The Boundaries of A Private Owner Practice with Amanda Fisher

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.

Welcome guys to Pelvibe Biz podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Kelly Alhuey. I am here with my good friend Amanda Fisher from Empower your pelvis. Yep. Super excited to have her. On a little backstory. We actually met because I was doing a pelvic video, like dancing pelvic video. And I was like, hey Amanda, you want to be in it? And we met like online.

The greatest video I think before reels ever took off, to be honest.

Yeah.

Of pelvis is and being online, it.

Was awesome with music. I mean it's amazing that that even happened.

Very techie. Very techy for Kelly.

So yeah, man and I met and then we. We're in the same. We're both in the same mastermind group and we get coaching, which is awesome. And it helps kind of guide us and we keep each other accountable and you know, we kind of chat back and forth pretty much daily.

It is pretty much daily. That's very true. Yeah.

Yeah. Pretty much on any problems we have in our life, we can back and forth. So it is dogs.

Yes, Dogs are business.

So highly recommend. If you don't have someone to converse with back and forth of whatever situation you're in, go find you someone. All right, Amazing.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, no problem. Let's get into it. So question. Why did you decide to start your own practice? You know, what drove you to start your own practice?

Yeah, at the time I was working in corporate America for a hospital and watching women push out babies on the daily. Right. So I was working outpatient ortho PT at the time. And you'd get pulled into inpatient. And I ended up setting up a meeting, convincing the nurse manager at the time to let me go speak to the gynecologist, let me talk to them to see, like, how many grade 3, grade 4 tears were they seen in the hospital, how many cesarean deliveries were they having? And those patients not saying anybody with a grade one, grade two or not notarin at all wasn't important. But to the hospital, they got put in the red for the grade three, grade four and cesarean deliveries. So I kind of pitched at them as, hey, let me help you get out of the red, let's get in the green. Why don't you send all of those patients to Pelvic PT within that 24 hour period, have us come in or me come into the room, teach them body mechanics of how to get out of the bed, how to move, how to get their baby up, how to support their bodies better. And it worked. And so we started doing this for the hospital. But then as I was pitching more ideas, they weren't really going through or it seemed to take like, well, you can meet with them in the next quarterly meeting. So it's just getting pushed and like, looking at it, you're like, okay, we're seeing more babies come through than you guys are probably having hip surgeries and low back surgeries. But to the hospital, it wasn't really a money making thing, having kids.

Right.

But to me, I'm like, we're tearing muscles the same way that they're tearing muscles with the acl, like going in and doing a knee replacement. You know, they're messing with tissue. So when I kept getting enough pushback, it kind of pushed me in the direction of like, gosh, maybe I could open my own thing and actually be able to get the content out there to people sooner and help the local ladies, you know, heal their vag and heal their pelvic floor a lot sooner because we all want that, hopefully. And yeah, that led me, led me into searching Probably October, October 2016, because I had had a kiddo. And then by the time I started building my own stuff, February, January, February 2017. And I started out going into people's homes. I got a collapsible table, massage table, used from a massage therapist from downtown Kansas City, because that's where we're located and just started, yeah, carrying that sucker up these stairs in people's homes. And I thought, God, this is heavy.

And.

But it worked. And then I was able to save up enough money to then Rent out a closet and another PT clinic. And that's really where it all started. And I'm so happy that we did it. And once we kind of built up enough. We me. Once I kind of built up enough clientele, may. So I was doing this on my off days, by the way too. Probably not the best.

So you're working full time and you're doing this on your off days. And how many off days did you have?

I had one day a week because I worked four days. And then so this would be like a Friday or Wednesday, whatever I had. If I worked the weekends, then you would get another day off during the week. And so I would see patients and really just trying to build up my caseload and talking to the doctors like, yes, I'm here in the hospital, but I could also see them sooner, you know, on my off days. Yeah.

So let's pause there for a second because we have a lot of people in this phase right now.

Okay.

And they are like, man, how the heck they're thinking, how the heck did you do this? You know, is there any strategy or is there like one tip that you're like, okay, if I could turn back the clock, what would I have done differently or what could I have done better to really help, like self care and also like, you know, be able to manage this? Like, how did you really manage that phase right there?

I hustled. I don't know if that was the best thing, but the hustle is what got it to go through. I made sure I was getting up at 4:30 to 5am at that time in my life to get my self care in, which was working out, going to the gym, which then at the time what I was doing was going to local gyms to get my face there as a mom and kind of spread the word about public health. So to me, it was marketing and gym workout at the same time, which was kind of nice. Before I would go into work on my lunch hours, I would go and market myself to the doctors. And then on the weekends, if I had any referrals come in. In our town, if you get a referral, it goes out to multiple providers, so you gotta be the one that gets on it first. So even lunch periods, if I wasn't going to market through the docs, I was then calling the referrals and setting them up. I don't know if there's any regrets of how I would do anything different. I think just the continual hustle, you'll know at the end, like, the more the More seeds you're planting, the harder you're hustling, the sooner you can get out of that situation is how I look at it.

