E430 | Live with Colleen the GOAT of Cash PT

 

In this episode of the P.T. Entrepreneur Podcast, Yves sits down to discuss all things Cash PT, adaptive fitness training, with Mastermind member, Colleen Davis of GOAT Physical Therapy!

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Podcast Transcript

Colleen: [00:00:00] So as a cash-based practice, you have some unique needs. Even more so now in our current economic environment that we found ourself in. This is why. We switched over to PT everywhere for my practice Athlete's potential look all in one place. We can manage patient schedules, home exercise plans, telehealth, and communicating back and forth with our clients, which has saved us a ton of time every single week.

Every single month and every single day, not just myself, but my staff, and right now you might just be a single practitioner, but eventually you want to grow into having multiple people in a true business. And what we wanted was a platform that could hold up. To multiple practices, multiple clinicians, and scale with us as we go.

So if you're just getting started, this is a great platform to take a look at. If you are growing and you're adding other people, this is a great platform that can grow with you and you won't have to worry [00:01:00] about switching later. So if you're interested in saving some time and having everything in one place, head over to pt everywhere.com and check out what they have to offer for your business and with their.

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 Matte, and welcome to the PT Entrepreneur Podcast.

Yves: All right, so we will dig into it. Today we got Colleen the. Of cash pt, which you just have to, live up to that lane whether you like it or not.

Colleen: Yeah. That's what happens when you name your practice goat. You just, you have to sink or swim with it.

Yves: Oh man, we've had so many good goat [00:02:00] memes go back and forth.

Between us yeah I'm excited to dig into this. I'm excited to get the chance to interview you and talk about your story and how we've ended up here. We've worked together for, over a year. I'm not sure exactly how long, but I

Colleen: actually just signed my contract to start my third year.

Oh my goodness. That's great. I know. Can you believe it? The Covid thing made time weird. There was a black hole in there somewhere. Yep. Yeah. I tell people I was in there in the black hole. I

Yves: blacked out for that year too. It was just a, it was like a boom and we're gone. I still remember our initial conversation, you and your tiny room in the CrossFit gym and now being next step in your second standalone space, and all that, that has come with it. Let's just start off right, like I feel like just start off as to. What started this whole cash PT journey in the first

Colleen: place? I like to say I started GOAT completely by accident. It's actually true.

I would [00:03:00] consider myself a reluctant entrepreneur. I never really had any goal or desire of ever doing any of this. Fast forward it worked out and it's good and I'm happy with it. But jump ahead a couple. I joined a CrossFit gym about seven years ago now. And l fell in love with it, the competitive nature of it, all that stuff.

I'm a CrossFitter, I talk about CrossFit a lot, par for the course Anyway, so the owner of the gym and my coach for, I don't know, years was like Colleen. He goes open a practice in the. Start a practice, start seeing people at the gym. And I'm like, I do home care. Like I don't, I dunno how to do this.

So then fast forward a handful of years and he moved his CrossFit gym into a larger fitness center. So now it's a more versatile space. There's a smoothie bar, a key card gym, CrossFit classes, hit classes, personal training. It's like a whole wham bam thing. Bam [00:04:00] thing. Roll with it. Roll it. We're doing good.

I'm just gonna go with it. I dunno what that is. As he was building out these like shells of offices just in the corner of the garage area, he goes, Colleen, do you know any of the local practice owners? I've been a PT in this area for 15 years. And I'm like, no. I'm like, why?

That's a weird question. He goes, I'm gonna contract with them and get a PT in here to treat the members. And I'm like, no, you're not. I'm like, no, it's my office. And he's what the crap, Colleen? He goes, I must have asked you a dozen times. You always say, no, I don't even just let me know when you're gonna open.

And he like stormed out. And I'm like, ok, great. So I had to go home and tell my husband that I was gonna open a. That went well because he's awesome and supportive. Although initially he did say, if you ever, he says, remember years ago when you said that if you ever told me that, especially in the gym, that I should hit you in the back of the head.

He goes, should I be doing that? Or I'm like, [00:05:00] no, I'm like, not gonna change my mind, we're just gonna do this. Yeah. So at that time, I had already started my adaptive fitness program that's actually older than goat. Mike, the owner of the gym, again, had basically he always, he wants, he's such a, he's a such a good guy.

He wanted to help the population of people that he knew he didn't have the skillset for. So he in the past had worked with a couple wheelchair athletes. He had worked with a couple older adults, and he is it comes out fine. He goes, but you would be way better at it. And I'm like so I started that program.

So then, I just merged the two together. And that's how goats started.

Yves: Yeah, we hear that a lot, right? I feel like finally now we have people who are like coming out with intent to do this, but it's the same story with me and probably most of the people who are in the Mastermind, right?

It wasn't this like thing that we just like, No. Like we're forced into it, and I'm loving this term reluctant entrepreneur because most of us were reluctant entrepreneurs. We did this because we had this absolute passion or [00:06:00] there we feel like we didn't have any other choice.

Which kind of like for you, right? It was still a choice, right? Yeah. But you were almost backed up against the wall. It's once it came to brass tacks, you. I'm not gonna let anybody

Colleen: else treat these people. Yeah. I wasn't gonna be the one, doing the exercise class and not the physical therapist treating the members.

I felt like it made me look like a lesser therapist, or I don't know, I'm competitive. I was like, no, nope, that's not gonna happen. Yeah, and it was, I was a side hustle strictly. I was seeing maybe three people a week. It was like nothing. And then my class was slowly growing, I think.

