BIRD WILLIAMS: You're listening to Bird Means Business Episode 97.

Hey, hey, hey! Thank you so much for tuning into Bird Means Business podcast. I am your host, Bird Williams. And today you're going to hear a really incredible story about how a speech language pathologist, Ebony Green, took her business to seven figures despite a whole pandemic. Y'all Ebony and I met in college at the University of Texas at Austin. Hook 'em, horns. And we've stayed connected over the years. You're going to hear all about her startup story. But first, I want to give you a bit of background on my girl, Ebony. 

Ebony Green is a certified speech language pathologist and CEO of Casa Speech and Development Services. This is a company that provides a life changing therapy to children and adults with disabilities. With over nine years of experience, Ebony has not only acquired the knowledge to improve her patients' outcomes, but also the passion to help other speech language pathologists develop their businesses. 

I cannot wait for you to hear this incredible episode and get so many takeaways from our conversation. But before we dive in, I really just feel this need to encourage someone out there with this. It is okay. It is okay if your journey does not look like everyone else's. It is okay if it's taking you longer, or you're doing things differently. Or maybe something surprising has happened in your life and you're having to really pause or you're having to rethink everything. You might feel overwhelmed. Like, man, there's so much that I want to be doing right now, but I can't. Look, none of it, not one piece of your journey is wasted. It can all be used to work together for good. 

So my encouragement to you is to just keep going. And when I say keep going, it doesn't mean always like in an active state of working on your business or doing something like that. For some of you it might mean to rest. It might mean to take a step back and reevaluate things. Because I'm telling you, if you pause now, you'll be stronger in the long run. So again, even if it looks like resting temporarily, I want you to not give up. I want you to ultimately realize that what you have to offer the world is powerful and life changing, and we need your gifts. So even if that looks like a temporary pause, you're stronger in the long run for it. Okay? So I hope that encourages someone out there. I think I might need to hear the same thing. 

All right, enough of my little rant. Let's dive into this conversation with Ebony. 

Ebony Green. How are you? I'm so glad to have you on the show. 

EBONY GREEN: I'm so happy to be here. I've been listening to the podcast for a while. And I'm glad that I finally get to be a guest. 

BIRD: Yay! This is gonna be so much fun. I know we go way back to the college days. at the University of Texas. And I love that we've stayed connected over the years. I mean, what was that? I know, I went to UT in 2006. 

EBONY: I know. It's been over a decade for sure and then some.

BIRD: Yeah, I'm so glad to have you on the show. I'm so excited to tell listeners about your story and your new huge milestone, which we'll get into. But first, let's just start off by telling those who are listening about who you are, what you do, and the story of how you got to where you are today. 

EBONY: My name is Ebony Green and I'm a speech language pathologist. I live in the Phoenix area but I'm originally from Austin, Texas. I have two kids, and I am married. I've been married for 13 years, which is crazy because I met my husband in college where I met Ashley. I own a private practice here in Phoenix. It's called Casa Speech Therapy. We focus on providing speech language pathology services, occupational therapy services, and a few other non-therapy services to individuals who have disabilities. We work with children who have autism. We also work with adults who have different developmental disabilities. And our focus is really just to provide comprehensive accessible services for all. That's actually what Casa stands for. It's an acronym. And it also means home in Spanish or house. I am a bilingual SLP. So I provide services to culturally and linguistically diverse families. And my practice started, actually, out of my car. I was a solopreneur. And I was seeing patients in their homes. And so I thought, oh, home in Spanish, casa. That will be perfect for my little business. And now we have grown into a multidisciplinary practice with two locations. We also provide services to about one hundred fifty patients a week and we serve over six hundred students in schools. 

BIRD: That is just incredible. My gosh. So when you started, when it was like you said out of your car, just going to meet with people in their homes, could you ever have imagined it would be what it is today? What did that journey look like? 

