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.

Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Birthworker podcast. You're listening to Episode 29, and I am super excited for today's episode because we are talking about huge mistakes when starting your doula business. And when I planned out this episode, I called it Avoid These Three Huge Mistakes When Starting Your Doula Business. But actually, as I started to get into it, I came up with just, honestly, dozens of things that a lot of new doulas do wrong. So we're actually going to change it to five. We're changing it to five as I'm recording this. And so here are five huge mistakes that you need to try and avoid when starting your doula business. And let's just jump right into it.

And so the very first one, this is something that you need to let go of. You need to stop doing. Especially... Well, I wanted to say especially if you're a new doula, but no. No matter where you are in your doula journey. And number one is you need to let go of this idea that everybody needs a doula. If you believe that everybody needs a doula, that inherently creates a power imbalance. It immediately creates a power imbalance that puts the pregnant woman in need. She's lacking. She needs something in order to have a good experience. She needs something outside of herself to even give birth. Everybody needs a doula. It sounds good in theory. I'm sure I spouted that crap when I started.

But now that I've just been a doula for longer and I'm starting to train doulas, and I'm in the community for several years now, I just hear people say, everybody needs a doula. And I'm just like, that's not true. I didn't have a doula. I didn't need a doula. I am a doula, but nobody needs me. Nobody needs my help to give birth. And plus, not everybody wants a doula, so why would we tell someone what she needs, or even that she needs something, when she doesn't even want it? Talk about a freaking ego trip, thinking what's best for other people. That sounds super shady, doesn't it? So start thinking about it that way. Nobody needs a doula. And the sooner that you can embody that and see that as a fact, you'll actually be a better doula. And you know what? I bet you'll actually find more clients. I bet you'll find more clients if you stop saying that everybody needs a doula.

The second thing that I want you to avoid when you're starting your doula business, and again, this isn't just for new doulas, so this could absolutely be for you if you've been a doula for a while. So I want you to avoid making your doula packages without any thought about the transformation that the mother is going to go through as she's giving birth, or preparing to give birth. So in most doula training programs, most status quo doula training programs, they teach you exactly how to package your services. So it's like, okay, three prenatals, plus birth support, plus one postpartum visit for this price. And it's very cookie cutter. So I just want you to forget what your doula training program taught you, and I want you to ask yourself, what do I want to do? What do I want to do as a doula? What transformation do I want to take people through? And then I'm asking you, what do you need to offer women to actually help them through that transformation?

And a lot of times it does not look like the status quo birth package that your doula training program taught you. A lot of times it does not look like two prenatals plus birth support and one postpartum visit, or something similar to that. A lot of times if you're actually putting thought into making your packages and you're really thinking about the transformation that you want your clients to go through, your doula packages will be months and months and months long. You will work with that person on a one-to-one basis, often. You will help guide them through a very specific transformation, either through one-on-one coaching, or maybe giving them access to a prerecorded childbirth education course or mindset based course. And it'll include way more value and way more depth than just a couple prenatal appointments, where we chat about what your goals are and what interventions you want to say no to.

So when you're making your packages, I really want you to avoid ignoring the actual transformation that you want to help your clients through. And again, I've said this in several of the past episodes, and I probably tell my students this all the time, but this is the future of birth work. This is the future of doula work, is that people have a lot more options when they're choosing their doula. And so if they have to choose between a doula who offers two or three prenatals plus birth and one postpartum visit, or a doula who offers 12 months of continuing support with monthly one-on-one coaching calls, access to several prerecorded online courses, maybe virtual mother circles where you can meet the other clients or students, which doula are you going to choose?

Especially if you vibe with both of them and everything else is the same besides that package, you are going to go for the one who has that package. As a mom, you would go for the one who has the package that is really based around that transformation that you want to happen. And for a lot of people, that transformation looks like releasing, or integrating, or overcoming your fear of birth, letting go of all the anxiety around your upcoming birth, feeling confident to say, "F you" to people are trying to coerce you into making decisions based on what they want, and understanding, maybe, the flaws of the maternity care system. All of that can go into that transformation. It doesn't have to be as basic as just talking about interventions you want to avoid. There's so much more behind that. So we need to make our packages with that transformation in mind.

