Building a Referral Network That Actually Works: ABA Marketing and Care Collaboration with Matt Harrington

In this episode of In the Field: The ABA Podcast, I sit down with Matt Harrington, BCBA® and founder of Provider Spark, the Behaviorist Book Club, and ABA Digital Marketing to talk about marketing through a behavioral lens. Matt brings a rare combination of clinical depth and marketing expertise, and this conversation is packed with practical strategy for ABA providers at every stage of growth.

We cover what it really means to market ethically as an ABA provider, why quality and trust are the foundation of sustainable growth, and how the same behavioral principles that guide effective treatment can be applied to building referral networks and lasting care collaboration. 

Key Topics:

Marketing Starts with Quality: Why word of mouth is the foundation of any sustainable ABA business and how delivering consistent wins for caregivers drives both retention and referrals.

Speed to Lead and Say-Do Correspondence: Response time to new inquiries is a behavioral concept and what it signals to families about your trustworthiness as a provider matters more than most providers realize.

Building a Referral Network: How to identify the right referral partners, get in front of them with enough volume to generate replies, and nurture those relationships into consistent referral sources.

Care Collaboration as the Long Game: Why investing in care collaboration across your caseload compounds into referral relationships that no ad spend can replicate.

Niche Clarity and Differentiation: Being the best provider for a specific client profile is more compelling and more ethical than saying yes to everyone.

Profit as a Tool for Impact: A reframe for clinicians who feel uncomfortable with the business side. Profitability is what allows you to scale your mission.

Key Takeaways:

• Quality is the foundation of all marketing. No strategy compensates for a service that does not deliver.
• Say-do correspondence applies to your intake process. Doing what you say you will do builds the trust that converts inquiries into long-term clients.
• Care collaboration is marketing in its most authentic form. When you collaborate well clinically, referrals follow naturally.
• Niche clarity makes your pitch more compelling and your services more effective.
• Profit enables impact. A sustainable business model allows you to reach more families and pay staff above market value.

Keywords:

ABA Marketing, ABA Business, Provider Relationships, Referral Network, Care Collaboration, BCBA® Business Development, ABA Intake Process, Say-Do Correspondence, Word of Mouth Marketing, Provider Spark, Behaviorist Book Club, Matt Harrington, ABA Differentiation, ABA Growth Strategy, ABA Digital Marketing

Connect with Matt Harrington:

LinkedIn: Matthew Harrington, BCBA®

Provider Spark: providerspark.com/grow

Behaviorist Book Club: behavioristbookclub.com

ABA Digital Marketing: abadigitalmarketing.com

Disclaimer:

BCBA®, BACB® [or any other BACB® trademark used] is/are registered to the Behavior Analytic Certification Board® BACB®. This website and products are not in any way sponsored by the BACB®.

All information and products are for educational purposes only. 

Transcript

Matt Harrington: [00:00:00] In a lot of ABA companies that speed to lead is quite a while, right? Anywhere from two days to a week, the longer the speed to lead, the lower probability that you're gonna end up contacting and connecting with that person because that person made a contract. They made a behavior. They expected to hear something. For every day that passes, the reinforcement value is weakened. Your say-do correspondence is lower. So the first thing is get to the people who contact you efficiently.

Allyson Wharam: Welcome everyone to another episode of In the Field. Today I am joined by my friend, Matt Harrington. I am excited to chat with him. He has been on here before, talking about reading research and staying up to date with the research as a clinician. So check out that episode. There's a lot of great nuggets for students and, and helping folks stay up to date. But today we're gonna be talking about something very different. We're going to be talking about [00:01:00] marketing and care collaboration, how to build those networks as a provider, no matter your size. So Matt, I'm excited to have you here. Welcome.

Matt Harrington: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk about the other half of my personality. So the research and clinical work is one half and then the marketing side is a whole different world.

Allyson Wharam: Yes. Yeah. And you have two things just as we frame this conversation, I'll let you share about them. One of them is, is it still under the umbrella of the Behaviorist Book Club?

Matt Harrington: Yeah, so the Behaviorist Book Club is the overarching brand and I assume you're talking about the ABA clubhouse where we host CEU events. It's a community for folks away from the chaos of social media. And that's the clinical side. So I'm hosting CEUs, I'm talking to presenters, I'm helping folks present on their new ideas. So it's a lot of fun to still be engaged with the clinical side, while also being connected to the business side, talking to business owners in the marketing world.

Allyson Wharam: Yeah, and you just launched something new called Provider Spark that we're going to be [00:02:00] talking about today, which I'm really excited about. So just to frame this conversation, marketing can sometimes feel a little bit nebulous, especially when you're branching that clinical and business side of things.

And so, just starting with a really, really broad question, like how do you think about marketing as an ABA provider or an ABA organization?

