E812 | Running a PT Clinic In Uncertain Times: How To Stay Resilient and Ready For What's Next
May 06, 2025
5 Ways to Thrive During Economic Uncertainty (Instead of Just Surviving)
Let’s be real—things are weird right now. Inflation, layoffs, tariffs, and economic uncertainty are making clinic owners nervous. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from running businesses through tough times (including COVID), it’s this:
You can come out stronger.
In this post, I’ll break down five key moves you can make today to protect your business—and even grow—when things get unpredictable.
1. Offer Flexible Sales Options
Cash flow matters more than ever in uncertain times. One of the biggest levers you have? Letting patients pay over time. Internal payment plans (like splitting a 10-visit package over 3 months) can make care more accessible without crushing your revenue.
Most people make decisions based on monthly payments—just like a car or mortgage. Give them that option, and you’ll improve conversions, get better outcomes, and avoid patients ghosting after one or two visits.
2. Tighten Up Your Sales Process
When leads slow down, every conversation counts. This is the time to role play, drill your team on sales calls, and refine how you communicate value.
Don’t be desperate—be clear. People can smell desperation, and it’s off-putting. Instead, focus on outcomes, stay calm, and trust your process.
Track conversion rates. Practice your script. Know your numbers. The best businesses win even when the economy is shaky—because they’re the most prepared.
3. Double Down on Retention
New leads might dip, but your current patients are gold. Follow up with them. Remind them of their wins. Show how far they’ve come and what’s next.
A patient who came in barely able to walk and is now running 5Ks? Don’t let them forget that.
Recurrence is security. Lean into those who already trust you and give them a reason to stick around—especially during uncertain times.
4. Stay Visible and Connected
Do not disappear. This is not the time to retract or go silent.
Post on social. Send emails. Host workshops. Visit referral partners. Even if conversion is lower than usual, you’re still building trust—and that trust compounds.
During COVID, we had patients and referral partners pre-pay for visits they couldn’t even use yet. That’s the power of community. Build those relationships now, and they’ll carry you through the storm.
5. Master Your Finances
Most clinicians are terrible with money—and not because they’re dumb, but because we were never taught. Now’s the time to learn.
Look at your numbers. Cut non-ROI expenses (subscriptions you don’t use, poor hires, etc.), but keep tools and people that actually help you grow.
Also, aim to build a 3-month cash reserve based on your clinic’s overhead. If your monthly expenses are $20K, try to save $60K. That’s your cushion and your confidence.
And yes, this includes personal finances. If your lifestyle is bleeding your business dry, it’s time to cut back. Live lean now so you can grow fast later.
Final Thoughts
This won’t last forever. Recessions, corrections, and uncertainty come and go. But great business owners use these moments to sharpen their skills, cut the fluff, and become stronger leaders.
And as weaker competitors fold, you’ll have more market share and more momentum on the other side.
So don’t freak out. Step back. Make a plan. Take action.
If you want help navigating all of this, check out the resources below:
✅ Join our Free 5-Day Challenge: physicaltherapybiz.com/challenge
✅ Book a Free Discovery Call: Book Here
✅ Listen to the full podcast episode: The P.T. Entrepreneur Podcast
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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: Now, it's no secret I didn't like writing notes whenever I was a clinician, but what I really didn't like was babysitting my staff and getting them to write their notes. And as odd as it might sound, it's a real problem when you're trying to get your staff to stay up to date on their notes and they're just trying to catch up on it 'cause they're busy with everything else.
Well. You don't need to babysit your staff anymore. We have created a tool called Claire. And Claire is a AI scribe tool that will literally write your notes for you. It listens to your interactions, it writes your notes for you, and now your staff has no reason to tell you why they didn't have time to write their notes.
You don't have to babysit 'em anymore. They just get a chance to pay attention to their patients, you know, be more in the visit with them, human to human, and let AI take care of actually writing and documenting for them so all their excuses for not writing their notes are gone. We just saved you a bunch of time and awkward, weird conversations you have to have with your staff about being an adult and actually writing their notes are now gone.
You're welcome. And to meet claire.ai, get 10 free notes to check this out for yourself and see how your staff can use this to stay compliance as well as save you from having to audit their notes on an ongoing basis. 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, ut 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 growing 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, dam Matta here with PT Biz and. Let's be real for a second. Things right now they're kind of weird. Okay. Between global uncertainty, who knows how much of a percent on tariffs at this point? Inflation, uh, people losing their jobs.
There's some economic uncertainty and clinic owners are starting to feel it, so. Let's talk about the truth of what I see going on and what you can do about it as a business owner to make sure that not only do you survive during this economic, uh, uncertain period, but really thrive going forward. So I.
This is not the first, uh, economic, uh, odd time that I've run a business through. And I can tell you the first time that, uh, we had some challenges in business, uh, was, uh, honestly it was, it was during Covid, um, you know, when I started my, my clinic, uh, I really did it during a, a really kinda stable time.