EBONY: Yes, I did imagine it because I'm a firm believer in manifesting the dreams and desires that you have. So I always imagined having a multidisciplinary practice. I started my company because I have the experience of working at different practices like my own. And unfortunately, there were some things that I just didn't like about working for these home health companies. One of them was that you don't really get to have that team collaboration aspect. Because if you're going into homes seeing patients all the time, you don't really get to see any co-workers or people that work with you. And then there was a lot of mismanagement of funds. Sadly, a lot of these SLPs, who started practices didn't have any business background, and they didn't have any business knowledge or financial literacy. So you know, when you start getting those checks coming in, it's like, oh, I'm actually making some good money here. But you have to be careful with how you manage that money, because there are things that come up. You have to pay for insurance. And our insurance policies are very expensive. We're medical health care providers, so that's a big overhead cost. We also have to make sure that we manage our payroll. I have 25 contractors. So that's like, off the top, they got to get paid. And I remember being a contractor for a company like mine, and the last paycheck that I got from them bounced. It went to my account, and it bounced. And I was like, oh, my goodness. I have to leave, and I have to do something better, because this is not just affecting me. Like all of my coworkers, everyone that works for this company, is going through the same thing. And it's the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about. But we shouldn't be subjected to these types of situations. Because if I worked for a big company, or if I worked for a school district, I wouldn't be going through this. I wouldn't be worried about whether my check is going to clear. So I said to myself, you know, I was gonna really think about establishing a practice where I can make it feel like a real job. And even though you know, a lot of my staff are contractors, I really do prioritize their needs, and making it feel like they have a job where it is a real job. It's not a situation where it's temporary, or you know, we only see you as a number because you're out there doing therapy, and we don't really see you that often. So that was one of the reasons why I started. I had some experiences that I wanted to make better. 

BIRD: I want to just jump in. I imagine that you having that stability for your contractors, like it helps so much with buy-in, right? Helps so much with them being enthusiastic about their job and all-in as opposed to, "You know what? I don't know if this check is going to clear or not. I might need to do something else." Or you know what I'm saying? So I love that. And I love that you pointed out that you started your SLP practice, because of what you saw wrong in the industry you were in. 

I've interviewed tons of different entrepreneurs on the show and that's a common theme. For example Terry in fitness. He was working in fitness, and he wanted to do group fitness differently. He was like, people need to train like athletes, if they want to look like them. They don't need all these machines. They can use their body weight. And the places where he was weren't about that. They weren't trying to hear that. He was like, you know what? I'm gonna do my own thing. So for anyone out there listening to Ebony's story that might relate with something like that, think about how you can do it differently in your industry and really stand out in that way. I love that. So keep going. Sorry. 

EBONY: Yeah, no, and truly, that's what it was, you know. It was lack of business knowledge and management skills that I saw that, you know, just made these practices a little bit difficult to really see myself there long term. So I had this vision of having this company where it was the home health care company that everybody wanted to work for. And this was before I had a clinic. I was just doing home health and my clinicians were just doing home health. And so now we've evolved into this multidisciplinary practice with clinic locations and with school contracts. And all of the energy and focus that I put on making those things better, that I didn't really like about my job previously, has helped me, like you said, what the buy-in. 

Recently, I got this email that I want to share real quick from a staff member who I just hired. And she said, "Hi, Ebony. I wanted to tell you how impressed I am with how you run your business. From the interview, to the orientation, to the training, and down to the new way you process payroll, I am blown away and can't wait to experience Friendsgiving, which is something we have coming up with my new co-workers." So that email itself just tells me like, okay, I'm doing something different, right? These therapists have been to companies where it's done differently, but it hasn't probably been the best experience for them. So receiving that email really told me like, okay, I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. And my vision is coming to life. 

BIRD: Yes, that is so beautiful. And you know, whenever you get good feedback like that, like you said, it says a lot because people are more prone to say something negative than they are to say something positive. So that says a lot about how you run your business. And I just love that so much. Those emails are just the best. I love that you got that. 

So I want to talk about this new milestone that your business recently hit, which is so exciting. Your business hit seven figures in revenue. It's so exciting! I remember seeing your Instagram posts and I was like, "Aah!" I think it was in the car with Terry. I was like. "Terry, Terry!"  He was like "That's so awesome!" We were definitely cheering you on. So I want to hear a little bit about what that looked like, how you got there, and what were some of the biggest changes that you had to make to set yourself up for this level of success? 

