Vision, Systems, and Sustainability: Inside the ABA Business Journey of April and Stephen Smith

In this episode of In the Field: The ABA Podcast, I sit down with April and Stephen Smith of 3PieSquared and the ABA Business Leaders Podcast. April is a BCaBA with nearly three decades of experience in the field, and Stephen brings a background in quality management and engineering that shaped the operational backbone of everything they built together. They ran their own ABA practice for 12 years before closing it and transitioning into full-time consulting, where they now support more than 1,600 ABA organizations across the country.

This conversation covers a lot of ground: the origin story of their practice, the lessons they learned the hard way, what they wish they had when they were starting out, and why they named their new book "The ABA Business Leader's Guide: How to Start, Grow, and Sustain an Ethical ABA Practice Without Losing Your Soul." If you are a BCBA® thinking about starting a practice, already in the thick of running one, or trying to figure out how to scale without burning yourself and your team to the ground, this episode is for you.

Key Topics:

The Origin Story and Early Chaos: April and Stephen started with a frustration, a neighborhood walk, and a decision to figure it out as they went, including learning insurance billing the hard way while navigating a newborn and a dwindling savings account.

Vision: The Thing Most Founders Skip: April and Stephen did not have a shared vision when they started and it was not until year four that they actually sat down and asked what they were building and how they wanted it to feel.

Hiring BCBAs®: The Skills and Gaps You Need to Plan For: Hiring BCBAs® surfaced unexpected gaps in assessment repertoires, parent training, and soft skills, reflecting a field-wide assumption that certification equals readiness to lead and manage.

Building Systems That Let You Step Back: April encourages owners to apply the same behavioral thinking they use clinically to their operations: write task analyses, define expectations in observable terms, and give consistent feedback.

Delegating, Outsourcing, and Prioritizing Hires: Stephen's practical framework starts with an accountant and an attorney, then works backward from your dream job to identify what is standing between you and it.

The Ethics of Profitability: The incentives in this field currently reward lower-trained staff and higher turnover. April and Stephen have built their consulting work around helping owners resist that trap.

Closing a Business and the Identity Shift That Follows: April speaks openly about the identity crisis that came with closing their practice and how intertwined her sense of self had become with what they built.

Boundaries, Parenthood, and the Myth of Work-Life Balance: April shares how she learned to set and model firm boundaries with staff and restructure her own workday to protect her effectiveness at work and her presence at home.

Key Takeaways:

• Vision is not optional. Know what you are building, how big you want it to be, and what it needs to look like when you are done, before you are two years in and wondering why you feel stuck.
• Profitability is an ethical issue. You cannot pour back into your team, your training systems, or your clients if your margins do not support it. Financial sustainability is part of ethical practice.
• Systems make delegation possible. You do not need a formal business background to build them. Use what you already know: task analysis, behavioral specificity, clear expectations, and consistent feedback.
• BCBAs® are not automatically ready to lead or manage. Build mentorship and soft skills development into your supervision model from the beginning.
• Closing or exiting a business is a real transition that deserves preparation, both operationally and personally.
• Self-awareness is not a soft skill. Knowing when you are micromanaging, when you need support, and when your identity has become too entangled with your business is essential to sustainability.

Keywords: Efficiency, Assent, Foundational Skills, Effective Treatment, Matching Law, Instructional Design, Ethics Code 2.0, Dimensions Grid, DRA, Blunt Extinction, Behavior Efficiency, Steve Ward, Whole Child Consulting, Inventory of Good Learner Repertoires, ABA Ethics, BCBA® Supervision 

Resources:

Connect with April and Stephen Smith - Free Consultation Booking Link

Book: "The ABA Business Leader's Guide: How to Start, Grow, and Sustain an Ethical ABA Practice Without Losing Your Soul" by April and Stephen Smith

Website: 3PieSquared

Podcast: ABA Business Leaders Podcast

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

Allyson Wharam: [00:00:00] Hello. Welcome, everyone. I am joined here today by April and Stephen Smith of 3PieSquared and the ABA Business Leaders Podcast. We are going to be talking today about their story and kind of evolution of their own ABA practice and what that journey looked like. They now work very closely with many different ABA businesses, helping them on all sorts of different fronts from operations to just even getting set up initially. And so we are gonna talk through both lenses of that in terms of their own personal journey and kind of some of the trends and things that they're seeing with the folks that they are working with.

Thank you so much for being here.

All right. Well, I would love to kind of just jump in and hear a little bit about your story and for those that have not listened, we have a previous episode together where we have talked a little bit about just ABA business in general, but I don't think we really dove into your own [00:01:00] experience, from start to finish, of what that looked like in terms of building your practice.

So I'm curious about sort of the origin story there. What led you to initially begin your ABA business?

April Smith: Yeah. You want me to go over this one?

Stephen Smith: Yeah, you can start it. You can start it.

April Smith: Yeah. All right. So I've been in the field of ABA since '95. I was a college student and my speech professor had a child on the spectrum and was actually-- I-- this is like so different from how we do things today.

Was like giving extra credit for students that would come learn about ABA to potentially help out her daughter, right?

Allyson Wharam: Mm-hmm.

April Smith: So that was my first, like, intro into ABA. Um, and so it evolved and grew from there, and I was a behavior specialist before the BACB was even a big thing.

And currently I am a BCaBA and we had moved to Northern Virginia from South Carolina and I interviewed at multiple ABA practices around like the Northern [00:02:00] Virginia area and if anyone knows anything about Northern Virginia, it is nothing but a traffic gridlock all around the DC area.

Allyson Wharam: Mm-hmm.

April Smith: And so I like interviewed in Maryland and DC and Virginia and I finally got a job and I was driving more than I was seeing clients and I wasn't really happy. I was really, I was really disappointed. I was expecting such an urban area to be so far ahead in ABA and was expecting so much and found out that it really wasn't what I was hoping for.