At the point that I had my first talk to Danny Batay, he's gonna tell you great things. I was like, all right, yeah, I'll talk to him, whatever. And a around that point, I probably had eight, eight or 10 people in my class. And again, like three PT clients, and I was still doing home care.

But yeah, then I talked to him. Was dead set on not joining the Mastermind. Like he was so clear. He was like, Hey, he goes, you got 40 [00:07:00] minutes, we're gonna talk. And he goes, the last 15 I'm gonna pitch you. I'm gonna pitch you something to buy. And I'm like, we're being upfront, so that's fine.

And then I had to go home and tell my husband again that I was then gonna spend a fair amount of money. In fact, all of the money my business was making at that time to join this group. And I thank God for Kevin. He he says, he goes he goes, honestly, if in an hour long phone call this guy managed to sell you on something like this, he obviously knows how to sell stuff, which you suck at.

I'm like, that's true. It's true. Yeah. So now here we are. I just kept plugging along, follow. All the stuff you guys told me to do, except that whole organize your business stuff. I'm backing up and doing that now. So minus, minus that stuff I just managed to, get better at selling myself.

Yves: A hundred percent. I So when you came in it was it was fairly new in the business, like you said,

Colleen: right? Yeah. You were just, yeah, I opened in [00:08:00] March. I had come to terms with the fact that I was then a practice owner by like maybe June, and I think that's roughly around the time that I had spoken to Danny.

Like I was like, no, this isn't a practice. Far right, but

Yves: what do I love these stories, right? There's there's just so many questions I could ask, and I feel like a good one is you're a reluctant entrepreneur. You've got a good gym owner, a good space, right? And you've just got some initial traction.

What do you feel like helped you take that next step? What provided a lot of the traction to get to the point where you were just steady, right? And you were able to grow because you had to grow enough to take this next step to hire people, get in standalone space. What would you attribute some of that to, not necessarily us, but also like introspectively, would you say?

Colleen: So it went from. I think the big thing I got from the group initially was just talking to other people who were doing similar things and being like, oh yeah, okay, so this [00:09:00] works. And so just getting that confidence. I had also joined a BNI group, which, sorry, friends, I'm really not a fan of, but even so I learned how to talk about my business, how to, just.

Put my feet in those business owner's shoes and be like, okay, here we go. Put your confidence hat on, like you know how to do this. And once, I think once I was there, I was much more open talking to gym members. If I saw them doing like some kind of a crappy deadlift or modifying something, I'd ask them why and talk to them about it.

So that was how I initially just got the traction, was frankly just being more confident in what I had to provide. Whether it's gym members or people that you run into, like at the running store or along those lines. I started to actually use my social media accounts that I had started still very reluctantly cuz I don't like social media.

That was really where I started the traction. And then really once, my husband and I talked about it, and once I reached the point really [00:10:00] where I would see my three people at the gym and it would take me, I don't know, a hot second to write those notes, and then I would see three people in home care and it would take me eight hours to finish those notes.

I was like, all I walked Millie to the mail mailbox and back, and that took me two hours to write. I basically fixed this guy's snatch t. In an hour and it took me 30 seconds to write it. I'm like, this has to go. So at the point that I was making like, close to what I was making in my home care job, I ditched it.

And then again, whole hog, all of a sudden now I had the time to actually find people, talk to people and build opening my own location though. So my standalone space was not in the cards. Covid hit and a large percentage of my one-on-one clients and all of my adaptive fitness clients in, like my members in my class.

Are all high risk for [00:11:00] Covid. From a personal training perspective, I typically work with like people in their sixties and seventies who don't wanna get broken. And again, all of them were like we're not coming back to the gym. There's too many people there. It's a huge fitness center.

There's 500 members. And I'm like yeah, I don't blame you. So for a while I was treating people. In my friend's eyelash extension studio, which was interesting. They were closed too for Covid, but I was still able to treat people. So she's, I just paid her whatever and it was cool.

And I was like, having my own space is a neat thing. And then I talked to her real estate agent and that was when I found the. The very cool, although I won't spoil it, but the really cool project that was happening in the center of town where they were converting a school into small business offices.

I met with the real estate guy. The price was right. The space was awesome and I was able to kind of mold it into its own thing and I'm like, you know what? I'm like with what I'm making right now. I can pay for both of [00:12:00] these locations at the same time. And once everybody's not cowering in their little covid shelters, like it's only gonna get bigger.

So that was the point that I decided I needed my own space cuz then my one-on-one people that were high risk were like, oh yeah, if I could go to like your space and it would just be like me and you or maybe one other person in a space that's much. They felt much safer with that.

So that was how we made the decision to go down that road. There are so

Yves: many inflection points of your journey, right? Like that initial inflection point to go all in. The inflection point of realizing you need to do this time. Another inflection point where you're like, I've gotta go get my standalone space.

And every single time you're just creating these building blocks. Blocks for it, right? Yeah. Like you said, b and. I don't love BNI either, but what I love about it is it forces you to start talking about your business and be a business owner, which is like a big challenge for so many physical therapists, right?

They're not willing to put themselves out there. They don't [00:13:00] understand how to have those conversations. Introvert or extrovert, right? Like it's just, it just takes practice. So I really like. B and i as far as just like practice for those

Colleen: things. Totally. And I don't regret my two years as a B and I member at all minus one situation.

But that's another whole story that has nothing to do with anything. But for the most part, I'm, I don't regret it. I don't wanna pay the money to do it anymore, and it's not giving me the return that I need. Yeah. And I really, I just don't have time for it. It's a big time thing and I don't have that.

Yeah. So I've just recently left, which I'm not gonna. Huge weight off my shoulders, but it did totally teach me like how to interact with other business owners, how to be like oh, the owner of that gym. And then, getting those warm intros. Through circles that I previously wouldn't have before.

