Beyond the World of Corporate Physical Therapy with Dr. Aryn Delaney

Hi, welcome to the Pelby Biz Podcast. Are you a pelvic health PT or ot struggling to start your own practice? This podcast helps pelvic health PTs and OTs get out of debt, gain the income they desire, be able to treat patients without insurance restraints, and learn how to create time freedom for yourself and your family. I'm your host, Dr. Kelly Alhui, founder of Ortho, Pelvic Physical Therapy, Pelvic health business grower and Pelvi Biz. Over the last two years, I went from a solo entrepreneur to a seven person team in counting. I'm here to help provide a clear path to grow your pelvic health business as fast as possible so that you can gain the time freedom, decrease debt, increase income and live the life that you desire. Before we get started today, make sure you click the link in our bio to grab your ticket for Pelvi Biz. Now let's get into today's episode.

What's up guys? Welcome to Pelby Biz Podcast. I'm your host, Kelly Alhui. Today I have a very special guest with me, Erin. She is part of my mastermind and she has been an amazing colleague as well. So go ahead, give it up for Erin, everyone. Give it up. Erin, go ahead and introduce yourself and tell us where people can find you.

Hey guys, my name is Erin Delaney and thank you, Kelly for having me on your podcast. It's an honor to be on today. I am a physical therapist based out of Sarasota, Florida and people can find me on my website, which is Warrior Physical Therapy llc. That's the name of my company is Warrior physical therapy, Instagram, warriorphysicaltherapy and then on Facebook, also Warrior Physical Therapy LLC.

And you can find her on TikTok because she has some amazing TikTok videos.

That's right, I am on TikTok one viral when pretty viral. 11.2 million views. Wow.

Wow. Well, we'll have to. You know what, we're gonna have to talk about that because people are gonna have to know, you know. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you should check her out, go follow her. But today's today's podcast and today's lesson. I think the biggest takeaway that I've personally learned is that just when you think you should give up and try something, that maybe you shouldn't throw in a towel just yet and that you should keep striving forward. So we're going to talk about Erin's story. So here we go, let's get into it. So Erin, tell us when you tell she recently got married.

Right, right. So late last year in December. I got married right towards the end of December. And that was a blessing in disguise, Covid. The silver lining for me is it put my student loans on hold so I was able to save to pay for my wedding. So that's kind of what got the ball rolling is I saw what I could be saving and what I could be doing to get me to start thinking outside the box. Because I thought, how in the world do I have a profession? I have my doctorate degree and I'm still paycheck to paycheck. It made me mad.

It makes all of us mad. A lot of us are all in the same boat. I can 100% relate to that. Yeah. And so that made you mad and that made you feel like, hey, there's gotta be something different, right?

Oh, absolutely. I told the universe there has to be something else. I started to start manifesting what else is out there for me. And Pelvibiz came across on social media. And I remember I DMed you somewhere in November, December, and I asked you, I'm a little bit more ortho based, is this something that would be of interest to me? I'm not sure, you know, I'm on the fence. Is this something? But I'm very interested in moving forward. And your response was, if you ever plan to own your own business, absolutely. This event is for you. I'd love to talk to you further. Your energy was great and I thought, yeah, in five to 10 years, I'd like to start my own business. So after talking to you a little further, I thought, what the heck, I'm going to buy my ticket for Pelvibiz. Then Tampa, it's an hour away from me. It's in my backyard. It'd be silly not to go. And I didn't read the fine print. I didn't know I got you as a business coach as well. That was a really blessing in disguise as well. Because then I got into your boxer chats and I heard other people going through their experiences and hearing their fears and their concerns. And everybody seemed in a different stage of creating their own business. And that's really what thought, what made me think, I can do this, I can do this too. I can be one of these people. Right.

And it probably inspire you to see, wow, there was people above me, like, okay, I'm just actually one step below that person. And then there's also people that were, you know, I don't want to say underneath you, but at a lower Level to where they didn't even have a concept of a business yet. And you're like, oh, but I actually am a little bit further along than this person.

