Optimal Aging

How a Physical Therapist Grew Her Wellness Business with Real-World Marketing

• Jay Croft • Season 3 • Episode 17

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Can walking your neighborhood really help grow your fitness or physical therapy business? For Shayna Gross, the answer is a resounding yes.

In this episode of the Optimal Aging Podcast, Jay Croft of Prime Fit Content talks with Shayna, a veteran physical therapist and the owner of Physiovation in Atlanta. After moving to a larger location in the eclectic Little Five Points neighborhood, Shayna expanded her offerings to include small group personal training — and got to work building real relationships.

You’ll hear how she:

  • Met her neighbors and local business owners one by one
  • Formed smart partnerships and sponsored a wellness festival
  • Attracted clients from a large local employer
  • Combines strength training and physical therapy to focus on prevention and lifelong wellness

Shayna’s story is a masterclass in grassroots marketing and community connection. If you’re a fitness or wellness professional looking for authentic ways to grow, this episode is for you.

This episode is a must-listen for fitness, health and wellness professionals looking to expand their business and connect with their community in meaningful ways.

Learn more about Shayna: Physiovation, Shayna Gross on Facebook
Subscribe to the show and learn more at: Optimal Aging on Apple

Prime Fit Content helps you reach more people over 50 to grow your fitness, health and wellbeing business.

Speaker 1:

Shaina, hi, nice to see you again.

Speaker 2:

Great to see you.

Speaker 1:

You know, we saw each other just yesterday and here we are again. My luck.

Speaker 2:

Lucky for me, it seems like we never have enough time to cover all the topics.

Speaker 1:

I know. I know we are both obsessed with these topics and like to talk about them, and I like learning from you and I appreciate your energy, so this is going to be a fun conversation.

Speaker 2:

Thank you.

Speaker 1:

As it was yesterday and I was so excited to see your new location and little five points here in Atlanta. A great neighborhood, a unique neighborhood in town, a little bit hipster, a little bit funky, um a little I don't know, hey Dashberry kind of feel to it. If, for anyone who's not familiar, it's not your typical suburban strip mall is what I'm getting at, I agree.

Speaker 1:

And you moved in just two or three months ago Maybe it's been a little longer than that now four or five months ago into the former home of a feminist bookstore.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And you have renovated it. It's beautiful. Congratulations, thank you. Thank you very much. I took a minute to describe the neighborhood because I think it's really important to what I want to talk about today, and I want to talk about your settling into this new neighborhood. But before we get to the exciting ways that you are marketing yourself with your new neighbors and your new prospects, which I think everyone listening to this is going to learn a lot from, tell us a little bit about Physiovation, how you got going when you were down the street until recently and why you moved.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, absolutely. So I'm a physical therapist. I have been for 25 years, which ages me, but I also think that that speaks to the breadth of my career, which is important because this iteration of myself is kind of a culmination of all of these skills that I've been developing over the past 25 years. So prior to this, you met me when I had a 450 square foot studio in Inman Park right across from Kitty Dare, and last year I had a milestone in my life I turned 50 and I decided that I wanted to have a 12 hour party, because who shouldn't?

Speaker 2:

And so the first two hours of the day were a workout called the Filthy 50. And I had 17 friends to show up to work out with me, and one of them candidly turned to me afterwards and said you should be adding this to your PT practice. And I started listening to what my patients were talking about when they were talking about strength and hearing people say I don't lift weights anymore. I got quit lifting weights. I don't know how to lift weights. I've never lifted weights, and I put that together with one of my most recent heroes I'll use that word Peter Atiyah. You know I feel that way about him.

Speaker 2:

Heroes, I'll use that word Peter Attia. You know I feel that way about him. I respect his work greatly.

