E562 | What's Working Now In The ACL Niche With Ziad Dahdul

Today, we welcome back Mastermind member, Ziad Dahdul, owner of Ignite Phyzio Sports & Performance. In his past episode, we talked about business and getting out of a high-volume insurance-based clinic. Today, we dive into his specific niche of ACL rehab. Check out his story below! Enjoy.

• Working around your own success
• Developments Ziad has seen in ACL rehab
• Being creative in reaching people

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Podcast Transcript

Danny: [00:00:00] So one of the best ways to improve your customer experience, which we know will dramatically improve your business, is to have clear lines of communication with your clients. And that's something that can be really hard with these multiple channels between email and text. And what you really need is to centralize that in one place.

And that's something that we've been able to do as we switched over to PT everywhere within our client's accounts. We can actually message right back and forth with them. They can manage their home exercise plan within there, and it allows us to really compartmentalize the communication. That we have with those clients instead of losing an email in the inbox or missing a text and then you're, it's very hard to dig yourself outta that hole because they feel like you're not very responsive, with them.

And for us, it's made a really big difference. It helps make our staff more efficient. It helps us not miss things as much with the volume of people that we're working with. And it's a really smart way of really com compartmentalizing your communication with your clients so it doesn't interfere with the rest of the channels.

You have communication with family and friends and things like that. So I think it'd be huge for your practice to centralize it the way we have. Head over to pt [00:01:00] everywhere.com. Check out what our friends you're doing over there. I think it's really cool and 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 Mate, and welcome to the PT Entrepreneur

Ziad: Podcast.

Danny: All right, what's going on guys? Doc Danny here with the PT Entrepreneur Podcast, going live in the PT Entrepreneurs Facebook group. If you're not in that group, make sure head over to Facebook. Look for PT Entrepreneurs. It's the only one request. You gotta be a clinician. We'll look you up. You just can't be some random person.

So you gotta be a clinician. We wanna make sure we get people in there that are clinicians that are looking to start businesses. But today we get a chance to chat with somebody that I've been fortunate enough to know for a few years now. We've had a chance to [00:02:00] work with him, with his business, and honestly, just one of my favorite people within our mastermind, it's Zia Doul.

He owns ignite Physio in Orange County, California, technically two locations, LaHabra and Costa Mesa. Which explain, I don't understand. Orange County, by the way. Everybody tells me that they live in Orange County, but people don't say, I live in Fulton County here in Atlanta. They just say, I live in Atlanta.

So what's the deal with that? Is that, what's the significance of Orange County?

Ziad: It's like there's not one dominant city in the entire county. So I think like in la, LA is la you know what I mean? So everybody knows where that is. But I think if I tell somebody I live in Fullerton or like I work in Costa Mesa, I don't know that they would have the same reference point that they would usually, we either say Orange County, because that's what people know, Southern California, orange County, or we say on 15 minutes from Disneyland because everybody freaking knows where Disneyland is.

Yeah.

Danny: So you're using orientation points, right? It's exactly. When I was learning the land navigation, I was in the Army. That was like you could do map reading or you could be like, okay, here's a hard point. This is Disneyland. I'm gonna go over there and then I'm gonna figure out where I'm at after that.

So that's funny. People are doing that naturally. [00:03:00] No, that's cool, man. It's what's been fun is. Would probably be good for anybody listening to this if you haven't been listening for a long time, is go back and listen to, Ziyad on previous podcasts where we get a chance to talk about the business and where he is at and the evolution really of where his business has gone.

It's really interesting to see the growth that he's had, like the very intentional growth to now multiple providers, multiple locations, as well as, really doing some cool stuff in the a c l space, both in person and on online in a digital format. And like having a hybrid opportunity to work with with both those, I think in that niche in particular is really a viable viable model.

I would say before we get into all that, I would love for you to catch people up, let's just say over the last year, right? So what are the big highlights with Ignite that's changed over the last 12 months?

Ziad: Yeah, it is been great. We've brought on another clinician and we've brought in, brought on another administrative staff.

So like we have a group of, I think we're six of us now in the business. That's awesome. And yeah, which is really cool. Just thinking back where we were like a year or two ago, and it's it's really cool [00:04:00] because a lot of the intention for me when I tried to bring people in business, like I'm I tell them upfront, like I'm very protective of who I bring into this space because I feel like we built something really cool and we have this amazing like environment and this culture that we've really built.

And I, just having people that all. See things through a very similar lens, but bring their own unique perspectives to how we go about things. I feel like the overall arching overarching umbrella is we're all here to help people get better. To like just do it in a way where like people just really enjoy coming to see us, but at the same time, everybody brings their own skillset and their own their own defined way of approaching things.

And I think, so we've built just a great team of just really cool people that are just trying to do what we can to kinda leave from the front like you guys are doing with the, with p

Danny: entrepreneurs. Yeah. I think that's a tough step too because you are you're so particular about how you want people to be interacted with, how you want people to be followed up with how you want your brand to be represented in the community.

And you have to. Interview other human beings that [00:05:00] are, they're not robots, right? They have their own stuff. They have their own personalities. And so how's that process been for you to be able to grow the team that you do now, but also maintain, the specific sort of culture and feel that you have?

Like how have you gone about doing that? Yeah.

Ziad: I think the main thing is you have to trust your gut and your judgment when you are interviewing people. And I think having multiple touchpoints with them before you bring them onto the team, like seeing them in action, seeing them with patients with the other people in the business I think it, it gives you that feel. And I'm the kind of person where I'm very quick to trust. If I feel like somebody is, like I, if somebody is, if this is somebody I value and I think could be a really huge addition to whether my business, my life, whatever the case may be, I always give them the benefit of the doubt.

And I'm very quick to trust until people gimme a reason not to trust them. And so I think that's where I stand is like I as a leader and as like a boss, like I try to be very good about giving people enough. Room to grow and do their own thing and allow them to do things on their own.

Be autonomous within the confines of the business. Because I think if you allow people to be authentic and allow them to be able [00:06:00] to do things in their own way where it's such, it's true to themselves, I just feel like you're gonna get a better product and a better outcome in the long run. And so I do a good job of not trying to macromanage that, but at the same time, I tell a lot of my clients if you trust me, you're gonna trust who I bring it to this business, because I'm gonna go outta my way to make sure I vet those people and make sure I do my due diligence before I bring them in.

Danny: You've done this now a couple times, so in terms of bringing another staff member on, and so it's not your first one, but I feel like one of the biggest mis one of the biggest challenges people have in these type businesses where, you've just, from the ground up, you built it yourself and people are like, I gotta go see Z Like my friend says, I gotta see, I gotta see Z out.

I can't go see anybody else. I know this. You're telling me this is your boy. And like he knows what he's doing. Or, this provider have, she's amazing and she's great in this niche, but there's always that, Hey, I gotta see the guy that started the whole thing. Like, how have you. Navigated that worked around that and really tee your people up for success.

Cause I feel like that is the area that most people with their first hire in particular, underestimate how challenging it is in a service business to [00:07:00] be able to work around your own success.

