In this solo podcast, Dr. Kelly Alhooie—who has built seven‑figure pelvic‑health businesses both in‑person and online—breaks down the distinct skill sets, systems, and realities of running a brick‑and‑mortar practice versus an online pelvic‑health business. She outlines the core competencies needed for each model: leadership, hiring a manager, community‑building events, and mastery of Google and Meta ads for a physical clinic; and influencer branding, daily on‑camera content, Meta ads, SEO‑focused blogging, long‑form video, sales funnels, and email/SMS nurture for an online operation. Alhooie stresses that every component must be systematized, that both models demand hard work, and that misconceptions about the ease of online businesses are false. She argues that staying competitive requires a coach who can keep up with rapid platform changes (e.g., AI‑driven Meta ads). She then shares revenue and profit benchmarks for online‑only, hybrid, and brick‑and‑mortar practices, highlighting typical monthly earnings ($2k‑$11k online, $10k‑$15k hybrid, $20k‑$70k brick‑and‑mortar) and profit margins (40‑60%+). Personality traits (introvert vs extrovert) influence which model fits best, and her PelviBiz program assesses strengths to recommend a pathway. Finally, she promotes PelviBiz’s pre‑built systems—including Power Circle, AI tools, a proprietary social‑media app, and extensive funnel/email infrastructure—saving clients hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of development time. Listeners are invited to reach out for coaching and support.
Chapters
Pelvic health business owners, let's talk about a brick-and-mortar practice versus having an online business in a pelvic health space. I'm Dr. Kelly Alhooie. For those that don't know, I built a 7-figure practice online. I built a 7-figure practice in person as well, and I can speak highly of the differences of these because I've actually been able to do both. So let's start with a brick-and-mortar. A brick and mortar. The skill sets that you must learn is not more con ed. Let me just be very clear on that. The skill sets that you must learn are business skills. So the business skills are leadership. Can you actually build a team and grow a team? That's huge. And I know some of you guys are like, oh my gosh, that sounds so scary. By the way, two and a half therapists, you are at a million dollars. So I'm not talking about. A massively huge company. I'm talking about a company that runs very lean, that runs as like a small team, and you can make a lot of money and change a lot of lives, okay? So it doesn't have to be this some big production. You need leadership skills. Leadership skills is the thing that's gonna keep you in business. The next thing is you need to know that the key piece to a brick and mortar is hiring an amazing manager that actually can manage the people and you don't have to. And I think that's what most people are actually scared of. They're scared of managing other people and all the things. Well, guess what? That's not your role anyways. Your role is the CEO. You should not be the manager at all. Okay? So you hire the right manager, but we have to teach you skill sets to actually be able to do that. So that's the second thing that I think in a brick-and-mortar practice you must have. The third thing is, I believe that you have to be able to be good at community events, workshops, just building up your community, especially in person. Like you being the known go-to and you to continue to be that. If you don't want to be that, then maybe brick and mortar is not for you, just so you know. Like I really believe you have to be the go-to in your community, and people have got to think about you over anyone else. In your community. So if you're not really like love to be the community builder, by the way, you could hire that out, okay? Um, you definitely could. Or you be and embody the brand so that people think about you and coming to you. Um, the next thing is you have to be good at Google and Meta ads, both of those, not just one. So on Online in a Minute, you're going to see that you have to be good at Meta, but Google for brick and mortar is good because that's where all the hot people hangout. So I would say, like, if you're really trying to build a brick-and-mortar practice, I would say that's the most differentiating thing versus online. Because the same thing is you have to build messaging and you have to have a method and you have to— like, there's so many similarities to brick-and-mortar and online, by the way. It's not that much different, but there are differences. And today's episode is on the differences, not the similarities. So let me go to online. The online difference here is you have to be an influencer, meaning you have to present and show up authentically you. You have to tell stories. You have to be comfortable showing your face every single day on camera. You have to be comfortable being dressed up. You have to be comfortable of talking on camera. You have to be comfortable posting 3 times a day, at least up to 8 times a day right now in this, you know, world and economy. The second thing, you