Doulas Suck at Business Strategy, But We Don’t Have To!

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! 

https://harroddoulaservices.thrivecart.com/level-up-your-doula-biz-2024-pod/

Strategy in a service based business is important to your success. And your sustainability. And your overall wellbeing. You know how I love to talk about all three of those things! Today’s episode is a bit of a call out. You need strategic planning in order to actually achieve goals. And if you’re not already being strategic, 2025 is your year to start!

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Doula Tips and Tits is produced by Kaely Harrod of Harrod Doula Services

It is sponsored by The Doula Biz Blueprint Self-Paced Class for Doulas Launching Successful and Sustainable Businesses! 

Music by Madirfan: Hidden Place on Pixabay

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Transcript

0:34

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 want to talk to you a little bit about why you are not strategically planning. And when I say this, I again, I'm saying this with all the love, all of the compassion, all the empathy in the world. I am not saying this to blame you or to make you feel like crap about yourself. What I am going to say is that a lot of doulas that I know do not plan. And I am also on this list. I don't plan as well as I could plan. I sometimes get planning paralysis, I call it, where I'm like, I don't know, a baby might come and it's hard for me to plan anything. But that cannot be how we flourish in business. That just doesn't work in a flourishing business. So what I want you to really think about is, why are you not making strategic plans for your business for 2025? If you're just thinking to yourself, I want my business to grow. I want it to be bigger. I want to have different services. I want to have more clients. I want to have more revenue. Those are not actual strategic plans. Those are like dreams, right? They're not even specific enough for you to take action on them. And I... I know that might make you cringe a little, like you might hear me and you're like, Kaylee, I didn't turn tune into today's podcast to be called out like this, right? But the reality is you need to be called out because sometimes in business, we really suck at this. And the truth is that doula businesses don't flourish a lot of times. And I think many times it is from a lack of strategic planning, because we just like hope for the best and like all the feely, the good feels and the like touchy feely sort of part of our business is the part that we're like, Oh, I love that. And in the meantime, we're not like, yeah, but that actually like is making my business flounder or like that service is something I kind of hate doing, right? The other thing is that there is no space for, for like dreaming and then putting those dreams into action if we don't have strategic planning as a tool in our toolkit, right? And when I think about birth, I think about like folks who are like, you know what I want is like a lovely, peaceful, unmedicated labor. And I'm like, what tools are in your toolkit to make that happen? You know, and as a doula, we can really easily be like, well, if you want that, but you haven't done any kind of prep work, or you don't have any tools in your toolkit to actually get you to that place, is that possible for you? Like maybe, but you also like literally haven't prepared for that thing, right? So if I say like, I really want to be able to do a pushup, but then I don't ever work on that, do I want to do a pushup, right? Like maybe theoretically, but it would be ridiculous for me to think that I could actually get to the place of doing a pushup just like magically, just because I want to, right? And as doulas, like we think about that with birth and postpartum, right? Where we're like, oh, you want to, you know, breastfeed your baby, but you actually have learned nothing about that. You have nobody in place to support you in that. You have no supplies in place to make that happen, right? So like the chance of success in that is like relatively small compared to someone who has done all of those steps, right? In business, we neglect strategic planning in such a way that we keep ourselves stuck from year to year. And part of that I think is that we don't want to take an honest look at where we are. And part of that is that we don't know how to strategic plan. And so it intimidates us and we therefore ignore it. And quite frankly, that is the perfect recipe for a business that eventually flounders and dries up, right? If you want a business that's flirting, pushing, it has to be moving and growing. If you think about big businesses that you know and think like massive businesses like consumer businesses, restaurants that are like, you would say the name of this business and literally everyone in the United States has heard of it, right? Do they just do the same thing over and over? No, they don't. Part of what they're doing is trying out a bunch of different things. They're trying out different methods. They're trying out different marketing. They're trying out different products. They try out different brands. They try out different store hours. They try out different messaging around types of products that they service. They try out different things around how they do giving, how they do charitable giving or what their employee discounts are like, what their employee treatment is like, what their employee outfits are like. I mean, truly. they are growing and expanding and changing all the time. Now, obviously they also have a massive budget for that. So I'm not saying like you, my small doula business, should be like Target, right? No, not right now, because you are not the size of Target. You don't have thousands of people working for you, right? But I do want you to think about why is Target flourishing? In some way, it's because they are always experimenting with new ways to reach their clients better. They're always experimenting with new ways to make more of an impact in the communities where they have stores. They're always experimenting with what kind of products their customer base wants to see in their stores. And where in their stores do they want to see them? Are these like by the checkout line because you probably forgot them kind of things? How do you think batteries ended up in every single checkout line in the United States? Because we all need them all the time and we forget about it until we're in the freaking checkout line. And then we're like, oh, I do need AAA batteries. Thank you so much for putting them right by the register. Same with gum, same with candy, same with ChapStick, same with snacks, same with drinks, right? People checking out are like, I'm so freaking tired and hungry and they're like, you know what I want right now is a water and some pretzels. You know what I want is like a Reese's, right? Like, you know what I want is some ChapStick because my lips are killing me. So those things, those like aisle things are not just happenstance. Like they are strategically placed there and those companies are constantly assessing which things will do better in those places, right? So they're looking at like, okay, we've had this ChapStick here