Russ: This is the BusinessMakers Show heard hear and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com. It's guest time on the show and I'm very pleased to have with me Kim Bellini, founder and director of Learning RX. Kim, welcome to the BusinessMakers Show.

Kim: Thanks Russ for havin' me.

Russ: You bet. Well let's start by you telling us about Learning RX.

Kim: Learning RX is a company I own with my partner where we work one-on-one with people ages four all the way through adult to help improve their ability to learn and process information.

Russ: Wow. That could be very valuable, but I sort of know enough about it to know that the people that come to Learning RX sort of fall in that ADD category very often.

Kim: Absolutely. That's one of the most common symptoms we hear from our parents who call and if their child's having difficulty in school it's generally they're having trouble paying attention, the teacher says they can't get their work done. So we address the underlying cause to those issues.

Russ: Okay. It sounds like magic. How do you address the underlying cause?

Kim: Well, most people have an underlying cognitive skill weakness. A cognitive skill is the mental toolbox that we have, all of those underlying things we need to be able to understand any kind of information that's coming in. So often times people with ADD and ADHD in particular may have a weakness in their working memory or what we know as short term memory, as well as their processing speed.

Russ: Okay. And you can actually address that and help and repair that through counseling.

Kim: We do one-on-one and training with our clients.

Russ: Training. You don't call it counseling. You call it training.

Kim: Yes. It's training because we kinda' do what for the brain that exercise does for the body. So when you are exercising your skills and pushing yourself and challenging yourself, you can actually get changes within the brain to improve your weak skills to make your everyday life functioning easier.

Russ: Okay. Real cool. But now to be clear this is a business. This is a for-profit business -

Kim: Right.

Russ: -- that just happens to have a very worthy cause. Is that the way you would feel?

Kim: Exactly. That's why I got into the business was to help people and I saw the benefits that this program has for people and I was willing to take the chance and leave my teaching career and open a business.

Russ: Okay. So you saw the benefits from your teaching career. That means you had a student that went through a similar program?

Kim: Yes. Actually our neighbor went through a very similar program and it made such a difference for her. She had not passed the standardized test that you have to take in Texas to be able to go onto the next grade and we tutored her, but that put a band aid on it. She went through the program and her mom said, "You'll have to go learn how to do this." This has just done wonders for Tiffany was her name. So we did. We went up to Colorado Springs and got trained and worked with someone in my mom's class actually and saw the changes and how much it helped her and how she was afraid to read aloud in class and then as she went through our program was no longer afraid and her grades went up. We're like wow, this really changes lives.

Russ: Cool. Really neat. Well now what is the structure of your business?

Kim: Learning RX is a franchise and so we went and we got trained on the program that was founded by Dr. Ken Gibson. He developed the program. So we use the proprietary products within our center.

Russ: So Dr. Ken Gibson?

Kim: Mm-hmm; that's correct.

Russ: Is the founder of the franchise and also the founder of the concept that you use -

Kim: Exactly.

Russ: -- that works. I'm real curious about how it works. Help us understand maybe some of the tools that are used in training.

Kim: So some of the things we do we have puzzle pieces, which are called tan grams. I don't know if you played with those in school -

Russ: No; I didn't.

Kim: -- if your kids did.

Russ: Okay; maybe.

Kim: We use those a lot and what we have to do is work that skill. So if we're using the puzzle pieces they take a look at a completed puzzle and then it's covered up and they have to take a mental picture of that to help build that visual memory and build the puzzle that they see in their mind's eye or we'll, one of the first things we do with a student that comes in is we teach them all the presidents of the United States.

Russ: Oh wow.

Kim: And so we use a visual picture because we can remember things better in pictures. So -

Russ: Right. But so I mean, I understand that, but how does it stay with them once they're taking a test in school the next month?

Kim: Also in our center it's very open. It's a very open environment. It's loud and so the kids learn to work in a noisy environment and they become conditioned to being in that environment and so then it transfers over to their schoolwork and also the trainers that are working with the students, they'll do things to try and distract them and so they can learn to tune it out.

Russ: Okay. Alright now you mentioned having a partner. Tell us about your partner.

Kim: My partner is my mom. We got in this business together. We were both teachers in our local school district.

Russ: Real cool. Alright. Talking with Kim Bellini, founder and director of Learning RX and we'll be back with more with Kim after this. You're listening to the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at the BusinessMakers.com.

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Russ: This is the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at the BusinessMakers.com and continuing on with Kim Bellini, founder and director of Learning RX. Well this is such a cool business. I mean, at the end of the day I would hope that you're making money and becoming very successful and helping lots of kids and maybe even adults concentrate better.

Kim: Absolutely.

Russ: Is that the goal --?

