How Chiropractors Can Build a Referral-Based Chiropractic Practice

Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the Rocket Cairo podcast, the business and marketing podcast for chiropractors. We're going to talk about referrals today. We're going to talk about some of the keys to referrals for chiropractors. We're going to talk about the type of referrals that you can get, and we're going to talk a little bit about the reason people refer and a few other things along the way. So that's the intention. We're going to answer the question.

If you're a chiropractor and you want to build a referral based practice, like how do you do that? Now, for those of you who don't know me, my name is Jerry. I'm a former chiropractor. I help chiropractors now with websites and local SEO, as well as hosting this podcast and helping chiropractors with my Next Step program, which helps new chiropractors get started and existing chiropractors who are feeling stuck get unstuck.

So if you want some help or if you want to work together, you can find that information at rockitchiro.com. Also, if you want uh me to look at your website and SEO and just give you some advice, you can request a free website and local search. Review at rocket Cairo and I will send you a customized video tons of value.

No obligation You can get that at rocket Cairo comm One of the things that happens a lot when I have new members that fill out a new member survey And I'll ask them like what is your ideal practice?

Oftentimes referrals come up like they they would like a referral based practice They would like their existing people and their existing relationships to be feeding their practice and I think that that's a really good thing chiropractors have historically looked at referrals and having a referral based practice as sort of the golden goose. I think that it is probably the most stable way to practice and in a world where it's possible that ads don't work like they used to.

mean, I'm, I'm already old enough and I know I'm like old as dirt, but it's like, I'm already old enough to have seen things that used to work really well, don't work as well anymore. so platforms change, marketing mechanisms change. uh All this stuff will change with time. And it doesn't mean that those things are bad.

It just means that there is a less permanent kind of less stable aspect to different forms of marketing versus having word of mouth referrals, having a good reputation and other people telling kind of singing your praises. It seems to be a lot more stable way to have a chiropractic practice. And I think most people would probably agree with that. So having that as a goal can be a great thing. It is important to understand.

that getting from where you are, if you don't have a referral based practice to where you want to be, where you have a referral based practice, it does take time and it does take intentionality.

there needs to, you have to especially understand that if you're just getting started, because if you don't have current patients and you don't have current relationships, you can't lean on the fact that you want to have, even if you're doing everything right, there's no. There's no snow that's been pushed together to push down the hill to get momentum. You know what I mean? Like there's nothing, there's nothing there to start because you're just getting started.

And I know that may sound like a kind of a stupid, obvious thing to say, but it's really, really important that what you want and your timing and your opportunity really line up. Otherwise you're going to get super frustrated. And so if you're just getting started, you have to have something that is getting butts in the seats now, like that's happening right away.

and all while doing the things that you should be doing to head in the direction of having a referral based practice like so those two things should be going together. So what are some of the keys to referrals? And I'm going to give you a list here. And I'll tell you that there's really a combination of things that are going on here. And it's, it's not one of these things. It's sort of a combination of all of these things that make a good referral based practice.

And so one of them, and I'm a huge advocate of this. kind of feel like I'm one of the few people pounding the table for this, but it's important that you make referrals normal. And what I mean by that is that if the environment in your practice is not such that referrals are normal, reviews are normal, sharing is normal, like all this stuff that you want people to do that makes up a referral based practice.

If you don't create an environment where it's normal, you're basically making everything harder. And it's just true for a lot of things in practice. The things that are not the things that you don't make normal. happen less frequently, the things that you make normal through creating an environment where they're normal.

And I'm not going to get into like all the details about it, but just understand that if you ask someone for referral or you ask someone to leave a review and that's the first time that that thought has ever crossed their mind, you haven't really primed the pump very well. You haven't really set the table. You haven't really created an environment where that's normal and you're basically making your job a lot harder than it has to be.

So I think one of the important things when you, if you want to have referral based practice, Referrals have to be a normal part of your practice. So, you need to make it clear. You need to make it easy. I chiropractors sometimes make this mistake where they don't, they're not clear about who they're looking for. They, they, they're kind of too general and too generic. you need to make it easy.

You need to provide excellent care, which I think probably goes without saying, like if you're a bad chiropractor, like expecting people to refer is probably not, doesn't make a lot of sense. You need to be building trust and trustworthiness with what you're doing. So if the things you're doing is. Uh, sort of undermining or slight of hand, you're kind of, um, pressuring people or you're, you're, you're kind of wrecking relationships, thinking that each relationship doesn't build on itself.

