Hey there, birth nerd. You're listening to the Birthworker Podcast. My name is Kyleigh Banks. I am totally obsessed with birth, and equally obsessed with business. 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.

You're listening to episode 32 of the Birthworker Podcast. Welcome back to another three in 15 episode, where I answer three of your questions in 15 minutes or less, sometimes. Well, I'll try. Let's just say that. Today, I just got back from camping with a handful of my friends, and my students, my students turned friends, I guess, and I had such a blast. It just got me thinking how much I actually want to do in-person retreats, and I totally see that as part of my business in the future. I envision all inclusive week-long retreats, where we can do maybe a doula crash course or a separate one that's like a business crash course. What better place to do it than Costa Rica, right? Can you imagine spending a week in Costa Rica, where you can bring your partner and your kids, and you can spend the mornings relaxing on the beach or touring the jungles? And then we can just spend the evenings together, piecing together your dream doula business, or your dream childbirth educator business. I don't know.

I'm so excited. I am so freaking excited. All I have to say is that I hope this wild Costa Rica dream works out for me, because I can't think of a better way to honestly spend my life, raising bilingual kids on the beach, and working alongside and teaching passionate, visionary women like you, how to support birth and how to build a thriving business. Pinch me, seriously, that is my dream. Before I get into today's questions, before I answer today's three questions, I just want to let you know that next week, the doors are actually opening to our childbirth educator program. For five days next week, you can jump in as a founding member, and you can save 50%. Just make sure you get on the wait list ASAP, and you'll see a link right below this in the show notes, or you know where to find me.

You can just go to Instagram Birthworker Podcast, or The Autonomy Mommy, send me a DM and I'll get you the link. And then get excited, get excited for Monday. Monday, February 6th, we're in 2023, in case you're listening to this years from now. That is the day that all of the details will be available for you, so Monday, February 6th. All right. Let's jump into today's episode. The very first question is from Haley. Haley said, "I'm really struggling with the idea that having more doulas in the world is a good thing. How do I stop worrying about doula oversaturation?"

Haley, this is such a great question. But the question itself is rooted in scarcity mindset, and so the first thing that I want to say before I say anything that's actually logical or practical is that I want you to remember why you got into birth work in the first place. It probably wasn't to make money, it probably wasn't even to build a career, honestly. Most of us get into birth work to serve women, and serve mothers, and to help women have phenomenal birth experiences. If you can just tune into that and remember why you got into birth work in the first place, I think that'll actually help you. I think that'll help you realize that, of course, more doulas is a good thing, because that means more people spreading the knowledge and the idea that potentially birth can be autonomous and beautiful, and women don't have to give away their power, right?

The more people we have in the world spreading that, I think the better. Really, I think all it comes down to is remembering why you got into birth work in the first place. All right. That was the spiritual mindset based answer, but I really do have a logical answer for you too, and that is that unless you live on an island with a population of 20 people, there is probably not an oversaturation of doulas in your area, and so what I want you to do is I want you to actually Google the birth statistics in your area. Google whatever county you're from, if you're in the US, your city, whatever, and just see how many people are actually giving birth, and do some math, do some math. Of course, understand that less than 10%, probably much less than that, of women are actually hiring doulas, right?

Imagine if we can just get the word out there that doulas exist. Most people have no clue they exist, before they get pregnant. They don't find out until it's too late. Take a look and see how many people are actually giving birth in your area, and then reassess, and then see what you think. And then I, of course, want to say that even if there is an oversaturation in your area, which there's probably not, if there is offering virtual doula support, or online group programs, or private one-on-one coaching online, or childbirth education programs, or even becoming a travel doula, those are all options, and those will help you serve outside your community. Those will help you reach a worldwide audience. Actually, no matter if there's an oversaturation or not, you really should be building a sustainable business. Again, if you've been here for a while, you know that that means in-person services, but also virtual offerings like live workshops, live coaching, private coaching, group programs, but also something passive like an ebook or a pre-recorded online course. That is my favorite three-pronged approach, right?

Life support in person, life support online, and then pre-recorded something online, you mix those three and it won't matter that there's an oversaturation, because you will absolutely build a business that will reach people, as long as you can nail that marketing part. Of course, I can help you with that too. All right, that was such a great question. Let's jump to question number two. And this is from Giovana, who's one of the amazing women in the Birthworker Academy. She said, "What are the essential tools for starting a podcast? From the microphone to the editing software, what do I even need to get started?" I wanted to run through the things that you absolutely need. I'm going to give you a couple options, like the cheaper starter option, and then the better, more expensive option that you can grow into.

