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Why ABA Businesses Struggle: Sean Daly on Profit, Staffing & Sustainable Care · ABA Business Leaders

• speaker-0: This is the first summer that I have not owned an ABA company. 24 I made the decision to downsize and that was extraordinarily stressful for reasons we'll probably get into. 2026, end of March, I closed my doors. And I got a call from one thing, and they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. It sounds great. We're so interested. Blah blah blah. And I'm like, okay, cool. And they're like, okay, so just so we verify, you have at least a five hundred thousand dollar profit for the last year, right? What am I talking to you for if I had a five hundred thousand dollar freaking profit the last year? No, I did not have a five hundred thousand dollar prof I did have five hundred dollar profit the last year. speaker-2: How is the best way that I could support my staff to use AI in a way so that we can give them a couple more cases? speaker-1: Especially in an area that you know nothing about. Right? clinically you can discern, yeah, this is not a good idea for this child based on this developmental level. And I'm not gonna take that suggestion. But on the business side where they really don't have the the ability to discern a good idea from a bad idea, that scares me. And so even with newer B C D As the fact that you're putting a treatment plan in AI. speaker-0: I so I I don't advise anyone do that. speaker-2: Preditation is big topic right now. speaker-1: Pass your audit on Tuesday and then on Wednesday we go back to the way hundred percent we run our business. speaker-0: Massachusetts is some panic from the accreditation entity. speaker-1: Massachusetts being one of them, I think Indiana is the other. They're saying if you wanna play, you gotta you gotta you gotta pay. And did the first mistake that everybody told us not to do. Don't speaker-2: Hello everyone, welcome to ABA Business Leaders Podcast, brought to you by 3Pie Squared. I'm A. speaker-1: I'm Steven. speaker-2: And today with us we have Sean Daly. Thanks for joining. speaker-0: Thanks for having me, April and Stephen. Very happy to be here. speaker-2: Yeah, so we were just chatting a few minutes before we hit the record button because we did remember to hit the record button, which is a good thing. and so those of our listeners who've followed us for a while know that that's something that I have forgotten on a time or two. But anyways, before we before we we started recording, we were chatting about I was sharing with Sean that like right now for me, we are actually recording this in the summer. You're you guys are hearing it the end of October. So but we are recording this in the summer and And I was just sharing with Sean how I'm feeling that it I'm in the middle of the summer, like disoriented, trying to squeeze in all the summer fun, trying to do all the things as our business is growing leaps and bounds, trying to, you know, make sure my kids got the you know the the fun and enrichment and still getting some some some bit of a schedule. So it's been a very hectic summer here. And then Sean's like, I hate to hear that. Mine's been great. And so it's So yeah, Sean, tell us tell us more about this amazing summer. What's so different about this summer from previous ones? speaker-0: Wow, this is the first summer that I have not owned an ABA company in s seven years. Twenty no. I think I started in October twenty nineteen. And so yeah, and I was doing a lot of planning summer of twenty nineteen for it. So, it's just been a fantastic summer. I do consultation work. feel like it. Which I feel like it Mon th Tuesday through Thursday. Then I do my my keep it real day is Monday where I do my job coaching type stuff and then Friday's my day to work on my dissertation things or do whatever I want. So it's been awesome. speaker-2: That's pretty great. speaker-1: There must be like this level of stress that has just kind of floated away. speaker-0: Just yeah, unbelievably so. I would say twenty twenty four I made the decision to to downsize and that was extraordinarily stressful for reasons we'll probably get into. twenty sixteen twenty t excuse me, twenty twenty six, l end of March I closed my doors and yeah, it was like just such a life changing thing and I mean that in a very positive way. speaker-2: Yeah. Yes. I have a a similar experience with when we closed our EBA practice. and you know, we also had a moment like we had a phase of downsizing which was what actually happened in twenty nineteen. part of that was a blessing, fall of twenty nineteen. and it and and that was hard. We had to make some hard decisions and and it was tough for a lot of reasons and the transition and the shifting And I feel like going back and looking back in the future and re examining that time, that was just like the catalyst that from then on, like it was I couldn't see it as clearly then, of course, in the thick of it, but that's what was like, okay, this this could be a this could be an okay thing to actually just be done with this. yeah, yeah. speaker-0: It's it's a st well, it was a necessary part of your life. It got you to where you're at now, which is working better for you and and same for me. I mean, had I not done what I'd done what I'd done and I'm I'm not gonna speak for you, but I'm guessing if you hadn't done what you did, you'd probably wanna do it, right? Like you'd be sitting there now going, You know what we should do? Let's go open an ABA company and now it's like speaker-2: Yeah, totally. Now we get to help others experience that joy. speaker-0: So yes. And and it it can work. I just you know, I I if I had if I had someone like you to help guide I mean I just did it all myself, which was yes never a good thing. Yes. speaker-2: But that's yeah, that that was our story too. Building speaker-1: Yeah, it was just a w wing in it, right? speaker-2: what we wish we had when we Yeah, because we made like the and no when we talked when we met each other a a few weeks ago and we chatted, you know, I we had similar stories as far as like the amount of mistakes that we we made doing this, right? 'Cause we're just trying to figure it out. And there's you know, even a few years ago, I mean we've learned a lot as a field even in the last, you know, seven years. speaker-0: Hundred hundred percent. And I d I don't want to take this in another direction, but you do have AI if you're not I'm not gonna go too deep with this, but if you're using it as a tool to help versus not your actual decision maker, that can be very it's it makes you a lot more efficient in your work. Sure. That speaker-2: Absolutely. speaker-0: wasn't available to the speaker-2: I know, right? It definitely wasn't, right? because for me, that the the the the safe spot where I use AI, at least in my mind, I feel, is I can I can like dump into this thing all of my thoughts and okay, yes, let me think through this process that I'm doing. I need to clarify a few steps in this like like podcast, you know, pro call we have process, and I'm gonna like go through my head, go through all the things. I'm like, I want you to capture all these steps and I want you to help me. maybe identify things that are missing and then you know of course like a podcast there's very little like legal issues or like I don't need to know state regulations and stuff for that as much as like you know when I was a clinician but even still if I would have had a little bit of that as a clinician it it it would have definitely been a tool to use right a hundred percent. Yeah. So speaker-1: One thing on that. So I was I was playing around with AI yesterday on on a very ABA specific thing actually. So somebody left a comment on one of our YouTube clips and they were like ha like it was about providing training. and if your training sucks then you probably aren't gonna have great therapy is essentially what it was. I mean and this person responded like How do you implement such a level of training, with with the pay that I get? speaker-2: Yeah. with the pay. I thought you I okay, I was interrupting because I heard just that and I was checking it. I'm like, you're a behavior analyst and you're asking speaker-1: No no no no like s because of the rates and because of, the turnover and all of that stuff. How do you implement that? Right. And so I just threw that comment into into the chat GPT, right? And it's a yeah, it's really hard to do any more than like twenty hours of training and and here's the reasons why and I was like, wait a second, right? Like wait wait and so had I just gone with that and said, Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right, t twenty hours is enough and then I was going back and forth and I would say, look, if you do this on the front end, it will decrease the amount that of of your turnover and c we've calculated that losing an RBT is ten thousand dollars minimum and if you can decrease your turnover rate from an average of sixty four percent to forty percent because of your training and support levels, then actually you're saving fifty thousand dollars a year. So you could probably make that up. And it was like, yeah, that you're absolutely right. Right. and it's like, okay. So like, yeah, that my concern is that people are taking the answer that Chat GPT gives you as especially in an area that you know nothing about. Right? Like clinically you can discern, yeah, this is not a good idea for this child based on this developmental level and I'm not gonna take that suggestion. But on the business side where they really don't have the the ability to discern a good idea from a bad idea, that scares me. and and so even with newer B C BAs, the fact that you're putting a treatment plan in AI speaker-0: So I I don't advise anyone do that. I do advise if you want a template. Sure. So I'm someone who would spend four hours No, I don't like this template. I want this template. No, and and that four hours have now gone by. Whereas you can go to like Cloud and be template for blank blank and blank and you get this beautiful template back and save myself three hours and fifty minutes. I I hope nobody's implementing actual treatment plans in their You better redact some stuff if you are and make sure you're looking at it afterwards. speaker-1: Yeah, and that's my concern with a lot of these companies, right, that are pushing again, like the you know, we've talked about this a lot, but just the the environment on the ground incentivizes companies to maximize billing and to maximize the amount of a billable hours they're giving to the B C B A's and the R B Ts and D and and minimizing the amount of support and training. You can a you could make the case that a higher turnover rate means that you have lower wages, so therefore you're more profitable. Right. Like that there is a case to be made there. And and if you're just looking at bottom line, sure. But so like that now what we can do is instead of a B C B A doing ten treatment plans in six months, we can get them to do twenty. Right. And so like that that is my concern is that this is not going to be something that makes things easier but the B C B A gets to do more of the w work that they actually want to do. Right. It's it's it's like now I'm just gonna be like I have two years experience, right, 'cause that's the average experience level of a B C B A in the field. And now I don't I don't even have to think. Right? Like it's just tells me what to do. And I do that. Right. And so I'm very concerned that this won't be used the way that people are claiming it's going to be used and it's going to be it's going to be the thought leader of your practice. I I I don't know. I'm I'm speaker-0: It should it should support it. If if if if done correctly, it should not lead it. And I'm on a panel about this that we've done some presentations and and I'm