And prior to that, the time period that I could probably most relate to in terms of just a really, um, uh, unnerving economic time was, uh, like the 2008, 2009 financial crisis. And I was actually in the army, uh, at the time in PT school. So I was, I remember sitting there, you know, when, uh, uh. Banks were collapsing and, and legitimately few financial organizations were, were going bankrupt.
And, uh, it was kind of crazy. But the nice thing for me, uh, was I had a seven year agreement with the Army. Like I couldn't not be employed if I didn't want to. Right. Like, so I. It, it was a very different place to be versus 20, uh, 20 and, and running a clinic during Covid, many of you maybe did the same thing.
It was very, very, uh, scary, very, uh, unsure of what to do. Um, and, and that's much different than, than what we see today. So I wanna talk about kind of what I'm seeing, conversations that I'm having with other clinic owners. The, the things that I think are, are accurate and inaccurate in terms of, you know, what you're paying attention to.
And I hope that if anything, this helps you, uh, you know, gain some clarity, uh, have some confidence about what to do, and really realize that this is really potentially a really great opportunity for you as a business owner. Um, and it's gonna make you a better business owner, right? Like I can say for sure.
Having run multiple businesses during Covid, uh, both of those businesses came out the other side in actually a better place, and I became a much better business owner because of it. 2022, we even had a, a very short blip on the radar recession, but even still, it was, uh, a bit more of a trying time for, for, for people.
Um, very fast turnaround. Who knows what this is gonna look like, but, um, I'm gonna kinda talk about what I'm seeing and, and what's going on. So let's go to the iPad and let's talk about the things that are, that are big, you know, sort of buzzwords out there right now. So we've got tariffs, layoffs, inflation, it all leads to uncertainty.
Um, who knew that dinner table talk. Was gonna be about par tariffs in 2025. Uh, that seems to be the word of the year so far. And, uh, it's really interesting to see what's happening. And, and honestly, it's, it's kind of hard to understand why, um, we would be as aggressive as we are and, uh, and, and I don't really know, you know, to, to be honest.
Um, massive. Tariff numbers on even small countries that how, how they expect us to have a, uh, a balanced trade, uh, non-trade deficit with a tiny country. Essentially you're saying like Vietnam has to buy as much from us as we buy from them. But we're huge and they're small, right? So like some of these just that doesn't make sense and I don't really know why, but it's causing a lot of fear.
And, uh, with people especially, and this is not unwarranted by the way, because in our industry we're service-based providers. There's no tariffs on that. But I have friends that actually like sell imported goods. Um, they have businesses that resell things. I have friends that have e-commerce businesses. I have a friend that has an e-commerce business that is not actually sure how he's going to pay for the goods that he already had.
I. Purchased that are, are gonna be arriving here shortly from China and they're gonna have a far bigger tariff on it. So keep in mind, other businesses, this is actually very much affecting them in a, in a very negative way. And, and right now it's a bit delayed, uh, from what we're seeing. But I do think we're gonna see more, um, challenges associated with things costing, more people having to pass, uh, through.
These, these elevated tariffs, um, to consumers, because that's essentially what happens. And I don't wanna do a whole podcast on tariffs, but just understand that this is basically, it's a essentially a tax assigned to a good that's brought into the country to try to deter people from, uh, importing and really source more locally, but in a global.
Economy. It's kind of hard to do because we've set it up this way where parts are essentially created other places, and then we have high skill work that happens here and a lot of services, uh, versus a lot of manufacturing. So anyway, the, it, it is very, uh, challenging for certain industries more than others.
I would actually say that our industry is far less challenged from this. Then if you were like, you know, e-commerce reselling notebooks or something like that, um, that would be a very difficult thing to try to figure out. Uh, if, if that's what, if that's what you're doing. So I'm actually pretty thankful that that's not the case for us.
Uh, but with all of these right, you have tariffs, a real thing, layoffs. This is a real thing. We've, we've had people that we work with that are clients of ours that have had their spouses laid off. I know people personally that have been, uh, laid off. In government jobs, honestly, for absolutely no reason.
And it creates, uh, a, a unsure environment for people when they know people that this, these have happened to, right? So you have inflation, which honestly inflation is actually trending down, which is good, which what we want to see. So that's a positive thing. We'll see if that continues, uh, kind of based on where we're at right now.
But again, this all leads to uncertainty and it leads to something called the wealth effect. So. The wealth effect is let, let's say you have a 401k, you can't even touch it until you're, you know, whatever retirement age. But let's say you had $100,000 in your 401k, and you may be thinking to yourself, I.