All right, let's jump into number three, and this next one, it's a huge mistake that so many people make and I really want you to avoid it. And that is being a doula who tries to serve everybody. Now, a lot of new doulas start their businesses and they just try to serve everyone. They're like, I'm an abortion doula, and a preconception doula, and I'm going to lead fertility classes for teenagers, and I'm going to do fertility awareness method with moms, and I'm also going to attend birth, and I'm going to do postpartum stuff. And also, I'm going to teach newborn care, and cloth diapering, and baby wearing, and mother circles, and all these things. I'm going to serve everyone. And first of all, that sounds like a lot. That really sounds like a lot. That was hard to even just say that. I have very few offers in my business, and man, I am tired. I do not have time for a lot of the things that I would love to have time for.

Caveat to that is that I am building a freaking empire. I want this business to be a multimillion dollar, dozens of staff, every doula in the entire world comes to us for some sort of support. That's the kind of vision I have. That's the business I'm building. So it's very different than the business you are building in 99.99% of cases, I'm guessing. But anyway, stop with this idea that we are trying to serve everyone, or that doulas need to serve everyone. As new doulas we're constantly told everyone needs a doula, which sometimes our brain processes, if everyone needs a doula, that means I have to serve everyone. Or even, it's just so exciting to start a new business and you have all these ideas, and you don't really have that strategy yet to understand which of these ideas are actually useful for you or your clients, or helpful, or even possible, or worth it from a time investment, depending on how much money you're going to get back from it.

So it is hard as a new doula. I totally understand that. But the thing here is that we do not need to be serving everyone. So okay, what should it look like instead? If we are not trying to serve everyone, what should this actually look like? And this is what I walk my students through inside Birthworker Academy, my doula training program. And it's a step-by-step process to get very clear on who is your exact perfect client. If you could work with anybody in the world, who would you work with? That is the question I want you to ask yourself. And maybe even, if you're not driving, or if you're not at the gym, or listening to this while you're cooking dinner, grab a piece of paper and start jotting down some notes, or hit pause and start writing some notes. If you could work with your perfect client, what would that person look like? What would that relationship look like? What would the services you offer them look like?

And do that. Do that instead. Change your messaging and marketing to speak to that specific person, and you will find them and they will find you. And you can literally curate your dream business where you are only serving the perfect people. The people that can afford you, the people that know what a doula is, the people that already stand up for themselves so they don't need your help. That would be mine. That would be my perfect person. The person who really doesn't have a lot of questions because they just trust birth. The person who's going to pay in full upfront, not be late on payment plans. The person who is not going to ask me to save them because they already know that they have everything inside of themselves. That's the kind of birth that I want to attend.

And I didn't call that in at the beginning. No, I did not. I got very lucky and majority of the births that I've attended have been just so fun for mom and for me. And even if mom ended up with pushing for 20 hours and a transfer to the hospital, a lot of times we can still look at each other and be like, holy shit, that was crazy but you did it, and we're good. You're good. Here we are. Anyway, so as time has gone on, I have just been more and more clear about the clients I'm calling in. And for me, it started with trying to serve everyone. Obviously. I was like, let's do all these different packages and, hey, let's support people, let's support teenagers who get pregnant, and let's go to jail and support births, and let's do abortion support, and let's have all these different packages, and all these different education packages. And again, it's just not super helpful trying to serve everyone.

I could go on and on about nicheing, and I think I have an episode coming up soon about choosing your niche and the importance of nicheing down. But really when it comes down to it, if you're trying to serve everyone, then it's not a really convincing argument for people to hire you. Me, Kylie, Kyleigh Banks, I just found out I'm pregnant, by the way. I just found out, I don't know, yesterday or something. So Kyleigh Banks, pregnant, when I'm looking for support for me, do I want to go to the doula who serves everyone? F no. There's nothing I want less. That sounds horrible. I don't want to go to the doula who supports hundreds of hospital births per year. No, I'm planning a free birth in Costa Rica. I want to hire the doula who works with people who want to free birth in Costa Rica. And if that person exists, please reach out to me, because that would be cool as hell. If that person doesn't exist, I don't blame them because that is a really small niche.