Ziad: Yeah. That part was definitely tough at the beginning. I think it's gotten a little easier as I've just gotten a lot more confident with being able to convey that message to our clients and say that we are not gonna bring anybody into this business that we don't feel like is raising the bar.

And I tell them like, I've been doing this for almost 13 years now and both of my PTs there's a lot of things that they're better than me at. I, and it's just the truth. And I don't even have to say it as a way to sell my patients on it. They're just better at certain things than I am.

And get, getting them to be able to like, build that trust, but do it in an environment where I set them up for success is like allowing them to co-treat with me or I'm co-treating with them. I'm allowing them to take the lead and just staying in the background a little bit more and, figuring out good time pieces or points to step away from the session for a minute and I go do something else and allow them to build that rapport.

But they know that I'm still there if they have any apprehension or a anything along those lines. And so I think those are some ways that I've gone about it, but I think a lot of times I underestimated how important it was to be very convicted in how you feel about the people you're bringing in.

Because at the beginning I'd be like, are you [00:08:00] okay with working with is this okay? Hey, I'm gonna be out of town. Can we do this? And it's you're gonna work with they're gonna take great care of you and you're gonna be great while I'm gone. And that's it. And you just tell 'em that and you're confident about it and we're good to go because you have to trust the people that you're bringing into your business.

And if you don't, they're gonna feel that.

Danny: Yeah. Yeah. I feel like people make a big mistake with it's like they're trying to appease everyone, and they're like to I'll see you, on Monday, and then maybe next week you see and if you don't like how that goes and you come back and you work with me and it's just a very it's not a very strict decision of this is, this is how our company runs.

And it tends to hold a lot of people back, and I think if for good reason they're worried, right? Because if you think about how long it took you to build your reputation, right? And you only get one, right? So it is challenging and it's frustrating, but I also look at it from the side of the clinician.

And I don't know if you've had in many conversations with your clinicians about this, but imagine they come into your world and you're the man and all of a sudden they gotta try to live up to, these somewhat Unrealistic circumstances or like your reputation of what they should be, even though it might [00:09:00] be slightly different and yet just as good of outcomes, but maybe it's not exactly the same.

So how have you worked with your staff to make sure that they don't feel, like they're failing if they're, if their schedule is maybe growing a little slower than what you would like,

Ziad: Yeah, I made a lot of mistakes with my first hire. There's a lot of things that I could have done to set him up for a better success, and he's been the trooper through all of it and just very grateful for him in the way he's handled it, because I just didn't do a very good job at the beginning because I didn't have the experience.

It was my first time going through it. And so I think with this most recent hire that I have with David I think the main thing has been allowing him to go at his own pace and really continually reassuring him that this will happen. It's gonna happen over time, but we wanna make sure it happens organically and it's not forced because if we try to force it, it's just gonna feel like it's forced and it is gonna be setting him up for failure, if I do it that way.

And so we onboarded for a solid six weeks. He was part-time for another four to six weeks, and then he didn't go full-time until about two months into things. And I think that was the perfect way to go about it because it allowed things to happen a little bit more naturally. I got him to be able to be exposed to people on a little by little [00:10:00] basis, kinda like with code treating and with, allowing to have blocks on the schedule so he can get caught up, going from the in-network environment to coming into this environment.

Yeah, it's all of a sudden you have more time, which is great, but sometimes you don't know how to manage that time because more time doesn't mean better time, it just means you have more time. And so you have to learn how to be able to provide a lot of value in that longer period of time because if you're not used to it, it's very difficult to fill that space.

And all of a sudden you're like crap, I don't know what to do for this whole hour and how do I make this work? And then you're, it's awkward trying to, I equate what we do as like hosting. It's almost like you're, like you're hosting somebody into your world because you gotta keep them entertained while at the same time you're also like, giving them quality, high quality care.

And so being able to talk to somebody for an hour is not the easiest thing at the beginning. So I think a lot of it is just gradually easing into it, but doing it in a way where you're constantly reassuring them that there is no pressure on them other than the pressure they're putting on themselves.

And I want them to know it's not coming from me. They're just gonna need time to be able to ease into things and get comfortable with it.

Danny: What would you say your first your first hire, right? If you could go [00:11:00] back and change one or two things and be like, man, I definitely wouldn't have done that.

Or, that was a big mistake, the way that I handled that situation, or whatever it might be. Like, are there a couple things you could think of that really are just, man, I totally would fix that if I could have. 1000%.

Ziad: The first thing is mentorship time, like being there more at the beginning and not letting the schedule dictate where I was.

So I was so busy at the time that I was, it was like a blessing to have somebody there to help share that burden with me. Yeah. And then I tried to step away a little bit faster than I should have, and I didn't do what I thought I should have done in the moment. And so like I look back on that and I'm like, I need to be there more often for any time we bring somebody into this business because they're coming into an environment that's created by us, but at the same time, they need to be comfortable with it.

And so that was definitely the one thing is like I did not spend enough time mentoring at the beginning. And I think the second thing is the big part was like allowing them to grow and learn at a pace that's comfortable for them, and then being better about learning how they learn. So I don't think I [00:12:00] did a good enough job of saying, okay, this is how learns.

He learns by, getting his hands dirty and then getting feedback afterwards, or he needs to watch first and then get his hands dirty or, and I don't think I did a very good job of learning their e education style at the beginning, similar to what we would do with patience. I didn't do a very good job of that at the beginning.

And I think now I've become a lot more intuitive in figuring out what makes people tick and how they learn the best.

Danny: What was your like weekly caseload at whenever you brought your first person on?

Ziad: I was at like 120% of my capacity, like both times. And so I was probably in the forties per week, like the first, the both times I was in the forties per week.

And so having two locations, like the first time LaHabra was a lot busier. And so I was like seeing 40 to 42 a week. And then Abe came on and we know we did that process. And then the second time Costa Mesa was up to, and I was probably seeing 45 to 50 a week. And then that's when I brought somebody on.

Yeah. So

Danny: I feel like I, if you're looking at the time that you actually have, right? This is, I think this is just the challenge, right? It's like your volume [00:13:00] is allowing you the opportunity to bring somebody on, but because you're so busy the time to train that person, you get, they get it gets neglected a little bit because you are, you're just trying to like, keep treading water, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So I think this is a challenging stage for a lot of people. If you could change, it would, let's say you were at 35 instead of 45 sessions a week. How much of a difference do you think that would help with in terms of just the mentorship side in terms of just like bandwidth,

Ziad: Yeah, I think it would've made a big difference because it would've allowed me to do block scheduling and I would've been able to build these blocks on there from the get-go and not feel like I have to oh, I put a block on there, but needs to be seen because I have 50 people on the schedule.

I gotta find a place for him. So I think the block scheduling would've been better cuz I would've been able to prepare and I don't feel like I did a good job at the beginning preparing as I did the second time around with the onboarding.

Danny: Have you talked to your first PT about this?

