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Welcome PrivateSLP listeners to Episode 54!
Today we are talking with Leanne Sherred, CCC SLP, founder and speech pathologist from 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,
* The rewards and challenges of starting a private practice from scratch,
* Things 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 supports entrepreneurial therapists with our self-referral model,
* Tips for therapists thinking about making the entrepreneurial plunge.
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
I coach a lot of SLPs and OTs for that matter in our all access community at 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. 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, 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. 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.
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