IAM2339 – CEO and Speech-Language Pathologist Inspires Small Business Owners to Success

Ginger Jones is a speech-language pathologist and the founder and CEO of Jones Therapy Services, a pediatric therapy clinic that offers a wide variety of services with nine locations in Tennessee.

She started Jones Therapy Services in November of 2009, the company has received many awards, such as a ranking on the Inc. 5000 list for 3 year.

Ginger focuses on accessibility and providing comprehensive services at convenient locations sets her apart from other providers.

Her strategy of providing services to families with children who need multiple therapies per week was crucial to their success.

Ginger advocates entrepreneurs to stay true to their optimistic, visionary side and embrace the joy of running a business, even when facing setbacks or challenges.

Website: Ginger Jones

LinkedIn: Ginger Jones

Previous Episode: iam202-ceo-and-speech-language-pathologist-inspires-small-business-owners-to-success

Check out our CEO Hack Buzz Newsletter–our premium newsletter with hacks and nuggets to level up your organization. Sign up HERE. 

I AM CEO Handbook Volume 3 is HERE and it's FREE. Get your copy here: http://cbnation.co/iamceo3. Get the 100+ things that you can learn from 1600 business podcasts we recorded. Hear Gresh's story, learn the 16 business pillars from the podcast, find out about CBNation Architects and why you might be one and so much more. Did we mention it was FREE? Download it today!

Transcription:

The full transcription is only available to CBNation Library Members. Sign up today!

Ginger Jones Teaser 00:00

And we provide speech, language therapy, feeding therapy, behavior therapy, physical and occupational therapy to about a little over 6,000 children in Tennessee.

And we've kind of grown organically over the last almost 10 years. Started out as just me alone doing speech, and now we've got a huge team and offer a wide variety of services.

Intro 00:23

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:48

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Ginger Jones of Jones Therapy Services. Ginger, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Ginger Jones 00:57

I'm excited.

Gresham Harkless 00:58

No problem. Super excited to have you on. And what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Ginger so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing.

And Ginger Jones is a speech language pathologist and is also the founder and CEO of Jones Therapy Services, a pediatric therapy clinic that offers a wide variety of services with nine locations in Tennessee.

As Jones Therapy Services grew bigger than she imagined, she knew it was important to help others by not only sharing her entrepreneurial journey to provide small business owners with inspiration and advice, but also how to build a leadership team to ensure your success.

Since she started Jones Therapy Services in November of 2009, the company has received many awards, such as a ranking on the Inc. 5000 list for three years in a row. Ginger, it's awesome to have you on. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Ginger Jones 01:47

I am.

[restrict paid=”true”]

Gresham Harkless 01:48

Awesome. Let's do it. So the first question I had was to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

Ginger Jones 01:55

Sure. Yeah. So for anybody that's read the E Myth, I would say that I kind of followed that journey. So I was a speech language pathologist. Very blessed that I knew.

I always wanted to do that from a very young age because both of my parents have a hearing loss, so I knew I wanted to work with children that had disabilities.

And so I, right out of graduate school, started working for a larger healthcare company and had a great time there, spent about six and a half years there, learned a lot, and kind of stretched my leadership muscles there, moved into middle management so where I was leading people, but also not the one ultimately making all the decisions.

And I was still getting to do the work I love. So it was great. And then probably about six and a half years into it, or maybe I should say five and a half years, because I lasted there six and a half years, I started to just feel like the big organization wasn't for me, that things didn't move quick enough for me.

I wanted to make changes, and I wanted it to happen quickly. And now the bigger my organization gets, I definitely understand that things take time, but I think at that point in time, I was just not patient enough.

So I decided to start my own company. And I say often I really didn't have a formal business plan. I had really no idea what I was doing, but I just kind of figured it out as I was going along, and that was. That'll be 10 years ago this year.

Gresham Harkless 03:09

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, happy 10 years for first and foremost. And it's great to hear, like, you have a really strong story, with both your parents that you talked about.

So you really sounds like you're really passionate. You know firsthand the importance of the impact that you can have by all the services that you're providing.

Ginger Jones 03:23

Right. Yeah, I definitely think that for me, I didn't have the background and the formal training that maybe a lot of business owners have had, but I definitely made up for that in passion. And thankfully, I've definitely made some failures along the way.

And I think that one of the things that I've learned from and that other CEOs and entrepreneurs can learn from is kind of taking those failures and not letting it knock you all the way down.

And learning from that and then just making the next best step now that you made that mistake and to not do that anymore.

Gresham Harkless 03:49

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I always say that, especially too, in business is like, even if you're as prepared as prepared can be, there's always something that sometimes is a new wrinkle or something that changes or technology changes.

Something changes where you have to be able to kind of adapt. And like you mentioned, being able to be resilient and get back up is definitely a true sign of somebody that can be successful, for sure.

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And I know we touched on a little bit with what you're doing with Jones Therapy Services. Could you drill a little bit deeper and tell us a little bit more on how you're supporting your clients?