Like there's, if you're doing that, then you're undermining the goal of having a referral based practice. You need to have a plan. You need to be consistent and you need to be solving problems and you need to be a, I think you should be a referral and review source. If you want that to be. what you want other people to be. think there's sort of an integrity consistency thing that goes along with that as well. So those are sort of the keys to referrals.

Now, when I say referrals and I'm talking about a chiropractic practice, do you have obviously the patient referrals, which I think is the most common thing that people think about, but in our, the world that we live now and also the world that has always been, there's more than just patient referrals. There's your small business and professional referrals.

It's a massive mistake for you as a chiropractor to think that every single person in your town that's in your BNI group or in your chamber or somebody that's your neighbor, that that's another small business owner, they're either a patient or they're not. And those are the only two categories you have for someone. And because you could have people that are, because the mistake we make, let me, let me kind of clarify that.

The mistake we make oftentimes as chiropractors is to think that patients refer. So when we look around and say, this small business owner isn't a patient, therefore they don't refer. That is not the right way to think about it because there are patient referrals and then there's nonpatient referral. There are people that could really trust you, really like you, really appreciate you. They just don't think they need a chiropractor and they're happy to refer. I had a patient like that.

I've talked about multiple times on the podcast. She was a realtor in my area. She didn't think she needed a chiropractor and she referred to me all the time and she spoke very highly of me because she trusted me. And she appreciated what I did. She knew a bunch of people that I had helped, but she just didn't think she needed a chiropractor. I was happy to take those referrals, you know, even though she was not a patient of mine. So that is a possibility. There's also medical referrals.

Jeff, Jeff Langmaid has a whole program that he does about medical referrals. I don't really know a lot about the program, so I'm not vouching for it or saying one, one thing or the other. I just know that that's one of his things, where he has, and medical referrals could be MDs, DOs. massage therapists, uh, physical therapists. Like there's a bunch of different types of medical referrals. I saw him by the way. I just thought of this cause it's Jeff.

Uh, he posted the thing the other day that said he was nominated as one of the top 20 most influential chiropractors. Now don't know who put the list together. I never end up on those lists because I'm not an influential chiropractor and a lot of people are, they wouldn't even consider me a chiropractor anymore. Um, now if there was a list of top 20 least influential chiropractic podcast hosts. I feel good that I would get on that list. Maybe someday. Fingers crossed. Anyway, medical referrals.

There's community referrals. So community referrals is something that I sort of made up on my own kind of term. But the idea is that your reputation is what is getting the referral. This is something that you will see. I saw this when I was in practice. uh It wasn't intentional because I don't know that this even necessarily can be intentional. But the what I'm describing is when somebody comes into your practice and they say, Dr. Jones referred me and you go, I've never met Dr. Jones.

I don't know who that is. And like, so and so that owns the restaurant down the road, they referred me and you go, Hmm, I don't know who that person is. And what happens is when you do a good job, like you're taking care of people, you're being honest, you have a good reputation within the community.

It's entirely possible that you can start getting referrals that are secondhand, they're secondary or tertiary referrals where it's basically like this person has heard so many good things about you from other people that they feel comfortable referring to you, even though they've never met you and they don't know anything about you. And it's a transfer of trust. that's what I mean by a community referral. These are people that are not actually directly connected to you.

They, possibly have never even met you. That's once again, that's also, that's probably more long-term than any of these other forms, because this is, you know, trust being built and then affecting two or three people that are two, you know, two or three degrees of separation away from you. That's, that's obviously going to take longer than you just meeting someone or. are impacting a patient and that patient referring, that firsthand experience.

And then lastly, I put a list of, call digital referrals. Uh, I would put reviews in this category. would also put online shares and people sharing your content and information online. think I obviously someone sharing your content online is not nearly as valuable as a, as a word of mouth referral. It's not nearly as, as valuable as a review, but I think that there's something to that in our modern world where that is a bit of a referral or a bit of a nod for you.

And obviously it depends on the context. If somebody just shares your content because they think it's funny or interesting or whatever, that's probably doesn't really move the needle. But if somebody shares your content saying, this is my chiropractor, I really appreciate them, or they really helped me or kind of whatever, I think that that probably is more significant. So there's different degrees of what that actually means.

