Kyleigh Banks:                                         Sometimes when people start birth work, they want to charge something like 800 bucks for a birth or a thousand bucks for a birth, but they plug all that information in and they realize that at the end of the day, they're only taking home $10,000 per year if that's what they're charging and if they don't have those other services. And so it's really a wake-up call for a lot of my students to be like, "Oh, wow, I have to do something different than the status quo if I actually want this to be my full-time career and if I want to actually make a sustainable income with this."

                                                       Hey there, birth nerd. You're listening to the Birthworker Podcast. My name is Kylie 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 there. Welcome back to the Birthworker Podcast. This is episode 49, and today we are talking about money. We are talking about how to price your doula packages and how to pay yourself what you're worth. And this is a really big conversation. I don't even know why I'm trying to have it on a podcast, but we are going to do it justice, I promise. And so let's dive into it.

                                                       But before we get started, I just want to say that we have some awesome episodes coming up. We have an interview with a woman named Joanna, and it's about creating packages that actually lead to transformation in your client's lives. So, so important. And then we also have another episode coming up where I'm going to share all of my SEO secrets that led to my website being number one on Google within six months. So definitely make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss out on any future episodes.

                                                       And I do have to say I just got home from Israel, which means I am spending the entire day packing up goodie bags to send to all the people who left a rating or review for the show over the past five weeks while I was gone. So if you want me to package up a little gift for you, a little goodie bag and send it to your mailbox, just make sure you leave a review for the show and upload a picture at birthworker.com/review. You can find that link in the show notes, and I will get you on that list and send you a little gift in the mail. All right, let's get back to money.

                                                       We are chatting about money today and we are chatting about this because nobody taught me this when I was starting as a doula. And of course I say that all the time or I feel like I say that all the time and I'm a broken record, I'm sure. But it's true. Most new doulas are not being taught this kind of stuff. They're not learning this in their doula trading program. And so what I want to do is I want to give you some of my best tips today.

                                                       I want to take you a little bit behind the scenes in what I do in my business. And so if you are stepping into birth work or if you've been in birth work for a while, I want you to really pay attention and see, are you doing this financial stuff correctly? Are you really optimizing it? Are you really acting like a business owner? Or maybe there's some things that you can actually do to change your mindset or the backend of your business to really step into that business owner role, that entrepreneurial role.

                                                       And if you are just stepping into birth work, I want you to know that we cover all of this in depth inside Birthworker Academy, which is my doula training program, and it comes with a six-month mentorship. So if you are brand new stepping into birth work, please check that out because you are going to need more than this episode can give you, that's for sure.

                                                       So the reason I also wanted to do this episode this week is because I was just chatting with my CPA, my accountant, and we were chatting about essentially how to optimize finances. And I ended up actually hiring her last week as my bookkeeper also. So now not only is she doing my taxes, she's also my financial coach. So I used to meet her weekly actually, now I meet her quarterly because I've got the basics down. And now she's also my bookkeeper. So my CPA, my coach, and my bookkeeper. And so we were chatting last week, and that got me thinking, I have to do a podcast episode about this. And honestly, I get questions about this kind of stuff all the time. So I was like, yeah, it is definitely time.

                                                       So the questions that I want to answer today are how do I price my doula packages? How do I pay myself and how much money can a doula actually make? And so let's dive into that first one first, which is, how do I price my doula packages?

                                                       The first thing I have to say is that choosing the perfect price for your packages is so subjective. It's literally 100% subjective. And what it is, is it's a balance of what people would actually pay for this service, but also what price is going to allow you to make enough money to be profitable, to sustain your lifestyle, and also what price would make you super happy to deliver these services without resenting your clients or your students. And I want you to see that those three things that I just mentioned are 100% subjective.

                                                       So I said, what would people actually pay? That's subjective. It depends on their finances. It depends on their willingness to take a financial risk. It depends on their perceived value of the service that they're going to receive. And that's 100% subjective. And of course, it depends on a million other things too.

