How to Turn Dental Referrals Into Predictable Practice Growth With Liz Sudit | EPIC4 Specialty Partners

How to Turn Dental Referrals Into Predictable Practice Growth With Liz Sudit

October 08, 2026 · 38:56 · with Liz Sudit

Liz Sudit is the Co-founder of Bright Referral, a platform that digitizes and tracks referrals so specialty dental practices can improve follow-up and growth. A longtime marketing and user experience strategist, Liz helps translate complex workflows into simple, patient-friendly systems. She brings a data-driven approach to referral relationships and practice growth. Bright Referral competed in the 2023 AAO Ortho Tank and earned the 2024 AAO Ortho Innovator Award, while its founders report a 30% referral increase in their own orthodontic practice.

 Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

  • [3:16] Liz Sudit explains how digital referral tracking helps practices capture opportunities that paper processes can miss
  • [7:31] How Liz’s experience led her to rethink the referral process
  • [13:54] What practices should monitor to better understand referral performance
  • [18:43] Why simpler referral systems can improve adoption and consistency
  • [22:17] Using technology to strengthen referral relationships without sacrificing the human experience
  • [28:28] How referral data can support smarter decisions and more predictable practice growth
  • [38:02] Liz’s advice for improving referrals by understanding the needs of referring dentists

In this episode…

Dental referrals are a major driver of specialty dental practice growth, yet they can be difficult to track and manage consistently. Without a clear process, valuable patient opportunities can easily slip through the cracks. So how can specialty dental practices turn referrals into more predictable growth?

Liz Sudit, a marketing and user experience expert with more than 20 years of experience, believes predictable referral growth starts with understanding what referring dentists actually need in the moment they send a patient. Simplifying workflows, creating more consistent processes, tracking referral activity, and following up quickly can help practices reduce missed opportunities and improve the experience for both providers and patients. Liz stresses that technology should strengthen relationships, while better data helps practices make smarter, more repeatable growth decisions. With the right systems in place, referral growth becomes less about guesswork and more about making informed, repeatable decisions.

In this episode of Straight Talk With EPIC4, Anne Wemhoff talks with Liz Sudit, Co-founder of Bright Referral, about turning dental referrals into predictable practice growth. Liz covers simplifying referral workflows, improving referral tracking, and using data to guide growth. She also shares how technology can strengthen provider relationships and improve the patient referral experience.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments

  • “We try to make the referral easier, but also trackable.”
  • “You got a referral, you got the information, let's make sure they're coming to you.”
  • “And then you get to come off as like a real partner that's paying attention to them, which is huge.”
  • “If it doesn't make life easier, then the answer is no.”
  • “Let's look at your referral sources and figure out who's going to get you there the fastest.”

Action Steps

  1. Understand your referral partners’ challenges: Learning what dentists, hygienists, and front-desk teams struggle with during referrals helps you remove friction and become a better partner.
  2. Standardize the referral process: Creating a consistent workflow reduces confusion, prevents missed opportunities, and makes it easier for everyone involved to follow through.
  3. Track referral consistency and follow-up: Monitoring referral volume, patient contact information, and scheduling activity helps practices identify gaps and close the loop on new patient opportunities.
  4. Use technology only when it improves the experience: Digital tools should make referrals faster, easier, and more useful rather than adding unnecessary complexity for patients or staff.
  5. Connect referral data to long-term growth: Understanding which referral sources lead to scheduling, treatment starts, and desired case types helps practices focus time and resources where they have the greatest payoff.

Sponsor for this episode...

This episode is brought to you by EPIC4 Specialty Partners.

At EPIC4, we partner with specialty dental practices, including orthodontic practices, led by doctor-owners who want partnership, growth, administrative relief, or succession support without joining a traditional DSO.

Our mission is to help you spend less time buried in payroll, HR, compliance, lease negotiations, and day-to-day administrative tasks — and more time focused on patients, teams, growth, leadership, and legacy.

EPIC4 is a doctor-founded, doctor-centric Specialty Partnership Organization built to help dental specialists scale their practices, create wealth, protect their autonomy, and build an EPIC life and practice.

Visit www.goepic4.com today to learn more.

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Episode Transcript

Intro: 00:07

Welcome to Straight Talk With EPIC4, the specialty dental podcast, showcasing bold leaders, innovators and change makers as they share candid insights, lessons, and actionable strategies. Ready for real conversation? Let's dive into today's episode.

Anne Wemhoff: 00:25

Anne Wemhoff here. I'm the host of Straight Talk With EPIC4 where we'll be having conversations with specialty dental leaders, sharing stories, insights, and strategies shaping the future of specialty dentistry.

