This episode of Beyond the Big Agencies presents a comprehensive guide for Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs), Occupational Therapists (OTs), Physical Therapists (PTs), and related service providers who aspire to engage directly with educational institutions rather than relying on traditional staffing agencies. I elucidate the essential steps necessary for establishing a successful contracting relationship with schools, emphasizing that the initial phase does not require absolute perfection in preparation. Instead, I advocate for a proactive approach, urging listeners to initiate contact with school districts while concurrently organizing their service offerings. Our dialogue navigates through critical themes such as defining one's unique services, identifying target territories, and formulating appropriate pricing strategies. I assert that clarity in communication, particularly regarding the services one provides, is paramount to avoid misalignments with potential clients. Furthermore, I address common misconceptions about targeting larger school districts, highlighting the often-overlooked opportunities that rural districts may present. Ultimately, the episode serves as a motivational call to action, encouraging professionals to embrace the uncertainty of the contracting process while remaining steadfast in their pursuit of meaningful engagements within the educational sector.

Takeaways:

• In the realm of direct contracting with schools, it is paramount to clearly delineate what services one is offering, as this specificity will inform and enhance one's pitch to potential clients.
• The process of contracting with schools is often protracted; therefore, it is advisable to commence outreach early, allowing ample time for negotiations and arrangements to be finalized.
• When establishing a business presence in the education sector, one must outline not only the services provided but also the geographic territories targeted for contract opportunities, ensuring strategic alignment with market needs.
• Understanding the pricing structure and having a general idea of one's rates is essential, as this equips providers to respond confidently when inquiries about costs arise during initial discussions with schools.

Links referenced in this episode:

• thetherapistsupportnetwork.com
• FREE Checklist to Get Started https://thetsn.myflodesk.com/checklist

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Therapist Support Network

Relevant Disclaimers: Disclaimers for end:

Financial Disclosure:

"Beyond the Big Agencies" is brought to you by The Therapist Support Network. Some topics discussed may reference products, services, or resources offered by The Therapist Support Network. 

Legal Disclaimer:

The information provided in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal, financial, or professional advice. Listeners should consult with qualified professionals regarding their specific circumstances before making any business decisions.

Welcome to beyond the Big Agencies, the podcast for SLPs, OTs, PTs and related service providers who want to work with schools, but not for them.

I'm Elise Mitchell, an slp, a school contracting coach, and the owner of the Therapist Support Network.

Here to help you take control of your career, do what you love, and build a sustainable practice on your terms.

Because school staffing should be left to the professionals.

Let's dig.

Hey, guys.

Welcome back to beyond the Big Agencies.

I'm Elise Mitchell, the owner of the Therapist Support Network, and today we are getting straight to it.

Today we are going to answer the question, how do you actually get started with directly contracting with schools?

So the process isn't complicated in most states, but so many providers stay stuck in this planning phase instead of taking action, right?

And so, you know, they want all the ducks in a row, which I thoroughly respect, and I was that way when I first started out.

But the key to landing contracts is to actually get in motion.

It is to move, it is to go forward as opposed to like getting all the pieces together because there's just so many pieces that you can't get together until you know your customer.

And also the school sales process is quite long, typically.

Right.

And because of that, you have time to get your ducks in a row while you are reaching out to schools.

So before you start telling yourself, like you need your website or you need everything set up with your pitch, let's stop.

You don't need to reach perfection.

You just need to get started.

So today I'm gonna walk you through the basic steps to get your ball rolling.

Okay?

All right, step one, know what you're offering, which sounds very obvious, right?

But let me get into it.

So before you start reaching out, you do need to clearly define what you're offering.

So are you providing direct therapy services?

Are you providing evaluations only?

Are you providing virtual?

Are you providing in person?

Are you providing full coverage?

Are you wanting part time?

Do you not have school experience?

And so you're really just looking for like a caseload overflow that doesn't have evaluations.

Your pitch is going to vary drastically depending on what you're offering.

I have niche providers that are AAC only and they've called schools before.

And schools are like, oh, that's cool that you do AAC evaluations, but we really need a full time therapist.

And so by crafting your pitch early on, you keep yourself from going down this rabbit hole and getting into a contractual situation that isn't the best fit for you and won't Prevent burnout and all those other things that we're trying to avoid by directly contracting.

So I want you to take just a little bit of time.

