E428 | The Keys To A Fast Growing Cash-Based Practice With Patrick Suarez

Patrick created Suarez Sport and Orthopedic Physical therapy in order to take a holistic approach to making people feel and move better.

Patrick graduated from Hamilton college earning his Bachelors of Science Degree in Biology and went on to receive his Doctor of Physical Therapy from The George Washington University. He then went on to complete an Orthopedic Residency through Evidence in Motion and is a Board Certified Orthopedic Clinical Specialist and a Board Certified Sports Clinical Specialist.

Patrick is a dedicated practitioner who is committed to remaining at the top of the profession through evidence driven practice and continued education courses. He also helps to educate and mentor physical therapy students in order to continue to develop the profession.  Enjoy!

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Podcast Transcript

Danny: [00:00:00] All right, so you're just getting started and you're thinking to yourself, man, I'm just gonna use Google Suite to manage my cash-based practice as I get going, look, I did the same thing, and here's what I can tell you. When I finally had to switch over, it was a huge pain in my butt to try to move all the notes and all of the documentation that I had over to another platform so I could stay compliant.

Do yourself a favor. Start with a platform that you can scale with that makes you look more credible. When you're trying to book people on Google calendars, come on guys. That's not what a real business does. A real business has something that actually helps support it on the backend and it is branded to you.

It looks like your company. Check out PT everywhere. If you're just getting started, they're doing something really cool. For cash-based practices, and I really love this. We're one of the features that they're doing. If you're new, they actually will charge you less as you're getting started and as you grow.

Membership, your actual dues each month for the platform. It goes up with your practice growing so you can actually save money upfront if you're just getting started, but yet have a platform that you can grow into. I think it's amazing. It's the only company I know of that's doing that. And go [00:01:00] figure.

It's owned by a cash-based practice owner, which we love as well. So guys, head over to pt everywhere.com, check out what they're doing. If you're just getting started, I highly recommend you. 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.

What's going on guys? Doc Danny here with the PT Entrepreneur Podcast and the PT Entrepreneurs Facebook group. I look back on naming it those things because I have a very difficult time saying entrepreneur, and I have to say it all the time, and I think that was a mistake, but that's what they're called.

But I get a chance to catch up with one of my favorite. PT entrepreneurs, Patrick Suarez out of Albany, New York [00:02:00] Patrick. He has Suarez Sport and Orthopedic Physical Therapy. It's a cash-based practice in the New York area. And he's got a pretty interesting background because not only does he have a cash-based practice, but he actually used to be a staff clinician at a cash-based practice, which is pretty rare.

There's not a whole lot of you that exists that have gone on to do your own thing. So it'd be cool to learn a little bit about what you learned there, but what we'd like to start with before we get into everything. Everybody kinda has their own reason why they got into physical therapy.

It's, such a, personally rewarding career. I'm interested what got you into into PT as a. So

Patrick: I, I'd always wanted to do something in the health field, and my aunt actually is an early intervention physical therapist. So she works with the three month old to three year olds.

And originally I wanted to be a pediatrician or a pediatric physical therapist really because of that. Yeah. So going to school was looking to do that. And when it came time I. I got an internship at it's Indian Point. It's a, the nuclear power plant that used to, I think they're closing it or it's closed.

I got an internship there at a desk at a cubicle, and it was miserable. So I was like, I've [00:03:00] gotta go into something where I'm moving. I played sports in college, all that kind of stuff. So I needed, I knew I needed to do something that was moving. I shadowed my aunt a little bit and I really like kids.

I really like working with kids, so I was like, okay, this is what I'm gonna do. I had one pre-req that I didn't take that I needed to take, which was stats worst. Yeah. And so I took that over the summer, applied to a couple schools, ended up going to George Washington University for PT school.

And actually, while I was there doing my rotations, my p I was super excited for my pediatric rotation. Got my, I did, I know I didn't wanna be, in a hospital setting. So I did that one. And then my second one was gonna be in a pediatric clinic or outpatient pediatric, and with a week to go, it fell through.

And so they also had a sister orthopedic clinic. So one of the, one of the PTs there was like, Hey, I'll take 'em. She knew a couple of my professors. She was like, Hey, I'll take 'em. And the pediatric one kind of fell through and so I ended up doing two [00:04:00] kind of sport or. Rotations back to back. I enjoyed it.

My cis thought I was pretty good at it, so I ended up sticking there. And sometimes I think about I wonder, what would've happened if I would've went with the kids or, been in the school system or something like that. I think I would've ended up here to some degree in terms of still running my own business and all that.

But I think it would've been a lot different had I started with. Totally different man.

Danny: That was Eve's background too, right? So he was a pediatric pt, worked in the school systems and then, ended up going into private practice in the insurance side, selling that, and then, opening his cash-based practice.

I think it's a. It's a super rewarding portion of the field in particular. You I mean it's, in some ways it's obviously very, challenging to kinda deal with kids that are have a lot of, issues that need to work through on the physical therapy side.

But it's a, it the small, I spent one day doing peds cuz I went to school in the Army. So that's just not something that we do. We know we're gonna work with 18 to 25 year old males primarily. That's suck what they're trained to do. But I spent one day and it was actually a lot of fun.

We [00:05:00] were, we played a bunch of games. We basically, I was actually exhausted cause I was like, dude, you do this every day. I felt like I was at a, like a Chucky cheese birthday party. For eight hours.

Patrick: Just constantly moving up and down on the ground, but they're fun. So whenever we get kids here I enjoy it.

Yeah, it 18 to 25 year old males probably in't very easy to work with all the time either. So Yeah, they're

Danny: butt heads man. They don't wanna do anything. They just want to stay up all night and play Halo and, just be hungover all the time. That's what you get. It's fun. They're fun to work with in their own capacity as well.

But alright so tell me this, alright, you get through school, you you decide you wanna do the sport ortho side. How did you end up in a cash-based practice as a staff pt? What was the, origin of that? So I,

Patrick: where I was and I apologize. We're in the gym, so some people are working out.