EBONY: Well, thank you so much. Yes, it was definitely something that I was really excited to share. You know, sometimes I feel like I overshare. But I'm like, I just want people to be encouraged because I started, like I said, out of my car. And when you look at the statistics, especially with female founded businesses, the number of female founders who have businesses that make a million dollars in revenue is very low compared to male founded businesses. So it's something to definitely celebrate. And it really came from, I know, it sounds cliche, but working hard. You know, making sure that I had a vision and I stuck to my plans. And I have a team that is able to help me carry out that vision. 

So some of the realities that I learned along the way, harsh realities, is that you have to be the visionary, and you have to get that buy-in from your team to help you execute. And for us to get to a million dollars in revenue, it meant, you know, we have to go beyond just our immediate area. When we first started out, we were serving patients kind of in the same geographic area, mainly. We didn't really go out into other parts of Arizona. 

But I quickly learned that I needed to learn how to scale my business because the pandemic happened, and that reduced our number of new referrals and reduced our number of in-office visits. And so I thought, you know, there has to be a way to make sure that my business is gonna stay afloat, regardless of a pandemic happening. And I thought about government contracts and school contracts, and just how important speech language pathologists are in the school setting. 

I used to work in the school setting before I started my private practice, and I loved it. But one of the things that I did not like, again, I'm going back to that theme of one of the things I didn't like, was that there was a lot of administrative stuff that was outside of our control. We had to manage our caseload of students. But then we also had other things that we had to do that had nothing to do with being a speech language pathologist. It was just stuff that, you know, had to be checked off because of federal money and federal guidelines. And I just, you know, it's one of those things that just makes your job harder, unnecessarily. And so I left that school, the last school job that I was at. But I always said I would go back if I can go back on my own terms and be my own boss. 

So then I started researching school contract opportunities, and I ended up winning a bid for a large school contract. And that contract alone was worth half a million dollars. So when I discovered, okay, I can do my private practice and see all of my clients and have my team do all of the clinical stuff that we do. And we can focus on patient care, but also expand my reach, and serve students in communities that really need SLPs, because they can't hire anyone in house. So then it's a win-win. And so my team started working on this contract to serve students in a rural school district three hours away from where we're located, but we were able to do everything virtually via teletherapy. And so just having that, you know, having an open mind that, yes, we can do this, because this was before COVID. So teletherapy wasn't really a thing. But I was determined to help these kids, is what really helped me reach that milestone. 

BIRD: Wow, that is amazing. I love that it was, like you said, having an open mind, thinking outside of the box, right? And try new territory. And then also something I hear is the service element, you were like, I want to be able to help people who can't afford our services as they exist now, you know, in different areas. And so I talk a lot about how, you know, when it comes to business, you hear all the different things. And I try to say a lot that I don't ever want to really want to tell people what to do, but more so how to think. 

But when it comes to motivation, I hear so much about like the money. And I mean, this podcast is a lot about how you built this incredible business, and you have this seven figure business, which is amazing. But I feel like some people I think prioritize the money and not so much the service. And so it can not be as motivating, right? Because you can make money a whole lot of ways. You can make money in real estate and investing, you know, a whole lot of different ways. Entrepreneurship is not always the kind of the way you want to make money, you know, because it is hard. So if you aren't really focused on the service, and it's just about the money, then it's gonna, you know, it's gonna die really quickly. Because, again, there's so many other things you can do to make money. So I love that it's rooted in what you're doing in serving people and serving those communities.

