Speech Therapy Private Practice Startup Podcast

54. Online Speech Therapy Business: Meet expressable.io founder Leanne Sherred, CCC-SLP

Welcome PrivateSLP listeners to Episode 54! Today we are talking with Leanne Sherred, CCC SLP [https://www.expressable.io/about-us/], founder and speech pathologist from expressable.io [http://expressable.io]. [https://d1zjei52cms7ya.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Leanne-Sherred-285x300.png] [https://blog.expressable.io/] In today’s interview, We will find out exactly why Leanne Started her own business as we talk about the following: * Venturing out and starting expressable.io [http://expressable.io], * The rewards and challenges of starting a private practice from scratch, * Things expressable.io [http://expressable.io] has forced Leanne to tackle head on like billing, to scheduling, to taxes, to practice management, * Why Leanne decided to be a cash-only practice, and how this can be extremely liberating for other speech therapists, * How expressable.io [http://expressable.io] supports entrepreneurial therapists with our self-referral model, * Tips for therapists thinking about making the entrepreneurial plunge. [https://blog.expressable.io/][https://d1zjei52cms7ya.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/expressable.io_.png] [https://www.expressable.io/for-therapists/] In this Episode: 01:23 – Over 68,912 listeners to this show 02:28 – Going to talk to Leanne Sherred, founder of expressable.io 04:11 – Introducing Expressable, a Teletherapy provider 07:10 – Trying to match families or individual with Therapist 08:38 – Not dealing with insurance 09:52 – Our billing works like a subscription 22:56 – Therapists find it a really enjoyable experience as well 25:34 – Consultation is important 26:36 – Don’t have to wait for all that approval DOWNLOAD PDF TRANSCRIPTIONI coach a lot of SLPs and OTs for that matter in our all access community at privateslp.com [https://privateslp.com/]. And we’re always talking about marketing and how to drive business and traffic to our websites and to our practices, into our clinics. And, that’s one thing that I always talk about to our members is, this stuff does take time. It’s not happening overnight and not everyone can do this. Not everybody is cut out to start and grow and scale their own businesses because I think it takes a special person to make things happen. [Commercial]Well, hello everyone. You’re listening to the speech therapy, private practice startup podcast. This is episode number 54. My name is Kyle Medes and I’m a speech pathologist since 1993. And these podcasts are designed to help you improve your business and your life one podcast at a time. Welcome back to the show, everyone. Thanks again for all the emails and questions. And as of today, today’s Thursday, June 11th 2020. We have well over 68,912 listeners to this show. And I’m super glad you guys are out there getting good, valuable information. And if you wouldn’t mind, please go to the iOS or Android platform of your choice and leave some good five star feedback that way other people just like you can get the same valuable information. And if this is your first episode, welcome to the show. You can gladly start out at episode number one and work your way through all the episodes. And hopefully here you’ll find all the tips and tricks you need to start, grow and scale your own Speech therapy private practice. But if you need some more help, I’m here to help you. I have a group of people that I help online, and that is at privateslp.com/coaching [https://privateslp.com/coaching/]. And there’s two selections there. You can simply access the All Access Community and work with me hand in hand in our online platform. And you can also have weekly coaching calls with me as the Perfect student. So those choices are right there for you there. So if you need my help, I’m there to help you. Now, today, I’m going to talk to Leanne Sherred. She is a speech and language pathologist and the founder of expressable.io [https://www.expressable.io/], and she is going to be interviewed today and talk to us and our listening community about the rewards and challenges of starting and growing and scaling her own Speech Therapy Private Practice. Let’s listen. Kyle: Hey today, we’ve got Leanne Sherred. She’s on the line today and she’s going to talk about her business. Hey Leanne, how are you? Leanne: I’m good, Kyle. Thank you. How are you today? Kyle: I’m doing well. It’s early this morning. I had to wake up and have a couple cups of coffee. What about you? Are you a morning person? Leanne: I am not. If I don’t have the coffee, I don’t know. Don’t come near me. No, I’m good. I get up and go when I need to, but if I’m given the choice, I’ll go slow in the mornings. Kyle: No, that’s awesome. I’m just the opposite. I think I was up at like 3:30, 4 O’clock getting ready for everything. And right now we have a fire on the mountain here in Tucson. So I was reading the news reports and I just got a pilot’s license. So I was looking there’s a temporary flight restriction right over our house. Some guy was flying a couple of drones, yesterday and grounded the whole rescue crew where they spray water on the fire. So that was kind of discouraging, but we’re trying to get through this, so, Leanne: Oh my goodness. Kyle: Oh, it’s always something. Leanne: Yeah. Well, be safe. That’s a bit scary. Kyle: Yeah, but we’ll make it through. Hey, it’s either Coronavirus or, Hey, tell me about your business as speaking of coronavirus, which means Online Therapy. What are you guys up to these days? Leanne: Yeah, so, uh, our company expressable, we are a teletherapy provider, for right now just Speech Therapy Services is our business. And, we got started before all of this started going down, but we’ve really seen that it’s, it’s been a great resource for people, hopefully dealing with all this stuff going on with Coronavirus. We are a private practice or we’re an out-of-pocket practice. Our mission is really to provide therapy more conveniently for people. They can do it anywhere, anywhere they’re comfortable, most do it from their houses, which is very convenient. And then also trying to provide therapy at a more affordable out-of-pocket rate. And so we’re trying to leverage the cost savings that can come along with just having the teletherapy and not needing to rent an office space, not needing to pay gas, mileage, to drive around the house, to house, take those cost savings and pass them on to the clients. And outside of that, we’re also trying to provide a flexible working experience for therapists as well. Kyle: Yeah, that’s a great idea. I know in our business we see thousands of people a month and at the drop of a hat, we were forced to move all of these people to telehealth and it was a challenge, but we were able to keep everyone employed and pay everyone’s insurances and, dental, vision health, and even 401k with a match. So we’ve done okay. But I’m glad we had that tele-health piece ready to go. One of our key employees, her name is Nikki. She helped us move all these kids and families, and the therapist got them already. But it sounds like you guys were ahead of the curve and got all this planned ahead of time. Also, I like what you’re saying is affordable for families. I know in our business, we try to keep things really affordable for people. And I know moving forward, we’re gonna make this telehealth thing, part of our business model. It’s something, we were forced to do, but it sounds like you were ahead of the game. Tell me a little bit about the working environment for one of your therapists. How does that work for them? Leanne: Yeah. So if you’re a therapist with us, we ask that you have about 10 hours that leaves to dedicate towards working with us as we get everything set up. But outside of that, you can pretty much choose your hours. And if you wanted to work in the evenings, if you had another position, if you are a parent and maybe, one parents at home during the day and then kind of takes over at night, if you want to work on weekends, two days, three days, four days, however often you want to work outside of just that minimum is AOK by us. And then a big part of our model is really trying to match the families or the individual with a therapist who’s going to be a really good fit for them. So we’re also trying to help therapists build a caseload that they want to have. So if you are someone who’s willing and able and comfortable working with all sorts of populations, that’s great. And we can just keep your caseload staffed really full. If you’re someone who has a sort of niche population that you really love working with, or maybe that you’re particularly skilled at working with, then we can also help staff that in particular. And so, cause I know, it happens in some other settings where you get cases that come along and, you’re equipped to deal with them and under your scope of practice, you can, but maybe it’s just not your favorite population to work with. And so we do consultations for all of the referrals that come in. And so that’s a good opportunity to kind of find out a little bit more in order to get people matched up with a therapist is going to be a good fit. Kyle: It’s really important. Leanne: Yeah. I think it just lends itself towards greater success. They blend more and they hopefully are making really solid progress in that case. So the next big thing for therapists is the paperwork side of things. I think because we’re out of pocket, we’re not dealing with insurance, we don’t do any direct billing with insurance. We provide superbills if families or individuals ask for them. But outside of that, we are really not super interested in jumping through those hoops. So we document to the extent that, is clinically necessary and important for everything to be understood, but we’re not shaping things to be exactly the way that different companies require this, this one wants this, right? Your goal is like this, please, we’re not doing that. We’re going with what the clinician feels is best. Kyle: That’s awesome. Yeah. And as far as like, what patients have to pay and families have to pay, is it like a per-visit model? Is it a package deal? How do you guys work that out? Leanne: It’s a per-visit model. Yeah. So it’s a per visit model and we’re really transparent about the pricing on the website. We think that that’s important that families have a good picture of that coming in. So it’s right on there on the pricing page. It’s $59 per session. And so it’s per session. And then the way that we set up our bill and again, aiming to just build convenience, aiming to build cost savings by not having to pay someone, another employee to separately do billing. Our billing works like a subscription. So if they’re ready to do one time a week, then they’ll just get one charge a week for that $59. If they are doing two times a week that they’ll just get one charge, but just for that price and it’s flexible, right? So if someone was, the therapist may be recommended every other week or they requested every other week, then we can stretch out the cycle of this subscription and it’s canceled any time. There is no secret loophole or anything about that. And if we try to always reschedule, if they have to cancel, we issue credits, if we can’t get that makeup session done. But for the most part, we are trying to just keep it simple and have that be just a really transparent thing that everyone is clear about coming in. Kyle: Yeah, that’s a great model. And I think people these days that they’re looking for convenience, I mean you store their credit card, you just do it and just move forward. I know in our clinic we do have package rates and things like that for kids, but that sounds really, really convenient for therapists. I mean, I know these days, a lot of therapists are looking for work life balance. We’ve been looking at a four day work week for our therapists. We’re slowly trying to implement something like that. Especially after this COVID thing, everything’s on the table now we’re looking at every single way we can to help our therapist, help our patients, help our families. It sounds like you guys are really doing a great job. And I know from personal experience, when I hire a therapist, I’m looking for somebody under, you said at least 10 hours a week, we want somebody who’s consistent because once you take all that time and energy to match that patient up to that therapist, I mean, you want, if everybody shows up, it works, so the therapist shows up and the family shows up. It’s great, but we want people to stick around so everyone can get what they need to. Do you guys have a big cancellation or no show rate with your sessions? Leanne: I don’t know that it happens with any more propensity than any other setting. The way that we do everything now we send the intake forms, we ask that the billing is submitted prior. And as far as like having things done in the centralized office and making things as easy as we can on the therapist, we really do the hunt down and the initial kind of gathering of all that information to make sure that those clients are ready to go for their appointment. People are busy and sometimes they’ll wait till that last minute to submit those intake forms, even if we’ve reached out a couple of times earlier than that. And so again, that’s where we really find it important for the consultations to be completed by a therapist so that they can be asking the right kind of questions ahead of that first evaluation because the families they’re paying for that first evaluation. So we want to come in as prepared as possible. So we’ll take the opportunity to just jot down a couple notes so that the therapist knows what they’re planning for ahead even if the intake