Christy: Seated patients and number of referrals are two different things. We look at the number of referrals, plus seven or eight different metrics that we take into consideration to create that overall rank. That was the main thing we were trying to figure out when Cam was talking to some of these doctor friends of his. "Well, I know my top doctors," and they sent over this spreadsheet. It's like, who manages this thing? How much time does it take to put this thing together? There's got to be a better way. That's really Referral Lab.
Anne: All right, ladies, here we go. Welcome to the Just DeW It podcast. I am so happy that you're here with me today because I have two amazing DeWs with me who actually are here because they sponsored another DeW through their company. If that isn't about women supporting women, I don't know what is.
But let me tell you a little bit about these two beautiful ladies before we get started. With over two decades of leadership in management and marketing, Christy Carver brings both expertise and heart to Referral Lab as the customer success manager. Her career spans operational management, DSO integrations, and seven years as a small business owner.
She is driven by integrity, faith, strong values, and a genuine passion for helping others succeed. Based in North Carolina, Christy is a proud single mom who loves traveling, reading, spending time with friends and family, and cheering on the Green Bay Packers. I love Aaron Rodgers, by the way, but I'm a Panther fan now. That's okay. We all come to the table together.
Let me tell you a little bit about our other DeW on here. Jessica Magnatta, MBA, is a growth manager at Referral Lab, where she focuses on helping specialty practices leverage referral data to drive measurable growth. With an MBA and a background in team operations, she is passionate about bridging the gap between clinical workflows and data-driven advancement strategies.
She currently lives in Chicago and loves checking out new restaurants and using her passport to travel. When the weather permits, she loves to walk with her rescue dog along Lake Michigan. Jessica has an insatiable sweet tooth, so you can count on her to join you for a little treat or to supply one.
Oh my gosh, I love knowing both of you. Please, everyone that's listening, welcome Christy Carver and Jessica Magnatta.
Christy: Thank you so much.
Anne: You guys are so cool. I love it. Jessica, I love that you live in Chicago. Our youngest lives in Chicago, and I love driving down Lake Shore Drive with the lake and the boats, the city on one side and the lake on the other. It's pretty magical, so kudos to you.
Christy, we're both in North Carolina, so you're right up the highway.
Christy: I know. I love North Carolina. We get all the seasons without the freezing cold and the snow.
Anne: I know it. We moved 10 times before we got to North Carolina, and that was our last stop. We've been here for 34 years, and we weren't going to leave, so I get it.
But the joy for me, talking to both of you, is I get to go to Chicago every once in a while to visit our youngest son and their soon-to-be five children because they're having another one, and I'm allowed to tell the world now. They had four.
Christy: That's a house full.
Anne: That's a house full.
Christy: That is a house full. Wow.
Anne: I tell you, those surprises sometimes are just the best. Tom and I are really excited about that. Tell me a little bit about each of you. I want to know how you came to Referral Lab and why you love the company so much.
Christy: I'll start. I came to Referral Lab when I was working for a DSO. One of the offices we purchased was using Referral Lab, and as I was getting to know the marketing individual, she kept referencing Referral Lab. Finally, on the third call, I said, "Danielle, what is Referral Lab? I've been kind of faking it here, understanding what you're talking about, but I have no idea what you're talking about."
She literally showed me the tool and said, "This is how I do my job." I was like, "Why is not every specialty practice using this tool? I don't understand. It seems like a no-brainer."
We slowly integrated it into all of our perio practices, and opportunities kind of switched and things turned in the DSO space. I had an opportunity to work with Cam on this side of things. During that year that I worked with the DSO and with Cameron, we just really aligned on so many things.
Running a small business, I learned how important it is to stay true to those core values of who you are and who you want to put your time and energy into. When the opportunity aligned for Cam and me to work on the same team, it seemed like a no-brainer, too.
