Investing in Your Community to Grow with Kevin Schmidt of PedalPT | CashPT Lunch Hour #44

Foreign.

Welcome to the Cash PT Lunch hour. If you guys are just joining us now, my name is Aaron LeBauer and my guest today is Kevin Schmidt, or you might know him as Petal pt. And Kevin owns a clinic. I'm looking for your. Did you send me a bio?

I sent you, like, probably way too much information. I was just, like, I was waxing on poetically, but yeah, I kind of wrote a.

Here it is.

Oh, here it is. All kinds of fun stuff for you to unpack there. So there it is.

Okay, so Kevin. Well, I'll tell you, like, Kevin and I met at. Where did we. Do we meet at pps, like, three years ago somewhere?

I think so.

Yeah, we met at PPS three years ago and a couple years ago in Vegas, we had a fun party evening at the dance club at the. That was awesome. And I've just been kind of keeping up with Kevin and wanted to have him on the show because he's got some really interesting and unique things going on in his business. He's a physical therapist. He does, like, bike fitting as a clinical bike fitter in Portland, Oregon. And his niche practice is called Pedal PT, founded in 2012. And he offers, this is what Kevin says, a unique hybrid insurance cash pay model which is 95% direct access. It sees the full gamut, which is Kevin's word, I guess, but he sees all orthopedic and musculoskeletal clients, not just people with bike issues.

But what.

You're on, like, one of the main thoroughfares for bike traffic in town, right?

That's correct. Yeah.

You get like 2000 cyclists ride by your clinic every day or some crazy.

Yeah, pretty much. We're kind of on a side street, but we're just like a half block away. But yeah, we're on kind of one of the busiest kind of east west bikeways probably in America. Interesting. If we see anywhere between. I think the current stats are as of last year, a couple years ago, 2,500 to 3,000 bicycle trips a day are in that area. And that's actually. There's areas about a mile from me that actually see closer to five to 6,000 bike trips a day. It's just kind of, you know, kind of like I said, location, location is everything. And, you know, with a town like Portland, just the bike infrastructure, the people just are very into biking and bike commuting especially, too. Just kind of. This town is getting so much more traffic, so people are choosing to bike instead of take the car because it's getting just so Crowded, so busy. So it becomes a really great lifestyle for a lot of people.

But isn't it like sad and dreary and rainy up there?

Dude, it's crazy. We're actually going to be having our record breaking 90, let's see, 30th day over 90 degrees this summer. It'll be the hottest, hottest summer on record for Oregon and for Portland. So it's the, we always say the best kept secret is Portland summers because it's hot weather and low humidity. Yes, it does rain, it gets cold, but we never, we rarely get snow or anything. It's. Well maybe get a day or two of snow, maybe a week of snow, but it doesn't last or anything.

That's nice. So when I lived in, I lived in San Francisco for almost 10 years and about a year or so of that was in Berkeley. I did a lot of bike commuting then and bike commuting was big, but it's, I don't think it was 2,000 people a day down Market Street. Maybe it was, but know like now it is. I mean now I know like I show up and they've got like three lot, three rows of people stopped at a stoplight to go downtown by bike. But 10, 12 years ago it wasn't.

Yeah, I mean that's, and that's the thing, I mean the growth, I mean here's the stats is that literally bike commuting has grown over 100% in the past literally like 5 to 10 years in the 50 largest cities in America. So here becomes this growing group of not only people cycling for racing or for you know, athletic performance, but also just for daily life. People that are wanting to live local, they want to live that bike style lifestyle where they're, you know, my kids, like for example, here's my life is like my kids school is like five blocks from my house. So we bike or we walk to school. My office is two miles from my house. So I'm able to bike every day to that pretty much. I live in about a 4 to 5 mile radius around my office. Just as far as bike and living that lifestyle, never having to drive a car. I mean I'm probably in a car less than two hours a week. I mean in a car max or some of that. So it's just, I think people are wanting that kind of lifestyle and they're truly embracing that live local, shop, local, healthier lifestyle, you know.

Yeah, that's awesome. You know before I had kids it was easier. You know, I live in Greensboro and for me to, you know, my kids school, like they couldn't make the bike ride and. But I could make it with them in the back. But when they were 2 and 3 and 5, I didn't want to put them in the back because there wasn't a way for me to get there. All on a bike path.

Right.

I don't trust the other cars to not run over my kids behind me.

Oh yeah, totally.

And we've got bike lanes, but I would say, I know Greensboro is not San Francisco or Portland, but I don't think they compare to Amsterdam or Belgium.

Right.

I don't know if I told you this. So I went over there to. I used to race bicycles and I commuted a ton by bikes. But when I got to Belgium, I was going on a training ride. Like my first day I went out with the guys I was there with and no one wore their helmets and I didn't even unpack mine. And it wasn't even a consideration where I would religiously wear one in the US it just was like I didn't feel uncomfortable because what happened is I go to pull out to turn across the street and I'm sitting there and a car is coming down the street. And they stopped and I was going down the street and a car was coming to turn and. And he stopped and backed up and let me go. And I'm sitting here going, what are you doing?

You know you're supposed to go so

I can go behind you.

Right, right.

It's just completely different culture. Like people would go to the finance. The people that work in the financial district in downtown Ghent were wearing their three piece suit on their bike to work with their $300 leather briefcase strapped to the back. And that's just the thing. And I was like, yep, yeah.

Well, I think a lot of those towns like Amsterdam, for example, I mean, they make it very difficult and very expensive even to own a car and to have a park place. I thought, I remember hearing something was like, you know, thousands of dollars a month just to even have a parking place. So they really, they kind of handcuff the people. If you really want to drive a car, you can do it. But it's, you know, we're gonna make it much more financially, you know, better for you to not drive, to bike and everything. So. Yeah.

Have you been over there to Amsterdam?

I've been to Amsterdam. I was. That was maybe, God, that was before kids. So that was good nine, 10 years ago that we went over and it was great. I didn't ride at all. I was actually intimidated to ride. People are just flying by and we were just kind of there for just a day or two. But it's also very flat there as well. I mean, the only climbing you have to do in Amsterdam is to go over a canal.

I know we almost got run over by one of the silent trains there. You know the train silent?

Yeah.

But we rented bikes and went to the park in Amsterdam. It was a ton of fun. But, yeah, didn't have a commute. So enough about bikes. I mean, most people listening know I'm big into bikes and Kevin and I talk bikes all day long. But what I want you to do is tell me, okay, you have definitely have a passion for bikes. Where did that come from? When did you get into that?

