What’s up friends? Today I am coaching a woman named Valerie who owns a brick and mortar business in Canada. Now, if you own a brick and mortar business, you should obviously listen to this. But if you own an online business, I urge you to listen to this. This is a perfect illustration of someone’s thoughts totally getting in the way of growing their business.

I’m gonna be honest, I went kind of hard on her. I don’t know if it was because she reminded me of me. Valerie is an athletic, blonde, down to earth woman. She kind of reminds me of myself if I’m being completely honest. But she owns a business that is a lot like Massage Strong. I mean, she does athletic therapy. She helps people get out of pain, right? Like, very specifically a lot like myself.

I just kind of laid into her a little bit with love. When I’m doing these coaching calls, I want you guys to always know that the compassion is there. I get it. Like when people are talking to me about things that aren’t working or the reasons why their business isn’t growing, I feel it. I know it. I understand it because I’ve been there.

But today, I held Valerie to a high standard. I did not let her see outside of what was so obvious to me, which is that our thoughts, our worries, our concerns, and our minds get in the way of what we think is actually just strategy based. So this is a wonderful episode. I had a lot of fun doing it. This is episode number 88. I hope you guys enjoy. It is time for your weekly dose of Hell Yes Coaching. Let’s go

Hey, guys, I’m Becca pike and welcome to The Hell Yes Entrepreneur podcast, the number one show for entrepreneurs looking to create their first six figure year. If you’ve got the drive and you know how to hustle, but you’re not sure where to channel your energy. We’ve got the answers. Let’s dive into today’s show.

Hey guys, listen up. May I have your attention please? May I have your attention please? Will the real slim shady please stand up? Y’all I am about to make an announcement. This is the only announcement that I am going to make. This is the only one that I’m doing on this podcast so grab your pen, grab your paper, grab your phone, whatever you need to take notes because I’m spilling the deets and I am not spilling them again on here. Are you ready?

I am hosting a strategy-based masterclass on January 23^rd and 24^th for coaches only. The coaching industry, guys, has drastically changed my wealth, my perspective, my relationships, my self-concept, my day to day work, everything. Literally everything. Being a successful coach is the coolest shit that has ever happened to me. But guys, the only reason that I have found success in the coaching industry is because I have learned how to position myself as an expert, and as a bold authority in this very saturated and noisy industry.

I have learned how to turn heads towards my content. I have learned how to get people’s attention. Guys, it is so easy to get lost in the sea of coaches, if you don’t know exactly how to position yourself as an expert or as an authoritative figure. On January 23^rd and 24^th at 12 o clock Eastern Standard Time, I’m going to teach you exactly how I do this.

When you learn these two strategies, you guys are going to have social media and your email marketing, it’s going to do a complete 180. You’ll have people reaching out, you’re going to have people DMing you, asking to work with you, asking to have you on their podcast, asking to pick your brain, so guys if you are a coach of any niche, at any level, this is an event that you don’t want to miss. It is $22 and you can find the link on my Instagram @1beccapike, and we will put it in the show notes here.

You can also for any reason if you don’t have Instagram, for the love of god get an Instagram, but if you don’t have one, you can email us [email protected] and hey, last thing. On day two of this event, I am making a special announcement. I have spent the last several months crafting a brand-new offer just for coaches. And guys, when I announce it on the 24^th, it will be sold at a pre-sale price for three days only before it increases to its permanent price.

So if you can’t attend the webinar live, I highly encourage you to watch it before the price increases on day two. That is it from me, I cannot wait to see all of you guys inside of Bold Authority, this masterclass is going to completely revolutionize your marketing. Let’s go.

Becca: Hello, Valerie, how are you?

Valerie: I’m good. How are you?

Becca: I’m good. I’m so happy you can be here today. Would you mind to just take a second and introduce yourself to my audience?

Valerie: Yes, my name is Valerie Beaulie. I live in Ottawa, just outside of Ottawa, Canada. I am a certified athletic therapist and clinic founder and CEO of a clinic called Proactive Athletic Therapy. I’ve owned it for, it was our 10th year anniversary this year. I’ve been an athletic therapist for 15 years. I also have two daughters and two stepdaughters. So I’m a busy mom.

