Celebrating Business Milestones as a PT Owner | E195

mindset podcast solo episode Jun 06, 2019

In short: Physical therapy business owners should put the work in first, set clear goals, and then celebrate when they hit them instead of only saving and moving straight to the next target. In episode 195 of the PT Entrepreneur Podcast, Danny Matta shares how a save, save, save money mindset kept him from celebrating wins, and how he marked five years of Athlete's Potential by buying a truck he had wanted for a while.

Key Takeaways

Put the work in first. If you are still in school or just landed your first patient, Danny says it is too early to celebrate.
Set goals and celebrate them. When you hit a goal, pick something to celebrate instead of just moving on to the next one.
Scale the reward to the milestone. Danny suggests examples like a nice dinner or weekend trip for your first $1,000 a month side hustle, or a celebration for your first $10,000 a month in a full-time cash-based practice or your first employee.
Watch the scarcity mindset. Saving and keeping cash on hand are positive, but constantly fearing the business will end next year is a bad place to be mentally.
Use rewards as reminders. Like his friend Clay Jones, Danny sees his truck as a daily reminder of the sacrifices, the work, and the success behind it.

What You'll Learn in This Episode

How growing up with what you needed, not what you wanted, shaped Danny's save, save, save money mindset
Scarcity mindset versus abundance mindset as a business owner
How Danny celebrated the fifth anniversary of Athlete's Potential
Clay Jones's approach to rewarding the sacrifices and work behind a business
When it is too early to celebrate and why the work comes first
Example milestones worth celebrating, from a first $1,000 month to a first employee

Frequently Asked Questions

When should a physical therapy business owner celebrate a milestone?

Danny Matta says to put the work in first. If you are still in school or have just seen your first patient, it is too early. Once your business is established and you hit a goal you set, pick something to celebrate.

What milestones are worth celebrating in a cash-based PT practice?

Danny gives examples like making your first $1,000 a month in a side hustle, hitting your first $10,000 a month in a full-time cash-based practice, or bringing on your first employee. The key is to set the goal ahead of time and choose a celebration for when you reach it.

How does a scarcity money mindset affect practice owners?

Danny admits that being as conservative as possible kept him from celebrating wins and spending on himself for years, while worrying the business might end the next year. He says that is a bad place to be mentally, and very unlikely given the time and energy owners put into growing and maintaining their businesses.

How did Danny Matta celebrate five years in business?

For the fifth anniversary of Athlete's Potential, which he opened in June 2014, Danny bought a new truck he had been looking at for a while. He took the idea from his friend Clay Jones, and says the truck reminds him of the hard work behind the business every time he sits in it.

Related Episodes

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Full Episode Transcript

Hey, what's going on, guys? Doc Danny in here with a PT Entrepreneur Podcast, and today I want to talk to you a little bit about enjoying all the hard work that you put in along the way. You know, I'm somebody, probably like many of you who I wouldn't say I didn't grow up in a low-income family by any means, but we grew up in a family that just.

You know, you had what you needed and not what you wanted, right. It's sort of just, it was as simple as that. And, we know we have three kids, and one parent is a, is, is working. That's just the way it is. And, and I, I totally understand it, and my mindset with money has always been very much, you know, save, save, save, save.

I, I'm not much of a spender. And, You know, there's pros and cons to that. And I want to talk about something in regards to your business because of this idea of like scarcity mindset versus an abundance mindset. It's something that I've kind of had a chance to explore quite a bit over the last few years in starting my own business.

And, You know, for me, I always took the mindset of being as conservative as humanly possible. Like, keep as much cash on hand for the business, save as much money as possible, which I think are all positive things. But along the way, one thing that I was terrible at was celebrating wins was celebrating.

You know, things and enjoying things along the way, whether it be, you know, taking a vacation that's cool with the family, or, you know, spending something on myself. Like it's just not the way that I'm built. I mean and, and the reason I bring this up is that some of you may be like me, and you may have a hard time with.

Spending money on yourself and, and, not, being sort of stuck in this money mindset of continually needing to, you know, save, save, save, never really know when it's going to wouldn't may all go away. And that's sort of the mindset I've had for the last five years. I'm like, man, maybe this is all going to end, you know, next year in our businesses.

