The 8-minute Rule Interview

🎙️ To start off, what were the most significant challenges you faced when shifting from being a practicing physical therapist to now managing multiple locations?

The biggest thing for me was that I just wasn’t formally prepared to have any real business literacy. When I was in PT school, business education was basically just one day. So you’re largely relying on your own efforts and experiences. For me, that goes all the way back to when I was a paperboy and mowing lawns in the neighborhood. That was my first experience where I had to set an expectation and deliver on it—ideally providing the value I had communicated.

My mom had a strong background in sales—she’s been in sales her entire life—so naturally, I picked up some things from her. Through that and my journey, I eventually got into giving swim lessons and lacrosse lessons. My first company was actually in the lacrosse services space: camps, clinics, club teams. I had 280 kids in the program when I sold that company. But again, I didn’t have any formal business training.

So I knew I had to upskill quickly. I was aware that my ignorance could either sink me or force me to learn how to swim. I got business mentors and did a lot through the Small Business Development Center, including various webinars and in-person workshops, which were typically an hour or two long. Many of those were free or relatively low cost.

I also did a growth accelerator that focused heavily on marketing, and a CEO accelerator that helped me step into a leadership role where I was overseeing more people and really understanding who I needed to be for the team. When we opened our second office, I went through the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program, which was incredible and very pivotal for me.

For a lot of people, that second location is a disaster—and it was for us too. It reminded me how people-dependent our business was, and how little we depended on process. That had to change quickly if we wanted to have sustainable operations. We needed to reach a point where adding more locations didn’t mean doubling the work. As a result of that program—and thanks to some amazing people on our team—we’ve been able to keep growing. And with each new location, I can confidently say things continue to get easier.

🎙️ It seems like you were really resourceful. And I know you’ve mentioned something called the three C’s that has led to your success. Can you tell us more about that?

I’m impressed with the research you did before this conversation. So—the three C’s—I’m a big advocate of them. You need to have intellectual capital, social capital, and financial capital.

Each of those, I would say, has two components: personal and professional.

In terms of intellectual capital, I first needed, on the personal side, to be a really, really good physical therapist. Then, from a professional standpoint—within our company ecosystem—I needed to develop my business acumen so that I could be effective for others, not just in terms of delivering care.

When it comes to social capital, there are things I can do that directly benefit me—for example, pulling people onto my personal caseload. But beyond that, you also need to be doing things on a business level to improve social capital for your company as a whole.

Then on the financial side, I could develop a certain level of personal financial literacy and take care of my own finances. But business financial literacy is a whole separate conversation.

So those six areas—three categories, each with a personal and professional dimension—are, in my view, make or break. The most important thing people can do is figure out their current level of literacy or competency in each area, identify the gaps, and understand that if you’re stepping into the business world, you need to work on closing those gaps across all six.

🎙️ How would you say you maintain and promote a consistent culture amongst all the different locations?

The biggest thing is that you have to lead with your values, your vision, and your mission. You’ve got to start with the things that truly matter to you. Ideally, you’re taking actions that reinforce those values. First, you establish them—then you reinforce them. And something we actually did recently was a reinvention.

At the end of the day, values shouldn’t be aspirational—they should be authentic and reflect what’s actually happening in the company ecosystem. We can aspire to be certain things, but if those values don’t reflect who we are, how we operate, and what matters to us, they won’t have any real stickiness with others.

Fortunately, many of our leaders started with us, grew with us, and have helped us expand. That continuity has been key to reinforcing our values across the organization. Because we have a highly entrepreneurial model—particularly when it comes to opening de novo locations—we’ve been fortunate to retain a lot of people from our early years. Many of our first 10 or 15 employees are still with the company.

That’s allowed us to maintain historical context and build a strong base of brand champions. Even when I’m not around, I can see that many of the foundational values we started with are still alive in the company culture. Recently, over the past three or four months, we went through a core values reinvention process. I’m excited to take down the current set of values we have on the wall in all our offices and put up what is essentially version 3.0 of our core values.

🎙️ How does technology contribute to your practice?

For me, I think the biggest challenge is cutting through the noise—because there’s so much talk around AI, automation, and tech. The real question is: what can we actually implement? What’s going to move the needle, and what’s just hype—something that might not be worth the effort or isn’t ready for implementation within our team?

We recently hit 100 employees, and last year, we became an eight-figure-a-year company. So now we’re focused on simplifying how we operate. Tech, AI, and automation are absolutely beneficial—especially when they change our internal economy.

But most importantly, we’re focused on changing the economy for the individuals within the company. If you can implement systems that reduce the need to scale headcount in direct proportion to revenue growth, then everybody wins. Total compensation can go up for everyone in the ecosystem.

