Jack O'Brien: Hello. Hello. I don't know about the white shirt. Hmm. I like it. I don't. It feels weird. I feel like it feels like school uniform.

Ben Lynch: My son has these ties with the elastic band. It's like super easy just to slip on the head. Yeah. I was doing the buddy double wins a knot.

Jack O'Brien: The opinion of the OT in the room like are elastic bands a lifesaver or are they driving children of the fine motor skills of a double wins a knot?

Ben Lynch: G'day, good people. Welcome to the Grow Your Clinic podcast by Clinic Mastery. Here's what's coming up inside of this episode.

Jack O'Brien: So how do you build the trust with new referrers? You almost need to have a bit of a mad experiment scientist approach to this game of relationships.

Hannah Dunn: There's different ways to engage in marketing. I think it doesn't have to be going into the clinics and introducing yourself and being in front of people.

Jack O'Brien: A healthy relationship not reported on is not a healthy relationship. One no is just another step closer to a yes. You gotta play the 50 to get the 5.

Ben Lynch: Make it convenient for the other person and lower the friction and the barrier to entry to that relationship. I think that's just the principle and there are different practices. How do you handle rejection?

Hannah Dunn: I'm pretty arrogant.

Ben Lynch: I'm just like, they're lost. This episode will be right up your alley if you're looking to get more new patients. We're diving into getting referrals from your network. And trust me, you'll want to hear Hannah's take on how to build trust with new partnerships so that referrals happen quickly. Plus stick around for when Jack shows the partnership tracker that ensures no referral source dries up ever again. Before we dive in, today's episode is brought to you by AllieClinics.com. If you're the kind of clinic owner who loves to feel organised and stay ahead of the chaos, you'll love Allie. Think of it as your digital clone. It's the single source of truth for all your clinics, policies, systems, and training. Test it for free at AllieClinics.com. And in other news, applications are now open to work with us one-on-one at Clinic Mastery. If you want support to grow your clinic and bring your vision to life, just email helloatclinicmastery.com with the subject line podcast, and we'll line up a time to chat. All right, let's get into the episode. It is episode 316. My name is Ben Lynch. If this is your first time here, welcome. You're in good company, sort of, kind of. Yeah? We think so. We think so.

Jack O'Brien: Subjectively good company.

Ben Lynch: We've had a lot of new listeners join. So I want to say welcome. If you are new to the pod, welcome. And if you've come back for more, then we love you. Is that too much to say? No. Welcome back. No? Indulge the inner hippie. Bit of love. Spread the love.

Hannah Dunn: Yeah.

Ben Lynch: We're getting a lot of love back. There's some reviews coming through on Spotify, on Apple, through the inbox. Thank you for those that are listening in and sending in your reviews. The other podcast recently really popular with some more on the news front, some more on the evergreen marketing front that the problems clinic owners have in filling the diaries. But we love just sharing these success stories, these strategies of clinic owners that are making meaningful progress in their business so that you can too. Today, I am again joined by the ever practical and reliable Hannah Dunn, director of DOTS, an occupational therapy service in Melbourne, Australia, mum to three kidlets. Yes. We are filming this off the back of Father's Day. What happened in your household on Father's Day, Hannah?

Hannah Dunn: We went away for the weekend. We got an Airbnb. and went and stayed down there and relived some of my childhood, which was near where I used to holiday and went to a pool that I used to go to a lot with my dad and went mini golfing at a place that we used to go a lot to too. So our three kids, when I asked them what they wanted to do, They thought that dad would like to be near his mum. So we got a place near there because my husband just recently lost his father. And so we went down there and then the other two chose mini golf in a pool. So it just worked out that way. So it was a really nice weekend. I lost my dad when I was 16. So it was nice to relive some of those times.

Ben Lynch: Yeah. Nostalgic. Some great memories, I'm sure. So had the kids been there before? No, they hadn't been to those three places before.

Hannah Dunn: Yeah.

Ben Lynch: Wow. That's a really meaningful way to do it. A trip down memory lane. J.O.D., welcome to you. For those that are meeting you for the first time, Jack is business partner here at Clinic Mastery, former physio and clinic owner who sold and exited his clinic, Terrace Physio Plus. Jacobin, how did your Father's Day unfold?

Jack O'Brien: It was a whirlwind. It started very early and my two year old, began to unwrap and unpack the presents to give to me. Give it wrapped. Yeah, got some got some wonderful, wonderfully meaningful cards. And I've got a new pair of budgie smugglers for for the summer. That will be that will not be making an appearance on the podcast.

Ben Lynch: Gee whiz. Thanks for the vision.

Jack O'Brien: And we had a lunch with my father-in-law. My dad's away traveling at the minute. So a big lunch with some friends. We had a lunch for a single mom and her young son, who the dad isn't around. So we try and make family and Father's Day for others significant as well. So, yeah, that was our Father's Day.

Ben Lynch: Oh, very nice. It's a wonderful touch. My father's day was great, spending it with my dad, my wife's dad. He's in Mildura, which is out of town in outback Victoria. He wasn't able to get here, but it was lovely to connect. And how's this quite surprising, Jack? You'll be familiar with this. I greeted my mom. Hey, good to see you. And then I looked up and my sister had returned from overseas. CJ used to work part of the team here at Clink Mastery, surprised everyone. I'm claiming that she came back for me, but whatever. And she arrived for Father's Day and surprised the whole family, which was really nice. So we got to hang out, spend a bit of time together and have some fun. It was a beautiful day.

Jack O'Brien: That's good. Well, hello, CJ, if you're listening.