Speaker 2:

He's been extremely brave in putting himself out there and making this whole concept of healthspan much more mainstream with his book, outlive with his podcast, the Drive, and making the information accessible to people, and so I felt like he presented all of the research that I needed in order to justify being a physical therapist run and owned strength and conditioning wellness center. So and I probably should have said wellness center first, because the strength and conditioning piece is only one of the newer pieces that I've added to the model so I was lucky enough to have the opportunity in September of last year to purchase what you described as Karis's bookstore, and the first thing that I noticed when I walked in was this big open space that used to be the main area of the bookstore, and all I saw was a perfect location for a gym, and the gym is currently split. About 75% of it is home to cardio equipment, weightlifting equipment, barbells, dumbbells, et cetera. 25% of it is home to my primary modality in my physical therapy practice, which is Pilates equipment and treadmill. So I specialize in gait analysis.

Speaker 2:

I got certified through the organization Gait Happens. I found that their program was the icing on the cake to a really well-organized system to analyze gait and then break it down into its component parts, and that concept of gait analysis, and then the part that I've added is taking them onto the Pilates equipment, which takes people out of gravity, allows me to use the Pilates vocabulary to assess different neuromuscular patterns out of gravity and then use very objective physical therapy testing procedures to figure out what are the foundational building blocks that the person in front of me is struggling with that is leading to inefficiencies of gait and movement, and then build each person a customized home exercise program that they can then utilize to address those challenge areas. And then they see me for physical therapy to continually improve those neuromuscular patterns and they simultaneously can join our strength and conditioning classes that, one, help them address this known fact at this point that we lose 8% of our lean muscle mass every decade. And two, one of the main risk factors for mortality is cardiovascular disease, and so the VO2 max training and testing that we do helps people address that. And then we come to a broader wellness concept when you look in our modality suite and find a four-person sauna and a cold plunge, because heat and cold therapy allows you to address not just recovery from exercise which you really need to understand the science behind to time appropriately and we can get further into that but also nervous system regulation because the heat cold therapy really does address nervous system imbalance and really help get the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous systems kind of in a more advantageous rhythm together, and so I've been really excited.

Speaker 2:

We opened January 6th and, as you described the neighborhood, I just have to add another level of gratitude to this whole opportunity because I didn't realize what an incredible fit Little Five Points was going to be and I live close by. I used to only drive through Little Five Points, come out occasionally, support local business, because supporting local business has always been important to me.

Speaker 2:

But I didn't realize the opportunity that I was going to have to align myself with other local businesses that are very like-minded and promote them, because I'm really of the mindset that there is abundance, so an abundance mindset, and when the tide rises, all ships sail.

Speaker 1:

Yep, I love all of that and you've given us a lot to unpack. And before we proceed, I want to just recap a little bit. You had a successful physical therapy business in a neighboring area of town for many years and then, when you turned 50, you had a workout with your friends and somebody said you need to be doing this at your physical therapy practice and you went ding, ding, ding. What a great idea. And that is what got me so interested in meeting you initially, because we have a mutual friend, michelle, who introduced us, and I have been wanting to expand my scope from just writing about physical fitness and exercise to get into physical therapy and other related topics, and you were doing the same thing.

Speaker 1:

So I think that's really smart of you to see that expansion, because we all want to move better and feel better. That's a primary motivator of fitness over 50 or 60 or 45 or whatever age we want to talk about it that maybe you don't have when you're in your 20s, right? What I think is so interesting is that you're combining those two. So if I come to you for physical therapy, are you going to tell me that I should be doing your small group personal training too? And if I come to you for small group personal training, are you going to suggest physical therapy? Like, how are you going about presenting these two things to your people?

Speaker 2:

That's a great question, and it's really pretty much like everything I do on an individual basis.

