This is The Biggest Financial Mistakes Private Practice Owners Make with Keith Campagna

Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episodes. Rockstars. Today we've got Keith Campagna, who's the growth officer at a company called Accounted For. They are specialized in the physical therapy space to help all things accounting. So before you turn off the episode by hearing that, most of you are like, I don't want to hear an episode about accounting. You are going to, I promise, love this episode. I will tell you from personal experience, rock stars, that my journey in changing my mindset was significant around this thing called accounting. So whether you're afraid to admit that you don't understand what a P and L is or whether you are fully, like, aware of your numbers and you think you mastered it, if you're looking to sell one day, I want you to pay attention to this episode because we're going to be talking about the mindset that accompanies growing our business through our accounting. We're going to compare it to a conductor creating music and how accounting and the financial piece is the theory of it, but together we can create the art and be controlling our future in our businesses. It's a very fun episode. Keith is an amazing guest. Enjoy the show.

All right, Keith, so listen, man, we were talking about growth, and you were talking to me about what you think limits pt, ot, SLP leaders from growing their practices. Can you talk a little bit about what you were saying earlier about what's limiting them?

Yeah, I think for anybody, and I think it, you know, it extends beyond private practice. I think for anybody who's trying to build on a dream or a vision, they have a sense of. Of instinct, gut instinct that they follow, and it's worked and it got them where they were. But what really helps businesses grow is knowing their numbers. And what we were talking about was this idea that, like, in all of the challenges inside of the private practice space, what seems to be lying underneath it is just an inherent unawareness of, where are my numbers? Because every practice owner will that I know you've met and I know I've met. They're really smart people. They're super, super intelligent. But there's this thing about accounting where people are a little bit like, keep the numbers away from me. I don't know. I don't know. I have an accountant. They should be handling everything. But at the end of the day, that's not the truth. And that's what we're doing at Accounted for. We're exposing that.

Yeah, I think Rockstars, as you're listening to this, I want you to really dial in, because many of you are listening, going, I already know my numbers. We're not talking about production numbers. We're not talking about patient visits. We're talking about the numbers that, if we're being honest, you may not understand as much as you would like. Or like Keith said, you might be giving to somebody else and having them in charge. And I will tell you, Keith, in my business networking experience, having been with hundreds of companies over the years, in and out of pt, the number one thing I hear when people go south, like their business almost loses everything is because they've delegated their financial aspects to a fractional CFO or someone that they just literally put over there so they can go back to their work. And then all of a sudden, one day their cash flow starts shifting, if they even know what that is. And then their accounts start. When they notice is when their accounts start dropping.

That's right.

Conversely, conversely, there. I've got clients who are listening, and you know who you are, guys. I'm thinking of specific names of people who are probably listening to the show, who wake up every day and they look at their cash flow in their bank account, and if it varies by a small margin, it like, it's enough to send them into a mindset where it ruins their day. So there's extremes. You've got one extreme of, like, delegate for. You have this other extreme of, like, not knowing how to read the numbers in your accounting so that you're. You're, you know, reactive to every minor difference. So, like, dude, just talk to me. I feel like I've said a lot, like, talk to me about what comes to mind when I say that.

Well, what comes to mind is that we almost have to take a step outside of the private practice industry and talk about accounting for just 30 seconds. I promise to all of the rock stars out there, this will not put you to sleep.

Keith is going to make it entertaining. We can literally make anything entertaining to me.

Let's do it. Let's do it. So if you look at the accounting industry and you go online and you. You searched crisis in accounting, you'll find out that in 2020, the industry that oversees the certified public accountants identified 75% of the certified accountants in this country hit retirement age in 2020.

Wait, how many?

75%.

What the crap? That's insane.

If you think about the industry, what comes to mind?

Old white dudes.