Yeah, it's kind of fun story. I mean, I guess in the grand scheme of things, I was raised with bicycles, so my father was basically borderline obsessed about bicycles. So when just growing up as a kid, we had bikes in all status of disarray and in the rooms and outside the house and et cetera, et cetera. And so I kind of grew up with bikes, I think, from that, you know, just like as you do as a teenager, you don't want to do the same thing that your dad does. You want to kind of get into your own thing. But I was kind of always brought up with bicycles. That was always a huge thing, mountain biking. I'm from southwest Michigan and that's kind of how I started. But coming out to Portland, I graduated PT School from Grand Valley State in 2002, moved right out to Portland and kind of, I took a job for a couple years in a really great strong manual therapy clinic. Learned a lot from that. A buddy of mine opened up. Basically, we kind of got poached by this physician office that was a work comp office. So it was a pops. And we opened up five clinics for them in the Portland area. Unfortunately, because of that fact, I was in a car all the time. I mean, I was driving from different clinics and my home base was roughly about 25 miles south of Portland. I was in southeast Portland. And so my commute time just to get home on let's say a Tuesday afternoon, if I didn't leave by like 3 or 4 o', clock, it would take me an hour and 30 minutes to get home. That was way back in like 2005. So the traffic has literally doubled since then. But I just started getting very aggravated, starting getting stressed out. I was just wasting all this time in the car and it was Just the job itself was a much more high stress, high burnout kind of rate. It was very demanding. We saw a lot of people in work comp that really didn't want to be there. So I really wasn't treating the clients that I wanted to treat. I had some issues with management that I just wasn't into it. And so ultimately kind of made a huge decision. My son was born in 2007, and that was kind of the kick in the pants that I just needed a simpler lifestyle. I wanted to be able to get back into bike commuting. I just wanted to ditch this car thing because I was getting super aggro. I was, like, yelling at cars and getting super angry, and I just didn't want that in my life, and I didn't want my child to see me like that. So I basically took a huge leap of faith and took a massive pay cut and took a job 2.5 miles, or about 3 miles away from my house at a small private practice PT clinic. And so, you know, with my dad's help, we kind of geeked out on bike stuff. And I got my bike set up well, and that was great. And that was basically the game changer. And who knew that I would never ride a car again to an office for the rest of my days so far. But basically from that, it was amazing. It was just such a new adventure. I could explore the freedom of the bicycle. I could see all these areas. I could get to places there really wasn't traffic I had to deal with. And it was safe in Portland with the infrastructure. But as I continued to ride year round, day after day after day, I started experiencing pain, neck pain and back pain. And this is only just from a short commute. And, you know, I'm treating patients for a living. And the more people that I talk to, they just said, you know, you just got to realize that pain is part of riding a bike, man. You'll just get used to it. It just kind of is what it is. And, you know, as a pt, I just kind of found that kind of odd. I was just like, what the heck is that all about? You know, I'm a pt. I'm telling people they don't have to, you know, kick a ball without back pain or do whatever sports they want to do without pain. And so I was fascinated by bike fitting because there's essentially no education at all in any PT school, medical school, about how to kind of deal with the posture on the bike, or what I soon learned was what we call bike fitting. The ability to adjust the bike and put you in a better posture, et cetera, et cetera. And so I was fascinated by that because I couldn't figure out why I was hurting. And I was a great clinician, and I just couldn't figure it out. Everything kind of flipped around and when I was flexed over this bike. So I kind of went through and kind of deep dove into all things bike fitting that I could get my hands on. I kind of hooked up with Eric Moen up in Seattle, who runs the program Bike pt. And that kind of gave me my kind of starting point so I could realize I could remedy my own pain and then come to find out, you know, with the more literature review that I did, that roughly 85% of people that ride a bike develop aches and pains related to riding a bike. 85%. So most of us that you've ridden, you've experienced pain. And the longer you're on that bike, the greater your chances of pain occurring. And as far as from male to female, females are twice as likely to get pain on the bike.

Wow. Wow. Is that a hip seat thing, or is that because bikes aren't made for them?

Well, both. Both. That was kind of back before there was women's specific bike geometry, et cetera, et cetera. But basically kind of finding that out, realizing that 85% of bicycles are hurting. What I realized as a. As a cyclist in pain, is that you only had two options. You could literally go see a medical provider or a physical therapist, and they could kind of maybe diagnose what's wrong with your neck or your back, but they really didn't have any experience with riding a bike or bicycling at all. So they didn't really kind of know about equipment or adjustability of the bike or anything. That was one option. Then the other option was I could go to the bike shop, which is interesting enough, where most people who experience pain on the bike go to. They go to the bike shop. So they go to the bike shop, and these guys know a lot about your equipment, and they know about installing things, and they know their good wrenching skills, so they can move things. Unfortunately, they have really very little to no understanding about the body or the biomechanics or injuries and things. And so I kind of realized there was this giant void of where the medical side meets the bike side. There was kind of this Venn diagram that I was trying to create. This whole concept of, why can't we take the medical side? The ability to assess, diagnose, and treat injury and apply that with knowledge, skills of bike, fitting the posture on the bike and understanding the body. And I just kind of felt that was very interesting because bike industry is really designed around equipment and selling equipment, not really about understanding the body's position on the bike. So as a physical therapist, I just kind of realized there was this huge niche that was not being fulfilled by either of those camps. And so when I started to kind of combine the two, all of a sudden at the private practice I was at, I started getting slammed with patients because we were like, this is amazing. I love cycling. My neck hurts. Or people that are just commuters or I got to see bike fits for every walk of life. From, you know, tandem bicycles to Bach feats to Brompton's, like little fold up bicycles to anything people could pedal. I was willing to fit them on because I just was so curious about how the body interacted with the bike. So that's kind of where that started. And then, you know, to make a long story short, I was really getting into that. Became Portland's very first certified bike PT back in like 2009. And then, and then ultimately kind of what the shoe that dropped was basically, my father passed away, he died in 2010. And then my grandmother literally passed away six months later. And those two struggles that I had to deal, losing a huge mentor, huge somebody who knew everything about bicycling that I could possibly think of, that they were gone. It was kind of this kick in the ass to kind of like, hey man, life is too short. You got to take risks. I've always said I was going to open my own clinic, Just the timing was never right. I'll get to it, you know, you know how it goes. I'll get to that sometime. I'll do that. And so with that, you know, with that kind of passion, I just kind of opened up this paddle PT in 2012 and kind of. It's been. It's been insane ever since. It's just exploded.

So that's awesome. That's a. That's amazing. Yeah. So was this, like, was owning your own business something that you knew you were going to do in PT school? Or was it something that developed over the course of time with this unsatisfying, you know, like, job?

I don't know. I think, I think so. I mean, I don't know if I ever thought that I was. I always felt I had to get the skills necessary to open my own clinic. I think, you know, you've probably heard all the excuses and things But I kind of felt like if I'm gonna open my own practice, I really want to feel confident that I can treat anybody that walks in the door and feel very confident, up to 95% of the people that I see that can fix them. And so I really wanted to just gain. So I try to. In my first, you know, six to seven years of practice, I just found as many mentors as I could. I traveled all over the country and observed with other clinicians. I went to see other clinics just to try to learn. And I just, I learned so much by watching people and seeing other people, how they interact with patients, how they explain things. And so the thing that I came to realize is that I went to see all these kind of self proclaimed experts by me, you know, with all these initials after their name. And I'd come in there as somebody like one year out of school, and they're like, I don't know how to treat this patient, what would you do? And I'm just like, wait, you're the one with all the initials after your name? And so I came to realize that there's so much more to being a clinician than just didactic work. It's how you relate with people, it's how you can connect with people, how you can get the trust together. I mean, all those things. And so I think deep down I was like, eventually I'll open my own clinic. But as I continue to progress, I just, maybe it's just me, but I've always been a person that doesn't do well with authority figures, or maybe that's the entrepreneurial mindset. But I always kind of felt like I could do it better. Every clinic I went into it, I was always like, had issues with management. So I'm just like, why are you doing this? Why are you doing this? It was like, you know, to me it was very crystal clear that they were doing things wrong. So the only way I could eventually put up with my boss was to be my own boss. And so from that I just kind of was like, hey, it's my business now, it's my clinic and if it's screwing up, I'm the one responsible.

And so like a micromanaging issue or it was like, hey, I have an idea. And they were like, no, it's our way of the hype. You know, it's our way we do it.

