13 Excuses Holding You Back From Starting Your Business—and How to Overcome Them

[00:00:05] Welcome to The Aaron LeBauer Show. This is the number one show for passionate physical therapy and healthcare entrepreneurs looking to level up their income and impact on the world. If that's you, then you're in the right place. So sit back, chill out, and let's get into the show.

[00:00:26] Hey, what's up? Welcome to The Aaron LeBauer Show. Today, we're going to talk about reasons people don't want to start a business. And I've been on a lot of calls over the last years, and I've just heard these in Instagram DMs. I've been getting a lot of reasons people aren't ready to get started or excuses for not getting started. And I think they all boil down to one thing, but I just want to run through them because you've probably thought these things. These are reasons you don't want to start a business or don't want to start it specifically. Maybe physical therapists don't want to start cash practice.

[00:00:56] And I think I'm probably missing one. So as I go through this list, if I'm missing one, please message me on Instagram what it is. I do think it all boils down to one thing, but I'm going to talk about that one thing at the very end.

[00:01:12] The normal objection I get to people who are like, I'm not ready to start a business. I don't want to start a business. Or I ask, well, here's what I'm doing is I'm asking people, you know, is this an hour later thing? Or, you know, when are you ready to get started?

[00:01:26] And this is what people say. A lot of people will say, now I'm ready to go now. Like I've already made this decision, but I'm, I get a lot of people who are coming in and they're kind of, I wouldn't say kicking the tires.

[00:01:35] They're just testing the waters to see, and not kicking the tires on the car. They're testing the waters to see if they want a new car. Is the car that they're driving going to break down soon? You know, it's probably good enough.

[00:01:48] Um, so here's number one, number one objection to starting a business now is I need to save money. So I think I need to save up some money, right? You know, I think a lot of people think that starting a business is expensive.

[00:02:01] APTA and your PT school, your program probably had you do some exercise where you need a $200,000 loan and you build out like a 5,000 square foot PT practice. And that's what mine did. I've heard this from everyone else. I think this must be standard curricula, right?

[00:02:16] And so it leaves us thinking we have to have $200,000 to start a business because if you're $200,000 in debt from school, sure shit, you're not going to go $200,000 in debt to build a business.

[00:02:27] If you're a $200,000 in debt for school and $200,000 in debt to build a business, and you could build a million dollar business that generated you a million dollars year after year, wouldn't that be worth it? Maybe not.

[00:02:37] I mean, here's the deal is starting a cash practice, like you can bootstrap it. I mean, but you don't even need $5,000 to get started.

[00:02:45] You can put that money on a credit card because you got 30 days to go out and get some new patients. And I actually did a video on how to make 5K and build a business.

[00:02:54] I think it was how to make 5K a month or 5K in your first 30 days. I mean, I did that. If Laura's smart enough, she'll go here and put it on the YouTube video.

[00:03:01] She's smart enough. If she can find that video, Laura will go here and put it or maybe it's there. I don't know where it's going to go.

[00:03:08] But there's a link to that. Let me just say this. You don't need to save money to get started.

[00:03:13] That's just an excuse to delay the choice that's going to cause you a problem that I'm going to get to at the end, which is the real reason people don't want to start.

[00:03:23] So the excuse is I need to save money. You don't need to save money. You don't. It doesn't cost much to get started.

[00:03:31] And, you know, even if you did coaching and you got first and last month's rent, I mean, we're no more than $10,000.

[00:03:39] Like, it's really, it's not a lot of money. I mean, you spent way more than that on like one class in PT school.

[00:03:45] And which one's going to make you more money over the years? Your PT degree making 80 to 150K a year or a business that can make you, you know, 250 to a million or more.

[00:03:56] I'll let you do the math. Okay. Number two, I need to graduate.

[00:04:01] I get it. A lot of PT students need to wait to graduate to start a business. I mean, should you start a business in your first year or a cash practice?

[00:04:10] Probably not. Can you start a business while you're in school? Absolutely.

[00:04:14] I've got clients generating revenue before they graduate.

[00:04:20] Great. And there are two of them in particular who I'm thinking of recently. I mean, I did it. Okay.