Have you been like, yo man, I'm sorry, first pancakes always shit, that's what we say, right? Thanks for hanging in there. Have you actually had a conversation with 'em about, like just the learning that they took, and maybe a bit of a harsh [00:14:00] way. Yeah at

Ziad: 1000%, so like I, our at his annual review, so we did his first year.

Yeah. And we met and he made a statement. He's I appreciate you taking it, taking a chance on me and ta giving me this opportunity. And I'm like, dude, you took a chance on me as much as I took a chance on you, because I had no fucking clue what I was doing at the beginning.

Yeah. I really didn't I was trying to figure things out and so I apologized multiple times for just not being a good leader at the beginning, but I feel like the leader I am now is because I learned a lot of those mistakes at the beginning and he unfortunately had to bear the burden of that.

But I think at the same time he sees the growth from both of us and I think we've both just gotten better as, as people and as humans. And it's nice to be able to just be very transparent and be very authentic with people and just tell them, Hey, I fucked up. That was my bad and this is something I'm gonna learn from.

And I, I don't think I'm gonna make that mistake again.

Danny: Yeah. And I feel like we all have these great plans too of, what, how we want things to go when you bring somebody in and it doesn't always work out that way because of time factors or other things you have outside the business.

I, even the first person we hired, I had this, I had 12 books that I had [00:15:00] curated that I wanted them to read one a month. And we would talk about it and we would go over it as a personal development thing. Half of 'em were clinical, half of 'em were personal development, like how to Win Friends and Influence People was, I think it was like the third or fourth book, but we never even got to it because I had made this list and we got through the first one.

And then the second one was like a respiratory, like a respiration book on breathing patterns and stuff that I, wanted them to be more aware of. And. It's a fucking textbook. And I was like, yeah, read this month, we're gonna go over it. I remember we were like, I'm not gonna read this.

I can't read this whole thing in a month. And then, we discuss it and they're busy. It's so we have these, it's funny what we think we can do, and in reality it just doesn't always come out that way. Is there anything you tried with your provider, your first one that was like, that didn't work, but you had this grand idea that this, this is gonna help soup them up in some way or some sort of like ongoing training that you just weren't able to do?

Ziad: Yeah. We, we tried a book club, we tried to do that whole Yeah, we tried to thing, we tried it. Yeah. And like we[00:16:00] I bought them the, I bought him and my office manager, the books, and we tried to read them and we, I think we met for one month. Yeah. And then beyond that it was, that was it, like it was just done at that point.

Cuz I didn't do a good enough job of prioritizing. And I think like a lot of people in, in, in this group in particular will probably resonate with this, but because the satellite model and like being inside of the training facilities is so popular now. There's so many people doing it now.

Yeah. We have, we don't have a freestanding location of our own. I mean we have two satellite locations technically. And so I think the big struggle that we had was, You wanna have as many touchpoints with each of your providers as you can. So I have one provider in one location and one provider here, and I have to do a really good job of bouncing back and forth between the two locations and having touchpoints in person, but also at the same time, allowing them to have touchpoints with each other because they're both in the same boat and they both need to be able to bounce things off of each other.

And so I learned a lot at the beginning. Now we have a staff meeting e every week we have a clinical meeting every week we're with just the providers, and we get on either on the Zoom or in person. And then I have a one-on-one meeting with everybody every week. And so I think you have to have touchpoints with the entire crew.[00:17:00]

And I try to do a really good job of making sure that they're around each other as much as possible, because they're gonna learn from each other, but at the same time, they're the only two people that know what each other is going through. Yeah,

Danny: it's tough too because, I feel like there's definitely pros and cons to the standalone space versus the the satellite model.

But even in a standalone space, at least the way that we run our model, it's a closed, it's a closed office model. They, you might be in a gym doing stuff together, but you're starting the visit, you're ending the visit in an office, especially at first visit because they're getting in all kinds of background.

And oftentimes we get very close with patients and they're talking about all kinds of stuff that they don't really wanna bring up in a gym environment, right? But that being said, it's silos clinicians in a way that's not necessarily what they're used to coming outta school. And especially going through like traditional orthopedic outpatient facilities where it's a, typically a big open room and there's a lot of.

Just communication and connection that occurs. And then you take that and it's [00:18:00] times 10 when you silo them in site satellite offices. So have you found anything outside of what, you said clinical meeting, a staff meeting, but are you doing anything that's a little bit less formal to try to help create and maintain that culture where they don't feel like they're just like on an island

Ziad: by themselves?

Yeah, I think the constant communication's a big thing. Trying to do like quarterly like events and outings with the team and Yeah. We try to do at least one per quarter where we all go out. We had a retreat, last quarter where we, where I rented an Airbnb and we just hung out from an island.

We like did some trainings in the day and then we, everybody brought their significant others or their family or friends, whoever. And honest. How was that

Danny: by the way? Not to cut you off, but have you done that before or No, this is your first time? That

Ziad: was my first, that was my first time doing it.

It was fantastic. It went

Danny: really well. Like how satisfying is it to, it's cuz I don't know if people realize this, but like, when you can like, Do that, bring your team together an offsite. It's so awesome, but it's also just like something that we take for granted. So how did that go and what did you learn from your team in that environment?

Because I think that's such a cool place to get them out of the clinic and now they're a little more free to say how they feel about things. And if you're listening, it can [00:19:00] be amazing.

Ziad: Yeah, I think the big thing was like the, you said the comfort level of being in an environment that doesn't feel like work, even though you're still talking about work.

Yeah. So we did a solid five hours of like trainings and like talking about the business and strategic planning for the next quarter and the next year. And being able to get people comfortable and like hanging in a place where even as simple as just like sitting on a couch and kicking your feet up and not being in the office with treatment tables and everything around you went a long way.

And then the ability to connect with them. And on a level that's not anything to do with work. Where we were just eating food and we were watching, we had some fights on and we were drink, we were having some drinks and we were just hanging out and getting to know their significant others and like hearing about, the, seeing their interactions with each other and like you get to just learn a lot about the human for the sake of just being humans.

And I think that goes a long way. And like when you get back to the office, like you just look at each other differently and you have a little bit of a different respect for

Danny: them. Yeah. Yeah. What structured work did you guys get into that you thought was really Beneficial. What did you do that you would do again, the next year?

The, yeah,

Ziad: the goal setting was huge. Yeah, being able to set [00:20:00] personal goals. Cuz I, we're, I'm very big on I don't wanna just know what your professional goals are, like what are your personal goals? And then the flip side is like, how do we hold each other accountable? So every single time we do, whether it's annual planning or quarterly planning, I write everything down that they tell us because I'm gonna bring it up the next time.

And I want them to know that there's somebody in their corner that's holding them accountable for their personal goals just as much as their professional goals. And so I think that went a long way and I will do that every single time we do one of these retreats because I think it's really valuable to have the other people in the room here, all the things, cuz there's something special when you verbalize it and it's not just in your head when you actually say it out loud and other people hear it, all of a sudden you feel tied to it and you wanna hold yourself accountable to making sure it happens.

Danny: Yeah. And it's like you, you have to have enough trust with other people, but it's you're getting a bit naked in front of everybody with what you're, what with what you want. And I think it's challenging to tell people what your goals are.