So one of the things I, it's probably good to ask, as we're talking about referrals and we're sort of, you know, thinking about this. is why do people refer? And the answer is going to be different for different people. And also it'll say this, if I haven't said it already, which I don't think I have, is that if you think that everyone is going to refer, you're probably setting yourself up for disappointment.

Like I don't know that I've ever seen an environment or heard of an environment where every single person refers.

And this was something I used to hear years ago, and I don't know if people are still saying it or not, but there would be like chiropractic coaches and chiropractic people that are that are gurus and whatever and they would tell people like all your patients are going to stay pay and refer and you know you go to a talk and there's 10 people at that talk and 15 people you make 15 appointments because 10 of those people everybody scheduled an appointment and

five of those people scheduled other people that weren't even there like it's and you hear stuff like this and I it doesn't to me it doesn't check out There's something fishy about it. There's something off. And I guess I'm, I'm not going as far as saying that those things couldn't happen or that they would never happen.

But if you're expecting a practice where you're going to do such a good job and you're going to nail all of these things and, you're going to just hit these points and everybody's going to start referring, everybody's going to leave reviews. Like everybody's going to share your content online. You're, you're probably going to be disappointed. Cause I don't know how that happens. And maybe you're great at reviews and referrals and I'm terrible. And that's why my results aren't as good.

But I think that just taking into consideration human nature, we probably need to understand that what we're trying to do is maximize the percentage of people that are getting, doing these things, not necessarily trying to get everyone to do them or expecting everyone to do them. So why do people refer? uh Generally they've had a positive experience or some sort of unexpected experience or some combination of both. They obviously like and trust you enough that they can vouch for you.

Now some people have different bars for that than others, but they do like and trust you. ah A lot of people ask for referrals because you asked for one. uh You didn't sit around and wait, but you asked them to refer or you asked them to leave a review. Some people do it because they're returning a favor. This is more so with like small business owners and professionals.

It's possible that somebody in your BNI group or somebody in your chamber, if you're going around leaving reviews and, doing the thing that you want people to do, there's a reciprocity. Sometimes it happens as a result of that.

And I'm not saying that you should do those things to get, I'm just saying that when you do those things and when you are that type of person where, you know, who are you more likely to go leave a review for the person in your B &I group who's leaving positive reviews for people, the person who's referring to you, like are you gonna make that extra effort to refer to them? I think the answer is most of the time the answer is yes. You're gonna make that effort.

It's sort of built into human nature. Some people refer because of authority. They're sort of an either earned authority, perceived authority or transferred authority. What I mean by that is they perceive you as a big deal or the go-to chiropractor. When I talk about social media and saying like, you know, you have a celebrity client or maybe another influencer or something like that, that comes in when you have, you're the chiropractor for the local sports team or whatever.

There's an authority that can be built into that either by association because like, you work with the athletes, you know, you must be a big deal. Or you wrote a book, you have a podcast, you were on TV, you're on the radio, whatever. There's, there's an authority marketing element where you might get referrals and reviews because you have built up such a, an authority in the area. are like the go-to person or you are associated with go-to people in the area.

some people refer because it was easy and it was also clear, meaning that you were this, this once again, I've said this already, but it's like, if you're in a BNI group and you're not crystal clear on who you're looking for and you don't describe it in a way that helps people really understand, like what should happen is if you're saying like, this is the person I'm looking for, this is the person that's a good referral. There should be like a, Oh, that reminds me of my neighbor.

That reminds me of this person at church. There should be somebody specific that comes to mind. And that's one of the reasons that I will always, I say all the time that a realtor is the easiest person in the world to refer to because it's like, Oh, you're buying a house. Like, well, I know a realtor. It's like, you're selling a house. Like, well, I know a realtor. Now do realtors do other things? Like, I don't know.

Maybe. I mean, I guess, I don't know, but I do know that if I have a referral, if I have a realtor friend that I'm trying to refer to, there's these like things that very, very, very, very clear.