So if you hear some weights banging around, that's what that is. You're good, man. Comes to the territory, right? With the

Danny: gym based.

Patrick: So at g at gw, one of the, one of the professors there, she worked at a clinic in Arlington, Virginia, which is like 15, 20 minutes away from the university. And they were a cash based clinic.

So the woman who ran that, her name was her [00:06:00] name's Jennifer Gabo. So she had started that practice like now, probably 25 years ago. She started a cash based practice. She's one of the first ones to do it. And I had wanted to do a residency coming out of school. And they offered like the residency through evidence in motion and all that.

So I thought that was gonna be a good fit for me cause I didn't really wanna travel anywhere. I had literally just gotten married, so I took, I graduated school, took the boards, and got married all within three months. And so I didn't really wanna go anywhere. So that distance kind, that kind of distance learning with evidence and motion residency was great.

And my professor thought I would be a good fit at this clinic. To be honest with you, I didn't, I knew nothing that it was a cash-based practice or anything like that. I had just heard about it while I was at school that it was a great place to learn. She was a good, a great mentor.

You, you'll learn a lot as a pt and that's, coming outta school. I feel like that's all you want. You, I wanna know more. I wanna be the best. Physical therapist I can possibly be from a hand manual standpoint, exercise standpoint, all that. So [00:07:00] for me, that's all I was thinking about when I came out.

And to be honest with you, I didn't know until I got there an interview that they were cash based, because one of the first things in an interview that she asked was, this is what we charge. Are you comfortable with that? Pretty much just trying to, I think what she was doing was trying to get my reaction to see if I felt like we were worth that.

We weren't worth that. Which is obviously what we talk about a lot value and all that and what your prices are and whatnot. So that was, shoot, what year did I graduate 2011. And she told me they charged 180 5 an hour in 2011. And I remember going, okay, do I still get to learn all the other stuff?

Do I still get to, am I still gonna get to do the residency and learn from you and all that? And she was like, yeah, let's you know. And That kind of went like that. So I worked in that practice for about seven years before I moved and just kinda worked my way up from staff, physical therapists there to, to starting.

And I ended up managing a few [00:08:00] more PTs there. And in the clinic we had. I think we had, including her, the owner, Jen, we had nine PTs, six personal trainers, two massage therapists, two counselors and a nutritional therapist all under one roof in the same building. Wow. And I just thought that was, The way to do it, you want, you get a person that comes in and you have all these resources for them, and maybe they come in through the PT door, but maybe they actually need counseling, or maybe they come in through the nutrition door, but they actually need pt.

And so it was a good way to be able to funnel people to what they needed, but at the same time, hit their goals and your goals. And so I learned in there for about seven years. She brought us in on the business side of things in probably my like fifth year there.

So that's when I got into Reading to Sell As Human Go-Giver. All those books I started reading. That's when I got on, that's when I found you in your podcast. And I, Jared Carter and Aaron Labour that's when I started listening to all you [00:09:00] guys. And then in my head I was like wait a second.

And I knew I was always gonna move back to New York and I was like I can, based on what these guys are telling me, I can start this with what I know already. I can, and they were very great. Like they'd give me their resources, their note, their templates on all this kind of stuff to get started and whatnot.

And then with the information I learned from you guys in the books, I was like, okay let's see if we can get started. Once I moved to New York,

Danny: Yeah. I wanna dig into that a little bit, but one thing that I think you, you brought up that's common with people that we see that just they make a lot of progress within the profession.

The, she asked you like, Hey, are you comfortable with $185? And you're like, yeah, but do I get to learn from you? Because is what's funny is, you talked about, Hey, I want to become the best at this, that I possibly can. But that's not necessarily the case for everybody.

I think that, there's a lot of people that just want to be, they just. A stable job. And they want to they like to do their other things they like to do outside of the profession, which is totally fine too. And they may not be like, somewhat obsessed with constantly trying to become better and better.

I think that's pretty rare. [00:10:00] And for you, it sounds like that's exactly what you were trying to do, right? You're like, no, I'm trying to learn from you. So I don't care what you charge Boga to learn. And like the return for you was the mentorship that you were looking for. So I think that's, I think that's really rare, man.

And probably something that they saw on you that was not all that common for a location like that. Do you feel like that. Did you have it, did you have the same thing with other things you did sport now with business? If you, do you get obsessive over certain things in somewhat of a healthy way?

I guess a good way to put it,

Patrick: Yeah. Somewhat of a healthy way. Pretty much. Growing up in sports, that's all it was. I would, my dad will tell me to this day he tells me a great story when I was nine, you start little league and you're playing and. I want. We lost the game and our pitcher walked a bunch of guys and I told my dad I wanted a pitch and he was like you can't pitch.

Yeah, you've never pitched before and you're on a big field now and you don't, we have to practice before you can do that. So after that game, we lost, we got home after dinner, whatever, it's eight o'clock at night. I went in the garage, I got the catcher's glove and I handed it to him upstairs on the couch and I said, I wanna go [00:11:00] practice at eight o'clock.

He's we can't do that now. So ever since I was little, like that has been the same way. I'd be outside throwing a racket ball off of the wall to get better kicking a ball, all that kind of stuff. And leading up to now my wife tells me now and I know we'll get into this later as she came on with me each step I say, Hey, this is what I wanna do next.

And then when we hit that step, I'm like this is what I wanna do now. And then we hit that step and it's okay, this is where I want to be next. And she just tells me, so when is that gonna stop? When are you gonna be, when are you gonna be where you wanna be?

And I'm probably not. Yeah. To, to some degree. And so what is it healthy? I think, I hope so. But sometimes it's not, and sometimes that's why she's great cuz she can reign me in. But yeah, that's always been kind of part of my nature, part of my character. Even playing video games against my brother playing chess against my brother.

I never knew how to play chess and he used, he's older than me Hey, let's play this game. I don't know how to play. Yeah, that's fine. Just so he could constantly beat me and beat me. So I would just start learning the [00:12:00] rules and then one day he couldn't beat me at chess.