I love, absolutely love what I do. I’m very passionate with helping people getting back into doing what they love to do. So basically, we treat orthopedic injuries, whether it’s sports related or not. Our specialty is sports injuries, but we can also treat chronic injuries such as sciatica, neck pain, rotator cuff, tendonitis, and whatnot. So I have a team working with me.

Becca: Nice, you’re speaking my language. This is exactly what I know about. So this is going to be fun. What is up? Shout out to all the Canadians in my world. I don’t know what is happening, but I feel like half of my students are Canadian at this point. So now when someone contacts me, they’re from Canada. I’m like of course you are. That’s great. Let’s do this. I don’t know what’s happening. Maybe my ads are like accidentally running through Canada? I don’t know.

Valerie: Yeah.

Becca: But a shout out to all the Canadian love that I get these days. Okay. So what can I help you with today? What can I just brainstorm out with you in your business?

Valerie: I’ve kind of had a business restructure. I restructured my business about a year ago where I only hired contractors. I did have a couple of RMTs, massage therapist, but I’ve decided to change the structure so that I could create more of a team culture in my business because I’m a big fan. I love working with new grads.

So I’m a big fan of teaching them, coaching them so that our standard across the practice is the same, and that it feels more of that team as opposed to therapists coming in and out, just come in when they treat and leave and whatnot. So we’ve been doing that for about a year, and it’s working really great.

But I feel like I’ve been plateaued. When it comes to revenue that what we generate per month, it’s been pretty much plateau in the same for the last couple of years. But it’s still not where I’m at. I feel like it’s just, just to put it into perspective, we’re in a small town. We’re the only athletic therapy clinic in our county, which is a good thing.

But, again, a lot of people don’t know what it is. I feel like we’re in a community where people rely heavily on their insurance to get – When they get hurt, they’ll either go see a chiropractor, a massage therapist, or physiotherapist, and those three, everybody has coverage for. Whereas athletic therapy, it’s not all the insurance companies.

So we’ve had people where when they find out oh they don’t have athletic therapy coverage, then they’ll be like well, I guess I can’t come and see you. I’m going to go and – You know what I mean? It’s almost like they don’t have empowerment when it comes to their own decision making. They will let what the insurance dictates. Almost, you know what I mean? So that’s a bit of a struggle.

But yet I know that once we get tons of clients where they have gone that route and with no success, and then they come and see us, and they’re like holy crap. I didn’t realize that it existed because it’s based on a sports medicine model. So our treatment plan tends to be a little bit more aggressive because we’re trained to treat high performance athletes. They don’t have months to get better. But our model can treat anybody.

So I’ve been humming and hawing on well just trying to figure out how can I break that barrier? Because I just feel it in my gut that I just want to attract people that they don’t care if they have insurance or not. They know that their health is valuable, and they will do the work to make it better. So we have people like that, but just not enough.

So that’s one of the struggles. I feel like the demand is still not there. The other one is do I strictly stay as an athletic – So my clinic is called Proactive Athletic Therapy. I specifically did not call it Proactive Sports Therapy, which is common in our area. So really, I’m a big believer in our profession, and I want to keep it that way. So do I stay and just be an athletic therapy clinic? Or do I hire other health care practitioners and make it a multidisciplinary clinic?

Becca: Okay. So there’s multiple things here that I could coach you on, but I’m gonna pick the one that I think is hurting you the most at the moment. I’m gonna be completely honest with you. The whole like people aren’t coming to me because they want insurance, or they are more willing to go to the insurance place, or people are looking for insurance, and we don’t offer that and so it is hurting us or it’s the type of clientele that is in this small town that wants to insurance, blah, blah, blah.

What if I told you that the only reason that that is a problem is because of what you’re thinking about it? Like the actual problem is just between your ears. It has absolutely nothing to do with whether you take insurance, who your audience is, what they know about it, or who does take insurance in your town. Right?

Because we don’t take insurance at Massage Strong. Like we don’t take insurance. It’s completely cash based. People come to us all the time, and they say to us hey, I’ve got back pain. Why don’t I just go see a chiropractor? You guys don’t take insurance. We’re like yeah, you can do that. That’s definitely an option. But we don’t think about the people that are looking for insurance. We decide our own path. Like we create and market to the people that want the best of the best.