the I'm the the wet blanket ethics professor. Okay. I'm not a wet blanket ethics professor but most of the time, but I'm supposed to throw water on it and I do to an extent and I think it comes down to it's the old art versus commerce thing, basically. Like as B C B A's were like, this is cool. This frees me up to really analyze, to really implement some things. Maybe I could like gasp, read a couple of articles. about it or something. the stuff that we figured we'd all be doing, right? what it can turn into from the business standpoint is let's just give more cases. Yes. And I think that's probably what'll happen. Let's be honest. And that's that's not a positive thing. speaker-1: Yeah. No, no, I I'm saying it I speaker-2: I working with trying not to give too much, but I was working with a business owner and they were saying, Hey, how how is the best way that I could support my staff to use AI in a way so that we can give up a couple more cases? speaker-0: Yeah, and then you can be like well we we have a big wait list and we want to help people, like yeah, whatever. I get it. speaker-2: Yeah. speaker-0: No, I that's what the motivation is. speaker-1: And and and that may be part of the intention, right? Depending on the person running this, but it's still right, again, that goes back to the the reel that I was talking about. You can accept that the forty dollar an hour rate. You totally can, right? But like wha i when you do that, you're not helping anyone, right? You're just providing awful services because that's all you can afford to do. And so speaker-0: P yeah, people think forty dollars an hour. Okay, well right away you're paying salary out sal you're paying hourly out of that and then you're paying tack on like thirteen percent for your taxes for this or that. You don't keep much of that, if any of it. In fact I would say forty dollars you're damn near losing money. speaker-1: Yeah, I I a hundred percent agree. speaker-2: And and and I think this is a very good point to what you need to know when you're starting a business. I mean, this is one little tiny thing is understanding payroll. How you know, because that was a mistake we made. I I i at the beginning, once we grew a a certain at our payroll moved to a certain was it a so speaker-1: Bi weekly, yeah. speaker-2: the the frequency changed and speaker-1: But the amount the like the the amount of times that I will talk to someone and they'll say, I was not expecting that I would have to pay payroll quarterly. I had no idea that this was coming. Yes. And like that's twenty thousand dollars I already spent. So like th these are the things that yeah, like and so ha you know, just a small budget and and an hour with a financial advisor probably would have saved you, you know A a credit card of twenty five percent maxed out. Right. Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah. I mean, yeah, people don't they don't think you don't w and why would you think of those things, right? You you're it's not the same skill set at all to run a business and we bring all our OBM stuff and like you know, I don't mean to say I help I helped write a course on OBM and s managing supervision. Like I I I should have been good at it. But end of time. And that's what you get you know? And that's what people have to kinda figure out. And you you do need a business for sure. Hundred percent meet with that business advisor. Hundred percent go see someone like your your company to get actual input on what to do. Right. speaker-2: Yeah. speaker-1: No, so something that I I'm sure the audience will be curious about and if you don't mind sharing, right? So you said you closed your business. Right. We closed our business. And and a lot of people asked us still, why didn't you sell it? Like why didn't why didn't you sell it? And like our our thought was 'cause we did everything stupidly and you know one of the biggest speaker-2: I did not feel like my company was good enough to pass on to someone else. Was there a little bit of my worth and stuff tied into there and some maybe grief and whatever? Yeah, yeah. But I I don't feel like it I I had the systems and the things built out to the extent that there was still so much more that I wanted to do to get it to where it needs to be. And a lot of the people who were wanting to take on the business, whether it was like there was a s solo BCBA who was like, here I'll take it over. I'm like, she didn't have any experience. I didn't want her taking that on and that not that I was better than her, but like she didn't even have a partner with her. Like this is too much and then also like some investor type people wanted to come in and I'm like, Yeah, no, I'm not okay with that either. speaker-1: Yeah and and we we did the first mistake that everybody told us not to do. Don't tell your staff yet. Right? Don't tell your staff that you're thinking about something. Well, we said, No, no, no, no. We're different. Our staff loves us. They've been with us for years. They haven't From from day one She gave two week notice the next speaker-2: Another B C B A who we we we hired as a a new B R B T fresh into the field and we grew her up into a B C B A and they were both excellent it but they're like, Hell no we don't want this company. We see how what it has done to you guys. speaker-0: Yeah. I it's funny 'cause I remember so I I was fielding calls and the thing about my employees is they all stayed. Pretty much all stayed till the end. And I i i it I wasn't it wasn't if it wasn't obvious it should have been. I mean I I had just I I had a few situ ep health issues. Very public health issues will literally what we'll call them that people were aware of. I didn't speak glowingly of the process. I wasn't the last year a good leader at all. I was just trying to get through the damn day. so I it probably sh the writing was like really on the wall, but also I I remember right before I decided s the This isn't I gotta make the decision. I remember I got a call from some private equity thing and they were like ver and I was all excited 'cause like, I'm not really worried about I'm not trying to sound noble. I made a billion mistakes. I had no business owning a business. So if I say something that makes me sound good, I don't mean to. that's not where I'm going. Yeah. but I was like I was really worried about my my clients and my employees. I sincerely was. I mean I never I'll get into my debt with it later, but and I got a call from one thing and they're like, Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, it sounds great, we're so interested, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, Okay, cool and they're like, Okay, so just so we verify, you know, you have at least a five hundred thousand dollar profit for the last year, right? I'm like, What am I talking to you for if I had a five hundred thousand dollar freaking profit the last year? Like, no, I did not have a five hundred thousand dollar pr I didn't have a five hundred dollar profit the last year. I mean what why would I sell my business if I So that kinda went nowhere. So yeah, for me it was like I didn't want I didn't want to be attached to it. Everybody that wanted that came to me while buying it was like, Yeah, I'd love to have you work for us and I'm like Yeah I don't like Yeah, but I don't want to work for you. and then the one person that approached me about it that I would have worked for, they looked at our books and said probably not a good fit and I total respect to them. They that was the right decision. It wasn't because I had to dig out a hundred ten thousand dollars worth of debt for two years when I was the only B C B A and I did. Right. but yeah, so I I didn't want I I didn't want my employees to like be stuck. I didn't want my my clients to be stuck. So I worked very proactively trying to like I gave about two months noti I wanna say at least. that this was happening, that were downsizing. I transferred I this is like probably honestly my pro on ironically, my probably my most pro one of my most proud accomplishments owning a business is I transferred all but two of the people I meant to transfer. That's not easy to transfer w in real time. I put a lot of work into that 'cause I didn't want them left and and whether the next company was as good in their mind, I don't know. Hopefully it was better. and then for my employees, I wanted them to be able to find something. But but most of stayed 'til the end. And, you know, because I was all over the place like, you know, January I'm like, I'm all in with this, let's go. So I I extend like I gave someone a raise and like contract and I had to pay that out 'cause then two months later I'm like, no. so so yeah, it w it's I I I didn't but I I didn't want to get taken over by something that I thought was less than. As much as I bashed my my company, mainly 'cause of my shortcomings as an owner in a operations manager, I I I think my company was probably fine. I compared to other companies. Right. so I didn't feel like, we weren't good enough. It was just a matter of I was concerned with what was next and I wanted people to have a fair chance to find another s provider or find another job. So so we we mostly were able to accomplish that. And then when the time came to close it I'm like, I don't want to do this anymore. Right. And I I I and I actually met with the owner of another company and he was he was they were kind of why would you do that? Blah blah blah. I'm like, well, because I didn't really I didn't really open it to make a million dollars. I surely did accomplish that goal not make a million dollars. But I I I wanted what I thought was gonna be a really good ABA company where I could make a solid living after like five years. that was always my aspiration. It was never like I th I could make money. Like I had other consulting jobs. I I'm a adjunct professor. Like I I make money. But I just I wanted my business to work. So so selling there's too much No. Wasn't gonna work. So by the end I only had like two or three clients anyways. The last month or two. So it's nothing to sell. Yeah. speaker-2: Sh speaker-1: You got anything? speaker-2: yeah, I have lots of things. So when we're thinking of I if you're if the if you're listening to this and you're at the stage of this game where you're like, Yes, I want to start an ABA company. That's my goal. That's what I'm working for. Or you're in those beginning stages, you're like, I am starting my ABA company in that first year, even, right? Like we did a back to basic series a while back and we really focused on those in the three categories, like the the the newbies, the starters, the fresh the fresh ones and the the people in the middle growing right and then at the end like closing ending the ending the the saga or whatever in whatever way and and so but let's let's really focus in on those those those newbies of like what are the things that you wish someone would have told you back in the that stage of the game when you were either thinking about starting or you were like in those gung ho first few months of yeah, this is great, this is what I'm doing. speaker-0: Yeah, I think a f a lot. here's speaker-2: The top five hundred that speaker-0: here's kind of a different one. Pe people talk about this is all symbolism, it's not real. But w yeah the saying like, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face, right? I anticipated the punching in the face. I didn't go into it thinking it was gonna be just easy and it it sure wasn't. What happens when you're offered the hug though? Right? The validation. Someone comes to you like, We really need your help. We l you're so great. Blah blah blah blah. You might have a plan, I'm only I'm only gonna scale it like this. That's hard to do. People come to you wanting jobs. That's hard to say no. When you're like, Well, this is growing anyways, why not? But when you deviate from that plan, which you weren't that confident in to begin with, because you've never probably opened a business it problems ensue. And the thing is if you if you have let's say for every ten insurance clients, there's gonna be one that's there's a issue that you haven't been paid for a while. Maybe it's your fault. Maybe it's the insurance fault. Maybe who knows. But you're you're that's not an insignificant thing to be minus at least ten percent of your revenue because the the margins are very thin. And I think what I would suggest to people that I wish probably you first thing you do you should hire a business person with you. Someone who's probably gonna offend you a little bit with your ideals. Because I had so many ideals. and I closed my business. Didn't work out too well. there's realities to things. I'm an autism parent, so I was very lenient about things like cancellations. 