Ben Lynch: Yeah, CJ, welcome back. Welcome back. Well, before we dive in, as an extension of this podcast, we have a section on our website at clinicmastery.com called Free Resources, so you know the price is right. And there's a bunch of goodies there, but I want to point your attention to something very specific. So we love helping clinic owners to generate new patients. And one of the most important times that you need to do that is when you hire a new practitioner or a new therapist and you need to fill their books before their first day. So we've got a guide there for strategies on how you can do that. So head along to clinicmastery.com forward slash free dash resources to get that guide, which will accompany this episode and the next few as we talk about how you get new patients. Now, before we unpack referrer relationships and building that part of it, J-O-B, we want to touch on clinics for good for a moment. So I just want to give a little snippet. would have been what, 2017, 2018, that event where you stood up, right? So we're in the room, we're talking about, okay, why do you want to grow your clinic? What is the meaning behind it? Perhaps what's core to your purpose in going through these lengths to create a business? And you stood up and you said something to the effect of, I want to be able to write a million dollar check to the charity of my choice, which is the Good Life Foundation. I know sometimes you like sharing that, sometimes you don't, if you feel uncomfortable, fair enough. But I think it inspired everyone in the room that day. And we started to hear more and more of these stories of clinic owners who did have charities or organisations or causes that really mattered to them. And they were just going about their business, kind of doing it discreetly behind the scenes. And that's great because they didn't want to be seen as virtue signaling. And there's always this awkward sort of trade-off, right, of trying to share and inspire others, but also not come across as like, oh, that's gross. So it was in that moment that I think you inspired a whole bunch of clinic owners who hadn't thought of it to think about what is the meaningful extension of their business, the causes that matter to them. And maybe it was in their profession, maybe it was external to that. But you then brought that into CM, and perhaps not a lot of people know what we do on that front. So I thought it'd be a great opportunity for you to share a little bit about what Clinics for Good is and how we do it at CM. And then Hannah, for you to add some soundbites about how you do it at DOTS, or you've seen it at Clinic Owners. But Jack, over to you to sort of tee this up for folks.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, thanks, Benny. There's a number of different outworkings of Clinics for Good. I'm going to share a portion of my screen here, so forgive me for the turbulence on YouTube. And so one of the components of Clinics for Good is that we give every time someone joins one of our programs, every time someone completes a report, one of our members completes one of our monthly progress reports, For us, that triggers giving. We've been doing this for years now. Primarily, our giving is focused through micro loans and a program called B1G1 and Opportunity International. We provide small loans, particularly for women in developing countries to start up businesses to support their families. It's a phenomenal program. You can see they've given over 2,000 loans and each time those loans are repaid, they are recycled and re-donated or re-lent. As we help clinic owners to grow their business, so we help those in developing countries also to grow their business and release them and their families from poverty. We also, here you can see we provide 800 plus days of food, 4000 days of sanitation for women in need, Nearly 5,000 days of education and 55,000 days of water, but primarily we give through our microloans, which is a wonderfully proven method of development in releasing people from poverty. So, super excited to make our monthly account every single month. An extension of that in terms of clinics for good is helping clinics to become clinics for good themselves in whatever meaningful way that looks like. For me, that was, yeah, I have a vision to ride a million dollar check for my chosen charity and church and giving along the way. It's not just like building this stockpile. It's like, no, I wanna give along the way as well. It looks different. It might be financial, it might be time contributions, or it looks different for everyone. But the point is that we exist for a purpose greater than ourselves and to help and impact more and more people over time then.

Ben Lynch: I love how you've blended in that we help businesses in the clinic domain and we help them grow. And then by doing that, we're able to help businesses that don't have access to funds and finances to get going. So yeah, it's a virtuous cycle, which is really beautiful. Hannah, how have you incorporated some of this or seen other clinics incorporate giving in their causes that matter to them into their business?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah. For us, it's about thinking about where we're sourcing some of our products from and things like that. We have artwork through all of our clinics from Jelly Bean Street, and Jelly Bean Street are an organisation that do artwork workshops with kids, and then they digitally create those artworks into, like they're drawing some things into an artwork piece, and then they sell them on their website and their families can choose which charity their sales go to. So we get all of our art through there and then we choose charities that align with our values. So it might be the Royal Children's Hospital, someone who supports our kids that we work with. And we've also given back in other ways. It's just been timely. We had one of our team members whose family was in a flood affected area. And so we donated to that community and we've donated to a community overseas that was one of our families, linked to one of our families, one of our team's families as well. And then also on a more local scale, running a party for our clients is something we've done before at no cost to the families, because we recognise that the kids that we work with often don't get invited to the birthday parties and don't get invited to those events. And so being able to run a party is quite a special thing for those clients. Wow, I've never heard that before. That's terrific. We want to make it an annual thing. It's been. Yeah. Yeah. Every second year I get it up.