Now I get to help over 300 practices every day use our tool. It was almost serendipitous, one of those little God-wink moments. I'm so grateful to be on this side and to help teams.
Anne: I love that story because, when I started my first side gig, it was with Oxyfresh, which was a toothpaste and mouth rinse that eliminated halitosis and helped with periodontal issues. I was like, "The whole world needs to know about this."
I think for women, it's so important to have a passion for what you're selling and what you're backing. Kudos to you, and kudos to Cameron that he saw that in you and you guys can work together now. That just gets you up in the morning because you've got a reason bigger than yourself.
Christy: I remember my dad telling me when I was very young, "You don't put your name on anything that doesn't have all of you in it." I really carry that with me with everything that I do, and I really felt that connection with Referral Lab. It was amazing to use it in my other position, but now to be a part of it, it's something that I can stand true to, and I know the quality of the tool and the people behind it.
Even though we work in software, we're very people-forward, and that makes a difference.
Anne: It sure does. Jessica, tell me, how did you come to Referral Lab? And tell me a little bit about what Referral Lab is because when you hear Referral Lab, you're not really sure if it's a dental lab, if it's data-driven, or if it's bringing in people. Go ahead, Jessica. Tell us how you got there. Tell us the origin story of you joining, and then tell us a little bit about the process.
Jessica: I have known one of the co-founders, Cameron Full, for about 10, almost 15 years now. I remember him probably six or seven years ago chatting at a dinner and saying he's so excited. He had this new project he was working on, and it was going to help so many providers and give them business insights that they've only been able to get by using very complicated spreadsheets, trying to pull reports, and compiling data that way.
I got to watch from the outside and see this thing start to grow. Maybe about two years ago, Cameron started poking me and saying, "Come work for me. Come work for me." Finally, I said, "Okay, tell me a little bit more about this. Let's have the discussion."
Here it is, over a year into this, and I am really proud to say that I work for Referral Lab. We're a software company, and we really focus on offering providers the ability to see who their top referring practices and doctors are. We're able to give them tangible data in reports that they can understand and that they don't need 20 steps to get to.
We help teams make sure that patients are getting the attention they need and that they want each patient to have, but don't always have the bandwidth to manage. The software takes over some of that mental load that comes with working in a practice.
Ultimately, we're able to present the data in a way that helps the practice ownership or administrators figure out, as we like to say, which levers to pull. Do we need to work on efficiency, or do we need to increase the number of referrals or referral sources?
This tool started with a couple of reports in mind and has just grown over the last five years of subscribers to incorporate their requests, their needs, and their suggestions. For me personally, I value feedback so very much and am constantly asking myself, "What can I do better? What can I improve? What can I tweak?" To have that personal priority of mine be in line with who I work for and what I represent makes it that much easier to smile and talk to providers about how we can help them with their practices.
Christy: Anne, how Referral Lab really started is, it's almost easier to call it an opportunity tracker because it was really meant to figure out who our top referring doctors are. Doctors were always saying, "I know my top. I know my As, my Bs, and my Cs." What does that mean?
A lot of consultants and people working with their business hat on create these Excel spreadsheets and come up with all this data because dentists went to school to be dentists. Specialists went to school to be specialists. They didn't go to school to run a business. We all know that if you are a dentist and you have a business, you have to do both. It's figuring out how to really manage both of those because their specialty is in teeth, and that's what they should be doing.
Referral Lab helps them figure out who those top doctors are with the whole picture because if we're just looking at our practice management software, it's just the number of seated patients and total production.
Anne: Right.
Christy: We know that seated patients and number of referrals are two different things, and somewhere the verbiage kind of got intertwined. We look at the number of referrals, plus seven or eight different metrics that we take into consideration to create that overall rank. That's really where Referral Lab started. All the other stuff grew from it, but that was the main thing we were trying to figure out when Cam was talking to some of these doctor friends of his. "Well, I know my top doctors," and they sent over this spreadsheet. It's like, who manages this thing? How much time does it take to put this thing together? There's got to be a better way. That's really Referral Lab.
