Greg Todd [00:00:00]:
And one of the things that I knew inherently is that people value. They might not say it, but they value their time over money. They do. Okay. And anytime I can free them of investing more time in working with me in order to get the result that they wanted, they actually value that more. Right now, if it became a point for me, and I'm assuming for Kelly as well. Cause I've seen her entire journey, came a point where we're like, oh, my gosh, I can't continue to drive around the place and do this like, I'm running out of time. So we then had to create brick and mortar practices.
Greg Todd [00:00:41]:
Right. But please understand that people, there's a lot of people that are not working with you right now because of their inability to invest. The time that it takes to work with this is secrets for success. Welcome to the Secrets for Success podcast. I'm your host, Greg Todd. Thank you, as always, for joining me. I cannot believe it has taken this amount of episodes to finally have you on the secrets for success. Kelly Alhui.
Greg Todd [00:01:12]:
Welcome to the podcast. I know we got a lot to cover in a very short period of time. How the heck have you not been on the podcast so far?
Kelly Alhooie [00:01:20]:
I have no clue. It's just I've been busy. Busy with lifeing.
Greg Todd [00:01:25]:
Busy with lifeing. Okay, all right. Okay. Well, why don't you tell the people a little bit about who you are, what you do, and who you serve?
Kelly Alhooie [00:01:31]:
Yeah. Thanks so much, Greg, for having me on. What's up, guys? For those who don't know me, my name is Kelly Al Huey. I am founder of Orthopelvic Physical Therapy. I have a brick and mortar practice in Sterling, Virginia. And then I also have an online company called Pelviviz, where I help pelvic health therapists grow their businesses and make more money and be healthy while doing it.
Greg Todd [00:01:50]:
Wow. I love it, love it, love it. And you've been doing this now, you've had your business since 2020, is that correct?
Kelly Alhooie [00:01:55]:
Yes.
Greg Todd [00:01:57]:
Fantastic. So you've had your ups, you've had your downs, you've had all arounds, right? And it's been a journey. But would you say that from when you started being a therapist, which was it, 2010 or 22,009? 2009. So from 2009 to 2020, you were a treating therapist, trading your time for money, working for someone else. And today, things are a little bit different, right? Today you have a business. Today you help other people. You have da da da da. Okay, so when you first started as a therapist, would you ever think that there was a way for you to help people, but at the same time have time flexibility.
Greg Todd [00:02:43]:
Was that ever a thought?
Kelly Alhooie [00:02:45]:
No, I just wanted to replace my income.
Greg Todd [00:02:47]:
Okay. Gotcha. And so now you're helping pelvic health therapists not only grow a brick and mortar, but one of the things that I noticed that you're doing that I don't see a lot of other consultants in the pelvic health space do is you're teaching them how they can bring value and not have to physically be in front of people. So can you talk about, like, how you got into that and, like, how did you, how did you integrate telehealth and make it so effective that it is as effective or even more effective than seeing people in person? Can you talk about that a little bit?
Kelly Alhooie [00:03:24]:
Yeah, no, great question. So, basically, I saw there was a need because we treat lots of mothers. They didn't have time to get babysitters. That's a limiting issue for them. They didn't have time to drive. When I started my practice, I drove everywhere. And so I still have about 60% of our patients coming from 45 minutes away to drive to orthopelvic. And I still.
Kelly Alhooie [00:03:46]:
And that's. It's now what, been four or five years now. We still have that population that's coming to see us, and they do pass other pelvic health clinics, but they choose us because we are the number one pelvic health clinic in northern Virginia. And I know that we can truly help them. And they see all of our reviews, and they understand that we can help them. They choose to drive, but sometimes they have child issues. Their kids are sick, and so they're like, I can't come, but I really still want your services. And so that's when I really went in hard on telehealth.
Kelly Alhooie [00:04:16]:
We call it teletherapy now so that we can actually continue to give them care and be able to solve their problem. And what I found is a lot of my therapists were having issues because we don't learn this stuff in school, and they don't know how to communicate and what teletherapy is, what's different is you actually have to interview them. You actually have to coach them. Instead of using your hands and doing the manual stuff, you really have to learn how to coach them. And most therapists have no clue how to ask questions and coach people.
Greg Todd [00:04:53]:
Yeah, this is a huge thing. I think a lot of people struggle with. They're really good at being a practitioner.