Matt Harrington: Marketing starts with quality. At the end of the day, uh, I actually think the best move you can make when it comes to marketing your ABA company is to make sure that after the purchase is made, quote unquote, right after the commitment of an initial assessment and a commitment of time, which is what we would classify as like the purchase for an ABA company, there's a reinforcer that quickly follows. Right. When you buy an ice cream cone, the reason you go back to that same ice cream place is because the immediate reinforcer of tasting the ice cream cone is really good. So in the same logic when we buy [00:03:00] ABA services, when a parent buys into services, it can feel like, oh, well we have to wait six months to a year to even get any type of a result or reinforcer and a great BCBA with solid caregiver training and great care collaboration can create those little wins along the way so that the parent is getting reinforced of that buying decision. And what that does is not only does it increase the amount of time that that parent is gonna be bought in across the long term, which of course helps the client and keeps them in services, hopefully making progress for a while. It also increases the likelihood that they're gonna turn around and tell somebody else. So at the very base level, if you don't have quality, all you're doing is doing your marketing, spending money on Google ads, everything you can to make a sale, and then they never see you again. A real ABA business is built on recurring word of mouth as its very base level. There's plenty to do on top of that, which we'll get into, but quality is number one.

Allyson Wharam: [00:04:00] Yeah, I think that's so important. One of the best praises that you can sing about someone's marketing is that it actually does what it says it's gonna do. So if you're talking about the quality of your services and the outcomes and things like that, are you actually able to deliver those things?

And then more to that, like you said, some quick wins 'cause that could be true, but if there is a six month wait list or it's really difficult to get in touch with someone to actually start that intake process, for example, then you're not contacting that reinforcement even in those kinda short things.

And so I'm curious from that perspective too, a provider that's doing this really well, what does that initial contact look like? Like you may even have a Google ad or something like that. Even better, you have word of mouth or referrals from, you know, other trusted partners.

But what does that look like in terms of that first contact when you see it done really well?

Matt Harrington: Yeah, I think it's actually experimental ABA concept of say-do correspondence, right. So at the very simplest, you need to be building trust. [00:05:00] Trust is built when language from the present matches with actions from the future and it is reminded, right. And that's the key also is that trust isn't built if the person forgets that they were promised something, right?

Trust is built when they were promised something. A reinforcer happens as aligned with past language and then they're reminded of that past language so that in the future they continue to expect that present language corresponds to future events. So, how does that relate to intake? Well, when somebody submits a form on a website, when they call a phone number, the implicit expectation for any business is that they'll get a response, right?

And that response will be timely. So in marketing, we call this speed to lead, which is the amount of time it takes from somebody to fill out a form to hear from your business.

In a lot of ABA companies that speed to lead is quite a while, right? Anywhere from two days to a week. The longer the speed to lead, the lower [00:06:00] probability that you're gonna end up contacting and connecting with that person because that person made a contract. They made a behavior. They expected to hear something. For every day that passes, the reinforcement value is weakened. Your say-do correspondence is lowered. So the first thing is get to the people who contact you efficiently.

Right. I know for a fact that there are ABA companies who hire somebody to sit at a front desk for $50,000 a year and answer the phone and call their leads back. And that may be completely unsustainable for a lot of small businesses and don't worry about replicating that, but get back to your leads in 24 hours. Get back to them with six hours, right? Once you establish that first contact, set up an expectation of the process, as well as timelines that are actually gonna happen. A big reason why folks do not complete a purchase, whether it be in general marketing, ABA marketing or whatever, it's going to be confusion, right? What happens next? [00:07:00] If I make this step, what comes after that? So, be very clear and upfront about thank you so much for contacting us. Let's make sure that you're a right fit for services. Looks like you are. Here's the next six weeks laid out and here's when I'm gonna contact you and then, actually contact them, right? So, throughout the intake process, it is say you're gonna do something, do it. Say you're gonna do the next thing, do it and continue to build trust and check-ins. Get to your leads fast and respond efficiently and do what you say is gonna increase your conversion rate by a significant margin.

Allyson Wharam: Yeah, this is reminding me too, different context, but Dominique Shorter-Taylor was on here talking about dissemination and social media, and she used the analogy of a handshake basically in that if someone extends their hand to you, you wanna reach back out and shake their hand. And when you're thinking about something as simple as that delay, that really changes it. I also like how you're talking about building that trust. Trust [00:08:00] can kind of seem like an intangible or sort of subjective thing, but those really concrete ways of building trust through saying that you're going to do something and then actually following through and reinforcing that.

So yeah, absolutely. One other thing I'm curious about related to some of this is if you see any differences related to how folks find an agency. So do you see differences in how that relationship starts off based on whether or not it came from maybe your referral of an existing provider or a doctor or just like, you know, seeing something on a billboard, for example.

Do you see differences there?