                                                       And then I also said, you have to charge a price that's going to allow you to make enough money to pay for your lifestyle. Well, of course that's subjective also. If you're married and your husband makes a million dollars per year, you actually don't even need to make money to sustain your lifestyle most likely. So you could literally just offer free doula services and your lifestyle's going to be fantastic. Or if you are a single mom to five kids, you can't offer doula services and doula packages for free because you have five kids to feed and no one else is helping you with your bills. So you would actually need to charge enough money to make it worth it. And so it is so subjective.

                                                       But that last part, and in my opinion, it's the most important thing, is that you need to be charging an amount that actually feels super, super good and authentic to you. And when we're talking about pricing doula services and really in particular birth doula packages specifically, it's hard sometimes because sometimes you're at a birth for literally five minutes and the baby comes and sometimes you're actually back and forth to the person's house or the hospital for five straight days. It could be five minutes, it could be five days. How do you put one price on that? It's almost unfair. How do you put a price on that?

                                                       So for instance, if you think $500 is a great price for your doula package, your birth package, my question is, would you still think that $500 is a great price if the birth lasted for five days and you were there for five days? Or maybe you would actually start to resent the situation a little bit because either you'll look back or actually in the moment at that birth, you'll think to yourself, "Damn, I did not charge enough. I've been here for five days and I only got $500, and that doesn't even cover my childcare, let alone the other business expenses."

                                                       And so you really just have to ask yourself, and again, this is subjective, what is a price that is going to feel super, super good and in alignment with you? It's very different for every single person. I really could make a workshop about this, an entire two-hour workshop, and maybe I should. But I do want to say one last thing, and I want to walk you through what I tell my students and how I do this with my students.

                                                       And so what I give my students inside Birthworker Academy, which is my comprehensive doula training program, is an entire section on making your packages, choosing what offers you're going to put inside those packages. But then also something that's really important is pricing the packages. And so what I do is I'm like the spreadsheet queen. I love spreadsheets. So I give my students a spreadsheet where they can actually enter in a bunch of objective information and it's going to pop out an objective price. And then you can actually go back in and say, does that price feel in alignment? Does that price feel good? Am I actually going to be making enough money if I charge that price?

                                                       And I have them do it for birth doula support packages, but also postpartum support packages. And I've set it up in a way where you can actually add a bunch of different little offers. You could even add placenta encapsulation or extra prenatal visits, and it'll pop out what the price of this package should be. And so where I have them start is I have them enter what their hourly wage, what hourly wage they want to make. So all of the hours that they're working with this client, what is the wage they want to make? And that even includes driving time. So you're getting paid that hourly wage as you're driving to this person's house or the hospital or whatever it is depending on where they're giving birth or if we're doing birth support or postpartum support.

                                                       So essentially what they do is they choose this price that they want to make hourly, and then they make a list of what are all the different pieces that are included in the package, and how many hours does each of those take? So let's say there's a consultation, one hour. Let's say unlimited phone support is an average of maybe five to 10 hours per person. Pick a number and put it in there. How long are your prenatal visits? How long is your in-person childbirth education class that you include in your package? How long is an average labor support?

                                                       So you could put 12 hours for that maybe. Maybe you're at births anywhere between six hours to 18 hours on average. So you could put 12 hours for that. You could add your postpartum visit. And essentially what this spreadsheet does is it totals up all the hours that you're going to be working. It uses what you want your hourly wage to be, but then also we don't stop there. Because from that, you need to actually save for taxes. You need to pull out some money to make sure you have some money for some self-care stuff like massages or therapy from witnessing traumatic births. Because this is birth work, we have to be honest and we have to realize what we have to do to make this sustainable. And for a lot of us, therapy is going to be up there.

                                                       We also have to think about expenses like business expenses. So any memberships you're a part of, any business memberships you're a part of, any care packages you give your clients, any gas you spend to drive, any books that you bought to teach you about birth or postpartum, your doula training, you have to think of that as a business expense. And then even in there, childcare, honestly.

                                                       And so what this spreadsheet that I created for my students in my doula training program does is it takes all of that information and then it pops out what this package should be, what this price of this package should be, how many births you are going to attend per month, what your monthly take home cash is going to be, what your monthly expenses are going to be, what your yearly income is going to be, and then what your take home money every year is going to be after taxes and expenses and childcare and therapy and all of that stuff.