Yeah, like, I'm feeling good. Let's go. Let's go out to dinner baby. We're rich, right? I got a hundred thousand dollars in my 401k. Um, but when you see a market correction like has happened recently in the stock market, let's say, you know, it's a 20% decrease now all of a sudden, this person who had a hundred thousand dollars, and granted it's not a true loss 'cause they haven't sold it, but now they have $80,000.
Uh, they don't feel as wealthy. So the wealth effect goes down and that actually decreases their willingness to purchase many different things to travel, to go out to dinner, to maybe, potentially go to physical therapy. Uh, this is, this is what happens when we see economic corrections in things like the stock market and or the real estate market.
And the truth is. The vast majority of people in the country are tied in some way to the stock market, whether that be through a pension, through that, through a 401k through any sort of investment. Um, it, it affects a lot of people, right? So that's why people freak out when they see big drops in, in the market like we saw recently.
So this is what's going on, and. This is also the, the reason I wanted to talk about this is because I've literally had, at this point, over a dozen conversations with clients that, that we work with, um, that are scared, you know, that are unsure of what to do, that are seeing some, some slight changes in their business.
Uh, especially if they regionally may be in an area where there's a lot of government jobs, right? And people are even more sort of, uh, you know, scared, uh, to, for instance, where our clinic was at in, um. Uh, in the Atlanta area, the CDC is right down the road from there, and they had 2,500 people laid off and that directly affected our, uh, the clinic that, that we started still exists, that we sold a couple years ago.
Um, and I've talked to the owner about it and they've, they've definitely seen, uh, challenges with that because these people have lost their job or their spouse has lost their job and. And so there's, there's an effect that does happen and it can be a bit more regional than other places that maybe won't be as affected by that, but it's something you've gotta keep an eye on because I'd rather you understand that you should be able to get ahead of some of these economic, uh, challenges, have a plan in place, and start to implement that versus be reactive and scared.
Right? So let, let's talk about what to do because yes, there's, there's obviously stuff going on. Um, and, and it may affect. Certain people more than others, but either way, a plan is better than nothing at all. Uh, and if you have that, it creates a lot less stress in your life as you go to try to work through, you know, some of these unknown times.
So. Let's talk about what to do. Okay? And I think the number one thing that we can, that we can really highlight is that you have to detach, right? And what I mean by that is you have to detach. Take a step back. Take a step back and look at this from a 30,000 foot view. All right? So when we look at this from a 30,000 foot view, what I mean by that is you have to really understand that.
This is something that you, if you're wrapped up in it and you're emotional, you're gonna lose the ability to, uh, make good decisions. Okay? So this is something that when I learned in the military, it was like, when you're making decisions and there's, there's, uh, there's stress. You want to take a step back, they talk about this idea of a 30,000 foot view.
Uh, this I got from actually a, an Air Force instructor that I had. Um, and he would always talk about, like, try to solve problems from a 30. Thousand foot views. Take a step back, look at the bigger picture. What's going on, right? So, so take a step back and look at your business, look at your area, and, and come up with a plan.
Uh, you wanna make sure you do not panic, okay? So don't panic and focus on the fundamentals. And this is actually one of the things that is most important about this time for businesses is that. You will focus on fundamentals and your business will get better actually in times where you have to be better.
And that's actually something that you should feel like pretty good about. It's like it's a, it's a new challenge. This is a new challenge. And if you get better, I. When the economic environment gets better, you're, you're gonna see massive growth in comparison to somebody that, that is not willing to actually put the work in and get better.
So you wanna make sure you're doing a couple things. Number one, controlling the controllables. Okay? You cannot control the economy. You cannot control. Tariffs. You cannot control what our politicians say do at this point. It is what it is, right? There's nothing that can be done on from, from you as an individual right now.
You have to really focus on what can you do to support your, your business, your staff, your family, your friends, like to, to be able to put your business in the best spot to, to thrive, right? Um, what can you control? Well, you can control your marketing strategy. You can control your sales processes, you can control your retention systems, and these are big things that we'll talk about in terms of how you can improve these areas to make sure the business is better off because of that.
So there's offense and there's defense. And what most business owners do during sort of, uh, unsure economic times is they retract, right? They, they get real small, they cut everything they possibly can cut regardless of whether it's ROI producing or not. And they just look at everything as an expense. And this is a huge.
Mistake. You can absolutely flatline your business and it can eliminate your ability to really come out the other side in a better spot. You're gonna be struggling to get back to even where you just started, if you just cut everything out so you don't wanna cut everything out, right? You wanna make sure that you cut waste things that are not ROI producing and you want to keep things that are ROI producing and we'll talk about that a bit more in detail.
You wanna focus on value, okay? So if you're an expert, if you're somebody that is unique, they can solve a problem that is very, uh, you know, challenging for somebody else. You're in a lot of ways, indisposable, okay? You wanna be the expert. Continue to focus on providing massive value to your people and make yourself indisposable to them, and that you'll be the last thing that they want to cut.