And I do still have my mesh network of the people that I really liked, that I connected to through bni, most of whom are also not in BNI anymore. So there so it, it was a good move and definitely taught me how to talk like a [00:14:00] business.

Yves: Yeah. We talk about it all the time, and it rings true in almost every single business that we work with, and that I see is that these local relationships are just the cornerstone of building a business like ours.

Because you're in a relatively small town

Colleen: right there. There's about 5,000 people in town. 5,000,

Yves: yeah. Yeah. And you've got your own standalone space and two clinics and Yeah. I mean it's just cool, there's so many people who would think, okay, that's not possible. And obviously it is, as well as integrating, which I wanna talk about more, is just integrating small group adaptive fitness training. Into the performance pt. PT model. Because I also remember you coming to an event, right? And we did the hot seats, right? And what happened? Tell us what happened

Colleen: at your hot seat.

Yeah oh my gosh. I was that, I was so like, I felt like a fish outta water at that event because I was like, I can't believe I'm flying. I live in Connecticut, I'm flying to Atlanta, meeting up with. Kate, who's now a good friend of [00:15:00] mine, who I've only ever talked to on the internet, and we're gonna share a car and drive to an Airbnb full of.

All the girl entrepreneurs who are all going to this event, I'm like, I've never met any of these people like this. This could be an elaborate scheme to get kidnapped. I dunno what this is. But anyway, so it wasn't, I didn't get kidnapped. That's good. That's good. But yeah, so we had to do this hot seat presentation where, I had to stand in, everyone had to do it, but I had to stand in front.

I don't know 30 other business owners who, we were in the baby business group, so other people roughly around the same spot as me, and present them with, what should I do in this situation? Just to figure out whatever your problem was. I barely had a business at this point, so I didn't know what my problem was.

And I had done this great presentation about these I mean I thought it was great about these, two other gyms who were both offering me like a little space in their facility to see their members cuz they were [00:16:00] hesitant to send their members from their little tiny gym to this giant fitness center, which frankly is a really cool place for me to see.

And so I was like how do I'm like, I'm only one person and I have two other gyms that want me. And I, so I had this whole presentation about that and Danny sat back and he goes, what about this fitness class that you're running? And I explained it. I'm like, typically I'm getting most of my referrals from other physical therapy practices who.

They're like, okay, Millie your back pain is gone, but you need to keep exercising. And she's oh, where will I go? And oh, my friend Colleen, I used to work with does this exercise class. And he is back up goes, so your best referral sources are other physical therapy practices.

And I'm like, yes. He's that is brilliant, thanks. But then ultimately he's forget all the other gyms. Forget all that. And he goes, why don't you have a hundred people in your class? And I'm like, oh, I. I don't know. And he is that's what you need to do. He goes, a hundred people in your class, he's doing back of [00:17:00] the envelope math.

And he is you'd like you could just do that if you had a hundred people. And I was like, oh, that'd be way easier. So yeah. So that, that became my. Main focus, like all advertising. I ever did anything. I did, I always just talked about the fitness class. The other stuff trickled in just cuz I was talking to gym members too.

But I do not have a hundred members. I'm up to 40. No it's 40 adaptive fitness and like 15 Pilates. That's awesome. I'm working.

Yves: Yeah. Town of 5,000. And you're still seeing cash clients right? At your old gym and at your current space as well.

Colleen: Yeah. So I get so many people asking me, why if I have my standalone space, which is super swanky and really cool, why am I still at the gym?

I'm like, cuz my schedule's full there. I'm there two days a week and I'm booked from 9 45 until six 30. Why would I not do. [00:18:00] So that's the end of the story there. I'm gonna keep it because it's working, like it would be dumb not to. I'm trying to get more therapists over there. I've got two, two therapists working with me now, so I'm trying to integrate them into that.

We're working on it. It's not going as smoothly as I'd like, but it's really just because everyone at the gym knows me. That's challenging. So I'm, yeah, it's a little tricky, but oh the PT I have over there does have a handful of clients. Now most of them aren't gym members, but they're active people who are comfortable going to a gym setting to see her.

Yves: You're running that roadblock. We see it a lot in CAT practices. So originally when I started it was like cash pt. Scalable. I can't, I can't go beyond yourself. And obviously we've crushed every single glass ceiling as far as that's concerned.

Colleen: I was in a course this weekend in Westchester Westchester County, New York, and I had a fairly new grad, so he goes, oh, that's so cool. He goes, yeah, I couldn't do that here. And I'm like, are you flipping kidding me? Like Really? Yeah, you could. I'm like, I'm pretty sure I know somebody out here [00:19:00] somewhere so yeah, it's, it. It works. Yeah.

Yves: We gotta break these false beliefs, right? Like we're definitely not taught in school that this is something that's totally viable and it's not necessarily for everybody, right? But no for you. I'm sure it's amazing and it's been one of my. Like most fun things to do is bringing other healthcare practitioners, PTs, PTAs, even coaches, onto what you're doing, right?

And that's the opportunity you have now, like initially, and if you guys are listening haven't read Danny's book, go read it. You have that proof of concept stage. You got beyond that and now you're getting, plenty of traction. And this last step, which is it's honestly equally challenging, right?

Is. All right. I've got not enough time. I've gotta be able to scale beyond myself. And so now I've gotta hire coaches for my classes. You've added some classes too, right? I've got a higher pd to do some of the treatments, which is challenging

Colleen: and of itself. Yeah. Again, like the stars truly aligned for me.

