Five Things To Do During The COVID-19 Lockdown: Taking Advantage Of Your Time With Will Humphreys

More than likely, you have a little extra time during the COVID-19 crisis and its subsequent lockdowns. As owners, you have the opportunity to take advantage of this time to do the things you typically don’t have the time to do—creating your purpose and values, structuring the business in your ideal scenario, generating policies and procedures, reading business books, taking steps to implement what you learn, and more. In this episode, Nathan Shields invited his partner, Will Humphreys, to discuss what owners can do to take advantage of this time and come out stronger on the other end. Don’t miss out on this insightful conversation!

—

Listen to the podcast here:

Five Things To Do During The COVID-19 Lockdown: Taking Advantage Of Your Time With Will Humphreys

I thought I’d bring on a multiple-time guest and my favorite partner, besides my wife, Will Humphreys. It’s good to see you.

It’s great to be here.

I wanted to bring you on simply to have a conversation because coaching clients that I’m talking to are usually at some stage now because we’re dealing with this Coronavirus, COVID-19. They have downtime. They’re dealing with an issue that they’ve never had to come up against before more than likely. I can’t speak from experience. You and I have never went through anything like this as owners. I figured the best I could do, and I’ve tried to share information about COVID-19 and how to manage it, whether that’s financially with Eric Miller or with Andy Sabatier about breathing techniques for people who have respiratory issues when they’re sick. From a coaching standpoint, I usually come up against things that people don’t have time for and I know they’re busy. We’re all busy. Now because of this virus, we have some extra time. I thought I’d talked to you about what we can do with our time as owners during this pandemic. First off, your thought on how do you look at this and what would you want to say to PT owners?

This is unprecedented. We don’t have a way of having a plan to respond to this. However, trials and difficulties we’ve all gone through. As people are in this place where they’ve been used to growing their businesses with typical struggles, things that were hard for sure and overwhelming at times, but still they were moving with the current. Due to no fault of anyone’s decision-making, they’re swimming against the current. Even though they’re doing good things and they’re making progression to do the right, the best with what they have, it feels like defeat. Stats are going down. As we all know, production is the basis of morale. If we’re not producing, meaning impact in patient’s lives, it’s hard not to feel defeated.

Now is the time to create your business the way you ideally want it to be. Click To Tweet

From someone who’s aware of the many PT owners out there who are struggling, I want to reiterate that they are doing a great job. You are all doing the best you can and it’s making an impact. For those of you who are deciding to close your doors because you don’t want to spread it, that is a valid decision. For those of you who are keeping your doors open to fight and to serve people and show that you love them, that’s a valid choice as well. No matter what you choose right now, you’re doing something from a place of love and concern. I know that the impact is making a difference in not just your life, but the people that you’re serving. The thing that I want to say first of all to acknowledge everyone’s efforts and let them know that what they’re doing is making a positive impact even though I know it doesn’t feel like that right now.

It’s tough because it is something that you want to reiterate. All of this, whatever stage you’re in, it’s not your fault. You still have some decisions and power. You don’t want to lose that. You want to make sure that you have power to make decisions, that you aren’t powerless and that you have the ability to affect so many people’s lives whether you’re shut down, slowed down, whatever that might be. The important thing to do is to remember your purpose. You’ve alluded to that. Your purpose is to serve the community in one way or another as a PT clinic. Go back to your values and act according to your values. Stay in line with your purpose. Live according to your values. Make decisions that are quick and efficient according to your values and move forward.

If you are going to close, you’re going to have some time on your hands. It’s time to evaluate things and make decisions. If you’re going to stay open, you’re going to be busy as well, trying to navigate schedules and whatnot and what’s the next update from the CDC, but still follow your purpose, your values and make quick decisions. Probably the most important thing is to stay viable whether your doors are closed or you stay open. Stay viable because this is temporary.

You talked brilliantly about mindset. One of the first things that you see as important is the mindset. I don’t think mindset is like I’m getting crapped on and I’m going to call it something other than that. The way I’ve dealt with some of the stressful situations in my life before learning to get through those through the help of others is that we have to remember the importance of staying present. All of our minds are going to the future right now. We all have people in our lives who are higher risk. We’re worried about them. We’re worried about the impact of the decisions we’re making, whether we close or stay open or whatever.