It was kind of like that. But it was also like with some of the management I dealt with, they were extremely lazy and they basically would just put all the Work on me. And I would see 90% of the patients. And yet when it came time for me to ask for a raise, this is, this is an honest example. This is a great example. So at the clinic I was at before I left, I'm literally, I was one, so I think there were 6 or 7 pts there and I was seeing literally the lion's share. I was seeing 60% of the patient volume, just me. I had a three week waiting list. I was the most busy guy there. And so I went in there and some of these clinicians are seeing, you know, four patients a day, this and that. I'm seeing like 10, 11 patients a day solid, every day, five days a week, dah, dah, dah. And a waiting list. So I went in and had a meeting with my boss and I said, I was like, you know, I just, you know, I'm seeing a lot of patients here. I'm bringing in a lot of revenue. And you know, I started bringing up all these numbers and I was like, last year I brought in X amount of money. Da da. And they're just like, well, where are you getting these numbers from? And you know, we just, you know, we just want to tell you, like, we can't give you a raise because we can't give everybody a raise. And so I was just kind of like, but they're not doing all the work. I'm doing all the work. And so I realized I was just like, the only way I'm really going to kind of get what I think I'm worth or paid or et cetera, et cetera, is to open my own gig. Because these people, they just, people just don't understand, you know, if you're seeing more patients than anybody else, you kind of feel like you're entitled to a little bit of that, you know, because you're keeping that, you're making a good name for that clinic. So that was kind of one of those things where it's just like everybody that was in management was kind of just like, I don't know, man, kind of clueless on how to understand the numbers and the metrics and what you need to do in order to, I don't know, but that was kind of a tipping point. I was just like, what? This isn't like, you know, a socialist society. We're all kind of, you know, how different members of the family. Some people do more work than other people in the family yet, I don't know, it was kind of one of

those things like the owners of the business or Just. Yeah, and they couldn't. They didn't see this.

Well, the thing that was funny is that that clinic is still in business to the day. And they had been operating for 13, 14 years when I came on their clinic. And they still. Yeah.

So anyway, well, you know what I mean?

You live, you learn. That's how it goes.

But I see that, like, if they're probably. I've worked with people in other clinics like that who wouldn't even go ask for a raise, and they wouldn't even be able to justify it. And so they're probably sitting there like, no one's ever done that to us. Like, where are you getting the numbers from? Like, you're not supposed to question what we're doing, you know. Yeah, just toe the line. And, you know, there are people like,

show up, treat patients and leave. That's it, man. Yeah. Make us. Make us a whole bunch of profit.

Right.

We pay you peanuts, you know?

So how long was it after that conversation that you gave notice or started saying, okay, it was my thing?

It was probably about six months. It was probably about six months. I basically kind of. What started happening is I started what. I started working five days a week, and I started to. They were very flexible about time, which was great. I just started taking Wednesdays off. And so Wednesdays to this day now, Wednesdays kind of become my kind of work day. So literally that week I would work four days a week. I'd work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday off, Thursday, Friday back on. But that Wednesday was literally me getting my business together. I am going to write my business plan. I'm going to start learning everything I can possibly do. Learn about business, about owning a practice. What is the clinic even going to be called? What is the website? What is our vision? What are we trying to do here? What is something that we could do that could be very unique? And I just love things out of the box. I don't like to be like anything else. So that was. So I Basically, every week on Wednesday, I'll just work on my business. And actually I would talk to my patients about my opening my own practice as well. So by the time I left that office, I had an email list of about 75 people because I kind of left. And then I think I had about a month or two because we were building the clinic out as well before we had some. Some patients coming in. My clinic I opened was literally about half a mile from my other clinic that I used to work at. So I was used to being in that area and in that Neighborhood and then just kind of opened it up and you know, of course start slow, but you just gradually increase. I was a solo practitioner for the first year and a half. I had hired an admin assistant, first couple of years and then I hired a PT that I had with me for a couple of years. And then things kind of, you know, reached the end of that and then kind of hired another PT and slowly but surely kind of grew that out there. But yeah, I don't know, it's been great ever since. Man, I tell you, that's awesome.

So did you like, did you have like a non compete or were you just like, did you start seeing patients and then we're like, okay, I'm now seeing my eight patients a week, I'm taking off. Or do you give notice and then have like a bunch of time where you aren't seeing patients?

Yeah, I gave, I gave my time and then you know, at that time I was pretty dialed in. I mean I at myself, for example, like at lunch hour, lunch hour at my clinic, I would, I would get picked up by my real estate agent that we'd go look at properties to open my clinic. That'd be during lunch, I'd come back in, treat patients at the clinic. And so yeah, just kind of slowly but surely kind of worked it out. I think I was out of work, not working for about two months, maybe three months total that I think I left. I think I left on a. It was like an end of May or June and then I think we started in August. Actually, funny enough, our six year, sixth year anniversary is August 27th, which is actually, which is actually Monday, which is a Monday when I opened the clinic back in the day. So yeah, it's crazy.

That's awesome. Congratulations. That's really great. So did you, so you, you got a rent, you rented a space, built it out. Did you, did you like have a certain amount of savings or did you take a loan or you know, something like what did. What I want to get into is like what it, like what was like kind of your startup like costs, but it's not like the cost really I want to get to is what was that decision that you said? Okay, I have to invest in myself and in my growth so I can get this bigger result further down the road. That's really what I'm going for.

But you know. Totally. Yeah. I'm trying to think how it all worked out. I think kind of what ended up happening because my father passed away and then my grandmother passed away, my grandparents had Some money. So when she died, the way the Kant or way the. I don't know how it was all worked out was it literally went to the next heir that was a Schmidt or that was from that side of the family. So it actually didn't go to my mother, it actually went to us boys, my two brothers. And from that we had cash that kind of trickled down. And so I think total out of pocket costs, you know, for that first year, that includes build out, that includes everything, ended up being about out of pocket for me was probably like 50 grand. Yeah, total, Total. And that's, that's basically take. But the cool thing was is that, you know, we found a warehouse that was literally a brick wall and a cement floor. And so literally we were able to design and build that out with, with everything that we wanted to do. You know, I mean, like I said, what does a bike friendly physical therapy office look like? What does that include? And we started kind of from a flat scratch paper. We were able to kind of design it with two very key components that we really want to keep growing with. This is number one is the bike friendliness. So we've got basically we measured things out, we look at turning radiuses as far as getting a bike in there, the distance from the door to the front office, indoor bike racks, changing stations, bike tools, everything that could possibly be used in a bike friendly clinic. But also we wanted to really tie in this whole concept of sustainability and eco friendliness as well. And so like I said, I think our office is not only has a gold level certification in sustainability. So that's the amount of water we use, the amount of paper we use, we're actually using smaller diameter piping on our water, water faucets, anywhere that requires hot water, we are using on demand hot water heaters. We have full spectrum lighting. I mean everything that we can do. We have a pretty much almost 100% paperless system. We have some paper, of course, for paper patients. So we've got the sustainability rating. But then also the thing I'm actually more proud of is that we actually have a gold level rating from the League of American Bicycl as being a bike friendly business. Wow, that is a year long application. And not only do you apply to that, but they actually speak to people in the community about your business to see how much you're involved in the community. And we had hit like a silver level. But after they talked to the community and how much we do in the community, we do these free coffee events for bicyclists we do all these fun events, we sponsor a bioswale, we do all this crazy stuff in the community that actually bumped us up to the gold level rating and that we're actually only one of only think currently four businesses in the entire state of Oregon that has a gold level rating and yet we only have two employees. And the next level up business has like 90 employees. So it's kind of one of those things. Like we really are super into practicing what we preach. We all bike to the office. Every employee that works for me is required to bike to the office year round. So like I said. But starting kind of from the ground up and building that, it just kind of allowed us to really make what we want and what would be unique or have a real strong value system to that. Because, you know, it's healthcare, it's like the most unsexy thing in the world. But if you can add some values, if you can add some fun, if you can add something that you're passionate about to it, like the cycling, for me, it's just, it's not even work. It's just, it's just fun. You know, we're just having a great time every day.

