Episode 224: Hiring The Right People For Your Business with Hallie Bulkin

Hi and welcome to episode 224 of the Untethered Podcast. It is your host, Hallie, again and it is just you and I. This week we're going to jump further into the topic of hiring on our mini business series. So let's jump in real quick as I'll share in this episode. The doors to the mile membership are now open. So go to themayomembership.com and join us. Because the doors are only open for seven days, we'd love to see you inside. All right, let's get started. Quick disclaimer. All information, content and material of this podcast are the opinions of the speakers and is for the informational purpose only and not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis and or medical treatment of a qualified healthcare provider. Welcome to the Untether Podcast. I am your host, Holly Vulcan. I'm a certified myofunctional therapist, feeding specialist, podcaster, business owner and mentor. This podcast is all about getting your questions answered and collaborating with colleagues to bring you the most up to date information in the orofacial myofunctional therapy, airway, tethered oral tissue and pediatric feeding therapy space. If you're new here, I challenge you to keep an open mind and join my mission to spread this message far and wide. If you've been around since June 2019, thanks for being a loyal listener. As we jump into today's episode, remember to listen with correct oral rest. Posture, tongue up, lips closed, teeth apart, breathe through your nose. Let's get started, Foreign friends. And welcome back to our miniseries on hiring, our little mini business series we're doing. I love talking about all things business and I love that you guys had such an interest in talking about hiring. It came up so much as I mentioned on the last episode that I was like, wow, I think we need to do like an actual mini series just on this topic because there's so much within and as I mentioned last week, you know, inside the MILE membership, which by the way, if you are listening to this right now, this is actually going live on July 17, 2023, the same day that the my membership doors are open. So go to the mymembership.com and join us. And I can, I can speak a little bit towards the end. I'll speak a little bit about, you know, what the membership is all about. But I want to dive into this topic of hiring because, you know, we were talking, like I said a bit last, last episode about employees versus independent contractors and you know, how to know hire and what Are the pros and cons. What does it mean to be one versus the other? And I gave you a resource of where to go to read up on this topic. But you know, I get a lot of. I've still had a lot of questions on like, well, okay, but how do I hire? What does that process look like? And how do I even know who to hire? So I wanted to spend a little bit of time on that today. And as I mentioned, inside the my own membership, we do have an entire business library of trainings. And so one of them is on the whole employee versus IC conversation and it dives deeper than what I covered on the last episode. I also have an all like a 28 minute training on, on the topic that we're going to talk about today. And so I'll talk a little bit about some of what I covered in that training here. But if you want to hear more about like how and when to pay and the paperwork involved and all that, that dives a little bit, you know, deeper into what we have time for here today. That is a training inside the membership. So. Okay, so where did we leave off? We. We were talking about the pros and cons and I think, you know, just in. I guess it was trying to think. We were talking more about. Yeah, the pros and cons for independent contractors versus an employee. Right. And how I mentioned, you know, it's a pro for the business owner because you don't have to pay taxes on the independent contractor. But then con. Is it me? You know, might be a con for some that you pay a higher hourly rate, but that often works itself out as I was mentioning, and so on and so forth. The thing that I think is worth discussing a bit further is that, you know, when you're starting a business, you don't have to worry about a ton of this if it's just you. Right. It's not until you have somebody else that you go, okay, I kind of need to figure out what the, what the right way is to go about doing this. And then the best way to even go about it once you know whether you're hiring a employee versus independent contractor. Um, and so on that topic, you know, this also I will say as far as hiring goes, hiring, whether you're hiring an administrative assistant or you're hiring a therapist, there's a lot of overlap. Right. The paperwork's going to look different and there's. There'll be some other different nuances, but there's going to be a lot of overlap. Overlap just in Terms of the process. So what does that process look like? Right. We talked about a little bit about writing a job description in the last episode and you know, one of the things that I do share with my mentor clients are some, you know, sample SLP job offers or whatever that they can edit, you know, for fuller part time needs, also part time job offer examples, you know. And also I have one that I've created for ot and these are actually like from job postings that I have put out in the past that I, that I do share with my mentor clients. But the biggest tip I can give you is just writing up a job description and making it super clear what is it that you need? If you could create the perfect avatar for who that person is that you want to hire into your business, the person that will make your life so much easier, who is that person? And at the end of the last episode I talked about, you know, making sure that person aligns with who you are, your beliefs, what