Matt Harrington: Absolutely. And you can actually equate it, uh, really interesting to things like influencer marketing on social media. So let's say there's an influencer. He has 500,000 followers. And that person has been telling stories about their life and attracting a natural following. People like to watch the [00:09:00] content. They're super interested. He builds trust with them by frequently posting and talking about things that he likes that provide value. So he's like slowly built up that like warm trust in the people who are watching him. And then he turns around and says by the way, this company reached out. I use their product.

I really like them. You guys should go check it out. There is no fancy sales pitch. There is no, there is no pipeline tracking. There's no magic. It is purely someone who somebody trusts, transferring that trust over to somebody else. In ABA, we call that fancy thing stimulus pairing, right?

It's branding. It's taking one really solid brand and attaching it to a company who purchased that brand trust. The person who goes to that website after having trusted the person who recommended them is gonna go to that website totally different with much less of a resistance to purchase because they've already [00:10:00] been like, oh, well, Joe likes it, so I probably will too. On the flip side of that, you take, uh, a Meta ad, right. So you're just scrolling Facebook and suddenly a random UGC, user generated content video. That's when people come in and are like, this coffee cup is so great, I used it, you should use it, blah, blah, blah. And you see this person you don't know recommending X, Y, Z product and you might click on it.

It might be an engaging video, but you probably won't. Because there is no trust, right? And if you do go to that website, you're gonna view that whole website with a lot more skepticism. Is the coffee cup really that good? Does it have good reviews? Does it do these things? So the buying pattern in that scenario is much longer, more cynical, not as much trust. The same thing happens in ABA. When you acquire caregivers, 'cause that's who you're really acquiring, and when you're marketing for ABA services, if you acquire them through trusted channels like referrals, uh, conversations from friends, staff recommendations, things [00:11:00] like that, they're already gonna come in much more warmed up.

That doesn't mean you can't sell them, but I would call them a warm lead, right? Somebody who they know they're looking for services, they know you're the right person, they have some trust built up and now they're, they're ready to go. That sale, quote unquote sale is probably gonna be easier versus you go to SEO or you go to meta ads or something like that, that sale is probably gonna be more challenging because there isn't that transfer of trust. Now it's not all, you know, rainbows and butterflies on referral coordination side and vice versa, right? Because with referrals, it's not like you could pay for 30,000 people to recommend your services, right? It's slower, it's more organic. And likewise with meta ads, you can pay for 30,000 impressions. So, there's a pro and con here. One isn't necessarily better than the other, but in terms of how somebody interacts with a website, with a sales process, when there is trust that is transferred from the referral source, that is gonna [00:12:00] significantly decrease the likelihood that they're gonna flop to another provider. The second you ask them for a document, they don't have yet.

Allyson Wharam: Yeah, and I imagine there's layers to that, like the influencer piece. You have your trusted influencer and then you have user generated content, but that's still a human. So while it's still not as warm as like someone that you have followed for years, there's still kind of like a human aspect to it versus just like, I just saw this flyer, you know, there's no real human interaction to it as well. So I'm sure there's kind of a range to, again, thinking about it in terms of pairing, what is that actual association there and how does that person then orient to you and your services, so yeah, that's interesting to think about it that way too. And the next thing I'm really curious about then is also then making those relationships with the providers and how do you build that network of trusted people and people that you also feel values aligned with. You don't wanna just cast the super wide net and reach out to anyone and everyone.

Matt Harrington: Yeah. One thing that really helped me [00:13:00] when I was stepping into ABA marketing is to look at what has worked outside in other industries and equate it to what works for us. So everyone talks about provider relationships. Everybody talks about like the brochure drop at the local pediatrician.

What's the equivalent in a digital product, right? Well, the equivalent is an affiliate. And so in general, what works when getting affiliates to, to get to your stuff? Well, they need to be trusted. They need to be trusted by their audience. So there's that trust transfer when you tell them to go to this other person. They need to be the right type of client, meaning the audience has to match and there has to be a win-win for everyone, right? Ideally a big win-win, right? So all the time you see like, oh, recommend my stuff, get 10%, recommend my stuff, get 20%. The people who are actually play affiliate games, they look at like big numbers, right? They want you know, 30, 50 more percent for their sales because they know that if [00:14:00] they're getting 50%, well they're gonna be motivated to give that out. So how does that relate to ABA and providers? Right. We're not gonna give kickbacks to pediatricians, obviously, for a number of different reasons. Well, essentially we wanna try to simulate as much of a reinforcer as a 50% kickback by talking about what that provider actually wants or needs for their clients. And you mentioned, how do you link it back to getting with the right companies who are providing the right type of quality? Well, you design your messaging to only give that reinforcer, right? So for context, I send a lot of emails per week. Ally knows this. I think I'm right now somewhere in like the 10,000, uh, 12,000 emails per week on behalf of all the companies I do work with. We write those emails so they don't get responded to by certain people. Right.

