Uncovering Creep in Your Business & Pitching the Big Result

In this solo episode of the Aaron LeBauer Show, Aaron shares personal updates (turning 51, recent divorce, life changes) and reflects on the importance of embracing failure as a catalyst for growth. He recounts how three recent patient referrals—two professional athletes and a personal trainer—came to his clinic almost effortlessly after he offered a Normatec boot and followed up, illustrating a low‑effort, high‑return acquisition strategy. Aaron then introduces the concept of "creep" in established businesses: small, unnoticed changes that erode efficiency (e.g., outdated signage, unused subscriptions, sloppy processes). He describes a rapid 20‑minute audit with his colleague Dr. Chris that uncovered visual and procedural creep in his clinic and coaching business, emphasizing the need for regular system clean‑ups. Aaron contrasts hard, resource‑intensive tasks with activities that "come easy" and advises listeners to double down on what works while pruning the rest. He outlines his current focus on automating new‑patient workflows, updating old email templates, and removing unnecessary expenses. Throughout, he stresses the importance of clear, long‑term goals for patients—especially competitive athletes—by pitching multi‑year plans that align with their broader life and performance objectives. The episode concludes with multiple calls to action for his Cash PT Blueprint course, Platinum Mastermind, free checklist, Instagram outreach, and 15‑minute strategy calls, positioning these resources as pathways for clinicians to build or scale cash‑based practices.
Chapters
Hey, what's up? It's Aaron. Welcome back to the Aaron LeBauer Show. Today we're going to go over two quick strategies to help you generate more patients, more revenue, and more time. And we're going to talk about what's going on with me and my business. I'm going to talk about a little bit of sales strategies as well, and, I don't know, some fun stuff. But real quick, you know, right now, I don't know. Let's see. I'm 51. It's been three months in the last. Since I've turned 51. I got glasses. The last four years have been. Last three years have been pretty interesting for me. I don't know if you followed my story, but a lot of life changes, a lot of business changes, a lot of family changes. I got divorced, like, three years ago, Two years ago, I think, officially. But almost three years ago, I was asked for a divorce, which really sucked. It still kind of sucks. And that's forced me to look at a lot of things, a lot of things differently. Where I want. Where I want to be, how long I want my beard to be. You know, like, in Covid, it was really long. A lot of other things. And I think there's just. I did a whole episode on what that was like a few years ago. And if you're interested, you know, scroll back. But I think there's some things I've learned, and one of the things I've learned recently, and I saw this on my own social media, was like, if you. You're never going to succeed. If you don't fail, if you're afraid to fail, you're never going to succeed. And I've always said failure isn't fatal. It's how we learn. And so no matter what's happening for you in the world right now, in your life, in the economy, in your business, as long as you keep going, you're not gonna fail. It just might be a new season. And so that's where I say, hey, this is. This is a new season. And so looking back on the podcast, like, this is the end of this podcast season. Um, you know, I've seen. I used to see patients on a regular basis. And I built my course, the Cash PD Blueprint. Cause I was like, I can't help all these people and see 20 something patients a week. And I saw the last patient for pay in 2019. But last week, I saw three patients. You know, they kind of came to me. One of them was a professional athlete, and I gave him A pair of Normatec boots last summer. And I was just checking in with him and I was like, hey, you know, how the. How are the Normatec boots going? And he was like, well, honestly, Dr. Bauer, my back's been hurting X, Y and Z. And next thing you know, got him into the clinic and treated him, got him onto a 12 week plan of care. And then the next week I get a message from a friend of his and he's like, hey, you know, you helped my friend. Can I get in to see you? You know, another professional athlete. I was like, okay, great. And then that weekend I'm working out at the gym with my girlfriend and she introduced me to another personal trainer. And they were like, well, I can't compete. Having trouble. Compete. I can't. It's. And you helped Liz, so can you help me? And I was like, sure. And next thing I know, I've got three patients on my schedule, which is really cool. And I'm gonna tell you a little bit about, like, how I did it and a couple of questions I asked. But that's got me thinking, like, that came really easy. And there's a big part of me that hasn't been in my clinic in a while. And so one of the things I want you to know is like, if you've got a business and you've got a clinic and it's running good, I've seen this in both my coaching business and my clinic late. There's a lot of creep. There's a lot of things that are going to, like, creep as in things change without you even noticing it because they get watered down. So I treated a couple of these people and had Dr. Chris sit in with me and just so he could learn. And then we're in the meeting and I was talking about, like, what distinguishes us and you know, from other people. This is with Dr. Chris, not with the patients. And he was like, you know, can you run me through like, like, pretty much everything? He's like, because I was here and I trained with