Stephen Smith: Mm-hmm.

April Smith: So Stephen and I were on a walk around our neighborhood and I was talking about all my frustrations, and in the background I had always had a dream to start my own ABA clinic of some sort, right? I didn't know what that was gonna look like. And, um, he said, "Well, let's do it. We'll start our own."

And I'm like, "Pfft? You're, you're so funny." But in true fashion for Stephen, I'm like the dreamer but not necessarily the action taker. It takes me... I have to research and have all my... I'm a planner. Also, I'm a dreamer and a planner, [00:03:00] and this guy's like action man.

Stephen Smith: Mm.

April Smith: Right? And so he's like, "Let's do it.

Let's dive in." And I'm like, "We don't know what we're doing." He's like, "We'll figure it out." So we, we figured it out. During the life of our company, the insurance mandates became a thing.

Stephen Smith: Yep.

April Smith: So we learned the whole world of insurance and the BACB became a thing. So I went back to school just to get my BCaBA thinking I'll get this first and then I'll continue on and go get my BCBA.

And I never made it there 'cause uh, all my time was into you know, building what we had. So we ran that company for 12 years.

Stephen Smith: Yep.

April Smith: And along the way, I'll let you take over for this part of the story, but along the way as we were growing and deciding and moving and changing and all of the things that you do as you are scaling your business, Stephen decided to start  3PieSquared.

Stephen Smith: Yeah. So I still had my-

April Smith: That's right

Stephen Smith: ... full-time engineering job. And in 2014, 'cause we were all self-pay, and then in 2014 the insurance mandate came in and [00:04:00] we were kind of forced into insurance land. And so we knew nothing about it, but they did require a certain number of policies and procedures and things like that.

And that's kind of my wheelhouse. I was doing quality or internal auditing for aerospace and automotive, and so I was like, "Oh, okay, I can do this." And so I made this quality management system for April and we passed these audits. And then we started hiring BCBAs and I quit my job in, I don't know if it was what-

April Smith: 2014

Stephen Smith: June I think.

April Smith: Yeah.

Stephen Smith: And like a week later we found that April was pregnant and I was like, "What did I just do?" Uh, I, I had like eight weeks of vacation a year and I had like $5 copays and now we have no insurance and it's like, "What a what?" And so that first year was very stressful. We had set aside like $100,000 as our nest egg and that was like, "Once we get to [00:05:00] that I can quit."

And we blew through all of that money, right? Like all of it and we were like panicking about what we were going to do. And I was doing the insurance billing horribly, right? Like, I remember the first claims I submitted, on the CMS form, it has, like uh, a start and an end date on one line.

So I was like, "Oh, well, I can put all of the tech codes on one line for the entire month and then just submit it. A piece of cake." No, you can't do that. So, you know, it was just learning by trial and getting a little bit of help on Facebook, and it was just chaos and madness for the first six months to a year, right?

Along with having a brand new child. I can remember April was upstairs with our child and Kaiser was doing an in-network audit in our in-home office. It was... Yeah, it was quite insane that first couple of years.

April Smith: Yeah, we often wondered what did we get ourselves into.

Stephen Smith: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was pr- it was pretty terrible.

And, like, I [00:06:00] would be waking up and, you know, at 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning, uh, in a panic. Did Aetna pay? Right. Did we get the... Did we get that authorization in? Right. Like, it was just... Yeah. It was, it was really... And I would wake April up and say, "Hey, did, did you get, did you get that email?" Like, "What are you gonna do about this?"

Right? And she's like half asleep, like, is this a dream or is this, is this real, right? And yeah, it was very stressful for us. I did not make it better. So yeah, that's kind of how it started. And we turned this into a successful operation, right? We opened up a clinic. It was 4,000 square feet.

I think we had 50 to 60 employees, you know, within three years. I was getting ready to open up clinic number two. I'd already picked the clinical director for it, and April was like, "What are you doing?" Right? Like, I never wanted to get as big as we are, right? This is way too big for me. And so, I then [00:07:00] focused my energy on  3PieSquared, and that's how...

My first customer was in Georgia and she still comes on our podcast regularly. And yeah, that's how I got started. She needed some policies to pass an Optum audit, and I was like, "Oh, we did that," and that's how I got started. And now we work with 1,600 ABA practices all over the country, which is insane to me, right?

April Smith: And yes, we help them do things the way that we wish... We help provide for them what we wish we had, because a part of why I didn't wanna grow is because I was a micromanager. I didn't know that at the time, but back, like, I could- I didn't know how to grow because I needed to be able to have my hand in everything.

And my excuse was, "I need to know all my clients."

Stephen Smith: Right.

April Smith: It's important to know all my clients well. You know, years later, looking back, I realize I just was micromanaging and I didn't know how to do it any other way.

Stephen Smith: Right.

April Smith: Right? And so that's part, a lot of what we do, is help to know how to delegate, [00:08:00] how to put your policies and procedures in place so that you can, like, scale and you can step back.

But yeah. So that's how we got going.

Stephen Smith: Yeah.

Allyson Wharam: Yeah.

There's so many, like, threads I wanna pick up on from there. So let's start with one thing that kind of stood out to me obviously is, like, you had this kind of idea or vision of having this ABA business before you actually got into it, and then it sounds like you started your business at such a time that there were just a lot evolution and change in the field, in terms of the insurance mandate, in terms of the BACB. So you're navigating all of that, and that's new for other people as well. How did your expectations of what you thought the business would look like or what your initial vision for the business, how did that square with what that reality actually looked like once you were in it and doing it and building?

April Smith: Mm.

Stephen Smith: I mean, I think that's part of the problem. We didn't really have a vision, and, you know, that's something that we, we try to coach our customers on now is you need a vision. Like, what do you [00:09:00] want this to look like and feel like when you open the door? What do you wanna hear? What do you wanna see? 'Cause I don't think we had any of that.