Okay? So be better. Better is less, uh, to, uh, less easy to get rid of, obviously. So let's talk about these five areas you can focus on to really help, uh, improve your ability to weather a storm and put your, your business in a better position to really thrive and grow, uh, going forward. So number one. You want to make sure that you offer sales options.
So one of the things that we found, uh, especially during Covid, was the fact that for a lot of people, um, they may have had a harder time selling, but they had to create a slightly different sales process. And, and for, for many people, that meant, um, creating better cash flow options for them. So. You, you, you could have, okay, we sell this package of visits for this amount upfront, but for a lot of folks, they make buying decisions based off of their monthly amount that their, they're paying, their car payment is based off that, their mortgage, based off that.
Lots of things. So you wanna make sure that you're creating payment options for people. I. Or it could be as simple as you take a 10 visit package of visits and you spread that out over three months and you eliminate that cash flow burden for them as much as you can, and you ease it so that they can do the plan of care that they need to do.
They can get the outcome that they want. Your business still gets paid, but it sort of has to manage the cash flow, uh, over those three months. Much better option than. A sale not going through or somebody seeing you one or two times and then dropping off, not getting the outcome that they want and not seeing the business for the number of visits that they should be seen for.
So think about your sales process if you don't have any sort of internal payment options, options to be able to spread out payments. This is a really important thing to look at because it's gonna help you not have a drop in your overall conversion rate. Uh, and that's something you're gonna really have to focus on.
Which brings me to number two, which is tightening up your sales process. So your sales process. Uh, is very important during un unsure times, right? Or, or uncertain economic times. And here's why. If you can kind of coast along because you have really good, you know, sales, uh, you know, acquisition or a new patient acquisition, let's say you're just not even trying and you're getting 30 new patients, you know, a month, right?
And then all of a sudden that goes down by. 10 and now you're getting 20 and you're like, what's going on? Well, maybe people are just being a bit more mindful about what they're spending. Well, if you're getting 30 and you're not really focused on this tight sales process that you're continuing to refine and improve and training your staff on, uh, that's gonna bleed into I.
How they work with even fewer people. So let's say you have, you know, 30 people that are coming in, but you only have a 50% conversion rate to a plan of care. So okay, you're getting 15 plans of care. Maybe that's fine for the the size staff you have, but now all of a sudden, if you're getting 20 people and of those 20, only 10 are committing to a plan of care 'cause you only have 50% conversion rate.
Well, now you're in a, a, a pretty bad spot and what you have to realize is you have less margin for error when you have uncertainty. So if you're having fewer conversations, fewer people that are interested in solving a problem, fewer new patients potentially are interested, you have to be very, very, uh, efficient with the people that you have coming in with a caveat of don't press okay.
Desperate people are off putting. If you show signs of desperation, that will actually deter people from wanting to work with you. The challenge is if you are kind of desperate, you cannot act that way. So you've gotta get really good at focusing on your systems, focusing on your, your processes, focusing on the outcome that you want, or focusing on the the work you put in, not necessarily the outcome, because the outcome is gonna be what it is.
You have to do your best that you can to try to get to that outcome, but you have to detach from that outcome so you don't feel desperate, and that can be really hard to do. So make sure that. You are focusing on clarity. You're focusing on outcomes. You're focusing on client experience, and you are practicing your sales process.
That means you're drilling what you're saying to people. You're drilling with your staff, how they're talking to people. You're doing role playing. You're talking about the component pieces of it. You're tracking your numbers. In terms of conversion, you have to be. Really, really consistent at tracking and refining this process, especially when you have fewer chances to win, right?
Like that, that's basically what you have to keep in mind on the front end. Um, and you also realize the best people will be fine in any economic environment, right? The best products, the best service being the best, uh, de decreases a lot of the economic changes you may feel in your own business. It, it levels it out, right?
It flattens it out for you. So you gotta focus on being the best, and that doesn't come without a lot of continual hard work. Alright, number three. You're gonna focus a lot on retention, so the people you have that you're working with, keep those people as happy as you possibly can. Get them the best outcome they possibly can.
Follow up with them individually, you know, add more touch points, make sure they feel special. Make sure that they know that you are, you know there for them. You're overdelivering. And make sure that they realize and remind them of the progress that they've made. Hey, sorry to interrupt the podcast, but I have a huge favor to ask of you.
If you are a longtime listener or a new listener and you're finding value in this podcast, please head over to iTunes or Spotify or wherever you listen to the podcast and please leave a rating and review. This is actually very helpful for us to get this podcast in front of more clinicians and really help them develop time and financial freedom.
So if you would do that, I'll greatly appreciate it. Now, back to the podcast.
If when they came to work with you, they could barely walk around the block and now all of a sudden they're running five Ks. Don't forget to remind them of, oh my gosh, do you remember where you could barely walk around? What a fantastic progress you have made. You should be so proud of this, right? Like rem, remind them of the the amazing changes that they've made and what you've helped them with and what they can continue to focus on and work towards as well.