Like at the point, everything shut down with. I had reconnected with Beth, who is a friend of mine, I know her through [00:20:00] CrossFit competitions locally, and she's a pt, so we've always been in, in touch with each other. And the clinic she was working in closed and she was doing, she is, she is a cash PT owner.

She has her own practice. She sees people out of her really awesome home gym. But I was like you wanna not try to scale that and maybe. Come on a little ride with me. You could still do your thing, but let's do that. And so we teamed up and it's worked beautifully.

And she's a Pilates instructor and used to teach a Pilates class at her previous job. So we started that online during Covid just to see what would happen. And it's growing slow and steady too, just adaptive fitness.

Yves: Yeah, bolting on, which is what we're thinking about and made to move too, like the idea of small group training or group classes in your case, right?

It's just such a natural step for us, right? Because hey, you can come in, we can, help you deal with whatever injury or issue get going on. And then now for those that want it, [00:21:00] having a physical therapist come in and like lead group classes I just think there's a ton of value in that, right?

And there's obvious. A great way to keep people around and a great way to provide value to your community.

Colleen: Yeah, it's, in a lot of ways it's a self licking ice cream cone because I'll get somebody in and, they have back pain and they like to walk and they like to hike, and it's okay.

And then they finish and they're like, oh my God, I loved all the stuff that I did. And I'm like this is basically what I do in the adaptive fitness. And I've been able to bring people from like a six visit package then into a monthly membership in the group class. And then it's worked in reverse too, because I've had people who are like, oh my gosh, you've done so much for me in this class that I can do, which I never thought I'd be able to do after my abdominal surgery.

But you know what? My son is having trouble with his ankle now. The baseball season started. Could you look at it? So it, it flows really nicely both ways. And again, advertising an exercise class for the [00:22:00] non-traditional gym goer, it, it just, people talk about that and then all of a sudden they find out that oh, you do physical therapy too?

And I'm like, yes, I do.

Yves: A self licking ice cream cone. Is that what you said? Yeah. I've never heard that analogy.

Colleen: Ever. Oh, you're welcome. Go ahead and put that one in your pocket.

Yves: Oh my God. It was like a double self licking ice cream cone. Cause it came from

Colleen: That gets gross. That's gross. That was too. Oh, you're right.

That too much. That too. Blew it. No, it's

Yves: just so cool to see. Like I love the idea of, again, physical therapists, I love our profession. There's no secret are able just to provide so much value in the community and it doesn't stop at home health. It doesn't stop at outpatient pq. It obviously just is able to expand much more than that.

And like you also, which I think is great, you found something that you're super passionate about, like you but like I can tell in your voice I hear it all the [00:23:00] time. You just love those adaptive fitness clients. There's nothing Yeah. That brings you more joy and energy than seeing, somebody be able to walk 30 feet instead of 15 or get up from a chair without their hands. Yeah. That's just you would do that for free if you wanted to

Colleen: maybe. No, I'm kidding. Yeah, no, you're totally right. I would but yeah, the class itself, it's, people ask what is adaptive fitness?

And I hate that question. I feel like I still don't remember a really good answer for it. But basically the, when I started it originally I was like, oh my gosh, all those really cool adaptive CrossFitters that you see strapped into their wheelchair or doing rope climbs. Yes, that's what we're gonna be.

No, that's not what it turned into at all. I learned that basically the over 50 mom is like the person who tends to gravitate toward me. Which is fine. They're comfortable with me, they're comfortable with Beth. They're com comfortable. Now we have Abigail on staff too, and they're we're approachable and our, the class.

I'm not gonna lie, it's basically a CrossFit [00:24:00] class. I just can't call it that. And don't tell CrossFit that I just said that out loud, but it's all the same movements. It's all functional movements. If we're doing pushups, my lady who uses a walker and my wheelchair athlete are doing a wheelchair pushup with their hands on the arms of the chair lifting up their butt best they.

If they can't lift up their butt, then it's a weight shift, so that's fine. That's still a pushup, all the way to wall pushups to elevate it out of box to down on the ground knee pushups if I can't talk them out of it. But it's all intervals too. It's okay guys. 30 seconds of pushups go, she can do three.

I now actually have a 13 year old in class. He can do 15 on the ground. And then, but we all start and finish together and it's created this really awesome community also because, pre Covid, we all did a 5K together and I had two people who run walked it, [00:25:00] which was something they never thought they'd be able to do, and then the rest of the group just walked it.

I was like, I've never walked three miles. I'm like, great, let's do it. And you get, oh, you. I saw you're doing your pushups on the ground now. That's awesome. Way to go and look how much higher you got out of your seat and you started doing standup sit downs instead of just, whatever the other movement was.

That's awesome. So like it, it has become this really cool community of really supportive people who all like to complain to me about the programs that. It's like they team up against me, like thrusters again. I'm like, I just love them. You have problems if you love thrusters. And I'm like, it's probably true.

That's, yeah. Yeah. So it's just, it's become such a cool thing and I really do love it and I love now sharing it with someone too. Abigail is our new trainer on staff who truly is a fairly new trainer. But she came to me with just such passion and knowing what populations she wanted to work with.

[00:26:00] And then I had her come to an adaptive fitness class and she goes the population I wanna work with, she wa predominantly likes to work with like people of size and people who have never exercised before. And she goes, they could do this class. And I'm like, yes, that's on my list of who could join this class?

I actually have stopped doing that because it just, it's just this list of. Sicknesses, and that's not what I want. I want it to be, the hesitant exerciser. I want it to be the person who's not sure if they could do a class.

Yves: Yeah. You hit so many nails on the head, right? Like developing a community and establishing a community for yourself and for your people and for your business is an Absolut.

