As a physical therapist, you’ve probably dreamed of more time, more financial freedom, and the ability to take guilt-free vacations. Imagine being able to enjoy time off, knowing that your practice or business continues to thrive and generate revenue. This dream is not only possible—it’s achievable with passive income.
In this post, we’ll dive into the realities of creating passive income as a physical therapist, discuss how systems and delegation play a key role, and break down the steps necessary to free up your time while still growing your business. Let’s get started!
What Is Passive Income, Really?
When people talk about passive income, the picture often painted is of money rolling in while you sit on the beach sipping a cocktail. However, the reality is a bit more nuanced. Passive income for physical therapists doesn’t happen overnight—it’s the result of building systems, creating sustainable practices, and investing smartly. Ben and I have been pursuing passive income for years, and we’ve learned the importance of putting in the upfront work to make that happen.
The Key to Passive Income: Systems and Delegation
The true secret to passive income lies not in creating a product that generates money while you sleep, but in creating effective systems that work for you. It requires a lot of initial hustle to build those systems, but once they’re in place, you can begin to step back and enjoy the benefits.
Here’s what it looks like:
Building Systems: Create repeatable, scalable systems within your practice—whether it’s for patient care, marketing, or sales. Once a system is in place, it runs on autopilot, saving you time in the long run.
Hiring the Right People: You must bring in people who can execute those systems. Initially, you’ll need to master each role so you can delegate it effectively. Once you’ve trained others, you can free yourself from day-to-day tasks.
Investing Smartly: Once your practice is self-sustaining, you can start reinvesting in other wealth-creating avenues such as real estate or stocks. These investments can provide additional passive income that compounds over time.
How Ben Achieved $70,000 While on Vacation
Ben recently generated over $70,000 while enjoying time off in Las Vegas for a bachelor party. How did he do it? By hiring the right people, building systems, and ensuring that his practice could run smoothly without him. While he was away, his team took care of everything, and the business continued to grow.
Takeaway: You can take a break without losing revenue, but it requires a foundation of strong systems and delegation. Ben didn’t just go on vacation for a few days—he worked to build a practice that runs without him.
The Importance of Mastering Each Role Before Delegating
One common mistake many practice owners make is delegating too soon. You must master each function in your business—whether it’s patient care, sales, or marketing—before handing it off to someone else. Here’s why:
You can’t train others without experience. If you’ve never done something yourself, you can’t teach others how to do it effectively.
You’ll be able to fix problems faster. When systems break, you need to understand how they work to troubleshoot and guide your team.
Your team will respect your leadership. People follow leaders who can lead by example. When you understand every aspect of your practice, you’ll inspire confidence and loyalty.
Once you’ve mastered a task, delegate it. This allows you to focus on the next critical component that needs to be scaled.
The Reality of Creating Passive Income Online vs. In-Person
Building passive income in an online business—such as creating an online course or product—sounds tempting. But as Ben and I have discovered, this path is often not as passive as it seems. Here’s why:
It requires constant effort. Online products need constant promotion, ads, and customer service. If you’re selling a $100 product and want to make $10,000 a month, you need 100 sales every month, which requires a lot of marketing.
It’s competitive. As soon as you figure out what works, others will copy your strategies. The online market is ever-changing, and staying on top of digital marketing trends is time-consuming.
In contrast, running a physical practice like a microclinic provides a more predictable way to achieve passive income. Once your systems are in place and you have the right team, you can generate income from referrals and organic marketing, allowing your practice to grow on its own.
Path to Passive Income as a Practice Owner
Here’s the path Ben followed to create a self-sustaining practice:
Master patient care and sales. This is the foundation. Learn how to sell and deliver excellent patient care before handing off these roles to others.
Delegate roles in order of importance. Start by delegating the tasks you’re best at first—sales, patient care, marketing. This allows you to train your team effectively.
Hire a clinic director. Once you’ve freed up time by delegating the crucial roles, hire a clinic director to manage day-to-day operations.
Lead your team effectively. Set clear standards, communicate well, and foster a culture that attracts and retains great talent.
Once you’ve mastered these skills and put the right people in place, your business will run with minimal input from you. At that point, it’s time to work on scaling your business or expanding into other ventures like real estate or stocks.
Building a Culture of Leadership and Loyalty
One of the biggest hurdles in growing your practice is getting over the fear of handing off responsibility. As Ben mentioned, physical therapists often have a hard time letting go of patient care because they feel like “only they can do it right.”
However, hiring and training people isn’t about finding clones of yourself. It’s about finding individuals who care deeply about the business and giving them the tools and leadership they need to succeed. When you develop a strong leadership mindset, you’ll attract high-quality individuals who want to contribute to the success of your practice.
Conclusion
Passive income isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution—it’s about creating systems that allow you to step back from the business and free up your time. Whether you choose to scale a physical practice or build an online product, the real key to passive income is in mastering systems and delegation.
By learning and mastering key business components, hiring the right team, and constantly refining your leadership skills, you’ll unlock the time and financial freedom you’ve always wanted. And when you get to the point where you can take vacations guilt-free while your business keeps growing, you’ll know that you’ve truly created passive income.
Watch and Listen to the Full Video
For a deeper dive into a cash physical therapists’ journeys, make sure to listen to the full video. Earn While You Sleep: Mastering Passive Income Strategies for Physical Therapists
About Author:
Although the company eventually failed, it provided Jordan with invaluable learning experiences. He became passionate about designing world-class patient experiences and building efficient marketing & sales funnels for cash physical therapists. Utilizing this expertise, Jordan became the CMO of a well-known physical therapy media company, and consulted for and built marketing funnels for some of the top physical therapy business coaches.
Eventually growing tired of the typical agency and consulting grind, Jordan, alongside Max Zirbel, founded Clinical Marketer. They infused it with the hands-on support and mentorship that they benefited from in their initial venture. The company was a success from the start, aiding clinics in scaling to 6 and 7 figures in revenue. During its first launch, Jordan and his team met Dr. Ben Bagge, whom they later partnered with after helping him grow his business from $200K/year to over $1M/year in three years.