Danny: Yeah. That's funny, man. I think, it's, it is a good question, right?

Like what when is, when do you stop? And I don't know if there, it, in my opinion, there's not really an end. It's just like the fun part is the journey, right? It's the constant ability to be fascinated with learning the new thing the new skill. And sometimes that's learning how to also get better.

Turning our sort of desire to want to progress down a little bit in certain search situations, right? The, we talk about this a lot with complacent versus content, right? Are which one are you content or are you complacent? And there's a big difference between the two in terms of, intentionally what you're working on or working towards or not, right?

And we see this happen so often. I'm sure you, you've seen this, you've been around a lot of the other entrepreneurs that we're around, and you'll see some of 'em, and it's. Dude, you look like you're like physically a wreck right now. You know what I mean? Like you've just let yourself go over this last, these last six months, or?

They're struggling with a relationship with their spouse or something like that, and [00:13:00] they're, but their business is killing it. And, there's these periods where there's just not much balance at all. And being able to find that while still feeling like you're able to, you're really pushed to, to be competitive with.

With your business now, which is frankly a game it's like why people like you tend to gravitate towards it cuz you're like, cool, something I can be competitive with. I don't need to learn chess anymore. There's so many things you can learn in this, it never really gets old. I think that's difficult.

And I don't know if you've found that yourself in terms of, sitting down and Hey, all right, where am I trying to go? Am I complacent about this? Am I content? I think it's a little bit different for everybody and I think the journey is the best part of all of it. And sometimes we forget that that's like the fun part.

Cause there's really no destination in my opinion. It's just like the path to get. And I

Patrick: think, we obviously in the group, we go through those different the different parts of being complacent or being content. And with the journey, there are so many different spots that you can decide to, you can decide to progress, right?

Let's say clinically, I, back then I did that residency and I do a lot of courses and I do all that stuff, and it's okay, great. I'm, I feel like I'm. Content [00:14:00] there. And I want, now I want to see what I can do on that business side of things. How, how can I push myself there?

How can I get better there? And, you get to a point. The same thing where it's okay, I'm feeling content now. How do I push the boundaries of my business as a whole? How do I start creating more systems? How do I get this to run on its own? How do I get it to a point where I can slowly start stepping out to start creating something else and progress somewhere else?

And like I said, in our group we go through a lot of those and it's really easy to see okay, I'm good here. This is where I really wanna try to start to grow. Now this is where I'm lacking a little bit. Let's start and try. Let's try and make that a little bit better.

And overall, like you were saying, it just brings everything across the board. It makes everything across the board better. If you can keep all those characteristics up. It's like in, in any kind of video game, your attributes, if you just keep adding, yeah. You might, you wanna be the best overall you can be, not just awesome at one thing.

Yep. Cuz then your weaknesses are more glaring. So that's how I look at it. And I, like I said, I think the way we go through it really [00:15:00] helps a lot to see where it is. I can continue to grow or we can grow as a business. So I like that aspect of the journey. You're going, but I can go this way and get and progress, or I can go this way and progress and then I can come back a thing.

Danny: I love the video game reference because my. My son asked me the other day, he was like, why is it important to be like nice to other people? And because he is cuz some people are mean, and and I was like it's like a video game, right? I told him, I was like, Hey, every time that you're like, you do the right thing for somebody else, it's like you get like points in your video game or you're leveling up your little character or whatever it might be.

And he's super into this shit. It was like the only thing I could think of that would make sense to him. And he was his, he could see his brain working and he was just like, oh, that makes sense, and I'm like, but then you got these other areas, right? You got Physical health, right? It's like what you do for a living, education, your family like the hobbies that you like, things like that.

And he was like, so I get like different points in these different buckets. And I'm like, yeah. And then your total score at the end, is that's your score for life, right? And it's funny to think about it that way because I think it, it makes a lot of sense to a little kid, but for us, like I think we get, we're constantly trying to push for more, right?[00:16:00]

And and it's fun. That's the thing is I don't think people. That your business, like can, is your hobby and you enjoy the, like you're building something like Legos, right? But it's not just Legos, it's people, it's systems, it's, there's a scoreboard there with revenue and all these things and they just look at it like work, so sometimes it's hard to taper that the other way. Ha, have you found, Like the ability to maintain balance? What have you found has helped you the most with that?

Patrick: Yeah for me there's, I have the physical side of it, so the gym piece, like I go to the gym. I try to go to the gym at least five to six times a week for an hour, regardless, both my wife and I.

Now, that is our time, like our schedule is now built around those times. Great. Because I find that if I'm not doing. I'm just I'm more short with my kids. I'm more short with my wife. Everything irritates me a little bit more. Yeah. I just told you I was trying to hang a whiteboard and it pulled a paint off the wall.

That would irritate me a lot more if I wasn't like balance, yeah. So [00:17:00] that, that's part of it. And then I'm big on, like I said, my, my parents, my dad and my parents growing up were at everything that we did. And so that's a big influence for me that making sure, I'm there for my son and my daughter, whether it's going to a game or it's just building a Lego, a four hour.

The life size. Pikachu a Legos

Danny: is his actual example. The actual

Patrick: example yesterday yes, Saturday was his birthday, so he's in the dinosaur Jurassic Park and all this stuff now. So it was unboxing all his dinosaurs and now every toy comes with an app. So we gotta download the app so we can read through all the facts on dinosaurs. So like that stuff is very important to me. And then now, ever since my wife has come out with us and. The job she had doing the date nights and all that kind of stuff, spending time with her. So those things to me, the schedules are my PT and my business schedule is.

Centered around or is around those are the things that are the most important to us. So our schedule is built around that stuff. And that's, I think, how we maintain the [00:18:00] balance. Cuz if you don't then you're quick to be like, ah, the gym, I can do that tomorrow. Let's just take that hour out. We can, I can work on something.

