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Our guest today grew up in Texas,
but chased the open skies in the Pacific
Northwest from climbing the highest paved
mountain in the world to mountain biking
epic trails in Moab.
I want to ask you about that because
I've always wanted to do it.
This guy doesn't just push limits.
He lives beyond them.
And now he's doing the thing.
And some of the people we talk about
in this podcast and the live streams that
we do sort of aspire to.
We're catching him at the moment where he
just left the diving board.
And that's why this is so special.
So after years of being a PT,
he's now living out a dream,
owning his own clinic and redefining what
a modern PT practice can be.
be he believes the old ways of doing
a running a clinic are dying and he's
not afraid to say it which is good
because it's a podcast we need him to
say some stuff uh here to talk about
building boldly betting on yourself and
innovating beyond the four walls uh
matthew fane welcome to the show matt how
are you man i i'm great man i
appreciate it thanks so much for having me
So I've wanted to do like Moab or
something because I've seen pictures of
the rocks and they're smooth and the
mountain biking.
What time of year?
Like that's where I always get stuck
because people are like,
you don't want to be out there when
it's too hot.
You don't want to be out there.
Where's the sweet spot?
Yeah, man, the sweet spot,
I guess you call it the shoulder season.
So we're looking at like late spring.
It depends on how high you want to
go because they got some mountains in
there.
They'll still have snow.
But if you're down in the low hot
spots, like middle, early spring is good,
late spring.
And then we went in the fall,
like early fall, September, October time.
Don't warm yourself, man.
Too hot.
Yeah, I feel like you'll cook, man.
I want to do like a Mentos.
I want to do what I've seen in
like the Mentos commercials back in the
nineties where it's like,
I don't know if I want to climb
the mountains there.
If I'm there,
I want to do like the rocks and
the stuff that looks like it was it
was eroded and stuff like that.
But they have that there because there's
Moab.
And what's near Moab is what other parks
are.
Well, there's more arches.
I think Bryce Canyon is close.
Yeah, I'd be close.
I'm not sure.
That's what I was thinking.
Yeah.
There's a lot of parks there.
So that's another paradise.
Now that we've done the tourism commercial
for the state of Utah, you're welcome,
state of Utah.
We love you.
You just did a thing.
You posted on LinkedIn that you're doing a
thing.
I don't want to tell,
that's not my story.
So just give a reframe for the audience.
Like, what are you doing?
Where are you?
What's happening, Matt?
What's happening?
Yeah, man.
So I just bought an outpatient PT clinic.
I've been working there for just over ten
years.
Wow.
And even initially, when I came on,
I told the owner, I was like, hey,
man,
I know I got a lot to prove
first.
But I just want to know if I
do well here, is there, you know,
potential for me to buy the place when
you're done?
And he said, yes.
So I put my time in and I
was like, let's do it.
And, you know, it was just a basic.
you know, outpatient clinic.
We were all insurance based and, uh,
which is, you know, that was, that's,
that was fine for a long, long time,
but I've kind of been seeing the writing
on the wall.
And, uh, so when I took over,
I was like, man, I want to,
I want to do some new stuff,
but it's, uh, you know,
you don't know what you don't know.
So I, I, I found some other people,
uh,
regionally that run clinics and do the
hybrid model thing.
I reached out to them
got some coaching, started to get ready,
got some plans in place.
And then, yeah,
we did a big training day a couple
of weeks ago.
That was the LinkedIn post.
It was the night before the training day.
I had spent hours getting this thing
ready, man.
Yeah, man.
There's PowerPoint slides, papers,
everything.
We had a full day of training.
A lot of it initially was content in
the afternoon.
We did a lot of practicing about what
we're going to talk about with the start
date of the first of January.
So let's not get too far ahead.
Let me re-rack the balls that we still
got on the pool table here.
Name of the clinic, location.
Who are your ideal, your ICPs?
Who do you love to see walk through
the door?
We'll start there.
Gotcha.
So the name of the clinic is Phase
One Physical Therapy.
and we are in the spokane uh washington
area that's the very east side of the
state so we're like twenty miles from
idaho so uh and but our town we
actually are actually in suncrest which is
a little commuter town about fifteen
minutes outside of uh spokane so we don't
see a lot of spokane proper patients but
just a lot of the people who live
in our community and it's roughly
We don't know the exact number,
but it's probably roughly between ten to
eighteen thousand people in the in a big
area where they're spread out.
Gotcha.
So that's what we see.
We have we have a little school out
here, a school district.
It's just two elementary schools,
a middle school and a high school.
And then just the people who live here,
there's a little bit of industry out here.
Like I said, we're mainly a commuter town.
We've got some restaurants,
a grocery store, and us.
The clinic's been here since two thousand
and three.
Got it.
And yeah,
the owner started off in the front part
of a storage unit.
So he literally started out in a storage
unit, like the rolling the door up.
Well, not in the office part of it.
You know how like sometimes storage units
will have like an office section.
Yes.
He rented out the office section of us,
but all around it was the unit,
the storage units.
And he just rented out the office space
of the storage unit back in the day.
Cause that's what you do.
You do what you can with what you
have while you can,
and then you hope to improve.
You move on.
Yeah.
And then, uh, like I figured it back.
They went again, uh,
twenty eight to two thousand eight,
maybe or two thousand fourteen.
One of those times.
I don't know why those two days stick
in my head.
He bought some land.
He built a building and in that building
is a gym and us.
And so when you see a gym and
you like a like a gym,
you're going to have membership strictly a
gym,
not like the gym portion of a clinic.
No, yes.
A gym that is open to the public
and then the physical therapy clinic.
