3 Things You Must Know Before Leaving Your 9-5 to Start Your PT Business

It’s easy to look back on my journey through the PT world and know I made the right decision leaving traditional clinical care, but for many people who are currently contemplating the move to something different, something entrepreneurial, there can be a lot of fear and worry that prevent them from making the transition. 

For me, understanding the path before me and leaning on some trusted resources was a major factor in taking the risk to start my own cash clinic, so I want to pay that forward and share 3 things you must know before leaving your job.

1. Embrace a new audience 

I think a major factor that prevents great PT’s from branching out on their own is the thought that their current clients in the insurance model will be a similar clientele when they go cash. This leaves them with the mindset that “my current clients won’t pay cash,” and so they just stay stuck. 

But this couldn’t be further from the truth. When we branch out into non-traditional models, that also means we have non-traditional acquisition channels and a completely different consumer of PT. For me, this was Fitness Athletes, which meant it was a type of consumer that traditional physical therapy clinics were not equipped to work with. 

My ideal client wanted to work in a facility that looked like a gym, not a clinic. My ideal client wanted to lift heavy weights and move fast, so we needed a lot of space. The sooner I embraced this the easier I was able to attract exactly who I wanted. 

2. Get over the “I wouldn’t pay $200 for PT” mindset

Of course, you wouldn’t! You already possess the knowledge to solve your problem! I’ve found that this mindset holds so many people back simply because they can’t see beyond this. Remember, the population you’ll be going after won’t be other physios or rehab professionals, it will be people who absolutely need your support, so your skills and knowledge will be EXTREMELY valuable to them! 

The second key component here is that you have to start to understand that what you sell is a solution, it’s an outcome, and it's NOT a service that’s commoditized. The sooner you understand this, the easier it will be to get client buy-in and market yourself as something DIFFERENT from the status quo of traditional PT. 

I promise you there are plenty of consumers out there who have been overlooked by the traditional system for what they really need to get back to the activities they love and would gladly pay a premium rate for you to help them. 

3. Action over perfection - you don’t need to have everything perfectly figured out.

In many cases, when we are dealing with Doctors who are looking to go into business, we can borrow some of the good habits that got us here (perfectionism for example), but end up holding us back from making the decisions we need to make. 

This is because the way you think and make decisions in order to get good grades and climb the education ladder is VERY different from what you need to do to be a successful entrepreneur. There’s a reason there is an old saying that “A students work for C students,” and that’s great because of how A students tend to assess things in black and white, right and wrong, instead of just taking a chance and seeing what happens, like those C students do… they just take the leap and go for it, nothing to lose - you’ll need to adopt a little of this mindset and be OK with a little uncertainty. 

You have to start thinking and acting differently. Maybe even counter-culture to what you’ve been taught or how you’ve been told to define success. When you go into the business realm, it won't be black or white, it won’t be right or wrong, it won’t be as structured as you’re used to, but that’s the ENTIRE point! A new set of rules to expand your comfort zone. 

So now, you can throw away that business plan from PT school because you won’t be building out a traditional clinic. It’s time for a non-traditional approach.