We're not going to stay here too long, but actually know what you're offering.

Are you wanting to step in that quote unquote full time type role of you?

I am the only OT on site and I'm going to provide the evals and I'm going to do the therapy.

Or are you providing bilingual evaluations only?

Are you looking for a 05 FTE which is 20 hours FTE is full time equivalent.

It's a contractual term.

So 1 FTE is a full time role, right?

So it's usually between 35 and 37.5 hours.

8, 5 FTE is like that part time role.

So like between 18 and 20 hours and I have seen, I have had a 01 FTE, I've had a 07 FTE.

Like it's, it's an interesting map that is used in contracts but you don't need to worry about that right now.

You do need to know though, are you pitching a part time contract?

If so, maybe you're looking for like that caseload overflow for helping on site providers with the students that they can't fit into their caseload.

Maybe you want to offer to support students on service plans that are in private schools.

Whatever you're looking at, you want to know that before you make the call because you want to include that in your pitch.

Unless you're looking for the stereotypical.

When I think of a school based OT or a school based SLP or school based pt, if you're looking for that stereotypical role, you don't need to sit here long because schools brains will go there when you do call them.

But if you have something about you that's unique about your offering that's unique, go ahead and put that there and I'm going to go ahead and do this caveat.

Now I'm not sure how applicable it is to all of my listeners, but if you are listening to this and you have that seven figure school staffing agency in your vision, right, you want to build a seven figure school staffing agency which is completely doable.

I still want you to know what you're offering because if you are beginning in this space and you call and you offer everything, you're really going to set yourself up to be a jack of all trades and a master of none, right?

Although that's a beautiful goal to be able to provide in the future.

I highly Recommend, even if you are like, I am going to hire every discipline, I am going to tackle this.

I am going to be the best business owner in the state of Washington.

Good for you.

I love that fire.

Keep going with it.

But for reaching out with schools, you really want to have a clear offering, I recommend pitching one discipline or two disciplines when you first call.

But know down the road you can offer other services.

For those of you that I'm trying to get my first contract pitch, one service, please.

But for those of you with seven figures on your mind and you just like, wanna hit the ground running, I did wanna give that caveat that I wouldn't start with all the services because confused schools tend to not take action.

So I would be very clear what you're offering.

So step one, know what you're offering.

It doesn't have to be a perfect pitch.

When we call schools, as I'm gonna get to, when we call schools, we aren't gonna say, my name's Elise Mitchell and I own the therapist support network and I do therapy and evaluations and supervision of slippas and this, this, this, that's too much.

But it is important that when I do make that call, I mention virtual in there.

Because virtual is what I'm offering.

And if I don't mention virtual, their brain's not going to go there and they're going to think I led them on a goose chase and I'm going to waste my time.

So you have to know, you know, my name's Elise Mitchell and I'm looking to contract with the school district that has about 20 hours of therapy needs that they need filled.

Or My name's Elise Mitchell.

I specialize in virtual speech therapy services.

You know, something like that.

All right, so step one, know what you're offering.

Step two, outline your territory, Define where you want to work.

So are you focusing on specific school districts?

Are you focusing on private schools?

Are you focusing on charter schools?

Are you trying urban areas?

Do you want to work in person virtually or do you want to do a hybrid, which I just think is really cool?

What is your ideal commute?

What is your ideal service area?

So instead of aimlessly searching, set clear parameters.

And I'm going to go back a little bit and talk to any of you listening that have that seven figure school staffing agency on your horizon.

You still need clear parameters.

For those of you who are virtual and think, I could do every state.

Well, technically, but I highly recommend clear parameters.

Right.

And having a very strategic approach to what you're going to call, make sure that there's schools you want to work with.

I'm going to use this time and I'm going to do a whole other episode at some point on myths, but I just want to use this time.

There's a myth, an interesting myth that's come to me more than a few times from my customers, and that is that the larger school districts are the ones to target.

They're the highest paying, they're the ones to really contract with schools.

And although I can't speak for every large district in the nation, but historically we have seen that rural districts are actually the ones that have less of a staffing agency presence.

So therefore they tend to compensate a little bit higher.

They less, they're less likely to be saturated with just like large staffing agencies trying to get in there.

So while you're outlining your territory, although it seems really natural to put like every large district in there that, you know, hires 50 some SLP, I encourage you, unless that's a school you really want to be in, you have connection there, you graduated from there.