So when people call us and they say that they only want to go somewhere that takes insurance, I don’t even get wind of that. It doesn’t even cross my ears. I don’t even think about it. It’s not a concern of mine. I focus only on the people that want to get out of pain, and I market to them, and I educate to them very specifically. I own the fact that we don’t take insurance, right?

Like, this is where you go, if you want to get out of pain. You want to go get insurance, that’s totally fine. But if that doesn’t work, and you really are just tired in a year of still being in pain, then you can come to us, and you actually get out of pain, right?

But I have heard you talk about the insurance before. I’ve heard you ask about it. I don’t know if it was in the three more Facebook group or somewhere, I can’t remember, but you’ve talked about this before. You’re just spending way too much time on it. Fuck those people. Who cares? How many people are in your town and surrounding town? Do you have any estimate or idea?

Valerie: Yeah, we’re about between 15 and 20,000 people. This is just our town.

Becca: Okay, and the surrounding?

Valerie: Oh God, no. Way more than that, I would say. At least 100,000 at least.

Becca: Yeah. So if you have 100,000, do you believe that 2% of that is willing to come in and get out of pain and not pay through insurance and pay cash?

Valerie: Absolutely.

Becca: If 2% of 100,000 came to you tomorrow, you wouldn’t be able to fit into it. But you’re just thinking about the 10% that want to pay through insurance, right? So if I could like magically give you the gift of anything on this phone call, it is to just never again think about the people that want insurance.

Don’t think about it. Don’t talk about it. Don’t worry about it. Don’t cater to them. Don’t talk about it in your marketing. Don’t ever talk about it as if it’s an apology. Like we don’t take insurance, but here’s why it doesn’t matter. This is the way you should be thinking about. Fuck that. None of that, right?

Valerie: Yeah.

Becca: Like we are Massage Strong. This is where you go to get out of pain. This is how much it costs, and this is why it costs that much. Here’s all the testimonials of all the people that just got out of 20 years of knee pain, 20 years of back pain. When you want to make an appointment with us? We will be here. Period. This is who we are. Right? But I have listened to you talk about the insurance like two or three times. It’s just all of that energy could be funneled into going out and getting clients that want to become pain free.

Valerie: You’re right. I think too the fact that we’re the only athletic therapy clinic right now anyways in our area differentiates us from others. So even more of a reason to be like well we’re different. So it’s not about insurance. This is about you getting you back into doing your sport or activity.

Becca: Yes. I think that it’s really easy for us as business owners to find a story that we can hold on to as to why things aren’t working out the way that we want them to. I think it’s easy to say well, we’re not getting the type of clientele that we want because we don’t take insurance. We’re not willing to take insurance, but that’s just the cards we drew. Like we’re in a town where there’s a lot of people that rely on their insurance or they rely on their doctors to tell them exactly where to go or whatever. It’s just not true.

Valerie: Yeah, you’re right.

Becca: Can you lay that story down?

Valerie: I will. Put it to bed right now.

Becca: Can you like also just kind of make that quick little shift in your mind where you can think about all the people that don’t give a shit that you don’t take insurance, and they’re just ready to get out of pain, and they’re ready to throw down the money. They just don’t know where to go. They don’t know who to go to. The fact that you said that people in my town don’t really know what athletic therapy is, huge red flag, right? Like, whose responsibility is it, the only person on the planet, to educate your town on athletic therapy?

Valerie: Me.

Becca: Yes.

Valerie: Yeah.

Becca: Imagine that a different athletic therapy company comes into your town, and now there’s two in your town. But they’re phenomenal at educating the public. They are making videos. They are doing little ads. They are deeply explaining exactly what athletic therapy is. They’re talking about knee pain, why you have knee pain, what the solution to knee pain is, how they’re going to fix your knee pain, and they’re gonna give you a protocol. Do you think people are going to start understanding what athletic therapy is? Right?

Nobody used to know what acupuncture was. No one used to know what massage therapy was. No one used to know anything. But the owners of these industries or the owners of these businesses came in and they said it’s my job to educate. Because the more you can mold the people in your town to understand exactly what you do, then the more likely it’s more of a numbers game. How many of those people want that?

So let me ask you this. So you’re saying you’re stuck at a certain revenue level, and you’ve been kind of like in that revenue for a few years. I’m assuming that’s a client volume problem more than anything?

