How To Transform Your Business Using These 5 Non-Marketing Strategies | Cash Based PT

Show Notes

In this episode, Dr. JJ Thomas explains the 5 ways you can market your physical therapy practice without using traditional marketing. She emphasizes the importance of being genuine, understanding your community, and continuously learning to elevate your practice. Dr. Thomas shares her insights on how to effectively market without the traditional tactics, focusing instead on building genuine relationships, understanding your competitors, and being a lifelong learner.

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What is The Dr. JJ Thomas Podcast?

Welcome to The Dr. JJ Thomas Podcast! Here I'll be talking all things physical therapy, raw and unplugged, giving you the unfiltered insights you've been searching for in your cash-based physical therapy business. If you're caught in the grind of the traditional model, swamped with paperwork, or feeling like you're not reaching your full potential as a physical therapist, this podcast was created just for you.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 00:00

Sometimes hard truths are hard, and you gotta find a way to do it that's nonjudgmental and that still conveys to the patient that you have their best interest in mind. Welcome to the doctor JJ Thomas podcast. Welcome, everyone. I'm doctor JJ Thomas. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 00:21

Today's episode came out of more and more questions. You guys repeatedly wanna know how I market. I I'm flattered. Thank you. I'm happy to share every little secret I have.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 00:35

I'll tell you really what the marketing my best marketing is always gonna be how I market without marketing. And so today's episode's about the 5 best ways that I market without marketing. Let's talk about why you're why am I getting all these calls about marketing? Right? It's because more and more of you are realizing that you wanna get out of the insurance based world.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 00:58

You wanna get into cash based practice, and the fear is, am I going to be able to get the numbers in to be able to sustain my business and survive? I don't blame you. Like, when you look at the numbers, the cost of our education as physical therapists has gone up 200%, I think, in the last 10 years. 200% more we're paying for education, and the reimbursement values in the insurance based world are the lowest they've been since 1994. Low, low, low reimbursement values.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 01:27

And what that means for us as clinicians is our product is getting watered down more and more. Again, I say this all the time. I don't blame the big companies. I don't blame the insurance based physical therapy practices. In a way, I I blame this is a whole another topic, but I blame all of us really because we are own advocates in our profession and somehow we've let these insurance companies bargain their way into giving us poor reimbursement.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 01:57

And as a result of that, when we're working for these insurance based companies, they have these deals that they can only survive if they if you see multiple patients at once. It's literally the only way they're going to be able to keep the doors open. So I get it. I sympathize with them. It's a shitty, shitty situation and more and more people are tired of it and rightly so.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 02:23

So, likely, you're one of those people, and you're here today because you're like, shit. I'm done with that. I'm done with busting my ass every day in a way where I can't even look myself in the mirror and feel like I gave the best of what I could be to my patients that day. So you're here. You wanna open your cash based practice.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 02:41

Your next question is, well, shit. Am I gonna be able to survive with this? Am I gonna be able to keep my doors open? Here's how you're gonna do it. The number one thing you need to do to market without marketing is be authentic.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 02:54

In a world where the rise of social media and using things like artificial intelligence has, like, exponentially grown, people are craving authenticity. So be authentic to yourself. Be authentic to your patients. Give them a product that is a 100% true of what you, believe. And the cool thing about that is there's a ton of people in the world.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 03:22

There's all different types of people. Right? When you're just true to yourself and you're emanating whatever's important to you, the patients that identify with that are going to come to you. It's gonna be very clear. Your marketing is, hey.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 03:37

This is what I believe. And those of you that don't believe it, it's okay. So and so down the road might be a better fit for you. Those of you that see eye to eye with me and you hear my truth and you hear me speak my truth and you're like, yeah, girl. Go.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 03:50

Or, yeah, boy. Go. Then those are the ones that are gonna come through my door, they're gonna come through my door again and again and again because they not only believe in what I'm saying, but they know I'm being authentic. So the number one way you can market without marketing is be authentic. It's not that hard.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 04:07

Just be true to who you are. Speak your truth. I say it's not hard. It's not hard when you make the decision to do it. Let's talk a little bit about when it might be hard.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 04:17

It might be hard when you have a doc that sent a patient to you or even if they didn't send a patient to you, a patient comes in and they say, I met with so and so, doc, down the road, and he believes I need surgery, and I should get it next week. And you're like, alright. Well, let's take a look. And you look at them, and you disagree. And you're like, I gotta be honest with this patient now.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 04:40

