E476 | The Importance of Brand Building

Yves and I discuss one of the biggest and most underutilized aspects of your business, and that is your brand. If you want to eventually build a business and scale past yourself one day, you have got to build a brand in order to achieve this. We dive into strategies that have worked for us in brand building. Enjoy!

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Podcast Transcript

Danny: [00:00:00] So there's all kinds of hidden fees within your business that are just part of doing business. One of those is credit. Processing and for us, we didn't even realize how much we were paying in credit card processing with the first management software we were using for our practice. And when we switched over to PT everywhere, we just realized we were saving literally hundreds of dollars a month with credit card processing with their partner with Card point versus who we were using with our prior.

Software. This has made a massive difference. It's more than paid for itself. It allows us to decrease our overhead. It allows us to have more cash flow to reinvest in our people, in our technology, in our facility, in marketing and everything that's gonna drive the business. So don't get abused by credit card processing companies.

Make sure you're paying what you should pay. And if you're looking for a management software, highly recommend PT everywhere directly integrates. Processor makes it very easy and their rates are super, super competitive. So it's saved us a ton of money and it probably will do the same for you if you don't know what you are getting charged.

So head over to PT everywhere. Take a look at what they've [00:01:00] got. I think you really like it. So here's the question. How do physical therapists like us who don't wanna see 30 patients a day, who don't wanna work home health and have real student loans create a career and life for ourselves that we've always dreamed about?

This is the question, and this podcast is the answer. My name's Danny Matte, and welcome to the PT Entrepreneur Podcast.

What's going on guys? Dam Tay here at PT Biz and Eve, Gigi jumping in the PT Entrepreneur's Facebook group. Today we're talking about one of our favorite topics, which is your brand, how to build a brand. What the hell is a brand? What brands do we like? To give you some ideas of what you can do.

And I think this is a sort of underrated aspect of a business that makes a big difference, especially long term. And normally when we get started, all we think about. Clients, [00:02:00] how do I get some clients? Initially, that's it, we're survival phase. But once you get past that point and you start to build a business that's more than just you, which oftentimes very few people actually do in this sort of space and industry, it's usually one practitioner with a good reputation that sort of just eats what they kill.

And that's fine if that's what you want. That's your goal. A lifestyle business. There's nothing wrong with that. If you wanna build a business that you can scale past yourself, potentially sell, bring other people in where it's not just people coming to see, Danny or Eve individually.

You gotta build a brand. So we're gonna talk about, that a little bit. Eve you got anything to add to, to the brand and why it's important? Yeah,

Yves: for sure. I feel like what I did relatively well in my practice when I started my cash-based practice, cause I already had some business experience, was like I built it intentionally from the beginning to build an actual brand, right?

To build something that's people are like, Hey, made to move is an awesome place. Had nothing to really to do with me. It had something to do with the brand itself. And I think that's something you can intentionally do from the beginning. And I think [00:03:00] that's gonna be hopefully the big takeaway. From today's podcast, today's live stream.

Danny: Yeah. And to your point, you built, a, this cash-based practice you scaled it past yourself, which is hard. I got a a Voxer message today from one of our mastermind members. It's like, how do I get people. To stop wanting to see me and wanting to go see my new pt. And I started laughing out loud.

I was like this, everybody has the same problem initially whenever you bring somebody on, cuz it's just been you for so long. For you it made to move. You built this, this brand, this company, we're able to move past yourself to really e exit your time there and. Sell and move on, which is a pretty rare thing to do within a cash-based practice in particular, I think a very hard thing to do.

And I think a lot of that is because you built something that was independent, of yourself. What would you say the main sort of component pieces of the brand that, you built when you started initially, that you were like, man, I gotta make sure I get these few things, you

Yves: know [00:04:00] what I think. They're more intangible things that I can attribute these things to. I think number one is I had a very clear like vision of what I wanted me to move to be, right? Purely from a conceptual standpoint. I really had a really good idea of who I wanted around me, what I wanted to talk about, and what I wanted to stand for.

So my message has been super clear. From the beginning. There's been nuances and I've evolved clinically and I've evolved for sure as a person. But really the stance of what made to move is has not changed over the past 6, 7, 8 years. And that was clear from the beginning. I think that's, that was number one.

Number two, I vividly remember always using the word, and this is this seems like a really small thing to do, but I think it was huge of always using the word we, right? And I didn't necessarily, we as in like me and all my employees, I mean we as in the people who also believe in who I am and what I'm doing and what made to move stands for.

And I always did that every time I talked about it. Every time I. Got on social [00:05:00] media, I had a meeting with somebody. It was more about Hey, we are doing this together. This is what we stand for. And I did that intentional from the beginning. And I think really those two things, beyond, something that I am, I'm relatively good at was just like building systems from the beginning of like ways to instantly buy my time back and like e-myth style or like we're gonna talk about like a McDonald's, right?