Now we can use the physical,
the physical therapy clinic uses the gym
for their patients, you know, somewhat,
you know,
but it is a gym open to the
public.
So does he own the gym or did
he build next to a gym?
And then if he owned it,
do you own that now too?
Or is those two different things?
Two different things.
So he,
he bought the land and built the building
and started the,
or moved his PT business from the storage
unit in
And then started the gym.
So he owned all three, the land,
the building, the gym and the clinic.
And I just bought the clinic.
And is he still going to run that
gym?
He still has the gym and then the
property.
And then can you walk to,
is there a door from the clinic to
the gym without having to go outside?
Like, is there like a portal, a pathway?
Like, yes,
actually the main entrance to our clinic,
you have to go into the gym first.
The main, wait,
it's the main entrance to the gym.
You have to go through your clinic.
other way around the main to get into
it.
Do this again.
I don't know why I'm not getting this
to walk in the walk into our clinic.
You have to walk into the front doors
of the gym first.
I love that.
I mean, that's good.
That's I mean, it's great.
Just shows you like here.
This is a progression.
This is a spectrum.
You're here.
If you need something else,
you go the other you can come to
us and you're there.
So I'm guessing is he and you said
he still owns it.
Is he still daily operations with the gym
or he's strictly the owner?
He's the owner and he has office manager
who does it.
Yeah.
This is great, man.
I mean, you, I mean,
sounds like a good spot just from what
I'm hearing.
It's a great setup, man.
I can't, you know, it's a,
it's established.
We got good patients.
You know,
I've been there for ten years now,
so I'm well established with the company
and the community.
Everybody knows me out here.
I live out here.
So, yeah, it's a great setup.
Can't complain.
Yeah.
Good for you.
You know,
I talked to a lot of people who
started their own business and even the
former owner and all the things, you know,
the stuff that you have to do to
start.
I'm like, well, it's already here.
I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean,
I'm not going to simplify this and say,
oh man, works could out for you,
be fine.
But like you're buying the boulder that's,
you've already overcome inertia, right?
You don't need to prove this concept.
And that's not to say that now that
you're driving this bus,
the stuff that maybe you didn't see,
now you're the guy.
Pipe burst.
You can't say, hey, boss, fix this.
It's like, hey, I'm, oh, shoot.
There's nothing.
There's no one else is going to fix
it except for me.
Talk to me about this.
You said you mentioned it to him.
I know I've got a lot to prove,
but is there a chance I could ever
do that?
Then you did the thing.
You proved it for a decade,
which is no small feat.
So congrats to you there.
When did these discussions start?
How long ago ballpark it for me?
And then what happened between those
discussions?
Like, Hey, what, what,
what's the name of the owner?
Just the first name or the former.
Well, Joel, Joel, Joel, and you're like,
we're going to do this ballpark.
How long ago was that?
And once that was like, we're doing this,
what was the transition?
Like,
did she start to like teach you and
sort of pull back the curtain a little
bit?
Hopefully not all at once.
Cause that's too much,
but to make sure that you hit the
ground beyond running.
Yeah.
Well, so, you know,
the initial conversation obviously started
when I got hired.
Sure.
That was my plan.
Yeah, but that's a dream.
That's a dream.
It's becoming real, you know, three, six,
twelve months ago, I'm guessing.
Yeah.
So I did.
I was like, you know what?
I'm not going to do anything.
I'm just going to put my head down
and be a hard worker for like five
years.
You know,
I'm not going to talk about it.
I'm just going to work hard and establish
myself.
And then after five years,
it was just starting to get a little
conversations going about, hey, you know,
remember that conversation we had when I
started?
you know let's i kind of want to
revisit that a little bit and so we
just started gotten the ball rolling and
then in the last year though uh is
when it really started to pick up steam
you know i'm at i'm at a certain
age i'm forty five um so i have
plenty of time left but not a ton
of time if i wanted to get like
a clinic going established kind of make
the changes i wanted to do
uh you know work in it for a
while and then and start to find that
next person you know down the road i
wanted to have a lot of time to
do this and i was starting to see
if it didn't happen the next five years
by the time i'm fifty yeah yeah i'm
like oh man my return on investment
starting to like go down and so i
was like i was really feeling this is
my time
So I kind of, I honestly,
I kind of pushed it a little bit.
I was like, hey, man,
if you want me to do this,
I got it.
It needs to happen pretty quick.
Sounds like you were listening to sort of
Marcus Limonis.
Do you know Marcus Limonis from the?
I don't know.
Great.
You got to know your numbers.
So you were like sort of doing the
math,
maybe roughly on the practice numbers,
maybe even your head.
Maybe you were able to see some of
the numbers,
but you were also doing your personal
numbers, which is who am I now?
What do I want a year from now?
What do I want three?
What do I want ten?
And if I wait too long,
that ROI is not ROI-ing, right?
On multiple,
like ROI return on investment,
but also like ROI return on impact, right?
exactly and that is like that's why i'm
like sort of pausing here and being like
see what he did like he was doing
an internal assessment like what do i want
if like do i need to leave to
get it somewhere else or can i push
in a good way and bring it up
and yeah cause that conversation to happen
sooner than it might have happened
naturally and that's a good thing so when
you push and said hey can we make
this happen how what happened next how was
it received and then what happened next
Yeah.
I mean, you know,
I think it was a little earlier than
he kind of anticipated,
but I kind of just laid it out.
I was like, Hey, again, for me, it's,
this is how it is.
And I, you know, and I,
I think I had a lot of, um,
what's the word I'm looking for?