Give yourself permission to not be perfect. Click To Tweet

We’re all in that state of worrying and worrying about the what ifs. The what ifs create a bunch of should, “Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this. I should be better at that.” When we get should on all over ourselves, we are unable to stay present. Truly, the only thing that’s happening right now is tomorrow is nothing. There’s nothing wrong with looking at that and having those moments of realization like, “This is a scary thing.” Instead of trying to pretend like it’s not there or call it something different, put an arm around it and say, “Everyone’s stressed out right now. We’re going to get through this together,” and love yourself. Give yourself permission to not be perfect. I hope you hear that it’s okay that you don’t know exactly what to do and you are in this position for a reason.

What you’re doing right now is something that is going to impact so many people. It’s not by accident that you are a leader. You’re needed more now than ever. The only thing we can do when we finally realize where we are in the present is create. I’m scared of all these different things and I should be doing all these things. That sucks. I’m going to sit with that until it goes away. When that feeling passes, let’s get to work. There’s opportunity in this. I’m not trying to overly rosy on this, but there’s a lot of successful actions. There could be gifts in this, but we have to be present to what we’re feeling and realize our power to create imperfectly nonetheless.

We don’t have all the answers. I’m not coming at it from a perspective like, “I’ve been through this before. Here’s what you need to do.” Anyone who promotes that, you’ve got to take with a big grain of salt. What we can do is go back to some of the basics and recognize that an opportunity comes out of situations like this. Eric Miller put it nicely. I’m going to try to summarize it, “Essentially nothing major ever happened out of times when it was super rosy and everything was great. It’s usually during problems like this that real leaders step up and difference is made.” It’s through the challenges that we grow. As we’re talking about the five things that owners could or should do while they were closed down or slowed down significantly, they’re going to go through a lot of stuff. They’re going to send in all the applications for the loans. They’re not going to find out for a couple of weeks if they get that money or not. You’re going to have time.

It’s time to spend with family, to reconnect, revisit your hobbies. There are some things that as a leader, you have more responsibility. That is to keep your business viable. I want to talk about those five things that owners can do while they are slowed down and/or closed down.

Deal With The Present

The first thing that you brought up is to deal with the present. Recognize where you’re at. Let’s get as much certainty around us as possible. What is my new breakeven point? What do I need to do to stay afloat? What’s in my bank account? What’s in my accounts receivable and what do I have available to me in case of emergency in terms of line of credit, SBA loans, grants, relief act, all that stuff? Gather some certainty around you so that you know where you presently exist. Get some certainty because the last thing you need to do is make decisions out of uncertainty.

A lot of that has to do with dealing with the present, where you are now and stay connected. Network as much as you can possibly, especially with your peers in the profession, APTA, PPS, peer program, mastermind, coaches, consultants. Stay in touch. Do the webinars. There might be a lot of white noise right now but stay connected. The last thing you need to do is isolate in a time like this and think that I’m in this alone because you’re not. There’s a lot of information out there. There are plenty of resources. That’s a little bit of my take on being present. When you say, “We’ll be present,” give us a little bit more detail about what you’re thinking when you say that.

You started into that beautifully about creating certainty and understanding what your existing reality is because it shifted. If we resist it, we’re not going to be able to see opportunities there. What I meant by that is that once emotionally we give ourselves space to let those normal human feelings go through us and we don’t attach ourselves to them and we don’t resist them, they happen. Once we get to that sense that we can create the leaders, the first thing we need to do is lead ourselves. Being present looks like looking at myself as an individual and take an honest assessment of what I could be doing to lead me as a human being first meaning mind, body, spirit. We all go through the whole diet and exercise thing. This isn’t that.

If you hear it wrong, it’s going to sound like that. What I’m talking about is are you exercising to hack into your body’s own system to access the most optimal way of being physically? If you’re spiritual, are you reading the scriptures and praying if that’s what you believe in. Are you reading? Are you journaling? All of these things show independent leadership and help sharpen the ax. That story of Abraham Lincoln, you’ve had two hours to cut down five trees. He’d spend the first hour sharpening the axe or something along those lines because he understands that’s where you focus. It doesn’t feel like that’s where you should be.

