Stop Selling. Start Teaching Patients

0:05 There we go. Broadcasting way too early from three separate Wi-Fi connections. It's PT Breakfast Club with Tony Meritato, Dave Kittle, and Jimmy McKay. I think it's the scream at the end there that makes it the best there. Good morning, PT Breakfast Club. Still one Tony down. But he'll be back later on. I promise. The only morning show here today where physical therapists gather twice a week to talk about the business of helping move humans more and occasionally question every marketing decision we've ever made. I'm Jimmy McKay. That's Dave Kittle. Quietly building Manhattan cash practice one visit at a time today. Let's start off with a little confidence and say it as Kevin Hart would say, say it with your chest.

0:50 You got to mean it. Essentially, you drop something in the chat that your new PT, Andrew Wolfhammer, I know it's not that, but that does sound like if you were on the Game of Thrones, Wolfhammer would be great. He's already selling care packages. Tony asked why this new person was doing so... better different something something isn't a not something's a an anomaly we ask why the answer isn't credentials maybe it wasn't even experience or technique you think the answer is what dave why is this person doing something differently yes also as a hook why am I currently eating raw eggs and how you can leverage what maybe influenced me with your content for your physical therapy business.

1:36 That is another topic for later today. In terms of the treatment packages, yeah, Andrew has, so Thursday in two days will be his sixtieth day. We've never had a therapist sell this many treatment packages in sixty days. He's doing exceptional work. uh he transitioned from doing home visits medicare part b home visits in new york city in manhattan uh for the past four years the two previous years was outpatient orthopedics also in manhattan so first two years out of school brick and mortar clinic practice ortho busy clinic all that he didn't like that so he left wanted to do the home visits spent the next six years doing home visits in manhattan itself i think that is one of the main parts in terms of his confidence and experience in just going to people's homes, talking with different folks, having that whole one-on-one interaction, as opposed to some of my previous therapists, including the more recent one that had exited, that was not from here, not from the U.S.

2:38 originally. English was their second language, and coming into Manhattan, I think, is kind of... probably if you're, if you're coming from anywhere, I mean, if you're coming from Jersey or PA or anywhere, I mean, I have friends from all over who were like, I've come to New York. They're like, I don't know what's going on. Yeah. It's different. It's a different beast. Gravity is different in New York too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, we can, we can riff it. We can riff and go into it. But I also like, there's some things that like this therapist had already had in terms of confidence experience and, And then I think I had a way better planned and executed onboarding approach for this new therapist.

3:21 Although like, and we did a lot more sales role play in the last sixty days where we do it in person or we do it on a zoom call and we go through, you know, scripts and we, we, we, we take turns, like he's the fake patient, I'm the therapist and then I'm the patient and he's the therapist. And we basically know we see on the screen or we have in front of us, like, what's the, I want to think about it. Uh, it's a lot of money. I want to use my insurance. I don't have money. I got to speak to my spouse. I got to sleep on it. That's out of my budget. All the, all the things that we hear in, in cash practices. So he's got so many reps in the last with that. Like we, we basically are training our therapist to like, you have to expect that people are going to be surprised.

4:04 Although I'm trying to improve the whole process where like if Jimmy's my new patient, I want you to know what the cost approximately will be if you want to move forward and decide with us. But we always say like, either the first visit we've tested, either the first visit is complimentary or the first visit is paid, doesn't matter. But either way, it's like, just try this, just do this one visit. Don't even think about like past that because you can't even make an informed decision or a financial decision about fixing your chronic low back pain that might take ten, fifteen visits unless you experience the value first, if that makes sense. Sure.

4:45 Because just the term physical therapy doesn't say a whole lot. How are you supposed to know what that means? Because it could mean so many different things to so many different people. It does. Right, right. Yeah, so I put that I put that in the chat for you guys, a screenshot of our text message. Because he had sold a thirty six hundred dollar package yesterday and I was super pumped. And like those those are the things that like I can't always put even on my stories anymore because I have like prospective patients looking at our stories. Wouldn't that help? Because wouldn't that be like sort of doing what you just said, sort of seeding what that what you should expect? You're raising the floor, essentially.

5:26 I mean, maybe I should. I mean, if you if you were a prospective patient of. the place nearby. You have a friend that has a practice nearby. But if they were posting that their therapist... It's not a turn-off? It's not bad taste? I don't know. I don't know if it's a turn-off, but I don't know if it... Does it move the narrative forward? Because you want to talk about the outcome, not the cost. I have no problem talking about the cost when you ask me about it or when I look for it. Yeah, so I agree with you. I don't know if that's the thing. I think sharing is someone just... like car dealers are good at that. Like they're like, Hey, look at, they have like a sign at their dealership, new owner.

6:09 And then it's like Karen and Carl are outside next to their new minivan. They're like, or like real estate is good about that. I have a good anonymous story that we're like, I think would be better to describe this story, which is we have a client. They're super busy. They're a little bit older, but they're active. had a knee replacement, had in-home physical therapy in Manhattan. He didn't want to badmouth the company. I don't want to badmouth this other company. I don't know this other company, but long story short, he was getting home visits and they were covered through either his commercial insurance or Medicare Part B or whatever.

6:53 Well, that's his self-pay, but this client uses insurance and had two PTs from this covered practice to do home physical therapy after his knee replacement. They did zero manual therapy after a knee replacement. A knee replacement that was stiff, that needed mobilization and all that. What's that? Unstiffing, needed some movement. Typically. I mean, any outpatient PT that's watching or listening, they're typically going to do some manual therapy for anyone after knee replacement. This home practice did zero manual therapy.