Anne: Your avatar, is it specialists or general dentists?
Christy: Specialists.
Anne: Love that so much because you really don't have any idea who those top doctors are, and you want to be their friend. You want to build those relationships. Is that what you're trying to do with this? Build the relationship and show them how well we do?
There is so much, you guys. After I was 46 years in dental hygiene, how many times will I tell you that the referral slip we gave to the patient didn't really go anywhere a lot of the time?
The other thing, I don't know if you heard Amber Young's Learning Crew recently, but I thought of you because she went to the general dentist and was referred out to an oral surgeon for her oral cancer. They actually called her two weeks later and asked her why she hadn't followed up. The disconnect between referring and getting that butt in the chair, if it would have broken down, Amber wouldn't be with us now.
The importance of that is absolutely huge. It's genius that it's actually being documented and organized and lifting that off of the front office and even the doctor themselves, the general practitioner. They're like, "I wonder if he ever got that. I wonder if he's referring," or if they drop off, "Why aren't they referring?" Maybe you need to go have lunch with them and say, "What's going on?" Because as y'all know, and we all know this, dentistry is relationship-based.
Christy: One hundred percent. It's all about relationships. That most expensive patient is the patient who left without saying yes. We've scheduled them, they sat in our seat, our treatment coordinators have talked to them, and our doctors have talked to them. They need care, or we wouldn't have given them a treatment plan. They left, we're a super busy practice, and we have a thousand balls in the air. I have another patient coming in, and I forget about that patient.
Anne: Oh, yeah.
Christy: Now we're not following up. Referral Lab kind of steps in and takes that.
One of the examples we use is very similar to what you just said about Amber. There was a whole bunch of patients in a treatment-undecided bucket in a practice. Cameron was actually there that day, and he said, "What are you doing with these patients? Why aren't you calling them back?" They said, "We don't have a process. We don't know. We're so busy."
They literally went through, and I think he said it was the second or third phone call, and it was a cancer patient just waiting for someone to call him back.
Anne: If they don't call, the patient doesn't think it's that important. This is so valuable and just super.
I love Cameron, by the way. I don't think I've ever met him. I need to meet this guy. What a great guy that he hires. He saw something in each one of you and actually recruited you not for your expertise in building a company, but for the culture, the way you carry yourself, the intellect, the care, and the culture. He can train you on the other stuff, on the business, but he hires for strengths. I love that.
Christy, I did have your strengths. Oh my God, there are so many: arranger, responsibility, belief, achiever, individualization. Do you not feel like you're in the right spot?
Christy: When I took that for DeW, I was one of those people dragging her feet. I was like, "Yes, I'm going to get to it, I promise." As soon as I did it and they popped up, I was like, "Ooh, that's a little eerie." That is so me on every single thing.
Anne: It makes you absolutely love your job that much more because you know. Principle number one is look for opportunities and build on your strengths.
I can see Jessica is trying to find her top five strengths right now.
Jessica: I am.
Anne: I can see it. She's like, "I have to figure this out."
Jessica: I still have my DeW Tree badge, her little badge thing.
Anne: Yay.
Jessica: Never leave home without it.
Anne: Never. Okay, tell me.
Jessica: Achiever.
Anne: Yeah, both of you have achiever.
Jessica: Woo.
Anne: I know. We're a woo, and I love that. Growth manager. You need to have a little woo for growth, right? Keep going.
Jessica: Communication.
Anne: Yeah. Positivity and restorative. Oh my gosh, you two are a dynamite team. You're the A-team.
Jessica: Yes, we're the yin to the yang.
Anne: Leaning to the yang. I love it. It's so perfect. Lean into those, ladies.
Another plug for strengths. Dr. Valerie Woo told me this the other day. There's so much detail and so much research behind it, which reminded me of what you said about Referral Lab. Every time somebody calls or every new patient, Jessica's like, "Okay, how can we make it better? How can we do this? How can we implement that?" You're the yes person here.
