If You are Sick of Begging for Referrals Try This
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[00:00:00] If you're an occupational therapist and you're tired, you're sick and tired of begging for referrals from doctors and stuff like that, try this. This is going to help to fill your schedule. My name is Huang. I'm an occupational therapist and I own and run my clinic and my online program, Pan Therapy Secrets, where you're seeing it right now.
And when I first started out, All I knew was begging doctors for referrals, asking friends, and after a certain amount of time, you just get sick of it. So I just want to share with you like what I've done, what's worked, what I've seen work, what I see don't work. Right. So you, you want to have, essentially you want to have both, things that work and what.
What doesn't work because it's going to help you fill your schedule. I think one of the things that I hear most often of OTs that are looking to start their own clinic or out in their own businesses, they're like, how do I get the clients? How do I get the customers to come buy my stuff, buy my services, buy my products, buy my [00:01:00] programs.
You know about social media, you know about networking, but here's what I want to share because if you are sick and tired of begging for referrals and Feeling like you're bothering somebody is it comes down to how you market. Now you might Here a lot of other people talking about marketing and this is what I have found really work for me is I started sharing my perspective You know, there's you know Something about occupational therapy and you know something about how occupational therapists help your particular group of people that you want to help.
There's someone in your mind that you know you want to help. Like for example, when I started, I knew I wanted to help very specifically a group of people who have had hand and arm surgeries. Right. And, I was always just told. Go refer to the doctors, tell them that you're a CHT, you know, because you [00:02:00] work so hard to get these letters and they're just going to send you patients, but they don't, they might have every intention to, but they don't think about you because they're so busy thinking about themselves.
And the person who tends to refer are the people in their office. And so those people aren't going to necessarily think about you either. They might think that you're the best, but they might. Want a little kickback. I'm in Miami. This has happened. I'm not talking shit. This is what happens, right? They might only refer because of their limiting beliefs that you should take every single insurance, you know They might do things that are just very easy for them.
Like if they have Two places they send to because of habit. They'll always send it to those two places and they're not thinking about you So a lot of people aren't thinking about you When you go and you ask them for referrals So if you're thinking about well I want to start my business and I want to start on social media and I want to do some networking These things take time [00:03:00] but over a period of time It's gonna help you so that you don't have to sit here and beg you are attracting Right.
That's the biggest difference is instead of going out there and, and begging for referrals, one of the things that you can start to do, and you have to start doing this today, start doing it now is to share your perspective. And that's the biggest and best way of having to stop begging. You just share your perspective.
And here's what happens. With people about when it comes to sharing their perspective, you know what, you know, right? Don't worry about the shit. You don't know, you know, a lot of stuff and whatever stuff you do know, there are people who don't know it. So when you share it, you're going to attract the people who don't know the information.
And Wow, I didn't know that. I did not know that. I keep listening to this, to this person because they know something I don't know. The thing that stops you from sharing. is because you [00:04:00] think that other people are going to judge you because they know so much more. Am I right or am I right? Leave me a comment if you agree or disagree with me.
I'd love to hear about it. Because when I first started, even though I felt confident that I knew a lot, I stopped myself from sharing my perspective because I was like, Oh, well, there's going to be all these people who know so much more about, about what I'm sharing that they're going to start making comments or going to say stuff or they're going to think things about me.
Well, what they think about you or what they say about you is none of your business, right? And so that's the perspective that you want to essentially start learning. It's it's a habit just like everything else But share what you know, and don't worry about other people's opinions on what they have to say It's easier said than done, but you have to start from somewhere one of the things that I told a Healthcare professional doctor that wanted to start [00:05:00] You know, creating, creating a business and creating some online stuff was you have to start sharing your perspective and when you start sharing, right, when you start sharing your perspective, don't invite your friends.
Don't invite your families, right? Because when you start sharing your perspective and you invite your friends and you invite your family, what happens is and then You're going to hold, you're going to hold back and not share because they're going to think, well, um, maybe they think I'm a know it all, right?
And so you stop sharing. You stop sharing because you think that maybe you're going to offend someone. And so then you stop sharing. Like, my mom watches my stuff. And I have to catch myself every single time I say, oh, I'm not going to share something because I know she watches and then she's going to say some shit.
I mean, I know I need to share it, right? My mother has gone through a huge amount [00:06:00] of, you know, business lessons and experiences and stuff like that. And her business, her being in business has shown me what I want, what I don't want in mind. And I should share that because that's my perspective. But if I think about my mom and I think about, Oh, she's a sensitive soul and she's going to be offended that I'm talking shit about her, right?
I'm not talking shit about her. I'm just talking about her experiences. This is what I'm deriving from her experiences and is not to badmouth her at all. But if I hold myself back because I think that then I won't share my perspective with you, right? I will share what works and what doesn't work with you.
Right. And that's me holding back. And because that there might be a tidbit of information in there that would have made all the biggest difference in your life. And here I am like holding back and not sharing. We do that from a fundamental perspective, our brain, our egos, our pride, protecting us, protecting us from like having our [00:07:00] feelings hurt.
You know, especially sometimes in the hand therapy world, people can be really, How do you call it? It comes from a scarcity mindset of of saying, well, you know, that was mine, right? That was mine. You can't take mine. I did this or I shared this or this. You know, I knew this before you knew this.
I taught you this. And so sometimes that keeps people from sharing their perspective because someone else is Accusing you of stealing. Someone else is accusing you of ripping them off. Someone else has got something to say about the things that you're sharing. And I think that it's really important to, to not worry about what other people think and start to share what you know.
