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.

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 an