I think our relationship was solid enough and we kind of had aligning goals that we made it work, right?

April Smith: But not intentionally.

Stephen Smith: No, no. It was just, it kind of fell in place, right? We were very lucky in that. So when you're, like, in the middle of it, of that storm, and you're hiring people and, you know, you're having to fire people and it's like, "What in the world am I doing here?" And so it took a couple of years for us to even acknowledge that we didn't, we didn't have a solid vision. We didn't know what we really wanted out of this, right? Like, I often tell the story, we both agreed to build a small ABA practice.

My idea of a small ABA practice was 10 clinics. April's idea of a small ABA practice was 10 employees. Very different. But we were both, "Yeah, let's build a small ABA practice." [00:10:00] And so I think that especially when we're working with partners or couples that are wanting to build something, it's really important that they're on the same page. Because again, there were some really hard times, right?

Where we were having issues at home and issues at work and is there even such a thing as issues that are just stay at work when you're married and you have an in-home agency? Not really, right? Especially when your husband is waking up at 3:00 in the morning asking about Aetna authorizations.

So, you know, that was something that we try to coach people through, right? This is going to be difficult and it's gonna be messy, so we want a clear understanding of what you want. Because we didn't have that when we started, and it probably wasn't until year four, where we actually sat down and said, "Oh, what is it we're building here?

And how do we want it to be?"

April Smith: Yeah. I think my expectation was, I mean, because my focus has always been early intervention, right? [00:11:00] My sweet spot's like that birth to eight, right? More specifically, those three to five-year-olds, right? And so I, especially when we got the clinic space, we still had in-home services, but I envisioned like not making a preschool, but making it preschool-like so that, so that we could offer like some preschool readiness types of services.

It was important to me to really pour into early intervention. And I know that's where a lot of ABA services are in early intervention. I know there's a lot outside of that too, but that's the main focus. But still, that's where I wanted to be, and that was what was important to me.

Felt really strongly about early intervention. But what I didn't understand is that like how hard it would be to find enough kids in that age range with the availability to be able to make that profitable.

Allyson Wharam: Mm-hmm.

April Smith: Because profit was like the last thing on my mind. I would have given away services for free.

Stephen Smith: You did give away services.

April Smith: Exactly. And it was very uncomfortable for me to [00:12:00] have to like get co-pays. I just wanted to go like work on communication skills and play skills with little guys.

Right? Like that. And so, and then as we grew, and that also meant, supervising doesn't even feel like the accurate word, but like managing staff, right? That was beyond my expectations. That wasn't even on my radar of what that would look like. I just assumed.

Stephen Smith: Right.

April Smith: That you just tell people what to do, or not even tell people what to do.

They would just know what to do.

Stephen Smith: They would just know what to do.

April Smith: And then you all work together. So I obviously had a very rosy Pollyanna, you know, little version in my head, and it obviously did not match the real life.

Yeah. Well, and, you know, I hear a lot too, similar motivations to yours. Like, you look around at the ABA companies that are in the area and, you know, whether it's the amount of driving or other things in the way that they're structured, it's easy to think like, "Okay, well, here's what I wanna build, and I am gonna build this thing that's better or different."

But I've heard a lot of stories of folks that get into it and then they're like, "Well, I've just [00:13:00] recreated the thing that I was trying to avoid and get away from." Did you experience any moments like that or anything that you're like, "Well, I was explicitly trying to avoid this, and now I'm looking at what we've built and I'm noticing, like, we have accidentally created these conditions that, you know, this thing is happening"?

Stephen Smith: I think again, this was accidentally, right? We were aligned enough that we were both-- Like it was more important that we provide services that we felt were good than making profit, right? And I can remember, like I would have conversations with RBTs and say, "I need a raise," right?

And I'm like, "Dude, you make more than I make," right? And so like that was a big focus for us. And like I, again, maybe accidentally on purpose, separated myself from the clinical side, right? So it was like, I'm not involved in these authorizations. I'm not saying, "Hey, it'd be great if we had another 30-hour [00:14:00] kid," right?

Like it was when the authorization went through, it was whatever hours were the availability.

April Smith: Because some of that was at the beginning.

Stephen Smith: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

April Smith: There was that little bit of like, "Oh, well, why can't you just get 30 hours for this kid?"

Stephen Smith: Right, right, right.

April Smith: Not like with a, like an ethical list, but just like a misunderstanding

Stephen Smith: Correct

April Smith: On your end of what that really looks like. And so we did very, very quickly and very early, were able to remedy any of those things pretty quickly before they got out of control. Like I think we were really good. One of our family goals was like living with intention, and we hadn't recognized that then yet either.

Stephen Smith: No.

April Smith: We did not. But it was the here, we just didn't we didn't know it or name it. We hadn't named it yet. And so I think that was, we were aware enough when things were getting outside of our, what we were trying to do enough that we were able to bring things back in pretty quickly.

Stephen Smith: Yes.

April Smith: But I think too, that was also because of like me being a planner and him being a doer, right?

And so [00:15:00] that, that makes a really good combo. But we did make a lot of hard choices personally because the focus we did voice to each other was at the end of the day, we wanna be able to sleep at night

Stephen Smith: Yep.

April Smith: Without worrying about are we treating the individuals we're providing services for, you know, wrong or our staff.

Stephen Smith: Mm-hmm.

April Smith: And that was the beginning, 'cause I had a strong experience and strong skill set of working with parents too. And so I already came into it pretty strong working with parents and knowing how to have conversations with parents and showing up in a way where parents felt like they could talk to me, right?

And then I felt really good. I did a great job working with little guys. Now, teenagers and older kids, I had no idea what I was doing. And so eventually we did hire someone to be able to take those caseloads. But what I didn't know was like how to manage staff

Stephen Smith: Yeah

April Smith: Right? Like all of those humans.