your values are, what you do in your practice, what you offer to your patients, who your patients are. Right? Because you're going to attract the patients that also most align with your values typically. So you want to make sure that the person working your practice embodies that too. Right? Embodies the same things that you value. So because I think one of the biggest fears that I hear from a lot of my clients is, well, I like, I'm so nervous to hire somebody because it's not me. What if they don't do it the same way I do it? What if they don't, you know, hold the same not value system but like, what if they don't deliver everything the way that my clients are used to having it delivered to them? Well, for one, everybody does things differently. Even when you're working within the same guidelines and rules and even if you have the same beliefs and value system, people operate differently. So again it, because it comes down to being very clear as the employer on who you're looking for, who you're hiring, what you need in place, how you want things done right. And you have more control if it's an employee, you have less control if it's a contractor. So that's just something else to know too. Right? You cannot force a contractor to use your electronic, your emr, for example. Example. However, you know, if you are hiring in and you do have contractors and you use an emr, you can basically say, look, you know, this is what our team uses and while I cannot force you to use it, this is, you know, to join our team, we do requests, we strongly request that everybody use this platform. Right. So there's ways to go about it to show that like, hey, this is how we do things here. So even though you're a contractor and technically I can't force you to do this, you know, to be on our team and to really embody everything we embody and to deliver the high quality service we, we deliver to our patients, like this is who we are and this is how we do things here. I mean, does that work for you? Right? And so that just being super clear and having these kinds of conversations during the hiring process so that you, everybody knows what to expect and what they're walking into, right? The employer walking into a new relationship with a, with someone working for them and, and you know, representing their company when working with patients and clients. And then the therapist or the admin, knowing what they' into in terms of the person who runs the business and what their expectations are. Because you're going to fail every time if you're not clear on your expectations and you're not clear on, you know, who, who the person is that needs to fill the role. So hopefully that kind of brings some clarity to you. And the best way to go about like even doing this is just to get out a piece of paper and write down what does that person look like for you? What does that therapist look like? What skills do they have? How much experience do they have or not? You know, what, who is it that they work with? Are they trafficking, traveling to patients or are they coming into an office? Are you know, is it somebody who values X, Y and Z or is it somebody who, you know, believes in A, B and C? Right? And so when I write things down like this, they manifest. And I know for some people that's woo and it's gonna go right in one ear and out the other. But I can't tell you how many of my clients have told me I manifested this and even talk, even talking to a couple episodes ago, I was having the conversation about, you know, being a neurodivergent business owner. And it even came up then that, you know, some people manifest different things. And you know, we manifested basically what our lives look like right now because we were very intentional with what we were creating, what we were offering and what our end goal was. And now we basically are living that goal. We're living what was once a goal, right? What we once had set for ourselves as a goal is what we are now living today. But that's because we were Very intentional in knowing what we wanted and basically what we had to do on a daily basis consistently to get there. Okay, So I know I went off on a little tangent a bit, but it's so important to understand this when hiring because I've hired some amazing people and I've hired some bad apples and, you know, and sometimes you're going to have an employee or a contractor that works for you that, you know, you can't see anything coming out of left field. And they do a really good job on the interview process. And, you know, occasionally there may be things that happen and you kind of go like, like, I did not see that coming. Right. And that's a lesson you have to learn as a business owner. And there are certain things in life that you're never going to see coming. You're never going to know down the pike that something is possibly going to happen. And that's just working with humans. It can happen with patients. It can happen in your practice. And so as a business owner, you know, I always go some. Everything's going like, really, really well. I'm always kind of like, waiting for the, the next, you know, hat to drop, if you will, like, what's go. What's going to happen? Things are going really well right now. Smooth sailing. And it's not to say that I'm not pessimistic, right? I'm very optimistic. But I say that because I'd rather anticipate that that shit's going to hit the fan sometimes. And that as a business owner, I just got to put on my business owner adult pants and, you know, deal with it. Then pretend like, oh my gosh, like, look at all these happy, successful business owners. Nothing must ever go wrong. No things happen. And that's just part of business. And you have to deal with it. You can't ignore it because you have to. Otherwise your business is at risk of, you know, it could be any number of things depending