I completely agree. I mean, I did the same thing. And whether or not that was right, wrong, or whatever else, we do know both of our results. We now have clinics. And it's just. It was a hustle phase. And I guess that's probably the best advice. Not advice, I don't know that you gotta hustle. And I think to Amanda's point, the more people that you can get out and talk to and just keep pushing and being like, you know what, this phase is going to last forever. I just have to keep grinding.

Yes. And so by. So I did that in January, February, and then by May was when I officially moved into the clinic. I left the hospital setting. So it's really. It wasn't that long of a time frame. Right, right. You need less patience than you do working for someone else. So I made sure that I was hitting a certain caseload. I actually left the hospital before I was getting that number, but I knew it wouldn't take long to hit it, and it didn't. And then, yeah, everything kind of changes from there. When I started owning my practice, I did a bad job of, like, setting my boundaries. So I would recommend that to anybody. Like, if you only want to work this time to this time, do it. If you only want to work these days a week, do it. Don't move yourself outside those boundary lines just to try to get a patient, because that, you know, hundred to two hundred bucks really isn't going to make or break you for the month. Like, they will come see you if they're truly, truly needing somebody. Yeah.

That's more of the scarcity mindset that we all have of, hey, I'm never going to see this patient if I don't fit them in at 10 o' clock at night when I have an opening on my schedule. So let me just keep, you know, pushing those boundaries back. I mean, I'm guilty of it, too. I work 10 hour days and sell 10 patients a day, and then all the admin stuff in the back end. Yeah. So, yeah, it's just the hustle and talking, I think, is huge. And then you're right when you feel like, hey, you know what, I can now at least pay my bills a little bit, then maybe those boundaries start, you know, getting there a little bit more. So where you're like, okay, fine, I can have lunch today.

Yeah, yeah. Make sure you're feeding yourself that Was a big one that and I would see patients at like 6, 6:30 in the morning. So I would truck my kids into the office, they would sit there and eat breakfast. We'd probably pick up a smoothie at Panera or something, see a patient, go take them to school, come back up to the office, go get them from school, come back up to the office and we would be there until 7pm at night. So yeah, a hustle. But yeah, try to get out of that and start creating the life that you want with it instead of catering to everyone else with it.

Yeah, for sure. And you have a couple therapists that work for you now. And how is that like how was it hiring your first pt? I mean that's always scary. It's a scary phase for a lot of us. So you know, any pearls or any tips for hiring your first PT at all?

Yes. So when Morgan started with us first, we were still out of the closet. So she would, I would leave the closet at like 2pm or 3pm she would come in and see patients for four hours into the evening. And then on weekends we would tag team the PT clinic because none of their PTs were in there. So we would get two rooms. So we would both see maybe, I don't know, 16 patients together total or to 20 patients on a Saturday and then crush it.

Yeah. So right there you, Amanda is actually maximized. I don't know, you guys are understand what she's doing here, but she is maximizing her room space. So when a lot of people are asking me hey what size room do I need? How can I fit 2pts in here? Guys, if you're only operating with one room like this closet, then really you can think, how many hours in a day can I put someone in here that someone's willing to come? So can they come at 7am, can they come at 6am and can I go to like 8, 9 o' clock at night? So you can technically have 2pts operating on a one room. You just have to know what is my max potential of this room and then that's going to give you value to understand of how you can go and get another room or potentially go into an office space. And so that's what Amanda was doing. So that's very smart.

Yes. And at that time we didn't really have an admin to help us. So I was also still doing the scheduling and I would hire that out way sooner. Definitely before you even think you need it, make sure you have somebody ready to go because it's just you can't imagine how much time it frees up for you to be able to do more things or to see the patients or to find the pts. To be able to see the patients.

Right, to manage the pts.

Yes, everything. Yeah. So, yeah, we hired Morgan probably a couple months into that space. Realizing we had outgrown us trying to manage the schedule that way, we started looking for space. So this would have been December 2019, January 2020. We moved into our new location January 2020, started seeing people we knew. We wanted to bring in Heather, because we had all talked probably back in November. And So she started March 16, 2020. So had a full caseload, full schedule. That first Monday. Yes, the whole world shut down. So I think her schedule went down to five patients. And that's when I started panicking and realizing, like, what the hell is going to happen? We shut down. But then, thank goodness, I am thankful for pelvic pain because that's what really brought us back into the clinic, was our docs being like, our public pain patients. They need to be seen. We're like, absolutely, we'll be there. So we came back in in May of 2020, right after mother's Day. But, yeah, that was, yeah, getting through Covid time. Yeah. Thank God. We had a small space where I thought rent was high then, but it was such a small space that we were able to manage it. The. Some of the best advice I had been given is have, you know, so many months worth of rent and payroll into your savings, so in case some kind of emergency happened. Nobody ever mentioned a pandemic, but in case an emergency happened, you had backup. And so we had backup for a good, I think, six months worth. I probably would go now knowing that, again, I would probably go closer to nine to 12 months worth in savings just to be just in case, like, especially with the rent, we've moved into a larger space now. I would need much more to be able to handle what we're working with now.

Yeah, yeah, no, that's. That's great advice. Can you kind of give us a little insight? Because, you know, we see you online, we see it doing these reels on Instagram, so they're awesome, by the way. We all are very entertained by them. And so can you give us a little advice, like how you started doing this online and any tips, like, any tips that you want to put out, like, of reels or anything that you could help us out with? Any real insight. That would be awesome. Yeah.

So the online piece, I actually started back when I was Starting to open the business, released an ebook because that was the thing at the time. Everybody was releasing ebooks and charging for them. It wasn't like a free ebook, like you should charge for it. And did that 2017. Then turned it into a program somewhat started doing zoom calls and C section online stuff. Probably fall 2019 and that I saw picking up. I should have stuck with it. But then the pandemic kind of hit. But we had groups that were multiplying month by month by month of working with C section moms. I freaking loved it because again, it was hard. It was something I had produced for the hospital and throughout the idea and they didn't want to do it. So I took it upon myself. Well, let's try it over, you know, Facebook, a Facebook group with emails, sending it out via emails and YouTube links. And it was awesome and it did really well. But then clinic kind of took off. At that same point, I couldn't figure out how to manage online and in person. So then I brought on Morgan to help with the in person pandemic hit. We had to pivot. So I saw how the online was already working for us. I was already doing virtual coaching. So we just moved it into, okay, guys, what zoom calls can we do for these women? But how can we help them prep for through their pregnancy, prep for childbirth? Nobody was doing that here in our area and they were. Everything was shut down. How can we help them with the postpartum recovery? How can we help with C section? Like we were coming up with back to school, mommy's nights out, like anything we could think of to really reach this population. And then TikTok started over the pandemic. I was trying to test it out, but you kept hearing like, this is for young kids, this isn't for adults. So I was testing the waters, but I have not been frequent on there. But then reels hit Instagram and I was like, hell to the yes, this is happening. So we started putting out content. I just kind of watch numbers and realized, okay, one week in November or October was Halloween, I'm going to put out a real A day and just see what happens. And that's when things really took off for us on the social media side. So realizing like the consistency is key. Figuring out who your audience is, who your avatar is, what do they want to know? What questions are they asking you? For us, luckily we do a Wellness Wednesday question we have since March 2020. Our audience is telling us what they want to know. So all I have to do if I'm like having, you know, a blank spot one day. Look at those questions. What can I make a video on? And in a shorter timeframe. We have a lot of funny reels out there right now, so we're trying to add a little bit more educational ones that tend to probably be a little bit longer and those do well too. But it seems like the very quick, short, to the point ones do really well. Consistency with that is what I would recommend even posting more often. So I'm seeing that on our TikTok and on our reels. The more we can get out there, the better. And that goes with anything you'll hear with whatever you're doing. It's all about that consistency, that frequency and just doing it because it's gonna, it's gonna flip that algorithm. But rather it's on social media or in person and you're going to speak to gyms or you're going to get your face out at mommy groups or whoever your audience is. If it's breast cancer awareness, like, the more people you get in front of, the more you're planting the seeds that it's going to turn into something. It's just. I don't know what law it is, but it's a law. I'm sure it's a law.

Yeah, you just got to do it. That's the thing. You got to just get out of.

Your law of something.

Yeah, you got to get out of your comfort zone and do it because it can be very intimidating. It can be very scary. I was one of these people. Amanda actually motivated me to be like, hey, you got, you got to get online more. I don't like online, but I'm on there. So thank you for that because, you know, I'm one of the. I'm not shy to do it. I just don't want to do it, so. And I'm the opposite.

Like, I want to get on there. It's my creative outlink that I love. I love it so much. Probably. I don't know, I feel music and I really enjoy 90s 2000s hip hop era. And if I can turn that into you pooping on the toilet, then by golly, I'm going to do it.

And yes, you can. And that is a gift that she has that a lot of us do not. So kudos to Amanda. Yes. Okay, so tell us, kind of. We've been seeing some stuff, you know, with. You also have online stuff. Can you tell us more about what's coming out online or what's in the works? You know, what do we see? Empower your pelvis. What's next for it? We would love to hear.

Yeah. So because we kind of pivoted into the online world, we created too many products, in my opinion, for our website. It's a little overwhelming, so. And we've been doing groups or challenges since probably May or June, so what you notice is people really like the consistency with that as well. They usually want to continue on past the four weeks. So I've been moving everything into a membership platform so we'll have more of a community standpoint where they can come in and ask questions, more of a safe spot. But then we'll be using Mighty Networks for that, so it's less distractions than what Facebook is. Because I know I log into Facebook, I see I have got 12 notifications, and then I get lost in, like, which notification do I want to go to first? And whatever group I choose, I get lost in so I don't end up making it to probably where I need to go. If you can log into Mighty Networks, it's all there. They can check in on videos, they can check on new content. We'll have new zoom links there. We'll be dropping new pelvic health content every month, which is pretty fun. And then holding our own challenges to hold them accountable, which I'm really excited about it. So that'll be more for our clients, online clients to join us there and then for our healthcare providers, really looking into helping more healthcare providers get online and be live and get their content out there and hear more from the PT standpoint because people still don't know what PTs do. And then when you hit into the specialties, they're lost too. But maybe it's OTs or maybe the dietitian, so helping them figure out the real side. So kind of like reals for healthcare providers type program.

Fantastic. We all need that. We all need lots of help with that. So, I mean, that's amazing. That's gonna be awesome.

Thank you.

I'm really excited about that.

That's.

That's really, really cool. So I have a question. How do you find time to do this all? Because that's probably what people are thinking right now. How the heck does a manufacturer have fine time with three boys, a husband, you know, couple businesses? How do you find time to. To do it all?

My first is you have a Kelly to motivate the heck out of you, because, you know when you're not doing it, she's getting her shit done. So you're my number one Motivation too is I have always had to schedule it out. So if it's not on my schedule for the day, it ain't getting done. Even though in my head I might be thinking, like, I have to upload these videos to such and such, I have to put three top priorities for the day. But my first priority is always my health. So my husband and I always work out in the mornings together. That has to get done. Then I have to make time for getting my kids dressed, fed to school. So I usually try not to check my phone during that time frame and focus just on the family. Then I have Instagram linked into my calendar. I have TikTok on the calendar. I have YouTube on the calendar. I have things that, again, that need to get done. If I have to see patients right now, a couple days a week in the office, those are my patient days, then I'm not going to have as much content time or online time. But it's. It's all about the scheduling for me. I've always been a to do list. Got to check it off, cross it off. And having, I guess the set schedule of really even our SSH bootcamp with having a detailed things that you and I have to get done every single day is very helpful and making it a challenge out of it too. So if anybody doesn't know, like, we're in. We've been in a boot camp since June.

Some of us have participated more so than others. I'm finally getting on the wagon over here. Amanda's been participating. She lost 30 pounds. You lost 30 pounds, right? I did, yeah. Yes. Congrats. I'm now just two weeks in after like a whole year of trying to get on this boot camp. So for those of you that you.

Know, she's doing an amazing job. Amazing job.

But, hey, I'm trying.

You are?

Yeah. Yeah. So basically, time blocking, I think time blocking is huge. I think people have to, you know, really understand. I was actually. I just did a reel this morning on this if. Hey. I always say that, like, I'm so busy, which we all are, right? We always say I'm so busy. But in reality, there's always another extra level that we can all push. And that's kind of where I'm personally at right now is I'm pushing it on the next level because I have to. But it's just like, man, there is actually time in our day that when we really look and audit our day and say, I do have this, like five minutes before I do this activity and this activity that I could slide and do a reel or do something right. So I think that's huge. Anyone that feels overwhelmed or just starting out and being like, how can I get all this done? Really? Just take one step at a time, small little action and just be like, okay, what is a small little action going to get me to this next day?

And that's it. Set. Set a timer, I think too. Or you'll get lost on the social media side. Like, make sure if you only have 30 minutes blocked out for an online platform, set that 30 minute timer. Or I don't know if you've been like me before, but you can scroll through TikTok or Instagram and then, oh, my God, it's been an hour and a half. Right? That's ridiculous. You're like, I just wasted so much time. Make sure you don't do that because your timer is going to go off and be like, okay, what's next on my schedule? What else do I have to get done on my itinerary? So that's been very helpful too, if that helps anybody.

Yeah, no, that's time blocking. Yep, definitely. Well, this has been awesome. Amanda, thank you so much for coming on Pelby Biz podcast. We really appreciate it and we'll be looking out for your stuff. So can you give us where they can find you and, you know, get ahold of you?

Absolutely. On Instagram, we're empowered at your pelvis. TikTok is empower your pelvis and our website is empower your pelvis. Keep it simple.

Perfect. Awesome. I love it. All right, thank you so much.

Thanks, Kelly.

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