The Clinician’s Compass Part 3: Is the Home Run Practice the Big Swing You’re Meant to Take?

Welcome to the final episode of the Clinician’s Compass series. In Part 1, we explored the Lifestyle Practice. In Part 2, the Autopilot Practice. And today, we’re diving into the boldest model of them all—the Home Run Practice.

This isn’t for the faint of heart. The Home Run model is built for clinicians who are entrepreneurs first. It’s designed for those who want to grow fast, build teams, dominate their market, and eventually create a business so valuable that it could lead to a life-changing exit.

What Is a Home Run Practice?

The Home Run Practice is a high-growth, high-impact clinic that often operates at multiple 7-figures in revenue. It includes multiple staff members, layers of leadership, refined systems, and a clear growth strategy.

This model requires strong vision, serious operational capacity, and a commitment to leadership and team building. You’re no longer the provider—you’re the CEO.

Built to Exit or Expand

Some Home Run owners plan to scale nationally. Others aim to build a powerhouse brand in their region. And many design with the end in mind—setting their business up to sell for millions.

Whichever direction you choose, the model is built to be valuable—to outsiders, investors, or strategic buyers.

Why It’s Not for Everyone

Let’s be honest: this model is not about lifestyle balance.

It’s not about patient care freedom. It’s about building a machine. That means long hours, high expectations, and constantly evolving challenges. But the upside? Massive.

If done right, this business becomes an appreciating asset—one you can sell or hold for long-term wealth.

Who Thrives in the Home Run Model?

✅ Visionaries who want to build something much bigger than themselves
✅ Clinicians who think like entrepreneurs and love solving problems
✅ Leaders who are energized by growth, leadership, and scaling
✅ People who don’t just want a business—they want a legacy

Trade-Offs to Expect

The Home Run model brings incredible opportunity, but also comes with real cost:

• More complexity – Teams, systems, and operations need constant refinement

• More risk – Bigger swings mean higher stakes if things don’t go as planned

• Lower initial profit – Growth often requires reinvestment before payoff

• Less flexibility (at first) – Until leadership is in place, you’ll be hands-on

Still, for the right person, the ROI is worth it. And long-term, this model creates an asset you can step away from—or cash out on.

Real Talk from Doc Danny

“The Home Run Practice is for the few willing to go all-in, lead big teams, and build something much bigger than themselves.”

So, What’s Your Race?

After going through all three parts of the series, you’re now equipped with a big decision:

• Do you want to stay hands-on and flexible? That’s the Lifestyle Practice.

• Want time freedom and stability? Autopilot Practice is for you.

• Want to scale, lead, and go big? The Home Run Practice is your race.

Just make sure you choose intentionally—because where you start matters less than where you’re aiming.

Need Help Making That Call?

→ Book a Free Discovery Call
→ Visit PhysicalTherapyBiz.com

Whether you’re just getting started or planning your next big leap, we’re here to help you pick the right path—and build a business that supports the life you want.

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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:  Four to eight hours a week. That's what we have found that we can help clinicians save just by using our AI documentation tool. Claire, head to meet claire.ai. Get signed up for 10 free notes that you can use to test this out and see how it can help save you time. Not only does it listen to your note and document the soap note effectively, but also creates a visit summary that you can send your patients after the fact.

To help with compliance and help them have clarity with what the plan is going forward so that you can help them get the result that they want. Now, if you're tired of having to write notes and you want your virtual assistance tool, Claire, to help do that on your behalf and save four to eight hours a week.

Head to meet claire.ai. Get signed up for 10 free notes and test it for yourself. Hey, are you a physical therapist looking to leverage your skillset in a way that helps you create time and financial freedom for yourself and your family? If so, you're in the right spot. My name's Danny Matta, and over the last 15 years, I've done pretty much everything you can in the profession.