Speaker 2:

If you come to me and you tell me I have a place that I absolutely love to work out and I watch you move, I might say to you absolutely, I love loyalty. It's one of my core values. I don't want you to leave where you love to work out. How much feedback are you getting about the way that you move? And if you tell me I've got people that I work out with that are my coaches, that are on me, I'm going to say that's wonderful. Then why don't you come to me for a gait analysis session? We will see kind of what neuro muscular patterns could be improved in their efficiency. I'll give you a custom home program and before you go to the gym, do these exercises. It's going to really prime your neuro. These exercises it's going to really prime your neuromuscular pump. It's going to really get the most optimal neuromuscular pattern firing for you before you go to your favorite place. Then why don't you come in next month when you've had a month of seeing what those exercises feel like? Let's see how they've landed in your body, let's see what we need to advance, what we still need to focus on, and then we go from there. So that's the person who has the place where they love to work out. And you know I would say that that is the minority. I would say that most people say well, I have a place that I go, I have one coach that I love, but I go five days a week. So there's quite a few days when I'm not really sure of whether or not what I'm doing is correct or not, and so I either don't go those days, so then I end up not working out, or I end up doing something else. And so I'll say well, why don't you come to Physiovation once a week? And then that way, the day that you're not getting the feedback where you already go, you can get feedback here, and then you can take that feedback that you're receiving to the place where you already go, and it'll be a great fit. And then, if you find that there's something that you'd like to address in physical therapy, come for that session. Let's build you a customized program and let's figure out what your those same building blocks are for you, and you'll have a program that you can do as well.

Speaker 2:

And then the third case is somebody who comes to me and says you know what? I'm X number of years old, I've noticed that I can no longer get up and down off the floor. Or I've noticed that every time I go up and downstairs if there are not two handrails I don't feel safe. Or I've noticed that I've been tripping lately. I haven't fallen I'm not old enough to fall, but I do notice that I trip and I'm a little concerned.

Speaker 2:

Then that is okay, let's do a physical therapy session. Let's kind of take a look. And what kind of exercise are you doing? And that tends to be the people who are either not doing any and feel like they know that they should be, or maybe during COVID they were out walking every day, and now that we're no longer, now that we're in a post-COVID world, now they're finding that they're less and less. And to this strength class so we can start to help you get some foundational strength to build on, and then we can decide do you want to come three times a week? Do you want to go to another place? But do you want to do this at home? But understanding that we no longer live in a world where we can say cardio is enough and pretend that we're doing the right thing.

Speaker 1:

Yep, super important. We talk about that a lot on this show and in my business, prime Fit Content, and I think that most people my age and older have no idea that strength training is essential to healthy aging because they, just when I was growing up, it was just bodybuilders who lifted weights, it wasn't normal people, and so that message still hasn't gotten into, like I said, people my age and I'm 61 and a little older. I think people who are now 50 and below they're more open to it because, even if they haven't been going to the gym, they're aware that that's something ordinary people often do. Do you know what I mean? It's not some freakish hobby of just a few people. So I think that's a really key message and I love the way you're integrating it with physical therapy, because we're going to see a lot more of that. We are seeing a lot more of that integration of healthcare and fitness or exercise.

Speaker 2:

I do think that we should name a word, though, because neither one of us has said it, and I think it's the most important word. Let's hear it.

Speaker 2:

It's prevention, because that really is what this wellness model and most wellness models are about. If you look at our current healthcare system, it's much more of a crisis management system. It waits for a diagnosis, a disease, and Peter Attia talks about this as medicine 2.0. And then he talks about medicine 3.0. And the big difference being that medicine 2.0 is the evidence-based practice for as many subjects as possible, so large population numbers whereas medicine 3.0 and this prevention model that we're talking about is taking that evidence-based data and applying it to the individual in front of you, and what that turns into is prevention. So in this wellness model that is physical therapy-based, this is wellness that is focused on the neuromuscular system, the way your body moves, because we develop compensatory strategies as we age because we're fighting gravity.

Speaker 2:

It's just one of the things that's true on this earth and so understanding that, yes, there are definitely ages. But I also have people in my practice in their 20s that have scoliosis or had an injury as a child that was never really addressed appropriately, and they've noticed that they really need something in order to feel as good as they see their peers feeling and that is that prevention mindset.