Kim: Yes; that's the goal.

Russ: Alright. So you mentioned trainers. What kind of people become trainers and work for you?

Kim: We have ten trainers on staff. Everyone has a college degree. Our trainers aren't necessarily doing it for the money. They want to make a difference in somebody's life and help them. A lot of our trainers are moms whose kids have grown up and gone to college and want a rewarding job to fill their time.

Russ: And so a typical trainer will be working with how many students?

Kim: Anywhere between two to five depending on how many hours they wanna work. It's relatively flexible in that they set their schedule with their clients. So they really enjoy being able to take time off if they need to and they have that flexibility.

Russ: Right. Do they go to clients' homes or do they do it in your offices?

Kim: Everything is done in our office.

Russ: Okay. Could they do it in a client's home?

Kim: We don't encourage that and we don't do that at our center.

Russ: Real interesting. So what if you had a client that had already been diagnosed somewhere and is on one of these drugs now. Does that mean they're disqualified for your program?

Kim: Absolutely not and that's an important thing that we're just one piece of the pie. Sometimes people need some meds to help them get through or they need a diagnosis in order to get services if they're in school, through the school district. So we're just a part of a child's success. However, just because they're on meds that does not mean that they can't come through our program and sometimes it's needed to be able to get them to where they need to be.

Russ: What percentage would you say of your clients are on meds?

Kim: Oh, of our kids that have ADD that are in our program I would say about half.

Russ: Okay. What other types of problems are you helping people with other than ADD or ADHD?

Kim: It really runs the spectrum. We've helped people with Aspergers, which is a form of autism. We also help people with dyslexia or just struggling with reading in general.

Russ: Wow.

Kim: That's probably our next most common call we get from people is that they're struggling with reading and then we have an adult who English is her fifth language and she wants to help refine her English skills.

Russ: My goodness. Whoa. So how did somebody like that find you and how did you realize right up front, well this will help her out. I mean.

Kim: Exactly. Actually she enrolled her two children in our summer program to help give them a boost for school and she realized wow, this can really help me and so she enrolled and she just had her third session.

Russ: Now, I'm curious. Once again you kind of had a couple of the sample tools. You mentioned a complex puzzle that they see and cover up and you mentioned learning all the presidents of the United States and doing it through visualization, but is that a whole lot of what it's about is memorizing and showing techniques to memorize and then practicing memorizing?

Kim: Some of it is and some of it is just building skill and we just have one avenue of building that skill or building attention skills or building visualization and then once that skill is built and we create those changes in the brain, then it applies to their outside life.

Russ: Okay. Now do you sort of diagnose a client and see, well this one just needs a real strong focus on attention and they'll be fine and then that's what you teach them or do you teach them all categories of your tools?

Kim: Well what we do is we always start with an assessment to see where somebody's strengths and weaknesses are and then we're gonna hone in on those weaknesses. We're not gonna spend so much time on an area where someone is strong. So those weak areas are what's causing the problem and so that's what we need to work to correct.

Russ: Okay. Now tell me about the business. Have you run a business before this?

Kim: No. Never run a business before.

Russ: Alright. And how long have you been running Learning RX with your mom?

Kim: It'll be three years in April that we've been open.

Russ: And are you enjoying being an owner?

Kim: Absolutely. I like having the scheduling freedom. It's totally different than teaching and it's been really good to be my own boss ya' know.

Russ: Have there not been any trials and tribulations? Has it been real easy the whole way?

Kim: Oh no, it hasn't been easy.

Russ: Good. This is gettin' too good to be true.

Kim: Yeah; no.

Russ: In fact, what I always like to talk about with people that still have early stage companies, were you worried in the beginning whether or not any clients would ever come?

Kim: Yeah; I was petrified. Ya' know, leaving my steady teaching position to yeah; it was a huge risk, a huge financial risk. Just a huge risk in general and so it was scary to think okay, are the people gonna come and am I making the right marketing choices, am I hiring the right people. So yeah, it was not an easy thing to do.

Russ: Okay. Tell us a little bit about the franchise. How many franchisees are there today?

Kim: There's approximately 70 around the nation and the program started back in the early 90s and it was licensed to doctors and other professionals, teachers to do within their own practice and he switched to the franchising model in 2003.

Russ: Wow. Okay. So is there camaraderie with the other franchises as well?

Kim: Yeah; absolutely.

Russ: Great. Well Kim, I really appreciate you telling your story for us.

Kim: Well thank you. Thank you Russ.

Russ: I mean it really sounds like a wholesome business where you can actually have a successful business, make some money and help people at the same time.

Kim: Absolutely.

Russ: Alright. That's Kim Bellini, founder and director of Learning RX. And you're listening to the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at the BusinessMakers.com.