I had a lot of ammo because I've
been there for so long at that point,
you know, I've been real established.
Everybody knows me.
Like I was like the guy, you know,
and it's going to be really hard to
try to find someone else in a small
community that has that already has that
investment put in.
Stop.
In a good way, in a non-sneaky way,
you said, hey, listen,
I'm being very clear.
If this isn't right,
then I might start to look somewhere else
or I don't know.
But then if it isn't me,
do your own timing.
Who would it be?
Now you've got to search for a person
to take it over and buy it.
That's hard.
That's simple.
That's not easy.
So that's good communication in there and
made that person think, yeah,
he's got a point.
Yeah.
And we know how it sort of progressed
because then those conversations
continued.
Yep.
So yeah, he thought about it a while.
He was like, yeah, you know,
he was down.
And so then we, you know,
we just got the paperwork in order and
we did it.
And then, yeah, you know,
he showed me the basic day-to-day stuff,
you know, just kind of get it going.
Over what time periods?
Because it sounds, I mean, it's phase one,
one-oh-one now, right?
In between there and January first.
What was the time period?
How long did he start to show you?
So, yeah, I bought the company,
I think we started in May,
May of twenty twenty five.
So it's only been seven months,
it's almost.
And so, yeah, so over the course,
you know, again,
it was it was going fine.
It was humming along to this kind of
showing me the day to day, you know,
like, you know, checks coming in,
you know, this and that, you know,
here's the QuickBooks.
And we have an office manager that I've
already kind of been working with,
kind of help walking me through that kind
of thing.
And then I just kind of started keeping
it humming and I started asking questions.
And that's when I started also looking at
some coaching and some other things.
Because I knew before that,
even before I bought the company,
I knew that this is what I wanted
to do.
Yes.
I wanted to transition it to this new
model.
All right.
We'll get to what that is.
Don't give it away yet, but keep going.
Yeah.
So I was like,
so I was giving a quick tutorial on
a day to day.
And if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Right.
So it was working pretty good.
I'm like,
I'm not going to change anything right
now.
Now I need to learn.
And that was my next step.
So I need to figure out the day
to day.
So we keep this going.
And then now I need to learn and
just absorb and figure out what the next
step looks like.
Yeah.
Ask questions and say, well,
I see that we're doing this,
but why do we do that?
Oh,
we do that because if you don't put
that money away, you get whacked with tax.
You know, your tax is coming, anything,
all the little stuff.
You know, why am I doing this?
Got it.
Okay, good.
So you can make decisions a year,
three years from now based on
does that still apply not just this is
what we've always done it why have we
always done it that way well the world
changed so we shouldn't do it this way
now yeah like it and that's another thing
too a lot of it was just uh
maybe making things more efficient again
he'd been doing it for you know twenty
years this way and it was working but
i i kind of realized i was like
hey man there's some things we can do
here to
Just even clean up what's going on.
Yeah, let's make more of our deposits,
more of our payments, ACHs,
instead of checks coming in the mail to
us all the time.
Our supplies that you go to Costco every
once in a while for,
let's just do a subscription on Amazon or
something like that.
So a lot of those were just little
cleaning the house,
kind of making things a little more
efficient, a little more clean.
you know, updating some paperwork,
stuff like that.
But those are just things that were,
you know,
it was just more of just general business
things that you need to update every once
in a while.
All right.
So now I feel like I feel like
we've arrived at now,
almost driving your Yeah.
And so now you're running the place said
May, which is, you know, six months,
seven months ago.
Um,
but now we'll start talking about the
future.
You said,
I've been looking at some things,
want to make some changes.
Sometimes previous clinic owners don't
make changes, because they're like,
Listen, I know where I'm going.
It ain't worth me.
tearing apart the deck to put a new
deck on the house.
If I'm thinking of selling in two years,
I'm not going to get any,
I'm not going to get the ROI return
on impact out of that to play with
the deck or whatever.
Same for the clinic.
So now here you are.
So what, what changes are you making?
What are the big two or three things
that you're like, Hey,
I've been here for ten years, elbows deep.
I've always wanted to do it.
Now I'm holding the wheel.
So what, what's, what's the,
what's the two or three big levers you're
going to pull for phase one?
Yeah.
So, I mean,
our biggest lever is offering cash pay
services.
Yeah, that's the big one.
And not only cash pay physical therapy,
but we're going to be doing a cash
pay stretch, kind of stretch lab thing.
So that's the big one.
a couple other things we're cleaning up
how we schedule you know we're gonna be
a little more efficient in our scheduling
uh you know and how we see patients
and then uh the third thing was the
insurance issue you know looking at our
insurances what insurances are we just
that are just killing us um what can
we do to kind of clean that up
a little bit um
and make it more, again, more efficient.
But the number one above all is just
the cash bay.
That's our huge one.
How did you know, though?
I mean, this isn't me, like, grilling you,
but, like, how did you know, like,
how are you judging that the market wants
it, needs it,
and will follow through with it?
People ask, like, how did you get there?
A lot of it was through research,
you know, just, like, you know,
finding you and other people on LinkedIn.
And, I mean,
I look at PT stuff all the time.
I kind of hear what's out there.
And then one of our employees now used
to work at a clinic in a town
about an hour away who the clinic owner
had started cash paid services and is now
very successful at it.
So I was kind of getting an ear
from him and I contacted that guy.
And that's actually the guy I've been
getting a lot of coaching with.
It's this guy who's very successful on his
own.
And so it's just kind of been in
my wheelhouse for a couple of years,
knowing that's kind of the big thing we
want to work on.
I'm not going solely cash pay, obviously,
but having that part of the mix.
