How To Beat Your Competition As A Cashed Based PT Business

Show Notes

In this episode, Dr. JJ Thomas shares her own experience of how she finds her niche and gives examples of how to find your niche in a cash-based practice that'll help you grow your business. She explains that by finding your right niche, learning, having passion, and gaining mastery of it, the result you will give is pure and remarkable. Not only for your business but the results it brings to your patients.

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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

The world is too accessible. You are not gonna survive in a cash based world if you think that you're gonna be the jack of all trades. You need you need to master certain skills or a certain, patient type. You need to find your niche. And that what a niche is is really just having a mastery in something.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 00:22

Welcome to the doctor Joj Thomas podcast. Welcome to the doctor JJ Thomas podcast. I am your host, doctor JJ Thomas. Very happy to be here with you today. I'm excited.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 00:36

We are going to talk about finding a niche in your cash based practice that's going to help you grow your business by 6 7 figures. I get this question a lot. People are like, JJ, what education what kind of should I take? I'm really, like, trying to boost the people that are coming to me. I'm trying to get more patients to come in the door.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 00:55

Tell me what I should take Con Ed wise. It's always a funny question because it really they're looking for a niche. Right? People find that if you have a niche, it's gonna make you more valuable. It's gonna make you more appealing for someone to come to, and that is a 100% true.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 01:12

But you have to find your own niche. And so today's podcast, today's episode, I'm gonna talk with you a little bit about how I found my own niche. Niche? Niche? I don't even know how to say it.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 01:23

And hopefully, that information, I can help you find your own niche. And so those of you that know me probably know me as a dry needling expert. Right? And so around here in the community, I'll be at a barbecue, and I'll be like, oh, I'm JJ. And they'll be like, oh, you're that needler.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 01:41

Like, yes. I am the needler who also happens to be a physical therapist. When people first started saying it, I think I was, like, you know, a little bit like, oh, god. They think all I do is needle. But then I realized needling is dry needling being an expert in dry needling is really one of the things that sets me apart from other people.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 01:59

But I know, and they learn when they come as soon as they come to see me, that I have a whole lot of other tools that make me a great clinician. It just so happens that my niche as an expert dry needler is oftentimes the reason people think they come to see me. And so what we'll find after I tell you my story is the reasons people think they come to see me and the reasons they discover they come they've come to see me aren't always the same. But a little bit more about my niche and how I fell into it, I like to say, like, my niche found me, really. If we talk about let's just back up a second for those of you that haven't been exposed a lot to dry needling yet, and let's just talk about what it is.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 02:40

Dry needling is something, well, we're gonna talk about what it is a tool first. Essentially, it's really the single most tool in 23 years that I've found that offers the fastest neuromusculoskeletal reset in muscle. And so with that, we've seen research has shown we get a structural, electrical, and biochemical change in muscle when we use a dry needle to affect muscle tissue or the neuromusculoskeletal system, if you will. And so by that, is it a very effective tool? And furthermore, it's helped me hone in on my skills as a therapist in a way that has advanced my career tremendously.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 03:20

So dry needling as the tool absolutely has expanded my practice, and having it as a niche has made me really stand out amongst other people around me. But like I say, I didn't really discover dry needling as much as it discovered me. And I'm going to explain to you why. Let me talk about let me tell you my story of when I first started dry needling. So I've been a therapist since 2000.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 03:46

And when I first started in therapy, I was always a very hands on manual therapist, but I worked under my mentor who also did a lot of aquatic therapy. And the way we did aquatic therapy was we were in a warm water pool environment, and we would do manual skills in the water. But then we would reinforce any gains that we wanted to make manually with exercise in the with the water as a medium, either for supportive assistance or resistance, whatever it was. But so the water became a tool. And in this, this is part of what started my, I will say, my passion for analyzing movement and analyzing how we can alter movement based on, different inputs that we give the body.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 04:29

Anyway, in 2009, I was given a patient from actually, my mentor. And he said, listen. When I work on this guy needling I hadn't been exposed to dry needling yet. And he gave me this patient. He said, when I work on this guy's shoulder, this guy let me tell you his history.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 04:46

He had 9 surgeries. He had, seen at least 9 different doctors. He was, avid, he was it wasn't that old. He was, like, low fifties, maybe upper forties. Really avid fisherman, really active guy, pretty healthy, exercised, but people couldn't get him better.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 05:06