EBONY: And to me, it's always about doing the service and then the money will follow. We were offered other opportunities that I had no idea I was going to be involved in. I was on a conference call. This was back a year ago, last November. And someone from a large insurance company reached out to me and said, "Hey, we want you to be a part of our network of providers. And, we want to set up a time to talk." So I set up a time to talk to them. Well, this opportunity was for another contract that was only open to specific providers in Arizona. It's like these five providers had been the only contracted providers in this network for like, years. And they finally decided to reopen it and allow other providers to be a part of it. But so many people were afraid to do it, because there were people that have been doing it for years, you know that were obviously very well-trained and well-versed on this procedure. But I agreed to do it, because they said that they really like the waitlist for these specific evaluations that we were going to be doing, the waitlist was so long. And I know that because some of our clients that we were serving needed these types of evaluations, and they had been waiting for months and months and months. And I thought, wow, if we can cut the time in half for these evaluations to get done, then why not. And so I agreed to do it. And I didn't make money right away, because I had to learn how to do it. I had to train my staff on how to do it. And we had a lot of bumps in the road. It's been a year since we started this. And we finally have gotten a kind of system in place. And now we're finally starting to see some of that money come in. 

But initially, it wasn't about the money. I was like, I just want to learn how to do this so I can help solve this problem. I think in business and entrepreneurship, innovation is what really drives your ability to make money and be successful. You have to think outside of the box, and you have to be a problem solver. 

BIRD: Yes, absolutely. Another thing I hear you talk about a lot is your team. So talk a little bit about how that works for you. How do you best find people in your team? Is there any nugget or piece of advice you would give around really facilitating that process or finding great people and keeping great people? I talk a lot, again, on the show, about how important it is if you want to grow your business, if you want to scale your business, you're gonna have to grow a team. So many people start off like you and like us, as solopreneurs, where it's just you in the business. But in order to grow and do more, you're gonna have to release control and make the financial leap to pay for these other people. But it's going to allow you to really scale. So, anything that you would want to share there? 

EBONY: Yeah, I think hiring is the scariest thing you can do as an entrepreneur, you know? You think about how much money you're gonna have to pay this person. And it's like, whoa, maybe I should just do this myself instead. But what you don't realize is that having that person come on frees time for you to focus on more ways for you to make money in your business. So all of the little tasks that you're doing, it might not seem like a lot. But the little tasks that you do everyday add up, right? Responding to customer complaints. Responding to emails. All of the tasks that you can delegate to someone else are preventing you from being able to think outside the box and think innovatively about, oh, maybe I can get this contract with this other school. Or maybe I can get in network with this insurance company. 

So, I hired my first staff member. It was a virtual assistant, because at the time that was all I could afford. And the virtual assistant helped me be able to focus on getting job descriptions together and hiring other people. So then I started to hire some subcontractors, because the majority of what we do is contract work. So the subcontractors came on. And I was able to manage probably about six or seven of them myself. And then when I got to ten, I'm like, okay, I need another person to handle some of this managing of people. And so I hired an office assistant. And they stayed with me for quite a while. She ended up leaving right after the pandemic. But ever since then, you know, after I invested in that office assistant, who came on as like a real in-house person, as opposed to the virtual assistant. That was when I was like, wow, this actually is helpful to have someone to help me with all these tasks. And the virtual assistant was fine, but I really needed someone to kind of represent me when I wasn't in the office and when I was doing other things. So that's kind of how I got started. 

Today, we're at the point where, like I said, we have a staff of about 20 therapists and five people in different administrative roles. So I've now actually invested in a recruiter, someone in HR, who's going to really focus on outreach through LinkedIn, and outreaching through our different channels where we post our jobs because it is a lot of work, even though I have a team. We're constantly having to find people because our waitlists are growing. So that's my latest investment is someone who can really manage the whole hiring process.

BIRD: Oh, that is huge. Because like you said, you started with hiring is like the scariest thing and I also say hiring is the hardest thing. It's so hard. You know, the whole process. I did a two part series on the show about hiring, how to hire, what to do up to that point, and then even after. And it's a lot of work, and it's also scary. And so to have a whole HR person, girl, that is goals. That is awesome. That's gonna be a huge weight lifted off your shoulders.

EBONY: Yes. 

BIRD: Now I know that your story is one of resiliency. I know that I had read that it took like 10 years for you to get your degree. So what would you say to someone who's feeling like they've gotten setback after setback and they're just so close to giving up? What is something you would say to them whether they're in this space, but or not, but just as an entrepreneur? 