'Cause I'm like, I get it. And then I would pay my staff anyways. And that's great a couple times I guess. But if there's a pattern of that, now we're giving we're already not getting money from one of our clients. Now we're giving that money away on a pretty regular basis. another thing I would say is you're if you're a b if you're a behavior analyst starting a comp a b an ABA company. Your decision making is now compromised. And this is what I mean by this. You might have staffed that you you if you were if you were supervised them for another company, you'd have fired them so fast. You'd have made their life mis like 'cause they not to be mean, but because they're not getting it done and your clients are suffering from it. when you own the company, you know what it costs to let them go, to fire them, now you're paying unemployment, to replace them, to train that other person who may or may not work out. And we're in the age of job abandonment, so you hire somebody, the old two weeks notice doesn't always happen and y so you get burned by that. So it turns in this whole negative reinforcement contingency basically where it's like, okay, I can live with this. Let's live with this. It's the fear it's the devil versus the devil you don't know, but then you're compromising everything you came into it with for. And I did that so many times I can't even tell you. but you're not you're not you're thinking of you're not just thinking of the money. You're d when you and when I say money, it's not so you can get a yacht. It's so you can pay your staff. It's so your staff your your staff's getting health benefits from you. Maybe your staff, they're getting married or they they just bought a car, or they they're thinking of putting a down payment down on a mortgage, and you're like, I'm your source of that. That's a and and and and realize that if you're gonna grow your company, like people are counting on you. I I think it's important to to just bear that in mind that your decision making will be compromised. So if you can go into it with someone else and this is gonna cost you, the person's not gonna do out of the goodness of their heart, who has a business mind for it, that would be I think a very good decision. I think also having someone to do your operational stuff. 'Cause you're like, I can just do that. I'll do scheduling. Scheduling's if you do in home is the is the bane of your existence. And those all these apps and none of them are I'm sorry if anyone's listening, but I haven't I didn't run into any that were super helpful. Let me put it that way. yeah, so just those things you really need to your your temptation is gonna wanna be to hire what I call like what I call the talent. Where you're gonna want to hire like masters students and other behavior analysts, 'cause your your your interest, your passion is delivering services. The problem is is like you don't really probably know what you're doing Set up a foundation to do that. And you might think you do, but realize you're gonna have not get paid sometimes. You're gonna have people not so much criticizing you but the opposite, like praising you and and appealing to you for this and that and it's hard to say no. those are all things I'd bear in mind. You gotta know yourself, you gotta know your own personality. speaker-1: Yeah, I think writing out those limits, what will I never do, i i is real it's a really important exercise. Like I will never, you know, take on a a fifteen year old with this type of developmental needs because I work with two year olds. Right? And so hundred percent because because everybody's gonna be calling you saying, Please, like we've been to five ABA therapy companies, we get keep on getting kicked out or abandoned or We've had four therapists in the last three months and and so yeah and you're just gonna I I've seen like you just wanna help everybody. I I just I need to help these people and then you're taking on this case that you have no business taking plus you're building a business that you have no understanding of and and it really like you you get s you get pulled in too many directions and you don't know where to go. speaker-0: I I'm I s I'm sort of the opposite. So my experience was more with adults and older s teens. Like very I don't do we pe teens teens and young adults capable of driving, going to college, going and then that's a whole other Yeah. People think that's easy work, it's not. It's just a whole other set of issues. That was gonna be my specialty. We were gonna be the company that did that because I saw a huge market for it and by the way there is. Yes. And there's a reason there is. Because it's very hard to get a lot of hours authorized. It's very hard to get buy in. It's very hard to find as many people looking for that. 'Cause th your your your typical client that I just described like that does not want ABA services. They're like, yay, I'm going to ABA. It's like So what do you do? You gotta you gotta feed the monster, so to speak. So you start taking younger clients. Pretty soon you're taking clients of all ages. I'm an okay little kid B C B A, like I'm okay. Like I I'm competent, I could do it. It's not my thing it's not what I like doing. It's not what I I'm interested in and so I hired other B C BAs to do that. But you know, i y end up paying a lot for that at that point too, you know? so yeah, I agree. I think have a specialty if you can, but then again there's a reason most people take the EI kids and the kids just above because that's payment. Yeah. A nineteen year old seven hours a week And how do you staff that, So Yes. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, you you really need to know what you're getting into and you know, like we even we even recommend that for staff. a lot of staff go in, I don't know, maybe expecting something that doesn't take place and just knowing like I you know, I won't take on a case that I don't know the R B T's name or I I'll only take on a a n the the number of cases that I can successfully do in forty hours of work right like so you know, things like that where they just go in and they they feed the beast themselves. Right. And not knowing the power that they have to make a change in this company. I mean look at look at the strike, right? You can you can like it or not like it, but it is what it is and and they have valid reasons for doing it. speaker-0: It's it's funny 'cause I'm always before I owned a business I was I was the guy I was the person at companies who was like a trou troublemaker. Like with management. Like I worked for one company and they'd be like the HR department be you know, gotta fire this person and this person I'd just be like, No. It's like so like like I so I was always like raging against the machine in a way and it like, Yeah, and then now I am the machine. And y like I'm I'm generally all for anything labor, but it's like, man, that's for the business owner, that's rough. It's rough. Yeah, 'cause now I can see both sides. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's definitely a lot to it. speaker-2: is there really is well I wonder so looking at what what is needed you know mean, just like most of our episodes here. We're just getting the c we're we're getting the conversation started, we're continuing the conversation and we're barely scratching barely scratching the surface. in a lot of what we're talking about, but our but our hope is to to to help listeners to to be more curious and and and and even to help them to be aware of of certain things that maybe they hadn't thought of before and is so When we are looking at thinking about starting a company or we're growing our company, there's also like accreditation is is is a big topic right now. So I maybe we could kind of touch on that as far as like where do we think how do you know is accreditation is a is this a helpful thing for our field and for business owners? or you know, what are the potential shortcomings or I don't know, like let's just check speaker-1: And and that's like just to be completely transparent, that's where Sean and I kind of were introduced, right? You had posted on LinkedIn about accreditation and you know, this is something I think about all the time. and i you know, my background, I'm process engineer. I love processes, I love third party auditing. That that's just my thing. I was An internal I do. I I was an internal auditor for many years, right? This was co my jam. so I see the benefit in accreditation. Yeah. Because it can really help companies that don't know what they don't know, set a standard framework that should, if it's done properly, should benefit the children that they work with or the the learners of the you know. their their clientele. So and it should also help their staff. the the issue that I am concerned about because I saw this in in the engineering field, you pass your audit on Tuesday and then on Wednesday we go back to the way we hundred percent we run our business. speaker-0: Yes. yeah. I I think I I think I think like a lot of things in it in the insurance funded ABE world, it's it's all over the place. Yeah. There's good and bad to it. I think it should i it's it's a noble concept and I think it it should exist to some degree. I like the idea of well one thing I think they're running into maybe now a little bit in Massachusetts is I think they're not companies wanna start and they have to get accredited, but they can't get accredited because they haven't operated yet, which is which speaker-1: That's a catch twenty two there. How does that work? speaker-0: Cynic in me does wonder if we're trying to we're in an age of really trying to suppress small business and move everything. But that's just me. but yeah, how are they gonna do that? At the same time, I'll say this. If I had had to go through that stuff before I started my company, I might have gone maybe I'm not gonna do this. And that would have been great. So I speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. speaker-0: I think I think it's well intended. What I worry about is is I believe it's a forty five hundred dollar minimum cost annually. And that might maybe someone's listening to in this cause that people think because by the way, I just you guys experienced this too. People think because you own a business you're like a billionaire, right? Yeah. Like you must be rich. Yes. I guess No. No. speaker-1: Yeah, when we when we started, I remember that when I I had quit my job and and I started helping full time and I wasn't even getting a paycheck, right? It was just it was enough that we paid our mortgage and we we fed ourselves and you know, things like that w which was important. but I can remember RBTs coming to me and saying, Man, I need a raise and I would just think, Dude, you make more than I do, right? And and so like that's how it started. Now we did eventually get profitable, we never took it alone, things like that. It it did successfully work. But there were times where, you know, I when we