How Can I Make Extra Money Today?

• Transcript

  00:04

  Welcome to doula Tips and Tits. 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 doula coach. I love guiding and supporting doulas as they work out their doula business. It is a tremendous joy to be trusted in this way.

  00:36

  Thank you for joining us on this journey. Welcome back to doula Tips and Tits. Today, I want to talk to you about what happens when you break your ankle as a doula. Now, welcome to my actual life right now.

  00:52

  So my birthday was February 13th, the day before Valentine's Day. I started out that day by walking down our basement stairs and slipping and falling down two whole steps and managing to sprain my right ankle and break my left ankle.

  01:11

  Because why not? If you're going to hurt your ankles, you should do like one at a time. It is kind of a pain in the tush to have both ankles incapacitated at the same exact time. So fast forward to today.

  01:27

  It's been 12 days. I've had to send one doula to a birth, which thankfully it was one of the backup doulas that I adore. My clients adored her, but it was heartbreaking because those clients were some amazing people and I was very, very sad as I always am when I have to send a backup.

  01:45

  It's part of this work, but I did not love it. So I also am currently working on coordinating 40 to 50 hours worth of postpartum care for clients. And part of that volume is that that I am not gonna be available and on my foot again until the middle of March.

  02:05

  And so the problem is that many of my clients can't or don't want to wait that long to have their postpartum care, which totally makes sense. So these are like a variety of families who would otherwise have had like three shifts with me or two shifts with me or something like that.

  02:23

  And instead they're getting a single shift or two shifts or three shifts with another doula because really they do kind of need some care in the interim, right? Now, why are we talking about this on the podcast?

  02:36

  I mean, for one, I want you to feel sorry for me because it sucks so bad. And I know you do, I feel your empathy coming through even as I record this, I know that you are empathizing. And this is like almost a full week before you're gonna actually hear this episode.

  02:56

  So, Part of what I want to talk about today is how we set ourselves up in doula work to handle these kind of things Now this is a unique scenario. I don't wish a broken bone on you by any stretch But what I mean is it's one thing to like have two babies come on the same day It's an entirely different thing to have Three and a half or four weeks that you can't walk, right?

  03:28

  So there's a level of like I can't do anything like I can't go to a prenatal visit I can't go to a postpartum visit. I can't go to a birth. I can't go teach my childbirth classes I can't even really get out of my basement very well And so I'm just kind of living down here on an air mattress because here we are, right?

  03:47

  So My life came to a screeching halt However, I have my doula coaching program. I have a private doula coach coaching client Who is doing awesome things in her business? By the way, I just want to take a second to be like she's the most amazing She's just killing it.

  04:08

  So I have my childbirth class that self -paced I have my postpartum class That's self -paced and I already have my business set up where my doula consultations and my first prenatal visit are all virtual So this coming week, I do have a prenatal visit last week I had a prenatal visit and that's totally fine because all of those things are done on zoom And so I'm able to do them even though I'm sitting here in a boot Okay, so what I want you to think about and not in a way that like stresses you out.

  04:42

  Hopefully But if it does take a second take some breaths close your eyes Put your hand on your chest take a minute to be like, okay I can handle thinking this through if it's stressing you out. It probably means that you're not equipped for it.

  05:00

  And I'm going to be super transparent with you. This time last year I was also not equipped for this. Like hundreds, no really thousands of dollars, a few thousand dollars is going to go to other doulas right now.

  05:16

  For work that I would have otherwise done, right? Just to be clear, like I have doulas on my team now. I love paying them. It's amazing. I love that they're getting clients. I love that clients love them.

  05:27

  It's the best thing ever. And also I'm talking about paying doulas to do the work that I was supposed to be doing myself because I also still work with clients, right? And so it's not that they're not amazing.

  05:40

  I'm still very happy to pay them, but it's not payment that I was expecting to make. That's the problem. So my business at the moment can handle that. I have some cushion, which is just a giant gift.

  05:55

  And also I was even one year ago, definitely not in a place where I could have handled this kind of setback. It would have been devastating. I honestly can't even imagine. I don't want to imagine, you know?

  06:09

  But I am very, very, very grateful that it happened now when I do have some capacity, both in how my business is set up and the diversity that I have in the income streams, but also in the fact that I have the money to pay backup doulas without worrying about it, right?

  06:31

  Without being super stressed that things aren't gonna get paid and bills aren't gonna get taken care of, et cetera, et cetera, right? So I want to share with you the diversity of income streams in my own business.

  06:45

  And then I would like for you to share with me on Instagram the diversity of income streams in your business. And I want to help you think about what that could look like for you and how it could be better.

  07:02

  So for me, I have a variety of income streams at the moment. Attending births is my biggest income in the business at the moment. Second biggest is postpartum care and childbirth ed. And those are probably like, nah, I would say they're tied.