Right, right.

And so it gives you that like hope of maybe this doesn't have to be a ten year plan, maybe this could be now. Right? It did.

And you know, we all have these voices of self doubt and what's going to go wrong? And this is scary. Should I even jump? Is it risky not to have an income? So I had January and February to really think about this. And I decided in March to put in my two weeks to quit completely, not to go to part time, not to do anything else. I said, I'm going to jump, I'm going to quit. So that was my thought process going into March. At the end of March, I quit and then April, starting my business.

Okay, let's talk about that moment. Because guys, she just said she literally had. I mean, did you have any patients on your schedule then or.

No, No, I saw a cliff and I jumped off of it.

Okay, guys, listen. She had zero patients on her schedule. Zero. Okay. And she was like, screw this. Now, Erin, let me ask you this. I haven't asked you this before, but it was there. Like, what drove that? That takes a lot of balls to jump off the freaking cliff, Right? So what drove that?

So right around when I started talking to you, I also had three other companies reach out to me that I didn't reach out to and said, we're desperate for pts. We need pts. So I decided I'm going to quit my job regardless and I'm going to go with one of these other professions because it's $15,000 more a year, which would have changed my family's life. And so I said, I'm going to quit my job. I'm going to accept this one. I was in a verbal contract with these people. It sounded great. Your voice, your encouragement, your motivation, your energy told me, don't do this because you're going to start it for three months, it's going to be great and then your business is going to pick up. And I thought, how embarrassing would that be for me to start a business, accept a position, and in three months quit. And I thought, that's not fair to myself and it's not fair to that company. And I decided not to go with any of the companies and to just start my business.

Wow. Wow, guys, that is, that's. I mean, that's amazing because people in your position, a lot of people would have said, screw it let me just take this company on and I'll just do my side hustle and just start my own business, you know, just maybe when I have the time. And to be honest, you probably would not be where you're at right now, which we'll get into, if you would have taken that position.

I agree. And that was the feedback I got from most of the other colleagues. I talked to friends. Oh, just work PRN or just work part time, you know, wean into it. And after talking to you further, I decided that wasn't the route that was going to bring me successful at the timeline that I wanted.

Yeah, and some people, they can just do a side hustle. But the reality, guys, I don't really even like the word side hustle, to be honest, because it tells me your energy and your intention is not really into that business if it's a side hustle. Right. And the way you approach it, Aaron, is you just were like, game on, like, let's do it.

Right.

And yes, sink or swim, like, if I can do this, I'm going to do this and this time I'm going to do it. And you can actually really accelerate the time when you just go all in because all your energy and all your effort can actually go to your own business. Compared to it being divided and thinking, oh my God, I'm so tired now after work and now I got to try to go and do my own business. It just, a lot of times it's very hard to get that momentum going.

Yeah, absolutely. I felt that too. Because how would I work and market? Like I'm marketing and try to make these videos and like I wanted to have something for whenever anyone googled me. I want to make sure I had something behind my name so I wasn't completely brand new. Brand new. I wanted something there if somebody looked me up that they would find something to say. Oh, that's a face to a name, you know, just some familiarity.

Yeah, of course, of course. Now, Erin, tell everyone. When did you graduate?

I graduated in May of 2019.

Okay, so she graduated in May 2019. Okay, so it's 2022. Okay, so that's what, two years? Three years? I don't even know I can do math.

Three years.

Okay, so it's been three years. She's been practicing and now she's decided to open up a business.

Okay.

So she dove headfirst without any patience on her schedule. She came to Pelviz. We had a great time. By the way, she's an amazing dancer. So there's probably some videos on TikTok, by the way, that you guys should check out. But she's an amazing dancer. She taught us all how to dance and pop our booties. So that was fun. But okay. We had some doubt seeping in and of, hey, can I actually do this? Do I actually need to take another position or do I need to take a PRN job? Because I don't know if I can fill my schedule. Right, right.

