Doula tips from an experienced doula to help guide you in your doula business and client support journey! Kaely shares from her 13+ years experience supporting families in the perinatal space in a raw and down to earth manor. This podcast is for the juicy tips and tits...no TMI here. It's all game!
You Can’t Reach Your Goals If You Don’t Know Where You Are Now!
•Kaely Harrod•Season 1•Episode 281
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00:00 | 12:11
In your doula business it’s vital to take a step back and reflect on the year—what went well, what didn’t, and where there’s room to grow in your doula business. If you’re ready to get focused, intentional, and strategic for the new year, I’ve got just the thing for you: a two-hour, interactive workshop where we’ll do this exact process together. Let’s set the stage for your strongest year yet!
If you have a business goal, but don’t have your starting place how will you ever know that you’ve arrived there? In workouts we always start with what our current capacity is. We can do 2 push ups, 5 jumping jacks, etc. And our goal is to 10 of each or 20 of each! That tells us not only where we are now, where we want to be, but also allows us to see when we are actually on our way there! Your business is no different. We need to know where you are to figure out where you’re headed!
Welcome to Dula Tips and Tits, the podcast where we cut through the noise and get real about what it takes to build a sustainable doula business. I'm Kaylee Harrod. I've been a doula informally for 14 years and full time for seven. Around here, we don't sugarcoat stuff. We talk autonomy, owning your worth, creating a business that works for you. No fluff, no burnout, just the honest truth on how to be your own best boss. Let's get into today's episode. Welcome back to Dula Tips and Tits. I am so glad that you are here listening. It is such an honor to get to hang out with you and be a part of your business growth. I think about this sometimes with clients, that they say things like, I don't think I could have done this without you at the end of a birth. I am like, you are the one who did all the awesome work. At the same time, I think to myself, yes, I think that a doula support makes it better, a thousand percent better. I also think it is an absolute honor to be allowed to be in someone's birth space. It's not something where I'm like, yeah, you're welcome. You're welcome. I'm amazing. If I wasn't here, you're right. You wouldn't have had your baby. I help a lot. I think I am very useful in the birth space and incredibly encouraging and benefit people quite a bit, but it is also a privilege, an honor, a joy, a blessing, a gift, et cetera to be allowed in someone's sacred birth space. I say that to say that it is also an honor and a privilege and a joy. joy, to be allowed as part of your business growth space. I do not take for granted that I am one person in your corner who is cheering the heck out of you in your business, and you're letting me do that. And I love that. It makes me very happy. On that note, I would love to get to know you. If you have not connected with me on Instagram, I encourage you to go over to Instagram at HaraDula, so H-A-R-R-O-D-Dula, all one word, and send me a message. And introduce yourself. Say, hey, I listened to your podcast, this is who I am, this is the kind of doula work I do. And I will celebrate the heck out of you, and I will follow your business page, and I will tell you how amazing you are, and I will comment on your posts when I see them, and all of that, because I love connecting with you all. And I really love to hear. how your businesses are going and what is happening and how you're thriving and all of that. It makes me very, very happy. It's similar to clients. Like I come sometimes jokingly say, if you have questions for me later, like in a year or two years, you can, you can text me as long as you send me a picture of your kid. Right. And it's always a joke. Like I'm like, oh, you know, the tax for a question is a child, a picture of the baby. But also I am serious. Like I love hearing updates on how people are doing. And I also really love seeing pictures of the babies that I've helped come. And so, you know, I'm willing to do both things. Like I can, I can play both sides of this. I'm happy to give you some support and also tax you with some photos. So for you, like I would really, really love for you to take a second and connect with me and share like, what are you loving about the podcast and what is going well in your business and how are you and where are you located and all of those things, because it just makes me very happy to get to know who you are. So today's episode is about a business audit. So you know, if you've been listening to the last couple episodes that I have a workshop coming up on December 6th at 12 noon Eastern, it's from 12 to two. So it's a two hour workshop. And it is a business audit for 2024 and a strategy plan for 2025. So that is the non sexy name for it. There is a sexy name, but you know, that's, that's what the workshop is. So when you come, what we're going to be doing is first, I'm going to be sending you a worksheet before the workshop even starts that goes through what numbers you need to know from 2024 and some like dreaming slash like. planning prompts for 2025. There will be some parts that we will only do together in the workshop. So there's going to be part of it that I will share only when we're on the workshop so that you're not tempted to work through that ahead of time. But the worksheet initially will be sent to you so that you can have it ready and bring it with you to the workshop. Then in the workshop, what I have done in the past is actually talk through your business stuff, like actually talk through what is going on in your business for 2024. What are your biggest wins? What are your biggest surprises? Because when you write down your numbers, you are definitely going to have some things that you're like, what is this? Like I did not know that was there. But part of what you want to think about is are you kind of on the track that you thought you were on? And if not, why not? Sometimes we know, right? Like I am not exactly