E845 | Why You Should Set 10x Goals For Your Cash-Based PT Clinic

If you're playing it safe with your goals, you may be holding your business back more than helping it. In this episode of the PT Entrepreneur Podcast, Danny Mattei breaks down why thinking bigger—like aiming for 10x growth instead of a simple 2x—might actually make your business journey clearer, more focused, and more aligned with building something that matters.

Key Takeaways:

1. The Mindset of 10x Growth

Inspired by Dan Sullivan’s book 10x is Easier Than 2x, this episode explores how setting massive goals forces you to think differently. Rather than focusing on incremental changes, 10x goals require you to reimagine your systems, leadership, team, and strategies entirely.

2. Most People Aim Too Small

Many clinicians set goals they’re comfortable achieving. For example, growing from $100K to $250K over 3 years. While safe, this can lead to stagnation. What if you aimed for $1M instead? Even if you fall short, you’ll often still end up much further ahead.

3. Reverse Engineering Big Outcomes

By entertaining the idea of a 10x goal, you naturally begin identifying the missing pieces in your business: better systems, stronger leadership, space, talent, tech, and capital. This kind of planning opens new paths that conservative goals never reveal.

4. Real-World Comparison

Danny draws from personal coaching experience—many PT Biz clients have made that exact leap from low six figures to seven figures. It’s not easy, but it is possible with clear, courageous planning and execution.

5. It's About Alignment, Not Just Growth

Your goals should reflect the life you want. For some, that’s a lifestyle practice. For others, it’s building a scalable company. Either way, pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone can unlock growth in skills, confidence, and outcomes.

6. Don’t Rob Yourself of Progress

Even if you fail to reach a 10x goal, you’ll likely get further than if you only aimed for a small win. Bigger goals demand bigger efforts—and they build better entrepreneurs.

Quote from Danny:
"Setting small goals that are achievable gives you the dopamine hit—but it doesn’t force you to grow."

Final Thoughts:
Set goals that scare you a bit. Make them big enough that they force new thinking. Whether or not you hit them exactly, you’ll be better off for trying.

Resources Mentioned:

• PT Biz Part-Time to Full-Time Challenge 

• 10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan & Ben Hardy

Resources to Help You Grow

Want to get better at this faster? Start here:

• Join the 5-Day Challenge – Learn how to go full-time with a clear, actionable plan

• Get the PT Biz Book – Lessons from 240+ practice owners who scaled up

• Watch our YouTube Channel – Weekly strategies for mindset, marketing, and more

• Visit PT Biz – Coaching and support to build your dream practice

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Ready to elevate your practice? Book a call at the link below with one of our expert consultants today and start your journey to delivering unparalleled physical therapy.

Podcast Transcript

Danny: [00:00:00] Hey Danny Matta here with PT Biz, and today we're gonna talk about why 10X in your business. Maybe it's easier than 2X-ing. It. [00:00:10] There's a book written by, uh, Dan Sullivan, who is probably the, I, I don't know, the most well known, but definitely, uh, has [00:00:20] worked with maybe the most number of business owners, um, in.

The country or potentially world that I know of. Dan Sullivan is someone who has a company called Strategic Coach. And um, I know [00:00:30] tons of people that have been involved in that organization. A lot of, um, you know, traditional businesses predominantly. And they've worked with literally tens of thousands of business owners.

Really, really cool [00:00:40] program. And one of the things that, uh, he recently did over the last couple years is wrote a series of books with, uh, another author named Ben Hardy. And. In [00:00:50] one of their books called 10 X is Easier than two X. There's an interesting concept, which is basically the idea of looking at your goals, looking at what you're trying to [00:01:00] do through a different lens and at a minimum thinking through things in terms of a bigger scale.

Bigger scope, and this is something that I've [00:01:10] really, really adapted and enjoyed over the last few years and been using with the clients that we work with to make sure that they aren't thinking too small because. One of the biggest [00:01:20] mistakes that we see is people get very granular. They make these very small changes, or they say, I only wanna see, you know, X, Y, and Z happen in my business.

And it's, it's a safe bet. It's a [00:01:30] sure thing, and it's not always the right move to make. And some of it depends on what your goals are with the business. Maybe you don't really want to scale. Maybe it's just, you know, [00:01:40] I want a lifestyle business and I'm only going to. Try to maintain these profit margins or whatever it might be.

But if you're trying to grow a business, if you're really trying [00:01:50] to like build something past yourself and, uh, and bigger than yourself and, and it's, that has true scale, you really have to think of things through a different lens. So when we do goal [00:02:00] setting with, uh, with, with our, um, our clients through PT bs, one of the things that tends to happen is people usually really try and pick things that they think they're [00:02:10] gonna achieve.

I don't know if this is just like. A clinical thing, you know, clinicians, or maybe we just like to achieve goals, but usually people will pick things like, let's say they're at, [00:02:20] you know, a hundred thousand dollars in revenue and the goal is that they want to get to a. $250,000 in revenue by three years.

And now [00:02:30] while that might still be great progress and that might be a very difficult thing to achieve, it's a pretty small goal overall. And one of the things that can be very beneficial is to [00:02:40] at least do a mental exercise of, well, what would it look like if you went from a hundred thousand, which is where you're at, and in three years you are generating a million dollars in your clinic [00:02:50] in gross revenue And.

