Now I want you to take a second and just think about your favorite birth educator or your favorite birth influencer, if you will. So who's your favorite birth educator, or maybe like your your top five favorite birth influencers? Because I bet that damn near every single one of them is doing what I'm about to teach you. They are finding ways to impact the global birth community beyond simply attending births in person. And a lot of us were still birth, doulas, so we still go to births. I'm on call right now for birth coming up. But we've figured out that the weight of burnout proof our business and the way to make this a sustainable thing for ourselves is to look beyond the status quo doula role, and to step into something so much bigger. 

Hey, there birth nerd. You're listening to the birth worker podcast. My name is Kyleigh Banks, and I am totally obsessed with birth, and equally obsessed with business. And this is the show where I help women turn their passion for birth into a sustainable and profitable and most importantly, impactful career. All right, let's get into it. 

You are listening to Episode One of the birth worker podcast. First of all, thank you. Thank you so much for being here. My name is Kylie and in today's episode, I'm going to share a little bit about my journey from side gig doula to now being a CEO of a multi six figure, birth focused business. And I just have to say that it feels really weird to say that like, I own a company, it feels really weird to introduce myself as the CEO of a freaking company. Because it was only four years ago that I even learned what a doula was. It was only four years ago that I found my passion. That's how fast you can turn your passion into a business that impacts 10s of 1000s of lives across the world, day in and day out. That's how fast it can happen for you. But let me tell you, it won't happen easily. Unless you learn how to avoid burnout from the start by building an authentic doula business that fits your lifestyle, not trying to conform to what everyone else is doing. So if you hear one sentence from this entire episode, let it be this. Build a sustainable and authentic doula business from day one. If you are not doing what I'm about to teach you, from day one, you will hit a roadblock, you will quit. It's only a matter of time, I promise you. Because as the years go on, your business will have to change to meet your needs. Your needs are going to change as you get older, and your business will have to change. And if you're not ready to pivot, or let's say like if you don't see the endless opportunities to create income in the birth community, you won't know how to make your business pivot with you. So before we jump into the actual practical strategies and the practical ways to build a sustainable doula business, I want to first go back to the very first time that you ever heard the word doula. So close your eyes. Unless you're driving, if you're driving, please do not close your eyes. i I'm always listening to podcasts when I'm driving. I don't know about you. But if you can close your eyes. And think back to when you first learned what a doula was, think back to the very first time that you heard the word doula. I did not hear the word doula until about four years ago. And it just came at the perfect time. Because years before that, like four years before that, I had been dreaming of something bigger. I mean, I was dreaming of something more impactful than my prior job. So before I was a birth worker, I was a hairstylist. And let me just not put it lightly. Like, I freaking hated my job. I absolutely hated my job. It was soul sucking. And I was just dreaming of finding what I was meant to do. I was dreaming of finding something bigger than just doing hair for people. And if you know anything about human design, I am a manifesting generator. So I have a ton of ideas and a ton of energy to make those ideas happen. But it also means that I easily jump from one thing to the next. And so what I did, like let's go back five years ago, essentially and what I would do is I would go down these rabbit holes, and I would have these ideas like okay, yeah, I hate my job so much. I'm going to be a life coach.