It's an option.
It's an option, right?
It is.
Dude, if that happens, that'd be awesome.
But I also want to, you know,
our demographic here is really weird.
We live near on a lake.
And so we have people who are like
super rich.
you know have a lot of affluence a
lot of money but we also are out
in the country where we have people who
who don't and so i want to that's
a big part of it too is being
able to have the you know feed both
of those people i call them just doors
right and this is where you get like
tactical with like if i go to your
website right now and i can't see the
two doors and know which one i'm i
that fits me to walk through confused
people don't yeah they don't
They don't go any further.
You just spend a bunch of money to
get them to your website or to know
about you.
And then you get them there either at
your clinic, physically on your website,
your socials, anywhere.
They're going to look and they're going,
they're not saying it consciously
subconsciously.
Is this for me?
there a door do i know how to
is it one click away where i can
see where i can become on this and
if the answer is no the answer is
not spend more or do more marketing the
answer is clean up the user experience and
understand your brand to do that sounds
like you are a few steps ahead so
you're doing that but i wanted to pause
and make sure see what matt's doing he
understands you're talking about
demographics but you said demographics
you're talking about psychographics too
They're in the lake, they're rural,
they're probably active.
So if they have the money and they
want to keep water skiing or hiking,
there's the door that you can come
through.
By the way, when I say the door,
I don't mean out, I mean in.
Or, hey, listen, you're rural.
I can't afford that.
There's a door.
Let me open it and pull it open
and hold it for you.
That's great.
All right,
so just opening that or creating,
knocking a hole in the sheetrock and the
studs and making a new door for cash
pay,
like chef's kiss uh what else now you
get to you get to sort of come
in and put your fingerprints on everything
what else are you going to change what
else are you going to amplify
yeah oh man i mean so i was
actually talking to my office manager this
morning the hard part is sometimes there's
so many ideas coming at me yes and
i'm like dude i can't do them all
at once don't yeah great perfect yeah
because then it's just like you don't know
i mean so part of what i my
thought process here like okay matt chill
out a little bit let's let's do the
big things first we'll see how it goes
we'll refine and then add
Because right now,
I just want to grab this.
We're going to grab that.
But there's a lot of, you know,
a lot of,
we have a lot of ideas as far
as, you know, using the gym and offering.
Not really for people who, you know,
the people who join a gym are motivated
people, right?
They want to, they go.
But there's a lot of people,
especially in PT clinics,
who they desire doing something like that,
but they are just not ready.
They're intimidated or whatever it may be.
They're confused and confused people
don't.
Yeah.
And so that's another thing I'm looking at
is offering a bridge, you know, that,
you know, so that you can,
you're done with therapy.
You want to do that.
You don't know how you're not sure you're
uncomfortable.
We can provide a bridge, um,
where that is, you know,
you're still under the guise of physical
therapy and we're helping you run through,
you know,
maybe you were here for your shoulder.
So we're still going to focus on your
shoulder.
Around the gym,
creating a program for you,
really working on your shoulder,
but you're in the gym space.
So you're getting used and comfortable to
that for that.
And then, you know,
now your shoulder is real good.
You've been doing it a couple of months.
Now they're more ready to like, yeah,
I am ready to do the gym and
do the whole body thing.
or whatever so part of it is looking
into programs like that being a bridge
from you're done with the hardcore pt but
you're not quite ready for the normal gym
stuff yet and maybe you know you're not
your shoulder or whatever it is isn't
quite where it needs to be yet here's
a way to fine tune and get ready
for the next step so that's another thing
we have we're kind of building toward is
that bridge
So here's why I like this.
I'm trying to channel my inner Tony
Meritato and Dave Kittle,
my co-hosts for our live stream.
Why wouldn't you be continuing that
relationship with the gym?
Of course you should and you are.
You're not doing anything fancy,
which is great, which is, hey,
if people are here, they should go there.
If they're there, we can,
you're building a bridge bridges work
into, they work both ways.
Exactly.
And then,
so what does a bridge look like?
Is it a program?
I, I, I knew a guy who, uh,
had a gym,
had the same similar setup right next to
a gym with a door, like quite literally,
there should be a door,
not literally telegraph.
There is a relationship here.
Um, but there's also a divider here,
right?
So the door works in a couple of
different metaphoric and literal ways.
Um,
um this this was smart and maybe you're
doing this the guy said hey listen all
your new gym membership people i have
extensive experience as a physical
therapist and also as a strength and
conditioning expert right how about this
every person that signs up for your gym
zero cost to you i will do they
sign up with me as a training session
i will walk them around and show them
how to safely
use every piece of equipment,
answer any questions, reduce anxiety.
Hey, for the, for the gym owner,
we're going to make sure no one breaks
your, breaks your stuff.
Yeah.
Like I'm sure that, Oh yeah, this is,
you're going to make sure no one's going
to break myself.
How much does this cost me?
I hear Tony and Dave yelling at me,
charge them something,
charge them something.
Maybe it could be a simple exchange of,
Hey,
it might not have to be monetary in
terms of exchange,
but that was a little sneaky,
sneaky that I wanted to tell the audience
where I think was brilliant.
So it's, it's, but it's the same thing.
It's the same minute script and it doesn't
have to be math, Matt doing it.
It could be anybody on your staff.
Oh, I never asked this.
What's your staff look like?
Like, like volume,
how many people you got?
We have eight total staff.
We have two more PTs.
You and two, three PTs total.
So we have an athletic trainer.
Nice.
Yep.
And can we do a lot of stuff
with the school as well?
Smart man.
Brilliant.