Cuz sometimes, it might be concerned with how someone feels about that or if they're like, they judge what you want to do. Or maybe in a lot of environments, especially employment environments, [00:21:00] I see a lot of people that don't want to be as super transparent, right? Because they might look at it as this is kind of part of the game, right?

We're just trying to work our way up to different situations and things. So I think the development of a culture where you guys can be like, no, it's awesome. Even if you don't want to be here, that's cool. Just let, like I would want to know that. And for me it's what do we need to help you with so that you're successful, going forward instead of don't tell me at all.

And and then just work on stuff behind your back or maybe you're struggling with your health, right? Maybe you're not doing a good job of taking care of yourself because of other reasons, and they feel, like they're they're not genuine because they're talking to all these other people about health and they're not even healthy.

Thems theirself. Yeah. I feel like that's huge. Did you get, on the personal side, did you have a hard time with getting people to actually, be able to like, take that seriously and share it? No I don't

Ziad: think it was difficult for this group. I think they had a really good they did a really good job of having these things cuz they're, I think the majority of them are pretty goal-oriented.

Yeah, sure. I think some of it is more like being organized and more, more so than every anything else. But I think the [00:22:00] difficulty level wasn't hard. Like everybody was pretty open about what they wanted to do. And I think when you spend enough one-on-one time with people, cuz you know, in our environment if somebody cancels, right?

For example, you have an hour where, like that, where that spot is just open now. And so instead of not only just doing work all the time or just getting back and doing notes or whatever it's nice to be able to just have that hour to just sit. Like sometimes we'll just order food and we'll just sit, we'll just chat for an hour because it's an opportunity to just get to know each other a little bit.

And I think, yeah, if you set an environment of comfort and like trust, I think it goes a long way in making sure that you get ahead of things before they become a problem. Because it's really easy for resentment to build if you have these little things that are bothering you, that you don't ever bring up.

And I always want them to feel comfortable coming to me and saying, Hey, I'm not a hundred percent happy with this. It's okay, let's figure out how to make this a situation that works for both, for every, for everybody that's involved in this.

Danny: Yeah. What's your cadence of.

Communication touchpoints with your staff right now? Do is it informal and then you have more structured times on a quarterly basis, or what are you doing with them individually?

Ziad: Yeah, I think touchpoint wise, like we, I see each of them three days a week. So each of my [00:23:00] my PTs three days a week, I see my o I have a meeting every week with my office manager and I, we pretty much meet like at least two times a week in addition to the staff meeting.

So I have touchpoints with pretty much everybody on a almost daily basis. So that's happening pretty consistently. I think the main thing is like being a little bit better about having some offsite outings and being able to maybe do ConEd courses together and or maybe bring somebody in to be able to do that kind of stuff.

I think those are the things that I feel like are the next steps for us. That we haven't really done yet, but I would love to be able to do like group content courses and stuff like that where we can all learn, we can all sit and just talk clinically as well. And I think that we have clinicians that like to geek out about that stuff.

Yeah. And so I like that. And it honestly, it, it raises the bar to the point where I'm like, I don't wanna be the fucking worst PT here. Yeah. I wanna try to keep, I wanna try to keep being a pretty good pt. I don't feel like I'm great at everything, but I don't want to be, I don't wanna fall behind cuz these guys can have a tendency in wanting to leave me behind cuz of how motivated they are and what they're doing.

Danny: Oh man. It's so true though, but it's hard for you to be able to run a business, to be able to, build your [00:24:00] skillset on that side as well as maintain and continue to develop your clinical knowledge base because you're splitting so much of your attention with two completely different, skillsets.

So I noticed this is a very humbling moment for me. I went to a ConEd course with three of, so there, there were four of us there, so three other providers were were there, and I got matched up with our newest provider who had, we graduated around the same time and it, so he'd been practicing for about a decade and by the end of the course I was.

Very glad he worked for us or worked with our company. And very obvious that I ha did, I didn't know as much as I used to because I had spent the last, seven years or whatever, just, trying to get better at the business side of things versus the clinical side. And it's humbling though, but it's also awesome cuz it's damn.

I now you have even more conviction to tell people when they come in trust me, I suck. Like you're gonna wanna go see one of these guys. They're way better. I just, you just have heard of me. It doesn't mean I'm really great at what I do. Yeah. That's cool. Do you guys do you have a [00:25:00] niche, a c l seems like a big one that you guys do, but is there a overlapping niche that you guys definitely kinda see a lot of besides acl?

Or is that the one that you would really wanna to kinda double down on?

Ziad: No, I think that's the biggest one. I think that's the other one is baseball players or rotational athletes. So overhead athletes, we seem to see a lot of baseball players as well. And then I just think like the.

The 40 to 60 year old active adult Yeah. Who just wants to just be really freaking good at just moving and staying active and whether it's with their kids or doing Spartans or doing all sorts of stuff, they just wanna move and they wanna stay as mobile as possible, like moving forward.

Those are probably the three avatars that I would say we work with the most. But I think by far it's me and a c l related issues is our biggest

Danny: demographic. Oh, actually I wanna come back to that here in a second cuz I do wanna talk about your market. And this is something that we chatted a little bit about pre podcast.

And so in the LA area, just bigger market Southern California what we've seen and and even with your, your own. Practices as you've gone through hiring and growing. It's been interesting to see the differences in big markets and medium sized markets and [00:26:00] smaller markets, and I think they all uniquely have their own pros and cons.

I'd love to know what you think about the pros and cons of a big market. The really good things about it as far as the businesses concerned. And then what are the struggles, what are the challenges in a bigger market that you've noticed?

Ziad: Yeah, I would say the saturation level is just significantly higher here.

Both with cash providers in addition to in network PT clinics. It's just a in our, if I were to draw like a five mile radius, there's probably 30 clinics. In this area and combining the two, two different groups. And so I'd say saturation levels are probably a big thing for us.

The second piece is like, because it's such a metropolitan area, the driving is it just adds a big component to 'em. And you can talk to somebody who's 20 minutes away or five miles away and that could be 30 minutes and 30 minutes by being convenient for them. And so I think being in an area with a high traffic level and just many people in one small region, like it makes 'em a little difficult in terms of mobility and people getting around and being comfortable with that.

But, but again, there's more people here. There's I'll never operate from a scarcity standpoint. So there's enough people for all of us to help. It's just a [00:27:00] matter of being able to get in front of the right people at the right time. And it's very difficult at times. Cuz you spend a lot, I feel like you waste a lot of time going to places and environments because there are so many like gyms and so many communities that you wanna touch base with and market to, but there's so many of them that it's really easy to just waste your time and ones that are just not good fits just because of convenience or because of the location, because there's so many of them.

Figuring out a way to be able to streamline your attention. And try to able to get really good at earmarking the people, the environments, the communities that are the best fit for you. That's probably one of the harder things for us as well. Yeah.

Danny: How has it been with compensation and cost of living in a more, expensive area?

