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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If you want to have a successful speech therapy private practice, then work on your relationships with your clients, referral sources and employees. In our profession, we really get to know others. That’s what happens when you work with a family or co worker weekly for over a year. In this episode, I talk about relationships as the foundation for a successful speech therapy private practice.
Driving Across Texas
In this episode:
01:04 – Thank you for for all the emails, tweets and questions on the show
02:12 – The Perfect Student
04:05 – Southeast Louisiana
05:01 – Livingston Parish, Louisiana flooding – Walker and Denham Springs, LA 70726
07:01 – Over sixty thousand homes affected by flooding
07:15 – Hurricanes and flooding
08:35 – Dealing with mold
09:45 – Volunteer fire department from Alabama – Cooking GREAT FOOD
10:30 – Making relationships is the key to successful business growth
13:26 – Relationships – Clients, referral sources, physicians, etc
What really matters when it comes to speech therapy private practice, it’s about relationships. And relationships are the foundation of what we do. Relationships are what help us grow not only our business but our client-base, employee-base, it grows everything.
[Commercial]Well, Hello everyone! You’re listening to the Speech therapy Private practice Startup Podcast; this is episode number 17. 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, Thanks again for all the emails, all the tweets, all questions are really appreciated. I got a question on Friday from someone who just said that they were happy with the Podcast; they were interested in being THE PERFECT STUDENT, and I emailed that person back and gave them some more information.
So if you are interested in becoming THE PERFECT STUDENT as well send me an email kyle@privateslp.com and I will get back to you. When you send me an email let me know some specifics. Where are you in your private practice journey? Are you just starting out or are you growing your private practice? Do you have employees? How many patients do you see a month? Give me some information so I can help you better. This service is not free but it is very affordable and I will personally help you one-on-one, it’s like a team. I’ll be your mentor where you can ask me all the questions, you can get my feedback, and you can just have direct access to me for at least a minimum of six months where I can help you grow your business. I would be more than happy to work with you but it has to be a good fit because relationships have to be a two-way street.
So if you are interested in becoming THE PERFECT STUDENT email me kyle@privateslp.com I’ve got one space available right now. The other space has been taken and I’m starting with that person. I’m not going to mention her name but you’ll hear about this person and their growth, their business soon. I guarantee that because this person is highly motivated. This person is ready to go and we’re going to start September 1st and I’m going to help her grow her business just like we’ve done here in Tucson. She’s looking at plane tickets coming down to work with me in Tucson. I’m going to show her how to run not only a clinic-based business but a home health private practice as well. So it’s going to be really a lot of information, but she’s going to love coming down here to Tucson. She’s going to have a great time and I’m looking forward to work with her on an Individual basis. I can’t wait to share this information with her.
I did have a couple of PERFECT STUDENTS lined-up but at the very last minute I think it was too much information and it’s got to be the right person. I know this lady that’s going to be starting September 1st will do well. I know it and we’re going to make it happen.
I wanted to take some time and talk about in this episode what really matters when it comes to private practice, it’s about relationships. And relationships are the foundation of what we do. Relationships are what help us grow not only our business but are client-base, employee-base; it grows everything and the reason I’m talking about this because I’ve had a rough eight to ten days.
I’m going to be very honest. I am going to be little vulnerable right now. I will tell you guys a story and I love telling my stories because you can interpret what you want out of my story. And the whole story deals with where I’m from, where I grew up and my history comes from Southeast Louisiana. I grew up in a very small town called Walker, Louisiana and it’s a Parish called Livingston Parish. Now a Parish for you out there who don’t know what a Parish is, its related to the Catholic Church. It’s a Catholic thing and we are the only state in the United States that has Parishes instead of Counties. So my state that I grew up in Louisiana, the Parish that I grew up in is called Livingston Parish and the Town is Walker, Louisiana.
Headed Home To Help Family
And the next town over is Denham Spring Louisiana, zip code 70726. You’ve probably heard that in the news lately because that’s where all the flooding has been happening lately. I was talking to my family last Saturday and my Mom said everything was fine. I saw all the news about the flooding and I was really worried. I called her and she said everything was fine but that Sunday morning, they woke up to about 3 feet of water, not in their house but my Grand parents, their house had 3 feet of water in it. My Maw Maw & Paw Paw have deceased, they died and my brother and his family have been living there. So unfortunately they got a lot of water in their house. And because of that I felt the desperate need to get down to Louisiana to help them out. That’s what we do. Its my family, I love my parents, I love my brothers, I love my family and I wanted to help them out in this time of need. Its really nasty down there. I just got back today. Today is August the 22nd. I’m looking at my phone while I’m talking to you. So I was talking to my Mom on August the 13th and 14th, that’s when all this weather started happening down there.
Water on Joe May Road, Denham Springs, LA 70726
Where I’m from there’s a river called Amite River and its flood stage is about 28 to 29 feet in my area. The water level got up to 46½ feet in that area. All that extra water just ended up in thousands of people homes. These areas were not traditionally a flood area. So a lot of people just didn’t have flood insurance because we were require having flood insurance. As long as I have been alive I know some people on my street, or my road that I grew up that’s called Joe May Road. We know a lot of people who’ve lived there from many years and their grand parents and their families have lived there from many years. No ones have ever seen flooding like this and it just really made me sad when I saw all these people and this area photographs and live pictures from helicopters just flying over all these homes. The number were staggering, its over sixty thousand people’s homes that have been affected.
