106. My Doula Business Feels Stuck, Is It My Strategy Or Something Else?

Have you ever looked back at a decision you made inside of your business and thought...

"What was I thinking?"

A few days ago, I shared a Reel about the "unhinged" things I did during the first year of my doula business, and the response was incredible. 

But what most people saw as impulsive or risky, I now see as the decisions that completely changed the trajectory of my life.

But this episode isn't really about those decisions.

It's about what they required of me.

Because I've realized the biggest thing holding most doulas back isn't strategy...it's waiting until they feel confident enough to act.

If you're stuck waiting for more experience, more certainty, or the "perfect time," this conversation is for you.

• What investing $8,000 in one room taught me about identity and growth
• Why saying yes before you're ready can completely change your life
• The real reason I launched before I felt prepared
• Why I refused to choose between motherhood and building a successful business
• The mindset shift that helped me stop waiting for proof and start creating it

Ready to Build Your Own 10K Doula Month?

If this episode challenged you to think bigger, don't stop here.

Join me LIVE on July 21 for my free workshop:

10K Doula Months Start This Summer: The 90-Day Six Figure Doula Revenue Roadmap

I'll show you the exact framework I use to help doulas stop relying on referrals and start creating consistent, predictable revenue—without posting more, collecting more certifications, or waiting for the "right time."

Register here now!

Because by Labor Day, there will be two kinds of doulas:

The ones still waiting...

And the ones who decided this summer was the summer everything changed.

Struggling to grow your doula business? Tired of chasing prospects online? Imagine effortlessly attracting your dream clients and consistently generating a steady income month after month. 

⬇️ START HERE ⬇️

FREE Business Audit: Doula Revenue Bottleneck Analysis
Learn more about Six Figure Doula

