Is This Your Best Doula Business Era?
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Transcript
Welcome to Dula Tips and Tits, the podcast where we cut through the noise and get real about what it takes to build a sustainable doula business. I'm Kaylee Harrod. I've been a doula informally for 14 years and full time for seven.
Around here, we don't sugarcoat stuff. We talk autonomy, owning your worth, creating a business that works for you. No fluff, no burnout, just the honest truth on how to be your own best boss. Let's get into it.
Welcome back to Dula Tips and Tits. I want to talk to you today about if you are in your best doula business era. And I want to explain a little bit about what I mean by that and also why we're discussing that today.
If you're listening to this on the day it's released, it's February 28th, the very last day of the month, and the last weekend to sign up for the Dula Growth Accelerator Mastermind. I think sometimes when we think about businesses, and doula businesses are no exception to this, we think about business and we think about making money at any cost.
And we think about growth and scaling and size, like how many clients do you have, how many students do you have, how big is your business. And the reality in doula work and also in service based businesses in general is that we also have to factor in you because you are what's doing the work.
So if we think about an online company that sells custom cups, they are potentially customizing the cups or they're potentially, they might even outsource that honestly sometimes, but what they aren't doing is showing up people's houses.
Like if they're selling custom cups, they have a workshop, they're making those custom cups, they're mailing them out, right? They can do that at two in the morning, they can do that two in the afternoon, they can do it whenever they'd like, they have full autonomy over that timing, except that of course they have to get them out.
But they're not going to do a service with someone. The way that their body is required to show up is different, inherently different than what we do as service-based providers. So when I'm talking about your best business era, I'm not only talking about your revenue, I'm not only talking about your profits, I'm not talking about the number of people you have in your business.
And honestly, I think I'm not totally against celebrating those things, right? Like that's okay, that's a metric that's exciting, especially if it's a goal that you had, right? For me, it was a huge deal for me to get to a hundred thousand.
in sales the first year and to recognize like, oh, that's happened was really awesome. But also right now my goals are not mostly financial. They're mostly sustainable like about me and the way I show up to this work, right?
And so when we think about your best business era, part of what I want you to think about is how are you doing? Like, how are you? And what needs to shift for your sake? Like even if everything else stayed the same, even if all the money in the world came into you, what do you need that you're not building in right now?
And how do we get you that? Now, when I've been talking, I realize throughout the last couple of weeks about sustainability, about pivoting and scaling and expanding because I had the masterclass last week.
And so that's been the theme of what we're talking about leading up to that masterclass. And then now I have the mastermind that's starting next week. And part of what I want to kind of get out there in terms of messaging is what it is and what it is not.
So that mastermind, it's called the DULA Growth Accelerator. It's a 90-day mastermind. What that is, is a space to help you discern and logistically walk out what needs to change about your business.
So if you're currently running your DULA business and you're like, something needs to shift, like what I'm doing is not gonna get me where I want to be, or my body is like, you cannot keep doing this, right?
I had a conversation yesterday with a DULA who was like, I can't show up this way. Like my kids need me to show up differently in this work because I can't sustain being a good person. parent to them, and also showing up for my clients the way that I'm showing up for my clients.
And so part of what I want you to think about is what needs to change. Now this 90 day mastermind, I do not have guarantees like you are going to make four times the amount of money this year that you made last year.
No, because that might not even be your goal. Right? Like you don't need to have a goal of finances. If you're saying to me, Kaylee, I have to make more money. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about how to do that.
How quickly do you need that to happen? Because that's different for everyone. If you are the sole income in your family and you're like, everything is so freaking expensive right now, which is true, then I need to make more money like now, like yesterday.
Right? Okay, then can we raise your prices? Okay, then how, what does it look like? for you to lean more into one service, maybe put something on some kind of special so that more people purchase it.
That is entirely dependent on what your audience is, where your people are coming from and what services you provide. So in an episode on the podcast, I can't say to you, okay, you know, random doula, I want you to increase the amount of births you attend or increase your postpartum rates or find a free space to do childbirth education classes, right?
I can't say that to you because I don't know what it is that needs to shift. One of the people that's in the mastermind, so we have a few people already enrolled, one of which is an amazing, amazing woman who got a scholarship to be there because I had a scholarship competition earlier in the year and she won and so that was great.
She's amazing. I'm so excited for her to be in the program. And then there's a couple other folks from that as well. And so when I'm thinking about the conversation I had with her for our first coaching call, you know, I was saying to her like, okay, like your homework is officially what sorts of things do you think you need to do because other people have made you feel you need to do them but there may be not actually what needs to happen for you to move the needle,
right? And so one thing that came up for her is not having a website. And I'm like, if you are getting booked without a website right now and getting more clients is not our goal, you don't need a website right now.
