Early Business Strategy

Nov 8

00:04
Welcome to Doula Tips and Tips. This podcast is a place where we answer one question about Doula work, both to support you and to help you support your clients. I'm Kaylee Harrod. I've been supporting families in this perinatal space since my oldest was born, 12, nearly 13 years ago.

00:23
I am a birth and postpartum Doula childbirth educator, La Leche League leader, and a Dula coach. I love guiding and supporting Dulas as they work out their Dula business. It is a tremendous joy to be trusted in this way.

00:36
Thank you for joining us on this journey. I think I have inadvertently started a series on how I got where I am. And I didn't mean to do that. That wasn't planned. But here we are. So the last episode was talking about my prices and how I got to the prices that I charge now.

00:56
Because I think it's really important to understand the process in a business and to normalize the fact that what you charge now isn't necessarily what you're going to charge forever. I also think that as coaches, as business coaches, which is what I do, I mean, I of course do love people.

01:18
I have clients that I go to their births and whatnot. But I coach Doulas, right? And so in that role, I have to be able to be transparent in where I used to be so that people can see themselves in the journey, right?

01:37
So that you can see yourself in the journey. So part of what I want to normalize is that where I am right now did not happen overnight. I have been working on this actively, intentionally, with lots of hang ups, lots of bumps, the whole frickin pandemic, right?

02:02
Since 2018. My first birth as a doula was in 2017. And then from there, I got trained. I started to explore working for agencies because I was completely freaked out to have my own clients, but did have private clients pretty quickly, just only a couple a year for a while.

02:24
And so this is not something that's new to me, right? Now, I think it's incredibly important to normalize the fact that our businesses are a living, growing organism. And so it's not something that you're like, I'm going to do XYZ.

02:44
And then that's what I'm going to do forever. Now, maybe some businesses are that way. I don't know. My business is not. And I don't think most service based businesses are because we have a natural kind of ebb and flow to what we do.

02:59
Right? And as doulas, I think our work can look so different in different seasons in part because the actual support of a family in person can take a toll on your body, even if it's just postpartum support, right?

03:15
Like bouncing around a 10 pound kiddo to get to sleep, that is not for the faint of heart, right? So, so because of that physical and emotional toll, part of our work should be less attached and less emotional and less physically demanding and things like I have some passive classes, like some classes that I spent a whole heck of a lot of time like like blood, sweat, and tears on those classes.

03:45
And now when someone purchases them, purchases a class, I don't really interact with them much, right? Like I check on them if I need to, they can email me if they have questions, they get emails from my class system.

04:00
I've set all that up, right? So I have written those emails to those lovely students that I have, but I am not really actively doing things with that. It doesn't take much effort from me, right? And the reality is that we have to have things like that in our business.

04:21
So I want to just kind of get you started thinking about how to be intentional about that now. When I was just starting out as a doula, I had a lot of mindset hangups. One was people were going to find out I was like not really qualified to do what I was doing, you know, just like classic imposter syndrome, like I'm just like a fraud, you know, I wasn't a fraud.

04:52
I was actually really good at what I was doing and I'm still very good at what I do and doing it with a lot of people. A lot of ethics like doing something ethically is the one of the biggest core pieces of my being and my business.

05:09
So now I can firmly say I do what I do with incredibly with incredible intention and ethics and honor right like there's I have just a lot more comfort saying I do what I do really well and I do it in a way that I feel proud of right I do it in a way that I know when I go into a hospital the staff is going to be like you're amazing and we really want to work with you again and they're going to start sending me clients.

05:48
I know that part of why I know that is that it's happened so many times now that I'm like oh I can believe that this is true about myself right but 2017, Kaylee, absolutely not. I did not know that. I did not believe that.

06:04
I didn't have any intention of any of that. Like that, that was not the space I was living in. So I was in this space of like a mixture of desperation and imposter syndrome, right? I needed this business to do something.

06:20
I needed my work to function, right? I needed it to be successful. I needed to be able to pay off my training and I needed to be able to make moves in this business, right? And pretty, pretty much from the get go, I was like, I don't think I can do a million births.

06:45
Like I met someone really early on. I can't even honestly remember who it was that I spoke to about this. And I was just like, you know, as a new doula, I'm just like eating up information, like just like devouring anything anyone would tell me that they do.

07:01
And so I was like talking to a more experienced doula. I think I remember who this was. I'm not going to say their name, but I said to them, like, how many clients do you have a month? And they were like six.