                                                       And so I created a whole spreadsheet like that for birth support. And then also postpartum support, which is a little bit different because postpartum support is not so up in the air. It's not maybe it's five minutes, maybe it's five days. No, it's like the people are paying for typically a really specific set hour, amount of hours. And so it's a little bit different.

                                                       But my favorite part about this entire spreadsheet is then I ask you at the end of this spreadsheet, or rather I ask my students, is this yearly profit sustainable for you? Do you make enough with this projection to pay for your bills, to pay for your mortgage, to pay for your food and your car and your kids? Or do you need to start thinking about adding more offers to your doula business that don't require you to be on call all the time?

                                                       And so that's one of my favorite things that I ask on that whole page, because sometimes what people realize is, or I'd rather say sometimes when people start birth work, they want to charge something like 800 bucks for a birth or a thousand bucks for a birth, but they plug all that information in and they realize that at the end of the day, they're only taking home $10,000 per year if that's what they're charging and if they don't have those other services.

                                                       And so it's really a wake-up call for a lot of my students to be like, "Oh, wow, I have to do something different than the status quo if I actually want this to be my full-time career and if I want to actually make a sustainable income with this." So if that's you maybe already being like, "Man, this actually isn't sustainable," start thinking now about what else you're going to do to add more income to your business without being on call all the time. And if you're like, "Wait, I don't even know. What do you mean Kyleigh? Fill me in here."

                                                       Actually, last year I made a free resource. It's a free guide, and it's essentially all of the ways that you can make money as a birth worker without actually being on call, without actually attending more births. And so grab my free guide if you're like, wait a second, I actually need to make a little more money than I'm making right now. Go to birth worker.com/make money. Or you can even just find that link in the show notes, download it. It has all of the ways and the descriptions of all the other offers that you can add and how I've added them in my business, everything. It's amazing. I think you're going to love it.

                                                       So, okay, we chatted about how to price your doula packages, all of the things that are important to take into account when you're pricing your doula packages. Now I want to actually dive into a question that not enough people are asking. And this question is, how do I actually pay myself? Because most doulas when they're starting, they don't have the financial education to even know where to start with this. I know I didn't. When I was starting, I just saw my bank account as all of this money is mine. I can spend all of this money. I didn't have a business bank account and a personal bank account, a business credit card, savings accounts, none of that. I had my one bank account where if someone paid me for birth support, it went into that one bank account. And in my mind, I'm like, "This money's in my bank account. This money's mine. I can go spend it on stuff. I can go buy stuff." But I didn't have a plan to organize my money at all.

                                                       And you might be sitting there, "Wait a second, Kyleigh, I need to organize my money. What are you even talking about?" And the answer is yes, you have to be organizing your money. And so I want to let you guys know what I do now because I think it's actually really important to understand where you're going and what this has the capacity to turn into and what it actually looks like when it's being done correctly.

                                                       And so what happens now is I have a business checking account. And so all the money I make in my business goes directly into my business checking account. This is my business's money. This is not my money. This is not Kyleigh's money. This is my business's money. I don't look at it like it's Kyleigh's money at all. I've made that very clear distinction in my brain now. This is not Kyleigh's money, this is my business's money.

                                                       And so anytime someone pays me for doula support, it goes into my business checking. Anytime someone signs up for the doula training program, it goes into my business checking. If I do a workshop, it goes into my business checking. If I do one-on-one coaching for doulas, just like an hour one-on-one session, it goes into my business checking. All of my business money goes into my business checking.

                                                       And then what happens is at the end of the month, I sit down and I have this in my calendar, because if it's not in my calendar, it doesn't get done. And what I do is I sit down at the end of the month and I look at all of the money that I made. And what I do is I divide it into different accounts. I set it up as savings accounts. And now I'm going to go into what that looks like, but I want you to know first that this is based on my personal income. It's something that I figured out with Megan, my CPA, so I'm going to tell you the numbers, but please don't follow these numbers exactly. Find a CPA that you trust, find one that you trust, and they will help you nail down the right percentages for you. But in theory, this strategy is absolutely something that every single business owner should be doing.