We need to work on some other stuff. We need to think through more sustainable practices in your packages. We need to think through. pricing, right? We need to think through other ways for you to have the sustainability built in without adding one more, frankly, kind of intense task to your list of building a freaking website, right?
So when you think about this, I think the reason that coaching is so important is that you could literally just throw random spaghetti at the wall, which I know I've talked about that, but like you could just be like, you know what I probably need is a website and then build a website.
And then nobody visits it because that's not actually how your people are coming in. And you don't actually need that because you only have local services and your local services are almost entirely word of mouth.
But if you build a website, you are going to spend a number of hours or a whole lot of money doing something that your business doesn't even need right now. And that's what I mean when I say you will lack strategy and you will lack direction.
And I'm not saying, I mean, so let me be super clear. And I occasionally, I mean, I talk about this for other doulas that I want you to be confident in who you are. I am very, very good at helping people strategize in what they need to do next.
And look at that is not your next thing. Do not do that right now, because that will be, it will seem productive, which I know is sometimes really helpful. But the reality is that's not the most productive thing for you to do.
That, my friends, saves you a ton of money and a ton of time. And so when I have done coaching with folks, I have been able to keep them on the path that's actually making a difference for them and help them connect the pieces that get them from where they are to where they're going on that path.
That is my jam. I love doing that, and I am really, really good at it. So when I talk about this mastermind, part of what I want you to think about is not only having just the calls to help figure out which thing you should be working on and what your progress is on that, but also you have access to ask me questions along the way.
So if you're working on setting up your email sequence, because that's the thing that we talked about you doing, because that's important for you to grow your class that's online or whatever, then you can send me a message.
Literally, this happened last week. How do I add? Is it possible for me to add a payment button in an email? And I'm like, yes, it is possible. This is how you do it. Put a button in the email, and you link the link that you want them to go to in terms of payment.
That's how that works. They can click right there, sign up for something, and click right there, go to a sales page. to go to a class, go to whatever you'd like it to go to. And you can even track who clicks that and give them a tag, right?
So those kinds of questions are part of what you're getting. So you're getting not only the like overall strategy and vision of how this can change, and the like brainstorming help of other lovely doulas.
You're also getting the actual logistics of what this should look like. And the troubleshooting of like, okay, I'm working on that, that like intake form, but I'm not sure what to include in it. Okay, let's talk about that, right?
These are the this is my sample intake form that stuff I include in mine, that can at least get you started brainstorming, right? You could for sure hop on chat GPT and type in like, how do I what things should I include in a doula intake form, that'll get you started thinking, right?
So part of what you have is the pieces of connecting those things. So you do not have to try to figure everything out on your own because that is not how we're supposed to be doing this work, okay? So I just want you to be reminded that the doula growth accelerator starts next week.
There is very limited time left to sign up and so I recommend that you do that now. You can check out information about it in the show notes. It is $1,297 and that can be broken up into a variety of different payment plans.
I want it to be accessible for you. So if the payment plans that are there do not work for you, please reach out and we will figure out a custom way for you to pay for this and be in this cohort, okay?
All right, I will see you in the mastermind. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the doula tips and tits podcast. If you learned something today or had an aha moment, we'd love for you to share that on Instagram and tag us at hara doula so we can celebrate alongside you.
If you found this podcast helpful, we would so appreciate you taking a second to leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast app. That helps other doulas find us as we do this work together.
This podcast is intended as educational and entertainment. It is not medical advice or business advice. Please consult your own medical or legal team for your own needs around your health and your business.
We'll see you again soon.
Is this your best business era? And that doesn’t have to mean BIG BUCKS (it can, but it doesn’t have to be!). Your best era in how you set boundaries. Your best era in how you show up for yourself and your clients. Your best era can be whatever you want and need it to be, no one but you gets to decide what that is. That doesn’t mean you don’t need guidance along the way!
Quote from the show:
“The way that their [other business owners] body is required to show up is different, inherently different than what we do as service-based providers. So when I'm talking about your best business era, I'm not only talking about your revenue, I'm not only talking about your profits, I'm not talking about the number of people you have in your business. And honestly, I think I'm not totally against celebrating those things, right? Like that's okay, that's a metric that's exciting, especially if it's a goal that you had, right? For me, it was a huge deal for me to get to a hundred thousand in sales the first year and to recognize like, oh, that's happened was really awesome. But also right now my goals are not mostly financial. They're mostly about taking care of me and the way I show up to this work, right?”
CONNECT with Kaely on TikTok or Instagram
https://www.tiktok.com/@doulacoach
https://www.instagram.com/Harroddoula/
If you like this episode, don't forget to share it to your Instagram stories and tag me @harroddoula
Doula Tips and Tits is produced by Kaely Harrod of Harrod Doula Services
It is sponsored by The Doula Biz Blueprint Self-Paced Class for Doulas Launching Successful and Sustainable Businesses!
Music by Madirfan: Hidden Place on Pixabay