When we write an email to 100 pediatricians right, we specifically write it to not mention, hey, we'll come in and do a luncheon for you and [00:15:00] give you x, y, z food because we don't want a hungry pediatrician office replying.

We want to write it so that hey, we're new to the area. We're looking to build a referral network of people who really care about quality services. How about we have a 15 minute chat. We want the people to reply who are interested in quality and care collaboration so that we don't drain your money spending on Paneras to get in front of 50 people who will never talk to you again, but instead get five people, 3 offices who actually care about what you're doing to respond and set up a working relationship. So when it comes to how do you get the right people, of course there's the list set up. There's grabbing the right people from the right places, but ultimately you want to frame the messaging so it clearly identifies the reinforcer, so that if somebody responds, that means their interest in that means they're interested in that reinforcer, not some hypothetical, you know, lunch that may or may not happen.

Allyson Wharam: Yeah. And just to [00:16:00] anchor this for people, could you just walk through quickly what is the context of what we're even talking about in terms of that outreach and who you're reaching out to, what type of messages you're sending, and what the goal is there.

Matt Harrington: Yeah. So when it comes to provider relationships, there's really 3 steps to it. When I say provider relationships, local referral gen, all of those things, all we're talking about is a provider, a company engages with your ideal client, whether that's a kid with autism, whether that's a teen with ADHD, whether that is an adult 30 years old at a group home with autism, whatever that ideal client is, we want to identify the folks who engage with that client.

Oftentimes other services they're connected to, right. Pediatricians, diagnosticians, SLPs, OTs, pediatric mental health, Montessoris, day schools, group homes, caseworkers, social workers. Depending on your ideal client, there's a bunch of different folks. Then once we get the list of people, we need to get in front of them.

So there needs to be enough volume sent [00:17:00] out. There needs to be enough outreaches per week so that some will reply and set the initial meeting. The outreach format can be email, it can be phone, it can be in person. You just gotta get in front of them. I specialize in email campaigns. It's the most scalable and we have the best reply rate from emails versus those other methods.

It also is much faster than going in person, so we can send out 50 to 100 emails a day and not even flinch versus the impossible to visit 50 locations. Once you get enough people in front of you, you have to have an initial meeting. This is the lay of the land. Have the first conversation, become an email address into a face, and that's when you start building that relationship.

So the initial meeting is all about what services do you provide? What services do I provide, do we match? How can we help? Once you have the initial meeting, you need to start that relationship nurture. The relationship nurture is often forgotten about. People think the initial meeting is the [00:18:00] win.

The initial meeting is like you go from zero to one and you need to get from one to 100 to actually get a referral. So your relationship nurture the way you engage with them, the way you work with them, the way you quickly respond back to referrals, the way you send supportive advice or tools or candy or whatever it may be is the relationship nurture. I recommend about anywhere from two to four-ish touch points per month with each lead. And then once they're in the relationship nurture, your goal is to get them to be a referral partner, which means they're of course, sending you referrals. So from start to finish, it is get enough volume, have a good meeting, maintain your relationship nurture until they become referral partners and then continue the cycle of relationship nurture to referrals so that you build up people who trust you and you trust them back.

Allyson Wharam: Yeah, it's really like starting a little bit broader and then gradually building that trust in the same similar mechanisms to what you were talking about before. I'm [00:19:00] curious though, for someone who's like, how would I even send 50 emails per day? What does that look like? Are you using special tools?

Matt Harrington: Yeah, I'll give you like the, the 3 levels to it. With the final one being just a spoiler alert, use Provider Spark. Right? So level one is going to be manual. Some owners I recommend starting with this when they have no clients and a hell of a lot of time, right? So they get contracted, they get their location, they're ready to start seeing clients, but they don't know who to talk to.

Well, don't worry about hiring me. Don't worry about like initial marketing services. Just go on Google Maps. Do a search. Find those 30 websites. Get those 30 contacts and then sit down and type out those introduction emails. AI can make this a little easier. Throw the website into Claude. Get information on the website and then write your email through there. If you're using AI to write emails, just be careful. Make sure it's actually accurate and then hit send on Gmail, [00:20:00] 50 to 100 times a week. That is going to go slow, but ultimately get you connections one way or the other. Right? You might not get as many connections if you were sending more, but you're at least moving in the right direction. And for folks who have the availability, local outreach takes no money. Which is why it's such an attractive marketing strategy at the very beginning. It just takes time. Option two, once you get a little bit more advanced, maybe you're a little busy, is that executive assistant or BT who maybe has 30 hours a week of behavior services and has 10 hours a week of indirect time. We'll just teach them how to send out those emails, connect with folks and also send them out in person, right? This is like the classic. One BCBA owner, 3 BTs who loved this BCBA and followed them from another company. But they don't really have enough hours to really justify 3 BTs. So let's take the most extroverted BT and put them on outreach.

