E431 | The Real Reason People Continue To Work With Us

Today, I am talking about one of the reasons people continue to work with us in the cash-based practice, movement-based, and performance-based world.  This stems from an exercise we did with our staff at an off-site retreat recently.  Enjoy!

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Podcast Transcript

Danny: So I'm probably similar to many of you in the fact that I'm not very good with technology and for years I ran my practice on a platform, a big platform that I had lots of issues with. And never once was I able to get on the phone with somebody to actually help me out with the problem that I was having.

This is one of the main reasons why we decided to switch over to PT everywhere, because when we got. Every time that we've had a problem, I can reach out to their customer service and I'm actually talking to another human being that knows what's going on with my platform that can help solve a problem for me and me, not spin my wheels, trying to figure out all by myself and wasting my entire day.

It's one of the reasons why we love the platform so much. We love the people so much. Started by Cash-based Practice Owner, and really the goal is to help practices, cash-based practices like ours grow scale and be as efficient as we possib. Can be. So if you've been frustrated with lack of customer service of somebody responding to you and helping answer your questions, look no further.

PT Everywhere does an amazing job by helping you be successful with their platform. So head over to pt everywhere.com and check out what they've got going on. So here's the question. How do physical therapists like us who don't wanna see 30 patients a day, who don't want to 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 Mate, and welcome to the PT Entrepreneur Podcast.

What's going on guys? Doc Danny here with the PT Entrepreneur Podcast, and today we're talking about one of the reasons why people work with us, you know, in these cash-based practices, uh, in these performance-based practices, movement-based practices in particular. And this stems from a offsite that we did, uh, last week actually with athletes potential.

So, um, I'm not too involved in the day-to-day anymore. I am there probably. One day a month. Um, Probably less than that, probably like two hours a month, put it that way. So I'm not super involved in the day-to-day anymore. It's more high level things. Um, and I, I'm absolutely involved in any of the offsites that we do.

So we do a, we do a, um, uh, a team offsite. This, this year. It's, it's a little more limited. We usually will like, take everybody somewhere, um, you know, on a short trip. But, um, we did this at a co-working space in Atlanta and then, um, went to dinner together after that. And that was our day. We spent the whole day working on high level things.

They actually, uh, the team actually went and did a teamwork up before that. I dropped the kids off, so I, I missed that part of it. But, um, you know, they, they got some cool stuff in there where they got to. Really solidify the culture, and I think it's a really important thing to do. You know, I, I'll probably have an entire se a sec, a separate podcast on, uh, the, the benefit of these team offsites, or even if it's just by yourself, like, the importance of, of being in a different location, I think is really powerful.

But, um, one of the things we went through was an exercise about the people that we work with and why they work with us. Um, so we had our entire team kind of write down, you know, Why do people work with us? What are they gaining? What are they losing out on by not working with us? And so all of our staff wrote down their answers to this.

Um, and then we. Talked about it, and we had a big whiteboard session. You know, it took us, it took us a couple hours to go through just this one exercise and get really kind of granular about what people are doing with us, why they're really working with us, and, and, um, what, what we're actually accomplishing with them.

And one thing that I've never really thought of, and this is actually like so awesome to get together with other people and just sort of, uh, share your thoughts on some of these exercises. And one of our staff members as one of our PTs, he talked about the, one of the things that we deal with and one of the, one of the challenges we help solve for people is a loss of identity and creating a new identity.

From an injury, or maybe it's multiple injuries or a series of injuries that have led somebody to kind of a, uh, a bad mental state. Um, he talked about one of the guys that he works with, he's 60. His, uh, his patient is, and he's been a high level athlete his whole life. Uh, you know, competed. At the collegiate level in multiple sports, um, you know, was a competitive triathlete, played competitive team sports for a long time.

He's 60 now and he's had a string of really. Bad setbacks, you know, pretty, pretty significant injuries and surgeries and things that required, um, a lot of rehab and, and, uh, and, you know, lengthy recoveries from surgeries. And he came to see us and, uh, our, our provider was, was saying that he felt like, The, the most sort of valuable thing that this guy has gotten with his time with us is the understanding that the identity that he had as a high level athlete, as a competitor was taken away from him.

You know, via these injuries that he had. And, you know, for this guy, it, it was a huge part of his identity. And many of us have been there that have had injuries as well, where, you know, maybe you have a really serious injury that ends your career as an athlete in one sport. And you, you are so tied to that because you've spent so much time there and you have so much invested in your ability to perform in, frankly, you know, this.

Uh, you know, whatever it might be. But the sport that you, you are passionate about and you have a lot of your identity that is wrapped up with this. We see this a lot with football players, um, that we've had a chance to work with that are no longer in the nfl and they're trying to figure out what to do.

You know, like I worked with a, a guy that was. A first round draft pick. He was an offensive tackle. He had played in the league for 12 years. You know, he never had to work another day in his life. He was, you know, financially made more money than he probably could ever spend. Um, and he was frankly depressed.

You know, he, he had the body of a, of a man 20 years his age. He had more surgeries than I can remember. You know, he, he didn't know what to do. He didn't have a job. He kind of volunteered at this, um, humane society, basically a few hours a week and played video games and that was it, you know, and he was frustrated cuz he couldn't train.

