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, you welcome back to the Birthworker Podcast. This is episode 36, and today I am jumping right into it because there's a lot to do at my house. We are leaving for a 5 week vacation to Israel in 12 days, and we want to put our house on the market the day that we leave or the day after we leave, and we want to show our house the entire time that we're gone. So there's so much that has to happen around the house. I am going to record this podcast as fast as I can. Thank God it's a 3 in 15, where we answer 3 questions in 15 minutes or less because 15 minutes is all that I have today. So let's jump right into it. The very first question is from Kelly. Her question is, "How should I get my social media pages in front of pregnant people rather than just other birth workers?"

And so if you have been around my community for a while, you know that I actually credit other birth workers for my success on Instagram because what happened as I started getting rolling, and just so you know, I started from 0 on August 1st, 2020. That's when I started my Instagram account. And by January 1st, I had 1,000 followers and I credit that growth to other birth workers sharing my posts to their stories essentially. And so I just want to say that just because there's a lot of birth workers following you, doesn't mean that's a bad thing at all. And to be honest, if it's split like 50-50, that's fantastic because what's happening is those other birth workers are sharing your stuff if it's good enough and shareable, and they're sharing it to their audience, which also has moms in it, and then those moms can see it and follow you. So I think a good split is potentially something like 50-50. I think that would be absolutely phenomenal for your business.

But here's actually some more practical advice. So how can you get your page in front of pregnant people? What I like to do is I like to go where pregnant people already are and interact there. So for instance, you could go to some of the more popular birth accounts, maybe Karen from Pain-Free Birth or BadassMotherBirther. Those are two of my favorites that I love saying because they just have hundreds of thousands of followers. And what I would do is I would leave long and thoughtful and witty comments on their posts because there's always a chance that they're going to love your comment and they're going to tag it at the top of the post so more people will see it. So make sure it's funny and witty, but then also make sure it's thoughtful. So just commenting like, "Oh my gosh, I love this post" does absolutely nothing. You're just wasting your time. Don't even post stuff like that if your goal is to get more engagement with your account.

And so again, what would happen is either they're going to pin or flag the comment to the post so other people will see it, or potentially just a lot of moms will see it and they'll like, and they'll comment and they'll interact. So that's one of the biggest things you can do is spend time giving thoughtful comments on other birth influencer's posts.

And then also, I have to be honest, you've got to make good content. You have to make shareable content. And the goal here is to make content that is witty enough and thoughtful enough that other people are going to share it. So if your content is not being shared, go back to the drawing board and ask yourself, is this content actually shareable? And this is something that I teach inside Birthworker Academy and the Birthworker membership. So I teach it to my brand new doulas. And then also people who are just trying to grow their business. I teach them my entire Instagram strategy from A to Z. And this is such a huge part of it is creating that shareable content.

And then the last thing that I'll say is that just stay the path. Show up, keep showing up, even when it's hard, even when you don't want to. And the ball will start rolling. And so I don't want you to expect out of Instagram things that you're not giving to Instagram. So if you want comments on your page, go comment on other people's pages. If you want comments from pregnant women, go comment on pregnant women's pages. If you want people to follow you, go follow other people. So give Instagram what you want to get out of Instagram.

All right, question number two is from Rebecca. And she says, "How can I convince people to hire me if I don't have any previous experience or certifications? How can I convince people to hire me?" And so I think this is a fabulous question, and I think my answer is actually going to shock a lot of you. And so first of all, you know this if you're listening to this podcast, if this is the first episode you're listening to, you're going to know this very quickly. But I need you to get out of your mind that experience makes a good doula, or that experience gets you hired because it's not necessarily the case in the birth community. It really just isn't. What actually matters more is your vibe, your energy. That matters so much more when it comes to you getting hired by someone to attend their birth.