on the situation. So, anyhow, again, off on a tangent, but this all goes back to writing up your job description because you want to hire the right people, and you hire the right people again by knowing who you are, who your business is, what the mission is, and really the avatar of who it is you want to bring into your practice so that they align with your beliefs and your values, and that you then attract the right patients to work with that individual based on who they are. Okay? So, you know, obviously part of this too, this process is going to be advertising. And we talked a little bit about that previously as well, with, you know, whether it's posting on Facebook or on indeed. Or a similar job site or you know, you're sending to a local university or your alumni listserv, if you, you know, happen to have gone to school where you still live, you know, whatever it is just kind of of putting it out there. If you don't tell people you're hiring and you don't put it in a number of places, you're not going to find anybody because they're not going to know you're hiring. Then obviously after you do that and you get applications, you're going to review those applications, you're going to set up, you know, an interview with the ideal candidates and you can do. Some people do a multi step process. Some people will first hold a phone call as a kind of like an initial screener and they may ask questions about like, well, why do you want to work here? Why do you want to work with our team? How do you see yourself, you know, fitting into our team to understand if they've even looked like if the information's on your website, like who you are, what your mission is. You want to see if they've googled you, have they looked up who it is they even applied for. Do they actually really, really want to come work with you? Or are they just applying to 75 different places and hoping one of them bites? Right? And then how many hours are they seeking? Is a great question I always like to ask because that tells me if they're seeking part time work or full time, you know, what populations are they looking to work with and really, you know, any other like critical questions to know that you even want to move this to an interview. And this call should be like maybe 10 minutes max, 5, 10 minutes max. From there you can then move to a zoom, you know, interview or an in person interview. And during this process you may want to check references. You know, some people do that. I will tell you honestly, I don't really do that. I don't. I've asked for them in the past, you know, with some individuals just to see if they could provide them and you know, other. But I've never actually called or checked references because to me I would rather not know what went wrong or even right at another practice because that practice is not my practice and that's going to have no bearing, quite frankly on my relationship with that individual. And you know, and there are some bad situations out there, some individuals have had bad experiences or you know, or they worked in places where they were not close with, you know, the person they may put down for a reference and what kind of information is that going to give me? So in my opinion, you know, I know big companies often do this and I'm always happy, always give glowing recommendations to therapists. You know, of a lot of therapists who have worked with me because being in the D.C. metro area, it's a very transient area with people who tend to move in, move out or sometimes, you know, people get married and then they go on maternity leave and then they don't come back to work for several years and you know, maybe they come back and they want to go work in the schools or something because they've got young children and they want to be in more of a school 10 month type of schedule and school day schedule when their kids are a daycare, daycare in school for whatever reason. Right. So I, you know, get these sometimes and I'm always happy to give a glowing review. It just, it feels like such a sterile process to me. And you know, I know it's due diligence and part of the process for certain companies and I'm not knocking that. But again, my, I can tell from that initial conversation that 5 to 10 init, 5 to 10 minute initial conversation, I can tell if the person is going to be a good fit or not because everything is energy, it is all based on energy. And I know pretty quickly into a conversation with someone if there's somebody that I feel could properly represent my team and ultimately me. So, you know, others also like to do mock sessions. That's not something that I necessarily, necessarily do. Now one thing that I did used to do and this was more pre pandemic and now I live, you know, in South Florida and I used to live in Maryland where my practice, you know, the majority of my practice is in the D.C. metro area. As far as our clients go, we've got clients down here in South Florida and New York and New Jersey too still. But you know, what I will say is I would bring my kids, especially my babies when they were babies, and I would observe just how the person interacted with them, whether it was an admin or it was a therapist. Because if somebody does not interact with a baby or a small toddler, then I'm a little concerned about that. And if, if they're ignoring my child that's sitting there, that's like smiling at them and trying to engage. But you want to work with children. That's bizarre to me. I will tell you that like 95% of people immediately, immediately Will ask questions about the child, you know, oh my gosh, is this your baby? How old are they? What's their name? Oh, this is so cute. Are they, are they doing this yet or are they doing that? And they'll, you know, if the child's awake, they'll interact with the child and you're like, okay, now I get, I get a little