Empowering Autism Treatment with Nichole Daher

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. Excited for today’s guest. We’re talking to the CEO of SOS franchising, and what she does is she helps, uh, to mentor aspiring owners and ex corporate professionals who want to build impact driven businesses without starting from scratch or sacrificing family.

So I’m excited to be talking a little bit more about that a little bit later. But first, are you ready to rock Nichole?

Nichole Daher: I am ready to rock.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. So we always start off here on a good note. Tell me a story of success in your business that we can be inspired by.

Nichole Daher: Sure. Uh, so back in 2014, I got married to a man who had a child with autism, and I know nothing about kids with autism. I was never in that world. I didn’t even really, I mean, I’m, I don’t have kids of my own. I didn’t really know what to do with kids. So I was suddenly in a position where I had to be mom to a little girl that I had no idea how to take care of.

The golden standard of autism treatment is a little thing [00:01:00] called ABA therapy. And so I looked for a place to enroll her and we found one and it was amazing. They taught her how to talk. They taught her how to make eye contact. She started to be able to read. She potty trained it. It was like a different kid came out and it was so, so wonderful.

And then at seven years old, they kicked her out. She aged out of the program and I was upset, right? I mean like, this is your kid. You wanna help them? How can you kick her out? She was doing so well. So I said, fine, I’ll find another place to help her. And I searched and searched and searched and found no place that accepts autistic kids over the age of seven.

So I started my own business. Just to help her really just to be a tax write off. It was just gonna be a little side hustle for me. I was still working at the time. I didn’t know anything about autism, so I was just hiring people that knew what to do, and the business [00:02:00] exploded with such unexpected success.

Not only did my daughter get help, but I also now had this thriving business that was going so well. I ended up quitting my other job, and now I work from home. I took care of her and was. Helping other kids at the same time while making money. It was incredible. It was amazing.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Wow. And isn’t that like. Unexpected success. It probably should have been expected success though, because if you can’t find a service that you absolutely need, then obviously there’s more people that are looking for that same thing, right?

Nichole Daher: The demand is super high, and I didn’t find out until later. I mean, I just stumbled on this, right? But nationally, the number of kids that are being diagnosed with autism is just skyrocketing year after year after year, and new clinics are opening up, but they’re not keeping up with the increase of demand.

And so there’s a huge shortage. And only 33% of all of the kids in the US that need [00:03:00] this service have access to it. That is how crazy high demand this industry is.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Wow. So what. Are people doing before?

Nichole Daher: I think there was a lot of stigma around autism back in the day. Um, a lot of people just hired private nannies or put them in institutions or they would just end up in jail somehow because they don’t understand consequences very well without being taught. So it was, it was kind of hard for people 20, 30 years ago.

And nowadays, um, you can find help the schools offer. Some help with the new idea Act that, you know, if you have a kid with disabilities, you have to accommodate them, but the schools really aren’t trained for kids with autism either. So it’s better than nothing, but it’s also not fantastic.

Tim Melanson: They’re probably not equipped for it either. ’cause I mean, like you say, you had to actually find people that knew what they were doing and you know, there, there’s some process to that. [00:04:00] Wow. Okay. So now along with the good notes, sometimes there are things that don’t go as planned. And I’m wondering, are you able to share with us something that didn’t go as planned, you know, a bad note that you encountered on your journey?

Nichole Daher: There were so many things that I’ve encountered on the journey, and it’s mostly because I didn’t come from this industry. I had no experience whatsoever. I was literally making up the rules as I went, and I made a lot of expensive mistakes. I had to learn how to send claims to insurance companies and there was nobody there to teach me, so I kind of watched a few YouTube videos and Googled as much as I could and just sent one.

And it was a lot of trial and error type of thing. And it, you know, there was no mentors out there in this field at the time, and I knew that after, after hiring someone to help my daughter and getting a few more clients as well. More and more and more and more. Parents were calling me with kids over seven, desperate for a [00:05:00] place for their kids to go.

And once my little office got full, the thing that hurt me the most was I was telling them, no, I have a waiting list. No, I can’t take your kid. I was on the other side of the phone now telling these families that are so desperate that there was no place for their kid. And it really broke my spirit because I empathized with them so much.

