E811 | 7 No-Cost Ways To Get New Patients This Month

When you’re just starting your practice—or you’re in a slow patch—it’s easy to think that you need to throw money at ads to get patients in the door.

But the truth is, some of the most effective strategies for growing a physical therapy clinic don’t cost a dime. You just need to be willing to do the work.

Here are 7 completely free strategies I used to build my cash-based clinic from scratch (with no reputation and no budget)—and that our most successful clients still use today.

1. Join Local Networking Groups

You can’t grow in a bubble.
Groups like BNI, your local Chamber of Commerce, or small business meetups are a great way to meet other professionals in your area.

When I first started, I didn’t know anyone—but I learned how to introduce myself, talk about what I do, and follow up in a meaningful way.

Pro tip: Networking isn’t just about handing out business cards. It’s about listening, helping others, and building relationships that last.

2. Post (and Engage) on Social Media

Being active on social media doesn't mean dancing on TikTok (unless that’s your thing). It means:

• Sharing helpful tips

• Telling client stories

• Engaging with other local businesses

• Commenting on relevant posts

The key? Be consistent. People need to see your name and face regularly to remember who you are and what you offer.

3. Host Local Education Events

Workshops work. Period.

Whether it’s at a CrossFit gym, yoga studio, or even a running store, teaching what you know builds trust. I ran dozens of free workshops on squat form, shoulder pain, and movement mechanics.

Most were small. Some got canceled. But the few that worked helped me build my entire business.

If you teach with clarity and give value, people will remember you.

4. Offer Free Injury Screens

This is an easy way to go from "just teaching" to converting leads into clients.

Run 10–15 minute screens after workshops or at local events. Show people what they're limited in (mobility, strength, etc.), and help them connect the dots between their problem and your service.

Simple script:
“You’re limited in X, which can lead to Y. If you want help with that, I’ve got some time this week to dig in deeper.”

5. Be Part of the Community

If your niche is runners, don’t just market to them—be one of them.

Go to run clubs. Join group rides. Show up consistently and build friendships. Not to pitch… just to be human.

Eventually, people will figure out what you do. And when they’re hurting, you’ll be the first person they think of.

6. Show Up in Facebook Groups

Find local Facebook groups tied to your niche—like “Atlanta Trail Runners” or “Denver Mom Life.” Then:

• Answer questions

• Share helpful tips

• Avoid sales pitches

Be the person who shows up consistently with value. People will start to trust you—and message you directly when they’re ready.

7. Ask for Referrals

This is the simplest and most overlooked strategy.

When a patient hits a big win—no more pain, back to running, etc.—tell them:

“I’m so pumped for you. I’m a small business, and word-of-mouth helps a ton. If you know anyone else dealing with something similar, I’d love to help them too.”

Be direct, genuine, and clear. Referrals happen when you ask with confidence.

Final Thoughts:

These aren’t just “beginner” tactics—they’re the foundation of a sustainable, relationship-based business.

We’ve seen 7-figure clinic owners still using these exact methods to fill schedules, build authority, and grow their brand.

The only reason they don’t work?
You quit too early.

So stick with it. Show up. Give value. Ask for the next step.
And watch your schedule fill up—without spending a dime.

Want Help Putting This Into Action?

✅ Use Clare AI to get 2–5 hours/week back on documentation
✅ Join our Free 5-Day Challenge to work smarter
✅ Book a free strategy call to build your custom growth plan

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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:  Look, we know burnout in our profession is a problem, and one of the bigger contributing factors to burnout is the amount of documentation and paperwork we have to do just to be able to do our job, and we're now able to help offset a lot of the time that you spend writing your notes through ai. We created a tool called Claire and Claire listens in the background while you work with your patients and it writes your notes for you.

How awesome is that? It is literally a game changer. It's gonna save you what we see four to eight hours a week in our testing and our training as we've actually built this up and train this specifically for physical therapists. That's a lot of time. That's a lot of time. You could be working out. It's a lot of time you could be hanging with your family.

That's a lot of time that you could be seeing more patients if you need more productivity. Um, it's huge and it gets you a ton of time back doing something that we know nobody really wants to do, but we have to do in order to cover our own butts as clinicians. So if you want to test this out. Get 10 free notes, uh, to see how this works for you in your clinic.

Go to meet claire.ai, sign up and get 10 free notes to test it out and see how we can help save you 40 hours a week as well. Hey, are you a physical therapist looking to leverage your skillset in a way that helps you create time and financial freedom for yourself and your family? If so, you're in the right spot.

My name's Danny Matta, and over the last 15 years I've done pretty much everything you can in the profession. I've been a staff ee, I've been an active duty military officer, physical therapist. I've started my own cash practice, I've sold that cash practice and to date my company, physical therapy has helped over a thousand clinicians start, grow, and scale their own cash practices.