Like you, you've got a whole story.

I encourage you to maybe reframe your thinking a little bit because again, those schools are very heavily targeted by staffing agencies.

They also use a bid process for sales the majority of the time, and it can just be a lot.

So when you're outlining your territory, I'm going to give a little nudge here that you not push aside maybe the rural districts, if they are within your capacity in regards to commute time or if you like the population, there's just something to look at as you're outlining your territory.

So steps to get started.

First, know what you're offering.

Two know where you're targeting.

Right?

We're not going to just target every possible school.

We're going to set clear parameters to make sure that our time is spent wisely.

And then step three, I would have an idea of what you're going to charge.

So I talk about this in other podcast episodes.

I have resources on this on my website under Blogs.

I will be sure to link that in the notes section.

But I like to have an idea of what I'm going to charge.

Now, as I'm going to say in a little bit, when you make that first contact with schools, typically 99.9% of the time this does not come up because that first contact with schools is just to see if they're interested.

But usually the individual you're talking to does not have capacity for a sales pitch.

In that moment.

So what you end up doing is you end up contacting the school.

They send you either to a bid process, which I'll explain in other areas or they send you to a sales process to like a cold call sales process.

So you either get told hey yeah, we use an RFP process, here's information to submit your bid or you continue talking with them.

But you schedule a meeting to have a more formal sales conversation.

That that's not what you're going to call it.

You're going to call it a demonstration or a consult, a free consult.

You're going to call it something fancy but that first reach out.

You typically don't give your price.

However, I'm going to give my 0.1% disclaimer where that I have had where I call the school and they say well what do you charge?

Before continuing me on, I will say the majority of the time that I have experienced this, it has not been an ideal customer.

They are a customer that typically values the penny versus the quality.

Which I'm not.

I'm.

I'm not saying isn't understandable, but I am saying that's not quite a customer that is aligned with my business vision.

But I have had a few times where I call and before even agreeing to meet with me, they want to know my rate.

And in some ways I respect because way to not waste my time, way to make sure I don't waste your time.

But all of that to say I would have a general idea of what you want to charge if you need support with that.

I have other podcasts, I have resources on my website so we won't sit here for long cuz that's a whole other topic.

But to get started I would have a general range of what you're going to charge.

Know that you most likely won't need it now.

You most likely will have a chance to sit down and really prepare before you meet with the school.

But every now and then when you do contact the school they will just flat out ask before you get any further.

And what I would hate is for you to stumble right for them you to say hi, you know, I'm Elise with a therapist support network.

Are you having a difficult time staffing your vacancies?

If so, I provide contract support to districts that are having a hard time recruiting.

You know what's a good time to talk about this further?

I know you're likely busy right now and they go well what, what do you charge?

I would hate for that next step to be I wasn't Instead, I'd like for that next step to be my typical rate is, you know, $100 an hour.

However, I know we haven't really gotten into specifics yet about your budget, so I'd love to sit down and we can kind of include that in our next discussion.

So I'd love for you to have a confident rate, and I'm not.

Please don't take that as like, I should charge $100 an hour.

That's high in some states, low in other states.

Fine in most states.

Like, don't take that from this.

But what I am saying is having that general idea keeps you from wavering because schools get a lot of sales calls.

And so any sort of wavering might imply inexperience.

And I don't mean inexperiences.

You haven't contracted with schools.

A lot of people have it, and that's completely fine.

However, you do want to present yourself as a confident provider, as someone that is a solution to their staffing woes.

Right.

You are reliable and you are high quality.

So any sort of wavering we want to try to prevent.

Not that you're going to be perfect.

I've had kids interrupt my sales calls.

I have sneezed in sales calls.

Like, I mean, I've.

I've done it.

You will do it.

It's totally human.

But what we don't want you to do is falter on your rate and give the impression that it's not coming from a place of confidence.

We want you to be very confident communicating your value.

So step one, know what you're offering.

Step two, outline your territory.

Step three, have a general idea of what you're going to charge or have a response if they ask that right away.

Just a.

Yeah, no, that's a great question.

My quotes are based on district needs, so I would need some more information from you before providing that when's a good time to meet and chat further.

So you also could have a template response.

If you're like, I am not in a place to throw at a rate yet, that's fine.

I like where your head's at because you're doing things to keep you in motion.