Keep going.
We have an aid in the back and
then we have three front office.
Three.
You guys are beefy.
Talk to me real quick about what the
athletic trainer does.
You said some stuff with the school.
Yeah.
I want you to double click on that.
Make that, make that bigger.
So, um, and this,
this started before I came, the owner has,
it's a, it's a small school,
so they don't have athletic training
services, right?
Now you got to get it.
And you're like, we'll fill it.
yeah so it's all volunteer you know and
uh you know go to all the football
games all the basketball games and then
we're there for we can't go to everything
but those are the big ones we go
to and then we help out with anything
else and i came on board i loved
high school sports i was like i actually
uh wanted to be an at as well
but that lifestyle i realized this isn't
for me
Yeah.
And so, but I was like,
this is perfect.
I can do a little bit of it,
but I'm still a therapist.
So through the years,
it got bigger and bigger.
And it was like, man, this is,
it was all volunteer.
And we're like, man, this is intense.
We need someone who's a little more
dedicated.
We have this athletic trainer who helps us
out now.
And he helps run a lot of those
things with the school.
So is there anything financial between the
school?
Because they're required to provide that,
right?
Athletic coverage in some states anyway,
right?
You know, I don't know.
I mean,
obviously a lot of the bigger schools
around the area have ATs,
but at our size of school and in
our district,
there's only one school I've ever seen
that has paid athletic trainer.
So how does this work?
You guys send this like pro bono?
Yep.
And then what is sort of on the
back end?
We're going to make sure about that.
we get yeah i mean so a lot
of it is that our market a lot
of it we use for marketing you know
it's just those games or community events
they see us out there there's that but
then yeah we a lot of it is
we see that we see the kids when
they get hurt when they get injured their
patients yeah like that you know stuff
like that um and then we get to
do talks you know with before parents
before games talking about concussions or
you know certain injuries so again that's
it that's an outlet for us to be
in the community
Talking to parents.
So we kind of view it as a
marketing thing as well.
Can I ask a question or two?
I'm a podcast host.
I'm probably going to anyway.
Have you heard us talk about the combine
idea that I've thrown around?
no what's that so all right so right
now you've got opportunity because you're
going to do some talks with parents and
you're on the field and maybe they give
you a banner at the football game or
whatever thanks to right let's say there's
no financial i think there should be
because you're talking about a school
district with budget and if it's legally
they have to provide it because of their
insurance i want them i want you i
mean i'm not a lawyer but i would
double click on that and go
looking at that yeah could we at least
cover his time you know what i mean
like an atc should be you know hundred
bucks an hour or whatever so i would
double click on that just to see but
here's how to make that relationship
slipperier so it's not a pipeline it's a
slide so my thing i was talking about
a few weeks ago was athletes love to
get ranked we're dumb we're big dumb
animals and i love it right yeah same
what we said was so we're recording this
in december right now
you're already like football's over,
right?
Football, high school football's over.
You're working towards next semester,
which is basketball, or is that going on?
Basketball has already started.
So what I would do is I would
look ahead to spring, track, tennis,
baseball, volleyball, maybe for girls.
It depends on the state and which indoor,
outdoor, whatever.
I would say take tennis, baseball, soccer,
whatever.
Go to your clinic and your gym.
Look around.
This is where you and your staff get
to get creative.
What are the,
if you turned high school baseball into a
combine, you know, two,
twenty five for reps, long jump,
high jump,
all the things they make NFL prospects do
create your own version.
But maybe for each sport.
Like baseball,
it sort of doesn't matter if I can
jump high.
So take that out.
But overhead, shoulder, whatever.
It doesn't matter, right?
Do ten events.
And then I'd throw combine day.
So you said you got a school district
in your town.
Where's the next closest one or two?
The next closest would be in Spokane
proper.
How far is that?
That's about a fifteen,
twenty minute drive.
And that's a lot of schools there.
So here's the thing.
I was going to say anything within a
thirty mile radius because thirty miles is
thirty minutes.
People might go for thirty.
They'd go a little further for especially
now, man.
I mean,
I got a buddy whose kid plays on
two hockey teams.
Neither of them are in New York State.
So what this would be is it's a
one day event.
Your team gets invited for two hours.
And here's an event and here's why you're
doing it.
Hey, before the season starts.
How's your team, man?
Did they do any of the stuff you
told them to do in the offseason?
We're going to have them do a combine,
see where they are.
Tell them what the events are, right?
Then have them do it.
Your staff mans each station to make sure
it's properly ranked,
just like the combine.
And you see where you are.
Now you go over to ChatGPT and you
make a spreadsheet.
You see who ranked first in this event
and you rank them who ranked first in
this event.
Then you do a combined.
Who's your best overall athlete coach?
Who is it?
Yeah.
Here's the best part.
Number one, you see who's doing well.
We can help them do better.
See who's the middle of the bell curve.
Hey man,
which side of the bell curve you want
to be on?
North side of the south side.
And then who's bringing up the rear?
This isn't a shame.
This is a show opportunity.
And the only way you can,
you can take this data and go and
train yourself and then whatever.
but the only way to see if you
got better is to come back and try
it again.
Yeah.
See where this is.
Like you could do this for free or
you can say, this is it.
Look,
you see how much time and resources I'm
putting into this,
but now you're not asking each individual
parent to pay.
It's a team thing.
Yeah.
And like parents these days are fricking
used to it for better or worse on
doing weird.
Like this is almost a showcase of,
But now you're saying,
is this something you want to do after
high school or do you want to get
better from freshman to junior to senior
year?
Phase one is the place you do it.
There you go.