glimpse into how you interact with children and you can just see the pure passion and love for working with children. Right? And so I think it's really incredible tool if you have that ability, if you have kids or if you're able to do, if you don't, you want to do a mock session, just see how they interact with kids, you know, or have them send you a video of them doing a session too. If they're working somewhere where they're able to do that and send a video or even interacting with a child somewhere, if that's not possible, because that's probably less likely than the other options. It's really helpful to see that, to know who this individual is and how they interact and if that matches with who you're looking to bring onto your team. Right. And you know, at the very end, ultimately, then you follow up and determine whether or not they're hired and on goes the hiring process. But, you know, I share this because so many people have come to me are like, I just don't, I don't even know what to do. Like, how do I interview? How do I do this, how do I do that? I am probably like the most laid back interviewer you'll ever encounter. Because, and I say that because I often do my interviews over zoom. Even still now, like, not, I didn't really do, I didn't do that before the pandemic, but I do that now, especially from living in a different state. But again, I know. And when I trust my intuition, I know very early on into a interview and conversation if that person's going to be a good fit. So much to the point that I probably don't even need to do a formal interview, but sometimes I still do. And one of the other questions that I think is, you know, important in knowing, like, like if they're the right person is asking them what they want, right? What do they want? Why do you want to work for me and what are you looking for? That's one of my most favorite questions to ask. Because if what they're looking for does not match what I'm offering, that's an immediate, like, they could be the greatest person in the world. But nobody's going to be happy if they're seeking something that I'm not offering. Right. They want like a in clinic job and they want 20 hours a week and they only want to work with children who are neurodivergent and have language based needs. And I'm going, well we do have that in the practice, but we don't have a clinic. And I can only give you maybe five hours a week right now with that population, you know, the majority of who we get is infants and toddlers, feeding delays. And then also we have a lot of mile across the lifespan. We see adults for mile too, but if they're not interested in the majority of what we get contacted for, well, I can build a caseload for you. We get calls for everything, but it's going to take longer because that's not necessarily the entire team specialty. Right. We have individuals who specialize in that versus like teams of people who specialize in that. So kind of figuring out like who, like again what that person wants and why they want to work for you I think is super important. And you're going to kind of get that energetic read based on that conversation. And having that kind of a conversation versus like quizzing them on how they'd respond in five different clinical scenarios, in my experience and opinion is a much more significant type of conversation to have because anybody can prep for an interview and anybody can say anything and everything can look great on paper. But throwing these random scenarios of, you know, what might happen in a session at somebody to me is, in my opinion, it's, it, it's anxiety ridden for a lot of people and you're not gonna, you're either not gonna get the best answers or they're gonna be really good salespeople. And then actually in the moment they may not actually perform that way. So you know, to me, like I said, I really care more about who they are and if they're a better match for our team because we can build skills but you can't really change your personality. Right. And as I had mentioned earlier, something else too is not hyper focusing on the past because anybody can learn anything. So while we want to pay attention to our goals and if, if we say, you know what I need, need somebody with feeding experience, you're not going to want to go and hire somebody who doesn't have any feeding experience just because you like them. And I know that might sound harsh, maybe there's a different role available for them or maybe they can come in and see some other patients and build and while they build their skill set in another arena. But if you, what you're hiring, for example, is a feeding therapist and you need someone who has skills with working with infants, you're not going to hire somebody who works with medically complex children, you know, who does feeding with medically complex children that are like teenagers. That. That's very different than working with infants. Right. Even toddler on up, once you've got solid introduction and you're working with toddlers that can look very different than our youngest infants. So, you know, that's where we need to kind of pay attention and remember what we're seeking and if they're the right match for that, that. I've had some therapists too in the past who really wanted to work for me, but my model was not what they were looking for at the time. And then two years later or two months later, we had both situations. After taking a job at a certain practice, they turned around and said, hey, do you still have a position for me? And I was like, well, let me check. And several of them have now, you know, either worked for me or have come to work for me in the past. So the door, I always leave the door open too, because maybe it's not the best fit right now, but maybe we'll have that, that, you know, position in the future or maybe we can create that position. The