Castlepoint Independent Speech and Language Therapy
Owner of Castlepoint Independent Speech and Language Therapy receives support through the Group2Grow Programme to gain clarity with running her business
After leaving her previous job at the NHS to raise her children, mum of two, Amy, founded her own business to allow flexibility around her personal life. With the support through the Group 2 Grow Programme, she has been able to gain a clear understanding of the intricacies of running her own business.
Amy Williams, director of Castlepoint Independent Speech and Language Therapy (CISLT), has over 18 years of experience working as a speech and language therapist for adults and children – specialising in stroke and brain injuries. She set up her own business back in March 2019 after needing flexibility to help raise her two sons.
Navigating starting the business during the beginning of the pandemic, Amy’s initial aim for the business was to see six clients a week. Now, between the team, they support upwards of fifty to sixty a week.
“As I’ve taken on new members of staff, we’ve got new specialisms, which is how we’ve been able to progress. We have started to work within schools since last term where they hire us on a day-rate basis to see children who have been on a waitlist and haven’t had any support.”
Being high in demand, Amy knew she needed to change her mindset from her previous ways of working in the NHS and begin thinking about what the clients she was seeing wanted. Basing her business off of her own experience when going to physiotherapy, she knew she wanted her services to be easy to book in, someone knowledgeable to see her and the problem to be addressed and resolved promptly.
“It’s definitely not been the easiest thing I’ve done, but it has been the most rewarding! All of the company is my own work, but that has meant 5am starts before my children get up, working late at night, and being on call during my holidays.”
Knowing that she needed support to help better understand how to run a business, Amy found out about the Group2Grow programme, and took part in a cohort led by business consultant, Graham Broughton.
The Group2Grow peer groups offered by Business Support Programme Backing Essex Business, bring together cohorts of business professionals to learn, grow, and solve common problems using each other’s knowledge and experience, with the support, guidance, and mentoring of an expert Business Coach.
Over the 8 x 2 hr group sessions and 3 hours of individual 1:1 sessions with an expert business coach, through discussion and discovery, individuals are able to uncover the challenges facing their business and work together to find logical and practical solutions. Typical topics have included increasing sales, marketing, recruitment, leadership, and business resilience.
“I was a bit lost on where to take my business and I also lacked in confidence. I felt like I needed to find out whether my business was viable, because it is expensive to run – my staff need to be paid professional rates.”
Through the Group2Grow Programme, Amy was able to gain the confidence she had previously lacked to get her business back on track. With Graham’s encouragement and assurance, she was able to learn about the best ways to manage day to day operations, as well as how else she could expand her business.
“Graham, who coached me, was actually my biggest cheerleader! It was great to have his experience as a business coach, because I don’t have that. I’m trained as a Speech and Language Therapist; I’ve had to learn how to manage a business and his experience really helped with that.”
Something Amy discovered during the programme was that a lot of her time was being spent running the admin side of the business. Although this was necessary for her to do when first starting up, since expanding and taking on additional staff, she could now hand this over to someone else. After working out the figures, Graham discovered Amy was losing out on around £40k in revenue by doing this herself as she was unable to continue in her actual role of supporting clients and leading her team. He encouraged Amy to employ a practice manager who would be able to take on that responsibility.
Whilst taking part in the programme, Castlepoint Independent Language and Speech Therapy entered and won two business awards! Both awards were won at the Rochford District Business Awards back in February 2024 – the first for ‘Micro Business of the Year’ which acknowledges a small business in Rochford District and their contributions to the community, and the second in the ‘Innovative Business of the Year’ category, which recognises a business that has adapted or diversified their revenue streams or accessed new markets through investment in innovative technology, products or services.
Image courtesy of Tina Wing Business Photography, taken at the Rochford Business Awards 2024
“The Innovative Business of the Year award we won was for our autism service which we have developed, using an approach that the NHS is not particularly using at the moment. This service is one that parents can access easily, with one of our Speech and Language Therapists leading it. The Micro Business award we won for being a professional service and helping the local community. We work closely with Essex University to help train their students and mentoring apprentices to raise awareness on the need for this service.”
On top of winning the awards, another highlight for Amy has been working with local schools. The support from the Group2Grow programme has enabled Amy to create a new service where schools can hire the team at Castlepoint Independent Speech and Language Therapy on a day-rate to work with their students.
Looking forward, Amy plans to continue becoming more present in local schools and working with the University to educate the next generation, as well as developing her staff and their skillset to broaden their areas of knowledge, in addition to her own leadership skills.
To find out more about Castlepoint Independent Speech and Language Therapy and their services, visit: www.cislt.com