7:37 So he splits time between New York and Florida. He went to Florida. He found what sounded like a similar therapist to us, like hands-on, comprehensive, all that. I spoke to the therapist. He was like minus thirty degrees away from full extension. So he was lacking significant extension, pain with walking, pain with everything. That therapist in Florida did a whole bunch of manual therapy five days in a row only because this client is so busy. but in those five days he felt so much better and looser and all that so then this client goes from florida comes back to new york city is not going to continue with the other physical therapy place even though it was covered because they just did they're just like hey all right do this exercise do this do that you know bend it straighten it bend it whatever lift it with it just bend it and then move it so he felt what hands-on care or different care felt like in florida he comes back to new york city he finds us on the google machine and my therapist goes yesterday and i already told him all this because we do a comprehensive intake of what you liked what you didn't like it you know what do you think helped what didn't help whatever at your previous experiences and obviously that was his main part of hands-on care my therapist does one visit with him and sells a package for thirty six hundred dollars which comes out to like three hundred dollars a visit uh paid up front which is juicy um but the the thing is is We're providing what he's looking for and

9:09 in the next twelve visits or eight or ten or whatever we do, like it's going to be completely focused on loosening up that knee, getting him walking and moving better. But at the end of the very first visit yesterday, he was already saying how much looser and better he felt and confident and hopeful and all that. And so those are the things that we need to highlight with future videos and content and all that, as opposed to a screenshot of like my therapist saying, hey, I just sold a package. Oh, great. Or do you start a shell company that provides crappy care? That is a great setup for your real company. Do you know what I mean? There are enough of these companies already. You're like, you have a crappy restaurant.

9:50 It's like no seats and the food's bad or whatever. And the next floor, you're like, we have some openings. We're really good, but we're expensive. And you're like, at this point, I'll take anything. So what you're saying is there's confidence, repetition, doing the thing over and over again makes you a better person at doing the thing. And that's good. And, and sounds like he likes it. Like you can't make someone who like is sort of into it, into it. That's not how that works. Right. I can't, I've said this before. This was somebody, a boss taught me. You can't teach, give a shit. If you give a shit, I can make you better. Right. But if you don't like, I'll take, I'll take, what is it?

10:32 I'll take the, I'll take the C plus skill with a plus effort rather than the A plus skill with the C plus effort. I can't do anything with C plus effort. We can't. So this is good. And I definitely have had in the past two years, I have definitely had therapists that are on a spectrum of how much they give, how much effort or how much they care. And my current therapist, Andrew, is stellar. I mean, just amazing. What's your long-term move? Do you try to create more? How do you use Andrew to create more Andrews? uh well i mean his second or third week he had already offered to inter and he did he introduced us to a therapist from his previous company that he thought would be a good fit that's the answer that well that's so that's one thing but he literally this is the thing when you find a players They do those things without even me asking.

11:30 It's normal to them. And A players want to be around other A players. So he's like this other therapist I really liked. I did some co-treating with them doing home visits and they were really on point and prompt and reliable and all that. Like, you know, hey, if we're going to co-treat it tomorrow at ten a.m., like that other therapist is actually there and shows up on time and cares and all that. This is why a phrase called is game recognizes game. Like this is why that's a thing. It's like, you're like, why do I want to, I did a video about this last week when I did a series of videos about like how to flip healthcare recruiting upside down and like spoiler alert, the answer was not spend more on ads or create content about it. It was change the actual setup or how you're explaining your job.

12:14 It's like if you're a hustler, you don't want to be around other people who are dragging ass because then you're like, why is this acceptable? The first people to leave or to stop trying or showing up are the A players because they're like, you're allowing that B minus to happen? Well, then I'm not going to get... Why is that acceptable? And when the canary in the coal mine starts to drop dead in the cage, that's when you should start to get nervous. A players don't accept that. They shouldn't. Right. Right. So how else? I mean... we're continuing to, we're continuing to work on getting him busier and keeping him busier. And I think in the near, in the next month or so, like when more of our Upper East Side folks come back from Florida from snowboarding, we'll actually, there's a few in the Upper West Side as well, but there's a few more there that we can, that I probably, that I treated maybe in the last year or two that we'll try to get on Andrew's calendar.

13:09 So the long and the short of it for someone like him is, to for me is to strive to provide golden handcuffs in a in a nice way meaning they he wants he wants to make a lot more money he wants to consistently make a lot more money and for multiple reasons like and like new york city is expensive and if you want to whatever like raise a family if you just want to progress in your career you want to have you know build some wealth or whatever like into your retirement all that type of stuff it takes money and so a lot of my therapists, like they're okay with that. They're comfortable with that, with speaking about it. And so my goal is I want him to be the highest paid staff, physical therapist in New York city.

13:55 If that, if that, if that, if that's, if that happens, I don't think like, where else are you going to go? Like everywhere else would then be paying you less and having to treat more patients and more notes. So it's like, I want to, I want to continue to raise the bar for therapists like that it'll continue to attract other therapists like that uh will good morning will saying always love hearing the behind the scenes of dave's practice thanks for being so open dave will you're welcome thank you for coming live let me talk about these in the comments section i like you know what i mean i don't think that's enough Because people need to hear, I don't know. It sounds like sound bites if someone's just dropping comments. But when we talk about it, we go a little deeper.

14:36 We say, why? Or how did you do that? Or did it really work like that? Or what was the order? It's just a little bit deeper. Well, we'll get into that in a second. He's asked me, and I have news for you too. This happened yesterday. I got something. But I wanted to make sure we were doing this before I moved on. So it sounds like if you... Why does Aaron Judge make so much money? It's because he brings in a lot of money. Do you know what I mean? He performs. Right. And he brings in eyes and money. Eyes, eyes, first, eyes, then money. That's how it works. Like, attention breeds money. And performance. Like, his performance brings the eyes.

15:17 His milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. And not only does he hit for power and slugging and averaging, gets on base, but also yesterday... He's got the cannon from right field, and if you've got two out single and you think you're going to go first to third, he's going to throw you out at third. He's going to gun you out. So he can catch balls in the outfield. He does it all, and he's reliable. Those are the therapists we want. He can catch balls in the outfield because he is larger than the outfield. He can catch line drives over the fence. Tom Emanski is somewhere just smiling ear to ear. Remember Tom Emanski? The defensive in the nineties.