I'm going to help people have better lives. or I'm going to be a spiritual coach, I'm going to help people get rid of their anxiety, I'm going to be a fitness coach or whatever. And I would spend all of this time like dreaming up all of these ideas about what I could potentially do to leave my soul sucking job. But for some reason, none of the ideas would go anywhere. Like for some reason, I would get really passionate about something, and then I would just stop, and I would not follow that path. Have you ever done that before? So for years, I just kept going through the motions. I kept putting off quitting my soul sucking job, and putting off creating a business. And then one day, I was listening to a birth story podcast, and my entire world changed. This woman was telling her birth story, and all of a sudden, I heard a word that would change the course of my entire life. I heard the word doula. And immediately, it was like somebody poured gasoline on my soul and lit it on fire in the best way possible. In the minute that I heard that word doula, I just knew immediately that that was it. That is what I want to do. That is who I want to be. I want to be a doula. So I did all of the things that you're supposed to do. I paid the $2,000 to take an in person doula training program. And I left that training. And I felt so excited. I felt that fire in my soul, that yes, this is my life's purpose. Yes, this is exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. So what did I do? I quit my well paying job to go all in on this birth doula thing. But let me tell you the second I quit my job. It wasn't this exciting thing anymore. It was really nerve racking. And honestly, it was really scary. Because on top of that, I was also pregnant. And I kind of had this like, Oh, crap moment of like, wait a second, I can't be on call with a newborn. I don't want to be on call when I have a newborn. But I also like, don't want to go back to work for someone else. I don't want to go back to my hairstyling job. But I also have a mortgage to pay. And I have to find a way to pay my mortgage. And being a birth doula was awesome. being my own boss was awesome. But if that meant that I'm going to be stressed out about finding clients, and stressed out about being on call, and stressed out about making enough money to pay my mortgage and finding someone to watch my kid, like, that's not really what I wanted to sign up for. I didn't want to have my own business, but still be too busy to spend time with my kids, but also not really make enough money to do all the things that I wanted to do with my family. That's not success. To me. That's not where I wanted to end up. No, I wanted to find a way to do what I love doing, and to make money doing it. And to be able to stay home with my daughter and watch her grow up. And at that point, if I had continued to do birth work, how everyone else was doing it, I would have given up right there, I would have given up the second that I had my baby, because I didn't want to be on call for a while that would have been the end of birth work for me. And to tell you the truth. That is the end for 1000s of birth workers

every single year, every single year. 1000s of doulas get to a point where they hit this roadblock. And they don't want to be on call as much as they need to be in order to create the income to sustain their family. But since I had never in my life, found something that I was so passionate about, like I am passionate about birth, I was not going to give up. Yes, it was really scary to say I am a birth doula, but I'm not taking clients right now. I'm not taking clients right now, while my daughter is young, I'm not on call right now. That was a really scary thing to say. Because I didn't know anyone else who was doing what I was about to set out to do. And so what I did is I found inside of myself a passion for figuring out how to make birth work not only my career, but a sustainable career. I made it my mission to figure out how to still be a doula, but not be on call while my daughter was a newborn. So I took the business courses, I grew my Instagram, I started an email list, and I set out to find a way that I could continue to pay my mortgage as a birth worker without being on call. And let me tell you, my life changed. The minute I realized that as a doula I was not limited to making an impact and make In an income, just by attending births in person. Now, just a few years later, I'm at the point in my Doula business, where people look up to me and they say, wow, like Kylie has what I want. I've replaced my income from my hairstylist job, I've replaced my partner's income. So now he gets to stay home with us every single day, he gets to watch our daughter when I'm on call, and I go support births as a birth doula. And on top of that, I literally wake up every single day, to either emails or texts, or DMS, on Instagram, from my clients, and from my students who have taken my workshops or taken my birth courses. And they tell me, thank you so much, Kylie, I couldn't have done it without you. And they send me pictures of their birth. And it's just so beautiful. And they