Let's get started. The very first thing you need is somewhere to actually plan your episodes, and plan your podcast. You should be planning, even if you're doing a blog, or weekly Instagram Live, whatever you're doing, you got to be planning ahead of time. That's how we know that everything is working towards our mission, and everything has strategy, and we're not wasting our time on things that aren't actually working. Planning is where you got to start. For planning, I use Google Docs, or Google Drive, and Airtable. I'm going to put the link to Airtable in the show notes, or you could just go to birthworker.com/airtable, totally free. Use that link, and you are going to absolutely fall in love. Yes, I know I've been telling you that I'm going to do an Airtable workshop. It is in my calendar.

I'm going to try and make it happen February or March. It's the first one I'm ever going to do in 2023, so just stay tuned for that. But those are all free, so for planning, Google Docs, Google Drive, Airtable, all free. Now, for the microphone, the cheaper version that you can start out with. I liked something called the Blue Snowball. It was really cheap. Did it sound amazing? Of course, not. But it was cheap, and I started with it. That, I used the Blue Snowball when I had my other podcast, my birth story podcast. You can actually go, check it out, and listen to the difference in the quality of the sound. It's pretty unbelievable, the difference, it's insane. But that being said, I don't want you to go out and spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars, just when you're getting started, especially if that would put you in a tight situation.

Start with something cheap, like the Blue Snowball for the microphone. And then if you want to move on to the better option, the more expensive option, I love the PodMic, and that's what I'm recording this on right now. It can get a little expensive. When you get the PodMic, you actually have to get a couple of different accessories. In the end, it could be a couple of $100. But let me tell you, I have people listen to this podcast, people who are podcasting coaches or just business coaches, they listen to my podcast and they're like, "Kyleigh, the quality is unbeatable." The only reason is my microphone, the PodMic, so absolutely worth it, especially since I went all in on this podcast. We invested a ton of money in this podcast, because we wanted to reach hundreds of thousands of people.

That's planning, and then microphone. You're also going to need a microphone stand. There's, honestly, tons of cheap options on Amazon. The one that I have now is a little bit more expensive. It's called the Blue Mic stand, and I love it, because it's actually beautiful. I wanted a beautiful mic stand. In case I started doing YouTube, I wanted something that looked good in the videos, so I spent the money for the Blue Mic stand. But really any podcast stand on Amazon is going to be great, to start out. You also need something called a pop filter, and it's this little thing that goes in front of your microphone, so it doesn't make popping sounds when you say P's. Yeah, it's called the pop filter. Again, on Amazon, pretty cheap. Actually, sometimes you can even find a microphone, microphone stand, and pop filter in a little bundle, so definitely look for that.

Now, when it comes to editing, I like GarageBand. It's free, it's amazing, it's a little hard to get used to. I gave up on it once, but then I came back, and I'm so glad I did. Again, GarageBand, it's free. There will be no need to ever switch away from GarageBand, so that'll just be free forever. And then for podcast hosting, so you actually have to host your podcast somewhere. That means you upload it somewhere, and then the place you upload it sends it to all the different places. You'll upload it, for instance, the free way you can do it is on Squarespace. You can upload it to Squarespace, and then Squarespace sends it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, all of that. You just have to put at one place. Squarespace would be the free option, and then the better, more expensive option is the Buzzsprout.

I absolutely love Buzzsprout for so many reasons. If you guys are interested to learn more about podcasting, shoot me a DM on Instagram, just so I know. If I get a couple of people that are interested, maybe I'll do a whole episode on really everything, like a deep dive. Buzzsprout, I'll put a link in the show notes for Buzzsprout. I want to say Buzzsprout's like 10 to $15 per month, definitely worth it all day, every day. I would actually, probably, skip Squarespace, the free option, and go straight into Buzzsprout, and just make that investment. It's really that good. And then the last thing is marketing. For marketing your podcast, you really just need Canva. Canva for the social media graphics, but also for the podcast cover arts. Yeah, the social media graphics are just like, every week if you release a podcast, create an Instagram post, make it beautiful on Canva, put it on Instagram, and that's it. That's it.