Moments where I know that oh, I'm gonna refer to my friend and chiropractors oftentimes don't do a good job of this We just don't clarify who we're looking for in such a specific way Because we're trying to help everybody oftentimes is what the problem is But we're not clarifying that this is the person I'm looking for and therefore when that person goes out

into the world and they go out into the normal job and in their normal life and somebody comes along and says they have XYZ problem that you absolutely could help You were so vague about it that that doesn't trigger them saying like, I should tell them to go see Dr. Jerry.

Like they don't do that because we've been sloppy with how we've communicated who we're looking for and who a good refer, who are good referral is, which is probably a really good argument for picking your top two or three things that you're really, really good at that you want to be really known at and make that the forefront of your referrals. Like make that the. the engine of the train and don't worry about picking up.

That's like, oh the, is the 15th, the most common thing that I see in my practice is like, why, why are we fishing for that? Like, let's go for the, let's go for the most common stuff. Let's go for the stuff that's, that's most, likely a yes. And most likely kind of an easy win for me. Like that's the stuff that we should be shooting for. ah Last thing as far as like why people refer is you've built a positive relationship. Are you with that person?

Which sort of goes along with building trust and like it's sort of like the same idea. People refer to people they like. Um, So let me talk about nonpatient referrals here and just give you a couple of tips and then we'll talk about who to network with. So nonpatient referrals are always obviously going to be harder than patient referrals because these people haven't had experience with you yet. And so it takes longer. uh You have no established doctor patient relationship with them.

And oftentimes when you're talking about small business owners or medical professionals or things of that nature these people already have somebody else that they're working with that they feel comfortable with that they trust. And so if you're trying to build a relationship, you just have to understand that it is difficult to get started and it could take some time to connect with someone the way that you want to, because of those factors. I think mindset is important.

think it's important to know that when you're going out and meeting people that are non-patients, like other small business owners and other professionals and just kind of getting out into the community. It's important to understand that not everyone is going to be a patient and that not everyone is going to refer and that that's okay. You have to be comfortable with that. Um, you're out there planting seed. You're out there trying to figure out who's a good connection.

Who can you have a good relationship with? Who do you have a good conversation with? You're not out there trying to convert everyone and get everyone to be the ideal that would be perfect. Like that's not realistic. And when you go out with the mindset of everyone's, everyone's going to be a refer or everyone is going to be a patient. you're going to be really frustrated with the process. Like that's not realistic. I think you should start with your current connections.

And so just a wise thing, if you're trying to make medical referrals or you're trying to make medical connections, you're trying to make connections within your community, whatever, start with the people that you know. You know, who do you know at church? Like, who do know that's a patient? Who do they know? Uh, asking the question, like, do you know anybody that I should know? I think is a really good way.

So starting with relationships, get getting, if you have an existing relationship on any level. getting a warm introduction to somebody else and being able to mention somebody else's name is a way easier way to go about making connections than it is just a cold call or cold drop in or just cold reach out to someone. Like that's a hard way to go. I think it should be a refer. I already talked about this, so I'm not going to beat that to death.

Um, I think you should go where other small business owners and other people are who are looking to be a part of the community. BNI, chamber, community events, charities, things like that. Um, I think you should solve a problem. So when it comes to patients, you have a patient that you've helped, like you've helped solve a problem. You've helped them feel better, whatever that is. They've had that positive experience. They built that relationship that they're.

a referral comes out of a different place. When you have a nonpatient that's referring to you, sometimes it's just simply because you solve a problem for them. And this is true for medical doctors. When you go to a medical doctor and it's like, they're super frustrated with a particular type of patient that it's like, this is a, whether it's, you know, low back pain, could be a Dix thing. Like what is something that just aggravates the heck out of them that they're just frustrated.

They're looking for someone to pass off. This is, this is a headache for them. They don't have a good solution. They're there. You're offering to help them with this and you're providing value for them. Those are the, those are the ways that you want to think about, especially medical referrals is like, how, how can I communicate this to them in a way that I'm solving a problem? I'm taking something off of their plate, not putting something on their plate.

If you're going about medical referrals, especially from the standpoint of I'm going to get you to refer to me. Here's this research article. Here's this thing like learn this about me, learn that about me, like send people to me. And you're asking them to do work for you. That's not a great way to get a referral from someone who's busy.