Or yeah, he's, he's only playing tee-ball. It doesn't really matter. They got plenty of games. I don't need to go and. I've learned a lot from this group on block schedule and all that kind of stuff and how important that is to keep, to maintain that balance to not only feel good and content with everything, but to be able to grow.

Yeah. Cause I do think there's a misnomer around productivity and all that. And working faster and putting more in, out, into hours in order to gain more on the outside, I don't think is necessarily,

Danny: I agree. And I think that one thing you said that's really important, and this is usually I think it takes some, a little bit of pain to get to this point, is proactively scheduling the things that are important to you that are not related to business directly.

Like training time with your spouse, stuff you're gonna do with your kids, blocking off however you wanna set your schedule up to make sure that you. Efficiency, but also you have, you're not wearing [00:19:00] yourself down, right? Because early on it's, I think for many people they push really hard out of fear of it not working, right?

They're just they a either don't want to embar look like, get embarrassed by failing at something that they've told all their family they're gonna, they're gonna do or b, it's a financial thing, right? It. I'm trying to support my family. So fear is a strong motivator, but at a certain point, like where you're at, multiple clinicians, your wife is now working with you, like you guys have a business, right?

So the fear isn't quite there. Somebody like this isn't gonna work, maybe it's more I'm gonna have to let somebody go or I'm not gonna be able to, pay for their salary. But, it's not like your business is gonna. Dissolve overnight. In fact, these type of businesses, it would be really hard.

You would have to piss off probably a thousand people at once, for your business to implode, which would be really hard to do because 50% of the people think one thing and 50% of the people the other. So if nothing else, you'll at least piss off 50 and you'll actually increase your relationship with the other 50%, right?

So I think you're in a good spot, but like people that put that stuff on the back burn. They're like, okay I'm gonna work, then I'm gonna work out, or I'm gonna work and then I'm gonna spend time with my [00:20:00] spouse. And proactively scheduling that thing. Those things is huge. Let's talk about your wife for a second, because your wife's a badass.

Like she's an attorney. She, it's not like she's, like she, she left a really pretty impressive job to. Work with you. Not to sound, not to make you sound bad by any means, but she it's not like she went to a startup basically from a pretty, pretty big job.

How's that transition been, and how are you guys assimilating her with her unique skillset into what you're doing?

Patrick: Yeah, so she was a, an attorney down in DC for a while, one year off of, one year off a partner. And then when we moved to New York, she was an assistant US attorney.

And we were talking about balance. And so part of it was that balance and bringing her on and her skillset, is completely different than what I do. I'm more of. Let's, yeah, okay, let's go try it. Let's see if it works. Versus the, planning it out, checking it off, making sure that, everything is in place before we go.

And so that balance is really nice. But then she also helps with the onboarding of the new employees getting [00:21:00] all the logistics down. And she's actually started getting more interested and she was a college college athlete herself, but she's getting more interested now in, in helping in, in the physical side of things and potentially doing some strength training or coaching or something along those lines.

But it actually was pretty easy when she first came on because she had some background in her in her law firm job with compliance and whatnot. And It was actually pretty pretty seamless cuz when we were bringing on two new PTs, she was coming on as well. And so she helped us get our standard operating procedures in in line with New York State our our employee handbooks, making sure we're covered on all the laws.

And she actually talked to to Juliet. Kelly's wife about all that who gave us, she gave us a couple of really good resources and, and then helped her on how, how do you move from that being an attorney to going in and helping with a business that, you pretty much didn't know anything about before you went into, but.

I think it was a little bit easier for her because some of that compliance stuff and the stuff she was used to, [00:22:00] we needed right off the bat. And now we're getting into this position. Now, these new PTs have been on for a couple of months. We're getting into this spot where she helps a little with hr.

But she's dipped her toe in some of the other things, the marketing stuff the community outreach, which she really likes. The strength and conditioning stuff. So now she's. On this, her own journey of figuring out, okay, where, yeah, I can do the compliance and HR stuff, I can do all that, but there is a reason I don't want it.

Do some of that stuff anymore, right? And so where's that next, where's that next step for her? And so that's what we're, that's what we're trying to figure out. And that's fun. Fun to see. Have her to have her help in different spots and see where she really shines and where she really enjoys it. Because like you said before, creating that balance, not just for me, but for everybody in the clinic just creates a better culture for the business so that we can continue to grow and thrive and all that.

Danny: I think there's such a strong. Compliment with, like you and I are pretty similar in terms of, we're forward facing we'll [00:23:00] go teach a workshop. We're totally down to, just be the face of the practice, but also mentor the other clinicians to help them improve as well.

Which are areas that, our spouses can't do. Although Ashley thinks she's she said she's owned a cash-based

practice long enough, she's I'm pretty sure if somebody came in I could give them the right. Things to do. I've seen you guys this enough, but he doesn't have a degree yet.

We'll see. But anyway, with your spouse, like being able to offset you, it's like this whole idea of rocket fuel. The like Gino Wickman who wrote the book Traction, wrote a book called Rocket Fuel that talks about a visionary and an integrator, and when they match up it's rocket fuel and it accelerates the business, right?

And so you falling into more of a visionary role and her falling more of an integrator role is usually how it comes together. But it's incredibly beneficial for both of those. Personalities to compliment the other person and offset their weaknesses. Ha Have you guys found have you found your stride with, Hey, is this a business conversation?

Is this a family conversation? And cuz sometimes those lines get blurred, yeah. When you're at home, [00:24:00] when you're on a date, and it's like finding the middle ground can be a little challenging.

Patrick: So we have, so this was based on Kelly's recommendation. So we have bus, like she's coming in after this for a business.

So we have set times for business meetings during the week and then that's when we talk about what we're doing with the business with our roles, all that kind of stuff. And then outside of that, we try not to do that so we try, I say you try not to, but some, things come up where, cuz she's big, you talk about integrator and innovators, she's big on the community stuff and, hey, there's an event here.

I talked to the person, would you be willing to do X, y, and. And that stuff will come up when we're at home. But generally we have a regular meeting, a weekly regular meeting. Her and I, just her and I to go through the stuff we wanna do for the business. And then we, anything that comes after that meeting we'll plate it for the meeting for the next week.

