Small Daily Improvements for PT Business Owners | E187

mindset podcast sales solo episode May 09, 2019

cash based physical therapy, danny matta, physical therapy biz, ptbiz, cash-based practice, cash based, physical therapy

In short: The way to grow as a physical therapy business owner is to focus on small, consistent improvements every day instead of fixating on the end result. In E187 of the PT Entrepreneur Podcast, Danny Matta shares how revising the sales section of the Gym PT Blueprint showed him how much he has learned in two years, and why that kind of 1% progress compounds into a massive difference over time.

Key Takeaways

If you think you've learned it all, you've already lost. Looking back at old work and seeing its gaps is proof that you have progressed as an entrepreneur.
Aim for roughly 1% at a time. Constant micro improvements over a few years create a significant difference in what you can understand and teach.
Your best effort today will look incomplete later. Danny's original sales section felt great when he built it two years ago, yet now he sees how much was missing.
Mindset gets tested when you go out on your own. Rejection, uncertainty, and doubt from family can all affect a clinician starting a business.
Daily progress is hard to see. Like weight loss in the mirror, change is only obvious when you look back over months.
Focus on the habit, not the result. Stack small daily wins and they will carry you toward your goal.

What You'll Learn in This Episode

Why revising the Gym PT Blueprint sales section showed Danny how much he had grown
How 1% micro improvements compound into a big difference over a few years
The mindset challenges clinicians face when starting a practice on their own
How Danny started a cash-based practice in the corner of a CrossFit gym after the military
Why daily progress is hard to see, and the weight loss analogy that explains it
How to focus on daily habits instead of distant results

Frequently Asked Questions

How can a physical therapist keep improving as a business owner?

Danny Matta recommends making small improvements every single day, roughly 1% at a time. Over a few years those micro improvements create a significant difference in your knowledge, your systems, and your results.

Is it bad if my old sales process or programs look weak now?

No. Danny says that looking back and seeing what was missing is a good thing, because it means you have progressed. If your old work still looked as good as it gets, that would mean you have not improved.

Why don't I feel like my practice is making progress?

Day to day changes are so small that they are hard to see, much like watching your own weight change in the mirror. The progress becomes obvious when you look back over a longer stretch of time.

Should I focus on my revenue goal or my daily habits?

Danny's advice is to focus on the habit of trying to get better every day rather than on the result. The result can feel far away, but small daily wins are what move you toward your goal.

Related Episodes

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Full Episode Transcript

Danny: Hey, what's going on, guys? Doc Danny here, with the PT Entrepreneur Podcast, and today is Thursday, so we get a short nugget of information coming your way. I am actually in the middle of finishing some, some of the final edits to the second iteration of the Gym PT blueprint program that we have coming out in the middle of May.

And as I was going through it. I'm revising the sales section right now. Excuse me. And as I was doing that, I was, I'm finishing up the last, last piece of it and going over, this sales script that we're teaching that, that I've developed over the previous five years. And as I was going through, I saw myself, man, I used to suck, you know, like, Holy crap.

Like I didn't know anything. When I first got started, and even the sales section that I taught in the original gym PT blueprint, I look back on it, and I'm like, God, there's so much missing. And at the time of doing it, I thought it was great. And I believe this, and this is kind of my point with this, is a, not as to talk about that section, but to talk about the idea of always trying to improve and evolve.

And I hope that. I hope everybody does that. You know, like, I hope everybody does that clinically. I hope you do it in your business. I hope you always are trying to like improve in some way, like making these small improvement improvements is, you know, two years ago, whenever I put this program together, that was my best effort.

Literally like my best effort at creating something that would help people establish practices and a performance-based model. And now, as I'm. And I was going through the process of revamping it. I'm just thinking, man, if so many holes in this, so much missing, and in particular in the sales section, I've learned so much about that over the last few years that as I look at, I think, I mean, what was I, what was I feeling like this is, there's so much missing in terms of, how it should be structured, the way it should be laid out with a patient, whether it be.

On the first visit on the second visit. You know, whether they're coming back in and do like ongoing work and like all these things that I know now that I just didn't know even two years ago. And you know, for me, in some ways I guess we look, I'm like, damn, this is frustrating. I have to redo this whole thing.

And it's a lot of work. Don't get me wrong. Like there's. It's taken us a long time to update all this stuff, but it is. Very much worth it because we've learned so much, and I've progressed a ton in terms of the knowledge base in business. And, as, as a, as I'm updating this, it's just cool for me to be able to look back and think to myself, like, dude, you didn't know as much as you thought you, you did.