That's amazing. So I take it if someone shows up for their interview and they drive in by a car or Uber, they're not really going to get hired.

Well, that is part of that is one of the key elements. Because, you know, that was always my joke was like, I just feel like in this world, and you probably see it a lot too, is this world craves authenticity. There is so many fakers out there. There's so many people that are like, I'm the bike guy. And be like, well, where's your bike at? You didn't even ride. And you know, so it's, it's one of those things, like if you're going to come to Padel pt, you're going to see my bike there every single day. You come there because that's who I am and that's who you are. And if you're passionate about that. And I also feel like being a bicyclist every day, I'm like kind of like a living guinea pig on that bike. You know, I've pretty much experienced every pain there is to have on that bike. And that includes crashes, getting hit by cars, as well as riding every day through the snow, through whatever, that we're just setting an example, like this is who we are. And if you really want the best quality service, take it from somebody that rides 350 days out of the year.

That's really awesome. So what is the thing that you've done that. How are you sharing that passion with your potential patients or with people that are trying to figure out where are they going to get physical therapy in town, other than it being called Bike pt?

Yeah, sure.

Like, if you're not. If you're treating people who have other orthopedic conditions or they're just not, you know, not necessarily like, oh, I'm a cyclist by identity. How are you sharing this with people? And what is. Like, what is the marketing message or the. Or the mission statement? Like, mission is different. But it's like, how are you sharing that with people? So they get you and they go, oh, I got to go see Kevin.

Right. I think that's the hardest question that we have to answer is that a lot of times people. So I've gotten very interesting answers. So pedal pt. Okay. I had one lady come up to me, so we, you know, meet people at these events and things, and she said, so do you guys just have, like, a bunch of exercise bikes in there? Is that what you do? Like, you just. That's. That's how your PT is just people ride bikes. And I was like, no, no, no, no. So I think that's the hardest thing for us as a niche service. It's also saying, hey, we can. We can also treat everything else. I mean, literally 50% of what we see is not related to cycling. Now, they are typically people that will bike to the office. They're into the bike lifestyle. But that's, I think our hardest thing, our marketing message, or the best that we get our point across is we actually do a really great job getting Google reviews and Yelp reviews. And those kind of explain a lot of what we're trying to explain, but not me telling them that, but from the patient's perspective. And I think more than anything, if anybody's gonna search for physical therapy, if they're gonna search for any sort of thing, what are we gonna do? We're gonna get to get on, and we're gonna search that. So if you can be. I think we're the number one Google rated PT office in all of Portland, most reviews, and maybe second or third in all of Yelp reviews in Portland in the entire city. And like I said, and we're tiny. But the key is, the funny thing is the people we see are also just as passionate about cycling and things as we are, so they really want to help support that. So it kind of becomes this own Kind of eco microcosm of itself that builds on itself, word of mouth, being involved in the cycling community. We've got a cyclocross team. We have a lot of things that kind of bring our awareness. And so we have people stop by all the time. They're just like, man, I really wish I could come see you, but I'm not hurt, you know, like, I just want to come in and see you guys because I love what you do and I love that you're out in the community. And we just had our free Coffee for bicyclists event yesterday, and it's just. That has been the greatest. The greatest. I was telling you. Would you want to get about marketing? That, for some reason, has become our calling card. This. We just set it up outside. We see about 400 bike commuters in the morning. And that has become the hugest marketing tool and the cheapest on return, on investment. Just being out and being seen and being available to these people.

If you're out, give me the details on this, like, bike for, like, how often. What do you do? What do you provide?

How do you. Oh, there's all kinds of fun stories that go with all this, but I'll spare you a little bit of that. But basically, the name of the game is we do it. It ends up being about the third Tuesday of the month. It's once a month. We always do it once a month. That's the deal. Has to be once a month. It usually ends up being a Tuesday most of the time, just because I got to take kids to school and things like that, too. So in Zippy and Tuesday, we have basically a large banner, and we have. There's a corner that we just go out to, the corner on, corner of 25th and Clinton. Clinton is the major bike thoroughfare there. And I've spoken with all the local businesses right there, so they're okay with us doing that because they're not even opening. So we're basically just there from 7 to 9 in the morning. We have a banner out. We have our cards, all our information. We have usually one or two press pots of coffee, cream, the full. The full setup there. And then ultimately, we'll have music playing, things like that. And then ultimately, as people ride by, we're just yelling at them and heckling them. And the more coffee we drink, the more funny it gets and all this kind of stuff. But from that, the thing that's crazy is we see a lot of the same people all the time. And so we have people that, you know, we have some people that stop. We have some people that have, like, perfect attendance that are like, oh, cool, I get my free coffee today. Great. But then we get some people like, you know what? I've ridden past you guys for five years and I've never stopped, and yet I had some time today. What is this all about? And that we, as we talk to them, we essentially end up scheduling them for an eval, or we schedule them for a bike fit or something like that. But it's having that back and forth and having them being on their bike, we can actually see what they look like on the bike, saying like, oh, looks like you. There's something going on with your saddle here. And they're like, oh, I didn't even notice that. Maybe that's why I'm having some hand issues. So we ultimately, you're kind of approaching them in their environment. And from that, it just has created this wonderful connection with not only the community, but also my neighborhood. And that's always been my philosophy, as far as marketing goes, is always, you have to own your hood, own your neighborhood. You need to know everybody in that business. You need to know everybody in your area. You need to shop at their businesses. You need to go spend money at those businesses, because if they don't know who you are, ultimately you're no good. If you stay in your clinic hiding, waiting for the clinic for patients to knock down your door, they're not going to come get you. And so I've met with other clinic owners or people that have left hospital organizations that try to open their own private practice. And they were like a big stud in the hospital realm and had all these initials after their name, and they just expect people to knock the door down. And so I go visit them at their clinic. And I was like, I was like, oh, there's a Starbucks across the street. Do you go in there? Do all those people know you by name and what your clinic does? And he's like, no, I've never been in there once. I was just like, you got to own your neighborhood, man. You got to own your neighborhood. Before you can start thinking about expanding anything. You got to own your hood. And that's really when it comes down, that's always been our focus, is we have to take care of our 1 mile radius around us, and then we can start thinking about expanding out. But as long as everybody in everybody knows who we are. So I was part of the business association in our neighborhood, you know, pretty much have gone to most of these businesses, just try to Meet people, get your face out there. Because otherwise, you know, it takes hustle, man. You got to work, especially early on. You got to really work to get that right.

So is this the coffee one of the things you did early on, or is there something else that early on you did?

Dude, great. Okay, so I'll tell the story of the free coffee, the very first free coffee. So hopefully I'm not going to make anybody mad on this, but whatever.

Not yet.

So here's how it goes. So in Oregon Physical Therapy association, they used to do a newsletter. And in this newsletter, basically they said, hey, we have this extra money laying around. If anyone wants to do anything in the community to promote physical therapy, we have money and we'll sponsor it. And I was like, wow, this sounds great. I just opened this clinic about three months ago, four months ago, and I've always wanted to do this, like, free coffee thing or we could do, like, kind of a thing. And so met with someone, I won't mention who they are at the Opta, and they're like, yeah, this sounds great. No one's ever. You're actually the first person. We've had that ad open for, like, three years, and no one's even responded to this ad once.

Wow.