other thing I will say is, you know, if you're hiring an admin, it could be helpful to find out, like, what skill set they have and maybe even give them a task or, you know, a, A project or something and see how they complete it. Right. If that's something that's important to you, especially like attention to detail. Right. You could do this with a therapist too, you know, but what I like to ask people directly, too, I, I don't love. I, you know, this is not something I don't typically give a project and have them come back and, you know, review how they did on it. I typically just say, hey, we all have our strengths and weaknesses. What are you not good at? Like, what do you not want to treat? What do you not want to work with? And, you know, what age group do you not want to see? And I have. One of the questions I have to ask is what areas do you want to travel to and where do you not want to travel, regardless of where you're licensed? Right. People are honest, and this is going to save us a ton of headaches on both ends for us and for the person we're hiring when you ask someone who they would love to treat and who they don't want to treat, that right there starts to tell you like if they're right for the role. Right. And you know, that's okay too. No judgment passed on who you want to treat and who you don't want to treat. But when all else fails, just trust your gut, right? My gut never lies. And when I don't listen, it comes back to bite me in the back. But big time. So don't be me. Don't hire fast because you're desperate. Right. Jesse and I are going to talk more in the next episode about hiring slow and firing fast or as fast as you possibly can with a. Without, you know, patient abandonment as far as talking about, like how to pay them and what to pay them and the paperwork involved and stuff. As I mentioned, there's more training on that inside the MILE membership. So you can definitely look into what we have inside there, you know, when you, when you join us, because doors are open this week. I talk about the different, some of the different paperwork and some of that fun stuff as well. What else can I tell you? You know, I will tell you, one of the things that came up too was a question about how do you hire and train somebody so that they don't turn around and compete with you. And you know, I think that, and this may hurt a little bit, but I think that's a very limited way of thinking of it's kind of scarcity, fear based mindset. And it's very real. And I know that a lot of individuals work from a place of fear. And so I think the question then becomes, what are you so afraid of? Are you afraid of you investing in them and then losing a lot of money because they turn around and they leave? Right? Because if that's the case, and I have helped individuals create ways that they can build things into their contract or into, you know, certain agreements when they pay for continuing ed or they spend time training and investing in a therapist that basically states, you know, the, there's an agreement between both parties so that it works for both parties. Right. And then if they do decide to leave at a certain point, well, there is either a monetary penalty or, you know, whatever, Right. There's different situations and scenarios that can be created to address this. But again, beyond that, there are so many patients that need us. And I've had a lot of therapists leave my practice and start their own. I even have therapists who work for me that have their own private practices. Some of them had their private practices before they came to work for me. And yes, I still hired them because they wanted to see clients through my practice because they didn't have enough through their own or, and, or they no longer wanted to deal with the administrative side of things and so they were just no longer seeing through their own practice. And I've so many different scenarios. I've had some that were, you know, oh, I've had my own practice, but I'm really close to retirement age and I just want some private clients and I don't want to deal with the admin side. Awesome. Amazing. Like super, super experienced therapists who have a big name for themselves. And I'm happy, I'm more than happy to have them, you know, as part of our practice and our team. I've also had individuals who have started their own private practice and who still contract for me. And you know, I think again, it's just being really clear if, if you're going to do that, there is a contract in place. You cannot take our clients just because they're on your caseload here. You cannot, you know, and, and there's no way to say like, oh, you can't, you know, work with our referral sources or this, that and the other because one, they're contractors, right. But two, so it's again, a very, it's a scarcity mindset and way of thinking. And at the end of the day, you know, it's one of. In any business, in any business you have, that's just a risk you have as a business owner. And so you have to decide, is that a risk you can stomach or not. For me, I would rather train more therapists and have them go work for themselves and treat patients and have the patients get the help that they need. Then, then that not happen. And, you know, maybe, you know, it might. Some people say, oh, like I've had someone say, oh, it's easier for you because you have an online business that really is like the bulk of your income. That's where you make a lot of your money. Well, that is true. I won't sugarcoat anything, you know, but at the same time, that was my M.O. before I ever had a, ever had an online business. The online business was born in, in, well, the summer of 2019 when I started this podcast and we started to invest in courses on how to create an, you know, launch an online course. And I had business mentors and I'd been through some programs