Because I, I feel like this is the one challenge, it's not just exclusive to cash providers, but just in general. It's not it's not like Medicare says, this, cuz you're in LA it's, you're gonna get this much or whatever. In fact, like they just decreased reimbursement recently, I think.

What was it? Three or 4%? 4%. 4%. And it's, so you look at that and, I had a conversation with a provider that was running like 15 practices [00:28:00] here for a big national PT practice. And so she was in charge of this region with 15. And when she told me it was interesting, she said A third of our practices, they might net a thousand dollars a month.

That's it. And they basically are doing it for the footprint for certain reasons, for the business. But it's cost of living is going up and then reimbursement is getting cut and you can only have so much volume before it's literally unsustainable. How have you seen that go in a higher cost of living area where people are, they frankly need to make more money.

Ziad: Yeah. I think, making sure that as a business owner you're doing a good job of knowing what the market is, knowing what you can charge that is fair to charge in that area, and then being able to maximize that as much as possible. I think, you want, the last thing I want is to have.

Employees that are having a hard time just making ends meet with what they're making here. And because it's, cuz I feel like that's, it's impossible to not carry that weight with you. Like when you're working, when you're seeing patients. And so you want people to feel comfortable and you, but you also, at the same time, you [00:29:00] wanna be smart with how you are, delineating where you're spending your money as a business owner.

So I think being able to keep costs as low as we can is a big part for us because we have to be very smart with every dollar that we bring in because we know that it's gonna cost a lot more to pay our employees and, our and the people that come in, our clients, we, I feel like with where we are right now with what we charge, like we're not like super high, we're not super low.

We're right in the middle somewhere maybe high middle. And so you wanna be accessible but at the same time you have to be very smart in making sure that you're charging what you're worth and charging what is the going rate in your community. Cuz if you don't pay attention to it, you might just realize that you have 20 other providers that are charging sig significantly more than you are.

And I don't think you ever want to be the cheapest option because I think that's just not a good place to be. It's not supposed to be racist at the bottom. Oh

Danny: yeah. Not if you're gonna be a niche specific No. Provider and I think what you guys are doing, what is really, what I really like about the niches that you even describe is you have a lot of people around you in both of those niches that you're talking about youth athletes and their parents, basically, right?

[00:30:00] Or, somewhere in their ecosystem. So you look at youth athletes before, after school, dominant times for them. And you look at people that are that active aging demographic and they're more flexible middle of the day, especially with so many people working remotely. So it's a great way to fill in, these bottleneck times that we see middle of the day before.

And then and then after, so for you with what you guys. Are moving towards with the a C L niche in particular. What have you seen with that as far as developments over the last, have you, has it been 10 years at this point? Did you start working with a c l patients?

Like how long have you been specifically focusing on that and what have you seen as an evolution of that? There's interesting trend.

Ziad: Yeah, I think like it's been probably a solid seven to eight years since I really started working with a good amount of them. And I think the main thing that I've seen over time is that people are starting to pay more attention to the, risk reduction preventative side of things and being smart about like training volumes.

And that's what one thing we try to impart on our athletes all the time is if you're playing one sport and you're going year round and you're playing this on this club team, that doesn't stop and [00:31:00] then you play for your high school and then you're doing showcases because you're trying to get seen.

Like the volume is a big part of it. And I think we're starting to pay more attention to a lot of the modifiable risk factors. That we've actually noticed with a lot of people. So like the training volumes is a big thing. Diet and sleep is a big thing. Being able to manage stress levels, realizing that people, these kids are all student athletes at the same time, so they have other demands on them that are more than just a sport they play.

So I think focusing on the non PT side of things has gone a long way in helping us gain better relationships with our clients because they know that we truly give a shit about them and we really care about them, is more than just patients and athletes. And so I think that helps a lot. Speaking of it to the PT side, The thing that we do a really good job of is a, things are very individualized.

We do a good job of making sure that every single person that crosses our doors doesn't get a template that every a c l person gets. Yeah. And at the end of the day, that's really where a lot of our in-network clinics are filling them, is that they're just basing things off of just cookie cuttered ways of being able to put programs together.

And and that's really one big piece for us. And the second [00:32:00] piece is we test and we reassess. And do we have an isokinetic device? Do we have a Biodex that I can spend 50 grand on? No. But we do have a way to be able to test isometric strength. We can look at limb symmetry when it comes to hopping.

We can look at their ability to be able to do things and decelerate and absorb force, like we're looking at these things and we're testing these things now on a four to six week basis. And I think that developing a plan for somebody and not knowing where they're even starting as a baseline is just a recipe for failure.

You're not gonna f you're not gonna succeed in your rehab and be as optimal as possible if you're not testing where that person is on a, at a given point every single time through that timeline. And so that's what we do a really good job of, is we're always constantly assessing where that athlete is so that we can come up with a new plan and move forward.

Danny: That's it's scientific in such a way, like the, I feel like the a c l in particular rehab, niche has become much more objectively driven, which I really and you could say that profession, hopefully as a whole has, but in a lot of ways with chronic pain and things like it's so different, right?

Because you don't really know the mechanism, like [00:33:00] what's causing the pain, specifically when someone has torn A C L, it was there and now it's not connected, and now they have to reconnect it and you know that there's a designated problem, right? Yeah. So it's a little bit different in terms of how you go about that.

As you're going through this though, how do you get the buy-in from, I feel like the, is the buy-in harder from the player or from the parents? Who would you say is harder to get them to commit to your plan of care? Because there's cost associated with it, but there's also, there's a lot of time.

Ziad: Yeah I honestly don't know if there's one more than the other. I think they're both different in their own ways, like the parent is more financial and it's more making sure that they're putting their child in the best environment to help them succeed. So they care about a lot of those types of things.

Where the athlete, they're always, oh, for the most part, they're always bought in from the beginning. The hard part is keeping them bought in during a process that's gonna take them nine to 12 months. Oh yeah. Cause it's human nature to just say, Hey, I'm tired of this shit. I don't want to go to rehab today.

I've been doing it for six, seven months. And it's usually in that mid stage of rehab is they have a very difficult time just [00:34:00] staying engaged. And so we try to really make sure we do a good job of if they're a soccer player, having them to do as much with the ball as possible. If they're a baseball player, get a glove in their hand and have 'em do things.

You can still work on stuff that allows them to be sport specific without putting them at risk and doing more than you should be doing at a given moment. And so I think keeping them engaged is probably the hardest part during the process. But we hardly ever have people that aren't athlete wise, that aren't engaged from the jump they're bought in.

They see the difference, especially if they've been through the rehab stuff before. It's getting the parents to understand that this is the right environment for their child and that we're gonna take care of their kid and treat them like our own.

Danny: So as you're building this a c l niche, have you found that.

Referrals from clients and their parents. Is that the dominant way in which people find out about the work that you guys are doing? Or has it been more development of relationships with other coaches, trainers and physicians?

Ziad: I'd say like our three biggest referral sources, word of mouth is [00:35:00] always number one.

