Envisioning Your Future Doula Business
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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 today's episode.
Hello and welcome back to Dula Tips and Tits. If you are new here, we have a thing where it's a new thing that I'm doing episodes by myself like this or with a guest on Wednesdays. Then on Fridays, we have a question and answer episode that we're going to be starting up, but I need more questions for it.
So far, I have a few, so this week is going to be our first question and answer episode. For now, I'm going to space them every other Friday until we have enough questions to do it a little bit more frequently, but I would love to hear from you.
If you have already submitted a question, you can submit another one. If you haven't, go ahead and do that now. There is a link in the show notes to submit a question. I'm also putting it on my links on Instagram at HaradDula.
That's H-A-R-R-O-D-D-O-U-L-A. So all one word, HaradDula. That is also linked in the show notes. So you can go grab that, do the link from there. Follow me while you're over there so we can hang out together on Instagram.
And ask a question so we can do more of those episodes, because I love kind of teaching you things that are pertinent to what you are working on. Um, one thing that I have been getting a lot of information from doulas about, and one thing that's kind of been resonating a bit with me is dreaming about what your business can look like.
And I think the cool thing about this is that we get to make it up, right? And I know we keep talking about like a little bit of this, like the last couple episodes have been about, you know, how to kind of do your own thing and think outside the box and things like that.
But I want to talk specifically about envisioning the future. And I think the thing that matters a lot about this for doulas is that our work is in this nine month cycle, right? Like we have people do, and oftentimes once you kind of get the ball rolling in your business and your client streams, you have people do like quite a ways out.
So right now, when I'm recording this, it is April 2025 for a second. I was like, wait, what month is it? and I have clients due all the way until November. Now, I don't have every month full until November, but my latest due date is currently in November of 2024.
So that means I will be attending births until November of 2025, at least. I'm pretty sure I just said 2024 because I'm losing my mind. So if I were to start thinking about shifting away from attending births, which been on this journey with me for a while, you know that I already attend less births than I used to.
My plan is I'm kind of weaning that down. I do more education. I do more doula coaching. And so I'm like ramping that up while I wean the births down. It doesn't mean that I'll go to nothing. I don't know yet what my kind of magic number is.
And I don't know when the time will be that I weaned down to. I'm not sure. I haven't figured all of those things out. But I do know that my body does not love being constantly on call. It's not really great for my physical conditions that I have.
And so for me, as I get older, I want to continue to work for myself. I am in my last year of my 30s. So my kids keep telling me how incredibly old that is. So I'm thinking, OK, my doula business in my 40s, what do I want that to look like?
What do I want that to include? What do I want it to be about? How do I want it to go? And all of that is a part of what I want you to kind of think about with me. So I think one thing is thinking about what realistically you want this to look like a year from now.
And it's a little bit hard to think. that far out sometimes when we're kind of in the throes of things. But I think thinking through one year from today, so late April, 2026, do I want to be on call for someone who's due in the next couple of weeks?
Do I want to be on call as a backup for somebody or do I want to be working like a shift something, right? Like do I want to be like doing only postpartum work where I know it's scheduled, I know what day it's happening, I know like it's all kind of like planned out.
Do I want to be doing like nanny work where I'm with the same family every day so that I'm not like switching around different clients? Do I want to look at doing like childbirth education? I'm throwing out some ideas, not for myself, but like thinking through what it could look like for you, right?
When you think about this, I also want you to think about what part of your business do you want that to be? And I think the thing that can be tricky is that sometimes we think about that without actually really putting our effort into that, right?
So this is where the disconnect can sometimes happen where it's like, okay, you know, okay, yeah, we have an idea that, you know, I mean, maybe I want to do like more childbirth education, but if I wanna do that and I'm not currently trained in childbirth education or I don't know what I would teach in childbirth education, then how is that gonna happen, right?
Like I need to take those necessary steps to then get to the place of being able to teach childbirth education. So when I think about that process, part of it has to be incredibly intentional, right?
And the reason I want you to start kind of thinking about it is that I want you to start with what do you want it to look like? So then today's action is actually getting you towards that goal. Now with the caveat that of course we do not control everything in life, right?
We do not control everything in business. We do not control everything that's happening all around us. However, we do have some say in how our business is shaped. We do have some say in the intentionality that we use as we plan and we grow, right?
And so if you're saying to me, hey, Kaylee, I want to be teaching childbirth education by April, 2026, my next question is what kind of childbirth education do you wanna be teaching? And if you don't have an answer to that, then that's the next answer you need, right?
What kind do you wanna be teaching? Can you afford to do a training? Do you need to do a training? Do you wanna teach a particular curriculum? Does that particular curriculum only train at certain times of year, right?
