E213 | Are You Stopping Your Own Success?

Today's topic revolves around money and whether not you can see the value in what you're delivering to your patients.  When knowing how to solve a particular problem, we tend to devalue the process of solving this problem.

Episode Transcription:

Hey, what's going on, guys? Doc Danny here with the PT Entrepreneur Podcast, and I'm down in my basement. Not in a creepy way. This is a, and it's where my office is, and it's the last day before school starts back from my kids. So I'm, I'm hiding out down here trying to knock out a podcast for you guys. And, and they're watching big city greens, and everybody's kids watch that.

But it's pretty good. Pretty funny, upstairs. And so hopefully they don't run down here and open the door and run in here and yell at me about something while I tried to record that. If they do, you're still going to hear it. I'm going to keep the audio and, it's because the topic I want to get into you today kind of revolves around, experiences we have as kids, and really, how that can

affect how you view something, that many people have such a poor relationship with, which is money. And I wanted to bring this up because I had a conversation recently. We want our staff members about, about money, really about, you know, what we charge. And this person had, has something interesting to say, interesting to say about, you know, out of network or cash.

To the extent of which it's a real significant problem that was exposed, which is, now this person had, it has currently a pretty substantial issue with money and viewing what we do as valuable. Now, this is the context of it. I was, I was talking to this person about it. Somebody had come in that say they saw an SRO, this person one time, and then, never have booked a follow-up.

And I asked, you know, what was going on? And they said that they didn't have the money to, to be seen. And. And you know, I, I started asking him about what job his person had, like what was going on. And I mean, it's middle-class person, like many people that we see, that had, you know, a pretty significant shoulder issue that was stopping them from, you know, being able to train and instead of taking ownership in the fact that there wasn't a conversation about value.

There's a conversation about your shoulder. It went straight to the fact that. This person couldn't afford it, and our staff member said, well, I couldn't afford it. You know, like I couldn't afford to pay $200 to get my shoulder fixed. And I said, well, you know how to fix a shoulder.

Like it's something you don't associate as much value with that because you understand that. Right. But yet. Here's a perfect example. Like if you go, let's say you're having gut issues, we don't necessarily know that stuff, how to fix that stuff, but the same staff member I know will go to a functional med doc that, you know, that we know that's three to $400 per visit, not including all the blood tests and supplements and all of that.

So, you know, you're, you're willing to pay for something that you don't understand because you see value in that and it's helping solve a problem. But we're so. Internalize in terms of the fact that, you know, we know how to solve shoulder pain, so we don't associate as much value with that because we know how to do that.
Yet the people that come and see us do not know how to do that, and they associate a significant amount of value with that in particular, when you can have a conversation with them about what that is stopping them from being able to do and if that person. I don't care what their job is. I've worked with police officers, firefighters, school teachers, people that, you know, do not make a ton of money, but they have a strong desire to continue an activity that decreasing stress in their life allows them to enjoy being around, you know, other people and be a part of a community, will enable them to, you know, use their body in a way they find a lot of value in for as long as they want to do that.

So they associate what we do as being very valuable. And yet they can make less money than someone that does not. And it has a lot to do with the conversations that we're able to have with them. And I think for this staff member, in particular, this is a problem that is deeply rooted, is challenging. It's hard to say like where it comes from, but, but, You know, it's something that needs to be addressed, and no matter what ends up happening going forward, it's never going to change unless it's worked on. And what I see is a lot of times these money issues come from a few things. Number one, it's your parents. Your parents might have a significant scarcity mindset, and many of them do because their parents live during the great depression.

Okay? So like a real legitimate time of scarcity. I mean, we haven't had anything like that since then to that extent. And this scarcity, scarcity mentality, of, you know, you know, money doesn't grow on trees. People regularly feel like they're always broke, you know, racking up debt cause they don't understand how to use money and leverage it effectively versus acquire things on, on a, you know, on debt and then end up in a terrible financial place.