Speaker 2:

So I think when we talk about what sets this practice apart, what sets the content that you write apart, and that is this prevention mindset. And so when you talk about how people 51 and older haven't embraced weight training or you said 61, sorry, 61 and older haven't embraced strength training as necessary, it's because that same age range also may mistakenly think that they're too late.

Speaker 2:

They may mistakenly think that they missed the boat on this prevention concept, and let me be the first to tell you that they absolutely have not. It's never too late. I have a 77-year-old in my practice who now works out three times a week lifting weights for the first time at 77 years old.

Speaker 2:

The changes that she has seen in her function are incredible. Idea of prevention, because when you talked about people relating to this, I want people to understand prevention doesn't have to be an all or nothing concept. It just isn't. Prevention can be a one bucket at a time concept. I'm going to go from being sedentary to taking a walk to the mailbox every day. You're starting to exhibit preventative characteristics right Behavior. So how can we help inform people in a way that feels accessible to them so that they can be part of this prevention movement and really making healthcare much more about looking forward and identifying what are my risk factors and how can I address them before they become a problem.

Speaker 1:

Hey, are you a fitness professional trying to grow your business with people over 50? If you are, then you need to know how to communicate with them, how to market to them and how to get them to trust you with their fitness, well-being and money. We're talking about millions of people who are a little older than the typical market that the fitness industry usually pursues. They have more money, more time and better motivation to make the best long-term fitness consumers you'll find anywhere. If you're not focusing on them, you should be. Prime Fit Content is the only content marketing company designed specifically to help you engage people in this group and to help you distinguish yourself from competitors in your community. It's effective, affordable and super easy to use. Check it out at primefitcontentcom.

Speaker 1:

You were telling me yesterday about some of the inroads you've made in your new community, and I was just getting so excited as you were relating these things because you weren't telling me this to show off. And yet you are doing things that I'm always telling people to do gym owners and other small business owners in health and fitness and well-being who want to reach older people. That's who listens to the show and who buys my content Prime Fit content and you just rattled off all these things that you're doing. So tell me about those things, and by that I mean the Abu Dhabi partnership and the festival and the business coalition and that large employer in the neighborhood. These things are so smart and you're doing great. I think it's really showing already in your new place, so go for it, thank you.

Speaker 2:

So the first thing is I'm a people person. My cup is filled when I get to do things like this, when I get to have in-person conversations, when I get to receive information as much as I'm giving information. And so for me to be located in little five points, which I can think of a million different times I've driven through a new town or a city and I'm seeing places like this, right, I mean, in Boston, it's all the different squares, right? So thinking about, oh, every town has one. It doesn't have to be little five points.

Speaker 2:

But there's other business owners, just like me, and whether they've been in business for decades or months, we all know what it's like to be a business owner. And it's hard, it's really hard. And so I just walked down the street and started to figure out who are my neighbors. Who are my neighbors? Just step out of the door, get away from the computer, realize that, yes, social media is important, but it's not the only thing that there is. Who are the people in my neighborhood, right? Mr Rogers used to talk about it all the time.

Speaker 1:

My work here is done. My work here is done. Shana, you have given the template for how to grow your small business. Go ahead.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's true. And look, I've been so fortunate to find out that, unbeknownst to me, abba Dabba, which I'd been in their store multiple times. I didn't know that they were a foot health-based business, and here I have found this incredible partnership. They carry the kinds of shoes I'm telling my people to buy. They carry toe spacers, which, if you don't know what those are, you will soon, and they carry toe socks. They carry the products that I'm trying to get my patients to drive through the streets of Atlanta and go find another store to try them on another store to try them on, when they can literally walk out my door, cross one street and walk three doors down and not only try on all these shoes, but they have incredibly educated employees, and so all you need to do is say, hey, shane and Sam, we hear from Physiovation and she thinks that my feet look like blah, blah, blah. And they're going to say, oh, try on these barefoot shoes, try on these wide toe box shoes. Here are some more cushioned shoes that you need to use to get into a flatter shoe. So they have the knowledge, and so it's a perfect, perfect synergy Finding out that their owner is so open and excited to partner with people like me as well. We're just, we're having a ball, we're having an absolute ball.