15:58 Did you watch Aaron judge when he threw that guy out at third? He didn't even look panicked. He did everything in order. He didn't rush. He didn't. I mean, Aaron judge could throw the ball through a human being. I think at this point, he didn't do that. He threw a lot, a dart on a line and hit the guy in the chest three steps before the poor guy got to third base. But yeah, he did everything right. You do that over and over again. You have money. But figure out what statistics actually get people to pay attention. Showing up on time, being able to sell something, being consistent. Letters after your name are not it. Imagine Aaron Judge kept going to camps in the offseason, had lots of letters, and he was like, I should negotiate my contract because I have letters.

16:41 Did it show up on the field? No. That's nice then. Pick different courses. I don't know what to tell you. I like this parallel. I didn't see this coming. But yes, Aaron Judge. This is on the fly. All right. The second thing I wanted to talk about was a graphic I'm going to put on screen right now, but I'll walk you through it. This caused a little ruckus. And it's funny to watch the different social platforms that I put the same graphic on cause different reactions. People on LinkedIn were pretty pro. People on Facebook were pretty pro, but then some people got crabby, I think. So this was the graphic. I took the nutrition label from food packaging, which is everywhere, right?

17:24 Nutrition facts, serving size, calories, recommended daily allowances. And I played with it. And I was like, the premise was essentially, why do I go to an Indeed job posting? And it's like competitive salary. Would that ever fly with the Food and Drug Administration for how much sugar is in a thing? No. But it's okay for you to put like competitive salary and be really, really vague and wishwashy about what the job's actually like. I got to give it to some recruiters who write job descriptions. Someone bought them a thesaurus. They get real artsy.

18:05 Work with a dedicated team. I am literally, I have no notes. There's nothing on the screen. I am going from reading so many of these. Competitive pay. great environment but they don't say anything about the job and then people were pushing back and going is it all about the money um yeah not all about the money but i i need money to buy i i what i love about this dave is when someone says is it all about the money i go no most of it's about the food i need to eat and that costs money any questions now I like to think of it as like it's about half of it is about the money because the other half is like what you do to make the money, the job role and responsibility.

18:51 Bingo. So anyway, I had some fun with it. I was like, hey, why isn't there just... And here's my point for this. I go, doesn't this just save... I'm not even going to ask you if you agree because you do this already. You don't do this, but I bet you would be like, oh, that's even easier. I'll do this. Doesn't this save time and money? Do you need seven recruiters being vague, getting a hundred people who kind of know what the job is? And if they want it to thirteen interviews to then have seven people be like that starting salary is twelve thousand dollars below what I'd even take. I would never have even bothered to double click my resume to send it to you.

19:32 Had I known that, why can't you be more transparent? People on LinkedIn, super supportive. We're going to say. let me answer that. If there must be these bigger, like medium to larger companies that they might model it out behind the scenes that they're not, you don't like point shaving. They're, they're like, they're like shaving off of how much they would actually be offering. Oh, I get it. So that might be how they would justify having seven or ten or twelve recruiters because you have to pay those recruiters like a salary as well. So if they, if it's a, if it's a, I don't know, a practice that has ten or more locations. And if you're in network respectfully and you take all insurances, I've heard therapists say this.

20:17 Other therapists have said that this is how these bigger companies run. Basically, they focus on typically hiring new grads because they either don't know any better, they don't negotiate, they're in low position of negotiation. And these medium to larger companies know that every single year there's a new crop, new crop, new crop being that's graduating and they all need jobs and they will basically they'll find some of them in that crop to fill these open roles. And then they'll keep some of these staff therapists for as long as they kind of want to stay or they they get priced out or they they don't tolerate it anymore. They don't want to treat volume.

20:59 or be in these busy clinics or get held back with capped compensation. So every single year, these companies are like, hey, we got these recruiters and you're going to be at every whatever health fair and the student conclave and all this stuff so they can get in front of more therapists. And obviously it works for them. Obviously they have spreadsheets around this. And obviously they know that there's X amount of therapists every year that are going to accept No one low salaries. Nobody. I said, unless I am an idiot, like explain to me my, with this wouldn't help both sides. And no one could do that on Facebook. If I were, I just, I, I, I just, that, that this is why it, Oh yeah.

21:43 If you have ten or more locations, you don't want to make it public. because you're already making more money by offering more therapists and some therapists that accept sixty five seventy seventy five seventy eight K whatever. So every time they accept that, it's lower than the one that's on the screen. That's this hypothetical eighty two thousand dollar salary. So every time that gets accepted behind the scenes without a graphic like this, without a company advertising a public salary instead of like even like a range. And if it's a new grad, they're going to be at the dead bottom of that range. Right. So they the medium to larger clinics, they benefit from this whole ambiguity of this whole situation.

22:24 Somebody brought up that there is now law in several states that if you share a job that can be performed in that state. So, like, let's say it can be performed remotely. You have to you have to share the salary. It has to be written out like like airline prices. And it's just very confusing to me. If the bottom, bottomest line was going to turn someone off and be like, oh, I can't, I just can't do that. Like, I will not be able to pay for food or rent. Why you wouldn't just weed that person out immediately? Like, I'd rather do five really good potential interview calls than fifteen and feel like, but I guess you're right.

23:05 I guess it's like, well, I might be able to talk someone from the middle of the bell curve who's pretty okay into taking this. And there's this guy, Joel Legree on LinkedIn. He's like a recruiter. That's his big thing. And he goes through these talks where he's like, oh, to the client, the budget was a hundred and twenty, but I talked him into a hundred grand. Isn't that great? I saved you twenty grand. You got me a shittier candidate or you got me a great candidate who needed the job and took it. But they deserved a hundred and twenties, but you saved them twenty grand for the company.

23:45 The person should leave in twelve months. And this is a great business to be in if you're a recruiter. Because you're just like, I'm a, I don't know, like a used car salesman. Even car salesmen start with a price. A lot of these jobs are like competitive salary. competitive with what if it's so competitive put it on the screen let it compete at least give me a range because if the range ain't ranging i'm not sure i'm not there's no i i feel like on linkedin or definitely indeed like i think it's been a little better in the past couple years without at least giving a range no i'll do some i'll do some deep dives because maybe i'm wrong i think it's better but i still don't think it's good because it was pretty awful there for a while all over the place.