And taxes. Right? Two things that people aren't overly excited about. Now, something that I know from being in the world that I grew up in from a software advancement position. Accounting is laggard. They simply, they manage taxes and that's that. That's what everybody knows about accounting for which it's why accountants work four and a half months in the beginning of the year because nobody does any work until it's too late. And then the accountant's got to clean it all up. And then they take two months off to figure it out how to fix all that, and then they re kick their business development. Right. But at the end of the day, all of these accounts are leaving the industry and all of their human capital is going with them. And with that being said, they're losing their touch with.

The world. The business owners, the entire software industry is trying to fix a CPA problem and nobody, very few people are addressing the small business owner problem. And that is that business is way more than just tax from an accounting perspective. It's way more than taxes. It's cash flow. And not maybe 1 out of 10 business owners understand the difference between cash flow and profit, let alone EBITDA or all the other metrics that come into play when growing a business.

Yeah, man. So that is a huge insight is that all of these experts are leaving the industry. And the way that it was traditionally worked, it worked, was broken anyway. I went through in my businesses five different CPAs in my timeframe, and I have actually done a number of combinations and bookkeeping and all these elements. But for me, from personal experience, rock stars, everything went from like, workable to incredibly productive and profitable. When I got that, I didn't know every. I still don't know everything about numbers. But I'm not afraid of my PNLs. I know the 20% that I have to know to manage and uphold my, my bookkeepers. I've. And I wouldn't consider myself an expert, but consider compared to many small business owners, they might think I am because I can talk about cash flow and some of these terms. So talk to me, Keith, from your perspective, like, how do you help your PT owners and, or other business owners, like understand their metrics? Like, how do you get. What do you, what do you do that's different around all that?

Well, there's two things. One, there's this software everyone's heard of called QuickBooks, right? Yeah. And the funny thing about QuickBooks is that eight out of ten small businesses use it, but very, very few of them are actually using it. Again because it has to do with accounting. And there's a real mental block as it relates to getting close to Accounting. So the data inside QuickBooks is not very accurate. If you think about bookkeeping, it inherently takes place in the past. So as a small business owner who's got a billion things on their mind, their best chance at looking at accounting is outdated information off of tax reporting purposes. What we do differently is we actually take the Data out of QuickBooks, we refilter it and put a bunch of rules in our software, then put it back into QuickBooks. So you, the business owner, you don't have to learn new technology, but we give data integrity to QuickBooks which takes you out of the bank account math business, the one that freaks out everyone that you mentioned. Right. And we take and it gives you clarity, it gives you current state cash flow. I know my revenue's coming in, I know my expenses going out. But the key will we all have technology, but it doesn't mean that we're using it. What we do is we leverage again our proprietary tech to build forecasting trends and projections and we coach the clients on a very fractional based off of their need basis on what to do with the numbers. And that's the big gap. That just is what we felt we fell into literally as we entered the private practice industry.

How did you guys enter the private practice industry? Like what led you to that?

Just like anyone else? Well, references like the, the, the relationship inside this industry is different. And for what it's worth, my background is in software sales. I've worked in every industry and every size company. I've talked to the owners of the people that work in there. I've never experienced any like private practice. Simply put, my co founder Sean, he was working for, as a business development partner for an accounting firm. And him and three of the partners were at a table and a private practice owner said, pointed his finger at all three of them one at a time and asked where his money was and not one of them could tell him the answer. And so Sean decides to meet with the guy to understand it. And sure enough, Sean recognizes this opportunity. And just like you and I would over the weekend, he goes out and builds code. Because that's what Sean, no, he never did it before. He literally learned the code to build this process that allows us to clean the actual data and provide the going forward metrics. So you know what to do if you want to improve your numbers or you know there's a. Ready for this one, you know there's a three month payroll or three payroll month coming up. How do I accommodate that besides crap my pants as a small business Thing.

That is doing nothing because you see it coming and you're like, well, cross my fingers. Let's just see how it happens.

Right. Well, imagine having instead of just your revenues, which, again, this is a gap that we fill with the industry, instead of having all of those metrics that come in from the insurance providers and how much reimbursement you're getting.