Christy: Mm-hmm.
Anne: The same thing with DeW. I didn't even know this: the perspectives of the strengths that come to you will be different depending on the order. If you took it again and your order was different—say for Christy, because I'm looking at your strengths, arranger was number five—then your arranger narrative is going to be different the second time around because of all the history and all the science behind it.
Which is what you're doing with Referral Lab. A dental office cannot gather this kind of information on their own.
Christy: They can try a spreadsheet, and some of them do, but you're not going to get all the output that we give you at the touch of a button. The amount of time—I’ve seen some amazing spreadsheets, don’t get me wrong. There are some very talented office managers and practice admins out there. It blows my mind. But how much time does it take every month just to put the spreadsheet together, let alone get all the data?
Referral Lab is almost like a CRM that sits next to their practice management software. It not only shows who our top referring doctors are, but it manages a lot of the marketing stuff and workflow. Accountability is a huge thing, and we can't run a practice without accountability. A lot of practices don't have it because they don't have an office manager, or the doctor thinks he is leading the team when he's really in people's mouths all day and has no idea what's happening.
It just helps manage all of that and makes it easy to see and to get those reports that the doctors want. That's all they really care about.
Anne: That report is also going to help them build relationships and stronger relationships because everybody that needs referrals needs a really strong relationship with the doctor who's referring. That's just how it is. If you have that without having to think it through, go through the spreadsheet, or try to figure it out, and it just pops—do you just have a little button that you can click and see it that way?
Christy: We get as granular as figuring out treatment conversion. How many patients did we talk to? How many said yes? How many didn't? What was our average accepted? What did we present?
Maybe one associate is a little bit lower than the other, and the principal doctor is really great at presenting big cases, but the associate, who is just out of college, isn't very good. Okay, well, we have a training opportunity here. The principal doctor can show that associate what they need to do to close the bigger cases.
Or maybe one treatment coordinator works better with one doctor. It gets even that granular.
Anne: Which is so valuable for both the senior doctor and the associate. For sure. In fact, I just saw something recently that Eric Rowan had said: the associates say, "I need more patients." Maybe you just need to close the gap between accepting treatment, delivering it, and accepting it.
You don't know what you don't know because it goes out into the ethers, right? You use the same spiel over and over, and it's not working, but you don't know it until five years in.
Christy: Exactly, because you don't have the numbers in front of you. The thing is, numbers don't lie. When you have the numbers, you can't really argue with that.
Jessica: I have to excuse myself. I have a demo I need to jump on, so I am going to say thank you so much, Anne. I really appreciate your time.
Anne: I appreciate you, too. Good to hear your story, and cheers to you this afternoon. I love your work ethic. I'm not going to blow that off, but I'm really proud of you. Go for it, Jessica, and we'll carry on. Thanks, Jessica. Thanks, dear.
Jessica: All right.
Anne: Bye, dear.
Anne: This is great that you can work with such a great team, Christy. Clearly, you know Referral Lab inside and out.
Christy: I really do. I work in it every day, but I was able to be on the other side. I think that's where I can connect with teams, because I've been in their shoes. I've worked with them, and I've implemented the tool. I get where they have gaps. Like you said, you don't know what you don't know. If I can make their life easier and run more efficiently, then I want to do that all day long.
Before coming on Referral Lab, I worked with Cam for probably a year and a half, and then I've been here two and a half years. That's a long time to learn a tool and to understand what makes a good practice. If one practice isn't doing that, I have the experience of working with 300 other practices that I can say, "This is what I'm seeing other practices do," or, "Have you thought about looking at it this way?" That's a value they can't get anywhere else because they only have the blinders of their practice.