Speaker 2:

And then I'm very lucky because Little Five Points has this amazing business association that has all of the small businesses in Little Five Points at the focus and they do lots of festivals, usually music festivals, cultural festivals. Little Five Points is a very historic area that has always valued being a little bit off the beaten path. I don't think I would offend a single person if I said Little Five Points likes to be known as weird and that's fine. But I also found out that there's 25 businesses in Little Five Points that has a wellness focus. Yes to their business, whether it's Arden's Gardens that makes vegan smoothies, whether it's a salt tank place across the street. Abba Dabba's is a foot health store, sevenanda is a natural foods co op, the list goes on and on. There's a crystal store across the street where I bought the crystal for the entryway of my place.

Speaker 1:

Nice.

Speaker 2:

So all of these businesses and I just thought we really need to help each other out. So I pitched the idea to the president of the business association of this wellness walk, kind of like a pub crawl, but let's instead go location to location, and each business offered a unique offering for the day. Here at Physiovation, I taught 30-minute strength classes every hour on the hour so people would get a sampling of what it felt like to be coached by a physical therapist, to receive the level of feedback that they're going to get from me. And then I know they had different discounts at different stores and it was such a wild success. We had 55 people sign up. I had 15 people walk through my door for the first time. We're going to do it again. We're going to do it biannually. We're going to make it a scavenger hunt.

Speaker 2:

We're going to make it so that people want to be in little five points for this event and learn new ideas about wellness, because wellness is something that not everyone is going to see in the same light, but that everyone can benefit from, regardless of the type of wellness you choose to take.

Speaker 1:

I'm kind of speechless because I think that that is just a textbook case of how to network in real life. And so many people think, well, I put something on Facebook, isn't that good enough? I say, well, do that, yes, put stuff on Facebook, have a newsletter, have a website and walk out your door and walk up and down the street and go in the door and introduce yourself, and maybe it ends up being a partnership and maybe it doesn't, but golly, don't. You want to know your neighbors.

Speaker 2:

And you know, I think, jay, that what we're really not talking about is fear, and the it takes courage right. It takes courage to walk out that door, walk into that store, realize that maybe it's not going to be a good fit, and then to walk out of that store and somehow bolster your confidence enough to know that you're going to be fine, you're going to be able to move your business forward, because even if that person wasn't the right fit, they might tell somebody else right.

Speaker 2:

and so how can we help, support people to have that mindset where they can return to their purpose and know that if they continue to dream and they continue to follow what they believe their purpose to be, that they will succeed?

Speaker 1:

And Abba Dabba, that shoe store that's two or three doors down from you. They want to be able to tell their customers about you. They want to know that there's this awesome new physical therapist that moved in down the street and maybe she can help you, because Abba Dabba is the kind of store where the staff knows what they're talking about and they're very helpful and they know they're, they're what's going on in footwear and, and so you can walk in and say, hey, I'm having this issue or I'm going to go on this hiking trip, but my feet are this way and, and they're really skilled and expert at what they're talking about. They want to know that you're there, helps them do their job better, right? They care about their clients, as do most small business owners. So, forgive me, it's a win-win for everybody and I just wish more people did it.

Speaker 1:

You can also come up with I don't know if you did this or not and you certainly don't have to tell me, but you can formalize a collaboration and come up with something like hey, I'll put a 20% off coupon in my newsletter for your business if you'll do the same thing for me in your newsletter, or whatever. You can put up a printed flyer or something and leave it at their cash register, and maybe they'll want to leave one of theirs with you. And this is how it's done. And yet we're afraid to do it. We're afraid to walk up to a stranger and introduce ourselves and tell them about what we do and how we help people. And then we wonder why no one comes to see us.

Speaker 2:

And I haven't, we haven't done that yet. We've been talking about it, but so far it has just been, it just feels so good, it feels so good.