You have to assign your expenses to this. So when you combine your cost and your revenue, well, guess what? Now you know your financials, and that's the part that I think you were mentioning, that makes you much more powerful. It's that simple.

Absolutely. And I want to. I mean, I have so many questions. It's hard because rockstars, there's like this. There's like eight episodes built into this that we could talk through right now. But I'll tell you this, that in my world, that when we got to the point where I was able to understand those metrics, again, it was an accelerant. I mean, but it's so. It's so much harder, I think, when you don't have a financial background, that a lot of PT owners, OT owners, they just think, man, I. There's something wrong with me. I honestly feel there's a lot of, like, imposter syndrome going on around their accounting numbers. And it can be an incredibly overwhelming world for people to get into because it can just be this, like, scary piece of it. So what would you say would be, like, a baseline focus for listeners who maybe who almost are there? Like, what would you say the essential reports are and why they should. They should, like, pay attention to those reports.

Yeah, so really good question. So the things that we do, we offer a free QuickBooks assessment. So I'll just share with you what we do, and then your. Your rock stars can basically go about doing it. If they want to talk more about it, well, then, you know, we'll see where that goes. But all things considered equal, we look at P and L, we look three years back, and we want to see macro trends. Yes, my revenue grew, but why. Yes, my revenue declined, but why? Like, one of the things that sticks out more often than not is marketing. Numbers will go up, costs will go up, but revenue doesn't. What happened there see a lot because people don't take the time to understand the numbers. They don't realize what's going wrong. We had a client who literally, oh, it looks like you're spending $3,000 a month on marketing. What's your ROI? I don't have any. And then they stop paying $3,000 for something that wasn't getting them an ROI. Well, like $36,000 back into your bank account. Boom. Right. So there's the P and L, there's the balance sheet. Right. What's it look like right now? And what can I look at from a labor. Like, labor's the big one. What does my labor look like in percentage of total cost? And if you're above 55%, why? It doesn't mean it's bad. That's a key thing. Numbers inherently aren't bad. It's the thing that got you there. And the context, which is what comes when you work with somebody who can help provide context. And then the other one is. The third one would be like a vendor management report. Try to figure out where you're putting your money to. You might not realize. Like, again, just as an example, we've had clients where we've uncovered $20,000 plus of paid subscriptions that were of no use whatsoever, just purely outdated money going out. So if you could keep an eye on where the trends are, it could peak the start. Curious, you know.

Why did it get there? Or why is it working? And then you could double click on it. And then with the vendor management report, it gives you perspective on how to reduce your expenses.

We've had a client where their payroll vendor just decided to start doubling their charges, their fees. Just double their fees. No conversation, no nothing. If not for the bookkeeping service. Right. Why did this double? I don't know. Go back, save six grand, get six grand back.

You said something really powerful, Amanda. That really highlights the balance, in my opinion, of what the owners should be responsible for versus the accounting experts that they work with. Because, again, it's. It's kind of like a medical billing company in the sense that PT owners don't have the knowledge base, so they. They sacrifice this knowledge and just give it like a monopoly to the person that they're outsourcing it to. And that lack of knowledge balance creates issues. Accounting is the same way. But I also sent. I also, at the beginning of this episode, talked about clients I've had who are holding every detail of their accounting themselves. And what I've seen in that case is they get so granular that they start worrying about these really small decisions because they've put so much time and energy to find them. So you need an accounting group that's going to bring everything to your table and give it the right gravitas, the right emphasis of everything going, hey, here's a. Here's a subscription differential. This is low hanging fruit. We can just cancel it if you want. Or hey, your labor cost was at this percentage, which by the way, rock stars. That was the number of all the accounting numbers that changed my world because I got gross and net income. Like I understood in general, like, okay, I'm making more money than I'm spending and that kind of concept. But the number one thing that I figured out with my, the help of a great accounting solution who's, you know, not no longer even doing it anymore was the percentage of payroll to income. How much do I spend on my payroll based on my income? And that, that became the North Star metric financially, that led all of my decision making because like you said, I'll rephrase it. Information leads to inspiration where, where you guys come in. And I would say all of us need to have. If we don't have the solution is the information from the financial perspective that leads to the inspiration of the decision making. And the of those was the second thing you mentioned for me, which is understanding that, that payroll, the income piece, how, just a more personal curiosity, how do you work with your clients around that number? Like, like what does that discussion even look like? Do you bring that to them and say, hey, you're paying 80% of your income to, you know, to payroll? Like what do you guys do to support them in that?