I have to do it in a way where I don't really upset the doc down the road, but if he's way off, I need to still be honest. So speak your truth. Don't be afraid to stand up in situations like that, Advocating, remember, our patients are paying us. We owe it to them to give them what they deserve, which is the truth and authenticity. Another time where authenticity might be hard is the conversation with a patient who comes in.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 05:06

They made the so you know they wanna get better. Right? Because that's the cool thing about cash based practice. Every single patient that is coming to you is a 100% vested because they're paying it out of pocket. So they're vested, or at least they think they're vested.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 05:20

They may not know what you're gonna recommend to them. For some patients, if they're, for instance, smokers or they have a weight issue, that now you have to be authentic. You have to be authentic to our training, which is, listen. If we know that smoking decreases blood flow to the to the discs in the low back, and then if they have chronic low back pain, it's our duty to tell them, hey. Guess what?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 05:44

Smoking isn't so good for your back. I know you know smoking isn't good for you, but these are the reasons why it's it's directly affecting your low back. We have to be authentic and honest with them even though we might hurt their feelings. So there's a way to do that. Right?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 05:59

One of the first times this came apparent to me, honestly so I've done a lot of training because as you've if anyone that's listened to me knows I'm, like, an education junkie teaching and learning, but we'll get to that in a little bit. But I had the, privilege of training and studying under, some Italians, some brilliant Italians, and, with only 7 other people in our country. And they came in with a teaching colleague of mine. He brought them in, and, literally, they spoke in Italian. We had a translator, but that's besides the point.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 06:31

The point is they are so honest with their patients, not judgmental about it. Right? There's a difference between honest and being honest and being judgmental. What they do, their system they have a really cool system. They have, like, a building and the entire building is set for wellness.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 06:50

So their area of wellness as physical therapists is the musculoskeletal system. Right? But if somebody comes into their office so that's one floor. Another floor might be nutrition. Another floor might be imaging.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 07:02

Another floor might be musculoskeletal interventional radiology, things like that. Right? So they come into our floor, which is the musculoskeletal floor, and if the patient has low back pain and is grossly overweight, they've literally done been so authentic that they're expressing to us that what they do is they say, okay. What's your back pain right now in standing? And in Italian, they say, oh, my back pain is 4 out of 10.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 07:31

And they'll liter and if they think it's a stenotic extension based type back pain, they'll literally take their belly and unload it. And then they ask them, what's your back pain now? And they're like, oh my god. It's 1 out of 10. They're like, there's your proof that you need to go to floor 7, which is a nutritional floor, and go lose weight first and then come back, and then I can help you.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 07:53

So sometimes hard truths are hard, and you gotta find a way to do it that's nonjudgmental and that still conveys to the patient that you have their best interest in mind. But you can't you can't hide those things. Like, if we're not addressing those issues, if they're directly related to our patient's injury or dysfunction, honestly, we can't we shouldn't be able to look at ourselves in the mirror. Like, if we're holding out that information on them, we're not being authentic to them or to us. And so while some of those conversations are hard, when you get used to it and you realize that, number 1, that patient came to you because they value your professional opinion and your education and training, and maybe they need to hear it from you.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 08:41

So it's not always easy. Once you get do it more and more, those hard hard conversations become easy because, guess what? The patients that wanna get better, truly wanna get better, they hear you. And as long as you're delivering it in a nonjudgmental way, they will take action if they wanna get better. And if they don't wanna get better and they're offended by what you say, honestly, they can find another therapist.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 09:05

Ultimately, our job is to be truthful and honest with our patients in a way that gets them to where they need to be. And if they're not ready to hear it yet, when they are, they'll come back to you because they'll be like, oh my god. That JJ girl, she was honest with me. And if I really wanna get better, I need someone who's gonna tell me the hard truths. One last story about being authentic, and that's, related to a personal experience with, a guy who's now a friend of mine.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 09:32

When I first met this guy, he was a friend of a friend, and he's a black belt in jujitsu. And, he had some musculoskeletal issues, so we were like, hey, let's do a trade. Like, you know, I'll treat you, and you give me some private lessons. So I was getting to know him, and, we have a mat here in our clinic because we believe in well, first of all, we all do jujitsu, and and second of all, we just like rolling around. And and it's a great space for, musculoskeletal exercises.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 09:58