Today's episode is brought to you by EPIC4 Specialty Partners. EPIC4 is a doctor founded, doctor specialty dental group that partners with specialty dental practices who want partnership, growth and administrative relief and succession support without joining a traditional So our mission is focused on four pillars equity and wealth generation practice and life balance, integration and collaboration and clinical and managerial autonomy. We come alongside doctors at any stage of their career and create partnerships that we build that will build a legacy. Visit www.goepic4.com today to learn more.

On the podcast today, we have Liz Sudit with Bright Referral. I'm super excited to talk to Liz on our practices. Our EPIC4 practices have been in partnership with Bright Referral for just over a year now, and we've seen some positive increases in our dental referrals from this program. Liz is a 20 year marketing veteran and user experience through brand and creative strategy, along with airtight digital Programming. 

 She has grown companies around the globe within the worlds of startup, high tech, fashion, CPG and more. If you have been consuming media, you have probably seen her work. Most recently, she has brought Bright Referral from idea to reality. Reality relentlessly focused on always answering the mission. And I love this. 

 What would make everyone's lives better? The singular focus helped guide her to Bright Referral to win the 2023 AAO Ortho Tank and the 2024 AAO Ortho Innovator Award. Her superpower is simplifying complex and clear communication, making her perspective ideal to lead innovative software company from startup to staple. Welcome, Liz. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Liz Sudit: 02:53

Thank you so much for having me. I am honored, and sitting through that bio was very embarrassing, but.

Anne Wemhoff: 03:00

Oh gosh.

Liz Sudit: 03:00

No. Right past it.

Anne Wemhoff: 03:03

Well you shouldn't. That is something to be very proud of. And we have really enjoyed working with you. And for our listeners out there, can you explain what is Bright Referral?

Liz Sudit: 03:16

Yes. Good question. So Bright Referral is a cloud based software system that can do a lot of things, but at its heart, we're really just trying to make sure that you practice never loses a patient opportunity. So we started with focusing on doctor to doctor referrals, recognizing that when you use paper or some other system that's not trackable, you lose about 40% of your opportunity that way because you just don't even know that the referral was made. So we try to make the referral easier, but also trackable.

So you know about everyone can follow up accordingly. That's it in a nutshell.

Anne Wemhoff: 03:49

I love that, and referrals are such an important and valuable way to practice growth. Yeah. So why do you think many practices, you know, you mentioned that that loss. Why do they feel detract that effectively?

Liz Sudit: 04:05

Yeah. And it's something that we think about all the time obviously in Bright Referral land of like what how are people thinking about referrals? What is the makeup of a typical orthodontic practice patient base? And I think in, you know, our ever changing environment, everything is becoming more trackable. So when you think about, you know, when you're putting marketing dollars down for, you know, the coming year, you're thinking, okay, I'm going to be doing social ads.

I'm going to be doing digital ads. And those are inherently trackable. You can even, you know, track your new patient phone calls, all that kind of stuff. So you get focused on these things where the numbers just come pouring in. And then it's very easy in those worlds to say like, okay, we did a campaign here that was successful. 

 Let's put more money here. But in the other part of a, you know, a huge part of a practice, the data says it's a minimum 40% up towards 60% can be doctor to doctor referrals. And then the digital portion of your patient base is actually pretty small. It's usually about hovering around 20 ish depending on your area and what you're focused on. And then the rest comes from, you know, patient word of mouth community outreach, like all these things that we're doing, but are kind of tricky to know what's working. 

 Like you just sort of hope that those conversations are happening and that's where the loss comes from. And that makes it really difficult to grow in a strategic way or to really understand like, you know, what's going on, who's talking about me? Where should I put my focus? And that's kind of what we're out to change in referral.

Anne Wemhoff: 05:31

What do you see those barriers being? I mean, you kind of touched on that, but that, you know, particularly that accurate referral tracking to, you know, the orthodontist or to that specialty dental practice.

Liz Sudit: 05:43

Yeah. So the tricky part of the referral is there's a lot of people involved and there have been several, you know, there's, we're not the first of our kind when it comes to like, let's make referring better. Absolutely. But where most people fall down is forgetting that there's a lot of people involved in all of those. People have a different set of needs, and you have to be able to make it better for everyone, like you mentioned in that setup, to get people to say yes to it.

So what we like to do, right referral is really think through the experience at every angle. So like, let's look at the dentist or the GP side of things. What do they need in the moment of referral? What makes their lives easier? Is it faster? 

 Is it better? Automatic records. Is it easier follow through? Is it the doctor that needs help referring or is it the hygienist or is it the front desk? Like what can we do to make that better for them? 

 And then that same sort of line of questioning goes for the patients. Like what do they want in the moment of referral? Do they need easy access? Do they need to feel more comfortable? Do they do we want to make it really easy for them so they don't have to do any work? 