That's when I would [00:21:00] start to look at visiting in person and things like that, right? 'cause you have a little bit more time. The benefit there is you get a lot of the volume without having to do it yourself. The con is that there's a lot of quality swings. Right. The BT may be extroverted, but they might not know how to sell a company and that's ultimately what you're doing. Founders can always sell their company better than anyone else, right? Owners can always talk better about what they do than anyone else. And finally, option 3, once you kind of graduate into, all right, this is a marketing strategy that I really want to invest in. That means you're gonna need more volume.

And so agencies like mine, tools like Provider Spark, they automate those 50 emails sends per day. We make sure everything is clean on the deliverability, the list, everything like that. And all you need to worry about is, the replies that come into your inbox saying, yeah, let's meet. So, that's the primary way to up volume once you get past the initial meeting stage.

Right now you, you're really [00:22:00] building a referral network. You have clients coming in. You have to make a decision. Is this a marketing activity that you're gonna do for 3 months and then stop once you get a couple relationships? Are you gonna really invest into building consistent community relationships?

And that's when I recommend going in-house. That is when you wanna have your relationship nurture down. You want to have your initial meetings down, you're probably gonna look at a business development hire. Once again, I recommend a BT who has 20 hours of direct work, give them 20 hours of business development work and let that grow.

And then it is, do you have the system? If you have the system, let's run the system and assess it just like you would a behavior intervention plan. If you want the shortcut to the system, I can also provide that.

Allyson Wharam: Yeah, it sounds like company size makes a big difference and capacity. But what I'm also hearing kind of implied there is a little bit about market size as well. If you're in a really rural area where there's two pediatricians and maybe one [00:23:00] SLP and one OT, that is very different than if you're in a metro area where you have multiple sites or you know, all of those variables.

So how does that influence where you fall on that spectrum as well?

Matt Harrington: Yeah, it's a good question. The concept of referral gen is going to work across the board. There will always be somebody who sees your ideal client, who is not you. I'll say 99.9% of cases, right? Maybe a rural Alaska side. So there are always people to connect with and the logic stays the same.

You need to connect with everybody because some won't want to connect with you back. So you need to cast a wide net and then nurture as you go through the pipeline. But it's a good point that the strategy changes the more rural you are, right? So if you are on the more rural side and there's 25 people who are reasonable connections, then what would the cost be of knocking on their door? Once a month, probably two days, two business days per month. That feels reasonable for an ABA company to [00:24:00] tackle. Versus a more mid-size city is when it starts to get more challenging. You maybe want more systems and then urban cities or multiple locations. That's when you really look at okay, how can I spread my net as wide as possible to increase the chances? Because the other conversation that you have to have is the more SLPs and pediatricians and more partners there are that you can connect with, odds are the more ABA companies and the more ABA companies means the more competition. So you have to do more to stand out in a crowded market versus a rural location with one SLP and one OT. You're probably the only ABA shop in town, which means it is a simple, Hey, I do good work. You do good work. Let's high five and care collaborate.

Allyson Wharam: Yeah, that was the other piece I was wondering about is how much do you then learn about their services and you kind of have this network there where you have this reciprocal relationship. I'd love to hear more about the nurture side of things, because I can imagine that also [00:25:00] the volume we're talking about can get overwhelming as well.

You have the outreach and not all of the outreach then produces these relationships. But if you have multiple different relationships you're trying to nurture, how do you make sure that you stay consistent? And then how are you also ensuring that, again, if you're referring folks back to these people, that they're aligned with your brand and values and how you serve your clients well.

Matt Harrington: Yeah, what you're getting out of the relationship in terms of that initial meeting. Like how do you know that this is really good provider? Just like any other conversation, you're seeing what they're like. You're seeing who they serve, you're seeing what kind of services they provide, and you're being upfront.

I, I tell people with every one of our, you know, full service clients this is what I recommend for anybody who's doing this. Give your intake a list of conversations you've had and a list of how they can engage with these people. Right? Make it a two-way street. If you have a conversation talking about how you want to put them on your referral list. Actually put them on your referral list and send them clients who are good fits for them, right? Because the bigger the care team, the more [00:26:00] successful the care. In terms of tracking, that's when we probably need a CRM. A CRM is a customer relationship manager. If you know spreadsheets, then you generally know how A CRM works. There's one cell we'll say for each person that you talk to, uh, each relationship that you've developed. And you need a way to constantly log the conversations you've had. So let's say we talked to Dr. Jim in January. Well, Dr. Jim is gonna need a follow up, two follow ups in March, two follow ups in February, and eventually you have 6, 10, 12 data entries in for what I call 'em, Dr. Jim. A CRM just takes all that data and just organizes it in a way so it's quickly viewable. So while you could do everything with an Excel spreadsheet, I recommend getting a cheap or low cost CRM. Options here are things like PipeDrive, GoHighLevel is a great option. HubSpot, if you want all the fancy bells and whistles, I don't typically recommend HubSpot for most people.