forms come in a little bit late. And then as far as the no shows go, it happens, we do work, we’re all remote. So, we call and, and we have a HIPAA compliant text messaging service that we use as well. And sometimes a person might schedule with us and then kind of, we say for a lack of better word ghost, and they ghost us, when we say, “Hey, are you confirming for the appointment?” I don’t think it’s at any higher ever propensity than another setting. And I think the consultation really helps with that too. They talk with us, we explain every part of the model, answer any questions they have. So hopefully if they’re agreeing to sign up and do the appointment, then hopefully it’s because they feel like they have all the information they need. And then as far as, once they come to that first session. We don’t really see us with a high no show rate. Actually I think because that subscription model is there. So the charge is going to go through, of course, if it’s, they aren’t going to come, we’d issue a refund, but it’s sort of hopefully an incentive to just keep on track and reach out to cancel if you have to an inappropriate time, just because of the way that we have that set up. Kyle: Yeah, people who own and start and scale their own businesses. I think we realize the amount of work, it goes in to just making these appointments available to the therapist and to the families themselves too. But it’s a whole lot of backend work, making sure, screening the families, making sure they’re in the right place, getting them the paperwork, getting the payment information, with us, dealing with insurance companies, authorizations, obviously you guys don’t do that, but there’s a lot of work that goes in behind the scenes to make these things happen. I know you said you’ve worked in a variety of settings and, as a career speech pathologist, I mean, what made you want to venture out and start your own business anyway? Leanne: Um, I think it was just a feeling. Feeling the pain points of a lot of that bureaucracy and whether it was insurance companies, or I did a little bit of work when I was working in an outpatient pediatric clinic. I fulfilled a contract for them with a nearby school district doing some of their, evaluations. And then here in Texas, they call them ARD meetings instead of IETS, but doing those for them and hauled up paperwork that goes into that. I know that it’s really important that it’s there and I understand absolutely why it’s there, especially in the case of IETS. But I think I just felt very constrained by that, all that stuff. And I just wanted to do the therapy. I just wanted to meet with the families, do the therapy plan, keep track of things that were important to me. So are they making progress? Okay. No, I need to readjust my plan. I want to go do some more research, spend time planning, something creative instead of spending time slaving over paperwork. So yeah, and my fellow co founders of the company all come with a background in Healthcare IT mostly, so various areas of that industry. My husband actually is one of the cofounders Nicholas and I came home one day, probably complaining about some part of it. Oh, I can’t see one of my favorite little kiddos right now because his insurance switched plans and now I have to wait for another month and he, we kind of just thought one day. Why not just start our own thing right now and make it not, do with insurance? How can we do that? The answer was, was Teletherapy by mile. Kyle: Yeah, big sense, I remember in New Orleans, right before hurricane Katrina, I would come home from work and we were walking around Audubon park there by the zoo. And that was complaining about just, this plan and that plan. We can’t see these people. We only get like four visits. I mean, four visits after a total laryngectomy and this guy needed help. And it’s just so frustrating. We had to call and get the authorizations and I understand too about those IEP meetings. I remember when I worked in the schools, we had to send a registered mail to get the families to show up to their kids, their own IEP meeting. I mean, we try to help their kids and they won’t even show up and it was insane. But it sounds like you guys are really, you’re doing a great job and you’re doing this for the right reasons, your pain point, you created something out of that. And I mean, as far as rewards and challenges, I mean, what are the rewards and challenges that you’ve had by watching this thing that you had in your brain grow and seeing, getting employees and paying the bills. I mean, tell me about those rewards and challenges that you’ve seen after you’ve just started this thing from scratch. Leanne: Yeah, I think some of the challenges probably maybe have been related to, when we were starting out and I was just the only therapist we were really still tweaking, the flow of everything. We had kind of patchwork a couple parts together, the platform that we were using, where we’re running our billing and things like that. And so trying to make it the smoothest experience possible for the customers on the front end that came with some challenges. I think doing teletherapy is always somewhat going to come with some technical challenges, so trying to smooth all those things out. And then especially once we started to scale, like you said, bringing on new therapists, learning for me, I mean, honestly learning how to be a manager of everything and learning how to do the customer service facing side of things. I was used to having clients just kind of plop on my lap and not having to do some of that backend stuff that you mentioned. So I think with anything, just learning these new aspects, they were challenging. Luckily like we have a really good team, a lot of really smart people who are helping sort those things out much more than I would be able to on my own, honestly, without a lot of research, probably. So I have to give a lot of credit to the team that we have. And I think the rewards have outweighed the challenges. I mean, it’s been really exciting for me to see just some of the feedback that we gathered from clients. We had one person the other day, she’s working with one of our amazing therapists, Beth, and she just sent a text message again, on that HIPAA compliant platform. She sent a text message, just really excited about something that her daughter had done. And her daughter she’s about like 10. So this was their first therapy experience. And she said, I’ve always wanted to do speech therapy, but it’s just always been too expensive because they, the insurance plans that they have didn’t cover it. Or perhaps they might not even have a plan. I’m not sure, but she said, it’s always been too expensive. And she said, to be honest, you guys are like heaven sent. And it just was, it was really rewarding to be able to give families and people access to something that they really needed or wanted. I mean, in some cases we’re working with adults who are dealing with something that insurance wouldn’t cover, so many plans, if you’re an adult, they won’t cover anything for you unless it’s trauma-based or, yeah laryngectomy surgery result of things like that. And so many clinics are maybe pediatrics only. I know, I’ve done a couple consultations where that person said, yeah, I might just be having such a hard time finding somewhere. I can go to work on my stuttering that’s not pediatric. Kyle: That’s right. They just don’t fit into that clinic, right? Leanne: Yeah, the chairs are too small. Kyle: Absolutely. Well, sometimes too people, they don’t want to go to a kid’s clinic. At our place, we see adults and kids for our speech side of things. We had a mom the other day, she was so fired up because she’s, she got the meet, the therapist online, she got the review, the goals. I talked to every single parent that comes through our clinic. Right now because of social distancing, people are waiting out in their cars, but, if there, if there’s like, if they have a van, tran or some sort of, Medicaid transportation, they can wait inside, but we got the social distancing, six feet apart chairs, that kind of thing. But, I was talking to one of the moms and she says, I love it because I can see it in the session right now. I can communicate with the therapist, but you’re right. It’s nice when you get that validation, this idea that we’ve had and you’re able to move forward and touch the lives of those we serve. And it’s affordable too. I’ve talked to a lot of people about wanting to start their private practice. What are you going to charge you? I want 150 bucks. I’m like, okay, good luck. A lot of people can’t afford that. And I mean, that’s the reality, maybe in certain parts of the country, but not here, there’s no way. And we want to make it affordable for everybody because that’s what we’re trained to do. We’re trained to help people to get the services that they need. And I think part of that just gotta make it affordable. Right? Leanne: Yeah. I think a big part of the thing that we were kind of testing when we set out was something that was going to resonate, cause at the time COVID-19, wasn’t happening. We were just setting out as a teletherapy company. And we were wondering really, like, was it gonna resonate with people to join us and do the therapy and, would the price point resonate? And I think we definitely proved that it does. And we still pay our therapists a really competitive wage and we’re saving so much time on paperwork and things like that. So, I think our therapists find it to be a really enjoyable experience as well. And I know there’s a lot out there where another therapist might look at that rate and say, Oh, we’re not valuing our scale, but I just would argue otherwise. I think that we are trying to bring this service to more people and we’re widening the net. I think that might not otherwise have been wide enough. So again, like a lot of the adults that we see are people that probably just would have not pursued speech therapy at all. Otherwise, and the same thing, like the market for pediatrics as well is, well that family said, they wanted therapy, but they never went out to get it because they couldn’t afford it. So we’re kind of capturing an audience that otherwise might have been on the sidelines. Kyle: That’s right. And you said something really important too. Like these insurance companies that have these exclusions or limitations, it has to be an accident, illness or an injury. A lot of people just can’t afford that amount of money per session until I think you guys are just doing a great job on that too. Offering these families support, they get what they need, the therapist gets, but they need the kids that the patients get what they need. I mean, it’s a win-win. It’s awesome. And you started this from scratch, that’s the best part. It’s an idea you had, and I don’t know about you, but I just got sick and tired of just pushing paper, dealing with authorizations and, I just got tired of trading my time for money. That’s what I got tired of. And so, these days I’ve got some extra time to work on our business, I can actually think now I’ve got days on my calendar where I can just plan and grow the business because at the end of the day, I mean, I think people, they want to work. They want to have a place to come to. They want to help people. I think the way we’re trained at its core, we want to help people and our therapists in our clinic, they don’t want to deal with insurances or payments or having that weird conversation of, you owe us 40 bucks. We have staff to do that. And I’m sure with you guys, it’s the same thing. You’ve got automation, you’ve got the credit card on file. And so it sounds like you got it all figured out. I mean, is there any reason why you guys chose cash only practice besides insurance? I mean, does insurance even cover tele-health I knew right now for us until a certain time, tele-health is covered. But if, if a patient comes to you and says, “Hey, I’ve got this insurance plan?” I know a while ago you mentioned superbill. You just give them the paperwork and let them sort it out for reimbursement. Leanne: Yeah, we tell them again, that consultation is important so that those questions are answered up front, but, they certainly were happy to do that little bit of paperwork for them in order to, again, hopefully it’s helping them access the therapy, if that’s how they need to have it covered. We want to help them do that. But if a family contacts us and they’re looking for insurance coverage, we’re just not trying to mess around with it. Like you said, all these different plans want different things and we’re just really trying to keep it paired down and just do what we want to do clinically. And that was really the main reason. I think it’s also kind of interesting, teletherapy wise. If you look at some of the companies that are doing perhaps a similar thing in the mental health sphere. I feel like you might be just capturing more of an audience by just saying, let’s make it a clean exchange. You can get on the schedule with us, the next day if you want. You don’t have to wait for all that approval. Kyle: Well as far as entrepreneurial therapists, how does expressible support entrepreneurial therapists with this self-referral model? How do you guys do that? Leanne: Yeah. So I think that was something that started to grow in our minds after we had started, we hadn’t thought of it initially, but again, I think we looked at all the stuff that we were doing to get set up and we kind of said, well, I can understand why not everyone is just going out and starting their own practice because there’s a lot involved. And so at the same time, like we mentioned, some therapists have a niche, like a caseload that they’re trying to build a population they love to work with and