Do This First If You Want To Open A Cash Based Practice
affiliate links included in post
If you want to open a cash based practice, there are a lot of skills that you need to know and I’m not just talking about your physical therapy skills you use to treat patients.
In PT school, we are taught a lot of things, but if you are like me your business class in PT school looked like this: do a group project on finding a niche, realize that reimbursement is terrible and you will never break even based on rent and equipment purchases…write off entrepreneurship as a pipe dream.
Until, being an employee sucks the life out of you and you start looking at alternative options.
Thankfully, these days there are options like cash based PT businesses renting rooms with other clinicians, doing mobile based care, and owning their own clinics.
The biggest problem that I hear people mention when they start talking about opening their own cash based clinic, is that they aren’t sure how to make the jump. In my professional opinion there are a few options:
Have a super amazing spouse who is willing to fund your life so you can take a risk and start your own business
Save 6 months + of living expenses and jump off the deep end to go all in, all at once
Work part-time in a non-conflicting job to fund your minimum monthly revenue number (what you need to hit the bare minimum of your bills + food + minor expenses) and use the open days to work on your business — Academia is a good way to do this
Have online revenue to either act as your part-time job or to decrease the amount of pull from your savings (this might mean you could have 3 months of savings if you were also pulling in 1-2k/month online, etc).
My favorite options include #4 + any of the others (truthfully, I have done a combo of all of them myself). Having online income, specifically in the area of your cash based practice (or as an income stream to help pay off student loans, etc) has a ton of different benefits, here are some of my favorites:
Learn marketing, sales, and content creation skills while still having an income (your full time job)
Takes the pressure off learning all skills at once (getting clients + business details like LLCs + sales/marketing)
Increases your variability in income streams, if you have a slow client month you can pivot to increase sales/revenue in the online space
Builds trust and credibility with potential new clients
Increase demand to work with you specifically, after clients watch youtube or online content they will want to work with YOU based on how you teach and your personality
Create scaleable income with online products like courses, books, blogging, or affiliate income
There are infinite reasons to add #4 and online business as a part of your cash based physical therapy (or SLP/OT/Chiro, etc) strategy. The best reason, though, is because it ends up compounding both your income and your impact. You can only treat so many humans, but you can impact so many more if you have an online presence.
Okay — great — so how does one add online income into the mix?
By getting the right online business coaches + a platform in which to SELL digital products.
Thankfully, I have an absolutely easy solution to that for you: my personal online business coaches Caroline & Jason Zook who run Wandering Aimfully an un-boring business coaching program with lifetime access and an online course hosting platform (which you can use for courses, memberships, or as a checkout for digital products like downloadable e-books or pdfs).
For full disclosure, Caroline & Jason are not physical therapists — they are online business owners with backgrounds in multi-million dollar creative entrepreneur businesses, graphic design, and creative digital art businesses. I chose them to be my mentors based on their business values, their personalities, and the value they bring with their membership.
Here is why I chose them over traditional cash based physical therapy mentors:
Caroline is honest about emotional impacts of business & Jason is action focused, together they create a sustainable business dynamic. Push-Push-Push mentality of online business does not fit who I want to be or what I want to create, so I chose differently.
They have a lifetime model of coaching, community, and resources — you get access to anything they have ever created and ever will: this itself is an insane value but it also allows you to grow at your own pace. It took me 6 years to create my first online course using the included platform Teachery.co (yep, you get it for free!) but I was still doing, creating, and learning business skills and using it for other things in the meantime. I never felt pushed to do or be any specific type of online business owner — I had the opportunity to evolve as I grew in skill and mindset and pick products that worked for me.
I save $50+/month every month for infinity on hosting my four online courses, which pays for your lifetime membership in 3-5 years. Teachery.co (the course platform like kajabi or teachable) is included in your Wandering Aimfully Unlimited Membership.
The speak in ways that are fun, interesting, and connect with me. If you are curious about how they explain business check out their youtube (their calm business encyclopedia is my favorite!) or podcast (it feels like they are real humans who talk about business in a fun way).