And so I think in my looking back, that's where things kind of really started to steer out of line as we were [00:16:00] learning there. But then we figured it out.

Stephen Smith: I think mostly too was BCBAs, right? There was some expectation that of course you're gonna have to supervise techs, right? Like-

April Smith: Oh, yeah ...

Stephen Smith: but BCBAs, they have this certification. They have their Board of Medicine license in Virginia. Like they must know what they're doing. And so I hear that often too, right? Like that first BCBA, a lot of BCBA-owned businesses, they assume they're getting a mini me, right? And that's really not often the case.

And so there is a lot of mentorship and, you know, even time management skills, soft skills, like how to effectively train RBTs so that they somewhat enjoy criticism, right? Like 'cause that's a skill in itself.

And then working with parents, right? Like I found at the time that a lot of our BCBAs would avoid parent training like the plague, right? Like that's a lot. Yeah, I, if I could do anything else, [00:17:00] um, I will do it. And so it was like how do we mentor them to give better services or at least what we feel like were better services.

And some other things around that was like assessments, right? Like you assume that, at least I did, they're gonna know how to do a VB-MAPP and an AFLS, right? And you hire some BCBAs and they're like, "I do this one assessment. This is all I do." And maybe that funder doesn't allow for that assessment.

So, you know, those were the big things I think that we didn't, at least I didn't realize was necessary at the time.

Allyson Wharam: Yeah. In terms of building the systems then to support those things, you're noticing all these gaps and gaps in areas that you didn't necessarily expect with BCBAs, and I think that makes sense, right? You expect-- and I think this is sort of a field-wide problem too- like you expect that this person who had those 2,000 hours is just ready to hit the ground running, but we all have different learning histories and it's [00:18:00] not actually true when you actually peel back the layers.

And so in terms of actually building the systems to support those folks and to support your technicians, what are some of the things that you put in place and/or some things now that working with ABA businesses you're realizing are kind of common interventions or things that need to be put in place to support their teams?

Stephen Smith: I mean, depending on the size of the agency, right? But like a lead BCBA, well, a BCBA that has a very low or no caseload so that they can come in and mentor the staff and they have the skills to do it, right? So they have those soft skills. They have leadership skills. They have the ability to train staff right effectively.

April Smith: Well, I think even before that is as you start to delegate, right, whether you're like a BCBA-owned company and then you're starting to delegate or starting to hire more BCBAs, right? And you're hiring office staff or HR, whatever, right? And you're, "Okay, I'm at the point where I can finally, I don't have to wear all the hats-"

Stephen Smith: Mm-hmm

April Smith: and I can [00:19:00] start delegate," it's really important to start building those systems out then and like think like, think behavior analytically. Think just as simple as task analysis. You don't even have to learn business skills, you don't, like at this point yet.

Start making your own TAs for things. Even if they're just on spreadsheets or live somewhere like a Word document or whatever. And then as you start to delegate those or, you know, you can pass along those TAs or you can help them develop TAs for their roles.

But I think it's really important early in that process, getting something on paper. It doesn't have to be perfect. It can grow and change and evolve as the position does. But making sure that you have those expectations and clearly, like behaviorally, like completes all paperwork.

Well, what does that even right? Like really, like really specifying. Think of it like a learner and you're making a behavior plan

Stephen Smith: Yeah ...

April Smith: or a intervention plan for them, and really specifying the ins and outs of exactly what is expected, and then [00:20:00] making sure that you're following up and giving feedback along the way so that they know that you're checking in.

And not even worrying so much about what those roles are called, but what, what do you need those roles for? And then what skill sets are needed for those roles? And then that helps you to be able to put the right people in those positions, but then also how to support them. Okay, this person's gonna work well for this position, but there's still some gap in skills and I need to support them on that, just like we would on the clinical side of things.

But yeah, whether it's a director, um, clinical director or case manager or BCBA, lead BCBA, whatever you call it, having some clinical position underneath the owner as you're like, you know, it's gonna be the owner probably for a while.

Stephen Smith: For a while.

April Smith: But as you're growing and shifting and having that, that clinical lead, whomever, whatever you call them, that has the capacity to manage the team without having their own full caseload.

Because I [00:21:00] think having that dedicated time is really important. But then also on the other side, having the operations manager and having all of those systems, but then as like Stephen alluded to earlier, having those plans of how the clinical and operational, how do they communicate and how do you make those decisions as, as you grow?

And I know a lot of times people are like, "Well, it's just gonna be me. I'm a BCBA and I might hire one other BCBA and have a few techs, and that's really all we're gonna grow." Well, even in that situation, and if that's the case, it's still important to have these things written out and spelled out specifically in behavioral terms so that everyone's clear.

I go back to my favorite, favorite quote, Brené Brown, like, "Clear is kind." Right? If nothing else, you're being a great leader by being clear on what the expectations are and then being able to give feedback and follow up.

Allyson Wharam: Yeah. Do you have any frameworks 'cause a lot of the roles that you described are really kind of core to, like, the service delivery. Do you have any frameworks or ways that you think [00:22:00] about what sort of roles or tasks should be outsourced versus should be an in-house hire?

Stephen Smith: I mean, it really depends on the experience of the people that own the company, right? So I'll work with a lot of couples and you know, whether it's the husband or the wife that's the BCBA, maybe the other person has finance background or you know, business background. And so, you know how to do this, so, we don't have to outsource that.

But typically when I'm working with a BCBA-owned company, it's like you have to get an accountant and you have to get an attorney and you need them right now. I don't remember who told me this, but it was in one of our AMAs. You never need an attorney in two weeks, right? Like, you need an attorney right now.