24:34 We don't need it. We don't want then, then some CEOs come back and they go, well, Jimmy, everything's more than the salary. And I'm like, what do you mean? It was like, there's benefits. And we're, I said, great, put it on a label. If you're saying it's more than the salary, I'm saying, put it on the label. I actually, I, I chuckled with this because down at the professional nutrients, the first one that says mentorship, And it says low. I laugh because obviously, I'm trying to we're trying to do, you know, significantly high mentorship and coaching and training and onboarding and all that. But I laughed at that. It's pretty funny. Yeah. CEU allowance, a thousand clinical growth.

25:15 Even better, even better respect from insurance companies. Trace them out. I generate this graphic. I just uploaded to a, I uploaded three job applications that were real in PT. And then I was like, create it from that. And guess the salary. Cause none of the three had the actual salary or the range. Wow. That's hilarious. Competitive though, Dave. It's competitive. What is this? Thunderdome. Are we in Gladiator now? We're in Gladiator now. I don't know. I think there should be. So anyway, on LinkedIn, everyone was like, hell yeah, bro. On Facebook, I got a lot of... Someone said to me, I won't even call them out because it's a good person.

25:57 Because they were like, I'll get the exact quote. I'll give you the one I remember. Then we'll see exactly how close I was. They're like, is the person asking this question a business owner? Because if not, I don't value your opinion. All right. All right. But the person asking this has filled out a job application. So we're I'm fifty percent of this little dance we're doing. Right. Right. Right. Right. The market that you're trying to get to pay attention to your job application maybe isn't because you're being shady. Right. That's like saying I'm really open and honest. And then someone asked me a question and I go book a call.

26:40 It's competitive salary. What is it? Upload your resume and spend twenty seven minutes writing out this thing first. That's what car salesmen do. They say your presence is your power. Come into the dealership. I'm going to grind you down. We know exactly how car salesmen work. The recruits are the same thing. Well, if you want to find great suckers who buy used cars, then keep doing what used car salesmen do. If you want to find clinicians who are like, I know my worth. But I guess that's the thing. Maybe I'm answering my own question. They want to shop from the middle of the bell curve, so they'll do middle of the bell curve things. You want to draft first-round draft picks, you act differently.

27:23 I don't know. No, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. We talk about insurance. It's not paying more for a therapist that has twenty-five years of experience. It's paying the exact same thing per unit per visit that a new grad charges through their billable units or whatever. So they don't have to do the golden handcuffs. I have a whole different business model. And even you got to think of the whole patient experience, right? If someone's paying a twenty dollar copay or if it's they're going to outpatient PT or even mobile Medicare Part B covering eighty percent, they have a supplemental that's covering the other twenty percent and they're getting free physical therapy, whether it's conveniently in their home through Medicare or at a brick and mortar office nearby.

28:07 And I don't care what anyone says watching or listening. The people that even my parents that go through Medicare Part B for physical therapy or other services. Of course, they want respect and they want a semi fairly good experience, but they don't typically fully care about the experience and. the, they care, but there's less expectations. Let me just say it like that. There's less expectations as opposed to someone who is paying a package, three, thirty six hundred dollars. Someone who's paying two, three something hundred dollars per visit somewhere across the country. That person has way higher expectations of their experience.

28:52 They're expecting to feel incrementally better almost every single visit and have, you know, things sent to them or have all their questions answered. And it's a little bit more, a little bit more comprehensive because there's more dollars in the mix as opposed to the traditional model, which is it's, you know, you take my insurance and whatever service we provide for you, like that's it. It's kind of like take it or leave it. I agree. All right. So I'll keep working on that. We'll never see this. So this wasn't me saying everybody should do this because I'm smart enough to know that everybody won't. But I think the first organization, the first large organization that doesn't have to do this, that does, wins.

29:37 Because they become the no bullshit guarantee. They're like, there it is. There's the sticker. That's what it is. I don't know if I told you this. We used to have to hire weekend radio DJs. Finding someone who's good on the air, just from listeners, is not easy. You know what I mean? Like, oh, I'm good. And you put it in front of a microphone. And then I've got to work with that person. And I'm not getting a lot out of it. I'm just getting five hours of airtime filled. So we ran a contest. Centerfold ad. Did I ever tell you this? Centerfold ad in the weekly newsletter. Full color. And the ad was... the worst job description ever you will make state minimum wage you will work nights weekends and holidays you will you will be last in line for free concert tickets or cds you uh just we painted the worst picture ever we painted the real picture of what a weekend radio dj was i wanted all like if a thousand people wanted that job i wanted to weed them out with the words and first and whatever seven people were left i'm like it's fight club time you really want it great and we did a contest where they had then had to record themselves reading a script it was funny it was like mad libs and then we brought them on the air for an hour i made a contest out of hiring the lowest paid person i needed give a i was like yes i don't care how bad that sounds that's still perfect for me because the upside now flip that no wait did your ad have anything that was cool or unique or different like you get to be You get to be on our radio station

31:08 today. Yeah, this is us. You want to hang out with us? You start here. This is where we all started. Let's go. I was looking for a beginner with no experience. And I'm like, you start here. But I was very open. If I had run an ad, it was like, do you want to be a broadcaster? I would have got a million applications. By the way, it's nine fifty an hour. And I would have wasted how many hours would I have just wasted? Like trying to convince someone to take that job. That job was hard and thankless. I needed to find someone who understood it. I led with transparency, but I made the weakness a strength. Good. So I got, you know, fifty applicants. I brought ten on the air. I wound up hiring four.

