Building Ethical, Sustainable ABA Businesses with April & Stephen Smith

Podcast Episode: Building Ethical, Sustainable ABA Businesses with April and Stephen Smith

In this episode of In the Field: The ABA Podcast, I chat with April and Stephen Smith of 3 Pie Squared, two seasoned ABA entrepreneurs who built, scaled, and exited a seven-figure practice—and now dedicate their time to helping others do the same. Whether you're a BCBA navigating job offers or a founder shaping your company culture, this episode is packed with insights about building workplaces that are ethical, supportive, and sustainable.

We dig into what job-seeking BCBAs should look for (and avoid) when interviewing, how caseload and pay structures impact clinical quality, and why training, transparency, and values alignment are the foundation of a thriving team. On the flip side, April and Stephen offer candid advice for ABA business owners trying to scale without burning out.

Key Topics:

🔍 Red Flags for Job-Seeking BCBAs: From unclear onboarding to inflated caseloads, learn what to ask and how to evaluate whether an organization aligns with your values and needs.

💬 Why Communication Matters: How your questions are received during the interview process says a lot about what it’ll be like to work there. Transparency, responsiveness, and psychological safety are everything.

📊 The Reality Behind the Numbers: High salaries and billable hour quotas may look great on paper—but how do they actually play out day-to-day? April and Stephen break it down.

🧠 Employee vs. Contractor: A no-fluff conversation about the legal and ethical implications of hiring (or being hired) as a contractor in ABA.

🧰 Training and Self-Advocacy: For both BCBAs and techs, training isn’t a one-and-done. We talk about the importance of self-assessment, mentorship, and ongoing growth systems.

📈 Sustainable Business Systems: What every ABA business owner should have in place—from basic policies to onboarding pathways—and why perfection isn't required, but planning is.

🧾 Delegation and Growth: Why burnout often stems from bottlenecks in delegation, and how hiring even a few hours of admin support (or automating key processes) can shift your trajectory.

Key Takeaways:

• A solid interview process sets the tone for the entire professional relationship—don’t ignore the signs.
• Clinical decisions should never be based solely on what the funder allows. You need systems that support both ethical practice and financial viability.
• BCBAs need training and mentorship just as much as technicians—and business owners must build that into their systems if they want quality care.
• Delegation isn’t optional as you grow. Start with small steps and document as you go.
• Values and vision aren’t just for your mission statement—check in with them regularly and use them to guide decisions when things get tough.

Keywords: ABA Business, BCBA Supervision, ABA Hiring Practices, Onboarding in ABA, Contractor vs Employee in ABA, Caseload Management, ABA Ethics, ABA Startups, Self-Advocacy, ABA Systems, ABA Training Programs, April Smith, Stephen Smith, 3 Pie Squared

Connect with April and Stephen Smith
🌐 Website: 3piesquared.com
🎧 Podcast: ABA Business Leaders Podcast
📱 Facebook: ABA Business Leaders
💼 LinkedIn: 3 Pie Squared
📱 TikTok: @3piesquared

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All information and products are for educational purposes only.

Transcript

Podcast Episode: Building Ethical, Sustainable ABA Businesses with April and Stephen Smith

[00:00:00] 

Allyson Wharam: Welcome to In The Field, the ABA Podcast. I'm your host, Allyson Wharam, creator of Sidekick, an online interactive curriculum and learning portal for behavior analysts. We specialize in providing a field work, supervision curriculum and continuing education for ABA professionals. In this podcast, we're going to deep dive into the world of ABA focusing on quality supervision as the foundation of our field.

We're here for behavior analysts, business leaders and trainees who are passionate about maximizing outcomes for their clients and improving the quality of their services with new and innovative practices. We're going to explore effective strategies and practices that not only enhance the quality of supervision, but also save time all while investing in the people who make up our field, our clients, our trainees, and your everyday behavior analysts.

So whether you're driving to your next in-home session or taking a break from your busy schedule, let's dive right [00:01:00] in.

Hi, welcome everyone to In the Field. This is your host, Allyson Wharam, and I am here today with April and Stephen Smith of 3 Pie Squared. Together they built, scaled, and exited a seven figure ABA business. And now they really do the work to support other ABA businesses as they're going through that same journey through a variety of different offers, which we'll talk about a little bit at the end of the episode.

April and Stephen, I am so glad to have you here. Welcome.

April Smith: Thank you for having us. We're really excited to be here.

Allyson Wharam: One thing that, I think you are really known for is policies and procedures and handbooks and really systematizing and providing those tools and resources I think, to startup ABA businesses. So I was hoping today that we could talk about a couple of things. The first that I wanna touch on is, red flags for BCBAs as they're interviewing.

So as you're looking at the ABA businesses that are out there, because BCBAs are in really high demand, and if you're in the right market you do have a lot of agency in terms of where you choose to work. [00:02:00] So what are some things to look for when interviewing? And then at the end of the episode, I would love to talk about the flip side of that, of how do ABA business owners set up their policies, procedures, systems, to be a great place to work for BCBAs.

So with all that being said I'll just kind of start with what are some of the biggest things to look for BCBA who is interviewing? What are some things to ask when you are interviewing or to keep an eye out for?

April Smith: Yeah, so I think one of the first things that I think of as a red flag is when there's no communication. So it really goes both ways, but since we're really looking at what a BCBA is looking for employment you want that clear communication. It's super important. The communication just throughout the hiring process can tell you a lot. The communication around what's expected during onboarding. Even like just those first few weeks can give you an idea. What your job [00:03:00] description looks like how you are expected to communicate with the families that you're working with, the communication between the techs and the BCBA. Just all of the different facets of communication because if we don't have transparent, direct communication then that might give you a red flag that maybe there's not an open environment to be able to communicate your needs and to be heard. We all have heard of those stories where people come into a situation not knowing what's expected of them, and there's a lot of assumptions being made as well.