But I'm just saying if that person existed, that would be my perfect doula. So I don't want to hire the person who's good at everything, because when you're good at everything, are you really actually that good at any of them? I want to hire the person who's very, very specific to the kind of support I want. And that's what a lot of moms are like. That's just how it is in general. Let's say you have a heart condition, and I tell this exact story inside Birthworker Academy. Birthworker Academy, by the way, comes with just a comprehensive education. Everything from self-mastery, which we'll probably talk about when I talk about the next couple things that you should avoid, here in this episode. But self-mastery, birth theory, so what is actually going on in the body? What is going on in obstetrics? What's going on in the world? Birth support, so how do you actually be a doula? How do you actually support someone? And then business.

So it's a comprehensive business education too. So everything from choosing your in-person packages and making your contract, but all the way to building a killer website that actually converts, creating a freebie, getting consistent on social media, creating your first mini offers like mini course, or audio affirmations, or an eBook or something like that. So it's really, really comprehensive. Anyway, in there I go on a whole tangent. There's a whole module on choosing your niche, essentially. And one of the stories I say is that, if you come down with a super rare heart condition, are you just going to go to the general practitioner at the little local clinic down the road? Or are you going to search out the best, if you have the means, of course, because F insurance and just healthcare in general. "Healthcare".

Are you going to go to the general practitioner at the clinic down the street, or are you going to search for the person who knows all about your one very specific rare condition? And are you going to do everything to go find them because you know that they can actually help you? Duh, it is a no-brainer. Like why even ask that question? It is very obvious. So that's what I want you to do. I want every single person listening to this to get extremely freaking clear about who it is you want to serve and how you want to serve them, and then build your business around that. Build all of your packages, your messaging, your website, your Instagram, your social, all around that, and speak directly to that one person. So that's what it should look like instead. Stop trying to serve everyone, get very clear on your ideal client.

All right, number four. So here is another thing that you have to avoid when starting your doula business, and that is forgetting to work on yourself. I see so many doulas, especially new doulas, or newer doulas, or doulas who are not fully booked yet or fully at their capacity yet. I see them trying to learn more about birth and take more certification programs about birth, or postpartum, or sleep, or breastfeeding, or whatever. But I very rarely, and I'm talking very rarely, potentially never, see them actually investing in themselves. See them working on themselves. See them investing in, I don't know, courses, coaching, therapy, to deal with their own triggers, to release some of the stuff that they're carrying, the baggage that they're carrying. To be able to show up to a room with a woman giving birth and not project your crap onto her. Because that's hard, man. That's not something that you can just do without conscious awareness and conscious effort to actually make that happen.

It's like exercise. You got to keep working on it. You got to keep working on your self-awareness, and your ability to sit with your triggers and not be reactive, and your ability to have conversations and be in a relationship with people who disagree with you, but still respect them. All of that comes really hard for most people. And I'm a millennial, and I don't know if you're a millennial too, but I feel like we were raised with me, me, me, I, my feelings matter more than anyone else's, and how dare you disrespect me, and I'm really important, and I need a trophy. You probably know exactly what I'm talking about. So for us, and honestly even for the younger generations, it's like we really, really got to do some work here. Because if we're not careful and if we're just surrounding ourselves with the average group of our friends, there are going to be some people who are extremely triggered, extremely reactive, and we're going to soak up a lot of that by spending time with them.

So something that I see new doulas do, and it's a huge mistake, is that they forget to actually work on themselves. They're too busy trying to learn about birth, learn about being a doula, learn about postpartum and breastfeeding. It's like, okay, let's slow down a little bit and learn how to sit with our triggers. Let's slow down a little bit and learn how to not save women, and how to advocate for women without putting them into a victim role. So much fun. This is the entire first pillar of Birthworker Academy, it's that self-mastery stuff. And once you've nailed that, and I'm actually going to be talking about this in Friday's episode, today's Wednesday, so in just a few days. So I actually won't even go down that rabbit hole. You're going to have to wait until Friday to hear what I'm going to say about that.