Even though Spokane in my mind,
and I'm saying this for you,
but also the audience is listening.
I still think this combine idea has legs.
You can play with it and you put
the result.
But now look what you do.
Maybe you de-identify the data.
Right.
So it's just player one twenty seven
player six thirty five.
Right.
And you put the results on your Web
site and you're right.
Yeah.
Like what's what's the mascot of your high
school and the mascot in Spokane?
Do you know where the Eagles and what
Spokane what's one of them?
You got a bunch of schools.
One of them is the we call it
the Panthers.
So like, let's rank them, man.
Panthers, Eagles.
And now they're going, man, you're like,
look at that.
You're like, yeah, we do.
We don't have any dudes who are doing
overhead shoulder press who are, you know,
on the baseball team.
But like,
we've decided that's one thing we're going
to do.
How many overhead press at thirty five
pounds can you do?
I don't know.
Make it up.
yeah i don't know people love this stuff
peloton does this orange theory does this
this is already done i'm just stealing the
idea yeah that's great i know our athletic
trainer would he loves this stuff let so
here's my other okay good now that let
what's your athletic trainer's name ryan
let ryan own it yeah totally you give
him and you go hey man if this
grows into a thing let ryan be an
entrepreneur
So this will be okay the first year,
but then Ryan will be like, hey, man,
I'm seeing around corners now.
I'm seeing what this could be if he
wants to own it.
Yeah.
Oh, he totally would.
Next year.
You know what we should do next year?
Like, no, what, Ryan?
What should we do?
And be like,
you will financially be compensated
because we are now bringing in revenue
through this.
We're providing so much value and asking
them, this is what we're going to deliver,
and we're only going to charge you this.
Yeah.
And you could just do that backwards math
like this was going to cost us and
people you should be getting.
I don't know.
This to me,
I got excited when I found out.
You know,
and I can't believe I forgot this one.
Talk about another way we were making
money.
One thing we already started is Ryan did
a sport camp this summer.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
I can feed into it right there.
It was like an injury prevention before
school starts kind of thing.
I like framing it as a game because
we're big, dumb animals.
Yeah, yeah.
And it's like a showcase.
The showcase is about my kid and me,
right?
The combine is about me.
Injury prevention, in a good way,
PTs love to take these things.
Yeah.
About health care and medicine and
biomechanics.
I'm like, it ain't about biomechanics.
It's about,
am I going to do well next year
and look good in front of my classmates
or my teammates or my family?
And that's not selling snake oil.
That's reframing what people value,
in my opinion.
So I love the fact that you do
that.
That's a great revenue generator.
Again, provide this much value,
charge them this much,
laugh all the way to the bank because
they're excited and you get to keep the
lights on and then amplify.
Exactly.
One more thing that you're going to flip
now that you're driving the bus.
um so yeah that oh and then so
another thing we're going to do again
we're offering kind of what ryan was doing
with these clinics we want to our camps
we want to start offering various like
one-off clinics to the community uh in
what way i like it and um so
our other therapist blake uh who who
listens to you by the way yeah um
he is we're setting up a fall prevention
clinic right now
Got it.
What is it called?
If you listen to my live stream,
Tony makes fun of me all the time.
If it's got a mayonnaise name,
people are going to look at it and
think it's mayonnaise-flavored ice cream.
You got an idea?
There's AI all over the place.
What are you going to call it, though?
You tell me.
I want to know.
That's where, again, I need to…
We can workshop it,
but the first thing I'm going to do
is go to ChatGPT and explain what you
just said.
Then I'm going to go,
give me a name that slaps grandma across
the face.
Or even better,
slaps the forty-year-old grandma.
kid of the mom who's sixty eight across
the face like i'm forty six i would
say help i thought i've fallen and i
can't get up because that would be that
was the advertising campaign for that life
alert button that every every ten comer
every ten minutes that was a commercial on
in the nineties and two thousands you want
to grab their attention and give a shot
to grab the person who this is for
his attention you have to earn attention
first before you ever earn someone's even
thinking about maybe coming to where you
are
yeah at all period that's a great idea
well that's one area that again it's the
same thing it's the same thing it's a
combine for grandma yeah yeah but don't
call it a combine because grandmas don't
watch the nfl draft you know what i
mean but what blake is identify was this
blake's idea
Oh, it was mine.
And it was kind of both of our,
we've been talking about it for a while.
I'm not going to say I took it.
We've been talking about this for a while,
but it's his baby.
Yeah.
Like there's yes.
You're yes to all of this.
They're all combines.
Just don't call them combines.
Cause that wouldn't resonate.
Right.
Like, yeah.
Brilliant.
Yes.
And,
but also I would say whoever gave you
that advice said,
Map this out.
Use a Gantt chart.
And that's like fancy talk.
I've never put a Gantt chart together in
my life, but I've looked at them.
That's one of those charts where
essentially it's like this project is
going to start in January and it's going
to end in March.
And then this one's going to start in
March and end in June.
This one's going to start in May and
end in July.
Like map these out because the things that
you're talking about are very simple,
but not easy,
but very important if executed well
enough.
waste of time, energy,
and money if they're not executed well.
I got, you know,
my brain brains this way because when I
got put in,
when I got put in charge to run
a radio station,
I wanted to do all the things, right?
I had been the number two for a
long time and now I'm the number one
and I'm like, I do anything I want.
And then I started,
my boss was just like, like Stephen Covey,
start with the end in mind.
He was like, so I'm like,
I want to do an event where we
give away a thousand t-shirts and this and
this and this.
