Module #2
Generate Referrals
Dr.David Madow:
Hey, how is it going? I am Dr. David Madow.
Dr.Richard Madow:
I am Doctor Richard Madow, welcome to Module 2 of the Mega- Bundle. We are reallyexcitedto do this one because we knowit'sgoing to be valuable for you and yourpractice and be lots of fun too.
Dr. David Madow:
This is actually called The Dirty Dozen Ways To Generate Referrals Without Having To Beg, Sound Desperate,and all that stuff. We are going to teach you twelve ways to get more patients into your practice and have other people do it for you. You’re going towork smart and not hard.
Dr.Richard Madow:
Because you know what it’s like, you take some course and they say we are going to teach you how to get more referrals, and they pretty much do some version of: ask every patient for a referral, give you a script, and then what happens? You get back from the course, you’re all excited, you have a team meeting. You ask the first patient for a referral, you feel kind of weird,then you ask the second patient. What do you think they’re thinking when you ask them for a referral?
Dr. David Madow:
You are desperate! You are just so desperate!
Dr.Richard Madow:
And then you are begging andpleading; what’s wrong with this? “I’m not only notgoing to refer, I’m going to find a new dentist; this place is about to go bankrupt.”
Dr. David Madow:
Bankrupt.
Dr.Richard Madow:
Then you feel like you need to stop doing it.These twelve ways get other people to do the referring for you.
Dr. David Madow:
We love working smart and not hard. We are going to do thetwelve, andwe are going to alternate. So you take number one. You do the odds, I’ll do the evens,then we will be back at the end to do a little recap.We might fill in a little bit here and there.
Dr.Richard Madow:
It’s possible to do a little bantering inbetween but it sounds great.
Dr.Richard Madow:
I’ll start with this one because I think it’s one of myfavorite ones I’ve ever dobe and if I’m not mistaken, I think you did as well, so maybe you can come in between number one and two and verify that.
Dr. David Madow:
Sure, absolutely!
Dr.Richard Madow:
He’s off like way over there right now.Anyway,number one is something I didwhen I first opened my practice way back when,the whiteningwas just starting to get popular and I was brand new in practice, and I had this kind of theory that Dave and I have talked about many times, that you should do business locally. Go to your bank, drop off your dry cleaning,patronize the businesses near your practice so the people that own the businesses and work there become familiar with you and what you do. So I decided to get my hair cut near my dental practice, somehow it worked out, you know, for many years ago of course, and I met the owner of the salon and everything was great. I'm getting my haircut kind of realizing that people are here to look better, they are here for beauty, they are here for cosmetics, they are here to look great, and also something else, think about it, when you're getting your hair cut, the operator, the hair cutter whatever they are called, they are always looking for something to say to you like "So how was your weekend? You going back to work after this? Where you going to be for Halloween this year?" meanwhile it's like April. I mean they are just desperate for a conversation. So during that appointment the owner of the hair salon asked me if we do whitening at my practice. I thought, you know this would be a great opportunity to get a little more involved in the community and get people to refer to my practice, so I said, "Yeah we do whitening; as a matter a fact I would love to do whitening for you at no charge." Then I thought about it for a second and said, "You know what, I would like to do whitening for everyone in this hair salon at no charge; you, the owner, the people that cut the hair, the receptionist, the people that hair wash, kind of asexistterm but you know what I mean, the hair wash girls, everybody come on in.I am not talking about boiling bite trays; everybody came into my office.”And we did real whitening trays; gave them our best whitening gel. I said,“Hey,get free whitening.All I ask is when you have a client in the chair, give them that big, beautiful white smile and let them know that you got your whitening done right down the street at Dr.Madow’s dental practice.And if you would please allow me to keep my business cards right at the front where people checkout and pay, and make their appointments.So we did it; I went back in and reminded everybody to give a big smile and tell them where you got your whitening done. Well, I’ve got to tell you, it was one of the most unbelievable new patient referral tricks I ever did in my practice, I felt like I had to build a tunnel between the hair salon and my office. Everybody would go there and get their hair cut; they’d get the little whitening smile from the operator or hair cutting person, whatever you call them, come right over to my office and make an appointment for whitening and, of course, we always did an exam,cleaning, necessary x-rays.Whitening patients are more into cosmetic treatments, so we got many great patients and definitely a big handful of fantastic cases just from doing this. Get other people to refer to you; it was incredible, so what happens, yes we are getting tons of new patients, a few months go by and you know they forget about it a little bit, so I go back in, "Hey anybody need whitening gel?Are your trays still in good shape? Did your dog eat them? Come on back and we'll make you a new tray again!” Top notch tray for everybody, custom whitening trays, the best gel, as much as they wanted, but then I reminded them, please remember to tell your clients you got a big beautiful white smile from Dr.Madow’s office and he's the nicest dentist of all time. We were the same, and the same thing happened again; tons of patients came over, it worked incredibly well. We highly recommend that you do this in your practice; there's a little bit of investment of course, but when you consider a new patient's worth and depending on which study you believe, anywhere from a thousand dollars to ten thousand dollars over their lifetime, it's worth every penny, so that's the number one way to generate referrals without begging. You did it in your practice too, didn’t you?