So I was like. I was like, oh, this is awesome. This is great. And so we go, we organize everything. I mean, I'm in talks with the people from Opta and talk about this and go through, and the event shows up. And, you know, we've got some people there that kind of came to show up, people from my clinic, et cetera, et cetera. And so it's literally right across the street from my clinic right there. And so we go through, and it's great. People are loving. We actually had somebody from a local supermarket donate some fruit and things like that. So we have, like, all this wonderful community thing. And so we're great. So the head person or the person who is in control of divvying out this money shows up literally, like an hour late, and they kind of waltz out there. And so as a cyclist comes up, this guy's like, hey, what's going on here? And I was like, oh, hey, my name's Kevin. I'm a physical therapist. You know, I own this clinic called Pedal pt. And we're just kind of doing this free coffee thing just to kind of help promote whatever. And so I kind of started, and they asked me more about my business. So I talked about the business, talked about the business, and so it was a great success. It Was wonderful. It was great. The funny part was, I got back and it came time to kind of get paid from the Oregon Physical Therapy association for this money, which is literally like. I don't even know, like, a hundred bucks or 200 bucks. And this gal reaches out to me. She's like, you know, I gotta tell you, I can't. I can't. I can't pay for this. I can't pay for this. This event. And I was like, what are you talking about? Like, this was a great event, people. This was great. She's like, you know, I just felt like this was just a huge promotion for your business, and you really weren't, like, supporting the field of physical therapy and all this stuff. And I'm just like, you've got to be kidding me. Like, I'm out here in the community. No one's even ever done this before. And you're trying to say, like. And I was just like, well, I don't understand. And she's like. She's like, yeah, I just. I just can't. I just can't pay for. I just can't. In my. In my heart, deep down, ethically, I just can't do that. Because I felt like you were just kind of taking that over and promoting just your business. And so I was just. So anyway, this person, of course, works in a hospital organization who never has to work to get their own patients or anything like that. And so it kind of became this huge, like, what? And so that was literally the start of this. This free coffee event. And I was just like, well, screw you guys. I'm going to do this, and I'm going to kind of do my own thing. And if. If it's not cool to you, then just whatever, you know, like, whatever, I'll eat the hundred bucks. That's fine. But it was just kind of funny how that mindset or kind of that unique mindset of just like, you know, I'm in a hospital environment. I'm a physical therapist. I have patients fed to me all day long. They have no idea what it takes to market, to get people in there, to actually really work towards that. So I just. So that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. But I've always been a person who, in that kind of adversity, that just like, pumps me up more to want to work more. But that was literally the very first free copy of it. From that, we were just like, that was great. Let's do that. Let's do that again next month. And so we kept kind of Kept doing it, kept doing it, kept doing it. But that was. That was really the start of it is actually. It started as this kind of like, hey, help the physical therapy profession. And it was like, oh, actually, no, I'm not gonna pay for that. Because that felt like that was more marketing for.

You know what I mean? If she hadn't said that, it would have meant that it wasn't good enough. So basically, when people do things like that, that's the way I see it. Is it when they. When they kind of hate on you or, you know, whatever they're trying to do? And it's like, if they see that it's good for someone, maybe not for them, they should. And it's. It's like, to me, that's a sign that what, you're onto the right thing.

Especially.

Yes, there's a difference as an entrepreneur and someone who is an employee. Like, and that's a big struggle, I think, in our profession, professional association, there's this struggle there. But it's like when you get that kind of feedback from people and you do it like the way you did it, say, oh, well, I'll just do it on my own. Obviously, this was good. It's like. But that kind of negative feedback for some people will, like, keep them from doing it again. But what I see and from what your story and some of the things I've experienced and other people I've helped, is that that kind of feedback means you're onto the right thing. You just need to keep doing it more and maybe just do it on your own, you know, I mean, I think.

And that was exactly it. But I was just so, like, you've got to be kidding me, right?

No, it's ridiculous.

Like, I'm not representing the field of physical therapy, and you can't pay me a hundred bucks for that. You feel ethically like you just can't do it. And you were there for 15 minutes out of the three we were there. So it was just kind of became this huge thing. And I was just like, you know what this is?

Yeah, that's the scarcity. I mean, that's the scarcity mindset that we run up into all the time. And, you know. But that's awesome. That's really great. So what, you just started doing that once a month? And is that, like, the main thing you're doing, or is there something else that you're doing besides the coffee that's getting people?

Yeah, we do a lot of things. I do a lot of things through Instagram. I Think kind of in the, in the bike, in the bike microcosm. 95% of people that are passionate about cycling, Instagram is their main mode of major vehicle for social media. So I do a lot with that. But I mean, like I said, I love to go into companies. I give talks for industry and for. There's a lot of tech companies here in town, so I try to. We have patients that work at these tech companies, so we kind of reach out and say like, hey, I'm happy to give you a little hour long talk on bike fitting and common cycling injuries. There's a lot of. Most businesses are very bike friendly or very into the whole concept of being bike friendly, especially the tech companies, which are usually younger people. They have a lot of times bike amenities and things like that. So the ability to have somebody come in there and geek out on bike fit as to why they're hurting, that's great. I do on site bike fittings for companies as well. So I'm just trying to kind of get out and get in front of as many people as I can and kind of give talks. I go to bike clubs and give talks as well. I think it's just, just like with anything else. If you can show your passion, show your personality, people are like, oh, you're a physical therapist. I know you're doing my bike fit, but you treat shoulder injuries too. And I was like, absolutely. And so, you know, I go to these companies and I'll do, you know, 10, 11 bike fits in a day. But then the next week I have referrals from all these people for orthopedic things as well, you know, so it's just kind of. But the more that you can be out and about, the more that you meet people, the better. I think sometimes people get really. And I love social media, don't get me wrong, I love my Instagram, I love my Instagram stories. But you got to be out the more time you are out, face to face with people. It's so much more valuable than hiding behind a keyboard and trying to expect people to, to just beat your door down. It's just so much more important.

Yeah, it's much more powerful. I think one of our number one people. And write down who referred you and they'll say, aaron, they know of me.

Yeah, right.

Like because I'm in the community and meeting people.

Sure, man.

I want to swing just a little bit. So obviously insurance companies don't pay for bike fitting, do they?

Well, okay, so let's talk about this. This is great. This is great.

They do.

Absolutely. They do. So let's talk about this. So what's indication for physical therapy? Let's just talk about that.

Yeah.

So you tell me, Aaron, what's indication for physical therapy?

I'm not performing to my fullest potential.

The indication for physical therapy is pain with an activity. Right? Yeah. I'm having back pain when I sit, when I lift, I tweak something, or if I reach overhead, I get shoulder pain. That's pain with an activity. Right. Cycling is an activity. So how we run this through insurance and we do this is basically we a have to determine medical necessity. What does that mean? So that basically means that we need to do a PT evaluation first. So if somebody is having neck pain on the bike, we start that first visit and we do an evaluation of the spine and of the neck and we actually can diagnose that. We get our hands on them. We can do some mobilization, manipulation, what have you teach them some stretches for their neck. The very next visit, or maybe the third visit, we will perform bike fitting on them because it is their mode of transportation. It is the way they commute is how they get around town. So if an insurance company wants to call me and tell me that they're not going to pay for a bike fitting, I was just like, do you want your person who has your insurance to be healthier? Active weight loss, better cardiovascular fitness? Yes, you do. This is their mode of transportation. If you're telling me that, you won't pay for that. So it's basically therapeutic activity is what we do.

Okay.