opened up our clinic, we hired I think three B C BAs in one year. We went through a hundred thousand dollars and I was the biller. I had no business being the biller, right? I was doing stupid stuff and and so yeah you got a thumbs up I agree with the but you know, so like there there is that piece of it. But yeah, you know like my comment on your post was like it feels a little bit like a pay for play. And and and like the big guys they don't care. They're gonna do this. Right? And and you know the feedback that I've seen, not so much from this new accreditation, but you know, from a previous accreditation program that I will not say the name to. I I I wa like I would get feedback from other clinicians that worked for those companies and they were leaving them because they did not they could not spend another day at that company. speaker-0: One hundred percent. So and I'm not gonna name names. d I'm a little at my height of my company, we had thirty clients, twenty five staff, four B C B A's. Not a giant company by any stretch. Most of the time we were more about three B C B A's, eighteen clo blah blah blah. Point being we were not a big huge company. We had a really cool logo. Really nice clinic too. Coffee shop chic and a old mill building. Amazing. company itself, But d nice aesthetics in some ways. I had so many people, staff and clients come running to me, wanting a job, wanting services coming from bigger comp bigger companies. that were like bragging about how they had the highest accreditation rating possible and I'm like, that's interesting. I wonder they must not have talked to this person before doing that because they paid whatever to d so I I'd like it to be a legitimate thing and this is this is a couple of things have come out of this too. When we say it's a forty five hundred dollar a year cost to ha be accredited, okay. You know what, you know that up front, that's a lot of money. P cost of doing business. That's not the only cost. If you're a small operation and you have to prepare for this, we're talking fifteen, twenty thousand dollars maybe that you're spending time on. 'Cause time is money, right? Of course. And then does that we'll just hire someone to do it. Okay, well that's a position that you're paying now you that does not you cannot reimburse. You don't get paid by insurance to have an operations person. That's an extra thing. Also another thing is I th I'm thinking Massachusetts is some panic from the accreditation entities that they're they're trying to keep up. Yes. So I had a friend who owns a sm a smaller business, very ethical, very good business in my opinion, and I'm not any I'm a not a easy t I j I'm judgmental. his to me is good. And he's on the f he's booked an hour of his time, he's paying a lot of money for this. He's on the fence about doing it. And he says to do it. And th they couldn't answer any of his questions. Right. 'Cause they didn't know yet. Right. It's like the deadline's looming. He's paying five grand practically for this. He's investing all this time. They're not sure. Right. So it's a mess all around. Yeah. And I I don't know. I don't I don't know what the answer is, but I th I see some people on LinkedIn or whatever, like jumping up and down about it, how great it is, and I'm like, hmm, not your money I'm guessing. speaker-1: Yeah. the the other the other issue that I have is like forcing something like this because that's what they're doing, right? They're they're essentially saying right, two states are doing it now, Massachusetts being one of them, and I think Indiana is the other. They're saying if you want to play, you gotta you gotta you gotta pay. And and so like when does like typically when does that work out well, right? Like I think like there has to be an intrinsic motivation in to want to do better and if there's value in the thing then I'll do it because it it it provides better services. and and I think forcing people to do this, I don't know if it's going to provide the intended outcome because again, like you're going to like ram through it 'cause I I have helped people through these accreditations. And I would talk to the accreditor and say, yeah, I know when you help because it's like XY right and and then they would get through it, but then they w they would go back to the way it was, right? Like we're not learning from the experience, we're not getting the benefit that should come naturally from this. And I speaker-0: feel like. I I agree with that and I wonder if that's the shortcomings of the business or the people or that's also you're not it's not sustainable. You're not offering them something sustainable. Like if you offer something efficient, that's what we want, right? speaker-1: Right. speaker-2: Right, 'cause that's what I was gonna say is like for for small businesses especially well of course you have the whole issue of can a business who's been in business for less than two years even get accredited. speaker-1: Well you have to be you have to be in operation for a year to get accredited, I believe is the rule, but then how do you get accredited if speaker-2: Well that's what I'm saying. So is that even setting that aside, right? Like how how sustainable is this? Like i especially looking at small businesses, right? And and like are we making it to where or not we I don't have anything to do with accreditation, but is it is it i is it to where we're gonna or such barriers are gonna be in place for these small businesses that are they even gonna be able speaker-1: That's my concern. Because that's small businesses they have to thrive because if it's just a bunch of, you know, like billion dollar companies that are run by BlackRock, and then what are we even doing? Like why are we even doing the do you think that AI they'll use AI for good in those companies? You know what I speaker-0: Behavior analysts will just do speaker-1: Yes. And I can't remember who you were talking to, but her point was they're not coming for RBTs. AI's coming for your drug. Right? Like and and they're going the the intelligence is what's going to be outsourced, not the day to day working with the child. At least not yet. Yeah. Right. So that that's the concern is that, you know, if what are we doing? And and I I know I think at least, I wanna believe that it's for noble a noble intention, but like if the outcome gives a different result, what what do we do? How do we how do we change this? speaker-0: Right, we and we already have a log jam of people that need our help, right? And I and I I I don't I don't this might be bothersome to some but I i Massachusetts I think starting this year now people with Down syndrome can get ABA services. I think that's awesome. I think that's absolutely awesome. I'm so happy for that. Except we can't really do what we got now. Yeah. Right? So now we're adding more work to it. And I think if we start killing off smaller companies, which is what this is not intended to do but it could have the impact of doing, now we've got more of a problem, right? Right. and it's not like these large companies that hoard the clients, by the way, in many cases, versus I would like to see and I get this HIPAA things, so I'm thinking out loud this might be stupid, but I think there should be some mandated sharing of waiting lists, even if i in a way that's not HIPAA. I I always whenever I had calls and couldn't take someone I always went to my friends like, Hey you guys look for some do you guys want this, you want and I'd also go to bigger companies. I'd try to help the person out. I mean if they were nice to me, if they were rude to me, I'd be like, Yeah, sorry. But most people you felt bad and want to help and you call around for them. I don't think I think most companies just like take the wait list a lot of times, especially the larger ones. I know a a larger one will call in multiple states, which I don't think that exactly I think that c describes a lot of their policy now is just to take everybody and build that wait list. I'm like, what do you like? A stock? Like you do have shareholders that want to know what your wait list is? Like, how is that helping people? speaker-1: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I that's speaker-0: Yeah. Or they're like we'll do an evalu we'll do an assessment, we'll build a nine one seven one and then we'll have any plans for you. speaker-1: And then we'll just Yeah. speaker-2: Well and then that makes it hard for that family to then go to another provider to get another assessment. speaker-0: And they don't know and they don't know to do that 'cause I'd tell a family like ts if they're not serving you within such a t such a time, it's that's their problem, not yours. Go somewhere else. You're not bound to them. But they might tell you you are. Like speaker-1: Right. Right. Yeah, I there was another LinkedIn connection I made here recently and and so we're trying to put something together and there may be something out there, but what to expect while you're waiting for services. Like how do you know that this is a good company? What should I like, you know, just so that they have some education on like speaker-0: That's a good idea. Should there be mandatory communication? Since we're doing this accreditation and we're trying to make everything better, you have a wait list. What's your responsibility to the people on your wait list to be communicative? What must you communicate? And and again, what must you do to facilitate services, period, not just with your company, but perhaps in general. What efforts have you made to do that? I I I I'd like I maybe that's part of accreditation. Like I said, I think I got out just in time, so I'm not sure, but I'd love to see things like that. speaker-1: Yeah, I feel I don't feel like that is part of the accreditation. I think I've reviewed it recently. I don't I don't believe that that is. So but yeah, I think that's a great idea. You know, like we we we talk about that all the time, right? T like collaborating with colleagues. And at the same time, like if you don't feel comforta like if you wouldn't let your own child go to that company, maybe you shouldn't be referring to. speaker-2: That's what get too. I get some some business owners are like, unfortunately in my community I know the other companies well enough to know like I don't feel good referring them out. totally, totally. I agree with that because I mean there are there are some, you know, one off situations or some specific but as a whole, there yeah, there's a lot of issues with that and I and I get kind of I get judgy. Yeah. I get judgy when I see those posts. Sorry guys if you're listening like and you're hearing this, I don't know your story, but I do. My first inclination is judgy when I see B C P A's who are looking for full time remote work. I'm like I don't under speaker-0: Yeah, with ya. speaker-1: Tell us tell us how we suck. Yeah. speaker-0: Allow me to provoke those people, if they want to call in. I I yeah, y I don't know, s skeptically are you afraid of face to face confrontations with parents and going into houses? If that offends you call in, yeah. Send me straight. Yeah. But I I wonder I wonder if that's part of it, 'cause I I don't see I see that the the RBTs in those situations really struggling. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: Really struggling and I I r a couple da one of the when during our first downsides we transferred people to other companies and one I remember parent called me two days af after and was like, Are they the B C B A's ne isn't gonna come here and the poor staffs it's their first day and no one's here to train them and they're having to chase my kid around with a iPad so the B C B A can see what's going on and I'm thinking, Yeah, and they're billing for this. speaker-2: Yeah, it happens way too often. And you know, we've heard we've heard owners say, well, we don't feel like it's safe for behavior analysts to go and speaker-1: Yes, I got I've gotten that comment. But it's okay for the RBT to go in there. Like I what are you doing right now? Yes. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Yes, I have had that conversation. speaker-0: Any any time I've ever had that situation, it's never the neighborhood, it's the house. And to be honest with you, it's usually really nice houses. It's like think I ever had a problem in a quote unquote bad neighborhood, th those were fine. It was so yeah, there are definitely houses where it's not safe, but yeah, you you can't set right, the B C B A needs to be willing to do anything the R B T can do. If you're a if you're a young B C B A hearing this, take it or leave it, but I would really make that one of your your axioms. speaker-1: Yeah, I I think looking back at this time period, we like one of the things will be that broke ABI Yeah will be the one hundred percent remote supervision is is gonna be speaker-0: was very fortunate with my B C B A's in that they would I wasn't always very fortunate with my direct staff but my B C BAs like would do I'd be like, hey so and so called in, just do can you direct today? They're getting the same money. They none of them ever big time me. It never was like that's not what I was trained to do. It's like okay skinner, relax. Get in there and like see what your staff is going through. But I didn't run into that. I had very you know, I'm sure they complained when I wasn't around, which is fine. No, but I know I've heard B C BAs like, well that's not what I do. I'm like No, that's not. It is Yeah. speaker-2: I've heard the same. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard the same. In fact I'm like, well how can how like how can you with confidence like give this program to the tech and guide them through it if you haven't even done it? speaker-0: You haven't even done it yourself. Yeah. Yeah. how absorbed. speaker-2: Well and and there are a lot more well, I say a lot more, but just in my perspective, a lot more B C B A only companies that I I'm hearing more and more of that kind of resurging where they're like, Yeah, no, we're just B C B A's doing direct service and not having techs and it and and their their main reasoning is because we don't want to have to deal with that. We'd just rather do it ourselves. You know you know where you're okay. That's speaker-0: I get it. Yeah. speaker-2: cool. You know? But but then there's also that tends to be re reduced. Hours for the learner. Yep. speaker-0: My company we took clients and again this is probably why I went out of business of close but w we would take clients who really just needed say self management. Not not a lot of but a few. So it's like well that's a B that's a job for a B C B A. Yeah. And there are some insurances that are fine with that as long as you're transparent, and there are some like, no. So you c it's it also specific to that, yeah. speaker-2: Okay, question for you. Yeah. So okay, so we've talked a lot recently on on the podcast. It's something that I'm pretty like passionate about, but we've talked a a lot about how important it is for us to be self aware. And and so like being that that's a lot of what you do with with the the learners that you work with, like how How does that translate to clinicians, to business owners, right? because I think that there there's a big piece of that's a big missing piece or a big barrier, skill deficit that we're not able to t to look within, to look and see where our deficits are, where our weaknesses are, what what we need, where where like to be able to self monitor even, to be able to take responsibility and and action on that. speaker-0: I I have no for example I have no organizational skills to speak of. Like literally none. I can't tell you how many times like, you know, ideally submit your treatment for your authorization a month in advance. Month. Be like And that's not good 'cause then you're you're not getting paid for a few weeks and then you're like, This is so unfair, this business. It's like you did it to yourself, shut up. But it's like yeah, no, and I so my shortcomings, like organizational things. Unfortunately when I own the business people pleasing, I tried to make everybody happy, which second I closed the business I turned back into my lovable jerk self is glorious. but when I own the business I was always so worried about everybody. and those are sh those are things you have to consider before you do it. and then you know, no behavior unless is perfect either. If you're owning the business and also providing clinical services Maybe you like I said, like I'm not I'm not a ten out of ten B C B A if you bring a four year old in. I'm alright. But yeah, I mean I'm not a ten out of ten B C B A for anything, mind you, but I mean definitely not for like a little kid. So you have to also know your strengths and weaknesses. And for a smaller company too, you know, there's a jack of all trades component to it where you're filling in maybe direct some time where you can't rest just say, like, hey, I'm just gonna work with these clients between twelve and fifteen or two to four. you're you're all over the place. And that that's It can be invigorating too. You're getting a lot of great experience. But yeah. I think it's very important to know like what you want to do for sure. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, I I just I think Max should put the three of us on like in a porch and just like get off our porch, right? Get off my porch. Like we're we seem to be just saying, these young kids they don't know what they're doing speaker-0: I I no, I love the I I I I hired young B C B A's. I and I loved my B C B A for the most part. I love my B C BAs. they were great, but and and again I didn't run into these things with them, but I hear horror stories from from friends, like so and so, yeah, they won't do that. I'm like what? Like speaker-2: But do you think how much of that is I don't know, I I setting the the No, no, like the the the not climate. my gosh, my word. Culture, thank speaker-1: culture. speaker-2: you. setting the culture of of your company. Like good or bad, right? Like there's some level of like openness and communication. I know you said like maybe a little too much people pleasing, but still like it sounded like you had built an environment where people were felt more free and open to communicate around these things. I don't know if that's fair to say. speaker-0: I think we so I had a I had a staff meeting 'cause I wasn't want do stuff like that because not because I didn't think it was a good idea, but you can't I'm paying everyone to come in and I'm not taking in anything and that that gets old pretty fast. I remember I had a staff meeting and like they were super mad. I was like, damn and I got like an anonymous thing, like how awful I am and it was like it's like They weren't wrong about a lot of the stuff, honestly. I some of them were pretty highly paid and I was maybe would have hoped they would have stepped up and done some of these things, but I didn't communicate that effectively apparently. But yeah, it's it's I think you have to you definitely have to have a thick skin too, like as you're gonna once you own the company you're in a leadership position. There's think of any job you better every job anyone's ever had, they probably go to it and like, I hate this place, blah blah blah and y you're gonna be that place now. So yeah, I think it's it's it's definitely I think that's why if you own a company, if possible own the company and have other people to professionals to do the human resources, the coordinating with staff, the scheduling, the billing, the all those things that you y you might think you can do. And maybe when you have four clients you can. Yes. But not for long. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-2: But that is a thing and that's what I hear the most is I can't afford to do that. I don't have time for that. Yeah. Right? And I'm like, well then you shouldn't have a business, right? Because this is part you you speaker-1: Yes. speaker-2: Right. So growing, yes. When you're at the when you're at the small stage where y solo B C B A only you have a few techs under you, some clients, and and you can pretty much micromanage it and handle I mean, but as soon as it grows beyond that, and that number may be a little different per individual and what their what their skill sets are. Yeah. But it it grow and especially if you're if you're really honing in on a very specific need or a specific age group, you might be able to grow it out a little bit bigger. Yep. But the the i it do like it's in your favor to do that because just the world how it works and being able to get paid you end up having to grow beyond that specific niche and special skill set most of the times and then that opens up another can of orbs and then you have to like then you add more staff and you add more clients and then you just start to grow and and that's when it just starts to like it to speaker-0: So one thing to bear in mind, year one and year two, maybe your staff and your clients are d borderline handpicked. Right? Like you you're taking people you're pretty sure it's gonna work out. Your staff is outstanding. They're bearing they're they they in turn are bearing the annoyance of working with a startup and yet they're still there. So they've got they're invested emotionally and it's right. When you start to grow, you lose control, you have to just fill spots. And th that that can be very hit or miss, mostly miss. And also in terms of taking clients, now maybe this be wasn't a fit before, but now I really need that twenty billables a week for the and and again that's where your your judgment gets messed up. So the growing is the hard part. I would say my first two years and it was during so I opened announced I'm opening in March of twenty twenty. Yeah. a c a week later something happened that made that a problem. so then I done I didn't even actually I don't remember. So I'm signed in yeah right I'm signing to a lease, mind you, that I get to pay every month and i i by the fall I started taking clients. So right away I'm kinda behind. But I would say the first year or two was fine. It's when it started growing. I was an MP speaker-2: Well, that's a that's a really that's insightful because you know what? I don't give that enough credit. I I think I think you're right on that. Like I really see that because i i there's still too that like that adrenaline and that motivation and that excitement that that first little bit. But I think that's too what kind of as you as you hit that growth and you're just not expecting. Yeah. You just don't really know what you need to do. All of a sudden you're just you've grown and you're like whoa And then it's also that you don't have those systems in place. You don't really even know what this is growing into. You're not sure. You then you're like, well I'm here now. I gotta I gotta doggy paddle, I gotta tread water, I gotta stay above, you know, I gotta stay afloat. speaker-1: Yeah. You can no longer micromanage this, and that's where it falls apart because you are handling every situation uniquely and nuanced and speaker-2: have in your business plan and your finance all that stuff i that that you know that okay these are the general you know they don't have to be executive positions but management speaker-1: No, but when you get to this level of profit with this level of revenue and and this number of cases, whatever it is, and and just put in a quality measure too, right? And then then I can grow, I can add an office administrator, I can maybe get a fractional CFO, I can because you have to get yourself out of the opera like you can be an operator and you can have a small practice and be stressed and burnt out forever. Or you can own a business and