It feels like you should be hammering the trees.

As quickly as you can, “Our accounts receivables are going down,” hammer, hammer, hammer. Slow down. Planes are going through turbulence. They don’t speed up. They slow down. They take a breath. They honor the environment and that minimizes the impact. They still get where they’re going and with a lot less fear. Leadership looks like first leadership of self, second leadership of family. How’s your family doing? You can’t go find hacks within your company if you have someone who’s at risk and isn’t getting what they need. Is everyone emotionally okay? That’s what leadership looks like. I’ve taken care of myself, now I’m looking at my family. That’s why we do what we do ultimately.

We can look at our business. It’s not like I’ve done myself, checked off my families and now I’m working on my business. We do it on a daily basis. It’s routine. Realizing that routine isn’t perfect either. We do what we can a little bit more intentionally every day when we’re fighting in the ring against an enemy. It’s one step at a time, one punch at a time, one round at a time. That’s how we stay present. We let those fears come about the future. There’s a lot we can talk about in terms of how we can look at our business from the present in terms of assessing the existing accounts receivable.

There are tons of opportunity for people who’ve always been comfortable but not confident that they’re collecting every dollar they should to be able to dive in there at this moment in particular and capture everything that they can. They have time to focus on it as they should. When you talk about what I meant about being present, it’s got to be about being a leader first to yourself, then to the family, then to your company, then the industry. Once the car is in motion, that picture will appear. Illusion will come if we stay consistent with manageable efforts. That’s it.

Finding purpose is a group effort. Click To Tweet

Managing Your Time Better

That leads to the second point. You alluded to it. I don’t know if I even gave it the right title, but consider managing your time better. What I mean by that is make time for the important things like yourself, whether it’s journaling, scriptures, prayer, meditation. Use that to your advantage. Focus on yourself, on your family. I always like to refer back to Gary Keller’s book, The ONE Thing. Consider what’s the one thing that you can do right now in the very present such that by doing it makes everything else easier or unnecessary. Consider the options that you have before you on a day-to-day basis. Even on an hour-to-hour basis or half day-to-half day basis. What’s the one thing that I can do within this next hour such that by doing it, everything else becomes easier and unnecessary.

That could be an action. It could be a decision that you make. When I say action, it could be a simple email. It could be a phone call. It could be filling out the loan application. It could be talking to your CPA about that new breakeven point or meeting with him to see how you compare down expenses. It could be giving your wife a hug because that’s her love language. Spending a little bit more time with your family or whatnot. Focusing your time in the present that you have on the most important things. I like how it starts with you, the individual and it spreads out to how you affect your family and those immediately around you, then your business and the community. None of those others are going to be affected positively unless you are in a good place. I like The One Thing. It’s a good read.

Get A Good Mindset Going

That goes to my third thing, which is get a good mindset going. I always like to refer to the first four chapters of Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. There’s a reason Think and Grow Rich has been around for over a century. It’s one of the more popular self-help books around. The first four chapters help you with mindset. I like Traction by Gino Wickman. It helps with business structure. I like Verne Harnish’s Mastering the Rockefeller Habits and Scaling Up. Will and I used all of these in growing our business to where it was. Looking at some of those things to lay the foundation, reread them if you have before or start implementing what they’re teaching. It could be good things to do during this period of time to establish the foundation, get the right mindset. Anything that you would recommend in that vein?

Once we're in the motion of serving and helping others, we're fulfilling our purpose. Click To Tweet

Nathan quickly rentals off these books and these groups that we’ve been through. He’s summarizing years, countless hours of in the trenches, building the business that we felt like we were able to master. The other book that I think of is Man’s Search for Meaning by Frankl. It’s an incredible book that helps create more of a mindset of why. The why right now is hard to identify through all this chaos. From a microscopic to a global perspective like, “Why are we going through this?” Ultimately, having the right purpose and clarity within. Spending time talking to someone to help you get to that clarity is how you get clear. Finding purpose is a group effort. I know you as a coach would be more than happy to meet with anyone to talk about their purpose. I as well am happy to offer my time to talk to people because clearly understanding why you personally exist on this earth helps motivate. There’s a movie I saw that I would like to recommend in terms of mindset. I watched Unbroken.

