EPISODE SUMMARY
It’s possible that if you’re not harnessing the full potential of your referral sources, you are leaving revenue on the table. Dave’s five step process helps your company create a systematic program to bring you new referral sources and maximize the potential of current sources. In episode 497, Dave Mastovich talks about how healthcare marketing leaders can build a referral source marketing program that will help their companies succeed.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
It’s the No Bullshit Marketing Show. I’m Dave Mastovich, CEO and founder of MASSolutions, the world’s only No Bullshit Marketing consultants. Unforgettable referral source marketing leads to more and better patients. Here’s how you can do it: It’s our five step process that we’ve done for hundreds of clients in the healthcare space. I’m talking from wound care to home health, hospice, PT, periodontal, physical therapy, family practice, surgeons, anything across the board in that healthcare space, hundreds of companies for decades. I talk so much about referral source marketing and healthcare that I sometimes think I’m the only one talking about it. I know that a systematic referral source marketing program will bring you more and better patients, and you’ll stop leaving money on the table.
So the five step process, I’m gonna break down a little bit for you, and then give you a URL where you can get the white paper. And step one is finding the gold in your own backyard. Within that, find your gold in your own backyard, I’m going to start off and tell you the first basic step within step one is to look at your existing data to see who was referring the most patients and then see how that matches up with the revenue that is associated with that. Sounds basic.
Before we dig into that it is basic, but yet, it’s going to be surprising, I want to say this. Many, many, many clients over the years, at this stage when they heard what I just said, come back and say, ‘I’m not really sure we track our referral sources as well as we could.’ Or, ‘Well, there are multiple referral sources because this type of doctor sends it to that and they’re too involved.’ And they get hung up on that. So I want to start by saying perfect is the enemy of good. Intuition and recollections are enough to get started. Don’t worry about feeling you had to have the perfect, detailed, exact referral source data.
But now back to the first point. Look at who refers to you the most and the dollars that correspond to that. Sounds straightforward. You’re like, ‘Duh, Dave.’ This is the first time you’re going to get a little bit agitated, maybe sick in the stomach. Because when we’ve done this, and we dug into this in detail with our system, time and again, we come back and say things like, ‘Do you know this person is in your top 10, but their average case, average revenue per case is only 55% of the average across your company, across your practice. So this person is already believing in you to refer to, but for whatever reason, their average revenue per case happens to be lower. Let’s dig into that because they’re a believer. We get them to refer a little bit different cases and what happens to our revenue?’ Now that’s just one little nugget within you finding the gold in your own backyard. Within that, be prepared to discover a lot of untapped referral sources and more money left on the table than you realized. So step one, finding the gold in your own backyard.
Step two is to codify your referral source story. Referral sources need to believe that they’re doing right by their patients when they refer them to you. They need to believe that. For this reason your story has to answer two why questions. The first why question is your company’s why or reason for being. Why did you build what you built? What makes you and your team unique? Why do you do what you do the way you do? Because many practices within a healthcare section, the healthcare division, the healthcare field, many practices have their own way of doing things. And there was a reason for that. The physical therapy company was started by physical therapists, built by PTs for PTs. Or, this particular periodontist believes in this aspect, or, this wound care company sees how there isn’t enough understanding of wound care. So you have to first answer your why question.
But the second question is your referrals sources’ why or reason for referring to you? And this is important, why did they first start referring to you? Why do they continue to refer you? Those are often two different answers that are important, because you’re out to get new referral sources as well as get more referrals from those existing ones. So why did they first start referring to you? What’s that answer? Why do they continue to refer to you? What keeps them loyal? Who else do they refer to and why? ‘Dave what are you talking about? How am I gonna get this information?’ This is the neuroscience of this. Get ready. You’re going to ask them. Yeah. I know. I know. I’m like a physicist or something, just gave you some calculus there. You’re going to ask them open-ended questions, like I just said, you’re going to track what they said. And they’re going to tell you, a lot of them will.