I've been a staff uee, I've been an active duty military officer, physical therapist. I've started my own cash practice, I've sold that cash practice and to date my company, physical therapy has helped over a thousand clinicians start, grow, and scale their own cash practices. So if this sounds like something you wanna do, listen up.

'cause I'm here to help you. Hey, what's going on? Danny Matta here with, uh, PT Biz and we're on part three of my Clinician's Compass series, which is the new book that I just wrote. And again, this was an internal resource for our PT Biz Mastermind group. And this is based off of presentation that I gave at, uh, one of our events about a year ago.

And it was the most well received. Presentation that I've ever given. Uh, we created some internal resources based on this concept. And then eventually, uh, this book, and this is a book that I wrote that the goal is, is it's, I wanted something that people could go through in one to two hours, have some actionable things they could work on some, some, some, some exercises and get.

And get clarity on what they're trying to do in their business, right? So we talk about this as like your guide to successfully navigating the clinical business world. And that's exactly what I wanted this to do. And, and the intent of this is for you to get clear on what you're trying to do with your business before hopefully, you know, you're too stuck in the weeds in your business to really even think about what you want to do.

And uh, and if you're listening to this and you're a busy clinician. The reason that I made this so succinct and short and I cut a bunch of stuff out was because I know that you're busy. 'cause I'm busy and some of the most impactful books that I've ever written are, are ever, uh, read, I should say are short.

And they're like to the point they help me gain clarity on something, something specific. So that's why I wrote this, but there's three parts. Uh, that we talk about that are essentially races that you can pick to run, um, in, in the business game, right? Like, like imagine business as a big game. And, but you get to run and, and, uh, and, and you don't know what the finish line is.

You don't know which direction you're supposed to go. You have to decide those things. I. So you have to know where you're trying to go first to know when you end up in the right place, right? And you have to gain clarity on that. Um, so the first half of this book is understanding how to make those decisions, understanding how to run those two different filters so that you're making the right decision.

And the second half is about these three different options that clinical owners have based on our experience with, uh, not just our own clinics, but also the literally like over a thousand business owners that we've helped now, uh, start, grow, scale and even sell their own clinics. So. We've gone over the lifestyle practice, which, uh, is the first variation, the autopilot practice, which is the second, and now we're gonna talk about the home run clinic.

So the home run clinic, this is one that, I'll be honest, we have the least amount of direct experience with because this is not, when I sold my practice, I would consider my practice an autopilot practice. It was a, a good size autopilot practice, but it wasn't a home run. Clinic. Right. A home run clinic to me is, uh, multiple locations, at least three to 10 million if not more in top line revenue.

And, uh, you sell at a big multiple. The whole point of a, of a home run clinic is. A massive financial exit. Um, that is the biggest sort of difference between all the rest of these. It's the scale, the speed at which you get there, the size of the business, and then the, the enterprise value. The actual value of what the clinic is worth is significant in comparison to.

Autopilot practice or obviously definitely a lifestyle, uh, clinic. So the home run clinic is all about that big exit, okay? And in order to get there, there's a number of things that you have to do. So number one, yes, you're gonna have to get pretty damn big, right? Uh, I think at a minimum you need to be at a million dollars of net profit.

So for most clinics, like if you're very profitable. Yeah, a minimum have to be top line revenue, $3 million. It's probably gonna be closer to four for a lot of people to get to a million dollars in net because you have to keep in mind, you have to do this. And also you can't be the one doing everything because for you to grow fast enough, for you to have a big enough team, you're going to have to incorporate other people that are in these sort of like.

Uh, leadership positions, these secondary positions, maybe not what you're doing, which is really running the business and casting the vision and, and doing big business development things. And, um, you know, uh, like actually driving that. But you're gonna need people, like a director of operations, you're gonna need a marketing director, you're gonna need clinic directors.

'cause you're gonna have multiple clinics in, in order to do this. Um, you know, and you need multiple clinics because multiple locations increases the value, the multiple that you get, because. If you show that your business model works in one place, it's not as valuable as you showing your business model works in six places, in six different markets with six different clinic directors because that means you don't have a unicorn location.