Um, so after opening two clinics and both of them being full, I decided to franchise the business and that was also another difficult experience ’cause who teaches you how to open a franchise? So I had to learn a lot of things and Google and read, and watch videos and, and make it up as I went. Um, so it was a lot of hard work, but in the end, very, very worth it.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Okay. That’s crazy. So much stuff that happened there. Like, uh, congratulations though, by the way, for figuring all that stuff out [00:06:00] and I mean, it sounds to me like since you stumbled on something that was in very high demand, that’s probably what, why this whole franchising thing took place. Right? And now you’re offering this up to other people.

Nichole Daher: Absolutely, and it really is. For a, for a parent, the lifestyle, the work-life balance that we have is absolutely fantastic. The clinics are only open Monday through Friday, eight to four. I don’t go to my clinic every day. I mostly work from home and as a CEO I’m doing payroll. I’m hiring and firing. I’m interviewing people and I can do all of that from my home office.

And I just stop in whenever my employees need me.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Awesome. Okay, let’s talk a little bit about getting fans and now this is probably something that’s. Probably fairly simple for, for you and your business, because there’s so many people out there that are looking for something [00:07:00] like this. But you know, what kind of advice would you have for somebody who is, you know, looking to start a business and get people in the door?

Nichole Daher: If this business was a concert, it would be a hella mega tour. It would be a concert that everybody would try to grab tickets to. It would be sold out super fast. Finding your audience is the easiest thing. In fact, we’re the only franchise I’ve ever heard of that does not charge marketing fees. We just don’t need it.

Everybody knows about our band. Everybody loves our jams and everybody wants in. The hardest part, which is not extremely hard, is hiring the people fast enough to take care of the influx of customers that are trying to get in. So our box office is always sold out.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. I think probably if we were to kind of dissect how this is successful for you, it kind of goes back to your beginning, your good note, which is you, uh, you were looking for something and couldn’t find it, [00:08:00] and because of that, that showed you something that people are, that other people are likely looking for too.

And I think that that’s a really good. Really good idea for people that are looking to start a business if, if they’re sort of like looking for something and they can’t find it. Now in this particular instance, I think that, I mean, like you say, it’s a gold mine. I mean I, there’s a lot of people looking for it and it’s very, very emotional.

Right? Right. It’s a something that they absolutely need. So if you can find something that you’re desperately looking for and you can’t find it, then that’s a business right there. Right.

Nichole Daher: High demand business is always a good business opportunity.

Tim Melanson: Yep. And, and especially something that, uh, something that is so niche, I guess. Well, you know, I, I say niche and it’s like you say it’s growing so much. So it’s not really small anymore. It’s big.

Nichole Daher: It is [00:09:00] ridiculous how prominent autism is, and if it’s not a part of your world, you have nothing. No idea about it. You know, I didn’t we’re so, you know, one out of 31. Kids is diagnosed with autism. Statistically that’s like 3% of the population. It’s huge. And so you don’t realize you’re surrounded by it, but if it doesn’t directly affect you, you just don’t think about it on your way to work.

You know, it’s crazy

Tim Melanson: That’s diagnosed right.

Nichole Daher: diagnosed, not there’s more undiagnosed, right.

Tim Melanson: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Oh wow. So now, okay. I imagine that one thing that probably does get to be a bit of a challenge is the cash flow aspect of it. Making sure that you’re getting more money and then you’re putting out there, and especially, you know, when you were getting started, you’d actually did really know what you were doing.

How did you make sure that you were making more money than you were spending?[00:10:00]

Nichole Daher: So I started the business back in 2015 when things were a lot different. So if you think about. Uh, a daycare, you would have to pay a thousand to $2,000 a month. Putting your child into daycare and finding the money to do that is difficult for a lot of families. A b, a therapy is one on one. Specialized autism instruction, and so it costs $10,000 a month.

There is no way in hell that any of these families could come up with $10,000 a month out of their own pocket. Luckily, health insurance covers the expense and back when I opened the business, not every health insurance covered it. But after Obama’s healthcare reform, they made a federal mandate that all state funded insurances must cover a BA therapy as an essential healthcare service.

So not only does every child, even the one on Medicaids, even the one with Blue Cross Blue Shield, doesn’t matter if [00:11:00] it’s commercial, private, platinum, bronze, gold, whatever it is, your child’s a b. A therapy is covered by insurance companies. Which is great for us as business owners ’cause I can submit a claim at the end of the week and the money will be in my bank account two weeks later.

So the cashflow is actually very good. I’m not dependent on people’s disposable income. When the economy goes down, I’m not affected by it. You can call it recession proof if you want. And when COVID happened, we were able to stay open and running because we are an essential healthcare service.