And you can foster some of that in these group classes and like us as physical therapists, we have a lot of skills and I think it, it goes more than this, but what we're really good at, I think is like scaling and like progressing exercise, right? Like a big part of what we get.

And so applying that. Not only through your knowledge as being CrossFit and doing that. But also as a [00:27:00] pt, those two skill sets get combined and the value that you provide to those people. Like they might feel a lot safer if somebody with a medical background. And like you feel pretty safe, like probably pushing them a little bit more potentially and other people could. So it's just like this perfect marriage between two things. And then you've obviously seen it, as you said, help your business getting referrals as well as a potential

Colleen: other revenue.

Yeah, for sure. And I mean I think the biggest thing that my members come out with is just confidence that they can do it. Like I have this one particular person I'm thinking of who had a very terrible kind of backstory medically, multiple abdominal surgeries. There was cancer involved. It was just terrible.

And this person came to me basically afraid to lie on her back. And her previ, it was intense. Like we did spend one session where she just laid down on the ground for 10 minutes and cried, and we just kinda [00:28:00] talked through it. Wow. And, but her previous therapist, this, this ticked me off.

I don't really get super mad, but this, like her previous therapist at the point that she was like I can't, I just can't lie down on my back. But she wasn't really in pain. She just, she couldn't do. And her therapist told her to maybe you need like a psychologist. And I'm like, maybe she just spent like months of her life laying on her back in a hospital bed with like tubes and stuff sticking out of her.

Like it's like a P T S D situation. Like we just need to teach her that it's okay to be. And now at this point, I still see her once a month for individual stuff, but I, she joined the class and I think the turning point in my mind working with this particular client was when I handed her a slam ball because she's a very Oh, I don't know.

She's just this kind of introvert and I'm like, no. Like freaking slam it, throw it on the ground. Make a hole on the ground, [00:29:00] explode this ball. And like it was around that moment that she was like, oh yeah, all yeah, let's do it. And then she didn't have pain. Everything was fine.

We're working on getting on and off the ground. So it's. And and that's what almost all of my members have been. This one started as a one-on-one, but they don't always, and if I have someone super, super scared just to do any exercise, and not the best business decision, but I'm like come meet with me.

I'll meet with you for an hour. Not gonna charge you. Let's just move and do things so that you get a feel for it. And guess what? You need to do that because you are the least, but almost. Yeah. And almost all of them convert into members or at least try it for a month or.

Yves: I get just as frustrated as you do cuz I hear it all the time.

Oh, we're not psychologists, or we're not personal trainers. We shouldn't be just exercising with people. And I'm just like, no, we're actually all those things. And that's like a great way. For us to provide value. In our community, it's just the bottom line, right? It's in a way, for a lot of people, it's like the best part, of our [00:30:00] day to be able to figure those things out.

You know what I, we're not, we shouldn't be pigeonholed into this post-op rehab protocol based we're obviously more than that.

Colleen: And I love, I don't take post-ops for that reason, cause I'm like, I'm not following your protocol. I'm like here's all my friends that work in network.

Please go see them and in two or three months, call me back. And we'll, once your insurance company doesn't like that, you're still stretching that green rubber band, then you and I will work together and we'll get the kettlebell off the ground and we'll work on that. You have so

Yves: much clarity.

And I think that's the biggest thing about business. You know who you wanna see in your clinic, right? Yeah, exactly. How to provide them the best value and. For everybody listening is their superpower in business. If you can be super clear on that, the details, right? Like you, you get worried all the time.

I don't have this backend stuff, or I don't have SOPs. I was like, it does matter. Don't be wrong. I'm a systems guy. Oh yeah, no. In all, do you have this like passion and purpose that's fueling you to be resilient, right? Because just all those inflection points you decided to push through it, right?

You could have easily said, No, somebody else take this [00:31:00] space or, oh, I don't wanna just do group training. I want to do you could have said you could take different paths every single time, but you're just super clear about who you wanna serve and how you wanna help them. And would you say that's been a big part of like you just being clear and making those decisions?

Colleen: Totally. It's a huge gap in the system. When I was working at, like a hospital-based outpatient clinic, I was typically the neuro vestibular therapist, right? And here I would get, I remember vividly cuz I still talked to him, working with a 22 year old who had a terrible head injury and going from this super basic rehab into where we were doing squats and like working on balance and like doing this higher end stuff.

And then it was like I had to stop and I'm like, but. He could do so much more. Like where do I, what trainer in the world is gonna be like, oh, you've had this major head injury. Yeah, sure. You have funky movement patterns, but yeah, no, I can totally handle that. No, they're gonna like [00:32:00] tiptoe around it.

And have him doing bicep curls for four days.

Yves: Yeah, and it's an I, I honestly think love it or hate it, that niche is going to explode, right? Because people are living longer. They quality of life is diminishing because they're not exercising on a regular basis like filling your class up to a hundred is obviously a very realistic thing because totally speak around, walk around everywhere, and you have. Hesitant exercisers everywhere, right? Who probably have a bunch of comorbidities and things going on, and arguably, the best thing for them is just to get moving and whatever they see fit, but like yours is one of the best options because it's,

Colleen: yeah.

And yeah, go ahead. Totally. Even just when I'm talking to, even though this, adaptive fit fitness did not turn into like hardcore badass adaptive CrossFitters. I'm good. Because what it did is it's that place now where someone who had a stroke, who's hemiparetic, who's otherwise completely healthy, can go work out without, the coach being like, all right, we're all doing pushups and being like, oh, I don't know what you're gonna [00:33:00] do we've got it, we've got it ready to go.