So if this sounds like something you want to do, listen up 'cause I'm here to help you. Hey, Danny Matta here, founder of PT Biz, and today we're talking about seven freeways that you can get new patients, and we're gonna do it in under seven minutes. So let's get started. This is for those of you that have more time than money.

When I was first getting started with my clinic. I had no money, but I had a lot of time. So what did I do? I went out and I tried to get clients the only way I knew how, and that was with education events. Now, that may be one of the options we can use, but there's seven I'm gonna go over today that you're gonna be able to start to implement, to get scrappy, to get out there and start getting clients in the door so you can help change their lives and they can start to send more of their friends and family to see you and you can have this snowball effect.

It allows your schedule to get busy and it allows you to then have a real business start to reinvest in that. But to start with, this is the way that a lot of people will actually get clients. If you don't have a longstanding, um, you know, reputation in the area, like I moved to a new city. I didn't know anybody.

You're gonna have to work harder. If you've been in an area for a long time, it should be easier for you to gain clients. But let's get into it seven ways. Number one, uh, local networking groups. This could be BNI, this could be business networking groups that are, uh, uh, chamber of Commerce. Um, this could be entrepreneurial local groups, getting involved in local groups to talk to other service providers, business owners, uh, networking individuals that learn more about your business.

Is a great way to get your name out there, to get your brand out there and to honestly work on the skill of networking because it can feel a bit awkward if you've never done that before. How do you have conversations with people? How do you end conversations with people? How do you follow up with people?

Networking groups are a great way to do that. Number two, social media. So being consistent on social media with your own content, but also being, uh, interactive with other people. Engaging with other people, liking their stuff, sharing their stuff, commenting on their, uh, their, their posts, uh, being helpful with, uh, with other people.

I. Being active on social media and targeting your avatar and trying to be helpful to them, as well as trying to be helpful to influencers in your space that might end up being great referral sources for you when you're just getting started is a great way to do that and it's free as well. Number three, local education events.

This is what we consider workshops, so it's you going out and actually like teaching stuff that you know to the group of people that you're trying to help. So in my scenario, I started, I worked with a lot of CrossFit athletes. I went to CrossFit gyms. I talked to 'em about squat mechanics, talked to 'em about hinge mechanics, talked to 'em about dealing with knee pain and back pain and shoulder pain, and how to take care of themself.

Uh, I talked a lot about movement and it was what I understood and it was my avatar. And I built my, frankly, built my business off of just local, local education events, and I didn't even know what I was doing, right. I just knew that I could teach this information. I knew that they would benefit from this information, and I did it as many times as I possibly could.

I also got turned down a lot. Keep in mind, I got turned down a lot when I would try to set up workshops. Not everybody wanted me to do it, and you know, it is what it is. Like, it doesn't feel good. It makes, makes you feel, uh, like people don't want to work with you, but they're busy too. And maybe they don't wanna work with you, maybe they don't like you.

Who cares? Get over it. Get out there, get in front of people, you know, teach 'em what, you know, try to add as much value as you possibly can, and you're gonna get clients from that. So, next one, this is gonna be, uh, local injury screens. So this is a variation of local, uh, workshops, but this isn't so much educational as it is a way for you to quickly assess somebody and give them an idea of.

If they have a problem or not, we should do these, uh, mobility screenings, uh, at gyms. And essentially it's, you know, 15 minutes of us taking people through different, uh, assessments. Maybe it's for you, a battery of assessments that you wanna do, that you come up with. Maybe you take, you know, the FMS screen, maybe you do some variation of the, the ready state, you know, 1 0 2 assessments.

Uh, there's lots of things you could do as long as it is systemized and it allows you to show people where they, you know, have deficiencies you can help them with. And once you do that and you say, oh yeah, you can't do this or this, and would you like help resolving that? Cool, next step, let's go ahead and schedule a visit.

As long as people understand they have a problem and you can help them, the likelihood they're gonna convert pretty high, right? So these are great to do off the back of education events. So if you build some rapport, build some, some brand recognition, and all of a sudden you do a injury screen at a facility that you're, you know, uh, friendly with.

Then that's a great way to really drive a lot of new patients. It's actually a great way to clean up workshop attendees through an injury screen. Uh, next one, uh, local community involvement. So what I mean by this is getting involved in the niche that you want to be a part of and that you actually, hopefully, are already a part of.

So if you're a runner, go into running groups and don't go into running groups to try to get patients too. By the way, this is a huge mistake. Going to running groups just to like run and then talk to people about why I should come see you is a great way to not want anybody to run with you or talk to you afterward while they're drinking a beer at a running group.

Go there and just be a part of the community. Be a part of the community, slow play it. I'm telling you, it's gonna work better for you if you do that. You gotta make sure that you're not trying to rush relationships. You know, it, it's very off-putting. It's not what people want, it's not how they interact with people in daily life.