Tim Melanson: Wow. A lot of really pluses to that for sure. So really when

Nichole Daher: all the.

Tim Melanson: it does check all the boxes. Now what about like, uh, what about the expense side of it too is like, you know, you buy, I mean, you must have to buy specialized equipment and hire specialized people. Like how does that work?

Nichole Daher: It is very payroll [00:12:00] heavy because we are one-on-one. So for every kid that comes in, you have to hire another staff member to be one-on-one with them. But there’s no specialized equipment. I mean, if you wanna call Mr. Potato Head and Legos specialized equipment, we buy desks for the kids. We buy toys for the kids because they’re.

Playing while they’re learning. We have a lot of, you know, big costume closets filled with pretend play stuff. You’re teaching them how to interact with the world around ’em, teaching them to talk potty training them, teaching to write their name, how to brush their own teeth, tie their shoes. So it’s things that they will, skills that they need for a lifetime.

And of course, um, again, like you said, it’s a very emotional thing because. Once you finally accomplish one of those things, teaching a kid to talk for the first time when all the doctors said, oh, he’ll never talk. And he’s six years old and he is never said a word. And all of a sudden he looks at the ball [00:13:00] that you play with him every day and he goes, ball.

And you’re like, ah. And you’re crying. And the therapist are crying and the receptionist is crying. And when you call the mom and tell her, and she’s crying and everybody’s crying, uh, it, you know, even if I went broke doing this. It would still be worth it. Uh, but it just so happens that this is both profitable and serves a greater purpose in life.

Tim Melanson: Wow. So tell me a little bit more about learning from others and learning from the best now in your business, like you just said, I mean, you, you started with, you, you, you’re not even in this field, so. I, I guess there’s two questions I have There is number one, like, how did you find the people to give you the knowledge that you had to have?

Number two, I guess, is like, did you struggle with that at all with the, with, with looking for other people or did you just try [00:14:00] to, did you think that you already knew what you were doing? Like, like how did that

Nichole Daher: I knew nothing. I knew absolutely nothing. I struggled a lot finding the right people. I hired some bad eggs. I had people that would start and quit before their first day. It was, it was wild because I didn’t know any better. And it was hard. It was hard to know, you know, if I’m interviewing someone. But I don’t know the industry.

If I ask ’em a question and they gimme an answer, I’m like, that sounds wonderful. Like you don’t know if it’s actually right or not. And that’s where franchising can really help everyone else. Most of our franchisees are just like me. They start off with no experience at all. They’re coming from the corporate world.

Maybe they’re veterans that have just come back and want something to do with their life that, you know, means something. Not just a pizza place, but something that makes an impact in the world. That’s the kind of people that we want. People who [00:15:00] wanna make a difference and are willing to put in the work.

And so you come to me, I help you hire the people. I have all the job descriptions already done. I help you interview them, um, help you send them, offer letters. We set up your business structure. I hold people’s hands. I. Every step of the way so they don’t have to make the expensive mistakes that I made.

So they don’t have to worry about who they’re hiring and, and if they’re actually doing their jobs or just talking a good game. You, when you join the band, you gotta be able to play to make beautiful music, and that’s what we wanna do. We wanna work together. And assembling a good team is everything.

Having us on your team makes it foolproof.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And even if you look at the, uh, the analogy with music, like, you know, your, maybe your instrument is a guitar and you’re hiring a drummer, well. You might know that something’s off, but you don’t know how to play drums well enough to [00:16:00] know what they’re doing wrong. You’re just like, something’s wrong with that, but I don’t know what it is.

And, uh, in business you get a lot of that too, that you’re, you don’t really know what to look for. You don’t even know what they’re doing wrong ’cause you don’t know that area. But

Nichole Daher: Exactly.

Tim Melanson: but part of the, part of the thing, especially in, in, in your instance, and I would say you definitely hit something huge, is that.

You just looked for something that you weren’t an expert in, found that you couldn’t find it and said, this has gotta be a business. Right. And, and that probably puts a lot of people in a, in a tough spot because like you say, I don’t even know what I’m looking for. How do I build a business when I don’t even know what the business is?

Right. It’s just I know that there’s that we need it and I need to go and assemble all these people and all this stuff and figure it all out on my own. That could be a challenge. Right?

Nichole Daher: Huge challenge.

Tim Melanson: But on the other hand, like you say, now that you’ve got [00:17:00] that kind of system figured out in the, in the franchise model, now you’re able to kinda offer all of that, you know, learning to other people so that they don’t have to make all the same mistakes that you made.

