Amber Nelms 0:00

Well, hello, Trish. Welcome to Accelerate with Amber. I am so excited to have you on. You are the co-owner of Surfside AVA Therapy. Is that correct?

Trish Murray 0:13

That's correct. Thank you for having me on today.

Amber Nelms 0:16

Absolutely. How many years have you been in business now?

Trish Murray 0:19

Next month is our five-year mark.

Amber Nelms 0:22

Congratulations. Thanks. That's so awesome.

Trish Murray 0:26

It's going by very fast.

Amber Nelms 0:28

Oh, I bet. So tell me more, Trish, what made you decide you wanted to open up Surfside? What brought you to that decision?

Trish Murray 0:36

At first I didn't. I was very happy working for another small company. I had been treated better there than I had been treated at any other job in my life. And this person that owned that company had always said to me, Hey, if you ever want to go out on your own, I just want you to know I'll support you. And I said, I'm not going out on my own. I'm good. I've got it mained right here. My husband kind of encouraged me. He said, I don't know why you're not hanging your own shingle out the door. You can do it. And then I met another person, my who's now my business partner, and met her in the field while we were both working with clients. And we realized that we lived near each other. So we started walking together in the morning. And that's nice. One thing led to another. And we just kind of started talking. And she had some thoughts of opening a business. And I started thinking about it. And I thought, I don't really want to do this by myself, but I could do it with her. And so I approached this the subject with her and she said yes. And we ran with it. And like I said, the person I had worked for, I try now to pay it forward doing what she did for me because she set such a good example on supporting me through it really and helped me and got me started. And that's what it's about because there's plenty of kids out there, right? There's plenty for all of us. So so there's no reason to not support somebody who wants to keep growing. So yeah, that's how I did it.

Amber Nelms 2:12

That's fantastic. Tell me what inspired the name. Okay, so we live in a beach area.

Trish Murray 2:19

Okay. We're in Virginia Beach, and my business partner had kind of her own personal LLC. I had a personal LLC. Hers was called Beach Behavioral. Mine was called Umbrella, with the idea, my background is in special education. So there's an umbrella of the term special education is kind of an umbrella term with all of these specialties that we serve under it, autism being one of them. And so our logo and our name kind of came from those two ideas.

Amber Nelms 2:55

So oh cool. What a great collaboration. Okay, that's awesome. Well, what is your very specific niche specialty in Surfside since you come from that classroom background? Does that integrate into how you are running the company?

Trish Murray 3:14

I would say that our niche is really a personalized experience. My partner and I, there are nine of us total. So we have seven people that we have hired that work for us. And we make it a point to get to know every family, to go to every intake, to see them at events, at community events, where we rent space from another business in our area that rents space to people, therapist, ABA therapist, speech therapist, occupational therapist. So we are all kind of connected in that way. And there are oftentimes community things that we all support each other with. And so really, I would say that our specialty and what I always want to be known for is kind of that personal touch and just really getting to know our families.

Amber Nelms 4:07

I love it. Well, it's so exciting meeting another clinician's owned practice. I'm glad to hear that it's 100% clinician-owned. That is something I'm very passionate about. I think that is the way forward in continuing to have amazing high-quality ABA. And so it's such a privilege to meet you. So thank you for what you guys are doing. And I know it's unfortunately not a common thing anymore. So it's very, very nice to know that you guys are not giving up. You're a focus and you're helping serve a lot of families. I'm also very interested to know about what you think the AVA industry is under-leveraging when it comes to technology. Where do you think there's an under-leverage in that area?

Trish Murray 4:57

When I think about technology and I think about all of the potential with technology in our field, the thing that comes to mind first for me is insurance companies. Okay. I think that if things were more technology-based as opposed to manual on their end, we might get more consistent answers and more consistent progress with what we're trying to do. And I'm not trying to badmouth an insurance company. I think it's just the nature of where they are. If you speak to three different people about one topic, you're going to get three different answers. And I think that technology could help that and therefore help us provide what we need to provide to the families. Okay. Sometimes that's a little frustrating. That's kind of where my mind goes when you ask that question.

Amber Nelms 5:56

To be how leverage that and make that a little bit more of a flow. So currently you don't have a tech stack that speaks to how that could be managed better. You're just calling on the phone, correct?

Trish Murray 6:06

Correct. Okay. Yes. And we speak with whoever.

Amber Nelms 6:10

Okay. I have a question also about your CRM. What are you using right now to be able to look at your client pipeline and things like that?

Trish Murray 6:21

We have a data collection system that we use for all of our clients. Is that what you're talking about?

Amber Nelms 6:28

No, I'm more that would be more of an EMR. I'm talking about a CRM. So your client response management type system. So you're getting clients reaching out and how you organize them.

Trish Murray 6:42

Like as far as referrals?

Amber Nelms 6:44

Yeah, it'd be referrals. And then also then pipeline processes when they reach out. Because like maybe somebody reach outs and doesn't have everything. They don't have the forms and everything to start, but they are calling and then like where do you put that data and how do you manage that?

Trish Murray 7:01

We are super old school. Okay. We're doing it all, we're all hands-on. My partner and I are all hands-on. Like we are managing all of that.

Amber Nelms 7:11

Okay. So you put it like in a sheets document, or you write notes in something and then you follow back up. Yes. Okay. That's I'm just asking and going through. This is something I'm highly interested in as I'm continually scaling Triangle ABA and asking these questions on what really needs to be the tech stack an ABA company needs to have to be able to grow in an efficient manner and then not if the right tech stack is available, the stress level and the ability to really manage things without having to have everything everywhere can make a huge difference. And I'm really making sure to ask these questions about where the needs are to make that happen.

Trish Murray 7:53

And you know, I think moving forward, honestly, I'm not sure that we'll ever be big enough to ever feel the need to do anything other than what we're doing right now. Our goal is not to be huge, not to be a huge company. And so we're pretty comfortable where we are. We could grow some, we could have a little bit less, and we could still be in that, be in our comfort zone. I do see where that would be certainly important for companies who are a little bigger than ours. And I'm not saying it wouldn't be important for us. Technology is not my jam.

Amber Nelms 8:28

Well, that's okay. And that's one of the things that I have noted that a lot of clinician-owned companies do tend to not necessarily even know because that we didn't study that in our masters. Right. It's not like we went and did our MBA, right? So we're not necessarily coming, we know how to do high-quality treatment, but we need a lot of people don't know what a CRM is. And that's just a reality, and that's okay. And technology isn't probably something where a lot of people spend a ton of their focus, but it can alleviate a lot of stress too. So I'm trying to ask the questions to see where the needs are. And my larger goal, like I said, is to help clinicians be able to do the work they want to do and help a lot of people with that and alleviate some of those stress and burdens because the right tech stack is available.

Trish Murray 9:22

Right.

Amber Nelms 9:23

So it is really fantastic talking to you. Is there anything else on your mind that you would like to share as you are growing a high-quality practice that you are really just proud of and you wanted to talk about on this podcast today?

Trish Murray 9:38

I just I'm super proud of the team that we have. I can't say enough about this group of individuals that collaborate and help each other and we build each other up. And I just, I don't ever want to lose sight of that.

Amber Nelms 9:54

Yeah.

Trish Murray 9:55

And so, like I said, we are probably always going to be a small company for that reason.

Amber Nelms 10:01

That's awesome. Well, I am so glad that we got a chance to speak. Thank you for your time today. And yeah, stay in touch.