One of the biggest things that holds people back at the VERY start of their doula career is that they don’t understand the big picture flow of how someone goes from a stranger to a client. 

And if that’s you, if you’re still not sure how to optimize what’s called the “onboarding” of a client, I don’t blame you! There are a lot of moving pieces.

And that’s exactly what we’re going to cover in episode 7 of the Birthworker Podcast.

We’re talking about everything from that initial consultation with a prospective client all the way through the moment the *actually* become a client, which is essentially the minute they sign the contract. 

Before we jump into the episode, I want to so thank you SO MUCH for everyone that supported me through the launch of this podcast. We’ve made it past launch week…

I just sent out the last of the giveaway prizes to everyone who won the cash prizes… and I also put over 200 birthworker goodie bags in the mail!

If this is the first episode that you’re listening to, then you don’t know this yet, but when I was dreaming of this podcast, I wanted to find a way to giveback to you and all the other listeners…. And so I set up a system behind the scenes - so when you review the show and upload a screenshot to birthworker.com/review, you’ll get a goodie back sent straight to your door. 

Sometimes it’s birthworker stickers, sometimes I send doula keychains, I’ve also done little notepads… lots of fun stuff. Yours for free, when you review the show. 

All that to say… Thank you everyone for being here! The Birthworker Podcast is officially a TOP #30 podcast in the entire United States, Top #10 in Canada, Top #30 in Austalia… complete insanity. And I only have you to thank.

Alright, let’s get into the reason you’re here… to learn to how to streamline and systemzie the onboarding of you clients to save yourself a huge headache and a ton of time!

No more second guessing the onboarding process or letting people fall through the cracks because you’re disorganized on the back end of your business. 

Ok, here is Episode 7 of the Birthworker Podcast…

Have you ever heard amazing things about a service provider, maybe a doctor, midwife, massage therapist, hairstylist, personal trainer, or whoever… and someone gave you their contact information.

And you click through to their website… and it is a complete shit show. 

And what I mean is that you can’t find their details… you don’t know how to set up an appointment,  you don’t even know what kind of services they offer… 

And eventually, you get so frustrated that you just click away, or put down your phone… and you’re like, “I guess it just wasn’t meant to be! I guess I’ll just find someone else…”That is what I’m going to help you avoid when you listen to this episode. 

Or something else that happened to me recently… I hired a business mentor, and it was really easy to figure out how to sign up and pay her the thousands of dollars, but as soon as I paid her the money… it was crickets from her. 

There was no email about what to do next, there there was no roadmap about what to expect… and so I sat there thinking, “Oh jeez, did I really just pay thousands of dollars to work with someone who doesn’t have her shit together…”

And that’s a really weird place to be. 

That feeling that I felt… the “Did I just make a mistake in hiring this person?”... is exactly the feeling that I want you to NEVER give your clients… and so… welcome to an episode all about setting up your onboarding process so you can turn strangers into clients with the least amount of effort on your part, but also, in a way that shows people you know what the hell you’re doing.

Get ready to portray confidence AND competence… it’ll go a really long way, trust me.

Okay. Are you ready?

We are starting with the moment that someone find you on social media ot lands on your website… all the way until when they sign the contract and pay your fee!

The very first thing that needs to happen is >> Someone finds you (maybe through a referral, maybe through a google search, or on social media… maybe through your blog or youtube channel… if you listened to episode 5 you learned all about blogs and youtube channels…)

So, they find you, they land on your website, and they decide, “Okay, I think I want to hire Kyleigh as my doula.”

The next thing that needs to happen, is you probably want to jump on a consultation call with this person. 

So, the very first question you need to consider is, do you want to send them straight to book a consultation with you? Or do you want them to email you first?

Option 1 is having them schedule a consultation right from your website… 

I use this option, and I embed my calendar using a tool called Calendly, and I embed that right onto my website.  

Option 2 is different. For option 2, you would have someone fill out a form on your website essentially saying “Hey, I’m interested” and then you email them back and forth and eventually set up a consultation or meet n’ great.

Option 2 would be better for you if you want to skip the phone call and jump straight to an in-person meeting. Option 2 might also be a good idea because it will immediately weed out some people who might not be a good fit for you.

For instance, if you’re sending people straight to a calendar to schedule a consultation… What if you’re already fully booked in November and December… you could have a bunch of people scheduling consultations with you for November and December due dates…. Well, that would obviously be a huge waste of their time if you’re going to just say, “Sorry, I can’t take you on”...