Nichole Daher: That’s exactly right. Franchising takes all the guesswork out of it. It takes out all the legal red tape. It takes out a lot of fear of failure, and if somebody starts playing off tune, having a franchise support system is a lot like having autotune in the background. We come in, we help you find the problem, we help you fix the problem.

Because we only get paid if you get paid. And so it’s, it’s everybody is successful at the same time. We move forward, we get bigger, and as the brand grows, that ability that we have to help each other gets better.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And now I suppose I, I think probably if, if I’m, I, I don’t know a ton about franchises, but I guess I know a little bit, and I imagine that at some point there [00:18:00] becomes a saturation problem with too many out there. But I think in your case, we’re probably a little while away from that, from that point.

Right.

Nichole Daher: In this industry, it is both a bad thing and a good thing that in our lifetime, the demand will never be met. I mean, a BA therapy is relatively new as a medical industry, and it is the fastest growing sector of the medical industry. It’s like a, a quiet bomb going off in the background that not many people see.

But for the people who do, it’s, it’s huge and big private equity groups are now starting a, BA companies buying out smaller mom and pops and making it into these big, huge businesses. Um, so there are more a, BA therapy companies now than ever before. But the demand is still accelerating faster than we can keep up.

It’s, it’s crazy. Um, so as of right now, I do not see demand being met [00:19:00] anytime, anytime soon. Um, and, you know, double-edged sword, right? Like good for business, bad for the kids, but there’s so much more that a BA therapy can help with too, even if autism. Settles down, so to speak, A-D-H-D-A-D-D. Um, it is a form of behavior modification, so they even use these strategies for drug rehab.

So I think our services can expand to a bigger, bigger population once we stop focusing on the underserved area of autism.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, because if I were to guess what the biggest risk would be, it would probably be government policy because if they all of a sudden took away that, that, that help, that’d be tough, right?

Nichole Daher: that’s a great point that you brought out, and that’s a fear for a lot of people, especially after, you know, a new president is elected and administrative changes are happening. But the good news is a study [00:20:00] was done by United Optum, whom everybody loves to hate. And they found that spending tens of hundreds or hundreds of thousands of dollars doing therapy when a child is young, saves them millions over a

Tim Melanson: Oh yeah.

Nichole Daher: because now this kid can live on his own and have a job.

He’s not gonna be. Drooling in a chair, in a nursing home his whole life, he’s going to eat better foods, he’s gonna be able to bathe himself, he’ll get sick less and there’s less hospitalizations. And so even without the federal mandates, now that that study has come out, health insurances want to pay for this service to prevent bigger bills later.

Uh, so it’s, it’s really going in a very forward, very strong position.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, because you’re right, it’s, it’s a combination. It, it is partly government policy, but it’s also insurance companies. And insurance companies, as you say, they, they care about their bottom line. So,

Nichole Daher: They’re business [00:21:00] too.

Tim Melanson: yeah. Wow. Okay, so it’s time for your guest solo. So tell me what’s exciting. I mean, as it sounds like everything’s exciting, but can you pick something.

Nichole Daher: Yeah, I mean, if, if to our listeners, if you’re an entrepreneur, you want to make an impact in the world, you wanna start a business where you have the flexibility to be your own boss, make your own hours, make a little bit of money, but also do good in the world. I want you guys to reach out to me and have a.

Special gift for your audience, Tim, obviously we wanna set up a call with them so you can, uh, visit our website, s os franchising.com, where there’s lots of videos, you can learn more information, but there’s also the phone number and a form to reach us. We’re gonna have a one-on-one video call between the two of us to talk about if this is right.

And if you think that it’s cool, and if you wanna join our little band here, um, then I am offering a free Southwest Airlines flight to Houston to spend a day with me. Visit corporate headquarters, [00:22:00] look inside of a clinic, see the kids running around. See what life as A-S-O-S-C-E-O is like, and if you love the business and, and love what it looks like, and you can imagine yourself doing it.

We will move forward and make you an official franchisee and you will own your own autism treatment business.

Tim Melanson: Wow. That’s amazing. Now, do, is this, is this only operating in this United States, or do you operate, operate in other countries too?

Nichole Daher: As of right now, only in the United States, because health insurance is so different in other countries. Eventually I would love to expand. You know, in uk, in Australia, it’s very similar to our system and I think it would work well. Um, but other places, especially third world countries, it’s really hard. Um, then you’re basically only serving the, the affluent and that, you know, a glorified personal nanny is not exactly what we’re trying to do here.