I wanted it to be very like cookie cutter's not the right word, but I want it to be consistent the way around. And I was building that from day one with that in mind.

Danny: Yeah. And I think that the mi one of the bigger mistakes that we see, Early on, and not to say that this isn't this, I don't know if this is a mistake.

I think it's hard to move past yourself if you name the practice after yourself, right? Sure. And for better or worse, people have built big businesses with their name on things, and so maybe I'm wrong about that. But from what I've seen in just within our own consulting practice, People that do that, the people that call [00:06:00] that business wanna see the person with that last name, it's, it is harder to move past that and move around.

For the two of us, we both named our practices fairly vague things, could be something different. I didn't know if I wanted to open a gym or open a physical dairy practice. So whenever I short athlete's potential, I made it vague on purpose. That was part of it.

And. To this day. We could make that pivot and do it if we want the name the sort of the feel of the practice, the logo, like these are all things that, that go into it. And in particular, and I'll talk for a second about just like design, right? I think this is something that early on most people are not concerned with.

They don't really care to build. A brand, a design of the brand in particular that costs anything. You're gonna get the cheapest logo you possibly can. You're gonna spend the least amount of time on your website that you possibly can, and you're just gonna get up and going cuz it's a place where you can save money.

And I don't necessarily think you need to dump a bunch of money into this, but I do think taking some time and getting somebody. Pretty professional, at a minimum to [00:07:00] build a logo for you that has some sort of meaning to it in particular to you. As well as get a good idea of what you want your color scheme and fonts to look like.

And I never really paid much attention to this, but my wife. Does she's obviously like much more attention to detail than I am. She's very particular about the fonts that we use. The same fonts over and over again. The same shade of blue. You know who knew there were so many shades, the color numbers,

Yves: I never knew there were color numbers.

There were color numbers. I'm like, color number. I'm like, I don't understand what

Danny: that means. I had somebody ask me that whenever we were outsourcing our site to have it built out or, and. I don't know how do I figure that out? And they sent me to a website to put our logo in to then figure out what blue color, number it was.

Cuz they're very different, right? But if you're looking at somebody's site, I think the easiest thing to do as a consumer is to ask yourself what. Like businesses do I resonate with as far as like the, like wanting to replicate something similar, and it doesn't necessarily have to [00:08:00] be in the same industry, but like what businesses?

You go into their location or you go on their website and you're like, man, this just feels right. It feels like they're doing something correctly. Things are consistent. But if you go to somebody else's site and let's just use this as a digital representation and they. All kinds of different texts.

There's a big gaps in the paragraphs or whatever. The images don't look right, they all look stock. Like all the things that you don't want to see. Don't do that to your own business because you're essentially just you're doing the same thing. And other cons, consumers will feel the same way about your brand, especially your digital footprint and your physical footprint when they go in those as well.

Yeah, no, I

Yves: agree. Early on, I know that people pay more attention to the bigger brands, right? There's a reason like Coke, Nike, these people aren't top. They have clear branding. You can recognize it from afar. And that stuff is really important. I think that's honestly a good point for people.

If you're just starting to do this, find a couple brands that maybe you [00:09:00] like, and do a little research on him, you're great about this, right? You find somebody that you enjoy and you go down the rabbit hole. We were just talking on

Danny: everything.

Yves: And I did the same thing, right? I was like, mission, I went mission statement, vision statement, which got cool ones and Right.

Just go down the rabbit hole a little bit and spend a little time researching and build that stuff out, like what comes to mind almost instantly. You said Soul Cycle when we were talking earlier, but orange Theory does a great job of this, right? Greetings orange and it's very clear.

People welcome you, you can tell, no matter where you are. Even CrossFit to some degree did a really good job of this, right? You can find brands out there that you resonate with and. I love going into other industries, and like pulling stuff over. I don't think us as health professionals,

Danny: we don't do that enough.

Yeah. And you bring up a good point that we were talking about earlier is like the level of detail that some of these brands will take is pretty significant. And I've never actually been in a soul cycle, but I've looked into the window into one before. There's one near this shopping center here in Atlanta and I.

I was just like, just honestly, I was impressed with the level [00:10:00] of design detail that they take even in their kind of front desk area where their welcome desk is. And I was looking at, all their, whatever their branding. One of the things that caught my eye was the fact that.

They have trash bags that are the same yellow brand color as like their accent yellow is, in, in their in their logo and in the storefronts. And I even looked this up. I like looked up SoulCycle and I actually read an article on the founders talking about, Why they thought trash bag colors were important.

And I was like, this is crazy. This is crazy detail. Yep. That you don't think of. I don't even know if we have colored trash bags at Spens. I have no idea. But they, people would see that and then they wanted to make sure that was on brand. And you look at a company like that and it feels a very specific way and it really attracts a certain avatar.

And you gotta know your avatar. Soul Cycle, for instance, and Panda Express are very different. They're very different businesses, but yet, Each [00:11:00] one has a unique brand feel and consistency. And if you go into one versus the other which, Panda Express, we hit up a little Panda Express when we were in on our planning trip, which is delicious, by the way.