And if somebody wants to buy something that they think they can really scale. And continue to scale after they buy it from you and then sell for even more money one day. That's what they wanna see. They wanna see that this works in more than just one uh, location, right? So in order to do that, you're gonna have to have these mid-level leadership positions.

You're gonna have to have clinic directors. You're gonna have to take on debt. So you're gonna have to get comfortable with more risk. So debt, either that's from debt, from borrowing money, or that's debt from taking on investors. And that dilutes your, your equity, uh, that you have in it, right? So it depends how you wanna do it, but you're gonna need cash to try to accelerate growth quickly.

That means you're gonna have to put cash into standalone locations. You're gonna have to have a very strong brand that you've invested in that is consistent, that is, you know, authentic. Uh, that's gonna take probably a lot of. Time, effort, money, uh, to work with people that can help you develop what that brand looks like and maintain the brand consistency through different locations, through your website, through social media.

Um, you know, and investors will see that as something that that brand has a lot of power in it, that it can potentially grow. And one of the first things you're gonna have to do if this is what you wanna do, is work your way out of clinical care as fast as you can. I mean, the, the fact is. If you're trying to grow a $10 million clinic that you can sell, you know, for an eight figure exit, uh, multiple eight figure exit potentially, depending on, you know, your valuation.

I. You can't do that, uh, and treat patients at the same time, you know, unless you have like a bunch of partners. But in most cases, you treating patients is gonna be probably the, the lowest exchange of value that you have. Versus if you, if you look at that, let's say you can generate $200 an hour, uh, treating patients well, what if you can.

Increase your hiring pipeline and get more talented people into the business as you're continuing to grow. What if you can really drive acquisition of new patients and improve sales systems and marketing systems and every little component piece of, you know, the, the funnel that you have, the back end of the business retention, different business models that you have that can improve, you know, generation of income per provider like.

I don't, the, the value of that is exponentially higher than $200 an hour. That could be tens of thousands of dollars an hour, uh, of, of the, the income to the business that's generated by you doing that very unique skill, effectively, I. Maybe it's you networking with other, uh, other business owners, meeting investment bankers, meeting people in private equity that then tees up the opportunity for you to have a, a, a, a massive exit, a big sale at the business, right?

So you cannot be the sort of player coach, uh, if you're trying to aggressively grow something like this again, unless you have. A bunch of partners, right? But in, in that scenario is probably, you know, you, you probably aren't doing that. Um, and, and even then, you're still gonna have to spend a lot of time on other things.

It could only be a small portion of what you're doing. So you have to, uh, be okay with the fact that you might be a clinician, you might be, might have gone to school for a long time to be able to learn how to work with somebody and help their, you know, ACL recovery or whatever it is that you're super into.

But if you want to have a home run clinic and you want to actually. Be that person that is driving that forward, you're gonna have to make some compromises. And one of those compromises is gonna be that you can't be that clinical expert. You need to become a business expert. You need to take your ability to learn, your desire to be world class at something, and you have to flip that from.

ACL return to sport work to now you gotta, you have to be a expert in the areas of business that you're gonna need to know to be able to grow a clinic of this size, a business of this size. So you're now a business owner, uh, aggressively growing business owner. First, you are a clinician. Second, even though you may still have your credentials or whatever, it doesn't mean that that's what you're doing on a day-to-day basis.

Now, here's the other big difference between this and an autopilot practice. 'cause there's some similarities. They both have enterprise value. They both can be sold. But an autopilot practice can grow significantly slower and can be significantly more stable than a uh, home run clinic. Because when you look at big exits selling businesses for a lot of money.

There's a lot of factors that go into it, but one of the things that the people wanna see is that there's a history of the business growing. Okay? If the business is flatlined. That means it's worth less money than a business that is growing, right? They want to catch that business as it's growing. They wanna be a part of that momentum as it continues to grow and scale.

