Hey there, birth nerd. You're listening to the Birthworker 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, profitable, and most importantly, impactful career. All right, let's get into it.

Welcome back to the Birthworker Podcast. You are listening to episode 25, and this is our second ever three in 15 episode where I am answering all of your best questions right here on the podcast. Now, if you haven't had a chance to submit your question for a podcast, you are not too late, so we are always asking for more questions. So just go to birthworker.com/ask and you can submit all your questions right there for me to answer right here on the podcast. You'll also find that link in the show notes, so just scroll down, click on the show notes, and you can go right there. So these three in 15 episodes are going to be my new favorite episode. And the reason is that this is the kind of stuff that I do inside my programs, getting on Zoom and actually helping people solve their problems, figure out strategy, figure out the next steps that they need to take in order to become doulas or grow wildly successful doula businesses.

And so, I actually meet with my communities. I meet with my VIP Mastermind on Wednesdays. It's just a small group of 10 women. We max it at 10 women right now, and so they're amazing. I meet with them every week on Wednesdays. I also meet with the Birthworker Membership. All of the members can come and ask me questions on Thursdays and then Thursdays, I also do sessions like these on Zoom face-to-face with the students in Birthworker Academy. So I just have so much fun doing that with my students that I wanted to bring these sessions to you guys, let you submit your own questions at birthworker.com/ask and answer your questions right here on the podcast. So go submit your question.

We have three awesome questions lined up for today. We are going to be talking about climbing the Birthworker ladder. We're going to be talking about Etsy shops and email lists. So there's going to be a little bit for everyone no matter where you are in your journey to becoming a doula or growing your doula business, maybe you're even taking your business online, already creating that passive income. Keep listening because you will get something amazing out of this episode.

So the first question is from Natalie. And Natalie says, "As a newbie, I feel like I have to earn my way to the top by attending as many different kinds of birth as possible, but I would really rather only take home birth clients. So do you have any advice?" I love this question. I love this question because when I was a newbie, Natalie, I felt like that too. And I don't know if I was feeling pressure just from the doula industry as a whole, or just from the birth community or maybe just from my doula training mentor, the woman who mentored me. I don't know, maybe I felt this pressure. And so my biggest advice for you, Natalie, is literally starting today. Even though you're a newbie, I want you to only attend the births that are a hell yes for you. I want you to only attend the births that you want to attend with your perfect client.

And so if that means that you only take home births from the very start, 100% do that, right? Because you cannot serve your clients if that is not a 100% full body yes from you. You can't. And so if you are attending a birth because you feel like you have to, or even if you're attending a birth just because you want to get the experience, you would be bringing that energy into the birth, which is not serving your client, it's not serving moms. And so, throughout birth work, throughout everything that I do, throughout everything that I train, the doulas that I train, I always want to come back to this question of is what we are doing truly serving the women who hire us? And if a woman was to hire you, Natalie, to go to her hospital birth, and you kind of had this piece of you where you were like, "I don't really want to do that," that is not truly serving that mother.

So rather than you trying to change yourself, and rather than me telling you, "Natalie, change yourself, get comfortable with hospital birth, doulas have to attend hospital birth." That would not be in alignment with my values. And I don't think that would be serving anyone. Not you, not your clients, not me, nobody. So something else that I want to say is that even the people who have attended hundreds of births have still never attended this one new client's birth. Every single birth is so different. And so I want to put that into your head too, that literally no amount of experience makes you more qualified than you are right now. Because even if you go to thousands of births, you have never been to this client's birth. That client's birth only happens once. No one has ever been there. No amount of experience that you have is going to make you more qualified than you are right now to support that client.

So that's just something that I wanted to make clear. And also you should never feel like you have to earn your way to the top. And I might even go as far to say that there's a doula for everyone. I could look at someone and my bias could be, "Wow, that person is a horrible doula. I would not want them at my birth. I would not want them at my worst enemy's birth." But to be honest, who's to say that that's not the perfect doula for someone on this planet? So I think you never have to earn your way to the top, but I think the way that you do get to the top is by serving women who you are 100% aligned with, serving women in a way that feels 100% authentic to you. So that is my advice for you.