I don't know. Anybody thinks it's not good. It's right. It's amazing. Forget that was my first hand express trip. You're welcome. Amazing. And, but I, you're right, I went down the rabbit hole. I started learning about these people and it, they're fascinating. And, those, pan Express is owned by a couple, a husband and a wife.

They've been doing it for 45 years. They own basically every single one of those restaurants, about 2000 of them. There's not a franchise. They're very strict about how they set those up, who runs them all. All of the way in which they're like laid out. They're very strict protocols on how they do.

And con consistency of what they do is a big part of it. But they also know who their avatar is, and their avatar is not the avatar of somebody going to SoulCycle. In fact, it's, they're probably vastly different, yet they still have brand identities that are specific to those people and carried over into [00:12:00] multiple locations, which I think is really, the key for a brand to be able to scale to that, even if you only have one location.

Building something that could be replicated in other places is a great place for you to be because it makes your business more valuable overall.

Yves: Yeah. And that stuff is not that hard to do, right? Let's say you gotta practice in a gym or you're maybe in a more of a wellness space. I remember vividly, so when I started I was in a CrossFit gym.

And this CrossFit gym had no air conditioning. It was a little more on the grungy side, like a typical CrossFit gym. And I didn't want that. I wanted people to walk into my little room and it to look and feel completely different, right? So I did some very intentional things and it really wasn't that expensive.

Like really good flooring, right? Whiteboard to cover some of the stuff like industrial stuff made like a standup industrial desk and I think that went a long way for people to feel welcoming. Okay, this is a little bit different than everything else, and that was just on brand for me, I'm not saying you have to do that specific thing, but there's little things you can do to create that environment in the beginning, and as you said I think from a marketing [00:13:00] perspective, like that's one of the simplest things you could do, right? Is create like an ideal environment for your avatar, and build something like that.

Like it can help with word of mouth. It can help spread your brand. People like, oh, it's really awesome. He's got oak flooring in there, right? Or whatever, right? Just gives people something to talk.

Danny: Yeah, and I think it's something that you don't know what you need to build until you know who you're trying to attract, first of all.

Because, you might say, okay, I only want to, have. Fire breather cross. For the athletes that are coming in there, they're not gonna care what the hell you have going on. In fact, like the less, the more stripped down that it looks, probably the more appealing it is to them. Versus, you have like middle aged professionals, which is a lot of what our practices see, people with families and people are trying to stay active and as long as they can in a active aging population, I guess you wanna call it that, and that, that's gonna be very different.

Like that's gonna be more of. A, a clean environment, an environment that looks organized, your business [00:14:00] looks organized because of that's gonna have consistency in, in, in front of in, in terms of brand, equipment that looks like it's not 30 years old. Like all these things that you're trying to appeal to a certain type of person.

You have to think about that yourself. And if you have a hard time with that, your best bet is to get somebody. Is very detail oriented to take a look at your space. You could hire somebody. We hired a designer whenever we built out our office, which was a great, honestly Great R roi. Looking back on it, I was hesitant cuz it was expensive, but man, she was like looking at all kinds of crap that we had no idea even to think about.

And it made a big difference in terms of just how the space felt and flowed as well, which is another big part of it. As far as the brand goes. And then the other thing for us was actually getting a legit designer involved in in our logo. The first logo that we had was, I think I put it on Fiver and I got, I literally paid five bucks to have somebody make a logo.

And. We [00:15:00] rebranded with a new logo and we paid a decent amount of money to get entire design stack letterhead, email templates, right? Different types of logos and really good ones that we could adjust and change and add to different things without losing quality.

So I think that's a really important step for people to make. And not necessarily you have to start there but if you plan on scaling past yourself, I think it's a really good place to reinvest. Honestly, you reinvest in the business.

Yves: Yeah, and like honestly, that's cost effective now, right?

There's things like 99 designs. There's a lot of places where you can get really good logos at a pretty decent price, right? Like you don't have to go pay thousands of dollars. You can, right? But there's ways to do this kind of in a cost effective and intentional way. And I think that's really the big part of it, is that you're intentionally building this the first one, there was no intent behind it.

Just like you said, you just were throwing something up there. Let's get as many new patients as possible. And you're like, oh, wait a minute. This stuff matters. So let me rebrand. Let me put something together that makes a lot of sense. And I can use on a hat as well as a shirt, right? There's just certain things that like, we don't think, like I wouldn't know oh, that [00:16:00] logo's gonna look terrible on a shirt.

I wouldn't think of something like that until it's too damn late,

Danny: Yeah, no, for sure. And I think that's a good point. Is it, it comes down to what do you want that to look and feel? The space, your digital presence. But then also, a big part of your of your brand is your avatar, who you're, who you are appealing to.