we’re all remote. Right? So, we’re in a number of States at this point. And so it’s hard to establish the kinds of relationships with other providers that you might be in your same city, in your same local area. So what we have is we build out a webpage for our therapists, if they’re interested in that. And if they’re in their community, they can establish those types of relationships and gain referrals through expressable. Right? And so it’s basically like they’re operating their own business, but they didn’t have to do any of this stuff to get set up. So they’re still our W2 employee and we’re able to reimburse them at a higher rate for those sessions because we didn’t have to do anything to acquire those customers, but maybe they just have, maybe there’s an EMT in their town who they go up and talk to, “Hey, I work for expressable, we do teletherapy. If you have any patients, I’d love to work with them. I am an expert in voice therapy”, and then they can do those consultations. They can get on the schedule, we have all the backend stuff done for them. So they don’t have to worry about that and try to make it as smooth as possible. So it’s kinda like they’re, they’re being an entrepreneur without the headache. Kyle: Wow, that’s incredible. Especially these days like you said, if an ENT wants to have one of their patients seen you guys can do it tele-health and right now too with COVID for the older population, I know my mom and dad, my dad’s 83, my mom’s 80 they’re at home. My dad, he orders his food online. The guy brings it, puts it down. He goes up to it, picks it up and signs the ticket. He leaves it on the ground. The guy picks it up. My dad, 83, he’s got to figure it out, but I’m asking him, “Hey, you’re getting out and doing anything?”, “Nope”, “You go into any doctor’s appointments?”, “Nope”. We did a telehealth visit though. So I mean he’s into it. So I know a lot of, even older adults or especially in our clinic too, they’re still doing that telehealth thing. So I just think it’s amazing what you guys are doing. What kind of tips for therapists thinking about making that entrepreneurial plunge? What kind of tips would you give them to get started? Leanne: I would say a big one is figure out how you’re gonna like make a plan for how you’re going to get your name out there. I think that’s the hardest part. I’m on a lot of the Facebook groups for Speech therapists. And that seems to be a really big point of conversation for everyone. And I think it’s important because here you are, you have this fantastic skillset. It makes you do all this work to get set up. And there’s a lot of like, maybe front-end cost there, and then you might just sit there and say, “How am I going to let people know that I’m here and available to do therapy?” So if you’re someone different from us, like if you’re just kind of working in your local sphere, I think the same thing there, right? If you set up your business, you did your LLC, or you got your tax stuff set up, going out and making connections with local providers, the ENT, the pediatricians, the daycares, and the preschools. I think advertising is a really big part of it. And it’s, it’s also kind of like, how are you gonna explain that someone should do therapy with you rather than the next therapist, maybe. And for us obviously, because we’re teletherapy and we’re remote, in various places of the country for us, it was really about figuring out online advertising and how all of that stuff works. And again, luckily, my colleague, Spencer – our marketing officer, he is fantastic. And so everyone in the team does a lot of work to figure out, the ad spend versus building out content on your website is really important. So if you’re going to do kind of like social media advertising and things like that, I’m trying to think about, what’s going to resonate with the population and the people that you think might be interested in services with you. So, I know a lot of people write blogs. A lot of people do videos. That kind of stuff can really start to add up over time and attract people to your website and have them say, this person looks really knowledgeable. Look, they have 20 blogs about Saturday in therapy. They seem like they know what they’re talking about. Kyle: Yeah. I think you hit the nail on the head. It does take time to do this, this stuff doesn’t happen overnight. I coach a lot of SLPs and OTs for that matter in our all access community at privateslp.com [http://www.privateslp.com/]. And we’re always talking about marketing and how to drive business and traffic to our websites and to our practices and to our clinics. And, that’s one thing that I always talk about to our members is, this stuff does take time. It’s not happening overnight and not everyone can do this. Not everybody is cut out to start and grow and scale their own businesses because I think it takes a special person to make things happen. And that’s okay. And if you’re that person, that’s okay too, but it’s a lot of drive. And when we first started talking, I was asking you about, what made you want to do this? And, sometimes I asked myself the same thing. Cause some days I think to myself, why did I do this? But again, it’s those comments. And it’s the feedback that we get from our patients and families that really make it all worthwhile or for our employees, for that matter, when somebody buys a home or they get alone, so they can buy a home or they put braces on their child’s teeth, I’m providing work for therapists, providing an income for people, providing a place to work, providing therapy for children and adults. It’s a lot of responsibility. Do you ever feel that weight of all of this on your shoulders at times? Leanne: Yeah, I really do like how we’ve scaled right now. Our central operations are still pretty small. I think it’s kind of a Testament to what we’ve been able to accomplish and kind of make really efficient about the process. So I think with that, we’re really passionate. We tell our therapist that we crave their feedback honestly, about what they feel like is working, what they would like to maybe see changed. So we really want to create and say, obviously we’re constantly getting feedback from customers to do surveys and stuff, but we really want it to be the best experience for everyone. And yeah, we want the therapists to feel like they are continuing to move forward towards their own goals, whether that’s a professional goal, “Hey, I want to become an expert in this area. Give me all those cases.” Or a personal goal, “Hey, I am looking to get my work life balance a little bit better, see my kids more but still be able to practice the profession that I love and earn a great wage?” So we want to kind of get it all, all done. Kyle: That’s awesome. I’ve been speaking to stress and I’m just going to ask you this. What do you do to take care of yourself? What do you do for fun? Leanne: Lately it’s like walks with my dog around the same neighborhood loop. It feels like my husband and I, we like to play tennis. So that’s been, a fairly safe thing to do with them, the pandemic going on, if just the two of us hit the court and we just make sure to, if someone else’s ball comes our way, we make sure to just kick it back instead of touching it, we live in Austin, Texas. And if we’re getting a fair amount of rain and water, there’s really great watering holes. You can walk along the Creek, take the dog for a hike, and teach the dog how to swim every time because he forgets. So yeah, I think doing outdoor stuff, especially at this time, if we can get outdoors and breathe that fresh air and kind of leave work behind for a second. That’s good. Kyle: Yeah, you got to take care of yourself. I just turned 50 and I just got a pilot’s license. I’ve always wanted to do it. And I said, I’m going to do it. And so I did it and now working on my instrument rating and good friend of mine has got a plane. And last night we flew over to Sedona and had dinner. I took him out to dinner, he bought the fuel, I bought the dinner and it’s like 60 bucks. And then we came back and flew back to Tucson. Work is work and I’m always working. And I think a lot of people don’t remember and understand when you have your own business, you’re always on, there’s always something to think about, the fire alarms going off or, it could be something, a patient’s upset because this didn’t happen or they have to pay their copay or whatever it is. I mean, we’re always on, but I think it’s so important to take care of ourselves and to take care of our mind, our body. I mean, it’s really important to have hobbies, so Leanne: Yeah, I think you got it spot on. If you’re a business owner and you’re ever not doing something towards that business. I don’t know about other people. I don’t know about you, Kyle, but I sometimes feel a little like nag in the back of my head. Like, well you could be doing this. Kyle: And sometimes that means blocking your calendar even saying no, because the more you say no, but the more valuable yes becomes, right? Leanne: Yeah. I have my calendar blocked this Saturday morning. Because usually I work like a good person on Saturday mornings and afternoons. The Barton Springs pool is this really awesome natural spring-fed pool here in Austin, like really close to the city and they were closed for the pandemic, but they’re slowly opening and they’re letting only a certain ticketed number of people in, I got us tickets to go on Saturday morning. I blocked it off on my calendar. We’re going. Yeah. Kyle: That’s awesome. Leanne, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me this morning about your business. Before we wrap it up, is there anything else you want to add? Leanne: No, I think we talked about a lot of different corners of it there. I think I just like to add, thanks for having me on and letting us take the opportunity to talk about our business. Share about starting businesses in general in this field. So no, I think just, I’d like to say, thanks. Kyle: My pleasure. And as always, I’ll leave these show notes at the bottom for all our listeners. Thanks again. [Commercial]The post 54. Online Speech Therapy Business: Meet expressable.io founder Leanne Sherred, CCC-SLP [https://privateslp.com/online-speech-therapy-business-meet-expressable-io-founder-leanne-sherred-ccc-slp/] appeared first on PrivateSLP [https://privateslp.com].

53. The Perfect Student Interview: Meet Kyle White

Welcome back PrivateSLP listeners, I would like to introduce The Perfect Student [https://privateslp.com/coaching/], Kyle White. Kyle is a super-motivated individual that is out to help as many kiddos in his community by providing some of the best pediatric therapy in the Philadelphia area. In this episode, you will hear how this United States Marine and MBA worked with his wife, Ashley White, CCC-SLP to create a multidisciplinary clinic with over 60+ patients in 10 short months.   Together, they have watched Milestone Therapy Group [https://www.milestonetherapygroup.com/]grow from an concept and idea into a reality . In this Episode: 02:28 – Introducing Perfect Student Mr Kyle White 04:57 – Getting into Speech Therapy 07:18 – Google source and podcast information 09:25 – Having Entrepreneurial Spirit 12:45 – Leverage knowledge and be multi-disciplinary 17:51 – Getting foundation built 21:02 – Now is the time you want to be an entrepreneur or start your practice 23:28 – Getting help with credentialing DOWNLOAD PDF TRANSCRIPTIONEpisode 53 is all about celebrating success, and in this episode, Kyle explains how he found PrivateSLP,  asked for help, became credentialed [https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeqyqoNJRKREY34hQoI5fwzlEaKSnfrlo50jAb5sNBvmRoO9Q/viewform] with insurance plans  and worked with me one on one on a weekly basis to become the Perfect Student! [https://d1zjei52cms7ya.