Starting (and Closing) a Doula Agency with Erica Arsenault
FUN FACT: Doula agencies are not for everyone.
In Episode 24 of the Birthworker Podcast, I'm joined by Erica Arsenault from The Rising, who is sharing her insight and experience from opening (and closing) her very own doula agency and motherhood center.
In this interview with Erica, we chat about:
Who should and should NOT join a doula agency…
The “trickle-down effect” of birthworkers on social media…
How the most popular doula trainings set their students up for failure…
… and a whole lot more!
You can connect with Erica at www.therisingdoula.com and check out her newest creation: Doula Agency Founders Lab at www.therisingdoula.com/lab
Kyleigh Banks: You probably did a doula training, you probably took clients on your own for a while, and then what happened that led you to do these other bigger things?
Erica Arsenault: Yeah. I took notes because, like you said, I did things kind of backwards, which I tend to do. I don't know if you know anything about the Enneagram.
Kyleigh Banks: Mm-hmm.
Erica Arsenault: I don't like to put people and myself in a box, but if I were to pick a box, I would pick the Enneagram box. Do you know anything about it?
Kyleigh Banks: A little bit, yeah.
Erica Arsenault: Okay. I'm a type 3, which is “the achiever.” Then wing 4, which is where you pride yourself on being unique. So I tend to be like, "Oh, let me check out how everyone else is doing it. Okay, great. Now let me do it a different way just for the sake of being different."
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah, and overachieve and do it really well.
Erica Arsenault: Right. Yeah. Sometimes to the point of burnout, so I'll get there. So we lived in Connecticut. My husband and my son moved up there and then I had my daughter up in Connecticut. What I noticed was this big discrepancy. When we were in Florida and I had my son, it was kind of me running around like, "Where do I take prenatal yoga? Where do I get childbirth education? Where do I piece together all these things?" I couldn't find them. It felt very hard, and the only childbirth education I found was at the hospital.
I'm always kind of picking apart what people are telling me, so it was very obvious to me that this hospital childbirth education... I left and I was like, "Wait, they didn't say anything about what's actually going to happen in my body. They talked all about what they were going to do."
It felt like this huge disconnect for me. But I was also... I tell all my new clients I was trying to be the really cool, chill new mom, so when I got pregnant and had my son, I was like, "I'm not going to read a book. I'm not going to search anything or really try too hard to find classes or do any prep work because I'm just going to see what happens." So I totally get that mentality. Now I know, of course, and I'll tell any moms I work with, that someone is going to be in charge. Someone's going to make the decisions. If it's not you, it's going to be someone else. I know you resonate with this because your entire business is built around having autonomy, which is you making the decisions.
When I went up to Connecticut and I had my daughter there, there were too many options in New England. You could take prenatal at every single yoga studio, and those women, a lot of them also worked as doulas. I knew kind of vaguely what a doula was, but I definitely didn't know to what extent they served, their depth of knowledge, and that they were all so different. I definitely thought it was a regulated thing that you took a very specific training on because I went to school for elementary education.
So I started thinking through like, Okay, when you have to get a certain degree to do a job, like to be a teacher in a public school setting, you almost go through the ranks and it's sort of what's expected. You get your degree and then you start maybe being an assistant teacher or an intern, and then you get your own class and you're a lead teacher and then maybe you become a team lead of your grade level. Then maybe you move to an administrative position, possibly a principal, maybe eventually a superintendent of your school district, but you have to do all of those steps to get there.
When I started looking at doulas and being interested in doula work and realizing that it is unregulated and there are doulas that have never taken a training, *gasp*, that are so much more supportive than all of these doulas who have taken this end all, be all training, who I won't name... I also thought like, Okay. There are certain industries that are regulated in this way, you have to go through the steps. But since doulas are not, what's another industry that's not?
I thought of restaurants. You can work in a restaurant as a busboy and then move to be a server and then a manager and then maybe you get so wrapped up in that world and love it so much that you want to own a restaurant. That's one way to do it. But you can also, as a business person, own a restaurant first. You don't have to do all the things and all of the steps inside of that.