And that, just is challenging on so many different levels.

Stephen Smith: Yeah. We see this a lot with techs and BCBA's, but on the BCBA side, you go through the interview, everything's good, you start the onboarding, it's like, how many clients am I gonna have? Oh, we've got seven. And then you get in and you don't have seven, you have 17.

And so it's " Oh wow, this is a way different..." Oh by the way, you have six treatment plans [00:04:00] that were due last week." Right? This doesn't start off a great relationship. You've lost trust, transparency, right off the board. And so this doesn't just put your company in a bad light, but it also, this BCBA can come in and the parents may feel they're unprofessional, they don't have it together. And it's like, well, if you knew what was going on at the back end, you could understand that. It really just starts the relationship off on a bad note. 

Allyson Wharam: This reminds me, I had Elizabeth Matthews, who runs EMG consulting on not too long ago, and we talked a little bit about her interview process and things like that, more on their side of kind of vetting people. But one thing that really stood out to me was how their interview process kind of sets the tone for how the people enter their ABA organization.

Even just during that interview, taking time to pause and say, "take your time to answer that." Or, I guess how that relates to what you're talking about now is how you're communicating does set the tone for the rest of that relationship. And that [00:05:00] initial outreach in that follow up interview.

I've seen some posts recently about people who have been contacted by recruiters just don't seem to know anything about the organization or ABA in general. And that, that in and of itself tends to be a little bit, maybe it is a red flag, maybe it's not, but but is a turnoff for that person and sets the tone again for how personal and how that person is gonna be supported with that individualized support throughout.

Stephen Smith: Yeah, totally. I think another thing that maybe some people they assume incorrectly. A lot of BCBAs are nervous about starting too. And maybe they want to be able to ask questions, but they're like should I even ask that question? And so just having a really easy, straightforward, transparent, onboarding process and allowing that feedback, say, Hey, we went through this. How did that feel? What, do you have any questions on that? Actually asking for that feedback I think can [00:06:00] be very helpful. Setting up the right relationship.

April Smith: Yeah, definitely. I think that. That whole, "no question is a stupid question" or whatever, but really is that do we always feel that way?

And if we want our staff, to be able to ask for help and ask for clarification or ask questions later on down the road, when things really start to get tricky we want to be able to accept and be open to those questions from the very beginning and reinforce that, reinforce 'cause if we wanna see more of those questions and that open communication as we go, then we really wanna reinforce that.

More often. And for a BCBA coming into a job like that could be a red flag. Like how are your questions being accepted? And how are they being answered? Or if they don't have the answer, are they letting you know that and letting them know that, they'll get back to you?

Allyson Wharam: And do they get back to you?

April Smith: Do they get back to you? Yeah. So I [00:07:00] think there are a lot of pieces just in that communication that can give you a really good idea of what that work environment is going to be like. And especially small business owners that are maybe BCBA run as well.

Like you know why I'm hiring you, right? So that you can take some of these cases off my plate, 'cause I'm working 80 hours a week, so I totally get that there's a lot going on behind the scenes. But at the same time, if you say, Hey, I don't have the answer, I'll get back to you than actually getting back to them.

Even if it's I said I would get back to you in a couple days, I still don't have that answer, but I know it's important and I am working on it. Just being honest I think is really important.

Allyson Wharam: Yeah, absolutely. I would love to hear your perspectives on the caseload size, billable hours, that sort of more of the numbers, but the numbers that actually translate into what that work environment looks like. I see a lot of talk both on the student analyst side, but also the business owner side of [00:08:00] how sometimes new BCBAs don't understand how some of those hours requirements maybe look okay on paper.

And that really high salary looks great on paper, but what does that translate to that work life? And how does that break down? 

April Smith: Yeah. There's no cookie cutter answer per se. So it would be really that communication, asking questions at the beginning. So you may come in and you may have you're told that you're gonna have a certain caseload. And so asking questions about the cases, the general, intensity of the cases and the hours per case, because it takes more than just looking at how many cases do I have? You have to look like the intensity you have to look at how often are you going to be, see, seeing each learner per week. How long are those sessions? How many techs are on case? Are you gonna have student analysts under you?

What are the expectations [00:09:00] outside of the billables, right? If it's in home, what's the drive time? Are you gonna expect me to get the reauth or assessment done in the six to eight hours, or you're gonna allow and pay me for time outside of that?

And what is the policy on the hours recommended. Am I gonna have total freedom to clinically recommend the amount of hours that I feel are necessary per learner? Or do I have a certain quota that I have to fit in on? And then, I don't know as far as pay, I don't, I think that Stephen if you'll take that one 'cause I know that you have a lot to say about like employee versus contractor and then what the, pay even looks like, right?

Stephen Smith: Yeah. As far as hours, what we typically see, and again, there is no cookie cutter, so it's not like I can say this as absolute certain, but typically what most companies are looking for is somewhere [00:10:00] around that 200 to 250 hours per week underneath that BCBA. And assuming you're doing 10 to 20% depending on the case, so we're looking at 20, 25 hours, somewhere around there, maybe 30 hours of billable time.

April Smith: Then you have parent training, the family support.

Stephen Smith: Yeah. So you're assuming that goes under the 20%.

April Smith: Okay. 