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/milestone-therapy-group.png] [https://www.milestonetherapygroup.com/] Introduction “We started from basically nothing to now multi-disciplinary, several different therapists on board and 60 plus kids a week”. PrivateSLP Intro Solid, sustaining and successful. You’re listening to this Speech Therapy Private Practice Startup Podcast with your host Kyle Meades, speech and language pathologist. Listen, learn and prosper as we share our experience and knowledge so that you can improve your business and your life, one podcast at a time. Kyle Meades Well, hello, everyone, you’re listening to the Speech Therapy Private Practice Startup Podcast. This is episode number 53. My name is Kyle Medes and I’m a speech pathologist since 1993. And these podcasts are designed to help you improve your business and your life. One podcast at a time. Welcome back to the show, everyone. Thanks again for all the e-mails and all the questions. And as of today, today is Thursday, April the 2nd 2020. We have well over 65399 listeners to the show. And I’m super glad you guys are out there getting good valuable information. And you know me, I say it every single podcast, value is what you get in the absence of money. And these podcasts are absolutely free for you. So if you wouldn’t mind, just please head on over to the Android or the Apple iTunes platform of your choice and leave some good 5-Star feedback that way other people just like you can get the same valuable information that you are receiving right now. And I also wanted to let you guys know that we have a space available for The Perfect Student, and that is when you get to come to Tucson and work with me hand in hand. You also get weekly coaching calls for me. There’s also some billing and credentialing services in there, too. And so you can find out more information about that at PrivateSLP.com/coaching. What many people choose to do is to work with me online and that’s where you get access to me via the private coaching thread and also access to others in the community. And you can also find that PrivateSLP.com/coaching. Now, today, I’m really excited. This is a great episode because you guys know me and you know me well. I’m always talking about The Perfect Student. And finally, you get to meet a Perfect Student. And this is going to be Mr. Kyle White and his wife, Ashley White. And they are clinic owners in Pennsylvania. And I had the great opportunity to talk to Kyle today and ask him and pick his brain about all kinds of things, about starting and growing and scaling his own speech therapy private practice. And the funny thing is, Kyle is not even an SLP. He is a United States Marine, he’s also got a Masters of Business Administration (MBA). And he’s also just transitioned out of his full time job in the Internet cyber security space, working for a large educational firm. Now he’s working for himself. And all of that happened right here in the last 10 months. And also the bottom fell out with the whole coronavirus thing. And so he’s navigating that and he is learning how to increase his patient load from 0 to over 60+ people per week in. He’s got now many employees, speech therapy, occupational therapists and some other therapists included. So I just want you to kick back and listen to the show today and learn about The Perfect Student. Kyle Meades Hey, today we’re talking with Kyle White – Kyle White is the owner of Milestone Therapy Group. And you guys who listen to the show regularly, you know that I’m always talking about The Perfect Student and we were taken applications for The Perfect Student and I finally had this bright idea, hey one day you probably would want to listen and meet one of our Perfect Students. Wouldn’t you say that’s the right thing to do, Kyle? Kyle White Yeah, exactly. It’s a good idea. Kyle Meades Yeah. Kyle reached out to me. I remember I was on the North Shore, Oahu we were on vacation. It was the last week of May. Kind of going into June. And I get this email from one of our contact pages, you know, is this really nice, guy. His name is Kyle White and he was interested in starting a business at that time. And Kyle and his wife, Ashley, they both own Milestone Therapy Group and they provide speech and occupational therapy services in the Philadelphia area. And I just wanted you guys, the listening community out there to meet Kyle and kind of know what it takes to be The Perfect Student. So, Kyle, if you wouldn’t mind, give me some background. How did you even get into speech therapy? Because if I remember right, you’re not even a speech therapist, are you? Kyle White That is correct. So kind of a lot of winding, twisty roads even deciding that we were going to start the business then obviously till now. But quick, short background. Yeah, I am by no means a speech therapist, any type of therapist. I always joke, you know, therapists are way smarter than I’ll ever be. So, yeah, definitely not a plan route. Just kind of got here and trial and error and obviously with your help. But to boil it down, my background, I was in the Marines active duty for several years. I mean, then got out in 2015 and went to work for a big four firm doing cyber security. And then in a lot of different conversations and whatnot, my wife and I started Milestone Therapy Group in June of 2019. Kyle Meades Wow, what a story! And Ashley, your wife, she’s the speech and language pathologist, right? Kyle White Correct. Yep. So Ashley’s background for several years now, she’s by trade, a speech therapist. Kyle Meades That’s awesome. And so you guys were just searching the web one day and looking, you know, on how to start a speech therapy, private practice. Is that how you found us? Kyle White Yeah. So in short, yes. So just trying to understand how to start a speech therapy business. Right. Just, you know, using the old Google, trying to figure out where to start, you know, trying to work backwards, really like what does that look like? We need to do. And really, the podcast is kind of where that’s where I started this in your messages and the different podcast. And then it was like, oh, this guy who actually practices what he preached for lack of better words, like, oh, this guy actually has his own, you know, thriving clinics. And so that was like the model. I was like, OK, I want somebody that’s, you know, for lack of better words, doing it right, not just, you know, putting out some resources, saying, hey, here’s how to do do something that somebody is actually doing it. So, yeah. Long story short was listen to the podcast. And I remember I was even traveling around for work a lot. And so we’d listen to the podcast just to get ideas. Yes, I found you on Google. And then the podcast was the tipping point for reaching out to you. Kyle Meades Oh, that’s awesome. I’m glad you found those interesting. Sometimes I even wonder. I mean, I see the numbers. I see people from all around the world are listening to the podcast. You know, I see the data. But, you know, it’s nice to hear that people actually get good value out of that. But you said you were traveling through your job. You were in the corporate world of cybersecurity, in the education space. Right? Kyle White Yep, cyber security and compliance. So, yeah, in in short, I would ensure that the company that I work for, you know, we were compliant in certain areas and then dealing with a lot of different vendors that the company did business with all related cyber security and compliance. So, yeah. Kyle Meades And you just over time, I guess you were just searching for something more, right? I mean, I knew when I started my own business, I just got sick and tired of working for other people and I wanted to do things on my own. You know, through the good and the bad. And so did you and your wife one day just look at each other and say, you know, “Hey, we should open up a private practice” or did she mention it? Because if I remember right, too, you’ve got a MBA, you’ve got a Masters of Business Administration to so not only are you in the Marines or were in the Marines – you were in the corporate world, in cybersecurity in the education space, but you also have an MBA, right? So you guys wanted to put that together? Kyle White Right. So I don’t even remember. So to get a little bit a historical background, I don’t even remember what grade I was in. I think, you know, it might have been first or second grade. And I don’t know how I, you know, might have been around Halloween or something like that. But I had a bag of candy, you know, like a little Halloween bag of candy. And I took it to school and started selling the candy. So I made a little bit of profit off of, you know, the the bag of candy I bought from the Dollar Store or Wal-Mart or whatever. And I was like, oh, this is cool. Well, it was cool until the teacher shut it down. But anyway, I was kind of had this entrepreneurial spirit, I guess. So obviously, it took a while to figure out what that looked like. And, you know, being in the Marines for several years and then the corporate world, the at a fast forward. You know, when Ashley went back to grad school and it was like, OK, we’re going to do this, the speech therapy thing, we were thinking we’re like, OK, we might be able to like do our own thing with this time again we had no idea what that would look like. But I’ve always had the kind of entrepreneurial spirit. And then actually, you know, once she was involved in and actually writing speech therapy, realized that there’s a lot of great therapists out there is like great companies, but that we could probably do a better job than the lot of folks to what we were seeing. So we kind of, you know, join forces on her speech therapy knowledge, my business background, an MBA education and put it together and start the business. Kyle Meades That’s awesome. And, you know, I get a lot of questions all the time, just people wanting to start. And did you find, you know, just getting incorporated – was that a big deal for you? Kyle White It was I mean, it was exciting. You know, in our prime mentioned this one hundred thousand times throughout the podcast. But luckily, you know, whenever we were able to connect. I mean, you’d been there every step of the way provided, you know, a lock-step program. You know, so many resources. And anytime I had a question, that’s where I was able to reach out to you and understand. OK. Let’s go this direction or do this or what not. So, yeah, getting incorporated was super awesome. Everything’s taken, you know, about 10 times longer. I thought it would. Or 10 times more money. Yeah, it was it was really exciting. We got incorporated and then it took a couple of months for us to “get serious”, you know, get the web site up, you know, reach out to you. So it was exciting. It’s still a journey. Kyle Meades Oh, yeah. Never stops to. Well, that’s awesome. So you found us through the podcast. You listen to the podcast. You reached out to me directly. And would you say overall that just the coaching and the community inside the All Access Community threads, I mean, did it help shave off some of that time? I know you said it did take some time, but overall, do you think you’ve learned from maybe you wanted to take something one way and it actually went the other? Have you had help and success inside the community? Kyle White Oh, my gosh, absolutely. So, yeah, I mean, it’s a boss. I mean, not only just time. You know, again, you’re now reaching out to or just search in the forum in the community. So let’s save time and sanity, but also truthfully is allow a business to run, be a business or still be in business. With everything going on. So, I mean, the short answer is yes. Without your help, without joining, without being a member of the community, quite frankly, I don’t think we would have ever got the business going even if we had got incorporated. I don’t think we would have got clients or patients. I mean, at best, maybe one or two. And then with that is we certainly would not be a go in the direction that we’ve been able to leverage your knowledge and be multi-disciplinary. Really have two different business models. You know, a community piece and a clinic piece. So, yeah, to tie it all together and really to to make this as simple as possible. Your help’s been invaluable work. They’re very affordable costs for the membership. But but truly, I don’t know where we’d be without your help, honestly. Kyle Meades Now, it’s just great to hear. I love to hear people who get value out of the podcast and direct one on one coaching. And if I remember right, you were one of the first people that helped me beta test our app for our community to, you know, from time to time I’ll get the feedback from the community. And I had a few people saying, you know, hey, sometimes it’s difficult to log on because you know me by now, I’m not one of those people to get on Facebook and have these Facebook groups. I just don’t like it. I don’t want to sit there. I want to live. I want to be doing stuff throughout the day. I don’t want to be on Facebook all day long answering questions, you know. I want people to be accountable. I want them to have easy accessibility to me. And so just for those reasons alone, what I chose to do is have my All Access Membership Community inside my own platform. I own it. And I teach that, you know, Own The Clinic series that’s inside the All Access Community. But, you know, I wanted to make it more accessible. So instead of going to your browser on your smartphone, you can just download the app now and reach me that way. And for those of you who don’t know, once you’re in that community, you’ve got a multitude of topics on everything from like billing and insurance and collections and staff and employees and all that. Plus, there’s this one tiny little link in there that says private coaching. And inside that private coaching is a thread that you can start the conversation with me. Kyle, did you ever use that private coaching link inside the community? Kyle White I sure did. I probably bothered the crap out of you. I’m kidding. You’ve always been there, via that private coaching thread, I was able to find all the information there and then setup weekly meetings with you, which again, I mean, just go back to timesaving and just tips, tricks, knowledge on how to run the business, you know, getting credentialed. I mean, you name it right. It’s just it’s all in there. And that has been amazing. Kyle Meades Yeah. I’m glad you like it. One of the big things about our All Access Community is, you know, you’ve gotten access to not only me, but other people in the group. And so with that, you know, you can direct message other people in the community. Plus, again, if you don’t want someone to see what you’re working on, like if you want to talk to me personally about something, you can just go in to that private coaching thread. And that way nobody else will see what you’re talking about. So, you know, you’ve got two different choices there. You can get the feedback from the group or you can just get straight one on one coaching with me. Plus, I know you mentioned that there are coaching calls available, too, and that’s something I picked up on you when you first reach out to me. When I was on vacation, I remember you were on fire. You were ready to go. And, you know, at one point I thought, I can’t move fast enough for you because you are just a shaker and a mover. And I remember a couple of times during our coaching calls, I had to slow you down a little bit. I said, you know, I know this saved you a bunch of pitfalls, but I said, you know, you are looking at it one way. But I can guarantee the way you’re looking at it today won’t be the same