And one of the best ways to do that is to actually create content specific to help those people. Part of your brand is actually like in, in your current sort of marketing state, content is a huge part of that. And your content will directly draw in or repel the right and wrong people to your brand.

So if you have a brand that focuses specifically, let's say this is like a runner specific brand, if we pull this all together like I would assume I walk in your facility, I probably. A treadmill of some sort with some sort of gate analysis software. I see pictures of runners or something to do with running.

You hopefully look like you run as well. You're probably wearing running [00:17:00] shoes, you probably have a shirt. That is something that should be comfortable for a runner to, to run in that. That your company logo, is on and on your digital presence. You want to have something that speaks to that visually, right?

Somebody that's running or a race or something like that, as well as content and videos and just educational elements of your digital brand, your digital footprint that are directly solving the problems of the people you're trying to, acquire as customers. And that all has to kind. Work together.

But if you really think about it, it just comes down to really knowing who you're trying to serve and then making your decisions based off of that. So I think, the digital sort of brand footprint is also a huge ecosystem. As far as value in the practice, if I'm looking at somebody's practice and.

I, I'm looking to buy them. Let's say that I'm gonna look to acquire your practice, say I'm acquiring this running practice, right? If they have all these things, it's much more valuable to me than just some guy that's good at working with runners that has nothing [00:18:00] built around it. I can't leverage anything.

There's nothing of value there. So if you're gonna do this, you might as well do it and build value in your actual business so that you can have. Exit one day if you decide you wanna do that, or you have more value that you can just put on autopilot and have somebody else run as, as a long-term strategy.

So I think you have to really think about content, and that's something that we both did a lot of. Like how many YouTube videos did you guys have on your channel whenever you finished. Yeah, I

Yves: mean we sold like two to 3000, something like that. And that's not even counting obviously. What was on Instagram, what was on blogs?

Same thing like you, we just flooded things with content and part of that too was like finding my voice and a little bit of finding the avatar as well. Some of it was just me exploring and really Finding myself. Or find, who I really resonated with.

And just to double tap on that, I think that can't be understated. It's like the foundation is, your brand identity is really being clear on who you wanna serve, right? And once you do that's when the brand from a environmental standpoint, what are clinic looks like, what kind of message you put out there.

That's where that [00:19:00] stuff's gonna come into play.

Danny: I think you're right too about, the branded content, very much being extension of you. And for a lot of people, they are uncomfortable with content, especially video-based content early on. But it's this leads into another part of your of your actual brand which I think.

The culture of everybody there and you can feel it, it's you can see it, you can see how people interact with each other, but not just me as an owner, but customers can see that. They can see if, you have rapport with other people that are, they're in there. If your staff clinician and office manager.

Are joking around about something or they just don't even say a word to each other, like big difference in terms of what do you want that space to feel like? Is it a, is it is it a place that's fun to be, that people want to come back to? That's one thing that we wanted to do and we did intentionally.

COVID has created a little bit of a challenge for this in terms of a group environment that we learn to be, but we put an espresso machine in our office and [00:20:00] our office manager would make everybody learns how to make coffee in our company because they'll make those for their patients.

Our office manager will make 'em a, a latte or whatever on the way out. We wanna do something that was gonna. Like a coffee shop feel of a physical therapy practice where it was like come in and say hello kind of place. And I know you guys did something very similar and I that's something that's intentional.

It's not by accident.

Yves: Yeah. I think we say this all the time. Our superpower as smaller grassroots, performance-based practices is the community aspect, right? Like creating a brand and creating a community to support that brand. And those are very intentional things.

Yeah. Like we did the same thing the first thing that I ordered before I ordered anything else in my standalone space was, A kegerator of cold brew coffee. That was purchase number one. Dangerous. And that's intentional. Like I, we saw another gym that had it and I was like, that is the coolest thing I've ever seen.

I need to have that in my office where people can just come by appointment or not, [00:21:00] and have some cold brew coffee. And it was the like, Your clinics we'll call it humming, and you got one or two therapists, patients are in there, the front desk, you got people checking out, checking in.

Everybody's having a good time. Like it's one of the best feelings, right? And there's layers to that. We talked about the foundational layers of building the brand and the culture, but like now you're talking about the culture of your company and people look like they're having fun and.

That's just, I just, I can remember those moments vividly, and it's like some of the best moments of my life to sit back and be there. I'm not even seeing patients. I'm just like hanging out and

Danny: it's awesome. It really is, man. I catch myself going to our office and just I'm really bad at efficiency.

I crush everyone's efficiency because I'm just hanging out. But our like, Our patients are cool, like they're interesting people. They're actively trying to get better. I think our office manager, Claire, is like one of my favorite people in the world. She's just funny, she's lived [00:22:00] many different lives.

She she's been to. I think over a hundred Grateful Dead concerts. She used to work on a blueberry farm. Like she, she's just interest, she's an interesting person and so I'd like to hang with her and sh and her, chat with other people that are in there. And you're right. I think there's something to be said for that environment of it being a, like you wanted to be a place where, It is, you look forward to going.