Like you want to share your experiences in terms of how you help somebody as an occupational therapist. So I'm going to give you an example. I work with a lot of [00:08:00] nerve related types of injuries. And through my experience, anatomy, nature of injury, nature of surgery, and then all the different classes I have taken to build my knowledge and the things that I've tried.
And, I've experimented with my patients, right? Work and don't work. And I can share that perspective. So if I'm trying to get more patients that have carpal tunnel that have cubital tunnel. They have radial tunnel, right? So they all have neurotypes issued thoracic outlet syndrome types of things. If I want to speak to that particular pocket of people, then I want to share my perspective on carpal tunnel.
So my perspective on carpal tunnel is You don't have to wait until it's so bad that you need surgery. By the time you wait, it's so bad that you need surgery, there's a certain amount of nerve death, tissue death, and you can't get all of that back. So my perspective is, if you start feeling 1, 2, 3, you can do 1, 2, [00:09:00] 3 on your own, if that's what you want to try first.
People are trying things on their own. Respect that. Know that that happens. But here's the thing, if that doesn't work, Then call me if you notice this, this and this call me, I can help you. That's sharing my perspective. Other therapists are going to do things differently, right? Other therapists are going to share their perspective on what they think works and that's okay.
You as the OT business owner, you have to start sharing your perspective on what works for your packet of patients. for your pocket of people that you're looking to work with. And that is one of the primary ways that you can do, right? You can do that today and you can do that every single day so that you're not having to go and beg for referrals.
I always would feel so shitty when I'd go knocking on these doctor's [00:10:00] doors, right? And they wouldn't see me. They wouldn't refer patients to me. I'd talk to their office staff and follow them and they always wanted, I had this one doctor's office, never referred any freaking patients to me because she was completely in network and I was out of network and she was like, well, if you're not in network, I'm not going to refer to you because I don't want my patients paying for anything great that I can't work with, but they wanted me to buy the office lunch for 15 people.
I'm like starting out. I don't have hundreds of dollars to go and buy your whole fucking office lunch and dinner. Right because they were ordering like they wanted like I'm like, oh see 15 people in here But they wanted to eat today and they wanted to eat later on right and I would have to sit there and Pitch to them which wasn't even a pitch because they weren't even there, right?
They would give you a courtesy 5 10 [00:11:00] minutes talking like, you know, whatever But at the end of the day, I never saw one referral from them. I used to stop in this doctor's office all the time. I never bought them lunch, I would bring them cookies and I would go and bring my cards or whatever. Not one freaking patient from them.
That's the shit I'm talking about where like, if you get sick of begging for referrals, stop fucking doing that. Like go in and market directly to your pocket of people you want to work with. And when you start to do that, you start to feel so empowered And, right, outside of the empowerment part, you get better at speaking to people.
You get better at sharing your perspective. People are like, well, I want to, but I haven't done it yet. Why not? Why not? What I'm sharing with you is the why not is due to your fear of being judged. And the only person who should be judging you [00:12:00] is the person who's going to be paying for your services.
That's it. And I say that, you know, having done this for years, I say this having shared stuff and then having therapists make comments on my shit, right? Oh, well, you know, this and that and the other. Everybody got something to say. Right. I shared something a while ago. It was on like instrument assisted soft tissue mobilization.
And I use language that my customers, my clients, my potential patients needs to hear, likes to hear, understands when they hear it. And that is breaking down scar tissue. And I, of course I had some fucking therapist come on there and be like, you don't use the word breaking down anymore. Cause that's just not true.
That might not be true from an intellectual therapist to therapist conversation. If I was at a research, conference, and I was at a more, you know, whatever, uppity conference where I'm talking [00:13:00] about technique and theory and, fucking anatomy, then maybe I wouldn't use those words, but my pocket of people understand that language.
Right, they understand that language. And so I want to use language they understand but you're gonna have people coming in fucking being a know it all and You know got something to say and you have to take the perspective of that's okay because they're not your own person. They're not your customer, right?
They're just not your customer, right? Other therapists are not necessarily your customer. Other therapists that fucking think they know it all, they're not your customers. So it takes practice to Have better conversations with your perspective, [00:14:00] customers, patients, clients. It takes practice to share your perspective.
It takes practice to not give a shit. And that's the honest truth. Is it easy? No. But do you get better when you practice 100%? What you see today of me not giving a shit is from years and years of practice. It's from years and years of practice. So if, if you want to stop begging for referrals, you have to consider, honing your skills so that you can Get better at sharing your perspective so you can get better at AKA marketing, right?
Marketing is about attracting customers directly to you and bypassing everyone else. But guess what? When you start marketing [00:15:00] directly, you might get some doctors who pay attention, who notice, who say, Hey, this is a good company. Maybe I'll work for my patients there, right? It can be used in so many different ways, but if you're sick and You're sick and tired of begging for referrals.
This is what you need to do and that's just get getting better at marketing. And if you want to know and learn how to get better at marketing from the perspective of another occupational therapist, another person in healthcare specifically doing what you're doing, then the link is below and grab, grab my free guide to, to OT, to OTs.
Being in business, building a community, building a community. All right. So links are below. If you're interested, grab those links, get into the business corner. We are sharing tips and things like that every week. And if you want my personalized help, the OT business corner course is available [00:16:00] links below.
All right. Until next time, I'll talk to you later.