also wake up to alerts on my phone every single day from my bank, essentially telling me that I've made money in my sleep, selling my programs. Now, I do this work, I do birth work, to get those DMS from my students and for my clients, telling me that they had phenomenal birth experiences. That's why I do this work. But waking up to text messages that I've made money while sleeping. That's what allows me to not only do this work, but to stay home with my daughter and create the kind of life that I want to create for my family. And in just a few minutes, we're gonna get into what that can actually look like. But I just have to finish my story first. So I've gotten to the point in my business now where I'm essentially getting too many inquiries that I need to start referring these women to other doulas in my area. And I don't remember exactly when but I think it was fall of last year, where all of a sudden, I had all these women contacting me for doula support. And all of a sudden, I needed to find someone like right now to send all of these clients to because I couldn't take them on. I was already full. And so I was calling around to the other doulas in the area. The other woman in the area, who I knew were amazing birth workers. They had home births themselves. Some of them had free births. By all accounts, trust me, they are amazing doulas, they're amazing birth workers. And the pregnant woman that were calling me would have been so lucky to be under the care of these amazing doulas that I wanted to refer them to. But every single doula that I contacted to send my overflow clients to, they told me essentially the same thing, which was, hey, I'm not taking clients right now. I can't be on call right now. Because I went back to work at my old job. I didn't make enough money as a doula. And it came to a point that I decided to stop attending births and go back to work full time. Yeah. It broke my heart. These were like, Why is women, like I said, they're the woman that I want to hold space for my birth. They have that foundation and that passion for birth. They have that trust for women's bodies, and the ability to hold space without trying to save people, they have all of that. But they went back to their jobs behind the desk, their jobs as a waitress or a hairstylist, not because they wanted to, but because they needed to pay their bills. And so I just sat with that for a while. And I thought to myself, Wow, I can actually do something about this. And honestly, I need to do something about this. Because there are women out there who are amazing doulas, but they're not doing this work for reasons that I can fix for them. And that was a major lightbulb moment for me. And that very same day, I knew that I essentially found my new calling. And it was like that same feeling that I felt when I heard the word doula for the first time. And so what I did is I set out to create this podcast that will not only help women understand how to hold space for birth, yes, but how to turn it into something that puts money in their bank account, day after day. So they can stay home with their kids. So they can quit that crappy job that they hate, so they can follow their passion without struggling financially and without burning out from being on call. 24/7 365. But I also created this podcast out of necessity, to be honest, because I know for a fact that there are not enough doulas that truly understand the role of a doula that truly understand the intricate dance of holding space, but also So bringing that education and knowledge when it's needed, and bringing that trust for the birth process. And you might be thinking, okay, but Kylie, like, I don't have kids at home, I want to be on call for four or five, six births per month as a doula. And I say, That's awesome. That is so awesome. That's actually where I am now. So now that my daughter is two and a half, I can be on call for birth all the time. But here's the thing, I would not be doing you justice by not teaching you the other ways to have a bigger impact on the global birth community, without teaching you the other ways to supplement your income, beyond attending births in person. And so that's what this is. And that's what this episode is about. Because I'm stepping into this role and into this calling to help new and aspiring doulas just like you, to help you understand that it's possible to help you understand that you can have a career that you love, that you wake up every day, and you're so excited that this is your career. You can make birth work fit your lifestyle, you can stop trying to conform to what all the other doulas are doing. You don't have to compromise on anything. You can change women's lives. And you can wake up to DMS, from women all over the world thanking you telling you their amazing autonomous birth stories. And you can attend births in person when you want to. And you don't have to feel like you have to attend birth in person to pay your bills. And even when you're not on call for a birth, you can make money to support your family. As a birth worker. You don't have to work that crappy job you hate. You get to be your own boss.