view about, you know, six to eight weeks from now. And I think we were talking about employee issues, because I know since we’ve been working together and correct me if I’m wrong, it was just you and your wife. You guys were just a sole provider providing speech therapy, but now you’ve actually branched out to occupational therapy and other forms. Therapy. And I think you went from 0 on your caseload now to, what, maybe 50, 45 to 50 children a week. Is that correct? Kyle White We are actually at 60 plus. Oh, wow. Now, I know it’s again, thanks to your thoughts and suggestions. Yeah, we started out with me being the business, you know, trying to handle anything business related, you know, answering phones. You know, that type of stuff and actually seeing kids. We slowly build that up. And, you know, to your point, patience is not my strong suit. Same. So I’m like, “Go, go, go, kick the door and let’s go”, and yes, you provided some good sound advice, I don’t wanna say reeling it back but, yeah reeling it back saying ok let’s be a little bit more strategic here. You know, I mean, I was like, OK, let’s let’s branch out. You know, it was just like, let’s get that foundation built, get that, you know, solid and really have something to grow on. So we started from basically nothing to now multi-disciplinary, several different therapists on board and 60+ plus kids a week. Kyle Meades That’s awesome. It’s just really cool to hear how much you guys have just really made a difference in your life. I remember at the end of 2019 I said 2020 is gonna be a lot better than 2019. Right? Would you say that’s true? Kyle White I mean, you know, the recent events have been a whirlwind. But, you know, quite frankly, we’re still growing like, you know, even the 60 plus. That’s why I say 60 plus right now is because we’re still adding kids. I mean, today, you know, we’re still adding folks, I mean kids, it’s literally every day read more. We’re growing, so. Yeah. 2020 has been good. I don’t wish that the coronaviruses was going on, but now I think 2020’s going good still. And I think you know, there’s a lot of time left in the year and I think it’s going to certainly end great. Kyle Meades Yeah. And you know, I’ve made the same comment to other people that I’ve talked to recently. I started my whole business in the economic downturn. I mean, I went through Hurricane Katrina back in the day and then we got double whammy with the fallout and the financial crisis back in 2008. So, I mean, I am used to these types of environments. On a recent podcast I was talking about, you know, after Hurricane Katrina, I had rental apartments in multi-family housing. And I remember I had two new rooves the next day. And my next door neighbor who came by and he said he would have insurance company to use? The bank of Kyle, I’m a saver, you know, and I don’t rely on the government or any kind of bail out. I mean, now is the time to start your business. Everybody’s all doom and gloom and getting all jacked up on the news. And, you know, you just have to maintain attention, concentration to the task at hand. And the task at hand is to have at its simplest form, I think an offer that converts and our offer, I think in our clinics are, you know, good quality speech therapy services and occupational therapy services. And I’m glad to hear you guys are just thriving even in today’s environment, because, you know, it’s early April 2020 as we record this call in the corona viruse is out there. You know, the economy, the stock market’s down. It is doom and gloom. And yet here we are sitting and talking about a thriving private practice. I mean, what do you think about that? Kyle White Yeah. I mean, you hit the nail on the head of a thriving private practice. I certainly would not want to be in a position now or in the near future or in the future of, you know, relying on somebody else for employment. I guess by definition, being an entrepreneur is risk or being a risk taker, something of that nature. But no, I’d rather have control at least as much as I can control or, you know, put the ball in my corner or have my hands or whatever garbage you want to use. But absolutely, I think now is the time you want to be an entrepreneur or start your practice. Yeah. Now, there’s no better time than now because you can at least have some control over some things. Kyle Meades Absolutely. I’ve had a lot of people reaching out to me about joining that All Access Community. And I think it’s certain level people are afraid to commit. And I’ve seen people come and go in the community. It’s not like, you know, we don’t have a huge group of people who are just, you know, like a Facebook group of, you know, a bunch of free members sitting around, you know, commenting about this and complaining about that. I mean, we have a select group of people, a small niche group of people who are talking about action. And I know that our people you know, I see it on the statistics on the back into the Web site. You may not get tons of comments from every single member, but I do see those members, if they’re not on the life coaching calls on a monthly basis. I see him listening to the replays or I see him downloading the PDF that, you know, those coaching calls are all transcribed and they’ll listen to the audio recording of those coaching calls. And, you know, there’s a couple of people in there that are really excited about growing their practice and they’ll chime in on a few topics. Has your experience been in that community? Have you gotten good feedback from others besides me? Kyle White Absolutely, yeah. So, I mean, in general, the community both, you know, in there that I’ve had interactions with the been awesome. I mean, everybody’s, you know, super helpful, really willing to help however they can. Well, another thing that’s really cause, you know, just being able to search. So I think the other day I was looking at some insurance question I had. Right. So I just typed in the search bar insurance. I can see all the comments that other folks, you know, posted or questions they’ve asked. And that’s also been kind of great because, you know, you can just leverage stuff that’s already been done. Right. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. So any question I have is search for it. And I’m able to find. Like you said, the PDF or a previous training. But yeah, it’s been amazing. The folks in there are are absolutely top notch materials, you know saved me. Just. And I had a lot of anger in trying to just figure something out. So I don’t have to do that. So it’s that’s a positive. Kyle Meades That’s awesome. And is the perfect student. You got access to credentialing services. And did you find that getting help with credentialing, was that helpful for you? Because people when they reach out to me and they want credentialing services, always tell people pay for the service. It’s not worth your time filling up reams of paper and just getting all that taken care of by yourself. You want to get somebody who’s knowledgeable and our team of credentials are specialist at what they do. Was that a helpful service for you as well? Kyle White Absolutely. I can’t say enough good things. You know, Esther, Michel, the credentialing ladies are amazing and I can’t overstate that. Absolutely amazing. I guarantee you, without their help, without your credentialing service, we would not be credentialed with insurances because I was not going to mess around and to your point, go through, you know, a stack of papers for, you know, just one insurance company that’s for trying to build a business, you know, trying to just understand all the nuances that come with starting a business. Right. The taxes, the LLC, the legal right, all that. There’s simply no way would be credential with insurance folks without your service and help of Esther and Michelle, period. Kyle Meades That’s awesome. I talked to a lot of people about credentialing as well. And you know, there’s so many companies out there who do credentialing services, but they charge him all these fees every year to maintain their contracts. And it’s just it’s a scam. And what we teach our folks with our credentialing services how to manage their own databases and how to to make sure you can do it yourself. You know, you can update your insurance addresses if you move offices. You know, we show you how to do that yourself. So you can be in charge and take care of what you need to take care of, not just leave it up to somebody to do it for you and charge you, you know, gobs and gobs of money. So I’m glad that’s affordable as well. But I mean, here it is 10 months after you reached out for help. I mean, is it safe to say that you received the help that you needed? Kyle White Oh, my gosh. Absolutely. I mean, one again, just sanity time, etc.. Absolutely. I mean, you know, just the information, the guidance, the coaching, top notch, everything’s been amazing. But it like boil down into economics, if you will, my ROI, my return on investment, you know, for a day and a half. I would consider a low cost really of access to you, access the community, the credentialing. I mean, everything, right the ROI I mean, I couldn’t even put a number because it’s staggering, right. Of how little that cost was to the time and return on resources, clients, etc that we’ve got back, so plus the community, your help – everything is amazing. Kyle Meades That’s great. And, you know, I had a lady reach out to me recently, went to pay someone $10,000.00 To get help on a private practice. And I mean, we’re nothing close to that, oh, my gosh. And I just said, look, you know, that’s a lot of money. I mean, ten grand. Come on. But, you know, I do this because I care. I genuinely care about people. I show up every single day in that community. I answer questions. If somebody needs a phone call to, you know, go through a certain scenario. I’ll take the call. You know, I’m always available. But the main thing that I want to say is what separates you, what makes you The Perfect Student is because you did the work. I have coached so many people who have done a great job, but it just once in a while you find that person who takes that advice and just runs with it. And next thing you know, extrapolates that data and just make something just much more out of it. And that’s you. And so that’s why I wanted to have this conversation and just a little chat today to let other people know that, you know, there is The Perfect Student out there. It’s not just something I’m sitting there talking about. You know me. Because, again, I’m not on all this social media. I’m not on Facebook. I’m not on Instagram, you know, just sitting there talking about it. I’m work and I got things to do. You know, talking about that Corona virus, too. You know, we’re keeping 48 people employed right now. And, you know, that’s with no government assistance. I mean, that hasn’t even come out. We’re just talking about that whole program, that P.P.P – Payroll Protection Plan before we got on this call. And you know, right now there is absolutely no guidance from the big banks or the SBA from anybody. And that’s why I’m always preaching and teaching. You know, save your cash. And, you know, it’s like the 48 employees that we have. I told everyone, look, you’re not going to get paid. You know what you’re normally going to get paid over the next few weeks right now, because we have to watch our cost. We have to watch our revenue and expenses. But, you know, right now, our caseload have dropped, you know, maybe 30 percent, but we’re gonna be okay. I’m still paying everybody’s insurance. I’m still paying everybody’s health. You know, vision, dental 401K with a match. Everybody still gets what they need. It may not be what they want right now, but we’re keeping people employed. And that’s because we’re not trying to be something we can’t be, you know, being frugal or watching what we need to watch. But we’re still seeing a lot of kids in a lot of families. But I wanted to congratulate you, Kyle, and tell you how proud I am of you for stepping up, getting the job done, and now see your help in all these people in your community now integrate just to see how this thing just evolves. Kyle White It is it’s it’s truly I mean, it’s so awesome because, you know, like you said, you know, their employees keeping them, you know, a paycheck going on right now. My wife is very close with some of the therapies we have on staff. And we’ve been able to maintain everything and keep them, you know, like you mentioned, trying to balance everything out, keep it lane, but keep them employed and everyone’s happy. Everybody’s able to put food on the table. So, yeah, it’s a good time. Still, even though there are some challenges right now, it’s still a great time. I mean, to be a business practice owner and just, you know, figure this out together and understand we’re all going to come out better on the other side of it. Kyle Meades Well, that’s great. And at the end of the show, on the bottom in the show knows I’m going to put your Web site so people can learn more about what you guys do to help those in your community, so I hope this has been helpful for you guys. If you have any questions about speech therapy, private practice, how to start, grow or scale your own speech therapy practice. Just reach out to me, kyle@PrivateSLP.com, and as always, thank you for listening. Out Take Thank you for listening to this Speech Therapy Private Practice Startup Podcasts – for information on speech therapy private practice startup or to stay connected with Kyle, please visit PrivateSLP.com The post 53. The Perfect Student Interview: Meet Kyle White [https://privateslp.com/53-the-perfect-student-interview-meet-kyle-white/] appeared first on PrivateSLP [https://privateslp.com].