Do you know? And if, if I had looked at that today and it, and I was like, yep, that's pretty much as good as it's going to get that, that means that I just haven't progressed. I've haven't improved as a, as a business owner, right as an entrepreneur. And the fact that I'm sitting here and I'm almost ashamed to say that I did that.

Like, you know, us, it's a good thing. It means that you know, there's just so much more out there to learn. And I think, you know, here, if we revamp this, you know, in two more years, I hope I look back, and I think. Dang, I'm an idiot. I forgot to put in this, this and this. Or, like, this concept wasn't as clear it as it should be.

This, you know, this section needs to be framed out this way instead so that people can learn, you know, the the best and, and retain this information. The easiest and, and little things like that, these constant, like micro improvements is sort of like 1% try to improve by like 1% at a time over a few years.

It creates this. You know, a significant difference in terms of what you're able to explain to the concept. You're ready to understand and teach. And, and even in the mindset piece, the, I finished that up last week. You know, I was thinking through some of this, these things I see she's so many problems with like poor mindset in clinicians that are getting into business for themselves because it's such a difficult thing to do to go out on your own and get turned down and not know, not know it's going to work or have family members.

Doubt you are like, I didn't have this problem like my spouse, you know, Ashley, when she was, she's been amazing. She's been behind me no matter what I want to do. Even though some of the shit that I had told her I was going to do is sort of hard to grasp at the time, right? Like out of the military, were, had a safe job, and then.

Start a business in the corner of a CrossFit gym with no windows in a city where I didn't know anybody and not take insurance, like till that's your, go ahead and tell that to your spouse, tell her you to want to do that and see what their response is. A lot of times, just a natural reaction would be like, okay, let's think this through a little bit.

You know, and, and that right there can affect your mindset as well. And even though it's healthy, I guess the lack of confidence and an unknown of like what's happening and, and that's what. You know, going through some of the mindset stuff, it's like so much brighter now for me. It helps so many more people go through it.

Then when we originally put it together, and it just comes down to a consistent effort on trying to become better every single day, you know? And when, when you look at it on a day to day basis, it's hard to see. It's sort of like when you're trying to lose weight or gain weight, right? Like. You see yourself in the mirror every day, and you don't know what's happening.

But then you see a friend that maybe you haven't seen in a couple of months and they're like, Oh my God, like you look great. Like you've lost 20 like you've lost a bunch of weight, and you look at yourself, and finally, you see it, you're like, Oh shit. I guess like, I think I have, I haven't been working hard.

I've been, you know, eating paleo or whatever, you know, super strict and, and be getting after it. And, and yeah, I guess I do look better. Right. But like every day, you don't see it. There are such small changes. So my advice to you is. Make sure you know that you're focusing on just the habit of trying to get better every day, not on the result.

It's so hard to visualize that and to, you know, maintain focus on that because it's going to be so far away. But focus on the little wins you can have every day trying to make yourself marginally better every single day. And that's what's going to make a massive difference in terms of you progressing to your goal going forward.

Do you know? And for those of you that are interested in starting a practice in a performance-based setting. Or maybe you have one, and you don't, you're not, you're not cracking that a $10,000 a month revenue Mark yet. Like this Gym PT Blueprint thing is going to be fricking awesome. Like it's going to be, it's, it's, it is such an excellent course.

I'm very proud of it. I think it's going to help a lot of people. I mean, Jesus, just the sales script alone is going to be a plug and play system that you can just start gaining. Sales in your clinic within like big upfront paid packages right away that's been vetted by, at this point, everybody in my company, everybody in my business partner's company and across the board, you know, within, parts of our mastermind.

Like it just works, and it'll add hundreds of thousand dollars of revenue to your business throughout the next couple of years only by implementing this one little module. And it's one of many, you know, so it's like, I'm so excited for this thing to come out. If you're interested in, you know, get your hands on it whenever it's released.

We are going to open back up. Mid-May had two physicaltherapybiz.com/live and get signed up for that. There's going to be a two-day event on that, depending, it might sell out. You know, not everybody might be able to make it, make it to that, but there's going to be a two day live event associated with that as well, where we're going to like take everybody through.

All this stuff in person. My me, and my business partner, Yves Gege, and, and Jerred Moon, as well as Ashley, who's my partner in crime with everything. And, so she'll be here as well, taking everybody through, all the things that we've learned. So it's going to be awesome. I'm super excited. Make sure you focus on progress, and every single day invest in yourself as you've lost an opportunity to do that.

Do you want more cash, PT biz help? If so, get a copy of my book, Fuck Insurance. It's your playbook for successful performance PT practice and never having to deal with insurance again. You can get a free copy at finsurancebook.com. Inside this book, you'll learn the direct techniques that we've used to become one of the fastest 100% cash PT practices in the country.