I think we've all been in, we've all been in PT clinics where it's this is a depressing ass place. I don't wanna be here any longer than I have to. I spent, I remember I had a two month rotation at a VA hospital clinic. And it was just, there's you're in a basement.

There's no windows, it's all just, Whatever terrible lighting, you feel like crap. You haven't seen the sun in forever. No one wants to be there. It's just beat you down, man. And we wanted the complete opposite of that. Just a fun place. A place where, we enjoy not just for our clients, but like also our staff, like in a place where they like being at work.

It's not like a, a rough place for them to want to go. They enjoy being there, which I think has a lot to do with your [00:23:00] culture overall. If your people are happy. If they have a work environment that is, engaging and fun and other people around them that are, they enjoy talking to and being around it, it goes a long way.

Especially as far as like retention goes and not having a massive amount of turnover.

Yves: Yeah, we had our yearly retreat and there's about six or seven of us in there and the best. Is just seeing that culture continue even I'm not, I'm no longer an active part of it.

And it's the same kind of culture and again, the same mission that we talked about six or seven years ago, right? And people aren't used to that. I still think, unfortunately, it's rare to have those kind of kinds of places. It still happens. It happens in insurance-based clinics. It happens in corporate culture, right?

But like I still think it's fairly rare to find these kind of environments where kind of everybody has a voice. Everybody's treated as an equal, right? I really made note of it. Cause there's one or two kind of new people in the mix and they, you could tell that they're like, this is not un expected.

You know what I mean? This is not the kind of job that like I even [00:24:00] thought maybe even existed, you know? Yeah. And that's also a good feeling. And I, again, I think that's what we're trying to create here, not only within our own companies and within PT Biz, but now to that cascade effect of you.

Telling people this is an option. Like I'd never thought this was an option. I was just thought like I've just, I liked my patience, but I just thought I just had to grind through these kind of crappy environments and just make the best of it. And I was like, that's no longer true.

Danny: Yeah. And your people are extension of that. I think this is what people like we, you look at it as an employee early on as a cost, or okay, I'm gonna hire somebody else to be on our team and they cost me this much per month. And. For sure you have overhead associated with that, but you also have another human being that is, repping your business.

I if they really like where they're at, I mean they're it's easy to talk about where you work and have, hopefully have pride in that and be able to not feel necessarily like it's just a job, but it's really your career. Which is what we really wanted and for us, we looked at it like and still do, [00:25:00] what can we do that makes the lives of our staff as good as we can?

So we don't overload them with too many hours. I don't think anybody on our staff has more than 32 or 33 patient. Like hours per week. That's not a day, that's per week. So like they're, they don't have any more than that. They have built-in breaks throughout the day to do documentation. We have we, we have probably more paternity leave for people than most people have maternity leave.

Like Ashley got six weeks when she was working for this nonprofit. Whenever we were out in Hawaii and I think we're right around there, it's four or six weeks that we're giving people that didn't even push it out of their body. Let's put that, keep that in mind. Like you, you had a baby, that's important, but it's not like you, you carried it and pushed it outta your body.

We just want you to enjoy time with your family. Do you think that would afford. Things like that. And for us, we're always like, man, how do we become the Google of cash pt, locations? How do we be a place where people like want to be a part of and work and as well as attract really high quality people that want to be really good at what they do.

So a lot of that is your brand. It's [00:26:00] and it attracts people. I'm sure you guys get people that apply to work, with made to Move without having to advertise for it because they want to work in a place like that. The same thing happens with athletes potential, and that's a great place to be, but it comes down to consistency of your decisions that you're making, what you're doing, and how you're presenting yourself, virtually as well as physically.

Which really boils down to your.

Yves: Yeah. What another amazing hidden benefit is like if you build a brand, not only is it gonna help you market, At basically no cost, right? But it's also gonna help attract the right people to you, right? Talented people, or just again, people that like you resonate with, right?

People that you want to hang out with every day, right? We have this, I think I learned it from you. And you create a framework for us. If I'm not, if I don't wanna have a beer with you or a coffee with you, then I'm probably, don't wanna work with you every day, right?

I don't, I'm not gonna hire you, right? I'm not gonna hire you. Why isn't that just a normal hiring tactic that makes so much sense? Like how much time do you spend with people in your job? And if you get to if you can attract those people right away, it makes it so [00:27:00] much easier because we're seeing that, right?

We're seeing that in the Mastermind right now. It has been difficult to attract talent. It's been difficult to get some of these people to buy into what performance based cash PT is doing. Cuz it's sometimes scary, right? So I, I think finding the right people and building the brand.

It's going to weed a lot of people out really quickly. And people are just gonna seek you out because, yeah. I think I did a good job of that and made to move, right? Because I was out in the community. I taught at the PT school. I did as much as I could, and I got super lucky. I never had to really put resumes out there.

