hi my name is karen and welcome to
the pt breakfast club podcast i was
looking at the world series yesterday i
thought of philly's philly's karen the
other day i was like look at that
she was everywhere for like nine seconds
nine seconds of fame remember her she
stole the baseball or what did she did
she steal the ball or berated the guy
into giving her the ball
I mean, basically she, you know,
didn't catch it.
A guy came over,
picked it up off the ground.
And then she went over yelling at him
that it was her ball because it touched
her leg or something.
That makes complete sense.
And then go back,
go back even a couple of days before
that.
And there was the whole CEO scandal with
Coldplay that disappeared like
immediately.
Yeah.
I mean, God,
stuff used to happen back when I was
a kid,
stuff would happen and it would at least
last like a week or two.
Saturday Night Live would get a hold of
it.
The late night shows would get a hold
of it.
They batted around for a few days.
Now there's just there's there's a camera
everywhere.
Right.
So there's a moment happening everywhere.
It doesn't need to just be the CEO
Coldplay concert or Philly's game.
It can be, well, almost anywhere.
It's wild, man.
And you have to sort of adjust for
that, not liking it.
or not liking the way things are,
that doesn't work.
So I think that's the focus of today's
episode.
We're looking forwards to twenty twenty
six.
What are you showing me here?
What's on the screen?
So, Craig Lee.
Oh, this is brilliant.
This is so smart.
OK, so for reference,
we're going to do a six pack episode.
We're going to talk about the six side
hustle.
Jimmy will bring you three.
I'll bring you three.
this was decided last minute so bear with
us but um craig lee shared this company
who made the lift used in the louvre
heist goes viral on social media and you
know who in the world would think about
about the company that created this
getting notoriety for it um
what are your thoughts i mean we've seen
this like dave kittel shared a car from
i think like a cosmetic surgery in new
york that was getting some social media
attention my my thoughts are and this is
what i was taught early in my radio
career the lesson was jimmy you can't sing
you can't dance
You really can barely tell a joke.
How are you going to last in radio?
And I was taught yes and.
Those two words, yes and.
So this company, what is it?
What is the name of the company?
I want to give them credit because they
should be getting their moment.
Go down just a little bit.
Boker.
So they make those lifts.
You got to paint a ceiling.
You got to lift some stuff.
You got to do some work on windows.
You got to rob the Louvre.
You get one of these guys lifts.
And of course,
every picture you can't show the photo of
the art that's stolen.
I mean, you can,
but then like empty walls.
And then you have the exterior shot of
the crime scene and their lift is in
every single photo.
And then the white,
do you know who came up with the
line?
Did you read the article?
No, I did not.
The wife of the owner came up with
a line.
It's in there right there.
Scroll up again because I want to make
sure I stop.
When you need to move fast.
It's a play on it.
This company is obviously poised right in
the media attention by accident.
They're smart.
It's a crime.
Nobody was injured.
Nobody was killed.
This is art that was stolen.
That's bad.
Don't steal art, kids.
But they played off of it because,
I mean,
you had to read the room and you
had to be tight, bright and informative.
And they were.
And that's really smart.
You also suggested that physical
therapists do something in the last forty
eight hours playing off of something in
the media as well.
Do you even remember what it was?
It was the ankle, right?
The sports injury?
Yeah,
the end of Jimmy's fantasy football season
because I had Cam Scadabue on my team.
I picked him like in one of the
last rounds.
I was like, I don't know.
I like this meathead.
And he turned out to be great for
me for the first, what,
eight weeks until a horrible ankle
dislocation.
But it's a way to insert yourself –
in the conversation.
Now there's wrong ways to do this in
my opinion.
So just talking about it is great,
but like going complete science real
quick,
I think is the way you lose people.
I think this,
I think the Lou thing or the cam
scataboo thing is a great way to open
up a discussion.
I think that's the way to start talking
to people.
Yeah.
Here, here's the screenshot that I saw.
Yeah.
and there are some guys that are doing
a great job with this kind of strategy
so so let's jump into the topic you
know what are the side hustles for two
thousand twenty six we're coming into q
four i guess we're in q four for
two thousand twenty five two thousand
twenty five is done what are we looking
at moving forward um you know with what's
the low-hanging fruit what's the easiest
thing for us to to really jump on
Injuries popular in media,
whether it be an athlete,
which tend to be, I think,
the most popular.
We saw the Achilles tendon ruptures going
on in basketball.
Now, you know, NFL,
we've got tons of injuries we can talk
about.
Like this has media attention.
The gambling scandal that's happening
right now.
um, with poker and other stuff.
Yeah.
Like all of this,
you can take it in multiple directions.
Like Jimmy said, you can go super sciency,
but you're not going to hit a huge
audience.
Um,
I think you make it kind of fun,
lighthearted.
You have a good time with it.
And the whole idea here is if you
capture that attention, um,
Now you can monetize that attention.
That's where side hustle number one comes
into play.
I think that you could do this for
physical therapy clinics.
You could do this for product companies.
We saw the lift to the Louvre.
What happened to the scooters?
Like my understanding was the guys who
stole the jewelry took off on scooters
Why is the scooter company not coming in
and like when you need to get somewhere
fast or you need to get away from
a problem like we're the solution?
But in therapy, I mean,
there's tons of stuff.
David Rohn's here.
He's got products.
He's got supplies that get us out of
a jam.
Let's make some great content for that.
I think that's the easiest,
lowest hanging fruit.
Yeah.