Unless it's super, obviously, unless it's an emergency or something, but for sure,

Danny: no, I think that's a really good, intentional way of going [00:25:00] about it and we see a lot of success for people that work with their spouses, to be honest with you. It's, I think the common advice, which usually comes from people that don't even have a business, is you should never work with your spouse.

And it's like, Where did you come up with that? Because what I see at least with our community is it's almost like an unfair advantage cuz you have two people that are like, they're, you're never gonna find somebody that's gonna be as motivated to see your business be successful as your spouse.

It just, it's not gonna happen. So if you can make it work, I think it's really just it's a superpower. We've talked a lot about good things in a cash-based practice, but or just a business in general. What, what has. The hardest part of you starting your own business.

Cause it's not as easy as we're making it sound right now. No. So what's been the hardest thing for you? As far as the journey's gone so far?

Patrick: So I do think, you talked about it earlier, that fear at the beginning, there were mornings where I'd wake up and I'd be like, I'd either feel like I was gonna throw up or I'd feel oh, hey, this is gonna work.

And so being able just. Staying consistent.[00:26:00] Even if you have bad days or a bad week or whatever, just being able to get through that and be like, okay, this week sucked. That means next week is gonna be better. I think that's really hard. And even at this point you feel, you can still feel that cuz you'll have, you'll, we'll, we'll have months where we grow, and then all of a sudden one kicks back and, part of that you can look at and be like, okay, this is normal.

This is a trend here, but it's still. To look at that and not say, okay, what am I doing wrong? Let's go back, what did I do wrong? Let me change things. Let me fix things. When you don't necessarily need to do that, you just need to stay consistent with what you're doing and continue to move forward.

So I think sometimes that's really hard is to just push past some of that, some of the negative stuff. And then, as you keep going it gets tiring. I'm not gonna lie. Like it there, to con to, especially when you're starting to co consistently go out, meet new people try and create new relationships, try and do workshops, things like that to get your name out there.

And [00:27:00] we had a meeting last week with a local soccer group, and we've been in business for three years. We've got four PTs now. And the first thing this guy says is, I'm not trying to be sold. So when we're on this call, please do not try and sell me. And it's okay, that's how you wanna start the call off.

And he's a guy who knows who we are and we've worked with his athletes and all this kind of stuff and it's really, you're just trying to have a conversation. But anytime you do that, people are already very guarded and don't wanna let you in to help them. And which sucks because, That's how most people have been treated.

Yeah. So that's really hard too. I don't think it necessarily gets much easier when you're trying to create new relationships and meet new people and all that kind of stuff. Those are the hard parts. For me it's it's just that when I look at it and if I have a bad day or a bad week, the hard part is for me to not change anything and say, no, what we've been doing has been working.

Let's stick to. And then if this becomes a trend, okay, then we have to fix something, but this is just one day [00:28:00] or it's one week, let's move past that and let's keep going. So I think that's very tough.

Danny: I think just patience in general with people that are, a little more entrepreneurial or competitive is very difficult, right?

Because you just want it to happen faster. I think it's one of actually the biggest challenges that we run into with the businesses that we get to work with is, sometimes like they just don't. The speed of growth that they would want. And in some cases it's somewhat unrealistic as well.

We really look on paper what you're trying to do, which is replace yourself in a way with other people. And people are messy and people have their own, they have their own things that they wanna accomplish or they have their own stressors that they bring into the work environment.

And all that's not necessarily like an app you're trying to get a bunch of downloads for, that's infinitely scalable or something like that. This is it's more challenging on the people side. And but to your credit, you guys have, four PTs in three years is a.

Pretty damn impressive growth number, and I'd be interested what do you feel like has really helped you grow at the rate that that you are? Like, are there a couple things [00:29:00] if you look back like, man, like this was really smart looking back, or, th these were key factors that led to that.

Patrick: So the I think the biggest thing was the idea behind the workshops. So the idea when I moved here, we didn't know anybody and so I had not a single person that lived here, so I had to immediately go out to try to meet people. So I joined a gym, I joined a CrossFit gym and I got lucky because there are like 12 CrossFit gyms within 20 miles of me.

And so once I started doing cross fit and people were understanding whether that I was a PT and people started wanting to work with me. Now, the advantage I had is that the gym I went to sent a team to the games, so I just was like, Hey, I'll work with you guys, and and that's it.

And so once, once they let me do that and people started seeing me, working with them, posting it on social media locally, that helped spur me as. The go-to CrossFit PT in the area. [00:30:00] Yeah. So that helped a lot. And then about, so this was actually, I already knew when I came here, there was another PT that I wanted to hire.

Before I even started my business. So she was my athletic trainer when I was in college. She's a couple years older than me, and she was the trainer for our baseball team when I was in college. And I knew she lived in the area and worked at a clinic. And her and I in the past had, when I was at the cash clinic in, in Virginia, had talked about it.

She knew who my boss was, all this kind of stuff. So when I first moved here, I was meeting with her. We were going to Happy Hour regularly just to talk. I'd known her for about 15 years already just to talk. I was giving her my ideas, all this kind of stuff. And actually during Covid, so Covid started here in March.

We closed from March, Jennifer, March, April, may, June, and then in July of Covid she messaged me and said, screw it. I'm outta my in network clinic. When can I. Wow. And that was huge cuz she already had 12 [00:31:00] years experience in the area. So she started, and within a year she was seeing 20 to 30 people a week.

And so those two things, like from a luck I'll say luck standpoint helped. But I think if you're just starting out, Just going out and meeting people and, when I went to one gym, they would be like, oh, you should really meet this person from that gym. All right, let's go.

When can I do that? And just being open to, Hey, when can I, as soon as they can do it, I'll go, and just at the beginning, you do have to drop all the other stuff and if you really wanna build it you gotta drop all the other kind of stuff and go meet people and interact with people in their environment so you get a better understanding of who they.

Yeah.