I always had somebody in the pipeline. And it's been, I think, a superpower

Danny: of. That we have not, really haven't either. And I think, it does help, I think. Look, if you're looking at your brand, and I had this discussion with people frequently about. Making the move from a satellite office, like a subleased office in a gym to a standalone space, and the amount of credibility that gives you is significant because you are [00:28:00] build, you're taking one mu, one really big step towards a, an visual, visually, at least an actual like real company and brand.

That will help you tremendously as far as hiring goes. I know for me, like the actual, the first person that we offered a job to turned us down and it was Honestly, I look back on it and I'm like I probably would've turned me down too. I was in this crappy little office I didn't really know what I was gonna do next, I was just hustling and I thought I'd get somebody else in there to do the same.

We were gonna share office hours, wherever. And this guy was like I appreciate the offer. And he ended up going, working somewhere else. Here in Atlanta and as we built our standalone office and we had a place where people could come in and be like, whoa, this is an actual place I can work.

Versus, this gym that we were at. It tr it changed a ton in terms of applicants and people that were trying to get a job with us. And so I think if you're really looking at. Long term your brand and your actual, the feel of what you're doing and [00:29:00] acquiring the right people. You have to build a place to attract them, right?

And where they want to work. And that means risk on our part. Like that is why you get rewarded as an entrepreneur because you take the time you borrow the money you go out and you put the work in to build a place. You can't necessarily sustain right away not a hundred percent at least, and get other people in the door that are gonna help you build towards your vision.

So that brand side of it I think is really important, especially standalone location. And I think building out a standalone location might be one of the more fun things that I've done, aside from all the stress of the delays that we had, but being able to build this thing out that you have in your head.

There's something really cool about that. And. As soon as I did this, and I don't know if this was like this with you, but like my family was like, oh crap, do you have an actual business? Look at this, you can stand in it, like you can see it. I have a, and that's a cool feeling. That's like something you can share with your kids and your family.

And so [00:30:00] all of that goes into your company, your brand that you're building. But I think that's a scary step for a lot of people. So hopefully, that doesn't deter you from taking that step cuz it will change your business in a positive way if done correct. Yeah,

Yves: The standalone space, just having a place to congregate and have meetings, right?

It's a huge milestone for people. I think most people, some people like the satellite version of things, but I think a lot of them it's like buying your first home in a way. Like it's the first place that is yours. Leasing or buying or whatever. I think that's a big deal for people.

And you're right, it's totally understated as far as what that can do for your brand in general. Cause I had the same thing when I hired my first person. People said that, or wait a minute, you're hiring people like you're a real business. Then again, I hired somebody. I was like, what's going on here?

I hired somebody else oh wait, do you have your own standalone space? People just start to notice. The other thing I really like what you said about risk, right? Like we're the ones taking the risk. And I think secondarily, what we need to do with our brand and with our business, and this is where people sometimes have difficulty, is I [00:31:00] think also the consistency of it, right?

Like sometimes we don't have consistent messaging or we don't we're just not consistent in what we're doing. Kind of end to end. And I see that, as you were saying, as you were talking, I was like, I really see that in some of the businesses that scale really well or build a brand, it's like they know who they are and they then they know what they're doing and they just stand on their, on their flag and they go forward with it.

And it's a very consistent message. From the beginning. So that's part of it too, right? Like consistency in your business and work ethic as well, but also just the consistency from beginning to end.

Danny: Yeah. And it's hard because it, it's like asking somebody like, what they stand for, what's important to them, what is, what would they fight for?

Like what are your values? That's not something that most people spend a lot of time thinking about. So when you start your business, you have to be intentional about all of these things that most people don't ever really spend much time thinking about. And it reminds me of the Matthew [00:32:00] McConaughey book, green Lights.

He talks about you can't be cool until you're cool with yourself. You just can't. And I thought I, that was like one of my, one of my favorite takeaways. I was like, damn, Madison, MCC County is cool. That's because he is cool with himself. Whatever he likes the things that he's into, he's and. He's not necessarily like trying to hide that.

And I think that for you as a person, obviously, I think it's a good thing, but also as a business owner, I think we're really, you end up doing really well in getting a lot of momentum when you finally clarify what it is that you're trying to build, who you are, what your movement you're trying to create.

And it's not just a business, right? You're trying to create something that other people wanna follow. No one wants to work for your current crapp. Business in your little office, in your gym. Don't think that the wrong way. I've been there too, but nobody wants to work there. They wanna work for where your, for what your company is becoming.

And that's based on your vision and your ability to articulate that and move towards that and tolerate the things that go along with that, which is risk and the unknown, so I think as soon as you get clear on that and really realize that like the brand you're building, the culture you're [00:33:00] trying to create, all of this is gonna ultimately, End up building the business that you want.