The next question is from Lauren. And Lauren says, "I kind of want to start an Etsy shop for my doula business. Do you have any tips for what kinds of things that I could make or sell?" Now, I love talking about selling digital products. My first online offer that made me, let's say $10,000, was a digital download. And so a lot of people would say, "Oh, Etsy, right? You sell digital downloads on Etsy." And it is true that Etsy can be awesome in some ways. For instance, it brings a lot of traffic. It potentially, let's say potentially brings a lot of traffic to your offers that are on that platform. But with that comes actually a lot of downfalls. And so a big one is the commission, the percentages that they take. And so what I actually do and what I teach my students is to grow an audience on social media.

And so you don't have to rely on the algorithm of Etsy to send people to your little offer there, but grow an audience on social media and then sell directly to that audience from your website, from social media. And so you don't need this third party thing like Etsy to sell digital downloads. And so I know that wasn't even really your question, Lauren, but I just want to say, because if I'm even talking about Etsy, I have to mention that you might be better off and you can do just as well if you just sell from your website. And so, do I have any tips for things that you can make or sell? Hell yes. First of all, I do have to say I have a lot of these tips in a free guide that I have on my website. You can also find it in the show notes, but just go to the show notes.

I call it my Make Money Freebie because it's 11 ways to make money as a birth worker when you're not on call. And something that I talk about in that freebie is this, is selling digital downloads. So go check out that freebie if you haven't gotten it yet. And even honestly, if you've gotten it before, I just redid it, so maybe go grab it again. But things that you could make or sell would be maybe birth plan templates, affirmation cards. And to be honest, Lauren, you could even sell something for doulas. So maybe you want to sell printable handouts for doulas that they can give their clients, or you could even sell those directly to moms, right? Here are printables of the pros and cons of all these different interventions. And so, all of those are really awesome ideas. When we're talking about Etsy, I feel like long form e-books are not going to do as well as maybe quick one page, let's say birth affirmation printouts.

But when you actually sell from your website, I think it's much easier to sell the bigger ticket, more expensive e-book type of offer than just a one-page printable, let's say birth affirmations that they can cut out and tape on their wall. And so, I just want to mention to you that getting someone from... Let's say taking someone from being a brand-new doula who does not offer any services yet, doesn't have any package, doesn't have any online offers, to someone who attends one to two births per month, maybe one to three births per month, but also has that recurring passive income, let's say two grand per month. Taking someone from that, from zero to two grand passive through digital offers, plus attending births when they want, that is my bread and butter. That is exactly the kind of person I help.

And so, I just wanted to say before we go on, because we're talking about creating digital products, of course I have to mention that so many things need to happen first. You need to get consistent on social media, you need to be growing your email list. You need to be putting out weekly long form content. And so that's why this topic is my favorite because so many people come to me and say, "Kyleigh, I want to create that recurring passive income online as a birth worker. Let me just make something and put it up there." And that's where I say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, awesome. That's a really great goal, but let me help you do all these foundational things first. So it's actually one sustainable, but two, you are actually going to make a profit and continue to grow rather than just creating an offer, putting it on your website and maybe selling one to two per month because you don't have any strategy there."

All right, let me reel it back in. And let's jump to question number three. And question number three is from Erica. And Erica says, "How should I structure my email list and online offers when I coach both pregnant women and postpartum women? They have very different desires, so I feel like I need a way to track who's currently pregnant and who already had their baby." Now, this is more of an advanced question and of course these kinds of questions are my favorite because I'm a total strategy nerd and online business nerd. But I think it's really cool to answer these kinds of questions on this podcast because even if you're just starting out, you need to understand this kind of big picture strategy so you can get to where you want to go much faster with a whole lot less stress, wasting a whole lot less money than I wasted when I was learning.