you delegate the tasks that you have no business d doing yourself. Right. We were talking with someone in what was in New Mexico and he's the owner of the company and and he yeah, like Brian Lopez. he constantly through the podcast he's that's not that's above my pay grade. Right? Like he doesn't do that 'cause it's not i he shouldn't be doing those things, right? Like marketing and you know what I mean? speaker-2: I wish I knew that when I was an owner of an ABA clinic because to me I don't I mean sure it was some ego too, but it was just like what I was supposed to like it's on me. I'm the person. Well, we shared that, but like it's here and and so to hear him who's has successful business, I mean he also has a story of mistakes and they downsized and they shifted and they grew, but like just be like I don't know, that's above my pay grade. I've got a great like CEO and I've got a great quality assurance manager. And I've got a great and I'm like, that's pretty cool. speaker-0: That's a ha qua high level owner. That's right. That's Yes. Yeah. Yes. no, that's great. I wish I would have talked to him actually before I started. speaker-2: Right, well he he's he's become quite a regular on the podcast, so those of you listening hopefully we can help disseminate that information to help. But I mean that's most of you listening, right? Are in that startup, in that growing I would say I I don't I don't have the data, but or in that growth, there's a speaker-1: A lot of startups, yes, they're in year one and two and there's they're like I thought this was supposed to get easier and it's getting harder. And if you have that, right, if you're in that point, you are tak you have too much on your plate, right? You have you have built a company where nothing happens unless you you decide. And that that's not a company. That's not a company. speaker-0: And you get to the point where you're like and I think most B C BAs are are good people that want to do the right thing and will will will harm themselves in a sense before anyone else. So for me it was always like I had this B C B A or I had this this or that person, wouldn't in an office like someone just to coordinate things be more valuable to me at this point? But I know the B C B A, I know how the how how they worked, I know what they're using my the money I'm paying them for in their life. So you're like s forget it. And it's it's that's not a good d that's not a good business person. But it's it kinda goes with the territory, I think, for a lot of us. speaker-2: Well that goes back to what you were saying in the beginning, being able to know your limits, being able to know your the the hard decisions that you're gonna you can have to make hard decisions and that you you're going to be the provider essentially if for these people's lives, right? And and understanding what that what that speaker-0: yeah, I can practice, I can do hypotheticals, like if this happened, what would you do? But it's a little different when you're doing that though when you actually are are taking someone you're changing someone's life in a way they didn't choose potentially. That's an awesome responsibility. So make sure if you're gonna own a company and run a company, you're up to that responsibility. I was not. I would say that would be something to ask about yourself for sure. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-2: Yeah, I think that's important. Is there anything else in your floating through your mind right now that you you want to make sure that we cover as far as like things that that you wish you knew or the things that you would like to advise others when they're starting up? speaker-0: have a general comment about things that I've been thinking about it a lot lately. I think a listen, everyone you go on LinkedIn or whatever and look at our field and it's just like catastrophe, catastrophe, catastrophe and I I think it's growing pains. And I and I go to a lot of people I get co I talk to somebody professional you know what I mean I like I I I do therapy and and the stuff they have to do to get it approved versus is so easy compared to what we have to do. I don't really want to hear about how we're not this or that. I'm like we do so much work to get stuff authorized compared to let's take five minutes and tell me how you think you feel about this and I'll make a plea we'll do a score. Like, okay, if we tried to do that Yeah, so so I I think our field is good. I don't think everyone should be like jumping off. I d I think this is this is a necessary time. We need to like figure this out. And it it happens with industries. And one thing I'd love to see our our a our industry do, ABA especially, is is we gotta get we gotta disseminate. And what I mean by disseminate is not to each other not that I don't love this and but everyone nobody listening to this is They all know what ABA is, obviously. They're out they're interested in an ABA business and this is a great thing to listen to if you are. But I think also getting out like the thing I always say is like go talk to like a guidance counselor at a high school or high school students. How many people are interested in becoming a B C B A when they graduate? How many guidance counselor know that's a path? A and and take out the siblings of people with autism. See see how many people would say that. So we're not competing for those students. We're getting and I'm not there's nothing wrong with the people we're getting, but we need more people. I I would love to see like people don't I I I have a n I know somebody who's like she's majoring in special ed. She's like, what do you do again? And I'm like, you should know what I do. You should know what that job is. It's not her fault. But I mean so we we don't get word out. So I I'd love to see us like just get not even like PR, just like mi awareness of this job. This is this amazing job where you can help people most a lot of people, let's be honest, in terms of the paid jobs, people with autism, and help them become more l live their lives to as much autonomy as possible. And it's this amazing opportunity to do that. And I think a lot that would appeal to people when they hear that, especially people that maybe want to become teachers or counselors or things like that. 'Cause you're it's a it's a mix of those things, right? It's in many ways. I would love to see our fields be able to deliver, like start have people going undergrad like I this is my goal to do this versus wait what is that field? What is this? Or they get a summer job making twenty three dollars an hour and go, wait, this is something I could get a master's at you know it's not exactly getting our word out effectively it's speaker-2: Yeah, that's such a really good point. Because, even e like undergrad, like high schoolers, guidance counselors, even community colleges, the colleges, right? Because they do when they start to recruit, right? i it and so even even within the like career days and speaker-1: yeah, I just think about the a lot of the interviews that we did for our company, it was always the stor that it was a very similar story. I stumbled on this thing, I I I was at a friend's house and they were what's this? And yeah, yeah. And and I fell in love speaker-0: There's almost always my cousin is autism, my sister's autism, my neighbors it's always something like that, which is like word of mouth, which is all good, but we're trying to be a a big industry. Yeah. Not a like an independent film, you know? So yeah. speaker-2: Yeah. Yeah, I wonder too, like who you know, we talk about like responsibility and roles and who takes ownership of things and sometimes we're in the situation where we just assume the other person's taking the responsibility and the things don't get done, right? or resentment happens. So but like in in in a big picture in our field like and that that's kind of what comes to mind. It's like, well who's who's responsible it's for doing that? Well, I mean maybe each behavior analyst, you know, each business owner, like what can we take w Let's take a little bit of that responsibility on for ourselves and and do what we can within our community to help disseminate to schools and and you know, to help to to spread that, hey, this is this is a thing. I wonder how many career days that like AVA professionals show up to, right? speaker-0: And I I would love to see us reaching out to like we we have a pr big problem in our field, right? That we have people particularly like Spanish speaking clients finding Spanish speaking staff. Why are we not reaching out to you know, trying to develop people to become RBTs, to go get their bachelor's degree in the process, to be B C A B A's you to and then work their way up like that. I just think it I just feels like again we're just constantly we're scrambling, right? That's the theme with all this. speaker-1: Yeah, I think the B C A B A has unfortunately like I I I see a huge potential. Yeah, I see a huge potential for that. speaker-0: It's like non existent, but it imagine though, I've I d actually I go to I'm in a PhD program with two women who oversee that. And I was they were telling me about it and I'm like, This is so cool. Your idea is so awesome. You should do something and they they are doing something within their company, but like no leave your company behind. Go do it like outside of that. because yeah, if you had people I I had I had Justin Lee Dr. Justin Lee for a professor for two who's amazing, two courses s he's published a billion articles and one he had a great article about like progressive discrete trial training and everything was brilliant, except it's it's like they estimate it's about six hundred hours worth of training. And I'm like, Well no company's doing that, but is that not a degree? Is that not an an undergraduate program we're talking about? So like I'd love to see shifts towards things like that and I think once we start doing that, some of these chasing our tail that we're constantly doing maybe stops. speaker-2: Right. And we've had that conversation too about the specializing, speaker-1: Specializing. speaker-2: but also like looking at like the field versus like a profession versus like all all the different dynamics. I'm not super current with the exact terminology to use, but it's like, you know, A you have ABA as a science, right? And then you have autism services as like speaker-0: Yeah, focus. speaker-2: section of that. And then you're talking about Down syndrome. There's gonna be some overlapping things but there's also gonna be a whole new set of skills that that are needed to to provide this. Then we talk about developmental, understanding of lifespan development of what's what's what's even appropri what it not eat not not even just the age appropriateness of certain things, which that's important, but the the the the sequencing of that, right? Like what's what are what do you need to have to be able to reach this up here, right? and those prerequisites and and how the skills build with each other. You have like chariot you speaker-1: Thank you. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-2: also have like component composite analysis that can be its own thing. Like we have speaker-1: Own thing. speaker-2: all of these very specific s special is specializations that if you look at other fields, maybe they're they're not such special things. Like it's just kind of but say maybe that's like as as I'm hearing more and more you know, behavior analysts and scientists in our field who have who have now had several decades under our belts of of practicing who are starting to talk about that more, at least I'm starting to hear it more. but I also have access to that through the podcast that I get to have those conversations and learn about what's going on in people's heads. But it seems like there there is some some people out there trying to push for more specializations for more within within APA. I don't know. speaker-0: Well bring up geriatrics and that's a great example. we're masters at setting up environments. If someone has dementia, it's all about stimulus control. It's all about the antecedents. It's once once we're in consequences, we we're in trouble, right? Right. We're not fixing it. So what we can do is try to make and and we we should be in those places. Yes. I've speaker-2: Jennifer. speaker-0: I'm very fortunate. I've had a lot of cool opportunities. I've been offered a lot of things that are honestly one might say outside scope type things, but I'm like no. I mean I've I'm not saying you can't be outside your scope, but they're th I I don't think we can just make that our default every time something scares us a little either. speaker-2: What I was gonna say. I I I think I hear, and not to overgeneralize, because maybe there are some of people who have been in the field with and have more experience who also have this mindset. But I feel like I hear newer BCBAs really really focused in, that's beyond my scope. That's out of my, Yeah. But but I think the piece that's missing is okay, yeah, it's great that you recognize that at this moment, but how can you get there? How can you add this? If you have a another interest or you want to learn more about a different how how can you access that? But if you are with working within a company. And you're getting very specific supervision for autism early intervention. And then, like, how do you break outside of that to get more? speaker-0: My I mean my passion as a beh BCBA is helping p not get jobs. Anyone can get somebody a job. Places will hire you. They can't keep you? No. Not if you don't train those warplay soft skills that include accepting feedback, that include asking for help when you need it. And also a lot of your work is with the business itself. How do you help them? Because you you can't be the idea isn't to be there with them or have a job that culture with them forever. The ob the idea is you can drop them off and they work. Or they take they maybe they drive there, I don't know. However they get there and they work. Without assistance. And I think I I'd love that's what I love doing most, I would say, as a behavior analyst, is that those jobs, like to helping people have success at jobs, not just get a job. And I I I'd love to see yeah, B C B A is kinda but I I don't know I think when they're when you're younger too you feel like you the ethics code's still fresh in your head so you're afraid to do something wrong and maybe that's not a bad thing to be afraid to do something wrong, but what are your interests, right? Like you have interests outside of this. How can you c how could those maybe factor into what you're doing? I don't know. I I think I I love like I love ABA. I love to see it prosper and be used across so many different areas of life, not just autism and special needs things. speaker-1: Right. Yeah. I I think you know, it kinda goes back to a point you made earlier, but it it does it does feel like it's getting siloed. But at the same time, like you said, we're not really doing this autism thing very well, right? And and to open this up to other areas when we can't we can't even do this to the to the best of our ability or to the best of maybe the best potential. speaker-2: Right, but could that also be part of the strategy to help us, right? Because maybe there's a lot of people in the autism world of ABA that really shouldn't. So speaker-1: Don't don't wanna be in it. Yeah, they don't want to be in it. speaker-2: if if we open up more opportunities, maybe speaker-1: Yeah, I'm I'm not sure. Yeah. I've speaker-0: Well, I just I know what one thing I do is when I I do consultation to adult services day programs and and a lot of my role I get hundreds of clients, I'm obviously not overseeing hundreds of c I I I couldn't tell ya I I'm obviously not doing treatment plans for that many people. A lot of my role is to come in and just be use my a my my behavior analytics skills on the staff, on the management, on the funding entities, set a tone. More so than writing these five hundred different plans across eight programs. and I d I can't do that. But what I can do is try to make sure there's proper training, make sure there's systems in place. Make sure if you're getting if you guys are the not being treated well in a meeting by the funding a funding entity by a residence, you got me on your side now. If there's something to say, I'll say it. Let's even the o let's let's even the score so to speak and have a conversation and it's a lot of what you're doing. More so than something you would see in Cooper, you know? But you're absolutely using ABA, you're just using it on dealing with other people versus the clients in a lot of cases. Right. speaker-2: Yeah, I mean that brings up the whole question of like what is a client, right? You know, 'cause that's one of the things with like the the unrestricted hours. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-2: you know, and and so we've been trying to we've had several conversations trying to help those like to decipher like well what is a client? It the assumption here is that a client's a four year old with autism. Right. But that's not so. Like, you know speaker-1: Right. your staff should be your client, right? Correct. And they are. I think that goes back to your point that you made earlier about the this like there's this Facebook post that's been burnt into my brain, but somebody was struggling with turnover and someone's response was you just need a robust hiring process. And like it just that was a kick in the gut to me. Like like I the I responded to that post and I was like, If like if you as the the B C B A cannot change the behavior of your staff My question is to you is why in the world would I give you my child? Right? Like and speaker-0: How do you speaker-2: and there there are all the barriers of business that we're talking about. speaker-1: Yes, yes. speaker-2: And so it the two it's like ha like the end of the day, like where it is your your behavior analyst hat. Like I don't think you ever like take your your behavior analyst hat off. Like you're always wearing your behavior analyst hat. Let's see how is it shifting. How are we using the behavior anal analytic skills as we're shifting to different things? Like i yeah speaker-1: But this isn't my own thought, right? This has been from multiple guests on our podcast that their their issue is, at least I think I'm saying their concern correctly, is that the skills aren't generalizing because we're not teaching the science. The science we're teaching them how to work with a four year old. Right? And and so So they don't know how speaker-2: to know, not to put you on the spot, right? But as a professor. Like what you know, like what do you I mean, are you comfortable speaking on? Like like what you how you feel like we could shape how we're learning? speaker-0: Yeah. So I love my where I teach. We're awesome. I think we do a good great job. I'm a graduate up there. in fact I my pro my PhD is gonna be through there 'cause they merged with the school I'm at now. So I I I I think so this isn't directed at my school if anyone's listening. But I think I think when I teach a class, my I I'm very, very into I don't wanna sound like some hippie or something, but if if I didn't have to we teach the ta we have to teach the exam. I don't like that. I I like I if I c if I could do my class I'll just s what I call scenario-based active learning where here's your reading. I know you're not gonna read it, so here's your study guide to fill in the things, at least so you have that foundational knowledge. And then we're just gonna scenario solve problems, discuss the whole class. pretty much the whole class is what we're gonna do. I I always feel like that's better preparation. I try to like prepare my students I work with with like stuff real life scenarios, things I've encountered, which is a lot. I've been in this field a long time. I've encountered a lot of things. I've made a lot of mistakes. So I don't like try to put myself on a pedestal at all. I'll like, Yeah, don't do that. This is what I did. and I think those conversations, I think it manifests itself in supervision a lot of times, but or it should the supervision process, but the but the actual classes itself I'd love to see less like summary of what you read. Let's talk about it if you're comfortable. More summary. Time for the quiz. Because my biggest soapbox is we have a fifty one percent first time pass rate. If you had a client with fifty one percent You would lose the client. Services would be stopped. They would leave your thing. Why are we okay with that? Not saying we are okay with it. But I I'm way more focused on that than I am some stupid company in such and such a state did this thing wrong. okay. But we're not half our people literally at coin flip are not getting through the first time. That's and that's not and it's there's a hundred percent spread. Where I where I work it's like it we're like eighty percent, we're right at the top tier area. There's ones with like zero percent, there's ones with like twenty percent. Why are they why is that okay? Like what are they doing? And I can say as a professor, they you don't ever there's not a consensus way how to teach an ABA classroom. There's not a lot so I'm doing my dissertation on this. It's like well my my my mentor's like, We'll do a meta analysis. There's eight articles. Can't really do it that'd be a great, that'd be the easiest meta analysis ever of the eight articles. I'd be done in like an hour with my dissertation, but so I I think I'd love to know how we're how we're teaching in the classrooms and maybe not to tell people what to do. Who am I to tell people to do? If I'm being honest, I c I still can't believe they let me teach master students. I like I I can't that's a They're out their minds letting me do that. I'd only have a master's degree myself, at this point. but since they do, I'll I want to do a good job and I think what what are tools we can at least offer? Like, have you tried this method, have you tried meth? 'Cause everything we take teaching is from other fields. Right. so yeah, I'd love to see more w effort on that and I'm gonna put some in. speaker-1: Yeah, th I I can remember we had a conversation with a university and they wanted to they speaker-2: partner with speaker-1: wanted to sponsor sponsor the podcast and I was like, Okay, I'm I'm just gonna vet them, right? I I don't know how to vet anybody, but I'll try to and and their their pass rate was thirty one percent. What speaker-0: What are we doing? speaker-1: what I don't think that I wanna be promoting this. speaker-0: Did you give them their money back when they that's the they you took the money from that student? and I and I get there are other factors. Listen, there's there's way more remote learning. speaker-1: Yes, yeah. They they seem yes. I can't speaker-0: God, if I have one student who doesn't pass something I like I'm a wreck about it, let alone most of them don't. yeah. No. They shouldn't be proud and maybe they shouldn't be in operation. speaker-2: Well and that's why that's why they were they were actually gonna be like they were willing to pay the high tier rate for sponsors to sponsor the podcast at the time and I like, Wow this is amazing and then we had like it's like two minutes of the conversation I was like, Hell no Yeah I'm not promoting you guys speaker-0: Maybe invest that money into some research into better ways to teach your students or yeah. Yeah. speaker-2: Yeah, it was really disheartening. Yeah. It really was. And and that that is, speaker-1: Yeah. And that's just the start, right? That's just the start. So passing that test means almost I mean, it it's important and it's a great achievement. Don't get me wrong. Yes. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: And I will never be able to do that. I know like I I will speaker-0: Well that'd be half the people that try, so it's like you're in good company. speaker-1: But but but that's just the start, and I look at this often as a pr apprenticeship just because of my background in engineering and working with electricians and I I do see this as a as an apprenticeship where you know, you all need fifteen hundred out well, I guess it's two thousand now, but like a an electrician needs seventy two hundred hours before they can do because you know what's gonna happen? They're gonna burn the house down. Right and everybody knows that. And and speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Yes, yes, that's the thing, right? And it's what you guys do is kinda more important, right? It's speaker-0: Yeah. I I when I run my classes it's basically we go over a scenario, we talk about it, I do a little bit of pre my best classes I probably have when I first started teaching I'd have like two hundred fifty slides prepared for an hour and a half class, which I mean 'cause you know you're scared. And then I my best classes maybe four or five slides get done. And it's like we we discuss and we talk about stuff. And also another thing is you got students who don't really like talk and they're shy, they're uncomfortable doing it. And I'm very nice about it, but I'm like you contribute in the chat box. You need to you need to run your mouth. You need to learn to be able to like stick up for yourself, make arguments, make points. Like that's part of what you do. Soft skills. You need to go and be convincing once you're doing this. That's part of your job. And this is where we practice. You're among friends. You're not among friends when you're sitting at an IEP meeting with a s or talking to an insurance company or something like that or an irate parent. Those aren't gonna that's not gonna be a nice situation. So I think the more you can get and I think people learn better by doing projects and by discussing them than they do like I I don't know. I'm a big generative learning person and I think that would lead to better test results. But I just think that. I need to try to prove it, so I'll do my part. speaker-2: Yeah, yeah, for sure. You would have been my favorite kind of professor. That's how I always learned best. speaker-0: I would suspect some people it's I I say to I'm like, this isn't gonna those classes where you can kinda multitask, this won't be one. If you if and if if I'm asking her to participate, I don't Socratic method it unless like if if someone's obviously not paying attention, I'll help get their attention back. And I warn them f right up front, like I expect you were speaker-2: for me as a learner that's just a side weird random side note, but but that's good. helping but helping me speaker-1: With accountability. Yeah. speaker-2: having accountability 'cause I would a hundred percent be multitasking. And then that's just another thing I have to put on my to do list to go back and study all stuff speaker-0: Absolutely. speaker-2: that you know, and try to make sense out of it myself, but instead like in engaging for forty five minutes, an hour and a half, whatever, like that's gonna be so much more meaningful and I'm gonna take more away from it. And I don't know there's a I wish I could remember who did the research, but it's in child development and like the I can't even remember the article. Anyways, but the whole the whole point here. was that a child it's it's it was about learning through play versus you know and and and just to summarize it because I don't remember all the numbers, it was much more likely, right, that you're gonna learn and retain through play as a child and so it was like talking about how can as adults, what's our version of play? And I'm like that to like speaker-0: He's able to speaker-2: to to talk it over and chat about it. speaker-0: And you are a master's student. I wanna I want you you need to ha if you don't have thoughts on this, what are you doing here? Like this isn't undergrad, this isn't high school, this is like you need to I want you coming in here and say like you need to be have a presence. And because when you're a behavior analyst you n and I see so many behavior analysts that just maybe just don't have a presence and it's like I don't know who taught ya. but I would I would like all of my students to think that they're all gonna go be troublemakers someday for good trouble. That's my number one goal. More so than they pass. I want them to pass the exam too, but I really want them to go and make a positive impact and to do that you've gotta be comfortable speaking and and sa and saying things. speaker-1: That was true. I mean when I would train engineers, the like you know, we would we would throw the book at them first, right? This is how you do it step by step. But then you would bring them on and and they would start do and they would be looking at the book what do I do? What do I like it was just a disaster, right? And it wasn't Yeah, it wasn't until they got to get into it and started to play around with it and and okay, I see how this works together, right? Like then they would start to retain it. And it it didn't matter if they read the book fifteen times or if they read it once. It l like there are certain applications that they need to understand. But after that, like it's just we gotta get in and start breaking things. speaker-0: And our our our field is so not a rote process. Every day is different, every session is different. You can have a plan. You have a plan to be able to deviate effectively from the plan, right? Yeah. So yeah, I just think that's just such an important approach and I just wonder how we as it at universities are are are on balance teaching this stuff. And I I don't think there's unfortunately much of an answer when there's eight articles based in an ABA graduate classroom that I'm aware of. You know. speaker-2: Yeah, even in my research methods undergrad psychology class, I think we did a lot more deep dives than that. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-2: and that's another thing too. I I know we're we're he we're here ending our time, but you know, I think that's another thing that would be of interest or or could be helpful for our field. Not that maybe people are already doing it, but getting an understanding because you said growing pains, right? Yeah. Well what how how have other fields, you know, like let's look at other fields that have done this successfully and they've grown and they've you know, other e even in mental health, right? Yeah. OT speech peace part of that I hear that. but but sometimes we too w we kind of focus in and we're like it's so hard in ABA or you know I was just I just watched a reel from a pediatrician who was talking about like the codes and having to having to fight with insurance company for them to pay for a routine you know thing for a child with a like a very concrete type illness right like I don't know if it was your analysis or something very concrete right and that they were having to fight with insurance over that and then they were and and I I guess that set the algorithm for my for for my social media and I started getting a few more and then a surgeon was like they were scrubbed in ready to do you know to pr start the surgery and they were delayed like fifteen minutes because back somewhere in the office they were scrambling trying to find the authorization before they can make the first speaker-0: or whatever. That makes sense our field. Yeah, no, it's not just our field. And I mean honestly what you do again if you also if you plan to own a company, a lot of what you're gonna what I I would describe my work for a couple of years when I was at my most like burnt out, like basically what I do is sit on the phone with in on hold with insurance all day and then look for lost passwords. That that that's what I about what I do. speaker-2: If you enjoyed doing that, speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, if you're if you're big into like yeah, losing passwords and trying to figure out and sitting on hold and having to be nice to every single re insurance person who replaces the last one and explain the exact same story in the same way. Because their goal is for you to swear at them so you hang up. I I sh I I shouldn't say I know that, but I I suspect it may be. I know that's a believer. Yeah, yeah, I I am too. yeah. I mean i the but you don't learn this stuff. So I I try to like talk about that stuff when I teach. Like this is kind speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, I think you know, we have our course on how to start a business. Like the the best emails I get is a B C B I has said, you know what? I don't think I'm gonna do this and and so now they get to be a B C B A 'cause that's what they went to speaker-0: Yeah, sh absolutely. Yeah. speaker-2: Just the V C B A. speaker-1: Yeah, speaker-2: It's a own being a b like yeah. bec yeah, 'cause you do. There's the whole what do you actually get to do? What what are you what is it so okay, here's my final thoughts for this podcast. What is it that you want to be doing? Like how do you want to use your behavior analytics skills? What do you want to do every day? Is it is it working with learners? Is it is it coaching teenagers? Is it parents? Is it singing wheels on the bus with a two year old? Like do you want to be working with parents or do you want do you enjoy the the spread spreadsheets and the data in the the you know do you want to make phone calls with insurance? Maybe you have a passion about that. I don't know, right? But where do you where do you want to be and then you looking to see, okay, maybe, maybe okay, you still want to start a company, but then how quickly can you get things in place to build your team so that you can continue doing that thing that you want to do? speaker-1: when I was a little boy I I told my parents I just wanna I just want a job where I sit on the phone all day. speaker-0: And listen to elevator music. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. speaker-0: I'm triggered by some of music now if I ever hear it. I'm like speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-2: Hundred percent. Well, Sean, thank you so speaker-0: So thank you for your time. Great talking to you. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-2: Yeah, it's always fun. I I love these conversations. That's what keeps it keeps bringing back. speaker-1: Is there anything that we missed before before we've speaker-2: Sure, you get a speaker-0: I don't think so. I think I think that we covered a lot. no, I feel good about it. Thank you. I appreciate the platform to share. speaker-2: Well, thanks. for those of you who are listening, I just wanted to give you a reminder that we do have our free business leader support group through Discord in the the show notes. The the link will be in the show notes. And hey, like I said before, call our speaker-1: Tell us how we're wrong. speaker-2: I wanna hear your perspective because that's important to me to be able to hear everyone's perspective. I I don't have to be right. That's okay. Only speaker-1: We're not. speaker-2: only in my marriage do I have to be right. But here in this job I'm you know, it's good. speaker-1: The comedian. speaker-2: so well, am I though? speaker-0: I'm impressed you're married the truth. I'm impressed you're married and do this. My wife and I would just be like a twenty minute argument with one speaker-2: We have our rocky moments. Yeah, it it's but for the most part we're learning we're learning for the most part how to get through it. All right. So thank you for joining us today and we can't wait to see you next time. speaker-0: Alright, sounds good. Bye.