Stephen Smith: Right. Because, and we can get into the ethics on this, but you have some insurance companies that allow for 10% and then others that allow for 20% and funders allow for one parent meeting a month and others allow for 10% parent training. And so you have to juggle we're only allowed to provide one hour of parent training. Are we doing the rest for free? How are we going to handle that? And I'm not going to tell anyone how to do that.

Because I totally get that there are financial issues underneath this. So that's something that they have to [00:11:00] determine themselves, but from what I understand, the board is quite clear on this, that you cannot make a clinical decision based on the funder, right? It's based on the needs of the child.

So you have that and how do you handle that? That's a difficult question to answer, right? Especially if your funders are essentially throwing the mandate out the window because their rates are so low that if you take those cases, you're losing money. And so how do you handle that?

I talk to BCBAs all the time that will not terminate a contract, even though I'm telling them, you really should terminate this contract because they're okay with subsidizing one funder with another, right? Because what's more important to them is not the profit. It's providing as much care as I possibly can.

And while I totally understand that and appreciate that, you're putting that burden on your staff, right? Maybe you can't pay them as much. Maybe you can't [00:12:00] train them as much. Maybe you can't offer them two weeks of vacation. Maybe you can only offer them one week, right?

So these are things that, while again, best of intentions, somebody has to pay for that, right? And so these are just important things to consider as you're building out your practice. I'm not saying that you can't do it, but at least go in with eyes wide open, right?

Just go in. Okay. I know that this is something that I need to take care of. I know that I'm going to accept this funder, but can do this based on the other funders that I have and just...

April Smith: What about like the BCBA in the job who's the red flags for them looking for the job as far as their pay?

Stephen Smith: Yeah. 

April Smith: And whether they're employee or contractor and stuff like that. 

Stephen Smith: Right. 

April Smith: So can you tell more about that? 

Stephen Smith: I mean, you shouldn't be a contractor in my opinion. This is probably the most hate I get on social media. I don't get much hate, but this is one where people will still just randomly send me a message on Facebook or LinkedIn and say, you're wrong [00:13:00] about this, Stephen.

I know I can hire contractors. Great. That's fine. You do you. I've talked to, I don't know, 10 attorneys on this, and when I describe what a BCBA is doing in an ABA company. There's one that gets everyone and it's key aspects of the company, and I don't know of any other position that is more key to an ABA company.

You can't even credential without a BCBA. Like you, you can't even start services without a BCBA. The pushback I will get on that is " I'm the key person." They're not the key person. Oh. Oh, okay. So if you have 50 cases and two of your BCBAs quit, how's that gonna work?

Are they key now or are you still the only key person? That's one thing that I get a lot of pushback.

So I do not believe that you can be a contractor in an ABA company. Even if you're just working part-time, you're a part-time employee, you're not a contractor.

And then [00:14:00] what comes with that. Required training is paid. Drive time is paid. There are certain things that you will be getting paid for that you wouldn't get paid as a contractor.

April Smith: And that's why a lot of times if you do get offered a job as a contractor or you're at a higher hourly rate, then you know you might be a contractor because there are things that the employer doesn't have to pay if you're a contractor. And so that makes it a little cheaper for them to be able to pay you a higher rate. But they're not going to be taking out your taxes, they're not gonna be doing workers' comp and drive time.

Stephen Smith: Yeah. There, there can be things that...

Allyson Wharam: Taxes general. Yeah. I still see every once in a while ABA companies that are still hiring RBT's as contractors. And not only is the IRS very clear on that, but the board also clear on that as well. Yeah, I think that's an important thing to bring up.

There has been more clarity recently too, I can't remember what it's called, but the checklist [00:15:00] basically to go through and determine if someone can be an independent contractor. If you really ask yourself questions around training on your standard operating procedures, those sorts of things. Of course there's a line with any independent contractor, they have to understand your business, but training them on how to do something, for example, like you really can't do that for a contractor. Yeah, no, that's, thank you for bringing that up.

There is something I wanted to touch on too about. The ethics, the legality, all of those things. And just outside of the ethics per the board, like your own sort of morals and values and what you're wanting. And sometimes those things can be at odds, but I would say from experience too. Part of the reason I didn't continue on with the ABA company I worked at when I was getting my hours, is the way they treated case supervision at that point was like per the minimum Medicaid requirements, which was to go out once every three months.

So you would have a brand new technician and still the norm was to go out one time every three months to see a [00:16:00] client. And I think that's just, obviously, that's extreme. But even if we're floating around that 5 to 10 to 15 or 20% to your point, looking at do we have the flexibility to meet what that client needs, but also what that staff member that's with the client needs.

Because if they're not getting support, you might see more turnover in terms of the staff side of things. And that, is what I was thinking as well as you're talking about. Listing out all of the responsibilities. Do you have student analysts? All of that. But even within that, really digging deeper.

If you have student analysts, there's a big difference in having a student analyst when you have an infrastructure and a program where you maybe have a coordinator who's helping you to facilitate that and you have resources and things like that. Or for technicians, what does the training look like?

And if onboarding training is really solid, does that decrease the intensity that I need to potentially, at least in the short term, does it help to offload a little bit of that burden of I'm not having to train every [00:17:00] single skill from scratch. And so seeing those things as well as part of the bigger picture, it's not as simple as, what is this number? Or do I do this or do I not do this? What are the systems that support that?

Stephen Smith: Yeah. I think when we did our, "I Hate My Job" series, that was something that we heard all the time, which is it's very sad. What kind of care is this child and this family receiving when tech or the BCBA doesn't even know each other's names, right? Are we really kidding ourselves to thinking that this is high quality, best practices?