[00:04:26] This is another thing where PT schools and older dyno PTs are telling you you need five years of experience.

[00:04:32] I forgot. I need five years of experience.

[00:04:35] I haven't heard that lately because I'm getting more, more current grads messaging me, but you need to graduate.

[00:04:41] Look, you do need to graduate and get licensed to treat people for physical therapy, but you don't need to graduate and get licensed to do personal training or do online coaching or do some other legal thing to generate money to start working with people.

[00:04:57] I mean, the, was it the prehab guys?

[00:05:00] They started a, I mean, they started a business while they were in school.

[00:05:05] They started a massive social media following.

[00:05:06] I think they started generating money before they graduated and they certainly have a great business model now.

[00:05:14] Odell Miller is one of our platinum mastermind members and he was doing 20K months in coaching, online coaching before he graduated.

[00:05:21] And then he joined our mastermind and just did 33K in December before his actual official open date, January 5th or something like that.

[00:05:30] And he graduated four or five months ago.

[00:05:34] Maria Wissman got into the course, CashPT Blueprint, six months before graduation.

[00:05:41] And then she joined our mastermind two or three months before graduation, graduated.

[00:05:45] But even before she got licensed, she made 10K her first month in business, which is really dope.

[00:05:53] And so you don't need to graduate to start a business.

[00:05:57] You really don't.

[00:05:58] And we can do a whole episode on that.

[00:05:59] I think I might have.

[00:06:01] Another one is I need five years of experience.

[00:06:03] This is another fallacy that older PTs are telling younger PTs that you need five years of experience before you start a business.

[00:06:10] This is just absolutely not true.

[00:06:12] I've talked about it many times.

[00:06:13] If you're still telling people this, you're doing them a disservice because you don't know about, you know, you don't know if someone like me, you know, like, I mean, I was already in business beforehand.

[00:06:25] You know, Odell, like I just mentioned Odell.

[00:06:27] I mean, Odell is an older student as well.

[00:06:30] And he's got other experiences.

[00:06:31] I mean, he's not.

[00:06:32] And shit, someone is a, what is it?

[00:06:36] You're like 23-year-old graduate of PT school.

[00:06:38] They're an adult.

[00:06:39] Don't tell them what they can't do.

[00:06:40] Like, you're doing people a disservice by telling them what they can't do.

[00:06:43] So just stop it.

[00:06:44] And if you're listening and you've been told you need experience, this is what Ben Boggy was also told.

[00:06:49] Same thing.

[00:06:50] You need $200,000 to start.

[00:06:52] You need five years of experience.

[00:06:53] And he built a million-dollar business his first three years out of school.

[00:06:56] I've got so many other stories like this.

[00:06:58] You just don't need experience.

[00:07:00] You don't need, like, experience treating patients to build a business.

[00:07:03] You need business mentorship, business coaching.

[00:07:06] You need a great idea, and you need an all-in mindset.

[00:07:09] Okay, here's a couple family-oriented ones.

[00:07:12] It's, I'm having a baby, or I need to have a baby.

[00:07:15] So I need to wait.

[00:07:17] Like, I get it.

[00:07:18] I've had two kids.

[00:07:19] So I can tell you from the man's perspective,

[00:07:21] why are you going to wait to earn more income for your family until after your kids are born?

[00:07:28] You should be working on that right now.

[00:07:30] A business will generate you more income and more time to be with your family and your kids.

[00:07:35] And as a woman, I've helped women in our program build a business

[00:07:40] and generate more income for their family while they're pregnant and after they've had babies.

[00:07:46] And even when they have four kids at home, they're homeschooling.

[00:07:49] So just because you have kids doesn't mean that you need to wait.

[00:07:52] If you have a big dream and desire to do something more and spend more time with them,

[00:07:56] Sarah Martinez is one of our members, and she homeschools her four kids.

[00:07:59] And she's doing, like, I think she's doing 12K months, and she's hired someone else already.

[00:08:04] And she's treating, like, max 12 people a week.

[00:08:08] And she's in the process of hiring someone.

[00:08:10] I've helped people like Amanda Worley who joined our program.

[00:08:13] Was it Amanda Worley?

[00:08:14] Amanda Zariello.

