We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Cindy Rodriguez. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Cindy below.

Cindy , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Getting that first client is always an exciting milestone. Can you talk to us about how you got your first customer who wasn’t a friend, family, or acquaintance?

I wanted to spread the word about my business to the community, so I created a flyer to hand out to all the local daycares in my area. To my surprise, my first client didn’t come from one of the daycares I visited. My first clients were adults from an adult day health care center. The center’s senior program director learned about my services from the center’s social worker who had seen my flyer on a city Facebook group. After meeting with the center staff, discussing their needs and my services, I contracted my practice, and I became a consultant for their centers. I started building my clientele by performing cognitive-communication, speech, and swallowing evaluations for participants whom the center staff were concerned about and felt needed support. I provided weekly therapy sessions and held in-service trainings for their staff.

That same month I also gained my first pediatric client. I received a contact form submission through my website from a mom seeking bilingual speech therapy services for her five-year-old bilingual son. She was looking for a bilingual speech therapist because there were no bilingual speech therapists at her local speech therapy clinic. She was also searching for someone to support a specific Spanish reading program, which happens to share the name of my business, and I believe that’s how she found me. In-person services were not practical for us, so we began virtual speech therapy sessions within a week of our initial phone consultation. This client will be memorable for me and my business; he was my first pediatric virtual client and my practice’s first graduate.

It was with these adult day health center participants and pediatric client that Esperanza Speech Therapy kicked off in 2022. The same week I started virtual speech therapy, I started in-home speech therapy with a friend’s son. I was so excited that my practice built a small caseload, and I loved having the flexibility of seeing adult and pediatric clients, and seeing my clients in-home, in-center, and virtually.

Cindy , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a bilingual speech-language pathologist and owner of Esperanza Speech Therapy. I have been practicing as a speech therapist since 2013 and established Esperanza Speech Therapy in 2022.

Esperanza Speech Therapy provides bilingual speech and language services. I offer free 15-minute phone consultations, speech and language evaluations, individualized therapy, and parent/caregiver coaching. In-home services are available to families that reside in Santa Ana, Garden Grove, and Westminster. Virtual services are available to residents of California. I integrate parent coaching strategies during my therapy sessions, but I also offer parent/caregiver coaching sessions to parents/caregivers who want individualized time to learn how to help their child build their communication skills during daily routines and activities.

For other professionals and organizations who work with children, I offer presentations for the organization’s staff or parents of their clients. I’ve covered subjects such as communication milestones, identifying the need for speech therapy, ways to access speech therapy services, and more.

My areas of specialty include working with early intervention clients (children under 3 and their families), receptive and expressive language delays and disorders, speech sound disorders (articulation/phonology), parent/caregiver coaching, and bilingual speech and language development and disorders.

I am proud to offer all services in English, Spanish, and bilingually. My bilingual and bicultural background helps me establish a connection with the mostly Hispanic and bilingual/Spanish-speaking clients I serve. I honor my clients’ cultures, advocate for their right to speak whatever language is best for them and promote bilingualism by debunking the myths surrounding bilingualism and language delays.

Being a solo practitioner makes me accessible; when parents call, email, or text, they reach me directly and it’s me providing services. I strive to build close relationships with families and involve parents/caregivers by collaborating with them during the evaluation and treatment processes. My goal is to educate them and provide them with the knowledge and strategies they need to continue helping their child outside of our treatment sessions.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I have made a couple of shifts in my professional and business careers. I started my career as a speech therapist in a skilled nursing facility. I worked there briefly before I transitioned to working for a pediatric private practice. I then worked for another speech therapy clinic where I provided services to children and adults. When I established Esperanza Speech Therapy, I thought I wanted to continue providing speech therapy services to children and adults because I enjoyed seeing a variety of clients and it was what I had been doing for many years. This dream became a reality when I built my caseload with adults from an adult day health center and a couple of pediatric clients. For a while, I had more adult clients than pediatric clients. As time went on, I realized I really missed working with little ones. I decided that I wanted to focus on building a pediatric speech therapy practice and terminated my contract with the adult day health center. Although I miss being of service to adults, I learned that my passion truly lies in providing services to children and helping their families.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

I was working for another private practice when I decided I wanted to establish a practice of my own. I remember being nervous when I met with my former boss to let her know what my plans were. She was supportive and understanding and I continued to work for her while I got my business up and running. I slowly cut my hours as my practice grew. There was a time when I worked for my previous employer, provided services at the adult day health center, had my private clients, and occasionally conducted assessments for another facility. I had so much going on that it was difficult for me to dedicate time to building my practice. So, I took the leap and fully devoted myself to building Esperanza Speech Therapy. By only focusing on Esperanza, it allowed my business to flourish. Thus far, I am content with my business’s growth, and I am looking forward to scaling up soon.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.esperanzaspeechtherapy.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/esperanzaspeechtherapy/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/esperanzaspeech

Image Credits
Kita Zuleta