I have beef [00:27:00] with HubSpot and, and other, you know, CRMs that are coming out specific to ABA. But you have a pipeline. You have conversations that you log with these folks and you track them like that. It sounds cheesy, but you wanna know that, uh, Jim, the receptionist is allergic to cats, has two dogs, and has a kid playing hockey, right? Because that one little tidbit makes a fairly templatized phone call feel highly personalized, and that's what matters.

Allyson Wharam: Yeah. I'm curious too if this then again is still more of that initial trust building? Have you seen downstream effects to clinical care, like working more tightly with the folks that you're referring out to as like a multidisciplinary team or really, not just collaborating in terms of referrals and making sure that everyone is served well, but just like actually really almost co-treating and acting as a treatment team together.

Matt Harrington: Absolutely. And when I started the [00:28:00] marketing agency and I kind of zoomed into referral gen, the reason that happened is because I was a clinic director at a location. It was a pretty small location and as most small clinical directors, I was tasked with just about everything under the sun, including get more clients. So, I looked to see what other people were doing. I got overwhelmed and I said, whatever. I'm just gonna focus on clinical work. I'll worry about this next month. And so during my clinical work, because I have such a history in care collaboration for my supervision settings, it was in a hospital, so I was, you know, walking side by side with psychiatrists, SLPs, et cetera. I did a lot of care collaboration in my day to day work and one of the people I was collaborating with was a mental health therapist for one of my teen clients. And all of a sudden I get a call from the mental health therapist and they say, Hey, um we've been doing great work over here. I have four other clients who are a little bit younger.

They're not totally in my wheelhouse, but I've been helping the parents. Can I send them to you for an [00:29:00] intro? And in one day, the entire month of intakes was finished, right? Because we didn't wanna, we only had so much space we couldn't onboard everyone. And it blew my mind. And then later on that year, we had a similar situation happen with a psychiatrist and that kind of cemented this reality that clinicians wanna refer to other clinicians. The best way to build trust is by long running relationships. The best way to have a long running relationship is to have a reason to communicate. A very reasonable and strong reason to communicate is for client care, which brings us to care collaboration. So here I am. I know that care collaboration works.

I wanted to start my agency. I wanted to help other people get to that same goal. But, uh, how do you reverse engineer care collaboration, right? You reverse engineer it by starting at people who don't know my name. So while we've talked about that initial get to the referrals, it's a good point that the end game here is gonna be multidisciplinary team and care collaboration.

The best way to [00:30:00] get more referrals is by being the company who every month sends that report and has a meeting with the SLP in town. Not for one client, but for six clients, for 10 clients across 10 different companies. So that care collaboration can really compound whether you are starting completely from scratch, you have no clients and you get your first one.

Or if you have a list of 20 clients. For the love of God. Reimburse your BCBAs for care collaboration. I know it's not insurance reimbursable. I get it. It's worth it still. Get them collaborating. It increases quality and ultimately it increases relationships that you can now leverage in two referrals.

Allyson Wharam: Yeah, it takes to kind of what we were talking about this like a little bit more contrived I guess, in terms of like, create these touchpoints to these touchpoints are organically happening because we're working together in this other capacity. So it becomes, sort of self-sustaining is what it sounds like.

The other thing that I'm thinking about is, you know, we've talked about clients and caregivers in a little bit more abstract terms, but for [00:31:00] them as well, if you put yourself in that caregiver's shoes, as someone who's sitting in a pediatrician's office or maybe they got one referral, you know, we all know what that looks like.

You get a diagnosis and often they're given this list of many, many different folks. It's overwhelming. Maybe you start in one place, but thinking about that from the human side of things, again, in terms of that trust, how much more comforted are you as a parent going from one provider that you already know and trust and seeing someone that they have worked closely with.

Because we also all know that the reality is that providers quality in our field can be variable. And so I just think about that as a parent and someone that, you know, works closely with parents and caregivers. Having that reassurance just on a human level makes a big difference.

Matt Harrington: Yeah, and I had that experience with my own pediatrician and my kid who needed a speech therapist. They said, hey, give this kid a speech therapist. We said, [00:32:00] sure, who do you recommend? Here's a list of 30 people they recommend. We didn't push it. We were like, okay. I'll do the research myself, whatever. We called five people. None of them were open. Sixth one answered. Finally we got 'em in. It was a pretty bad experience. We go back to that pediatrician and we say, hey, nothing worked. We went through everybody. We don't know what to do.

And then they said, totally get that. Here's somebody who I've heard really good things about, try this out. And that is who we went with and that's who we're with now. And so it's almost that here's the list, I recommend this person. And that recommendation is what you're really looking for from pediatricians.