Wandering Aimfully Unlimited, is stock-full of value for someone who is looking to create an online income to have a diversified physical therapy business and create a world-wide impact. It will not give you the ins and outs of starting a cash based physical therapy business, but it will allow you to have a means to create your brand, diversify your income, avoid client burn out, and decrease your money stress.
*please note that the price of Wandering Aimfully Unlimited is increasing in 2024 to $2800.00
to lock in the 2k price, enroll via links prior to Jan 1, 2024.
Curious about how Wandering Aimfully Unlimited
will help you go from employee PT to Online Business PT?
Use Caroline and Jason’s Signature 5 Step Process to make sure you’re setting up your business in a sustainable way.
An online course that takes you on a week-by-week, 6-month journey to help you transition from client work (traditional PT) to running a successful digital product business (online courses, digital downloads, books, etc).
online group coaching calls to teach you specific skills you’ll need
for a successful online business and online course.
Everything you need to set up an online course in Teachery even if you’re at the beginner level
(like I was!).
BONUS
For those of you who are still really interested in learning about starting a cash based business, you’re in luck!
As a bonus for those who enroll in Wandering Aimfully Unlimited through my affiliate link (any of the buttons or linked here) you will receive a one hour online coaching/chat session where you can ask me literally any questions you have on starting a mobile cash based business. I will also send a personalized pdf on resources I think you would love so your journey is even easier.
Once you finalize your purchase, email me your receipt and I will send you the link to schedule an online business consult ($75 value)! If you are just interested in business coaching, you can schedule those at anytime here.
Added Bonus Content that you might find interesting:
How I used Wandering Aimfully Unlimited + Teachery.co in my cash based pediatric physical therapy business
I have been listening to the Wandering Aimfully live or recorded coaching sessions and implementing their strategies from email marketing, offer creation, sales strategy all known as their marketing bridge to increase my online income streams, in a way that feels sustainable and well thought out.
I use their philosophies to help create youtube content in a sustainable way, slowing down if I need to, but continuing with the intention that slow, consistent content creation is more valuable than burning out. I chose youtube based on its SEO (search engine) model vs social media (low lifespan of content, non-searchable).
My strategy is to create long-form content available in a library that is evergreen (lives for a long time and is solution focused). My customers find my content when they have a problem to solve: baby isn’t crawling — now what? They often binge all my videos on a topic and often find me through searching youtube or google.
I created four free online courses through Teachery.co as bonuses for my Tummy Time and Learning to Roll book, for a way to share more organized youtube videos for subscribers, to convert individuals onto an email list for email marketing, and as a way to promote proactive strategies for families in Boise who are looking for pediatric physical therapy services or have developmental concerns on tummy time, rolling, sitting, crawling, and walking.
I use a QR code on my business card to link directly to my online course page (which you can view here) giving families and providers an easy way to share information as well as build trust and promote my expertise in pediatric physical therapy. All online courses were created using made for you templates and graphics via picmonkey and canva (happy to share how to do this via the online business consult bonus!).
My future business plans for Wandering Aimfully Unlimited + Teachery.co include:
Build out paid webinars for Infant Educators including live in services birth-5 years old
Nurture the email list that is built from my learning to roll, learning to sit, learning to crawl, and learning to walk free courses
Use the courses to sell the Proactive Play Book Series: Tummy Time + Learning to Roll, Learning to Sit, Learning to Crawl, and Learning to Walk
Watch the replay/live business coaching sessions on video or via the private podcast.
Take some of the art courses that Caroline has made including ipad lettering for beginners.
Continue to build connect with other really unique online business owners in the slack channel + use their fun series of check ins “WAIM OF STONES” to stay on track with all the to-dos.
Use the free courses to promote my cash based PT business via my business card + QR code
Open Enrollment Ended?
I have a secret way in — but you have to let me know you’re interested,
kind of like a secret speakeasy knock but in this case you put your info in the form below
& I send all the details via email ;)