Danny: I think it's totally fine to use the L word and say luck with certain things. Cuz the reality is there's certain things, I feel like I was lucky to move to Atlanta when I did. And again, it was similar to you with the CrossFit niche. I had worked with some teams that went to the games when I was in Hawaii.

And when I moved to Atlanta, there really wasn't any or weren't anybody [00:32:00] focusing on. The CrossFit niche, right? Most people were telling them to stop doing it. Yeah. Which, for me, I get to be the nice guy to come in and be like let's just teach you how to do it better, right?

So you can keep doing this thing you like to do, and people didn't really understand it. That was their community of friends. And it was more than just like the workout, like it was really just the ecosystem of the community they developed at these gyms, which is frankly, I think the best part of of CrossFit is developing those those tight relationships with other people that are positively trying to help you, as far as your health goes.

But there was a whole bunch of gyms in Atlanta. That no one was really trying to communicate with. So it was like shooting fish in the barrel to set up a workshop at a time when nobody really wanted to present there, right? So I think luck is a part of it, but luck comes also from nobody gets lucky sitting on their couch.

Like you, you may have some luck associated with trying something. You may have some bad luck too. We definitely have had things that were not good for us, right? Getting satellite offices shut down and, getting sh shook down by a gym owner in the corner of the gym, guys.

He's watching people coming outta my [00:33:00] office and it's like it's, some of this shit happens. It's not good either, but if you don't put yourself out there, nothing happens. I think for you, It's timing is good, but like there, one of the hardest things I've ever done is move to a new city and develop a reputation in a service business.

Without knowing anybody. I think that's probably the hardest thing. And I think for you, having gone through that, do you feel like that helps you relate when you're talking to one of your staff members? I don't know if I wanna teach a workshop or put myself out there.

Cause it can be very, hit or miss about whether they enjoy doing that or not. Even though we know locally, it's one of the best ways to.

Patrick: Yeah. And then to, to your point, like you and you create your own luck, right? I sit down with the new employees and they're both new grads and I just tell them, alright, what do you wanna do?

Because whatever you wanna do, who you wanna see, we can make that happen, right? You just gotta put in, you just gotta put yourself out there. And one of them does it very well and has done it in the past, and the other one's learning. And I think the way we help them is to put.

In scenarios that they're already comfortable with to try and get them to [00:34:00] grow. So one of them is already a member at a CrossFit gym. Okay? All these people already know you. Let's go do a cro. Let's do a workshop there. Yeah. But I do use that experience as, hey I, I literally started CrossFit three weeks before I started treating the team that went to the games.

So I had to put in about three weeks worth of work to know all the movements to know, to be able to speak the lingo all that good stuff, right? And but now they see where we are now. Pretty much every gym in the area will refer their their members to us for injuries.

And so I use that as experience to tell them like, Hey, do you wanna see baseball players? Do you wanna see gymnasts? Whatever it is you wanna see, let's go find out where they are and let's go talk to them. Talk to the people there that make decisions, show them how we can provide a value for them.

And then we go from there and it's all about, that mentality of what can we do for. I feel like if you go in there thinking, what can they do for us? How can they help us? How can they help our bottom line? You've already lost. You're not being [00:35:00] genuine in my opinion, to what our profession should wants to do or should be doing.

So that's that's how we set them up and we have this clinical mentorship and business mentorship for them in terms of sales and. Manual skills and stuff like that.

Danny: Yeah, I think it's, it really well said in terms of just These type of practices, you can have a niche in whatever you want, right?

If you wanna be the go-to runner in your area, cool. All we gotta do is create content, get you out in the community around runners, start having you become a subject matter expert on that, sharing your ideas, and then that's what you're gonna become, right? It's just, and which is cool because we can say, Hey, let's get you who you wanna work with.

Like what, who really lights you up to work with. And for a lot of people that we get a chance to you. Move over from high volume in network practice. They work with very few people they actually enjoy working with, and it's one of the biggest benefits to being able to bring those people into our ecosystem.

On, on the flip side of the the challenge, like what's been the best part of, your practice especially? After you've, you proof of concept and got it [00:36:00] going what's been the best part of being able to have a successful cash-based practice?

Patrick: So for me personally, it's the time freedom.

It's the freedom the time freedom to do what I think is beneficial for the, not only the business, but then be able to have that time freedom from a family and personal standpoint. Kinda in control of my. My own destiny type of thing. So I really like that idea. And honestly the goal would be the financial freedom side of it for me.

Like you were saying before, you'll run, you run the practice and as you get more successful, you end up. Not feeling like you're gonna throw up every morning because you've hit a potential floor that you know, okay, I'm gonna make this much every month. Pretty much no matter what I do, even if I piss off half of my group, I'm gonna make this much money. And then you grow from there. And that's also. That's also pretty rewarding. And then for me at this point it is pretty cool even though it's nerve wracking at first, but it was pretty cool to, one of my other clients or my pa, my pt. She's never lived by herself before.

And [00:37:00] she just got her own apartment a few weeks ago and that's because she's working here now. And so that's pretty cool. It is nerve-wracking that I'm, that we're responsible for that, but it is also pretty cool to provide to provide a place that they choose to work. And we can help them in their lives and stuff.

And so that I think is pretty cool and rewarding. Maybe a little bit selfish cuz it makes me feel pretty good. But those are the two big things that I really like is having, creating this business and this culture that people wanna come work in. And then for me personally having the time freedom in business and in life and to help these other people

Danny: Dude, I don't think it's selfish at all.

I think you're, it's great to be proud of the fact that, you've created something that supports other people's livelihood. It's I think that's like pretty amazing and terrifying at the same time when you first start, right? Because it's I remember the first person we hired, the first staff clinician we hired actually, and our office manager I did many things wrong.

And, For many times I thought I'm gonna have to let each of them go. During about a year period, as I was realizing I didn't know anything about running a business. [00:38:00] And and it was but getting to a point where to see every single one of our staff members be able to buy a house, and feel comfortable enough to be able to do that, and to go on vacations and spend time with their family and to have less structure in their week.