Anne: There are so many nuances with having a successful practice now. For a lot of them, building your referral base is at the bottom of the list. But if you are a specialist in dentistry, it's probably the most important thing you can do. You want to do it with authenticity, with people, men and women, that you respect and love and feel comfortable with. Then you want to put your foot on the gas when you find those people.
Christy: Yeah.
Anne: They have to earn your respect, and it goes vice versa. I believe with the two of you here and the faith that Cameron has in you two to continue to build, the sky's the limit for you.
Also, shout-out to him and to you and Jessica for sponsoring Marnie at our summer event.
Christy: That was such a great fit. Yes, for sure.
Anne: I'm sure you pushed it just a little bit. Tell me.
Christy: I've known Marnie a long time. Gosh, I'm trying to think. My son is 16, and I think we met when he was two or three the first time. I've seen her change roles and grow. It's so fun to see her thrive where she is now. To be a part of helping her achieve greatness and success is a really fun opportunity.
Anne: I just love women supporting women. That's a DeW principle: good DeWs find good DeWs. Cameron apparently is a DeWd. I just said this recently in a post. We are at 306 for DeWds, and his number is 306. That is D, capital D, lowercase e, capital W, lowercase d.
Christy: Okay.
Anne: A DeWd is a man who supports women in dentistry. He's not only supporting both of you, Christy and Jessica, who are on this podcast with me today and are amazing women. He's supporting Marnie. That's a trickle-down effect, I think, isn't it?
Christy: Yeah, for sure.
Anne: Also, Jessica's not here, but did she have a dental background before she came into this?
Christy: She did not.
Anne: Okay.
Christy: She had no dental background. She worked more in operations and that kind of thing. When we were looking to hire, it was probably a year, year and a half of Cam and me working together, and we realized we needed help. There's only so much bandwidth we have.
In working with specialists, and you know from going to them, a lot of those SAPs, FAPs, and all of those organizations and meetings are super important to get in front of doctors and teams. We're only two people. I'm a single mom, and he comes first, so my bandwidth there was a little bit smaller.
When we were looking to hire, it was someone who could really do what she does, the growth part, and go to shows and events to really help grow us as a company. We were at a place where I really found my niche at coaching and helping those practices that are on the tool, but obviously we need new practices to come in for me to help coach, too. It was an opportunity to bring her in and help grow us on that front end.
Anne: That is super cool. Again, this is what's so neat, Christy. When we started DeW, it's about all career paths. If you're a woman and you have a toe dipped in dentistry, you are welcome to join us. I like the idea of bringing outside into dentistry because I think we need it. It's a little insular.
How many times do you have somebody who's not in the right seat because they were in dentistry? But the expertise she brings with growth management, her MBA, and all of those things—she's a DeW. You found her and hired her, and I love the teamwork you guys have. You can tell that you both really admire each other. You're a good team. I could tell that when I saw you in person, and then living your strengths. If she's a woo, she's exactly the one to go to the shows.
Christy: She is, and it fits her perfectly. I am aged well enough to know where my strengths are and where I find joy. I'm getting close to that 5-0 mark, and I've worked for a long time. I know where I want to spend my time, too. Not that I don't enjoy that kind of thing, but I knew I was better suited to help teams. That's really where I shine, and that's where I can help Cam and the team the most. She can help with the woo and being out there and doing all those things.
Anne: And communicating. That's the beautiful part of strengths, actually validating that you're not crazy and that you can do everything. As a single mom, you have done everything. But then when you figure out and are validated in what you're really good at, what brings you joy easily, you put in a little experience and a little knowledge, and you're going to be on rocket fuel like you are. I can just see it. When you talk about it, you light up. I love that you found your niche here, and you believe so strongly in it. That is just super cool.
Did you learn strengths through DeW, or did you know about it before?
Christy: I knew about it a little bit before. I was also sorority president, Panhellenic president, and all of those things through college, and then helped bring some sororities onto campuses around here. We kind of did some of that within that framework.