52. Managing Change in Your Speech Therapy Private Practice

With the onset of COVID-19, I talk about making changes in your your Speech Therapy Private Practice. With sudden change comes anxiety, but in this episode, I look back at other events in my life that gave me the abilities to make good solid changes in our business so that patients can get their treatments and employees can receive a paycheck during these difficult times. Resources for Small Businesses: The Small Business Owner’s Guide to the CARES Act [http://slplist.com/2e] In this episode: 02:15 – Space for Perfect Student 02:45 – Change happens 05:30 – Adapt and Change 08:30 – Teletherapy 09:48 – Shutting doors to take care of family and staff 11:10 – Change comes with opportunity DOWNLOAD PDF TRANSCRIPTIONI remember I was on a business trip in Vegas about four weeks ago, and we were talking amongst ourselves, some other big clinic owners and we were talking about the same thing, we’re hearing on the news about this Coronavirus. And I said, I started thinking about that Teletherapy thing and I said, we got to get ready for this. We need to go to our pandemic plans and get this thing moving. [Commercial]Well, Hello everyone you’re listening to the Speech Therapy Private Practice StartUp Podcast. This is episode number 52. My name is Kyle Meades and I’m a Speech Pathologist since 1993. And these podcasts are designed to help you improve your business and your life one Podcast at a time. Welcome back to the show, everyone. Thanks again for all the emails and all the questions. And as of today. Today’s Friday, March 27th, 2020. We have well over 64,836 listeners to the show. And I’m super glad you guys are out there and getting good, valuable information. You know me, I said every single podcast value is what you get in the absence of money and these podcasts are free for you. So if you wouldn’t mind, just please go to your Android or iTunes platform of your choice and leave some good 5-Star feedback. That way other people just like you can get the same valuable information that you are receiving right here today. And I’d like to welcome those around the world who are listening to the podcast. We’ve got Australia, Japan, India, Canada, the U.K., Germany, South Africa and the Republic of South Korea just to name a few countries. So those are popping up on the list right now. So it’s just really nice to have you guys out there. And if you have any questions, you can also just reach out to me at privateslp.com [https://privateslp.com/]. I wanted to let you guys know that we still have space for the perfect student. And if you want some one on one coaching with me, you can also get that head privateslp.com/coaching [https://privateslp.com/coaching/]. And for those of you who are starting out and you are working with insurance companies, if you need some help with your billing or credentialing, you can always just go to privateslp.com/billing [https://privateslp.com/billing/] and I can help you there. Well, today is one of those topics that we all need to talk about. It’s really the 800 pound gorilla in the room, right? It’s called change. And change is something that happens whether we like it or not. And, with this whole coronavirus thing, I mean, I was forced to change, 47 employees, 48 employees, and we had to move thousands of patients over to a new platform and we had to do it quickly. And so I wanted to talk to you about that today. I just got off of a live webinar with our all access community members. And we were speaking about the same thing that I’m talking to you about here right now. And that’s just really how to adapt to an online platform so we can continue to help those that we serve, with speech or occupational or physical therapy or even a B.A. therapy. So, I get many calls from around the United States, e-mails, communications about people starting, different kinds of clinics. And so, we just have to get used to that change. And it’s just really a crazy time in the world right now. And it’s everybody. But it really got me thinking about when I was a kid. I remember I was in a Middle-Class home. And my mom and my dad were hardworking people. And my dad was a plumber. This was back in the 80s. For those of you who are old enough to remember the savings and loan bust back in the 80s. And that’s when pretty much interest rates went sky high. And values of properties went low. And my dad was a plumber. And I remember at that time, he had about 100 employees and he was worried. And I just remember I didn’t know what was going on, but I know that it wasn’t good. I remember my dad. He had some land down the way and he built a couple of duplexes. And I remember he couldn’t sell our house. I just remember that Century 21 real estate sign was just in our yard for the longest time. I remember asking my mom, why isn’t the house selling? And she gave me some answer, but I really didn’t understand it. But I remember my mom and my dad. And now we moved out of that house and we moved down to one of our duplexes. And so, looking back, I saw that what my dad was doing is, he was consolidating and kind of, riding out that storm at that time so other people would pay rent and he could use that money to pay the mortgage. So, that’s one of the things my dad did. But, I just remember that and how we had to adapt and change. You know, we had a Middle-Class lifestyle. We used to take trips, used to go out to eat. And I remember for the most part, all of that stopped and then I remember I had to go to work. I remember my dad and I’ve spoken about this on some of my earlier podcast. I had to go to work on my dad’s plumbing trucks and I had to wash cars and run gasline and dig ditches. But I really understood the value of money. And then fast forward to, the early 2000s and I just moved back from New Zealand and got back into New Orleans. And then, a few months later, here it goes, Hurricane Katrina. And I just remember going through that natural disaster. I lost my job overnight. Yet I had no income. But I did have about eight to ten thousand dollars in the bank. I do remember that. And I remember just all the devastation, all the doom and gloom. I had a hospital pass because I worked at a major hospital, Ochsner Hospital in New Orleans. And I remember I was able to come back a little bit early. My buddy Bobby was in the National Guard, so I got back into the city earlier than most. And I just remember seeing all the flooding. And there’s a Web page that I put up on privateslp.com [https://privateslp.com/]. If you want to see some of those images, just the destruction that I saw. And it really did something to me. It changed me just like that event that changed me when I was a kid in the 80s. This event changed me in the early 2000s, Hurricane Katrina. And I remember, I had a couple duplexes at the time and I was living on top and renting the bottom out and that was paying for that mortgage. And then down the street, I had another couple, two bedrooms, one bath place, and that was paying for their mortgage. And all of a sudden, after one day there were no more tenants. And that students at Tulane, they were gone. And the students said all the major universities, the whole place to shut down overnight. And I remember getting back to my house and it was just gross. It was a lot of water. And I remember walking my roofs and I needed a couple roofs and called my friend. He was a contractor. And I said, hey, can you hook me up with a couple roofs? And he says, yeah, I do two roofs for it’s going to be about fifty five hundred cash on. Said you got a deal. Next day, I had two new roofs on my house and I remember right then and there I learned this lesson again. My neighbor comes over, he says hey wait insurance company do you use. And I said, oh, that’s the Bank of Kyle. I just pay cash. He goes, Really? I said, Yeah, I don’t have time to wait for insurance companies. I mean, why would you do that? Because when you need to get things done, you got to move quickly. You got to get it done and get it done fast. So I made that phone call and I had two new roofs that next day the roofs were on my house. The top of my house, put a new roof on, so I was grateful I had that money saved up. And here it is the Coronavirus. We got 48 employees, we see about thirty eight hundred patients a month. And then all of a sudden, boom, I remember I was on a business trip in Vegas about four weeks ago. And we were talking amongst ourselves, some other big clinic owners. And we were talking about the same thing, we’re hearing on the news about this Coronavirus. And I said, I started thinking about that Teletherapy thing and I said, we got to get ready for this. We need to go to our pandemic plans and get this thing, move in. And so we got into action. And a couple of weeks ago before all this hit, on our terms. And, because I was seeing all these states being closed down and people, stuck at home and couldn’t leave their house and in quarantine and stuck at home and people were dying at hospitals, this is really getting bad. And so I said, on our terms, let’s get a plan for this. Let’s go and get online and get an online platform and let’s go ahead and start talking to our families and patients and staff and getting them ready, because again, I want to do this on my terms. So that’s what we started doing. I’ve got some wonderful staff here who helped me get this done. And I mean, really worked hard to get all this coordinated. And we got it done. We communicate with staff and family members. And I remember this past Monday, I just decided to shut the doors because really, look, this is not about money and greed. And, I still see businesses open right now who are still seeing patients one on one. And look, I’m not judging. I’m just saying for me and only me speaking for myself. I want to take care of my families, my staff and things that I’m directly in control of. So that’s what I did. I chose to shut my business and have everybody work from home. And I promised everybody I said, I’m going to pay your insurance. I’m going to pay for your dental, your vision. I’m in a match your 401K and you may not get 100 percent of what you normally make, but you might get about 60 to 75 percent. And that’s what I did. We made some changes in watching our payroll and watching our expenses right now. But I promised everybody you. Will have a place to comeback, too, to continue to work. And as a leader, as a boss, as an owner, as a clinic owner, it’s my job to make sure that we all have, during this moment of crisis. So that’s really what I wanted to talk to you guys about today. And, if you’re one of our all access community members, you know how I am. You’ve got direct access to me to bounce all these ideas off of the same thing you’re going through. You can talk to me. We have that private coaching thread where you can work with me one on one. Nobody else will see it or read your comments. But we also have the community of people who are working hand in hand to get through this crisis. So that’s what I wanted to talk to you guys today about it. It’s about change. And with change comes opportunity. And it’s an opportunity to improve and grow and just get better because it forces you to do things you really wouldn’t do. I get comfortable over time and I’m always used to doing this. And I drive the same way to work and I eat the same foods and I wear the same clothes. People who know me have always got a white Costco t-shirt on, and vans or whatever. I just do the same thing over and over. But boy, when this change happens, it’s always good to have a plan. So I’d like to know what you guys are doing to manage, the Coronavirus crisis around the United States. If you’ve got a clinic or you’re in private practice, comment below this posting and let me know what you’re doing to take care of yourself and your family and your patients. So I hope this has been helpful for you. And if you have any questions, you can always reach out to me at privateslp.com [https://privateslp.com/]. And thank you for listening. The post 52. Managing Change in Your Speech Therapy Private Practice [https://privateslp.com/52-managing-change-in-your-speech-therapy-private-practice/] appeared first on PrivateSLP [https://privateslp.com].