And in many cases, the people that wanna wanna buy a business like that, want to take their external resources, their external expertise, the people that they have, apply it to this business that already has a lot of momentum and grow it even faster. Right? That's, that's, that's one of the reasons why people will pay a premium.

As far as the business is concerned, if it's flatlined, if it's slow growth, it's not gonna be worth as much because it's gonna be considered more of a cash flow business versus a big growth business. Okay? And those are valued differently. That's just the way it is. So an autopilot practice you could still sell is still very, very sellable.

Uh, it's just gonna be a different type of buyer that's interested in something like that. And the multiples of what they're willing to pay are gonna be lower versus a business that is growing really, really fast. Now, if you're gonna go the home run practice route. This is gonna require you to, uh, honestly really be, be more comfortable with risk, with, uh, speed of things that are, that are changing the speed of, uh, adopting, uh, things in the business that are gonna help you have an advantage to, to really continue to grow fast.

I mean, you, you're gonna have to be on top of technology. You're gonna have to be on top of marketing trends. You're gonna have to really think outside the box in terms of how you're doing things and the way in which you are, you're testing and iterating on your business to really double down and continue to grow that business.

And this is also one of those things where along the way, uh, you're not gonna take as much money out of the business as you probably could because you need to reinvest in the business along the way to continue to really grow it right. So not only are you probably taking on investors and or taking out loans to go that route, uh, to, to add the speed that you need, but you're also probably not gonna pull as much money out because you don't want to hinder the business from the quick growth that it needs to see in order for you get the maximum multiple at, uh, at a sale that you could possibly get.

Right? So the intent of this is life changing amount of money. Period. It's also thi this is also, in my opinion, this is the hardest race of all, uh, of the three that I'm gonna talk about. Not, and there's plenty of other things you can do that are, that are probably more challenging in business. But if you're a clinician, and this, this is a clinical business that we're talking about, I.

Hey, sorry to interrupt the podcast, but I have a huge favor to ask of you. If you are a longtime listener or a new listener and you're finding value in this podcast, please head over to iTunes or Spotify or wherever you listen to the podcast and please leave a rating and review. This is actually very helpful for us to get this podcast in front of more clinicians and really help them develop time and financial freedom.

So if you would do that, I would greatly appreciate it. Now, back to the podcast. This is probably the hardest one. And there's some appeal to that to people that like to do things that are hard. Okay. And it may, the, the financial side of it. Might be secondary to you because you just wanna challenge yourself with the hardest thing that you possibly can do in the clinical, you know, world when it comes to like a physical brick and mortar practice.

And really quickly growing that because it's going to force you to develop as a leader, to develop as a business owner, you know, to develop, uh, efficiency in how you use your time, how you communicate, you know, your negotiation skills, your finance skills. These are all things that are going to have to.

Elevate significantly in order for you to get where you're trying to go. So if you're looking at skill acquisition and stacking skills. This is probably the most valuable race you could pick, not just financially, but also from a standpoint of your own development as an entrepreneur. So this is the people that are a business owner first, clinician second, or you happen to go to PT school or whatever school you went to.

Uh, but you just are, you're an entrepreneur that happened to go to PT school. Like that's kind of the way that I view myself. I wouldn't have said that 10 years ago, but I definitely am far more interested in the business side of things. I. And while we may not be running clinics that are brick and mortar clinics right now with the intent of, uh, like a home run style exit on a business, we very much are doing so in other businesses that we own.

So I can relate to this as far as is this something that, to me, the financial side is. Uh, appealing in some ways, but I don't necessarily, it's not, it's not the driver for me. Like, it doesn't, it doesn't really change our life, like we're, we are in a place, uh, where it, it's not like I need more money at this point, and, but the appeal to me is the challenge.