Caitlin and Amber and I just ran him through, okay, here's how the thing should be. And he was like, oh, it's like everything just got distilled down. And I'm like, okay, these things need to be like this and these things, and it needs to be clean. I mean, a lot of this is, remember, a lot of this is my fault. Cause I'm the business owner, but it's like I wasn't over there and realizing like, like it's not getting cleaned or things aren't being put in the right places. Processes are like. They're just dull. And so we went through pretty much everything in about 20. Not everything, but everything on, like, how the place is supposed to be organized and set up in, like, 20 minutes. And Chris was like, holy cow. That was helpful. There was just a lot of creep on the signage and some of the things inside the building, the way the displays were, etc. I mean, there was even a sign from COVID that was taken off the front door. But there's, like, in the right light, you can see the, like the. The Scotch tape residue. I'm like, that needs to come off, you know, like little things like that. And then same in my. In my coaching business, I've had an opportunity recently to look through some of these processes and go, why are we still paying for this? Like, why is that? You know, we're paying like 20 bucks a month for something that we don't even use. We've got. I've got other things happening like that, you know, aren't even. Well, they haven't been a priority, but they're wasting resources. And so if you've owned a business for a while, and if you've been listening to my podcast for years, you probably have had one. I mean, I've helped people start businesses since 2012. So it's been 12 years, and a lot of people have had businesses for 20 who come into our programs and they go from in network to cash or something. You know, it is easier to make money than to save pennies. But sometimes when you have an opportunity to look and go, okay, what's all that creep that's happening? What are the things, processes I need to fix? It's an important time to take a look at it and go, okay, where do I want my business to go and how does it need to look and what needs to change? Because the way people. The other thing is. So we got the creep, but the way people buy right now is very different than the way they used to buy. And so that being said is, you know, with these things happening, this may be the. This is definitely the last episode in the season of the podcast. The podcast says seasons, but there's also this season of my life that just kind of is changing. I don't know what it is, honestly, but I had three people come in. I mean, last Monday, I came in, saw a new patient, $2,000 plan of care, and I was like. And I was like, well, I walked out. The. Chris was like, well, I got. I still got it. I mean, you know, everyone says it's hard and I'm like, it is hard, but I can still do it. And that came really easy. And so we'll see. I might see a few more patients in the next few weeks, but one of the big things that I'm focused on this month is going through the systems in my business, in my clinic and cleaning them up. As I was working this morning on the new patient automation, we put this in PT marking machine for our coaching clients and they get a watered down version of mine. I rewrote it last year and you get that mad libb it. I've got the longer version of my personal account and I'm just going through and cleaning it up because I've got emails in there that I wrote 15 years ago. They aren't relevant to now. They're not relevant to my knowledge about the body now. They're not relevant to how I want people to be welcomed in. So. So there's the creep, you know, and then there's what comes easy. And sometimes in business you can bang your head against the wall because something's hard and you're trying to figure out the solution and. And there's just not a solution that you can figure out and you turn and you look in the other direction and then things just start to come easy. And so that's where I'm at in this season of my life is say, okay, what's coming easy? To me, there's some things that have been really hard, really hard decisions, really hard things to manage to do, but it's what comes easy. And if something's working, do more of that. That's like one of these big principles that you should operate on is if something's working, don't stop unless it's working in a negative way. Right? But if it's working, do more of that. I've had coaching clients over the years say, hey, this works great. And then all of a sudden the business is struggling and I'm like, well, what happened? They're like, well, I started building out the online business. I'm like, well, you didn't automate the in person. They stopped the in person marketing and focus. And so they didn't automate what was working or they stopped doing what was working and went after the shiny object and spent time and energy on the thing that was harder to get going and maybe wasn't working or providing what they wanted out of it. And so there does come a time where you have to look, it's like, this isn't working as well. So let me just move away from that. Let me back off of it for a minute and get a different perspective and go after what's working. And so I don't know, it's. It's only Monday when I'm recording this. I've already had to go to school, pick up a kid early, come back to work, hop on a zoom with a, with another like business coach and then before I go pick up the next kid, thought I'd come and record this episode and try to drop a little bit of knowledge but also let you know that like I said, if you don't hear from me for a little bit on the podcast, come find me on Instagram and Aaron LeBauer because