And you might not be the first name off their list. They might give the overall list first, but we definitely wanna be seen as the experts in a specific niche, right? So when they think seven year olds struggling with social skills, they match it to this provider who [00:33:00] helps 5 to 10 year olds in school who are struggling with socials. Which means your company has to be good, right.

And that's why it all comes back to quality. Like, uh, if you are, um, a generalist who can take anyone and everything, and it's just looking to get as many clients as possible, it's a much less compelling pitch than our BCBAs are experts in X. This is what they do really well, and this is the proof of that, right?

So if you have anybody who hits this, let's talk.

Allyson Wharam: Yeah. And then you're also finding clients that are actually best fit for what you do well and are more likely to contact reinforcement, you know, all of that. Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious too with that, how can a provider really find or hone that in, because they might want to be a generalist, but even if you are a generalist, you have things that you do exceptionally well.

And so how can a company start to really refine and [00:34:00] identify what they do well, and then how can they communicate that effectively?

Matt Harrington: Well in our field it almost always starts with hires. Um, well actually, lemme take a step back. You need to make a conscious decision if you're going to focus somewhere. Right. So if you are a BCBA, founder, or a caregiver, or an investor, somebody who funds the business, you should be thinking at who do I want to help the most, and who am I best set up to help. If you're not a BCBA, that means you're probably gonna be heavy into the operations. So what client would benefit from really smooth operations? And in what way? Right? Maybe it is teenagers who have a ton of scheduling complexities, so having dedicated ops is gonna really help them. Maybe you have experience in education and you are really good with caregivers, so maybe you want to go lower age. If you're a clinician, who are you best at serving? Right? In the past, what are the clients who have been most happy with you? Who can you make the biggest impact on? So start to [00:35:00] feel out separate from the business conversations first, who can I provide the best impact?

Who can I get quality up the best for? Then comes the business realities. Yes, I know. And so does everybody else in this field. Everybody who has even looked at our field that 30 to 40 hour young kids have the highest value to ABA companies financially. Everyone understands that. I know that everybody who dreams up a business model is looking at that 40 hour a week kid who stays for five year plus years and never goes to school. It's not unique to target those kids. So it's not as lucrative as you expect. So whenever we start talking about the business, start thinking about, okay, am I going to do better early intervention, truly do better earlier intervention than the 50 other competitors, or am I going to do better social skills, teen adult care than the two other [00:36:00] competitors, the five other competitors? And whatever you decide, commit and stick to it. That's your business model. You are good at X, so you're going to look to attract X client, and then you need to clarify that you're looking for X and not Y. This is another big mistake that I saw as a clinic director just working in a lot of different clinics, is that whenever a clinic starts putting the 3-year-old next to the 10-year-old on the same couch. You start to like, you should, you should pause. You should think like, wait a second. Why is it that we have a BCBA who is supposedly an expert in both 3 years old and 12 years old when that is two completely different worlds. Is it possible that we took the 3-year-old because we needed the hours and our BCBA is actually an expert at the 12-year-old, which means 12-year-old gets great quality. 3-year-old, doesn't. 3-year-old tells all their friends don't come to this person. Business falls apart versus focus on getting a bunch of 12 year olds [00:37:00] and then hire somebody who can do good with the 3-year-olds or some other similar, I, I don't know if I rounded your question.

Allyson Wharam: Yeah, and even to the 40 hour a week, when you're thinking only regarding maximizing profits, then you're losing sight of the quality aspect and the clinical necessity aspect and which we started with rounding that piece out to being really the crux of what we're trying to achieve here, is that when we have solid quality, everything else follows.

Matt Harrington: I was in a big business meeting with one of the folks that I'm a fractional CMO for and they were talking about opening a new location and the business coach was saying, Hey, let's be real here.

It's gonna cost you 7% of your yearly profits to open this place, and your numbers can't support that. So you can't open a third location no matter how much you may want to, or a fourth location or a fifth location. What we saw there is that profit is not just a way to put extra money in a bank account.

It's a way [00:38:00] to guard against the chaotic waves of insurance, right? Reimbursement's getting delayed, audits happening and things like that. But also a way to scale your impact, right? A company that makes 1% profit can't scale. A company that makes 30% profit is positioned to help a lot more folks. So people who are, you know, my, my folks who really care.

I'm with you. I really care a lot too. You still should focus on making profit off the business so you can scale your impact, so you can pay your staff above market value.

Allyson Wharam: Yeah, and we know each other personally, so, you know, this is a struggle of mine where it's like, I just wanna do good work and I just want people to come. But another reality of business is that if people don't know that you exist, if all you do is focus on the work itself and not the things that support the business side of things and letting people know that you're there, then you know you can't go on to serve more people. It actually does more of a disservice because you know, people just don't know that you exist.

Matt Harrington: [00:39:00] Yeah. And being a nonprofit doesn't fix that.