I've even had something happen where someone scheduled a consultation call with me and they were looking for in-person doula support… But they didn’t even live in the state that I live in. So essentially that would've been something that - if I had known - I wouldn't have scheduled a consultation call with them in the first place… 

Having that middle step where the fill out the form first, then you email back and forth, and then you set up a consultation, would make sure situations like that don’t happen.

But, I have to be honest, I like having them schedule a consultation call right away, straight from my website, that just feels better to me… But there’s no objectively better way. 

Inside Birthworker Academy, we dive really deep into how to set up that initial form on your website, and how to embed your calendar right on your website… unfortunately, those types of lessons are not podcast-friendly… because I have to share my screen on my computer to walk you through that… 

But let me just say, that my favorite way for people to submit forms is using a free software called AirTable…. So AirTable for the forms, and Calendly for the scheduling software… both of those can be embedded right into your Squarespace website, or even linked through your “LinkTree” on social media if you don’t have a website yet.

Though it’s true that a website will 100% make you seem more “professional,” everything we are talking about today can be done without a website… and without ANY paid subscriptions at all.

Okay, before we move on to the actual consultation call, just to recap, you need to decide if you want to have them fill out a form first (and then you’ll email them), or if you want to send them straight to the calendar so they can pick a date and time for a call with you.

And BTW, no matter which option you choose, you can totally automate some welcome emails on the back end… 

I’m going to link my tech stack in the show notes with all my tech recommendations… because there’s no way you’ll remember them all… but just know, and sorry, this might sound like gibberish… you can link your forms or your calendar to your email software using a platform called Zapier.

So as soon as they choose a date for a consultation, they would get a pretty email confirmation with more info… 

Ok… the next step is that you actually have a consultation with them!

This episode is more about the flow, so I won’t actually go into how to lead a killer consultation… but if that’s something that you’d like to learn about, shoot me a DM on Instagram @birthworkerpodcast and if a hand full of people are interest, maybe I’ll do a future episode about that, or an IG live or something. 

Ok, so you lead the consultation, 

The first thing I want to say about consultations is that… if you prefer to do it over the phone, do it over the phone…. If you prefer to do it on camera, then jump on zoom and do it on camera, if you want to meet them in person, go for it!

In my opinion, whichever way you feel most comfortable is what you should choose. 

I started off ONLY doing phone calls. It was before the pandemic so Zoom wasn’t as popular… but now I do about half on the phone and half on zoom, and VERY few in-person consultations. VERY few.

It’s important to know that the consultation is essentially a 2-way interview. You want to make sure that this person is a good fit for you just as much as they want to see if you’re the right doula for them!

Also. This is absolutely not an education session. This isn’t a coaching call. This is like a meet ‘n greet to see if you like each other, and an information session about your services.

After the consultation, I think it’s a great idea to text the person immediately and say, “Hey, it was so great to chat with you, I’ll send you an email soon”

Then, you should email them IMMEDIATELY, like, within the next 15-30 minutes. 

And this is a totally custom email… I don’t use a template for this email, and I don’t encourage my students to either… every single work should be personalized.

The gist of this email is to say:

1. Great meeting you
2. Here is an overview of what we chatted about, here is the package that we talked about on the consultation call, here is the price and payment plan options, and here is the contract. 
3. If you decide that I’m the right fit for you, let me know, and I’ll put together an invoice so we can get started.
4. Do you have any more questions?

And then you hit send and wait.

And sometimes they’ll text you back right away and say, “YES! Let’s do this!”... and sometimes a day goes by, and another, and another… and before you know it, it’s been a week and you haven’t heard anything. 

So here’s what I suggest you do… 

I would follow up with them again via email or text 4-7 days later.

Full disclosure: I don’t send any follow-up emails after that first immediate one. Would I get more clients if I did? You bet…. Why don’t I send another follow-up? I wish I had an answer for you… I just don’t.

But let me tell you… there have been multiple people over the years that send me and 3 weeks later saying “OMG I FORGOT, ARE YOU STILL AVAILABLE?”... so… take my advice… and send a second follow-up email. 

Before we talk about contracts and invoices, I want to share a little tip so you don’t drop the ball and forget to follow up with people. 

That thing called Zapier that I mentioned earlier… and again, this is linked in the free resource in the show notes… you can use Zapier to send you a reminder text after 1 week, to remind you to follow up with that client. 