But if someone is busy and you can take something off their plate by helping them with someone that they're frustrated with or giving them a solution to a problem that they currently don't have, that's different. And so that's the way that you want to approach that. Um, that angle, that sale, like whatever, whatever, however you want to say it, you want to approach it from the standpoint of you're, you're providing a solution. You're not asking them to do more.

stay connected without being annoying. Um, that can be difficult. And I would just say like there needs to be a plan for this, but just, you know, staying connected to people without being annoying is, important. And then be okay with hearing nothing. I mean, most people don't refer. So sometimes reaching out to people or connecting with people, you have to understand that a lot of these people are not ever going to be good connections.

And you'll do this for a lot of years and you're going to find that there's going to be a small percentage of those people that'll just be great. The people that are refers the people that are connected to people that are providing value that are helping you out. Just make sure that you are saying thank you and that you are definitely staying connected to them.

There does come a point where maybe you're reaching out to someone and nothing's coming from it that you might just say, you know, this is just a, there's no fruit on this tree. You know what I mean? Like there's nothing, there's nothing uh here that's worth me continuing to put energy and effort into it. I'm to put energy and effort in a different direction or different person. there does come a point where that might be the wise thing to do.

Uh, so when it comes to networking, like who should you network with? have a general rule. Just share it with you really quick. think you should network with your neighbors. So people within reasonable distance of your practice, regardless of what they do, just simply because their people go to your area. And if they ask the florist that's two doors down from you, like, do you know a chiropractor and they haven't ever talked to you? Like that's sort of a shame.

And if they ask, like, what do you know about Dr. Jerry who's two doors down and they don't have something positive to say, that's also sort of a shame. I mean, they're. They're helping people that are used to coming in the area, your practices there.

think there's something wise about connecting with your neighbors just because they're your neighbors beyond your neighbors, which whatever, what is a reasonable distance from you and who is a neighbor, uh, sort of depends on how densely populated your area is. And like New York city, might be really small area and Kansas. It might be a much larger area, but once you get outside of your.

neighbor area, whatever's reasonable in your area, then I think that people you should be connecting with and intentionally reaching out to are people that are, uh, overlap with who you're trying to be and who you're trying to help. if you're a, if you're a mom who is, um, if you're a mom who is, uh, I'm sorry. If you're a chiropractor who's doing moms and kids, and you should be connecting with moms and kids groups.

If you're a chiropractor who's doing like athletes, Then you should be connecting with the athletes and the coaches and the sports people and the whatever you should be connecting with them. Uh, that should be sort of the line of thinking is, is who are you most in line with who should, what circles do you want to be known in?

If you're a MMA guy and you want to help people that are doing MMA, because that's your passion and you like doing it you're excited about it, you need to make sure that you're known in the MMA circles. You need to make sure that you're reaching out regardless. They might be a little bit further out. They might be. a little bit more distance than considering your actual neighbors. Like those are people that you want to make sure that you're connecting with.

So let me kind of circle back to the keys to referrals. And I know that we didn't get into the nuts and bolts here, but these are the things that you need to be doing either multiple versions of these uh or, you know, there needs to be, this needs to be the list you're working with. If you want to have a referral based practice, you need to have a plan. You need to be consistent. You need to make referrals normal. You need to be clear.

on who you're looking for so that people understand who to refer. You need to make it easy. You need to provide excellent care, be a great chiropractor. You need to be trustworthy. Don't do shifty things. Don't say shifty things. Don't say confusing things. And I would also recommend being a reviewer, a referral source, be the person that you want other people to be. Those are sort of the keys. How you do that is going to be different from doctor to doctor.

It's going to have different flavors and different offices and you may lean more heavily on one thing than the other. But those are going to be the things that when you do them consistently over time, you can build a referral based practice, which I think is the most stable way to have a chiropractic practice. And I think it's a really great goal for all chiropractors. All right guys, that's it. I'm going to go ahead and wrap this up. Thank you for listening. Thank you for subscribing.

Thank you for commenting. A few people have left uh reviews. in Apple podcasts over the last couple of months. didn't directly say thank you, but thank you. really do appreciate that you've done that. I don't always check that, but I do appreciate that you've done that. If you want some help with your website or local SEO, reach out to me through RocketKairo. If you'd like me to look at your website and SEO, you can request a free review of your website and SEO.

If you are feeling stuck or if you are getting started and feeling a little bit overwhelmed, check out my Next Step program. It's a great resource. I'm done. I'm out of here. I'll talk to you guys on the next episode.