But but so he was here, and we're working on the mat, and he shows me a move. And, I don't know him that well yet, like I said, but he shows me this move, and he's like, alright. Let's do it. And I think I did it pretty well. And I did it, and I'm feeling all like, yeah.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 10:13

I did that. And and he looked at me. He literally looked at me, and he stopped. And he's like, that was horrible. And I looked at him like, oh, yeah.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 10:21

Did he really just say that? It was horrible. I thought I did pretty good. And and then I just started laughing because I thought, this is who I wanna be with because he's gonna get me number 1, he's gonna get me to where I need to be. He's gonna call me out on my shit.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 10:32

He's gonna be like, that sucked. What how did you not do what I just told you to do? But number 2, I know now when he tells me I did something great, he means it. And the same thing's gonna happen with you and your patients. So, yes, have the hard conversations with them.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 10:48

Same thing with exercises. If they're doing an exercise and they're not doing it as well as they need to be, you need to call them out on that. When they do it right, they're like, I know I did that right because, JJ, she doesn't lie about it. She tells you. You're either right or you're wrong or or or some were working towards right.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 11:04

But I'm always gonna be honest with them. And if you can take that into your practice, it's gonna it's gonna help you exponentially. The second way you're going to market without marketing in your cash based practice is you're going to invest in what I like to call market research. So when I think back to when I first started my practice, I had this conundrum. Right?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 11:26

I knew I needed to keep overhead low and I you know, there's always the uncertainty of, am I gonna have enough patience in the door to stay and grow? To stay productive and grow and pay my bills, essentially. And also, though, you need to get to know the people in the community. So I will tell you one of the most important ways of marketing without marketing is to invest. Spend some of your business money.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 11:56

Your overhead should be allotted to spending money on professionals around you that can supplement what you're doing for your patients. So think massage therapists. Think, gyms in the area. Think exercise classes. Think, you know, Pilates.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 12:15

All different methods. And, you know, even within massage therapy, we know there are some massage therapists that are really good at cupping. There's some massage therapists that are really good at what they call bodywork. There's some massage therapists that are good at more desensitization, techniques. So, literally, not just not just trying one, but going around and paying these professionals to firsthand experience their gifts does a lot of things for your practice and for your patients.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 12:46

What it does is, number 1, it starts to form a relationship between you and that potential referral source in a way that will be mutually beneficial. So when you're working with another clinician and massage therapist, going to a gym, whatever I said, like a supplemental professional, when you go experience their work and you've paid them for it, you're basically stating to them that you value them in a way that allows them to also return that favor and value you. They're not threatened. A massage therapist might be threatened by a physical therapist, you know, asking for them to send them patients because they may think, hey. If my patient goes to this physical therapist, they're not gonna wanna come back to me.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 13:32

But if they know that you value their services enough to pay them yourself, that's gonna take that off the table. That's gonna show them, you know what? JJ comes to me, and it's also a marketing thing for them. Like, they can say to their patients, yeah. JJ is a patient of mine.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 13:47

JJ is a client of mine. It works so well, and it's done authentically. Right? It's an authentic thing because now I have certain massage therapists that I like for one thing, other massage therapists that I like for another thing. I have different gyms for different things.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 14:03

Some of my patients are, you know, runners and all they do is run and they need their CrossFit gym. And some of some of my patients are runners and triathletes and they need yoga and Pilates. So getting to know the community in a way, but not just, like, going out and asking them to listen to you, free of cost and ask them about who they are. Don't do that. That's that's half assed.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 14:27

Don't do that. Go out. Spend the money on them. Show them that you actually value their service and are willing to take time out of your schedule to pay them for their service and really understand what makes them so special. Once you have that, you're gonna grow your patients' success because you'll know exactly, Oh, you go to this person for this.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 14:47

You go to this person for that. And guess what? They feel safe with you, so they're going to send their patients to you because they know that you're not gonna steal from them. You're gonna return the favor. So it sounds like a silly thing, but I, a 100%, can tell you the payout is huge if you plan when you open your cash based practice or if you're already doing it and haven't allotted money to investing in getting to know your market research, getting to know your, potential colleagues in the area, make it a priority.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 15:20