So go and be a part of a community, not just to try to get patients, but to build, you know, rapport, to build friends, to, to be a part of the community, to help the community. And that will actually lead to a lot more clients that are gonna come and see you on the back end of that versus you going there and just shilling whatever you're doing the whole time.

Uh, next one, Facebook groups. So if you find Facebook groups that work or are, are wrapped around the avatar that you have, let's talk about running. So let's say there's a local running group, uh, in the area that you're at. Be in that group, join that group and be super helpful in that group. Be somebody that is constantly sharing valuable content.

Be somebody that's answering questions for people, you know, if somebody has something. And you do wanna talk to 'em about maybe it's appropriate for them to come and see you do that in private, do that in direct message. Don't do that in public, in comments or uh, in posts that you have. Don't post in your own shit.

Like it's, it's a big no-no, don't do it. Be very helpful. You know, be somebody that is like recognizable in that group that is a helpful person that. That is really commenting a lot of things and add a lot of value. This is a great congregation, port Point, digitally for you to actually have people, you know, come in and see you.

Uh, last one, referrals. Ask people to send their friends and family your way. Do a great job with them, and then when they have an exciting moment where they actually get a result, they're looking for. You say, Hey, I'm so excited for you. We're, you know, I'm a small business. I'm just getting started. It would really help me if you had anybody else that you knew that was struggling with X, Y, and Z, like getting of this running injury that we just helped you with.

And if you sent them my way or connected us, I would really appreciate it because I think I can really help this community and I would love to see more runners getting back to things they'd like to do. You have to be genuine about it. You have to be very direct and ask for it. Ask for referrals. It's the best way you're gonna get 'em.

That's six minutes and 45 seconds in I did it, which is hard for me to do because if any of you know me. I'm a prolific talker. So let's wrap these up real quick. Number one, local networking groups. All right, BNI groups, local entrepreneur groups change bird commerce. Number two, being active on social media.

Make sure that you are providing value through content. Make sure that you're engaging with other people, um, and make sure that you're, you know, leaving comments and sharing other people's stuff. Building goodwill. Uh, next one. Local education events. Teach what you know to help the people you want to help.

Next one. Local injury screens. Show 'em what they suck at and be the person that can help them get what they want as far as getting back to whatever they're trying to do. The next one, local community involvement. Alright. Being involved in your community, being a part of those running groups, go into that CrossFit gym.

But don't just go there to try to get patients. Go there to actually be a part of the community. Enjoy it. Uh, because at a certain point, you're not gonna be able to go anywhere and be a part of a community 'cause everybody's gonna hit you up about. Problems did they have? And, and at that point, you know, you can't even enjoy going to a gym.

It got that, that way for me. It gets that way for a lot of clinicians that, that really start to work a lot within an, uh, within a niche. And, uh, you just wanna be a part of the community 'cause you like it, right? So go ahead and do that. Facebook groups, alright, so be a rock star in a Facebook group. Be super helpful.

Last thing, ask for referrals. Do it in a really genuine way. Seven ways to get, uh, new patients. Without spending a dollar. I hope this helps you. If you're early stage in your business, uh, this is stuff you can focus on. Focus on doing the work. I know sometimes it feels like you're not getting any traction, but I promise you, if you do the work and you stick to doing the right things, people are gonna come your way.

The only time we see this not work is when people give up to early, so don't give up. Keep going, keep pressing forward. And this, these are things that we still incorporate in multi seven figure businesses. It doesn't go away. Other people might be doing it and you'll be leveraging it in a different way, but these are things that are gonna continue to drive people to your business for a very, very long time.

So anyway, thanks for watching as always. I appreciate it. I'll catch you the next one.

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

We get you crystal clear on the number of people you're getting to see, and the average visit rate you're going to need to have in order to replace your income to be able to go full-time. We go through three different strategies you can take to go from part-time to full-time, and you can pick the one that's the best for you based on your current situation.

Then we share with you the sales and marketing systems. That we use within our mastermind that you need to have as well. If you wanna go full-time in your own practice. And then finally, we help you create a one page business plan. That's right, not these 15 day business plans. You wanna take the Small business Association, a one day business plan that's gonna help you get very clear on exactly what you need to do.

And when you're gonna do it to take action. If you're interested and signing up for this challenge, it's totally free. Head to physical therapy biz.com/challenge. Get signed up there. Please enjoy. We put a lot of energy into this. It's totally free. It's something I think is gonna help you tremendously, as long as you're willing to do the work.

If you're doing, doing the work you're getting. Information put down and getting yourself ready to take action in a very organized way. You will have success, which is what we want. So head to physical therapy biz.com/challenge and get signed up today.