31:49 I was just about to ask how it performed, so it sounded like it worked. It became a recurring thing. Parents would call me, like my kids at Penn State for broadcasting, when are you doing that contest again? Now they're asking me for the contest? Awesome. Will was asking about GTMO, Get the Message Out, which is a name for an agency. The agency is me. I got my second client yesterday. I won't say who it is. But you and I and Tony were discussing this or I asked you a question like how much ChatGPT is saying to do this. It feels high. I did this. I sent the price and literally the next question was, when can we meet?

32:32 And I was like, awesome. Now, what do you think I'm going to do for this person? Overperform. Of course. He brought a number that I did not feel. Tony, if he's listening now, I did not put the word fair into my negotiation tactics with AI. I said, what is this worth? And it told me an insane number that I didn't feel comfortable with. Yeah, yeah. So I remember that. You don't have to say it. You don't have to say it here. But that number range, was it in that chat ABT number range? Yes. The bottom of the range. I was going to ask, was it in the competitive part of that range? I didn't feel confident in putting... So that's what I'm saying. Someone's like, charge more.

33:12 You have to feel like it's worth that. I didn't feel like it was worth that. The thing is, same thing with us, like we talked about earlier in the show with selling packages. You just need more reps of... And of course, this is going to deliver value and you're going to overperform for this owner, all that normal stuff. And that's just how you are. And of course, you're going to do that. then you're going to get more confidence in sending that number or saying that number on a zoom call. And then it's going to be, then it's going to be a higher number over time. Yeah. Like Craig said, uh, I thought, I thought that was a Grant Cardone thing at a zero, like make a plan, make a plan, make a plan, mail it, let's add a zero to it. Jamie Brindle is like a coach of freelancers.

33:55 And he says, he asked this idea where he says the price should be where you can subcontract out all the work and still live on the margin. So what he's saying is if you were a carpenter and someone wants to renovate the bathroom, you price that job at a rate where you could then hire... You could sit there in a director's chair and just sit there like this and you hire the plumber, the electrician, the contractor, the painter, and then your job, you live on the margin. And I'm like, that's, I don't know if I'm there yet, but that's a great goal. Like, but here's what I need reps and proof. And this person I'm going to over deliver for that.

34:37 Whatever I charge them, they are going to be like, it's not, it's worth more. Great. And we'll raise the rate in a year after I've proved myself a dozen times over. But my job is I'm doing the things I like, which is creating video, audio, words, pictures, attention. I'm generating attention. I'm going to attention. And did that, uh, contract or agreement get signed yet? Yeah. Did you put, did you put in an automatic renewal at a higher rate for the next year if there's, if they're satisfied? But it terminates it at a year. So then we had some new agreement. Okay. I could have done that. I'm just saying it could be whatever, ten percent more upon renewal if the owner, the practice owner decides to renew for the second year.

35:24 So it's like a built-in automatic pay bump. You don't even have to negotiate it. And if they want to end it the first year, they just don't renew it. But then there's no negotiation unless you didn't want to have it in there because then if it overperforms, you could say, hey, it's twenty percent more or whatever. Now, I will... So Will is asking, so with the good, what's the bad? So I had this no risk idea for APTA state chapters and academies. And I'll tell you about the idea in a second. It's pretty simple. I had seven, sixteen or seventeen conversations with state chapters and academies. Lots of... I went to a lot of board meetings, answered a lot of questions. I've had no yeses.

36:05 No, one yes. Sorry, one yes. One yes, but nothing came of it because they just, well, we'll meet in three months with the board. So one yes. They said yes, but there's too many people to decide on it. We'll count them as a maybe. But no yeses, no nos. Everyone's like, this feels like a good idea. But that's committees. That's why I told you to not sell to this population. Now, the only reason I still think going to APTA state chapters and academies is they move slowly to hire you. But if you perform, they just never get rid of you. Because as long as you do what you promise, they're like, why would we get rid of the guy who's paying for himself and bringing us money?

36:46 Nobody else on their staff. And I love staffs. Nobody else on your staff. Most of them, ninety seven percent, are not making you money. None. Audit that. Who's making you money? There's a very small percentage of APTs. How many rainmakers? How many rainmakers you got? Not even rainmakers. Like people, you know, what's... Ring and register. Ring and register. They spend money. They cost money. And that's understood. They do a job. But none of them, I can't say none, very, very little, like one percent have staff that make you money. So now I'll say the idea again. If you're a State Academy or chapter, you're like, oh man, we need like to be places.

37:30 Where are we? How come we're not? Your members think you're not doing anything or they don't feel engaged because you're not giving them anything to engage with. And I'm pointing at a cell phone here. Videos, words, pictures, sounds. But you can't afford me. I'm not in the budget to put me on the staff. So I said, hey, here's what I'm going to do. I'll tell you how much it costs to hire me and my little staff of freelancers that work behind me. It's two grand a month. And I'll produce these ten things every month that will lead to engagement, that will keep your members from leaving, and it will bring you margin. And I will not start making the thing. We'll treat it like a movie. I won't start making the stuff until I have made phone calls for free on your behalf to secure sponsorship to pay me and make you margin.

38:18 And I said, I have it in writing and it said it. Let's just get it out of the way. Here's the here's the contract. Send it to your lawyer now. I want to know quickly because I'm moving on. This is a good idea. This is the problem with these committees is that they don't do it. They don't do a quick yes or no. That's that's that's horrible. So I've been selling this since... You're in purgatory. You're in purgatory with all these committees. I'd rather... I got one no. I got one no from one state who was like, here's why. Now, here's why. If this was a good me going, you're not the right fit. We're nervous that you won't be able to hit the minimum. Okay, then you've risked nothing.

38:58 But we still feel like then we're waiting to start. So you value what I'm bringing and you want to start immediately, but you're nervous that I won't hit the minimum. Well, then let's sign the contract and I can start making calls today and I'll hit that minimum. Because just like Bruce Willis in Armageddon, I've never missed a depth. I'll hit that. I'll hit it. Wait, so the role is you're doing calls for them to raise the money for donations or what? Yeah, I said I will go hunt. I will go eat what I kill. So let's say it's APTA New York. Hey, APTA New York, for me to create video podcasts and clips and all those things, it's two grand a month. Before I start making anything and set up your YouTube channel and your podcast, I'm going to call the ten largest employers in New York State that hire PTs.