Yeah. So I got to a point when I was quitting my job, I grew up in this town. I know doctors, I know nurses. I know some people that I thought would be a great referral source for me. So I thought maybe I would get an in, I would get a consistent referral source off the bat. It would help my business role because I knew somebody and a lot of times it is who you know, but it's also, you know, how you approach those people. And so I've learned some lessons along the way, what to say, what not to say. So I feel like this has been a big learning curve. But I came in thinking I'm going to have six people a week to start off with in April and just build off that. And I ended up with six people for the whole month. So, you know, two people a week to me was just, all right, well use that time, go market, go do something with that. But it wasn't paying off and something wasn't clicking. The ball wasn't rolling. I was jacking up my credit card bills to get the business started to buy the equipment that I wanted and mobile. So I didn't want it to buy the tables and everything to bring with me mobile because I wasn't going to have a location and I wanted to make sure I kept enough money in my bank account to pay my bills. I don't want my husband to have to carry rent or, you know, I didn't want to default on anything. So groceries, gas, non essentials, everything went on my credit cards and my credit cards went up and my bank account got smaller and smaller. And by the end of April I realized I only have enough money left for one more month of rent before I'm completely out of money. So I started to have that self doubt kick in again. Did you jump too quickly? Was that a good move not to have a prn? Should I get another position? I was offered these positions, I could reach back out to them. I always felt with physical therapy I'd always have a job so if something didn't pay off, I could always go back to those PRN jobs. And I shed a couple of tears. And I remember I reached out to you and I said, kelly, you know, I don't want to be the quitter of the team, but I've run out of money, I don't know what to do. I'm having a lot of self doubt. I'm feeling guilty to tell my partner, I don't know if I can pay you rent anymore. Maybe you're going to have to step up for me. And I never want to do that. I always want to be self sufficient. And you gave me a pep talk and you said, okay, what do we do? How do you pivot? What's your next step? What are you doing? Tell me your day, day by day. Break it down. And you said, go out and you can talk to people. Go out and talk to people. So I did. And I was emailing. That was my problem too. I was emailing everybody saying, hey, this is what I do, you know, reach out to me. And nobody emailed me back. So I went out in person and I networked. I networked, I networked and I came back with workshop after workshop and I made connections and lunches and honestly, my whole business flipped around after that conversation.

Guys, this is what it's called the hustle right here. This is the hustle, okay? She, Erin was desperate, okay, out of the desperation that she kind of created, right, of quitting her job. No patience on the schedule, she's running out of money. She, she then had to change, she had to change her technique. So she was sitting behind the computer screen, which most people do, and they just sit there and they start emailing these companies thinking, oh, everyone should start their email and they're going to respond back to me. And the reality is it's so impersonal that people are not going to just sit there and want to write you back. You actually have to go and make connections out in the community. And we had to come up with a different strategy. So what we did is we just changed the strategy up. And then she was like, all right, she had to switch gears and she had to do something different than she was actually used to doing. And it probably put her outside her comfort zone. She's great at talking to people. But I had to take guess that it's probably pushed you outside your comfort zone a little bit, right?

Absolutely. And you got to the point or I was so desperate and you told me your story. I stopped people on the side of the sidewalk or on a trail and I said, hey, I'll do a free movement assessment for you. I was that desperate that I went out to a trail and I stopped people. I said, hey, you know, I was going to Dollar Tree, I was going to make a big poster and I was going to put it over my head where one says something on my front, something on my back. And I'm walking around that trail because there's no way I'm going to be dead broke and this much debt. So I decided this is not happening. I have to do something different.

Guys, it's all about the frigging mindset. And once you changed her mindset, that's like, I'm not going to be a quitter. I'm not going to be the one on the team that's like, hey, I'm done. I'm not going to let like this job thing win over me. Like that's where her mind's at. And once she set that up and then she just had the right guidance, it's game over now, guys. She hasn't said this, but she 4x her income. Okay, 4x her income in two months.

Right, right.

That's crazy.

Facebook word of these all turned my business around. And I'm seeing, you know, I tripled the amount of people I've seen in May. I doubled that in June, and what, you know, now I'm making more than what I was making at my previous job.