Many of these things are lessons that we learned from our family and our and our parents in particular. and. If you don't unlearn those things and gain a better way, then you don't have any other thing to associate that with. Right? So you see, you see money as costs, not value, and what that can bring other people.

The other thing is it can be past experiences. So I had a person or mastermind told me one time that she associated. You know, beautiful things as things that people wanted to take because she had, there, their house had been broken into when she was younger. And, so their homes Rob and they're, she remembers vividly like her dad saying like, he was angry and he was like, look, when you have beautiful things, people want to take them.

And so she associated beautiful things with things that people want to take. So she never really wanted to get to a point where, you know, she. She could make enough money to afford really whatever she wanted because she was afraid that someone's going to take it. Like this is like some layers and layers deep, right?

But like that's association this person has with money. And as soon as we got really to a point where she realized that, and I was like, man, I am limiting myself intentionally or unintentionally because. You know, she's scared that if she has money, people are going to want to take it from her. All of a sudden, we saw her business grow significantly.

So it's, it's funny what we'll stop ourselves from doing, and in many cases, it's based on—past experiences. And the fact that now money is tricky, it's delicate, it's true. Tricky concepts should be taught a touchy topic for a lot of people. Were they shy away from it? People that don't have any money are obsessed with money because they never have enough people that have a lot of money.

Don't talk about it because they think that they're, and they're being, they don't want to sound arrogant or rude. And obviously, you don't want to be like, you know, flashing money at everybody and tell him about how much money you make and all the dumb shit you get to do with it if that's what you do.

But like, think of, think of money as a way to leverage. The things that you enjoy in life, like experiences with your family. You know, being able to live somewhere where your kids get to go to an excellent school—healthy food, you know, making food decisions. Not based on what you can, you know, that's in the budget.

But what's the healthiest thing for our family to eat for longterm health and wellness? It's an investment. Do you know? How about being able to help out other organizations? Maybe it's your church, and perhaps it's a nonprofit that you work with. Maybe it's organizations that you want to be able to support. Like.

We support our, our kids, charter school, quite a bit, both with, you know, money and also time resources and is because, you know, we want to see a school B be really. It's successful. It's been an excellent school for our kids. And, and if we didn't have any money, we would be able to do that. You know, those things.

So when we get back to what you're charging and the way that you have to view it and talk to people, especially when you have staff members, I think it's easy when you go into business for yourself, when you're just like. Holy crap, I have to make some money. So yeah, I'm going to charge people and even still be going to have problems with that.

They charge less than they're worth. They shy away from telling people they need to see them enough times to be able to solve their problems. And you know, that can derail your, your business. If you don't answer that, but if it's a staff member, they don't even see. The backend of that, like what's going on in the business, why they need to do those things.

You can talk to them all you want, but if there's this grave rooted money issue where they don't find value in what you do, it is an uphill battle, man. And it's something that has to be addressed. It has to be worked on. You don't have to, and you have to spend time coaching. I'm coaching these people and yourself in many cases and working on your, your relationship with, with value and money.

You make value is what you get. Money is what you pay, right? Price is what you pay cash or values is what you get. You can say, you know, a Starbucks cup of coffee that costs you $3 is a cup of coffee. It would cost you 50 cents, you know, at a gas station for a cup of coffee. But is it the experience? Is it, you know, different beans, they use the way they roast it?

You know, I don't know. I just know it has caffeine in it. And I like the way strong coffee tastes better than wheat coffee. Like I love the energy that you get from it. So for me, if I'm going to have one that has more caffeine in it, I'm going to go with that and I, that's what I find value in. So I feel like Starbucks has a more robust coffee or a coffee shop around here, has stronger coffee, then go into the gas station.

And that's why, you know, I would buy that. But that's the value. I've seen it. The price is kind of irrelevant in some capacity between 50 cents, and $3 is most people, it's not that significant of a difference if they do that occasionally. And, but for me, it's about value. And for most people, it's about value.

That's why Starbucks is on every damn corner. Pretty much, they figured it out. They can sell the same product at an increased price because they provide more value, and they have better margins for, they have a healthier business. So for us, it's the same way, you know, like, okay. We, we see people for an hour, you know, we're able to develop these deeper relationships.