Dr. David Madow:
I did it in my practice,it worked equally as well, I got great results, so it's something that everyone can do and there is no question it will work.
Dr.Richard Madow:
Now don't you remember we recommended this to somebody that we worked with and he said that he did it at, it wasn't a hair salon, it was like a massage parlor, not a massage parlor…
Dr. David Madow:
Parlor?
Dr. David Madow:
A Day Spa.
Dr.Richard Madow:
Yeah exactly, a place where they give massages, I think the links aren’tquite as good, but you know massage, holistic health, all that stuff, it all works together. He said it worked well for him as well.
Dr. David Madow:
Yeah!
Dr.Richard Madow:
Maybe be more creative, do it somewhere other than a beauty salon, but why not a beauty salon?
Dr. David Madow:
Beauty salon isdefinitely great.
Dr.Richard Madow:
Thematchup is great.
Dr.Richard Madow:
All right, ready for the second way?
Dr. David Madow:
Number two! I’ve got to take you back a little bit, when I was starting my practice long, long time ago. I wasn't really busy at first and I kind of hung around, listened to the phone lines and several weeks into my practice, when I didn't have a whole lot of patients yet, the phone rang; it was actually, it was not a patient, unfortunately, it was Dr. Marking, the local orthodontist calling on the phone, asking me out to lunch. Now, why do you think Dr. Marking will take me, a brand new general dentist in the area, out to lunch? Well I kind of figured it out, you know, exactly why: he wanted myreferrals. Now I didn't have a whole lot of patients yet, I probably had no patients at that point, but he kind of wants to wine and dine and become my friend because he knew eventually that I would be kind of busy, and he wanted my ortho referrals, so knowing full well that he was going to be asking me for referrals, it would kind of be like a boring lunch, I accepted the invitation because quite honestly, I was a little bit sick and tired of having lunch every day in my little private office. We went out to lunch; he took me to fancy schmancy place. I remember as a matter of fact, we sat down, looking at the menu, I ordered the most expensive thing on the menu. This was along time ago and I think my entree was like $20, $21 dollars back then, and I figured he was a rich orthodontist, it didn't really matter, so we are sitting there eating and I'm thinking to myself, okay Dr. Marking, I don’t know if Iintroduced to him as yet: his name was Dr. Markin. Dr. Marking,come on let me hear all about your practice, I'm thinking this to myself, let me hear all about your practice. I'm here for an hour with you;you’regoing to bore me to death. As it turns out, the guy was a really cool guy, he was not boring me with his practice, we were talking about all kinds of fun stuff, we were both runners, we talked about running and sports and music and all things like that and I'm thinking like, okay this a fun lunch but as I look at my watch it's like fifty-five minutes into this lunch now; he has not talked about his dental practice at all, so he was pretty good. I don't want to use the word slick, I’d say he was very rehearsed, and sure enough, about five minutes of the hour he started telling me about his dental practice: he has been there about fifteen years, very busy, very successful practice, which I kind of knew already.He had a very good reputation in the community and then he said something to me like, "Dave, listen I know you probably don't have a whole lot of patients yet(by the way that was a real understatement, I had no patients at that point).” But he said,“Listen, I know as you get busy and busier, and I know you will, you’re going to have patients with orthodontic needs, you have some choices when ortho patients come in, maybe you want to do ortho yourself." And I thought to myself, I really like this guy a lot because he was telling me I could do my own ortho, and so I just felt a connection with him, I felt he was genuine. He said,“But look, if you have difficult cases, I will be here, I'll be here to answer any questions for you, or if you want to refer it to me, I'll be able to take care of your patients.” I loved that. I just felt really good about that. And then he said something like,“I know all the rumors; you probably heard all the stories that when you refer to a specialist, you'll never see the patient again. That's not the case, in my practice I'll make sure we're a team, I will be referring patients back to you for regular cleanings, so if I see anything in particular that needs some attention they will be back in your chair. I really like this guy, I felt very comfortable with him. He pulls out a stack of cards from his pocket and he said,“Listen here are my cards. I'm in no hurry.As you get busier, just keep me in mind; I'll be very happy to take care of your ortho patients. I felt really, really good about this and I was absolutely going to refer some patients to him. Before we left I figured the right thing to do is to stand up and shake his hand for this very expensive lunch he just treated me to, but I had something else on my mind, I asked him if he had a few more minutes and he did; we sat back down. I said Dr. Marking you know I’m kind of the new guy around here. I'm building my practice; you've been doing this for fifteen years. I imagine you have patients that come into your practice for example, little Johnny's coming, you know little Johnny is in every practice coming to get orthodontics, maybe his mom or dad ask if you know a good general dentist for little Johnny or maybe mom and dad ask if you know the name of a good general dentist; he's kind of shaking his head. I said, Dr. Marking, I don't want to overstep my boundaries here, but if you get anybody in that situation I'm here. I will do great treatment. I would