Essentially, you tell Zapier, I want you to text me 7 days after every consultation and say, “Reminder: send a follow-up email to “NAME”?”

Zapier is free, you can set that up for free, and that one thing alone might secure you an extra handful of clients every single year!

With this second follow-up email – the one that you send if they haven't responded within 4-7 days – I would totally make a template for that. 

So, write up the email once, save it to a google doc in your google drive… and then copy and paste that into an email when you need it.

Little things like that only save you 15-30 minutes each time you need to send a follow-up email, but over the course of a year, that’s potentially dozens of hours that we just saved you by creating a template for that email, so you don’t have to write it out every single time. 

And all throughout this process, I’m keep track in AirTable, my management software. There have been weeks where I have had 10 inquiries in one week… there is no way in the WORLD that I would remember everyone’s names, who I’ve chatted with, which packages people were interested in, everyone's due dates, who I’ve already sent contracts to… I couldn’t remember any of that, so I don’t even try. 

I set it up in AirTable so I can easily track every single step of the process.

I wish this was a video show so I could actually pull up my AirTable and show you behind the scenes… because I swear, it runs my entire business. 

If you’re listening to this on your phone while you’re hanging out with the kids, or on a walk or something… just over to Instagram and send me a DM if you’re interested it all in action. 

Part of me wonders if anyone else geeks out over this stuff, and if you’re interested, maybe that’s something my team and I can put together as a mini-course or workshop for you. 

Alright... So now we’ve gotten to the point that this soon-to-be client says to you, “Okay, let’s do it! I am ready to move forward with this one specific package.”

And now we need to figure out, how do we collect money? And how do we coordinate the signing of contracts?

Up until this point, I want to be clear, that you are not this person’s doula yet. You’re not their doula until the contract is signed.

I like to see the contract and the payment as one step… because I don’t want them to sign the contract and pay the invoice on different days… I want it to all be done at the same exact time.

So this is how I do it, and I’m teaching you the same process that I teach the students inside Birthworker Academy, this is just the condensed version...

Okay, so, as soon as someone emails or texts me that they are ready to have me as their doula, I reply to their email and attach the contract as a PDF (the same contract I most likely sent them in that very first follow-up email). 

Now, I think that having a contract is a really important part of this whole process… not because it’s going to protect you from a negligence lawsuit because it most likely won't…

But having a contract is an amazing thing to reference when something comes up in terms of the support you're offering… So, in your contract, you can be clear about your role, and you can be clear about your boundaries so you can have something to go back to and point to when something comes up like a failed payment or a refund, or an unexpected scenario like a really short labor, or what happens if your client doesn’t call you during labor… all of those things go in your contract.

And I didn’t mention this earlier, but because your packages might change a little with each client that you have, you're probably gonna end up changing your contract a little bit for every single client based on the support they need and how their package ends up coming together.

I created my contract template in Canva, and even though my contract has totally evolved over the last few years, it’s still the same layout. 

And then with every single client, I go in and tweak things here and there to make it customized for that specific person.

So I customize the contract in Canva, I download it as a PDF, and I send them an email with that contract. I don’t sign it first, I send them a contract that I haven’t signed yet… 

Another side note: I also customize every single contract I send because I edit the contract to add the exact payment terms…. Like, how many payments are due and when. And I also have a line in my contract that essentially says, “This contract is void if the invoice has not been paid within 48 hours of signing the contract.” 

That lays the boundary, letting my clients know that they can’t sign the contract and wait a few weeks to pay the invoice… they need to sign and pay, and THEN we are officially in contract with each other.

Once they sign the contract and send it back to you, that’s when you're going to sign it and thenemail it right back to them… And now the contract is complete… 

And that’s when you send them their invoice.

You can set up your invoicing in a billion different ways… 

For my in-person doula clients, I typically send my invoices through PayPal. I use Paypal because it’s really easy to break the payments up into a payment plan… and it’s really nice to have all the analytics right in the PayPal Dashboard.

And… As soon as that payment is made and the contract is signed, they are official your client!

Which means it’s time to send an intake form. 

So, you’ve gone through the consultation, you’ve nailed down the package they want, you’ve both signed the contract, you’ve been paid… now it’s time for your new client to fill out an intake form.

Intake forms are amazing because they will help you know a ton of information about your new client without having to rapid-fire ask them a ton of questions.

