E884 | Why Focusing On One Thing Will Change Your Clinic

The One Thing Filter: How to Make Better Decisions as Your Clinic Grows

Most clinic owners start with a simple goal.

Replace your job income. Take care of your family. Survive.

Once you hit that point, everything gets more complicated. You have more options, more people on your team, and more ways to say yes to the wrong things.

In this episode, Danny lays out a straightforward way to cut through the noise: pick one core outcome for your business and use it as a filter for every major decision.

1. Kill the Note Burden So You Can Actually Think

Danny opens with the reality most satisfaction surveys show: clinicians hate documentation.

Notes are the thing that make you want to quit at the end of the day. They are the last thing you want to catch up on at night.

That is why PT Biz built Claire, an AI scribe trained specifically for physical therapists. It is like having a student in the corner capturing your sessions so you can stay locked in on your patient and stop dragging charts home.

Less time on notes means more time and brain power for leadership, planning, and the decisions only you can make as an owner.

You can try Claire for free here:
https://meetclaire.ai 

2. Early-Stage Goals Are Simple. After That, They Are Not.

When you first start your practice, the target is very clear:

• Replace your income

• Pay your bills

• Make sure your family is safe

You will take long days, messy systems, and any opportunity that moves revenue in the right direction.

Once you hit that level, the questions change.

• Do you stay small or grow?

• How big do you actually want to be?

• What does “success” look like beyond just paying yourself?

Most owners never stop to answer those. They just keep running, chasing whatever looks like the next opportunity.

3. What Race Are You Really Training For?

Danny uses a simple analogy.

Training for a 5k, a marathon, and a 100-mile race are not the same thing.

• Different training volume

• Different intensity

• Different nutrition and recovery

• Different timelines

A lot of owners are making decisions like they are running a short race when, in reality, they are trying to build something that will last decades.

They chase quick hits and short-term wins while saying they want a long-term, durable business. The race and the training do not match.

The fix starts with being honest about what race you are really running.

4. Get Clear on the Life You Are Trying to Build

Before you can pick a filter, you need a picture of your life.

Danny pushes owners to ask:

• What do I want my business to look like 5–10 years from now?

• How much do I actually need to earn to support that life?

• Where do I want my time to go — clinical work, leadership, family, new projects?

This is not a solo exercise. If you have a spouse or kids, you need to bring them into the conversation. You might realize you do not need a giant clinic to get what you want. Or you might realize the opposite — that your dreams require a bigger operation than you have been planning for.

Either way, the point is to stop drifting and start choosing.

5. No Money, No Mission

PTs are mission-driven. You care about people, outcomes, and impact.

But Danny comes back to a line his wife’s old nonprofit director used to repeat:

No money, no mission.

If there is no revenue, there is no team, no time, and no capacity to serve.

In your clinic, that means:

• You cannot provide stable income for yourself

• You cannot offer good jobs with benefits

• You cannot support your community or give back at the level you want

Money is not the only thing that matters, but without it, nothing else works. You have to get comfortable treating revenue as a non-negotiable part of the work.

6. How PT Biz Picked Its “One Thing”

At their planning retreat, the PT Biz leadership team spent hours asking a single question:

What is the most important thing we do for our clients?

They help people with balance, health, marriage, stress, and leadership. But when they stripped it down to the one outcome that makes everything else possible, they landed here:

PT Biz exists to help clients make more money in their clinics.

When clients make more money, they can:

• Hire great clinicians into low-volume environments

• Offer real lateral transfers from corporate or hospital jobs

• Reduce burnout and build careers that last

So now every big decision runs through a simple filter:

Does this help our clients make more money in their clinics?

If the answer is no, they move on.

7. How a Single Filter Simplifies Decisions

Once the “one thing” was clear, choices got easier.

• New hire? If the role does not support client revenue growth or business performance, it is probably a no.

• New course or curriculum? If it does not make clients better business owners, it drops down the list.

• Event speakers and topics? They prioritize anything that helps clients sell, market, lead, or manage money better.

• New tools and resources? They focus on things tied to revenue-producing activities and core business skills.

Instead of asking a hundred different questions, they ask one.

Does this help us achieve our one thing?

8. Get Your Team Using the Same Filter

As your clinic grows, you cannot be the bottleneck for every decision.

If your team understands the one thing your business exists to do, they can start filtering their own choices:

• Does this software subscription move us closer to our main outcome?

• Does this con-ed request line up with the direction of the business?

• Does this hire, this marketing idea, this space expansion serve the one thing or distract from it?