and everything to help kind of work on myself first and then the business and Kind of craft some ideas and whatever else. Then I hired a whole bunch of different, you know, teams to help me with copy and ads and all that, right? Big investment, time and money wise. And then my co creators of my first course of Feed the peds, right. All of this stuff off takes time, energy, money, right? But I was able to take from my business at the time and invest into the online business. And I'm sharing this because it's not always smooth sailing. You know, I share these stories and it seems so easy and like everything's just kind of panned out and worked out. Well, no, I put a lot of time and energy into developing this and creating every different thing that you see come out of my business. And so, you know, I share this because the private practice has existed since June 1, 2014, but the online business has only been around since, you know, a lot of people know it to be March of 2020 when I launched my first course, but it was really the summer before 2019. So for about five years it. I only had a private practice. I didn't have an online business. I had tried to launch a course that failed, like, I don't know, at some point in my history and I can't even remember, I'd have to go back and look at what year that was. I can't remember if that was before I was, I had a private practice or if that was after I started my private practice. But either way, the point here is for five years, this was my same mentality. I had people who worked for other private practices. I had people who worked for their own private practice. I had people who worked in the schools and worked for me. I had people who started their own practices after working for me while they were still working for me, you know, on the side, whatever. I had somebody who, an amazing therapist who moved from Chicago and said, you know what? Like, I did the exact same thing you're doing there, but I don't want to do that here. And so they came to work for me. They were working for another company as well. Both of us, you know, we were aware and we were fine with it. And you know, and now they're seeing more of their own private patients again. But that's after having been with me for goodness like seven or eight years, right? And you know, these therapists are all amazing human beings and I am so grateful for them. And so I choose to look at it through the lens of, of I am grateful for who comes my way and who wants to help the patients that come through my practice, because they're an equal colleague and they're part of my team. And so, yes, there's all the, you know, investment in having the business side of things and in training therapists and all of that. And. And look, some therapists are not ethical, and I'm seeing actually a big uptick in that these days. A lot of therapists are going places and they're doing their cf and at the end of cf, they're like, peace out, I'm out of here. Just wanted to hang around here to get my cf. And it didn't used to be that way. It did not used to be that way. And I'm not knocking on, on that the current generation of cfs, by any stretch of the imagination. I know it's not every cf, but I will tell you amongst my colleagues and amongst a lot of other business owners of various different generations, older and younger than myself and amongst some of my, you know, mentor clients, this is a big issue. And it's, you know, grass is not always greener on the other side. I'm gonna kind of leave it at that. Some therapists will come in and they think that, you know, they're walking into the best things since sliced bread. And they will love everything you offer to them. They'll love the environment, they'll love the community, they'll love everything you stand for, the patients. They'll love their job. And then they'll see that a friend of theirs is making, you know, more working in the schools or, you know, this happens a lot in California because that's one of the states where they get paid the highest in the schools, for example, and therapists will leave to go work in the schools after telling the current employer, like, oh, my gosh, I have such a good quality of life working for you. I love this job. And they flip around and they leave to go work in the schools because it pays them a little bit more money. But it's not the same quality of life. It's not the same, you know, it's not the same value system. It's not. It's very different. Um, and look, to each their own, right? That's, I guess that's everybody's prerogative and right to do that. But if you're someone who is looking to invest heavily into employees in your business, then just get very clear on an agreement and what that looks like and how many years they have to spend with you if you're going to invest into them, because that is something that can be written into a contract. So hopefully that's a little bit of free advice. You're gonna have to hire the lawyer to help you actually do that. But, but yeah, I wanted to touch on that because that did come up. And, and you know, I think that it's important again to have the right people on your team. But you have to feel really good about who you're hiring and you don't want to go into it with this fear based thinking or you're gonna, it, you're gonna end up with the wrong person and you're gonna end up with the, the exact person that you're worried about and not wanting, right? You're gonna end up. That's the energy you put out. If you're afraid of that, that's who you're gonna hire. You're gonna hire that person. So anywho, listen to your gut, right? Listen to your gut because your gut doesn't lie. But let's talk for a moment about the MYO membership because like I said, doors are open this week and it is the perfect time to join if you're thinking about it. So like, what is the MYO