Ginger Jones 04:17

Sure. Yeah. So we have nine locations in Tennessee. Now we're getting ready to open the 10th one, hopefully in March of this year.

And we provide seats, language therapy, feeding therapy, behavior therapy, physical and occupational therapy to about a little over 6,000 children in Tennessee.

And we've kind of grown organically over the last almost 10 years. Started out as just me alone doing speech, and now we've got a huge team and offer a wide variety of services.

Gresham Harkless 04:45

Nice, nice, nice. Sounds like you open up a new office every year, or is that the pace?

Ginger Jones 04:50

No, it hasn't been. And that's interesting you say that. I think one year we opened three, and then some years we haven't opened any.

So say that there were times in the growth where it just made sense to make sure that the legs were steady under the table if it were up to me, because I'm kind of the one who likes to just go do the new thing.

And I'd probably open a few every year. But thankfully, I've got people that are a little bit more realistic on my team that kind of make sure that we're growing smart.

Gresham Harkless 05:16

Yeah, that's huge. And it's huge, I think, too. And you can definitely correct me if I'm wrong, where you kind of recognize that in yourself and recognize what your strengths are.

And it sounds like you're able to kind of surround yourself with a team that is able to kind of balance it out, and you guys can have and make the most, I guess, correct decision that you can make.

Ginger Jones 05:31

Yeah, I think that's huge. I think getting people that are just good at what you're not is one of the reasons that I've been successful and from a lot of business owners I know, too. I think that's the thing that can make or break the success of your company.

Gresham Harkless 05:43

Absolutely, Absolutely. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And this could be for you and. Or your organization, but this is what you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique.

Ginger Jones 05:53

Yeah. Well, I always say in my line of work, I want my competitors to be good. Right. Because we're helping children.

So if I made a widget, it would be really cool if I could, like, talk smack about the other person making a widget. Yeah. But I'm in a field where it's like, we're all doing it to help people.

So I actually, a lot of my close competitors around here, you know, I have a great working relationship with, where we share kind of the frustrations of being in healthcare and just the commonalities that we have between our companies.

But I will say I think what led to our quick growth was 10 years ago, at least in where I am, you didn't have a lot of options.

And options that you did have, families had to drive a long way for. And so when I started opening locations, I was really considerate of some of these families that have children with special needs, they sometimes need two and three services a week.

And so to drive to the middle of downtown Nashville, park in a parking garage, do all those kind of things, it becomes a full time job.

So, so we started putting locations in areas that were a couple miles off the interstate. We don't have any offices that are in medical buildings. We are more in the retail. You just pull up, the parents can run in.

So that something that maybe before I started my company, it might have taken two or three hours out of your day now can really take 45 minutes to an hour now since in the last 10 years we've got more people that are doing what I've done.

So it's probably not a special self anymore. But I do think, I think that and the fact that we took all insurance payers, which a lot of people in my state weren't doing at the time, is what kind of led people to us.

And then we became a habit. So doctors refer to us and people know about us because as you grow your brand, you just kind of can rely on that more.

Gresham Harkless 07:33

Yeah, I absolutely love that. And it's kind of like that what I like to call your first movers advantage, so to speak, where you saw an opportunity, took advantage of the opportunity and you knew that because you drilled down and maybe it just came from understanding your client and understanding who was coming to you.

But you understood what a day looked like for them to come to the pathologist and what exactly might have been those pain points.

And you found a way to kind of resolve that. It sounds like, yeah, we did. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

And I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app, a book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Ginger Jones 08:10

Yeah, I love this because it's kind of new to me. I would say my favorite hack is working from home. And I don't do it all the time. I do it with nine, soon to be 10 locations.

Obviously I think there's a need for me to be there with kind of my finger on the pulse and seeing what's going on.

But I was in the clinics all the time, and I actually heard the other day that, like, the average CEO is, like, interrupted every 20 minutes.

And the hard part for me is that I love my people. I love the people I'm around. So, when somebody would need something from me, it felt like, oh, my gosh, I've got to help them. They need me.

But what I learned is when I'm not there, they actually figure it out. So I think that working from home, I do it definitely on Mondays and sometimes another day of the week.

But it just really allows me to kind of get the big things off of my to do list on Mondays. And so the rest of the week, if I need to be more reactive, I have time for that.

And again, like I said, for me, it was kind. I knew I needed to do this, but there was a lot of guilt around it.

And sometime in the last, like, six months to the year, I kind of let myself off the hook for being guilty about it.

And it's been a huge game changer for my mental space and just being able to be there better for my team.

Gresham Harkless 09:13

Yeah. And I imagine, too, it kind of sounds like you've even seen the leadership skills of your team grow as well, too, as you not actually being there, but been able to see, like, everything can go according to plan and go good as well.

Ginger Jones 09:25

Yeah. And actually, that's been one of the best things to kind of watch. I mean, now sometimes I'll kind of hear something that happened and I hear it after it happened and I think. Yeah.