51. PrivateSLP Year in Review

2019 has been a great year for PrivateSLP [http://www.PrivateSLP.com], the Speech Therapy Private Practice Startup Podcast [https://privateslp.com/list-all/] and Kyle’s clinics, Therapy Group of Tucson [http://therapygrouptucson.com]! When starting, growing or scaling a real speech therapy private practice, one of the benefits of learning from an active clinic owner with multiple disciplines and locations is gaining real-life experience and expertise so that you can avoid the pitfalls and mistakes that Kyle has made already.   If you’re going to learn, then learn from someone who is actively managing thousands of visits and multiple locations. In this episode, I review 2019 and list our highlights and celebrate our overall growth while giving you an idea of what to expect if you start and grow your own clinic. Also, the time to join my PrivateSLP All Access Community [https://privateslp.com/coaching/] is right now before the price increases on January 1, 2020. In this episode: 01:12 – 59769 + listeners 01:48 – Welcome to Julie Griffith, SLP to the AAC 05:38 – Making Changes 06:30 – Insanity defined 07:05 – Second location 07:35 – Speech Therapy numbers 07:48 – Employees and benefits DOWNLOAD PDF TRANSCRIPTIONIf you sit around and talk about it on Facebook or sit there and watching YouTube videos and kind of dreaming about it, you’re going to get what you’ve always got. Nothing, no change, whatsoever, you can sit there and absorb information till the cows come home. But if you don’t get off of it and change and do something get into action nothing’s going to change. [Commercial]Well, Hello everyone you’re listening to the Speech Therapy Private Practice StartUp Podcast. This is episode number 51. My name is Kyle Meades and I’m a Speech Pathologist since 1993. And these podcasts are designed to help you improve your business and your life one Podcast at a time. Welcome back to the show everyone. Thanks again for all the emails and all the questions, and as of today, today’s Friday December 27th 2019, we have well over 59769 listeners to the show and I’m super glad you guys are out there getting good valuable information because you know me I’m going to say it every single episode, value is what you get in the absence of money. And these podcasts are absolutely free for you, so if you don’t mind, please go to the iOS or Android platform of your choice and leave some good five star feedback that way other people just like you can get the same valuable information that you’re receiving right now. And also I wanted to have a shout out and welcome to Julie Griffith. She’s a speech pathologist. She joined the All Access Community [https://privateslp.com/coaching/] here in early December someone to welcome her to the community. And in our community right now we just launched an iOS and Android application so the community is actually easily accessible more so than ever before. And we’ve got monthly trainings we’ve got weekly coaching calls also wanted to recognize one of our perfect students who’s doing a splendid job. Their company now they contacted me in June of this past year and this is just amazing. I was in Hawaii vacationing with my family and I get this email about the All Access Community and some questions. I pick up the phone and I speak to these two individuals and I start interviewing them for a possible membership in the community but more specifically I just knew that this person was the Perfect student. And since we’ve started working together this past June their business now has over 20 visits per week in less than six months they’ve actually got their own office now. We helped their company complete their credentialing and contracting. I helped these two individuals negotiate their service contracts and helping them with their employees. It just gets better and better and you’re going to be hearing from this company very soon I’m going to do some interviews with these guys. They’re just killing it and it’s just this is what I do this and it’s just wonderful to see what happens when people just ordinary people who have a dream, who have a skill set, who have that degree. Well it’s funny because the person that I’m helping doesn’t even have a degree in Speech and Hearing or communication disorders or Speech therapy services. This person is a husband of a person and it’s just really cool to help people grow and improve their life and sit there and have these conversations knowing that 2020 is going to be even better than 2019. I mean what a great feeling it is. I remember before Hurricane Katrina I used to take these walks around Audubon Park in New Orleans, just complain and edges ticked off and hateful. I was so angry inside because I hated to go to work. I hated the kind of hours I was pulling at this local hospital. And my boss was doing the best she could and the people I work with, they were doing the best they could. But this big organization was just sucking the life out of me. we used to have these beepers on my pants there and on the edge of my coat and that thing would go off constantly, “We need you on this floor.” I mean yes, I’m a hard worker. Don’t get me wrong but I knew I wanted something different, I knew I wanted a different life, I knew I needed a change but I was just stuck in that comfort zone. When you get those checks weekly or bi monthly checks and you just get stuck in a rut and that’s when Hurricane Katrina happened and I moved to Tucson. And so that’s when my life changed. So it’s just nice to see that change happened to other people who reach out and contact me. I’m able to help these guys improve their business improve their life and I can’t wait for 2020 to help these guys grow even more. So I’m just fired up about that so I want to share that with you. But this Episode 51 is sort of a year in review for the Speech Therapy Private Practice StartUp Podcast. My business Therapy group of Tucson and also some things I’ve been doing on a personal note so just to kind of give you a glimpse into what can actually happen when you do change your life or when you do change your mindset, when you do have that shift. And again people say, you’re just bragging and blah-blah-blah. No I’m not. I’m showing you guys if you want to do this, what can happen. That’s simply all I’m doing here. I’m giving you guys a roadmap. I’m a guide. I’m kind of a conduit. I’m showing you guys what can be accomplished when you do certain things. So if you sit around and talk about it on Facebook or sit there watching YouTube videos and kind of dreaming about it, you’re going to get what you’ve always got. Nothing, no change, whatsoever you can sit there and absorb information till the cows come home. But if you don’t get off of it and change and do something, get into action nothing’s going to change. I mean doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, that’s called insanity. So you can continue to be insane or you can reach out and pay a little bit of money and get some help and get the right information, so you can change your life and get into action and do it the right way. Or you can get multiple opinions from multiple people and sit there and kind of like a dog chasing their tail spin-spin-spin and you just get sick and fall down right. So I’m just trying to help. Anyway year in review for our business we did this year. We got a new commercial building. We’re able to get almost 8000 square foot commercial building for our second location. I started looking in Tucson and there’s a really nice place down towards the south area town. I started looking into that and comparing rents in the area and we were able to negotiate and actually buy the building from a company who just had this building completely renovated so that was exciting for us. We also expanded our disciplines to meet the wants and needs of our community. We increased our Speech Therapy discipline, we also increased our occupational therapy and added physical therapy to the mix. So we’re now offering all three disciplines speech occupational and physical therapy. Also this year I increased the benefits for all our employees. We offered a couple different health plans to choose from. One is always free and it’s a great plan. It’s the same plan that I have for my family but we also added a couple more. There was an HSA plan and also a plan that you can pay a little bit of money every paycheck and get just a little bit lower deductible copay. So we did that for our employees. Also I increased bonuses for our employees this year. Also going back to that commercial building I went to pay the first half of the year’s taxes on that real estate property and it’s real property. You have real taxes on real property so went to pay and the City of Tucson they sent me my first payment back and they said you don’t have to pay taxes we’re refunding this amount and it floored me. I called and I said, “Why are you doing that?” And they said, the owner of that building in January was approved for a non profit status. And you get that for the year, so basically you don’t have to pay taxes. We’re given twelve grand back to you for the year of 2019. So I said, great I’m gonna give that to my employees so that’s what I did. That’s part of their bonus this year. I also increased the profit sharing plan from a traditional 401 k to a higher plan to give more free money to all the employees who work with me at Therapy group of Tucson because our employees are the best they do the best job they’re the hardest working people that I know wonderful people. And so I wanted to give them more bonuses. And so that’s what I did. I increase that profit sharing for them. So that’s just some of the things that our business has done this past year to give you guys an idea of what we do and how it can be done. It’s not the only way it’s just the way I choose to do things. And also with our all access community and PrivateSLP we had a great year in 2019. We increased our membership and that it’s always fun because there’s always somebody out there who bring something to the table for the other members to learn from. And we’re now doing weekly coaching calls with select individuals who want that service. Also we’re doing that 24/7 access to me via the apps we’ve got that Android and iOS application now on your smartphone or your tablet. And that way you can just reach out to me anytime and I’ll be there to help you and answer all your questions. And don’t forget with the All Access Community you’ve got the experience of an active owner of multiple occasions who’s running thousands of visits per month in multiple locations with multiple disciplines. So when you need help you’re not getting, I mean how many business owners do you know right now who sit here and answer all your questions. I mean some people who reach out to me once in a while via email, they get a little bit frustrated because I don’t spend 10 hours with them answering like 50 questions that they dump on me and I don’t mind answering questions and I don’t mind helping. I want people to answer questions but at the end of the day I’m not gonna sit here and answer 50 questions for free. I had one person recently reach out to me, he said, “Do you have a cheaper option for coaching?” The answer is “No”. And the reason is because I want to make you accountable for your actions. And I don’t give this stuff away for free and that’s just the way it is. If you want my expertise and my abilities you do have to pay a fee to access me which I think is totally reasonable and appropriate. Now is it thousand dollars. Nope it’s a few hundred dollars. And by the way the membership to the All Access Community will be going up at the end of this year. It goes up by 100 dollars every single year. So when you join you only pay the price that you subscribed under so that way your price will never go up. So I’m sorry I don’t have time to answer 50 questions for someone for free. But I do answer maybe about 10. So anyway enough of that. But we also in our all access community like I said earlier we’ve got the apps now to help people access the material and the content of the videos, the PDF transcriptions and the MP3s all at your fingertips so that’s something that we did in 2019. And on a personal note, I’ve been taking some personal time from the office and the podcast because I had been pursuing something for me and that’s a pilot’s license. And you probably heard that on episode number 50. And that’s something I’ve always wanted to do and I’m doing it right now and I should be fully licensed here by January the 15th and I’m going to start doing some more podcasting from about 10500 feet. So that’s gonna be exciting. I was also talking to one of our members in the community about coming to her clinic flying in and doing an interview style podcast or video and just flying in and helping them. So again when you join the all access community you get all access to me and my experience and I can help you. And also if you want to come to Tucson and let me show you how we run our clinics when you join you also get that perk. And we also have a service if you’re interested in credentialing or contracting for insurance services, we do offer that as well. We also have billing services for your practice and we can coach you and advise you on all of those aspects of a Speech Therapy Private Practice, and who does all that? Me, I will help you. You’re not gonna get pushed off to someone else or some sales pitch or something like that. But anyway if you’re interested in joining the All Access Community you can just simply go to privateSLP.com/membership [https://privateslp.com/membership/] and I just again wanted to say thank you guys for being a listener and I hope you had a wonderful 2019, and I hope your year was better than 2018. I hope you guys with your practice are seeing more patients, getting more revenue and seeing more profits and just helping and changing the lives of others. So with that I just wanted to leave you now and say Happy New Year. And as always thank you for listening. The post 51. PrivateSLP Year in Review [https://privateslp.com/51-privateslp-year-in-review/] appeared first on PrivateSLP [https://privateslp.com].

50. Keep Doing What Your Doing & You’ll Get What You’ve Got

