Let's Talk Business

Let’s talk about the business side of doula work.

We go over this in the training, but there’s a lot of info that weekend so let’s talk again here. 

When you are starting out in any business there’s a certain amount of leg work that needs to be done. Clients are not going to beat down your door just because you decide you’re ready to start taking clients. Again, like any business you get out what you put in. 

Some things that need to be considered:

1. Your value proposition - why are you different? Why should people seek out and hire you?

2. Who is your perfect client? Also called target market, no, it’s not “anyone pregnant”.

3. How are these people finding you? Do you have a website? Social media? How are you standing out from the other doulas?

4. Branding - is your brand and what you’re putting out there saying what you want it to say?

5. Have you done a competitive analysis? Who is your competition? Why are you different? 

6. Are you staying active? Keeping up on your website and social media? Are you networking? Reading? Learning? What are you doing to stay in front of people and separating yourself from the competition? 

7. Are you analyzing your potential client interactions? How can you do more to secure the client, or why the did (or didn’t) sign a contract?

8. Who are you taking advice from? Are they where you want to be professionally?

This is a lot, of course, but it’s necessary. Unless you join an agency you need to put in the hard work if you want to be successful. 

You can figure all this out on your own, or you can use the tools (the Doula’s Essential Business Planner) and courses (Doula Business Day is coming up!) that have been created to make this easier, but you cannot just wait for it to happen. 

Those of us who have been doing this a long time and we’ve done the hard work...yes, getting clients is relatively easy for us these days, but that’s because we put in the time and energy to build a business, brand, and client list, it wasn’t always that way! 

If you do the work more people are willing to help you and invest in you, but if you’re just sitting around waiting to be successful it’s not going to happen.

The clients are there (doulas are serving less than 5% of the population - there are not too many doulas!) are you willing to do the work to help them find you? 

Nothing is just luck, this takes time, work, and tools.