To really make yourself as indisposable as possible. You wanna make sure that the people you have that are recurring. You keep them happy, you're, you're really leaning into them because recurring revenue is security when it comes to undulating finances that might happen, right? So we have like big months, light months.
But that, that recurring revenue can really stabilize a lot of that, and it, and it can, it can make it less bumpy. Right as you're going through maybe some, some economic ups and downs, so lean into your people, you know, really provide a lot of value to your people that are, uh, that have been working with you for a long time.
And make sure that you don't forget about them. Uh, the, the fourth thing, right? Content and community are key. Content and community are key. You have to stay visible. Whether that be social media, that be digitally with, you know, writing, blog posts, newsletters, you're sending out to your staff, all these things to stay top of mind brand, right?
Visibility. You have to stay visible and you have to stay tied in to your network. So content community, and, and I can tell you this, like when we, uh, when we were running our, our clinic in 2020, um. You know, when, when we had, you know, weeks where we weren't even open, we had patients that reached out to us.
We had referral partners, we had people that were in a much better sort of position where they're, they, they weren't face-to-face maybe with their businesses. They reached out to us to pre-purchase packages that they would want to use with, uh, with us when they could, uh, come in and use it. And as a business owner.
This was like a really interesting moment for me. I realized during this moment that we had built such strong bonds with people, with patients, with, with, uh, partners in our, in our network, in our area, such strong bonds. They re, they, they literally wanted to help us by pre-paying for services that we couldn't even really provide at the time.
And that was a special moment for me to realize, wow, we have built something that our community wants to see, survive, thrive, and do well. That's something that you need to strive for as well. You need to strive for being a integral part of your community, a value add to all these people around you. So much so that they would be willing to prepay you for services even if they couldn't come in and use them.
That's what you wanna focus on, so your community cannot be something that you forget about, cannot be something that you just. You know, completely eliminate yourself from, you have to continue to be a part of your community. You have to continue to have your, you know, your touchpoint with people that are referral partners, people that are network partners, people that are, uh, important clients that you have, you know, that, that you want to maintain relationships with.
Because keep in mind, your network is your net worth. That is a, a phrase I heard years ago and it didn't make any sense to me. It makes so much sense to me now. It made so much sense to me after that moment. It made so much sense to me. You know, now that I, I have experienced what that looks like to be a part of a network and, and the power of that.
So make sure that you are not alienating yourself and, and retracting and staying small. Stay in your community. Stay visible. Um, people will forget about you. Make sure they do not forget about you. Uh, and the other thing too is even if you're doing things locally. And they're not converting, you're still banking trust.
So let's say you, you teach a workshop, you do an injury screen, and maybe you're, the percentage of conversion that you have is half what it would've been, you know, six months ago. Well, I. Even still, it's worth doing because your banking trust and that trust bank builds up. It compounds and it pays off at some point in time in the future.
So keep focusing on the work that you can do now to put yourself in the best position to thrive as you come out of a more uncertain time. Alright, number five. You have to manage cash like a pro. Most clinicians are terrible at, uh, finances. We don't learn this stuff. In fact, we're probably not interested in it.
I wasn't either, but in the last 10 years I've realized there's no choice I have. But you have a very strong understanding of finances, of business, finances, of cash flow, of understanding of. Profit and, you know, revenue and, and, uh, compensation structures. Understanding finance, I think is probably the most foundational skill besides probably leadership and just being a good leader.
Those two things together can really help almost anybody build a seven figure, you know, clinic. And if you struggle on the finance side. This is the time to really continue to learn that, to focus on that and make that an emphasis that you're gonna have to, you know, build that skill for. And it's like learning a new language.
Like it sucks at first. If it's clunky, we feel uncomfortable, we don't really know. We avoid it because it creates a lot of stress for us. But as you start to get a better understanding of finances and how you're, uh, how you can actually leverage that and understand that. The stress you have around your business diminishes so much because it's like now all of a sudden you know how to read that language.
You have, you know, you know how to speak that language and it doesn't feel as scary to you anymore. So this is really important that you understand cash flow, you understand your finances, and there's a few things you need to focus on. So number one, and this may be uncomfortable for some of you, you need to evaluate expenses and people.
This is a time where non ROI or time saving subscriptions, you need to, uh, eliminate the things that you're not necessarily using. The things that are not saving you time and the things that are not adding value to your business and or to your staff. You need to eliminate those. Do not cut everything.
Don't just go and, uh, cancel everything. It's a terrible idea. You'll set your business back. You need to be methodical about what you're gonna, uh, eliminate and what you're keeping. Because remember, this will not last forever. These are typically short term events, and if you freak out and you fire everybody and you cut everything in your business, you're gonna be so slow to build that back up on the back end of of, of coming into a an, an upswing.