Welcome to Episode 50 of the Speech Therapy Private Practice Startup Podcast! This episode is all about doing things differently to achieve maximum results in business and your personal life. To celebrate my 50th birthday this Christmas Eve, I decided to accomplish another one of my life goals – That is to earn a private pilot’s license 🙂 [https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.1.0/72x72/1f642.png] In this podcast, I talk about something that I realized while I was soloing a 172 Cessna in the pattern at KTUS [https://www.airnav.com/airport/KTUS] (Tucson International Airport), speech therapy private practice just is like flying a private plane – when all else fails, use your checklists, get the right training, get over the fear and don’t give up! In this episode: 02:09 – Taking some time off 05:12 – Taking up flying 06:52 – Learning how to fly a Cessna 172 08:49 – If you don’t change, nothing is going to change 10:08 – Take your checklist, follow your checklist 10:45 – Remember the checklist 14:58 – It’s kind of like in traffic 16:15 – Learning how to start, grow and scale own Private practice 17:01 – Big FIVE O thing DOWNLOAD PDF TRANSCRIPTIONWe have a checklist in the All access community, PrivateSLP. There’s a checklist for referrals. There’s a checklist on how to get paid. There’s all kinds of checklists that I’ve documented along the way. When it comes to staying airborne, I was thinking I’m freaking out. I’m sure you guys freak out too when it comes to your business. I mean I’m sure some you do but I know a lot of the people I work with on a daily basis they’re always up to something and there’s always something to learn. So my instructor gets out of a plane and he says remember the checklist. [Commercial]Well, Hello everyone you’re listening to the Speech Therapy Private Practice StartUp Podcast. This is episode number 50. My name is Kyle Meades and I’m a Speech Pathologist since 1993. And these podcasts are designed to help you improve your business and your life one Podcast at a time. Welcome back to the show everyone. Thanks again for all the emails and all the questions. As of today, today is Friday, November 8, 2019. We have well over 57,000 listeners to the show and I’m super glad you guys are out there, getting good valuable information because you know me. I say it every single time, value is what you get in the absence of money, and these podcasts who absolutely free for you. So if you wouldn’t mind please do your part and go to the iOS or Android platform of your choice and leave some five star feedback. That way other people just like you can get the same valuable information that you guys are getting. [https://d1zjei52cms7ya.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/KTUS.png] [https://d1zjei52cms7ya.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/KTUS.png] I hope you guys are doing well, and I’ve had some listeners reach out to me recently and they’re saying things like, “Hey Kyle, where you been? or are you alive or hey, when’s the next podcast coming out?” All right I got you. So I have been taking some time off to myself. When I first started the Speech Therapy Private Practice starter podcast, I always said I was going to do these at least once a month. Sometimes try to do two a month but life is life, and unlike other podcasters that I know I’m actually running a full time clinic. We have two locations in Tucson. We just opened our second location. We offer speech and occupational and physical therapy services to many people here in our community. And we just do a lot of great work. On top of opening our second location and purchasing a new commercial building, it’s a little over 7800 square feet. We’re using all of that space too for Speech and OT, and one of the locations we’ve got PT. On top of that, we just had our Annual Trunk or Treat where we had a ton of kids come out we gave them tons of candy with a cakewalk and we got a D.J. and face painting. And if you think I’m doing all this there’s no way, I mean I am not that smart. We’ve got some really great people who work here for our practice and our clinic and they come up with all these ideas. I just pay for these things and just supply the canvas and let them do the painting. So that’s what we’ve been doing. We also did our annual Halloween employee night out. We went over to Old Tucson studios. If you Google that, it’s an old movie set out here in the mountains outside of Tucson, Arizona. I mean back in the day I was way out but because of our population growth here in Tucson it’s not too far out now. But John Wayne filmed a lot of movies out there and like the Three Amigos with Steve Martin was filmed out there. And for those of you who are a little bit dated if you remember the episodes and show Little House On The Prairie was filmed out there, parts of it. That’s where I took all the employees. They turned that whole movie set into a haunted house. So that’s my favorite time of the year. My son and his friends they like to do all that, and I get tickets for everybody, and the employees, their kids & families and we just give tickets and go out there and have some fun. [https://d1zjei52cms7ya.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/KTUS-Runway-11R.png] [https://d1zjei52cms7ya.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/KTUS-Runway-11R.png] That’s what we’ve been doing lately and just keeping it real. And like I said earlier I’m actually doing this, I’m running multiple locations and paying health insurance for the employees 401K profit sharing dental vision for our employees. We’ve got many people that we see some running an operation, so sometimes I just may not feel like getting behind a microphone and podcasting. But today I have been really wanting to get back into it. But there’s another reason I haven’t been behind the mic and that’s because I am pursuing something that’s really important to me personally not really professionally. But I’ve got a little bit of time to myself during the week so I’m taking up flying and when I was at LSU, Louisiana State University, I was there from ‘87 to ‘91 and when I was graduating I was also in the ROTC program at LSU and I was supposed to be commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force, and I was supposed to fly planes. But because of growing up around guns and shooting things in the bayou. You’ve all seen Swamp People that’s where I grew up. So shooting guns and just not taking care of my hearing and playing drums and things like that, I had a mild noise induced hearing loss in my left ear. I couldn’t get a waiver. It’s kind of cool having a speech therapy audience base because you guys get it. I couldn’t get a waiver for my left ear so I had to scrap the idea of being a pilot or a navigator in the United States Air Force. I mean it was all set. I was supposed to go Lackland Air Force Base and do my Officer training. So for the many years that I’ve been a Speech pathologist I always said when I get a little bit of time I’m gonna start flying. I want to get my private pilot’s license and so back in June and July, which is the hardest time in Tucson. And that’s when the air is the most bumpiest in Tucson, because the heat rises and it causes thermals and you get thrown around. I said I’m going to do it. And so that’s what I’ve been doing. I have been studying and getting in a plane two-three times a week I’ve been working with a couple of instructors and learning how to fly a Cessna 172 and recently I soloed which is when you get in a plane and you go up by yourself with a student pilot license and now next Thursday, I’m supposed to fly from Tucson to a place called Benson, and then a little bit north to another place called Safford, Arizona. And that’s kind of going towards North E sort of close to the New Mexico area border of Arizona. So that’s part of the private pilot training, you have to do Solo in a plane without the instructor. [https://d1zjei52cms7ya.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Kyle-Meades-Student-Pilot-Cochise-P33.png] [https://d1zjei52cms7ya.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Kyle-Meades-Student-Pilot-Cochise-P33.png] And that’s what I wanted to talk about today because when we’re starting, growing and scaling our own Speech therapy private practice, this stuff can be so overwhelming and so mind boggling because you have to not only deal with scheduling a patient, you got to see the patient and then after you see the patient, you got to document what you did and then you’ve got to take that information and put it into a billing system or have somebody bill it for you. And then once you bill it, which anybody can do really but it’s the AR the accounts receivable, that really helps you get paid. That’s when you go through and because it’s probably going to be denied. Right? And then you have to send your notes and things like that to the Insurance company. So you’re doing all this work just to get paid to see one patient and then if you want to have a real true Speech therapy private practice, you have to multiply that. You got to rinse and repeat, and do this over and hopefully you can build it up to 100 or 200 or 500 people a week. I mean that’s the goal. Why wouldn’t you want to be in business? Why wouldn’t you want to just do something, the best you can do and be the best you can be? Let’s think about it. If you don’t change nothing is going to change. I mean if you keep doing what you’re always done you’re going to get what you’ve always got. That’s what I’m trying to say. So this stuff is mind boggling and that’s what we’re doing at All Access Community. We talk about these things, these systems in Private Practice and that’s why really it dawned on me one day and when I was on the plane because I’m sitting there and I’ve always got my instructor with me, and finally one day he says, “Hey, I need to get out of the economy.” I want you to get out because I want you to solo. I don’t want a solo because it’s time you need to do this. So he gets out of the plane and he shuts the door and the engine’s humming. I’m sitting there, what do I do? There’s nobody in here to yell at me. There’s nobody in the cockpit to tell me what to do. What if I crash? What if the engine goes out? What if there’s no fuel? What if there’s oil burns up and I crash? I know we’re talking Tucson International Airport there’s Alaskan Airlines as FedEx planes taken off all day long here at Tucson International there’s United Airlines is American Airlines. There was a big Hawaiian Airlines jet, they got diverted from Phoenix to Tucson recently. There’s F16 is in and C 130 is in. Like how am I going to do this? And I just remembered, he says, “Take your checklist, follow your checklist.” I’m like, “Oh, yeah the checklist. Oh yeah”. We have a checklist in the All access community, PrivateSLP. There’s a checklist for referrals. There’s a checklist on how to get paid. There’s all kinds of checklists that I’ve documented along the way. When it comes to staying airborne, I was thinking I’m freaking out. I’m sure you guys freak out too when it comes to your business. I mean I’m sure some you do but I know a lot of the people I work with on a daily basis they’re always up to something and there’s always something to learn. So my instructor gets out of a plane and he says remember the checklist. So what do I do? I grab my checklist and I go through it. Okay, the avionics (the radios) are on and the lights are on, the strobes are on, the fuel is on, there’s a fuel tank selector it’s turned on both, engines running, air pressure is good, everything’s in the green and here I’m on the West ramp and I’ve got my Bose noise cancelling headset on and I’m really freaking out. At one point I said I’m just going to wait till tomorrow and do this. And I said I can’t wait till tomorrow. I gotta get this done. I got a solo I gotta do this myself. If I can start a Speech Therapy Private Practice, surely I could fly a plane. I supposed to do this years ago and then I start doubting myself and I know you guys doubt yourself too sometimes with what you’re doing. And I said I gotta do it. If I Crash, I crash, right? But I’m gonna do it. So I get on the radio and I say, “Hey, I’m on the West ramp. I’m with Charlie,” which is this code they give out. It’s called ADAS and it gives you the weather and all this blah-blah-blah and I’m sitting there, and I went through the checklist. I told him where I wanted to go in the pattern and fly around and do some pattern work, and take off and land. That’s what I wanted to do and they told me what to do and I did it. And so I’m sitting there by myself on a runway Tucson International Airport and he says you’re clear for takeoff. I’m like holy moly, I ease that to our land and we get up to about 55 or 60 and I pull back on and there I am I’m flying. I got overwhelmed with happiness, joy, and fear, and just the same stuff I was talking about in episode one. You can hear it my voice scared to death. [https://d1zjei52cms7ya.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/KTUS-Jet.png] [https://d1zjei52cms7ya.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/KTUS-Jet.png] I went up and I took a right turn, and I went all the way back around, watch my speed and do what I was told. I watch my checklist there and I put my flaps in, I brought the throttle back and it started to coast in, and there I am looking at runway 1-1 right. Because 1-1 left is where all the big planes are and I’m on runway 1-1 right which is parallel and there I am just kind of gliding in. And look there it is. I landed, I didn’t bounce. I didn’t crash. The prop still on and I hit my flaps. I slowly increase the throttle and I did it again. I’m sitting there and second time I’m thinking. Okay, I got this-I got this. So I go around and I go down when I’m looking at the runway on my right and they told me I’m clear to land, and touching goes. And I just did it again and I’m looking at the runway and 1500 feet and 1000 feet and 500 feet and 250 feet, and whoop, did it again. It has a good landing. My God this is so much fun. Well I ease the throttle and through the flaps up and I take off again and this time the controller, he tells me to do something I wasn’t expecting. He says, I want you to extend this and take a ride here and go way out over here and I’m thinking, come on, I said, “I’m a solo student pilot” and he said, “Keep doing what you’re doing”. And so I kept doing it and it just threw me off. But I went back to the checklist. I went back to my little trusty checklist and next thing I’m looking at the runway again and 1000 feet, 750 feet, 500 feet, 250 feet, boom, touched down again. It was so cool and then I exited the runway on Alpha 11 and I was waiting on holding short of runway when I left and next thing, Four F16 just go, they took off. I’m like Wow, check this out. And then I got permission across that runway and hangar left and I’m going back to the hangar on the West ramp. And I got this F16 fighter jet, looking right at me. He’s in my way. He’s on my yellow line, and the tower says he’s going to yield to me and this guy wasn’t going to yield to me. He’s looking at me and I’m looking at him. It’s an Air Force pilot and he looks at me he waves. I think about it folks. Here’s an F 16 fighter pilot waving at me and a little Cessna plane. And I just motioned him to go ahead he can just go around and I’ll let him up. So it’s kind of like in traffic you let somebody in let the guy in. And then as I passed him, there’s four other planes ready to take off. There they’re waving at me because I guess back in the day they had to train in one of these planes. This kind of cool waving at the pilots and everybody’s happy. Next thing the airports kind of shutting down. All these fighter jets are taken off and Vice President Pence coming into Tucson on that Thursday. He was going down to do some work on the border. So I got caught up and the vice president of the United States on the day I solo go figure. But I listen to what I had to do. I did what I was told and I got over it. So now I’m all fired up and ready to fly again. So next Thursday I’m going to Safford, Arizona and I may get a private pilot’s license and I’m gonna start flying around the United States and come in to see you at your clinic. So if you want me to fly up there and let me know and we’ll start seeing if we can carve it out and make it happen. [https://d1zjei52cms7ya.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Cochise-P33.png] [https://d1zjei52cms7ya.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Cochise-P33.png] But anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to for the last 60-70-80 days. Sometimes I just don’t feel like making a podcast but I tell you what I have been doing I’ve been showing up and the private SLP all access communities we’ve got two more members in there and it’s really great because I’m meeting with these folks on a weekly basis. They’re getting their checklist, they’re learning how to start and grow and scale their own Private practice from somebody who’s actually doing it. And everything is good and I show up and you’ve got direct access to me and you can reach me on the All Access Community. There’s a place where you can ask privately and if you want to have a private coaching session with me online you can do that or if you want me to call you during the week I can do that or if you want to throw something out there to the community you can do that. So there are some options for that private coaching section of the All Access Community. But I just want to give you guys a heads up and let you know this is episode number 50 and guess what. I’m going to be 50 this year Christmas Eve. I’m going to be 50 so this is kind of that big FIVE O thing for me. And I’m just so grateful that I can help you guys grow, scale and learn. So if there’s anything I can help you out with, all you have to do is reach out to me, go to PrivateSLP.com/contact [https://privateslp.com/contact/], you can see how to get in contact with me there. And as always thank you for listening. The post 50. Keep Doing What Your Doing & You’ll Get What You’ve Got [https://privateslp.com/50-keep-doing-what-your-doing-youll-get-what-youve-got/] appeared first on PrivateSLP [https://privateslp.com].