And he had, like, rotator cuff pain, like, impingement type pain. And, anyway, so my mentor sent him to me. He said, JJ, when I release his muscle when I release his trigger points with my hands, I can get him 24 hours relief. But it comes right back. I can't seem to fix it.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 05:22

Maybe if we do it in the pool and you release those trigger points, and then right away we reinforce it with the medium of the water and we get the whole body involved, then we can get it to stay. So I'm like, awesome. I'm game. So we did it. And first couple visits, he got 2 days relief.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 05:39

And I'm like, yes. We're on the right track. Well, 8 visits later, I could not get him past that 2 day threshold. I'm like, crap. I gotta do something for this guy.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 05:48

What am I gonna do? He'd already seen my mentor, who I really respected and valued. He'd already seen other physical therapists in the community that I also knew were, like, game changers for people. So I felt like and I'd literally had doctors say, I don't wanna see him anymore. I don't know what to do with him.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 06:03

I felt like I owed it to this guy to find an answer. So I called my friend in Atlanta at the time. She we went to PT school together. I said, listen to this patient scenario. What any ideas for me?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 06:13

She said, have you tried dry needling? So there you have it. So dry needling found me because of my passion for helping patients, and more importantly, my passion for understanding movement and how we can alter movement based on our interventions. And so right away, 2009, I flew out to my first course in Colorado, and I did a double certification in dry needling because I was like, well, crap. This is some pretty crazy stuff, and no one around me is doing it.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 06:40

So I better figure it out. So I did a double certification through what was then Kineticore and Myopaine seminars, which is still Myopane Seminars. And, and that double certification helped me on this track of really mastering, the art of dry needling, which is really more about, for me at this point, the art and science of understanding movement and how we can affect movement based on our input as therapists. And so that's how I got into dry needling. And really, from that first course out in Colorado, immediately, I could see changes literally immediately just from our working working with each other in that class.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 07:22

We would test retest. That's where also where all my my hang ups about test retest, that's where it all started. Because now all of a sudden, I had this tool that really effectively gave me a positive test retest value, to the point where now, if I have a theory that something's involved, that a certain muscle group is involved, if I treat it and it doesn't respond, I usually am thinking I didn't treat the right area because I've become that good at it, quite honestly. So having that confidence in my own ability has fed my practice, and really that comes from that original, discovery of of this niche market, if you will. But as I said, it found me, and it found me because of my passion.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 08:04

My passion for movement and my passion for understanding the puzzle of the body. So while the niche is dry needling, the sort of underlying driver of that niche really came down to my passion for understanding movement and understanding how we can affect movement with really, really effective tools. So as I said, while patients think they come to me for dry needling, oftentimes, they discover when they come to me that my true I think my true niche is really my ability to analyze movement. It's just that this tool that I happen to be an expert in gives me the ability to do that very effectively. So if I wanna help you find your niche, I think the best way we can do that is for you to self reflect and ask yourself, what things drive you?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 08:56

What passions do you have in your practice that will force you will not force you, will will really expose what's so exciting to you that you're gonna become an expert in it. Because that's what it's about, really. It's about mastery. Patients you know, the days are way over where patience want somebody who's a jack of all trades and master of none. The world is too accessible.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 09:25

You are not gonna survive in a cash based world if you think that you're gonna be the jack of all trades. You need you need to master certain skills or a certain, patient type, you need to find your niche. And that what a niche is is really just having a mastery in something. So I encourage you to ask yourself, what are what is it that you're passionate about? If you're still like, JJ, gosh, I don't really know.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 09:52

I'm gonna ask you to ask these things to yourself. Number 1, what do you find yourself reading when in your free time? What articles are you drawn to? Are you drawn to an article about a particular sport? Are you drawn to an, particular research article about a particular joint or a particular, type of, like, a tendinitis or a tendinopathy or, maybe it's chronic pain or maybe it's pain neuroscience, whatever it is.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 10:21

Whatever you find yourself reaching for, those articles that you end up reaching for to understand more about, that's your first clue of where you're going to find your niche, is where are you drawn to learn more? Because the more you learn, the more you're going to achieve mastery. And that's going to be a niche that no one else can touch. Because no one, not every single person is gonna have the same mastery or same passion. So if you just grab onto what you're passionate about and turn it into your own niche, then you're gonna find it's very valuable for your practice.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 10:55