And even just, you and I talked about my mom for a second before we turned on, cuz she was mad that she couldn't get into the PT entrepreneur group to podcast. That's who I think about when I'm, when I'm running an advertisement, I'm like my mom who signs into my class online cuz you know, COVID, we do it online now too, but you.

She wouldn't feel comfortable walking into the gym where my original location was and saying, okay, yeah, I wanna exercise. But at the same time, if I said, oh, you have these medical issues, we know about these, I know how to do that. I can talk to your physical therapist. I can see what you've done and what your issues were, and then I can make this class work for you.

And that's, I. She's, she's mad I'm not down. In Florida, but it's hot there and I don't wanna be there. And

Yves: You're expanding this too, right? Like you're starting to add different things. It's not just [00:34:00] adaptive training now. Cause you're seeing right, there's or just like different strokes for different folks, right?

Like it's just like they want, okay, I want, was it kettlebell stuff or Pilates,

Colleen: right? They want, yeah, so we've got our Pilates class, there's four Pilates classes a week, two in the morning, two in the evening. And again, the Pilates class that Beth coaches. Through an organization I don't remember the name of.

That's great. In Australia. They're awesome. It's on the website, so look it up. But it's specifically. For physical therapists to be the coaches. So it's it's different than a regular Pilates class. In what way? I don't know. I don't do Pilates. Sorry. Yeah but it's a different class. And then, she's also a competitive CrossFitter now a games athlete.

Whoa. Wow. Be cool. And so she's let's do something else. And she, I'm like what are you thinking? She goes, I could do a kettlebell class. I'm like, let's do a kettlebell class. So that's been a little slower getting off the ground, honestly, just because we've got other fish to fry at [00:35:00] this exact moment.

Like really big ones. Yeah. So once we're done frying up those fish and we'll we'll be able to expand that further. Abigail, our trainer has some ideas for some classes she'd like to we have a new PT on board who has some workshops and classes she's talking about running. We are in the process of moving to a bigger space for a host of reasons, which is actually going to be a phenomenal move for goat because now our classes can be a little bit bigger and people feel better about it cause it'll be more open Covid.

Yves: Tell us about goat. Where did that name come from? I know, but tell it to the people.

Colleen: I'm gonna tell the people that I wish you didn't tell me were gonna be able to hear this. So we were looking, we were, was, we decided we were gonna open the practice. We, as my husband and I, he's not technically a part of the business, but let's be frank, he does all the IT stuff and talks me off ledges pretty regularly.

Nice. But he. So we sat down to fill out the L C paperwork and we're [00:36:00] pulling it out and I'm like what's the name? And I'm like, movement. Everyone's gonna move and be strong. And we're like, dynamic. It's gonna be dynamic. This is a great move. So we filled out all the paperwork, submitted it all online or however you're supposed to do it.

Yeah. And Kevin, who typically I love him so much, he over researches everything. Didn't even Google the name. There is a dynamic physical therapy. In the town that touches mine. Oh, wow. And I talked to my friend about it, she goes, oh yeah, I did my fill there when I was in school. And I'm like f so we're like retract for track.

Just kidding. That's not what we're gonna do. And so we were, it was, it was February, it was Super Bowl time. And Kevin's a big Tom Brady fan, U of M, yay. And he goes, Goat. He goes, you're the best it should be goat pt. And I'm like, that is the stupidest thing you have ever said. I can't even, I can't even think that you like, no, not goat.

That's stupid. But and now like the older people, we [00:37:00] could, they could be old goats. That's fun. We could really Kids class. That's cute. I'm like, All right. Yeah, let's do it. So that was really it. We're like, at a minimum, people either really love it and they get it and it it suits my personality.

I'm a little kind of into the puns and the silly jokes and So it just worked. I talked to my friends and I'm like, we're gonna need a goat. And they're like, yes, it's exactly what you should name it. So we put a spin on it that it's not that. It's not that I'm the best, it's not that we are the best, it's that we're gonna make you your best.

Like how could you be the goat grandparent? Can you be the goat lifter compared to the lifter you were last week? Come in, we'll get you stronger than before. Whatever brought you to.

Yves: And the logo gets really easy and the memes are just

Colleen: plentiful. So there's, oh yeah, there's so many puns and ridic if we highlight an athlete, it's way to goat.

Like it's, it's just it's just lighthearted and fun and.[00:38:00] People, someone will wine and they'll be like, there's no crying in goat. And they're like, what do goats do? And I'm like, they bleach. What does that mean? I'm like, I don't know. It's stop crying. But it, but then we got over that hump of them complaining about whatever, and it's just it's been fun.

And I do get, I would say twice a month I have someone calling, asking if I treat goats. I'm like, I grew up in suburban Long Island no. Really even like to touch them. And then I also have people asking if we do goat yoga, we do not do goat yoga. I don't know why you would want to lay on the ground in goat poop.

It makes no sense to me.

Yves: Yeah. Maybe that's on, you'll add in 2025. You

Colleen: never know. No. Just literally no, the, that's hilarious.

Yves: Like new niche. For anybody listening, go be a goat physical therapist cuz you got people Yeah.

Colleen: Seriously. Reach out to, in like rural eastern Connecticut, like I have people pretty, my goat like sprained is goat leg.

I'm like, I don't, I'm [00:39:00] like, I don't, I don. I don't do that. I guess if you wanna pay me to try, I'll try, but I don't like animals. Really?

Yves: Bring the goat in. We'll

Colleen: figure it out. That's, let's get it. Let's just bring them in. It'll be fine.

Yves: You just did a great job of creating community around the name, right?