[00:08:15] Sorry, Amanda Zariello joined our program.

[00:08:17] And after a few months, it was like, Aaron, I'm pregnant.

[00:08:18] And so we made a plan, and she hired a PT who his first month generated, I think, 20K for her business.

[00:08:26] And she went on maternity leave and came back, and business kept growing.

[00:08:30] I mean, we've had lots of things.

[00:08:31] So the baby, I mean, is an excuse up to a certain point.

[00:08:36] I mean, there's, like, real-world conditions versus, like, an objection.

[00:08:43] Being on maternity leave is a great time to work on business building.

[00:08:48] It's a great time to work on building an online business, helping other people.

[00:08:52] Like, I mean, there's, if you're motivated and it's something you want to do, and you're doing it for your future wealth and prosperity,

[00:09:01] it's something you're going to start now.

[00:09:02] I'm getting married.

[00:09:03] I need to wait to get married.

[00:09:04] Or, Aaron, I have to pay for the photographer.

[00:09:06] I have to pay for the wedding, et cetera.

[00:09:08] So I need to delay the expense of starting my business or doing the coaching.

[00:09:14] I get it.

[00:09:16] Weddings are expensive.

[00:09:17] You know, the flowers, the ring, all the other things, but it would be a whole lot less expensive if you were making twice as much, wouldn't it?

[00:09:25] So what do you, how much longer are you willing to wait to get started to generate more money and more revenue and more time?

[00:09:33] You need that so that when you get married, you have more time with your partner and your spouse.

[00:09:39] You guys have more income and revenue to save for your kids to go to college.

[00:09:43] You need to start that now before they're born if you want them to go somewhere like Duke University where I went.

[00:09:49] I didn't start early enough.

[00:09:51] I need to wait to quit my job.

[00:09:52] I've had this.

[00:09:53] Like, I can't quit my job right away.

[00:09:55] Or I need to wait and see if they offer me more.

[00:09:59] Okay, fair enough.

[00:10:01] How much more time are you going to work in a shitty job that you hate or one that you like but just doesn't pay enough?

[00:10:08] How much longer do you want to wait?

[00:10:10] Are you going to ride this out?

[00:10:12] Like all the other, like, in-network practice owners who can't admit that insurance is paying less and less and they can't pay you more and more.

[00:10:19] The bigger your debt, the sooner you need to get started.

[00:10:22] Seriously, your best bet for paying off your student loans is to own your own business.

[00:10:26] It's not to work for the man or the woman or the APTA.

[00:10:32] I mean, it's just not in your best interest to keep your job.

[00:10:36] You need at least a side hustle.

[00:10:38] But you need to be making $150,000, $200,000 a year at least to pay off those $180,000 debts.

[00:10:48] I'm lucky.

[00:10:49] I only had $80,000 in debt.

[00:10:50] Okay, I need to wait to quit my job.

[00:10:51] You don't need to wait.

[00:10:52] You're just uncertain.

[00:10:53] The worst thing that can happen, the absolute worst thing that can happen is you start a business and you start doing some coaching, you invest some money, and you realize it's not for you and you go back and get another job.

[00:11:03] It's not like when you quit, there won't be another job waiting for you.

[00:11:07] There are more jobs than there are physical therapists.

[00:11:09] I know this because I keep getting job offers and I've not been looking for a job for 25 years.

[00:11:16] And the clients I coach have a hard time finding physical therapists willing to move there to town for an amazing job because people want to have their cake and eat it too.

[00:11:24] They want to make $150,000 a year and they want to do it in the town where they live.

[00:11:29] And there's not always a great opportunity, so you really have to build your own.

[00:11:32] My town is too small.

[00:11:35] It is.

[00:11:36] It's really small.

[00:11:37] I hear you.

[00:11:38] I've helped hundreds of people build multiple six-figure businesses in small rural podunk towns.

[00:11:45] You don't need to be in a major metropolitan area to charge high prices for cash.

[00:11:51] Most recent cash practice owners have helped in a small rural town in the mountains of Tennessee.

[00:11:58] Megan Stinson, Caitlin Voss doing 33K months.

[00:12:03] Opened a second location in another town over.