So when we get in that. So the funny thing is, and when you really start talking about insurance companies, especially healthcare, just your generalized Blue Cross Blue Shield plans, like that, nobody reads the notes. They don't read notes at all. The only people that actually read your notes are MVA and work comp. But anything going to a major player, nine times out of 10, they never even read your notes anyway. So they just see a bill that says four units of therapeutic activity. That's just what it is. It's four units, whatever. Right? But like I said, we are coming at this. We're not trying to be sneaky. That's what people are just like, hey, can I get. Can I get a bike fit covered on my insurance? And we're just like, yeah, you just got to do a PT eval first. So we can actually determine medical, in a sense that you're actually having pain with an activity. And that kind of bunny trails into this whole concept of just, you know, Bike fitting in general is driven by bike industry, which is based on equipment. But the funny thing is, is the reason people get bike fit is not because they want to buy new equipment, but it's because they have pain. And so who better to assess, to treat, to diagnose that than the physical therapist and then to be able to apply that to their bike as well. That's kind of where we're trying.

That's awesome.

That's great. Yeah.

Because I know a lot of people are like, I do bike fit plus I'll do physical therapy, you know, and as opposed to having the bike fit part of the planet, care.

Right. And that's exactly what we tell people is, you know, say, well, where's all your fancy motion capture and pressure mapping systems? I'm just like, well, we really like to focus on you and your unique body. Everybody is different. We don't fit in every box. And so we want to just see what you got. You know, we get people coming in like, I've had two knee replacements, I've got a hip issue, I've got a lumbar fusion and my knee only bends to 100 degrees, but I still want to cycle again. If you go to a bike shop with that, they're going to be like, I don't know, you don't fit in the box. That has been set up by bike industry. And I don't even know anything about the body anyway. So it allows us to really, it becomes that art form or kind of that ability for us to really focus on the individual, their body, what symptoms they're having, and then actually adjust them on the bike. And interesting enough, 70% of those people that we see, or I would probably guess to say that 70% of people that are sold equipment is probably unnecessary in order to achieve pain free cycling.

How are you guys educating bike shops or forming strategic alliances with bike shops? How are you approaching them or how have you in the past? Are you doing anything at all?

Great question. And I think initially that was a hard point for us at first because the way the public sees bike fit is generally you go to the bike, you go get your bike fit. You will also be then be able to purchase handlebars and new saddles and new stems at that place. So our model is extremely different, in fact, that we want to support the local bike shops. We want to support them because ultimately they become a referral source for us. So we have no equipment at all in the office, which is good for two reasons. Number one, if people actually really do need equipment. And sometimes they do. Like I said, maybe 25 to 30% of people actually really do need new equipment. We can say, who's your local bike shop? Oh, I go down to Seven Corners Bike Shop or I go to whatever. And so we can say, well, you go down and you tell, go down to Corey. Tell Corey that Kevin said, hey, from Paddle PT, and you just need a 90 millimeter stem and we can write out a little prescription for what they need. So therefore, we're supporting the bike shop. Also, from a business perspective, I also then don't have 10 to $20,000 worth of inventory sitting in my back room that entices me to want to upsell them unnecessarily.

Right?

We have no. Therefore we have no other age then getting that person pain free or faster or whatever they want to accomplish on that bike without the overlying, like, wow, I've got all this inventory I really need to get rid of. Because we see people all the time and they say, man, I went into the bike shop and I got my bike fit. And you know, before I even got on the bike, they had already put a new handlebar on, and that was 200 bucks. And I was like, well, are you having shoulder issues or neck issues? And they're like, no, I'm totally fine. They just said I needed a new one. And so you can kind of start to see. But that's why every town that you go into, every single bike shop, has bike fitting, because it's a ticket to an upsell. And I'm not saying they're doing it to be mean. That's just how it's designed. They're not designed to be body people. They're designed to be bike people. And what we're trying to do is just kind of bring to the forefront that, dude, this is pain. This is a posture injury, this is biomechanics. Physical therapists are the expert in this. And what we're trying to do is just unite physical therapists saying that, hey, you guys are the best ones to be doing bike fitness. It, here's how we do it, and here's how we do it in a nice model that works together with people versus trying to compete with people. So your initial thought of this person is competing with me. We're all keeping our cards close to our chest. Now all of a sudden we're sharing that with them. But then that comes back about tenfold. Because most of the time, the more bike shop employees that I talk to, they're like, somebody comes in with Knee pain. I don't even want to have this conversation with them. I'm not qualified to do this. So therefore we're sharing it versus trying to keep it all in house. Which is, which was initially, you know, no one really is doing it that way. But boy, it's worked out to be such wonderful relationships with the shops and then they really appreciate it. The patients are super stoked. They're actually buying what they really need and everybody is, is happy. Yeah. So yeah, that's great.

I think, I know a lot of people are afraid, they're like, well, you know, the bike shops not going to send me people or you know, they're gonna, you know, they're not, they're gonna be upset if I send them to a different bike shop. And the same thing happens with gyms all the time. And I think if the approach that you've taken and explained, I think it's a win, win for everybody and in

the same, in the same accord, you know, as a bike niche practice. Also, some of my referral sources are competing physical therapy offices. So it's not competition to them. They don't have bike fit equipment. They don't know what the heck they're doing yet. Most people in Portland are probably seeing some people that are probably bicyclists because that's this town and that's how a lot of towns are in America. So ultimately a lot of the people that we see initially as competition as business owners and as clinical owners ultimately become your referral sources. And it's winning them over there and showing them a good product and also giving back all of a sudden creates this whole thing and then all boats are rising and everybody's winning. Everybody stoked? Yeah.

So totally. So tell me a little bit or tell us a little bit about your like hybrid model. Are you guys in network with some. Are you just billing out of network? Are you doing cash services for some Great.

Yeah, we do a little bit, we do a little bit everything. So we only really take four insurances and those are in Oregon. There's actually some pretty good payers when it comes to insurance. Now. We do have headaches with that, man. I totally, I totally eventually want to make this a full cash based practice. But roughly, if you look at purely income cash that flows into the office, 70% or maybe 65 to 70% of our cash is from cash based people. People paying us cash for bike fit cash based PT services. We have package programs for PT as well, but we only take four insurance companies. We can also then if People have, you know, an insurance that we, you know, out of network for a weekend. Bill out of network just depends on kind of what they do. We're just trying to educate them what that will look like. And a lot of times when they come out of network, it also kind of comes into being like, well, this is probably how much this can cost you. This will actually probably save you a lot of money just paying, you know, self pay and then self submitting that or something like that. But really, I mean, positive cash flow, you know, cash flow is king when it comes to running a private practice. And that's what's been really beautiful. Because bike fit, you know, generally speaking, we see people that are kind of our one and done come in for bike fit, you know, 200 bucks out the door, done for an hour's worth of work on a bike fit. But a lot of times what that does is also just develops relationships. So people that we do bike fit on just a one and done, you know, six months later might have a shoulder injury and they want to come back and see us. And we get people that. And the best compliment that we always receive is we say, all right, I understand. I know you don't take my insurance, but I don't care. I want to come see you guys because of. Because of who you are, what you stand for, and et cetera, et cetera. And, you know, and like I said, those reviews do a good job setting those expectations and things. So that's. That's kind of how we do it.

Man, that's awesome. Are you guys cultivating reviews or is it just happening naturally?