So it’s, it’s more difficult. Uh, but for now, we’re located throughout the us. We have over a [00:23:00] hundred locations. Uh, we’re in over 17 states. We’re licensed to sell in many more states, and so wherever you are in the US you can open your own clinic and the demand is high in every single state. So.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Wow. Right on. Okay, so now what would be the, the best type of person that would get the most out of working with a, a franchise like this.

Nichole Daher: Obviously someone, uh, we do want owner operators. It’s not just a passive income type of thing, so someone who wants. To not only make money and own their own business, but someone who wants to make a difference in the world. Someone who is, you know, we love people from the corporate world ’cause they can follow a process.

We love our veterans that are looking for something awesome to do. In fact, we offer a veterans discount for our, our franchise fees. Um, but anybody looking to make a difference in the world that is willing to put their hard work into doing all the administrative stuff, the CEO handles. That’s it. You don’t [00:24:00] need experience.

Um, you don’t need any special degrees or, or, you know, pieces of paper on your wall. I certainly didn’t have any of those things, um, but someone who’s really to work hard and, and wants to help the kids, that’s it.

Tim Melanson: Smart on. So now I’ve, I’m, I’m not sure about your franchise, but I know that franchises tend to cost a few. Bucks to get started. I’m wondering like, you know, is there a sort of a barrier to entry there? How do, like, what happens if they don’t have a whole lot of money?

Nichole Daher: Gotcha. And not many of us do at all. And so, uh, what we do is we have vendors that are there to help you. We work very closely with a few banks that give business. Startup loans ’cause no one has half a million dollars in their pocket and they’re ready to start a new business. So if you have around $50,000 in cash or in 401k, if you have a good credit score, we help you apply to the bank.

We give you the the business. Projection plans. [00:25:00] We give you the business plan. The bank works with you closely and has worked with many of our franchisees before, and you get a low interest SBA loan and basically the business pays the SBA loan back and it will eventually pay your 50,000 back to you. In addition to having a regular salary as a working CEO,

Tim Melanson: Oh, that sounds amazing. So how do people find out more then?

Nichole Daher: they can visit sos franchising com. Or you can send the word podcast. You can text the word podcast to our phone number, which is on our website, but it’s 8 3 2 9 7 5 1 9 9 9. And if you mention this podcast, we will honor a free flight to Houston so you can actually check one out in person

Tim Melanson: Wow. Nichole, this is the hardest question of the day. Who’s your favorite rockstar?

Nichole Daher: Who? Eddie Van Halen.

Tim Melanson: Not your husband,

Nichole Daher: I mean, okay. Don’t let him hear this. I mean, he’s pretty good [00:26:00] at electric guitar. My husband is a fantastic musician and he, he loves to jam out, but like, you can’t beat Eddie. Come

Tim Melanson: Eddie. Yeah.

Nichole Daher: It’s awesome.

Tim Melanson: Uh, I agree. Yeah. Eddie’s incredible. That’s so cool. Right on. And just for the people that I, I found out a little bit more so, uh, your hus tell, tell us about your husband, what he does.

Nichole Daher: My husband, uh, plays electric guitar. He is a musician. He, he plays other things too. He’s also a lefty, so it’s really cool that we have, you know, every left-handed guitar we see has to be bought just in case the world runs out of left-handed guitars. Um, so he, um, currently, uh, he toured with foreigner and was living in Nashville and living the dream of the rockstar until he had babies.

And of course, that puts a hold on everything. So now. He has his own business. It’s called the Tone doctor. He works from home repairing guitars, repairing tube amps, and he also has a couple patents on some new pickup technology and [00:27:00] he just, anything with, with an instrument, he’s in it.

Tim Melanson: Super cool. I love it. Two rock stars in the same family. That’s fantastic.

Nichole Daher: You are so.

Tim Melanson: Right on. So thank you so much for rocking up with you today, uh, Nichole. This has been a lot of fun.

Nichole Daher: Thank you so much for having me. And guys, if you haven’t done so already, please give Tim five star review on whatever platform you’re listening to. He works so hard for us. He gives us all this good information and he is a rock star. He deserves the stars

Oh, I appreciate that. Thank you so much to the listeners make sure you, subscribe, rate, and comment as mentioned. And also you can go to workathomerockstar.com for more information. We’ll see you next.