So they have more satisfaction out of working with the people that they wanna work with It's the best part, in my opinion, is it's also the most frustrating part is people because they're not a robot. But the best part is also it's the people. It's like family, right? There's definitely things that will frustrate you, but it's also, such, such a strong amount of reward that comes from that as well, and having those relationships.

And I think that, the people in these type of businesses, That's your culture, man, that makes everything. And it, you should be proud of her being able to, have her own place and have enough confidence in your business that she's willing to to go out and do that. And that's probably a huge step for her.

I think that's huge. I think it's something that it stops people from even wanting to grow past themself. Cause I think that you're, you get a little scared with that. So what was your how was it transitioning just past yourself in a cash-based practice? Because I feel like that's a huge barrier that people really struggle with.

In many cases. They stay really [00:39:00] small and they just stay on their own, and they never hire anybody for fear in many cases, of not being able to provide for that other person as far as the business size

Patrick: goes. Yeah. So the so my, the first PT I hired, the one that has more she's got more, she's been a PT longer than me.

Pretty comfortable with that. And she was still working with her in-network clinic, so she came out as a contractor. And as a, in a business, you got your numbers and once she hits a certain number, you're like, okay, we're good to go. Yeah. We at least break even. We're fine. So for her, she did that in the first few weeks and I wasn't worried about her because she has a big following already.

Yeah. But these, the two that I have now that's where I'm at is it is su it's super scary. And being able to get them up to speed in terms of how, how do we get clients in the door? How do we treat them, how do we keep them all that kind of stuff.

Is pretty nerve wracking for me. But, I think from a training perspective, we go back to that same thing. If we have our systems in place and our consistency and all that good stuff, it'll work. It'll, over time it'll work and. [00:40:00] And I think it'll be successful to bring them on.

And when I did, I originally only wanna bring one of 'em on because bringing two on at once is crazy, in my opinion. It was crazy. But they, I had them both actually as students and I just felt like I couldn't pass up on the opportunity. And I'm big on that if I feel like this is a really good opportunity, even though I might not quite be ready for it.

I'm very big. Not missing that. So it would've been, okay, we hire one in six months down the road. That one's starting to be very successful. Okay, let's go back and try and hire the other one. And I don't feel like that would've been right. Plus my other pt, she was a director at an in network clinic and she had said she had always found it more successful to hire together.

Cuz then they build a better relationship. They're going through the same stuff together. For me, it was just, Hey, we've got the, from a number standpoint, we can do it. It might take a few months to start seeing the reward on it, but I just felt like I couldn't pass up the opportunity to do that.

And [00:41:00] now, we go back to, the bad things. Now I'm we're in this nervous, not nervous, but excited kind of state of. All right, we're growing, let's keep, let's do it how we did it at the beginning and now we just have to expand it to

Danny: the other PTs. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like it's all about focusing on those leading indicators that, drive, they drive new patient volume, which drives, plan of care completion, drives continuity and referrals, and and just focusing on the leading indicator side and having your people focus on doing the right work.

It takes some of the anxiety away, but for sure, it. You can look at it one of two ways, right? Is you can either go very bad, which is very low likelihood or you're gonna scale even faster because now you have the potential to grow with two people instead of one. So you can grow twice as fast basically.

Considering you have the space to fulfill. Services with those people at your office as well as bringing people in the door and filling their schedules up. I, I think looking back on this in a year, it's gonna be interesting cause you're gonna be like, damn, that was a smart move.

Cuz [00:42:00] you, you've now just basically doubled your workforce with one, one hire of two people basically. Which is big. I'm interested though. I don't, I feel like this was like three years ago when we first talked, or so it's been a long time and you've just been hanging around forever in the Mastermind.

It seems like we can't get rid of you if we want to, but I'm interested because I didn't know that you were involved in more of the business side of this other cash-based practice. What made you want to get some help on this business if you had such, experience and exposure to, and all intents of purposes?

A, a pretty successful cash-based practice in the DC.

Patrick: Yeah, the, so when I was in the business side on the, in the practice in dc there was just, there were a lot of things that I wanted to implement that, I just wasn't in a position to be able to do that yet. I wasn't high enough up the chain to, to do that yet.

And some of it was newer in terms of, that this would've, we're talking probably like eight, eight or nine years ago now. Like really attacking social media and all that kind of stuff. Going and doing workshops and all that. And we started to do a little bit of that [00:43:00] workshop stuff.

And so for me, I was reading all this, listening to all this, and I wasn't being able getting to do it. And when I had started my practice there, you, we always had support. So I had another colleague that I would work closely with. We would always bounce ideas off of, the CEO or c whoever it was there.

And when I came by myself, I just didn't, I just didn't have that. My wife was working at her law firm job and I had a buddy who started his own clinic in dc. And I would chat with him a little bit and he was like, you should join the Mastermind. And at that point I was pretty much listening to all your podcasts regularly getting information from there.

And, I was one of those practices that was like, ah, maybe you know, I'm doing okay. I'm doing the workshops and I'm doing all right. But I really wanted to hit, and it was just to throw numbers. Like I, I wanted to hit that 10 k a month mark. Yeah. And I wanted to. Now and that was just like a thing.

And so when I talked to him, Jesse down in dc he was like, come join the group [00:44:00] with us. And so that's when I talked, I messaged you, talked to you on the phone, and. I think having that accountability piece of it along with all the resources and the people you can talk to who have done it or who are, one step ahead of you or one step behind you, or have other ideas that you didn't think about.

Having those people to bounce ideas off of having people who already went through it. And then having Eve who's just oh yeah, we've got that over here on the portal. You just go, click it, download it, put your logo on it, you're good to go. Yeah. That actually freed up a lot of time for me to be able to go and do, meet more people, do more workshops cuz I wasn't just sitting at home in the office or I'm, or in the coffee shop okay, I gotta build this piece of content out, or I've gotta write this script out or I've gotta write this.