It's really not that much. I actually wanted to add on a couple other things that are not necessary at all, but they are going to take it up to the next level. One of those would be transcription service. The cheaper option for that is called Otter. Love Otter, still use it sometimes. I think I pay $99 per year for Otter, so awesome. I pay the yearly fee, so I don't even notice it. I don't have to pay month after month, and I can just upload the audio, get a transcription. Now, the quality of a transcription from something like Otter when it's free, it's actually not really that great. Now that we have a budget, we actually use something called Rev, R-E-V, and I actually pay money to get my podcast transcribed. I pay $1.5 per minute to get the transcription.

But when you do it through Rev, it's 99% a perfect transcription, so you spend a lot less time actually going in, and editing it. Whereas if you do Otter, you're going to have to go in, and edit the hell out of that. And then the last thing that I'll say, again, it's not necessary, but it is next level, and that is sound panels. You want your room to have zero echo. You actually want the room to sound weird as hell when you're talking in it, because there's literally no echo. That's what you're looking for. That's what's really going to help with that podcast quality. Honestly, that's probably why this podcast has such good quality too, is because I have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine large sound panels in my podcasting room in my office. Buying professional sound panels is not cheap, but there is a cheap or free option, and that is literally grabbing the pillows from around your house, and just putting them around your microphone, and around your computer.

Again, not necessary, but it is going to make the quality of your show a lot better. And then my last hot tip is check Facebook Marketplace, buy things secondhand. There's podcasters that go out of business all the time, and that's not to scare you, that's to excite you, because you can go buy their stuff for cheap. All in all, I would say, plan to spend minimum of $100 to get started. If you really go all out at the beginning, it could be as much as $1,000 to get started. Of course, I love podcasting. I think it's worth it all day, every day. I would do it every day of the week, I swear. I would put the money in, because it's given me such an amazing return. All right. Let's jump to question number three. This question is, "In my childbirth education membership, should I give the new members access to the live training replays, or should I just let them pick up where they've joined?"

What this means is this person is doing, they have a membership, so they probably have some pre-recorded videos in a portal. But then they also probably do weekly or monthly live sessions, and they record those sessions for the members. She's asking if someone new joins, do they get access to the past library of all the past replays? The answer is that there's actually not a course platform out there, that I know of, that makes it so you can only give access to someone, you can only give someone access to new content, based on the date they've joined. I'm essentially saying, as far as I know, that's not even possible. But if you really, really, really don't want people to have access to the earlier live trainings, the trainings from before they joined your program, the replays, what you could do is you could always email out the replays to the current members or the current students, and not upload them to the course platform, so the members or students would have to go to their email to get their replays.

That way you know that those emails are not going out to people who haven't joined the program, right? That is the workaround for that. But to be honest, I don't recommend that. I recommend you just giving access to all past replays to anybody new who joins your program or your membership, because one, it's the easier option for you as a business owner. I am all about making this stuff easy. I didn't do it easy at first, but you bet I am making it easy for myself going forward, especially now that I'm pregnant. Make it easy for you. Another reason that I recommend just giving access to all past replays, like no big deal, is because I know that not a lot of new members or new students are going to go back and watch those past replays.

Especially, if you're still putting out new content every week or month, they're not going to go back. They're going to have enough content moving forward. I say just let them have it, make it easy for everyone, and hey, it's an extra bonus. You can use that value on your sales page, and make it known that when they join, they get access to the entire past training library. Such a good idea, and such a good way to increase that value.

There you have it, my friends. That is a wrap on today's three in 15 episode. Hey, the last thing that I want to say before you go is that if you want your questions answered by me every single step of the way, literally every step of the way, and if you want my exact framework for turning your passion into a sustainable business, where you're supporting moms in person, but you're also serving them worldwide, because you have online offers like workshops, and childbirth education programs, private coaching, or group programs.

If you have been thinking, I'm ready to build a freaking legacy, then you belong in the Birthworker membership. That is my business focused membership for doulas, midwives, lactation pros, and other birth nerds. If you are ready to go from side gig doula to a full-time Birthworker, and if you're ready to quit your job, stay home with your kids, travel the world, and impact lives across the globe, then this membership is for you. You can find the link in the show notes, or just head to birthworkermembership.com, and you can join today. All right. Thank you so much for listening. I hope today was helpful for you, and I will see you right back here next week.