We're able to use our hands more and do more coaching and provide more accountability, so we should and get better outcomes in somebody that's seen 25 people a day, and they're just sort of bouncing back and forth between folks. And it's more like they're a writer, then they're an actual practitioner.

And you know, if we don't, that's, that's on us. And people see value in these things. You should be able to charge more for these things. And I can't tell you how many people I talk to that even what they're charging is less than what Medicare would reimburse them. If you are going to cost even less than what the government says that you're worth, you got a real, and you got a real problem.

Thanks. Take a step back and think about yourself. If you're charging less than, you know, 110 to $120 for a visit. The government says that you're worth more than that, you know, or you're worth equivalent to that, roughly. And if you're charging less than that in a cash setting, you're saying, and I'm worth less than what the government says.

The averages. That's a you problem. Then the government thinks you're worth more than that. I've worked for the government average. The government is not high. Okay, you want to be a GS employee and just do your eight hours, be mediocre. You can have a long career in the government like that, but you want to go into the cash-based practice setting.

Yeah, it'd be better than that. And you have to understand you're worth more than that. And if you don't think you're worth more than that, who w how do you expect your clients to feel that way? It starts with you. And that's something that across the board, everybody has to understand that if, if, if you have this bottleneck.

In your business, where you don't feel like you can charge what you're worth. You don't have the visit volume that you would like. It's probably your problem, and you can blame everybody else all you want, but an actuality. Do you know the one thing that's a constant is you, and if you have these? Deep-seated sort of relationship issues with money or value or what you do and what your worth is.

It's not going away unless you work on yourself. So this example of money issues and what we see value in and what we charge and what we think we're worth. It's, it's a complex problem. It's a problem we continuously work on, you know, with people in our mastermind. And it can be tough. It can take some time.

And I think that's one of those things that, you know, for, for people that are. People that are not used to working on themselves. It can be uncomfortable, you know? And the discomfort, I mean, it's, it's sort of like a strength training, right? So for those of you that had done strength training, it, especially if you're new.

It's not very comfortable. Like those patients that you have that are new, how many of, how many times have you had explained the difference between soreness and pain? Right. Wait, like when they're new, it's, it's all about letting them know that it's okay to be sourced with soar feels like, and this is what.

This is what pain feels like. Global. You know you feel like achy, you're sore, local, feel sharp, you know, discomfort. That's pain. We want to stay away from that. We want to move towards you being sore early on. It's going to happen. You haven't done anything like this before. So when you start working on yourself, dude, there's some discomfort there.

There's some soreness that you're going to develop. And I think that's something that. Just frankly, is, is something you have to get past. And money issues will stop you dead in your tracks, you know, and if, if you want some help working on this in particular, you know, it was right herself with a group of people that, or are also, you know, working towards really solid mindsets with money, growing their businesses, sharing resources.

I highly recommend you check out. Our page that has, you know, some of the stories of people that are in our mastermind that you might resonate with you, you know, pretty significantly head to physical therapy, biz.com for SLAs, flash mastermind dash stories. And you can see some of the stories of some people in our group, things that they've accomplished, struggles that they've had.

Yeah. Many of you are probably having that are similar and seeing how they've been able to work past that. It's refreshing to sort of see these transformations that these people have gone through and what they're, what they're able to accomplish whenever they start to get out of their way with some of these things that are hard to work on.

So again, it's physical therapy is.com for slash mastermind dash. Stories and you can check those out there. So you guys, thanks so much for listening. As always, as sort of one of those, topics that no one wants to talk about, but it's really important to talk about. It's, it's sort of the, grunt work, you know, it's, it's the, it's the manual labor that is part of working on yourself that's so important in any that can push you past where you're probably stuck, you know, or, you know, you feel like you really can't make that new kind of movement to a higher level within your business, within yourself. and it's probably because you're getting in your way, and you need help working on that. And we can do that. So guys, as always, thanks so much for listening to the podcast, and we will catch you next time.