Valerie: Pretty much.

Becca: Okay. So, how often are you sending out emails to your mass list?

Valerie: Once a month.

Becca: Okay.

Valerie: Yeah.

Becca: How often are you posting on social media some type of education about what athletic therapy is?

Valerie: Five days a week.

Becca: Okay. Are you running ads?

Valerie: We did. Then we stopped because we felt like we weren’t getting anywhere. So now we’ve changed our strategy to post for sure every day, but do stories, which I learned from your podcast and you. I really love how you describe to do the story on Instagram. It’s almost like it that this is your selling feature. So now we’re trying to do two to three stories a day and then posts every day but more the educational part.

Becca: Okay. Are you running any partnerships with other local businesses through social media?

Valerie: We actually just partnered with the junior A hockey team, which we just started this September, and since that’s been amazing, phenomenal. That’s one of our goals is to partner with the swim team next. We want to create more partnerships with them.

Becca: Have you sponsored any local athletes or local like influencers or people with influence?

Valerie: We have a just yes, this past summer. Aspiring Olympian flatwater kayaker that’s part of our town. Now this sponsorship was monetary in lieu of social media awareness, but not sure if it actually worked. But anyways, it doesn’t matter. Like we were very proud to sponsor him.

Becca: Okay. Do you have a referral bonus program?

Valerie: No.

Becca: Do you like incentivize or gamify anything for your employees to book new people or anything like that?

Valerie: Well, I do have a system in place where they get new clients and then it works amazing. Then they get tons of referral word of mouth, but I have nothing in place in terms of incentivizing them. I do like an annual bonus system at the end of the year to reflect what they’ve put in for the year but nothing specifically every week or –

Becca: So you’re training them on what to do when they get new clients, but there’s no like acute like incentivization or you haven’t gamified it or anything like that.

Valerie: So they’re paid per hour no matter what. So they might have an eight hour day where if they only have five clients, they’re paid for the whole day. So but during that day, that’s where we do social media together, videos, content. Like we work together as a team. So they’re paid no matter what.

Becca: Okay, let me ask it a different way.

Valerie: Yeah.

Becca: When did they get a new client on the books, do they get anything?

Valerie: Aside from their hourly rate? No.

Becca: Do you host retention meetings? Like do you track their retention and talk to them about it and train them or go anywhere with them on retention?

Valerie: Yes, 100%. We have one to one weekly meetings and a team meeting every week. Part of their onboarding when I hired them, there was a big component on console conversion and retention, which has been fantastic this year. We’ve noticed a big change.

Becca: That’s great. Awesome. I just made a quick list of all of the lowest hanging fruit, right? Like how often are you posting on social media? Are you emailing? It looks like you’re not emailing very often, once a month.

Valerie: The email list we have are warm. So these are people that have already been clients of ours. So we create newsletters once a month, and that’s what they get. Once in a while we get promos or whatnot, we’ll send that, but I don’t send anything every week to our warm audience. It’s more so yeah.

Becca: Yeah. What if I told you that that would bring in three to seven more clients a week?

Valerie: I didn’t think of it that way. So that’s good. Yeah.

Becca: Something that I’m noticing too I want you to consider when I’m like going over these things, a lot of it seems really black and white. Like we tried that, it didn’t work, period. Instead of how was I responsible for this? So when I said do you run ads, you said yeah, we did ads. It wasn’t working great. Like almost as if ads didn’t work for me.

My question to you is like, did you try a different ads team? Did you question the ads team? Did you try to understand exactly what was happening? Was it SEO, or was it social media? Was it Facebook? Was it Instagram? Did you try switching? Did you go in and figure out did I lose them on the sales page, or did I lose them whenever they got to the scheduling aspect of it? Is that a scheduling aspect error? Is it that they – Like there’s just so many different things.

Once you hire an ads team, you start running ads. There’s so much to understand. Like where am I actually losing them? Is it that they’re not clicking on the ads? Is it that they’re clicking on the ads, but then they’re getting to my website and then I’m losing them. So it’s like a website problem, right? Instead of just like we tried ads, it didn’t work. Can you see the difference in that?