If someone's going to put millions of
dollars and billions of eyeballs on an
idea or a concept,
we know it's going to be for five,
maybe ten minutes of social time, right?
See how you could capitalize on that.
This is water cooler talk.
This is what people are already commenting
and talking about.
Creating one of these things,
creating a boulder and getting it rolling,
really, really hard, very difficult to do.
Millions and millions of dollars,
lots of effort.
But redirecting one or keeping it going or
shifting it to this and,
easier and scalable.
You can actually do it.
So your first suggestion is what?
You wanna do odds or evens?
You wanna go first or second for best
side hustles for PTs to add revenue in
twenty twenty six?
I'll go odds.
I think it's a media influencer taking
things that are popular in media right
now, doubling, tripling down on them,
bringing attention and having a business,
a company pay you for that attention.
Whether it be another physical therapy
provider, occupational therapy, speech,
We're a product company that's involved
with the profession.
We have a unique perspective and expertise
that we could look at an injury like
that.
We can bring context to it.
If you have the right personality,
you can make it fun and lighthearted.
And then that can be turned into new
patients in the clinic,
more product sales,
and somebody somewhere will pay you for
that effort.
Yeah, I mean,
we call I feel like I called this
or we called this lots of people called
this years ago.
Here's an example that I used,
which was there apparently is a gum or
a candy that is used as a libido
driver, you take one of these spicy cubes,
and puts you or your loved one in
the mood and you get all spicy.
They have made a complete character out of
this.
This is all state and mayhem.
This is flow and progressive.
What they've done is these videos are shot
as if she's just a regular everyday girl.
This came up in my feed somehow.
I wasn't searching for spicy cubes,
I promise.
And you saw it and I saw it
a few times where I'm like,
this woman really loves spicy cubes.
And I went to her account.
Of course, it's crave spicy cubes.
But this thing popped up about a month
or two ago and it's got twenty two
thousand followers.
Whatever they're paying for this.
They're getting back to it.
They're getting back for it in triplicate.
OK, so I need I need brands, though,
like this might work on a local market
like pretty well.
We'll get to some of those ideas.
But I'm surprised a large national
footprinted brand isn't putting a tenth or
a one hundredth of their marketing budget
towards creating people to just do this.
Now,
I wouldn't just hire the person who has
the most Instagram followers at your
clinic.
I would put strategy behind this.
I would have that person be the star,
and then there is a person who directs.
That person is called a director.
So I might launch ten of these and
see which ones go for six months and
see which ones pop.
I feel like that's a low, low lift,
easy way to do it.
I mean,
this spicy cube content could have been
shot in a long weekend or a week,
right?
Outfit changes, location changes,
write a bunch of scripts,
get together and shoot and then see which
ones pop.
Yeah,
I think that's what we're seeing coming
into the new year is going to be.
it's not about like you know you you've
talked about this we've all seen it is
it volume or is it excellence like do
you make one perfect video or ad campaign
or whatever you do a hundred of them
and pick the best one yeah um production
at scale it costs pennies now
You know,
if I'm doing something between VO three
Sora, even if I don't use those tools,
which I'm going to talk about that in
my next one.
Even if I don't use those tools for
the finished product for idea generation,
I could have a hundred examples and
iterations of something coming out in an
hour and then see which one is best.
the production is just off the charts on
what it would have been ten years ago.
Scary.
I mean, look at the Spicy Cubes example.
I think the mistake myself and a lot
of people would make is they'd say,
I'm the physical therapist.
I'm the star.
Spicy Cubes didn't put the scientist or
the CEO in charge.
They put a user in charge.
What if your whole series was my physical
therapist told me, my PT told me?
Oh, you know,
I can't get the kids out of the
car.
My PT showed me how to write like
you redirect it where the PT is this
ambiguous expert who's there.
But the problem I think is,
is a lot of owners will be like,
I don't know how to how do I
get ROI on that?
How do I how do I direct?
How do I see that?
That's where I'm dumbfounded that a large
ATI or Athletico or Ivy hasn't jumped on
that because.
That's beyond regional.
They have a national footprint.
That would be your ad campaign,
and you never need to touch a national
CBS or NBC to get a footprint on
that.
I'm surprised.
Yeah.
All right.
My number two.
Okay.
Wait.
I have to give my number two.
I thought you did.
Your odds.
I'm even.
That's all right.
I'm three.
I know that telehealth is bright.
What's the rule?
Telehealth has been paused officially if
you have insurance for Medicare paying for
it.
Correct.
Well, Medicare coverage has been paused.
Medicare is not paying for it.
The extension expired September thirtieth.
Right now it's in limbo and nobody knows
what's going to happen.
I still think telehealth, Dave would be,
his head is probably exploding if he's
watching.
I still think there's something to that.
I think Dave has elements of being right.
I don't think it's all in or all
out or this is the way,
but I think what you're really selling,
and I always go back to that Maslow's
hierarchy of needs pyramid that you guys
hate when I put on the screen,
insert the pyramid,
but what you're really selling is access.
and speed and the fact that we we
don't on a regular basis just zoom or
see the doctor is on call dot com
or i need an expert right now just
a quick like using your clarity fm i'll
pay you for five minutes of your time
i'd rather feel better i want clarity i
want competence and confidence so i really
think that telehealth and if you want to
close the loop
Because you're like,
I need an insurance company to pay for
it.
I still think I'm is it bullish or
bearish?
I think I'm bullish if I'm if I
think it's going to go well.