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Because I have this feeling that the thing keeping you stuck probably isn't strategy and strategy alone. It's the way that you are making decisions on the day today. My guess is deep down you already know what your next move is. You're just waiting to feel more confident before you make it. Welcome to the Six Figure Doula podcast. This is where confidence becomes currency. If you're a birth worker who's ready to stop overthinking, stop undercharging, and start leading like you mean it, then you're not here by accident. Every week we talk sales without the ick, money without shame, and building a business that actually holds you and your clients. Welcome home, Doula. So a few days ago, I made a reel that started with the words unhinged things I did in my very first year as a Doula business owner. And a lot of my followers really loved it. I had people laughing in the DMs, telling me you're crazy. Some people were messaging me and said I could never do that. And I get it, I get it honestly, because when you look at this list that I will share with you in this episode, it does sound a little unhinged. But there is an interesting piece of this, which is that when people hear those stories now, they usually focus on the decision itself. But I don't. When I look back at those moments, I don't think those decisions were the things that built my business. I think they revealed something a lot deeper. And so today I want to unpack what that actually was for me. Because I have this feeling that the thing keeping you stuck probably isn't strategy and strategy alone. It's the way that you are making decisions on the day today. So I want to tell you about the first thing that I talked about in this reel, which is that I charged $3,400 before I had ever attended a birth. And I want to start with this one specifically because it does get a big reaction. On paper, that may sound irresponsible, right? People assume, oh wow, she was overconfident or super arrogant or somehow, you know, I thought I knew everything as a baby doula. That wasn't the case. I was terrified. I remember thinking, who am I to charge this price? But I also remember asking myself other questions like, am I charging for births that I've attended or am I charging for the transformation that I'm capable of creating? And those are different questions with different answers. See, before birth, I spent years in corporate sales, leading teams, understanding human behavior, helping people make difficult decisions, listening deeply, building trust in those conversations. So I wasn't pretending to have birth experience that I didn't have. I was always very forthcoming with that. But I also was not willing to pretend that those other skills suddenly became worthless because I changed industries. And I think there are a lot of situations where doulas leave the past in the past. When they come and work with me, I start to ask questions and dig into their background. And I am amazed at the pieces that have been left out of their branding and their messaging and their positioning. And so maybe part of that is like the conditioning that goes with our traditional certifications or trainings. I mean, I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole, but if you start your birth business or your death business, believing that every ounce of your value begins the day that you attend that first quote real experience or sign that first client into a particular package, that's that's not a story that I am willing to stand behind. It's like we're saying that the 25 or 30 or 40 years for some of you that you've spent becoming who you are don't count. Your life does not reset when you become a doula or form an LLC. Your communication skills matter here. Your emotional intelligence matters, your leadership, your ability to make people feel safe, your confidence, your lived experience. Birth experience absolutely has value, but it isn't your only value. And I've learned some things along the way, and that is that women who struggle with their pricing usually aren't struggling with their pricing. It's the permission side of things. It is permission to believe they already bring something valuable to the table before the resume looks super impressive. And that decision alone taught me something I will never forget, which is value and proof are not always introduced in the same order. All right, I want to tell you about another unhinged piece of my story. And that is around saying yes before the know-how. So I'm gonna tell you more. My mentor, my first ever mentor, invited me to speak at one of her retreats, which felt so incredible. Like what an honor. And before I even had a moment to tap into the logical side of my brain, I said yes, immediately agreed to this. She hadn't asked me for a topic or let me know if I was gonna get to choose my topic. I didn't give her a pitch of any kind or an outline. And truthfully, I want to say that I had no clue what I was going to teach. Which sounds reckless, again, from the exterior. But what I understood even then was that there are moments in life where saying yes will come before knowing how. And I think we've been conditioned to reverse that. So again, these stories start to play in our minds. I will volunteer once I know enough. I will launch once I feel ready. I will speak once I have more, a more confident voice. I'll pitch myself when I have more experience. Capability is born from the commitment. So the moment I said yes, I turned into the woman who had to figure it out. And something fascinating happens when there's no exit door. Your brain starts solving problems instead of debating whether you're even qualified. I moved past that piece as fast as possible. And we spend all this time waiting for the confidence to show up. But it's usually a side effect of surviving the thing you thought you couldn't do, proving to yourself otherwise. And then this leads me into my next thing, but they're absolutely intertwined. I'm at the event, I'm on stage, I give my talk, I am lit up beyond belief because stages are my thing. I had just never actually spoken on one, I've only danced on one. And it real I realized in real time, based on audience questions and interaction and feedback, that I had something here, that I had something that duels wanted. And so I flew back home and within 10 days, I launched my very first program ever to a completely new niche. And the program wasn't even built. In addition to that, when I say I launched my first program, let me also be clear, I didn't know what launching even meant. I didn't understand funnels, I didn't understand the runway, I didn't understand the communication or the software needed to even like take in registrations, like it was fly by the seat of my pants. And it made me so uncomfortable. So if you have considered putting something out into the world before it's quote, finished and that has made you uncomfortable, join the freaking club. People hear this story and they make some assumptions. They