Valerie: Yeah, 100%. We did have an ads team, which was great. They did pull all these analytics. I think it was at a point where financially I knew I had to kind of like in terms of investment in the whole marketing part, I was like okay, I’m investing in this, but then I really wanted to do some coaching. So I just decided to put that on the side burner for a bit until I focused on the other.

Social media was one of them where I decided to focus on trying to build it internally in our company. So we have a full time clinic administrator, and she’s fantastic. I’m actually looking to promote her as a manager so she could really take on that whole aspect as well of running the schedule, our social media schedule, but I guess I was trying to make it more cost effective just because it can add up.

Becca: You wouldn’t want to make it more cost effective if it was working. If your SEO was working the way that Massage Strong SEO was working, then you put $1 in, and it gives you $6 out every single time no matter what. But that’s because I’ve stuck with it and we have tweaked it and switched it and talked to the ads team and figured out what it was, right.

So like if there had been more curiosity, self-responsibility. Like I’m going to get in, and I’m going to figure it out. I’m gonna work with my ads team and like settled energy. Like I’m going to work on these ads, and I’m going to stick with them until they’re working well, or I’m going to find a new ads team that does well with this. This wouldn’t even be a conversation because you would be bringing in five, six, seven new clients a week from the ads. Right?

Valerie: Okay. So with your experience, you’re saying that really makes a big difference, the ads?

Becca: Hell yeah. Especially in the brick and mortar world.

Valerie: Okay.

Becca: So I don’t believe in consistently doing ads all the time when you’re in the online world. But brick and mortar where you have people that are searching for local places that they can get out of pain, like your ad spend should be the highest spent, underneath coaching. I believe that too. We talked about you coming into Thirty More. As we’re going through this, I know that you decided not to, but I’m just like literally you could have come in and I feel confident that I could have like tripled your business had you just spent thought at on coaching and not gotten sidetracked all over the place. Because I can see it so clearly.

That’s neither here nor there. But I want everyone listening to be like if you’re considering where to put your money, find someone that can problem solve for you and help you figure out where to put the money. Like that is always going to work the best.

So paid ads. You’re only emailing one time a month. The posting on social media seems good. I would question like how that’s going. Are you gaining a following? Are people liking it? Are you getting shares and saves, right? Like is the content landing?

Valerie: Not a ton. Not a ton.

Becca: So I would tweak that as well. Like, you want your content to land. Of course, you have access to the Three More portal. So you have access to the social media video that I made about how to make your content land. So just going over that again and really tweaking it. It sounds like you had a partnership, and you’re enjoying it, but you only have one. Right? Have you considered making it two, three, four partnerships?

Valerie: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

Becca: Five, yeah. The sponsored athlete, that was kind of another one of those ad things where it was like I don’t really know if it worked. The coach and me is just like why don’t you know if it worked? Why didn’t you track it? How do you not know? How are we standing here and not know? It could have worked amazing, and you just don’t know. Right?

Valerie: Yeah, yeah. Now that I think about it, so this athlete actually trains out of our local club here canoe kayak club, and it’s a very well-known club. So we do see lots of their younger athletes as well. So yes. In terms of word of mouth, it has worked for sure. Because they’ll say oh, Aiden comes here for treatment. Same with the hockey players. We’ve had younger hockey players. They’re like oh, are you guys the ones working with the junior A team? I’m like yeah. So it definitely helps.

Becca: Yeah, so why not three or four more of those people?

Valerie: Yeah, yeah.

Becca: Right. You don’t have a referral bonus program. You know at Massage Strong, our referral bonus program is like everything. You refer someone to us, and we upload 25 massage dollars into your wallet, into your virtual wallet. It’s endless. You bring three people, you have $75 in your virtual wallet. So then they go out and they’re telling all their friends because they’re incentivized. It’s gamified. It’s in their wallet. They come in. They’re like oh, your massage today is free because you brought in Jason, John and Jessica. They’re like oh shit, right?

We’ve been doing that since the very beginning. Incentives for employees to book new people. Listen, anybody that thinks that their employees are super motivated to bring new people into their business is lying to themselves, right. No matter how good of an employee they are, no matter how awesome of a person they are, they also are just clocking in and clocking out and making their life as good and easy as possible. Right?