Ben Lynch: I went straight to some of the kids at our kids school that I know exactly who you're talking about. Those kids that won't get the invite, unfortunately. So that's a beautiful way to do it. Gosh. love and this is part of sharing right not to say look at me how good but it inspires these other ideas you go oh great we could do that or we could do our version of that um nice cool didn't expect it to go there but it did anyway let's get into referents right We talked a little bit about Google ads and Facebook ads last session. We're going to continue down the digital side of things, but so much of being a health professional is building up great word-of-mouth referrals, especially from businesses or referral partners, other professionals that refer to us. Let's kick off with a bit of a story, Jack, that I heard you somewhat recently share that you were a patient at a podiatrist clinics, podiatry clinic. Get it out, Ben. And on the intake form, you were asked about your specific health network as a patient. You were asked about, I think you mentioned your psychologist, your doctor, and you mentioned, hey, this is quite a great way for this clinic to build out their referral network. Do you want to just expand on that, about how we build out referral networks?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, I know Shane Davis and Profeet have been doing this for eons, but as a patient stepping into a clinic and it's so nice to be on the other side sometimes, we forget what it's like because we create forms all the time and the experience in our clinic, we see tens, dozens of times a day often. but to sit in the welcome room as a patient to receive the emails and the communications. It was a very eye-opening experience and some of the emotions that come out of that. Nevertheless, yeah, popping in, the request there was, yeah, who was a part of your healthcare team? We'd love to share with them as appropriate in this journey or to connect with them to broaden our networks, basically. And I thought, well, that's a really easy, I'm happy to answer that. That's not a secret at all. And so, yeah, it was my physio, I'm a psychologist. you know, PT and all those different things. So it was, I'm not sure whether that clinic actually acted on it or not, but it was a question that I was very willing to answer. And I'm sure I'm like a lot of patients, I'm just like everyone else, right? But I would love to make some introductions if that was appropriate. I'm like, my podiatrist here, come and meet my physio, come and meet this, come meet that and make those connections. So maybe the lesson in that for us, Ben, is that we underestimate how willing our patients are to connect their healthcare team.

Ben Lynch: We're going to get into some of the systems behind doing and building out your referral networks consistently, because I think that's the thing. People do it maybe in fits and spurts, it never really catches on, or they do it and it relies on the clinic owner and they're not really able to hand it over to any of their team members. Maybe to zoom right out, like Hannah, how do you think about building your referral-based network?

Hannah Dunn: So we definitely ask that question, Jack, and I think paediatric clinics are really good at asking who else is in the team. I agree. I think it's probably the adult clinics that we forget to do that. But we've actually found on SPLOS it's a lot easier for us to track those referrals. And so we need to make sure that we're entering the data into the client's file. because, and I'm sure there are other practice management softwares that can do this, but it will link every client that you've added that referrer or contact to, so then you can click on the referrer, let's say it's paediatrician, and it will give you a list of all the clients that are seeing that paediatrician without having to go through every file. The biggest thing that I've found to help our networks is by, and this isn't a cheap way to go about it, but is renting a room from a paediatrician for us. So we rent a room in a paediatrician clinic, they're really good at bringing together their partners, I guess. And so they do a Christmas party. I've just had an email to ask us on our preferred dates. And then that gives us an opportunity to be in a room with those people. Melissa Hooves, who's one of our coaches at CM, is also one of those businesses that shares that room with me at DOTS at that pediatrician clinic. And that's been probably the most successful way. So when we went into a new space in Bandura, which we hadn't worked there, that was one of our areas that we grew into, we actually just went into a room with a speech pathologist and rented their rooms for the first 12 months, built our caseload and then went out into our own clinic. that has been the most successful way for us to build up those networks and we think of it sometimes like our marketing budget because it can be an expensive way to go about it. What do you mean you think about it in those terms? We think about it like we're paying for referrals essentially by renting that room in the paediatrician clinic that isn't really our ideal room space. It's probably a bit small, we don't have a gym, we don't have all our equipment there. Ideally we'd like to be back in the clinic but It's good networking, it's a good way to build connections, it's a good place to be seen by other, increases your reputation and just being able to be linked with high care.

Ben Lynch: You know that Jim Collins, I think it's Jim Collins' book, he talks about fire bullets, then cannonballs, essentially to calibrate where you're going to make the big bet in the end. It almost sounds like you're doing that, Hannah, where, okay, this is a small step for us to test a new suburb or location without kind of betting the farm, taking out a massive lease over many years and got all these square feet to fill. you're actually getting in close, very proximal to an ideal referrer, building the relationship and then going, this is sustainable. Is that how you've thought about it?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, absolutely.

Jack O'Brien: And it makes a lot of sense too, because often people think in these arrangements, Hannah, you might pay a percentage of revenue or that's a rent cost or an occupancy cost. And it is, but it's more than that. It is often a rent cost and an admin support cost if they're providing any admin. and a lead generation cost. And so, people go, oh, X% is too much. It's like, yeah, but if you broke that percentage down, it's actually very reasonable to expect, you know, 5% give or take of your revenue to go towards acquisition and new leads.

Hannah Dunn: Yes. And it doesn't have to be a whole week or a whole month or a whole day. Like we're there for four hours a fortnight. Like that's what we're in the paediatrician clinic. And we just get through four and then we're out of there at the moment. And that might build up. We used to do a day a week when they were in a different building.

Jack O'Brien: How did that relationship come about?

Hannah Dunn: I was really scared to approach them and ask if there was rooms available, but essentially I had outgrown one clinic first and I sent out just a whole lot of letters to all these different people that were referrers and said, does anyone have a room that we can rent? And that was sort of 12 years ago and people weren't ready. It didn't feel like the people were renting rooms as much. They tended to go out and just sort of get their own clinics. And so I had a psychology clinic come back and say, yes, we have a space for you. And so then I just put one therapist there and we've sort of just tested the waters that way. And then the speech pathologist in Bandura called us and said, we want to get OTs on site. Would you be willing to do that? And this is what I was thinking of before. The one thing that I've come not to negotiate on now is I won't go and work in someone else's practice as DOTS and run under their brand. I'll only run under our own brand so it's a partnership. Whereas a lot of places might ask you to hide your business name essentially and utilise them. Because I want to make sure that we're keeping the client's contact details, that we're keeping those referral contacts, that we're not referring and if we were to leave those rooms they can't just slot another OT in and be like, oh you know how we've always had OT?

Jack O'Brien: Gotcha. Yeah, I like that. And because you're beginning with the end in mind, there's an intention here, A, of sort of long-term sustainability of your clinic, but also intentionally building relationships that hopefully, I assume, those relationships persist beyond the room rental. Room rentals are the icebreaker, the establishment, and beyond that, the relationship persists irrespective of location.