I've done this with plenty of people and it is pretty interesting to watch them like get very nervous and they're like, well, that's impossible. There's no way that [00:03:00] could happen. You know? Well, I could actually point out a number of people that have actually done that, that have actually, you know, accomplished what I just said and.

It's just that you may not think it's [00:03:10] possible. So it's more about breaking these self-limiting beliefs of what we think we're capable of or what's actually possible. And less about [00:03:20] truly, you know, backing into what would have to happen for this 10 x change in a business. So. As part of this exercise, what you want to think is, okay, [00:03:30] well let's just agree that this is possible.

This is something you could do. You wanna go from a hundred thousand dollars to a million dollars in revenue in three years, you're gonna 10 x where you're at. [00:03:40] Well, what things would need to change? And this is where the beauty of this exercise. Comes in, uh, to, to being used to do planning and really think through things differently.[00:03:50]

What type of systems do you not have in place? What type of leadership skills do you not have just yet? What type of team would you need? What type of space? What type of tech stack, you [00:04:00] know, what, what type of, uh, actual like opportunities would you need to, uh, be a part of? Would, would there need to be a partner involved?

Would there need to be financing? Would there need to be [00:04:10] all kinds of things? Right, like, uh, hiring and, and, uh, recruiting. Where, where does that come from? Like, do you not have these things set in place? Awesome. Let's think through that [00:04:20] and let's think, is this really possible? How do we back into these things?

Because as we go through these exercises, it's really fascinating to see Oh, well. I guess it is [00:04:30] possible, and I would need to do these things in order for that to actually, you know, work out. Now here's the, the benefit of this. If you set a goal to go from a hundred [00:04:40] thousand dollars to $250,000 in three years and you hit it, that's awesome.

If you set a goal to go from a hundred thousand dollars to a million dollars in three [00:04:50] years, and you only get to 700,000, you didn't hit it, but. You're almost three times as big as the other goal that you set, even though you [00:05:00] failed at 10 Xing, where you're at. This is the power of goal setting for anything actually.

And we have to be able to make increment, [00:05:10] incremental progress along, along the way. But setting these big goals, I think is, is important. It gives us something to work towards. It gives us something to motivate us. My son recently told me he wanted to play in [00:05:20] the NBA. And, you know, I work with plenty of athletes and I've worked with plenty of professional athletes as a physical therapist.

And I can tell you it's very low livelihood. You know, uh, it's a, it's a, it's a very challenging thing to do, to [00:05:30] play professionally in anything. And, um. But it's a, it's a North Star goal for him. So what does that mean? That means he's out in the driveway practicing every single [00:05:40] day to improve his jump shot so that he can, you know, make the middle school basketball team and then from there even more work's gonna have to go in for him to make his high school basketball team and then for him to play in [00:05:50] college and then for him to then, you know, potentially play professionally in all of these things.

Let's just say he misses it and he just gets to play at like a division [00:06:00] two. You know, college like where I played baseball at a small school and, and that's still pretty awesome. That's still a great accomplishment. That's something you can [00:06:10] be really proud of. Maybe you didn't make it to the pros, but man, you played collegially versus if he just said, you know what?

My goal is I just wanna make my middle school basketball team. That's the goal that he set [00:06:20] a very achievable goal, much more achievable than playing in the NBA. Well, cool, you hit that goal and you achieved it and you feel good about ourself, but [00:06:30] it didn't really stretch us more. It didn't really make us, it didn't really make us try harder.

It didn't really make us expand what we think is possible or what we would need to do to get that outcome. And I think one of the [00:06:40] things that is really challenging with, with business owners is. Is, is it We think too small because we want that win. We're usually like pretty competitive and we, we want to actually [00:06:50] be able to check a box and say, oh, I said I was gonna do this.

Guess what? I did it. Versus if you set something that's a huge, lofty goal and you don't do it, but you get way closer than you [00:07:00] would have if you set this really, really achievable small goal, you're still in net. Net a better place in a lot of ways, assuming that aligns with what you want to do. This is really important because your [00:07:10] goals and my goals and other people's goals, they're gonna be very different.

And your goal really needs to align with what you want your life to look like, right? That's number one. But let's just say that we're the same in terms of what [00:07:20] we're trying to accomplish. If I set a big goal and I really expand what I, I think is possible, and I fall a little bit short, and you set a very, very conservative goal.[00:07:30]

I still end up in a better place. I still end up having developed more skills or challenged myself more or, or progressed more in a certain area to get there. That's gonna help me in [00:07:40] many other ways in my life. So I challenge you as you're thinking about what your goals are for your business or your kids thinking about what they want do, or you as a, as a person with your [00:07:50] health or your relationships or whatever.

Think about a 10 x difference versus a two x difference, and what do you need to do in order to get there? Because even if it's not achievable, you're better off [00:08:00] striving for something like that than you are to try to conservatively hit a goal, achieve something, to be able to check that little box on your notebook and make sure that you feel accomplished for doing so.

That is not [00:08:10] gonna get you as far as really stretching what you think is possible and really trying to work hard towards that goal. Okay. Thanks as always for listening and watching you for watching on the YouTube channel. This is something we've been putting a [00:08:20] lot of effort into. If you wanna see what I actually look like, you wanna see how much I use my fucking hands when I'm talking, go to YouTube, you can see it there.

We'd love for you to get a chance to leave a comment and enjoy, you know, being a part of a [00:08:30] conversation versus just listening to a one way channel. So as always, make sure watching listening, catch on the next one.