Kelly Alhooie [00:05:01]:
Right.
Greg Todd [00:05:02]:
And doing stuff on people, but they're not good at coaching and at making decisions for people. Would you agree?
Kelly Alhooie [00:05:09]:
Yes. And they don't know how to guide. You have to guide the people and you have to ask the right questions and dig deeper. And a lot of times I find this to be very uncomfortable. So I'm going to give you guys an example. We treat patients, we treat males and females, right? So I have a male patient, has erectile dysfunction, young kid, and he's in bear. Well, he doesn't have erectile. Sorry, he's overstimulated.
Kelly Alhooie [00:05:31]:
Okay. And so he, he basically, like, anytime he's around a female, he has an erection. It's very embarrassing for him. Right. Well, I was, we were seeing him in person and then we were seeing him on telehealth and we were able to get deeper into his reasonings and his why's. Because we didn't just. Just do manual on him, because we started asking deeper questions and understanding, truly, where did this come from? What's happening? And to me, we got so much more out of the visit through telehealth because we truly understand the background rather than just saying, hey, where's the pain point? Where's the problem? Okay, now I'm putting my hands on you and let me try to, like, lengthen the tissue and solve that problem. So I think that's just like one quick example of, you know, the difference between a telehealth visit and an in person and how much more you can actually discover when you're not using your hands.
Greg Todd [00:06:25]:
So this is fantastic. You know, I feel as though when you make the decision and I say decision, meaning that you understand, like, I'm not going back, I'm going to make the decision to become a better decision maker, right. And to become a better advisor. And it's so funny because on one of my coaching calls that I did yesterday, I was explaining to the clients, to the students, that you all need to become consultants. Every single one of you and everyone that's listening to this podcast right now, it is in your best interest to not just be a practitioner, it's to be a consultant, meaning that you are able, you have to find ways to be able to give people value with your hands tied behind your back. And you'll find there's a whole new way of solving people's problems, even you as a clinician being able to do that. And I love that example that you gave. So here's the question, because I know a lot of people are going to bring this up.
Greg Todd [00:07:30]:
They're going to be like, well, I'm not as valuable with someone. Not in front of me. I don't have, like, I'm not as valuable. Okay, I get it's more flexible for them to easier on their time schedule, but I'm not as valuable. What would you say to them?
Kelly Alhooie [00:07:46]:
Well, you guys then only value your hands, and that's a problem. And so you have to learn that you actually are so much more valuable. Your mind is the most valuable thing that you can possibly have. And when you're able to not just see it from a muscular skeletal perspective, which that is what they have taught us in school, and you're able. And this is why we have the logo as a puzzle piece, and you're able to actually put all the pieces of the puzzle. So let's go back to my patient that had, you know, hyper, hyper. You know, he was. He was just basically having erections all the time.
Kelly Alhooie [00:08:21]:
Okay, let's go back to him. I was able to dig and be able to say, okay, well, what scenarios is this happening in? Okay, I'm gonna put you actually in more of those scenarios. I'm not thinking about manually. What am I gonna do to lengthen his tissue? Okay, when is it? Okay, we're going to work through that issue. Can you put a table between you and this other person so maybe you don't have an erection? Right. Can you sit in a chair? His also issue was if you sat straight up, he would have an erection because he was tightening all of his muscles. Okay, well, let me look at your chairs all around your house, and let's see how you're actually sitting in those chairs. And just in one session, we were able to solve him not having an erection when he sat up straight.
Kelly Alhooie [00:09:00]:
Just by doing that. I could not do that in clinic because I don't know how he's sitting. I cannot mimic it. It's a fake environment. We're using his environment to make him feel comfortable to get to, so I can get a deeper understanding of what's going on. And then we're also putting a psychologist on board. We're also putting. I'm creating a social environment for him.
Kelly Alhooie [00:09:20]:
I'm saying, hey, what else can you go to that we're going to put you in an uncomfortable situation, and I'm going to see what happens. Right. So I'm building that for him. I'm also helping him with just connecting with other people. I'm also having him do certain things in his house throughout the day. So there's so many different things that you can do. Not just using your hands. And I find therapists are very, very uncomfortable with that because no one's ever taught you that.
Kelly Alhooie [00:09:49]:
So that's what I want to help people with. And I want to teach people, like, we can do this, and you actually will get better results even with doing telehealth, because you're going to truly understand their deeper why.