It'll make all the difference. Along those lines, a similar It's a very similar concept but a little bit different. The third way I market without marketing is by reaching out to my actual competitors. So in the last example, we talk about reaching out and getting to know massage therapists, maybe, other gyms in the area, people that can supplement what we do. Right?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 15:42

Now I want you to take that a step further, and I want you to reach out to people that might be considered your competitors. It takes guts, but I'm I'm telling you, if you follow this, you will find that it's so worth it. What I mean by competitors are other physical therapists, other potential chiropractors. Right? Because as much as many physical therapists don't wanna say it, a great chiropractor and a great physical therapist are more alike than they are different.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 16:09

So I would say, in those two buckets, go out and get to know your community of competitors. Go out and see what their specialties are. In a similar way, what you'll find is everyone's skill set is different. People, even within the same, like for instance, maybe 2 of us dry needle, but there's gonna be something that's a little bit different from me versus the guy down the road. And when you take the time and interest to go and understand what the skill set of your competitors are, the same the same phenomenon happens where those competitors are now gonna say, wow.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 16:49

JJ values and respects what I do, and I'm safe to refer to her. And I happen to know that she does this really well. And so by marketing to your competitors, you're going to largely expand your ability and respect in the community to grow your practice. People realize when your confidence is such that you're not afraid to say, You know what? I want you to go see this person down the road.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 17:16

He does Graston or he does instrument assisted soft tissue mobilization and he does it in a way that I think would really benefit you, they're like, wow. JJ's that confident that she's not afraid to send me out to her competitor? It says a ton about you and your confidence in your own ability. The 4th way you're gonna market without marketing is teach. You gotta teach something, you guys.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 17:39

I don't care if you're teaching, like, in this environment where you're doing a podcast or you're teaching, to students or you're running clinics, like maybe a seminar in your clinic to teach your patients about a particular, you know, shoulder impingement syndrome or whatever. But when you make teaching a priority, it does a couple things for you. Number 1, it makes you know your shit. Because if you're gonna stand in front of a crowd and talk about a topic, you're gonna make sure that you know that topic in and out. When I first started dry needling back in 2009, I did it for a patient.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 18:16

I had a patient that wasn't getting better. He had seen everybody else that I that I thought would've gotten him better, and I was like, shoot. What am I gonna do with this guy? And long story short, it's a much longer story, but I decided to learn dry needling, but there was no one in the state doing it. And there were only, at the time, there were only a couple states who had it written in their practice act so it was a little bit of a risk.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 18:37

And I was like, man. I better know everything there is about this. So I chose to do a double certification through what was then Kineticore and Myopane seminars. And so I did I certified through both of them simultaneously because I was like, shit. If I'm gonna be an advocate for this, I better know what I'm talking about.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 18:53

Because I owned that message so much, like, I really owned the topic, by 2012, maybe even 2011, I was teaching it and teaching it to other physical therapists. And it was really then it started with teaching my patients. Right? It started with teaching the docs that I referred to. Hey.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 19:10

I just learned this new technique. Dry needling. It can really help. So I the teaching really started before I formally started teaching, but what I realized what what dawned on me when I actually started teaching dry needling to other clinicians was that, man, I took every second to learn that topic in and out. So when you take a skill and you decide to teach it to others, on whatever scale you decide, like I said, I also teach to DPT students.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 19:39

So I teach, an advanced technique course. Not a whole course, just a lecture, actually, and we go through blood flow restriction and we go through dry needling. So it could be on any scale you want, but the point is get yourself in front of a crowd and teach it. It can be patience. It can be a volunteer thing at a race.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 19:58

You can teach a a series of stretches that will help a certain population. Decide to put yourself out there in a different format than the 1 on 1 format with your patients because it will absolutely elevate your practice and your confidence in your practice up to here. The other thing teaching does or has done for me is when you're a teacher, when you teach a topic, because people see you as an authority, you start to attract other authorities. You start to attract other therapists, other clinicians, other instructors, and teachers who own other skill sets. When I started BFR, blood flow restriction training, it was because I'd heard about it through 3 of my colleagues in teaching across the country.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 20:42

They're like, oh, man. This was years years ago before BFR boomed, and they were like, oh, I've been doing this thing. BFR. I'm like, BFR. What is that?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 20:49