EBONY: I would say that you kind of have to think about, you have to start with the end in mind. And if that means that you're going to have some setbacks and some things that come in the way of you getting to your goal at a certain time, but you stick with it and still get to the end point, then that's okay, because we all have a different path. But what matters is where you end up. And I did have lots of setbacks. I actually started my career in a different profession. And I had a background in something completely different than speech pathology. So I had to start, basically, from square one. I had to take leveling courses. I then had to move to a different state. I relocated. So all those courses look different in every state that you go to when it comes to the requirements for leveling. And then I ended up getting pregnant and having my first child. And then I wanted to have a second child before I got too advanced in age. So I took my time. And while I was going through that process, I always felt like it's just that setback after setback. There's so many people who are already having, like, you know, breakthroughs in their careers and getting ahead. And here I am still trying to finish school. 

But now that I've been in practice for myself for the past three years, it doesn't even feel like that time mattered. All the time that I was worried about my setbacks, and not being where I was supposed to be, quote-unquote. None of that even matters now, because I have the job that I want. I've been very successful thus far. And it's been worth it. You know, all of the setbacks, so to speak, have been worth it, because I'm at that destination that I always wanted to be at. 

BIRD: Oh, yes. It's like, none of it was wasted. I think when we feel like we're in that place of just, my goodness. Everything is coming against me. I'm having to do this stuff I didn't even want to do and you know, whatever. It's like, you feel like you're just wasting your time. But you in hindsight, it's easy to see none of it was wasted. You're learning things, you're meeting people, you're growing your own resiliency, which you're going to need as an entrepreneur down the road. 

It's funny, because it's like, you know, they said more money, more problems.  You have hard stuff coming against you right now, as you're just starting. But guess what? Five years down the road, there's gonna be bigger problems. 

EBONY: Absolutely.

BIRD: 10 years down the road, there's going to be even bigger problems. So if you can really hone in on that resiliency, that adaptability, those core skills at every level, they're going to carry you on beyond what is even now. So I love that you mentioned that.

EBONY: Yes, I would say definitely get a mentor. The folks who have helped me, they started mentoring me when I was an assistant. So before I even became a master's level clinician, I had supervisors who mentored me, who taught me about business ownership, who taught me about managing a school caseload. And those mentors have helped me learn the skills that I need to manage my business today. 

When it comes to like the SLP space, specifically, I know you do different things in your business. But I know that there are a few folks who are in that space who follow the podcast and follow me. So do you have any advice for them? Anyone going into this space doing something like what you're doing? Are there any good pieces of advice you'd have?

I will also say that I started a second business in 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, to mentor and to coach SLPs on entrepreneurship. So if you don't have anyone who you know personally who can mentor you, there are lots of coaches online that you can hire, or that you can follow if you just want to get some of their free content, to help you make those business decisions and to help you really know what it's like to be an entrepreneur, especially in our space. Because in graduate school, they don't really focus on the business aspect of being a speech language pathologist. Most of the emphasis is on the clinical aspect. So I recommend finding a mentor, even someone like Ashley. She's not in our space, but she's very knowledgeable when it comes to entrepreneurship, and owning a business. So she can help you learn some of the things that we don't necessarily learn about in graduate school. 

Other than that, I would say, you know, don't doubt yourself. So many of us feel like because our scope is so wide. You know, the speech language pathology scope of practice is from birth to geriatric age. So we can work with children, or we can work with infants in the neonatal intensive care unit who need feeding and who need support with swallowing, all the way to adults who are in their final years who are having difficulty with the same thing, feeding and swallowing due to various illnesses that they may have. And then everything in between - school aged children, teens. 

So, there's a lot of areas that we can really focus on as SLPs. And I think because our scope is so wide, a lot of us feel like we have, you know, we have to know everything. And if we don't know everything, then we're not good enough to be in private practice, or we're not good enough to put ourselves out there as an expert, because there's so much that we have to know and that's not true. You know, definitely focus on the areas that you're good at. But, never discount your abilities because you know more than you think you know. All those classes that we took in graduate school that we thought we would forget about, like, those little gems come up from time to time when someone asks me about something I don't do regularly. I had a question about voice the other day. I'm not a voice clinician. I don't really focus on voice. But I do remember what I learned in graduate school about this particular topic. And then I can refer them to someone else. So trust the knowledge that you already have. 