                                                       And so what happens is once a month, I sit down and then I look at all the money I made for the past month, and then I take 30% of that, 30%, and that goes to my personal account, AKA, I'm paying myself with that. So out of all the money I make, 30% is the money that I actually end up paying myself with. And actually, let's break this down for a second.

                                                       If I'm charging a thousand dollars for birth support, I'm only taking home $300. Think about that. It's very different. It's different than assuming, oh, I charge a thousand dollars, I make a thousand dollars. No, that's not how this actually works. And so 30% goes into my personal account. I'm paying myself with it. 15% goes into my tax savings account. And so this is the money that I set aside for taxes, and I do it every single month so I'm actually not screwed at the end of the year with a huge tax bill that I was not prepared for. That would happen if you just put all of your money into your personal account and pretend like it's your money. It's not all your money. Some of it is Uncle Sam's money if you live in the States.

                                                       And something else that I did recently is I actually just added an investment savings account. And so this is your retirement money. And so for me, I put 15% into that. So if 30% is the money I pay myself with, 15% goes to my tax savings account, 15% goes to my investment savings account, and then 40% of all of the money that I make every single month stays in my business checking account. It stays in my business checking account to pay for all of my other expenses.

                                                       And so if you look at these numbers, and let's just make the math easy, and let's just say I make a hundred thousand dollars this year. Only 30% of that goes straight to me. $40,000 goes to my expenses if I make a hundred grand. $40,000 goes to my expenses, 15,000 goes to tax, and I only make $30,000 right now. That's what I pay myself right now. That's insane. If your business makes a hundred thousand dollars, that does not mean that you are making a hundred thousand dollars. And you cannot ever look at the money you're making as your personal money, as your spending money.

                                                       You have to, have to, have to have those separate accounts, and you need to be able to see that big picture view and even get your financial goals set up to be able to manage your money in this way. This right here is when you really step into that business owner role. This is where you're an entrepreneur. This is where you put your big girl pants on, is when you're looking at your business like this. It's no longer a hobby, it's a business. You own a company, the money your business makes is your company's money, and then you need to pay yourself. That's what I want you to do. And I want that to be your goal for 2023.

                                                       And so what you need to do right now to make this happen is create a business checking account, if you don't already; create the savings accounts that you're going to pay yourself to, maybe your tax savings account, and maybe even if you're up for it, an investment savings account, and start putting away a little bit of money in those and then create the system to start paying yourself instead of just winging it. No more winging it. We're not going to wing it here. We're going to do it all official. We're going to be official entrepreneurs because we want to make this a long-term career.

                                                       This is not a side hustle. This does not have to be a side hustle. And if it's still a side hustle for you, I encourage you to actually ask yourself why? Because it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have be a side hustle. You can make as much money as you want to make, which is actually a perfect segue into that last question, which is, how much can a doula make? How much can a doula make?

                                                       A lot of people get into birth work, but don't really take it that seriously because they assume, I don't want to attend a million births, so I'm not going to make that much money. Doulas don't make that much money, right? Wrong. Wrong. So let's get into it.

                                                       Do you remember the three-pronged approach that I teach in my programs? I talk about it all the time. It's super important. It's the in-person services. So the in-person doula support, the in-person childbirth education. And then number two is the online stuff. So that could be virtual doula support, online coaching, group coaching, workshops. And then the third part is the passive offers. So the e-books, the pre-recorded classes, the pre-recorded courses, things like that.

                                                       When you start incorporating all three of those things, I promise you, the sky is the limit. And I'm not kidding when I say that. I'm literally not kidding. There are doulas and childbirth educators and birth workers out there that are making seven figures per year, a million dollars per year. And there's some out there that are making way more than that. Even a moderately booked doula, let's say three births per month, that starts to incorporate this three-pronged approach - the in-person services, the online services, and the passive services, passive offers - even someone who's just booked out kind of moderately in-person can make six figures per year. 100%.

                                                       So if you do three births per month all year, that's like 50 grand. If you add in a monthly workshop, like a monthly live paid workshop, okay, that's another a thousand bucks per month. And then if you add in the pre-recorded birth courses or the e-books or whatever, that could literally be another $35,000 per year. And that right there is a hundred thousand dollars per year with just those three things. But I have to tell you that the potential that you have with online offers is exponential.