Ben Lynch: So Hannah, how do you build the trust initially to get the referrals coming in the door? You're proximal, just physically in the space, but still there needs to be that trust that I can refer someone to one of your therapists and they get the great care that I want them to have, they need to have. So how do you build the trust with new referrers?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, I think it's about consistency. Like we make sure that we send those letters back, whether you're in their rooms or whether you're somewhere else, like you're not co-located is the words I'm looking for. Making sure you send those letters back. Make sure you send back the Medicare letter that says, yes, we've picked up this client. And then at the end of service, you're sending back to say, yep, we've completed our five sessions. This is what we recommend. Making sure that you're updating them if there's anything Like for a paediatrician, for example, we might send a letter to say, we're looking at dysgraphia, is this something you can further assess? So this is why we're thinking that this might be what's going on. The paediatrician sees them once every six months, potentially, and so they need your help to guide their appointment. If your families tell you that they've got an appointment coming up, send a quick summary letter. I think the other thing is asking paediatricians, or not necessarily any referrer, what they want. The reason paeds come to mind is because they're our biggest referrers probably, but I actually spoke to the paeds and said, hey, I've got this great idea where, this is probably five years ago, I've got this great idea, I've got these USBs that have, maybe longer than that, given that was a USB 10 years ago, that I want to create like a video where we're welcoming and just explaining about our team. And the people's like, no one's watching that. She was like, we're not putting it in our computer and watching it. She's like, just print out some paper. We want something we can stick up, something we can put there on the pinboard that makes it really easy so that when we get a referrer in or someone sitting in front of us, we can just look over and go, here's the contact details.

Ben Lynch: It's such a great point, Hannah, that you raise. I think one of the questions that we'd love to ask a potential partner is, what's your single biggest frustration when you refer to physio, podiatry, to the dentist, to the OT? To understand, you know, of your existing relationships, What is a challenge? What's frustrating? And it might be, it's hard. It's not convenient. I'm not sure who to refer to or how to refer. So actually just starting with that question may reveal some of these things. Like you said, the person you're working with goes, it's just a bit clunky. None of us are using it. How can you make it easy? And you're like, ah. Absolutely, I've got a solution for you. So going straight to what are some of the challenges that you have when you refer to someone like me? And also, what are the triggers that make you refer to someone like me? Certain condition types, patient types, et cetera, to really understand their world. I find a lot of clinic owners or practitioners, and I've been guilty of this in the early days, just rush in to try and pitch everything that we do. Yeah, every piece of tech and equipment and tool and methodology that we employ. And it's just it's overwhelming. I think being able to understand the needs of that partner is a great place to begin. Jack?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, this came up in a mastermind actually last week. There was a lot of stress and anxiety about going to meet doctors or medical centers, GP clinics for the first time. And a lot of the experience from the room and the advice from us as coaches was you don't need to over-prepare for these things. go in seeking to understand, asking questions about their problems and their challenges, and then be the one that solves those. And you don't have to solve it on the spot either. That is your key to your next meeting. It's like, great, I'm really glad I understand what are your frustrations and problems with working with X profession. Let me go away. Let me put something together. Is it okay if I pop back in two weeks time? And we can talk through how we might be able to solve those pain points for you. So you don't have to feel the pressure to come up with a slide deck or a pitch or an in-service presentations. These are people and people trust people, people refer. And so connect on a human level, find out their problems and then be the one that provides the solution.

Ben Lynch: So Hannah, you raise a good point around the client experience. And maybe there's a couple of buckets here that I would put referral partnerships into. You could maybe broaden this, but let's say like the first is around client experience. As health professionals, we wanna be able to refer to other businesses or services and other professions that are complimentary to what we're doing to get the patient's outcome. That's just part of being a good therapist, I think is. having a great network that we refer in and refer out, there's good communication, the patient gets a great experience. We want to do that, and that be a key objective to meet. The second is, and in no particular order, is the new patient avenue. Okay, I want more referrals from people like this. As you said in the pediatrician case, they have clients that could also benefit from your care and you're hoping that those clients make their way through to you at an appropriate time so that you get new patients as the outcome. The other one is that you could think about partnerships in the context of building your team. of new therapists. What partnerships? I'm working with a clinic at the moment that's working very closely with a university, and the pipeline of new graduates coming through. I know the angle here is predominantly on patients, but also when we talk about partnerships and growth, facilitating your growth, think about the next generation of talent that's coming through. And maybe the other one that I would add is the training, mentoring or development of your current team. So what partners might be able to contribute there so that your team maybe can serve more people during their day, during their week as well. So I think it's important to understand that there might actually be different angles of approach. depending on the person that you're working with. Maybe it covers all four bases. Maybe it covers just one. But being cognisant of what is the outcome that I'd like from this partnership, ideally. And also, one of those, I think, is that they might just be able to refer you on to the next person. the pediatrician might know the GP around the corner, or the physio might know the dentist around the corner, and there's a referral relationship there. I think it's important to understand what you're looking for and explore that in a little more nuance than just, I want new patients, and they didn't come to me after my first or second meeting. That, I think, helps you prepare and think about how you nurture the relationship moving forward. I'm interested in Jack, when you go through the lengths of the communication piece, you know, we're writing letters, we're writing notes, we're doing all the right things for the patient care, but you're not quite getting the referrals back, you're going, is this worth all the effort? What do you say to that clinic owner that is doing those things?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, it's a really good question. Is it worth the effort? And I'd say, well, we need to be able to quantify what that looks like. We need to be able to measure the impact of some of these relationships. And so, I would say that speaks to tracking and having the systems to be able to identify where referrals are coming from. We've got a dashboard for this, Ben. I might even share my screen if that's okay for those who watch along on YouTube. Part of the dashboard that we provide for our members is around being able to know who are your professional referrers, how many referrals do we get from them, and how have we communicated with them or met with them. And so, this is how we know whether it is working or not. If we backpedal a little bit before that bend, it might have something to do with the initial collaboration strategies that we used. And again, inside the dashboard, for the members as part of both of our programs, Elevate and the Academy. There's 29 different ways that you can collaborate with a potential partner. It might be to do some professional development with them. It might be to do some clinical observations. It might be to feature them on your website or 26 other examples. But having a system matters, having a process matters. And I recall Daniel Gibbs, when he was mentoring me in my clinic owner journey, mentioning a systemised, randomised acknowledgement process. And it needs to be systemised for us on our end so that no one slips through the cracks and so that there's a repeatable process for us or our team to be able to run through. But it needs to appear randomised, and I say random in inverted commas, it needs to appear organic and authentic. to our partners on the receiving end. So it's systemised for us, randomised for our partners, and it's an acknowledgement process that continually nurtures that relationship over time. Now, that's something that some people find really challenging. There's some great resources, books, YouTubes that we can point to in order to help you with your relationship skills, communication, etc. But having a system that makes sure nothing falls through the cracks and there's a repeatable process so that we can action and execute and measure really does matter.