 Like all of that stuff needs to be addressed so that then a patient can say like, okay, yeah, this feels better. I'd rather be referred this way than with a standard piece of paper. And then same goes on the orthodontic practice. Like, of course it needs to be easier for them, you know, more accountable, faster follow up, all that sort of stuff. So the hurdle is really understanding what everyone needs and then trying to lower the bar across the board so that everyone can say yes really quickly.

Anne Wemhoff: 07:10

I love that. And, you know, having had our practices used that, it is so slick. I mean, all the information is right there and it really does help that. So, you know, what kind of led, you know, your experience led you to build, right? Referral and, you know, solving for that, solving for that gap.

Liz Sudit: 07:31

Yeah. Great question. So the, you know, invention is what is it? Necessity is the mother of invention. That was absolutely the motto for us here.

So my husband's an orthodontist. We have a practice up in Minneapolis and I am not a doctor. No one has ever confused me for an orthodontist, so no problem there. That was not my role. I was working in marketing and advertising at the time and we. 

 But we were building a practice and we were really community driven, and we were focused very much on the patient experience and like at every point, or can we make this better for them? And we were really getting granular, like down to what type of toilet paper are we buying for the bathroom? Like, can that be a better experience? Like we were a little obsessive.

Anne Wemhoff: 08:17

That's what makes a great business. So I appreciate that. Thank you.

Liz Sudit: 08:22

You're welcome to come use our bathrooms anytime.

Anne Wemhoff: 08:26

Okay, great. Yeah.

Liz Sudit: 08:28

Anyway, and then on the same side of that coin, like when it came from the patient experience, we're also really digitally focused. So we spent and Geoff spent a lot of time making sure like from a treatment perspective, it was digital, but not for the sake of being digital. Like it had to actually improve something and make people's lives better. Both ours, you know, on the practice side, but also the patients. ET cetera.

ET cetera. So anyways, we were taking dentists out to lunch as we were, you know, building the practice. And they were saying things like, oh, I think I sent ten patients last month. How are they doing? And we were like, did you patients like, maybe we didn't say that to their face. 

 But when we were driving on the way home, that's what we were saying. Like, I don't know, I don't think those numbers match. And we just couldn't figure out like, are they saying this because it feels like the nice thing to do and they're not actually referring or are they referring and something is happening in-between? Like what, what is the patient doing? Because that all of the work is on the patient at the moment of the referral, like they have to do everything. 

 And so that's sort of what we were trying to solve for. And then with my background in like user experience, and because I've worked in so many different industries, like really understanding your target audience, that that sort of mentality I recognized, and I bet all the orthodontists listening might agree with me, but I think that orthodontists are like the coolest of the oral health specialties they have like the most.

Anne Wemhoff: 09:49

I'd agree with that.

Liz Sudit: 09:50

Okay. Thank you. They have the most street credibility. And I think that's actually an important thing to know when it comes to referrals. Because, for example, if you are at your dentist and they're like, hey, you need to go see a periodontist, they give you that referral and you're going to that office.

Like you don't really shop around for perio or endo, but you do shop around for ortho, which is really different. Like you talk about it on the soccer field. If someone takes out their Invisalign trays or clear aligner tray, you know, at cocktails, you're like, oh, are you doing your, you know, you're straightening your smile. Where are you going? How are you doing? 

 There's just torque value. And that is really valuable because it can lead to patient word of mouth. And just like, you know, having brand awareness, but it's also a risk at the moment of referral because people have heard of other practices and they feel very comfortable being like, oh, I need orthodontics, but I don't have to go here. I can actually go. Or my friend, you know, Jenny went or whatever it might be.

Anne Wemhoff: 10:43

Exactly.

Liz Sudit: 10:44

So we were like, okay, we have to find a way to make it easy, of course, for the doctor to say yes and make it faster for them, easier for them, all that sort of stuff. But for the patient, we want to get, we don't want to be on their to do list. Let's handle it for them so that we can be faster than like the word of mouth that they might stumble across, you know, a few days later when they're dropping their kid off, you know, at lacrosse or something.

Anne Wemhoff: 11:04

I love that. Well, and that really, you know, from a paper perspective, we're such a paperless world. So, you know, turning that paperless, you know, piece of it, that process of it into actual data, what does that look like at the practice level?

Liz Sudit: 11:23

Yeah, it's really fun. When we first start with the practice, there's a lot of unknowns because it's we become people become aware very quickly that like, oh, shoot, I really only know about the referrals that have called and said I was referred. So there's this whole.

Anne Wemhoff: 11:38

Base and then you're like, but who referred.

Liz Sudit: 11:41

Right and exactly. And like, that's you never. Sometimes you get the wrong answer, even for a question like that. That seems straightforward. And that's okay.