That's always how it is. And so having that relationship is so important. Someone that you can go to and ask a question and you don't feel like an idiot 'cause, you know, I mean, attorneys, I don't know, some attorneys aren't so approachable. So, having [00:23:00] that relationship, and the same with an accountant, right?

Stephen Smith: "Hey, we're growing really quickly. So you have to be aware that you're gonna have a larger payroll tax this quarter, so we have to, you know, we have to prepare for that." Things like this because those do happen. And then, after those key roles, then it's like what do you dislike doing, right?

Like, I have some BCBAs that don't like to do intakes. That surprises me. But, you know, okay, then let's figure out who needs to be in that position to be able to do those effectively so that they're successful, right? So some people love to do marketing, other people hate it, right?

So it really depends on what it is that you like to do and what you dislike to do or what you find difficult and don't have the time to figure it out, right? So I mean, it, it really just depends. And so what we often ask when we're starting out is write your dream job, like [00:24:00] perfect, everything's wonderful, and I come in and I'm like skipping, right?

Like and what does that look like? And then what is keeping you from that job. Well, I'm dealing with billing and I have all these authorization. Then you need a biller, right? So let's find a biller. Uh, so it really depends, right?

Allyson Wharam: Mm-hmm. And as organizations are kind of growing, 'cause kind of one thing that I have experienced as also someone who's just kind of bootstrapped and, you know, has done things on their own, is that you obviously then have to balance sustainable growth in terms of like, what can I afford? So like maybe I don't want to do billing right now, but can I reasonably hire a biller?

And so, yeah, do you have any ways that you help folks kind of figure out and prioritize, like what to do right now or how to prioritize hires?

Stephen Smith: Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, so totally this has to work financially for your company. But I will [00:25:00] say, like, billing is a huge job and, you know, like this, this is one that we see the life cycle, right? Like BCBA, first six months, they have to do it, right? They have no choice. And they really should learn how to do it anyway.

So, but there gets to be a point where you know, you're just doing so much and you're working 60, 70 hours a week, and it's like, yeah, you're saving, I don't know, $400 a month. But like, is this, is this worth your sanity? Are you still an effective clinician when you're working 80 hours a week, right?

So there is that piece of it too. Like, can we get some of your life back? Is your family okay with you working 80 hours a week? Are you okay with working that? So there is that piece as well. So we need to build the system so that you can get down to a normal amount of hours that you wanna work.

Again, some people, you know, some people wanna [00:26:00] work 50, 60 hours a week, and other people are like, "Eh, I'd like to work 20, maybe 25, 30." Right? So, how do we get you there? And, you know, putting in those benchmarks. Once you're making this amount of money, you have this level of quality services, right? And you're at this level of profitability, then we're hiring a virtual assistant, then we're hiring, you know, an intake specialist, then we're hiring another BCBA, right?

So those are the things that you wanna put in place, and that goes back to the vision, right? That April loves to talk about, is what do you want this to look like? How big is too big, right? Is this a clinic and in-home? Is this just in-home? Are we adding speech? Are we adding OT? Are we...

Right? So knowing what it is that you wanna build is so important. The other thing that I try to tell people is how at the end of the day, pretty much everybody's gonna sell this, right? So is this going to be a large percentage of your retirement plan? [00:27:00] And if that's the case, then how much money do you think you need to live comfortably?

And so then we need to figure out how big we need to get this so that we can sell it for that amount based on... You know. So those are things that we look at to start and I think a lot of BCBAs come into this and they're exit like, "Dude, I just started this two months ago. What, why would I be thinking about that?"

But it is, it's really important because if you don't know how this ends, you don't know where you're going, right? And I think that is where the struggle comes, you know, when you get to year three. It's like, " why do I continue doing this? This is awful." So, yeah.

Allyson Wharam: Yeah. I mean we talk so much about vision for the business, but ultimately, as you're saying, having that vision for yourself. Like, what are you doing this for? What is your vision for your life and how this looks for you right now within the business and then in the future?

And one thing you said earlier, April, stood out to me in terms of just, like, giving services away for free or feeling really anxious when you're collecting payment or [00:28:00] whatever, because I empathize with that a lot as someone who also just wants to do really good work. That is a key value and motivator for me is like I just want to like create value for people.

And at the same time, it is a business that requires sustainability and requires me to be able to sustain my energy and things like that. And then part of that is being able to hire. And so it is this like growing and evolution process.

In an ideal world, I would love to just like, you know, keep doing good work and give it all away for free. But you know what is the saying? The kinda cliche saying, like, "No money, no mission." Like if you don't have the funds to be sustainable, you're not going to be able to keep serving people.

I'm curious how for you, April, now and for both of you really, how has that evolved or how have you kinda grown and how has your kinda mindset around that evolved over time?

April Smith: That's, that's a really awesome question. It has grown and evolved a lot because now I'm in a different position, but I'm still collecting payment like, I'm still charging for my services and it's a different level. It looks [00:29:00] different than it was. I had kind of gotten okay with that on the ABA end of things, and then it shifted and grew as I'm doing more early consulting and coaching and all of that.

But I think what I was able to do, it was a process. It was not overnight, it was over years, and it's still, it's still in effect. Like, I'm still learning and growing about this, but was looking at, okay, it's not about me. It's not about my worth so much. Yes, same as you. Like last night I was stressed out about a certain project that I'm working on and I was like I don't know if I'm doing a good job on this or not.

And then of course I was like looking, okay, what can I do in the future to figure this out so I can have self-assessment checkpoints here, right? And Stephen's like, "You're just expecting way too much of yourself. You're doing a great job. Like you're doing everything. You're doing beyond what I would want you to be doing for this situation."

But it didn't matter what he said, right? Like I was still like, "Ugh." And so that was a really good [00:30:00] reminder of I did the thing today, and it was great and awesome and wonderful, and I came out of it feeling like I really provided value. I really helped this person.