Hannah Dunn: And Jack, who is filling out that form, I think is going to be…

Jack O'Brien: Well, that's right. Now, the beauty of Google Sheets, right, is that anyone can fill it out. And ideally, it would be collaborative. Ideally, each referrer would have an assigned person in your clinic that is responsible for that relationship and responsible for reporting on that relationship. Because here's the thing, a healthy relationship not reported on is not a healthy relationship.

Ben Lynch: I can imagine your date nights, just whipping out the scorecard. How are we going here? I didn't reply to my text quick enough.

Jack O'Brien: Six love you text messages and you sent me four.

Hannah Dunn: We've got Cheryl Yee in our community at Clinic Mastery, who is the director of speech pathology. and we are located in the same area and every year without fail we get a gift from Cheryl and her team and every time I get it I think she's really outdone herself like sometimes it's a cookie that's got their logo on it it's just something so simple but she's so consistent and I would say she is one of the only referrers that is as consistent and that we get something sometimes throughout the year. She's really good at jumping on those events with like, if someone opens a new clinic, if there's something like that. So I think those are the things that stand out to me when it feels really thoughtful and it feels really connected and aware.

Ben Lynch: It's a great point. Shout out to Cheryl. So then Jack, you're an introvert. Not everyone's going to love getting out there amongst the professions and having a chat and, you know, nurturing these relationships. Some people feel a little bit awkward. They don't feel particularly confident. They've given it a try and didn't get the response, didn't get the results that they wanted in referrals as an exam. They're like, it's too hard. It's too much work. I haven't seen the fruits of that. Is it still worthwhile for those people if it doesn't come as natural a say as Cheryl?

Jack O'Brien: Great question. And I've got a number of retorts in mind. I think sometimes you can have, you can have comfort or you can have growth, but you can't have both. you choose. Now, I'll say for me, on any measure of personality or temperament, wherever the relational, extroverted, sanguine side is, I'm on the opposite. Give me solitude any day and solitude and spreadsheets and I'm in heaven. However, I can't just rely on my personality differences as an excuse. We build clinics for good through relationships. And just because it's not my bent or my style doesn't give me any excuse. And so what do I do? I invest in my learning, my growth and my developments. And there's, I mean, being a part of the same community has been foundational for that. There's a couple other books that come to mind I might share screen here. Influence by Robert Cialdini. It's an old classic, but it is an absolute banger. Fantastic book to help you relate and influence amongst your circle. I love Adam Grant. Again, this is like 15 years old almost, but give and take an amazing book on being a giver and the results that that leads to. Stephen Covey, great book, The Speed of Trust, and his original book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And then this one by Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference. I have book options there for clinic owners to consider if, you know, relationships aren't your primary skill set or personality default, that's okay. A, you can learn this is all skill. This is not just traits that you were born with. Relationships and networking partnerships are a skill that can be learned and can be developed over time. So I'd say lean into that, practice it, and take a long-term perspective. And over time, you want to master this skill. Are you going to master it in three months, six months, 12 months? No. But over the course of the next three, five, 10 years, we want to work towards mastery over time.

Hannah Dunn: Talking about books, and this isn't one I have done, but I have received, was just a book in the mail that had a note that said, I read this book and I thought of you and thought you might enjoy it too, and sent me a copy of a book, which I thought that was, again, really thoughtful and personal. It doesn't feel like a mass. than doubt, even though it potentially was.

Ben Lynch: I think so much of this, we talk about the input being communication, regular communication, perhaps the outcome of that is staying top of mind for our partners. So that, as you said, Jack, when they think to refer, they think of you. It's that mental availability, it's staying top of mind. And there's a number of different avenues to be able to do that. I'm interested, actually, Hannah, How have you gone about helping team members who often say, oh, this isn't really my thing? Okay, fair enough for the clinic owner. They can maybe swallow their pride or, you know, suck it up and do it. It's their business. They got it. What about for those team members that sort of, you know, retreat into their shell? And they're like, yes, I don't feel confident to do this. This isn't really me. How have you supported those types of folks? Or have you just avoided giving them this responsibility entirely?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, both. We have at times avoided it for someone that was really anxious. I've only done it once. Other times we've broken it down into being more manageable steps, like write a blog, like what are you more interested in? Let's get your name out there with a blog, a photo. It is a requirement on their first day or I give them the option to do their makeup and do it the second day for a headshot that we just do in the clinic in front of one of our artworks that we were talking about before. And then we've got that image that we can just use as a stock standard image. Everyone looks pretty similar. And then for those that are more outgoing, we've got requirements around social media posts. So if you work one day in the clinic, you need to do one social post per quarter, five days in the clinic, five posts per clinic, per quarter. That's because of the size of our team, we don't need as much content. But for some people, they've got their faces in it, they're doing really fun things, they're doing the trends. Other people, they're taking a photo of a book, they're posting about a favourite book, or it's got nothing to do with them other than the hashtag that it was them that was the one who created it. So there's different ways to engage in marketing, I think, that doesn't have to be going into the clinics and introducing yourself and being in front of people.