Life happens. So what we, what we usually do is start by, you know, working through strategy with the office, like, okay, what are your referrals like now? What's your process like? And what do you, what does success look like for you? Like, would you, are you be looking at just doctor to doctor referrals rate? 

 Like, what do you expect to get from this practice over the course of the year? Do we anticipate any seasonality? You know, for example, like a pediatric dentist might spike in the spring and summer and, you know, go down in the fall when kids go back to school, that sort of stuff. But other practices could be very different, like cosmetic dentistry, maybe spikes in the winter as people are getting ready for spring break or I don't know, something like that. Anyways, so we work with them on our expectations and then put a rollout plan together with each practice of how like the best way to approach those GPS or whoever's doing the referring to make it really easy, comfortable and be like, oh, this is a win for me because no one really cares about other people. 

 Like, you know, as a GP, they're like, I don't really care about your practice. I care about mine. Like, how is.

Anne Wemhoff: 12:48

This work for me?

Liz Sudit: 12:51

100%. It's a good lesson. And like humanity of like, okay, it's not about me. Let's see what like, who else can it be about? And let's really make it about them for a change.

So we work together on that and we see really great results. Like across the board, we see about a 30% increase in referrals when you really have it rolled out to all of your, your entire referral network, because it's all just kind of working together. And then I believe our conversion rate right now is at about 66%. So it's really bringing in a lot of patients. Yeah. 

 And we actually just passed an exciting milestone the other day. We referred our 32,000th patient. So that was great.

Anne Wemhoff: 13:31

That is so awesome. I love to hear that. And I love, you know, so you talk about these metrics and I know from a user and from that side of the the experience that you have a dashboard. So what key metrics should a practice monitor to measure how that referral health is from GP to, to GP?

Liz Sudit: 13:54

Yeah. And it really does vary GP to GP. I'm glad you mentioned that like every practice is different. We learn that over and over again as you guys know. So but and but there are a few metrics that we're always looking for.

One is consistency. Like we do want to see referrals coming in relatively consistency and consistently. And I say relatively because some practices are different. So we have some users who they're referring multiple times a day. And if it dips below that, we are like, okay, problematic. 

 But there are other practices, maybe smaller, maybe, you know, maybe an older set of patients and it's just not quite as consistent who are maybe referring maybe once a week or something like that. So we kind of establish a baseline. So we want to see consistent referrals. We also want to make sure that their patients are sharing contact information, because that's the way that you guys are. Everyone is able to follow up. 

 So that's a little bit of coaching and scripting to make sure everyone is comfortable. So we look at that. And then of course, we want to make sure on our side of things that people are following up with patients and actually getting them scheduled to come in, because that's kind of closing the loop. Okay, you got a referral, you got the information, let's make sure they're coming to you. And those three things together is where the magic is.

Anne Wemhoff: 15:03

I love that. And I, you know, I think that the key and you mentioned this a little bit earlier too. It's not always the doctor. I mean, it can be that hygienist. I mean, it could be someone even like, oh, you know, when you're going through that checking out process with your dentist, like, okay, now they told me I was supposed to go to some.

They referred me to an orthodontist, but I'm not sure who, you know, like you can, you can lose it that quickly. I mean, if it's not right in front of you, so, you know, it can come at any point of the process.

Liz Sudit: 15:35

Yeah. And that's exactly and that's one of the things that we like to work with our offices on. We usually say before talking to a dentist or whoever is referring before saying like, hey, I found, let's do this together. The best first thing to do is to understand what is their referral process like and where, where their wins and where are their hurdles. So usually we say, give them a call and just be like, hey, we love partnering with you.

We love that you send us patients. That's fantastic. We're always looking to improve. Can you tell me, you know, what is your referral process like? Do you use those pads of paper that we send you? 

 What do you look for? You know, in a patient before referring who is actually doing the referral in your office? Like, is it the dentist? Is it the hygienist? Is it the front desk? 

 When over the course of the appointment, does a referral happen? And with just those simple types of questions, a few things happen. One and one, you'll realize that there is not really a process like we think about. if there's a there's a system and there's consistency and absolutely there is not. If you have the conversation with two different people, you will have two different answers. 

 Which I actually experienced live firsthand in a practice when I was helping on board, it was a big office. There's like seven dentists, and I was asking those questions and the other like one dentist, you know, gave the spiel and then someone else was like, oh, wait, that's not what I do. And then the third was like, me neither. This is what I mean.

Anne Wemhoff: 17:00

Like, it's just like, oh, okay. So it's not a standard process.

Liz Sudit: 17:05

It's not a standard. And it was really fun to be a fly on the wall in that conversation because they're like, we maybe need to standardize this. Like there was all these expectations, like you're not getting this. So I'm doing this. It was wild anyways, so you'll uncover that sort of stuff, but you'll also uncover ways that you can help them improve.