I just think that's unrealistic and it, and we're not being honest with ourselves. After doing those, we probably did way more social media than I would probably what, 20 hours of going through Reddit and TikTok and before going into that, I was thinking, okay, this was all on the owners.

They have to provide a safe working environment. They have to allow for self advocation, things like this. And [00:18:00] then after that I was like, wow, there's so much room for techs and BCBAs, not owners, to lead this conversation and say, I am not going to take another case on unless I meet my tech before I start allowing them to go in the home by themselves. Crazy, right? So things like this, you have to draw your own line in the sand. Your own morals and values have to come into this.

What is okay for you may not be okay for somebody else, and that's okay. But you need to know that line because unfortunately many of these practices are going to push you into doing something inadvertently, maybe? But they're going to, and so you have to have that line.

Where, with utmost confidence, I don't cross this line. This is where I stop.

April Smith: And what's your plan? What's your plan For what? Yes. What can I do? Knowing that ahead of time maybe even questions that you ask yourself [00:19:00] to check in with yourself, when you start to feel something's not quite right and take a step back and figure.

Stephen Smith: Role play this with a friend, right?

How is this conversation gonna go? What are your expectations from this? And what happens if you don't get those answers?

April Smith: And I will say too, I think that it's super important to know how to approach conversations too. We're not coming in with " this is my way."

Cause sometimes when we're learning a new skill, like advocating for ourselves, we can come in a little too strong. But I think just, putting yourself in the other's person's position and, if I were them, how would I want this presented to me?

Problem solve a little bit on your own and come with some suggestions as well. Totally. You may be way off base, but at least you're showing that you're putting some effort into it. And because I know sometimes business owners and leaders in the company can hear as complaining.

And so helping them to see this isn't just venting or empty complaining. This is a concern that I have and I would like to have a conversation about [00:20:00] this and here are some ideas I have to back this up.

Stephen Smith: Yeah. And if I were going to pick whether I stay silent or I get a 60% on my communication skills. I'd much rather that 60% score, right? Yeah, I agree. It's really important that we speak up and I think that's a huge issue in this field. Most of us are gonna be working with kids. A lot of these kids, they cannot advocate for themselves or they have a difficult time.

And we're working with a very vulnerable population and we have to be there. That's why we're there, right? To provide a place for them to develop safely. And so if we can't do that for ourselves... We talked about this on our podcast, but I can also appreciate I am the breadwinner for my family.

You're expecting me to quit my job and now I'm gonna go without pay for maybe six weeks or more. I totally can appreciate that. I'm not saying this is easy, but we have to start having these conversations.

Allyson Wharam: Yeah, for sure. And even racial implications of [00:21:00] if a certain minority group is seen as combative or, stereotypes and things like that of you can exhibit this exact same behavior and then how that's perceived by your employer. It could be totally different. So how safe is it to do that?

We had a really great discussion on your podcast about self-advocacy and I think one thing that's coming up here too that I'm thinking about is just being really strategic in that discernment of self-advocacy. To your point, knowing where your lines are, your non-negotiables, and then within that, it doesn't need to be perfect right off the bat.

You're not gonna change a system within a day. And so figuring out where, like you said, where is that absolute line of I cannot deliver ethical services at all if this isn't done. And then what is much less than ideal, but we can shape this over time because we are dealing with the system. If you change one thing, it tends to change many other things.

That discussion we had as well. There might be certain reasons why things are set up the way that they are. So coming in with curiosity and asking [00:22:00] about that and trying to understand that. But really, I think about it when I coach in classrooms, for example, you go in and you might notice 50 different things, little things that need to be changed.

You're not gonna change 50 things at one time. And so it really takes prioritizing, figuring out what the most important things are and what can be let go initially. And then within that it's shaping and looking at what is the next piece of progress. And so I really think about it as are you making progress?

Is that change happening at all? Not is it perfect.

Stephen Smith: Totally. Yeah. Yes. Agree.

Allyson Wharam: Are there any other big red flags that you wanted to touch on?

April Smith: Training's a big one that all employees have a right to be trained minimally at the basics of their job. But being in the field that we're in where, we need continued education and techs also are going to be in that boat soon.

But even without that from the board saying that we [00:23:00] need that continuing education, just the field that we're in and our growing field and the individuals that we work with, they vary, and being able to have access to training is really important. And figuring out like what that looks like for your company, if you are, if you're looking for a job, that would be a very important question to ask.

If you're mid job and you're realizing, hold on a minute, I really wish I could access more training, whether it be about policies and procedures within the company, whether it be about, how to handle certain behaviors or teach new skills or perform an assessment, whatever it may be.

Being able to first know I wanna validate that training is super important and that we don't all come in the field knowing everything and, you could go past your board the first time and have had a really great supervision experience and still have so much room to grow.

And so I think I just want to normalize that as well. But then [00:24:00] just yeah, just having those, at minimal, the conversation about training. Because in a lot of cases, a lot of staff are undertrained and so I think that's something that we could do better at.

Stephen Smith: Yeah. I think ask what does that look like? 'cause hey, do you provide training? True? Yeah, of course we provide training, right?

April Smith: How often, what kind am I reimbursed for that? Am I paid for that? Correct.

Stephen Smith: What does that look like? What if I feel that I don't have enough understanding in this area? But you disagree... how do I still get that training? And that kind of goes along with a supervision piece too, and I'm sure that you deal with this a lot is, what if you get your caseload and whether you're new to the company or you're just getting new cases within like your career. At that company.

And what happens if you have a learner who you're like, I have never experienced this before. I don't know anything about this, or I've read about it and studied about it, but I've never really, worked with a learner with this description before.