Now, I want you to take a second and just think about your favorite birth educator or your favorite birth influencer, if you will. So who's your favorite birth educator, or maybe like your your top five favorite birth influencers? Because I bet that damn near every single one of them is doing what I'm about to teach you. They are finding ways to impact the global birth community beyond simply attending births in person. And a lot of us were still birth, doulas. So we still go to births. I'm on call right now for birth coming up. But we've figured out that the way to burnout proof our business and the way to make this a sustainable thing for ourselves, is to look beyond the status quo doula role, and to step into something so much bigger. So now I want to get into the four totally different ways that you can build a wildly successful and totally sustainable doula business that fits your lifestyle. And again, why is this important? Because your needs are going to change throughout the years, and your business is going to have to change to meet those needs. And if you're not ready to pivot, if you don't see the opportunities in the birth community, you're gonna quit. So remember, if you take one thing from this episode, I want you to understand that it is so important to create a sustainable business from day one. So constantly be asking yourself, What am I doing to make this sustainable for me? Okay, so let's get into those four different ways that you can create a sustainable doula business that fits your lifestyle. So the very first way, is probably where a lot of people are starting. And that is in person services. That could look like birth, doula support, Postpartum Support, even Placenta Encapsulation, that would be considered an in person service. Things like birth photography, prenatal yoga, in person, birth classes, mother's circles, in person support groups, all of those are in person services. And all of those things are amazing, amazing options. And like I said, for a lot of people, this is the foundation of their offering. This is where it kind of where they're starting. And actually, this is kind of where a lot of doulas are ending. So a lot of doulas offer that birth support and Postpartum Support. And then they don't really extend their services beyond that. And that's what I want you to watch out for. Because if you are relying on supporting someone in person for your income, what happens when you can't be on call as much as you need to be on call, right? Because throughout your life, there will be times where you want to take it back a notch where you don't want to be on call an on call so much All right. And so we need to figure out what you're going to do to sustain that income during those periods of your life where you don't want to be on call all the time. So that's where maybe we are talking about offering virtual services. So the very first category is in person services. And then we also have virtual services. So I would say most doulas are dabbling in this, or at least starting to dabble in this, especially as we're kind of on the tail end of COVID. But offering virtual services is an awesome next step. So maybe adding in virtual doula services, so virtual birth support, or virtual Postpartum Support, maybe it looks like one on one coaching. So like one on one coaching calls, maybe 30 minutes or one hour, people can book it like right from your Instagram bio, or right from your website, you jump on Zoom, you do a coaching call. And it's just like a one time coaching call and you're done. You could also do online support groups. So maybe you want to put together instead of like an in person, mother's circle, maybe you want to do like an online support group where you meet every week for let's say, 12 weeks, I'd say that's, that's pretty common, it's an awesome thing to do. Something else I would consider a virtual service would be online workshops. So if you wanted to teach maybe a one off workshop about birth planning, or a one off workshop, about prenatal tests, or maybe about V back or something like that, I would call that a virtual service. Essentially, anything is a virtual service, if it still requires you to show up in real time. It requires you to show up in real time, just not in person, virtually. So that is category number two. And then we get into category number three, which is selling tangible products. Now, this is something that a lot of people would love to dabble in, but I don't think we are and I would love to see more jewelers doing this. So selling tangible products looks like selling affirmation cards. So maybe you want to create some affirmation cards, maybe you draw them by hand and upload them. Maybe you create them on procreate, maybe you create them in Canva. And you order these cards probably in bulk, and you have them sent to your house. And then you set up everything where people can purchase these, let's say affirmation cards from your website, you can package them up all pretty send them away, you get the money, you're selling your product. So that's an example of a tangible product. Some something that I do where I'm selling a tangible product is a book. So I was actually part of writing a book. It's called Bringing birth home. And it's a collection of stories of birth beyond the hospital. And so it's a bunch of doulas and moms and midwives and other birth workers telling their their birth stories, essentially. And so I was a part of that project. And so I have a ton of copies of that book at my house. And people can order that from my website. So when people order it, I get a commission from that, I think I was able to buy the books wholesale at let's say, like $4 Each, I sell the books for $12. So you have to take away the shipping costs and the packaging costs. But at the end of the day, I still make you know, $5 per book I sell, let's say. And so I was doing that in bulk, and selling a couple 100 per month, or even just a couple 100 per year. Hey, that's awesome. That's a great way to supplement my income. And so that's category three tangible products. And then we get into one of my favorite ways, and what I've really implemented in my own business, which is digital offers. So digital offers are not like virtual services. So remember, virtual services require you to show up in real time. Whereas digital offers are all pre recorded. They're all digital downloads, it does not require you to show up live on Zoom, or you to show up for a phone call or for you to support people in real time. No digital offers are the offers that you can sell all day long in your sleep even. So digital offers could be like an ebook, or a digital download. So maybe a birth plan template, or maybe audio affirmations. You can get a microphone record some audio affirmations or audio meditations for pregnancy or birth or hypnobirthing or whatever. And you can sell those 100% And you don't have to show up live to sell them. You can sell them from your website while you're sleeping. Something else that would be considered a digital offer is an online course. And so I have in my business, a whole stack of online courses. So birth worker, the birth worker, podcast and birth worker.com Is My Business geared towards serving doulas and serving birth workers. But I also have my business which is called the autonomy mommy As you might know me on Instagram, we have a huge community on Instagram, but through the autonomy, mommy, that's where I sell my online courses and my eBooks and my digital downloads. So I have online courses, as cheap as like $22. It comes with an ebook and videos geared towards mindset, or geared towards birth options.