I think like you do a good job with people, they're gonna wanna rave about you, and they're gonna say that, how good of an experience they had overall. That always demeans the most to us, and we get probably the most of that. And the second piece is like the surgeons, the, the PAs, the athletic trainers at the, at local schools coaches of club teams, like I think the athletic trainers, like there's a lot of back and forth between those two professions for whatever reason, because there's so much overlap.

But we're all, if you find people that are all on the same team as you, they're probably your best. They're gonna be your best advocate because they see the value in what we do. We see the value in what they do, and they understand how important that is. And that's probably been another piece.

But, and the third piece for us is just education and awareness on social media. We're lucky enough to have been able to grow a following on social media and to be able to get touchpoints with people that we probably wouldn't have been able to otherwise. And helping them understand that you don't have to do everything in person to get skilled care.

It's just not the way it works. Yeah, I don't have to be there watching you and holding your knee in place while you're doing things. Like as long as you understand what we're trying to accomplish, you can do things remotely. And I think being able to get more high quality information out to people that aren't gonna [00:36:00] have access to that otherwise I think has been a big thing for us as well.

Danny: What percent of the people you're working with now are, as far as acls go, are in-person versus remote or a hybrid sort of approach where there might come in occasionally and then they're doing a lot of stuff on their own? What, how would you say the percentages are broken up?

Ziad: Yeah, I'd say probably full in person is probably about 60%.

I'd say 20 to 25% is like a hybrid approach where they've been with us and all of a sudden now it's Hey, let's base this out for every couple of weeks or every month we'll drop a program for you and you just come in once a month or every co, every couple of weeks and we'll update it accordingly.

And then I probably see the last 10% is all is a fully remote, fully online. And we're working with them through, we used a platform called True Coach to deliver all of our programs. And so the Beauti, the beautiful thing is like the platforms have built out where you can have touchpoints with them.

Yeah. And they can upload videos and you can watch them do things and you can give them feedback in real time. There's a lot of really great ways to be able to do that. But I'd probably say that's probably the split with our ACLS at this

Danny: point. Yeah, for sure. I, I think that software in particular is, we use it with [00:37:00] our practice and it's great.

From a remote coaching standpoint with social media, you said you're definitely not lucky to have built that. You guys do a really good job and you're very consistent with social media. What have you found as far as the a c l niche is concerned with your social media platform that really drives business, right?

Like drives people wanting to work with you, whether it be remote or in person. Yeah, I think

Ziad: answering a lot of questions for people they'll leave comments or they'll send dms after the fact and we post something and they say, Hey, when do you normally do this? So we get the same questions over and over again.

What stage would you do this? What month post-op are they? What do you do if I haven't knee? Answer your knee pain? We get a lot of the same questions. And so it that, I think just getting those questions helps us drive the content we put out because we start to see trends and start to see patterns and we ha we get the same questions over and over again.

We're like, Hey, that's a pain point for people. Yeah, let's see if we can fill and address that pain point. And so I think when we start to put out a lot of content, you just give just a lot of value over and over again, and you show them that you're not coming from a sales use perspective over and over again.

They'll start to see that, hey, these people actually [00:38:00] care about what they're putting out there and they just care about putting out good information. And then eventually, 7, 8, 9 times later, Nine touch points later, they'll reach out to you and be like, Hey, I think I'm ready to work with you. And I think I'm finally ready.

And I think like allowing them to go through their process on their own has gone a long way for us because we just literally just give content away and allow them to be able to use that content however they see fit until they realize they probably need more than what they're getting. Are they,

Danny: are mostly these people, are they working with an in-network facility, may or are they on their own cause maybe they've run out of reimbursement for this specific injury?

Like what are you seeing more of?

Ziad: The two most common ones are the, I'm out of PT in person, so then I need a perspe, I need a a program to take me through. And then the other piece is I'm going to pt but I'm not doing anything sports specific. And I think that's where a lot of PTs miss the boat is.

They're just not comfortable being able to take somebody from rehab to the gym to their sport. And I think that transition, that's the bridge we try to fill all the time, is being able to take them from rehab [00:39:00] to the gym initially, and then from the gym back to their sport and work on change of direction and deceleration, agility type work.

That's where like a lot of, I think traditional PT clinics just don't, they're just not set up for it. And that, I just don't think it's their comfort level when it comes to it.

Danny: Oh dude. And you can't blame 'em for it. If you think of the vast majority of if you think the traditional practice, the vast majority of what you're seeing is, work comp, personal injury, Medicare.

Nowhere in there is that elite, 18 year old baseball player. It's like you're, yeah. And also it just doesn't even feel right, the right place for them. They can go in and there's just people who are on like shuttles, doing single leg plyometric regressions, which is fine for somebody that maybe is just trying to get back to a certain level of movement.

But if you look at somebody like that the understanding of how to bridge those different gaps, like you talked about from the table to the gym, to the, to throwing again, to playing a sport again, all those things, they require a very specific understanding of those movement patterns as well as the progressions and regressions of what needs to be added in at the right time based on the surgery [00:40:00] and the type they had.

The, there's so much stuff, right? Yeah. So it, it makes complete sense to me why. At least, this is a very common sports injury, but like this injury in particular, you're seeing so many more people that are like seeking out people that are working with this type of an injury. Because I always would tell parents like, the only thing worse than your kids hearing their a c l is them re tearing their a c l.

That's so defeating. If that happens, they have to go back to the whole thing again. And then I like that they don't even want to get back to that sport is probably really low, they're just gonna stick to swimming for the rest of their life. And then that's it. Yeah. I think for you it's really interesting to, to see that.

And on the content side, it seems like it would be a no-brainer, right? Are in these messages, are you like, yo, dude, you probably shouldn't try to do this on your own. You wanna chat, where do you live?

Ziad: Yeah. We might really help you out. We try to be, I try to direct them to their, whoever their providers are first and foremost.

But if they're telling me that they're not getting any guidance or anything like that, my first thing is not always disabled. Let's just work together. The first thing is always what do you have access to? What are [00:41:00] your resources? And we get, honestly, we get more people outside of the country than we do in the country.

Yeah. So we're working with a lot of people overseas, like in India and in, in Europe we work with a lot of people that are just not, they just don't have access and that's really a big part of the problem. Yeah. And so I think like the, having a lot of self-awareness and humility goes a long way.

So like if somebody reaches out to me and wants to talk about acl, I can talk about that shit. It's all blue in the face cause I feel like I'm really good at it. I feel like we do a great job of it and that's our skillset. That's what we do. If somebody calls our clinic today and is Hey, my father-in-law just had a stroke and I'm looking for a place and you guys seem like a great fit.

I'm like, I would love to be able to help them, but I think I'm a better help if I guide you to a place that can better serve your father-in-law. And I would send them somewhere else because that's not my skillset. I could I do something for them positive? Sure. Would I be the best person to work with them?

No. And I don't think that's serving that person in the right way. So I wanna really just do as much as possible of what we do really freaking well. And I think a c l rehab is something we do really well and I wanna, and then having the humility and the self-awareness to know that we're not gonna be [00:42:00] everything for everybody, I think allows you to also stay authentic with people that are reaching out to me.