I was looking at these doula agencies in New England, and I talked with a woman and I was asking her, "Oh, how many births have you done? How many years have you been a doula?" She said, "Oh, I'm not a doula. I just own this agency." I was like, "Okay. Interesting." Which is totally fine and normal. I think that what I thought, and what a lot of doulas who are listening to this may think, is that you have to gain this certain level of credibility before you can open the business side of an agency or you have to work in your business to be credible as an agency owner. That's simply not true.
I mean, you can believe that in your own mind and that'll keep you exactly where you are, but no one who comes in here in a business sense even asks me if I work in my business. They don't care if I'm a doula here or not. They're like, "I want to talk to you as the owner of The Rising." Then people who come in to see me as a doula, they don't care who owns the business. They're just like, "I know you. I've met you. I want you to support me and my birth. Don't really care what your other responsibilities and titles are. That's irrelevant."
Kyleigh Banks: Wow.
Erica Arsenault: I think getting into this space is so opposite because... You mentioned when we were talking earlier that doulas may see opening an agency as the end goal. It's like, "Okay, if I can take these trainings..." What tends to happen with doulas is they take the training, maybe it's that most widely known training, and then they start to take on births. Then a lot of them, from what I'm experiencing, are feeling like, "Wow, I have no idea what I'm doing,” or, “I don't feel equipped for this or confident enough in this." Then maybe they take another training. Then you kind of get stuck on that wheel of like, "Oh, I'm working on becoming a doula." Which kind of drives me crazy because if you're a doula, you're a doula. You just say it and you just are it. You're doing that work in your life, or you're not. You don't need anyone to tell you that you're serving women or serving mothers.
But yeah, like you said, it becomes this pipe dream of, "Okay, eventually when I've put in the time and the work... Then I have too many clients so I'll have to hire another doula and then I'll have to hire another one and then I'll build up this agency, and then maybe we'll get a location where we can meet with our clients." I kind of have the opposite of imposter syndrome. I have more like "What can I get away with, what can I surprise myself with" syndrome.
When we moved back to Vero, I knew a lot of people and I felt like I could make this happen just with the kind of community I already had, and so I was like, "I'm going to start working as a doula and I'm going to open an agency together at the same time, kind of fail fast, see which one I like best." So that's why we opened. It was not a slow burn. It was very immediate.
Kyleigh Banks: Amazing. Even in my head, I have that limiting belief that like, "I can't open an agency until I have too many births and I need some help, someone to send the births to." I also have a little bit of like, "Well, that seems like so much work." Which it is, and I'm sure you'll get into that. It's not just a walk in the park, but part of me is like, "Well, that seems like so much work. I'll just refer my clients to my friends. I don't need an agency, I don't need contractors." But that is totally a limiting belief.
Erica Arsenault:
It is, but I think there are so many ways... You kind of see this cookie cutter mold of, okay, someone opens an agency and what does that look like? There's very limited resources that you can find online right now for support in opening an agency. There are maybe two places I’ve found where you can get contract templates, which I don't really like templates so I took all the time and wrote my own like a crazy person. But I think that because of that, you feel like, "Okay, whatever agency I've seen, I'm going to stick to that playbook. I'm going to do it that way."
As an independent contractor that I would take in through my agency, I would get $600 per client that would come to the studio, so after I paid out the doula, paid for all the other pieces of the package that they purchased. So $600. Or let's say I could refer a client that I couldn't take on to a friend and she would give me $200 as a referral or a finder's fee. Now when I refer right now, I'm just like, "Hi. You'd be a great fit. Go ahead. I don't get any money." But looking at it that way, I'm like, Okay, it's 3x as much money that I would get if they're coming through my agency. But I definitely think there's this misconception, it was for me, that if they're working with another doula, you're very hands-off as the agency owner. You're like, "Oh, I've paired them and we're good to go." That's just so not the case.
