Do This First If You Want To Open A Cash Based Practice
*blog post updated 6/25/25
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 or SNF/hospital prn are good ways 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: most of my in person clients find me on the internet first and don’t really care how much I am charging because they want ME to see their kid based on the trust we’ve already created (might have even helped them get a few wins or notice a few problems they aren’t sure how to fix themselves).
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 platform in which to SELL digital products.
Unfortunately, all online platforms cost $30-$50/month indefinitely and that is a lot of money to spend just for the product to exist before you even go through the trouble of selling it.
Thankfully, my online business coaches from Wandering Aimfully (which sadly no longer offer their coaching program) have the perfect software solution for you — their online course/membership/digital product hosting platform called teachery.co AND they have a limited time lifetime access pass so that you can pay once and never again to host your products (seriously, one time payments are my favorite!).
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 and am obsessed with the software they created because of their business values, their personalities, and the value they bring to everything they touch/create.
Here is why I love them and their products:
Caroline is honest about emotional impacts of business & Jason is action focused, together they create a sustainable business dynamic, which I felt could be a type of business that I would enjoy creating. 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 tons of resources, not just how to’s on creating your first digital product — yes you get access to Teachery.co with a one time super reasonable payment for life but they also have tons of business skills and how to’s for that on the internet. I don’t know about you, but I like actually LIKING the people who create the things I use. It’s why I switched email providers to kit and why I will always use teachery.co (because I also paid once and get access to it for life).
I save $50+/month every month for infinity on hosting my four online courses, which pays for your lifetime membership in 3-5 years.
They speak in ways that are fun, interesting, and connect with me. If you are curious about how Jason & Caroline, the owners of teachery.co 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).
Teachery is not just a course platform, it is a living breathing entity that will help you create digital products that create impact for others, while not draining your bottom line.
Teachery.co is an online course platform that can also be utilized for selling digital products, as a membership site, selling online courses, or many other creative ways. Teachery.co prides itself on being customizable and is owned by Caroline and Jason Zook. Without a lifetime teachery membership, teachery.co is currently priced at $49/mo. Please note this deal cannot be added on later and is only for first time customers.
Curious about how Teachery stacks up across online learning platforms?
If you’re curious about more ways to learn from Caroline & Jason Zook, the owners of Teachery.co, here is some bonus content that you might find interesting:
How I use Teachery.co in my cash based pediatric physical therapy business
I have been listening to the Wandering Aimfully (the coaching portion of Jason and Caroline Zook’s business that is no longer open for enrollment, but their content is all still live including their podcast, youtube, and blog posts) coaching sessions/podcasts/content 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 books: Tummy Time and Learning to Roll and Learning to Sit for a way to share more organized youtube videos, 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 Teachery.co include:
Build out paid webinars for Infant Educators including recorded 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
Continue to learn through their podcast.
Take some of the art courses that Caroline has made including ipad lettering for beginners.
Use the free courses to promote my cash based PT business via my business card + QR code
TLDR; Teachery is an online course platform that has a one time payment and lifetime access which allows for unlimited courses, clients, memberships, and digital products. It is design based which allows you to customize and brand everything so that it is a fun experience for both you and the customer. It is one of the best online course platform deals on the internet and I highly recommend both using Teachery to host your digital products and learning from Jason and Caroline Zook on their podcast, youtube channel, or website.