So for example, you might hear, well, we keep, you know, the stack of different referral pads in our back cabinet at the time of the referral. Like the hygienist will leave the patient, you know, walk back, rifle through that pile, you know, figure out which one is right, which takes a little bit of time, walk back and then like, fill it out by hand, rip off the sheet and hand it to the patient and basically hope for the best. You're like, okay, so we like in your head, you're cataloging like, okay, I can improve this, this like X, Y, Z, all that kind of stuff. And when you understand what their lived reality is and what their expectations are, then when you go in and you're like, hey, you told me about your referral process. I found my referral. 

 I know that it's taking you about ten minutes for every referral. This shaves it down to really just a couple seconds, and you don't have to go walking all around the office. You have to stay with the patient and can have better conversations. Would you want to give it a try? And that totally changes the conversation because now it's like all about what's in it for them. 

 You don't even have to mention how like you get better data and you can follow up and you get more referrals, like all that stuff. They don't care. And then you get to come off as like a real partner that's paying attention to them, which is huge.

Anne Wemhoff: 18:29

Well, I think At the same token, like from a user experience side, if I'm the one getting that, you know, then it's not like, oh, shoot, now I have this thing that I have to keep track of. And you know, it just helps that barrier as well.

Liz Sudit: 18:43

Absolutely. No one wants to learn anything new. No, it just can feel super overwhelming. So we spend a lot of time of like, just give them what they need in that moment. And like, you can get to a more robust system or operations or whatever it needs to be over time as needed.

Otherwise it feels scary. And no one, no one wants to be intimidated like that.

Anne Wemhoff: 19:03

Absolutely. Do you have a you know, you said, okay, was it 32 that how what was the referral number?

Liz Sudit: 19:13

32,000.

Anne Wemhoff: 19:14

Okay. 32,000 referrals. So do you have of those 32,000 successes, do you have a client story that, you know, you can really say, oh my gosh, we really help them, you know, increase their referrals or, you know, really had a measurable impact on their revenue.

Liz Sudit: 19:37

Yeah, we have a few and we have some case studies on our website that I always point people to, but my favorite stories are those.

Anne Wemhoff: 19:44

What's your website? Can you tell me that?

Liz Sudit: 19:46

Yeah, it's BrightReferral.co. so.co.com might get you there, but referral.co also people always think we spell bright in like a weird way. It's just like the word BRIGHT everyone's like BRYBR no, just right.

Anne Wemhoff: 20:04

I love it, yes. I don't know why the marketer in me, I get it totally.

Liz Sudit: 20:11

Anyway, so we hear really consistently across the board of like, I, this is so much easier for my doctors to refer. Like there, there's so much happier with me. Like it's just better for them. So we get a lot of anecdotal information, sort of stories like, oh my gosh, this is so much easier. Oh wow, this is so much faster.

Oh my gosh, my patients are way happier with this. And that is kind of what we live for. We also know that now people are kind of pushing the bounds with what right referral can do. I think I mentioned that we started focused on doctor doctor referrals, and that is, I think probably like 75% of how people use referral right now. But people are now kind of pushing the bounds of what a referral or what a lead can do. 

 So they're taking us to events. You can also refer like using your Apple wallet. You don't even need a card anymore. So like patient to patient referrals can be tracked and incentivized or team members can refer. And we love seeing that that type of work sort of explode because it really opens up what's trackable like word of mouth, really hard to track. 

 But now you can, and you can incentivize and encourage and like do all that fun stuff. And for some practices, I hear all the time like, oh, you know, referrals, doctor to doctor referrals are going down. In some cases that's true. In some cases, I think the data is sort of hard to understand what's going on because everything else is trackable. So you kind of dismiss what's hard to track. 

 But like, okay, you spent, you know, 20 years as a practice building a community that's talking about you. Let's activate them. Like, let's make this standard. And that can really change the game.

Anne Wemhoff: 21:47

I, I mean, I really love that. And I think that, you know, you can see it when we're seeing it in our practices. And so it speaks for itself, you know, so yeah.

Liz Sudit: 21:59

It's been fun.

Anne Wemhoff: 22:00

We talk about technology and, you know, all of these things that we can do now, particularly with AI. And as you know, things keep moving forward. So how do you preserve the human side of the relationships behind the referrals?

Liz Sudit: 22:17

Yeah, such a great question. And that is kind of at the heart of what Geoff and I have always been focused on. It's like, okay, we want to bring digital into our practice, but not not because we can, but because it actually makes something better and improves the experience. And I think that is the same when it comes to digitizing the referral. It's not sacrificing the relationship, it's improving upon it because it gets you to be a better partner.