must be good at meta ads. You must be good at it because otherwise your competitors will eat you alive. The third thing, you must be good at blogs for SEO. It's still a thing, guys. Still a thing. Fourth thing, you must be good at long-form video. You must be good at online websites with all the backlinks and every picture needs to have a link and, and you cross being referred to many people that have given you rewards and all the things like You must be a wizard at online. Okay, the next thing is you must know how to do funnels. You must know how to do thank you pages. There's funnels for so many things, by the way. You must know how to do a text email series to be able to nurture people. So these are the biggest differences between brick and mortar and online. And by the way, I'm not saying that a brick and mortar shouldn't have text and email. And all that in their systems. Because by the way, we have those systems. It's called Power Circle, one of our programs that you should join if you want all of our systems that are already built out for you. We have it, so why reinvent the wheel? So anyways, we have it all. We have all these systems. So we have all the online systems that you need, all your funnels, all your emails, all that. And we have all the brick-and-mortar Systems that you're going to need, especially for a pelvic health practice. So we got it, guys. So why reinvent it? That's my whole point to this: is you're going to have to have systems. Systems are in everything. When I say systems, I mean leadership. That's a system. Management. That's a system. Ads. It's a system. Blog posts. It's a system. Everything is a system. So you must systematize. to be able to grow a business. And the biggest thing that I can tell you, doesn't matter if you're brick and mortar or online, is that you've gotta work hard. Like, they're both hard, by the way. They're not easy, they're both hard. So it's not like online, which I think there's this like misconception that, oh, just throw out stuff and it's gonna hit. No, you're working your tail off behind the scenes. And by the way, brick and mortar, just as hard. You're in treatment rooms with patients all day long. Just as hard. Okay, both are hard. Both are about the same amount of effort, to be honest. You know, I did both for five years online and brick and mortar at the same time, and it about killed me. And so I had to pick one, and I decided to go with my passion, which my passion was helping you guys. And helping you guys elevate. So I decided to let go of that. And I can tell you, even letting go of one, not having brick and mortar now, I actually probably work harder now than I did with both companies. And I just have one company. I'm just being honest because it's just— there's so many things changing dynamically online. So if you are wanting to go online, you need a coach. And I'm not just saying that, like, you need a coach that is on it. That is like literally just today. We just got word that Meta ads now are using AI and they're heavily pushing that today. And mind you, it's what, July, August of 2026, guys? So like that, that wasn't there last week. Like, so that's what I'm saying. Like, you have to have people that are watching this stuff because if you are trying to get clients and work with clients and be with clients and all the things, There's no way, like literally no way that you can keep up with all this. Like there's just no way whether or not you're brick and mortar or online. And so I really believe if you do not like have a coach or like helping someone and like be on your team to help walk you through like what is actually like staying up on the thing, it's just you can't. I mean, it's hard to compete. You just cannot compete with people that have one that are competing. Because they have an advantage, because they know stuff that— and they're doing stuff differently than the people that aren't. And so that's how I see who's winning, is the people that are really learning and investing in new business skills, whether or not it's brick and mortar or online. And by the way, let me just be very clear on this: I am a massive brick and mortar supporter. Um, I believe that's where you can make a significant Uh, amount of income. Not that online you can't, but I believe you can grow brick and mortar faster than online. Not saying it's not possible online, I'm just saying it's going to take you a little bit longer. Um, so, you know, for my clients, we have a couple different paths that we work with. So we have people that we work with that are just online only. Um, they travel every 3 months to different places, all the things like that is who they are. They move cross-country, they go, you know, they have husbands in the military. Like, those are those people, okay? And by the way, our clients right now are making anywhere between $2,000 to $11,000 a month online, just to give you an idea. Um, we have hybrid, which we have people also in our program that are, um, they see about 10 to 15 clients in person, and then they also have online offers. And so they're making anywhere between $10,000 to $12,000 to anywhere between