[00:12:06] Justine Calderwood built a six-figure cash practice in the mountains of Colorado.

[00:12:12] I think outside of Colorado Springs.

[00:12:14] Holland Oliver built a multiple six-figure business with an employee on a small island on the coast of Maine.

[00:12:22] It's a fishing village and it's really only busy eight months out of the year.

[00:12:26] I mean, there's 8,000 residents there.

[00:12:28] I think there's 6,000 residents in Megan's town and Justine's is like 5,000.

[00:12:33] So your town is not too small.

[00:12:35] Your town is not too big.

[00:12:38] I don't know anyone.

[00:12:40] I don't know anyone.

[00:12:41] Okay.

[00:12:43] That's not an excuse.

[00:12:45] Derek Nielsen built a six-figure business in Durham, North Carolina.

[00:12:50] He didn't know anyone there before he moved there.

[00:12:51] His girlfriend was going to school to be a nurse practitioner at UNC Chapel Hill, I believe.

[00:12:58] And then he did 10K his first eight weeks, 15K in his, I think, eighth month.

[00:13:03] 15K months.

[00:13:04] That's dope.

[00:13:05] I don't know if you're doing that in your job.

[00:13:08] But I doubt it.

[00:13:09] I don't know anyone.

[00:13:10] Okay.

[00:13:11] It's possible.

[00:13:13] Patients won't pay cash.

[00:13:14] This is the big one.

[00:13:14] I don't know how to get patients to pay cash.

[00:13:16] You know what?

[00:13:17] You have not been trained to talk to your patients, number one, about money, and number two, about what they're actually paying.

[00:13:25] You probably don't know.

[00:13:26] And if you're just doing physical therapy, in air quotes, for a $50 or $75 copay, just know patients are paying.

[00:13:33] You just don't know.

[00:13:34] How much are they getting balance billed at the end of their therapy?

[00:13:37] Some of them just have a copay.

[00:13:39] But I guarantee you, patients will pay cash.

[00:13:42] And it's not just the rich people.

[00:13:45] If you think only rich people are the ones who are going to come forward to pay cash for physical therapy, you have a poor money mindset.

[00:13:50] You need to change your money mindset.

[00:13:52] You probably wouldn't pay for physical therapy.

[00:13:56] So if you wouldn't pay for physical therapy at $200 a visit, you can't offer it because no one will believe you and you won't be successful.

[00:14:04] Patients won't pay cash.

[00:14:05] They will.

[00:14:06] Farmers, school teachers.

[00:14:08] I mean, we've got school teachers come to our practice and we're like, North Carolina is like 38th in the nation in teacher pay.

[00:14:15] We're not last.

[00:14:16] But we're not in the top half, that's for certain.

[00:14:18] And you know in the top 5% or top 10% of states with teacher pay, they're still not making as much as you are as a physical therapist.

[00:14:26] Patients will pay.

[00:14:27] And it's not just cash.

[00:14:29] They can pay check, credit card, HSA, FSA.

[00:14:32] They will pay for something of high quality that they can't get anywhere else in town.

[00:14:36] There's another one.

[00:14:37] It's not the right time.

[00:14:38] All I'm going to say to this is for any of these other reasons, it's not the right time.

[00:14:41] It's never going to be the right time.

[00:14:42] You're never going to feel like it's the right time to spend the amount of money it takes to launch a business, get the coaching you need, invest in the resources.

[00:14:49] The reason it's not the right time is because either you have it too easy or you haven't decided that it's do or die time.

[00:14:58] Right?

[00:14:59] But don't wait until it's die time and you quit the profession and you have regrets.

[00:15:04] Because the worst thing that can happen, if you try this and you go after your dreams, the absolute worst that can happen is you go get another job making $100,000 or more a year in home health PT and you pay off any mistakes you made.

[00:15:17] But I guarantee you if you don't quit, there won't be mistakes to pay off.

[00:15:22] I need to pay off my student loans.

[00:15:23] I probably could have put this one a little higher.

[00:15:25] But yeah, I need to pay off my student loans first.

[00:15:27] You know what?

[00:15:27] The fastest way to pay off your student loans is to get a higher paying job, generate more income, and you can pay them off faster.

