Cody, how we doing, man?
Good.
Very good.
Appreciate you coming on.
PT Business Blueprint with Cody Barnett.
Again, just to reiterate,
while I do these first, I don't know,
fifty interviews,
I'm going to keep saying it.
Because the thing is,
every time I say it and
then put an episode out,
I get five more people to
come on the show.
And that's the goal,
to do a thousand interviews
over the next five years.
That's two hundred
interviews a year with PT
practitioners or people in
or around the profession of
physical therapy or healthcare.
And I just want to do a
light skim over the top.
I want people to sort of be
able to peer in and see
what your business or these
businesses are about.
Cause I want people to open more of them.
I want more people to take
sort of charge of their own careers.
So Cody,
like when you're at a dinner party
or a barbecue or something like that,
of course the question of like, Hey,
you know,
after what's your name and where
you're from and you bring up body works,
like what, what do you say?
How do you explain it to people?
What do you, what do you do?
Um, yeah, well,
usually people will start with, uh, Hey,
I got this elbow problem right here.
That's usually how it starts.
Um, but something like that.
But, um, so for me, at least, um,
when I started, uh, like, uh,
I may be different than most,
most of the people I know, um,
started cause they got injured.
Um, I never got injured.
Um, I just started cause I loved anatomy.
and I love physiology.
And so I started volunteering at a local,
my local hospital and their
PT department.
I just cold called them,
walked in one day and said, Hey,
I'd like to learn more about this.
And so they were gracious
enough and let me come in
and I volunteered there.
And eventually I worked
there and eventually
decided this is what I want to do.
Um, so that's how I got started is, uh,
just with, with a cold call,
something I thought I might like, um,
as far as, uh, our practice and, and,
ask about that so I usually
don't tell people I'm a
physical therapist I
usually say something along
the lines of I own a
physical therapy practice
or I'll say something along
the lines of well I help
keep people mobile active
and off pain pills and so
those types of things
typically generate a little
bit more curiosity in terms
of how we talk about
ourselves and how we phrase things so
Usually, at the barbecue,
that's usually one of those
two routes is usually the route I'll go.
Okay.
So if people want to double click in,
like I like, I love the intriguing,
like I help people stay active,
mobile and off pain pills.
Is that what you said?
I love that.
Cause that sort of sets the tone.
It makes people want to,
it makes them sort of have to say like,
well, how do you do that?
Or what is that?
Oh, I do that.
How I do that is physical therapy.
What you do is keep people mobile,
active and off pain pills.
So off the bat,
Winner, right?
Like winner, winner, chicken dinner.
But if someone were to
double click in or maybe
another therapist were to be like, oh,
you want to practice?
That's fantastic.
You know, who do you treat?
Is it inpatient, outpatient?
Like who are your ideal
customer or customers?
Yeah.
So from there,
basically we specialize in orthopedics.
And so a lot of it,
if it's physios watching today, it's,
you know, a lot of orthopedic injuries.
So orthopedic pain and injury, back pain,
shoulder pain, neck pain,
those sorts of things.
I have been doing this for
about thirty five years,
so I've developed several
niches that we dive into
here at our practice.
So certainly our perfect customer,
if you will,
is kind of the fifty fifty
year old plus person that
likes to stay active and
they're not willing to settle.
They're not willing to stay
home on the couch and say, well,
I'm just getting old.
So those people generally
aren't attracted to us.
We specialize more in people
that want to stay active
and value their health.
So that's the main unique feature.
But some niches within that
is I've been a runner and a
cyclist my whole life.
So treats a lot of runners
and cyclists and triathletes,
that sort of thing.
And then as I've gotten older,
I've gotten into pickleball.
And so for the last several years,
we've specialized in
treating pickleball
injuries and that's really
fun because it's a fun
sport and we love it.
Yeah.
Let me ask you this.
In terms of those niches,
outside of maybe communicating them,
right,
running ads or organic content of
getting them in the door,
outside of them,
as soon as they walk in the door,
is there,
are there special things that you do?
Is there a difference?
Like, you know, are there programs?
Because a lot of times
people will say like, well,
come in the clinic and now
you're just receiving physical therapy.
But when you start to niche down,
you can do interesting
things because runners and
cyclists are both endurance athletes,
but they're different.
So when they get inside,
are there different things
that you do with those different groups?
Yeah.
Well, um, the short answer is always,
it depends, but yes.
Um, so, um,
Uh, in terms of runners, like we do,
you know, we do,
we can do three D video analysis.