And like I said, for the business knowledge, I recommend getting a mentor or following someone who can help you because they've already been there, and they've done it themselves. 

BIRD: That is so helpful, and so huge, especially like the mentorship. I think, at every level, any entrepreneur, you need that. I come in to entrepreneurs, especially the newbie ones who kind of feel like, I know it all, I got this. 

Or even like, I had one young lady who booked this strategy session with me. And she was like, I was embarrassed to ask for help. I was embarrassed to have to book this session, because I felt like I should know how to do this. She's in marketing photography, that kind of space. And I'm like, there's no reason why you should know, you know, about hiring, for example, if you haven't experienced it already. We put so much on ourselves. We have to just like, get that humility factor in and say, "You know what? I'm going to need to ask for help." So I love that you brought that up. 

I'll be sure also to link all the ways they can connect with you also at the end so that they can follow you for your coaching. I know that you've helped so many people through that. I know we've gone back and forth about your new coaching business, and how exciting that was, and doing our courses and all of that. So I'll be sure that we link all that in the show notes. 

Last thing I want to ask before we get to that is just how you juggle all the things. And I ask this because you mentioned you have two kids and you know life and business and all of that. How do you manage it all? I know that moms listen to the podcast. And they always like the answers to these questions, because we're all trying to figure out what we're doing. But do you have any tips there?

EBONY: I think, honestly, the biggest thing for me is being okay asking for help. If I know I need help with something, I'm not afraid to ask. And that includes asking for help from my husband, and asking for help from family members, asking for help from my staff at work. My husband also works a full time job and he's in corporate. And he's very busy at his job as well. So what we do is we divide the tasks that have to get done in the morning before our kids get dropped off at school and after school. And I had to come to the realization and accept the fact that what I'm doing is a lot different than what people did when my mom was raising her kids. She had a mom who was a stay at home mom, and who took care of the family and cooked and cleaned every day. And my mom also, you know, she worked full time. But she did cook every day. And she made sure the house was clean. And so I felt like man, that's a standard that I have to hold myself up to I have to make sure I'm I cook every night I clean every day. And I realized that the way I do it might look different than how my mom did it, how my grandmother did it, because the job that I'm doing is different than the job that they did. So I still do cook dinner most nights. But I batch cook. I meal prep on the weekend so that during the week, after our busy long days, I don't have to go and stand over the stove for an hour and then go clean the kitchen. So that's just one of my tips, try to ask for help and figure out what works best for you. Because what works best for someone else might not be what works best for you and your family. 

One of the things that I like to do also is I like to schedule time for myself to just do nothing. Sometimes people think self care is like, oh, you have to get a massage or you have to go do something. I just like to close the door to my bedroom, sit in bed. And if I feel like watching a show, I'll watch a show. Or I'll get on my phone and scroll through Instagram or whatever. But I don't want to have to make any decisions. That's my self-care. So prioritizing, you know, your self-care is very important. And that's one of the ways that I also balance it all. 

BIRD: Oh, that's so great, Ebony. I love it. Oh, the doing nothing. It's something I'm really working on. I saw this meme. I think I posted it too. It's like when I try to schedule do-nothing time, I'm like, how can I be productive doing nothing? You know, like, I'm so wired to like, but I have to make it count. I have to do something when I'm doing nothing. And it's like, no, that's not doing nothing. So I'm working on that. 

And I love what you shared about your roles in the home. I think that's huge, because again, I have family members who make fun of the fact that I don't cook. I don't cook at all. I don't remember the last time I cooked, maybe like two years ago or something. It's very random. Terry loves to cook. When we first got married, I thought I had to cook and I would be trying to cook and it was like burnt or like not cooked well enough and the timing was wrong. It was awful. And he'd be like, can I help, because he likes to cook it up. And I was like, what are we doing? And I like to clean. So he cooks and I clean. And I think it's so important to have that with your husband whether you're in business together or not. Those roles in the home is huge. He does so much with our kids. You know, he's extremely helpful and I can't imagine it being any other way. So I think that's something also you have to voice, as a woman. 