Right.

So that's all right, too, to have a template response if you aren't ready to dictate your rate yet.

All right.

The most important step, in my opinion, is step four, actually start talking to schools.

So it can feel daunting that selling yourself as a contractor is within the first few steps in your direct contract journey.

However, the school sales process if it's a school that has you submit an RFP or a bid, or if it's a school that has you calling them.

It is usually a long process.

If you're targeting within the school year.

So let's say it's September and school started, it might be shorter, but the majority of the time we're looking at weeks to get this thing up and running.

So that's why we want to start reaching out early because we do have a long sales process on our hands the majority of the time.

So the nitty gritty, let's start reaching out to schools.

The first thing I recommend doing is make a list of schools.

So we've already outlined our territory.

We want to list schools or districts that fit that territory desire and what you outlined, number one, your service offering.

So go ahead and make a list of those schools.

Next, you want to find the right contact.

So the majority of situations you're going to be looking for a special education director or the state equivalent.

Some states call them student services coordinator, whatever your target state calls them.

These are usually the decision makers for therapy contracts.

Right.

So we aren't looking up HR because that's the decision maker for employee.

You want someone that can make the decision for their contractors.

So always start with a special education director.

They may bounce you to like a team lead.

If you don't know who to reach out to, you can absolutely call the SPED office and say, you know, hi and do your spiel and ask who the right person to speak to is and hopefully they'll point you in the right direction.

So first, make a list.

Second, find the right contact and then third, send the email.

And if you're just really, if you're ready, let's make that phone call.

So this is where people hesitate, right?

They sent the email, but then they freeze with making the call.

And if you are someone that like the idea of making a cold call makes you break out in hives, we can stay in email.

Just know that schools have safeguards against emails, that their emails are heavily saturated with sales.

So I mean, everything from SPED softwares to staffing agencies to Medicaid billing softwares, they get sold to a lot.

And so schools install really protective firewalls so emails have a lower response rate than calls.

I'm not saying they're impossible.

Many of my customers stay in email.

That is their comfort zone and I respect it.

We want you in motion, we don't want you frozen.

So stay in email if that's just where you need to be in order to move, that's fine.

Ideally, you're in both places, you're sending emails and you're also making a phone call to try and get a meeting with a decision.

Decision make if the school or to remove the school from your list.

So that's our goal with a call.

Our goal with the call and the email isn't to tell them everything about yourself because they are not in a place to hear it.

The majority of the time it is to see one.

Do they have a staffing need?

If they don't, maybe they found their on site providers.

You accomplished a goal, you got a school off your list.

You're not wasting your time.

That's beautiful.

If they have a staffing need, will they sit down with you and hear about your business and how it aligns with what they're looking for?

So that's the goal of the call.

The call is to not bombard them with information.

We just want to see are they a no or are they a yes.

And if they're a yes, let's schedule a more formal meeting where you can send them information.

So the email does not have to be the email or the call does not have to be a very detailed thing.

If you have my school contractor packet, there's templates in there.

Absolutely.

Use them.

You will see, it's just very simple.

I am so and so a licensed SLP OT PT in whatever state.

You know, my business.

You can represent yourself as your business or you could just say I, whichever you prefer.

And you know, say who you are and your desire.

I work with schools that have a hard time staffing their therapy needs.

Have you been having a difficult time with recruitment?

If so, I'd love to hop on a call and talk about my business a bit.

So that's it, it's no fancy proposals, no overcomplicated pitches.

We are just making contact and we're going to send them down what I call a funnel.

We make contact, we get moving through a meeting, we then send a contract, we then work with them or we make contact, they tell us about an RFP bid process, we submit our documents and we contract with them.

So this is really the start to moving down the funnel or removing them from your list.

One thing I will say is I, I preach a lot.

That rejection is kind of part of this process and you're gonna hear no, that's part of it.

And if we're putting a positive spin on this, like that helps you get to your ideal client.

So every no is a win.

Just like every yes is a win.

But one thing that I need to talk about more is it's not even rejection.

It is the amount of no answers you get.

So it can feel like you've contacted 50 schools and nobody is getting back with you.

So I wanna take a minute to give you some on that to keep you moving.

This is generalizing.

Schools tend to not move until there's a need.

So I have sat in school's email, I have left multiple messages and months later they call me and say, you called me back here.

