The Doula Business Guide Online Training
Learn how to grow your doula business
with author Patty Brennan!
The Doula Business Guide Online Training
Visioning, launching, and growing a business is a creative act. It necessarily involves getting outside of your comfort zone, the humility to be a novice, and a willingness to learn. The payoff is becoming one of those rare people who loves their job and gets paid for doing work you were born to do, on your own terms. Join us for a highly interactive, self-paced training covering the following topics. Click on the + sign to see a list of topics covered in each module.
This training will doula you through the steps ... from dream to reality.
Make an informed decision about the doula business model best suited to your goals, strengths, and skills.
Use our guidance and tools to create an infrastructure for your business and get ready for your first client.
Identify your ideal customer and create effective, multi-media marketing messages to attract that customer.
Create a plan with goals, action steps, deadlines, and a budget. Then, work the plan!
My story as a doula business owner ...
I have been self-employed my entire adult life. It turns out, I don’t do bosses very well. After my first son was born, it didn’t make sense to return to a low-paying job and pay someone else to care for my baby when I wanted nothing more than to take care of him. I began a small service-oriented business, typing student term papers, resumes, and dissertations for folks in the college town where I live. This was in the pre-computer era. Over the next few years, as my son grew and a second son was born, personal computers came on the scene. My husband helped me to embrace this change, acquire new skills and grow the business to comprise 50 percent of our family income.
In the meantime, I found my passion in birth work. When I was ready to go all in, quit the desktop publishing business and take the leap, my business skills were an easy transfer and served me well. Meanwhile, I was surrounded by other birth workers who claimed they weren’t getting paid. They loved the work itself but couldn’t make a living at it. I didn’t understand this—in my mind it wasn’t an option to not get paid. But I had developed a set of skills they didn’t have: knowing how to present myself as a professional, how to structure my business, communicate clearly with clients regarding their needs and mine (fees and terms of payment), set boundaries, when to say “no,” and so much more.
Over the years, my birth business evolved, undergoing many changes and new directions. It never stops evolving. There have been many challenges, new skills to be acquired, times of frustration and fatigue, and, ultimately, great success. I work both “in” my business and “on” my business—as all small business owners must—and I persist. Somewhere along the line, I realized I had become an entrepreneur. Now, I take great joy in helping others do the same!