And so how am I going to [00:25:00] get training on that? Especially if you're one of the first BCBAs, you're being hired for a startup. That would be a question I would ask. I think startups could be a great opportunity, but that is one of the drawbacks, not having a large community within your company.

So who can I reach out to in that situation? 

Allyson Wharam: For sure. Those training, the training being thinking of that as front loading, but also what are the mentorship pieces and that ongoing support and that ongoing evaluation and all of that goes into that. I think that's absolutely key and I appreciate that you were talking about that BCBA credential or that RBT credential, all of that.

Those are all entry level sort of qualifications in that there's a minimum that it's ensuring, but within that there's so much variability based on what that person has had exposure to. So I would love to flip this same side, specifically the training piece and look at that for an ABA business.

Are there any sort of training [00:26:00] setups or ways that you have seen ABA companies set up training that have been particularly successful?

Stephen Smith: They could buy ours. No. So we used an RBT checklist that like our focus was more on the RBT side of things, right? We felt if we could support our techs. Then the company was in a good place.

April Smith: Right. And then through that journey, we realized the BCBAs need just as much support.

Stephen Smith: Yes. Yes. And so we had a list like that we provided our BCBAs and our techs that they owned. They were the owners of their own list. And then when they felt they needed more support in an area, they could go to their supervisor. And we did have a training system where the supervisors had like a checklist that they could check off in order to provide that training.

And then we had our lead BCBA, which was overseeing that entire thing. And so what we've done here recently is sales pitch, but we've created this [00:27:00] online version. And we're about to release these new growth pass system. We currently have a growth pass system in place, which provides transparent wage increases.

A kind of choose your own adventure on your journey in this field. But we're gamifying it a little bit more. We hope to have that done, before the end of the summer, which we're really excited about. But, just having a system in place, right? Whatever system you use, what does the onboarding look like?

And my opinion, it needs to be as intensive as the job itself, because we want them to understand what is needed of them in that onboarding period. What trainings they need to get, how much time they have, and where they can get feedback. And then ongoing training.

 We had a portion for the supervisor to recommend trainings and then a section for the techs or the supervisor, [00:28:00] like the BCBA to self-advocate. Like what trainings do they feel they need? What areas do they feel they could improve on?

April Smith: We also did a self-assessment for those who came into our agency with some experience and so that they could identify their strengths and weaknesses or even things that they feel like they've had a lot of experience in and things that they haven't come across yet.

And then those who came in as especially the techs who came in, completely fresh, new to ABA, then we started from the beginning, but we did an assessment, we did a self-assessment, and then we also as did a competency assessment for all staff coming in just to get a baseline to see where they're at.

Do you have your certification, you have all of the things that you need, your degrees and all of that. But okay, let's see where you're at for the entry into our company from what we're looking at and what we need to see.

But yeah, I'm really excited about the growth path because I think it's going to really put a system in place so [00:29:00] that it makes it just part of the community and the culture within the job because knowing that you need training, asking for training, following through with training, there's so many pieces that, that in itself could be overwhelmed, especially if you're already overwhelmed with your caseload and your hours and you need these trainings, but they're just sitting here on your to-do list.

But this is going to help bring those to the front a little bit and motivate a little bit more to get those.

Stephen Smith: Yeah. And then obviously just considering that training is not free. There is a cost again, involved and, okay, so we need to provide high quality, affordable training. I think that's important.

And 'cause again I personally don't wanna have ABA companies have to decide do I train this person or do I get those five extra billable hours? That really is a terrible situation I feel that you would want to be in, right?

Allyson Wharam: What I love about this, and it's similar to how we've thought about how we're building out our offers as [00:30:00] well, is that to our conversation on your podcast, you don't know where you're going if you don't have something to self-assess against. And so I love how you're framing this also as a tool for self-advocacy, again to say I feel like I am not doing as well on this. And really getting them to think about their own training and think about their own skills in that way, I think is really valuable. And we've done something a little bit similar to, with like supervision as well, of having a kind of a benchmark baseline self-assessment that then the supervisor can go and verify those skills based on what they've said.

And then again, having those actual skill checks and training, and it's part of this ecosystem, I think is what's unique about what we're both building. A lot of other training providers that are out there, training is kind of seen as this standalone. So here is this one hour cu or here is this module, here is this resource.

And that is fabulous, but it makes it really difficult when you're in the flow of work [00:31:00] and those things aren't necessarily integrated into that. Maybe you're going to a totally different place to get this training versus that training or something for your RBT versus your BCBAs and things like that.

And so I think business owners, the more that they can think about training as this kind of ecosystem that is also more than just this front loading piece, but is this ongoing evaluation and ongoing self-assessment and ongoing collaboration I think that just moves the whole field forward. So I'm excited to see how your platform builds and grows.

In terms of red flags and thinking about kind of the flip side of them or maybe we just talk about it in general. Just some things to think about on the business owner side as they're setting up their policies, their procedures, their systems.

What are some of the biggest things to consider if you're starting an a BI business?

Stephen Smith: I think you mentioned it April, but most people don't wanna work for a startup. So if you're like you're fumbling through a Jo an interviewing, you don't have any policies you don't have an offer [00:32:00] letter people will notice these things. And so I think it's really important, again, we've done many podcasts on this, but what should you have in place before you start hiring, before you start taking on clients?

And so you want to go into that confident, you want to go into it knowing that you have the things in place to answer the questions. And if you can't answer the question, you have the thing in place on how to say that, and then how to get that information. I just think it's really important.