It’s the true story of this man who ran in the Olympics right before World War II. He was in Germany and saw Hitler. His story is unbelievable. This is the type of story that if you watch this, it will inspire you. It’s a true story of this wonderful human being who ended up getting shot down in World War II. He got shot. He had to get people dying next to him. I won’t tell the story. When I watched that story, it made me emotional. It’s inspiring to me because that particular day I was in a funk and I was trying to not be in a funk. This let me realize it’s okay to be in a funk and I’m going to take it one step at a time. I started producing.

We all know this logically, but we have to emotionally experience it over and over again. It’s not until we’re in service of others and grateful for what we have that we can let the anxiety and depression go. Once we’re in motion of serving and helping others, we’re fulfilling our purpose. No matter how our individual purposes differ, we all share one common purpose of helping others. By virtue of being in that service of whoever, I love your analogy of hugging your wife, from a place of like, “I’m doing this because I know she will appreciate it,” or spending a time with your son or having that hard conversation with that employee that you’re furloughing because you can’t afford to keep them on and you let them know that you care.

What if it’s a matter of calling patients? If I can highlight Vicki Buchanan, in Oklahoma, Vicki has this incredible company where her attitude is so inspiring. She has this thing going where she’s got her team calling patients to let them know that they’re concerned about them and ask if they can serve them. I know she’s not alone in that effort. When you hear Vicki talk, there’s no fear. This is a woman dedicated to making an impact. It’s like the gift of our situation is that there is no gray anymore. We’re either being affected by what’s happening or we’re tackling it head on. I cannot fall asleep in the middle, go to routine and live life as if it has no greater meaning. The meaning is immediately present to us.

I totally believe that when Vicki makes those calls that if someone said, “I’m out of toilet paper,” that she’s going to get off the phone and find some toilet paper for that person and get to their house.

I have to highlight you. She was telling me that one of the things that she’s been doing is you give some advice in your previous podcasts about doing something for doctors, showing them that you care. She had excess hand sanitizer and she would drop them off at these doctors who are seeing these sick patients with COVID-19. We all know what that means. How funny is it that before, she had dropped off hand sanitizer how that would have been experienced? Now it’s like she dropped off a bar of gold that was made out of like, “My love and appreciation for your office.” Her listening to your podcast inspired her to do a little bit more. Her effort with her patients inspired me to do a little bit more. Inspiration, motivation, we need each other as a family.

I like what you said about how these things change us because if we go through an experience like this and we don’t come out the other side as different leaders, fathers, husbands, especially we’re talking about business leaders. If we don’t come out the other side as a different company, especially as we have this opportunity to push the reset button. The pause is more than likely what where we’re at right now. If you look at it instead of pause, push reset instead and create the business that you want to fulfill your purpose. All the complaints that you had about the business before this happened, you had an opportunity to correct them all. Write down your biggest headaches and figure out how you can correct.

Prepare For Your Restart

Step number four is prepare for your restart because you’re going to start up again. Who do you want to bring back? Pick out the people that are truly aligned with you that agree with your purpose and values and act accordingly. Hire judiciously if that’s the right word or bring them back on judiciously. Take an opportunity. If things were scattered and you were the solution man, you’ve got a lot of time to write down policy and procedures. This is how we do things at XYZ physical therapy from now on. Maximize production as you go forward. If you weren’t tracking statistics beforehand, figure out how to track them now and move forward. Consider things have flipped. Eric Miller pointed it out in our interview. It used to be an employee’s playground. Now, it’s an employer’s playground in terms of hiring and recruiting. When people couldn’t find a PT or a good front desk person to work for them a month ago, now there are a lot of people that are available. If you can stay afloat and viable and are willing to take advantage of this opportunity, you can find some great people that are out there. Taking this time to not pause but also push the reset and make it the business that you want.