Economically, it's gonna set you back years, okay? So don't do that, but be methodical and calculated about what you're keeping and what you're getting rid of. And this includes. People. I would take a hard look at your staff. Who do you have that is a low performing staff member? This could be administrative, this could be clinical.
You all know who they are. It's the question is this, if you had to rehire somebody, would you do it? This is the easiest way to decide whether you need to take a hard look at letting somebody go or keeping them. If you are projecting that you might have a bit of a slower period of time in your business.
Who would that be? And if there's people that are like, I would absolutely rehire them, then awesome. Take them off that list. If there's somebody you're like, I just, yeah, I don't think I would rehire them. Well, now you have to have a hard conversation with somebody that you're gonna have to let them go potentially.
Right. And some of that has to do with your cash reserves. It has to do with what you can expect as far as new business, what you have as far as recurring revenue. But even still, this is a perfect time to reevaluate your hiring decisions. And we have had people in our businesses, every business I've ever owned, I have had people that I regret not firing sooner, because they were dragging the business down.
They were slowing us down. And it's somewhat convenient because they're already trained up. They're not doing a terrible job. They're just, they're like, they're okay. They're not great, and the discomfort of letting somebody go, uh, and building that back up oftentimes is enough to stop business owners from doing what they know they need to do.
This is a great catalyst to force you to make that change. And I'll tell you this much, I've never, ever let somebody go from one of our businesses that I knew I should have let go and then replace them with somebody better. And our business not, you know, come out their side in a significantly better spot.
And me being so much happier about it, like less stress, happier to work with somebody that's a higher achiever, a an A player versus these people that sometimes, you know, we we're wrong with the hiring process. They do a great job in the interview process, but they don't implement, they're, they don't follow systems.
They're not detail oriented, they. They, uh, they don't buy into your culture the way that you would like. Some of that's on us, and some of that's on the hiring process, but this is a perfect time to reevaluate those people and trim up your business because I would far, I would much rather have fewer really, like a player, people, high level people that, uh, that, that are maybe like.
You know, waitlisted to get into. See then have these other people that you, you have that, that are doing a terrible job of converting. They're, they're not keeping people around. They get no referrals. Uh, they're just not a good value asset in the business and, you know, they shouldn't be there. And as soon as you let that person go, your culture will actually improve.
So think of it like pruning a tree. This is, you're pruning your business and this is a forced way to do it for many of you that you need that. Okay? So look at that. The last thing, make sure you have three months of cash reserves. If you don't have three months of cash reserves, you've got to cut as much as you can on the living expenses, the lifestyle expenses side.
And for some of you, that's actually what you need to focus on more than anything. You're living way past your means. Your business is supporting that, but if you didn't have to spend so much in your personal life, your business wouldn't have to send so much money your way, and you could keep more of that to build your cash reserves.
So take a hard look at your finances. What are you spending money on that you don't need to? What are you spending money on that doesn't give you joy and value? It, it's called the Marie Kondo, uh, budget, right? So like she's the organizational, you know, expert. She says if you touch something and it doesn't give you.
A sense of joy or you don't feel value from it, that you should get rid of it. Right? Well, same thing in your, in what you pay for. Like if you don't, if, if, if you have 15 streaming services and you're not using those things and you don't get a sense of joy from Netflix, get rid of it, right? Whatever.
Personal finances, lighter on the personal side, cutting expenses there. It makes your business not have to work so hard to actually fund your lifestyle, okay? And, and it is what it is. No one wants to do that, but you may have some serious expenses that you could trim up that could make it so much easier for you to build your cash reserves up and put your business in a better spot to then grow.
And then you can have that big lifestyle you want, you know, later as, as your business. Becomes more mature in a better spot. So make sure you have three months of cash reserves and build that up, and that would be your overhead. So if your overhead is $20,000 a month, you need to have $60,000 of cash on hand.
And I know that sounds like a lot to some of you, but that puts you in a spot to really be able to feel comfortable to make decisions and be very nimble, to capitalize on certain opportunities as well as a business owner. So keep in mind, this is a, you know, a war test basically. Not necessarily just a, a reserve that you, you may never use, but it makes you safe by doing so.
Uh. So in summary, okay, we have. Five things. I'll go back over just a second, but I want you to understand this, this will not last forever. This is not something that, you know, the United States of America is going nowhere. Alright? Uh, we are very resilient. I feel very, uh, blessed to have been born here. Um, I fully expect that we will.
We'll be in a, a much better spot in the future, um, than we are now, right? But as we run businesses during these times, it can feel like we're even that much more, um, tied to the risk of what happens because of how it affects business owners. Um, and again. It could be much worse, right? You can always look at it that way.
It's a good thing you're not reselling fidget spinners or something from China. 'cause that that would be way harder than what we do as service business providers that don't have these, you know, additional, um, economic, you know, ties that may make more, more expensive. So this will not last forever. Don't freak out.