And guess what, she's working less hours. And guess what, she's probably not nearly as tired as she was. Oh, and guess what, let's get to the real good part. You can take your step kids to and from school, right?

Yes.

And you have the time to do that.

That was one of the biggest blessings and eye opening experiences because I always had to leave the house at 7:15, be at work by 8. It was that typical 8 to 5 job. I could never take my kids to school. My husband had to drive 30 minutes out of the way, take the kids to drive 30 minutes back the other way to go to work. For almost a decade, nine years, he did this. And now I finally said, hey, I can do it. I have the time. And I saw these other moms dropping their kids off and walking out and I thought I would never get here. I thought I'd never be one of these moms. I knew there was moms that worked out at 9:30 or went and grabbed coffee with friends and I thought, what do these people do for work? How do people make money? I was always so bitter that these moms were doing this. And then I felt out of place, like, you know, I'm in somebody else's shoes right now. I feel like I'm living somebody else's life. And then I thought, no, this is the life I asked for and that I wanted to be able to take my kids to school. How basic and what a joy it was.

No, but it's so amazing. And it's such like you. I mean, most people are like, kelly, I have these goals, and that is actually one of the goals that people say is I just want to be able to take my kids to school or pick them up from school. And that's a big thing. It's a big, big deal. And it's just so amazing that, you know, now you're making more money than your job and that you're able to get your time back and, you know, live the life that you want to live.

Right. I still feel like I can be a role model. I didn't have to sacrifice my career to get here. I didn't have to ask my boss for time off and use my vacation time to go to a doctor or to do these little minimal things that I think should be just a basic function of life that I had to beg for before. And like, hey, like, when can I go to a doctor? Oh, it's season. We have patients from this month make it. You can go summer when we're not in season, right?

Yeah. I mean, it's so hard to take off work because those are the hours that typically, you know, people are off. And so they want us there. And so, yeah, just to take off to go to the doctors. I remember how stressful that was when, you know, I was sick and I'm like, oh, my God, I can't take another day. Or you just couldn't just sign up for a doctor's appointment. You have to wait months because you have to request off, then get it approved and then you could potentially go to the doctor's office. Right.

For those two years, I never had Thanksgiving with my family because we had worked after Thanksgiving, so I couldn't have the four day weekend. So it was just those memories and those moments. I had to tell my family, sorry, I can't come. I have work. Just those basic holidays that you want or just moments with your family.

Moments, which is. Family is everything. Right? I mean, that's what drove me. I mean, my dad was diagnosed with cancer. Then all of a sudden they're like, oh, yeah, you can't go back for Christma. And I was like, what? Like, that's What? Honestly got my ball rolling.

I would get anyone's rolling. That would infuriate me.

Yeah. And it was just crazy. And they wouldn't let me. So I'm sure so many people can relate to this. And I think, guys, so many people listening to this right now, they're probably thinking, well, it's just so hard.

They're going to come up with a.

Little bit excuses of, I can't do it. I don't have a website. I don't have this logo. I don't have. I don't have a table. I don't have an llc. These are all the things that I hear all day long. And. Yeah, but Erin, can you tell them you don't need a website, right?

No, I didn't at all.

You don't need an llc.

Guys, I still don't have a logo. My logo is my picture. See myself. It's me.

And she just 4x her income, people. She just 4x her income and doesn't even have a logo. You don't need to start with a logo. Whoever tells you you start with a logo, please get rid of them. I'm telling you, you just got to start with drive, passion, and just be willing to just do whatever it takes. As you just hear her, she said, I was literally going to put on a poster board to stand outside and just start talking to people. That's literally all you have to be willing to do is just be able to stand there and say, hey, hey, hey, and just start talking to people, especially in person, because that really moves the ball, right?

How can I get someone's attention? How can I stop someone amid their conversation and get them to talk to me without them rolling their eyes? Because I always hated that at the mall.

Yeah.

By somebody, right? Come into my store.

Like, no, don't look at me.