The turnover is crazy high. I think it's like with larger companies it's around a 100% I think, and with smaller companies it's around 65 to 70%. So take a few months before starting, or if you find you do have a high turnover, take some time and evaluate your onboarding system to see if you can do this a little bit better.

April Smith: And I think too, yes, to everything [00:33:00] you said. 

Stephen Smith: Mm-hmm. 

April Smith: And it doesn't have to be perfect. Yeah. These policies and procedures and their, like how you run your business, how you hire, they're going to evolve and change and grow as you grow. As a company. And I think they're back to communication, explaining to new hires being transparent, you are my first BCBA I'm hiring. I would love if you can help, come up with making some of these policies and procedures our own and being transparent because you know what, it might not be for every BCBA, not everybody wants to be.

Or maybe they're like if I wanted to do this, I would've started my own company. I don't want that. And that's okay. And I think trying not to make things match and fit in the beginning too is important as well. But yes, starting off with the basic policies and procedures, if nothing else, just in your own common language of what the expectations are.

And then, like we've said before, we have handbooks in and procedures been, you don't even have to [00:34:00] buy them. You can go on our website and there's a list of all the things that are included in ours. That could be a good starting point. And it is something that is important that you do run your policies and procedures by an HR expert or an attorney, someone to make sure. 'Cause there are certain things that you need to know for your state that are, that you could get you in trouble if you don't do some things the right way. So when I say don't worry about being perfect I mean just that. You don't have to get caught up into the wording, does it look nice? Is it pretty? Do I have everything that I need to have? That's not the case. There are basics that you really do need to make sure that you're covering. Yeah. And but then that communication.

Stephen Smith: Yeah. And having that vision that why am I doing this? What are my values? Again, you should have your own, what do I never want to see in this company? Yes. What is really important? How do I want this to look and feel? How do I want my [00:35:00] clients treated? How do I want my staff treated? Having a really good vision of what that looks like is very important.

'Cause this gets really difficult. We both not, like I would wake up in the middle of the night, like at three in the morning, wake April up and say, eh, do we get that? Did we get that check? Or did we do that thing? It gets very stressful. So having those values and that why really solidified in your mind and on paper, is going to get you through those hard times.

April Smith: And check back in with them. Absolutely. Yeah. Don't just write your mission and your value and set it to side. Put it somewhere where you're gonna see it and put it within. I always say put a check in within your calendar, especially in the beginning, like maybe even once a day, but especially once a week.

And set five minutes to check in with yourself, and ask it. Go through your own values. Am I doing this? And if not , why not? Is there a barrier there? Maybe I got it wrong and I wanna shift my value a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. But it's hard work to start a company and it's hard work to start an ABA [00:36:00] practice.

It does take thought and planning ahead of time. It's not something that you can jump into. And that's for knowing your mission, knowing your values, but also financially. Knowing that okay, to be able to make this vision happen and be able, like you said, what are the things that I want in place?

What are the things I don't wanna happen within my company? Like training example. Money, we have to pay for that, so how are we going to afford that? Where's the money gonna come from? What are the rates? So there's a lot, there's a lot of planning ahead of time, for sure.

Stephen Smith: This is coming from two people that did jump in and just do it with a hundred percent, I guess we could do it. And so just knowing like we made all the mistakes. And so hopefully anyone listening to this can avoid some of those mistakes.

And I just think going back to that vision and just understanding that you are a health provider. You are providing a medical, service whether you want to or not. [00:37:00] If you're accepting private health insurance or Medicaid, you have to follow their requirements, and that means you have to follow privacy law in your state. You have to follow hipaa, you have to follow federal laws as far as employment, and, like the no surprises act.

Right? There's so much here that we have talked for about 140 hours on our podcast on this topic. There is no end to the things that you need to have in place, which is why we are still employed. And so this is just something, again, going back to the handbooks, these are living documents in my opinion.

They're never, it's not oh, I finished this novel and now I'm done and I can go publish it. It doesn't work this way. You're constantly going to be fine tuning this and changing it as your company learns and grows and shifts. I would recommend don't look at this as it's gonna be perfect someday, it's going [00:38:00] to be more like what we do someday. I think that would be the way to look at it.

Allyson Wharam: You brought up a number of great points that I just wanna echo. And the first is just being really discerning, about what is, again, those negotiables and non-negotiables, what do you have to have in place? HIPAA is a non-negotiable. You have to have that in place. But again, things don't need to be perfect.

So while, HIPAA is an exception to that but when we're talking about, again, like your policies and procedures, you need policies and procedures, but do they have to be. Pretty and beautiful. And in the final form that they're gonna be in, they're never gonna be in the final form. And so much of being a business owner is also knowing when to just take that leap and move forward and put something out into the world.

Because if you do strive for perfection all the time, you're never gonna get there because it's just an ever evolving thing. And so I think that's just a great piece of guidance is really figuring out what you have to do. What are those non-negotiables and [00:39:00] what can you be a little bit more flexible on and watch that kind of evolve.

Even HIPAA for example, what that looks like in practice is going to change also for your organization as you grow and you scale and the policies and the procedures that you put in place. You might get by with a simple Google Doc at the beginning, and then over time you might need something a lot more robust and a better way to distribute and keep track of all of those things.

You wanna set your systems up for success so they can scale and grow with you, but you don't need to invent everything in its most perfect form from the very beginning.

Stephen Smith: Yeah, totally. Focus on the things that you need to focus on. Does your website have to be perfect and everything? And the buttons in the right place, the buttons will never be in the right place. This comes from someone who builds websites.