Take a step back. Focus on what you can control, you know, and uh, and, and, and be rational. Right. Don't be irrational about your business and, and trying to like contract and get really small. This will be a fantastic catalyst when we, as we come out of any sort of economic period and recessions on average, and I don't even say we're in one, but if we go into a recession, uh, they're usually short, right?
They're somewhere between six and 18 months is sort of the duration of time that we typically see for, uh, for recession. They're not. You know, massive long recessions. Uh, usually so that's not that long in the grand scheme of things, but you can come out the other side of it. 'cause here's what's gonna happen.
Weak business owners, which there are many of will go out of business. We saw this during COV and here's what happened. Bad business owners went outta business and that meant there was more room for us to capitalize on the market share that existed before and after that event. Weak business owners that have to work hard, that have to try harder during times where it's not easy.
They will give up, they'll go outta business. They won't manage things correctly. They will eventually have to go and try to find employment somewhere else, and that means that there's less competition for you for a period of time. So if you can put your business in a better spot, if you can make your business better, even imagine you have a period of time where now all of a sudden you have to focus on your business a bit more.
It's that much more important. I love shit like this. As weird as that might sound. I prefer economic environments like this. 'cause it makes me sharper. It makes me have to focus on things more. It makes me not as complacent and lazy because things are not as easy. And that is a great place to be. If you accept that and lean into it, you can be one of two people.
You can say, oh, this is hard. I don't wanna do this anymore. I, I, I didn't sign up for this. I'm gonna go and I'm gonna go do something else. Good. I'm not. Those of you that are listening to this that are like me, you're not. And guess who's gonna be in a better spot because of it? Us. So don't forget that as people get tired and they drop off, if you can stay resilient, if you can stay consistent and focus on improving, what a fantastic opportunity this will be for us.
Huge opportunity and keep in mind. The trajectory of where things are going is gonna be more tech enabled. It's gonna be more value placed on people to people because there's gonna be so much more AI layered into lots of things that we do. The field of physical therapy in general is in a fantastic place.
So not only do we see this as a short-lived. You know, sort of, you know, unsettling time for business owners, which we don't know how long, short, or long it will last, but it will be over at some point. It will be normalized. We'll be in a better spot. Not only does that give you a better opportunity to, uh, eradicate competition that's weak, but it puts you in a spot to be in a great position for a business that is gonna be more sought after, more valuable over time as people move more and more towards, you know, really valuing human to human connections because there's gonna be so much more, uh, autonomous.
Happening both technologically and potentially even in person in the next who knows how many years. This is a fantastic place for you to be. This is a catalyst you have to realize, and it's not all doom and gloom. In fact, I think it's fantastic. So lean into it. Some of the best businesses in the world started and grew exponentially during and then right after economic, uh, downturns.
You could be one of those. I plan to be one of those. Looking forward to it. Don't try to figure this out all alone. It's the last thing that I'll leave you with before we summarize everything. Do not try to figure everything out on your own. You listening to stuff like this, I think is a huge advantage for you.
I'm obviously quite biased, but here's how I can share this information with you. Right now we work with hundreds of businesses all across the country that we are talking with on a ongoing basis, and that gives us a lot of aggregated information and a lot of information that we can then make changes in real time faster than anybody else can possibly try to figure out.
On their own. You sitting in your office by yourself wondering if you're doing the right thing, is the most stressful thing you could possibly do. I highly recommend if you are trying to figure this, this out all on your own during a period of uncertainty, that you do not do that. That you view your business education as an very, very important investments.
It is your ability to make the right decisions. Your network is your net worth, and if you're. Trying to go this, uh, solo, it's gonna be a lot harder than if you're in a, in a, in a group of people that are openly sharing what's working in real time. And you can start to see trends and adapt to those quickly.
Imagine this, you trying to figure this out on your own is like rowing a boat onto the ocean and you see a storm coming and you say to yourself. Well, shit, this is gonna suck and you may make it and you might not. Would you rather be on a little ship by yourself having almost no experience navigating an ocean like that, or on a giant boat with hundreds of other people that are all working together to try to make sure that they're safe, that they're getting where they're trying to go.
And have a captain that is driving that boat that has already done this before. Which one do you prefer? Because that's what we're talking about. If you're trying to figure this out all by yourself, even for me. I'm, I'm involved in Master Mastermind groups primarily more I'm, I'm involved too now because I want to know what's going on.
What are other business owners seeing? What are they doing? What are, what are the, what are the fastest changes we can make and adapt because it's so valuable to me. Even more so during times like this, if you're trying to figure it out on your own. I highly recommend you do not do that if you're trying to find a group that makes sense for you to work with that can help your business navigate this, and you can actually learn how to be a great business owner.