We do, uh, motion video analysis.
I actually started doing
that back in the day when I
had a VCR camera over my
shoulder videotaping people.
And then I'd take the
videotape home at night and
put it in the VCR and then
do slow motion.
Get out of here, man.
Yeah.
So that's, I've been at it for a while.
We've come a long way.
Now, you know,
I just grab my phone and
pull up my app and bam and, and take,
you know, a few seconds of running video.
And then we,
You scroll through it and found it.
Here's what's going on.
So, yeah,
it's amazing to be able to just
pull your phone out of your
pocket compared to what I started with.
So, yeah, so we do that.
We, you know, when people come in our door,
you know,
they kind of get that it's a
little bit different
because I've got a bicycle
hanging on my ceiling in
our waiting room.
So my,
my idea there is that we want to
promote the idea that, you know,
this is an active place.
And, um,
so for people that just walk in that, um,
most, most people comment about that.
Yeah.
Um, and, um, uh, and then, you know,
we see, we,
we've got an excellent local
bike shop that's a block
down the way from me.
So I work with them a lot and, um,
They do an excellent job at
fitting cyclists.
So I really stay away from
just fitting cyclists on bikes.
But where I come into play
is if they've got somebody
that's got chronic back
pain or neck pain or hip
pain when they ride.
And so then I'll do a
PT-esque fitting session
with them where we're
looking at their anatomy
and what's going on for them.
So, yeah,
so there's some unique things
that we do there.
So some questions,
people who either have a
clinic or might be wanting
to start a clinic.
You've sort of opened the door.
Great radio segue, as we call it,
which is relationship with a bike shop.
So what do you do
organically or paid or formally,
I should say?
So organic or formal in
terms of how does Cody find
the right people or how do
the right people in your neighborhood?
Where are you geographically, by the way?
I think I skipped over that.
We're in Wichita, Kansas.
Perfect.
Okay.
So how does Wichita either
know about Cody already or
how do they find you?
Like what are the different
ways that people,
because as the marketing
guy with the marketing background,
I'm always curious and I
think there's always great
innovation outside of
formal or informal
relationships or organic or paid things.
What do you do to make sure
that people stay, you stay top of mind?
Well, multifaceted.
So there's new customers,
there's existing customers.
So for our existing customers, you know,
we've had our practice
since two thousand five.
So we've seen a lot of people, you know,
so we've got a big database of people.
So we do a weekly email.
So we're constantly emailing them either.
We'll do a combination of
informational stuff, just educational,
informational things about
different things.
you know, injuries or different, uh,
health,
health related things and stuff so that,
you know, we, we, we, I mean, I,
I am biased,
but I think we provide really,
really good content for people.
Um, and then in those weekly emails,
there's,
there's sometimes going to be an
offer for some program or some,
something that's going on a
webinar or a treatment, you know,
treatment highlight or
something like that.
Um,
So we've got that, you know, obviously,
like everybody else,
we do social media and the
Facebooks and the
Instagrams and the YouTubes and such.
So that's mostly our
existing customer base.
And those customers, you know,
often refer people to us.
So we're very blessed that
our clients will refer
their friends and family members,
their neighbors, etc.,
And, um,
obviously we're always very
appreciative of that and we're,
we're thankful to them and
we thank them when that happens.
Um, so that's our, our meat and potatoes.
Um,
but just from just people that we've
been seeing for the last twenty years.
Um, the terms of new patients to your,
to your question, um,
Typically,
that will either be referrals
from friends and family
members or we'll do events.
So we'll be at a pickleball event.
We'll be at a running event.
We'll be at the local bike shop.
We'll be at the local
running store doing things like that.
And then we'll also do
regular webinars for our clients.
So, you know, you can do a webinar on,
you know, back pain or something.
So we'll do an educational
thing that provides people an opportunity
go, hey,
these guys might know what they're
talking about.
Maybe I should go see them
about my problem X. Yeah.
You hit a lot of things there.
And I think for people who
maybe are doing one or a
couple of these things.
They might hear all the
things that you're doing
and you talk about them so nonchalantly.
Like, well,
we're at events and we do
webinars and we do an email
and we do social platforms.
That's a lot.
I think it's great.
Where is your best ROI that
you think in terms of the
things that you do?
We'll go with digitally
creating versus in person.
Where do you think is the
best digital ROI?
Digital ROI would have to be
weekly newsletter,
weekly email newsletter.
because those are going out
to people that already know, love,
and trust us.
