Howard Speaks: Thank You for Your Referral by Howard Farran, DDS, MBA, publisher, Dentaltown Magazine

In this industry, the greatest gift you can give is a referral. If people who are referred by a friend or loved one come to your practice and trust you, studies show they spend three times as much money as someone who doesn't know you and came in because of a coupon.

One of the most important things in business (and in human behavior in general) is to reward good behavior. That means asking every person who comes in to your practice, "Whom may we thank for referring you?" You need to know for your marketing purposes: Was it a Facebook ad? Direct mail? A billboard? Did Sally Sue refer her friend at work?

Then, when appropriate, you need to reward that behavior. For three decades, at Today's Dental we've printed out a list of our referrals and send each person a thank-you gift. We usually do a package that includes a coffee cup or water bottle, some sugarless candy or gum, or a couple of movie tickets—just a little token to say, "We're aware that you referred someone, and we want to tell you that's the greatest gift a patient can give us."

Along the same lines, Dentaltown's vibrant community of more than 225,000 registered members happened only because of dentists referring their friends. When someone registers on Dentaltown, we ask who referred them and about 85 percent of the time, it's a dentist, a friend or a loved one. I want to personally thank you all for referring your friends and loved ones to Dentaltown.

You can't—and shouldn't—be doing everything
On that note, I'm excited about a feature recently rolled out on our website.

Maybe you never thought about it, but the articles in our magazine are written by people who are so passionate that, after work, they could go home to their families, go out to eat, work out … but they spend their "free time" writing. We don't pay the writers who contribute articles; they do it because they want to share information with their peers and friends.

You read the articles, but did you ever think that it'd be really cool to comment and say, "Hey, thanks for writing this"? We've made it easy on our website, with a comments section underneath each article.

Taking it one step further—and back to the idea of referrals—you also have the option to share what you've read with your social media followers and friends. With just one click you can share an article to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus or LinkedIn.

Our site now also shows the number of times an article has been shared. Imagine if Facebook didn't have "Like" or "Comment" capabilities for posts. Even though you had 200 friends, without the "Like" button you wouldn't know if you were just talking to yourself in the closet! Luckily, when you post on the real Facebook you can check later in the day to get feedback—maybe a dozen people liked your post, someone added an "LOL" and someone else said, "Thanks for sharing." That makes you feel better, which reinforces the behavior.

We want that for our authors, too—I wish you would thank the people who write articles and columns! And I guarantee you the authors would appreciate it if you went online and shared their pieces to your other social media, because the greatest gift a dentist can give to another dental colleague is a referral.

And, finally, I'd love it if whenever you hear a dentist complaining, or feeling burned out or under the weather, or asking a question like, "Which bonding agent do you use?" you'd reply: "I'll tell you what I use … and also, what you ought to do is join Dentaltown." I think it's one of the greatest gifts you can give another dentist.

Check out Howard Farran's podcasts!
Listen to free Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran podcasts about staffing and motivation—and pretty much anything under the sun!—by downloading them from iTunes.

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