Jack O'Brien: Hold on, Hannah. That's what came to mind for mine. We're in 2025, or at least at the time of recording. Now, face-to-face interaction is highly valuable and encouraged, but there are other ways to establish relationships. You can get on the phone, text message, email, social media, Zoom calls. There are so many ways to relate to someone else. This is really about creating win-win relationships where we give and as we give, so you shall receive. and contributing to solving problems for other people. It's the giver's gain mentality, as Shane Davis would say.

Ben Lynch: It's a great point, Jack. So much of this, I think about removing friction, making it easy for everybody. Folks around me might say, that's a lazy approach, Ben. I say, I'm looking for convenience. You know, I haven't got all this time. I do not want to spend 90 minutes in the car, going to a referrer partner, having an hour meeting, then spending 90 minutes on the commute back as an example, right? And so how can you make that more convenient? To your point, Jack, and I know if Shane was here, he'd be saying, yeah, but you got to be in person. You know, some of these relationships do need it. Okay, granted. But, but, Like you said, it's 2025. Why aren't we booking in a referrer into the appointment book like you would book a patient and doing a quote telehealth or a Zoom for 30 minutes? It's super convenient. It starts on the minute, finishes on the minute. We've continued the conversation as an example. We have a bit of an agenda or a structure for continuing our collab. The next is, and the brilliant tools of like a Slack or a Google Chat they're often used in these other businesses just like yours. So being able to invite them into your workspace, like how many of our Slack channels and I've seen a lot of clinics have their partners, their referrer partners inside of their workspace. so that they can communicate with ease. They're removing friction. Or you're using a tool like Loom to do a video reply to an email or to a message or a voice message to add tonality and build that sort of deeper relationship than just an email exchange that gets lost and I didn't see that email. So there's some really just smarter ways to go about it that aren't that much more effort in 2025.

Jack O'Brien: And that's a really good distinction. Back to your point of how do we lead our teams to participate in this. Certainly noted that team members might have varying degrees of confidence or anxiety or skill level or deficiency thereof. The point is that there are many ways to go about this and it is a journey with our teams that we have to train them on over time. We can't expect them to pick it up and run with it. We need to train them and develop them. But to the point of why does this all matter for them, this is a key component of building your ideal caseload. When you know who your ideal client type is or presentation type, who else those patients already trust, we need to establish relationships with those referrers. And so if a practitioner is frustrated by a general caseload or a lack of ideal cases, And this is how we work towards a sustainable in-demand list of ideal clients.

Ben Lynch: It's a great point. I think also one of the really practical things that you can do is be a client of this other business or service. and also have them be a client of your service, where possible and appropriate. Because it's that kinesthetic experience where you're like, ah, this is how the site consult works, or the OT initial assessment works, or how the physio does a new client assessment. That makes it so much easier when I'm referring to know exactly what my client's going to experience and articulate it with clarity. If I've already experienced it myself, there's a whole bunch of logistics around that, but I think it's a really practical way to do it. What other ways, Hannah, have you found really helpful to get referrers to, again, have that trust and be able to refer clients to you and the team regularly and consistently?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, I think it's about being available as well. Like, I think we have a triage process for our clients and I think that creates certainty for our referrers. We also openly speak about the fact that sometimes it's not going to be the right fit of an OT and we will change them over to another OT. And that, you know, sometimes we do get it wrong and sometimes the information we have isn't the right information. And so that leads to a mismatch of therapists. And we're very clear on that doesn't mean it's a bad therapist. It just means it wasn't the right bit at that moment. And so I think having security, knowing that. We recognise that when it doesn't work, we'll fix it. And also knowing that you can contact me if you feel like you've called reception and something's not getting through or you've got a family that's really complex and they need to urgently get in, but you know there's a massive wait list. So being able to call and have a quick discussion or shoot an email through and say, what are the chances of us being able to get this client in with his therapist or Which I know we don't want to rely on the business owner, but it can also be to your team leader. It can be different people in your team, like you were talking about someone having responsibility for that relationship, who says, thanks for sending that through, I've just got to check with these people, I'll get back to you. But knowing that they have someone to reach out to.

Jack O'Brien: It's human connection, right? Human connection. I've got a question for either of you. How do you handle rejection? Because in some regards, I'll often say in coaching sessions that this is a bit of a numbers game and you've got to have a thick skin, etc. So how do you handle it or how do we coach our team members through being ghosted or flat out turned down or mismatched expectations? How do you handle that?

Hannah Dunn: I'm pretty arrogant.

Hannah Dunn: I'm just like, they're lost. But I know not everyone is like that. Like, I just think there's someone at like, if not them, someone else, like, and so if it's not them, there'll be someone else. And so I just think what is you never know what's around the corner is sort of my mindset. And so that might not have worked. But where are we off to next? Or what has that opportunity that we're disappointed about opened up doors for?