07:14
And I was like, what? I'm like at the time I was already like, I don't think I could do that. Like that's a lot of, that's a lot of babies. It's a lot of birth. It's a lot of overnight that you stay up all night, you know?

07:27
And so from the beginning, I was sort of like, yeah, I'm not a doula that's going to be at like five to 10 births a month. Like I can't do that physically. And then pretty quickly I was like, well, if I can't do that physically, I'm going to have to do something else as well.

07:45
Because if I just attend births and I can only attend like 20 to 30 a year, how am I going to sustain this business? Right? So when you think about strategy, but I don't is like understanding the marketing trends of 2023 and 2024 and having that laid out.

08:07
Like you don't need that. I mean, that's great to have. I'm not downplaying that. I would love to have that. But what I mean is intentionality about where you want this to go and an honest look at what you want this to look like in the future.

08:23
Because I think too often as business owners, we just sort of hope for the best. And really that's not a strategy, right? Like you coming to do little work and being like, I'm just gonna like love on people is not a business strategy.

08:41
And you need to be able to grow your business. And if you're not doing things to grow your business, eventually your business is going to flounder and you are going to burn out. And that is not sustainable, right?

08:56
And so... One of the things that I think about when I think about New Doolas is that we're sort of we sort of live in this space of like I'll think about that when I get to it right and it's almost in my mind like if we had clients that were like oh I'm about to have a baby and I've never been around babies before but I will figure that out when they're here and we're like I mean do you have like a place for them to sleep you know like do you have like a car seat and they're like no I'm gonna figure all of it out when they're here we would be concerned about that right or if we have a client who's giving birth and it's like I know nothing about pushing but I'm gonna tackle that when we get to it and you're like well I mean we could learn a little about it beforehand and they're like no need no need when we are pushing that is when I will learn about pushing right so as Doolas I say this with the utmost love and compassion and understanding and remembrance of this space as Doolas we do that to ourselves we're like well I mean a year from now I'll figure that out and I'm not saying you need to know how to do every single thing right this minute what I am saying is you need to understand how you're gonna get from where you are to where you want to go right like how how do you plan to meet the goal that you have for next year are you just gonna like hope that it happens or are you gonna connect with people and market yourself and talk about your business and grow your packages and like what are you planning to do and not just maybe I'll find a pregnant person who wants me to be their Doola or I'll get a referral from someone randomly that is living on a hope and a prayer friend and that is not business strategy and it's not a way for your business to grow with intention and that's That is what I want for you.

11:00
That is what you should want for yourself. So, I don't know how long this little mini series that I didn't mean to make is going to go, but we're talking about strategy, we're talking about intention, and then the year of 2024 is heavy on my mind because I'm thinking about the moves I wanna make in my business, and I'm also thinking about your business and how you have moves you wanna make that you need some guidance on.

11:26
So, this might be a little like fall, late fall, early winter theme. We'll see. In the meantime, you probably heard the pre -episode little shout out about the fact that I currently have strategy calls.

11:43
If you're listening to this and those spots are all full, send me a message on Instagram, and I will give you an empty spot because I want to connect with you. I want to talk about your business, and I am not going to charge you anything.

11:56
I'm not gonna do a big sales pitch. sales pitch speech that was those words combined to you. I don't believe in that. What I am going to do is actually give you guidance on what you can do next in your business and doula you a little bit encourage you a little bit.

12:13
That is what I want to do connect with me at Harrodoula and I would love to chat with you. I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the doula tips and tips 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 Harrodoula so we can celebrate alongside you.

12:38
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 this podcast is intended as educational and entertainment.

12:54
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.

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All business owners had to start at square one with their business. The saying everyone has to start somewhere is so incredibly true. Today we are going to dive into a couple of early business strategies that helped me with my success and put me at ease early on in building my business.

Quote from the show:

So I want to just kind of get you started thinking about how to be intentional about that now. When I was just starting out as a doula, I had a lot of mindset hangups. One was people were going to find out I was like not really qualified to do what I was doing, you know, just like classic imposter syndrome, like I'm just like a fraud, you know, I wasn't a fraud.
I was actually really good at what I was doing and I'm still very good at what I do and doing it with a lot of people. A lot of ethics like doing something ethically is the one of the biggest core pieces of my being and my business. So now I can firmly say I do what I do with incredibly with incredible intention and ethics and honor…”

CONNECT with Kaely on TikTok or Instagram

https://www.tiktok.com/@doulacoach

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Kaely Daily is produced by Kaely Harrod of Harrod Doula Services

It is sponsored by The Birth Prep Blueprint Childbirth Class

Music by Madirfan: Hidden Place on Pixabay