The person that I have to become the business owner, I have to become in order to be able to grow businesses like this and, uh, and put our businesses in a place where they can, uh, see other people, see value in them as, as private equity or, uh, VC companies might want to, uh, be a part of those businesses and acquire those businesses.

That is a challenge and that's a box that I haven't checked yet that I actually find, uh, interesting and intriguing to be able to see if I can do it. That's the appeal to me, to you, that might also sound appealing and it might sound appealing for you to say, can I grow, you know, five, six clinics at, you know, a million plus in revenue?

At each location with good profit margins and be able to create an entity that functions without me that I can sell one day. And the byproduct of that, there's a monetary byproduct for sure. There's also a personal development byproduct where it forces you to grow. It forces you to challenge yourself.

It forces you to level yourself up to whatever it is that you're capable of. And, and we need challenges to do that. Certain people need challenges to do that, not everybody. Now here's the, here's the flip side of that, and this is the negative. With this style of a business, it requires a lot from you, more so than a lifestyle practice.

And def definitely more so a lifestyle practice and more so than an autopilot practice. You're going to have to really work hard. You're gonna have more time, you're gonna have, you know, more challenges that you have to deal with. And if you can't successfully do that while maintaining the life that you want.

Outside of, you know, this endeavor that you're taking on, I don't know if it's worth it. You know, I don't think, lemme put it this way. It's not worth you ruining your life. For the pursuit of seeing if you're capable of doing something like this. I definitely, I have gone back and forth on this myself, and I feel like I'm, I'm in a place where I feel comfortable with the boundaries that I've been able to set and maintain while also really being able to work to towards these bigger business goals.

Um, but not everybody. Prioritizes that and is intentional and it's very easy to get sucked into the business and the business being the priority because. It's so important to you. It's challenging and it's fun in a lot of ways as well. You know, if you want a challenge and you're an entrepreneur, like going for like a, like a big, big business, big exit, potentially, it just validates the fact that you've built something of a lot of value, intrinsic value.

It's also something that you don't have to sell this. You could grow this and then. You can hire a CEO and back out and now you have a really big autopilot practice. Like that could be what you wanna do too. It gives you a lot of options, but it, of the three races that I talk about of the lifestyle, the practice, the home run practice, and the autopilot practice, the home run practice is the one that is the sketchiest to do without ruining other things around you.

Because it's the hardest, it's the most stressful. It's gonna take the most out of you. It's gonna require the most of you to be able to do that. So if you know your abilities are maybe limited in your ability to manage your time, to manage stress, to manage relationships, also maybe your life circumstances make it to where this just isn't reality for you.

You know, you have. Outside circumstances that are, that are different than mine, you have people that depend on you that, you know, it wouldn't allow you to have the time or the ability, or maybe even the risk tolerance to take a big swing on something like that. You know, like I think of my family, like, you know, my family.

Uh, I wouldn't say my par, my parents didn't have the ability to take a, to take a big swing on something the way that I am because of, of their families, right? Of, uh, not, they did not come from wealth. Uh, I don't come from a wealthy family. My dad, uh, retired, you know, military career, government worker. You know, my mom worked as an occupational therapist, uh, but for a lot of our life was, was was with us, right?

She stayed with myself and my siblings and uh, you know, so they're very much middle class, right? Uh, but because of that, because of them, I can take a big swing. They helped me get to a place where I could, could, you know, be in a place where I had a lot of education, where I could get a good job, where I didn't have to maybe help take care of them at the same time.

Right? Like where a lot of people, they don't have that. So you, you shouldn't like, don't feel, feel like one size fits all with this. There's so many other factors that go into what you decide to do based on your unique situation. And that's why it's so important to get clear on this stuff and also to understand that comparison is the thief of joy.

And if you just compare yourself, I. To other people. You, you compare, compare yourself to me. We have two completely different situations and backgrounds and, and places where we start it, it, it's not, it's not fair. You know, talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not, and I think Martin Luther King said that, and it's so accurate to where I.