He goes, all right.
there you are on the back of the
pickup truck with the radio station logo
on it throwing away a thousand t-shirts
how'd you pay for them like what do
you mean our marketing budget for a fifty
thousand watt rock radio station was zero
dollars and that looked like a huge
limitation to me but it taught me how
to think of every one of these you
have to make you have to provide so
much value that it'll cover your costs
Yes.
And lead to revenue.
And if it doesn't,
we do not start that project.
Like Mr. Beast,
if he can't picture what the thumbnail of
the video looks like or the title of
the video looks like,
they do not ever take the camera out
of the bag.
And we should be doing that in business.
Yeah.
Because what we do is we lead with,
I want to help grandma.
Great.
start with what does the end look like
and work that's the cheat code it gets
real easy when you start in the future
not we're starting here where are we going
i don't know the future then how do
we know when we got there i don't
know if it's going to work we'll figure
it out i like that attitude but i
like that when you have a north star
and you can at least say there's the
north star let's reverse engineer yeah so
blake you and blake are onto something
with that as well
Cool.
I love it.
That's a great idea with the snazzy names,
man.
It's got to have a name.
Otherwise,
people don't know what to call it to
themselves and to others.
They can't promote your boring thing.
It doesn't fall out of their mouth.
Yeah.
Like if you watch the movie,
The Social Network,
Justin Timberlake's character turned to
Jesse Eisenberg and said, oh,
he like got up and he was about
to leave the restaurant.
He's like, oh, one more thing.
Drop the the.
Cause people don't call it the Facebook.
They're going to shorten it anyway.
You might as well do it for them,
but giving it a name.
I know it's, it costs zero dollars.
I don't have any data to support this,
but if there's no name, I don't, people,
they don't know what to follow.
They don't want to call it.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Perfect.
We got a few minutes left.
We'll go rapid fire questions.
This is not about your clinic anymore.
Okay.
Now,
because you have been doing extensive
research within your own clinic about the
profession in other clinics,
like the other one, a half hour away,
you're looking,
why is it time for PTs to get
out of the box now?
Why is now the time to change things?
This is you talking to other clinicians or
other owners.
Why is it time for PTs to get
out of the box now?
Because you still have a little time and
not much.
For what?
Before what happens?
Before what?
Before, you know, the story keeps going,
right?
Reimbursements from insurance keeps going
down.
Your costs keep going up.
Not going up, guys.
Yeah, eventually it's just going to,
it's not going to be sustainable.
Right now, like right now, we're doing it.
But it's not horrible.
It's not great.
But I feel if you don't start making
this transition soon,
and it takes a while,
like I'm having to learn this stuff,
a lot of trial and error.
It's going to take a while before it
gets up to where it's humming really good.
So you got to do it while you
still have, while you're,
what you're doing now still makes money.
make hay while the sun shines.
Cause once your hay gets wet,
I learned this.
Cause I was like,
where'd that phrase come from?
I don't, I don't do anything with hay.
I was like,
why is the hay with the sunshine?
Oh, once it gets wet, it's ruined.
I'm like, oh, then that makes sense.
Now that now make hay while the sunshine
makes sense.
Rapid fire.
What,
what do you think the clinic of the
future looks like to you?
What is, what is it to you?
I won't make you talk on behalf of
the entire profession.
That's too big.
What is the clinic of the future look
like, feel like, sound like to you?
oh man it's you know it's a warm
place where people can just they can come
in um you know without having to see
a doctor or not they come in and
uh it's not just about you know man
my shoulder hurts what what's wrong what
can you do for me and it feels
like what what is it that you are
having a hard time doing and what is
it that your quality of life is poor
right now what can we do to make
your quality of life better
It's a third place.
It's the place that you go,
not that you're forced to go.
It's a place you want to lean into.
It's a place you put on your calendar
because after work, I go work out.
Wouldn't it be beautiful if that place
also had a PT in it and we
could help a little bit?
If we could help a little bit to
a lot of people,
we don't need to charge people a lot
of money because we have a lot of
people who are helping a little bit.
Yeah.
So I like to focus more on like,
what is it about your,
what's your quality of life?
How can we make your quality of life
better in regards to, you know,
your function or whatever it may be.
And I think that's a big one.
And the other one is I like the
idea of no paper.
You know,
every it's just everything is clean.
It's just well running slick.
You got your your iPad, your kiosk,
whatever.
And but it also needs to be simple
because that's one thing because we went
with our EMR.
We're all digital now and all that stuff.
And I think it will get better as
the year goes on.
But the older generation still has a hard
time with it.
You know,
it's a little overwhelming for them.
So it needs to be something that's still
simple and clean.
I do think as time goes on,
as the new older generations,
they're going to be used to it.
Yeah.
Right.
But right now we still find they're going
to demand it.
Yeah.
If the workflow on the clinician end.
is even a little bit more friction-filled
than it is somewhere else,
you'll be fighting to get that good
clinician to come work for you.
You're asking smart people to make dumb
decisions.
They don't typically do that, right?
Come here and you're going to do more
work and there's going to be a little
bit of grain of sand in your sock
working here because it's going to suck a
little more and there's a little more
friction multiplied by every patient
interaction.
Smart people typically don't make dumb
decisions.
Make your offer to hire a clinician or
for someone to come work with you so
stunningly obvious that it would be dumb
for them not to do that.
And that is a thing to invest in.
What do you think the hardest,
what's the hardest thing about making the
leap to clinic ownership been so far?
The buck stops with you.
You're it, baby.
You are Atlas holding it up.
There's no one you can look back to
and say, if I get goofed this up,
it's on him.
No.
No one's going to save you.
No.
But I like it.