Yeah. But also

Danny: it's such a, it's such a, seems like, would be such an obvious and, important business practice to just, if somebody is not the right fit to work with you, that you then help facilitate them to someone who would be the right fit. And and yet I don't think it actually happens as much as we would think that it would, but if we're really looking at this from the business lens, I can think of countless people that we've never worked with that send people our way.

On a regular basis and it's specifically because we told them, no, you're not in the right spot. Or maybe they even came in and we're, it's obvious to us, okay, this isn't the right place for you. We don't charge them for that visit. We then help connect them with the right person. And the reciprocity that develops is just insane.

So I feel like even as you're going through that, and you're saying that, that has to have benefited you [00:43:00] in the long run as well, I would assume. Yeah,

Ziad: 100%. And like the, I think the amount of referrals we get from other providers that I've never met before, like that means the world to us because this is, these are our colleagues and our peers that are trusting us with people that they've seen or whatever, but I think the future of this is we need to stop looking at this as like in-network versus add in network cash versus this. It's, we're literally all in the same boat and there's enough people that need help that everybody can succeed with this. And I would love, my goal is to be able to have an in-network practice in the area that we are partnering with.

And we're literally, we say Hey, this person is not a good fit for us because the A can't afford it financially, or B, it's just not a good fit from an insurance or whatever the case may be. I'm gonna send them over to you. You handle the early stages of things. Send them back to us when they're ready for that, and then vice versa.

If you have any people that you're working with and you don't have the ability, the capabilities at your practice to be able to work with them for what they need, send them to us and we'll do the sports specific late stage type stuff. And I think, yeah, there is enough. There's a, there, there should be a way to be able to do that.

And if you have any ideas on how to make that happen, I would love to hear it. Cause I haven't figured out a way to get rid of the pissing contest [00:44:00] that happens because they just think you're gonna steal their clients and that's not what we're in this for.

Danny: You're spot on though, man.

I feel like the challenge just overall is not whether it's cash in network. Whatever the reality is, every in-network practice has to add more cash services because they are getting decreased reimbursement. Unless they have massive hospital contracts and they're, they're privately or they're owned by maybe a PE firm or something like that can really throw their weight around.

So you're starting to see this already. You have these, you're either getting gobbled up and you're part of a bigger ecosystem that has more leverage and can get better reimbursement rates, or you're individualizing and you're trying to become like better at a niche and you're more appealing directly to people.

And in some cases you, you can't work with everybody, right? So then you have to find these referral relationships. But yeah it's not, it's. It's not as easy as it sounds because you're right. When people are, their egos get involved, then there's obviously like decisions that get made that aren't based on [00:45:00] the best thing to do for that person.

And again, you probably have people that come and see you where it's yeah, I'm not the best person for Medicare age, problems, but like this person over here kills it with a geriatric population. Like you should totally go see them. But they may not feel the same way about. They might be like, dude, I'm so thankful to have a youth athlete coming here, cuz all I see is geriatric population on board.

So then they don't wanna send it your way. So I think there's just so many other factors, but dude, to your point, you're spot on. There's so much that's happening where there's a convergence of in-network, out of network, hybrid. It's all, in my opinion, gonna end up being some variation of.

Either you stay like very niche specific and you're cash, and that's all you do. And you're just like the try to be the best in the world at acls and that's it. And if you want to really scale and try to grow I think hybrid is really the only way to get really big. But I don't know if everybody wants that.

Some people do, and if they do, they probably are gonna have to go that route. But if you just want to be this sort of like a c l artist and you want to be very true to what you're doing and what you're seeing in the research and all that, I think you can make a great living doing that.

But the scale side probably [00:46:00] doesn't exist the way that it would. And if you were trying to like partner or maybe add in an

Ziad: element of a network. That, that's where you have to be creative in how you're reaching people. I think the biggest thing is if you're constantly trading one hour of time for one hour of of payment, you're, that's exactly what you just said.

It's just never gonna scale the way you wanted to scale. And so I think being able to do group classes and being able to do a bridge program or being able to offer online services or like programming and there, there's just a lot of different ways that you can serve this population because the rehab and the recovery is so multifaceted that there are ways to do it.

And like you said to your point, like having as many cash services as you possibly can and being able to do it in a way where you're pr you're providing value for them and you're not just charging them cash for something that doesn't have any therapeutic value at the end of the day. That's where I think that where your value is gonna come in the market.

I think the marketplace will tell you pretty quickly whether, what, whether they want what you have to offer. And I think once you find something and you find a market that says, Hey, we like what you have to offer, and they start supporting you in that way, that's where you just have to run with it and start figuring out creative ways to be able to serve them.

Danny: [00:47:00] Totally. And I think, what you bring up a really good point with what we tr traditionally do in a cash world is this is what my time is worth. If you wanna work with me, this is what it costs. It's very much like a lawyer model and a CPA model. It's a professional model. And so it makes sense to people.

I think it's it's very familiar in a lot of ways and. And in some cases you need that, right? If you have somebody that has like a lot of multifaceted problems going on and you need time and you need buy-in and to build trust and you need that, that one-on-one time. At a certain point though, especially with the niche that you're talking about, I do think there's a strong benefit to a group of people in a more of a team environment.

And I would even see this when I was in the Army, we had this bridge program that was awesome. We had a guy that was like A T C S guy that was really like much more straining conditioning bias. And he would run this sort of return to return to sport, return to combat program, late stage a c l injuries that we had.

But then he would still individually have to like progress and regress things, but he had a basic sort of framework that he was working [00:48:00] off of. And we'd have, 10, 20 people at some times like going through that together in the gym. And you wouldn't even know. It looked like they were doing like low level Like plyometric sport training.

And some of them were doing higher level stuff than others, but it was still going and they were getting a really good, outcome without having a bunch of retailers. But it just takes somebody smart enough and dialed in enough to be able to manage a group like that. And that's a socialized medical system, right?

So it's it's free. So we're overwhelmed with people. So we kinda have to be creative about how do we work with that. So not everybody's gonna have that problem, but you're right. You can make it work in a lot of ways. And I'm seeing a lot of people do that, leveraging technology, leveraging groups, and if you can figure that out and you can make it work, then yeah, absolutely.

You can scale that. You can get a way better return on your time. As long as people are still getting like a really solid outcome who care. They don't care if other people are there. I think that's the challenge is though, when you take. A provider and they have 80 year old with lower back pain 18 year old with a, a shoulder repair that's trying to get back to something you know, of functional.

They have a mom with [00:49:00] stress incontinence and all those three people come at the same time. It's what you, what's that person supposed to do besides just put out fires for that hour? And I've been there and it's It's hard, right? So I see a lot of people go the route that, that we have, where it's screw it.

I wanna work with this one population, get really good at it. And then, a lot people stop there, but I like what we were thinking because I think you're trying to solve a much bigger problem. And it's just a matter of time until that does happen and it just takes boots on the ground. You're in it, you're figuring it out, you're testing things, not always gonna be right.