Oh, hell yeah. It's the number one, it's the number one obstacle.

Yes.

And it's the number one.

Opportunity. Opportunity, right. Thank you.

At a very base level, what we're talking about is how obviously unaware a private practice owner is about their business, not their profession, but their business, because they don't know that. They're probably aware that it costs a lot of money to pay people, but they don't know how it falls into the actual landscape, the whole landscape of the business. And something you mentioned about the clients that are or contacts of yours that are in the weeds, you mentioned they're like stuck on all these details. That's the thing that can get you wrapped, I say wrapped around the axle. Right. Like you have to see business as a game and this is where the coaching comes into play, right? There's an offense and a defense. And if you're paying attention on this little thing here and you don't pay attention to the labor that you're spending, what's the point? Right. The big win is in the labor. You know that the second next win may be very well in how do I streamline efficiencies? How do I reduce my cost in certain areas by bringing in technology, which by the way, another episode. Our industry is so young in accepting technology that the opportunity. And this is what brings us at account for. We're like super pumped about being at PPS and helping. It's just this notion of there's so much opportunity because it's not like you can't figure out how to get more money. It's not how you can't figure out how to recruit. You can't figure out how to improve a patient's experience. All of that's out there. You just have to figure out how to align the pieces in with the business that you have and then, like you, you'll get better results.

Yeah, and that's one of the reasons I have the podcast, because for me, I want to be able to bring solutions like you guys to the table because there's so many services and technologies that people just don't even know about. We are the very youngest in all of health care. You know, quick, just like highlighted. That is when I talk about virtual assistants on my company's end of people, they're very much like, oh, tell me more. If I go to a non PT event, if I go to dentists or anyone else, they're like, yeah, I've already got my. They've been doing it for 10 years. And we on like AI were early adapters of all these things. But that's why there's so much opportunity for owners always like, well, how are we going to make greater profits with declining reimbursements? It's like, well, we have this whole efficiency realm that we haven't even tapped into. Never, you know, notwithstanding baseline services like yours that are just like oxygen that you have to have, that people don't even do that appropriately. There's so much opportunity for growth. I have friends who've sold, you know, 10, 20 locations after they stayed on for their while they're starting more locations. Why? Because it's such a profitable. PTOT is such a profitable industry. It's so easy to make money when you've got the right solutions in place and it comes down to dollars and cents like you guys do it accounted.

For and you use the term imposter syndrome earlier. So I want to bring that back because one of the things that I got to enjoy, I get to enjoy is this. I'm not a trained PT ot, I'm certainly not an accountant. So I get to walk into the industry eyes wide open, ears wide open, mouth shut, and I just listen. And the Thing that I keep realizing and learning is that it takes a different mindset to go from a clinician to an owner, to an entrepreneur, to an Exeter to maybe even coaching, going back into the ecosystem. Right. It really requires a mindset. And with each shift comes the imposter syndrome. I don't know what, I don't know. I feel worse. I'm not going to move towards it. And it's not easy. It's not easy?