Yeah, I'm bullish on RTM plus telehealth.
I think that's taking your PT brain online
and finally getting paid for it more
consistently if you have the right way to
route it.
It's a virtual moment.
It's take a look at this,
or it hurts when I do that.
Should I or shouldn't I?
We like to say,
didn't Utah get the right to call
themselves primary care physical
therapists in the last couple of weeks or
months?
Great.
Act like it.
The fact that there isn't just a
clearinghouse,
a way for someone to call or FaceTime
one eight hundred physical therapists and
they get to get routed to whatever PT
is sitting there like an Uber driver who
wants to answer that question is confusing
to me.
Your startup costs for this relatively
low.
Right.
A landing page,
a little campaign that we just talked
about to get people like understand your
offer and then make sure it's seamless or
easy for people to get to you.
to receive that offer.
I'm still pretty bullish on, you know,
virtual and FaceTime being a great
component in twenty twenty six and beyond.
Yeah, look,
here's a perfect example I'm going to
cover up.
I got this text, right?
It's three X-ray images that came in to
me this morning.
Now, this is a friend.
This is a friend I'm not charging.
But the idea is people want access to
information.
This person can go to chat GPT.
This person has the surgeon who wants to
do a bunionectomy and a couple other
things to her.
She just wants somebody she can trust,
somebody she can bounce ideas around with.
So the logistics,
it doesn't have to be video.
If you don't want to do video,
you can literally do voice,
just voice only.
You can do synchronous or asynchronous.
There's plenty of things that somebody
could just send you a question and then
you can reply when you have the time
to answer that question.
It's not immediate like we need it right
now.
What were you going to say?
And people might say, well,
here comes the Peace Corps gene.
I feel bad charging people for this or
whatever.
Put it as an add-on for a monthly
subscription.
Yeah.
You shared a video of Peter Atiyah.
Peter Atiyah has seventy patients.
He sees seventy patients a year.
But those patients are paying a lot of
money because they have almost or
virtually unlimited access to Peter Atiyah
and his team and his knowledge.
That's what you're selling.
Understand that that's what you're
selling.
The how you can sell that is almost
infinite.
I almost jumped into your comment section
the other day.
I can't remember who it was because I
recognized the person's name.
And I was like,
I've had an interaction with this person.
It doesn't go well.
Because I leave in comments with
questions.
Someone will make a statement, you.
Yours leaves room.
You make eighty five percent of a
statement and end with a question.
You're like, here's this thing.
I think it could be used this way.
What do you think?
And someone comes in and they make a
definitive close statement.
I would never do that.
I love I love they call themselves.
I have thirty years experience in
outpatient or whatever they do.
And they're so close minded.
I come in with questions and they take
they take offense to that.
So I don't do that anymore.
I just goes just goes in circles.
But the idea there being is like,
what are you selling?
You could rage against the machine all day
long.
You could rage against AI.
But understand that there's still a space
for you.
That space doesn't look like it did five,
shoot,
I was going to say five years ago,
five minutes ago, right?
So understanding what it is you actually
sell first, right?
And understand that the way that that was
created
transmitted or shared it it shifted it did
and if you don't embrace it you will
be left behind and that's not me
threatening you that's not me wishing you
ill i'm trying to ring the bell i
feel like cassandra cassandra greek
mythology she could see the future but she
was cursed that anybody she told what was
going to happen in the future they
automatically wouldn't believe her we feel
like cassandra sometimes i don't know that
story at all i've never heard that story
In fifth grade,
I definitely thought adulthood had more to
do with Greek mythology because we started
it for about eleven years and it has
come up three times at trivia nights in
the last twenty five years.
All right.
So I want to double down on what
you were just saying that that's such a
great topic.
I want to give a practical application to
people watching right now.
Like, OK, Jimmy, Tony,
how do I roll this out to Mark?
You know,
we see posts in the Facebook groups.
They're like, I'm desperate.
I need money.
Medicare hasn't paid me for a month.
What do I do right now?
So literally, you can go to clarity.fm,
F as in Frank, M as in Mary.
You can create a free account.
You can set pricing at whatever rate you
want to set pricing.
It is a voice only platform.
They will give you the toll free number.
They will connect you in regards to like
messaging service so that the candidate
can message you and you can clarify
things.
they have a booking feature they take
fifteen percent off the top but they don't
charge you until the call is complete and
the call is paid for by the minute
so even if a consumer says i want
fifteen minutes with jimmy but you only go
eight they only pay for eight but if
they go if you go seventeen you get
the extra two so it kind of helps
on both sides
You could literally do that in ten
minutes, have an account set up.
You could be ready to go.
And then when somebody like the person
here says, hey, I've got a quick question.
I want to pick your brain.
I want to bounce some ideas off you.
I want to do whatever you say.
Hey, absolutely.
No problem.
The best way to get me is use
this link and book a call.
You don't even have to say it costs
you money.
You just say, hey, book a call.
um then they can make the decision on
whether they want to pay now typically
it's going to be anywhere from you know
minimum i've seen is like a dollar fifty
a minute or something usually it goes like
five dollars a minute i think that's three
hundred dollars an hour uh totally
reasonable and now on your drive
You can answer the phone.
You can put it on, you know,
hands free.
And you can help somebody anywhere in the
world who has a question for you and
wants to access your knowledge,
your experience.
You're not delivering physical therapy
services.
You are answering questions,
informing people.
You're educating.