It's easier to take time to really focus on, what are your core values? Like what is your vision? What do you stand for? And cuz without that, it just seems like a waste of time. And I know for me that seemed like a waste of time early on until I clicked and I realized, oh crap, this is actually really important and this is an or something I cannot skip otherwise, I don't know what I'm.

No one else knows what I'm building. It's gonna be continually just trying to guess at what I should do correctly versus creating my own sort of roadmap.

Yves: And I, again, the themes keep popping up, right? I think I would not be as, Cool with myself had I not built a business, right?

Like it forces that growth and that self-development, right? If you want to scale, you typically need to do these things, right? And so us upgrading our skills, us digging a little deeper and like finding out what we do stand for has been so beneficial in my personal life. And I think that kind of [00:34:00] grew out of my business life, right?

Is because oh man, I have these goals and I wanna reach them. And the only way to do that is. Is to be very clear, and create clarity around that. And I was able to do that through the business and it's just, it's great to see how that affects people from a personal standpoint, which is really what we're seeing again in the Mastermind and the rainmaker.

A lot now is not just the business development, but the self-development underneath it. They're figuring out what they stand for, as a business and personally, and you see the dividends, in both areas. I feel like it

Danny: forces people to grow up. It forces people to to improve.

You don't have a choice, your Your faults will be highlighted and your strengths will be highlighted as well. Early on and as you grow, you don't have a choice but to improve areas that allow you to be a better leader of other people, a better talent. Acquirer.

I don't know if the acqui acquirer of talent [00:35:00] talent acquisition is huge. Sure. Yeah. That's probably the most important skill that anybody that's trying to scale can, can get better at. But I see it in the people that we work with and it's interesting when we get a chance to work with people for a couple years in particular, we often will see people that are excited.

And they, they have a lot of energy. They have something that they know they want to, complete, they have this vision. But after a couple years, what happens, at least from what I've noticed, and I think it's actually like such a cool thing to watch, is you get this energetic person turns into someone that, it's not that they don't have energy but they are confident.

They're very like humble at the same time, which is a rare combination. Most people, confidence without humility is arrogance, and that, that is very easy to get to that stage. But for people that have, put themselves in positions that are uncomfortable and they've. They've thrived in those, they've been improved the [00:36:00] areas that they need to, they've put work in.

All of a sudden they feel comfortable with themself and they have confidence. And that confidence attracts more high quality people that want to work with them. And it's just this flywheel of positive things that happen once people realize that the make or break kind of element of your business is frankly yourself.

And the more that you start to improve and get better at that get better at improving the aspects of your own personality and traits for better or worse the better off your business is gonna be and ultimately the better off you're gonna be. I'm sure for you, there's plenty of things that having, gone through starting a business, growing a business, exiting a business, like the confidence that comes from that is is immense.

I would. Yeah, no,

Yves: a hundred percent. You gotta put yourself out there over and over and over again. Like you gotta keep, I say it all the. Being uncomfortable with being uncomfortable. You said the same thing, right? Like super uncomfortable to quit my, comfortable insurance based job and start a cash-based practice.

Super uncomfortable to hire my first [00:37:00] person when I wasn't sure if I was ready. Super uncomfortable to go into a standalone space. Super uncomfortable to stop seeing patients and start, seeing if this business would run on its own super uncomfortable to give my baby, to, to people that I care about and exit the business, right?

Every single time, there's been a ton of resistance, a ton of failures, a ton of mistakes been all in all like super beneficial and yeah, I don't think I would be as confident as I am now had I not gone through, obstacles away. We both love stoicism, right? I've encountered a lot of obstacles and it's making me who I am today, and I think truly.

Is what, builds better humans, builds better businesses, is, encountering these obstacles and overcoming them over and over again. That's what I wanna teach my children. That's what I wanna teach all of the people who

Danny: work with us. Yeah. Yeah. And you don't have a choice. Is, I feel I, I have to have uncomfortable conversations with people on a regular basis.

And if I'm at a point now where if I don't do it, It [00:38:00] just eats me up and, or if someone else does it I just don't even like that. Like I know I have to do look, I have to do this, whatever it might be. This isn't something I want to do. It's something I enjoy, but it's something that I have to do because I know that this is just part of a leadership role.

This is part of what I've decided to do. And it's not an easy place to be, but I think the lens of. You know this, whatever you do personally or people that you have to have a conversation with, let's say that's uncomfortable, like you're gonna be better off for that as well as that person. If you don't address that, it's not gonna change no matter where they go.

So you're not necessarily being a very good leader for them if you're not helping them improve as well. And if you come into that situation with that approach of mentoring, of trying to help them get better versus yelling at them or whatever it might be, or just being frustrated. It's very easy to get angry.

And trust me, I get angry to this day. I get e, everybody does. It's not something that we're immune to or just have complete control or whatever it might be, but like controlling that and then putting that into something [00:39:00] proactive and beneficial. Definitely feels better afterward than losing your temper.