Take a [email protected]. This is my company. I started this, you know, uh, eight years ago. We've worked with over a thousand clinicians, uh, you know, o over over that time. And we teach clinicians how to be great business owners. And if that's not a skill that you have, 'cause you didn't learn it in school, you need to learn it.
And it is an investment no one can ever take away from you. Keep that in mind. No one can ever take it away. Like it's information you have, it's a skillset that you have, uh, developed, you've learned, and you can apply in other ways. Maybe you wanna start another type of business one day. We see people do that all the time.
We work with entrepreneurs that just happen to be clinicians and they become fantastic business owners because of the education process that we have, uh, developed and implement. So if you're trying to figure it out on a loan, uh, all by yourself, I recommend you do not do that. And if you're looking for a, a, a trusted group that you can work with, take a [email protected] and you can learn a bit more about what we do.
So in summary. Here we go. Five areas. Focus on your options and your sales process by giving people cashflow options, spreading payments out. You, you're gonna have to do that to help improve your sales percentages and make sure you're keeping more of the sales that are coming in. Tighten up your sales process, role play.
Look at how you're, you're communicating with people. Make sure that you're tracking all of your, uh, individual providers and you're seeing how people are doing, not just on the front end, but. Continuity people that are converting to a plan of care, people that are sticking around to work with somebody.
These are important variables to keep in mind, and you're continuing to try to refine that and improve that. With your team on an ongoing basis, focus on retention. The people that you're working with on an ongoing basis, keep 'em as happy as you possibly can. Let them know that you care about them.
Individualize things for them. Reach out to them. Improve their customer experience. You know, make sure that they know all the progress that they've made. Remind them of that they maybe they forgot, and that is a huge value add for them. And if you are valuable, you're gonna be one of the last things that anybody looks to try to get rid of because it makes their life so much better.
Content and community, stay visible. And stay engaged in your community. Don't retract, don't get small. Don't, don't get, you know, be uh, Mr. Poopy pants in the corner and just act like, you know, you're, you're giving up and you don't wanna talk to anybody. Like, we've all been there. I've been there. Okay. When, when we had to shut our clinic down during CODI.
I was a miserable little bitch, alright? I was not, uh, feeling great. I didn't know what to do. It was a very strange time. And I tell you what, I snapped outta that shit and I got back to work. And because of that, we were in a far better place afterward. So if you want to take a little pity party for yourself for a couple hours in the corner, you know, and go sit there and.
And ball yourself up. Do it. And then get the fuck outta there and go do something about your business being in a better spot during a uncertain time. Alright, so stay visible, stay in your community. Uh, manage your cash is the last thing we talked about this. Finances. Most clinicians are terrible with finances.
They're bad with their personal finances and they're bad, really bad with their business finances. And it's because you didn't learn it. Okay? And it's because you have hesitancy and resistance to learning it. Uh, 'cause it creates stress for you. But you know what? It's stressful for anybody that doesn't know what they're doing.
Imagine this. What if somebody tried to go and treat somebody's back pain and had never learned how to do that? They would be very stressed out. They wouldn't know what to do. They would feel like, you know, like they would try to avoid it as much as they possibly can. This is finances for business owners and clinical business owners as well.
You just wanna treat patients. I get it. I just wanna treat patients too. I wanna do it and not see 25 people a day. I. But in order for me to do that, I had to create a business because I couldn't get a job doing that anywhere at the time. I had to learn how to become a business owner for that to actually survive and thrive.
But as soon as I learned how to become a business owner, it was so much better for me. It was so much less stressful, and my business was way better off because of that. And a big chunk of that was actually finances and something that, you know, we've really leaned into heavily to help our people understand how to run these businesses and how to manage their businesses appropriately.
Uh, at least so that they have profits so that they're, uh, insulated from, you know, significant economic changes. They're not making the wrong decisions because bad decisions are what put you outta business. You know, like indecision probably doesn't so much, but bad decisions definitely can, can drive you outta business.
So that's it. Those are the five. I hope this helps you again, remember. Uh, economic uncertainty is short-lived. Uh, it can be driven by many different factors. Who knows how long some of these things will happen? Who knows if this will even be relevant by the time it comes out. You know, it's, it's so hard to say, but I can tell you this.
I've had quite a few conversations enough now where it's worth me talking about this and sharing this with people that watch the YouTube channel, that listen to the podcast because I hope that it helps you. I hope that if you're thinking these things. Uh, yourself. You're like, Ooh, I don't know. Am I the only one?
You're not the only one. Okay. It definitely is something that people are seeing. That's, uh, you know, it, it's, it's not bad by any means, uh, but it's definitely something we're starting to see kind of trend a little bit in the wrong direction. So better to understand that, get ahead of it, and really focus on being in a place for your business to thrive during a time like this and not shrink.
So as always, thank you so much for watching and listening, and I'll catch you the next one.
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