I'm ready to contract now.

Do you have someone tomorrow?

That has happened more often than not.

I will say that's a very common scenario.

So if you're getting a lot of no answers, one know that it doesn't mean that this is a pointless thing.

It likely just means that you are being you are that can that is being kicked.

You want to stay noisy.

I do typically reach out a few times before I move them off my immediate contact and then I just send an email every now and then.

But you want to keep reaching out to schools because often they don't address it until it's a pretty glaring problem.

Right.

So you're going to get a lot of no answers.

The other thing to know is schools consider, typically schools consider in person hires first.

Right.

People that can become their employees.

And then they consider in person contractors and this is again generalizing and then they consider virtual contractors.

And so know that for many schools it's okay if it's May.

They may not know they need you yet.

So this is another misconception that I hear a lot is the best time to get a school contract is in the spring.

And if you don't have a contract in the spring, it's not going to happen.

I will say the majority of my customers get their contracts.

The last time I pulled told them it was between June and October were the hottest times.

That doesn't mean wait to contact schools until June and October because these staffing agencies are contacting schools in March.

Right.

So you have to have your name out there.

However, know that if you don't have a contract by June, that doesn't mean, oh, I'm never going to have a contract.

I mean you have to do the things that you need to do to safeguard your finances and feel really comfortable in your financial situation.

But know that this getting started with schools, it is a long process.

Which is why I do this podcast and I do so many blogs on this is because I don't want anyone thinking I start this in March and a week later a school contract falls in my lap and then I'm great, because that's just not how it works the majority of the time.

So let me recap our steps.

Step one, Know what you're offering.

I want you to take the time and outline it.

Feel free to send it to me on Instagram.

Hetherapistsupportnetwork.

Step one, know where you're offering.

Step two, outline your territory.

Step three, have a general idea of your rate or a template response if they ask it.

And step four, start reaching out to schools.

The other steps, like securing a contract, submitting an rfp, pitching your services, all of those will come after this.

But you don't want to do those until you've actually spoken to schools because it's just going to take a while to get you there.

All right, so the big thing is just do those basic steps and start reaching out to schools.

Okay, I wanted to add before we wrap up here, I wanted to add a step five.

Although in many states it does not take much to register a business, right, in many states you can actually start this as a sole proprietor.

I will let you determine if you want to do that versus an llc.

However, there are a few states at the time of this podcast recording, I'm going to say California, New Jersey, New York.

Those states have some longer or more tedious business registration processes.

Step five, it may be worth taking a glimpse into your state.

You can call your local small business association.

You can chat with a CPA to see about registering your business.

If there are any hurdles you would have to jump through in order to do that.

The majority of us, it is not a huge hurdle.

And again, this is such a a long process.

I can meet with a school and then register my business and still be fine because the board is reviewing the contract.

So the majority of us, this isn't a huge deal because of that long sales cycle.

However, it is a good idea to have a general if you don't yet have a general idea of any sort of business registration processes that are specific to your state for providers that own a business.

And again, small business associations can answer those questions and CPAs can answer those questions.

All right, so that would be my step five.

Although I just don't want you sitting there too long.

Get a general idea, but don't let it distract you from the task at hand, which is just really getting on the phone and interacting with schools.

If you want a step by step guide to walk you through the process, I do have a free school contracting checklist that has all the steps that typically you end up having to accomplish prior to contracting with the school.

I also have resource such as sales scripts, my contract templates, RFP templates in my school contractor packet.

I will be sure to link that there in comments and check out my other resources.

I try to make resources for everything.

You need to start strong so you can stop overthinking and start taking action.

Start being in motion.

So check out my website.

Most importantly, you can do this.

Schools need you, not a big staffing agency with investors running the show.

They need you.

So go send that first email.

Message me on Instagram at the Therapists Support Network when you do.

I would love to celebrate your win and I will see you next time on beyond the Big Agency.

That's a wrap on this episode of beyond the Big Agencies.

Remember, success isn't just meant for the big staffing agencies.

It's meant for providers like you who show up, take action and build something meaningful.

So go get em and if you're ready for more support strategies and a community that gets it, join us inside the Therapist Support Network.

You don't have to do this alone.

Head to www.thetherapistsupportnetwork.com to connect, learn and grow with other SLPs, OTs, PTs and related service providers building their own path.

Until next time, keep pushing forward.