The buttons will always be in the wrong. It's not gonna be completely the right font, and it's not gonna be the perfect wording. Like these things always change, but if you're stuck for six months worrying about the perfect website and you're losing the plot. it's really [00:40:00] important that I do have to focus on credentialing, right?

I, that's really important. 'Cause this is a huge bottleneck. I do have to have an employee handbook whether I want to or not. So these are just, there, there are certain priorities and then we can focus on those things. And I would also highly recommend for anybody starting. What does delegation look like?

Again, coming from a perfectionist and a control freak. How are you going to let some of those things go? How much money do I have to have in my account before I'm gonna hire an admin person? How much money am I gonna have in my account? Or how many hours am I gonna have for billables before I hire that tech?

When am I going to offload billing myself? When am I gonna hire that HR person? Having some kind of idea on what that looks like so that you can maintain your sanity. Some people well work 80, 90 hours a week and they get stuck and we've, [00:41:00] I think there are three people that we're talking to right now last week.

I don't have enough time to train anybody, Stephen, what are you even talking? We don't want to get there. And I understand that there are probably a lot of you out there. I am struggling with that myself, with marketing and admin. I totally understand it, but you can't stay here forever, right?

You can, you're not going to give your staff the training that they need. You're not going to give your clients the care that they need. If you're working 80 hours a week, you just it's not a viable path forever. 

Allyson Wharam: One think one thing that comes up a lot just as business owners, like you said, is the financial side. You have the willingness to relinquish control, which is very real because most of us, I think, start a business in part because we wanna build something really incredible that is maybe what we in some cases saw missing in other areas.

So it feels very close and you wanna do things the right way. Being able to put that in somebody else's hands is a really difficult task. But then you [00:42:00] also have just the logistical financial side of it, of I need this extra help, but my time is not freed up to train this person. And also maybe I don't have the funds yet to pay this person really just for their work, especially in a newer company. How do you think about that or talk about that balance to newer business owners or, and I don't think this is actually a new business owner problem, it's more of a as you start to scale and grow and get more established. So how think about that?

Stephen Smith: ...like two or three years in and you're realizing, okay, I'm no longer a startup anymore. I thought it was gonna get easier, but me bringing on this BCBA actually made it harder because I assumed that they were gonna be mini me. But I'm realizing that they need a lot of training and that's great that you've realized that.

If you could have, something we didn't do, was talk to a financial advisor and say, okay, when we get to this amount, then I can do this. Having those benchmarks in place. For me, there's never [00:43:00] enough money. That's just how I'm built. Probably childhood trauma, who cares, right?

But so but having somebody on the outside look at this, especially if it's a married couple or partners doing this, I can get very sensitive and there's a lot fights. What can I spend? Who could spend it? So having somebody on the outside that can say, okay, it's time, right? You have to do this.

It can be done again, as long as a hundred percent of your rates are not losing money on them, right? So you've selected some funders where you can make a profit and you have the systems in place, you have effective training. All of this can be done.

And so just talk to a financial advisor, put those benchmarks in place. And then stick to those benchmarks. 'Cause again, if you don't have that vision, it's gonna get very difficult. And so what we find often is you're four years in, three years in, you're still working 85, 90 [00:44:00] hours a week. And, I gotta sell this thing.

And so they're assuming, oh, I've got lots of billable hours, I should get a decent price on this. But the company buying this says, wait a second, I'm gonna have to hire three BCBAs to take over your one position. This isn't a viable company right now. You wind up with I don't know, a hundred thousand dollars and you're like, what did I just do?

I spent four years and I built nothing. So even if you're looking at it to sell it, eventually you have to have these benchmarks and systems in place and have that vision, right? Where, okay, this is where I go. What if something happens, then we do this instead. This is really important to have some visibility.

April Smith: I think for those who might have kind of an all or nothing perspective, like I have, is, it doesn't necessarily mean that I need to have a full salary for a full admin staff or a full salary for a clinical director. Like benchmarks for, [00:45:00] five, five hours a week for a virtual assistant to help me do the things.

And a lot of times I hear, but ABA is such a very specific field, nobody could learn. We can teach anybody anything. Yeah. And so that's our superpower. As you start to figure out how you're doing things, video yourself, even if you're not gonna share them right away, and we've talked about this before.

We talked about this when you were on our podcast and, you know that could be a simple way to get started in the beginning so you don't get overwhelmed later is just, heck, that's where AI would be great, is talk in and say, okay, I need you to make this. I'm gonna talk through my process out loud.

I need you to put this into a format that someone else could follow. And you don't even have to make it perfect and do anything with it. You just file it away. And then when you get to that first benchmark where you could hire a virtual assistant for five hours, then that person could start going through those processes and making them more.

It's little tiny steps. We don't have to go straight to a full salary.

Stephen Smith: No. And even maybe you're not ready for the [00:46:00] virtual assistant. How can we automate this? What are the things that, do we actually have to walk a person through the entire intake or is there some of these processes that we feel confident that they can do independently so that, we can do other things?

There are lots of things that can be automated. A lot of people that we work with are still using paper and pencil session notes. I don't know why you're doing that. Please stop doing it. Get a practice management software so you can just click and submit your claims.

Yeah, they're gonna charge you a little bit of money and that's fine. We can talk about that later. But if it saves you five hours a week, what can you do with that time? Maybe you're just taking five hours for yourself. Let alone billing more. But at least you're getting some of your life back.

And so just take it a little chunks. What can we automate? What are the things that you absolutely hate that we can remove from your list? 

