Done Is Better Than Perfect: Test PT Business Ideas Fast | E215
Aug 15, 2019
In short: Done is better than perfect: if you have a new idea for your PT business, get it out there, test it, and let real feedback tell you whether it is worth building. In Episode 215 of the PT Entrepreneur Podcast, Danny Matta explains why fast testing separates seasoned business owners from newer ones, how to pay experts for consulting calls to speed up your learning, and why the only feedback that counts is people voting with their wallet.
Key Takeaways
- Speed of implementation wins. Danny sees successful owners who have scaled past themselves test ideas quickly, while newer owners often wait until an idea is perfect.
- Test like you are fishing. Throw an idea out, and if nothing bites, try another spot until you find where the interest is, then go after it.
- Borrow from The Lean Startup. Tech companies release products, wait for them to break, fix them, and use direct user feedback instead of waiting for perfection.
- Pay for expertise instead of picking brains. Ask people who are already doing what you want to do whether they offer consulting calls and what their rate is, then pay them for their time.
- People vote with their wallet. Praise from friends and family means little, but when someone puts their credit card down, you know the idea deserves your effort.
What You'll Learn in This Episode
- Why speed of implementation and testing matters more than perfection
- The fishing analogy for testing new ideas in your practice
- What PT owners can learn from The Lean Startup
- How to ask for a paid consulting call instead of asking to pick someone's brain
- Why paying customers, not friends and family, are the real test of an idea
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I wait until my new PT program or workshop is perfect before launching it?
No. Danny Matta says it is never going to be perfect, so get it out there, get real-time feedback, and see how people respond. If people are interested, then work to make it as good as possible.
How do I validate a new service idea for my physical therapy business?
Put the idea in front of people and see whether they buy. Danny explains that people vote with their wallet, and once someone puts their credit card down, you know you have something you can build part of your business, or an entire business, around.
How should I reach out to an expert for business advice?
Do not ask busy people if you can pick their brain, because there is no value in it for them. Instead, ask if they do consulting calls and what their rate is, explain what you are trying to figure out, and pay them for their time, which saves you far more time, energy, and frustration than it costs.
Why does feedback from friends and family not count?
Friends and family are not paying you, so their opinion that something is a great idea does not tell you if anyone wants it. Real customers paying for your offer is the feedback that matters.
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Full Episode Transcript
Hey, what's going on, guys? Doc Danny here with PT Entrepreneur Podcast, and I'm coming out to you with a little bit of a nugget of information, something quick that can help you and actionable. We try to do these on Thursdays where, where we give you something that you can start doing in your practice right away.
And one of those things that I want to talk about today is speed and speed of implementation, speed of testing, speed of getting things into your business, and actually, you know, integrating those things instead of. Just talking about them and dreaming about them and thinking about all the ins and outs of like what needs to happen.
And I had a few calls today with people that were interested in, in working with us from a, from an ongoing kind of business, education and support standpoint, VR Mastermind. And, one thing that I can tell you after talking to, I had a conversation with about four or five people today. It was, there's a commonality in, People that get things done quickly and how that can be beneficial for their business and people that procrastinate and try to become, you know, experts in this thing before they do it. Or it has to be perfect. It's all idea of like, Oh, well, I'm not going to do this until it's perfect.
I can't tell you how many things I've put out before they were. Even like a well-formulated idea, to test the response of what I'm going to get back from people in our, in our community or people in our business. And when I find something, it's like fishing. Like you throw something in there.
It's like, all right, that spot. Nothing's, nothing's biting. Let me try over here, nothing's binding. I can throw it over here. Okay, cool. It's, there's some fish here now I'm going to see, If I can get something right and if I can get something, then I'm going to throw it back, get him to get something else.
And this whole idea of testing quickly and then finding the things that work and then going after those things, I think is very rare in newer business owners and very common and successful business owners that, that have had to scale and grow, past themselves in particular. So, you know, if you are.
Sitting there, thinking to yourself, man, I had this thing. I've wanted to do this initiative, this workshop. I've wanted to teach this whatever like blanket program you've wanted to put together to sell to other people potentially. This additional aspect of your business. Well, you need to do is get it out there, you know, get some feedback and see how it goes.
There's, there's this whole idea of this, this, there's a book called the lean startup, and it's all about what tech companies do, which is precisely this. They throw something out there, and they wait for it to break. Then they fix it, and it breaks again. They set it, and it breaks again, and they see what. You know, we're sponsored get from the user base that they have, and that's how they start some of these applications, that blow-up and that are successful because they're getting direct feedback from people and they're not waiting until it's perfect.
Cause if they did that, they would get no feedback from the end-user. And they wouldn't know if it was something that anybody wanted. They could spend all this time and money on it, and it wouldn't be something that somebody wanted. So make sure if you have something that you want to test with your business, put it out there.
Test it. Don't worry about what people say about it. It's not going to be perfect. And if it looks like something people are going to be interested in, then get after it and try to make it as right as possible. The other thing I would say is don't be afraid to leverage. People that are doing something that you would like to do.
Try to figure out how to do that thing better. And by this, I mean setting up times to talk to people that in some capacity can consult with you. I do this all the time. I just did this tonight with somebody that was doing something in a, in a, an element of our business that I want to try to be able to do better as well.
And instead of me trying to figure it out all on my own, I'll look and see, okay, well, so and so, it seems to be doing a pretty good job of this. Reach out to him. Hey. And, and don't reach out to somebody and say like, Hey man, can I pick your brain? That's not going to happen. If somebody's busy and they're there, they've got a lot of things going on, and you're just like wasting their time because there's no one here in value for them.
But if you say, Hey, do you do consulting calls? If so, what's your, what's your rate? This is what I'm trying to figure out. You seem to have this stuff pretty well figured out. Please send me, you know, an estimate of what this would cost and, and a, and an invoice if it sounds like it's something that we can do and pay them for their time because they're going to be much more likely to want to help you and teach you the things that work and the amount of time you're going to save with that and the amount of, Energy and frustration you're going to keep with that is exponentially more than what it's going to cost for you to jump on the phone with somebody or a zoom call or whatever it is. So make sure that you're leveraging people around you that are doing things that you want to try to achieve yourself.
Excuse me. Any people that you don't even really know, just digitally, you see something that they're doing, and you can use them, and their time to help you speed up this transition within a new element of your business, whatever it might be. And then test it and get it out there and get feedback.
And don't worry about us not being perfect. Just get it out there. Get some amount of real-time feedback. And don't forget that people vote with their wallet, and if they like what you're doing, they'll buy it. And if they don't want what you're doing, they won't. So. Realized quickly, you'll get information in real-time.
And if your friend, your sister or your brother or whatever is like, yeah, that's a great idea, Danny. Like they don't know what the hell they're talking about because they're not paying you for that. But as soon as somebody puts their credit card down, they say, yep, I want to do this. Now. You know you got an option that you can put your efforts behind and, and build an element of your business or an entire business around that.
So if you guys are sitting on the fence and I'm trying to think about doing something, it's just not perfect yet. It's never going to be perfect. Done is better than perfect. Get it out there, test it, and see how people respond with their actual wallet.
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