I'm gonna give the alternative to that. Imagine well, this is what I see therapists doing a lot, is they ask me, oh, what should I study, JJ? What what do people want? Like, people are asking me, what are patients looking for? My answer used to be, well, try this.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 11:14

This is a really cool technique that's new and and innovative. This research is showing this. It used to be that. It still is at times. But really, what I've realized is actually what patients want is for you to give a 120% to them.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 11:29

And so if you figure out your niche and you market to that group of people, then you're gonna give them a 120% every single time. And you're gonna know that niche so well in and out that you're gonna be able to serve them the way they deserve it. So instead of chasing the fad, instead of chasing where you think research is going, chase your passion. Figure out what your passion is. So you can discover that, number 1, by figuring out what you're reading, what you're picking up in your free time.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 11:55

You can another question you could ask yourself is, when you look at your schedule, you know, you have, I don't know, anywhere from 7 to 20, if you're in insurance based world, patients on your schedule. Which ones do do you find you're getting excited to work with? Right? It might be a certain sport. It might be a certain, age bracket.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 12:17

It might be a certain, injury. Like, I myself recently surf had an ACL reconstruction, and I do feel like I am I get really excited now to work with those patients in addition to, well, my movement assessment patients because I have a different vantage point. I now feel like I have more mastery over that having been through it myself. So maybe you've had an injury where you feel like, you know what? I can really help this person because I absolutely 100% have experienced this and can look at it from a different vantage point.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 12:49

I'm an expert. I have mastered it. Rather than aiming for the low fruit, which is mastering nothing. People will feel when you have mastery. So my suggestion is figure out what your passion is.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 13:03

Spend every waking moment you can learning about that. Become a master in it yourself. And others will view you for that for that niche, for that mastery that you've now attained because you've put the time into that. And focus your attention into that versus spreading yourself too thin and trying to cover too big of a market. One other thing that might help you figure out what your niche could be or what what you're drawn to, what you're passionate about.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 13:29

That's where your niche is gonna be found. Is I thought of another another time where, as I said, my my niche my perceived niche is dry needling, and I am a dry needling expert. But what I understand because of my passion is that that that mastery of dry needling has really allowed me to feed my passion of analyzing movement. And what's interesting is when I was preparing for this episode and thinking about what really drew me to, to mastery of that skill, it really goes way back to even when I first applied to PT School back in gosh, it was it was probably 98 by then because I got an early decision at Delaware. So it was probably 1998.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 14:09

Oh, God. I'm dating myself. But anyway, the application asked for it was an essay and it asked for, it wanted me to explain the reasons behind why I wanted to be a therapist. And I remember really thinking long and hard about that because it was a it was an important essay. Right?

Dr. JJ Thomas: 14:29

And really, what I what I said is still true to this day. It's that I love the puzzle of helping get to the bottom of someone's injury and helping them get back to doing what they love. And so that passion that I had way back then is still driving my decisions for mastery today. Every single choice I make, every single article I read, every single course I go to is feeding that passion, which is allowing me to master that art, that science of of becoming a better movement analyst. And so as I said, yours may not be exactly that.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 15:07

It probably isn't. Yours is going to be something that's important to you based on your history, based on your experiences. And so all I can ask you to do is to soul search a little bit and discover what really, ask yourself, what got you into physical therapy in the first place? And from there, I'm guessing you'll reveal why if you were can reveal to yourself why you got into physical therapy in the first place, you're probably going to reveal a passion you have. Take that passion, turn it into your niche.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 15:43

Stop wasting time looking for the next big thing, looking for what all your friends are doing. Don't look outside. Look within. And you're going to find that if you put concerted effort into what your passion is, you're going to put the out the output you give is going to be pure and amazing. And it will show in the way that you treat your patients and in your results with your patients.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 16:08

So that's it. This one was fairly quick. But I'm as I said, it's, I think it's a really important thing. I get this question a ton. Everyone always wants to know where to work where to put their efforts.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 16:18

And my answer is, put your efforts where your passion is. It will come out in the way you work with your patients, the way your patients are getting better. And save your energy and time for those things, and you're gonna have results both in your patients and in your practice. I always enjoy my time with you guys. I'm doctor JJ Thomas.

Dr. JJ Thomas: 16:38

Thanks for tuning in. If you wanna hear more, always like and subscribe to our channel. But, also, if you find yourself in this, area of passion like dry needling or movement assessment that happens to be like what we do, go ahead over to our website, primalhq.com, and primalphysicaltherapy.com, and learn more about our events and courses.