Allyson Wharam: Yeah. Sustainability is a huge piece of that. If you're burning out, it's not gonna benefit anyone. [00:47:00] But yeah, I totally agree on all of the fronts. And technology can be a great first hire of sorts to take some of that time off your plate. I wonder if, because we're so used to the billable hour in particular, admin staff seem to be a particularly difficult hire because you're not seeing, you're not able to bill for their time, so you're not seeing that direct return.

But at the same time, if you have that person in place first, I wonder if then that creates an easier system to then. When you do onboard a BCBA or additional clinical staff, that helps with that. I think these are things that probably feel really exclusive to ABA businesses, but are part of the growing pains of every business out there.

Not just ABA businesses.

Stephen Smith: Yeah. A lot of ABA companies, you'll get a really amazing RBT, but they don't, maybe they don't want to be an RBT, but they don't want to be a BCBA forever. Or they don't want to be a RBT forever, but they don't want to be at BCBA either. So bring them on as a hybrid, right?

Who better to do [00:48:00] intakes than a really amazing RBT, right? They can help the client navigate that insurance process. And so you don't have to and you can entrust this into someone that you already trust your kids with. So I think that there are many things that you can do, and like you said, five hours a week. Just have them as a hybrid.

I think that there are a lot of really outside of the box things that you can do to decrease the amount of time that you're spending doing it. But hey, if you love it, great, but I'm going to assume, eventually, most people wanna sell their practice.

Whether that's 30 years from now, or it's five years from now. I'm working with somebody, they said, I just want to paint. I'm done. I love my job and I just want to paint. So how do we get you there, right? How do we get you so that you can stop doing this? And you can paint. You have to be thinking about what does life look like after ABA?

And everybody has their own vision, right? Some people it's [00:49:00] after ABA, you're gonna have to drag my body out of this office. And then other people are like, yeah, I wanna, I want to be on an island, drinking a margarita. And everybody's got a little bit of a different life after this.

And so knowing that is gonna be very helpful.

Allyson Wharam: Thank you guys so much for being here. I could keep talking about this for a really long time, but I wanna be mindful of your time and so as we're closing out, I would love to hear there's anything else that you wanted to touch on in terms of either the topics we covered or anything else you just wanted to share during this time.

April Smith: Yeah, I always kind of have a, a challenge or call to action, if you will for those of you out there, whether you're a BCBA, a student BCBA, an RBT, a business owner, whomever you're on this, in this space, I urge you to reach out to someone in your community who may not work in your company, may work in a different company, or may have a different way that they support our community and [00:50:00] reach out.

Start a conversation, see how you can help. Because the more that we all work together, the more that we all reach out, especially within our communities, the less alone we feel and the easier it is to carry our burden so that we can ultimately provide the most quality of care to the individuals that we serve.

Stephen Smith: The last thing I'll say is if you are feeling burnt out, if you do find yourself working way more hours than you would like, feel free to reach out. Yeah. 3 Pie Squared. You can get a free consult, find a mentor. There are lots of amazing mentors out there that help with this, but talk to somebody and start to knock this down so maybe you can gain some of your life back.

April Smith: Yeah. I've had a lot of really amazing conversations over the last couple of months. The more that we're realizing that this overwhelm is just something that's not just for one person. Every, like so many of us are feeling overwhelmed, our stories are [00:51:00] different. I think that's a part of the reaching out and collaborating with others is because we start to hear each other's stories and we realize we're not alone.

Yeah. And so I've had a lot of conversations and not helping business owners work through the overwhelm and try to figure out, 'cause when you're thick in the overwhelm, it's hard to see your next step. So definitely whether you reach out to us or you reach out to someone, a colleague or someone in your community, I think that's super important.

Stephen Smith: Yeah. I think that, we talked a lot about negative stuff here, right? Yeah. A lot of warnings and stuff like this, but there are a lot of amazing BCBAs that we work with every day. They are balancing that work life balance. They're not stuck in that 80 hour cycle anymore. This can be done ethically and sustainably and you can have a real life outside of it.

If you're feeling overwhelmed and stuck, just talk to somebody. There are a lot of us out here that are trying to help and yeah. I wish you the best.

Allyson Wharam: Yeah. Thank you for saying that. Yes, there are green flags. There good things. [00:52:00] There are, you know, I love your point about community being a big piece of that, whether it's a formal sort of business arrangement or just a colleague that reach out to, to talk to. So thank you for sharing that.

Very last thing. Where can people find you if they wanna reach out.

Stephen Smith: So "3 Pie Squared" you'll see the number 3. Yeah. Or three. It works both ways. Yeah. Both ways. And then PIE Squared. So it's a little tricky. 3piesquared.com. Yeah. You can Google it. It'll come up. And you can also check us out on the "ABA Business Leaders Podcast."

ABA Business Leaders Facebook. Yep. LinkedIn. All, I think we're on TikTok again, so who, yeah. Just look up 3 Pie Squared.

Allyson Wharam: Yeah.

Stephen Smith: You'll find us.

April Smith: Or ABA Business Leaders. Yeah. Both of those will lead you to us. Yeah.

Allyson Wharam: Awesome. Well, Thank you so much for being here. It was great to have you.

April Smith: Thank you so much for having us.

Allyson Wharam: Thank you so much for listening to In the Field, the ABA Podcast. Don't forget to visit our website at www.sidekicklearning.net [00:53:00] for more resources, our comprehensive fieldwork supervision curriculum, and continuing education opportunities. If you enjoyed today's episode, please consider subscribing to our podcast.

And sharing it with your colleagues and friends in the ABA community. Your support helps us to reach and empower more professionals in our field. Join me next week to continue to explore innovative practices and foster quality supervision in ABA.