And this is a learning experience for me too. I did not know this beforehand, but there are a lot of conversations around payment plans. If payments aren't made, I still have to pay my doula, so for some reason, if their client isn't paying, that's on me to figure out and get contracts sent out and if someone is a no-show or someone's sick, there has to be a backup. All of these things do land on you as the agency owner. I think that's something that sometimes you don't think through. You are the end-all, be-all, you are the ultimate backup for every client that you have. They have a doula and they have a backup doula, but if for some reason those two don't answer the phone I do need to be available. I would never let a client just fall through. Of course, this has never happened. I vetted my doulas really well, but it feels like you're on call all the time.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah. Yeah, because you never know.
Erica Arsenault: Yeah, you never know. If I have a doula who's at of birth, and for some reason, they won't let her in the hospital or whatever... This is silly, but if I call and I say, "Oh, I'm the agency owner and she works at this agency." They’ll say, "Oh, I'm so sorry. Of course, she can go up." Which is hilarious because I'm like, this doula that's at the hospital has way more experience than I do working as a doula and is way more 'certified' than I am. But just having this agency name…
Kyleigh Banks: That's so weird.
Erica Arsenault: It's weird.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah.
Erica Arsenault: But yeah, so just being available to all your people, it's really something... If you're wanting to open an agency, you have to know that you have a team. Even if they are independently contracted and they're not employees, you are still leading a team of people, you still have a particular mission just like any other time.
Kyleigh Banks: Can I ask a question real quick?
Erica Arsenault: Yeah, yeah.
Kyleigh Banks: From the perspective of your contractors... When I think about if I want to go work for an agency, there's a part of me where it's like, "Well, I could find my own client and charge them $1500, or I can go to an agency and only make $800. Ugh, I don't want to do that. I'm just going to do my own clients." What's the drive for them to want to work for an agency?
Erica Arsenault: Good question. This is what I normally start... When I will be a guest speaker on doula trainings, I usually speak on agencies and what I always start with is, "Here's why you don't want to work for one."
Kyleigh Banks: Mm-hmm.
Erica Arsenault: Which is not a good draw as an agency owner, but I like to be upfront in that if you have any sort of business sense, any kind of skill in marketing or interest in marketing, if you have a big network where you are, you know pregnant people and you're the same age as a lot of pregnant women, then you don't need an agency. You just really don't. If anything, if you're feeling stuck on the business side, like, "How do I get this started?" That's a lot of women that I work with. They'll call me and say like, "Can I talk to you about possibly working with you?" I talk to them for 30 minutes. I'm like, you don't need me. It's just... Yeah, it's not worth it. You're giving up a lot of money when instead let's spend an hour, get all your contracts in order, get some systems around taking on clients and retaining clients, and then you're good to go. That's sometimes just the one missing piece.
Why you would want to work with an agency is if you really don't want to touch any of the backend stuff. If you do not want to take payments, don't want to worry about sending out contracts, you’re just really a super service based person. That is a big draw for doulas that have either worked here or wanted to work here. A lot of them have other jobs, full-time jobs that are flexible if they're on call and have to leave, but they're like, "This is my priority. I'm going to take one or two births a month and I don't want to think about it. I just want to have the client schedule, it'll pop up on my calendar, I will show up at the address that it says and I will serve them the way I know how."
Then another reason would be if you are brand new to an area. We've had a lot of doulas reach out here saying, "I just moved here. I am a doula. I have all this experience but I don't know anyone. I just really need to break into this community." A lot of doulas will come, even just take on a few births as they're getting to know people here and then they go do their own thing. I would definitely say if you are interested in working with an agency, make sure they do not have a non-compete, meaning make sure you can run your own private business. Some agencies require that every client you have runs through the agency while you're under contract with them. I think that is insane because it's taking autonomy away from the woman. It's saying like, "You can only do the work if I can find the work and choose to give it to you as a contractor."