Like I think having a memorable name, obviously It's easy to remember, easy to, say obviously. There's a whole story behind it. I think that stuff's super powerful. So I've got a follow up question to the group training stuff.

Like, where would you say your time is spent right now? Would you say like, how much adaptive fitness group training are you doing? How much patient care, and then probably even how much are you just like working on the business,

Colleen: so working on the business, I would say is less than I'd like it to be.

The current dramatic situation involving moving to a new space is taking a lot of my time and also causing a lot of anxiety. So I'm seeing more people than I normally would. In order to make sure I have enough money in the account. Yeah. But a typical day for [00:40:00] me, so Monday and Wednesday, I coach two adaptive fitness classes morning and evening, and I treat people in between those two classes.

So I would say a regular day for me would be maybe four, one-on-one clients and two classes. And then the Tuesdays and Thursdays, when I'm at the gym, I only coach one class. There's only one adaptive fitness class in the gym in the morning. And then I'm usually seeing four or five people each of those days.

I'm working really hard on taking Fridays off to work on the business. I'm not really good at that, but. My, my Beth and Abigail both yell at me if I walk in on a Friday. So they're on board with like me getting the heck out of the building on Friday. And then I'm now working every other Saturday trying to keep it just to the mornings.

Cause I don't really, I don't like to do late nights. Every now and then I'll see someone after my evening class, like at six o'clock. I don't like being there that long. It's too, But at the same [00:41:00] time, if somebody that you discharged six months ago now all of a suddenly massively sprained their knee or something I'm not gonna be like, oh no, we gotta wait two weeks.

Yves: Yeah. That is the, it's the strange part about being an entrepreneur, running your own business. It's easy to work that hard. I'm gonna say it's easy. Like it's fatiguing

Colleen: it, it just, it happens. Yeah. And you don't, it's, I think one of the hardest things still for me is to say, except if it's a post-op.

Cause I just don't wanna deal with that. I don't wanna talk to a surgeon. I want nothing to do with it. That's hilarious. But aside from that, it's hard to have somebody, especially someone who's a previous client, who you're pretty sure now with a new injury is gonna buy another package.

It's gonna be a steady stream of income for you for the next two months. And you wanna help them cuz you know, you like them in the first place For sure. It's hard to be like, oh no, I have to go home so I can watch Jeopardy. No I'm gonna stay so that I can help you. It's

Yves: just, it's interesting, right?

As an employee and as a business owner, the mindset totally shifts, right? [00:42:00] Totally. And pe it's hard to understand until you're in it, right? You almost have an unlimited amount of energy in order to just, to like, provide value to the business and provide the people, provide something for the people.

It's right, it's amazing. And the, I don't know. I just think it's cool, right? And I, you have to experience it to really, can you even put yourself in the mindset as an employee? You wanted to get outta Dodge every day. There's no way you're spending any

Colleen: extra time, no. And it's cool too because the people that are on my team now are the same way. I have people being like, yeah, I know. So I put her in at 8:00 AM even though I don't see people till nine, and I'm like, I know, I get it. Thanks. So it's, it definitely goes with, my whole little team I've got going now.

Yeah.

Yves: The. The schedule. I don't, I'm sure people listening are like, that schedule sounds awesome. And that's why I wanna do group training for us. Cause I think it'd be cool. Like three or four patients, four or five patients, and you do a couple group classes.

Colleen: That sounds like a pretty, the thing, my, so the classes, I would say now doing it, cause now the classes, I've been doing that for [00:43:00] almost three years now. And I think it, it's a little bit of a double-edged sword. I find it exhausting because it. You're on stage, right? And then on top of it, my class is still in-person hybrid zoom.

So you know, how are my friends at home? This is what you guys are doing. This is what you guys are doing. And then you have to be like friendly and peppy and It's exhausting. You gotta be on you gotta be on, whereas, yeah, I mean there's on, you have to be on with your clients of course, when you're one-on-one, but you get their personality, it's not a show.

But a lot of times the group training, especially if there's that online component where those people are by themselves, there's an entertainment value to it. So it's stressful. Yeah, but at the same time, When it's over and people leave, I literally write nothing down if someone falls down or if something kind of funky happens.

Sure. Obviously I document that because I'm not stupid, but if everybody comes into class goes everybody leaves class. [00:44:00] It's over the end like it was 40 minutes of, Bouncing around and being extra pep and then it's over. I can go get lunch. No

Yves: notes, right? Like it's still the bane.

No notes. Even like the five minutes, is a struggle. It's funny for a lot of the PTs

Colleen: that work, I'm still really bad at documenting on time. I will. Yeah. And Kev, Kevin, my husband has said it. He guys, he goes, how many notes do you have to write today? I'm like, I probably should catch up on all of last week.

And he is you don't even have a reason. It takes you 30 seconds. And I'm like, apparently. That wasn't why I'm laid on notes normally, it's just cuz I don't want to do it the street up block, I'm sure. Yeah. I. I don't wanna do

Yves: it. Yeah. I also love, I wanna circle back to it like that your staff are like trying to kick you out on Fridays, right?

Because again, just like I said, it's easy to work or almost get overworked and we talk about it all the time within our group. It's like you could burn out all over again. You're still working on something that you love. Totally. It's so exhausting, right? And so a lot of the content that we talk about and in our accountability calls is I'm having to force people sometimes to [00:45:00] take a day off or. Block schedule to work on the business. Because you can literally burn yourself all over again.

And that's not

Colleen: what we want. Yeah. It's, it's a hard, it's hard to make that shift from being all by yourself, that you're the only person bringing any money into the business, to coming to that realization that Beth was in the games, so I flew out to Madison. I was like, I know someone competing in the games.