  07:20

  I don't have the numbers parsed out for this current year, but in the past they've been tied. Now I have a few different streams of childbirth classes. So I have my childbirth classes that I teach at the breastfeeding center here in DC.

  07:38

  I have my self -paced childbirth class. And occasionally I'll do a private childbirth class, but I don't do those very often. So it's mostly the classes at the breastfeeding center and then my own class, which is self -paced.

  07:53

  The other classes that I have are a postpartum prep class. and I have a doula comfort measures class that I teach in person here in the DC area. So the postpartum prep class is entirely self paced, virtual class, I have recorded it and it can be consumed by anybody anytime, any moment, right?

  08:18

  My in person child or my in person doula support comfort measures class is for doulas and I supposed to have one today, the day that I'm recording this and it is cancelled. It got cancelled and those folks got moved to March because my foot, right?

  08:38

  So that's a class that was impacted by this. So like a couple hundred dollars of revenue, right? My podcast does not currently make money, but it is a source of people coming into my world who then come into my doula coaching program.

  08:55

  Now, I have three different ways. to do doula coaching. I have my self -paced doula coaching program which is just the modules of the educational piece. It's called the doula biz blueprint. It is amazing walking you through essentially everything I use to run my business and helping you imagine what your business can look like.

  09:17

  I have the version of that with live coaching for eight weeks and I have the version of that without live coaching for eight weeks and then I do private doula coaching where I work one -on -one with someone and just dig into their business for three months we meet and then for three more months they have access to me via voxer and that is another stream of income.

  09:39

  That's entirely virtual. The client that I'm working with in that right now is in LA so she's not local to me and that is an awesome stream of the business as well. Now a smaller thing that I offer is on Etsy I have doula's Instagram posts for their for their businesses.

  10:01

  That is like a $37 kind of offer right so a small offer that makes some money but isn't super crazy huge but I want you to understand that like all of those different things add up and come together even though they're not huge things right.

  10:21

  So I want you to think about what this can look like in your business. Now maybe you're kind of a traditional birth and postpartum doula and that's really all you do right now like birth postpartum nothing else.

  10:33

  I would encourage you to start teaching something. The reason I say that is that you can impact so many more families teaching classes and it's not something you have to be on call for and I know you've heard parts of my story before so you know I got to a place of like all right I'm making $80 ,000.

  10:57

  dollars a year. I love this place. But also like it's a busy place. My body is being used for all of this work. I'm on call constantly. I have people calling me at 2am to wake me up and go to births.

  11:10

  And then I have postpartum shifts in the daytime. It was not a sustainable workload. And $80 ,000 was not what my goal was. It was I had not yet met my goal because I wanted I want to be able to live a good life here in DC, right?

  11:25

  I want to be able to take my kids traveling. I want to be able to be generous with people who are in need. Like these are things that I dream about. And so at that point, I was like, Okay, this is not the income that I need or want.

  11:39

  And also, I don't want to go to more births than this in a year. Right? So if that's you, if you're listening, and you're like, Kaylee, that is absolutely me. Like I do not want to go to this many births anymore.

  11:57

  or hello and welcome back to doula tips and tips. Today we're gonna talk about how do you make extra money in your doula business quickly. Now, if you listened to the last episode, I am not a proponent for just throwing a passive offer out there into the world without preparation and understanding the tech behind making it work.

  12:23

  So that is not what we're talking about today. What I want you to think about is how, what things can you do in your business if right now you're saying to me, Kaylee, I really need to make some more money like ASAP.

  12:38

  Okay, the first and most important thing is leverage what you already have. Sell more of what's already selling. Now, what I don't mean is please attend like 1 ,000 births. No, no, no, no, no, no. However, if birth is the thing that is selling the fastest and the easiest and you don't have anybody right now who's due in October, then that would be something to focus on.

  13:05

  Say like, hey, I'm giving a discount or I'm offering up this spot for someone who is due, is still like early in the pregnancy but is wanting a doula right away. You don't necessarily need to give a discount of some kind.

  13:18

  What I mean is that you can kind of more aggressively market that space that is not yet full but does tend to sell pretty easily for you. Another thing is do more hours. So something like postpartum hours, do more postpartum hours.

  13:35

  Now, what I don't want is for you to just work your butt off, right? Like that's not what I am emphasizing today. I'm not like, yeah, you need more money. Okay, do more work. That's not what I want for you in the long term.

  13:50

  However, if I needed to make a couple thousand dollars today, Taking on a birth client is going to make it for me the fastest. That doesn't mean I should do that all the time. But that does mean it is something I can leverage when I need to in my business, okay?

  14:12

  Now a second thing is promote things that sell passively if you already have those. So I'm going to give you an example of this from my client that I'm coaching right now. So the training that she took allows her to be an affiliate for some meditations that are for pregnancy and birth.