You know,
if you if you want to take it
seriously,
you can go down the route of the
proper release forms and all the other
stuff.
But literally today,
you can have a paid call set up
where somebody will pay you for the
experience that you have.
I'm looking for a stick.
Tony, can we have a quick conversation?
Please.
Do you think what you and the rest
of our colleagues know in their brain
about how to help people is valuable?
No.
Of course.
Then I need to beat the Peace Corps
gene out of you and myself.
It was the same way when I started,
right?
People want to give you money.
in exchange for something they value more
than that, right?
I would not expect someone, I mean,
even to come look at my bathroom and
give me suggestions for renovation,
I sort of expect now people to say,
I will come and spend an hour looking
at your house and telling you, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah.
I expect to pay for that, right?
I expect it.
It is not unexpected.
That person is really good.
The reason I picked them is I've seen
their work.
If someone believes you have value,
you can ask for an exchange for that
value.
If you don't believe that what you have
is valuable and you just wanna give it
away for free, that's cool too,
but you can't complain about it.
Can't complain about it.
All right, let me share my screen again.
I wanna show you guys some images.
I know we're kind of off.
I don't know if I'm sharing my second
or my third or whatever.
Hang on a second.
I'm going to pull this up.
One of the biggest underutilized
opportunities is going back to something I
was doing two years ago.
So bring this on.
Okay.
This is literally,
I took this screenshot minutes ago while
we were talking.
Back in
i was doing about um two thousand let's
say twenty three hundred a month from
amazon with affiliate commissions and
influencer commissions that dropped down
in two thousand twenty four and early two
thousand twenty five to like seven hundred
it got to the point where it wasn't
even worth it now you can see here
over the last thirty days and i'll explain
these two charts real quick
the top one says one thousand eight
hundred and sixty dollars what that is is
this is on-site commissions meaning when a
consumer goes to amazon to buy something
They go to the product page,
they scroll down,
they find videos of me and other people
that are using the product,
talking about the product,
explaining what the product can do.
Obviously, most of these are sales videos,
but what I try to do is I
try to say, look,
I'm not selling you this product.
I don't care if you buy the product
or not.
These are the features of the product or
this is how I use the product.
Hey, my name is Tony Meritato.
I'm a physical therapist.
um so in the last thirty days i've
been i've generated one thousand eight
hundred and sixty dollars from commissions
on amazon and then off amazon so when
i share an affiliate link on my facebook
page i've generated seven hundred and
twenty seven dollars combine those two
we're getting close to twenty five hundred
for the month uh and this is just
gonna continue to go up into november and
december because obviously we're hitting
the holiday season
This is stuff that we do every single
day.
Correct.
Jimmy, you know,
Jimmy wants to find out what's the best
rollator for his dad.
Okay.
Here are a couple options.
There's what I like about this one.
There's what I like about that one.
Um,
Every single day we're making these
recommendations.
All I'm doing is capturing the
recommendation on a video,
uploading it to the Amazon page.
If you have a big enough audience to
be an influencer, if you don't,
you just share it on your own page.
And then you get paid by the product
company because they recognize the value
of you sharing that information with your
audience.
This is an exchange of value.
That's all it is,
taking the trust and the goodwill that
I've built, honoring it, protecting it,
not sharing crappy products that I don't
actually use in the clinic,
and helping solve consumers' problems.
Consumers want to know, look,
there's a thousand Chinese knockoffs on
this website.
Which is the one that actually is worth
the money that you're investing?
That's what we're delivering in that
exchange.
All right.
So you ready for my number two,
which would be number...
three no four oh i'm even i'm even
yeah yeah i'm even all right so my
first idea the first one i brought up
was teleconsulting right telehealth plus
rtm is a way to do it right
that's business to consumer now i want to
switch to business to business jimmy's
more of a business to business guy
ironically right radio was business to
consumer
But what I really did was I tried
to get as many consumers as I can,
as many listeners as I could,
and then turn to a business and I'd
say, hey, do you want access to this?
I want to flip the script, though.
So I want physical therapists to think
about corporate partnerships.
What I want you thinking is who has
a problem?
times a thousand people that I could come
in and solve for at scale.
We've had people who've done corporate
wellness, corporate health, workplace,
workforce, health,
whatever you want to call it.
It is solving someone who has money's
problem at scale.
So I think
Think Amazon Warehouse.
Think an organization that has a large
movement-based workforce.
There are people out there doing that.
Look for local to mid-sized companies,
right?
You breaking into FedEx might be really,
really hard.
But you breaking into a local chain,
where I live in upstate New York,
there's a large shipping company.
A lot of people I went to high
school with,
their parents worked for this shipping
company.
They loaded stuff all day long.
Could you be the on-call PT for that,
right?
Could you do prevention?
Make sure you're talking to the right
person I'm getting.
I'm speaking to this like I've done it.
I haven't,
but I've talked to people who did.
Make sure you're speaking to the right
person.
They probably have different job titles.
I'll get Chris McCallum on the show again
to tell you what the name of the
job titles are because she quite literally
wrote a book about this.
But there are people whose job it is
to crunch the numbers of how much does
it cost when Tony pulls his back muscle
and he's out and now we've got to
pay workman's comp.
Well,
if we had brought Dave Kittle in from
Concierge Pain Relief to do a workshop
about these things,
we might have lost one or two injuries
and that would cost us this per week,
per day, per month.
Also,
a lot of times there's already a line
item in a budget for this.
This is not me making this up.
This is smart people telling Jimmy stuff
on a microphone.