Like right now, the average referral is completely analog. It's very paper based, and it's not doing anything to improve your relationship. Like you can very quickly, just like plonk down a pad of paper, you know, every quarter or something, don't even have to have a conversation like an office knows what to do with that and then leave. And you're just sort of hoping that that, that works.

Anne Wemhoff: 23:03

It's like a wing and a prayer. Yeah, exactly.

Liz Sudit: 23:06

And it's also like super generational, like, oh, let's go to lunch. Let's talk, let's build like we can, I can, that would be my Ted talk if I had had the stage. But one day.

Anne Wemhoff: 23:18

We can come to that Ted talk.

Liz Sudit: 23:22

But technology to improve a relationship is about building partnerships. So like going back to that conversation when I was saying like, have that first phone call, like, tell me about your experience, like what's going right? Where can we help? That's, I think where technology wins, where you can hear someone solve it for them and make and then again, make everyone's lives easier, better, you know, whatever, whatever they need in that moment. So that's kind of like the sweet spot.

We brought that same mentality actually to. So like, of course, to our practice, of course, to referral. And then we have this, it's called RETAIN like a retention program. That again, is about like not digital for the sake of digital, but digital to make retention better, to improve the experience, to like, actually have a smile forever like that. That's where I think we all win. 

 And because otherwise, like, no one wants to like log in to an app to, you know, buy your lane at bowling, like we've all been there. We're like, I need a password for this. Yeah. Like.

Anne Wemhoff: 24:17

Or another app for this.

Liz Sudit: 24:19

Oh my gosh, infuriating. I just had that experience this weekend. I was we have like a public storage and I needed an app to like go access my own junk that I've needlessly been storing for years. And I was like, how, why is it this hard to open the door?

Anne Wemhoff: 24:34

Yes.

Liz Sudit: 24:36

So like that, that was not an improvement. So it's always like, okay, how is it? And if it doesn't make life easier, then the answer is no. Like that's always the barometer that we have.

Anne Wemhoff: 24:46

I love that it goes back to the beginning and what we were talking about. So, you know, with all of this technology and, you know, the growing concerns over privacy and compliance, how do you handle patient and data behind the referral?

Liz Sudit: 25:02

Yeah, we're really strict about that. On our side of things. It's very important. And it was one of our main concerns actually, when we were just getting started, because we were asking patients to share their information with us and that like, you know, if you don't know me very well, like I am inherently skeptical. Like, I don't believe it for a while.

Like you really have to prove. Prove it to me. Much to the chagrin of my team. Sometimes I'm like, I'm not there yet. Keep going.

Anne Wemhoff: 25:28

That's fear, though, that you're vetting it and you're thinking it through. So that says a lot about about you and Bright. Yeah.

Liz Sudit: 25:34

Right. So so we took it. We take it really seriously. One thing that makes us unique is like, we don't, we're not like storing patient information on our behalf. Like it doesn't come to us.

It's not ours to use. It's only going to the practice that is receiving the referral for the purposes of follow up. Like we're not sharing it, we're not selling it. We're not marketing to it. Like that just is not a thing. 

 And then of course, like very buttoned up top to bottom from like making sure we're HIPAA compliant and like going, going the extra step in terms of privacy and safety as much as we can. One of my, in my past life in like the last agency that I was at, some of my clients were like top cybersecurity sort of globally. And this was during Covid, which was like an explosion of like everyone all of a sudden online all the time and sharing data everywhere. So learned a lot. And I can sometimes I say like, I know enough to cause the problem and not solve it, but at least I can ask the questions to make sure we're getting there.

Anne Wemhoff: 26:35

Yeah. Well that's great.

Liz Sudit: 26:37

Yes. So that was really helpful and sort of building briarfield to make sure like, okay, I can see all in my past life, I see all the places people fell down. We're not going to fall down in those places. We're going to, you know, make sure it's all locked up.

Anne Wemhoff: 26:50

That's great. Great peace of mind.

Liz Sudit: 26:53

Yeah, as much as we can. Right?

Anne Wemhoff: 26:55

Exactly. So if I'm a new practice and I'm, I'm gonna I'm thinking about getting and going and partnering with Bright Referral. What's the simplest first step a practice can take this week to start tracking and optimizing referrals?

Liz Sudit: 27:13

Yeah. So we tried just like I've been saying that we try to lower the hurdle to say yes, like across the board, you know, for a doctor to, to, to or a GP to do the referring or a patient to be referred this way. Same goes if you're a practice who's wanting to get started. Everything is available on our website. You can see an on demand, you know, demo video where I go through the whole thing.

You can do get it's not even a price quote. It's just like, here's the price. It's very clear. We're like not looking to, you know, swoop one over. You can also create an account without even chatting with anyone if you want to. 