Ben Lynch: You're always the pragmatist, Hannah. I love it. Which is actually a reasonable thing to discuss with your team members at the front end, I think, is there's going to be times where there is rejection or you just don't hear back. And I'd probably make that distinction. Is it that you've sent two emails and you haven't heard back? And maybe that person's just super busy and it just went down the priority list. It's not that they don't want to, you know, pursue a relationship with you. necessarily it's just not a priority for them right now for whatever reason and maybe they don't understand the context that you have of how this could be a great relationship. If it is just flat-out rejection, that is, well, maybe it's not the person you want to work with. I haven't really come across a lot of instances where that's happened personally or seen other folks, but yeah, I think you're pushing it up here. If you've got flat-out rejection, I would say that there needs to be an element of follow-up that is required from team members. Assume people are super busy, and assume it's not personal. I think that's a great place to start. We always say, assume positive intent. That's kind of like one of the mantras we have here at CM. Assume that they're all good. They want to do it. They're just super busy. Maybe I need to find a different angle of approach. If I've tried email, maybe I pick up the phone. If I've done that, maybe I send a video. If I've done that, maybe if it's convenient, I can stop in and knock on the door, so to speak. It depends on the type of relationship that we're pursuing.

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, I think also if you're saying to us, like, I've sent 50 emails and no one's responded, we want to look at the context of the email. We want to look at what you are sending and see whether, as you said, Ben, like different medians, but also looking at, put it through ChatGPT and say, summarise this. Maybe it's too long. Maybe we need to get specific, use bold, whatever it is.

Ben Lynch: That's a really great point. It comes back to the point of make it more convenient. If you've written a Harry Potter novel in the email, don't expect a reply. I'm definitely not replying anyway. Make it convenient for the other person to reply. Maybe it's like a yes-no answer. You know, you're still interested in making this partnership work, yes or no. make it convenient for the other person and lower the friction and the barrier to entry to that relationship. I think that's just the principle and there are different practices for you to go about testing how to do that. Jack, how would you go about it?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, I think having a thick skin to your point Hannah is being able to move on. It's okay. Like one no is just another step closer to a yes and going into it eyes wide open that it is a numbers game. You might need to pursue. And again, just to set some expectations if you're a clinic owner getting amongst this for the first time we're not talking about two or three or four partnerships. We're talking like 20 or 30 or 50 partnerships. You might need to connect with 50 people to get 20 replies. and maybe 10 initial relationships that work out to be five real connections. You got to play the 50 to get the five. So it's having your expectations super clear. And then I think it's okay to revisit a relationship, a dormant relationship or one that didn't get off the ground at another time. To your point, Ben, maybe the time just wasn't right and come back. The river is never the same. The water is always different in that same river. And then back to that point of like mastery, master the skills of writing emails, communicating face to face, sending voice messages, testing different things. Like you almost need to have a bit of a scientist approach, a mad experiment scientist to this game of relationships.

Ben Lynch: Well, to that point, Jack, We talked about Google ads and Facebook ads. The ability for us to track all the different elements of those ways, those avenues of getting new patients, is meaningfully different from a lot of the referral relationship stuff, which is so relational. You know, you've shared the spreadsheet here. We can track elements of it, but it's certainly not as sophisticated as some of the paid ads play that we've got. And someone might say, you know what? hourly rate is 200 bucks an hour, maybe as a therapist, or if you're a full-time clinical, let's say that's your salary, then I don't want to spend 20 hours doing this to get, you know, 10 new patients when I could otherwise just spend it on digital ads and get patients that way. How do you respond to that? Someone's weighing up the hours that they put in or a team member puts in and comparing it to digital ads to get new clients.

Jack O'Brien: Well, I'll go first, Hannah, you might have a different perspective, but I want a level of control over my referral sources and new client sources. The reality is Facebook, Meta, Google, whatever advertising platform can change the rules tomorrow and you are dependent on someone else. Whereas you have built trust with other humans, that relational equity is something that's in your control. And the types of patients that we receive from our referrer friends are usually very rich patients. And I mean that in the qualitative sense that these are patients that are ideal for us. They're bought in. There's a high level of trust. They know us. And so it's a different quality of patient that comes through. And so you want control or influence over those types of patients. Hannah?

Hannah Dunn: I think also what you spoke to before, Jack, about it being really personal, like it's really personal to have that trust and to build that up. And so I think if you're concerned about the amount of time that you're spending, maybe we need to think about what is the way in which you're connecting. Is there ways to simplify this? Is there things where you can get your client connection team to support you by ordering products and then you can just do the final drop off? Or is there elements that can be done by other members of your team?

Ben Lynch: It's a good way to look at what are we currently doing, because there are certainly some low-value actions that we could pursue in the referral-based front, and there are some higher-value actions that we can pursue. I think looking at your existing referral network, running the report from your patient management system, looking at who, what are the chances that there's five to 10 referrers that have given you the bulk of referrals over a longer period of time that, hey, you've just not nurtured particularly well, and maybe there's an opportunity for that to yield even more moving forward, or those that have referred just a few that could maybe become one of those top 10. I think you always want to look at a diversified portfolio to minimise some of the risk. It's essentially what you're saying, Jacobo. We don't want to be overly reliant on one, because there's those clinics that go, we haven't really needed to do a lot of digital advertising. Maybe it is a lot in the paid space, Hannah, like speech and OT. We've had strong referral relationships, but all of a sudden, a key referral source dries up. And we're on the back foot. We didn't have a digital play happening. We weren't allocating there, maybe not at least consistently. And so now we've got to get into hyperdrive and figure out a way to reactivate this. So it's about having a bit of a spread. Do you believe that's how you should do it, Hannah, is have a diversified or actually put more eggs into one basket that's working?