There are wellness budgets.
You giving a better pitch for this than
just giving everybody a gym membership,
which is also a good use of a
wellness budget if someone uses it.
But now you're bringing the knowledge to
them again.
These people already have a budget.
Let them give them an opportunity for you
to actually use it.
There are models out there that are doing
this already.
So this isn't us inventing something that
out of nowhere, people are doing this.
You're not, I think you should in.
Yeah.
And you know, what's,
what's nice about that is like,
I personally, as a therapist,
I do not like.
I would almost say I hate any kind
of worksite stuff.
You know,
you and I have a great mutual contact,
Rick Wickstrom.
I learned how to do FCEs through Rick.
I've done all sorts of stuff with Rick
in the past.
He's literally right down the road.
He created a like a testing system for
new hires so that if, you know,
a company is thinking about bringing
somebody on,
but they're a huge work related risk.
profile, you don't hire them.
You hire me to make sure that you're
not bringing on more cost and more
problems in a potential new hire.
I don't like worksite stuff.
We have GE, we have Cliffs Natural,
we have a ton of opportunity like that
in the area.
But
You can take that concept and you can
bring it into so many different things.
You could go into a school.
So my kids go to a private school.
The school is always looking for ways to
differentiate themselves,
to market themselves.
There's lots of private schools in the
community.
They could easily hire a therapist to come
in and redesign the classroom and make it
more accessible to different needs of
different children.
You could take this into sports.
You can take this into hobbies.
You can take it into so many different
areas.
I think you and I had talked a
long time ago about gaming, about gaming.
the competition of gaming, esports.
This was another huge opportunity where
you could start to combine these ideas.
You go on Amazon, you look at chairs,
you look at monitors and screens and the
setup for esports.
And then you create an entire program so
that esport athletes are minimizing their
repetitive strain injuries and minimizing
their other problems.
Yep.
People are doing this right now.
Kate McGee.
We talked in.
Twenty fourteen where she described to me
how big esports was and she used the
word that started back then in billions.
And I literally looked at it.
I was like, are you serious?
And now well surpassed that.
And she jumped on this.
Give credit to Kate McGee and the team
there.
She jumped on this when people were like,
that's not a real job.
That's not a real thing.
Yeah.
She saw this coming from ten miles away,
and it's beyond here, guys.
This isn't nice to have.
This is neat to have.
So wait, are you pro this idea,
or you just wouldn't do it personally
because it's not your vibe?
I wouldn't do it on a work site
like a GE or Procter & Gamble or
Cliff's Natural.
I wouldn't go into industrial.
I wouldn't go into those areas,
me personally.
If somebody has an interest,
I think it's amazing.
They absolutely should go take advantage
of it.
But if you're like me and you're like,
I don't want to go into that world,
then you say, well,
how can I take this into other worlds?
That's where you've got the esports and
the other stuff that you can do.
You're applying the same principles of
basic ergonomics, body positions.
You're talking about nutrition and sleep
and recovery between sessions.
I think it's a universal application.
It doesn't just have to be worksite.
To be taken anywhere.
Agreed.
Yeah.
But find people who have a problem and
solve them in novel ways.
And again,
e-sports was novel ten years ago.
I don't even know that solving that is
novel anymore.
I don't think that it is.
This is a big problem that people have.
Find people who have a problem and money
to pay for the solution to that problem.
So I think, I mean,
not to make this a therapy session, right?
We're doing six best PT side hustles for
twenty twenty six.
I think that was Jimmy's problem or I
think that is Jimmy's problem is.
You have step one is asking, like,
is this an actual big enough problem for
people to want to solve it?
And I usually come in with marketing and
communications and different ideas for
people.
And I think a lot of times marketing
isn't the problem.
You have to highlight,
is hiring your problem?
Is patient,
is client acquisition your problem?
Where even I, the guy who's supposed,
it's way easier for me to frame problems
and describe them from other people than
it is ourselves, right?
Because we're neck deep in our own stuff.
But people don't have a lack of physical
therapy problem.
They don't.
They have a lifting your grandkids
problem.
Remember that ad?
I think it was for the Super Bowl
a couple years ago.
The guy in his woodshed,
and he's out there with a kettlebell,
and you can't figure out why.
And then he lifts the kid up to
put the star on the Christmas tree.
Chef's kiss, guys.
He doesn't have a physical therapy
problem.
He didn't have a gym membership problem.
He had a something else problem.
I think part of our strength as a
profession is we can do so many things.
And of course,
part of our weakness is we can do
so many things.
Pick a couple of those things.
What's the problem?
Do I have money and a desire to
solve it?
And then put those things together to do
that.
So your next suggestion is what?
Are we back on you?
Yeah, we're back on me.
Just to review...
So you talked about at least telehealth.
I talked about Amazon affiliate.
What was the first one I mentioned that
I came out?
Oh, we talked about social media.
Say it again.
Like an influencing platform or how do you
get in front of?
Yeah,
let's go full circle back to social media.
I don't think it's any surprise that AI
avatars,
are pretty much going to take over you
know social media so the real life fleshy
tony maritato is going to disappear and
the ai version of tony maritato is going
to develop where i think we come into
play we didn't lose our spot is we
don't need to be the one behind the
camera in front of the camera we need
to understand the psychology of what that
ai avatar should be saying should be doing
And I think if we can leverage twenty
years for me, clinical experience, I know,
OK, that patient walking in with stenosis,
I know they're going to tell me, Tony,
I don't get it.