Greg Todd [00:10:01]:
Now, one of the things that you have said to me before, and I know a lot of therapists don't value themselves in their ability to make decisions. And so if they're going to do a telehealth visit, they actually charge less. But you don't do that.
Kelly Alhooie [00:10:17]:
No.
Greg Todd [00:10:18]:
When you sell your packages and you have telehealth visits in there, there's no difference with a telehealth visit versus an in person visit. How are you able to overcome that when so many therapists don't value their decision making as much as they value their hands? How are you able to navigate that with clients?
Kelly Alhooie [00:10:38]:
Yeah. So first off, we charge the same price as in person. And our tele sessions are actually 45 minutes. Our in person is actually an hour. So we're actually doing a shorter televisit. And then that wait saves 15 minutes for us to actually create a plan for them on the back end.
Greg Todd [00:10:57]:
Gotcha.
Kelly Alhooie [00:10:57]:
And so, yeah, we only talk to them for 45 minutes. And the value that we are conveying to them is it actually saves you time. We get to use your environment, and you don't have to leave your house, you don't have to babysitter. Okay. And they're like, oh, my God. Like another example, I had this lady, she only peed when she picked up her little five pound dog. So I'm like, let's do teletherapy. So we did teletherapy, and we reviewed how she was going to pick up her dog every step of the way, where she had to feed him, where she had a, he had a diaper on.
Kelly Alhooie [00:11:31]:
He had some issues, but he had some leakage issues, too. And so we reviewed exactly what that was, and by the end of the session, she did not have any leakage at all. And I think she was in our office for, like, seven visits, didn't she? Didn't she saw leakage? We did a one telehealth session, and she had no leakage at all during that session with her dog.
Greg Todd [00:11:53]:
You're simulating their environment for them.
Kelly Alhooie [00:11:55]:
Correct.
Greg Todd [00:11:55]:
So, yeah, guys, I think this is just, look, you guys know me as the guy that doesn't want to exclusively trade time for money. Right. And the reality is that I still trade some time for money. I just don't want to trade all my time for money. Right. And if I am going to trade my time for money, I want to be able to do it in a remote way if possible. Right. And so I just love this because it gives you that flexibility.
Greg Todd [00:12:26]:
Like, I don't know if I told you, but, you know, I got some health stuff going on with a family member, and I'm able to. It's going to be a big surgery, right. That they're going to have. I don't have to, like, because I had the flexibility of being able to deliver value and help people with their decision making. I can do it remotely. So if the surgery ends up not going as expected and I need to stay even longer down in south Florida, like, I can do it, right? And a lot of people are like, yeah, oh, my gosh, I want that. I want that. But I'm a clinician.
Greg Todd [00:12:58]:
Well, I think if you kind of follow this way, this is a way for you to at least get time flexibility. It might not be full time freedom, but time flexibility first. And. And I say that to all of you that are listening for a couple reasons. Number one, if you look at Kelly's journey and you look at my journey, she started later. She started in 2020 as an entrepreneur. And you started mobile, right? Correct. And I started my entrepreneurial journey in 2005, and I started mobile as well.
Greg Todd [00:13:35]:
And one of the things that I, I knew inherently is that people value what, they might not say it, but they value their time over money. They do. Okay. And anytime I can, I can free them of investing more time in working with me in order to get the result that they wanted. They actually value that more right now. It became a point for me, and I'm assuming for Kelly as well, because I've seen her entire journey. Came a point where we're like, oh, my gosh, I can't continue to drive around the place and do this. Like, I'm running out of time.
Greg Todd [00:14:14]:
So we then had to create brick and mortar practices. Right. But please understand that people, there's a lot of people that are not working with you right now because of their inability to invest the time that it takes to work with you, and you not giving them this as an option is actually hurting your ability to even have the opportunity to work. They're not working with you because you haven't made this an option. So here's my last question to you, Kelly. How do you present this to people how do you make this an option for people? And how do you make it an option in a way where people don't feel like they're getting. They're getting short changed?
Kelly Alhooie [00:14:48]:
Yeah. So there's two ways. Number one, I have a method that Gray helped me come up with. I have a method and that we keep it in the rooms. And you have to set the expectation up front. And we always say that at least two sessions will be teletherapy at least. So that way the expectations already there also, that's one way I do it. And then also when someone tries to cancel in your clinic.