like $15,000 a month. And so I like that deal because like in-person is like kind of your stability. Like all y'all want stable jobs. Like in-person is your stable job. And then your online, it takes a moment to build it. So like you've gotta then keep producing online while you're also having income come in in person. That's cool. That's great. And then we also have companies that are just brick and mortar, and those brick and mortars are at, you know, $60,000, $70,000 months on the higher end, and then on the lower end, $30,000, $20,000 to $30,000 a month for just strictly brick and mortar. So, you know, you can see the price range here. God, I'm just telling you the data. Like, there's no skewing the data here. I'm just telling you what I see in my clients that, you know, we've helped. And so, and then by the way, the profit margins of how I coach is at least over 20%, not this 10% BS. I don't think 10% is worth it. Even online, anywhere between 60 to 40% profit margin is good, sometimes even higher depending on how many AI tools or employees you have. Uh, so this is pretty heavy profit too, which is great. Um, that means it can change your life. And so whether or not you want to start a brick and mortar or whether or not you want to start online, I think both are great. I do believe though that, um, starting just online, just know that you have to have a longer runway. That's what I'm going to say about that. You have to have a longer runway to get started online. It's not like tomorrow you just start going and then all of a sudden you can't just start launching ads. I think that's a myth too. Like you just start launching ads. No, if you're not doing organic before, how can you even make an ad? If you're not doing organic to see what's hitting, why would you put money towards an ad? It makes no sense, by the way. So don't let the floonies on the internet fool you. Okay? Um, that's not it. You have to have the thing, you have to have many things in order. And please go listen to other podcasts that I've done on this, um, to be able to really hit online well. Um, brick and mortar, I believe tomorrow you can go out and treat your sister-in-law and get paid for it. I, I think it's very, uh, I shouldn't say very easy, but I think it's easier to immediately get a client in person than it is online. I'm not saying it's impossible because you can also just get a DM online and get it as a client as well. Um, but that's not going to be probably from a stranger. It might be from your best friend, cool. Uh, but we have to like put things out there to get people to know, like, and trust you. And there's a cycle, it's called a sales cycle, that takes people through that. That might be a year from you, that might be 2 years for you, that might be 4 years from you or for you. It just depends on how quickly you can get people interested and warmed up to you. If you're an introvert, you might have a little bit harder time with doing in-person stuff. Um, you may be amazing online. Some of the introverts I know freaking shine when the camera turns on. Um, and then are completely different in person. Um, if you're an extrovert, you may hate online because you have to talk to a camera all day long. Um, and you may just want to build your community and be involved in your community, and like, that's what you love. Great, then do that. So like, also people's personality types play a role on what their strengths and weaknesses are. So I don't think there's a blanket statement that I could put on you should do this and you should do this. No. I have to assess your personality. When you come to PelviBiz, we assess your personality, we assess your strengths, and then we say, okay, what is the fastest business skills that we can equip you with so that you can go from here to here in whatever pathway that you want? So then we decide, is it just online? Is it hybrid? Is it just in person? What do we want? And by the way, it all works. Okay. But there's just very— there's so many different factors. So what is that? And that's kind of my guys' take on online and brick-and-mortar for pelvic health therapists specifically. So if you guys are like wanting to know more or wanting to know more about our systems that we already have built out so that you don't have to spend— like I spent just for brick-and-mortar at least $250,000 to build out those systems. And probably two and a half to three years online, a year so far, a year to year and a half to build these out. And every single day it's changing, so we have to just keep updating because of all the new AI stuff. So and everything like that. And we have our own social media app to put put out posts every single day. So there's just like so. Much. We have our own AI in our whole— in our company. Like, it is— it's insane. So yeah, there's just a lot that we can provide and help you guys with. So if you're struggling, just stop struggling and just reach out because we can help. Um, or if you have any questions, comments, concerns, comment below. Um, you can always find us @pelvibiz. P-E-L-V-I-B. Guys, be happy to chat, and let's do this as a discussion. Bye, guys!
