In this presentation Kelly Alhooie outlines a three‑tier referral acquisition system for clinicians and small‑business health practitioners who want a steady flow of patients, especially from physicians. Tier 1 focuses on the lowest‑hanging fruit—direct, face‑to‑face interactions at gyms, community events, and private parties—because these contacts convert instantly and are faster than paid ads. Tier 2 targets cash‑pay, independent providers such as chiropractors, acupuncturists, certified nurse‑midwives, functional‑medicine and naturopathic doctors; the strategy is to meet them, treat them, and co‑host events to build peer referrals. Tier 3 is the most coveted but hardest source: physician and surgeon referrals. Kelly stresses that success here requires a long‑term, relationship‑driven approach rather than cold visits. She shares a signature tactic—showing up during a provider’s lunch break to give them a hands‑on treatment (e.g., pelvic‑floor exam, cupping) so they experience the service first‑hand. Multiple touchpoints follow: collecting phone numbers, texting for IG Live collaborations, providing handouts, sending branded “booty mugs,” and sharing progress notes so physicians see patient outcomes. This ongoing, value‑based engagement makes the provider remember and trust the practitioner, leading to repeat referrals. Kelly also advises focusing on independent outpatient surgeons whose practices aren’t tied to hospital referral loops. Finally, she warns against jumping straight to Tier 3; mastering Tier 1 and Tier 2 first builds the foundation and prevents frustration.
Chapters
All right, let's talk about referrals and how to actually get referrals to fill your schedule, especially from physicians. I hear this a lot that people would love to have a physician on board that constantly is referring whether or not they are an OB-GYN nurse practitioner, certified nurse midwife, whoever that practitioner is. And the reality is this: let me just let me just give you the layers that it takes. For this to happen. Layer 1 is you hit the lowest hanging fruit first. That is not physicians or providers. That is gyms, events, parties at people's houses. Those are the lowest hanging fruit that you can immediately interact with your ideal client immediately like that in 2 seconds. It's even faster than ads. Nothing can compete with this, and it is the most boring thing in the market, but everyone seems to be driving away from it right now and going to ads. Ads do not get immediate results. They don't. Launching an ad campaign does not get you seven clients like that in one hour. However, meeting someone at a workshop, event, a party gets you a client like this. So it's the number one proof of concept that I have, that I've coached, that I've seen in our market to actually be proven to work. And please do not shy away from it. So that's the first tier of marketing to get you clients immediately. The second tier after you hit all that is actually the cash-paying providers. Not insurance. I said cash. The chiropractors, the acupuncturists, certified nurse midwife, the— maybe there's a functional medicine or a naturopath doctor. That is the second tier. They're going to be independent. They're going to be smaller businesses. They're going to be people that, again, are not in hospital-based systems. That is the second tier to go in and get meetings with them, treat them, collaborate with them on events, start doing things with them. Like, that is the second tier of marketing. The third tier, which is where everyone wants to immediately start at, is the hardest tier to make happen. But once you make that happen, it's the thing that can also feed you and feed you and feed you and feed you over and over again. Which everyone frickin' wants. But here's the thing, the thing that's the hardest to achieve is the thing that the people give up before they even get to tier 3. Let me explain. What I mean by that is they give up because it takes years, more often than not, to have a physician actually refer to you over and over and over again without you having to be in their face 24/7 saying, hey, remember me? Because they have tons of people like that. So what is gonna make you different? Well, Kelly, I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna go and physically drive to the location and I'm gonna stand there in front of the desk and I'm gonna talk to the people and that's how I'm gonna get in. That is not how you're gonna get in. They're gonna say, we are busy, bye-bye. Okay, come back whenever we're free. And you're never gonna come back because you gotta put on your makeup, you gotta figure out what to say again. And now you're so nervous. You just spent 2 hours trying to go in there and now nothing happened. And it was such a waste of time. So please don't do that. Okay? What I do and what I did to build orthopelvic was I did something that no one else is willing to do. I said, "I will come to you guys on your lunch break, and I will actually treat you guys on your lunch break. I will treat you." And you know what they did? They agreed to it. And I would go and literally do internal exams on many physicians because they didn't know what pelvic floor was. Now, this was not that long ago. This is like 6 years ago before it even took off. Crazy. It really wasn't that long ago, maybe even 7 years ago. Like, they had no clue what pelvic floor was, so I had to physically go and show them. So maybe you don't do internal exams, but maybe you go give them a cupping session. Maybe you go just work on them. They don't have to have a problem, but like at least they can experience you and then they can talk about you. That's how they're going to remember you. You talking at them, they're not going to remember you. You providing an experience, they're going to remember you then. And you don't just do that once. You have to do it multiple times. You have to have multiple touchpoints. I have to get their cell phone number. I have to text them, hey, you want to do an IG Live? Oh, by the way, hey, next week, do you want to do an event with me? Oh, by the way, next week, hey, do you want me to make you a little handout of like the top things that you hear from the patients and like you can pass that out to your patients? Oh yeah, I would love that. Okay, great. Okay, um, next thing goes by, I'm gonna bring them a booty mug filled with tons of our shit in it. Great. And you know what they're gonna do? Sit that on their desk all day long and they're gonna look at it and be like, oh yeah, we should talk about orthopedics. It's sitting right here. All these things are massively, massively important. All of them. And that's how you ultimately get the constant referral source because you are the best. Also, sometimes these physicians like you to see progress notes. I'm not saying please do that to everyone, but when they can see that you're collaborative and they have feedback from you that the patient is doing well, then they know how to do their job because otherwise They don't know. They don't know shit. They don't know if they should keep referring to you or not because they don't know where the patient's at. We know better because we treat the patient constantly. They only see them like once every three months or once every month or something like that. So like that's also been a thing when you can prove to the physician that you have freaking amazing results. They're going to keep referring because now you make them look good. That's a win-win on both sides. Well, on all three sides because the patient's happy too. So just be mindful if you're trying to get in with these surgeons, and I would go to like surgeons that basically have practices that aren't connected to the hospital because the hospital system they all get rewarded for referring to each other. So like go to bigger independent bigger practices that have surgeons that that operate at outpatient orthopedic or outpatient facilities. And those are the people you want to target. And ultimately, when they're your people, they will just keep referring. They will keep referring. Okay, but you got to get the patients the results. That's key. But please don't also start there, because if you start there, you'll get frustrated and say this doesn't work. But it actually does work. You just started at tier three. You need to start at tier one, and you don't go past tier one until you complete all of that, and then you can go to tier two. Because if you're trying to build, why would you start at tier 3 or tier 2? It's going to take you longer. So be very mindful of that because I don't think people have broken this down enough to understand that like these are the tiers of— I call it front-end marketing— that can be had to get people to know, like, and trust you immediately or over a period of time.