I do well with pressure.
I know what I do well with,
what I don't do well with.
And for me, deadlines, I like deadlines.
I like pressure.
Yeah.
It helps me stay on top of things.
When things are ambiguous,
when things are just kind of whatever,
that's where I don't do well.
So having a little bit of pressure for
me is a good thing.
All right.
So what I wanted to do,
you're a little bit –
uh abnormal we've never done this before
in the ten years of my podcast which
was i saw on linkedin that you were
doing this you are you've just left the
diving board yeah there's more to go like
we're gonna go through some changes
there's gonna be some really really scary
days and there's gonna be some great ones
man and as long as i think as
long as people are aware it ain't all
rainbows and sunshine there's gonna be
some clouds but there's on the other side
of the clouds there's gonna be some stuff
so what i'd like to do is we're
recording this in december
January, like come back in March.
Like, I'd like to talk to you.
I'd like to talk to four different
versions of Matt.
All right now.
And then three months, three months,
three months.
Right.
So love it.
And then just see,
and we'll have a similar, I'll try to,
I'll pull out the questions I asked you
now, and then we'll have,
so how'd that go?
Yeah.
Jimmy mentioned the combine.
Hey man, tried it.
Didn't work.
Okay.
Got it.
All right.
Lesson learned.
But that's what I want to do is
cause I want more.
If we don't show more people.
your face and hear your problems and your
successes i think our profession maybe
stalls because it's hard to see what
you're doing what you're doing is a very
you know your staff is seeing it but
that's small how do we make the small
big uh goofy little things called podcasts
and youtube we can do that so i'd
love to have you back in three months
three months three months and that'll be
like your first year and then you'd be
like what's the favorite birthday of the
parent the
First baby's first birthday.
Right.
Yeah.
And you're a little odd.
Right.
Because you're not you didn't start this
from zero, which is cool.
But I still think there's a ton of
lessons you're going to learn in the next
three, six, nine, twelve.
Yeah, that sounds great.
I love it.
And one thing I'm excited about and I
told my office manager,
one thing I want to keep track of
is I want to keep track of as
we as we do these cash pay services
and stuff.
what percentage of our total revenue is
cash pay, right?
So now it's zero.
Yeah.
And we're starting from zero and we're in
three months to be able to say,
Hey man, I don't know,
ten percent is cash pay and then six
months, twenty percent,
whatever it may be.
So that's exciting for me to kind of
have those milestones to look at and see
what percentage of the whole are we
starting to transition?
Love to see it.
Yeah, I'm super excited.
We're going to be back in three months.
If you've listened to the show before and
like Blake, Blake's like,
he knows what's coming next.
It's called The Parting Shot.
This is The Parting Shot.
One last mic drop moment.
No pressure.
Just your legacy on the line.
No pressure, Matt.
Just your legacy.
I'm alive for the parting shot.
Do you want to say thanks to Brooks
IHL?
That's Brooks Institute of Higher
Learning.
They've been supporting the show for,
I think, three years.
World-class residencies, fellowships,
and continuing education designed to turn
good clinicians into great ones.
They'll hold your hand,
have you walk the walk,
but then you're doing it on your own.
They're mentors for
their programs they're all built around
real world patient care and their grads
consistently become leaders in this great
profession of ours check out brooksihl.org
and see how far you can go it's
brooksihl.org all right parting shot no
pressure matt but hit me with it what
do you got oh man all i would
say for people who are interested in doing
this two things one
Do it.
There have been so many things in my
life where I'm just like, maybe, maybe,
maybe.
You know, but the thing is,
is to do it.
But the second thing is,
is to find people to help you go
along the way.
And for me,
that's been coaching and getting people
who have,
who are a step ahead of me and
say, Hey man, teach me what you know,
you know,
help me along this way and to be
open to ideas.
Yeah.
That has been by far the biggest help
for me is to find someone who has
done this, who has done this well,
and not just one person.
There can be,
obviously it can be multiples.
But to, and to help,
and they are so willing to help.
They really are.
Like people who understand and look at you
and they go, oh man, you're into some,
you're into some friction.
If I could reduce that friction,
if someone could have reduced that
friction for me by five percent, man,
I would have showed up.
I think the average is also higher in
our profession.
For better or for worse, right?
In terms of people willing to give time.
But there's a bunch of free resources.
There's paid resources.
You can ask people for free if the
paid resource is worth it.
Like a guy like Danny Matei.
Like that guy,
he tells people to go completely cash.
I mean, he's barely even tries.
I'm like, Danny,
you got to like boost up your marketing.
He's like, I don't need to.
We get two hundred clinic people who want
to run cash clinics in in-person events
twice a year.
He goes, I sort of don't need to.
And I'm like, damn,
that's when there's desire,
when the desire, the demand is.
Yeah.
Um, shoot people, uh, the website,
where do they go to see your clinic
website?
I want clinicians to see your website.
Cause maybe it changes over time too.
Where would you send them?
Yeah.
It's a phase one.
That's the number one phase one pt.com.
We will be updating that soon as well
with all these things.
It's going to be changing as time goes
on, but not all at once, Matt.
Perfect.
All right.
Good.
Matt, appreciate your time, man.
Thanks for doing this.
Hey, thank you.
I appreciate it so much.
That's it for this one,
but we're just getting warmed up.
Smash follow, send it to a friend,
or crank up the next episode.
Want to go deeper?
Hit us at pgpiecast.com.
Or find us on YouTube and socials at
pgpiecast.
And legally, none of this was advice.
It's for entertainment purposes only.
Bullshit!
See, Keith?
We read the script.
Happy now?