Timothy Zercher 0:00

Jamie, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.

Jamie Bassos 0:02

Thank you. I'm super excited to be here.

Timothy Zercher 0:05

Absolutely. Absolutely. We're excited to have you. So after more than 25 years in behavioral health, what originally pulled you into the field and what's kind of kept you engaged and kept you at it?

Jamie Bassos 0:16

Yeah. Got started 25 years ago, which saying it out loud every time is a little frightening.

Timothy Zercher 0:23

Hurts a little.

Jamie Bassos 0:24

Puts me at an age. But I, my first client that I ever had, I was in college. I responded to a psychology build post on there looking for jobs and showed up at the house. And the little boy opened the door. He was completely nude and was like so excited to meet me. He's like, Jamie, like he knew my name before I even walked in. I was like, hey, buddy, like you're naked. Let's go find some clothes. And that was literally my first exposure to autism. But completely, like, obviously, fell in love with this little boy and learned about verbal behavior, learned about ABA, and was exposed to all of it just as it was really becoming the therapy of choice for children on the spectrum. And I had amazing training with the CBA at the time. And that's what really sold me on the science. I learned so much from her and just seeing the quick progress that this particular child was making every single time I was at his house, he was learning how to use complete sentences and how to dress himself independently. And all of it was done with this science-based intervention. And I was like, oh my gosh, like you do this thing and you take this data and then you see this progress and it makes such beautiful sense. And I fell in love with it. And from that point on, I was sold. I was like, okay, what else do I need to do? How else do I get involved? I need more clients. And that's how I entered the space. And then I just continued to find ways to get more education and participate more in that in the field.

Timothy Zercher 2:03

That's incredible. You jump right into the nude deep end very quickly.

Jamie Bassos 2:08

Yes.

Timothy Zercher 2:08

That happens. That's awesome, though. So you've helped scale multi-site and I think multi-state ABA organizations. What tends to break first when an ABA company starts to really grow quickly, starts to scale?

Jamie Bassos 2:21

Yeah. And so I've done this twice now. This is my second rodeo. I grew my previous organization from one location to 19 across the country over 13 years and sat in the VP seat over there to help scale that one. And now I'm at Bright Bridge ABA. I'm the COO, and we went from one location to six in two years. This is my two-year anniversary, actually last week. And what breaks first, honestly, is its ownership. So who owns what? When there's five people doing all the jobs, everybody sort of owns everything. And there's not a whole lot of you do this, it's everybody's pitching in, everybody's doing all the different pieces. But as you scale, it's okay. Who owns this part of the process? Who owns this part of the process? And really making sure you're delegating appropriately and putting the right drivers in those seats and making sure that they are the right fit for that spot. And the second, honestly, is like is the handoffs, right? From hiring to onboarding, from scheduling to authorizations. And those little scenes in between those handoffs tend to fall apart because there's again that ownership piece and making sure everybody is in the know of what's happening in the operations. And then policy. So you have five people, everybody knows what to do, everybody's on the same page. As you scale, you've got to get those SOPs written out and you've got to get them disseminated to all the right people. Everybody's got to be on the same page because it's the growth doesn't break the company or the clinical piece. It's the operations. So if your operations are solid and you've got everybody on the same page kind of running the same machine, then your clinical side is going to be just fine.

Timothy Zercher 4:03

I've heard another person that has similar experience. She described it as going from one location to five is really hard. Going to five to fifty is actually easier because if the operations work, scaling is not the problem. It's actually having an operational backbone, like you're talking about SOPs and processes and policies. Yeah, yeah. So you talk about building organizations that are both clinically excellent and operationally sound. Where do you see ABA organizations specifically struggle the most to balance those two?

Jamie Bassos 4:37

Yeah, I kind of see it as a false choice, honestly. The clinician-led organizations underbuild the operations. The business-led organizations tend to treat that clinical quality as like a checkbox, like, okay, we've got it. But that operational soundness is really what's going to protect your clinical excellence. So a great treatment plan is useless if the session never gets scheduled or authorized. So again, that backbone piece is so critical to that continued excellence. So making sure you design all of your layers appropriately and you've got to balance the two. There's got to be a working relationship. And one of the most important things we've done over Brightbridge is we get the clinical and the ops teams together on a regular basis to make sure everybody's communicating, everybody knows who's in charge of what. Again, who are those drivers in those seats? Because as you grow, you tend to just hire quick and put people in positions. But then the clinical side isn't always kept in the loop of who these new people are and what their actual role is and how it relates to what they're doing on the clinical side because it is so intertwined and it has to be, and that communication has to be there. So we've got those at least monthly meetings with the clinical leadership and the operational, the whole operational team to make sure everybody's on the same page and working together.

Timothy Zercher 5:58

I love that. I love that. It makes complete sense. People focus on the thing that they know and they tend to do that best, right? What, in your opinion, is the hardest single part of growing a team or growing an organization?