They're warm.
Yeah.
And, and in terms of guaranteed,
at least landing in their inbox,
it's virtually a hundred percent.
They're going to get it right.
Unless there's an email issue.
Now they're opening that open rate.
What do you know what your open rate is?
Like, are you like,
are you like sleeves rolled
up doing the email?
Yeah.
Yeah, we do.
We,
We've done different things.
We've paid people to do it
for us and currently we're
doing it ourselves.
So we've done different
things over the years.
Open rate.
I'm told by people in the
business that open rates
aren't always accurate anymore.
So the goal used to be
twenty percent or better.
I know we're better than that.
We run about thirty to forty percent.
But I'm also told
that just because it says it is opened,
it may not have actually been read.
Whereas a few years ago,
open rate was open rate.
But as far as I know,
our open rate is pretty good.
It's getting harder with the email now.
There's more and more where
if people don't engage with you anymore,
if they're not engaging with your email,
it becomes harder for it to
be deliverable.
it's, I mean, it's,
people are just getting so much.
Yeah.
This highlights the fact
that we're actually,
no matter what business you're in,
you're in show business.
You're in the, I need to show,
and it's not,
it doesn't mean you got to put on a show,
but you have to show,
continually show people
what value you bring.
So when they actually have
that problem or need your solution,
You are the top of mind or
you are the thing that they,
as you mentioned, know, like and trust.
Other questions that clinicians ask you.
Let me ask you one of these
best advice questions.
You say you've been doing
this for how long?
Close to thirty years?
Yes.
I graduated in ninety one,
but I've had my practice since so far.
Okay.
So you've been doing this for a while.
What advice would you,
do you wish was whispered
in your ear in oh four
before you got started?
What advice would you have
given Cody back then before you started?
Um, that's a really good question, Jimmy.
Um, thanks.
Um, yeah, I would say, um,
I would say you need to fall
in love with the problem.
Don't fall in love with the solution.
Okay.
So in oh five, it was, and, and, you know,
I've learned this just over
time and through mentors
and through reading books and whatever.
But, um,
but back then it was like physical
therapy or physical therapy practice.
And we, physical therapy is the,
is the thing that's going
to fix everything.
And to be really honest, you know,
the public doesn't care.
They don't care.
They don't care how many
initials are after your name.
They don't care where you went to school.
They just want to know if
you can meet them where
they're at and solve their problem.
So back in the beginning
when I knew absolutely zero
about marketing and
speaking to people and such,
it would be all about physical therapy.
Well,
today I don't ever talk about
physical therapy.
We talk about the problem.
So I talk about the fact that, you know,
your back hurts and because
your back hurts and you're
not sleeping at night
because you can't sleep well at night,
you're going to work grumpy every day.
And, you know,
it's all of the problems
that are associated with
whatever the issue is.
So that would be,
I think that'd be the key
thing from O-IV that I would have,
I wish I knew then that I don't know now.
It's brilliant.
You know,
we've got to speak to people
where they're at and the
things that are important to them.
And to you and I,
the physio is important
because we love anatomy.
We love physiology.
We love figuring stuff out.
That's what got me into this
is because I love all of those things.
But at the end of the day,
our clients don't care.
They just want to know if you can –
If you could fix me so that
I can go play with my
grandkids or go golfing or
whatever it is that they want to do.
Bingo.
Yeah,
I'm having my basement renovated
right now.
I'll be in a new studio in a
couple of weeks.
I found people that my
neighbor trusted because
he's handy and I trust my neighbor.
And he said, these are the guys.
So I hired them.
I didn't ask him what kind
of tools they did.
Maybe I should have,
but I know they did his house,
but I didn't ask for other
pictures of other houses.
I saw my neighbor's house, and he's picky,
and I was like, got it.
But I wasn't going to go
down the rabbit hole of
where did you study sheetrock,
or what kind of tools do you use,
Milwaukee or DeWalt?
And and the guy selling his
services and he didn't sell
as he sold the solution.
So tell me what you want to
do with this room and what
do you want it to look like or feel like?
Got it.
OK, I can do this for them.
And he didn't get into the weeds.
But I bet you if I had if I
had pressed what kind of I
don't know what kind of
sheetrock or screws he
could have told me.
But he knew not to.
He knew not to dwell on that.
And I think what you're saying,
and I agree with,
is focus on the problem and
the before and the after.
Where do you want to go?
What's preventing you from getting there?