The other thing that I want to say is Rebecca's question was, "How can I convince people to hire me if I don't have any previous experience or certifications?" So I want you to know also that people are going to hire you based on your sales skills, and based on your copywriting skills, not necessarily based on experience, certifications or even vibe sometimes. You can fake your vibe, and I'm not telling you to do that, but I just want to open your mind to realize that getting hired is not all about experience and certifications essentially. OBs can lie and often do lie all the time to their patients to get that client. They say, "Oh, we don't induce everyone at 39 weeks. Oh, you can push in any position you want. Oh, you can eat in labor." And as they get closer and closer to the due date, you know what? "Actually I think we really should induce. You know what? Our policy is that you can't eat."

And so they don't care about the experience and certifications, they're just lying through their teeth to get that client. And so obviously I don't want you to do that, but I just wanted to open your eyes of, hey, maybe it's not the experience and certifications that I need. Maybe it's just being a good human and having a good vibe and relating with these people on a personal, maybe even spiritual level. I also want to say, Rebecca, that everybody starts at the beginning. Everybody. If, four years ago I looked at Emily from Free Birth Society and Maryn from Indie Birth and I said, "Oh my gosh, they're so big and popular, and they have podcasts, and they're doing exactly what I want to do, and they have the vibe that I want to have. There's already people doing it. I can't do it."

If I had said that four years ago, I wouldn't be here today. And the funny thing is now that there are many people out there that look up to me and say that same thing, or rather they say, "There's already Emily and Maryn and Kyleigh and whoever else doing it, and doing it in the niche that I want to do it, how could I dare do it? There's already too many people." Well, that's just not true. That's just not true. I started four years ago and I've created something absolutely amazing that impacts literally tens of thousands of lives every year. And if I let my fear hold me back, if I let the fear of not having experience or certifications hold me back, I wouldn't be where I am today. So I hope that helps you.

The next question is from Hannah. And Hannah has an ethics question, and Hannah asks, well, Hannah says, rather, "My big goal is to create an online course." And then her question is, "Would it be icky for me to purchase a similar program to see what the competition is and how to make my program better?" And my answer for Hannah is that I wouldn't necessarily describe it as icky, but it's something that I just don't want you to do. And I don't want you to do it for several reasons. And one of the big ones is I just don't want you to get in your head about what other people are doing. I don't want you to spend really any time thinking about what other people are doing. And I don't want you to get into somebody else's program and accidentally or potentially on purpose copy what they have in their program for yours.

And a lot of times what happens when we're getting started is we have either this subconscious or conscious thought that maybe we're not good enough, or we don't know enough, or we need to do more. And so if we buy somebody else's program, trying to snoop and see what's inside, there is a huge chance, again, that either on purpose or by accident, we are copying some of the stuff that's in their program. And that is absolutely not okay, not good. And I do not want you to do that even on accident. And I said before too that I just don't want you to get in your head about what other people are doing. So have I taken other birth courses? Yeah, when I was pregnant, I absolutely took other birth courses. Did I ever buy another course to snoop and see what's inside of it so I could make a similar course? Absolutely not. And I'm actually at the point in my business where now I'll not do that very consciously.

So for instance, let's take Indie Birth for example, because Maryn and Margot have programs that are like mine. They have programs for moms, programs for doulas, they even have programs for midwives, which I don't have, and I probably will never have because I'm not a midwife, I'm not interested in that. But I see one of their freebies pop up in my Instagram all the time. They have an ad going to one of their freebies. I very consciously am not downloading that. Not because I would ever copy it, because I wouldn't. But if I ever create a freebie that is kind of similar to what their freebie is, I do not want a paper trail that I ever downloaded theirs. So I very consciously am saying, I'm not signing up for that email list. I'm not putting that on my computer history. I am not even going there because I don't want to create any problems. And I love that. I love that. I don't need to go see what other people are doing to know that what I'm doing is good.