If they are making bad calls, you either have a training problem (they do not understand the filter) or a culture problem (they do not care about it). Either way, at least you have a clear standard to coach from.

9. Your Challenge: Choose Your One Thing

Danny closes by throwing the question back to you.

What is the single most important outcome your clinic exists to create?

It has to be big enough to matter and clear enough to guide decisions. It should connect to both impact and revenue so your mission can actually survive.

Once you have it:

• Share it with your team

• Bake it into weekly meetings and one-on-ones

• Run major decisions through it

• Say no more often to things that do not align

Over time, that one filter makes leadership simpler, keeps your team rowing in the same direction, and helps you build a business that matches the race you actually want to run.

Next steps if you want help with this

If you want someone to walk through your goals, numbers, and next moves with you, you can hop on a call with a PT Biz advisor here:
https://vip.physicaltherapybiz.com/discovery-call 

If you want your documentation time back so you can think, lead, and still have a life outside the clinic, you can try Claire for free here:
https://meetclaire.ai 

And if you are still part time and working toward going full time in your own practice, you can get a concrete plan in the free 5-Day Challenge:
https://physicaltherapybiz.com/challenge

Do you enjoy the podcast?  If so, leave us a 5-star review on iTunes and tell a friend to do the same!

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, what's going on? Dr. Danny here with the PT Entrepreneur Podcast, and today I've got something [00:00:05] super specific and tactical for you that you can add in to help get your team on the [00:00:10] same page and to help you make the right decisions [00:00:15] as your team grows. One of the things that becomes challenging is you end up.[00:00:20]

Trying to make the right decisions, uh, across a number [00:00:25] of different factors. So what's best for the business, what's best for your [00:00:30] staff, what's best for, you know, short term versus long term, uh, in terms of the way you need to [00:00:35] think about what you're gonna try to accomplish, as well as what your goals are long term.

And maybe those shift. So [00:00:40] the, the challenge in many ways as you grow your business is it becomes [00:00:45] harder and harder to know if you're making the right decisions. When it's [00:00:50] just you and you're just getting started, the goal is basically just to, you know, you're [00:00:55] survive, you're, you're trying to replace your income, um, as quickly as you can.[00:01:00]

You're trying to put yourself in a place where you have a lateral transfer from the income you're making from your, your [00:01:05] job so that you can put yourself in a, you know, in a safe position to provide for yourself and your [00:01:10] family. Uh, it's very scary mentally. It's very hard. Uh, physically it's a lot of, obviously it's a lot of [00:01:15] hours, but.

It is, it's very defined. Lemme put it that way, right? So like, you just have [00:01:20] this, here's your goal. The goal is just to get to the point where I can make enough money to, [00:01:25] uh, to, to do this full time, you know, for this is gonna provide for myself and my family. Now, [00:01:30] after that, it becomes much harder to decide what do [00:01:35] you wanna do with your business and.

This is something that I think for most [00:01:40] people, they don't put a lot of thought into this. Um, they just are kind of [00:01:45] in it. We call it, uh, you know, jumping out of the plane and building the parachute on the way down. [00:01:50] Uh, this is exactly how I have started every single business that I've ever [00:01:55] been a part of.

Well, not every single one. The the first two that I was a part of, let's put it that way. Um. [00:02:00] Then we started to be much more intentional. But early on we just don't know. We're just trying to see what [00:02:05] works and oftentimes you're just gonna pick the thing that feels like there's an opportunity there to, [00:02:10] to be able to generate more revenue, uh, and grow the business.

And that very well may not be what [00:02:15] you want to do. Right? That may not be. The right decision for you. You have to put some thought [00:02:20] into where you're trying to go. We talk about this in, uh, the concept of understanding what race you are [00:02:25] running. So you know, if you're running a 5K versus [00:02:30] running a marathon, versus running a a hundred mile endurance race, [00:02:35] the training for that is gonna be very different.

The decisions you make about. [00:02:40] Volume and intensity and nutrition and uh, duration of time that it takes to [00:02:45] train up for those things. These are all gonna be very different. And what we see is a lot of [00:02:50] people are, uh, they're running a 5K, but they don't even realize that they're trying to run a hundred [00:02:55] miles.