 But I'm always like an email or a calendar appointment away. So if someone wanted to chat with me, I can share my email. If we can share that, I don't know, it's like a pop up, it's liz@referral.co. And then I also have my Calendly available online as well, where people can schedule a demo directly with me, and we can chat through all the details that might be specific to your practice or, you know, everyone has a little nuance and wants to, you know, have three locations or a different brand or all that kind of stuff. Fantastic. 

 We can figure it out together.

Anne Wemhoff: 28:16

I love it, I love it. So looking ahead, how do you see referral workflows and relationship driven growth evolving with new tech? So what's next for you guys?

Liz Sudit: 28:28

Yeah, lots of integrations and expansion on like what the data can do is sort of where we're focused right now. We just launched an integration with Greyfinch, which we're really excited about working on a few others as well. And that can really like data in a silo. Isn't all that helpful, as we all know. Like I think we've all been been like, make your data work for you.

But if it's not talking to each other, it's really hard to connect the dots on what's actually working. So we, you know, integrate with LeadSigma and PracticeBeacon. Now, Greyfinch, DentalMonitoring, and a few, like I mentioned, a few others on the way. So anything that happens in referral is now sort of sending over throughout the lifetime of that patient. Like, are they actually scheduling, you know, are they starting treatment? 

 What type of treatment are they doing? Is it is it the type of treatment that you want to, you know, have more of in your practice? And then you can take that information and be like, okay, you know, 40% of our patients from this referral source are giving us the type of treatment that we want. Let's really push that relationship or, you know, this office or this event isn't really giving us, we're getting a lot of no shows. So like, what can we do to make that better over here? 

 So we're looking for like long term, I don't just want to know how many referred, but I want to know the payoff of that referral and how we can be smarter with those upfront dollars, upfront time, upfront focus to get to help you grow the practice in a way that works for you.

Anne Wemhoff: 29:48

I love that. I mean, because at the end of the day, it is, did they start? Where are they at in the process?

Liz Sudit: 29:55

Exactly. And you don't if, you know, we have a lot of our users who are like, hey, I want to become a liner only, or we're really focused on, you know, whatever. We're like experts in phase one or airway or whatever it might be. We're like, okay, great. Let's look at your referral sources and figure out who's going to get you there the fastest.

And that's what an exciting place to get to. I think to get to do because we just haven't had the data to do that before.

Anne Wemhoff: 30:20

Yeah. That's awesome. I'm excited for that piece. Thank you. So now remind me, how long has Bright Referral?

How long have you guys been a company?

Liz Sudit: 30:32

Yeah, we launched like our day one was at the AO 2023.

Anne Wemhoff: 30:38

Oh.

Liz Sudit: 30:39

So they were like, we were like, look at us. We did, we did Shark Tank like the day one. And they're like, how's it going? I'm like, today's our first day. It's going great.

Anne Wemhoff: 30:51

I love that I love.

Liz Sudit: 30:53

I mean, we did, we did beta testing and of course like that. But like publicly it was, it was like April 2023, 2023.

Anne Wemhoff: 31:00

Okay. So in those three, three years, which I'm sure have have seen to go so quickly and yet so slowly at the same time. Oh my goodness. Yes. What are what have been some of the biggest turning points for you guys?

Liz Sudit: 31:18

Yeah we've learned I mean we learned so much every day. Absolutely. The first big thing is kind of silly. Like I feel a little sheepish even saying it out loud. But when we first launched, I was like, everyone.

I was like, I knew our practice really well. And so I was expecting like most practices to run the same way. Like, oh, the process is different the way we talk to or excuse me, the process is the same. The way we talk to people is probably the same. Expectations are the same. 

 So we built not necessarily our like the software to work that way, but like the way we communicated, the way we coach, the way we onboard it all around, like what I knew most intimately. And that was wrong. Like that. That was my first learning. Everyone's different. 

 Like we needed more flexibility, you know, different ways of, you know, different ways of being in a community and like how you set up a business. So we've, we spent a lot of time really understanding, like the diversity of, of people and practices and what they're looking from a software like ours.

Anne Wemhoff: 32:20

So like the psychology behind it all. Yes.

Liz Sudit: 32:23

100%. Which is so like, which is why I'm like kind of sheepish about saying that out loud because like, I should have, I should have gotten that like that. Why was that so? Miss? You know, tunnel vision is real.

So that was our first big learning. And then our second big learning is recognizing that everyone puts different weight on different types of referrals. So like we focus absolutely on doctor to doctor referrals. That's why we launched because that was the problem that we were solving. And then I had a lot of practices call me and be like, hey, I like what you're doing, but I actually don't care about dentists referring me. 