He was frustrated because he didn't know what to do with his life. He didn't have to do anything, which is, it sounds nice, but it's also in his own. He, it's frustrating. He had nothing to wake up for, if you think of it that way. And for us, you know, we had to, we were working with him obviously on pain, but the biggest thing that this guy and the guy that.

Our other staff member was referencing took away was our ability to help them understand that there's still many things they can do, and it's just a matter of figuring out what that is and how to create a plan physically, and then who else do we need to get involved outside of that to help them achieve whatever that new goal is.

Whatever that new. Challenge is that might be slightly different than where they were at before, but it doesn't mean that they have to just give up and just sit on the couch and you know, just wait, wait to die one day. Right? Like, that's miserable. Miserable. And you know, people will p people will pay for a couple visits with you to help with their knee pain or to help with their back pain or whatever, you know, injury you wanna sub in there, but they will work with you for a life.

If you help them move from the loss of one identity to creating a new identity after the challenge of injuries and setbacks that stop them from doing things that they get enjoyment out of and being around people that they enjoy being around and competing and doing these other things that you know, they.

They, they love and they want to do, you know, in some form or fashion, and the vast majority of medical community just tells people to stop. How often have you had a patient come in that says, yeah, my doctor told me I just shouldn't run anymore. My doctor just told me that I shouldn't squat anymore. My doctor told me that I shouldn't play softball anymore or whatever, and, and, and it's not.

It's not that doctors are wrong necessarily, they're they're right with their scope of what they've learned, you know, and with the time that they have as well. So their best advice for somebody probably is just to stop, oh, that hurts. Just stop doing it. And they don't have time to figure out, oh, this is really important to you because of X, Y, and Z versus us.

What we get to understand is, well, what are your goals and why is this important to you and how can we create. You know, some sort of compromise where you have to be involved in this and take care of yourself if you want to, you know, put more miles on your body and you want to really push yourself still, you have to have some amount of self-care, some amount of structure of how you're training appropriately about, you know, talking about sleep and stress management and nutrition and movement, and improving these things as variables that lead to longevity and performance and the ability.

To continue to participate in whatever it is that they want to actually be a part of. And that is something that I've never really thought about as a key driver as to why people work with us or why people stick around with us. But after I heard him say that, you know, I thought to myself like, this is spot on.

Like it's I and I, I thought back to all these patients that I've helped. They essentially had lost their identity because they associated with something physical that they could no longer do. And when we were able to get them either back to that and or some variation of that, um, you know, with the understanding and the information, the, the knowledge to take care of themself long term, those are the people that never stopped working with me.

You know, they, they just worked with me forever and that relationship. Great for a number of levels. It's the business. Obviously. It's great to have recurring clients that see value in what you're doing and you're not just keeping 'em around because it's good for the business. You're keeping them around because it's good for them and they love, they get the chance to work with you and that is good for your business as well.

And you know it's good for them because for them to have accountability and somebody that they can trust and leverage your, you know, subject matter expertise. In order to help them live, you know, a, a more active, fulfilled life. Like, that's so valuable, you know, and it's not even a discussion of price at this point.

It has nothing to do with that. It's like you are one of the last things that they want to, you know, remove from their life because of how much value they see in it. And the idea that we can help people reframe these things and be a part of their journey is, is, is very. Uh, important to remember that we do that, to be intentional with that, to be aware of that, and to have these discussions with people and not just brush it off as you know, oh, they said not to do that, so you shouldn't do that.

Right. Versus, well wonder why they said that, and what have you been doing and what are we missing and what things haven't we applied yet or tried yet? And you know, are you bought in on this? Do you have the discipline to follow through on some of these things? And when we start to get to that level with people, we tend to.

Massive amounts of not just retention with these folks, but also trust That leads to word of mouth referrals that come in every single month from people because of how much you're affecting their life in a positive way, and how few people in the healthcare community. Are actually willing to help people work on some of these deeper level things and get a better understanding of that.

And we have to develop trust in order to get there. And trust doesn't come from how you dry needle somebody's shoulder. Trust comes from how well you listen to them, how well you ask questions, and also what you do after. Like how do you handle yourself? Are you responsive with that person? Do you do what you say you're going to?

Are you on time? You know, do you make that referral when it's necessary instead of hanging onto them for that extra visit? Just because you, you know, you want to be able to get your numbers up a little bit that next week. That's really what it comes down to. And these are the things that you have to do on a day in and day out basis to really provide what is, you know, the, the best healthcare experience that this person has ever had.

And if you do that, marketing becomes a lot less challenge. Sales becomes a hell of a lot easier because when you have people that show up and they, they have a friend that has vetted you extensively and talked about how much you've changed their life, it doesn't matter what you charge. It doesn't matter what you tell them.

You need them to commit to because they're already bought in, cuz somebody that they trust a hell of a lot more than you has already done that.

Hey, real quick before you go, I just wanna say thank you so much for listening to this podcast, and I would love it if you got involved in the conversation. So this is a 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. I do live trainings in there with Eve Gigi every single week, and we share resources that we don't share anywhere else outside of that group.

So if you're serious about being a PT entrepreneur, a clinical rainmaker, head to that group. Get signed up. Go to facebook.com/groups/ptentrepreneur, or go to Facebook and just search for PT Entrepreneur. And we're gonna be the only group that pops up under that.