Kyleigh Banks: That's true, yeah. There's actually an agency owner here that'll literally try and hire every single doula as a contractor, not have enough births to give to people, and is doing that whole thing like, "You can't take on births but I don't have any to give you. Sorry." It's like, "Right."
Erica Arsenault: Oh my god.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah.
Erica Arsenault: Yeah. That's... I mean, it's an easy kind of trap, I would say, to fall into when you're new because you do feel like, "Oh, I just have to get these three births under my belt." But a lot of agencies have you for a year at least. Our contracts are a year, sometimes two. Then sometimes, read your contract, they have where you can't join any other agency or open any other agency in the area that we're serving after a certain amount of time.
Kyleigh Banks: Mm-hmm.
Erica Arsenault: I would just say if you're interested in joining an agency, think long-term on what you want your business to look like and be confident in yourself. If you know, which everyone can, that you can go out on your own and do this as your own private business then be really strict on that with the agency owner. As an independent contractor, you can negotiate your contract. It's not like a public school teacher where it's like, "The government says this is your pay based on this particular scale and your experience." I've had doulas come in and they've said, "Oh, that pay looks great, the contract looks great, I'll sign it right now." And I've had doulas come in saying, "No, I want $300 more per birth." I've said okay because they're highly qualified, I would trust anyone birthing with their support. Definitely only work with an agency if it feels like the best of both worlds, perfect situation for you.
Kyleigh Banks: Make sure it's a whole body yes. Make sure it's an F yes, not like, "I don't really know."
Erica Arsenault: Yeah.
Kyleigh Banks: Especially with those contracts that potentially are longer term. Yeah.
Erica Arsenault: Yeah. Yeah, no working for an agency out of desperation is what I would say. If I sense that from someone, I'm like, it's just not fair that I'm going to take you on because I know this is not what you want to do. I know you're business-minded and that is your goal. This doesn't make any sense.
Kyleigh Banks: Now, are you "guaranteeing" them any amount of births?
Erica Arsenault: No.
Kyleigh Banks: But when they work for your agency, they can take on their own clients so it's something that they don't have to worry about.
Erica Arsenault: Yeah, and we have... Do you have Healthy Start in your area?
Kyleigh Banks: We do, yeah.
Erica Arsenault: Nonprofit. Okay. Our Healthy Start has a doula program here as well, so a lot of the doulas that work with my agency also work with Healthy Start as a nonprofit. They don't pay a ton to doulas, but they have a lot of women who want a doula, so they get a ton of experience that way and a little more consistency, and then they also take on their own private clients. It's a total mix.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah.
Erica Arsenault: The great part also when you're an independent contractor... I guess that's another thing I would say, do not sign up as an employee through an agency. You want to be independently contracted because you can decide if you take on a birth and you don't have to explain why. When we have a client come in and I do a consult with them... Now, as the agency owner, if they want to work with me and I want to work with them, that's done. My other contractors, they don't even get to meet that person. That's a good thing to note. As an agency owner, it's kind of nice because I can sort of pick and choose like, "This feels like a great fit." If it doesn't, I just say, "I'm not available for your birth but here are your other doula options. They're all wonderful. You can pick from them."
I think always work as an independent contractor, because I can have a consult and then I'll send out to all my doulas like, "We have this mom, third baby, hospital birth. Here's kind of her intentions for her birth, previous experiences." Just kind of give a rundown. Then my contractors can just simply send back like, "I'm interested, not interested." It can be based on literally anything. They could just be like, "I don't want to go to a hospital birth." Or it could be, "The due date overlaps with a private client I have or I want to be on vacation that month, not taking it." They don't have to tell me. It could be a health issue.
With COVID, there was a lot of times where doulas and clients were saying like, "I want my doula to have this particular situation," and others wanted the other. So instead of my doulas having to disclose all of their health information to me, they could just make that choice based on what the client was looking for, say yes or no, and that's done. I do think that's how it should be. I don't think that you owe anything to your agency owner. You are really... I mean, you're working to make them more money.