                                                       There is literally no reason that you can't turn into the next Mama Natural or Pain-Free Birth or Free Birth Society and go on to make seven figures. There's no reason that you can't. And I know it sounds crazy. It sounds crazy to dream that big, but I'm actually not kidding. Someone listening to this podcast right now is going to create an online birth course this year, maybe not even from scratch. Maybe they're doing our childbirth educator training program and using our curriculum to just curate their own course, not from scratch, but someone listening is going to go on to make a hundred thousand dollars in 2023 from the online birth course they create. 100%.

                                                       Someone else listening to this right now is going to become a fully booked out doula. They're going to see the potential in that. They're going to create a doula agency and they're going to become a millionaire in the next decade. 100%. Probably more than one person listening right now, that's going to be you.

                                                       So if you're hearing this, if you're listening and you're thinking to yourself, "Wow, can that really be me?" I want you to know that it can be, and I need you to dream that big. I need you to dream that big, and then I want you to dream even bigger. Because when you're a birth worker, there's no income cap. You're not limited to how many hours in a day that you have or how many births that you can attend. And so just start asking yourself, what else can I do to impact lives across the world that does not necessarily require me to be on call all the time and go do that. Go add those kinds of services to your website. That's how you make this sustainable.

                                                       And if you're going through this, and if you decide that you want expert help to get you there faster or to get you there with less stress, I just have to say that you know where to find me. You're in the right place listening to this right now, and you know where to find me. So if that's you, just shoot me a DM at Birthworker Podcast on Instagram and let's chat about your goals. Let's chat about how to make them come true, how to become the next Pain-Free Birth or Mama Natural or Free Birth Society, or whatever it is.

                                                       Okay, I want to do one more thing here, and that is give you some homework. I know you don't listen to podcasts for homework, but I know you're listening to this podcast because you want to better yourself and your business. So listen up. What I want you to do now is do a really deep assessment of the backend of your business and specifically the backend of your financials, the financial part of your business.

                                                       So are you doing these things that we chatted about? So do you have a business bank account? Do you keep track of your income and expenses? If yes, I want you to ask yourself, what are your next steps? How are you bettering yourself? How are you increasing your knowledge around your business finances? Which experts are you hiring to help you? Because remember, I told you I hired my CPA. I hired her in early 2020, 2022, sorry. And now she does my bookkeeping too. She's my financial coach too. Because when I'm not the expert, or when I don't have the time to learn something by myself, or if I just want it to be done faster, honestly, I hire, I hire an expert to help me. It saves me so much time and honestly, so much money in the end.

                                                       The investment that I made for Megan to help me in my business was less than $2,000. And literally, in 2022, Megan saved me $21,000 by making a few simple switches to the backend of my business that I literally could not have done without a CPA, without her. I spent 2,000 on Megan, she gave me 21,000 right back in one year. That's what's possible sometimes when you ask for help and you turn to the experts and you put your money where your mouth is. That is the power of investing in the experts.

                                                       And if you are like, "Wait a second, Kyleigh, I don't need an expert yet because I'm literally not doing any of the stuff that you talked about. I'm not doing any of the things that you told me to in this episode." Or maybe if you're not even sure what to price your packages at, maybe you need some more help with that. Maybe you actually don't even know how to send invoices and take money online, or how to create those other offers that we chatted about so you can actually make a really good income through birth work. And so you can not only give back to your community, but you can live in financial abundance and give back to yourself and give back to your family. If that's you, let's do it together.

                                                       I would love nothing more than to help you get there, because all I wanted when I was starting was someone to help me get there and I couldn't find them, so I became that person. Let's turn your passion into a fulfilling career that not only feeds your soul, but it feeds your bank account day after day after day after day. And if that is you, if are like "Kyleigh, I am ready to go all in," then I will see you over in my DMs on Instagram at Birthworker Podcast.

                                                       All right. Thank you so much for listening. I hope today was super helpful for you. And I will see you again on Friday for an amazing three and 15 episode. Don't forget to hit subscribe so you don't miss a single episode, and I'll see you right back here in a couple of days.