No, it's over. It's, it's. I will tell you this. I think most people who are listening to this show, rock stars. I'm hoping you're already aware of these stages of mindsets. Like this isn't. I'm hoping that's not a new topic because if it is new, quickly, you know, you go from like independent owner where you're exchanging time for money to where you start developing a team and systems and processes and eventually you become a business owner where you exchange people and processes for money. This is all rich dad, you know, poor dad stuff. And then you go, eventually the end goal being that you're an investor in your own company where you're exchanging money for money and people are, other people are running your business. And that's where, you know, friends of mine have scaled to dozens of practices and sold and so forth. But maybe what's not clear to people who are listening is that their mindset shift has to occur around this amongst some very key divisions of their company. And what you're saying is that one of those key areas is accounting. Like when it comes to, when you talk about accounting, we're talking not talking about medical billing. Like that's, that's the end result of that. The collections, it goes into the accounting side of things. That's revenue cycle. Revenue cycle. I would, I would say also is another area where our mindsets have to shift over time. Accounting, it has to shift like early stages. They just need to know their income and their expenses. But if they're going to scale and ever become an independent freedom based owner, they have to know how to lead their leaders through finances.

Yes. And not just their leaders, but the clinicians on the floor. Right. Like there's this big movement, right. And funny enough, a lot of this I have my own personal experience with helping a private practice that's local to me here because I had my shoulder, I needed work on. Sure enough, I go see somebody and I can't shut it off, Will. So I'm looking around and I asked the woman that was the PT that was working on me. She was the manager of the location. So I started asking all these revenue questions because here I am sitting on a table and I said, what challenges are you having? And she said, ancillary services, laser treatment, massages, all of these things that cost money. I can't get my therapist to talk about these services. And so I wound up getting a client laying on a table because of the different approach that really, when we think about the experience of the patient in a different way, you're able to lock in all of these elements. But if you don't going back to what we were talking about, if you don't know the numbers, you could be going in the wrong direction or you could be spinning your wheels. But if you know the right numbers, it's just copy paste, copy paste all day long.

It's very simple. What I love about accounting is that once people get a baseline understanding with the right partner, like an accounted for, it becomes very objective. A lot of what we do as leaders requires creativity and like there's something very black and white about the story that is told through our numbers. You know, the biggest mistake I made in my business was looking at my numbers as a postmortem, meaning I only looked at reports from like what happened last quarter. So I could. And that was, by the way, that was still very good. That was a mindset of like a manager level owner where I was still very much a manager in my business. Because it was good to know what happened historically. That put me in the seat that I'm in right now. But history is only half of what numbers tell us. They're also the greatest predictors of future success. And that's one of the keys I tell people and that rock stars. I would encourage you if this is an episode that's really like interesting you and you're feeling even a little bit overwhelmed, I would encourage you to do this is to sit down and watch Shark Tank. Watch Shark Tank with your phone and chatgpt and listen to the discussion and not let anything go. When Kevin o' Leary talks about, you know, acquisition cost, right Then what is acquisition cost? What is it? And start like having a dialogue with artificial intelligence while you're watching the show. It will be relaxing in some ways, but it'll also surprise you how easy it is to understand these concepts. And then once you put your arms around these, then it puts us in a position where going back to what you and I are talking about, we can look forward and go based on historic trends. I can project if I keep doing the same things, this outcome, do I want that or do I want to tweak it? And that's where the fun comes in. Right. I'm guessing that's where you guys have a lot of fun, is having helping owners kind of create that future.

Yep. Yeah. And like, two of the questions that we ask every time with our clients is, what did we do well and what didn't we do well?

When you say that, you're talking about, like, we as a, as their practice, you're not. Right, Right for you. Yeah.

Right, right. Yes, yes. Like what went well and what didn't go well for our clients. Right. And it really boils down to your point, if you understand the leading indicators. Right. The past is the lagging indicators. The future is the leading indicators. If you understand. Because now you were able to map what your expenses look like and what your revenues look like into the future, well, now you could start making educated guesses on things, not just what other vendors for other software companies tell you, not what you heard from somebody else. And then all of a sudden you realize that they forgot to mention this one thing which blew. Sunk your boat, so to speak. It's. You get to choose on your own numbers, leveraging your own experience. It's the, it's the best. You have the most fun growing your business. Even you, like, you smiled brightly when you got to that point, right?