And then as you start to whittle that down, it starts to be apparent as what's the right direction to go? So it's exciting, man. I'm super, super excited for you and the growth you're having. It's just awesome to watch and, just to be a part of on the sidelines as you're going through it.

It's been really cool. So tell me this we'll end with this. What's like the actual vision that you're trying to move towards over the next few years with with Ignite and then, from there, like where can people get a better idea of where you know, what your business is doing?

And maybe if they want to be a part of that, if they're a student, if they're a PT and they're like, man, ignite sounds awesome. I live in this area, or I would love to live in this area. Like, where do they go to learn more if they're interested in being a part of what you guys are doing.

Ziad: Yeah. Like speaking to [00:50:00] where I feel like things are gonna go.

I, when I first got into this, I really wanted to have that big training facility where we had everything under one roof where we, and I still, that's still a goal of mine. That's still something I wanna do, but I'm really enjoying this model of finding partner gyms that see things in the same lens, that we see things and they treat people the way we treat people.

And like being able to have that like symbiotic relationship with them has been fantastic. So I always envision that even when we do have that big free standing location where we have kind of everything under one roof having these satellites and these touchpoints across the county and across Southern California, be able to help as many people as we can and be able to have as far of a reach as we possibly can, so long as we're not diluting the quality of the care that we're offering.

And so that's the goal is to still have that big training facility. Cuz that's always something that I've wanted and I can still see us going that route. It's just a matter of when, more than if. But that's the big thing is like just being able to be all over southern California and have as many touchpoints as we can.

I think we're always taking. Resumes we're always taking, making connections and networking with people because I think at the end of the day, you don't know when you're gonna need to hire somebody or [00:51:00] when you're gonna need to bring in help or whatever the case may be. And I would much rather have a bigger pool of people to choose from that actually gi give a shit in care than have to go on Indeed and put a posting up and get random people that come in.

And so thankfully the two hires I've made, they've both been relationship type things. One was my old student and one was a referral. He reached out for the job, but he was also a referral from another provider and another colleague of mine. And so I think that goes a long way in being able to feel comfortable in who you're bringing in.

But like by all means, like reaching out to us, whether it's through email or through social media. And we're always taking students. We have that going year round because we really want as many PT students to see this side of PT as they possibly can. Cuz if we, if 10 years from now we're having this conversation on whatever podcasts look like 10 years from now Danny who knows in the

Danny: Metaverse we're gonna have our little goggles are and be like,

Ziad: but I hope 10, 10 years from now we're talking about how many people are doing things in this way and providing this kind of care.

Because I think it's gonna go a long way in making sure that we don't become that socialized medicine type, big conglomerate based Profession [00:52:00] that I think that is starting to, trying to slowly get to. And but yeah, for us social media email, easiest way to get ahold of us adding Ignite Physio and then ignite physio gmail.com, those are the best ways to get ahold of

Danny: us.

I'm excited for you, man. Look, I think obviously I'm biased as could be because I am involved in the profession. We're involved in the business side with a lot of practices and, but I just think that if you look at the direction that a lot of people are going it's very tech driven.

It's very automation driven, but. Our profession is one of the few places where you get to make a meaningful difference with another human being face-to-face. And now you can do it remotely, no doubt about that. But there's just something very special about building a relationship with a stranger that's coming in that is frustrated, that has a, a gamut of problems going on, or very, maybe in your case, a very specific problem.

And you get to be a part of the momentum that they gain, the transition that they go through that. I think monetary compensation aside, I can't [00:53:00] think of many professions that are more personally rewarding with also a fairly good work-life balance. Like my family's all in emergency medicine and they legitimately save people's lives, right?

But they also have terrible work-life balances and they it's, I don't know how they, sustain it. It's hard on their health. It's really challenging. And for us, we get a chance to have a meaningful impact on another person, make a good living while we do it. And we get to go to all of our kids' practices if we want to, or, don't miss their games on the weekend.

And, I think that's unique. I think that's a draw to the profession. It's something that I think we'll see more and more people move towards. So I really am a big fan of like where we're going and the things that we're working on. It's just a matter of, just making the environment work for us to where we're not just seeing three people an hour and feeling like we made a mistake, which is sadly a lot of our peers.

So I think people like yourself, it's so important for you to grow your business because not everybody should be an entrepreneur. In fact, I think very few people should. It's a crazy life. You and I both know, there's a lot of, there's a not so nice side to it as well that can really[00:54:00] take over your life.

And, but lots of people wanna work in a cool setting like that with somebody like yourself that is super motivated to drive towards a vision. That just sounds amazing. Anyway, man I really appreciate your time today. It's so cool to check back in and see where you're at. We'll, timestamp this one for the metaverse that next time we'll get back together and say, see, I think that's what's so cool about these is you could even go back and listen to.

The first couple times that we chatted and it's just man, what an evolution, what an improvement, how much you've grown. It's just cool to see. So anyway, man, I appreciate your time today. It's always fun catching up and I'm sure, we'll, I'm sure we'll do it again in the next six to 12 months.

Ziad: No, for sure, man. These are always good opportunities for me to reflect on how far I've come and I always wanna make sure I would always be remiss if I didn't thank you guys, like you and Eve and Jared for this community that you've built. And I still remember like how much I dragged my feet on joining the Mastermind because of all these different things that I had in my head.

And I, this is probably the best, it's the best business decision that I made was h hiring you guys as coaches and being able to have the guidance that we've had. [00:55:00] And I don't think that I would be where I am right now if it wasn't for you guys. I really do appreciate everything the three of you have provided and your team.

And it's just been an amazing experience and I'm just looking forward to sticking around with it, long term man.

Danny: That's, I really appreciate hearing that. It's cool at the, it's just fun. I'm very fortunate we get a chance to be a part of what you guys are doing in a small way and we just love watching the profession.

It's trending the right direction, at least for what we perceive the right direction as. People may disagree with that. Yeah. But I think if nothing else, it's just great to see how many people were able to help. And we did the numbers on it last year and it was like 50,000 new patients between everybody in the in the mastermind.

I'm like, man, 50,000 people that we got a chance to like actually help out and it's just such a cool thing to see. And it's just the beginning too, which is really crazy. So anyway, man I definitely appreciate you saying that. Z as always, we really appreciate chatting guys, I hope you like this podcast.

If you do, make sure you hit Z up. Let 'em know that you liked it. Ask 'em questions about a c l stuff. Send people his way. If they get a c l brother or sister or uncle or something like that, that was playing, pick up football and pop that bad boy who'll get him right back out there in Orange [00:56:00] County.

I'll let you go dude. Thanks so much and have a great rest of your day. All

Ziad: you too, Danny. Appreciate you brother. All brother. See ya.

Danny: What's up, PT Entrepreneurs? We have a new exciting challenge for you guys. It's our five day PT biz part-time to full-time challenge where we help you get crystal clear on how to actually go from a side hustle to a full-time clinic. Even if you haven't started yet. This is a great way to get yourself organized in preparation for eventually going full-time into your business.

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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 Yves Gege 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.