Kyleigh Banks: It's so true. Remember that. Yeah.
Erica Arsenault: Yeah.
Kyleigh Banks: The agency owner at any point could just simply end your contract and not want to work with you anymore. It's just... Depending on the contract, of course. But it's like when you go to a normal job, don't kill yourself for a job that's just going to fire you and hire someone else 24 hours later.
Erica Arsenault: Yeah. It's true. It's true. So yeah, an agency owner gets so much benefit from having you work for them as a contractor, so that's why you need to make sure you are also getting so much benefit. You want to, I think, kind of feel like you're taking advantage of them like, "Wow, they're going to bring me clients? They're going to do all the marketing for me and take care of all the billing and just write me a check?" If that feels amazing to you, then I'd say it's a good fit.
Kyleigh Banks: Mm-hmm. Are most agency owners people who were doulas for a long time, had an overflow and then decided to hire on one at a time?
Erica Arsenault: That's a good question. I would say yes if they don't have a physical space. This is the difference I find too, we have another doula in our town who is incredible and I happily refer to her. She's not involved in my business in any capacity, but she technically has an agency. I don't think she calls it an agency, but she has other doulas who are working alongside her now under her umbrella of her business. I know she also has a full-time job so just very full plate.
The wonderful thing about that is you don't have all this overhead of a location but you still are bringing like-minded people together, you can serve as each other's backups, which is really great. A lot of times, you want your backup to not be completely jarring if they show up. You want them to be similar enough to you in the way that they support that if a mom has a backup show up, it still feels good and familiar. That's a real benefit.
But I would say it's probably split if there's... I call this a motherhood center more or less. If you have a motherhood or prenatal center and you have doulas there, sometimes it is just a business owner who sees the need in the community and fills that gap. But if it's someone who's just having other doulas join them, typically it's because of an overflow and they want to serve more clients or more specific clientele. I know the other doula I just mentioned, she brought on a doula within her business that speaks Spanish, which is a huge need, and she doesn't speak Spanish so that covers a lot of ground in her area, a lot of Spanish speaking families here that she's now able to serve and where she otherwise... I mean, you could still... You don't have to speak the same language to be someone's doula, but when you're giving them the education piece of course that's needed.
Kyleigh Banks: Mm-hmm. Can you tell us a little bit more about your motherhood center? It all started at the same time, is that right? The agency, you being a doula and the motherhood center?
Erica Arsenault: Yeah.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah. You took on a lot. Oh my gosh.
Erica Arsenault:
In hindsight, I will say... I'll give you all my lessons learned, all the transparency. We were living in Connecticut, my little family, of course, my husband and two kids, and I was serving as a doula there. I had a few clients, and then the pandemic happened. It locked down New England pretty severely, much more than it did in Florida. Hospitals were a no-go zone even for partners of birthing women. It was very crazy. But because of that, I wasn't in any hospital settings there, so I was doing a lot of virtual support, a lot of doulas work that way, and a lot of prenatal yoga in people's homes and in a small studio that was still running under the radar.
When I moved home, it was because we had a really big loss up there. It was an immediate move home during the pandemic, kind of a pack-up-and-go situation. In hindsight, I truly opened this agency and motherhood center as a distraction, a reaction to circumstance. It was just like, "I can't wallow in what's happening. Let's focus." My husband is a contractor. We found this building that was gross. We were like, "We'll take it. We'll make it beautiful." And we did, and we're very, very proud of it. We did a six-week turnaround, and we opened. At that same time, when I moved home suddenly I had a couple of friends who were pregnant. They said, "Great, you're here now. You're my doula. Done. So glad you're back." And really just started the ball rolling that way.
But my intention for opening a center was... My intention was intentional. It was a big investment and I ran the numbers. Scalability is really important. I am in a small town. When I really ran the numbers on how many women are birthing in this county, first of all, is a good number to know. When I ran those numbers and then thought about like, "Okay, what percentage of them will likely hire a doula, and then how much do we charge? What is the maximum I could make?" That number was not super high. It's fine, but it would make me... Let's say rough numbers. It would make me under $100,000 a year take-home, which is a lot of money, but it would also take all of my time.