Cultivating reviews. So we have. We have kind of a nice system and a nice plan. And so like I said, there's only three of us in the office, so we all, we meet once a week, every couple weeks, and we're always working. So everybody knows what everybody is doing. So we know the most important visit is your first visit. The second most important visit is the last visit. Because it's that last visit we are selling that. We then say, hey, you know, as a, you know, as a last thing, you know, shameless thing. Do you do Google reviews or Yelp reviews or anything like that? And they're like, oh, my God, totally, or something like that. And we're like, okay, great. And like, my. My front office is hearing me say this to her, and she's already sending this. We have a systemized email that we send out to people. Just. She's already sent it to them to their email box even before They've left the office. So it's high fives. Congratulations, hugs. You did it. You graduated. Great. Boom. There's already that email that's already personalized to them. Congratulations. It's simple, one click. You know, if to leave a Google review, click here. We just have it, one button push. Boom. You can go right to the review. You have to make it as simple and as easy as possible for them to do it. If you have to be like, just give us a Google review, they'll get online, they'll kind of get frustrated and they'll be like, I, you know, and then four days go by and then they're on to life. And so, but you have to kind of, you have, it's all about the timing, but that's really, really worked really well for us. And it also kind of becomes that somebody drops off the schedule, we respond back to them, hey, how are you? I haven't heard from you. They're like, actually I'm doing fabulous. I feel great. This is the best I felt in six years. Then of course then that gives us the ability then to send them that follow up email that says, oh man, I'm so great to hear that, hey, could you do me a huge favor? You know, as a small local business, your reviews make a huge difference, etc. Etc. And then a lot of times those people that drop off our schedule who we think were dissatisfied with our service ends up then leaving reviews as well. So it's always trying to kind of keep those touches. But no, dude, as a small private practice, the reviews are everything. Because that's, I mean, gosh, everybody that calls us, we say, well, how'd you hear about us? They're like, like, I gotta tell you, you got some really amazing reviews on your site and on Google, I mean like really great. So we're like, sweet.

Yeah, that's great. That's so cool. So you've got, you've been in business for six years, you've got yourself treating patients, one other pt.

Yep, yep. And then I also no assistant, I just have a front office coordinator. So front office gal and then another PT and then me. And then I'm actually getting ready to hire another part time PT as well. So the goal is with our space, so that our business model is very much set up, that we try to keep super low overhead. And then we don't employ aides or assistance or PTS. You're just one on one with a PT, 45 minutes to an hour every visit. And so like I said, and then my Goal is to get two full time PTs and have me treating maybe, maybe 10 hours a week. That is the end range goal for that size space, which is about, little bit, about 1500 square feet.

Okay. And then are you planning on opening any more clinics in Portland or expanding? I know you've, you've talked about. So like, what's your, like what's your ideas and goals and what are you doing for.

Yeah, totally, man. So, yeah, I mean that's, that's kind of some exciting news that we got, that we got going on is that, you know, I guess it kind of worked out. As funny things go, you know, you're, you're at a barbecue and you meet somebody and that all of a sudden turns into this crazy thing. And so I met this guy at a barbecue. I was actually wearing the same shirt I'm wearing right now, which is vanilla bicycles. And this guy's like, oh, do you know those guys? I was like, oh yeah, they make these crazy bikes. And. And he's like, oh, he's like, well, I'm a trademark attorney and I do all their trademarking stuff. And actually I'm kind of like the number one guy that does anything with bike related businesses as far as getting trademarks and registered trademarks. And I was like, wow, that's really interesting. I've always thought of trademarking Padel PT and this whole concept of physical therapy bike fitting kind of thing. And so one thing led to another. So we end up getting trademark. We end up getting a trademark on paddle PT and physical therapy bike fitting clinic. So that was kind of the first start. And so we were like, wow, what? That's kind of neat. And then all of a sudden, again, another random things. We get these, you know, you get 100 emails a day. You just randomly open this one and it said, have you ever thought of franchising your business? And so at that time I was like, I don't even kind of know what that means. Sure enough, had a phone call and I said, well, we've trademarked this. And they're like, oh my God, that's like the smartest thing you ever did. And so we took, we then kind of started proceeding with this whole concept of franchising this. And I think when we start talking about franchise, there always kind of comes into kind of a negative connotation when we talk about that word. We think McDonald's and we think of people being greedy and selling out and things of that. But you have to realize like, franchising is basically just selling a business model. And a franchise can be a vehicle for good. You know, like I said, our clinic is sustainable. Our clinic is bike friendly. We're really offering a super unique, easy service and it's a very well proven business model. And so ultimately, to make a long story short, we went through all that. It took me eight months. And we just, as of, I think June or July, just got our what's called an FDD federal disclosure document, which is roughly about a 250 page document that you to have. And so we're actually franchising the office.

Wow.

So as a way to expand this, you know, I've been approached by so many people over the years, bike fitters and physical therapists and investors alike that are like, hey, when are you going to open up a paddle PT in Asheville, North Carolina? When are you going to open up a paddle PT in Minneapolis? When are you going to do that? And so the way that I could try to find a way to be able to grow this was the idea of like, let's systemize this all out. Let's put in the hard work, let's get this ready to go, and then let's start finding these people that are like us, that are passionate about cycling. You know, I feel like in the physical therapy world, there's so many pts that are passionate about bicycling, that would love to do what we do every day, yet there's really not a vehicle to do it. Or they're or like, I'm the bike fit guy at this clinic. I'm one of seven clinicians. I'm kind of like the bike fit guy. I'll do a bike fit once a month. I really love it. I really would love to do it more. But my boss is kind of like, you know, I'd love to do more bike fitting. The boss is kind of like, well, you know, it's fine, we'll do bike fit. We also, you know, and so what we're trying to do is just provide an environment and a vehicle for these people and these specific physical therapists that love the bike side of things and want to deep dive into that and really start being an integral part of their own cycling community. That's kind of why we started to do this franchise thing. So right now we're actually on the lookout. We're trying to find people that are interested in that and that want to learn. It becomes kind of a mentoring, educational relationships, you know, to become a franchisee or be somebody that wants to open their own pedal pt. It's People that really want to be in business, but not by themselves, they kind of, you know, that's kind of the idea is, you know, they want to be in business for themselves, but not by themselves, I think is what they use in the industry all the time. And so right now we're kind of slowly starting to look at people that could be. I think we've talked about the possibility of opening some in and around about a hundred mile radius around Petal PT to work with that too. But right now we're just trying to kind of get the word out that this is available and this is a super unique service and a super unique opportunity for a lot of communities that could really benefit from having something like that.

That's awesome. Is there like a specific type of person? Is it like someone who's already in business or not in business or lives in a certain area? Is there like any requirements?

Yeah, I think it all kind of comes down to a lot of things and there's a lot of tools that we have to kind of help them determine locations, Strava heat maps, all these things. We can start looking at bike traffic in certain areas. It really kind of comes into a person who is entrepreneurial, who really wants to deep dive, who is passionate about cycling. We can teach you the rest. We can teach you about marketing, we can teach you how to get patients in the door. We can teach you how about getting Google reviews. We can teach you how to become an expert in bike fitting. And ultimately the ability to do that and not be completely tied and controlled by bike industry is a very special service that no one really is offering. Because most bike fit you see is all the bike fits that Most of the PTs are doing now is basically the exact same thing they're going to kind of get at a bike shop. They're using the same tools. They're not really trying to really dive into the real PT side of that. So what we're trying to do is just, you know, create a unified voice for PTs to raise the bar, as that's not related to bike industry. And not that I'm against bike industry at all, but I think just the idea is that as physical therapists, we are the best equipped to be handling this population. We know the body in and out and yet if we unify together as a group of physical therapists that are into we can all raise the bar and learn from each other and continue to progress the field and bring us more to the forefront that maybe we're the best to be doing this bike fitting Stuff.

So yeah, that's awesome. That's great. That's right. So what's your long term goal? Like what's your long term vision with this? Is there like a certain number of locations or just like reaching a certain number of people? What is that?

