The Midwest Entrepreneurs class meets each Tuesday and Thursday at 4:00 pm in the Monmouth College Center for Science & Business. According to the 2014-15 College calendar found in my desk drawer, the building was opened in 2013 to serve “as a living laboratory for learning and collaboration among multiple academic disciplines”; mainly science- and business-related disciplines.

This partnering of science and business was on full display in class this past Tuesday. Our guest speakers were Chris Byers and Mike Salaway; both 1989 (science) graduates of Monmouth College who are co-founders and co-owners of—and entrepreneurial business partners in—Advanced Rehab & Sports Medicine (based in Bloomington IL). See the company’s webpage at www.advrehab.com.

These two science majors started the firm in 1997. They are now highly successful business owners who, after a period of significant growth between 1997 and 2005, realized they “didn’t know that much about business.” Since that time, they have treated their entrepreneurial venture as more of a business and “stopped growing and became more efficient.” As we learned in class, this focus on increased efficiency could not have come at a better time as the partners in recent years have faced a highly turbulent regulatory and competitive environment wherein being successful—if not mere survival—is predicated largely on being more and more efficient from an operational perspective.

I leave it to class member Fernando Ramirez to tell you more about Chris Byers, Mike Salaway, and the ongoing entrepreneurial success story of Advanced Rehab & Sports Medicine.

Prof. Gabel

PS: If you do not know… Chris and Mike sponsor the “jumbotron” scoreboard at April Zorn Memorial Stadium and Bobby Woll Memorial Field (the Monmouth College outdoor track and football field).

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This Tuesday in class we had the co-owners of Advanced Rehab and Sports Medicine Services, Christopher Byers and Michael Salaway, both Monmouth College grads of 1989.  Both presently have close to 25 years of experience in the Physical Therapy business.

Chris grew up in Roseville, IL and Mike grew up in Monmouth, IL not too far from each other. They met while playing different sports, and going to college in the same town. Michael got his degree in Biology from Monmouth College. He originally was at the University of Illinois his freshman year but studied here the rest of his undergraduate years. Chris got his degree in Biopsychology.

After Monmouth, the two present-day partners went their separate ways while going to medical school. Both Chris and Mike told us that it was very tough to get into physical therapy school because you are competing with people of high GPA’s and limited open spots no matter where you go. They said that out of the hundreds of people who applied only about 20-60 spots were open to applicants. Then it gets even tougher once in the programs. When getting in they knew they had to work hard to get where they needed to be, with vast amounts of work and volunteer hours in the practice. After graduating they went their separate ways for about 7 years.

After that time Chris contacted Mike to see if he wanted to work with him on this new business, Chris always knew he wanted to own a business so he went for it. In September of ‘97 they started their practice going to different nursing homes and agencies in Kewanee, IL. Throughout their time in the beginning they were known, according to Mr. Byers, as “P.T. prostitutes” because they would go anywhere they could and do most anything needed to help out their customers. They mainly worked on people who suffered from wounds, strokes, needing aquatic therapy, and were helping kids with physical needs, etc. One thing that they like to say about their business is that they are very “patient-focused.” A phrase they used was “treating people the best they can to make them better.”

Between the time they started the business in 1997 to about 2005 they opened 8 different clinics but were still going to different places around the central Illinois helping their clients. Business was growing so rapidly that it was getting harder to run. They had grown from having just 2 employees to 128 and 11 locations, without any prior studies or experience in business. Since 2007 they have focused on becoming more efficient, mainly by managing their staff better and educating the public about what their physical therapy business can do for them.

There are a few challenges in the Physical Therapy business that both owners have had to keep in mind. One of these challenges has to do with politics and regulations, most specifically the Affordable Care Act (A.C.A). They have been pretty lucky making the right decisions with these new policies going on. Still, they have seen the percentage of total billings actually collected decrease significantly, with a lot of the uncollected money now ending up with insurance firms and third-party healthcare administrators.

Another big challenge for Chris and Mike has been competition with the different hospitals around the area. They wanted the customers to get around the fact of going to the big doctors. They picked to work in smaller cities to compete with the local hospitals. They offer free consultations to people who come in. In these consultations, they help the customer and see what problems they have. After that they can inform their doctors and get them the proper treatment they need.

Presently, Advanced Rehab and Sports Medicine has about 1,500 patient visits a week. The average patient has about 11 total visits with them; roughly 3 times a week for 4 weeks. They say the most common injury has to do with back pain.

With their 25 years in the business they are pulling themselves out of the clinics and having more involvement in the offices in Bloomington, going from physical therapists to business managers, but they still visit the different clinics from time to time. They say that other companies have been wanting to buy them out but they say they are not ready to sell quite yet. In order to help their business, they never took money from the business. This helped them stay out of debt (and not be overly stressed out about paying back the money).

They like to help out different charities but prefer not to just donate money. When they do donate money, they like to also donate their time so that Chris—the marketing person in the partnership—can explain their business and have persons involved with the charities get to know him and his company.

Chris and Mike plan on being in the business for another 5 years. However, depending on the outcome of the current presidential political campaign, this time frame might be reduced to 3 years.

One of the last things they wanted to let us know was “don’t try to open a business on your own, there are always resources (friends, family, etc.) to help you out.”

Thank you Mike and Chris for sharing your story and time with us!

Fernando Ramirez