So to incentivize them, to create a little challenge, to, I don’t know, give them bonuses based on how many new people they bring in. Like, that is going to incentivize them. That is gonna give them some skin in the game. Right? It sounds like you’re doing good with the monthly retention meetings.

But as I’m going through this list, I guess what I’m trying to show is there is so much more that could be being done, but I think that we’re just so stuck on the like well, I’m in a small town. We don’t take insurance, and no one really knows what athletic therapy is.

Valerie: Oh well. Yeah. So what are your thoughts on niching down? Like I know there’s so many multidisciplinary clinics out there, and my gut feels like I’m just so proud of athletic therapy, and I just want to—My dream is to have like this because it doesn’t exist.

They’re hard to find, the real true athletic therapy clinics. But my dream is to have like a four to five full time athletic therapy, like just all ATs. We’re pumping. Things are just happening, and it’s busy. We’re well known in terms of our athletic therapy world. A lot of students want to come here and work here and learn here. I don’t know what your thoughts are.

Becca: So are you asking? Sorry, I’m not understanding. You have just athletic therapists right now. Is that right?

Valerie: Yes.

Becca: You’re saying you want to just grow the athletic therapists. You’re saying I don’t want to add in all these other services.

Valerie: I’m saying I keep bouncing back and forth. I have weeks where I’m like okay, we have tons of people asking do you guys have massage therapy? I’ve been trying to an RMT for a long time. They’re hard to find.

So this is the part where I’m like do I broaden our services and hire an RMT and a physio and strength and conditioning coach? Or do I stick to athletic therapy and maybe hire a strength and conditioning coach that would really complement what we do. Do you know what I mean? So it’s more so do I kind of turn? It’s been like a year of me bouncing back and forth of not sure if I’m doing the right thing I guess.

Becca: Yeah. I mean, it sounds to me like you already know. You just said what you want to do. The only reason that you would veer away from that is because you like some sort of lack mindset or like it’s not going to work or we’re not going to do it well enough or something like that.

Valerie: You’re right. That’s really what it is. I feel like the only reason I would hire other practitioners because there you go, I’m gonna say it again. Because they have insurance.

Becca: See? I swear this insurance thing, I don’t want to lay it down to rest. I don’t want to skim across it because everybody that’s listening to this has some sort of story like this. I mean unless they have really worked through it. But this is, I want to continue talking about this insurance story because to me this has halted you in so many ways that you can’t even see it. Right?

Like you’re thinking about adding on services of practitioners that you don’t even actually want because you think that there’s some sort of loophole with this insurance. Let me tell you something. You hire those people on, and you guys start accepting insurance. It’s not going to solve the problem of the fact that nobody in your town knows what you guys do, and they’re not coming in to see you. It’s not going to magically bring people in your door.

If it does, it’s going to bring in the wrong people that are looking for a discount, that are looking for some sort of way to get out of back pain, the cheapest possible way they can, and you’re bringing in those Groupon type of people. Right?

Valerie: No, you’re right.

Becca: The more that you bring this story on, the more bullshit and the longer it’s gonna take you to actually get to where you want to be. You’re literally talking to someone that only hired LMTs. We only do deep tissue. Do you know how many people come to us and they want, I don’t know, all the other shit. Like the relaxation massages and the couples massages.

Do you offer hot stone therapy? Because if you did, I know a thousand people that would come. Do you take insurance? There’s always going to be people that are dangling things in front of your face saying if you offered this, I would come in. If you offered insurance, I would come in, right?

Every time you don’t, every time you stand your ground, your branding gets stronger. Every time you say no, you can put another notch on the belt of your branding being an empire. Because the people that are growing businesses that are the weakest are the ones that are trying to people please everyone, and they end up becoming the gas station of athletic therapy. They’re like a one size fits all. Come here and we’ll do anything you want. We’ll give you a massage. We’ll do cupping. We’ll do acupuncture. We’ll do strength training. We’ll make you a pancake while you’re here, right.

Valerie: I think like when I started 15 years ago in this town, I was literally – Like there was nobody. I was the first AT to start a practice. I mean I went out and did lunch. We call them lunch and learns to doctors here at our hospitals. So I would provide them free lunch and they just needed to give me 50 minutes so I can describe what athletic therapy is and how it can help their patients.

