This content was created by Kelly Alhooie. This content was uploaded by Kelly Alhooie. This is a YouTube video titled "How to Stop Working IN Your Practice and Start OWNING It #businessstrategy #pt" (posted 2026-08-10) featuring Kelly Alhooie delivering a solo talk/coach-style presentation aimed at physical and occupational therapy practice owners. Kelly gives practical business advice on how to scale out of the solopreneur phase—chiefly by hiring a dedicated on-site office/clinic manager (not an admin or marketer), paying market rates (she cites ~$70–80K/year), building a team of providers, and adopting business skills to regain time and avoid burnout. The talk emphasizes the manager's role as the operational glue, the financial trade-offs to buy freedom, and the mindset shifts needed to grow a practice that runs without the owner.
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Here's the truth about how to build a practice that actually runs without you. There is one key piece to it all: manager. You must have a key manager that is on site in a brick-and-mortar practice that can manage the clinicians, that can manage, you know, the entire team, and that keeps everyone together. And the key piece here that people miss out on is having an actual manager. I'm not talking about an admin, I'm not talking about a sales and marketing person, I'm talking about a true manager that manages the problems, the space, the therapists, the providers, all the moving parts. The manager is key, and I find that for physical therapists and occupational therapy practices that they don't really get why having a manager is worth its weight in its gold because like the manager really can't bring in therapy, like, uh, sorry, clients, and the manager really isn't answering phones because she's at a higher level. I mean, she can, um, and so they don't really see the value in having a manager. And I can tell you because I had an amazing manager, um, at my clinic and she was the glue of the place. Like, they liked her more, way more than they liked me. Um, because she was kind of like the mom and like she allowed me to be able to leave and come and go to California while the clinic was growing because she had her hands, um, you know, and everything. And she knew how to lead and run a clinic. And a manager is also different than a leader. A manager helps manage the people, meaning helps guide them on keeping us on track on what we should be doing, help solve problems, helps deal with people's feelings. It's basically like a supportive mom. That's what I— that's what I feel like. And my manager was freaking like that, and she was amazing. And so when the mom goes bye-bye, what happens? The kids start to kind of push the boundaries. The kids start to maybe act up. The kids start to say, oh well, there's no mom here, so now I run this show. And so I find that if you guys have— because I'm hearing more and more about this— like, you guys have like virtual admins, that's great. Cool. But if you really want to be able to step back out of your practice, which that is the level I recommend everyone get to because that is where you actually get the reward, not staying as a solopreneur. When you stay as a solopreneur, you get burnout. When you just stay with you treating and someone else treating, you get the middle of the road. You kind of have a little bit of autonomy, but you don't really yet. And you still feel like you're in the rat race. When you're completely pulled out of your business, meaning you are not treating and now you are thinking and processing and managing, not managing, sorry, but like truly trying to get what are the bottlenecks, auditing everyone's performance and what's happening and all those things. That is your role. Paying taxes, like that's actually now your role. You then get freedom. That's what everyone wants, but they all start— stop at solopreneur phase because they believe that that's freedom. No, that's a recipe for burnout. Don't do it. Don't fall for the trap. You've got to get to where someone else is managing the clinic, managing the clinic. And to do that, you need a significant amount of capital coming in for a good manager. You just do. I mean, the manager, you're gonna have to pay at least $70,000 to $80,000. You have to have $70,000, $80,000 that's hanging out in your company that you can pay to have the company run. And is it worth it? Hell yeah, it's worth it to have that person on board for $70,000 to $80,000. Hell yeah. Okay. Because they— you basically pay $80,000 a year to buy your time back. Would you pay that, guys? Would you pay that to be out of a treatment room for the entire year? Would you pay $80,000? Like, let me know in the comments. Would you pay $80,000 to not be in a treatment room for 360 days? I would. I would. Okay, and if you wouldn't, well then maybe you're never going to get to freedom. Like, really, that, that's, that's just it. Freedom means that you have a completely blank schedule. The only way that I had a completely blank schedule is when I had therapists and a manager in my clinic. Like, there's no BS here, by the way, okay? That is the truth. That is the only way I had a free schedule. And I guess the next thing is when I sold my business, I had a free schedule, and I still have a free schedule. So those are the only two ways. But if you stay solo, or if you stay in the middle where you're slightly treating, not treating, and you're making around $30,000 to $50,000, Like, that's still not freedom. You are locked in to when the patient needs you at the clinic. You have to be there to treat. So like, if something goes awry or you get sick, you still don't have freedom. And it's just— it will wear you out, guys. It will wear you the heck out. You became a business owner to make more money, to have freedom, to be able to make choices, to be able to think and process, because at your normal job, they didn't really allow you to think. They allowed you to be on the freaking hamster wheel. That's what they allowed. And if you want to get off the freaking hamster wheel, then like you need to get to the level where you actually have a manager and you have providers. And doesn't have to be many, it could be 2 providers. That's great. It will give you the life that you want. It will give you the trips that you want. It will take you to Disneyland 5 times a year if you wanted that. It will give your kids an incredible life if you have kids, or your dog if you just have a dog, or a cat. You might be a cat person too. Okay, so like, stop dreaming so small because you only have skills to dream small. Start surrounding yourself with people that actually know how to elevate you already have the tools, already have the resources, and understand how to do it to get you from here to here very quickly. Stop self-sabotaging. You're self-sabotaging. That's what's happening. You are self-sabotaging right now. And all it is is because your brain is trying to keep you safe. Stop it. Stop it right now. Okay? Tell yourself, like, boop, hit yourself upside the head. Tell yourself, don't— stop, stop, stop, stop doing that. Okay, come on now, you gotta elevate. And when you elevate, you got to learn new skills, and it's called business skills. Okay, so that's how you build a practice that runs without you. One key component: an office manager. That's key. Remember that, guys.