Once I was sharing something about Terry on Instagram and this girl DM'd me and she was like, what a prayer did you pray for Terry? And it is funny because I did pray. I was praying that I would have a great husband. But it was also the standard I set, you know, because I wasn't gonna marry someone who wasn't going to help. I wasn't going to marry someone who wasn't going to try to make things as fair as possible. So it's also the standard I set. So I said that to her, like, what is the standard that you're setting as you're dating, you know, because you're gonna attract what you're putting out. I say that to moms who listen because it is a lot. It's a lot as you said. We are doing a lot more than maybe our moms were. In entrepreneurship, you're having to be a visionary. You're having to make a lot of decisions as opposed to just going through to a nine-to-five and you know, doing x, y, and z. It's a lot on top of the family stuff. So everything you shared was just so good. I love that. 

This has been so inspiring. You are just such a gem. You're just one of the nicest people I've ever met, one of the most consistent people I've known. Like I said, you know, we've known each other for a very long time. And there's something to seeing that consistency in a person. So I'm so glad we've been able to keep in touch over the years. And like I said, you're motivating me right now. So I know my listeners, too, are going to want to connect with you online or work with you. So what are some ways that they can learn more about you? How can they work with you, that sort of thing? 

EBONY: Well, thank you so much, Ashley, for sharing that, because I felt the same way about you. Honestly, you're a super woman, super mommy, And you are very inspirational to all women, myself included. So, thank you for having me on your show. And I strongly believe that you attract the people that you hang around. Or the people that you hang around is what, you know, you become like. And so I'm just happy that we're still connected, and we are still in the same circle. So thank you for having me on the show. 

But before we wrap up, I do want to share that I love working with SLPs who want to start businesses and who want to get coaching or who are interested in school contracts. I'm passionate about sharing the different ways that we can make money as SLPs, because one of the biggest complaints in our profession is that people feel that they're not paid enough. We're a health care profession, but we're not paid on the same level as other health care providers. So if you're interested in learning more about business ownership or school contracts, you can follow me on Instagram, and my Instagram account is @slpcontractsqueen. I also have a business page that's dedicated to all the courses and the things that I teach. So the contracts queen is more of like my personal business, mommy Instagram account. But the courses and everything are on my other page, which is @theslpbusiness_ suite. So check out either one of those and feel free to connect with me. I'd be happy to work with you. 

BIRD: Awesome! I'll be sure to link all those in the show notes so that you're easily able to just scroll down and click right in the show notes to connect with Ebony. Thank you so much again for being on the show. This was so much fun. 

EBONY: Thank you so much, Ashley. I'm so happy that I got to be a guest. I listened to your podcast when you first launched it. I remember going on a road trip, it was during the winter, right after you launched. And Joseph and I listened to four or five of your episodes. So I'm really excited that you've stuck with it, because podcasting is one of those things that really is a labor of love. And I can't wait to see all of the amazing growth that you'll have and listen to more of your awesome gifts. 

BIRD: Yes, I love so much how Ebony talked about thinking outside of the box. How she was like, wait a minute, what can I do differently? How can I think of other opportunities that I might not have really taken the time to think about yet? And y'all, doing this landed her a half a million dollar contract. So my challenge for you is to do the same thing. To take a pause whether it's literally right now after you listen to this podcast episode, maybe you have an extra 30 minutes to just brainstorm some ideas. Or maybe it's this weekend or maybe next week. But don't wait too long before you do the same thing and pause to think outside of the box for your business because my friend this is going to help you build a better brand. 

As always, thank you so much for tuning into Bird Means Business podcast. It really means a lot to me that you're here. It means a lot to me that you take time out of your busy day to tune in and to help grow yourself and your business. I would absolutely love for you to share a review on Apple Podcasts. That'll help others learn about the show. And make sure that you tell every other entrepreneur you know about this episode so that they can learn from Ebony, too. 

Alright, talk to you next week.