Kelly Alhooie [00:15:14]:
So for those people that have a clinic and they're canceling, you're like, ah, when the COVID goes around or whatever, all the germs or whatever else comes around, you're like, why are all these cancellations happening? Or people are traveling with the summertime, your clinic doesn't have to go down. Most of it. Everyone gives me excuse. What's the summer? It's gonna be slow. No, it doesn't have to be slow. It could be your highest months. Summers are my highest months. So, you know, it doesn't have to be that way.
Kelly Alhooie [00:15:37]:
And so over the phone, we have a cancellation policy in place. 48 hours. And if you don't want to, you know, do that because you have. You're sick or whatever else, well, guess what? We have two options. You can either a, move your appointment later on the week, you won't be charged, or b, you can switch this to a teletherapy session. And we highly recommend that because we get to use your environment. And even when you're sick, we're going to continue to make consistency and have progress and continue to do things that are going to move you in the right direction no matter what goes on in your life. And so that's how we position it over the phone.
Kelly Alhooie [00:16:11]:
And people were like, yeah, let's move it to that. So it's a pretty easier than people think.
Greg Todd [00:16:18]:
Yeah, yeah, you guys, it's just setting expectations from the get go. And if you do that and truly believe it, you'll be able to help a lot of people. Okay. I absolutely love this. I know that you're doing. You're teaching people your framework with this. Is that correct? So can you talk about that and when you're doing it and all the deets and stuff like that?
Kelly Alhooie [00:16:40]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, guys, August 15 at 07:00 we are going to be doing a telehealth webinar. I will be teaching for 1 hour how to actually not use your hands and evaluate your pelvic floor, because I know most of you guys have that question. That's the number one question I get. Kelly, how do you evaluate someone's hypertonic pelvic floor and not use their hands? I'm going to actually teach you how to do that. So if you are interested in that, it's August 15 at 07:00 p.m. eastern standard time. You can go to my IG at the pelvi biz, and there's a link in there.
Kelly Alhooie [00:17:15]:
You can click on it, you can register. So we already have over 200 people coming. Spots will fill up because zoom will only allow us to have certain, you know, number of spots. So if you're interested, make sure you head on over to IG.
Greg Todd [00:17:26]:
And, yeah, so go to Elvibiz on IG. Look in her profile. You'll see the link for it. Guys, you know, as we just finish up this. This interview, like, I want to say this, and I'm going to bring you on the podcast. We can do a whole, whole story on you, because Kelly's been one of my favorite clients that I've worked with over the 15 years I've been doing this. But I really want you guys to understand this. My life changed.
Greg Todd [00:17:55]:
My life changed when I just asked myself this question, and that is, if my hands were tied behind my back, what could I do with these clients? What would I do with these clients if your hand was tied behind your back? Okay, because you're listening to this podcast, you don't want to trade all of your time for money. Okay? You are trained to trade all of your time for money. That's the way you were trained, okay? Understand that. Now, just ask yourself the question. What would I do if hands were tied behind my back and I still had to serve? Could I do it? And that's. That's basically all. All that's happening here, okay? And so that is a question that I presented to myself in 2008. My life has changed.
Greg Todd [00:18:43]:
Everything you have ever heard from me is strictly because I asked that question. And I started to. And by the way, the reason why I asked that question is because I actually physically was falling apart. Okay? So I asked a question in 2008. I wasn't falling apart in 2008, 2009, I started falling apart, and then I realized, wait, wait. Let's. Let's revisit this question, okay? All right? Because I now. I now can't physically exert out the same level of intention and energy that I was doing before, and that really is a start of what has happened for me with my business is growing with the way that I treat patients, the value that I'm able to give to people as a clinician and then now as an entrepreneur and an advisor to other people, I highly recommend that you guys go to this, okay? And even if you're not a pelvic health therapist and you want to do teletherapy, I think you should go to this as well.
Greg Todd [00:19:39]:
Okay. Um, because I think there's a lot that you're probably going to talk on there about just the the expectations, the communication. The communication that you need to have. Yes. You you guys got to do this. You guys got to do this. So anyways, go check out Kelly. Kelly, thank you for being on.
Greg Todd [00:19:57]:
I know we're on a tight schedule, but thank you so much. I appreciate you, and we'll bring you back on the podcast. All right, later. Yeah, bye.