Hannah Dunn: No, definitely diversify. I think also it's like you might have a clinic who's referred a speech clinic, for example, for us who's referred a heap of OT clients and then decide that actually it would be good for us to have a speech at OT on our team. And so then that could drive your referrals. There are so many different ways in which your referrals can dry up and just having a wide range of networks. If someone contacts us, we never say no, we're always willing to chat to someone. We love working with one, like single practitioners as well as whole teams. And I think to your point, if you've let those referrers, you haven't been in contact, like don't be scared to reach out and just name that like, hey, sorry, it's been a while, but here I am.

Ben Lynch: The thing that's going off in my mind is, okay, the objective, if we pick one of those four that I at least spoke to of like client experience, team training and mentoring, new patients, new team. We said new patients, where are the new patients before they typically come to me? And a lot of the time that's gonna be with another profession and they're getting referred over, but it doesn't need to be in the health space. It could be another business or service. Let's take our podiatry friends. that a shoe store is more than likely the precursor to going to the podiatrist, or is subsequent from the podiatrist. In a PEDS context, would that be a school, a kindergarten? Maybe in your case as an OT, it's the speech pathologist profession. But I think we should look at where are the places that there's some distribution, there's a big audience of potential clients that we could get access to beyond just professionals. How else do you think about that, Jack, in terms of getting access to a broader audience through your referral partners?

Jack O'Brien: When you know your ideal clients and know that avatar, you need to know who they trust. And you can think of that in sort of concentric circles in a way. Yes, they'll trust other health professionals. Will they trust other service professionals is a great one to think about. And I often use the example of a physio clinic owner, maybe like working with netballers, sort of mums in their 40s or 50s. And so they They play netball. Netball is a great sport.

Hannah Dunn: That's me. I play netball every Tuesday night.

Jack O'Brien: And have you got a knee or an ankle injury?

Hannah Dunn: Not at the moment. But we do have some players out with injuries.

Ben Lynch: But it sounds like you need orthotics.

Hannah Dunn: I probably do. Lower back pain actually comes with it. Yeah, orthotics.

Jack O'Brien: Nevertheless. And so when I think about that particular avatar, it's like, well, yes, they might have, if I'm a physio, they might have a podiatrist or a psychologist, but they also probably have a hairdresser and they probably have a certain type of car, if I know that avatar well, that goes to a certain mechanic. And they probably wear a certain type of footwear for the shoe shop or a certain type of active wear that I can go to the Lululemon or the Lorna Jaynes store. There's so many other people that our avatars trust or already shop with. So that's how I like to think about it. Who else do they spend their money with or who else do they spend time with?

Ben Lynch: It's a great sort of filter.

Jack O'Brien: I would also think about farming those relationships. You know, we just finished speaking about like, ah, what if we need to go into hyperdrive mode? You don't want to have to go into hyperdrive or hunting mode because you can smell that desperation coming. And so, it's exhausting, it's stressful and it's a shallow relationship. So, we're far better off farming our relationships, developing trust, getting credits in the emotional bank account over time so that if and when we need to make an explicit request in those relationships, it's based on a foundation of health.

Ben Lynch: There's so many different solutions that we have here, so many strategies and systems of how you can support these relationships with your referral network. But if I was to ask you for one, like what's the one action that a clinic owner listening in, a practitioner listening into this is going, all right, you've brought some energy back into this for me that I'm going to go do something. I've got some time in my day to day and I'm going to nurture my relationships or build on those relationships. What is that one thing? I'll kick it off and I'll say that I think the first thing is, can you set up some version of tracking? A central place that you can come back to. You didn't think I'd go to spreadsheets straight away, JB, did you? No. Surprised you there.

Jack O'Brien: Prison changed you.

Ben Lynch: That's the effect you're having on me. It's really positive. You're welcome. So, I would go to some version of, okay, who are our current referrers? Let's have a look at those. Let's get them onto a piece of paper or a spreadsheet. And then let's start to formulate who we're going to approach next, or we're going to figure out the five to ten that are part of our focus over the next one to three months. So I would actually start there by identifying the who, by assessing the current stats and the current referrals that are coming in. Jack, what would you suggest I would

Jack O'Brien: list out the top 10 partnerships that come to mind and whether that's the top 10 as in top 10 that refer or top 10 dormant ones, I don't mind. Just list 10 potential or existing partners and connect with them with value. Maybe you give them something, send them a book to Hannah's point. Maybe you introduce a client to them. Maybe just check in and say, what's frustrating you at the moment that I might be able to solve? But connect and solve a problem, add value, and then let that relationship flourish.

Ben Lynch: I like that idea of like referring to them and that is a meaningful way to add value and get top of mind. Very nice. Hannah, what about you?

Hannah Dunn: I would get really clear on your client avatar and think about where they are. Think about who those referrers are that are outside the box a little bit that you can refer to. I know Jack and I just want to keep going, but I know we could go forever on this.

Jack O'Brien: I am going to go one more though. Something that Ben, you and I learned from Roger Hamilton back in the day. Here's what I would do. I'd actually scrap what I originally said. That's the second choice. This is what I'd actually do. I would connect referral partners together, dovetail them in and connect. When you can introduce two people together, they assign the value of that relationship to you and so I would connect the podiatrist with the psychologist, the speechy with the netball club, the shoe shop owner with the Lululemon shop owner and connect other people and let those relationships flourish and watch it come back to you.

Ben Lynch: Ah, beautiful. Well, for those listening in, we're going to keep going down this line of how do you get more new patients in the digital front and on the relationship front with those in your network. Again, head over to clinicmastery.com for the show notes of every podcast, but also the free resources section. Download plenty of the assets and resources that we've got for free and just make sure you take action. All well and good to learn this stuff. Do it and then tell us how you went with it. We love hearing the feedback. Jack, Hannah, thank you once again for your insights, your stories, your tips. We'll see you next week for another episode. See you.

Hannah Dunn: Bye.

Ben Lynch: Bye.