Mindset supersedes actions. Click To Tweet

That’s incredibly inspirational for leaders. We’ve talked a lot about mindset for the first 2 to 3 steps. We’re getting into the weeds of like what you can do with the time that’s traction. You have to remember mindset supersedes actions. All that first stuff. There are people who were so logical that I’ve coached in a world that they don’t understand that, but it takes an experience of it to understand that the world is so humble. They’re open. I started a new medical billing insurance company and I put an ad out to see within 48 hours for a medical biller, I had 528 resumes. I estimated that it would take four weeks for me to have 40 resumes. I had 528 resumes. Many of them are rockstars from other companies. What we’re not saying is that like, “The tide has finally shifted. It’s about time.” What we’re saying is to do two things. I had a couple of actionable things that you can do. The first thing is as an owner, once you get done mitigating the majority of the real heavy shifting. People are in meetings with employees and they’re making major structural changes. There will be a point where there’s time.

When they take care of themselves and their family and they’re feeling like a creator, the first thing to do is to take a personal work assessment to write down every duty that you do. That was a weird way of saying it that I would agree that you function in. You want to highlight the ones that align for you. You want to look at everything that doesn’t. You in this space have an opportunity to see the truth that the more time you’re spending doing those things, the less your company will grow when it returns to normal. It can only be as great as we tolerate. What are you tolerating right now? Not at work but in life. When it comes to people, once you do an assessment, you realize when we get back, I’m committed to working myself out through outsourcing, training, or hiring of all these things. I’m going to focus on these other areas. Second thing is you talked about simplifying things. There’s no greater stress for our PT owner than managing a team when it’s not cohesive.

One of the things that we do is doing an A, B, C, D assessment of all of your personnel. We don’t talk about staff. Staff is an infection. You have team members. Your team members fall into one of four categories. They’re either A, B, C or D players. A-players align with your values and are highly productive. We know who these people are. They’re rainmakers. We love to be around them. We’re scared if they leave. B-players are highly valued, well-aligned people who aren’t producing meaning they aren’t able to see as much patient care without being stressed out or they’re unable to get through their day without getting a lot of help. We want to train those people to become A-players. C-players are the dangerous ones. They’re the cancer. They are highly productive but low value.

They keep these people around because they can produce. They have a lot of patient visits. Their patients love them, but they’re always undermining things subtly. We all know who they are. The D players are the ones that we are very obvious that we have to do something about immediately. With anyone, we coach people either up to A or out of the company. We coach them. We serve them. We help them grow. This is the perfect time to ask yourself one key question after you do this, A, B, C, D assessment with all of your employees, including yourself, because this was a shocker.

There have been roles I’ve had where I’ve had to fire myself. Would I emphatically re-hire each of these people? Not that would I hire them, “Yeah, I’d hire them. They’ve got some issue.” No. Would you emphatically we hire them? This is going to esteem for some people. For those of you in partnerships, would you emphatically re-partner with your partner? Would you empathically hire yourself for the job that you’re doing? If any of those answers are no and you don’t know what to do about it, that’s when you have a coaching business. There are people out there in the world like Nathan who are able to support and help you clear on that. This is the best time to do it when you have options, which we typically aren’t used to having and what an opportunity to seed the very soil that will precipitate all future growth.

Profitability unlocks possibility. Click To Tweet

Focusing On Profitability

This is an opportunity to get ahead. It’s a pause in the business. Most of the people that we’re talking to have shut down or closed down or slowed down significantly. It’s an opportunity to see that 2021 could be dramatically different from 2019. If you make the effort to make it so in a better way, a way that gives you more freedom, that’s more aligned with your purpose, that gives you time to be the person and the leader that you want to be. Generally, in turn, that turns out to be profits as well. It’s not all about the money, but goodness gracious, profits help out a lot.

With my new company, that’s the biggest thing that I’m focusing on is that profitability unlocks possibility. When we are profitable, and you can be profitable even in times like this, profitable can mean a lot of things, but the bottom line is do you have cash? If we’re seeing our cash dwindle, it’s scary. There’s a reason because that’s freedom. Ronald Reagan was quoted saying that freedom is directly tied to profitability and property. He was basically explaining how money isn’t why we do what we do, but it creates the space to be able to go create. Our industry has a real issue with money. People are trying to say all the time, “I’m not in it for the money.” My question is what do you want the money for?