I also worked for corporate America at some point in my life, and they did a little bit of that. It wasn't that specific one, but I had an idea, and I had taken some years ago. It definitely changed in a good way because that was where I was at that point in life, and now this is where I am now.
Seriously, reading that, you said the word validated. It really validated the things that I knew, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it or know exactly. I was super grateful for that opportunity.
Anne: Like we said, Strengths validates because of the science behind it. Yes, dang, I am good at this. For some reason, when you get that report and dive into it, you actually feel like you can declare it. You know how we kind of shrink back: "Well, I'm pretty good at arranging things," or, "I'm responsible." But dang, I'm sorry, they're God-given talents, and I'm good at them. So what are you going to do?
And belief. When you even started talking earlier about belief, you were lighting up about how you knew that everybody needed to have this and you just had to share it with the world. That just shows how that is such a strong strength, or talent, that you have.
Also, both of you are achievers. Of course, that's why you were president of this and president of that, joining all the clubs and bringing everything in.
Christy: Yeah.
Anne: And doing it well because you're responsible, and that makes a good leader also, Christy. With individualization, you can see each person for who they actually are and really hone in on their gifts.
You're really cool, and I just love getting to know you better. I can't wait to see you at the retreat coming up in November, from the 12th through the 14th.
Christy: I'm so excited. It's like coming home for me because I lived, I think I told you this, in Charlotte. I went to Fort Mill High. Go Yellow Jackets. My goddaughter lives in Charlotte, so I get down there quite a bit. Next time I'm down, we'll have to have coffee or something.
Anne: Would you please do that? We'll get a couple of DeWs together, and we'll meet for coffee or lunch or something like that. I would love that. It would be really fun. Let me know. We'll have our own little DeW meetup here in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Christy: I would love that.
I think we covered all the questions. What kind of results are practices seeing after implementing Referral Lab? Do you want to speak to that?
Again, it's almost like the CRM that runs next to your practice management. The results they're seeing are things that some of them never had before. It's that organization of all of the data, being able to see how we're converting treatment, not just how many referrals we're receiving. How many are we getting seated? Out of those, how many are we presenting treatment to? Out of those, how many are saying yes? How many are undecided that we're just letting walk off into the abyss until they call us back, which we know they're not going to do unless they're in pain? Are we doing all of those things?
Then once we get into that marketing role, where do we put the stuff? Where do we put the data? Where do we put the outreach? If we have a study club event, how do we know it was successful? What does successful mean? What's that ROI?
One of our reports shows what they sent before the event—30, 60, 90, 120 days—and then what they sent after the event. Do we count that as successful, and did we gain anything from that?
Anne: Wow, that is really important. The other thing you said that I wanted to comment on before we get off here is that it's also really irritating when you go to the dentist or the doctor, and they have no clue if you've had your treatment done, if you haven't had your treatment done, or how it went. You're just like, "Have you read my chart?" Do you know what I'm saying? This is super cool.
How do we find Referral Lab? How do we get in touch to get a demo and reach out to you or Jessica or both?
Christy: On our website, it's just referallab.io, and that takes you to our website. You're able to click demo, and you can schedule a demo from there. You can email me at christy@referallab.io. Jessica's information is on the website, too, and it's just jessica@referallab.io. We tried to make it as easy as possible.
Anne: You are. You're making everything easy today. Christy, thank you so much for being here. Jessica, thank you. She had to leave for a demo.
Christy: Sorry. It was a demo that rescheduled a couple of times, and I wanted to make sure we connected with them. Thank you for understanding, and I appreciate the time, Anne. I really do.
Anne: You are so welcome, and thank you for being here. If you're listening to us, we'll see you in November, 12th through the 14th. The most important thing for anybody listening is to keep doing you.
Thank you, Referral Lab. Thank you, Christy. Thank you, Jessica. And Cameron, DeWd number 306. We'll see you on the road.
Christy: Bye. Thank you.