Okay. Let's jump onto number five. And so this is something that you need to avoid when starting your doula business. You need to stop thinking that the only way that you can serve women is if you're actually in the room when they give birth. And oh my God, if all the doula training programs around the world were honest about this one thing, there would be a massive revolution in the way that we support women through the perinatal period, seriously. Because instead of most doula training programs saying, hey, by the way, you don't have to actually attend someone's birth to impact their lives. If they said that instead of everybody needs a doula, everybody deserves a doula, there should be a doula at every single person's birth. It's like, okay, that that's not helpful. And remember, we talked about that. Not everyone even wants a doula. So imagine telling someone what they need when they're very clearly aware that that's just not something they want or need.

Anyway, lots of rants today. I hope you guys like it. So thinking the only way that you can serve women is if you're actually in the room when they give birth. And I see new doulas doing this all over the place, not a lot of the ones that come to me, because the ones that come to me, I think they already understand what I'm about to tell you. And I think that's why they choose my programs and my offers, whether it's Birthworker Academy or our childbirth educator program coming up. But I just put so much emphasis on how a doula or just a birthworker can change a woman's life through every single stage in the tiniest little ways, even. You don't have to be at someone's birth to change their life. It could look like a conversation in the DMs on social media that just blows her world open and changes her life. Just a free conversation, just strangers chatting in the DMs.

It could look like a paid workshop online, a virtual workshop. You could absolutely change someone's entire life from that. Maybe it's coaching, maybe it's DM support. Maybe you want to make an eBook. Maybe people come to you all the time with questions and the people say, I don't actually want a doula. I have all these friends and family and I feel good, but I still want help releasing my birth fears. If people come to you like that, awesome, make a resource for them. You don't have to say, oh, I understand that you really want help integrating your birth fears, but I only offer in-person support, so unless I can actually be in the room when you push a baby out, I'm not able to help you. Doesn't that sound really ridiculous? Yes.

And how about instead, anybody in the world could come to you and you may have an offer for them, you may not. Maybe you're only teaching about VBACs, and so someone comes to you and has a question about a first time free birth, and you're like, you know what? I'm probably not the person for you. Why don't you go check out Kyleigh, or Sarah, or whoever it is. But what happened in my business and where my world completely changed, not just financially, but in terms of impact too, is where I was growing this audience online and people would come to me asking questions, and I kept saying, no, I'm in Florida. I only do in person birth support in Florida. So sorry, I can't help you. I stopped doing that and I started thinking to myself, hey, I actually don't have to actually attend their birth to impact their lives.

So why don't I actually create some offers that are for people who either, one, don't want a doula because maybe there's enough people in the room already, or two, they already have a doula, but still, they love the way I educate and they love my vibe and what I teach, that they want to come learn from me. And now, and for about two years now, those people can come to me and I have offers for them. I no longer turn them away and say, I only do in-person support, or I only can help you if you allow me to be in the room with you. That's so ridiculous. And especially me. I didn't want a doula. I didn't have a doula. I took all the courses, I read all the books, I did all the audio affirmations and meditations. I had a great experience. And so that's also my bias, is that people can have amazing births without a doula, but also that doesn't mean that they have to do it completely on their own.

And so instead of thinking that the only way that you can serve women is if you're actually in the room with them when they give birth, instead, I want you to start thinking, what are the infinite ways that you could actually impact someone's life to help them have an empowered, amazing, autonomous birth experience without you actually being in the room when they give birth to a baby? And again, that could look like workshops, eBooks, one-on-one coaching, texting support, group programs, mother circles, comprehensive prerecorded online courses. There are so many options, so many options. And a lot of times when I tell doulas this, actually, the doulas that I've been mentoring over the last year... I've mentored, let me do some math, 250 new doulas have been through my doula training program this year, Birthworker Academy. It started this year in June, so it's only been around for six months. Holy crap. That is so cool. 250 women, I can't believe that.