If you want that money to do good, you better be in it for the money because money is a tool that gets you to make a bigger impact. Profitability unlocks possibility. It wasn’t until we got profitable that we had space to see what impact we wanted to make in the industry. Look at you now. You’ve had a podcast now for a few years. In a space where there are very few people standing up because they don’t have the possibility or time to think about doing what you’ve created, it took profits to get you there. We don’t do that on the backs of our patients. We do that making a change in their lives. Profitability is everything.

I hate it than it is tied to money, but money gives you so much. It gives you freedom. It gives you an ability to develop culture. It gives you the ability to expand and help someone else and pay for training to gain knowledge. That’s why we pay money for tuition so we can have an exchange of knowledge, wisdom and all those things. If you get through this situation and take advantage of it, you can be more profitable like 8% to 10% net profit margins is not okay anymore. Entrepreneurs don’t go into business to be at 8% to 10% profit margins and work 60 to 80 hours a week, full-time treating patients and running your business on the weekends, not being with your family, not having any hobbies. That’s not life.

This has given us an opportunity to reset our priorities, our values and recognize that if I’m going to start up again, I’m going to be maximally productive. I’m going to be profitable. I’m going to be with people that I love and I’m aligned with. I’m going to make a difference based on the purpose that I’ve established. If you haven’t established a personal and business purpose and values aligned with it, then that’s the first place you start. You work down the line like we’ve talked about. It starts with mindset, developing the structure. How do we want to be as a company that eventually ties into your routine? That routine develops into a culture. There are so many things that snowball off of purpose and values first. Eventually, that leads into profits and freedom and that’s what we’re looking for.

I love that flow how you describe it because that is the process of which freedom is created. Freedom is the goal. It’s a lack of being weighed down. I love it when people build their businesses. They go back into treating because they choose to. Those people who have businesses at some point think they want it because they want to focus on treating the way that they want. Ultimately to be able to build it from that place, it takes profits. I’m going to say something a little controversial on purpose because I want to continue this mindset shift while we’re open to it. I want physical therapists to start thinking that they should make as much money as they can ethically. I want people to start thinking like that.

There are those few and far between who are completely in it for money. It shows up like not being ethical, but they’re not as common as we all perceive. Most people I experienced the fast majority or profits or the national average is 8%. The report that came out shows that average physical therapy, private practice makes 8% net margin. That is unbelievably low. There are 18,000 private practices in our country. Our industry is a $38 billion industry. $16 billion of that are the private practice owners who have between 1 and 5 locations. The average profit margin is 8%. There are so much you can do to improve that. We’re so focused on more new patients, hire and tolerate them. If they fog a mirror, maybe we’ll improve that over time. Top line growth is all I can do.

There are many other things that can be done. When you get to that profitability stage, that’s when you get to create podcasts. In my family’s case, we moved to Europe. I took my four boys and we moved to Europe before all this craziness. We spent time talking to healthcare professionals in seventeen countries. My sons got to experience life. It wasn’t a vacation. It was heavy at times. We were homeschooling our kids. It was 800-square feet for all six of us. When we came home, the miracle of that experience changed the lives of those four boys forever. I’ve got four individuals who want to make an impact in the world now in a way that they never could have understood without that. For me, I was able to get some clarity as to what my next steps are in life. All of that is reinvesting in ourselves and profitability is where that freedom is created.

Finding purpose is a group effort. Click To Tweet

There’s so much that you’ve shared and a lot of it simply goes back to laying the foundation. It’s getting your mindset, deal with the present as you need to, and start establishing the foundation for the future purpose and values, organize your company and structure. Get into a habit of managing your time and preparing for your restart up now even down to the content of your marketing. When the doors open again, getting agreements together with people that you’re going to hire in the future once you start up, all that stuff. Start looking ahead and doing things for your eventual open up, so that you’re not behind the curve a few months from now when the doors open and you’re like, “I need to start putting things together.”

Put it together now so that you can start off running. That’s what I’m hoping people get from this. Look at it as an opportunity to not pause but also reset. Look at the opportunities that you have going forward to create what you want to create. Make as much money as you want to make and do it the way that you want to do it. You’ve got to be certain about yourself first. Hopefully, people get some value out of this. Will, thanks for your time. I appreciate it. I always love you.