I'm gonna go. I was gone a whole week and so was. And then it was, the thing that was really cool was that Abigail, my trainer, filled in for most of my classes. And Amy, the new PT we have on staff filled in for the rest of them, and they both saw a couple of mine and Beth's clients, and I was like, I was gone and so was Beth for a whole week, and our revenue for that month didn't change all that much.

I was like, okay, so maybe I don't have to work my ass off six days a week. Seeing patients, like maybe I could [00:46:00] share the class with the trainer, like maybe I can share the class with the other PTs. Okay, yeah, maybe I cannot. Such a control freak about it.

Yves: Best feeling ever. I know Danny talks about it a lot and Right.

The first time you go on vacation and you still generate revenue and you're not there, right? Oh yeah. It's like watching your kid, hit a home run or score a goal or whatever. It's like what? Like it's

Colleen: just, it's the best feeling. Yeah. I was running the numbers like, I don't know, five minutes before I signed on for this call.

Cause that's how I, that's how I go. And that was when I looked and I. Wow. I'm like the difference between June and July, even though I was gone that whole last week and so was Beth was, not a lot, right? Yeah. Did we make less in July than June? Yes. Does it change anything? No, nothing because it's.

Still really good. Yeah.

Yves: And it's, it is hard for a business owner, like you said we want to control everything, right? So we're like, oh, I did this. You started all this, you've [00:47:00] been hustling for a long time, right? Now you're like, I'm all of a sudden supposed to hustle less.

It's just, it's a difficult mind shift. And the cool part is we get to talk about that now, right? Yep. I'm not talking. Just getting enough clients in the door. I'm not talking about getting your own space. I'm talking about yeah, you need to start doing less for quality of life. And that's where most of us, right? We want time, freedom and financial freedom. And it's you know what's holding us back typically is ourselves, right? Like our own mindset, our own issues, right? And that's where we talk about working on yourself as much as possible. Cuz that's usually the bottleneck.

Yeah.

Colleen: Yeah.

Yves: Yeah. Do you have any like wise words? I'm definitely gonna spot,

Colleen: Like lessons

Yves: learned, besides, the self licking ice cream cone, which is that I,

Colleen: I didn't know that was a. Thing that I made up. Yeah. Else heard.

Yves: I, if you've heard that analogy and I'm the only one that has it, please let me know.

In the comments. Or send us a message. I'm really curious if it could just be me. And that's fine. There's a lot of things I haven't heard of. I'd never heard of [00:48:00] Butterfly kisses before my wife told me about them.

Colleen: That's, yeah, that's a thing. That's nice.

Yves: Yeah, that's, it's a funny story.

I didn't believe her that it was a thing, and this is back when we were dating and so I was like, we're gonna, I. We're gonna ask 10 random people on the street, right? We're still going out, didn't have kids, so you're

Colleen: doing cute things like that. Yeah.

Yves: Cute things like that, right? Yeah, sometimes and most of the, like I won, it was like most people didn't know what butterfly kisses were. So I'm really curious about this one. Do people actually know, I've heard that analogy before. I'm gonna be. Very curious. We'll

Colleen: see who wins. I don't know. I'll have to, I'll have to, I don't know if I made it up or if Kevin made it up or if we heard it somewhere.

I don't, we say it all the time.

Yves: I could see either one of you making that up, by the way. Yeah, totally. Either of you. Yeah. Any parting words for the people? I just love saying that. I don't know why, but yeah. If you got anything,

Colleen: just to remind me how many people may potentially listen to this? I don't know.

I think it. I think the thing that was what actually got me to [00:49:00] like strap on my big girl shoes and actually start the business was someone telling me that you really just have to start it. Like I had this, knowing zero about business. I was like but don't you have to go to the council of businesses and clear your idea with that?

Is there a thing, do I have to call somebody? And this woman that I had lunch with, actually at a continuing ed course, she's N no, you're licensed. You wanna make sure you have insurance. And she goes download an EMR and go. And I'm like, oh, so you just do it like you just do it? And she's yeah, you just.

Do it. I was like, gotta digest that. So I think, as, as much as it's a cliche to say adjust, do it. I'm not in cahoots with Nike, but it really is literally just making sure you have insurance and go just start and see where it's like you, I dunno. Now I've got all kinds of words of [00:50:00] wisdom.

They're coming to me. You, you don't know. How much, like changing the height in somebody's desk chair, like in an office blew someone's minds. And I'm like, no, your chair's at a weird height. If you do this, your necks can't gonna hurt anymore. And they're like, what? Meanwhile, in the little physical therapy world, we're like yeah, duh.

90, 90 flat feet. Everyone knows that they don't, nobody knows that. So I think just don't overthink. Don't overthink it and just yeah, just dive in head first. What? You're not gonna go to jail. It's gonna be fine. Yeah. I love, be licensed, be insured, and just.

Start doing it.

Yves: It's not that hard. Starting a side hustle is something that no, anybody who's interested can do it, and we need to realize the immense value that we bring. I still believe our profession doesn't realize that a lot of times.

Colleen: No, no clue.

Yves: Definitely. And I deal with it every day.

Cause I'm dealing with physical therapists now every day more than patients. It's paralysis by analysis for all of them, right? Oh yeah. Just no, just as Shante Cofield. Says, and I say it all the time now, it's [00:51:00] do the thing. Like just do the thing. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. I think that sums it up really well, especially for goat Physical Therapy.

Just doing Thank you. This was awesome. I appreciate you taking the time. This was great.

Colleen: 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 Eve Gigi every single week. And we share resources that we don't share anywhere else outside 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.