and I said, yeah, you're supposed to. So, who do you know that needs our help? And she goes, well, I told you before, everybody in the symphony has some kind of problem. So, then I got a little more courageous because I felt like I, I deserve the right to be more courageous because I got a result. That was fantastic. And I said, well, are you trying to keep us the same? I mean, you like the people you work with. Right and she says, well, gosh, Sean, you know, I'll tell you what I'll send them, but you got to treat them. So I was only seeing patients from 7 to 9 in the morning and she sent me 26 people and the conductor in about 4 months. Okay, and I was a cello player that sent me 5 people. I remember that. So you don't get what you don't ask for. So if you just say 26. Is 1, 000 each has 26, 000 conversation. There's things that can be done within your organization to make it more profitable to actually improve its overall general productivity and value. Right? Things that you do internally. The solution isn't necessarily out there. It's sometimes right inside the box that, you know, a happy patient. It needs to refer people to you. And that conversation is not always an easy 1 to do, but it's 1, you can learn. It's definitely something we train. We train people on how to actually have those kinds of conversations. Okay. Now, another thing I just want to toss out to you that I think. Um, is important is to offer something to your patients. That they can share with their friends and family, something that. Them, your patient VIPs of sorts in your practice. So a patient could be able to give something to a friend or family member who is suffering and having a problem where they can come in and actually get a free consultation or possibly a pain relief session or whatever you think that value service can be. And it's only available from a direct referral from a happy patient. Happy patients will tell people about you unhappy. People will tell more people about you. The happy patients will say good things about you. So we want to operate with what I'd like to call the assumptive close. The assumptive closes. I know that we're going to do this. I know that a patient is going to help me out. That's my close. So. What I recommend, and I actually am putting together exactly how to do it kind of set it and forget it and we can do it for you. Kind of thing, but what I'm looking at, I want to share with you is just do this on your website, create a page that is hidden on your website. In other words, it's not accessible. You won't see it on the homepage. It's not one the clickable ones, right? And it's a VIP page, and it could be a very simple VIP page and it only has to be phone responsive, right? It doesn't have to be a full pledge landing page because you're gonna use a QR code to get to it. So you take that page with a form and the form and say, you know, the, the VIP consultation, just you were given a card from one of our happy patients who believes that we can help you. We're offering a free consultation, please fill out this form. Let me fill out a couple of questions. Not they'll go super deep, but we just won't do it when you just give the patient. If you put a QR code on the back of a business card that has your name on it. So, let's say I'm a therapist, I hand 5 business cards to my happy patient, and I'd say, here, Sally, 1 of them keep for you, right? The other 4, I want you to give to people, people that, you know, who needs help people who need my help. And then what happens if you've got all your back end handled on your website and all that, and again, I'm building something just to do it for you. First, it clicks on the QR code, it pops up the form. Now, this isn't something I'd recommend for just the therapist. I would look at what I'm talking about here for really anybody wants to play ball. Let's say you have a business card for your receptionist. All right. She's less manager. She's the queen of all things schedule, right? Or whatever title we want to give this person and just business card on the back is a sticker for that. QR code goes to the exact same page as everybody else, except in the drop down. They picked Sally Smith or whatever her name is here. His name is and pick pick that. And then that person can get credit for actively doing something to get another person to come in. Right? And then you can also track on that same form is, you know, the individual who gave you the card. Could you let us know? Right? So, like, Joe from right? So, then you can always reach out to Joe and say, hey, Joe, thanks for sending Sally and really appreciate it. You know, that kind of thing. Right? But it's, it's not something that you can get beyond or actually implement very well. Right. Unless you get the mindset for it, unless you start asking for referrals, who do you know that needs our help? Those things move the needle. Right? And if you do great care, I've never met a physical therapist who said he wasn't the best in town. So, I know all of you are, I'm not laughing at you. I'm just laughing. And it's not, we have happy patients. We all have patients who come back if care is needed. We all have them. So, if we really, really, really want to. Leverage the value of that relationship we have to look through that lens. If you believe in what you do, and, you know, that you help people and, you know, that you help that patient and they're really, really happy. Why don't you just show her how she. But then help another and that you've made it very easy. Take the time at the conversation. It would be worth your time to have that conversation. You know, my, my chat in life of the things I've been doing is I've been a, mostly a trainer for business owners, particularly clinicians. I have helped them grow an organization. I take people that are very strong, clinically minded individuals, and I help them become better at finding opportunities within their practice. It goes really well is when there's execution and where it goes poorly is somebody learns a whole bunch of stuff that they don't apply. So I want you to walk away with this. 1st, if you haven't already from the earlier post, take a look at the percentage of your business that are veterans. I mean, they've been there before. Right and 1st, get that knocked out work on drilling. If you need to. Asking the simple question, who do, you know, that needs our help and then say nothing and wait expectantly for an answer when they give you an answer, you guide the patient. Through how they think the person could come in, you have to give them something that they can offer their friends and family. It could very simply just be. Look, Bob, if you call those guys and you drop my name, they told me they would take a look at you for free. It could be there's no card. There's no click. There's no nothing. It's just we've educated the patient. If if your friend calls us and drops your name, we'll take a look at them for free just to see if it's a good fit. So now it makes it even more comfortable to refer. He referred the person over the person came in. There was a zero cost event. The patient came in. Now the patient goes, I want this. Versus the patient talking their friend into coming, and maybe it doesn't go as well as they would have liked. So, it could can grease the wheels to get more people to refer to you. So, I hope that you find some of the stuff helpful. Hope you find some things that you're going to be using. I would really love to hear back on anyone trying anything on some of the stuff. It's the, it's the easy things that make a difference. And this is, I think, very easy things. So, little changes lead to massive success. And I'd love to hear from you, you know how to reach me. So have a great one.