[00:15:34] Debt is not bad.

[00:15:35] All debt is not bad.

[00:15:37] Your student loans is not bad debt.

[00:15:39] Investing in your business is not bad debt.

[00:15:42] Investing in a home, real estate is not bad debt.

[00:15:45] But going out and buying a car or getting a lease on a car that you can't afford, that's bad debt because most cars depreciate the moment you drive them off the lot.

[00:15:59] This has happened less and less in the last few years during COVID when there's a car shortage.

[00:16:03] Like Subarus and Teslas and Lexus, they don't depreciate nearly as much.

[00:16:09] But you go out and buy something fancy just because you're making money and you're single and you've got some extra spending cash.

[00:16:17] You know, there's bad debt.

[00:16:21] You know, racking up credit card bills on things that are fun, like fun trips or going to see, you know, you put a $900 Taylor Swift ticket on a credit card.

[00:16:31] That's not going to help you grow your income.

[00:16:32] That's not going to help you take care of your family.

[00:16:36] That's not going to help you help patients.

[00:16:37] And that's just fun money.

[00:16:39] And that shouldn't be something you leverage debt for.

[00:16:41] But you should absolutely leverage debt to grow your business, to give yourself a better shot at future wealth and prosperity for your family and for your kids and for yourself.

[00:16:50] I need to pay off student loans.

[00:16:51] No.

[00:16:52] Pay them off as slow as possible.

[00:16:54] Get your income as high as possible.

[00:16:56] And when you have extra cash, you pay them down in chunks.

[00:16:59] Your home, don't pay that off as slow as possible.

[00:17:02] And don't pay that thing off.

[00:17:05] Once you start building up equity in your home, you go get a home equity line of credit and you leverage that credit for something else to grow your income.

[00:17:12] That is good debt.

[00:17:14] It's absolutely good debt.

[00:17:15] Here's some of the real reasons.

[00:17:17] But I'm getting closer to this.

[00:17:20] The real one, this is one I actually got from someone in a chat conversation.

[00:17:24] She said, honestly, I'm afraid I might fail.

[00:17:28] And I think she was the first person in 12 years to tell me that what was actually happening and going on in her mind.

[00:17:36] You know what?

[00:17:37] I actually think I might fail.

[00:17:40] And I've already said this before.

[00:17:42] Like, there's two things.

[00:17:44] You're not going to fail if you're all in and you don't quit.

[00:17:48] You're only going to learn lessons and continue to grow.

[00:17:51] And if you do fail, what's the worst?

[00:17:55] The worst thing is you go get a job in real estate or medical device sales and you make more money than you can in PT.

[00:18:03] Right?

[00:18:04] That's not failure.

[00:18:06] That's you realizing that this isn't the path for you.

[00:18:10] But being unwilling to take the risk and trust yourself, that's when you start to fail.

[00:18:16] So, really, I think the two reasons, well, I think there's three reasons people won't move forward.

[00:18:23] One, you've got it too good.

[00:18:25] This is the golden handcuffs.

[00:18:26] I think I've got a video on that too.

[00:18:28] The golden handcuffs.

[00:18:29] But you don't feel like you're worth it and you don't trust yourself.

[00:18:32] You don't trust it, really.

[00:18:33] I think is you don't trust yourself enough because other people haven't trusted you to invest in yourself what it takes to be successful.

[00:18:42] I may be wrong.

[00:18:43] Maybe you're listening and it's something else.

[00:18:44] But in general, I think that's it.

[00:18:47] I don't think our profession.

[00:18:48] I don't think our schools.

[00:18:50] I don't think other PTs, the association, are doing enough to teach us, to teach you that you're worthy, that you're capable,

[00:19:00] and you absolutely have all the tools at your disposal to be as successful as you want to be.

[00:19:07] And sometimes what you've got to do is just take a leap of faith and trust that you are your best investment.

[00:19:17] You are your best opportunity to get what you want in life, to leave a legacy, to help thousands of people,

[00:19:24] and to generate the money, income, and time that you want to spend with your family, friends, on your passions, working out daily, etc.

[00:19:33] So you're worth it.

[00:19:35] Now go get it.

[00:19:36] I'll see you on the next show.