Another thing that’s worth mentioning… If you don’t have something like this set up, once you have 10-20 clients at one time, forget it… it’ll be way too hard to remember everyone’s partner’s name, and address, and birth history, and all the details that you should know.

You can either automate this in your business, so when someone pays an invoice, they are automatically sent an email with a link to fill out the intake form… or you can just send them the link to the intake form in a text message as soon as their invoice gets paid.

I set up my intake forms in AirTable… and it’s essential a survey type thing, where I ask a ton of questions and then their answers get stored in a spreadsheet right in AirTable so they are super easy to find.

If you want to see what a survey form looks like inside of AirTable… I use this same type of form when you submit a review to this show. 

You already know that everyone who reviews this show can submit a screenshot of their review and get a free gift… and I have that whole process set up in an AirTable form…

So, if you go to Birthworker.com/review, you’ll see that it has my logo, and it has some questions like, “what’s your name,” “what’s your address,” “Where did you first hear about me?”... 

And how AirTable works, is that it takes all of those answers and pulls them into a massive spreadsheet. 

So, for your intake forms, of course,  you wouldn’t be asking them to upload a screenshot of their podcast review… but you can ask:

• Where did you hear about me?
• Have you given birth before?
• How many kids do you have and what are their names and ages?
• What's your partner’s name?
• Do you have any pets?
• What’s you address?
• Who is invited to your birth?
• Have you hired a medical team to support your birth?
• Why did you choose your planned birth location?

And one of the coolest things about these survey forms in AirTable is that you can set up what is called “conditions” which is going to be hard to explain on a podcast, but I’m gonna try…

Imagine one of the first questions you ask is, “Have you given birth before?”... You can have them select from multiple choices, like:

• Yes
• No… and maybe even 
• Yes, and it was a still birth or misscarriage

And then based on their answer to that one question, more questions are populated in the survey…

So if they say, “No, I haven’t given birth before”... you’ll skip all the questions that ask them about their past birth experiences…

Here’s another example… Maybe one of your questions is “Have you hired a medical team to support your birth?” And the answers they choose could be:

• Yes, an obstetrician
• Yes, a midwife
• No, but I’m still deciding
• No, and I don’t plan on it.

And again, based on their answer to that one question, AirTable will populate more questions. 

So, let’s say they chose, “No, but I’m still deciding on a medical support person”... 

You can then ask a question, like “Do you want help finding someone?”

Or if they said, “Yes, I hired an obstetrician,” maybe another question pops up, like, “What are the top reasons you chose to hire an obstetrician over a midwife?”

Do you get the point?

It’s really amazing, I’m freaking obsessed…

And the best part is, AirTable is totally free. 

Once they fill out the intake form… now you’ll be able to sit down and map out the best way that you can start supporting them from DAY ONE.

CLOSED LOOP:  

Now I want you to take a step back… and just think about this whole onboarding workflow…

It’s perfectly planned. There isn’t a single place that a prospective client would slip through the crack when you’ve set up your onboard system like this…

At no point are they going to say, “I’m confused about what’s next.”

At no point are they going to say, “Jeez, I feel like this doula is so unorganized.”

Yes, there are a lot of moving pieces here… but you now have the exact workflow. Step by step. A-Z… from the moment they land on your website all the way through until you receive that intake form with all of their information, so you can know how to serve them best. 

Not only will you look like a total pro, but you’ll give off an energy of confidence and competence. 

And damn, that goes a long way. 

If you’re already subscribed to the show, thank you, thank you! I appreciate you more than you know and I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you haven't subscribed yet, make sure you hit subscribe because next week, my guest is the #1 person I look up to in the maternity care space. She’s an author and her books actually changed the course of my life… I don’t even want to ruin the surprise, but holy crap… I was star-struck when she agreed to be on the show. Hit subscribe so you don’t miss it!

... and before you go, of course, you have to grab my free resource with ALL of my tech suggestions that we talked about today. You’ll find it in the show notes, or go to www.birthworker.com/tools to download what I call my 'TechStack' pdf… it’s a HUGE hit with the students inside Birthworker Academy and I know you’ll LOVE it.

Again, go to birthworker.com/tools and you’ll be able to see all of the systems I use behind the scenes in my business to make my life easier. I’m all about making life easier for me AND you, so we can spend more time doing what we love, and for me that means more time hanging out with my daughter. Alright, thank you so much for listening, I hope today was helpful for you, and I’ll see you again next week for an interview with the one and only, Henci Goer.