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ABA Practice Growth Strategies That Start with People, Not Tactics, with Charlene Kurth
In this episode of Tim Talks: Behavioral Health, Tim Zercher sits down with Charlene Kurth, COO of Office Puzzle, to discuss how technology can help ABA practices operate more effectively while keeping people at the center of care.
Charlene shares her journey from psychology and business operations into the behavioral health technology space, and how her experience in SaaS and practice management shaped her approach to supporting ABA providers.
They explore why successful technology adoption is about more than simply purchasing software. Charlene explains that the biggest difference between organizations that succeed and those that struggle is understanding that technology requires the right people, processes, and implementation strategy to truly create impact. It’s a reminder that the most effective ABA practice growth strategies treat new tools as part of a bigger plan, not a quick fix.
Why ABA Practices Struggle to Adopt New Software (and How to Fix It)
Many ABA practice owners hope new software will work like magic: buy it, turn it on, and watch operations improve. Charlene Kurth of Office Puzzle explains why that rarely happens. Successful technology adoption depends on three things working together: people, process, and the technology itself. Practices that thrive with new tools take time to choose the right platform, decide how they want to use it, and bring their team along through training and clear expectations.
AI makes this even more important. Today’s tools can do more than ever, but practice leaders still need to stay in control of how those tools are used. As Tim points out, a small error repeated across dozens of clinics through automation can quickly become a large one.
Relationship-First Marketing in the ABA Industry
When Tim asked about marketing tactics, Charlene pushed back on the word itself. Office Puzzle grew almost entirely through word of mouth in Florida, often because RBTs and BCBAs requested the software by name when they joined a new practice. Her team now focuses on showing up authentically at conferences and events, sharing meals with providers, and listening to their challenges instead of delivering a sales pitch. For providers looking for ABA practice growth strategies of their own, her approach shows that genuine relationships can matter more than any single tactic.
This approach takes longer, but it builds the kind of trust that lasts in a relationship-driven field. Office Puzzle also uses free trials and month-to-month contracts, which means it has to keep earning that trust every month. For ABA providers building their own referral networks and community presence, the lesson carries over: trust built through consistent, people-first communication outperforms short-term promotions.
Supporting BCBAs Who Want to Start Their Own Practice
Most BCBAs are trained in the clinical side of applied behavior analysis, not in how to run a business or develop ABA practice growth strategies. Charlene describes how Office Puzzle intentionally supports these early-stage clinician entrepreneurs by acting as an extension of their back-office team. That support includes hands-on onboarding during the first 30 days, giving new practice owners someone to call while they learn the system.
Charlene notes that many of their customers start small and grow to more than 100 or even 500 staff members. Getting operations right early creates a foundation that can scale.
About Our Guest: Charlene Kurth
Charlene Kurth is the COO of Office Puzzle, an all-in-one practice management platform built for ABA providers. With over 15 years of experience scaling B2B SaaS companies, Charlene specializes in growth strategy, customer operations, technology adoption, and building systems that help organizations scale effectively. Her work focuses on helping ABA practices simplify operations so they can spend more time focused on delivering quality care.
Visit the Office Puzzle website to learn more about the platform.
Episode FAQ
What are some effective ABA practice growth strategies?
In this episode, Charlene Kurth of Office Puzzle highlights a few key approaches: choosing technology intentionally and training your team to use it well, building genuine relationships with the people you serve, and hiring team members who connect with your mission. She emphasizes that long-term trust tends to serve a practice better than short-term promotions.
Why do some ABA practices struggle to adopt new software?
According to Charlene, many practices expect technology to work like magic once they buy it. Successful adoption depends on people, process, and technology working together. That means choosing the right tool for your needs, deciding how you’ll use it, and bringing your team along through training.
What does relationship-first marketing look like for ABA providers?
Charlene describes it as showing up authentically, such as attending conferences, spending time with providers, and listening to their challenges instead of pitching. For ABA practices, a similar approach can strengthen referral relationships and community trust over time.
What qualities should ABA practices look for when hiring?
Charlene suggests prioritizing mission alignment and an understanding of the field. Office Puzzle has found that former teachers, including a former special education teacher, often make strong team members because of their patience and ability to explain processes clearly.
Episode Transcript
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Timothy Zercher 0:00
Well, Charlene, thank you so much for joining us. I’m super excited to talk with you today.
Charlene Kurth 0:03
Yeah, happy to be here. Really excited.
Timothy Zercher 0:06
Absolutely. Absolutely. So I want to start first with what brought you from the broader SaaS world into helping ABA practices grow and operate more effectively. What brought you to this field?