But when you hold yourself to a high standard by deciding, making the decision to train other people, you're gonna attract other like minded people who wanna be up here all the time, who want an elevated practice, who will stay up here. And by associating with people who value this, you're gonna be that. So make the decision. It takes a little bit of guts, but I promise you, if you follow through with it, you're gonna be so happy. And the last way you're gonna market without marketing falls right under that teaching thing.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 21:22

It falls under learning. Be a forever student. So the whole teaching spiel, right, was about, like, keeping yourself up here. I realize now, after 10 years of owning my own practice and watching this practice literally explode organically, I realize that one of the biggest reasons people choose to come to us is that not only do I crave and exude a love for learning, everyone around me in my practice does. So, literally, if you're looking to get into a cash based practice and you're looking to work for a practice like mine, I'll tell you one of the biggest things I look at is how vested is that therapist in continuing their education?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 22:11

How not just how vested. How passionate are they about it? If I have a therapist that's, like, coasting, I honestly, I don't I don't have time for them. You know why? Average is the enemy.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 22:21

My friends at Fuel Hunt and Badri's Kulean, that's their that's their one of their mottos. They got a bunch, But I love that. It's so true. Average is the enemy. If our patients want average, guess what?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 22:31

They can go to the insurance based place. They're gonna get average at best. Sorry for my friends that are working in that field, but it's true because you're you're spread too thin. If if I'm gonna hire a therapist, I need to know they're up here, and the only way I can see that is through their passion for continuing to learn and educate themselves to be the best because our practice, the beauty of it, is it's forever changing. Right?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 22:56

I mean, 10 so let's see. I started needling in 2009. If you told me literally in 2008 that I'd be sticking needles in people, I would have been like, you are off your rocker. No way. And there we are.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 23:07

By 2009, I was like, shit. My patient needs this. I better figure it out. And how about PRP, and how about stem cells? If you told us 10 years ago that someone would take out our take blood from someone, pull out the platelets, spin them around, and reinject them?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 23:22

Would you really. Would would anyone have invented that in their mind? No. But because our practice is ever evolving, we're able to give our patients the best at all times. But for a clinician, if you're not looking for those advancements, you're never gonna find them.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 23:36

If you're happy with complacency, you're gonna get complacency. You're gonna get patients that are complacent. You're gonna get results that are complacent, and your your your practice is not gonna grow. If you wanna be up here, you gotta put the effort in to be up here. So learning is the 5th way that you're going to market without marketing.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 23:57

Patients see that I'm constantly working on my growth as a therapist. Patients see that at our office, we very consistently hold continuing education. We bring in professionals from other from all around the country, and we're constantly boosting our own practice, even exposing ourselves to things that we might not think are something we'll utilize, but we need to be educated with. So the 5th marketing, ways to market without marketing, like I said, is learn. Be a forever learner.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 24:29

So to summarize, the 5 things, the 5 ways that I market regularly without marketing and that you can market without marketing is, number 1, be authentic. That one's easy. Just be yourself. Be honest. Be true to your to your message, to your patients, and to the community.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 24:46

Number 2. Invest in market research. As I spoke about, put the money out to learn from the people in your community that can supplement your care. Number 3. Spend time with your competitors.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 24:57

Understand their values and their strengths so that you can be mutually beneficial to each other. Number 4, teach. It will exponentially increase your confidence and your ability to send the message to others. And number 5, be a forever learner. When you learn continuously and you continue to ramp up your own skills, you are a master.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 25:18

People will see you as a master, and that will emanate from you and your practice, and it will show in your business. So if you wanna hear more about any specific one of these five things, please drop a message in the in the comments below. I would love to tease any one of them out more for you. As always, drop any questions. I'd love to really, the whole purpose of this this podcast is to help you guys succeed in your businesses.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 25:42

And by doing that, we're gonna help more patients in the world. So if there's any specific topic that you wanna hear about, please drop a comment in the, in the description below. And then, lastly, if specifically you want help on that number 5, that learning education piece, check out our website primalhq.com. We have a continuing education series and also very frequent, as I said, very frequent master classes and other continuing education opportunities that will help you elevate your practice and advance your skills in a way that organically will build your practice too. Thanks so much for taking the time with me today.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 26:17

Looking forward to next time.