I have a lot of different programs. I'll make another podcast episode one day about my entire product stack and, and what I would recommend, but I have everything from $22, like digital downloads all the way to $400, a $400, comprehensive childbirth education course. And again, these are digital offers, these are done, these are for sale on my website, people can buy them all the time. These are the products that I sell, essentially, every single day, there might be some days where I don't sell one. But especially over the summer, I'll go like three months and sell one product every single day. And when I'm selling those products, those are the ebooks, the online courses, the digital downloads. So can you just imagine for a second, what it would look like to start incorporating these things? What would it look like to start expanding your services to include these other money generating offers beyond supporting birth in person, or beyond having to show up in person all the time, or beyond showing up on zoom all the time? So maybe it's creating an ebook, right? Maybe it's creating those affirmation cards. For me, it's mostly digital courses. So I record videos, I created my own curriculum, and I teach childbirth education online. But if you start to incorporate these things from today, or from day one, if you're just getting started, I'm telling you, if you start incorporating these things, right now, you're gonna be ready to pivot at any given moment. So every single step of the way, I want you to continue to stop and ask yourself, is this sustainable? What am I doing to make this sustainable? But even more importantly, I want you to start imagining what it's going to feel like to stop trying to build a successful doula doula business, and what it's going to feel like to actually do it, to stop being on that hamster wheel of just trying to make it work. And then to actually get to a place where you're doing it, where you're building a successful doula business, because that's exactly what you're gonna do when you subscribe to this podcast. It is the only birth plus business podcast where I will be teaching birth nerds just like you and just like me, how to build an incredibly successful doula business that allows you to quit your day job, stay home with your kids, and most importantly, make a lasting impact on the world. So get ready to geek out over birth while also learning practical business tips. To help you start and grow your career as a birth worker. You're gonna get to listen in on interviews with the leading experts in the maternity space, like Dr. Nicole Rankin's and Dr. Stu from burning instincts, and haensi GoAir, who's my favorite author, and Dr. Nathan Riley, and so many other phenomenal people that I really look up to in this birth space in this community. And if you join me each week, you're also going to start to see why 1000s of new and aspiring doulas turned to Me for guidance when it comes to all things birth work, including supporting birth, or supporting home birth or finding doula clients or growing your income or even creating that recurring income and recurring revenue, creating those childbirth education courses, and so many more amazing topics that really light my fire. So whether you're brand new to birth work, or maybe you're just starting to toy with the idea or maybe you're already a birth worker, and you're just looking to level up you're already successful doula business, no matter where you're starting. Each episode of this podcast is designed to help you take the steps that are necessary to turn your passion for birth into a wildly impactful and profitable career. And I'm only going to ask you to do one thing in return. So wherever you're listening to this episode, hit subscribe, and get ready to change your entire freakin life.

There you have it. That was episode one of a podcast that I have no doubt will become the number one free resource for doulas and birth workers. across the entire world. So hey, I would love to hear your feedback about this episode, shoot me a DM over on Instagram. I'm at birth worker podcast. And let me know if any of this was helpful. Maybe you loved it, maybe you hated it, I want to know. And if you haven't subscribed already, that is 100% The best way to support this show. And after you subscribe, if you rate the show and leave a review, you should snap a screenshot and upload it to birth worker.com/review. And if you do that, I'm going to send a little gift your way as a thank you. So thank you so much for listening. I hope today was helpful for you and I will see you back here again next week.