You know, being somebody who gives free services doesn't fix that. Having a model where you say yes to everyone, no matter what the business says, doesn't fix that. Like truly what fixes it is by building a business that is meant to be a business that also has significant social impact.

And then scaling that social impact the same way you scale a business. There was a Shark Tank deal forever ago and it was like something, something sucks. I forget the details about it, but the, the business pitch was basically for every pair of socks that gets purchased, we donate a pair of socks. And before asking about social impact, before asking about all of these like ways that they can help people, the investors wanted to know the numbers because they knew that selling 100 socks and giving 100 socks isn't that big of a deal. But if you have a profitable business that can scale to 10 million socks being sold, now you're making real social impact. And we're seeing that more with some of these [00:40:00] companies who want more social impact. But, sure you can have great social impact in one location, but imagine the social impact and rippling effects you can have with 5 or 10, if that's the route you want to go.

Allyson Wharam: Again, accounting for that quality and not scaling it at all costs too of making sure that is the anchor of everything else. This was really helpful and interesting for me. I know this is a little bit of a different world. Is there anything that we didn't get to talk about that you wanna address that's similar or relevant?

Matt Harrington: I think that there is a contingency of people who mean very well, who think that marketing is not necessary for ABA company. And there is definitely a lot of respect I have for that position because there is a sense of if my quality is good enough, people will come. If they build it, they will come.

And the great part is with a healthcare field that's [00:41:00] true.

You are able to provide significant quality and get pretty good word of mouth. What is the challenge there is that you're always reliant on a single channel, right?

One single way to reach out to people, to get them in the doors. And when that starts to fade, for whatever reason, you don't have a lot of control of what happens next for your business. You're basically just hoping and praying that you get more people to talk about you and send them back. So, for my folks who are not really seeing that it's right for an ABA company to market. I just give like the, the very simple hypothetical of you just built the best coffee cup, the one that keeps coffee hot forever.

It doesn't spill when you pour into it. Heck, it even heats the coffee cup, right? It's the perfect coffee cup. And you say, you know what? Let me hand it out to a couple folks and they'll start telling their friends, and let's start slowly increasing the value of these people's lives or the quality of these folks' lives by giving [00:42:00] them an amazing coffee cup.

And you exponentially write one sale, 3 sales, six sales, nine sales. By the end of the year you sell 300 coffee cups and you change 300 people's lives and they love their coffee. And then you look at Yeti's sales and Yeti, who we'll say in this hypothetical has a worse product than you, but they knew how to talk to people.

They knew how to get that product in front of people and now you're looking at them and like, wow, 10 million people who bought Yeti now have a worse life because they didn't buy my product 'cause they didn't buy my cool coffee cup. So sure you affected 100, 200 people, but you missed out on effecting the rest of the 10 billion. And obviously ton of hyperbole there. But I do encourage people that if you have a good product, like if you really are the best ABA provider for a 3 to 5-year-old in your area, then if I'm a parent of a 3 to 5-year-old,

I think it's a bad ethics play to not hear about you. 'cause [00:43:00] I want my kid to have the best services and if that's you, for the love of God, get to me somehow.

So I, I really think yes, quality can, can spread. And that may be all you ever need to do. But if you really are that good, like please tell people.

'cause Lord knows we need more people experiencing higher quality services rather than more people experiencing subpar services if we ever want our field to go past where it is.

Allyson Wharam: Yeah, that's so well said, really drives everything home. So I would love to leave it on that note because I think that is the key take takeaway here, like marketing and sales and all that can feel yucky when you just look at those words as abstracts. But when you really put that story or thinking about that impact to, it changes things significantly.

So where can folks find you if they wanna learn more, connect with you, and see what you're doing?

Matt Harrington: You can always find me on LinkedIn. I'm on there an unhealthy amount. So you can just search my name, Matthew Harrington, BCBA. If you're [00:44:00] interested in Provider Spark, that is our way of connecting you with all of the local folks in your area. In order to collaborate, you can go to providerspark.com/grow and get a bunch of information about how we do it. If you're interested in clinical side, that other side of my personality, you can go to behavioristbookclub.com. We do free weekly CEUs and you'll be able to get all the information there.

Allyson Wharam: Awesome. And Provider Spark is a platform. Is that right?

Matt Harrington: Yeah, so Provider Spark is the platform that facilitates the outreach that we send out. So we send out anywhere from 50 to 100 emails on your behalf and instead of you clicking through Gmail and sending each one, we do the research, we create the emails, you approve them, we send them out. And in your inbox you get positive replies of people who say, yeah, let's collaborate. How's Tuesday at 12? And then you say, let's go for it.

Allyson Wharam: Okay. Awesome. We'll link everything in the show notes in terms of your Skool group and LinkedIn and all of that good stuff if people wanna connect with you there. Thanks so much for being here. [00:45:00] This was fun.

Matt Harrington: Thanks for having me. Always fun.