assume that I was winging it, but I can tell you with certainty I wasn't. I was building alongside real people instead of imaginary ones. There's a difference. So a lot of entrepreneurs they spend months creating the perfect offer and they do it underground in isolation, and then they discover nobody actually wants it. I wanted to know first. I wanted conversations and feedback. I wanted resistance and confusion. I wanted the excitement built up. I let my future prospects and clients shape this program instead of me guessing what they need. So there wasn't anything lazy about this approach. It was me actually listening to my people. And too many doulas are trying to perfect their offers before they've collected enough data from the humans themselves. Perfection will always feel productive, but feedback is the thing that we can turn into a profit. And if we are making a profit, we are making an impact. Am I right? Yes. Yes, I am. Okay, here's another unhinged thing that I did in the very first year of owning my business. And that is I spent $8,000 to fly to Alaska for a four-day work week, and I was completely in the red. So when I say I spent $8,000, that was money that I absolutely did not have. I went and I opened a business credit card and I put $8,000 on a card, which is more than I had ever spent in one sitting, aside from buying my house. And that was different because that was hella planned and mapped out. And I get these sideways looks from people when I share this. Who spends $8,000 to get on an airplane and spend a few days in a room with people they've never met? I was not making money at this time. This was not some casual business expense. This was the biggest leap I had ever taken. And I remember questioning it over and over and over after the fact. Was this irresponsible? What if I come home and nothing changes? But the reality is, I didn't go to Alaska because I thought that somebody was going to sit me down and figure out why I wasn't making money yet. I didn't go to Alaska because I thought if I could just take a hike with an eight-figure entrepreneur, they were going to be able to solve all of my business problems on one trail. I went because I knew that I had outgrown the room that I was currently in and I needed to borrow a new normal. And there is something that happens when you spend time around people living the life that you are trying to build. Because then the things that once felt completely impossible to you start feeling inevitable. The conversations themselves are different. The problems change. The ceiling that you've been staring at suddenly becomes the floor. Nobody there was talking about whether they should raise their prices by $100. They were talking about building true companies, leading teams, creating wealth for their families, buying back their time, building a legacy. So I didn't leave Alaska with a magical tactic or solution to my roadblock. I left with a completely different standard for what I believed was possible. And looking back, that's what I was paying for, not the information. It was literal identity expansion. Sometimes the most expensive thing you can do is stay in rooms that keep convincing you to think small. All right, this last one is definitely personal. And this is one that I think I have really questioned on my own more than anybody has questioned in my life. But I just want to share about this because I can't be the only one. And if you are someone that listens to this pod on a on the regular and you have thoughts on this or you can relate to this, I would, I would love to hear from you. And that is that I started trying to conceive baby number two while my business was taking off. Meaning my business was growing faster than it ever had. There was serious momentum, more client load than I've ever had in the past, more opportunities, way more responsibility. And there were these versions of the same advice coming in over and over. You know, wait until your business is more established. You'll have more time later, once you've built the team, you know, focus on one thing at a time. Don't stress your out yourself out. But what I had to kind of come to terms with was that I was not building this business so I could someday have the family that I wanted. I already had my family. I was building the business for them. I never wanted motherhood to be the thing that I had to work around. I wanted motherhood to be the reason I built something extraordinary. My son is not an interruption to my business. He's the reason that it exists. And one day I hope both of my children will look back and remember watching their mom chase something that she believed in. It's not going to be without fear. There was, there was always fear. It's not going to be without sacrifice. Courage. Courage is the thing that I want them to remember. I do not want them to inherit a business. I want them to inherit permission to build something of their own, permission to dream, to bet on themselves. The lesson that these unhinged decisions have taught me is that women spend a lot of their lives waiting for the right season after the pregnancy, once the kids are older, after summer comes and goes, after life settles down. But life does not stop asking things of you while you're building your dream. So there is no perfect season ever. There is only the decision to build your life and your business at the same damn time. That is what I want to teach. Not something where you sacrifice your family for success. Not one where you sacrifice your ambition so you can be a more present mom. I reject the idea that women have to choose. I believe that we can nurture our families while building extraordinary birth businesses. Maybe that's the most unhinged thing I've done of all time. My guess is deep down, you already know what your next move is. You're just waiting to feel more confident before you make it. But if there's one thing that I hope you take away from today's conversation, it is that confidence is not what comes first, commitment is. And that is exactly why I created my free live workshop. 10K duel a month start this summer. And on July 21st, I'm going to walk you through the exact 90-day roadmap that I use and I use to help do us stop relying on referrals and start creating predictable, consistent revenue. Because summer has a really funny way of slipping away. And before you know it, it's Labor Day and the kids are back in school. You can spend the next 90 days becoming the woman who built the business that she's been dreaming about. That can be your story. And by Labor Day, there will be doulas quietly celebrating their first $10,000 month. It'll be what they decided to do this summer that brings that to fruition. And if you are ready to stop waiting and you are ready to start building your dream, I want you there. Head to the link in the show notes, reserve your free seat. They are limited this time. Okay. Get registered for 10K dual a month start this summer. You can go to six figuredoula.comslash workshop. I cannot wait to teach you.