Pulling Out Insulation and Dry Wall
So because of that and because I have a history of living New Orleans and moving to Tucson after Hurricane Katrina (If you go back to the first few episodes of this podcast you’ll hear all about it and I am going back to that now), I have a lot of experience with Hurricanes and flooding. I remember after Hurricane Katrina it was hard to get building materials. So what I wanted to do to help my family to give back is, I wanted to take some sheet rock. Now sheet rock, I don’t know if a lot of you people know about it. I am going to give a quick lesson in home building. Sheet rock [noise], you hear that noise, that’s the wall in my office. In 9 out of 10 times if you are living in an apartment or home, chance are you’ve got sheet rock. Sheet rock is what makes the walls in your house. And behind that wall is a stud. Stud is a 2X4 beam that goes out from the ceiling to the floor. Floor is called slab, it’s a concrete slab and floor. And between those walls a lot of times you got insulation especially if it’s a exterior wall, the wall that separates inside of your house from the outside of your house.
Gutting Maw Maw and Paw Paws House and Carrying Trash to the Road
When my Maw Maw & Paw Paw house was flooded with three feet of water we had to go in (and I am going to put pictures on the podcast down here so you can see it on the website) and we had to rip all that dry wall out up to the level of about four feet. And then we have to rip out all of the insulation behind that because if you don’t get stuff out of there quickly it’s going to mold and that’s a whole different ball game when you are dealing with mold. And you’ve got to go in there and take out the carpet and underneath the carpet between the slab and carpet is padding. You’ve got to take out all that stuff; You’ve got to put it in the wheelbarrow and you got a haul it about 2 tenths of a mile down this driveway to the end of the road, and you dump it. And you just repeat and keep doing that. And you take all that stuff out of the house and gut it.
Gutting Maw Maw and Paw Paws House
If some of you is listening from Louisiana/Texas area, trust me if you deal with flooding – gutting houses. It’s a lot of hard work and we have to bust out walls, bricks, we discovered my calves and pecks and just working hard and a lot of adrenaline going on. Its just so nice to be with family to be around the people I grew up with — friends that I haven’t seen in many years coming out of the wood work to help my family and to give back. At the end of our road, Joe May Road, we have this station of volunteers from Alabama. It was a volunteer fire department from Alabama cooking for thousands of people, just giving away food and I am talking really good food. I’ll send a picture of that too. We had Jambalaya, white bread and sausage was a good stuff. I am so grateful for the people who volunteered and came in from other states, and just helped the community that I grew up in Livingston Parish. And I am so thankful that I have friends, family and relationships, and that’s what is important when you’ve started your own private practice, when you are growing your own private practice, you want to make relationships because relationships is the foundation of your clinical business.
Food Cooked by a Volunteer Fire Department from Alabama
You’ve got to make relationships with your patients, your employees, your staff and doctor’s offices and referral base. That’s what it is all about and when you have a relationship its not about money, that’s secondary we’re talking about giving. Giving our time and giving what we’re trained to do in life. We’re speech pathologist. We’re trained to help other people and when you’re good at that, and you can have a relationship. This is again not about money; this is all heart. That’s what I want to convey in this Podcast today. Its because of relationships take your business to next level. Just like the relationships that I’ve had with these people on Joe May road, my family has lived there for a years. People that I’ve haven’t seen for years just drive in up in our driveway after the water went down helping my Mom, Dad, brothers and his wife and their kids, just everybody helping.
MREs from the Military
I am so lucky my nephew works in the Health department and he was able to test my parent’s well. They had E Coli in their well because all this extra water flooded their well and we’re get that taking care of. And here I am hauling all these dry wall and I’ve got a car. I don’t know if you guys remember but in the first few episodes you might have heard me mention my Volvo. Why I get rid of my Volvo? I gave it to my family because they need a car. All their cars were flooded and we even jacked them up and put them in these big blocks. They still get water in it. Its just really sad to see your family down on out like this. It’s the southeast Louisiana spirit, people just come together and they do what they got to do and they make it good. That’s what we did this past week. Helping out family and friends, regain what they lost from this flood.
I hope you can get something out from this podcast. That’s why I like to tell this story because this is really important to me. I don’t have the script; I don’t have all this written down. This is from my heart; I am being a little bit vulnerable right now but its good, its good to get this out. When I grew up everybody is going to be like the marble man. I don’t know what age group you’re in listening right now but when I was a kid, you aren’t supposed to cry, show your feelings. I remember my dad say, “I’ll give you something to cry about” time is changed. It’s nice to have feelings and its nice to have family.
Flying Home Back to Tucson
Guys, thanks for being a very big part of my life. This is not just a podcast this is my life. I love doing this shows for you guys and I thought about this podcast. This particular episode just driving across Texas, get in stuck in traffic for two and half hours. But anyways I’ll be get something out of this. When you’re building business don’t forget about the relationships because its about the relationships that’s going to make you successful.
Thank you for listening.
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