39:45 And I'm going to go, Hey, you guys need to hire PTs? Yeah. APTA New York now has a podcast, a YouTube channel, and all this social content. I'll put your logo on it and make sure that you have a pipeline of applicants coming to you. And they have line items. This is why I pick people who need to hire because they spend money like crazy because they need to fund the industrial hiring complex. So once I hit twenty four grand, I go, hey, everybody, I found the money to pay for me. I'll keep looking for money. But in the meantime, I'm going to start your podcast and your YouTube channel. Now I'll get to work promising what I just did to NYU or whoever. And everybody was like, Sounds good, but I don't think you can do it. And I go, well, if I can't, then I've just done a bunch of phone calls for free and I just didn't hit the mark.

40:30 I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is. You're not willing to put my money where my mouth is. That's a you problem. I can't change you problems. So I had one chapter be like, we want this, but can we start with a pilot? And I go, sure. Well, will you pay me for the pilot? And they were like, oh, we were hoping it was the free pilot. And I was like, oh, all right. Well, then what I wanted to say was, well, then I got some snow in my driveway. Can you send someone over? Can you want to drop by and just do some work for me while I do some work for you? Or how's this work? But trust me, when a lot of people are emailing you proper business etiquette, they're thinking, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I don't feel like working for free since you're not working for free.

41:11 or what i should have done was recorded a bunch of stuff and just stamped a big watermark over the middle of it but i didn't do that i responded respectfully and was like i don't understand what this pilot will prove when people ask me for proof i go sure go to youtube type jimmy mckay that's the last decade of my life if you don't like that you will hate working with me if you don't love that you're gonna hate me But keep in mind, I wasn't going to host their shows. I was going to teach their people how to host. This is how you scale something. I don't want to host your thing from Montana. I want Montana people because that's real. And I was going to facilitate it. I also told them, you don't need me to create a YouTube channel or do any of these things.

41:53 I'll give you the playbook. You're not going to run it. You're not going to do it. So for all these chapters, even the president or whatever of each chapter can't just make any of these decisions on their own. It has to be a committee vote. I think so, yeah. That's what I've seen. Or that's an objection, Dave, that I have not overcome. So we have a bunch that are in the pipeline going, we're thinking about it. And I'm like, all right, here's the thing that I wouldn't say, but is true. If I find success somewhere else doing what I've just, like yesterday, I signed a new client. I signed three or four more of those. I'm not available for your chapter anymore. I made you an offer. You didn't answer too late.

42:33 Find someone else. Google it. Google it. Now your solution is Google it. These chapters are never going to come back to you. I know you're right. They're never going to be like all of a sudden. Oh, we see you're doing all this amazing new stuff too. And now we reconsidered and, and also we voted on it and we hope that your offer is still valid. And yeah, What I should have done and I will do going forward, I'm not making any new calls because if these fifteen aren't going to make a decision, I'm not kicking more doors because I went by population. I went from the largest fifteen down. So New York, California, Florida, Texas.

43:14 What I should do is there should be an expiration date. After that date, the price goes up. I didn't do that. I should have done that. It still won't move them to make a committee vote on this. It won't. But at that point, if someone ever does, it's the price where I'm like, this is the price you should pay for waiting. All right. So now the client that just signed with you is a private practice owner the other day? Yeah, because they have money. I understand the value. Yeah, I understand this. And it's usually one decision maker unless it's owned by a few PTs, then it's... Two, three. And this is how they evaluated me. I interacted with this person fifteen times with no expectation of ever closing a deal.

43:55 I was just, oh, cool. Let's do stuff together. And after a while, they were like, how do we get that? I'm like, you call me and you hire me. That's it. But you're right. You did some content with them, just regular episodes in the past. Yeah, yeah. Companies have hired me, like large multi-state practices have done that before. And they'll come in and hire me for like a short term, but not ongoing, which is fine. I don't think I wanted that. I think it's after a while, everything I put out has to go through so many filters that it's like mayonnaise flavored ice cream. And then they look at me going, how come this doesn't do as well as your stuff? And I'm like, because you sucked the fun out of it.

44:38 The fun. Like, like, like what? Like how to go like through the legal or whatever. Oh, Yes. Or branding, which I have no problem making things look uniform. But even before that, where it's like, so let's use this to promote. And I was like, let's use this to teach. But we have a new clinic in wherever. Let's use this to get higher. Not going to do that. It needs to lead for the audience. We can smell a commercial from a mile away. They are trying to be strategic about content. And I'm like, no, this is about changing the temperature.

45:18 This is about changing climate, not about making it rain over that house. So they were doing it for the wrong reasons the wrong way. And I'm like, I've been in rooms going, you're paying me to give my opinion. This will not do the thing you think you want it to. That fast. You're trying to get a girl to marry you and you're like, let's wear the blue shirt today in third grade and you're going to marry her when you're nineteen. I'm like, that's not the that's not the lever to pull. The lever is be nice for the next ten years. That's the lever to pull. And they're like, that takes too long. And I go, well, ten years is going to expire. Ten years is going to pass anyway. since we're a little late or tight on time, I want to cover really quick why I'm eating raw eggs.

46:03 And I want to get your feedback on the video I just did the other day where I read out or did a video about our one-star Google review, which no one ever does, ever. I like it. I would do that. I figured you would like it. Why are you going full Rocky Balboa then? Okay, so... Aren't raw eggs dangerous? I think so, but two years ago in his endless quest for velocity, Ryan Lambert came across an internet video citing the benefits of eating raw eggs. Lambert, a relief pitcher who's recently been cut from his college team, wanted to build muscle and increase his recovery rate. He decided to eat thirty raw eggs per day.