Don't make eye contact. So I got that vibe now. I was the person like, hey, I see you, you see me. Let's chat.

And then.

So I wanted to create the environment that was fun and friendly and joking and hold my. And wear a poster board and something really weird that it would just be like, all right, maybe I'll actually just take a picture with you and, you know. Promotions.

Promotion, Right, exactly. No, that's so amazing. So I think also people, listeners here would want to know, how did you start your social media? Like, how did you grow on social media? How did you get comfortable, you know, showing your face and showing up on social media?

So I started on TikTok, and that's usually the One that scares everybody. Yeah. Or are comfortable with Facebook or Instagram. I did the opposite. I did the funny dances, and I thought that that was neat. And they had a lot of music choices and a lot of the voiceover that you could sink your mouth to. And I started being really silly on their first, and it caught a lot of people's attention, but, oh, my gosh, I can't believe you did that dance. Or I can't believe you know, that's content you made. So I started to build off TikTok because I thought it was fun instead of intimidating. I got a kick out of it. And then I started doing ortho during COVID You know, if you have poor posture and you're at your desk all day, do this. So I started to do a little bit more orthopedic videos, and I got, you know, 50 likes. Or it started to kind of creep up and I said, okay, people like demonstrations. So what do people respond to? How are my videos reaching more people? What are the hashtags I'm using? And then little by little, I started to realize, well, this voiceover got me more attention, so I'm going to roll with that. And I started to build a community on TikTok. And I made one video that went viral, and I cannot tell you how many people have shared it. And I don't know if you're familiar with. They have one of those blue check marks. They just shared my video the other day, so I thought that that was kind of fun, that a blue check mark shared my video and got me noticed.

That's amazing. It's amazing. And I think. I mean, could you say that just doing it consistently, Erin, has just helped give you confidence? I think people struggle a lot of times with confidence, you know, on social media.

Right. And when you're behind the screen, who cares? You know, it's almost like I'm not speaking to anybody. I wasn't live. I still honestly haven't done a live. That one still makes me a little nervous. But it's on my to do list. But I would. I thought it was fun, and if anyone didn't like it or if anyone got offended or whatever the case, you can always delete it. So it was just something that I didn't put a lot of emphasis on or a lot of stress on. To me, it was more just fun, something to do that was enjoyable.

Yeah, I like that. I like how you just phrase that like, hey, if it just doesn't work out, or if someone's, like, leaving nasty Comments? Yeah, you can just delete it. That's a good point.

I thought I was like, well, then we can do away with that one. I won't do it again.

Right, Yeah, I like that. Just like, hey, whatever. It's casual, you know, so it's way less intimidating.

Yeah, that one viral got me on the books or got me noticed, I should say. It brought me up to 24,000 followers.

Wow.

I feel like I have more of an impact. I have other pelvic pts following me and liking and commenting, which I felt like we're creating a community. And, you know, on TikTok, everyone borrows somebody's idea. It doesn't always have to be original. If you don't know where to start, look at. Just look up a topic or a hashtag, see what other people did or see what the music is. Just put your own spit on it. You know, it's not like a copyright issue over here. When you're making these fun videos, it's more educational. Get the message out. What are you trying to portray? How can you impact more people is what you've always really emphasized. How do we impact more people? Well, this really worked for this person and I think it's a powerful message. I'm also going to use it, but try to put my own spin on it. So I'm not verbatim using somebody else's words, but it's a similar topic.

Yeah, I think that's a really good point. That we can use social media to reach such a broad audience and really get the word out. And I think it can be very impactful, especially in the DMs. The DMs are really where you can make great conversation, but then also in person is where you're going to make like the deepest connection. Not say you can't make a deep connection online, but it is the deepest connection.

Right. And that's where I had. Those TikToks were getting me noticed, but weren't getting me patients. Right. So maybe on a global. I say global because some of them went to other countries, but on a larger scale it was great to bring awareness, but personally it didn't impact my business. So I felt like Instagram and Facebook had a better outreach to local individuals. They were shared more locally versus TikTok was just a little bit more on a global scale. Right.