Well, yeah, because it's. At that point you feel empowered. I even now get really excited about thinking around these numbers because you start to feel more at. Cause, like, I know what happened historically. I know what my leading indicators are so I can get again, being a visionary, as leaders that we all are, it's our job to predict the future. And there's, there's always some art to that. But the numbers that we can use through accounting is what isn't, is, is the science of it. And the science is, Is predictable. The science is easy with the right support. So when I, when. When I love talking about these topics to people because the. The least attractive, the least sexy topics in healthcare, medical, billing, accounting. No offense, but perceptively, that's how they view it. Those are the most fun because when we can control that, we can start writing the future in our own handwriting and go, this is what I want to build. This is what I want to create. And so having the ability to wrap our arms around our numbers is one of the most fun things that people can learn to do. And they don't know that until they work with somebody like you, obviously.

Well, it Makes it a lot easier when they do, for sure. And the part that I'm hearing and which, you know, I'm smiling now because you got me remembering things that I love about business is that if you look at a musician, Indulge me for like 30 seconds. If you look at music, which I do, and you've got rock stars, so this applies. I was born to be a rock star. I have no musical talent, so I love being around other rock stars. But my point is, is that when you look at musicians, they make work look like play. And when you can do that, which is totally what you just described, when you can, as a private practice owner, restructure the way your numbers look and your business looks and your mind works so that the work becomes fun, you nailed it, dude. You're playing the game. You're no longer stressing, you're growing when you're. And the best way to know you're playing a game, right, is to know that you're having fun. If you're having fun, other people will come and have fun with you and away you go.

Yeah. And that shifts everything. I want to, just for the rock stars that are listening, I want to keep going on this analogy of accounting being like music theory. And like the idea that as people are learning.

The structure of the song of their business through the theory of their business through accounting, it is going to be a little bit left brained. It is obviously left brained. You're going to be learning how that works. My youngest son is a musical savant. He can listen to any sound and tell me the exact note. He's been doing that since he was three. He's a master pianist at the age of 12. And what's funny is that he spends a lot of his time obsessing with music theory. He'll take out these pieces of paper with the lines and he's just sitting there, not playing music, drawing the notes and connecting them, but he hears the song in his head. And that's what's so crazy, is that there are business owners out there, guys who are like my son, who are business savants, like, they just get this stuff intuitively. But most of us, 99% aren't. But there's a lot of really talented musicians who aren't like my son, who just love the sound of music, who love to write the theory. And then they, when they start connecting their ability to create on paper and they can start hearing that song in their own head, then it's like, okay, do I want what kind of song do I want to write. And that's where the fun and the beauty comes out.

Yep. And no musician ever learned music alone. They leverage someone else's music. And no business owner created a business alone. They all had somebody, a mentor or a coach. And that's the part again, earlier in the conversation, what's missing? It's not just technology. It's having a coach that can easily either A, keep you accountable or balance, keep you motivated.

Or, or C, let you remind. Remind you to be excited about what's happening. Right. You're breaking out of the old mode mold and becoming someone better. Yeah.

No, you're so spot on. You know, going back to my son again, he's. He's constantly looking for the next teacher who's going to teach him more of what he needs. So it'd be like someone playing the piano without a teacher going, well, I'm a loser because I don't know how to play piano. It's like no man. Like, everyone needs their instructor and they need the theory. And when we start to slowly progress, we go from Chopsticks to Beethoven's fifth. It's all about that, that it's not the age, it's the stage that we're in. And I do want to validate something, Keith, for our rock stars right now, that rockstars. I brought in a financial expert once when I had about five locations. I think we were doing roughly 4 million a year. I brought in a financial expert because I was just really struggling in that space. And so I went out and I found someone with no healthcare experience who had worked in every other industry, though, who came into our business. And after three months, he resigned. And I was like, what's going on? He's like, this is too hard.