Thank you for the opportunity.

If people want to get in touch with you, how do they do that?

They can email me at Will@WHumphreys.com. In terms of this way of serving people, I’d be happy to talk to you about your personal purpose. I’d be more than happy to do an assessment of your team with you. I know these are all things that you do as well, Nathan. I do have something I’ve created. When I was in Europe for those six months, I wrote a book called The Family Startup. It was applying these concepts that we’ve talked about into our home. It’s talking about leadership of self and family. I created this document called The Smarter Start. It is a daily tracking mechanism of your routines. I’ve got it divided into mind, body, spirit and heart. It’s the whole thing in a routine.

It’s about an hour to an hour-and-a-half in a day and it covers everything from meditation and texting your wife that you love her. These kinds of things are done. The compilation is unique. It’s mine, but none of it is something I’ve created on a single basis. It’s something that I’ve been using for the last year. I honed it in Europe. I’d be happy to share that document with whoever would like that as a guide of like, “Where should I start in terms of taking leadership of myself?”

You started doing some medical billing. How much do you want to share about that?

When I came back, I am still associated with Empower Physical Therapy. They’re an incredible group. I’ve been able to create some space to start this company that focuses on medical billing and insurance. It’s something that is probably the least attractive part of our job. The way I tell people, it’s like there’s nothing sexy about medical billing if you’re doing that. For me, our journey in particular, there were key people, coaches who helped me understand that no matter how much I know about patient care, it would never make up for what I don’t understand about my billing and collecting practices. My ultimate purpose is to create freedom for physical therapists. There are different areas that you have to address, but finance is one of the quickest things you can do. It’s the scariest thing for us. We usually outsource it to a company that only goes for low-hanging fruit or we in-house it and we do better.

We have these monstrous headaches that sometimes can bankrupt us. I often work with clients who are comfortable but not confident that they’re collecting every dollar they should and they think that outsourcing is a bad solution. Those are the clients I’m attracting. I’m being direct. We’re growing pretty well right now. We’re able to help entrepreneurs find in their accounts receivable money that’s sitting there. When you have a good billing and collecting solution, whether it’s in house or outsourced and it’s not great, that difference depending on your size is at least tens of thousands of dollars. We’ve done ten different profitability breakthrough audits with clients. We have found nothing less than tens thousands of dollars that they can go get right now. If you’re not sure, call me at free of cost. We can even do an assessment and see what we can show you is obtainable.

Especially if you’re in that 8% to 10% net profit margin. Please call Will.

Even if you don’t end up hiring me, let’s get you some solutions. You’ve got to get up there. I will say the other part of that is leadership. I’m not trying to duplicate this. I’m being direct that it was the finance piece but there was the leadership training piece. That’s where Nathan comes in. We are great partners because we complement each other in the ways that we do. We’ve crossed over a little bit in what we focus on. Nathan was always this financial guru in our business. He’s an incredible person to meet with for leadership training. Having been with him, he coached me for almost an hour before this. I have to say that I’m like uplifted and inspired to go to work. I’m not saying it because I’m on your show. Go to Nathan if you’re not sure where to go.

I should share mine, Nathan@PTOClub.com. The work that you’re going to do is great because 8% to 10% net profit margins is unacceptable. We need to be more focused on our cashflow and our money so that we can make greater influence and differences not only in our lives, but those that we employ in our community and the lives of our employees and team. It dramatically affects people’s lives simply by the financial support that you provide. I’m excited to see your growth going forward.

Thank you, Nathan. Thanks for the opportunity to be on this show. This was awesome to be with you.

Important Links:

About Will Humphreys

Will is the CLO and co founder of “Freedom From Billing” and has been a PT for 20 years. He owned a multi locational outpatient practice for 12 years before starting Freedom From Billing with Katie Archibald. He is a father of 4 boys, married for 20 years and a part time comedian. He is passionate about physical therapy, entrepreneurship, and the freedom that is created through profitability.

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!

Here’s How »

Join the Physical Therapy Owners Club today: