E841 | The Right Speed To Grow Your Clinic

Is your business stuck in slow motion?

In this episode, Doc Danny dives into one of the most common—and least talked about—mistakes clinicians make when growing their practice: going too slow. From hesitating to leave a full-time job to delaying a key hire, he explains how this self-imposed brake kills momentum and causes more stress, not less.

Speed vs. Control: A Business Analogy That Hits Hard
Just like riding a bike or snowboard, going too slow can make you unstable and more likely to crash. Clinicians often think they’re playing it safe by moving cautiously, but Doc Danny shares how this slow pace often creates more chaos, uncertainty, and missed opportunity.

Two Common Speed Mistakes

1. Going too fast – Taking on massive loans, hiring too quickly, or investing in equipment before demand exists. Rare, but risky.

2. Going too slow – Far more common. Clinicians overthink, wait too long to go full-time, avoid hiring, and end up stuck and exhausted.

The Hidden Pain of Playing It Safe
Delaying action may feel safe, but it often keeps you in a painful state longer than necessary. You end up exhausted, underpaid, and watching competitors gain ground while you “wait for the right time.”

Are You Sabotaging Your Own Growth?
Often, the problem isn’t tactical—it’s internal. Fear, imposter syndrome, and uncertainty about identity as a business owner lead to self-sabotage. If you’re avoiding momentum because you’re not “ready,” it’s time to work on the mindset behind the hesitation.

Ask Yourself:

• Am I creating my own ceiling by going too slow?

• What’s the worst-case scenario if I move faster?

• Could faster action actually stabilize my business sooner?

Helpful Resources to Accelerate Growth:

• PT Biz Website – Strategy and coaching to build your dream clinic

• Join the 5-Day Challenge – Free training to break out of neutral and start scaling

• Get the PT Biz Book – Learn from 240+ clinicians who stopped playing small

• PT Biz YouTube Channel – Weekly insights on growth, mindset, and leadership

Key Takeaway
You don’t need to sprint out of control—but you do need enough speed to stay balanced and keep momentum. Going too slow? That’s not strategy—it’s fear disguised as logic.

Want help navigating these phases?
Visit physicaltherapybiz.com or book a free strategy call to talk through your goals with someone who’s helped over 1,000 practices do the same.

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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: [00:00:00] Hey, Danny Matta here, and today we're talking about speed and what that means for your business.

There's different speeds in which we can attempt to try to accomplish the business goals that we have. And there's, there's kind of two areas where we see people mess up with this one. They try to go too fast. But the second one is actually the more common problem that we tend to see, and that's when people try to go too slow.

So, I'll talk about both these for a second and I'll lemme relate this to something that many of us have probably done and that's ride a bike or maybe ride a snowboard or riding something that is, uh, requires you to, you know, have some speed to get momentum and go. So let's imagine you're riding a bike for a second.

So when you ride a bike. There's a speed at which it's very slow and it feels like you're. You know, you don't have as good of control. You fall easier. You see this with kids when you [00:01:00] teach 'em how to ride a bike, they wanna go really slow and they keep falling over and it's 'cause they don't feel comfortable with the speed at which they have to go to actually ride a bike.

Like, you know, a a, an adult would do. And as soon as they realize that, all of a sudden they don't fall anymore. Right? But they have to get comfortable with that. Now, on the flip side of that, there's a speed that you can go. On a bike or a snowboard or whatever, and all of a sudden you feel like you are outside of your comfort zone.

You're going so fast. Maybe the, you know, the, the, the, the bars start to move really fast. The, the snowboard starts to like rattle and all of a sudden you're like, oh, I don't know. Maybe I'm going too fast. And, uh, you're, you're worried that you're gonna crash because you don't know how to control it at speeds that are that fast.

Well. In business, we'll see people swing wildly either direction. I've seen people that start clinics that take out a half a million dollars in loans to buy all kinds of equipment that they don't know if anybody actually wants to use recovery centers and, [00:02:00] you know, equipment that they'll use for, for manual, uh, treatment and things that are like super high-end lasers and stuff like that.

And they don't even have a single patient to begin with, right? Like they don't even have any idea how to, to run that business model, let alone get people in the door and they take this huge swing. And that's like getting on a bike, not knowing how to ride it and just going as fast as you can downhill.

That's too fast for most people. I. On the flip side of that, what I see more than anything, especially in the clinical space, because most clinicians are typically more risk averse, they're higher, uh, education, they know what the downside risks would potentially be, so they tend to be much more methodical about things, very measured, and oftentimes very, very slow.

Now, here's the challenge with that. Just like riding a bike or riding a snowboard, like every time that I have to snowboard really slow, I fall, it sucks and it hurts. Versus like if I'm going faster, you know, I have way more control. So when you go really slow because you're worried [00:03:00] about falling, you're worried about your business not doing what you want it to do, you actually create a lot more pain for yourself in a lot of ways.

And here's why. You delay the natural progression of your business, you slow yourself down, which allows the opportunity for people that are competitors of yours to gain market share. Right? You slow down the momentum of your business that your actual clients see as well, and that's not necessarily something that a lot of people want to refer people to, right?

For instance, maybe they. Think that you wanna stay small, they don't think that you're trying to get more and more new clients. So when we have this natural momentum that we have to kind of understand our comfort level with and, and, uh, what speed we want to try to attain, really that is very independent, based off of your personal, you know, situation, financially, your family situation, your own risk tolerance, um, you know, and your goals of what you have.

But more often than not, I very rarely see clinicians. Going too fast, too early. What I see is people delaying and slowing down their business painfully slow in some [00:04:00] cases. You know, I've worked with people that have taken two and a half years to go from like, they have a side hustle. They're working full time, and they just don't feel comfortable enough to go all into their business, even after two years in saving a bunch of money and they're working.

They're ass off working a full-time job. And on the side they're starting their, their clinic, they've got this side hustle, it's their clinic, but they don't feel comfortable to go into their own business or people that are, uh, starting the, the, their clinic. And they've gotten to a point where their schedule is busy enough and they.

Don't wanna hire, they, they're slowing themselves down. They're delaying the inevitable, which is the next step that they need to take. And, and it's painful sometimes to watch, or even more so when somebody brings one person on, they stay there with one other provider for an extended period of time, and they're not pushing to grow past them.

You know, they're not leaning into the momentum and getting that speed where they actually like. Feel stable and they slow themselves down, and it's just like riding a [00:05:00] board or a riding a bike and it's treacherous. You'll fall over, right? You're, you're, you're making yourself, you know, unstable on purpose unintentionally in many cases.

And what you have to realize is. That you have to push your business forward, and you have to get comfortable with some of the speed in which you have to change, adapt, learn, hire, fire, you know, take risk as far as being able to grow into new spaces and investing in yourself. These are all things that require speed, and if you don't do it, if you slow yourself down, the biggest.

Potential outcome that's going to come from that is you. You just put yourself in a painful state for longer than you should be in, in these very challenging business situations. And the worst part of it is you could have been in a place where your business was far more advanced, far more robust, far more insulated from risk actually, if you would've just continued to go at the speed that you were going at.

But you slow yourself down and now you allow. Other people in your area to take market share when you could have really insulated your [00:06:00] business from competitors in a much more significant way. And that's what sucks. So ask yourself this if you feel like. You are slowly chipping away and, and making slight progress here and there.

What are you missing? What are, what are you individually missing? Are you putting your own handbrake on, on purpose? Are you doing things to sabotage your own momentum, your own speed, so that you can slow yourself down because you feel uncomfortable with what the next steps are? Maybe you don't feel comfortable with.

Who you are just yet, as far as the person who can actually run a company like that. And we self-sabotage sometimes when it comes to this. We delay, we slow things down. We say no to opportunities because we're, we're not sure that we can tolerate that speed. We're not sure that we can hold that momentum.

We're not sure that we're worthy of whatever that next business evolution looks like. And that is something that you, you're the only person that can work on that, right? You have to work on these things that are gonna be your own self [00:07:00] limiters. And that's usually where it comes from. Sometimes it's market dynamics.

It's that you just need it know more volume, you need to better sales process. You need, like, these are all things that are, they're the, the hard skills in the business. These are the things that, you know, we look at that we need to apply as far as running the right business models, but more often than not.

That these are teachable, very teachable skills. Implementing those and being the person that's going to actually get on that board and go at a certain speed or get on that bike and go a speed that maybe is faster than where you feel comfortable, that is a mindset issue, and that's something that you gotta work on.

So don't forget. Going too fast is a problem, but going too slow is just as bad. And if you are feeling uneasy because you're gaining momentum in your business, it's very normal. And human nature, in many cases, if you're risk averse, to dial it back a little bit, pump the brakes, okay, I'm gonna pump the brakes.

It's just getting a little outta hand when in actuality you're just not comfortable with that speed yet, and you gotta lean [00:08:00] in.