I was like, what do you mean? And it was because he was, he was a CFO type. So it wasn't just accounting. It was like CFO level stuff. He goes, well, I was forced to think that healthcare would be just like everything else. And what I've realized is that healthcare is completely different from a, From a financial level because of medical billing. Like, the biggest thing he was struggling with was more on that revenue cycle side. But how it diluted and confused him on the accounting side was where he drew the line. And so since that timeframe, I've worked with people. I think it's really important. The lesson on this is, number one, like, if you're struggling in this on any level, you know, maybe you get it at a base level, but you're. You're realizing now you need to know it even better. Good. You know, go just realize that's the, that's the wonderful stage you're in and that like a lot of people struggle in that. I would argue everybody I've ever met required a coach in healthcare. I don't think there's aren't any savants who could figure that complexity without help. But number two is that when you're working with somebody who's an expert that you find someone who's really dedicated to the healthcare space and even better if they're PT specific. And you know, that's one of the things I really appreciated about you Keith, is that you guys are, are all in on pt. I mean, you guys have visions for PT owners. Why is it that you guys are so connected and passionate about the PT industry? When I see a company like yours come in, like obviously when it comes to opportunity that could be in a lot of different areas and I've been told by other mentors there's better opportunities outside of PT and healthcare. What is it about you guys in PT that you're so passionate about?

I mean, I can't, I'm not gonna take away from the opportunity that's there. Right. So there's the, the business opportunity excites us as a business because we could grow. But my mother retired in icu, ccu, nurse, so and Sean's mother, the founder, I believe she retired in healthcare. I don't know to what level but the point is, is that the community inside of PTOT is truly remarkable. From my own personal experience, the passion that goes into patients care, the knowledge that it takes to be able, the amount of debt that one has to incur to be able to help someone feel better is remarkable. And then you get into a private practice company and you start working with other like minded individuals and then they start branching off and like you've got within pps, you've got the peer to peer groups, you've got so many networks that are all designed to help. And honestly, I fell in love with the business world decades ago. I love small business. I think in a time, I don't know if this is what happens on your side of zoom, but in a time where everyone's freaking out about bad news and, and aliens and all this stuff, and the way corporate America and corporate behavior gets written about in the news, what's always worked and arguably has been the reason that things are still better than they're not is small business. And so private practice, I think epitomizes health care, the thing that matters most is that people feel better as soon as they can and at their own control and maybe non pharmaceutical manner, right?

Yeah.

And then the opportunity to build an ecosystem that works inside of a market that rewards people for hard work and good decisions. It's just super fun, Will. It's super fun.

It is fun. I think at the end of the day two things can be true at the same time. It can be super fun to be in this business and there can be incredible challenges. Those two things can be true at the same time. I think what makes it fun is what you and I were talking about earlier. This idea of like when we're in it with people, we're not alone. We're getting the right story and baseline understanding of our business so that we can start controlling our future. Then it becomes really worth it because of the business that we are in. I just want to second what you said too to our rock stars is that the business that you guys have taken on is no small thing. Like every little stand that every pt, OT or speech therapist makes in their community is a stand against big pharm. It's a stand against dependency. It's a stand against the centralization or what do they call it, where the consolidation of healthcare. Right now private practices are diminishing in every sector of healthcare. So every day when that PTOT SLP owner gets up, turns on their computer or drives to their office, they're taking a stand for the greater good of all humanity. Not to be dramatic, this is literal. Because what they're standing for is the best quality health care. Because no one and everyone, everyone would agree to this. No one gives better health care than private practice does in any of the healthcare segments. So for us to fight the battle, I want the owner, I want rock stars. As you're listening to, think of yourselves as generals of an army. And like not minimize that, not minimize the impact or the importance of what you do. Whether you have two employees or 20 locations that every day you're getting up, you're taking a stand in big ways in that community. But you have to have general, you have to have generals underneath you, you have to have admirals, you have to have these leaders. And one of the single most important elements of your, your army is going to be the ammunition. It's going to be the energy that you have as a business. And what is that? That's the money. And who's going to, who's your admiral over your finances? Who's in charge of your accounting? Do they have healthcare experience 0 to 10. Where's your mindset on that? Like, are you, are you advancing your mindset around that? Do you have someone who's going to help you? Do you have a service you refer to? Do you have a guy that you talk to once a year when you pay his bill after he tells you what you owe in taxes? Or do you have an admiral who's on the front lines with you? And the only reason I brought Keith to the table is because that's who he is in his company. This is a very passionate person who I have heard multiple times through my network of how he is there with you as you fight this battle in your communities. So sorry to put you on the spot a little bit there with a slightly dramatic monologue, but it's true, Keith. I think you guys are making an impact in that way. What do you guys see for the future if you could create, if you've got your own pen for Accounted for, what do you want to see happen for your business in the PT space?