It worked great. They started referring and whatnot. So it kind of snowballed. So it took me a while to build my reputation out, which I know I do have a good reputation. All the doctors know us. But I’m blown away how they’ll still say oh I would refer you, my patient, but they don’t have insurance. I’m like oh my god. Like it’s honestly astounding how many people have this mindset here.

Every week we have people that will say oh, I just called. I’m not going to book in because I don’t have insurance. Like they let insurance dictate. I hear you, and you’re absolutely right, Becca. I now believe that story because for years I’ve been told by doctors even oh well, you’re not going to have anybody because people are not covered by you.

Becca: I want it to never cross your desk again.

Valerie: Okay.

Becca: Like talk to your receptionist. I want you to tell them. Do not tell me how many people call in and want us to take insurance. Don’t tell me those. I don’t care. Like I no longer care. I don’t want to hear about them. Like I have no idea how many people have called to Massage Strong wanting insurance. I’m sure dozens in the last week. I don’t hear about them. I don’t care about them. Like the only people that I’m thinking about are the people that want to get out of pain through deep tissue massage through a company that has the standards that we have that fit our brand, right?

Could you imagine if I sat and just thought so much about all the people that want hot stone relaxation? I could think about them for days. I could spend my energy on that. I could worry that we’re not enough. Maybe we should bring it on. I could be in indecision. The longer that you’re in indecision, the weaker your brand gets.

So you’re over here you’re like, I don’t know if I should bring on strength trainers. I don’t know if I should bring on massage therapists. I don’t know if I should keep going the way that I am. I don’t know if I should do this. I don’t know if this was working. I don’t know if my ads were working. I don’t know if my sponsored athlete was working. I don’t have a referral bonus program. So much energy and so much strategy is slipping through the cracks because of this story, and it’s gotta go.

Valerie: You’re right. No more insurance talk ever. Promise. I’m promising to myself.

Becca: Yeah, it’s got to be to yourself. Because behind closed doors, you could still be freaking about it and just not bring it up to anyone.

Valerie: Yeah.

Becca: That’s not the route you want to take either. Right? This isn’t like I’m never going to ask for insurance coaching again. This is like I’m never gonna think about insurance again. We don’t take it. Period. Now that I have all this renewed energy, and I know that I’m not hiring on all these other practitioners that aren’t athletic therapists.

Now what? Now how do I grow this business? Because I’m not in indecision anymore. Now I’ve got athletic therapists. We don’t take insurance. How do we get more clients in the door? Well, I gave you about 30 ideas today during the coaching that isn’t being done yet. That’s why you’ve been stuck at the same revenue. How are you feeling?

Valerie: Good. Good, good. It’s just 100%.

Becca: Everything that you do, every idea that you have, everything that happens in your business is a reflection of your mind. Sometimes it’s a hard pill to swallow because we might have something happen that doesn’t feel like our fault, and it feels like the world is against us. To be able to say okay, this is a product of something that I believe. This is a product of the way that I manage my people. This is a product of who I am. This is a product of my thoughts.

That is a really hard pill to swallow because we don’t want it to be. It would be so much easier if it was just the insurance’s fault. So much easier if it was just the fault of the ad’s team. Didn’t work. Must be our town, right? People just don’t understand what athletic therapy is. That would be so much easier.

You can either have your excuses, or you can have a shit ton of money and a big ass practice. The practice that you’re describing, the practice that I have, which is LMTs. They want to work for us. Some of them are scared to work for us because they think they’re not ready. They can’t imagine having those types of standards.

We have students coming in. They want to shadow. They want to learn about us. They want to understand the history of Massage Strong. They think Becca Pike is some magical creature that floats around Lexington, Kentucky. I don’t know even know what they think. Who knows. We are really tight with the schools in the surrounding areas. We go to the board meetings.

It is popping, but it is slim. We have one offer, deep tissue massage. We have one type of contractor, LMT. We have one brand, one idea. We don’t take insurance, right? It takes so much courage to say no to everything else, and to get rid of all of the stories that are holding you down. To say no, this is what I’ve got, and I’m going all in. So I get it. I understand, but you already know what kind of company you want. You described it for me earlier. You literally described exactly what I just spit back, but that is 100% possible if you just stay focused, and you grow that company.