I can push a grocery cart through the
supermarket for forty minutes,
but I can't walk across the room without
bending over and without my back hurting.
Tony, as soon as I sit down,
My back pain goes away.
But when I stand up for more than
three or four minutes,
my legs go numb and I start to
tremble.
Like we have the actual words that
patients have been telling us for decades.
That is where the gold is.
That's where the value is.
And so.
Us learning how, like I've been learning,
okay,
how does VO three VEO three work for
Google?
How does SORA work for open AI?
How can I create content using these
tools?
Cause that's all they are.
They're still tools in a way that
resonates and connects with the end
consumer.
And when we look at combining a couple
of concepts, the, the, the, the, the, the,
the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
the, the, the, the,
the
He's not doing anything that you and I
haven't understood and done forever.
And he acknowledges like, look,
it's not hard.
Like this is pretty simple stuff.
Lift heavy things, get strong.
Focus on building body resilience so that
if you can make it to ninety,
you're not debilitated.
If you can make it to ninety,
you can enjoy the time with your
grandkids.
You can have a meaningful relationship
with your family.
You can still,
we talked about the lady who did the
Iron Man, I think at age eighty.
So we put all of this together and
we say, OK,
I can only treat
Ten people, fifteen people in a day.
But if I create the A.I.
avatar that shares the message to
millions,
now I can have impact on a population
level.
You know, and not only that,
like you look at the sixty minute segment,
what caught people's attention was he
said, look, I charge six figures.
I only have seventy patients or seventy
five patients.
People doing the math are like, man,
seven hundred thousand dollars or a
million dollars or whatever.
That's a drop in the bucket compared to
what he's making on social media.
And he's not even charging the consumer.
He's putting out content every single day
that's helping millions of people
completely at zero cost to them because
the media channels are paying him.
You know,
and then I'm happy to share it.
But like I get six hundred dollars from
Facebook.
I get five hundred dollars from YouTube.
I get I just got a check for
two thousand dollars from ad ads running
on one of my websites that I didn't
even remember.
I had forgotten about this until I went
back and I realized there was a year
of ad revenue that I hadn't accessed
because it was just sitting there in the
bank account.
Mm hmm.
This is me on a minuscule level compared
to somebody like Attia, who's at,
you know,
ten or a hundred times what I'm doing.
So we create and influence the AI avatar.
We can't do that if we don't understand
how it works,
if we don't understand the technology,
if we're not starting to move into that
world today.
so that we're there when that world really
has a solid basis in the next year
or two.
I told you before I had somebody who
of prominence in a large PT organization
came and asked me a question in a
DM.
This is in November a year ago,
a year plus, and said,
how do we make sure that AI gives
the answer,
that physical therapy is the answer when
people ask it a PT type question?
And I looked right at him and I
said, PT needs to be the answer.
You can't just frame it as that, right?
But harnessing that tool and putting it in
front of people,
if people are too lazy or they don't
know what question to ask,
Give him the answer.
Example,
my brother wants to do more wedding and
corporate DJ events.
And he shares pictures.
I'm not knocking him because I see other
people doing this.
He shares pictures of his gear set up,
the lights, the booth, the speakers,
the lasers, whatever, in empty rooms.
People don't buy empty rooms,
they buy experiences.
But I don't understand why,
especially DJs or most of them,
share pictures of empty rooms.
Would you want to keep showing pictures of
injured people or do you want pictures of
people doing the things that they want to
do?
No problem with the before and after,
but you've got to give me the after.
I want a party.
I don't care how big your speakers are.
What I want to make sure is that
grandma has a good time.
Atiya understands how to sell the after.
That one clip that you shared with Norah
O'Donnell interviewing Atiya, he says,
sometimes I break out a piece of paper
and a pen and I draw out a
timeline.
I say, this is you at forty, fifty,
sixty, seventy, eighty.
You want to get here?
Great.
Now, where are your kids?
You had your kid at thirty,
which means they become thirty when you're
sixty.
Where's your first grandkid coming into
play?
What do you want that to be?
Not one thing was brought up about a
deadlift or a medication or a hyperbaric
chamber or red light therapy.
But now they're bought in and saying,
you can get me there.
Yes, if you can confidently say,
I can help you get there in better
shape to enjoy that,
that is what you're actually selling.
If you think you're going to sit still
on a conveyor belt of patience and they're
just going to come in and understand that
without you giving effort and explaining
that, you are wrong.
I want you to be right,
but I think you're wrong.
Yeah,
I think that's the hard thing is we
still want the consumer to want us first.
And without us doing anything, we're like,
don't they understand?
Well, you, me, we,
we spent six figures learning what we know
and seven years in school.
The average consumer doesn't have that
much passion for physical therapy.
We can't think...
like our way of thinking is what the
consumer is thinking and until we can get
past that now the ones who do get
past that man they're massively successful
but it takes some work to get past
that mindset i wanted to show anybody
who's watching this is an incredible this
is where the technology is right now so
this is a post i shared in one
of my facebook groups basically what
you've got i'll take you through the
timeline
this is a photo of a Renpho massage
gun.
This is a massage gun literally sitting on
a plant.
I took out my phone and I took
a picture.
And then I started queuing AI.
And so I went into,
I think this was Chad GPT.
I said,
take the photo of this massage gun,
make it futuristic,
give it cool lighting and dramatic
scenery.
And it changed that photo into this photo.