Yeah, it's hard to say. I mean it kind of depends. I mean I feel like there, I could probably name 20 communities where these would be extremely successful. And a lot of times when we look at kind of locations and things like that, if we're focusing on bike traffic, not really everyday other car traffic, a lot of times real estate is cheaper. The ability to get in on better. I mean a lot of times if you can control your costs so well and get a very low rent in a very biky place, lot of times you can get that at a lot cheaper rate. I don't know, I mean my goal, I've always said, you know, my 10 year goal is this would go international, is that we'll take this internationally because cycling is not just an American thing and actually it's much more European. Even over in Europe there's really not any physios combining the concept of hey, I'm a physio and a bike and I'm a physical therapist and a bike fitter. There are a couple of solo operations which is mostly how a lot of this bike world works. Even in America or you know, here in the States, in Colorado and different places, there's a lot of kind of like I'm the bike guy, it's a solo practice, that's what it is. It's not really a brand, if you will, that could kind of grow but it's basically like one person. One person. We're trying to create a united group of physical therapists together. So I just feel like we're stronger in numbers and we can all learn from each other and mentoring and like I said to be able to work together with those guys.

That's awesome.

And girls.

Yeah, yeah, that's great. Do you have any like resources for people who might be interested in that? Whether it's a place to inquire about the franchise or other on bike fitting?

Yep, yeah we do. We have a, we have a website up for our franchise right now and I think it's. I'll have to double check the link on that but I think it's some like franchise petal PT or something. We'll put in the show notes or something like that. We have a website that we're just basically trying to get emails together. I mean if anybody is interested, quite honestly, there's a couple different ways you can simply reach out to me via direct messaging. Email is. My email is kevinaddlept.com reach out that way. Also coming up in November, I don't know if you're going to PPS this year, maybe you're not, but they're doing this, doing this new thing this year at PPS where they're having kind of these niche practice roundtable sessions. So this will be in Colorado Springs, I think it's first week of November or so, but they're actually having a bike fitting roundtable where they're actually going to be starting to kind of have these specialty niche services and discussion groups and moderators. I think Eric Moen is going to be there, I'll be there, maybe a couple other people in the kind of the bike PT realm. But that'd be another great place for us to meet up and talk about that, kind of get the details and things. But like I said, we're just trying to kind of get the word out. It's one of those things. You do all this work to get this whole whole franchise gig together and all of a sudden you're like, okay, now how do we get the word out? How do we meet people? How do we make this work? And so we're just learning. Yes, exactly. Yeah, we'll do a free coffee for bicyclists out there. But that's kind of the idea, man. So it's just one of those things where we'll start it up and kind of learn as we go and really just trying to find those key people that really want to do this because there's a lot of people out there that would love to do this. Like I said, they just don't have the environment or the setup in order to do it. Right, right.

That's awesome. All right, Kevin, that's great. So you're working towards international franchise, cutting down your treatment hours. What else? What's next for Kevin?

Yeah, just tons of riding, man. Yeah, I just got a new. I just got a new custom bicycle in Febr that I've just ridden the crap out of. And so I'm getting ready for. I've got a big ride coming up over the Sunday 2nd September, which is a 90 mile, 9,600ft of climbing, 40% gravel ride that's coming up as well. So we'll see how we do with that. But yeah, ultimately just kind of, that's what's so funny is that cycling, I feel like it's kind of like a drug a little bit. You start to get into it, you want to do more. You know, all day long all I do is talk about bikes and cycling with people and I get home and what am I doing? All I want to do is think about bikes and riding more. I mean, the more time I can be on the bike, the happier I am.

So, you know, that's awesome. I'm addicted to it. I just have to stay away for, you know, like I just, I competed for so long.

Yeah.

It just becomes, it's harder for me to get on a bike by myself and not be in competition mode.

Sure.

You know, so. But I totally love it and you know, I just need to. One day I'll be back on it, enjoying it more for the being outdoors than, you know, like going as hard as I can. I'm in like this mental transition phase.

Competition is great too, man. Racing is great too. I mean it's all fun. I mean it's. But like I said, when we talk about, I mean, we talk about this a lot at Pedal pt, we talk about the power of the bicycle and we talk about the passion of the bicycle. And the thing is like bicycling means so many different things to different people in certain ways. Like to me it means freedom and it means, you know, just the ability to kind of chart your own path and explore and adventure. But so many people have so many attachments to the bike in so many different ways. But what we're trying to do is just acknowledge that and accept those people. You know, most people that do bike fit is all based on Road bicycles. 9 out of 10 if you think about visualize a bike fit. But what we're trying to do.

The Sirota fit machine for the customer.

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, we have a fit. Yeah, we have a size cycle, Calfee size cycle as well. But I think the thing that's interesting is that the bike fit world or the industry world is always going after that elite level cyclist. You got this person in the skin suit and they're in the aero position. And that's kind of what people visualize as bike fitting. We're trying to kind of come at this from a little different angle, which is commuters, everyday cyclists, people that are new to cycling. All those people need bike fit and probably possibly even more. But that is such a larger population. If you look at your elite level cyclists, everybody in bike fit is competing for this 2% little chunk of the elite level cyclists and be like, oh, I treat, I did a bike Fit on this pro. So all of a sudden I'm the expert in Bike Fit. It kind of comes down to is that I think they said in Portland there is like this 2%, like they're going to ride no matter what. 2%. Then there's this huge group that 70% of the entire population that says they're called interested yet concerned. That means I'd love to be able to ride a little bit more, but I'm just a little nervous. I don't know. Those are the people we go after because Bike fit is always thought of as elite level cyclist. I'm riding centuries, but really, I mean I started because I was just a dude who was hurting my neck riding three miles one way. And there's so many people out there. And if we can get people to be pain free, we can get people to ride more, be healthier and quite honestly possibly even influence global population health. I mean, your top four causes of death involve cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke, cancer. I don't know if I can fix that one. But basically if we can get people healthy and active and if pain is the one thing that's limiting them from exercising and being healthy and we can provide this service to get them to be pain free, boy, we can really make a huge dent in a lot of the global population issues of obesity and all this kind of stuff and childhood obesity and everything.

Your passion comes, your passion for it comes through and it's really awesome and it's been great to have you on the show and I really appreciate you setting aside some of your time. We'll definitely put all the links in the show notes. So if you're listening and you want to grab one of those links, go to labourconsulting.com to the podcast and you can find Kevin's episode in there. Kevin, is there anything else that you feel like would be beneficial to someone who's looking to start a physical therapy clinic for the first time that they should know that we have covered today?

Gosh, I don't know. I think, I think you always do. Such a guy. I will, I will. I just do. I just want to give you guys, you some props as well. You have been a resource for me for many years. Both you and Jared and all you guys have been such a positive influence on me as far as understanding how to run a practice, strategies, how do we handle that phone call, do you take my insurance, all that kind of stuff. So I just want to say thanks to you guys too because you guys have been a really great, I think you guys have brought. I mean, I think think at our clinic, we really embrace a lot of what you guys are as cash based, because we're constantly trying to sell the cash based stuff too. And so I just want to say thanks to you for providing a great service. And I'm always following along with what you guys are up to as well, because I think we can all learn from a lot of these sales. And, you know, Paul and Greg and all these guys are just such amazing people to learn from that. No matter what kind of practice you're running, we all need to know how to do sales. We all need to be able to understand our finances. We all need to understand how we can relate to patients and. And sell that treatment plan. I mean, that's super valuable. So thanks to you, man.

Thanks for having me on the show. You're welcome. You're absolutely welcome. I really appreciate that. All right, well, this has been the Cash PT lunch hour. My name is Aaron LeBauer with Kevin Schmidt from Petal pt. And we'll see you guys next time. Thanks.