That's another thing. I don't need that external validation that, oh yeah, what I'm doing is way better than what other people are doing. I just need to put on the blinders and focus on making the best freaking programs that I could ever make. And in doing so, you know what's happening? I'm making programs that are better than anybody else is making. And so you don't have to go snoop on other people to make fantastic and fabulous programs. And what can you do instead maybe? What can you do to make your program better, and instead of snooping on the competition? And a lot of you, I hope this answer, especially if you're in my programs, because I know a lot of listeners are in my programs. You need to poll your audience. You need to ask your audience.

And so I don't remember if I've said this in a podcast episode before, but I love when I see my students actually put this into practice. And so what I love, if you're just beginning to brainstorm some ideas to make a course, what I want you to do is go to your Instagram stories and do a poll. And I want you to say, "Has anybody taken a birth course before? Or has anybody taken a VBAC course before?" Or whatever your course is going to be, or your new program or whatever it is. It doesn't have to be a course, it could be like a coaching program. And then I want you to give four choices. Yes, I took a course and I loved it. Yes, I took a course and I hated it. No, I did not take a course, but I want to. And no, I did not take a course and I just don't want to. It's not for me.

And then what you're literally going to do is privately message every single person. If you get hundreds and hundreds of responses, maybe stop around 80. So maybe message 20 people who respond to each of those. And by the way, that's a lot of people. So I'm really not expecting anybody to get 80 responses. Even if you get two responses for each, phenomenal, go make a spreadsheet, put down these people's names so you don't forget. And literally DM them, all of them and ask them questions about their situation. So if they've taken a course before, ask them, "Which course did you take? What did you love about it? What did you not love about it? What was the price? What drew you to it? Why did you choose that over other ones? Did you think it was worth the value? Why not? What would you have added? What would you have left out? Were there any topics that should have been covered or should not have been covered?"

And then if they have not taken a course before, ask them, "Why? Why not? Is it an internal thing? Do you think you don't need it? Or is it an external thing where you're like, the courses just aren't a good fit for you?" And ask them all these questions, not only are you going to get way better outcome than snooping on a course, because when you snoop on a course, you only are getting your opinion of the course. You're not getting other people's opinions. And to be honest, your opinion doesn't matter. You could love the course that you create and nobody could buy it. Or the people that buy it could absolutely hate it. So we actually want other people's opinions. We want other pregnant mom's opinions. And so asking them directly about what course they took, what they loved, what they didn't, et cetera, is the best way to do it, not by going to snoop on other people's programs.

All right, thank you so much for being here today. If you have not left a rating and review for the show, that is absolutely the best way to support the show. And after you leave a review, snap a screenshot and then upload it at birthworker.com/review or just click the button in the show notes. And what I do is I actually package up a little gift and send it your way. I literally mail you a gift in the mail, and you don't have to be in the US to get this. And the reason I wanted to mention this in this episode is because I'm going to Israel for five weeks and I leave in less than two weeks. And so if you do this in the next week, I will actually package this up and send it to you before I go to Israel. So typically I package them up like every month or so. So now's your chance. If you want to get a couple Birthworker goodies, leave a review for the show, upload it at birthworker.com/review.

And then, hey, the last thing that I want to say is if you love hearing my answers to questions like this, or if you were listening to this episode and you were just thinking, oh my gosh, I just want to find a way to package up my obsession for birth and find a way to impact the lives of birthing moms all over the world. And maybe you've been thinking, I am ready to quit my job, go full-time as a birth worker and build a freaking legacy. And if you are thinking any of those things, then I want you to know that the Birthworker membership is absolutely the place for you. I want you to go to the show notes or go to birthworker.com/membership and you can learn all about the membership, the business course that's inside. Because remember, my Birthworker membership is 100% business focused.

And so if you are ready to go from side gig doula to full-time birth worker, and if you're ready to quit your day job, stay home with your kids, and impact lives across the entire world, this membership is for you. If you want a direct line to me to ask your questions inside an amazing community and to jump on Zoom and get coached by me, then this membership is for you. So thank you so much for listening. I hope today was helpful for you and I'll see you right back here next week.