Jamie Bassos 6:10

Yeah, I mean, there's definitely multiple layers to this one, I think. Lots of hard things when you're growing big companies, you're dealing with humans, and humans are difficult. But I would say it's building the right team. It's getting the right players in place. And what we find a lot in the ABA space is a lot of these big companies, they bring on these new BCBAs with pretty limited clinical background and knowledge. Some are fresh out of school and they put them right into a director or manager position with little to no support and training. And a lot of honestly, what I was doing for a lot of the end of my time at my previous organizations was coaching and supporting new leaders, new managers in supporting their teams. So you're not taught in ABA school, BCBA school, how to manage people. You're taught how to manage behaviors. And typically it's children on the autism spectrum behaviors. It's not high-functioning adults. So it's a completely different skill set to manage those pieces. And so helping to support new clinicians and new leaders in managing a big team, because you're not just talking about one or two people. We grew Brightbridge from one consultant to 50. We're at like over 50 analysts in this short time frame. And so, how do you manage 50 people as a sole BCBA provider? So, giving our team the tools and helping to support their skill development in leadership and using their behavior analytic background to support that skill development for themselves and for their team members. And that's the hardest part because all that culture and retention and clinical excellence, it starts at the top of the organization. So do your managers and leaders, is your CEO, your COO, your CFO, are they being supported by a coach or by are is there continued learning opportunities for those leaders to then support their clinical directors and their executive directors at this level to then support those managers who are then supporting the BCBAs and RBTs? It all starts at the top. And so just making sure you have a well-rounded, continued leadership learning track for your staff, I think is really important. I don't know if that answered your question, but you know, that's No, I think you did.

Timothy Zercher 8:35

I think you did. And that's basically that the hardest part is actually the people and managing the different challenges that come along with that because every person's different and the challenges are different. And it's not like just managing a naked five-year-old, right? Although sometimes it feels like it, right? Sometimes it's it is that. But I think that that answers it well. That makes complete sense. So since we're a marketing agency that specializes in behavioral health, we always have to ask some marketing questions as well. The first one is outside of word of mouth, what's working best for your organization right now when it comes to client acquisition and separately talent acquisition? Because that's obviously two sides of the challenge is always a challenge for each of those IBA.

Jamie Bassos 9:12

Yeah. And it's interesting because this is a whole new side for me that I'm learning. This wasn't something that I was super involved in at my previous organization, but now I am very involved with our marketing. And what I'm really learning is that we're really building a brand for ourselves. And like, who is Brightbridge? Who are the faces and people? And what does Brightbridge feel like? How do we present on all these different platforms? And we do a ton of social media. Facebook, we're starting TikTok, Instagram, and we're doing a lot more just personal posting of like, here's like what we're celebrating today at Brightbridge. It's a staff anniversary, or we're doing personalized videos explaining, talking directly at the camera to the people of who we are as an organization and how we want to support your family through this process. And that has made such a big difference in our client acquisition. We're getting a whole lot of interest. Again, social media is our biggest driver. And they're finding us on social media, but because of that, then they're showing up to all of our open houses. I mean, we just opened a, we had an open house in Hope Mills last maybe three, four weeks ago. And all of these new families were coming. We'd like 30-something families coming through the door saying, I found you on Facebook. I was like, Oh my gosh, yay! I'm so glad like you felt how excited we were about the services that we're providing here in this community, and you showed up to our open house to celebrate with us. And so I've really enjoyed the process of. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's very difficult to go on camera and talk to yourself, it feels like. And it's not so much a conversation, it's really just here we are, this is what we're doing.

Timothy Zercher 10:56

A monologue of some kind, yeah.

Jamie Bassos 10:58

Yes, takes a lot of it's you have to be very brave, but I've gotten over that fear with the help of some great friends. And we've put out a whole lot of videos, and that's really made a big difference for us. I mean, it's our authentic Bright Bridge self out there in the communities, and we just want to continue to support this, these families. And to your other point, too, about staff, they're seeing the same content. I mean, our content is the same everywhere, and so our staff are finding us that way too, and saying, Oh my gosh, I found you on Instagram. I saw your stories. You guys were at a conference this weekend. It looks so fun. We're posting all the fun things we're doing and the all the stuff we're learning. And they want to be a part of it, they want to feel a part of this culture, this place we're building. And it's it's really beautiful.

Timothy Zercher 11:43

Yeah, that is. That is really cool. Well, and it's rare too. I mean, I'll say, as someone lives in this space, I think it's rare for organizations to have good social content as an organization that is growing, that that is large, like you guys, because so often they feel like they have to have a corporate face as opposed to individual, real human faces, which I think is by far the best approach. Sounds like what you're doing. I think that's some good advice for everybody listening is stop trying to be corporate, be personal, because it works. It works much better, right? People will relate to Jamie. They won't relate to Brightbridge as a brand, and they're like, oh, that's who I want to be as a BCBA. It's not how it works. But they will relate to you and be like, oh, great, she's who I want to be when I grow up, or whatever it is. Yeah. Um, so last question then. What is one marketing tactic or strategy that you or your team is considering or just watching carefully in the marketplace? Something that you're not actively doing.

Jamie Bassos 12:36

Yeah, I guess we're watching a lot of this AI generated content, right? Like we're seeing a lot of that. And I think, I mean, in talking to my team, I know that we really are trying to stay away from the cookie-cutter AI generated pieces. It does tend to, I don't know, it gives you some feelings. It feels a certain way when you look at it, right? And you're seeing a lot of this like kind of copy paste, especially with some of these, like the ads for employment and some of those things. But we really are leaning into this, like you said, that more authentic personal side of things, and really we're watching it. I don't know if we're gonna utilize it because we do see such a benefit from the personalized way of marketing to both staff and to families. So I would I would be hesitant to hire my marketing person and just use AI.

Timothy Zercher 13:32

Yep, I totally get it. I totally get it. I think more organizations should understand that. I think AI content can be incredibly powerful. And most of the time, at least in use, from what we're seeing, it actually hurts brands much more than it helps because it's new. People are not sure how to use it yet, which makes sense. Well, thank you so much, Jamie. I really appreciate your insights. I appreciate some of your free advice for our listeners, and I appreciate you coming on today.

Jamie Bassos 13:56

Wonderful time. Thank you so much for the conversation.

Timothy Zercher 13:59

Thank you.