 I care about, you know, whatever it might be like these events that we're doing, we're, you know, we are every week at the farmers market or we sponsor all the schools and like, how can I know what's working? And I was like, I love that problem. Let's solve it. And then we got to build. So those were like two big kind of turning points. 

 And one thing that helped us get there. We, we actually changed our business model a little bit just to get into the weeds a moment, if I can, to sort of encourage that type of flexibility and creativity and like thinking about where a patient can come from. We were structured in the very beginning, like referral source to referral source. Like that was our pay structure. And it was great because it was super clear, easy to understand, love that, but it was also rigid and like people had to sort of way like, well, is it worth trying something new? 

 I don't know, do I want to give it a shot? Because there is an immediate pay implication. And we recognized like, hey, if we want people to be creative and feel comfortable trying things, adjusting, learning, optimizing, then we have to sort of open up our method as well. So we restructured our model, made it really easy for people to sort of move things around, and that allowed people to be a little bit more flexible and then sort of push the bounds of what Bright Referral can do.

Anne Wemhoff: 34:12

Well, and one of the things, you know, and you've talked about, there's been threads of us throughout our conversation, but the community aspect of it and how you can tie that in, I mean, that's such an important role in marketing in any piece of marketing that you're doing. But particularly, I mean, many practices across the country are seen as, you know, like, yeah, such a pillar of their communities. Yeah. And, you know, so to be able to take something and tie Bright Referral into something they're already doing into the community and get that information and get those pieces, I think that, you know, is such a nice way to be able to use that because, you know, you can go to these events as a, you know, well, we're going to go to this fair or we're going to have a booth set up at this. Well, it's hard to say.

Did she get anything from this? But now you can see that direct action. So I appreciate that as a user, particularly.

Liz Sudit: 35:12

A 100% agree. We actually we have a practice up in Toronto who I just heard from, who's been doing like a Christmas parade every year. But which is super fun. What a great idea. I know, you know, they go down the street, I love it.

And it's been entirely brand awareness because what else were they supposed to do? Like that was just it. And now they've connected to it and there's like this big it's really fun actually, like QR code on the side of their float. And there's when people it's, but it's not just like, hey, schedule when I think they've tailored it. So if they share contact information, they can win some fun prize. 

 I don't remember the specifics, but all of a sudden now there's like actionable. They have leads because people have, they can be like, how many people saw us? How many people shared our information, you know, and like, and and what do we do next from there? So it's really changed, like what you think is just brand awareness to something that is more consequential and can have long term impact.

Anne Wemhoff: 36:09

Well, and when the, the, you know, consumer that you're hoping to reach is interacting with that, even if they're not ready, right? Then the fact that they interacted with that they are ten times more likely to, to remember that practice. And when they are ready to make it an ortho decision or, you know, they are ready to start, they're going to be more likely to go with that practice that they've already had that positive interaction, even if it's something simple as a scan.

Liz Sudit: 36:39

So true. And that, you know, like our background in marketing that you talk about like, how many brand touches does it take for someone to say yes, and every instance is different, you know, like buying a bag of chips is much different than, you know, saying yes to orthodontic care.

Anne Wemhoff: 36:53

Yes.

Liz Sudit: 36:55

But the more positive interactions, you know, the better. And if you can actually track like, okay, we saw this person at this local festival and then we saw them when, you know, when we were in the parade and then we sponsored their school's team or whatever it might be, you can start to sort of piece together that system or that network of brand touches and like what it can lead to.

Anne Wemhoff: 37:16

Yeah, I love it. Okay, so I have one last one last question for you. But before I ask that question, I want to remind people one more time, what is your website? How can they find you?

Liz Sudit: 37:27

Yes. Great question. Bright Referral.co so.co.

Anne Wemhoff: 37:31

Okay. And you mentioned before they can email you. What's your email again?

Liz Sudit: 37:36

liz@brightreferral.co.

Anne Wemhoff: 37:38

Okay, super simple. So we'll, you know, put the notes, the, the, that information in the show notes. Don't worry. So that last question is if you could give practice owners one concrete piece of advice and run referrals into predictable growth over the next 12 months, what would it be and what's the first step they should take today or tomorrow to get there?

Liz Sudit: 38:02

I would understand the problems that your dentists have in the moment of referring.

Anne Wemhoff: 38:09

Simple, perfect, I love it. Couldn't have said it better myself. Liz, it's been great talking to you today. I appreciate you coming on and talking about Bright Referral. And thanks so much for joining us.

Liz Sudit: 38:23

Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure and I'm just so happy to be a part of it. Thank you.

Anne Wemhoff: 38:27

Thank you.

Outro: 38:33

Thanks for listening to Straight Talk With EPIC4. We'll catch you next time. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes.

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