We may not, we may not have the, the same start as other people, and we need to be thankful for that. And I very much am and other people need to be aware that, okay, well maybe they can't take as an aggressive a swing because they don't have, uh, a safety net. So for them, maybe it's a lifestyle practice makes the most sense because they know they can generate income.

It's the lowest risk, uh, you know, or maybe an autopilot practice, whatever. I'm just saying your unique situation goes into this as well. And if you compare what other people are doing without actually knowing, I. Where they, what, what their background is. You know what, like I've seen people from the outside have these massively successful businesses, right?

But when I learn a little bit more and I realize, oh, their, their family paid for all of the business startup costs. You know, they were subsidizing them every single month as the business was growing. Like of. Of course they have fantastic fast growth, like they're smart entrepreneurs, but they have this like huge advantage that so many people, me included, did not have.

So I can't compare myself to that person. Why would I, why would that make me feel bad about my accomplishments that I've had? Because we didn't start in the same place, right? So like you have to understand. Don't compare yourself to other people because you don't understand their circumstance of, of where they started or what help they may or may not have had or where you're at and your circumstance.

That's all you can really understand. So, so you have to take that into equation for whatever it is that you pick, and this is definitely the path that will challenge you the most. It has the, the greatest potential personal development side, business skill development side. It also has the biggest downside, the most risk, uh, but also the most financial upside.

So this is the last race. This is the third option. Right. And I highly recommend that if you're listening to this and, and, uh, you know, you're like, okay, I. This has been helpful. Which one do I want? Take some time to think about it, but also we'll drop a link in the, in the comments below. Uh, and you can head to physical Therapy Biz.

So physical therapy biz.com. And in our resources, you can get this book there. Um, we have, it's, you know, a, a whole sort of course we've built around it with, uh, with some bonuses and resources as well. And, uh, I would recommend going through the book, going through the exercises and, and taking some time.

You could do this literally in one day of a weekend. Gain clarity in what you're trying to do before you dive headfirst into starting, you know, the next chapter of whatever that business is, or just starting the business in general, if you haven't done that yet. So I, clarity, I think is one of the most valuable things that we could possibly give other people.

It's the most valuable thing that we give people in the office. By the way, people that come to see us usually have seen multiple clinicians. They're not getting better. They don't understand, they're confused. They have all this additional information from Google and Chat GBT and all kinds of stuff. And what they want from you is to tell them clearly what's going on.

They want to understand, they wanna know what the path forward is. And if you're the person who help them achieve that, then they're definitely willing to invest in you to help them get there. And that is, you know, very valuable. Clarity in the business world is rare and I hope that that, uh. These podcasts have helped you gain that.

I hope that this book helps you gain that, and if it does, it's a huge win for me because more than anything, you know, I think being an entrepreneur and seeing how many entrepreneurs just end up unhealthy in with terrible relationships, um, it's really. It really sucks to see, you know, and I don't think it has to be that way, I don't think I'm some sort of outlier.

There's plenty of things I need to work on myself, don't get me wrong. But I mean, I'm generally healthy. My kids like me, my wife likes me most days. I, I, we, I, like, I have a fantastic marriage with, uh, with my wife. I'm joking. Uh, we've been married for almost 20 years, for God's sake. We were babies when we got married, and we're still going strong, you know, and I, I don't think that, I don't think that the average person, uh.

Has that, you know, in, that's in the entrepreneur world. Uh, and you can have balance. You just need to be clear on where you're trying to go, so you can say yes and no to the right things. Uh, and that is very, very valuable. So I hope that this helps you. Uh, like I said, if you wanna get a copy of the book, uh, there's a, we will drop a link in the YouTube comments or, or the YouTube description below.

And, um, if not, head of physical therapy biz.com and you can grab a copy there. So anyway, thanks so much for watching and listening. We'll catch the next one.

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