If we can maintain the same headcount and still grow the company—say, to 50% more in revenue—just imagine the trickle-down impact that could have on total compensation across the team.

Not to mention, we’d be eliminating cognitively burdensome, repetitive, and low-skill tasks—the kinds of tasks that aren’t enjoyable for anyone. By automating those “level one” responsibilities, we free up our team to focus on more cognitively variable, meaningful work. Work that allows them to show up as their authentic selves each day—without being bogged down by remedial, unfulfilling tasks.

🎙️ What are some examples of technological tools that are interesting to you right now?

I think right now some of the opportunities for us largely relate to front office and back office operations. Starting with something small on the clinical side—documentation continues to be one of the top complaints from our clinicians. To help address that, we’ve implemented an AI scribe. It listens in real-time and synthesizes notes. Clinicians can then copy and paste that summary directly into the EMR.

More recently, we’ve added AI that can process intake information and generate a baseline summary for the subjective and objective portions of documentation. Eventually, that functionality will expand to include the assessment and plan as well.

On the front and back office side, we’re also making changes that impact everything from how we engage patients early on—to improve conversion rates—to optimizing billing and revenue cycle management. These kinds of improvements are meaningful wins for the overall company ecosystem.

When we talk about efficiency, particularly from a staffing perspective, it’s helpful to look at FTE (full-time equivalent) ratios. For example, at the front desk, we used to need one staff member for every 2.5 PT FTEs. Now, we’re at one for every 3.5. That means a clinic with seven to eight physical therapists can operate with just two front desk staff, whereas before we might’ve needed three.

On the back end, with revenue cycle management, we used to need one FTE for every $3 million in revenue. Now, we’re approaching one for every $4 to $4.5 million. That’s not only a win for the company—it’s a win for the person in that role. We see these roles as being AI-augmented. They’re amplified by automation and intelligent systems that support high performance.

🎙️ How do you foresee the future of physical therapy evolving and what do you think practices need to do to stay ahead?

I think the biggest thing is figuring out, again, what’s just noise and what’s actually implementable. You’ve got to look at your team and read the room.

A big phrase from sports that applies here is KYP: Know Your Personnel. Some things are going to be highly complex and require a much longer roadmap. Others are low-hanging fruit—like some simple Zapier automations or tools you can easily throw into the mix.

Maximize what’s already available at your fingertips. ChatGPT has free tutorials, not to mention a free login. If you’re not already using tools like Gemini or Copilot to help with your email, you’re probably not all that deep into this space yet—and that’s okay.

The key is figuring out where you are and where your team is. What’s the next small, realistic step you can take? Not something flashy or amazing that isn’t feasible with your current resources, but something actually doable. Like anything else, the more you can honestly assess yourself and your team—have that self-awareness—the more likely you are to move forward with tools or systems that are truly worth your time and actually move the needle.

🎙️ What advice would you offer physical therapists considering to open their own clinics?

I’ll be candid—business ownership is not for everyone. You need a certain skill set. If you’re just graduating from PT school and you’ve never done anything even remotely sales-related—where you’ve had to manage a direct relationship between your time, money, or peace of mind—then starting a PT business right out of the gate probably isn’t the right move.

Sometimes people are drawn to the idea of business ownership, but the reality is—you might not yet have the skill set for it. And that’s okay. You might need to find ways to be intrapreneurial instead.

Outside of that, you need to be resourceful. I’m very competitive and very stubborn—but only stubborn about winning. I’m not stuck on doing things my way. I’ll figure out how to do something faster and better, because I’m quick to recognize when I lack something—whether that’s time, money, expertise, or anything else I need to solve a problem. That mindset allows me to keep moving forward.

If you feel like you have the mental and emotional stamina to take it on, it can be an amazing journey. I’m fortunate to now be in a phase where I no longer feel like I’m constantly in firefighting mode. It feels good to finally be on offense instead of always reacting.

🎙️ On the flip side, is there anything that existing practice owners who have been running their clinics for decades can learn from the newer generations of business owners?

I think the key is just being open. You’re probably attracting younger people into your company ecosystem, so you need to make sure you’re building a business that’s ready for the future. If you’re still relying on yesterday’s processes—and companies ultimately compete on process—you risk becoming a dinosaur.

Millennial and Gen Z workers are coming in with new expectations. They’re asking for certain things, and they often have a clearer sense of what’s coming next. So it’s important to leverage the relationships and insights you already have within your company to keep evolving.

I know it’s not easy to constantly reinvent yourself, but at the end of the day, you have to. You need to reinvent your core operating systems. In a world where AI and automation are accelerating how business gets done, standing still really isn’t an option.