I want it to become a common behavior. One of the things we say a lot as it relates to Accounted for with our clients is that there's common sense and there's common behavior. Right. So like the idea that the career. Let's maybe we even start even smaller. The curriculum of learning private practice includes business management through accounting, basic stuff. So like the dissemination of information would be the answer. Right. The idea that you too can understand this stuff, that would be the thing that I would want to see the most. Because with that becomes everything that you just talked about. Right? The idea that you know your numbers, you can be inspired by data that is there for action. It's not just the result. You now have something that you could move towards or away from to improve the overall business. So to me, I want to see more people become aware that it's out there. You don't listen. Accounted for is a great company, but we're not. You know, you can go online, you could go and ask your current bookkeeper how they help with forward looking projections and trends that's out there. Go ask for help. And then the more that that happens, I think the groundswell will just rise up.

I love it. All right, man. So Keith, you're a leader, you're obviously an owner. Tell me what are. Give me some of your favorite. Give me one of your favorite business books that you've read.

What comes to mind is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. What comes to mind is how to win friends and influence people By Napoleon Hill. I really like the four disciplines of execution. Or is it the four disciplines of execution? I think so, yeah. Yeah. Four dx. Yes.

Let's see. Rich dad. Poor dad's a good one. And.

I mean, dude, I used to read a lot. So the Challenger sale is a good one because it really brought to light the idea that if you want to make change, you have to challenge the status quo. Sounds silly, right? But I'm a huge fan. I'll call it business because I certainly applied to business. Steven Kotler. Anything Steven Kotler has written about flow state.

Read those because you could apply that mindset to what you're doing every single day.

By the way, that was a surprise when we got to know each other. Is that when you meet someone who's in accounting, you have, like you said at the beginning of the episode, a pretty clear idea of what you think you're coming up against in terms of personality. You're thinking you're coming against the. The pretty stale, you know, left brained individual. You are so far opposite of that. You're this flow state creative individual who's inspired by the art of, of accounting. And it's, it's just a cool counter to like what most people experience, I think in that space.

I love it. Thank you for that. Appreciate that very much. But I would say I'm inspired by the art of business.

Yeah, right.

Like accounting just happened to come with business and here we are talking about how accounting influences business. But at the end of the day, I apprec. Appreciate what you said there. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun helping and I'd like to think we're doing a pretty good job.

I will second that. Keith, thank you so much for being on the show today. If people want to get a hold of you, how's the best way they can do that?

Go to the Accounted for website. It's accounted for the number4llc.com. You could hit me up on LinkedIn. Keith Campagna. You can email Will and he'll introduce it to me. Either way, come find me. I would love to talk to you. And again, we can help in a lot of ways when the timing is right.

Love it, man. Well, thank you again for being on the show. It's been great to have you.

Yeah, you're the best, Will. Appreciate everything you're doing. Congratulations on all of it. Thank you.

Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to today's episode. As a thank you. I have a gift in today's show Notes. There's a link for you to join the Stress Free PT newsletter. This is a comedy newsletter for anyone who works in healthcare. And of course we're gonna have comedy bits. We're gonna have inspirational stories, leadership bits. It's gonna be a weekly newsletter just to lighten your week, to help you do what you love with more passion. So click that link below and join that newsletter and we'll see you in our next episode.

Sam.