So for me joining. At the beginning just helped me have a lot of those resources. And then along the way, every step of the way, like no lie, I'd be like, okay, I think I've hit a point. They've helped me to where I wanna get to let's see if I can go do this. And then something in the business happens.[00:45:00]

It's you know what? I wanna stick around because they've done this also. I hired new pt. All right, I wanna stick it cuz they've hired and they've got the hiring course, they've got all this stuff that has resources for me. I want us to there. And then we go past that and it's okay, they're doing this now.

I feel like you guys have always stayed ahead of the game in terms of the businesses that the value from me is just to, to, to, is great to stay in terms of continuing to grow the business. And then having the community, you talk about it in the CrossFit group, having the community there on the Facebook group and being able to just throw a question out or, Hey, anybody getting these calls?

Yeah. Scam calls. Don't talk to them. Stuff like that. Or anybody have a standard operating procedures manual that I can look at? Sure. Here you go. Having all those resources, I think is very, is invaluable. And talking about time freedom, it just saves a lot of time.

So that we can do more of the face-to-face meetings, the workshops, I can focus more on training my new PTs because I have a lot of those resources already. Yeah. Yeah, no,

Danny: That was, initially I think it was just, Hey, let's [00:46:00] just share what we've figured out. Which there really was, there really weren't many cash-based practices that had grown past themself.

And that was, I think, was the initial interest that we got from people was like, Hey, What the hell are you doing? And we didn't know we were doing anything special. We just, I just kept bumping into people at these movement mobility trainer courses. I was teaching for CrossFit. There were PTs or chiropractors, and they were, they were trying to figure out the cash side.

And I realized that maybe we had some stuff figured out that people hadn't really at the time. And when we as this has evolved, what we've tried to do is essentially create like a, basically a white labeled cash-based practice that. You can take the systems and plug it into however you want, and it's not a franchise or you do what you want with it.

It's your name, it's your business. You can tweak things, you can make it better, make it worse, whatever. But it's I tried to explain it to somebody the other day and it only makes sense if you have like an understanding of what Bitcoin is, which I didn't really know much about what that was until a couple months ago.

Cause I started everybody was like, you wish should really learn about this. But it's essentially like decentralized information, right? We have so many people now that are independently very smart and openly willing to share information with each other that it's a [00:47:00] complete unfair advantage at this point.

Because cuz there's no way, you're talking over a hundred businesses of very smart people, not to include the people that we partner with and and directly coach and. Like all of that together, working towards the goal of building these practices where we can employ great clinicians, create time, financial freedom for the business owners and really decrease the risk.

I think the risk side is the factor that really keeps people up at night, but knowing that you have this community of people, many of them, like you said, or ahead or behind you or whatever, but it probably solved a problem that you're trying to solve. That's huge. It's that, I think that's what we've.

Oh. We're very proud of. Is the community more so than anything else? Cuz for sure, like whatever systems or whatever you want to throw in there, I think our stuff is pretty good. But I think my two favorite times of the year that don't involve family. Are the two mastermind events we get to do because the community is just fucking cool as shit.

And like we get to bring, and now as we get bigger, we get to bring even better people in as guest presenters. Yeah. And get a chance to expand your networks and it's weird to say that cause it's like a [00:48:00] business event and it's what I do for a living, but I just love it. Like it's, hopefully that comes across cause

I'm

Patrick: excited.

It doesn't, it doesn't feel like a business event. This is Right. And you're learning a ton of good stuff and go back as when I was listening to podcasts and reading books and all that, I just needed it's great, I got all this information, now what do I do with it?

And I think that, this has helped with that as well. And but yeah, it definitely does not feel like business meetings or business group or anything like that which again, speaks to that culture of Right why we, why people stick around and like doing it and enjoy doing it.

And enjoy being part of.

Danny: Hundred percent. Pat where can people learn more about your practice, if the, if they wanna check it out, or if they're, if you're, they're like, Hey, I wanna be your fifth pt.

Patrick: Where do they go? So we have, our website is suarez physical therapy.com. My email is Patrick Suarez physical therapy.com.

I have no problem answering emails. And then our Instagram. His Suarez, s o p t. You can message us there. I generally answer all of the [00:49:00] messages there. If it's not me, it's our other senior PT that answers them. But we're big on trying to answer any questions or anything that we get. And those are probably the three main places you can find us in terms of communicating with.

Cool. Go

Danny: check out his stuff. One of the faster growing cash-based practices in the country. Really cool to see what you're doing. Up in Albany, not even, and this is where, it's a mid-size market. I think these mid-size markets are actually like, I think they're great fits for cash-based practices.

You hear, obviously like in Arlington Makes sense, right? Big DC market. But I think you're seeing these mid-size markets really. Crush it. And even small towns smaller towns I should say. There's just, there's so much opportunity. Dude, thank you. Thanks so much for your time today.

Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely man. And guys, as always, thank you so much for listening, being a part of the Facebook group and we really appreciate. You're just giving a fuck about what we have to say, to be honest with you, it's crazy that we can have a conversation and people can learn something from it.

And and that we get a chance to do this and share what we're doing because, it's scary. I know if you're out there, you're just getting started, hopefully what, what Pat said [00:50:00] makes a lot of sense to you in terms of, getting past some of the fear, cuz that's the hardest part early on.

So I appreciate you, sharing some of that and really being honest and dude, looking forward to see you in, in September. Can't wait to see Be fun

Patrick: back at the ranch. Back at the ranch. I think my wife's gonna come this time, so

Danny: Oh, I can't wait. That's gonna be great. My wife is gonna come.

Yeah. And Juliet's gonna be there, right? So she, you guys, she'll have a fellow attorney, ex attorney, I dunno if they call himself that. Yeah she can talk to your daughter, recovering attorney. That's it. Yeah. No, looking forward to it. It's gonna be great. And as well as guys, thanks so much for listening and we'll catch you next time.

Patrick: Hey, real quick before you

Danny: 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 [00:51:00] Gigi every single week, and we share resources that we don't share anywhere else outside of 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.