And then I'm like, "Oh, why was I so worried about that?" And part of that still too is because there was a price tag. Like I feel like someone is paying their really hard-earned money for my services, I wanna show up and I wanna show up beyond. So over the years have kind of learned and still learning to separate myself from that is looking at, okay, it's not about me, it's not about my worth in the sense that I already know where I stand for the most part.

I already know that I'm gonna bring quality and I'm gonna work hard at it, right? So I already kind of have that checked and I have things to check in to make sure I stay there. But it's like taking myself out of it, taking my person out of it, and looking at like what that money is going to bring for the rest of the system that I'm working in.

Like for ABA businesses, I coach a lot of people for this very thing of [00:31:00] like I feel really strongly that you can't, you shouldn't open and run an ABA business if it's not gonna be profitable enough to not just get by, but have enough money to then be able to pour back into your team to be able to provide training.

Because I think that's one of the biggest problems that I see is that we're not putting as a whole, like we're not putting our money back into the system for training, 'cause we can't bill for training, right? And so to be able to provide that training to our techs and our BCBAs, you know all parts of our company, even the admin people and the operations people, when I'm looking at that for ABA clinics, it's like, okay, so, you know, rate negotiating and having your standard rate to an amount that actually helps you to pour back into your company to be able to pay for those training, to be able to pay for staff team building and all of those things, right?

And so for me, it's like helping with 3PieSquared is being able to help bring in that money to be able to pour back [00:32:00] into our company to be able to continue to provide the quality services to others. I don't know. It's, it's not a direct answer. There's not a

Allyson Wharam: Yeah. Yeah.

April Smith: to push, but that's kinda, that's where I'm heading is like putting it more into the values, okay, and checking in on my values and checking in, but not making the amount so much about my worth.

And then looking at what is that money helping to do, you know, how is it helping to support the rest of what we're trying to do within our system? So I don't know. Hopefully that

Allyson Wharam: Yeah. No, it does. And I think one thing that you highlighted there is the way that as business owners we can tie our personal worth so closely to our business and to what we're doing and, you know, our employee experience and things like that. And that is just a difficult thing but at the same time, you mentioned, one way or another, the business is gonna end and your experience with the business is going to end, whether it's parting ways and, you know, the business is no more, you do something [00:33:00] else, or you exit. And so how do you get people to begin to kind of decouple that and still pour into their business and their people in a way that is sustaining and creating quality, but not tying their own kind of personal experience?

It's just hard when you're close to it. Like, a lot of people make the analogy of it's like having a baby or a child. And so yeah. How do you think about that?

April Smith: So my quick answer and then I'll hand it over to you, is that just like parenting, and I know not everyone listening is a parent, but we do work a lot with parents, so hopefully this will relate. But they're different. You have to show up in different ways for different stages of your child's life, right?

And I'm sorry, but, like, that first year of newborn-ness i- is hard. So are the 2 to 4. So are the, like, middle... my kid is 11 now, and I'm like, "Holy moly, I don't know if I'm gonna survive the preteen and

Allyson Wharam: have a, I have an almost 11-year-old too, so, uh,

April Smith: don't...

like, I'm feeling the anxiety just, [00:34:00] like, talking about this whole new level of independence and they're starting to go out into the world without me holding their hand. And so I think it's very similar to what it looks like being a business owner. It's like each season that you go through is still hard, and it's a little different each time.

And I know when we closed our company, in some ways that was harder than opening our company. I went through a major transition. I mean, we moved to a different country. It was the weird post-COVID times. And, like, or pre- in the middle of CO- whatever, the '20 to '23.

Wah, whatever. And it was like an identity shift, right? Because I think that it's similar to, like, maybe an empty nester going back to the parenting analogy. Like, "Okay, my kids are gone. They don't need me anymore. What am I gonna do with myself?" We ended up closing that company, and being able to step away from it and be like, "Well, who, who am I now? What's my identity?" And part of why I wasn't able to sell when we [00:35:00] closed is because I didn't feel like it was good enough. I couldn't sell it. I could not...

We tried to pass it over. Part of it was I couldn't let go of it.

Stephen Smith: Yep.

April Smith: I couldn't give it to someone who wasn't gonna do as good a job as me, and I didn't think it was good enough... for someone else to take.

Allyson Wharam: Oh,

April Smith: It was such a storm.

Stephen Smith: Yes.

April Smith: To say that I was, like, unstable was an understatement.

And so as I look back to that, and we've helped other business owners as they're going through that process, and I have a little bit of perspective in helping walk them through that. You know, I recognize more, and more, and more.

It's so hard to decouple, and I don't have an answer. I don't know. I don't know other than I do talk about work-life balance, although I hate calling it work-life balance. But people know it as work-life balance, so I refer to it as that, is making sure that you do have something outside of work that you can grow, and build, and enjoy.

I'm sorry. It took longer than I expected. I'll pass it back to you.

Stephen Smith: No, that's fine. I think there's a responsibility of the owner. They have to build something that they can [00:36:00] step away from and it still works. So there's that piece of it, but at the same time, like, I don't practice what I preach.

So, it is difficult and business owners are typically control freaks. It's just the way it is. At least I am. And, and so letting things go is very difficult for me. I think for a lot of owners, uh, it is very difficult. And because there is an underlying truth, right, that I hear all the time, "If I don't do it, nobody else is gonna do it."

And to a degree, you're right, right? You can delegate the task, you can have perfect work instructions, and, you know, it works great for four weeks, and then that person quits and now what do you do, right?

April Smith: Or you just have that drift of-

Stephen Smith: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like, there is that underlying truth that

you are ultimately responsible for what happens. So that is hard for a lot of people, so I try to give them practical reasons why they should do it. Again, if your goal is to sell this, [00:37:00] nobody's gonna buy it if you're working 80 hours

'cause they're gonna have to hire two people to take over your position, right? So there is that piece of it, and I try to tie it back to that. But again, also, owners shouldn't be doing the day-to-day grind in year four and year five. They should be, how do I improve the systems that I already have?