So even if you don't have an email list, keep listening because I think this is going to be really helpful for you. And so Erica, what I do and what I teach all my students inside all of my programs is that when we are creating email lists, we want to have a field where people can actually enter their due date. And so when they sign up to your email list, you're going to be getting their due date. And now you can actually track on your email list who's potentially pregnant still, who's probably not pregnant still. And then you can actually create content for those two different groups of people. Now, I don't want you to feel like you have to have two whole separate businesses. So I don't want you to send two weekly newsletters, one to pregnant women, one to postpartum women.

I want you to find a way to create content that is interesting for both of those people, especially since you have offers that serve both of those people. But I definitely think it's a good idea when you're running promotions, to segment some people out. So for instance, if I'm doing a sale of my birth course, Autonomous Birth Academy, let's say I'm sending 10 emails over one week, I'm not going to send all 10 emails to everyone on my list because I have a pretty good idea that half the people on my email list actually aren't even pregnant. Now, does that mean that I'm never sending emails to them because they're not pregnant? No, not at all. Because people get pregnant again very fast after having their babies. And two, maybe they're going to tell their friends. And so, when I'm doing that launch and I'm sending 10 emails over seven days, I'll probably send three of them to my whole list.

Everyone, no matter if they're pregnant or not or when their due date is, and I'll just send the rest of them just to those people who I know are still pregnant or who I can guess are still pregnant. Because babies always come early, there's always losses. So we have to take that into account too. Now, another couple things that are really cool about tracking due dates of people who get on your email list. Well, one of the big ones is that you can actually do promotions based on when people are giving birth. So for instance, if you're tracking someone's due date, and let's say you have a online course that's perfect for breastfeeding the week following birth, you can actually see these people's due dates and you can say, "Okay, if their baby's due on this day, two weeks before that, I'm going to actually automate an email sequence that does a promotion of this course that's going to be perfect for this woman two weeks from now."

And so, that's something that I've done in my entire business. So I have an offer that's perfect for people in the third trimester. And so I do a promotion to them two weeks before their third trimester. Brilliant, right? And the same, I have postpartum courses. I do another promotion one or two weeks before their due date. And so, that's just a really cool way that we can start to segment our audience, give people things that they're actually interested in instead of just sending our emails, for instance to our entire list. So that's something that's really cool. And actually, segmenting by due date is not the only way you can segment. So you might even have people check a box if they're having a home birth. Maybe you have a bunch of courses and one of them is perfect for home births. Have them check that box. Now you only are going to promote that course to the people who've opted in and said they're having a home birth, right? So brilliant.

Now, if you haven't already left a rating and review for the show, that is hands down the best way to support the show. And then after you leave a review, don't forget to snap a pick and upload it at birthworker.com/review because I want to send you a little gift as a thank you. And hey, I just want to say that if you were listening to this episode and you were thinking, "Oh my God, Kyleigh, I want you to answer my questions every single day so I can do this faster and stop stressing out." Or if you were thinking, "Oh my God, Kyleigh, I so badly want to package up my obsession for birth and find a way to make money even when I'm not on call and impact lives and births of moms all across the world, not just in my local community." If that is you, and if you have been thinking, "I'm ready to build a freaking legacy," then I want you to go into the show notes and click the button to learn more about the Birthworker Membership.

If you are ready to go from side gig doula to full-time birth worker, and if you're ready to quit your second job, stay home with your kids and impact lives across the world, then this membership is for you. And it is especially for you if you love these Friday episodes where I am answering your questions because that is exactly the kind of support you get inside the Birthworker Membership. Not only do you get access to my comprehensive business course... Comprehensive, it's like a college education, I swear. Not only do you get that, and not only do you get a community with almost 100 other amazing birth workers who are also entrepreneurs, but you get my eyes on your work, you can ask me any question you want to ask me live on Zoom or even in our private community.

And so, you don't have to wait for these Friday episodes anymore. You don't have to submit your question for the podcast anymore because you can ask me personally inside the Birthworker Membership. So when you're ready for that, when you're ready to start growing online offers in your business so you can make money even when you're not on call, click the link in the show notes, check out the membership and see if it's a good fit for you. All right, thank you so much for listening. I hope today was helpful for you and I will see you again next week.