where I wanted to be in November of 2024 because I broke my ankle this year. And it set me back. Like it set me back financially. It set me back in terms of business growth. And then I had some really tough family stuff over the summertime. And that also like slowed me down, right? And that's okay. Like I have lived through that. I have survived it. I'm here. I'm stronger. I'm still plugging along. But the reality is that it had an impact on my business. And so when I break down the numbers for 2024, they're not going to look exactly like I thought they were going to look when I started 2024. When I was doing this planning for my year last year, this year does not look like that. Because guess what? Last year, I did not think, hey, you know, what's going to happen is all of these things, right? In fact, a year ago from now, none of the things that were hard about this year were even on my radar, right? And so it's something that we have to be a little bit fluid with, but also looking at like, why did this not grow? Or why is this less than I wanted it to be? Is an important step. And I think sometimes we shy away from it because we're scared of what we're going to find. Like we shy away from actually looking at our success rates because we're nervous to admit where we are. And I have to tell you, you're not going to grow if you don't know where you're growing from. Like if you've, I mean, I am not a fan of before and after weight loss photos, but I am a fan of, of like, tangible things you can see. So like, for instance, being able to do one pushup and then eventually being able to do 10 pushups, right? Like that difference. is a tangible difference. That is a goal that you set. Like you wanna be stronger. You wanna do more pushups. Right now you can do one and eventually you'll be able to do 10, right? When you're on the way there, you also know you're getting there, right? Like you get to a point where you can do two or three, right? You get to a point where you can do five. So you're not at your goal, but you are on that journey. You know, you can't even know if you're on the journey, if you don't know where you started. If you know I can only currently do one pushup, but I want to be able to do 10, then you know where you're starting from and where you're going to. And then you can be strategic about it because very few things in life just happen, right? So if you're able to do one pushup today and you're like, by next year, I wanna be able to do 10 pushups and you just do nothing. to get to that goal. The chances are next year you will also be able to do only one push-up because that's not how your body actually functions, right? Now it's possible that you'll do like have a shoulder injury or something and be able to do less push-ups. Also possible that you'll injure your shoulder and then go to PT and therefore get stronger and be able to do a number of push-ups but not really like because of a strategic goal that you had but more because of a chance thing that happened, right? And so what I want for you is to know what your goals are, have steps to get there, but know where you're starting from so that you actually are on a path and not just shooting things randomly into the air hoping that they land in a place that you want them to land, okay? So when we think about a business audit it really does give us a black and white view of what your business is currently doing, what it's doing well, what it's doing poorly, what you're kind of half-assing and from there we can make a strategic plan and we can say okay you're already doing this so if we change this one thing then this can happen, right? Like that is how that can go because you can really look at like all right if this is going well but I kind of don't want it to get bigger then how do I keep that the same and grow the other thing, right? The other thing that's really helpful is that we will look at this year, right? Today is what I was going to say at this year, 2024, it's not just today, and we will look at what you want to be different next year and so that leads you to some intentionality right now, because it's November. And so when we think about like, you know, a year from now is November 2025, but we still have like five weeks left of this year. And so you're not completely done getting to where you want to be for 2024. Like there is some growth possible in this last bit, right? And when you think about that, I think like really, really embracing the fact that you have space to still grow even this year, and that you can set yourself up for a good 2025 growth by doing some intentional things now. That is huge, is huge. It is honestly life changing for your business. And so the reason that this class is two hours long, a very small group, and a paid class is that I really want you to come with the intentionality of the value that you are going to learn and grow and be ready to implement at the end of the class. All of that is very, very important. I do not want it to just be a free workshop where we talk through some things and still is incredibly helpful, but doesn't actually give you the real action steps that you need in your business. What I want for this workshop to be is you walk away at 2 p.m. Eastern, like, all right, I have five steps to do. Let me get this shit done. That is what this is going to be. A very, very clear roadmap for you. If you have not yet signed up, the link is in the show notes. Go do that now, and I will see you next Friday at that class. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the doula tips and tits podcast. If you learned something today or had an aha moment, we'd love for you to share that on Instagram and tag us at hara doula so we can celebrate alongside you. If you found this podcast helpful, we would so appreciate you taking a second to leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast app. That helps other doulas find us as we do this work together. This podcast is intended as educational and entertainment. It is not medical advice or business advice. Please consult your own medical or legal team for your own needs around your health and your business. We'll see you again soon.
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