How do I improve the quality of life of my staff? How do we provide better services? So that's, that's where they should be focusing on, right? And it is very difficult for a lot of clinicians to let go. Uh, but I think that is a normal thing for a lot of people. So yeah, it is difficult.

And it is maybe some therapy would help, right?

April Smith: I say often, honestly, I think everybody should be in therapy. But, especially if you're a business owner, you really need to look into having a therapist or a life coach or someone to be there for you, right?

'Cause it's important to, to take care of yourself [00:38:00] too. And maybe you can even go to them with the goal of, okay I wanna still have my personality or my self outside of my business self, or something like that, right?

Stephen Smith: Yeah. I mean, for a lot of owners, this is a, like, an extension of their life, right?

Like, this is so important. And the kids that they work with are not a customer. They're family, right? Like, we have to do right by them. And so letting somebody else do that, that's not gonna happen, right? So yeah, there's a lot to it. There's a lot of pieces. And then other people are like, "Eh.

Eh. I, I don't..." So, you know, it's a journey for everyone. Every story is a little bit different. But it's just, you know, trying to, again, focus on what the end goal is. And if your end goal is five clinics in two different states, there's no way that you can manage all of that yourself.

So we have to put systems in place because like you mentioned at the start, right? Like, a BCBA [00:39:00] starts a company and they're one, two years in and they're like, "Oh, wow. Uh, this is exactly the same place that I left, and as unethical and as low quality as that last place." And, like, even if you're willing to have that perspective, I think that's great.

That's a great start because a lot of people can't even admit that, right? So now at least you know where you stand and now we can improve. So yeah, it's a lot and then you get partner relationships involved, right? I've worked with some companies that have four or five partners.

Like, man, that is a mess, right? Like, it can be a mess. And so some people are, "You're not doing enough," and, "I'm doing more than you." And, you know, it, it just gets really sticky. So yeah, get some therapy, right?

Allyson Wharam: Yeah. It's a huge exercise in self-reflection and understanding. Similarly, I wanted to ask you about, like, your experience as, like, new parents [00:40:00] and navigating, not even just new parenthood, but just parenthood in general in the context of business. I have three kids, so one is almost 11.

The others are 5 and 3. My middle was 2 when I started the bus- or maybe 18 months when I started the business. And then I had my youngest in the midst of all of it. And so, similarly, like just, it's, it's a lot. That comes with its own set of growth and reflection and trying to figure out your identity and then you have the business side of things.

And so, I would just love to hear anything that you're willing to share about kind of your journey in balancing parenthood with this process. Because I know personally it's something that can feel really isolating because they are so intertwined, but then can feel like you're kind of living a dual, you know, like I'm wiping noses and doing school drop-off, and then five minutes later, because I have no buffer in my schedule because my time's so limited, I'm hopping on this meeting.

Allyson Wharam: And so I would just, I would love to hear more about your experience with that.[00:41:00]

April Smith: Yeah, the experiences. Woof. One of the things that I'm learning, 'cause we have our one child, and he's 11, and I think the biggest thing, I don't wanna say I've learned, I am still learning. One of the things that I learned becoming an owner, I learned this I think probably in year two, was how to set boundaries and how to follow them.

Of course, there are seasons again, right? But even with my staff, I started setting boundaries as far as like we weren't a on-call crisis intervention service, right? So there's no need to be taking phone calls at 10:00 AM from a flustered parent or staff.

Stephen Smith: 0:00 PM, you mean.

April Smith: 10:00 PM. 10... What did I say?

Stephen Smith: I think you said 10:00 AM.

April Smith: Oh, 10:00 PM. Yeah. At 10:00 AM, I'll take it. Um, and, and so I did. I had my first experience, and I, I have shared this before, but the BCBA on staff, and she was like texting and texting and calling and calling and texting and texting late at night. And, I had communicated the expectation that my office hour, I'm not gonna be answering my [00:42:00] phone after X amount or something. I can't even remember the when that was, but I'd set that 'cause that's important too. You do need to communicate the expectation. And, and then I stood by it.

And the next day she was like, "Wow, I was really mad at you." She was like, "But wow, you, like, you did that. Like, I respect that." And then that helped her to be able to set those boundaries-

Stephen Smith: Made it better ...

April Smith: with the families was providing services for, and then that kinda helped set the tone for our entire clinic, and we quickly shifted from that on-call, fire pitting outing after hours kind of...

Except for Stephen waking up at 3:00 AM in the morning and waking me up... about insurance. But that was a whole another story.

Stephen Smith: Yeah. There was no work life balance

Allyson Wharam: that plus like newborn wake-ups and

April Smith: yeah, yeah, yeah, Oh, yeah. It was, it was not pretty.

Stephen Smith: No.

April Smith: But I think, too, one of the things is so Stephen and I like, work on these businesses together.

But that also means, and we parent together, but that also [00:43:00] means we've had to have some kind of understanding of, like, we can't both be all in work or all in parenting at the same time. We've had to figure that out, right? For example, right now, the season we're in, our child gets home by 3:00 every day, and I started taking meetings and working up until about 5:00 every day.

And so that 3 to 5, I was multitasking, right? He was getting home from school. He was getting a snack. Sometimes I would have that ready for him. Sometimes he would have homework, and he would knock it out really quick sitting in my office feeling like he's working, too. Other days, he was like, "Heck no, I'm not doing my homework.

And then knowing, of course, I mean, I, I don't know if you guys know anything about behavior, but, like, he learned really quickly what behaviors were gonna get him attention during that two hours in the afternoon when I'm trying to juggle it all. I thought, "I can, I can handle this. I can do this.