Charlene Kurth 0:18
Yeah, absolutely. I kind of joke that had I known about this field in my college years, I might have been on another side of it. But I actually studied psychology in college, thought I wanted to go into social work, realized that I just I didn’t have the fortitude for that career and took a hard left turn into business. That journey, I was in a ton of different roles and companies, but found myself at a practice management software in the mental health space. And in that moment, it just felt like this total cosmic alignment where I was able to support the people who were pursuing careers in something more similar to what I had envisioned myself doing, but leveraging my business and my technology experience and passion. I spent about some 10 years working within that space in the mental health, and then was ready for my next challenge and found Office Puzzle. So I was new to ABA, but not new to the broader behavioral health, not new to practice management. And it was actually a lot of fun to be able to learn a lot more about what the nuance and the difference of actual ABA therapy compared to mental health therapists.
Speaker 1 1:22
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. And how long has Office Puzzle been in this space now?
Charlene Kurth 1:27
Yeah, Office Puzzle, it’s funny. Some people, because they’re seeing more of us now, they think we’re new, but we’ve been around since 2018. So originally founded in South Florida and grew completely word of mouth in the Florida market. So if you’re in Florida, most likely you know who we are. But there was a philosophy of we just make a great product, people will find us and they will use us. And now we’re trying to work harder to make sure that we can bring this product to people across the country. So that’s why a lot of times, like you’re starting to see us in these conferences and different events, and you think we’re new, but we’ve been here for quite some time.
Timothy Zercher 2:01
That’s awesome. And so you’ve spent, like you said, years focused on change management and software adoption. What separates practices that successfully adopt new technologies from those that struggle with it, spend a bunch of time and money and then walk away from it? What’s the big difference between those groups?
Charlene Kurth 2:19
I think the biggest difference is the people who view technology as pure magic, plug and play, versus those that understand it truly is a tool that requires people, process, and the technology to work cohesively together. So no matter what the software is, whether it’s practice management, if it’s office puzzle, another one, Slack, like literally any technology that you use, if you just buy it, pay for it, and throw it out there and hope it’s if you buy it, they will come. It doesn’t work that way. So making sure that you put some intention behind how you want to use it, what is the right technology for you in the first place, and then bringing your team along is what really makes a difference.
Timothy Zercher 2:56
I love that. I love that. And I think that’s unfortunately a hard message for a lot of practice owners. They don’t want to be, they don’t want to understand the technology. They might prefer it as just magic that works.
Charlene Kurth 3:06
Yeah. And today with AI, it’s even more challenging because people want to be able to rely on the technology to do so much, and it’s so much more capable than it’s ever been. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to be in control of the technology that you’re using and be able to maximize it to accomplish the goals that you specifically have.
Timothy Zercher 3:26
Absolutely. And you can’t just blindly trust it, right?
Charlene Kurth 3:29
No, yeah. Take some investment. You want to really manage your technology.
Timothy Zercher 3:33
Absolutely. One of my favorite sayings, it’s an old-time saying, but it is that to err is human, to really mess up, and they they use a different word, takes a machine or takes technology. And it’s true, right? Like one small problem can be a lot bigger if you replicate it across 50 clinics at once if you’re not appropriately applying technology. So you’re in a pretty competitive space. How does your team go about gaining new clients? What works best for you right now?
Charlene Kurth 3:57
Yeah. So Office Puzzle, what we found, one, like I said, we grew word of mouth. So what attracted most people was that we were easy to use. So people, it was actually a lot of RVTs and BCBAs, like when they would go from one practice to another, they’d say, oh, well, I loved Office Puzzle. Like I’ll work for you, but I really want Office Puzzle. So we didn’t have to sell the product, they sold it on our behalf. So that ease of use and ensuring that it’s intuitive enough that anyone who needs to pick it up and start using it can figure out how to do that. The other thing is that we’ve really been focused on those BCBAs, the people who want to go out and create their own practice or they see a vision for what they want to accomplish and they aren’t always supported in the broader landscape. So maybe they’re a little earlier on in their practice journey, they’re entrepreneurial. What we found is the commercial side of it. So the price point, the free trial, the month-to-month contract, that is obviously very attractive when you’re getting started. You don’t have to lock into two years not knowing if you’re even going to make it a few months. But even more important than that is that our philosophy and the way that we engage with our customers, really viewing ourselves as what I’d call like the back office support or the team, the extension of their team, so that they don’t have to be entrepreneurs on a journey by themselves. So if you are a BCBA, most likely, and I think some of this is changing now because we’re having conversations about it, but when you went to school, you weren’t being taught how to run a practice. You were running and learning the clinical components of that, which that should be what you’re focused on. But if you then want to transition into being an entrepreneur that’s running your own practice, you have to learn how to balance the two of those things together. And we really try and figure out how we can support entrepreneurs in this space.
Timothy Zercher 5:42
I love that. I love that. I think that’s the right way to go, right? Is to support them in many ways. And then when they need support in the technology, you’re there ready.
