In this episode I talk about the idea and mindset of being fully committed and “All In” in your own speech therapy private practice. So many times people start their own business and simply give up. They quit because they can’t seem to cut away from their job, or they just don’t have enough patients coming into their practice. Most often, they quit before miracle. Also in this episode I take time to recognize a very busy and motivated speech therapist Grace Tan Cheng Man, a speech therapist based in Malaysia who has an online magazine!

In this episode:

01:08 – Value, Value, Value,

03:37 – Gr​ace Tan Cheng Man, Malaysia Speech Therapist

06:07 – Becoming an Independent Speech and Language Pathologist

07:34 – Required Mindset for Private Practice

09:40 – Establishing a solid foundation for Speech Therapy Private Practice

11:51 – Motive for startup

18:45 – All In

20:10 – Self Honesty

20:51 – Worried?

22:52 – Getting Paid

Well, Hello everyone you’re listening to the Speech Therapy Private Practice StartUp Podcast. This is episode number 49. 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 June 26, 2019 we have well over 51,979 listeners to the show and I’m super fired up. You guys are out there getting good valuable information and it’s free for you. And you know me I say it every single podcast. It wouldn’t be my podcast if I didn’t say it, “Value is what you get in the absence of money” and these podcasts are free for you so what I would like you to do is, just simply go to the iOS or Android platform of your choice and just leave some five star feedback that way other people just like you can get the same valuable information that you’re receiving right now because it’s important to give back.

And when I started this podcast over three years ago I wanted to give out as much free information as possible and to do that I want to be able to drive traffic to our website and we’re doing great. When you Google “Startup Speech Therapy Private Practice”, we’re right there on top. I mean we’re helping a lot of people, I get a lot of questions during the week and I’m doing conference calls and coaching calls with people in the All access community. And they’re always wanting to know how do you do it all. Well that’s because I have a team I don’t rely as a podcaster and as a business person, I don’t rely on other clinics to show my subscribers and members of my community how to do things. We do it all here in-house so if I want to teach one of the access community members about billing we can get on the phone to have a coaching call with our billing department. We have a referral department, we have a scheduling department, we have a team of therapists multidisciplinary team of people and locations where we can help as many people as possible. That’s from patients all the way to all access community members so if you want to learn how to start your own practice, you’re in the right place. And again if this is your first podcast, welcome, start at the beginning and work your way through all 49 episodes along the way. If there’s anything you need from me, all you have to do is reach out to me at privateSLP.com/contact and I’ll help you.

I get people all the time that say, I can’t believe you’re just picking up the phone and calling. Well absolutely, I’m picking up the phone and calling because I don’t like typing emails. It’s just too much work so I’d just rather get on the phone, talk to you, see what’s going on in your business and see how I can help you. Because there is a solution, if you need help with your billing or credentialing. Let me know we can help you. If you want to start your private practice let me know we can help. If you want to grow it and scale, we can help you with that too. Because with all the experience that I’ve had doing this there’s always an answer, so I’ll be more than happy to help you in anyway that I can.

OK. Today I’d like to answer some questions from Gr​ace Tan Cheng Man she’s a certified Speech therapist and she’s a member of the Malaysian Association of Speech-Language and hearing. She’s a candidate member of the Malaysian Writers Society. She’s also certified in Hanen. She also is certified in Picture Exchange Communication System and Vital stem. She also has expertise in Parental training on Hanen. She also does talks on breastfeeding, feeding disorders and feeding therapy talk tools and also written communication therapies and her website is Gracetanchengman.com and I’ll leave this in the show notes below. But she simply reached out to me and wanted me to answer some questions for her so that she could share with her listeners. She’s definitely a motivated individual. And she has her own magazine online. It’s a subscription based model so I wanted to answer some questions for her so let’s get to these questions.

Question 1: “I always come to the words of Freelance. In Malaysia, we use the word “freelance”, for describing the Speech therapist who work on their own practice. So may I know what it is called? Is Freelance equivalent to the definition of Private practice. Or do you refer to those Therapists who own a center? Please advise.”

That’s a great question. So basically the question is about what you would call someone in a different setting basically freelance or a Private practitioner. Now here in the States we have multiple places that we can work in different settings so to speak. So when clinicians work as a Speech and Language Pathologist we can work in an outpatient clinic or an inpatient hospital or a school setting or a private practice. It can be in the community and when people work for someone else they’re generally an Employee or a licensed Speech pathologist who works in a different setting. But when I know other people when you want to work for your own, when you want to be outside of an employment agency or you want to work for yourself, and kind of hang your own shingle for your own location, you can call yourself maybe an independent speech and language pathologist or a private practitioner or a center based SLP or community based SLP.

Here’s one how about PrivateSLP or even PR in, that’s when you kind of part time your way around different settings or something like that. But I think for this question when you have your own business, when you have your own clinic, I wanted to start my own business and I wanted employees in that business so I try not to put my name on the business that way I can hire a team to help serve those who need Speech occupational, physical therapy services in our area. So I hope that answers that question. Let’s go ahead and go to the second question.

Question 2: “So Mr. Kyle as you know what is the meaning of Private practice, it seems like a very new subject for those Speech therapists who used to work in the center, who work for the center rather than working on their own. So before we start any new venture we might be afraid of the uncertainty. So from your experience what are the mindset for Private practice startup. Kindly mention the mindset we shall have for those Speech therapists who are wishing to have their own practice.”

The mindset needed for private practice I mean for me and I’m only speaking for myself but its drive. I just had to have a lot of drive. It’s scary, it’s the unknown and I just don’t know what else to call it. I’ve got something in me. It’s just a fire and I just can’t stay still. I just wanted to make my own business I know what I want and I know I had an expiration date on this. I mean after Hurricane Katrina I knew that I only had a limited amount of time to make the move and I just had to take care me and my family and so I also didn’t understand the meaning of No. I’m a very hard headed individual which means in the States somebody who just doesn’t take No for an answer. My grandfather was the same way I think it’s a personality trait. But besides drive and not really taking No for an answer kind of what this podcast is today it’s about being all in attitude and just being 100 percent committed to being the best clinician I can be for my patients to come to see me in my office. And really I think for most it’s legitimately wanting to do a great job for the patients and families that we serve.

I’ve seen and talked to people in our profession and you can always tell when someone’s taking the job for the money or if their heart’s in the right place and definitely I think the people who are the most successful at private practice are the ones that you can just tell it who’s is out of their system. They want to make a difference in their patients and their families because really for me it’s not about the money. It’s about how I can help other people and help as many people as possible so I hope that answers the question about the mindset needed for private practice. Let’s go to the third question.

Question 3: “How to prepare our self and how to tell that we are really ready for a private practice startup? Maybe you can give us some advice on how to get a solid foundation to start a private practice.”

Well to have any business that’s successful and to have a solid foundation I mean specifically for Speech therapy we have to have patien