And and actually just like reacting to a situation and all that has come from massive amounts of uncomfortable situations that I've found myself in. And you've found yourself in the better part of the last 10 years or whatever it's been? For me I haven't been outta the military, so it's, but it's something.

It is, I don't even know. The best way to, to put it, like the most beneficial part of a business is not the time freedom, financial freedom. If you can make it work, it's the personal development that you'll experience that then allows you to just enjoy everything else and everyone else around you in a better way.

Yeah. It's

Yves: people have said this in different ways, but I think this is prudent now, is who you become as a result of. Growing your business, like we've just become, certain kinds of people, we've, found each other, pt, business grown from that, from these values.

And we've both kind of have a very similar outlook of how to tackle some of life's problems and, you know what I mean? And like our [00:40:00] outlook on things. And I think that's built. From a lot of the difficult things that we've encountered, over and over again. I'm on this, I'm all in on this journey of self-discovery, right?

You self-proclaimed, say, Hey, I've got some, anger stuff I'm dealing with. For me sometimes, like I tend to forget things. I tend to like, I'm honestly. Very disorganized. I honestly like sometimes like just can't get motivated. But what I did, and it's the reason I'm good at systems, is because I built systems to ensure that stuff never happens.

Like I'll wake up on Monday and like I've got a system to make sure I get everything done and make sure I don't forget things. Like these things were born from some of the weaknesses that I've found out from running a business. And I think you said it before, it's like you've gotta figure out where your strength and weaknesses.

Weaknesses lie and then build, ways to highlight your strengths and overcome your

Danny: weaknesses. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly it, right? And you learn these things via the vehicle of entrepreneurship, which I always think, I, I. I like to say it's like your greatest personal development sort of vehicle that you could ever have.

Aside from I think [00:41:00] parenthood crushes you in a good way and makes you evolve and improve the military did that for me. And again, like it just, it bleeds over into other areas and although like I'm coached my son's basketball team right now and he came up to me after the game and he was like, dad some of the players think that you're a bit too stern and I was like, stern, what are you, 80?

First of all, who uses that word? And and I, and dude, and I'm being like, nice to kids and they think I'm like, yelling at people or whatever, and so maybe, you we need these external things as well that validate that we still have work to do, and things to, to improve that that obviously always can improve.

Let's finish it. Here guys we got off on a tangent, which tends to happen when Eve and I talk, but overall the actual, culture, the brand that you're building the business, ex exclusive or outside of you, where if you were to take it and you were to say, okay, this over here what does this stand for?

What does this feel like? What does this look like? [00:42:00] How does this run? How do these people interact? What's the culture look like? It's this living thing. It's not as simple as just oh, this is my logo, and this is my color pattern. This is the font. These are detailed portions of what the brand is, but the brand should be something that you're proud of, something that should live on past you.

If you're really trying to build a true business, they can scale and grow and be an entity that has enough value that someone else is gonna say, yeah, I wanna pay for that thing. That doesn't happen by accident. That happens with being intentional and doing those things. Anything that you wanna leave leave 'em with action items or anything like that?

E for them to get started? Yeah, I think,

Yves: You. You wanna build a BA brand And to do that I think you can intentionally do two things. We talked about it, and just to summarize it, one is like the environment, right? Which is your logo, your space how you dress, like that stuff matters. And then also your your messaging, like what you talk about and what you stand for.

And if you intentionally put some homework in, right? Put some homework and figure out what you like and put that stuff [00:43:00] together, you. If you already have a business, you can still do that. If you're just thinking about it, you can do that, put that stuff together and you'd be surprised how fun that it can actually be.

It feels like busy work, but that stuff will pay huge dividends in the future, especially when it comes to decision making too, which we did not talk about, of is this stuff on brand or not? There's probably a lot of decisions you and I have made or not made and stayed away from because of our brands

Danny: and what we stood.

Definitely no, totally agree. Cool. All right guys. Start building your brands. Hopefully this helps. If you guys have any further questions, make sure you join the PT Entrepreneurs Facebook group. It's the only one titled PT Entrepreneurs. I don't even know how to spell it, but maybe you can, you'll find it in there pretty easily.

Thank you. Join about 5,000 other people that are in there learning about, how to actually make one of these businesses work and connect 'em with each other. It's a pretty cool resource. We're glad to to be able to provide it. So you can check it out there. So as always guys, thanks so much and we will catch you next week.[00:44:00]

Hey, Pete, entrepreneurs. We have big, exciting news, a new program that we just came out with that is our PT Biz part-time to full-time, five day challenge. Over the course of five days, we get you crystal clear on exactly how much money you need to replace by getting you a. Ultra clear on how much you're actually spending.

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So this is a one one-way channel. I'd love to hear back from you. I'd love to get you. Into the group that we have formed on Facebook. Our PT Entrepreneurs Facebook group has about 4,000 clinicians in there that are literally changing the face of our profession. I'd love for you to join the conversation, get connected with other clinicians all over the country.

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