Charlene Kurth 5:50
Absolutely. And help them grow as well. So it’s not that we’re just supporting the smaller entrepreneurs. A lot of our customers start with us on that earlier stage and they grow well past 100, 500 staff members.
Timothy Zercher 6:01
Absolutely. What have you found is the hardest part of growing your team, your own organization?
Charlene Kurth 6:08
Uh, I think part of it is finding people aligned with that mission. So you’ll find on our team that we actually don’t have salespeople, we don’t have many traditional roles, and we’re trying to find teammates that even if they’re not coming directly from ABA, they’re coming with enough understanding and context of what makes this customer and this industry different. So, for example, we have a couple of teachers. I always find that teachers make some of the best teammates. They can do literally anything, but one of our teammates is a was a special education teacher. And so while she wasn’t an ABA therapist herself, she was able to easily transition into understanding the needs, the mindset, and operate in a way where it is authentically supporting our customers beyond just thinking about, well, how do we market to them? How do we sell to them? How do we minimize how much support we give them? We’re thinking about what are the challenges that they’re running into, what is their day-to-day feel like? Like how can we help in our small way maybe address some of the burnout that’s going on in this industry?
Timothy Zercher 7:12
Yeah, I love that. I love that. And teachers are often pleasant too because they’re so good at explaining processes. They’re often really good team members because they can explain themselves really well to anyone, regardless of their level of understanding of the system.
Charlene Kurth 7:27
A couple of our teacher teammates are actually supporting our onboarding process. So we’ve got like hands-on onboarding where for those 30 days you can get on a phone call. And nothing like a patient teacher who is dealing with screaming children to help you with learning technology.
Timothy Zercher 7:42
Absolutely. Absolutely. If they can help a five-year-old learn how to read, then they’re also going to be able to help you learn how to click correctly.
Charlene Kurth 7:50
Got it. Yeah.
Timothy Zercher 7:51
That’s awesome. So what is one marketing tactic, marketing strategy that your team is considering using or just watching really carefully in the marketplace?
Charlene Kurth 7:59
You know, honestly, like even the word tactic, it catches my attention because what we’re trying to do, or not even trying to do, what is really important to us is showing up authentically. So it’s not that we’ve got like tactics in our mind. Of course, like not gonna lie, we’re looking at numbers and we’re trying to see how do we compete in the market, how do we get more people to know about us. But at the end of the day, we believe this is a highly relationship-focused industry. And we believe that while it might take longer, building those strong relationships, getting out their boots on the ground, being with the people that we serve at conferences, having dinner with them, and not even for the purpose of selling, like literally just to hear them, to understand their needs, that in the long run, that’s gonna serve us better than, you know, short-term promotions or tactics or anything like that. But in full transparency, things on my mind, I’m always assessing how do the free trials work? Like, do people need more time to figure this out? What might entice them to give us a shot if they’ve not heard of us before? Another thing that we’re looking into or exploring is well, how can we help to get customers who are outside of Florida who are just starting to replicate that word-of-mouth experience of sharing their what they love about Office Puzzle with their customers. So these are like ways that we’re trying to intentionally nudge our customers to continue to support our growth, but it’s all on the foundation of authenticity, showing up, being there, and really understanding who our customers are so that we can show up in a way that helps them feel like we’re an option, we’re a choice, not like they’re being sold to. Quick anecdote: any event I do, people are like, oh, well, Charlene, are you gonna stand up and like give a speech or you’re gonna tell everyone quickly about the product? And I’m the worst at that because the last thing I want to do when I’ve invited you to sit down to dinner with us is to then make you sit through like a two-minute pitch on our product. You’re not buying software over dinner, just enjoy your dinner and let’s talk if you’re interested after.
Timothy Zercher 10:00
Yep. Yep. I totally understand that’s exactly how we sell too, right? It’s if you trust me and I demonstrate that I understand you and your pains and your issues and I can help, then you’re going to ask me for actual business. I don’t need to pitch, issue, bombard you with reasons why you should hire us. That shouldn’t be required if you do a good job everywhere else.
Charlene Kurth 10:21
And one note on that, like we make it harder for ourselves where that relationship, that trust has to be maintained. It’s not something where we can have that trust to get your business and then lock you in and say, well, it’s really hard to leave now. Like every month you can make a choice whether or not you stick with office puzzle or you move on. And we hope that we earn that trust and we prove our value to you on a regular daily basis.
Timothy Zercher 10:44
Love that. I love that. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Sherlene. I appreciate you for sharing your perspective and and I appreciate the work that you’re doing for the industry. I think you’re helping a lot of clinicians out there do better and do more work, which is great.
Charlene Kurth 10:56
Awesome. Thanks, Tim.
Timothy Zercher 10:58
Thank you.