And then from there,
I took that photo and I said,
now put two athletic individuals,
a man and a woman behind the massage
gun so that I can start using this
to create an ad to promote the massage
gun.
That's what it gave me.
It gave me this this imagery.
I know if you're listening,
you can't see it.
But then I took this image and I
went into VO three on Google.
Meet the Renpho ThermoCool II.
In a world where recovery defines
performance, power meets precision.
And I said, turn this into a video,
animate the two people in the background,
make them do athletic movements,
and give me a voiceover that promotes the
Renpho massage gun.
And this was what was created.
Let's play it one more time.
The Renpho ThermoCool II.
In a world where recovery defines
performance, power meets precision.
Okay.
So I'm not saying it's perfect,
but it's pretty freaking good.
Yeah, I mean, it's...
I would say do ten of those,
share ten of them,
figure out which two or three work best,
triple down on those,
try to figure that out,
and do ten more just like those two
or three.
Lather, rinse, repeat,
if that's your goal.
Now,
I think what we hear from a lot
of people,
what I hear from a lot of people
is like,
you guys do like a hundred different
things.
We're not advocating for you to do a
hundred different things.
We're sort of like, I don't know,
Bill Nye the science guy.
We're just like testing stuff and figuring
it out, right?
Take the ones that you're...
aligned with or you're like yes i would
like to do this or i could easily
see well i don't want to say easily
see i can see how this might fit
in my flow now or with the audiences
and people i already have a relationship
with and then double down on that i
think that's the easier way to go yeah
we just finished my three you have one
more to deliver oh yeah all right so
my last one all right so let's review
my first one was i still think tella
or something getting to someone's phone
or giving access with remote therapeutic
monitoring or something was number one.
That's business.
Real quick for the record,
Peter Atiyah said,
we are releasing an app that's going to
allow that kind of access.
Like,
This is the natural continuity of where
this stuff goes.
Okay, go ahead.
If he's selling it for eighty grand a
year,
you should be selling it for eight grand
a year because you're not Peter Atiyah,
but you're not nothing.
That's what I want people to understand.
All right.
So that was business to consumer.
Atiyah is going business to consumer.
My second idea was business to business,
corporate partnerships.
How can you do something monthly,
quarterly something?
My third is a little bit different.
This is direct business to consumer.
but in a group.
So one was,
what was you to one to one,
the second was one to many,
this is one to many, but consumers.
I still think local performance pop-ups is
something that's fast,
fun and gives you instant credibility this
can be as simple don't let the fancy
words confuse you this can be a run
club this can be a lifting group this
could be the five thirty a.m club at
your clinic when it's not typically open
making sure you're using your knowledge
and the problem that people
honestly have and host themed community
mobility or performance events,
golf swing screen day, do that the minute,
you know, make a campaign out of it.
As soon as it breaks.
I mean, I'm,
I'm a little bit of a golfer,
but I mean, I guess, I guess,
I guess, I guess, I guess, I guess,
Hey guys, it's about to break sixty.
The day it breaks sixty,
we're going to do our golf screen, right?
Pickleball prep, run season tune-up,
ski season tune-up, half-day experiences,
right?
Figure out five or ten different exercises
that you can do and measure results of
someone.
Make it like an obstacle course.
I was a pediatric PT for a little
while.
Make everything an obstacle course was the
advice.
At what age do we stop making stuff
like that fun?
Is it eighteen, twenty one, sixty?
But there is an age there where we
stop making this stuff fun.
Could you set up something that you could
measure and capture baseline?
Now I'm talking to PT and PT terms
and then entice people to go through a
program and then do the same obstacle
course at the end and see the difference.
Wow.
I keep J.P.
Guidry, who I've had on the show.
Very, very good.
Gotten better at showing you want to hit
bombs on the golf course?
You want to drive longer?
Great.
You need to be in the gym.
It's not a different driver.
It's getting in the gym.
So he understands the carrot on the end
of the stick and says,
you have to get in the gym to
do that.
So I think selling these things,
and here's why.
A lot of things we talked about are
digital and virtual and captured on a
screen or laptop or a TV.
I think the pendulum will, sorry,
the pendulum will eventually swing.
That's what pendulums do.
Bell bottoms are great.
Then they're horrible.
Then they're great again.
Guess what?
In a couple of years,
they're going to be great again.
I think in-person events will come back.
And I think if you understand how to
create one,
promote one and deliver on one,
you can lather, rinse, repeat,
take out pickleball, insert ski,
take out ski, insert run.
I think this is high touch,
low lift for people in twenty twenty six.
Yeah, I love it.
And again, I'm going to yes and you.
I think you can take this in directions
where, you know,
like we have a couple big time readers
in the family.
They love reading.
They consume a book a day.
Like,
I don't know that I've ever read a
book cover to cover.
These family members of mine are reading
entire novels like they're just voracious
readers.
But I think they also understand, hey,
reading tends to be a very sedentary
experience.
It tends to be very, you know, secluded,
like it's just you.
We see book clubs.
I think you've done stuff with like
research.
Why are we not including fitness in
something like this?
You bring an element of from as low
level to, OK,
I'm going to buy ten cubies.
We're going to set them down in front
of the chairs and we're going to do
book club.
We'll spend some time reading.
We'll spend some time discussing,
but we're going to spend the entire time
moving.
to you bring fitness to things that are
typically sedentary activities.
You know, chess.
I've got big time chess players in the
family.
They go to chess competitions.
They're chess coaches.
Why are we not bringing an element of
fitness to chess?
