Starting a career is like stepping into an adventure with twists and turns. During Morgan Meese’s DPT to CEO interview series, I was invited to share my story of going from being a physical therapist to jumping into entrepreneurship, particularly in digital marketing for physical therapy practices. Let’s dive into the lessons learned and the insights I came to discover throughout this process.
Discovering Passion and Facing Challenges
My career started in June of 2020, right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. It definitely wasn’t all smooth sailing, for anyone at the time. I had known since I was 15 years old that I wanted to be a physical therapist, so it was very disheartening to experience burn out so soon in my career.
I started working in a busy outpatient setting, seeing way too many patients, with minimal time for documentation. I knew I had to get out of this setting because my mental health was suffering greatly.
From there I tried home health and soon landed in a hospital-based outpatient clinic. I felt more supported at this clinic, but still the thought of doing the same thing for 40 years was terrifying to me. I knew I wanted something different, something more, I just wasn’t sure what.
Exploring New Avenues
For the longest time I had assumed I would spend my years living near my hometown, raising a family near my parents, and I was happy with this thought. But, life always reminds you that its in control. My husband accepted a traveling position with the Railroad, even further driving me to look for something more flexible.
I took some time to do some research, looking to find someone to guide me in the direction of where I wanted to go. That’s when I came across Morgan, a physical therapist, business coach, and marketing guru. She fueled my fire and helped me get started on the path of starting my own women’s wellness coaching business. I had planned to develop a buyable course for women that touched on all aspects of health and wellness, hoping to improve their overall quality of life.
Unfortunately, the company I was working at at the time put up quite the road block - enforcing a non-compete. This experience led me to question corporate healthcare altogether. It floored me how such a large business entity would threaten to take legal action against me, especially when I had agreed not to practice physical therapy within my women’s wellness coaching business. But, once again, life throws curve balls and you just learn to adapt. You can learn the truth about why I started my own PT marketing business here.
Unexpected Opportunities in Digital Marketing
I remember sitting on a virtual coaching call with Morgan, ugly crying in front of her and feeling the lowest of lows. I wasn’t sure what direction I would go or how I could use the knowledge and skills I had learned as a physical therapist to start any career. To my surprise, Morgan was in need of assistance, and in an area that I had minimal experience in.
She had mentioned that she was impressed with my graphic design skills and tech savvy ways. She was in need of help with her own business’ marketing, as well as providing digital marketing for her clients.
I learned just how important it was to be open to any opportunity that came my way and that there is always hope, even when it doesn’t feel like it. After a few short months of working for Morgan, I was hooked. My frustrations had turned into fascination as I realized the potential for entrepreneurship in the world of digital marketing.
Content Marketing: A Key Focus
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Taylor Kirk, and I offer content marketing services for pelvic health practice. This includes content creation in the form of written, video, audio, or social. I started my business as Taylor Danielle Creative but soon realized my passion for pelvic health physical therapy and digital marketing could be morphed together. This led me to what is now my business - The Pelvic Marketer. You can learn more about The Pelvic Marketer here.
I’ve grown extremely passionate about content marketing and find satisfaction in the tangibility and creative side it allows me to tap into. If I were to give someone advice when getting started with their business’ content marketing, my top three tips for content marketing would include:
Be consistent - create a content schedule and stick with it.
Get in front of the camera - this type of video content helps build trust with your audience.
Keep it simple - master 2-3 content platforms and stick with it. There’s no need to be on every single content creation platform.
Challenges of Entrepreneurship
Don’t get me wrong, letting go of my identity as a physical therapist was hard, and can still creep back up on me at times. I spent so many years in school working toward a degree I thought would lead me to my dream career only to find out we’re overworked and underpaid. I’ll always be a PT at heart and there’s a strong possibility I’ll go back to treating patients at some point in my life.
It’s also scary to be stand-alone as an entrepreneur. Especially when getting started and maybe for the first couple of years, your income isn’t steady and you’re always working to find more work. This was challenging for me to accept at first because I was so used to a steady paycheck coming in every two weeks. I had to shift my mindset. By being a business owner, I’m choosing to bet on myself and not rely on a corporate business to lead me to my career happiness. In some way, this comforts me and is quite empowering.
Pelvic Floor and Women's Health
This is kind of a random topic to cover within this post, but I think it’s important to share my passion for pelvic floor physical therapy when explaining my journey.
My interest in pelvic PT started a while back. I took a course, explored continuing education in this specialty on my own time, and really grew to see the need of this population. If you’re reading this and on the fence about starting a women’s health or pelvic health practice, let me just say that you should absolutely go for it.
Pelvic physical and occupational therapy is a growing field, and it’s just in its early phases of bloom. As providers, we can provide such a positive impact on this population through education and lifestyle modifications simply because of the lack of education in this area to the general public. It’s also important to mention how effective marketing in this field is because it is a specific problem and specific solution. Check out my blog post here where I provide tips for marketing your pelvic health practice.
When looking to better my business, resulting in the transition from Taylor Danielle Creative to The Pelvic Marketer, I saw the gap that marketing could fill in the realm of pelvic health. Content marketing can be used as a vehicle for educating the public and what better topic to educate them on than pelvic health? This is how The Pelvic Marketer and my service of providing content marketing for pelvic health practices came to be.
Conculsion
With my business, I hope to help as many practice owners as I can thrive through marketing resulting in helping more patients. I also hope to provide a beacon of hope contemplating making a career shift, whether that be staying in the rehab field or getting out of the field altogether.
From feeling so burnt out I could have left PT and worked at McDonald’s to discovering the unexpected for digital marketing, I wouldn’t change a single experience. I feel that I’ve grown as a person and embraced the importance of being resilient, adaptable, and having courage to carve out my own way.
If you're interested in watching the video associated with this blog post, check it out here!
If you want to learn more about how I could help you as a marketing consultant for your physical therapy or other rehab practice, get in touch! I’d love to get to know you, learn about your business, and how I can help you grow in the digital world!
You can check out my website (linked here) to learn more about me and the services I offer.
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