But anyway, they would come to me and they would say, I have this dream of educating women and teaching women beyond supporting them in person. Or I have a dream of creating a resource where all my in-person clients, they get this comprehensive resource where it's all these pre-recorded videos, or eBooks, or audio meditations like we said, and they can get access to them as my in-person client. But what happens is that a lot of women look at that and they feel like they're standing at the bottom of Mount Everest looking up, and they're like, oh, no, I do not have time to put together a curriculum. How the hell am I supposed to script out videos, and film videos, and make slide decks, and then promote this thing, and make sales pages? And a lot of people look at that and just say, that is not what I want to sign up for. The process of it is too much.

They dream so hard about having this semi-passive type of online program, or they dream so hard of teaching live workshops every month to a room of 100 people who each paid 50 bucks to be there. They dream of that, but when they look at the steps that it takes to get there, they are paralyzed and they just don't move forward. Or they were like I was, where they dream and dream and dream, and take notes and take notes, and fill all these notebooks, but then nothing actually happens because you're just running in circles. You're just so excited, but you don't actually know the framework to actually putting it into practice and actually making something. So when I saw that and when I just heard my students say that over and over and over, I knew that the next thing I had to do was create a childbirth educator program. And not necessarily a childbirth educator program to qualify people to be childbirth educators, but really a program that someone can come into, someone with no prior experience, or maybe a doula with a ton of prior experience, can come in.

And here's where our childbirth educator program is different, because we are including not only the foundational stuff that you need to learn in order to be a childbirth educator, like how does birth actually work? And not only are we including how to run your childbirth educator business, for instance, how to actually choose what you want to do. Do you want to have eBooks? Do you want to do mini courses, workshops, group programs? What do you want to do? How to decide all of that, how to name your courses, and price everything, and build your funnel, all of that really fun stuff. But the thing that makes us entirely different is that you're actually getting our entire proven childbirth education curriculum that you can use, you can take, you can put your logo right on it, and you can sell like it's yours, and you can teach like it's yours.

So again, not only are you getting a comprehensive education on how to be a childbirth educator, but you could literally pull up or print out scripts, word-for-word scripts, slides on Canva, and PDF handouts too, PDF handouts for your clients. And you can literally print those off and host a workshop the following weekend. You can read our scripts word-for-word if you want to. Our childbirth education is 10 modules long, and you don't have to teach it in any particular order. You can pick and choose. You can take what you want, you can leave what you don't like. You can add your spice to it. And that's actually what I would really love to see, is to see you take our childbirth educator program, take our curriculum, see where it falls short for your liking, and add some of your spice to it. For instance, my childbirth education program that I've created, it's an entire curriculum, and that's what you're getting access to. It's rooted in autonomy and it's rooted in mindset.

So that's the curriculum you're buying, and it covers everything from prenatals, to fear, to mindset, to building your autonomy, to understanding your options, writing your birth plan, figuring out your support team, postpartum, nutrition, literally all of it. But here's the thing, the curriculum's rooted in autonomy and mindset. Again, let's just say you're a VBAC coach. We used that earlier today. You're a VBAC coach. If you come in, you could easily spend one week, add a VBAC twist to the entire curriculum and teach it as your own, and put your logo on it, and teach it as your own. And that does not exist in the childbirth education space right now, an entire program with a curriculum and a comprehensive business education. So once you make whatever it is that you want to make you actually know how to sell it. How to actually earn money very quickly, as fast as possible, I'm willing to say. Because I'm giving you step-by-step, what to do to actually get this into your client's hands.

So I'm super excited about it. Our childbirth education program is going to be, I think, the thing that actually impacts the most lives worldwide. The thing that I've created that actually impacts the most lives worldwide. The entire thing is proven. I have taught it and sold it as my own childbirth education curriculum for the past two years. I have had several clients reach out to me, really, really sad that I was closing all of my personal programs. Because they said, Kyleigh, nobody out there is teaching childbirth education rooted in autonomy and mindset, and rooted in trust for mom to make her own freaking decisions. And so I had clients reach out that were actually really sad, and I told them, well, guess what? I'm not just closing my programs. I am closing my personal programs and rewriting my curriculum in a way that I can actually give it to childbirth educators and they can teach their clients. So my impact is going from impacting a thousand lives per year to now potentially impacting hundreds of thousands of lives in 2023.