One of the ones I love that I would love to be trained in at some point in the near future only trains once a quarter. And so if I'm joining that one, I need to plan that out so that I know like, okay, when the September training comes, I'm going to be in that training because otherwise I can't be teaching it before April.
It just won't work because they don't have another training before that, right? And that's just an example. I mean, I'm not saying that's necessarily always the case, but I'm saying that's the kind of intentionality I think through.
So let's just continue to use that example. So today you're saying I'd like to do childbirth education. And then you say, okay, I want to do this particular. So the one that I would love to be trained in that I'm not yet trained in is called Hello Birth because I have never been trained in any kind of hypnosis or hypnobirthing.
And that's something I'm really interested in training in at some point. And so, you know, let's say Hello Birth trains in September, hypothetically speaking, right? And then, so I'm gonna look, okay, I'm gonna say, childbirth ed is my goal.
Second thing, which one do I wanna train with? Hello, birth is who I wanna train with. Okay, third thing then is when is that training? That training is in September. Okay, so it's April now, May, June, July, August, September.
We got five months, right? How much does that training cost? That training costs X number of dollars, right? For the sake of it being five months away, let's say it's like 2,000 bucks, right? Which it's not $2,000, but I don't remember exactly what it costs.
So, now I'm like, I have to do this math. So, if it was, let's say $500, because if it was $500, it's $100 each month, because why can I not do math? So then, 2,000 would be 400 each month. Okay, I can do math, I think that's right.
Maybe not. No, it is, 400, $400 a month, if it was a $2,000 training. This was not a math episode. Clearly, I did not calculate out this example before I started. But, so what you would wanna think about is, okay, September, if it's a training that's $2,000, I need to be able to have, ready to pay for that training, $400 every month, right, for the next five months.
Or, I need to have $2,000 right now, and maybe that training fills up. So, if it is a training that has a cap of how many people can be in it, maybe I need to have $2,000 sooner than that, so that I can sign up for it by July, so that I don't lose the chance to be in it, right?
So, this is what I mean when I say, you look at that piece, and then you look at today, and you say, okay, what do I do today to get to that piece? And if it's childbirth education, and you're like, Kaylee, I wanna teach childbirth ed, and then I say, okay, what kind of childbirth ed do you wanna teach, because there's loads of different kinds.
designs, if your answer is, I'm not sure, that's where you start today, right? Because the vision's already there. The childbirth ed vision is there. The desire is there. The how is what's missing, and that's what I want you to start with.
So I want you to think through, what do you want your business to look like? A year from today, two years from today, three years from today, obviously understanding that you don't control all of life, right?
You can't orchestrate everything, but that should not keep you from taking intentional action steps. And what ends up happening is if you don't take intentional action steps, you're growing parts of your business that you don't even want to grow, that you don't even mean to be growing.
And a lot of times that's out of scarcity or fear. And so you're keeping yourself stuck in a business you don't want to be running because you are afraid or not taking the time to strategically look at what could be coming next.
Okay, so if you have not yet done so, please pause this, go ask a question on that beautiful, ask me a question form. It's literally a question and your name and email so that I can respond to your question and let you know that your question is going to be answered on a podcast episode, et cetera, et cetera.
So please don't go do that so that we can start having more of those Friday episodes. Otherwise, I will see you in this Friday for the first Q&A and then I'll see you again on Wednesday. All right, I'll see you in the next episode.
Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Dula 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 hiradula 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.
ASK A QUESTION!!! My plan is to start Friday Q&A (we need a new name, I know!) but first I need your questions! Submit them using the form below:
https://www.harroddoulaservices.com/ask-me-a-question
Part of doula business strategy is knowing where you’re headed so you can continually make sure you’re still on the right road. I have gotten side tracked from my previous desired road SO MANY times in this business life and it is way more common than we think. It’s actually not hard to build in strategy, part of it takes some dreaming and then some steps, but I believe in you if you join me on this journey!
Quote from the show:
“So I'm thinking, OK, my doula business in my 40s, what do I want that to look like? What do I want that to include? What do I want it to be about? How do I want it to go? And all of that is a part of what I want you to kind of think about with me. So I think one thing is thinking about what realistically you want this to look like a year from now. And it's a little bit hard to think that far out sometimes when we're kind of in the throes of things. But I think through one year from today, so late April, 2026, do I want to be on call for someone who's due in the next couple of weeks? Do I want to be on call as a backup for somebody or do I want to be working like a shift something, right? Like do I want to be like doing only postpartum work where I know it's scheduled, I know what day it's happening, I know like it's all kind of like planned out.”
CONNECT with Kaely on TikTok or Instagram
https://www.tiktok.com/@doulacoach
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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