So they're, they're making decisions in this short lens when they really need to focus on something that's gonna be. [00:03:00] Uh, more long term because the race they're running is very long and very, very challenging. Uh, so, [00:03:05] so it's, there's a mismatch there. They're, they're doing the wrong things. So number one, uh, it's [00:03:10] very important for you to really sit down and get a clear idea of what do you want your business to look like?[00:03:15]

You know, and, and, and have an honest conversation with yourself and with [00:03:20] your, uh, significant other, if you have one, your family, if, uh, you're providing for anybody [00:03:25] about what type of life you're trying to build, why, uh, you know, and, [00:03:30] and what's necessary for you to be able to, you know, accomplish that. Um, [00:03:35] and you may realize that you don't need as big of a practice as you thought you did.

Or maybe it's bigger than you think that [00:03:40] it should be. Either way, uh, most of us get to a point where we realize. Well, we have to [00:03:45] grow past ourself at a minimum. And this is where it gets really tricky because [00:03:50] now we're dealing with other human beings and, um, human beings are [00:03:55] fantastic. They're pe the people in your business are the greatest part of your business, [00:04:00] but they're also the messiest part because they have their own.[00:04:05]

Aspirations, goals, things that are important to them, stressors, uh, [00:04:10] people giving them advice. Unsolicited, you know, not, not, not maybe aligning with [00:04:15] what you're saying. So you have this, what we call like a power dynamic that is [00:04:20] created where you have to understand. How to motivate other people and to be [00:04:25] able to, uh, make decisions based on what's best for the business, but also to try to align [00:04:30] the goals that you have with, uh, getting people to want to go the same direction as [00:04:35] you.

And one thing that we've started to do recently, uh, in PTB [00:04:40] as we started this last year, and it's, it worked, it has worked really well. And it's something [00:04:45] again that, you know, we were following through in this year as well, um, to help [00:04:50] us have a filter. To make the right decisions, uh, of, [00:04:55] of, of what we're gonna say yes or no to, purely based on the, what we're trying to [00:05:00] accomplish in the business.

And I think for, for you, in your, uh, uh, in your clinic, if you can think through [00:05:05] one thing that's the most important thing that you could focus on for your business, [00:05:10] that helps distill things down to create a filter that you can then make decisions [00:05:15] through. So for us last year when we sat down at our, uh, uh, uh, [00:05:20] beginning of the year planning retreat, we, we spent hours really thinking through [00:05:25] this.

It's like, what's the most important thing that we do? You? And, and it's, it can only be one thing. What's the most important [00:05:30] thing we can focus on? Um, and what we realized, and, and now it's very obvious when you think about it, [00:05:35] but like it takes a lot of effort to just drill this down to one thing. 'cause it could be many is for us, the [00:05:40] answer is the entire purpose of PT Biz is to help our clients.

[00:05:45] Make more money in their businesses. We do a lot of other things. We [00:05:50] help people with, uh, you know, work life balance. In fact, we do a lot [00:05:55] more of that than I ever thought that we would. Helping people deal with the [00:06:00] really, uh, hard, hard to understand stressors of running a business. The [00:06:05] relationship dynamics of doing that.

Maybe you work with your spouse, uh, [00:06:10] you know, not ruining relationships around you because you become solely focused on that, not ruining your own [00:06:15] health in the process. These are all really important things, but are is the most important thing. [00:06:20] Are we gonna make a hiring decision of bringing somebody else on our team because we are trying to help [00:06:25] people have a well-rounded entrepreneurial experience.

Uh, not necessarily [00:06:30] because if their business doesn't have enough revenue and they don't have a business, they can't hire anybody [00:06:35] and. We wanna change the profession. We want to help [00:06:40] clinics create low volume environments that allow them to hire fantastic [00:06:45] clinicians and make a lateral transfer from working for a corporate or hospital based clinic, [00:06:50] uh, from a compensation standpoint, from a, you know, benefits package standpoint, [00:06:55] uh, and have an improved work life balance.

So, for them to come [00:07:00] over. Be able to have less, uh, intensity of work, less burnout in the profession, [00:07:05] but yet still have, uh, really good careers that they can, you know, function in as [00:07:10] amazing clinicians for a very long time. Well, in order to do that, what do you need? [00:07:15] You have to have money. My wife used to work and run a, a military nonprofit, [00:07:20] uh, in, uh, in Hawaii.

She, she, she ran the chapter called o of, uh, of a nonprofit called [00:07:25] Operation Home Front, fantastic organization, doing great work and, uh, in [00:07:30] Texas where we were at when I was in school. Her boss, who was the, the head of the Texas chapter, she used [00:07:35] to always say this. 'cause no one wants to fundraise. Uh, it feels icky, you know, like you're, [00:07:40] you're, it's like sales.