membership? It's basically a monthly membership. Your virtual milestone club. It was the OG, the original one out there in the myo space for therapists, right? SLPs, OTs, PTs, RDHs, dentists. We have a, a team of mentors in there currently on the team. We've got SLPs and an RDH we would love to add, you know, an OT, a PT in this space, a dental colleague too. So if you're listening and you're interested, you know, reach out because we may be looking to bring some other individuals in, you know, on board. But really, you know, it's my mission to elevate colleagues in the space because I was, I had experienced the opposite of that and, and I experienced, you know, I was shamed for finishing my certification quickly because I was about to pop a baby out. And seven months is honestly not that quick for that type of a certification. I already had the patients, I was already working with them. But that's a whole nother story for another day in the my membership. You know, we kind of have this like mantra of like, that's them, not us. Like they shame in other spaces. We elevate each other, right? Because no clinician should be be shamed for getting additional training, expanding the services they offer their patients and better helping their patients, right? It's. So basically this is a supportive, safe space that I wish existed. When I had gotten, when I was started starting you know, so it's basically for you if you're exploring Mayo, if you're already treating Maya, you've taken a course, you know, if you haven't taken a course, you're welcome to join too. And then, you know, if you're already certified and you want to keep your, you know, skills nice and sharp, never have to worry about CEUs ever again. Because we got them inside that basically is, is, you know, it's really. We've kind of, it's evolved over time and we're continuing to work on it and taking feedback from our members to improve it and, and looking at possible possibly having different levels of mentorship as well. So stay tuned for that. But for right now, there's only one type of mentorship. Themebership.com has all the details you need right now. And also we are the only space and I do this throughout all my programs where we combine identity, mentorship and skills set. So I'll leave it at that for now. What's inside? Real quick as to what is inside. There are monthly CEUs so led by guest experts and some I've done some in the past as well that are in the library that are exclusive to like the myo. I call it the MAT Space, the MYO Airway Taught Space. We have two hour trainings every month. We also have a one and a half hour CEU study club every month. And this is where you can bring real cases and we collaborate on them. We get your questions answered. You can network here. This is basically your new myofam. We also and we call this Mastering myo. Right, because this is where you come to master your MYO skills and best help your patients. We also have a 24 7Q and a while inside our private group where you can get mentorship from the certified mentors and then also your colleagues inside there. And we have weekly ZOOM office hours which are amazing live help on Zoom. And it's just you've got your own little virtual community. So know what you don't know is another pillar of it. And that's our done for you Research reviews in the MYO Airway and taught space. And so our mile moderators create this content. We review four articles per month. I know when I last counted it was like over 130 articles. Now it's been another three months. So add that plus another 12 and then niching down to up your income. So regardless of whether you work for yourself or someone else, we have a library of recorded trainings as I was telling you about in the beginning of today's episode and materials in our, what we call our Myo Vault that basically teaches you how to market yourself as a myofunctional therapist. And again, this can work whether you work for yourself or you work for someone else. Let's see, we've, I know we've got like rack cards, brochures, handouts, like done for you, lunch and learn, PowerPoint and so, so much more. We're adding a tool every single month and right now there's a bonus. We have a new tool that we're going to give you when you join this month. It is a referral pathway or like referral roadmap, if you will, so that when you have a patient that presents with certain symptoms and or certain things you can bas know like who to refer them to for what, because that's a question we get asked a lot. So anyways, there's a ton of other bonuses in there and they're all listed@the myomembership.com but I want to wrap this up. Come and join us. Doors are open for seven days only right now, this week. And like I said, if you want some more help with your own business, whether it's online, whether it's offline, whether it's inside or outside the therapy space. If you just have a general business and you're hearing this and you want help, I do business mentorship outside of the therapy world as well. Email supporteedthepeats.com and Taylor can give you some more details. All right, I hope this is helpful and I cannot wait for you to hear the last episode in our series coming next week with Jesse. It's going to be so fun and you're going to, you're going to love her because she's, she's kind of like me, straight shooter and lots of experience. And we're going to lay it down. So we'll chat soon. Join us next episode. This is Hallie signing off. Thanks for listening to this podcast. If you found value in this episode and want to hear more of these Myotots, Airway and feeding related episodes, be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and share this episode on your social media platforms. You can access free resources and all I offer@halliebalkin.com or pop over to alliebalkin on Instagram to get all the latest updates.