Speaker 1:

You just got there, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

It just it feels wonderful. So yeah, we'll work on all of those details, but I think again just that basic principle of having an abundance mindset and knowing that if we can raise, if we can somehow help the tide rise all ships are going to sail and in this I mean when you started, we were talking about what we get excited about and I mentioned this to you yesterday. It's an extremely exciting time to be in love with the foot and ankle and the way that people walk and the footwear that's out there.

Speaker 2:

There's new research coming out and it's exciting and I just can't believe that at this point, the culmination of my career is I get to be at the tip of the sphere of what people are hearing about and know that the data exists to support these drastic changes.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I used to be an advocate of pointed shoes and now I know why that was the worst thing I could possibly recommend and I understand all the science behind it and I can take my fancy little foot model here and explain it to you and so having feeling so empowered by the information around me and being excited to share it so that people can feel better. Going back to what you said, people want to feel better, People want to move better. It all starts at the feet and in general, the feet are seen as extremely complicated, not necessarily well understood. There are a few terms that are overgeneralizing when it comes to what people are dealing with and there's quite a few myths that need to be debunked. And if we're still trying to convince people that they need to strength train, try convincing the same age range that you were talking about about their footwear. Yeah, it's tough.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it is One other thing about your new neighborhood I want to make sure we discuss before we move on. You mentioned a particular large employer in your not right there in Little Five, but nearby, and it's a well-known place that thousands of people work at, and you've got a lot of their employees who came to your new location, which is so smart. I want everyone listening to this to think of. Is there a university nearby? Is there a large employer nearby? Is there a I don't know a community college, just sort of anything, where a lot of people work, and can you reach out to them? Now, I don't know that you did all of that, but tell me about how this has happened.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I think it has happened because the people at this local employer are going through tremendous amounts of stress, and what I have been talking about is how exercise releases endorphin, and if you're going through large amounts of stress, you need to be thinking about how you're taking care of yourself, and so I think it's just continuing to inform, reaching out to people that I know that work for this employer and saying, hey, I know this is a tough time, come try a strength class on me, see how you feel when you leave. And, without fail, every single person has felt better when they've walked out of the door than when they've walked in.

Speaker 1:

A lot of people are going through a lot right now. It's not just in your neighborhood or our city and that's a great pitch. We're all under a lot of stress right now, or I know you're under a lot of stress right now. If you want to explore some techniques to feel better, to deal with the stress, to get away from it all for an hour a day, whatever it is, make that clear, make that outreach. And you have done all of this, I think, almost instinctually right. I don't think you came in with a plan to do all of this, did you?

Speaker 2:

No, this is just kind of the way I am in the world, and it doesn't matter if I'm promoting something I'm doing or I'm promoting something new that I tried, that I just found to be incredible. I tend to want to have generosity of spirit and share that information widely, because if it worked for me, then it's probably going to work for somebody else.

Speaker 1:

That's what was going on in my head when you were telling me all of this yesterday. It's like she's doing all this stuff. She's just doing it and I feel like I tell people all the time to do it and I get this resistance or a glassy eyed stare. And you just walked into your new location and set it on fire. It's awesome, congratulations and thank you. Tell people where they can go. Even if they're not in Atlanta, and they might never have the good fortune to walk into your business, I still think they could learn a lot from your website and maybe anything else that you want to share with them. So where would that be?

Speaker 2:

So you can find me online at physiovationcom, and then you can also find me on Instagram my channel is called Physiovation as well and I would say, go check it out, because you probably know somebody in Atlanta and wouldn't it be nice for you to be able to share this information with somebody that you know.

Speaker 1:

Excellent, and it's been my privilege to do that with my listeners today, and so I'm glad that we did this. It's been a delight, and I will see you soon.

Speaker 2:

Sounds good, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Bye. Thank you, including suggestions about people I should interview and topics I should cover. You can learn more about my newsletter and content business at primefitcontentcom and write me at jay at primefitcontentcom and I'm on all the social channels. Again, thanks for listening. Join me next time.

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