We have speed chess.
Why not lifting chess?
Like, why not bring these other things?
The key here is it has to be
something you personally are passionate
about.
I don't care.
I'm not passionate about chess.
I don't want to play chess.
I'm not crazy about chess.
So for me to force myself into that
world,
it's not going to be very successful.
But if somebody who's already doing it
wants to add that on now,
you and I, I believe,
talked about the the book creation of
like, hey, grandma's going to come in.
We're going to do a twelve visit session.
Maybe I was talking to Dave.
There are services out there that use AI
to record the audio of grandma or grandpa
answering questions into a book,
a printed book that's like a chronicle of
grandma's life growing up.
Then there's also video component,
and you get to the weird stuff where
AI now recreates grandma.
So a decade after grandma has passed away,
the grandkids, great grandkids,
could literally talk to grandma in real
time, an AI version,
and ask questions and hear stories.
And like, it's really cool.
Why do we not have that in the
physical therapy clinic as a cash-based
add-on so that...
Okay,
grandma doesn't want to come in and lift
the weights.
We know she needs to,
but she will come in and share stories
of her childhood.
So she's coming for that and getting the
other stuff.
I don't know, Tony.
I think we probably could make,
we could do something with chess.
uh and physical did you see these guys
they're like doing nordic hamstring curls
but the the chessboard is in between them
so they've got to do a nordic curl
to come all the way down and make
the move i mean carrot and the stick
right i remember seeing this video and
going yeah gamification i think
gamification can be my bonus suggestion
which is how do you take whatever you
want them to do i don't know maybe
we should i mean maybe pediatric pts need
to teach
ortho pts like good ortho and sports pts
they they know how to do this i
think we're talking to the middle of the
bell curve the ones that might be a
little afraid or their boss is like taking
that stick i was looking for a minute
ago and beating the fun out of some
of those things but you don't need a
giant facility or lots of expensive tools
to make things fun i mean a set
of blaze pods is is what like that
to me is like
The coins in Super Mario Brother brought
to life and like light sound and you
can make a billion games out of that.
I don't think you need to reinvent the
wheel for this.
I don't think you need to add a,
you know,
ten thousand dollar piece of equipment
like or a red light sauna.
I'm not knocking those things,
but I think there's some other things that
you can do in twenty twenty six to
bring value that could maybe have you
afford some of these larger things or a
place that's on Main Street and not off
the beaten path.
I think that's the way to go.
You gave me a visualization.
I need to get chat CPT to make
the image.
I just imagine like the typical corporate
PT hanging from a rope like a pinata,
getting hit with a stick and CPT codes
falling out.
That's where we are.
All right.
I think we're good.
That was awesome.
It was at least...
Six best side hustles for two thousand
twenty six.
We are looking into the next year.
I think any clinician can find something
of value in today's episode that they can
use to, if not even make more money,
just keep the profession exciting,
keep the profession moving forward,
keep it interesting.
If we look at parting shots.
I think the big takeaway message is,
you know,
the profession is just the platform or the
vehicle.
That's all it is.
It's nothing more than that.
Use it to launch yourself into the future.
Use it to build the life that you
want to build.
Because, you know, if you don't,
it's just going to chew you up and
spit you out.
And you're going to be where you were
twenty years ago.
There are great things that can happen.
Just leverage the platform for what it is.
I would say keep it simple.
All the suggestions we had,
they might sound complicated at first,
but if you look at it,
it's a delivery device.
How do we deliver this thing?
We didn't say go get a certification.
We didn't say change how you treat.
Other people might.
They might try to sell you those things,
which is fine.
Lifelong learning.
But these are delivery devices.
This is finding a person who has a
real problem
who doesn't need you to twist their arm
to solve that problem.
Like that might be one of the more
important elements.
If the person doesn't believe that what
they have is a problem that's worth
solving or worth giving up time,
effort or money to solve it,
you should move on.
You should move on.
So it's not overcomplicated,
but continue to do that in twenty twenty
six.
And I think the world will be the
path to your door or you'll be the
path to the world's door.
Maybe that's more accurate.
We've got to reverse that.
What do we want to talk about?
We want to do a front tease.
Anything you want to talk about later on
in the week?
What is today?
Is today Tuesday?
Holy cow.
Yes.
All right.
Coming back on Thursday.
Um,
if you guys like these six pack episodes,
let us know in the comments,
give us a like,
because what was the other six pack we
were going to do?
Social media trends of twenty twenty six.
I think when Dave's I think when Dave's
back,
he's going to be on vacay for a
little while.
I think a six pack still works with
each of us given to we get up.
Absolutely.
We can't have guys.
My my Facebook business page has been
averaging three million views a month,
three million views a month.
um i i will share the behind the
scenes maybe on thursday when we do the
next six pack all right so are we
are we locking that in is that our
official front tees we're doing social
media trends for twenty twenty six sounds
good all right make sure you subscribe and
like like and subscribe we should just
record an outro that has us going through
all the different channels and we don't
have to remember all of them uh i
would like to say if if you're still
listening or watching live or recorded if
you have a suggestion or you liked any
of the ones that we
uh,
just mentioned and you're thinking of
actually trying it.
I'd love, we'd love to hear about it,
that you're going to do it.
And then maybe in a month, three months,
six months, how it went.
I do want the before, right?
That,
that light bulb moment and the after, uh,
Tony, have a good, uh,
have a good Tuesday.
Stay warm out there in Ohio.
Will do.