And initially, if you've got an ego about it, that can be hard to swallow. But I think that, just realizing that that's part of my job, too, is to grow these people.

The other thing I would say that definitely applies to me, and I would assume some other entrepreneurs and CEOs, is that the way my brain works is I just, like, notice everything.

So when I'm in the offices, I notice if the waiting room doesn't look the way it. I want it to or if we need and so that, again, it was just keeping me from, like, really working on the stuff that was really going to move the needle. And so I just needed to remove myself from that distraction.

Gresham Harkless 10:08

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. It's always, like, because you're too close to it and literally too close to it because you're literally in the office.

So sometimes you have to have. I mean, I know myself sometimes, even if it's just going on a drive or whatever.

When you take yourself out of that regular environment, it gives you a different perspective, lets you clear your head.

And those things that you don't think that you're noticing but are still on your mind, like the waiting room you mentioned, you are able to kind of be away from that.

Ginger Jones 10:29

Yeah. And let it take care of itself, because it will.

Gresham Harkless 10:32

Exactly. Exactly. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice or if you can hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Ginger Jones 10:43

I think this is such a good question. So I read the other day, it was Seth Godin said a different part of our brains is activated when we think about what's possible rather than what's required.

And for me, I've always been this naturally, this, like, really optimistic person. So I think I did this for a long time because it was just in my nature.

But like I mentioned before, as the business grew and I faced challenges, I think my natural instinct to be really optimistic started to be replaced with fear.

I had more people relying on me, and honestly, from an ego place, it seemed like more people were kind of, quote-unquote, watching me.

So I put really high pressure on myself to succeed. And so now I feel like after a few failures and kind of working on myself during those challenging times, I just learned to honor that part of me that wants to try out a dream and see where it goes without thinking about all the roadblocks that could keep me from getting there.

So if I could tell my younger self, it's like, be more true to who you are and just think about what's possible.

And some people naturally, are a little bit more, I guess, realist, and so they may not struggle with that.

But I think that I really, during those times when I wasn't being true to who I really was, the business felt like more of a chore.

And now that I've kind of gotten back to being like that person who's really just thinking about all the possibilities and really okay with film failure, it's like my joy in running the business is back.

Gresham Harkless 11:58

Yeah. And I absolutely love that. I myself, I consider myself definitely an optimistic person. So sometimes when you start flying, so to speak, and then you start to look down and you realize while I'm flying and you start to forget, you start to worry about, okay, like, I gotta keep flying, I gotta keep moving, I gotta keep going.

But sometimes it's just having that, I guess, freedom of being able to fly and just going after your dreams, going after, whatever vision that you have that is your authentic self.

Ginger Jones 12:21

Yeah, I love that. I love that analogy. I'm gonna start using that. Okay, it sounds good.

Gresham Harkless 12:26

You're welcome. You're welcome. And now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, Ginger, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO.

And we're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEOs, entrepreneurs and business owners on the show. So I wanted to ask you, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Ginger Jones 12:40

Okay. So a lot of different things. And so I would say, and I'm sure people said this before, it's kind of the chief everything officer. Right.

So to me, it means being a visionary. It means I need to maintain awareness of our operations. I need to maintain awareness of opportunities. I need to lead the mission of the company. I also need to be evaluating our successes.

I need to really, this was probably the hardest one, is that I'm really responsible for anything bad that's happened. Right.

So even if somebody else made a mistake, it's maybe I didn't equip them to do the job right or I put the wrong person in the role right. So anything bad really is on me.

And then one of the hardest things that I had to learn was it's just really my job to make tough decisions.

And for somebody that I'm a recovering people pleaser, I guess that was really hard for me. And I will say, through a lot of coaching and just a lot of work on myself, personal development, reading books and classes and things like that, that's something that's a little bit easier for me to do now.

Gresham Harkless 13:33

Absolutely. Yeah. I love that definition and that perspective as well, too. So I truly appreciate you, Ginger, for taking some time out.

What I wanted to do was pass you the mic just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know and how best, of course, they can get a hold of you.

Ginger Jones 13:47

Yeah, for sure. I would say you can find out more about my company, which we have a lot of info on child development and resources for parents. And that's at jonestherapyservices.com and we're very active on Instagram and Facebook.

We actually just did an ask the experts live last night, so lots of great info there. And then me personally, you can find me at gingerjones.com and that's where I talk a lot about kind of my leadership and business journeys and things like that find me lots of ways.

Gresham Harkless 14:12

Awesome awesome awesome. We'll make sure to have those links in the show notes. But Ginger, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out and I truly appreciate you for for all the awesome things that you're doing to help out the world and I appreciate you again and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Ginger Jones 14:24

Yeah thank you so much. It was a pleasure. I hope you have a great day.

Outro 14:27

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by CBNation and Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and everywhere you listen to podcasts. Subscribe and leave us a five star rating. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

[/restrict]