Valerie: I feel it. Like every time I talk about it to people, and that’s what they’ll say. They’ll say well, you can easily sell what you do because – And it’s true. I’m very passionate about it. I love it. It’s when I get these worries I tend to sidetrack. Then I need this. But yes, you’re right.

Becca: Yeah, just remove it as an option. Like when I get worried about Massage Strong, there is no option of like maybe I could just add in more services. That’s not what I built. That’s not what you built. That isn’t an option.

Valerie: What’s your opinion on contractor versus employees?

Becca: I’m contractors all day. I would never turn them into employees. Last thing I want to say, it’s not wrong that you turned them into employees. It’s just a different expense, a different profitability, all of that. But what you said in the very beginning, since I turned them into employees, it created more of a culture. It created more of a cohesive understanding of who we are as a company.

I hate to tell you but that was all in your head too. You could have had that exact culture, the exact boundaries, you could have done all of that without turning them into employees, but that’s another day. We have the best culture. We’re all contractors. My front desk is employees, but all my LMTs, I think we have over 60 now. I think in total we’ve had over 150 over the years, but they’ve always been contractors.

We have a phenomenal culture. Everyone is rowing in the same direction. Everyone understands the brand. It’s a product of the training. It’s a product of the boundaries of the owner. It’s a product of the conversations that are had behind closed doors. The piece of paper changing from a 1099 to a W2 has nothing to do with the culture. I guarantee that when you changed it to a W2, when you changed it to an employee, your mind changed. Then you changed how you created that culture.

Valerie: See, and this could be on record or off record, but this is the culture program I think I mentioned before that I took. It was based out of Australia, and they were very much specific on service based. Now, mind you, it’s a different country, but still. They’re the ones who are all about employee structure. So I did that change. It just happened that I had a turnover of employees. So it was a perfect timing. It’s not like I changed someone from contractor to employee. They started off as employee.

Becca: Well, and there’s nothing right or wrong. Like don’t go changing them back to 1099, but I just want you to see the responsibility of your mindset on it, which seems to be the theme today. Like everything is from your own mindset, and I 100% guarantee that the culture changed only because of your mind. The paper itself changed nothing. Nothing.

Valerie: Oh, you’re right. I see it now. 100%.

Becca: All right. How are you feeling? I know that that was a lot. I know that we threw a lot at you. What’s your thought?

Valerie: No, you know. I was going to use the word reassured me, but you’re absolutely right. I know I need to keep following my gut feeling because I know I’m always right on that, on what I want when it comes to my business. I will never talk about insurance again ever.

Becca: Think. You’ll never think about insurance.

Valerie: I will never think about it. I will never. You’re right. Absolutely. I will definitely focus on education. Education, partnering, and really becoming more community involved so that athletic therapy is freaking awesome and well known.

Becca: You know, whenever you start getting wobbly, which you will because you’re human, relisten to this episode.

Valerie: I will.

Becca: Remind yourself what you’re doing, what path your on. The end goal is very clear to you. So you’ve just got to keep reminding yourself of that.

Valerie: Great.

Becca: Would you mind to take just a second and offer the audience where they can find you or your website, Instagram, any of that.

Valerie: So our website is www.proactiveathletictherapy.com. We are on Facebook and Instagram, same thing proactiveathletictherapy.com. Instagram is going to be at, and on LinkedIn.

Becca: Love it. All right, thank you Valerie. I hope you have a great day.

Valerie: Thank you. You too Becca. Thank you very much for your help.

Hey guys, this podcast is the blood sweat and tears of a lot of different people. The planning and the preparation of each episode is extensive. My team and I are really proud to bring you this free and abundant content each week, and we hope that you’re loving it. If you are, the very best thank you that we can receive from you is a review and a share.

When you share this episode with a friend or leave us a five star review, it is like pouring a little bit of magic into our podcasting bucket. It is what gets our work recognized. It’s what gives us energy and keeps us going, truly. Not one share nor review goes without recognition from our team. As always, we fucking love you here at Hell Yes Coaching. Have a beautiful day.

Hey, thanks for taking the time to listen to today’s episode. If you’re looking to get more clarity and momentum for your business, visit hellyescoachingonline.com. See you next week here on The Hell Yes Entrepreneur podcast.