That's really good to note too. You know, where are you seeing the people and really studying that? Is it. Are they coming from TikTok? Are they coming from Instagram? Where are they coming from and then really kind of hone in on that platform. I think that's a great point.

Right. So I was trying to give enough to get interest for someone to reach out to me, not tell all my secrets because everyone wants that quick fix. They want to watch that video, tell me exactly what to do. And now, you know, I can do it by myself. So I wanted to give a taster and this is, you know, the possibilities of what could become of having a visit. We can just expand on this more. But this is a place to start, not necessarily the whole program. Right, Right.

I think that's huge. Yeah. It's been so amazing, Erin, to watch you literally go from full time job to quitting with no freaking patience to now 4xing that. I mean, that's freaking awesome. And I honestly believe it's only the beginning. I truly believe that. And I just cannot wait to look back at this podcast and be like, wow, we were here and it's only going up.

You know, I can't tell you my mental health is through the roof. I've never been this content and happy and stressed. I don't want to say stress feet because you get different stresses trying to keep your schedule full in other ways. But it was manageable. It wasn't the dread that I had feeling I had to go to my 9 to 5. It was, it's a different stress, but stress that I think is worth it and impactful to me and my family.

Yeah, very well said. I mean, that's. I know for me it was all about the energy. Like, don't you feel like when you were going to that job, your energy was just so sucked and like I felt like I honestly, I did another day there, I was going to croak. But then when you work for yourself, it's like, yes, there can be stressful days, but it's like a different kind of energy. Right?

It is. And it's interesting the feedback that other people give you and you're like, oh, well, if you start your own business, you're not going to be able to turn it off. You know, five, you can leave it there, you don't take it home. Right. One of those, like, I appreciate the feedback. I'll keep it in mind. I haven't had a negative experience where I couldn't shut it off or that something was bothering me. I've been able to work through that. And I can talk to patients outside of hours. We don't have to call them in that 9 to 5. I can call them on A Saturday, I can call them at 6. So that's up to, you know, your own discretion. As a business owner. How do you want to practice? And when I was getting started, you know, I didn't have this huge wait list. So I worked with a girl on a grade scale and I don't always do that, but she was so grateful and she's referred countless people to me. So I thought, as a business owner, how do I want to do something different than where I was? And you know, it's not something I feel like I'll continue to do repetitively, but at the time it was feasible to where I was at in my business. Yeah. And it's paid off.

And guess what the beauty of it, it's your business. You could do whatever the heck you want. Right.

And I just felt gratitude for that. I felt that, you know, this is one of the reasons I wanted to go off on my own. Yep.

That's truly amazing.

A little bit more autonomy.

Yeah. Any other tips or pearls that of anyone starting a business, growing a business that you want to throw out? If not, tell everyone where they can find you again and then, yeah, that will be it.

My last thought is we all have those negative thoughts in our head. We all have those voices that are self doubt and you can overcome those. Those don't have to be your forever thoughts. You can progress past those. You can even put those away. So keep your confidence. Keep in mind that you don't know until you try. You have to go out of your comfort zone to grow. And it's scary, it's very uncomfortable at times. But the growth that you see afterwards, you'll be so proud of yourself. You'll know that you actually did something worthwhile and you can be proud of. So I'd say, you know, if you're just on the fence of what to do back and forth, where do you start? I don't know where to begin. First off, your program with Pelvi Biz changed my life in what, four months or so? It's been incredible. So that's a place to start. Reach out to you. Otherwise there's a lot of people in the business. So talk to people, see what they're doing. Just try versus waiting. Otherwise, reach out to me. I'm on Instagram, Facebook, my websites and then TikTok Warrior Physical Therapy llc. I'm in Sarasota, Florida.

Yep, she'll get you fixed up. Reach out to her. Erin, you've been such an inspiration. Thank you so, so much for coming on. We really appreciate it.

It's been great.

Thank you.

All right. If you are ready to change your.

Life, click the link in the show notes to get your ticket to Pelby Biz.

Let's.