46:44 He went from throwing, I don't know, high eighties or low nineties. Now he's throwing a hundred miles an hour. He got signed by the Mets and he is now In the Mets bullpen. Now, the reason why I'm bringing this up is because I started putting just one. I'm not doing thirty. I mean, I'm a little crazy. I'm not that crazy. I started putting one raw egg into my protein smoothies after working out. You can't taste it. It's in frozen fruit and all that. It's not a hundred percent. I'm not saying it's, I'm not saying this is, I mean, of course there might be risk of salmonella or whatever other thing.

47:26 So, but the point is, is I, I, I want to acknowledge how people are influenced by content. I started, I, I used to, I did this a little bit because of the whole Rocky Balboa thing, maybe back in like high school or college, but it was kind of like a temporary thing. But now for like the last two weeks, I'm adding raw eggs to my, Protein smoothie. I'm not saying anyone else watching or listening should do it. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is I'm acknowledging that I got persuaded by this piece of content, by this news blurb. And I'm thinking like, well, if it could help this guy, I guess it could help me in terms of more protein it's faster i could eat an egg i could i could consume one egg faster than cooking it and it's then then it's larger so it's like when you eat an egg that's already been cooked it's just it's more uh it's more filling than a raw egg if that makes sense yeah okay like like it's hard like you got to chew the egg that you cook and you got to break it you got to break it down so now your stomach i think feels fuller or whatever you're just doing egg shots you have a one in twenty thousand chance according to one in twenty one in twenty thousand for salmonella so i mean just things to look out for diarrhea fever cramps and vomiting if you don't see any of those what's what's what's the likelihood of getting struck by lightning it's is it one in let's find that out a million one in a million or

48:58 car accident what's like the likelihood between car accident and getting sick one in one point two million yeah so twenty thousand is way more like yeah uh odds of getting in a car accident that has to be better than um lightning one in one in five hundred thousand every thousand miles you drive your chances of getting into a car accident are one in three hundred and sixty six That's a lot closer than Salmonella from Rolex. That's from Reddit, though. You never know. I'm not saying for anyone to do this. I'm just saying that piece of content influenced me to do it.

49:44 Since I'm trying to put out content and we talk about content and we were just talking about content, I wanted to bring that up, but now let's, let's switch over. So I just put out, uh, we have two one-star Google reviews on our business. So the rest are all five-star reviews. So, ninety-seven percent of our reviews on Google are glowing five-star reviews. One, uh, I'll probably make a video about it some other time, but the first one was about, uh, that we charge a three hundred fifty dollar cancellation fee for someone who booked four visits and canceled two. So they late canceled Fifty percent of their visits, we charge them the three hundred fifty dollar late cancel fee, which they signed prior to starting with us.

50:28 And that person wrote up once our Google review. And then this one was where we didn't communicate the allowable amount, the out of network cost per visit. And I said, this is why we prefer to be self-pay, because it's very clear and transparent and everyone knows exactly what's the dollar amount is going to be and all that. What are your thoughts on this? I know you said that you like the video. Oh, the idea of showing off your one-star Google review? Yeah. It's great. And here's why. Because I watched this a few days ago because you were like, yeah, we screwed up. How often does that happen? Like, hey, yeah, you're right. This person gave us a one star and it was deserved.

51:09 We screwed up. One out of every twenty thousand eggs that I eat has salmonella. One out of every twenty thousand eggs that I eat has salmonella. Here's what I'm going to do about it. So my next video would be finding this person and it would be how many love letters and how you're going to win them back over. That's what I would do. I would make this more... We got a one-star Google review and it was deserved because we dropped the ball. And my next step was we needed to find... I can't zoom in. We needed to find Beth. Beth.

51:52 who gave the Google review. And we found out, we emailed her, nothing. We Googled her on LinkedIn, found her. We DMed her. She said, what's up? A chink in the armor. We can get through. We can get through to her. Beth, what do I need to do to make this up for you? You're right. I don't want you to take the Google review down, Beth. That's not what this is about. This is about making it right. Because that's what we do. Beth, what's your favorite charity? I love dogs. Cha-ching! A hundred hours. ASPCA of New York. Beth, what do you like? And Beth's name. Beth's name, right, right, right. So in that video, the guy, Sam, wrote us the one-star Google review.

52:35 And then I immediately went to reading a five-star review that was posted sixteen hours before I recorded that. So that video was maybe not the best because I read the one-star Google review because I figured I would hook some people by making this video, right? So I segued into, oh, but we also got a five-star review from Beth from sixteen hours ago. So maybe I took away a little bit of the mystique of it, but I wanted to bring the audience to like, hey, we have a ton of five-star Google reviews. Here's the thing. If I go to Amazon and I'm going to buy a thing and I see one hundred thousand five-star reviews and nothing else, no fours, no threes, no twos, no ones, shady.

53:18 Shady. I don't buy it. It seems it's too perfect. It's too perfect. Too good to be true. Nothing? No one had a problem. Your quality control is that good, or did you buy these? I'm telling you, these are knowledge scents. Something doesn't smell right, and I don't like it. When someone goes, something didn't smell right, so you didn't buy it? Why? Didn't smell right. Did you look into it? No, I don't have time for that. I'm probably not going to find the answer. It didn't smell right. Moving on, I have other options. Didn't smell right. Smells like old eggs. Not going to eat them unless I cook them. I can't believe you're doing that. You're a real man.

53:58 You do thirty thirty eggs a day. What are you doing? Thirty eggs a day. I eat two. They're not raw, though. I scramble those bad boys. We got six minutes left, so we'll front tease this. Tony's back on Thursday. I want to talk about. We're going to talk about, this is way too much because I think this is brilliant. We're going to talk about this. Wendy's has a job offer that I'm applying for. Chief Tasting Officer. You're applying for it just to mess around? I would eat Wendy's hamburgers for a hundred K a year.