So now you combine the answers to these two why questions, your why or reason for being, your referral sources’ why or reason for referring, and you look at the answers. And inevitably, there’s a lot of similarities. I’ve rarely found where the company’s why was, ‘We just want to make profits,’ and their referral sources’ why was, ‘We really worry about greatest care.’ Doesn’t really happen. Sure, there’s some that do, but usually you’ll find commonalities. And that leads to you coming up with your one big idea, the birthplace, your story. That one big idea from your why, why you do what you do how you do and your referrals versus why. What’s in it for them, and why do they refer to you or other people. Now you’ve got the base of your story. That’s step two, codify your referral sources’ story.
Step three is to develop a strategy. Here you take the storytelling framework that we’ve developed in these previous couple of points, and you put it into action. This can span a number of different channels or media or ways that you’re going to communicate your story to your current and prospective referral sources. It’s so that you can get the message out in a way that we know will strike a chord. Now, I’m not going to prescribe, I’m not going to be a doctor who prescribes without seeing the patient. So I’m not gonna tell you what those are. But one-to-one conversations are definitely going to be a part of it. So one-to-one conversations are part of it, so is email. So is direct mail, so is some traditional media outlets, video, you’re going to see some usage of a blog, probably, maybe some social media posting. But it’s this multi-channel approach that you build based on what you’ve learned by digging into your gold in your own backyard, step one, and by codifying your referral source story. That’s what’s going to enable you to develop this strategy, which gets you multiple channels, because one channel, two channels, three channels probably isn’t going to work. Telling someone something once, twice, or 10 times isn’t going to work. And you’re not going to want to necessarily hear that but telling someone about your practice and why they should refer to you 10 times is not enough.
Step four is create and execute the plan. Now you need to have this action plan with a sequence of steps along the way of who’s doing what and why. You’re answering what’s happening and who’s making it happen. You have accountable parties, timeline milestones. This doesn’t need to be super complicated. It can be a Google doc spreadsheet or something like that. It can be an Excel spreadsheet, whatever you want it to be, where you’re listing what that action is, what the channel is, when it’s going to happen, who’s going to do it, and then a line to show where you enter the progress. And that’s step four, creating and executing the plan.
Step five is spending the time and evaluating the results. Step five, spending the time and evaluating the results. Within this is our three T’s: test, track, and tweak. So you’re going to test both the story and the tactic with multiple referral sources. You’re going to track how they responded. Some will respond favorably immediately. Some will respond favorably in a midterm, some will take a long time to respond favorably, and some will not respond at all. But when you test, track, and tweak, you’re able to see progress. And the incremental progress that you’re going to make will build upon itself and build upon each incremental progressive step builds upon itself, and you begin to see ongoing action or it continues to work again and again, because you’re testing, tracking and tweaking.
Now I want to say, when you’re in step five of spending the time and evaluating the results, you have to set a realistic budget. And by budget, I mean not only resources and spend, but time. That’s what that budget is all about. You’re budgeting how much time your team is going to take, what resources, meaning investment, but also what the resources that you bought are. And if you think it’s gonna happen in a minute, or a month or three months, and it’s going to change your practice immediately, okay, you are unrealistic. So keep doing what you’re doing. But if you commit to this, and you look at it like any meaningful growth opportunity in your life, personal or professional, any meaningful growth that we have, as humans, as people, as teams, as companies, any meaningful growth requires an investment of time and resources. Referral source marketing to change the game for your practice or your organization is the same. It’s going to take a meaningful investment of time and resources. So it’s not going to happen in one month, two months. Now, you will see immediate results, without a doubt in the first, second, third month, you’re going to see a change. But in month six, month eight, month 10, you’re going to continue to see more and more because you have a systematic referral source marketing program that gets you more and better patients.
I want to leave you with two ways that you can get more on this. First, we have a white paper on it. And that’s at MASSolutions.biz/referrals. MASSolutions.biz/referrals gets your white paper, outlines what we discussed today. But also reach out to me, LinkedIn, or even my email, Dave@MASSolutions.biz because I can talk you through some things that can get you over some humps that we’ve learned from decades of doing this. I really want to see healthcare companies, healthcare organizations, healthcare practices help the patients who need their help, help the referral sources that need their help. It is truly a win-win scenario. And by telling your story in a systematic way to referral sources, you get more and better patients.
Thanks for listening to another episode of the No Bullshit Marketing Show recorded here in MASSolutions studio in bold, beautiful, downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Remember, ask yourself, what’s the big idea? And build your story around the answer. It’s all about bold solutions. No BS.
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