I can do this. I just have to tweak. I have to change. I have to-" No, I had to recognize, I had to step back and say, "I can't. [00:44:00] I can't multitask these two hours after school. I have to be a mom or I have to be a business person, because if not, I'm a bad word." I am a not nice person.

Stephen Smith: Right.

April Smith: And I am no good for anybody.

And then I end my day just feeling like crap, just feeling like a, a really bad person. And there's that worth, right? So I had to say, "Okay, Stephen, my work day ends at 2:30. I go for like a quick reset walk, and then I'm ready for mom life at 3:00." Now, of course like there are occasions where we have to take a meeting and you know, occasionally we can work that together.

But then I had to tell Stephen, then I had to adjust, then I was still trying to do the same amount of work, but 10 hours less. So I mean two hours a day is 10 hours less a week and then I'm like stressing out and I'm working after he goes to sleep and I'm like, "Whoa, how did I get back here?"

Right? I'm like, "I can't continue to function like this. This is not okay." You know. So then we had a conversation and I [00:45:00] said, "Okay, I need one day. I need one day a week that I can like work the entire afternoon into the evening." So it's like Tuesdays, 3:00, his schedule is cleared for work so that he can do all of the afternoon activities and homework and bedtime.

And so I have at least one day a week that I know going into the week that that's my day that I can do like a full, full load of work and I have a lot of like focus blocks set. So that's just one tiny example. I, I don't know. I don't know the answer, but I do know there is that, you were saying earlier, there's that level of like self understanding, like checking in with yourself, like what do I need?

And sometimes we feel like, oh, if we just work harder,

Allyson Wharam: Mm-hmm.

April Smith: Or if we just do more, or we just put more into it, or we just get up an hour earlier every day, then we'll be able to fit it in. But what I'm realizing as I'm like nearing 50, going into the whole like hormonal shifts of life that that brings, and going into these preteen, teen years with my child, I'm [00:46:00] like, "I can't do it all.

I can't do it all." And so that's okay. So I'm just having to try to make those decisions and sometimes they're in the moment and sometimes they're thought out and planned of, okay, this season this is what this is gonna look like. But then I have Stephen to fall back on. So that's part of the beauty of being in business with your spouse.

Um, there is a lot of downside too, we've discussed before. But that is one of the things is that we can share that load a little bit and, um, we can adjust. But I don't know. I don't know if that's helpful for anybody, but you do the best you can, and I mean, we're not super human heroes.

We just aren't.

Allyson Wharam: Yeah. I think more than anything, it's just helpful to hear that, again, because it can be so isolating, like I've had a lot of the same thoughts and experiences, and even down to like, "I feel like I'm falling behind," or, "I'm not doing enough," or, you know, and then I look at my hours of like, how much protected work time do I have where I'm not also trying to balance childcare, or it's not 10:00 PM, or, you know.

Allyson Wharam: When you start to really look at [00:47:00] those things, um, yeah, from the, the lens of not only self-compassion, but just like realistically, what is realistic for any human? You are a human being, and what is feasible in that amount of time? And just you know, again, it comes back to that sustainability, too, and that vision of what you want your, your life to look like.

Because again, I can relate, too, to like you're trying to do it all, and then you're this like grumpy, horrible person that you're like, "Who, who is this?" You know, "Why am I like snapping?" Or whatever. So I can relate to all of that. And I think a lot of people that are balancing all of these things, whether they're a business owner or a leader in some way, I mean, or just even, you know, anyone who is balancing parenthood and work, and it, it's just, it's a lot.

Or any sort of caregiving and caretaking. I know we're at time. -- I have so many other questions I wanna ask you and hear about, but one last thing I wanted to just mention for folks, 'cause we didn't mention it earlier, is that you just launched a book on May 13th, and it's called "The ABA Business Leader's Guide: How to Start, Grow, and Sustain an [00:48:00] Ethical ABA Practice Without Losing Your Soul."

And so I think we've already kind of alluded to a lot of this throughout the conversation. But as just kind of a closing, I'd love to hear what led you to pick that title. Why was it important for you to frame the book in that way?

Stephen Smith: I mean, it's, you know, we've already talked about it, but it's like the BCBA that started a practice because they wanted to do something better, right? They wanted to provide a better service for their staff and for their clients. And they get two years in and they realize that I am 100% focused on billable hours.

I am not training my staff, you know, and now they feel stuck. And there is a better way. We work with, uh, businesses all the time that are doing this successfully and they're providing the services that they feel comfortable. Some of these are parent-owned businesses, right? And they are providing services that they would [00:49:00] feel acceptable for their family.

And that's what we all want, right? I don't think, like I have to think this. I, I don't believe that any BCBA wakes up in the morning and says, "How, how can I do something unethical?" And, you know. So, I think most of us are here for the right reasons, and there are so many traps, and the incentive is so backward in this field right now, where you will make more profit if you have less educated, lower trained staff, right?

And have a very high turnover. And that, to me, it just makes me sick to my stomach. And so, yeah, I don't wanna sell my soul right-- And when we were considering selling our company, you know, we had the opportunity to sell it to PE, and we both said, "No, we can't, we can't do that." That just wasn't us.

Now, I'm not saying, "Hey, every PE is bad," right? But for us, that was a deal breaker. And so we would've rather just [00:50:00] close and find a great place for our families than sell it to someone that everyone was a number, and that, that just wasn't for us. So that's, that's kinda where the name came from, right?

Stephen Smith: I think most BCBAs wanna be able to sleep at night. At least that's, again, where we are at, and so that's kinda where the name came from. So, yeah.

Allyson Wharam: Well, it was so great having you on. I know we will continue to collaborate and have more conversations about all this, and we'll link where to find your book, your podcast, everything else in the show notes as well for folks. But yeah, thank you so much for being here.

April Smith: Thank you for having us.