54:41 Yes, I would do that. One hundred thousand percent. this is in response to what dave what is wendy's doing this in response to oh the uh the what was it burger king ceo with the cringe video where he was mickey d's burger king oh mcdonald's mcdonald's the mcdonald's ceo uh eating up the burger and it was a cringe video i sent it to you guys like right away this probably before it even blew up and then um when he said oh What do you say? Amazing product. Tasty product. Who said that? I can't remember, but someone pointed out on social media, it would have been better if he called it a SKU, like an S-K-U. Yeah, it's basically the same.

55:24 So now Wendy's is taking some of that lightning, some of that online juju, and they're trying to use it in this way, which is apparently, I guess, a real role. Yes. And here's what I want to get to. Because... When you scroll down, you're like, you're going to create content for us. You're going to eat burgers. You're going to become a content creator for them. You get paid to eat burgers, a custom Wendy's chief tasting officer's email signature. I love the fact that they're just full. You can't kind of go a little tongue-in-cheek. A little tongue-in-cheek is douchey. Full tongue-in-cheek is Monty Python.

56:04 They're going full Monty Python. They're going to turn you into Jared from Subway without the creepy end part of his career. But didn't it say somewhere at the top that it's mostly your local Wendy's? Did you see that? Yeah, it said commute. Commute, commute. Travel, light, mostly to your local Wendy's and or the couch. They're going to turn you into the face of Wendy. They're going to turn you into the anti-McDonald's CEO. That's the play. Right, but wouldn't they want this person to eat at a whole bunch of different Wendy's locations? They might, and they might. This is them doing what I did, mimicking a real job offer and having to toot full tongue-in-cheek to everyone.

56:45 Like travel, yeah, down to the Wendy's. Colleen pointed, he barely nibbled that burger. That was the most awkward bite I've ever had. Babies taking their first bites of food after formula take normal bites, more normal bites than that dude. So my point with this thing is, and this is a long full episode, or this might be an extra episode. Why isn't your clinic doing this? Dave talking about Dave and concierge pain relief is one thing. That's the CEO talking about McDonald's is one thing. But where are the customers? How many people...

57:27 That's why I asked this question specifically for that number. How many new patients would you need in your practice? And I understand they're different in geography and type. My question is, how many new patients would you need to turn to someone and go, I'll give you a hundred grand. What do I got to do? be the chief exercise officer of concierge payment. What does that mean? We're going to figure it out. The goal is how do I turn you into real person doing real things? I don't know the answer, but no one does this. That's why this gets legs is because no one does this. Wendy's needs, Wendy's needs no meetings. Like there likely was a meeting. Have you ever seen the TV show TMZ? where it's just a bullpen, it's just a bunch of cute...

58:09 That's what I envision the meeting at Wendy's. Going, hey, McDonald's CEO is nuts and he has creepy human bites. What do we do? Hire a normal person. This is the most basic idea. Hire a normal person to eat and we'll just... What are we going to do? Put them on content. What will they do in the content? Eat normally. And is that worth a hundred thousand dollars? Because the attention they will garner from it will lead to Frosty's burgers and fries. They know that – Wendy's corporate knows that this caught a whole bunch of buzz, however many views or shares or comments and engagement. It's a temporary thing.

58:50 It's something that's happening right now. If anything, maybe a week or two ago when it first happened would have been better, but this just came out. Right. But that's the thing is likely this person has – like Tom Cruise Mission Impossible level clearance. The person that runs Wendy's IMF, their Impossible Mission Force. They're like, you can do any... This is like Zappos shoes saying, if you're in customer service, you can solve any problem that a customer brings you as long as it's less than a thousand dollars. You have to justify it, like write it down. And if you just keep giving away money, we're going to fire you. But as long as you can justify it, yes, got it. Hey, I looked that person up. They spent seventeen thousand dollars over the last decade and they had a problem with their shoe and it was their sister's wedding next day.

59:31 So I overnighted three pairs of shoes, a nine, a ten and eleven to make sure one of them fixed. It was his sister's wedding. And I'm sure the CEO would go, great move. Because she's going to tell a hundred people about Zappos shoes and she got she's going to tell that story fifty times at the wedding. They sent me three pairs of shoes. This is Wendy's going, we need to put together a team who can do batshit crazy things to get attention, knowing that they might miss eight out of ten times. But if they hit one out of those ten times, home run. Pays for everything. Wendy's can do it for a hundred grand. I know a clinic can't. But a big group of clinics? Why haven't they done it? Wait, you're saying one clinic can't? What do you mean? A standalone clinic with three clinicians is going to spend a hundred thousand dollars to hire- Oh, no, no, no.

1:00:16 No, I thought you meant just like putting out the content that could make this type of an effect. So at scale, so I asked this question and of course people get a little like, oh, you're just going to spend so much money on marketing, Jimmy? I was like, no, no, I'm trying to figure out what your hundred thousand dollars, they're offering a hundred thousand dollars salary. Maybe you turn to someone in a local community and you go, here's ten grand. What are you going to do? How many patients would that person have to bring in to justify the ten grand spend? And let's say you hired the mayor. Quite literally, in my size town, if you hired the mayor, that's a coup. Everybody sees him. And you're like, what do you have to do? You just wear a t-shirt. Okay. There's a TV commercial about that. Little kids at eighth grade graduation.

1:00:56 And they're going across the stage. And it's like, they're reading the names. The principals read the names. And it's like, Smith, Tire, and Auto. And everybody claps. And someone's like, why did they just call Benji Smith? We sold the community rights. Yeah. Oh, this is crazy. Is it though? Is it though? Dave's got to go to work. He's probably got to pound a few more eggs before he gets out of here. Well, back on Thursday, Tony's back. I want to see more discussion around Wendy's and what they're doing. And we'll see you guys next week. That's it. We're out. Boys, what the hell are you doing? Follow Tony Meritato on YouTube at Total Therapy Solution. Find Dave Kittle at conciergepainrelief.com and on YouTube at The Dave Kittle Show.

1:01:39 And follow Jimmy McKay at PT Podcasts on YouTube, the socials, and wherever you binge podcasts you pretend are for CEUs. And hey, just a reminder, none of this was for advice. This was for entertainment only. Our lawyers say that counts. Thanks, Keith.