We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Janita Gilliam a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Janita, thanks for joining us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

I am the youngest of three, the baby of the family. Growing up I always had a front seat to what my older sister and brother did. They were the model for me on what to do and occasionally what not to do. My father was the backbone of our family. A hard worker, firm and the leader of our home. My mom was always nurturing, caring and made huge sacrifices. I remember a time in elementary school when I cam home with a “C” on my math test. I was horrible at math, so needless to say I was ecstatic to earn that “C” and not an F. When I showed my father, he had a look of concern and disappointment. His words, “you don’t think you can do better than a “C” ?” I hesitated to respond because, no I didn’t. Math was challenging, I was always put on the spot, I could never figure out the equations and formula. It overwhelmed me to my core. Then I thought, am I really putting in enough effort? My dad told me, “Yes, a C is passing, but that’s not good enough. In this house we don’t settle and we don’t get C’s.” I took those words to heart with me throughout the course of my academic tenure. My mom on the other hand always had the right encouraging word to say when I felt overwhelmed. Her two sayings that always stuck with me were “work hard now so that you can play later” and “nothing beats a failure but a try.” I remember when I graduated early from undergrad and had to start grad school in less than a week. My parents drove me to my new campus and I immediately felt uneasy. The people on campus seemed cold. I new the environment was not one that would be conducive to my mental health or well-being. An hour into being on the campus I asked my parents could they take me home. I no longer wanted to be there and would be okay withdrawing from school. My parents said “absolutely not. It is only 2 years, suck it up and you will be okay.” At the time I didn’t know if I was more upset at them for not supporting my wishes, or more upset with myself for not doing enough research on the university. If it wasn’t for my parents pushing me, encouraging me and believing in me when I was ready to quit, I know for sure I would not be a speech-language pathologist today. They have always been my biggest supporters, encouraged me, loved me and supported me. Every child needs to feel loved, supported and challenged to the best version of themselves. I will forever be grateful for being blessed with parents who were always willing to go the extra mile to see me succeed. I am thankful for their love and scarifies because I don’t know how they did it, but they somehow got “everything right.”

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am Janita Gilliam, a licensed speech-language pathologist and the owner of Jabber Talk Speech and Consulting, PLLC. I have been practicing as a licensed speech-language pathologist going on 12 years. I came across the field during my last year in high school. I thought I wanted to be a psychologist and at the time I took a career aptitude test and speech pathology was number one on my list of careers that was a good fit. I researched the field, observed an SLP at my school and fell in love with the career.

In 2021, I left my full-time position as a clinical director for a practice and decided it was time to start my own business. I launched Jabber Talk in December 2021. We are a mobile private practice specializing in the birth-three population. Jabber Talk provides speech and feeding therapy in the home, daycare, and private school settings. We aim to enhance children’s communication skills by educating caregivers in their naturalistic environments. We currently work with children who present with language delays, language disorders (receptive/expressive), late talkers, autism and pediatric feeding and swallowing disorders.

Jabber Talk offers a client and family-centered approach to intervention services. We believe in providing evidence-based practice and culturally relevant services to all families. Jabber Talk advocates early intervention and parent coaching, as we know parents are their child’s first teacher. We want to equip our parents and caregivers to be effective across all daily routines and settings related to communicating and engaging with their children.

Jabber Talk offers comprehensive speech-language evaluations, feeding evaluations, and speech therapy in-person and via teletherapy. We also provide educational consulting to early childhood centers, daycares, Head Start, and Montessori centers. Lastly, we partner with local charter schools, private schools, and ECI agencies to offer comprehensive services for students.

I am proud and honored to provide quality therapy services and representation to my clients and families who are appreciative that there is a friendly familiar face to relate to. I am most proud that Jabber Talk launched its first “Joy Grant” where we will have two inaugural grant recipients receive free speech evaluations and therapy services for 6 months beginning January 2023. This is what having your purpose aligned with your passion is all about. Every gift I have is never meant for me and so I consider it an honor, joy and privilege to be able to give back to those in need. This is what you call “servant leadership” and my goal is to model it with excellence for others to see and emulate using their own gifts and space.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

So many people don’t know this, but when I initially launched Jabber Talk it was never intended to be a practice that offered direct speech therapy. It was initially designed for consulting services, parent coaching and professional development. I had invested a lot of money in a training to coach educators. I had even set up a meeting with the department head in hopes of convincing them to modify the training date so that I could market and ultimately train these educators in the Fall of 2021. With so many things happening with COVID-19, budget cuts, staff shortages, my target audience was not hearing what I was trying to pitch because no one had the funds. I had to pivot because I was moving into month 3 of no job, no income and I was spiraling mentally. I was the breadwinner and I really didn’t want my husband to have to juggle my emotions and finances alone as we always operated as a team. It wasn’t until spring of 2022 where I decided to get out into the community, provide free screenings, connect with parents and to see if there was a need for speech therapy services. I showed up to every community fair. I made business cards, pamphlets, gave free gifts. You name it I did it. My mind moved from pity and fear to hustle hard and get it. The community fairs provided visibility which also provided clients which then gave me confidence. I started with one client and word of mouth began to travel. I marketed my business on foot for one day. I visited one community fair a month and my client’s became my marketers without me asking. Word of mouth traveled and calls began to come in weekly with people speaking so highly of me. I was in shock, but I now sit and wonder what would have happened if I stuck to my original plans and did not pivot into this amazing God plan.

Can you talk to us about your experience with selling businesses?

In my younger years as an early career professional, me and an SLP colleague and friend of mine decided to create a business together. I came up with a creative name and she handled all the business logistics. She was a great communicator, networked well and found us grants at several schools in the area allowing us to implement more parent coaching plans which was a slight pivot from our daily SLP work. I enjoyed it. It did not feel like work. It was stress free, we were making a difference in the lives of parents which impacted their children. About 3-4 years in the business it no longer became fun. It was work on top of my full-time job and my friend and I started to dream of different goals. I was starting a new life with my soon to be husband and our priorities were different. We both agreed to signing my percentage of the business over to her so that she could grow the business. It was hard and we cried tears because that was my first “business baby.” I had no idea how to be a business woman. However, I believe that had it not been for her strong leadership skills and modeling some of the steps it took to establish a business, Jabber Talk would not have been birthed. I had a head start on my second round of entrepreneurship and had a different grit. I was a solopreneur this time and had a family to support. So this time around there were no games and the risks were high. Although that season was hard to let go, it prepared me for this journey as a solopreneur. I am grateful for my former business partner for challenging me then which has helped me grow this company in such a short amount of time.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jabbertalkspeech.com
• Instagram: jabber_talk
• Facebook: Jabber Talk Speech and Consulting, PLLC
• Twitter: jabber_talk