  14:32

  And so when she sells those, when someone buys them, she makes a small commission off of it and then the company that made them makes the bulk of the money, right? So she was talking about this when we were doing our coaching call.

  14:45

  And we were talking about how like we've been focusing on how do we get people in your world to buy more than one of your things, right? To kind of like have... a bit more knowledge of the different things that you offer and why it would benefit them to utilize you in multiple ways.

  15:05

  And so for the meditation, for instance, she makes maybe five bucks on it. But that is something if you can get more people to buy it. So when we were talking, I told her to put that on a pop -up so that she can utilize the fact that everybody who comes to website for her classes, for her support groups, for her doula work, for whatever they're coming for is going to right away see this meditation that's very affordable and can be like, Oh, I'll buy this before I get into her site, right before I like get in and inquire about services, etc.

  15:39

  Now, her plan longer term is to make her own meditations, right? Like to have something that's more, that's more like bringing all of that income into the business. But in the meantime, she can leverage what she has right now, and be able to really help that be a small but passive stream of income.

  16:03

  Okay. The other thing is that you want to think about connecting clients to other services. So if you have a bunch of birth clients, and you have postpartum care, right, or you have a childbirth class, or you have a newborn care class, you want to connect those people to those services.

  16:25

  So when you're thinking about, you know, having birth clients, utilize your own services for them, like recommend yourself, tell them when they hire you, hey, I also teach a newborn care class, I also have postpartum hours, not so that they feel like you're super salesy, but so that they know they can actually get these services in house with you.

  16:50

  Now, next episode is all about how you don't need to be a one stop shop. So don't worry, that's not where I'm going. But what I mean is if your clients need postpartum care and they're going elsewhere for it, that is not necessarily.

  17:06

  And maybe it's because you aren't telling them that you do postpartum care. Maybe it's because they don't know you do postpartum care. I don't know, people have all different reasons for that. But that is one of the ways to make money quickly is to connect your own people to your other services.

  17:22

  The other benefit there is that they're already your clients, they're already your customers, right? So they don't have to be sold about you being amazing. They already think that. So then adding on more services makes sense for them, okay?

  17:36

  Now, the other thing that you can do is fill gaps that other people have in your area. So something like sibling doula or comfort measure sessions, birth planning sessions. If you know there are other doulas in the area who regularly need a particular service, fill those gaps for them and honestly reach out to other doulas and say, hey, I have some free time in the next couple weeks.

  18:07

  All the babies came early or whatever and I would love to be a referral for you if you need someone to refer to for postpartum care or for birth care or for sibling doula or whatever it is. But really do utilize the fact that this work is a bit unpredictable and we all know that.

  18:26

  And so you can go to other doulas and say, hey, if you're super busy and you need people to send someone to, send them my way, right? And that is another way to get some income coming in. Now, if you're right now saying to me, okay, Kaylee, I need some extra income coming in in the business, I want you to think about these things to fix that issue right now.

  18:48

  And then maybe we should chat about how to fix that issue long -term because these are not long -term solutions, right? These are right now solutions like I need more money this month. These are those kinds of solutions.

  19:02

  Not like how do I increase my revenue over the next year? That needs to be a different strategy so that it's something that is sustainable that you can continue to do without completely burning yourself out.

  19:17

  Okay. So stay tuned for the next episode, which will be all about do you need to be a one -stop shop for everything? And the answer you might be surprised to hear is no. But I will give a lot more detail in that episode of why the answer is no.

  19:35

  If you have not checked out the doula Biz Blueprint self -paced coaching for doulas, I want you to go check that out. The information page is in the show notes. Also you can connect with me at Hara doula and I will be more than happy to answer questions for you.

  19:53

  There are multiple ways to pay for such a small amount with a firm with after pay and it is something that honestly is going to keep working for you for years in your doula business. So do not miss this promotional price of $4 .95 for that class because it will not be that cheap ever again after this beta time.

  20:17

  It's kind of a new offering and that is why it is that price but that price is for sure going up. So take advantage of it while it's here and if you have questions about it please do reach out to me and let me know at harrad doula.

  20:31

  Until then I'll 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 So we can celebrate alongside you.

  20:51

  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.

  21:04

  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.

  21:16

  We'll see you again soon.

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How can I make more money starting today?! Let’s talk about using our assets and skills we already have to make that extra income. By having these other ways to make money, it will help with less burnout as well. 

Quote from the show:

“The other thing is that you want to think about connecting clients to other services. So if you have a bunch of birth clients, and you have postpartum care, right, or you have a childbirth class, or you have a newborn care class, you want to connect those people to those services. So when you're thinking about, you know, having birth clients, utilize your own services for them, like recommend yourself, tell them when they hire you, hey, I also teach a newborn care class, I also have postpartum hours, not so that they feel like you're super salesy, but so that they know they can actually get these services in house with you.”

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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