for some months now. How many people actually buy it, right? We've had these batteries here. are people only buying the AAA, only buying the AA, or are they sometimes buying the C and D batteries? Because if they're never buying the C and D batteries, we don't have to have them up here. Like we could put those in another part of the store because people who need C and D batteries come here, like really specifically to get them, but also they need them less frequently, not that many products take those batteries, right? So there's a strategic element of all of that. And I know honestly that sounds a little bit crazy. Like as a person who now kind of has been exercising this strategic part of my brain and business for a long time, it is fascinating to me to look at businesses and be like, wow, this is like a business experiment, right? Like I will watch commercials and I'll be like, oh, that's an interesting experiment. I'm like, I wonder how that'll turn out for you. And I can even see sometimes like, oh, this is the target demographic that you're trying to like entice with this. commercial. This is how you're trying to make me feel with this commercial. This is what you want this to do. And there are times where my kids and I will be watching a show and a commercial pops on and they'll be like, does this actually work? Does someone watch this? And they're like, I want to go buy that thing. I'm like, well, maybe, maybe not. But they're trying to see if it does work. And if they can correlate people watching this commercial with purchasing their products, then they're going to keep showing it. Even if you and I think it's really ridiculous, because we are clearly not their target market. And so there is a layer there that I think can be really exciting, but also incredibly overwhelming. The reason I think it's really overwhelming is that in doula work, we have this compartmentalization where someone's in labor and we're just like 1000% mentally at their birth. And then they get out of labor and we're finally able to shut our brain off. And then we just crash for whatever amount of time, depending on how long the birth was. So you crash and then you get up and rejuvenate and start the whole process over. What you need in between there is the ability to strategically think, which is not easy to do if you're exhausted. It is not easy to do if you don't have good strategy skills in the first place. If this is something you don't do well, then you're going to put it off. Or when you do it, it's going to suck. And so then you're going to not use it. So it is a piece of your business that is so much more productive when it's done with someone else or with the guidance of someone else. And I know, I know, I know, I'm always saying this, but I am not kidding. I just had a strategy call with another doula who does amazing self-paced stuff to talk about getting a better funnel for my childbirth class, because I was like, I don't know. I just feel like I have too many ideas and I need someone to be like, don't do that, do this instead. And that's something I paid her for, right? I paid her to sit down with me and be like, you're all of my childbirth class options. How do I market this in a better way? What is my, what could my funnel be? What could it look like to get people in and to work people through it? And then now I'm in this phase of setting it up and testing it out and seeing if it actually works. And then if it does work, tweaking it and making it work better. And if it does work, you better believe that I'm going to book a second call with that lady and she and I are going to sit down and chat about what's working and what's not working and what could go better and what could be changed and all of that. Because this is a piece of my business that I want to flourish in a new and different kind of way in 2025. And I'm being super strategic about it, but I'm also putting money into it so that I can figure it out, right? So the reason that I'm talking to you about this today, so on this great year of our Lord 2024, December 6th, this is our episode because next Friday, we are having a strategic workshop. That workshop is to look at 2024 numbers and success and failures and everything, and to use that information to make a strategic plan for 2025. That is vital to your business. Now, I want you to do this with or without me, but I really think you should do it with me. I would love for you to come and do it with me because why not? I want to hang out with you, and I want to help you make some strategy and some moves in your business. This workshop is different than my other classes. So my other classes, I'm primarily teaching you something or walking you through something and then answering questions. This workshop is actually interactive where we work together on your individual businesses for two hours. That means it's going to be a smaller group of people. That also means that you pay for it, but it's only $37, literally less than a night out, less than a dinner with you and a friend kind of situation. I mean, I realize you can get a $5 biggie bag or whatever for less than that, but a decent dinner, right? That is what you're paying to get a whole strategic plan for 2025. And being able to dig into, okay, these are your numbers for 2024, what does that mean? And should I be intimidated by these numbers or should I be excited about these numbers or where can these numbers take me and what can this data tell me? How can I use this data to grow? That is what we're going to leave with. So you're going to walk away from that call on December 13th with an actual game plan that you can literally start implementing at 2.30 pm that day, right? Like you can say, okay, you know what I really need to do is dig into these resources in this particular way. and I need to do that now. That's what you can do from this workshop. And I don't want you to miss that because I want you to walk into the holiday season with a lot of confidence that you actually have a real good game plan for 2025. And you're not just flying by the seat of your pants like you have all your other years, because you actually have taken the time and money to invest in what this could look like for you. So that is my very strong recommendation for you to join the class, because I think you need it. And because I think it would be more than helpful, like wildly helpful in getting new success in 2025. So you can sign up in two ways, either hit the show notes, look them over, grab the link, it's literally right there at the top, or come over to Instagram at hiradula and shoot me a message and I will send you the link to sign up because I think this is vital to your business and I want you to sign up today. do not delay any longer. It's already one week out. So go today, sign up for the workshop. I will see you at the same time at 12 p.m. on the 13th for two hours, 12 p.m. Eastern time. And then you'll leave with an awesome game plan and I can't wait to make that happen for you. So sign up today, hit me up with any questions, and I will see you in the next episode. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Dula 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 hiradula 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.