Signs That It's Time to Shift Your Doula Business
-
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 today's episode.
Welcome back to Dula Tips and Tits. Today, we are talking about when you know it's time to shift your doula business. Now, this is different for everybody. So I'm going to give you some ideas of what this looks like so that you can do some self evaluation and see if this is true for you.
I do think naturally we sort of evaluate things at the beginning of the year and that's a normal sort of rhythm of life and also rhythm of business. And so as we're starting into 2025, I want you to take some time to think about if it is time to shift some things in your doula business.
So the first thing I want you to think about is how do you know that it's time, right? Like maybe you just know, you just feel like you need to shift some things. You're not loving it, something like that.
But sometimes there are some ways that can be a little sneaky that we don't realize. So if you're booked all the time, you're fully booked, but you still don't really have the income that you want or need, that is a sign that something needs to shift.
Like your services are too limited for what the income desires or needs are in your business, right? So that's one thing. If you're saying to me like, OK, Kaylee, I only want four birth clients a month and I have four birth clients literally every single month and I'm like turning people away, then you have the client flow, right?
And it might be that you just need to increase your prices and continue in that same service. But the reality is that there is only so much you can do in terms of income in one service. And so it also is probably time to either add services or think about what can kind of shift, right?
So the second one is you're burned out from the one-to-one services that you provide, and you crave, to have a bigger, different kind of impact, right? So this can look like a lot of different things.
It can look like teaching classes where you're impacting more than one person at a time, more than one family at a time. It can look like having online services, which is a whole other thing that I'm not going to dive into in this episode, but it is not an easy shift if that is something that you don't know about.
So I have other episodes on that, and we're going to talk about it later in the year. But I do want to just encourage you to not think that. All of your ads can be thrown into that basket super simple, super simply, easily.
I don't know why I can't speak today, because it's harder than people let on, right? So you're burned out from the one-on-one services or you're burned out from the particular one-on-one services that are sold out for you.
So maybe you really like some one-on-one services but the other ones you don't like and those are the ones that are most successful in your business and that is also an issue, okay? A third way that you could see that your business is ready for growth and shifting is that you want to expand your offerings but you feel stuck on how to do that.
Now this is something that I personally experienced. So this is kind of where I sort of had a little bit of all of these but the third one I would say especially like I remember I guess it was the end of 2022 that I was like okay great I'm making more money than I ever thought I would make as a doula but it's not enough money to survive well in DC and I feel like I don't want to keep taking this many births every year and I can't just like infinitely increase my rates for the rest of my life,
right? So there's gonna come a time when I want to do less births and I can't charge enough to make the money that I need to make with that alone and so I'm gonna need to evaluate something and change something.
So for me I got to the place where I was like okay what I'm currently doing has a limit that I am not okay with and I want to be physically present at less of the work that I'm doing, right? Meaning that like my body is not needed in as many spaces in my business which is a big thing for me like it's important to me that my body be able to get more rest and that my family get more time with me.
And so anything that's taking me away from my family and away from my home are services that I wanna do less of, right? And it doesn't mean I don't love doing them. I do love doing them. But at that point, I was doing a lot of them, like a lot.
I was going to so many births and I had tons of postpartum clients. So I was going between prenatal visits and postpartum clients and births and scheduling things and rescheduling things because someone had a baby and like just constantly working.
And my whole life was incredibly unpredictable because of it because I didn't know how to sort of stop this cycle to get out of that cycle and start new services, right? So part of what I think we do in our doula businesses that is a disservice to ourselves is we get started.
We sort of hit the ground running with some unsustainable practices. And we don't intend for those to be the practices that we have forever, but they are there. And we're like, OK, well, for now, I'm going to do this.
For now, I'm going to do that. For right now, this is what's going to happen. But the reality is that those things then stay in our business. And then we're like, oh, I never actually changed that. I never actually shifted that thing that I meant to shift, that I actually needed to shift, that now is really unsustainable for my business.
And so what I want you to think about is what things are you doing that you actually have never wanted to be doing, or you don't really like how you do them anyway, or they're feeling super stressful.
They don't have to feel bad. Your work doesn't have to feel stressful and hard. I mean, it will sometimes. I'm not wanting to sell you this dream life. I have stressful, hard things. I have clients that are unhappy with services.
I have people that have really tough births, and there's a lot of trauma. I mean, there are hard things. But it doesn't have to be that life as an entrepreneur always feels stressful. That is what does not have to be there.
So I want you to stay tuned. This month is January. We're at the beginning of 2025. And I have some really cool stuff coming up. This springtime, some new offerings. And so I want you to keep your eye out on those.
If you are not already in the newsletter, that is the group that's going to hear about this stuff first. They get kind of first dibs on my new stuff. And so there is a link in the show notes to sign up for the newsletter.
If you'd like to hear from me, I send those out twice a month. And they are about the classes that I have, the offerings that are around, and just information that I've learned about being a doula and a business owner.
I don't spam you with stuff, but I do make sure that you're the first one to hear about. cool things. So go sign up for that newsletter. Keep an ear out for the information that's coming around the new offerings that I have and free class that's coming in the beginning of February.
So you can start signing up for those things as soon as I get that info to you, which will be very soon. So in the meantime, I will see you in the next episode. 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.
When is it time for a business shift? There’s not just one answer to that, but in a doula business we have some key indicators! Tune in today to see what those are and how you can evaluate if you’re ready for the next level of your doula business.
Quote from the show:
“Naturally we sort of evaluate things at the beginning of the year and that's a normal sort of rhythm of life and also rhythm of business. And so as we're starting into 2025, I want you to take some time to think about if it is time to shift some things in your doula business. So the first thing I want you to think about is how do you know that it's time, right? Like maybe you just know, you just feel like you need to shift some things. You're not loving it, something like that. But sometimes there are some ways that can be a little sneaky that we don't realize.”
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