But she would say, no money, no mission, no [00:07:45] money, no mission. And these are not non-profit businesses. [00:07:50] These are obviously for-profit businesses, but in a lot of ways they share a lot of commonalities with [00:07:55] non-profits 'cause they're heavily mission driven. And if you don't have any money in your business.

[00:08:00] You can't provide for yourself, you sure as hell can't provide great, uh, you know, jobs [00:08:05] for other people. You can't support your community. You can't give back in many ways, whether you like it or not. We [00:08:10] have to deal with money. Money is an exchange of value and trust and, uh, it, it's, [00:08:15] it's how we do things in the world.

We better get comfortable with it. So as we looked at this and we [00:08:20] sat down and, and really drilled down into what it is that we can solely focus on, [00:08:25] it is we help. Clinicians make more money in their [00:08:30] clinics so that they, then they can do all these other amazing things and we can help change the profession.[00:08:35]

So when we make decisions on our team now of are we gonna bring [00:08:40] somebody on in another role? Well, does this help us? Help our [00:08:45] clinicians, our clients that we work with, make more money in their facilities, [00:08:50] have better businesses in their facilities. If the answer is no, this is something internal that [00:08:55] only supports, you know what we're doing and it doesn't directly move the needle for us helping our [00:09:00] clients make, make more revenue, then the answer is no.

If we're thinking about increasing, [00:09:05] uh, education in a certain area, does this. Somehow, does this tie in with them [00:09:10] having better businesses, making more money? The answer is no. Then we move on to something else and we drill down to what areas are we [00:09:15] missing that we need to focus on, that directly tie into revenue productive [00:09:20] activities.

And then we build more there. So whether we're hiring, whether we're, [00:09:25] uh, bringing, you know, EDU education, guest presenters into live events. [00:09:30] Whether we are building out new resources and, uh, hiring subject matter experts to [00:09:35] help, uh, you know, build up the, the knowledge base and the resources for our clients.

All of this is drilled [00:09:40] down to one thing. Does this help them make more money in their clinics? Because we know at the end of the day, the [00:09:45] net result of that is gonna be incredibly positive for them and for the profession. So [00:09:50] for you, and especially at the beginning of the year, this is a great time to do this.

I [00:09:55] want you to think about what is the one thing, and I'm not gonna give you the answer to, by the way, 'cause I can't, but I want you to [00:10:00] think about this. What is the one thing you can do in your business that is the most [00:10:05] important thing that you help your clients with? That is the most important thing you could focus [00:10:10] on for your business to be successful, right?

Like, what is the, the number one thing you can [00:10:15] focus on that makes everything else move in the direction that you want to go. Get your entire [00:10:20] team on the same page with that. Get them, get them organized around this one [00:10:25] filter. Because at a certain stage, when you have more [00:10:30] clients, or I'm sorry, more, uh, staff, you have more employees, more people on your team, [00:10:35] you can't be the only person that's making decisions.

And if [00:10:40] they know what the decision filter is, they know whether they're choosing [00:10:45] the right thing or not. And if they. If they don't pick the right thing, then maybe they don't [00:10:50] understand or maybe they don't care. And maybe that's something you need to address as far as your culture is concerned and continue to do [00:10:55] staff development.

But it should be crystal clear. We focus on this. Does [00:11:00] does this piece of software that you want me to get help with what our goal is? [00:11:05] Does this Con Ed course help? Our goal is, does this next hire help? Their goal is, [00:11:10] does, does this bigger space help? Whatever our goal is, like everything [00:11:15] that you do. Runs through that, right?

And the, the way in which that, [00:11:20] that, that streamlines the decision process and gets everyone on the same page is fantastic. So [00:11:25] that's my challenge for you. I want you to think of the number one thing. That is the most [00:11:30] important thing for you to focus on in your business. That if you do this, if you focus on this, if this [00:11:35] improves, everything else falls in line and the business moves forward for the goals that you have, share that with your [00:11:40] team and focus on that as part of your ongoing training that you're doing.

Unless you're [00:11:45] doing a staff meeting every week. Focus on that. Tie it in to everything that you're [00:11:50] doing. Get everybody on the same page. Everyone will start making decisions based on that. And that's where we [00:11:55] started to see leadership be less about micromanagement and more about group [00:12:00] management as far as making the right decision for what the ultimate goal of the business [00:12:05] is.

And it all the decisions you make get filtered through that and it makes saying no to the [00:12:10] wrong things much easier. And yes, to the right things far more easy as [00:12:15] well.