I know it sounds simple,
and we're overeducated for
that type of conversation,
but having that
conversation is a skill and doing it well,
right?
So I like that.
Yeah.
I talk to people much
differently today than I
did twenty years ago.
Isn't that the point though?
We're supposed to grow and change, right?
And good for you.
Since you've been doing this for a while,
I can ask you a question
that maybe I can't ask
someone who's been doing it
for five years.
What's the biggest change,
positive or negative, in the profession?
We'll go even bigger.
That you've seen,
that you've either liked or not liked.
Been doing it since ninety-one.
What do you think's the best?
What's your favorite change
or the thing that gives you hope?
Can I ask for both of them?
Yeah, do it.
Yeah, please.
So the thing that I probably
don't like as well is that
our – and I'll preface this
by saying I'm an APTA member.
I'm a private practice section member.
I've been our state federal
affairs liaison.
Like I'm pro-profession, right?
But I would say that our
profession in general and
our leadership in general
has been very focused on
getting doctorate level and education.
And all of that's good and well.
And I don't disagree with that.
But in terms of I think we
need to do a much better
job as far as marketing
what we do to the public.
overall and and I'm not
putting that on the on the
national profession I'm
putting that on on
individuals on you and I'm
putting that on everybody
that's out there whether
you own a practice or
whether you're an employee
of a practice it doesn't
matter like it's our job if
we want to elevate so that
people want to come to us
first for their problems
like it's up to us and so
it's you know again people
don't really care what
initials you've got after your name
They really don't.
Are you a fellow or not a fellow?
Not to say that those aren't
important and those help us
get people better, but people don't care.
And so I would say there's
been such drive to make
everything doctored and
more education and more
certifications and more of
this that we miss the point
of who's our customers?
how do we speak better to our customer?
How do we market to our customer?
How do they know that we,
everybody knows what doctors do.
Everybody knows what nurses do.
I don't know if people know what we do.
And so I think it's ironic.
I think it's up to us as an
individual to market
ourselves in our community
and to our neighbors and
our family and whatever,
all of the things that we can help solve.
I think it's interesting in
that sentence that you said,
people don't know what we do.
And that's okay.
I think if we put one word
in that sentence,
we get more clear in our
marketing message,
which from the top of the show,
how you explained it, I think people,
it would be better if they
just know what we can do for them.
Do you know what I mean?
Like,
I don't care how the guy downstairs
renovates the basement.
I care what he can do for you.
You can take this room from
dank and dark and creepy to
not dank and dark and
creepy to bright and warm
and welcoming and usable.
Done.
I sort of don't care in the middle.
Now,
the difference between the basement
thing and what we do is you
got to be part of the process, right?
You got to come along, right?
It'd be a different story if
I had to help that guy
you know,
eight hours a day for three days
doing the basement, then I'd want to know,
okay,
what's going to be involved in this.
So I will give clinicians or
patients some grace there
because they do have to be
part of the process,
which is also part though
of communicating, hey,
the physical part and physical therapy,
it's going to be mostly you.
Right.
Yeah.
So that was the profession wide.
What was the second part of
the question that you wanted to answer,
too?
You said both.
So that was that was the thing.
That was the thing that I
would say that I wish, you know,
that it's been in my mind
kind of a negative thing.
It's not negative,
but we need to do a better job at.
OK.
And then in terms of the
things that I've seen in
terms of how we've grown
and the positive things.
Well, golly,
we know so much more now than
we knew in nineteen ninety
one when I got out.
And so there's things that
we can know and treat and
diagnose and fix and cure
that are so much better.
I'm so much better at what I do today.
And most of my colleagues
are so much better at what
they do today than we were
three years ago in terms of
what we have as far as the
tools in our toolbox.
And part of that's technology,
part of it's knowledge,
part of it's research,
but there's no question
That in my mind,
that in terms of how we
serve our world as a whole
is better today than it was
thirty years ago and thirty years ago,
I would have said we're
better today than we were in the fifties.
And that's great, right?
That's the direction you want to be going.
So so I would say, you know,
in terms of how we how we
serve those around us,
I think that's definitely
grown and we've certainly
upped our game in that regard.
What advice would you give
to physical therapists that
maybe have just opened a
clinic or maybe they're
thinking about doing one?
Now you get to,
you don't have to give
advice to the past version of Cody.
You can give advice to someone who's like,
you know, yeah, in a year or two,
I'm going to be doing this thing.
Or maybe they just did and
they're willing to be a
sponge and listen to things.
What advice would you give them for today?