love to see your patients that you refer to me that need ageneral dentist. He said, “Dave, I want to tell you something. I can't remember the last time anybody has asked me this. I've taken a lot of people out to lunch; I'm going to send you some patients for sure.” I pull out a tremendous stack of my cards and I think I had some brochures and magazines; handed them to him, he took everything and, sure enough, this is incredible, the next week we got some, we had a new family from Dr. Marking; he referred a brand new family the next week. I don't want to tell you that he referred thousands and thousands every year, because you know if he could refer someone, he could. I got on the phone and you better believe I met every single specialist in the area, Dr. pase10:44maybe he's watching this right now10:47.I met all the specialists and what I did, I figured to put a little twist on this, I didn't take them out to lunch. I actually went to their offices and brought brochures and cards. I brought somecoffeeand donuts to the team and it really worked out very well. I visited their offices about once every three months. I also went on to visit chiropractors, family practice physicians and gave them my cards and gave them good reasons to refer me, and just by getting my cards out there to the specialists in the area and the other physicians and chiropractors, this really, really helped build my practice quite a bit, it's free, you’re going to probably see a little bit of this, I mention it again in another segment called “Off The Wall,” maybe I'll mention it in another, five other segments, because that's how powerful it is.I think it comes in the Off The Wall segment,but I'm passionate about it; it’s one of the ways I built my practice and if tried, it would absolutely work. You did that a little bit?
Dr.Richard Madow:
You actually went to11:41not so sure about him but...
Dr. David Madow:
He got kicked out of Maryland; he lost his license
Dr.Richard Madow:
We're using his actual name here on the Mega Bundle this is unbelievable I guess it's a matter of public record.
Dr. David Madow:
It’s public record and I don't think we're defaming him, he was a nice guy but I think he lost it.
Dr.Richard Madow:
Nice guy? I am calling the patients in the chair, they are numb, they're comfortable, and I know you refer them for endo, number thirty but I'm looking at number thirty-one that has a larger amalgam, would you like me to do that endo on that one as well? You do that enough, you get kicked out of the state.
Dr.Richard Madow:
Okay, number three doesn't really involve getting other people to... well you’ll see what this is about. You have to do a little bit of asking on this one, but it's pretty easy and it's a simple lesson, and that is: listen, listen, listen.You know some of our patients will yap, yap, yapand we may call them chatty Cathy’s, whatever you want to say, but when they talk: listen, listen, listen, because let's just say you're treating a new patient, they just moved to town and they start talking, and say oh I moved to town because, and let's just say that you're in a city where maybe Ffederal Eexpress is a huge employer. "Anyway, we moved to town, my husband is in management with Ffederal Eexpress and we are just getting used to things here in Memphis and blah, blah...". Well, don't just let that slide say, "Oh that's fantastic, your husband’s with Ffederal Eexpress; we have a ton of patients that work forFfederal.Yyou’re so lucky, you have great insurance,we know it very well. Is your husband looking for a new dentist as well, we will be glad to make an appointment for him?” Again it's not begging, it's not pleading, it's not sounding desperate but it is listening, so listen closely, sothen you're talking blah, blah chat, chat...whatever, and they say "Oh I am making my appointment, I just want to let you know I cannot come on a Wednesday because that when I drivecarpool."“Oh,really, what kind of car pool do you drive?"Well we'revedrivingenthree kids and we are in a carpool, and they go to driveJohn F. KennedyEelementary Sschool. Any elementary school that was built in the mid-sixtiesis named isJohn F. Kennedy Eelementary Sschool. They go to John F.KennedyEelementary Sschool.” Oh“Oh, you may not know this but we see kids here, as a matter of fact we love seeing kids here; they have so much fun they don't even realize they are getting their teeth cleaned and shined, they just think they are here for a big ride in the dental chair and get their teeth tickled and they leave withfor a little present. We love kids,kids; do your three little brats have a dentist yet? We’d love to see them too so they can come in and trash our entire office, and spill things in the reception area.” Whatever it is: listen, listen, listen, so just by listening in this particular instance, you got four new patients because what she said, we moved to Memphis because my husband is themanager for Ffederal Eexpress; you didn't just say,“Oh that's nice.”Yyou said,o”Oh well, if he's looking for a new dentist as well, we know the insurance plan.” You listened when she said,“I can't come in on a Wednesday morning because I drive carpool,” instead of letting it slide, you said,“Wwhat kind of carpool you drive?” and boom now you got three more pediatric patients which are fantastic to have because you know you treat those patients well, you do a great job on them, they love your practice, the mom and dad think you are the king or queen of dentistry and they will more likely refer patients to you. The simple lessonis to listen,listen,listenwhen patients bring up spouse, kids, coworkers, cousins, friends whatever itis, usethat as an opportunity to get a new patient in your practice. It's easy, it's fun, it's not confrontational. It works! What more could you want? What more could you want?