So, to say I'm excited is the biggest understatement of the year. Our program is going to open for pre-sale on February 6th for five days only. It's going to be half off. And then after that pre-sale, I'm going to get busy putting these final touches on the program, and it is going to be available for you guys in its entirety in April. That's when you would get access to the entire program, all of the curriculum, and all of that. So if you already know that you want to offer some form of childbirth education this year or in the next five years, if that's part of your goal, and I don't even think it has to be a prerecorded comprehensive course, so I'm going to help you and I'm going to give you the curriculum to make an eBook, to make a workshop, to make a group coaching program, to make a prerecorded course or a mini-course. It can look so many different ways.

And that's actually something we're going to cover inside the Childbirth Educator Training Program, because I don't expect you to know right off the bat which one you want to create. Of course not. You need to learn about all of them first. So I'll be sharing about all of that, and really throughout that program, helping you curate your dream offering or offerings, or even an offer stack, an entire funnel. Maybe you want to make an eBook, and a mini course, and a comprehensive course. Hell yeah. I am literally your person. Please come join our communities. I cannot tell you how much you will absolutely love it. So put February 6th on your calendar. That's when we are starting again. If your dream is to make any sort of online or virtual offering, package, course in the next couple of years, you need to jump on this childbirth educator training program, and especially on February 6th, when it is literally half price.

Everything that you're getting took me over 800 hours to put together. And that is not an exaggeration. That is probably an underestimate, if I'm completely honest, especially now that just my whole team is working on really perfecting everything and getting all of these PDFs and slides and scripts ready for you. So not only is it 800 hours of my work that went into this, but it's also dozens and dozens, and probably hundreds of my team's hours going into this too. So I cannot wait to show you what's inside. And if you want to actually get a sneak peek of all of the different lessons and modules that are going to be in the Childbirth Educator program, just go to birthworker.com/waitlist. And if you're listening to this episode months from now, this is not going to be there anymore because the program is going to be live and you can go get it.

But right now, if you're listening before January 6th, go to birth worker.com/waitlist, get on the wait list to get more information about the Childbirth Educator Training Program. And when you do that, when you enter your email, we're going to send you an email with the sneak peek inside. And the amount of DMs that I've gotten after people saw the sneak peek, and they literally were speechless when they came to me. Yeah. Countless, just absolutely countless. I know it's something that the majority of my students already, inside the Birthworker Academy and the Birthworker membership, they're really excited to jump on it. So I cannot wait to share that with you too. If you are not a member in any of our programs yet, I think you are going to have your mind just absolutely blown, and I have a feeling that you'll be staying in our communities for a while after you join this program.

All right. I will see you back on Friday with our three in 15 episode. Every Friday I answer three of your questions in 15 minutes or less. Everything from supporting birth, becoming a doula, all the way through building your offers, and your funnels, and business, and taxes, and everything in between. And for those episodes, you can actually submit your questions. I'm legitimately answering your questions. So if you want to submit a question for Friday's episode, go to birthworker.com/ask, and that is where you can type in your question and I will answer it for you. All right, before you go today, remember to check out the show notes or go to birthworker.com/waitlist. Get on that wait list, check out that sneak peek to see all of the modules and lessons inside our childbirth educator program.

And hey, if you already know you're in, if you're already like, hell yeah, February 6th cannot come soon enough, send me a DM on Instagram. I would love to thank you and chat with you, and maybe answer any last questions you have, maybe about the pricing or payment plans or anything like that. So shoot us a DM. Just say hello. Let us know you're interested in the Childbirth educator program. Let us know you're on the wait list. And I can seriously not wait. All right, everyone. I will see you right back here on Friday. Have a good one.