And again, it isn't going to make, and that's a really like, bad place to be mental. And, and the reality is that's just not. It's very, very unlikely considering how, how much time and energy we put into, you know, our businesses and, and growing those and maintaining those and focusing on the right things.

So, you know, for me, we had our fifth anniversary in our business this month. You know, June of 2014, I opened Athlete's Potential. We started a second company, about a year and a half ago as well. And, you know, for my fifth anniversary, I decided that I wanted to get a new vehicle. And that's something that I hadn't done really, in a while.

I hadn't, and I hadn't bought a new vehicle in quite a while. I have a 14-year-old. Lexus GX 470. That is, that is, is honestly a pretty cool truck. It's got a lift on it. I can take that bad boy anywhere. But I've always liked Toyota. Tacoma has always enjoyed the way how I wanted the way they look and look at a little Tonka truck.

And, you know, I've been looking at one for a while, and I want it to be able to celebrate, you know, the fact that we've made it five years in business. And I took a, took a page out of my buddy Clay Jones, playbook. Where he's sold his truck to start his business. And within a couple of years was able to buy, a much more beautiful, newer vehicle that, you know, he's very proud of.

And he said, you know, man, it's the thing that I sit in every single day. And when I sit in it, I think about the sacrifices that we've made, the work we put in and the success we've been able to achieve. And I'm proud of it. And, you know, I thought that was an excellent way of looking at celebrating wins along the way, because if you just want to live life like a miser and pinch every penny and never enjoy anything, you know, in terms of, you know, monetary ability to, to buy something or to go on a vacation or to give that money away and help other people, which is, I think, the most fun way actually to use cash.

This is the most meaningful to me. What's the point. What's the end of all the hard work? You know, what's the point of all that effort you're putting into it? You can't take it with you. When I say you never see a hearse followed by a U-Haul, somebody's taken all their shit with them the, on the way to the grave.

It's not how it works. So for me, you know this, this is something that I don't, I don't do an excellent job of. I, as I said, it's a useful page out of a, out of Clay's book, and I'm glad I did. I bought a truck. I'm super, you know excited to, to have, it is great to have a truck again. I had a truck, and I live in Texas, and we sold it when we moved out to Hawaii and just threw stuff in the truck bed.

And it's a, it's something that I missed, especially having a house now where we're, we're, we're doing some, some little projects around there and a business that has to move stuff with. So it's super useful, but I'm also, you know, it reminds me of the hard work that we did, and continue to do. And, you know, and the fact that we should celebrate along the way.

So don't forget. Yeah. You might be in a phase now where you do not celebrate if you haven't if you're just starting, it's too early to celebrate. Okay. If you're still in school, don't celebrate. I don't even know what I did whenever I graduated from school. I don't think I celebrated much at all.

I think I graduated, we got in a car within a couple of days, drove to San Francisco, got that car on a boat, moved, moved out to Hawaii. I guess that's sort of a celebration. It was my, my first duty assignment, but we did take a little bit of time off when we got there. But, you know, being able to celebrate the wins along the way, like you have to do it just.

You know, put the work in first. So if you're just starting, if you're like a weekend and you get your first patient, it's still not time to celebrate yet. You just, you gotta, you have to get a little more than that, going and, you know, once, once you've reached your business established and you hit some of these goals, so maybe for you, it's, it's making that first thousand dollars a month in, in, you know, side hustle.

Well, pick something that you want to do to celebrate. Maybe it takes you, you. You know, your spouse out to a nice dinner that you guys have wanted to go to or, on a little weekend trip or something like that. Maybe it's, you know, you hit your first $10,000 a month in your fulltime cash-based practice.

You know, pick something, celebrate. Maybe it's when you, you know, you bring that first employee on silver. I mean, we just, I did none of this along the way. Just get their head down and work. So, what I'm getting at is we'll take a lesson from me, enjoy it along the way. I set goals and celebrate those goals.

Whenever you hit those, don't just move on to the next, the next ones. And, and for me it was a, it was getting, it was going a truck. And, every time I, every time I sit in it, I think about it and, I'm very proud of what we've been able to do. So, don't forget to enjoy it along the way.