Yep.
So tips would be one,
don't underestimate marketing.
So there's internal marketing,
external marketing.
Internal marketing is what
you do with the people that
are already under your roof.
External marketing,
what are you doing to the outside world?
How do you get people that
are on the outside walls to have a better,
more clear understanding of
what's going on inside your
walls so that their external perception
matches your internal reality.
Um, so, um, definitely marketing.
Um, I'd say, um, in terms of, of, um,
from a financial standpoint, obviously,
you know,
I've developed financial skills
over the years.
Um, when I started, um,
I didn't have any business classes.
I didn't have an MBA.
Um, I just knew what I wanted to do.
And, and, um,
I was pretty detail oriented
and how I went about it.
But, um,
You've got to, you know,
you've got to make the
numbers work and figure that stuff out.
You can't just assume that
you're going to get X
number of patients per week or per month.
And I always calculated
everything on a worst.
What's my worst case scenario?
Yeah.
If things get dire, what can I sell?
Yeah.
Sell the bike in the lobby.
Sell the bike in the lobby, right?
That's a resource.
All right,
last question I'll ask before we
do parting shots.
What's been the most
rewarding part of this journey?
I'll say, not just as a clinician,
we'll be more specific
since this is a business blueprint.
What's been the most
rewarding part of this
journey as a clinic owner?
Well, you know, for me, it's like,
We get to see amazing things.
There's so many amazing things.
I like my, my, my patients inspire me,
you know,
and I don't feel like working out.
I've got,
I think about a patient that's
inspired me that did
something that they didn't
think they could do.
And they went out and did it.
And then that gets me.
Okay.
All right.
I've got to do my workout today.
So being able to see people
do things literally every
day is super cool.
You know, we've seen people, you know,
get run over by a car and
then run with the Olympic torch.
I've seen people that
couldn't stand up out of a
chair and now they can, you know,
walk out to the mailbox and back.
It doesn't matter if it's a
big thing or a little thing.
It's a big thing to them.
You know, we've had people just do,
you know, amazing, amazing things.
So being able to help them
do that and achieve that.
things that they maybe
didn't think were possible
or didn't feel that they'd
ever be able to do again.
Like it's so super cool.
And then, and then the cool thing is, is,
you know,
we get to make a living doing that.
I can remember when I was a student and I,
and I transitioned from
paying to do PT to being
getting my first paycheck.
And I'm like,
holy cow, they,
they actually paid me to do
this and I loved it, you know?
Yeah.
Um, so, um, definitely that, you know,
in terms of from a business perspective,
um, it's, it's gratifying, you know,
most businesses, um, they,
they say that statistically,
if you make it past year three, um,
you're going to make it.
So, um, you know, for us as a business,
you know, we feel like, um, you know,
we've,
we've really helped a lot of people.
Um, we've done everything ethically.
We put our patients first.
Um, we, um,
We serve only our patients,
and if we do that,
then we are successful.
And so that would probably be number two,
is being able to just have
a viable business that we
know is going to be here for the long
Last thing we do on our episodes,
we call it the parting shot.
What's one idea, one sentiment,
a mic drop moment, a soapbox statement?
It could be something you've
already said before that you repeat.
What's the last thing you
want to hammer home and
really just burn into the
audience's brain?
Yeah,
my parting shot would be the
percentage of people that
we can help is far smaller
than the people that we actually do help.
You know, statistically, you know,
I don't know what the number is.
It's a low number.
It's like four percent or
nine percent or something
of the people that we could
actually that could
actually benefit from us
actually get our care.
And so that means there's
probably ninety percent out
there that aren't getting
how we can help them.
They're not receiving what
we can do to help them as a profession.
So there's plenty of room, you know.
in our city, we've been blessed.
I was the first practice in
Kansas to leave all of the
insurance networks and go
completely direct care or
cash pay in our state.
And there's been several
more now since then.
And I think that's awesome.
You know,
I don't look at them as
competitors because I know
there's so many people out
there walking by on the
sidewalk that we can all help.
So
Um, you know, I'd say if you're,
if you're interested in doing it,
you know, um, there's niches out there,
uh, and, um, and it can be done.
Well done.
Uh, Cody, appreciate your insight.
Thanks for doing one of
these first couple of, uh, PT, uh,
business blueprint episodes with us.
Um, and congrats man,
like congrats on doing the
thing and being excited
about getting paid to do
the thing that you love anyway, man.
So thank you for that.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Appreciate you having me on.
Appreciate it.