that's where I'll be. That's where I've been most of the time anyways. I'll be creating content, but it might look a little different or it might be more on different platforms or maybe I'll just get up a podcast episode every once in a while or maybe I'll bank a bunch of them and release them again. I don't have a plan for that. All I know is that the rest of my week is pretty packed out with appointments and meetings and things to do. And last week I was family week, et cetera. I do have a great couple, great interviews I've just recorded. So be sure you go back and listen to those. And then if you are looking for something specific, you can always go to one of my websites, Aaron labourer.com or labourer consulting.com, put in the search bar, see what you can find. And then I think the last thing I'm going to say before I need to bounce to go to go to school is, is this. When you put your mind on something, you'll achieve it, but it's going to be hard. But you have to know why you want that. You have to know why it's worth getting up early for. And if you're not clear on that, it's going to be really difficult. And that's one of the things that we have to get our patients clear on. And so the second kind of nugget I wanted to leave with you is when I enrolled these three patients, we got really clear on what they wanted and why and all of them have been out of competition pretty much. Very interesting, you know, like, and they're like, I just want to get better at now and back to normal day to day life before I start to training. But I still want to train and compete Again, but it's about building this bigger vision. It's not just about getting out of pain or getting range of motion back. It's living day to day life and why, but also what does competing do for you? Why is that important? And those are long term goals. And so it's not about seeing them every week for the rest of their life, but it's about building a long term relationship and a long term goal. And each of them it's. I gotta basically pitch the three year thing, the two year thing. What's this long term goal? Because I can get you back to competition, but we got to make sure you stay there and you continue to get better because you have years and years of competing ahead of you and we can't just get you back and then stop. We have to get you back and help you get stronger and stronger. And in order for that to happen, we have to know why that's important. And they have to be clear on why these goals are important. Even if it is like mine was when I was competing in semi pro cycling was just to push my body as hard as I can, push it and push it as far as I can and see how far I can actually go. And I never thought it'd be a category two and I ended up category one. I mean I raced in some pro races in Europe I honestly didn't belong in. And I went to national champ amateur national championships in the U.S. i did some semi, a lot of semi pro races with some amazing people. Like people that rode the Tour de France were in the races I was in and I still had a hard time keeping up with them. And like I knew I raced bikes until I just climbed off because I didn't want to be there anymore. Um, and that was near Santa Barbara. So anyways, like you can push, you can push, you can push. And you have to know why, you have to know your reason and you have to be clear on it. And then sometimes when things get hard, you don't keep put trying to push that rusty door open. You got to walk around the building and go open the door or go through the door that's already open. And so, you know, like I said, like, I've got a door working with some competitive athletes that just kind of creaked open for me. I'm gonna go explore that for a little bit, spend some time in the clinic and make sure it's running on all cylinders. Hey, so that's it for the show today. So I'll still be working with my coaching clients, cash, pt, Blueprint members, Platinum Mastermind members if you're interested in either of those programs. If you're looking to launch a cash practice, go check out Cash PT Blueprint. This is a course to help physical therapists, occupational therapists, SLPs and other healthcare providers launch and grow a six figure cash based practice and help you get your first 5k months. And then you can check out our Platinum Mastermind group. It's CashPTMastermind.com it's got all a lot of the details there and this is for people that want to scale a multiple six and even seven figure cash practice physical therapy business, even a physical therapy coaching business in the fastest time possible and work together with us every week to build out a personalized game plan. So check out those two resources and if you're just looking for something easy and free and a way to get on my email list, go get a copy of the Cash PT checklist. It's cashptchecklist.com and be sure to follow me on Instagram. It's Instagram. Aaron LeBauer Go to Aaron LeBauer Send me a message over there with the word book. I'll send you a free copy of my book. You can even message me the word checklist or Blueprint over there and I'll send you details about either of those programs. And if you just want to hop on a call and chat, you don't know what's right for you, go to call with aaron.com. that's a bunch of websites. Usually when you make a call to action you're only supposed to do one. But for now I wanted to give you some of the main ways to do that. A 15 minute call with me. Call with Aaron. We'll figure out where you are, where you want to go and what's the best way to get you there. So we'll chat soon. Keep taking action. Rock and roll and I'll see you on the next episode. Peace.
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