Kyleigh Banks: Mm-hmm.
Erica Arsenault: I knew this and I was like, "Let's do it." But also have two toddlers, and navigating just all the other things in life.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah. The thing with that too that we start to think about as we become business owners is like, "Okay, your take-home's a hundred grand. If you need to hire one more person, if you need to hire one nanny, your take-home is 40 grand now, and that's not enough."
Erica Arsenault: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So I ran these numbers and they felt good enough in my head like, "Okay, let's do it." But then my... I always have kind of a contingency plan, especially if I'm opening a physical space in the middle of a pandemic. Definitely, I had some friends and family being like, "What? What are you doing? Just chill." But I also... My contingency plan was like, "Okay. If this doesn't work out or if this doesn't end up being what I wanted or need it to be, is there any benefit to doing this?" For me, there absolutely was, because in my town... And this is something to consider, whoever's listening to this, is think about where you live. If you live in a big city where there's a ton of volume and a lot of babies being born, it is more likely that you can take on 10 to 12 doulas all doing multiple births a month and that's going to add up much more quickly.
That was simply not going to be the case for me and I knew that. But there was a big gap in maternal healthcare in our town, and also there are a lot of really good providers that have no online presence, they're impossible to find, you have to know someone who knows someone to get in with them. I just wanted to tighten up all of those gaps and provide the missing piece, I believe, which is community care for moms because you can get education now anywhere. You can go online and there are all of these childbirth education courses that you can take, but there just is something different about sitting face to face with another mom and holding her hand and crying in the same room. It's just different and there, in my opinion, is no way getting around that so I wanted to provide that.
I mean, I think of course in a way I was like, "Oh, I'm going to make all the things that I wish existed for me." This is a lot of times why we start businesses. It was an investment also in exposure for me. I mean, in a year of being open, I know that I am much more visible, seen as an authority in this little niche rather than if I were just a single person going to networking events, talking to my friends. It really establishes you as the key place to go.
We get lots of phone calls all the time on a variety of topics surrounding fertility and pregnancy and birth and postpartum, and people call us all the time like, "What elementary school should I send my kids to?" I'm like, "I don't know. I don't know that." But it really was just this missing piece so if you don't have a motherhood center... I mean, you could call it anything... This is just what I call it. But I think it is a huge need in most places if it doesn't exist, so it made sense. It made sense for me even though the numbers didn't make sense.
Kyleigh Banks: Mm-hmm. Then where are you now a year later?
Erica Arsenault: A year later I kind of told myself... We opened in December of 2020 and I told myself like, I'm going to give it a full year so I actually see... We're going to run through every season, because we have a lot of seasonal families here as well, and also to gather enough data I need the full year. I felt like even six, seven, eight months in... I was like, "Okay. I see where this is going. Most of our work is being done outside of our what I call studio or physical location. Moms who I thought would want to come into our location for prenatal classes and for prenatal education, they actually want us to come to their homes. They're like, If that's an option, I'm staying on my couch. Please come see me. I just didn't know that. There was no way to know what women wanted.
I had this inkling at around eight months. I was like, "I don't think it's sustainable to have this location unless we're scaling what we offer at the location." Then in the year I really pulled every number you could pull, "Where are we getting clients from? How are we retaining them in classes? Are they sticking around after they had a baby or do we mostly just serve them up until birth and immediate postpartum?" What I found was very, very clear. We were only making enough money in this physical location to pay to keep the physical location open, so it was kind of a wash. Everything we made on classes here was just enough to pay rent, utilities, phone and all of that. The big, big chunk we were making outside of the space. Then I was also spending 90% of my time in the space. It took most of my work time, mental time, childcare time. My kids are in school from 9:00 to 3:00 every day so that I can be in this space. As a mom, I just hit a wall too where I was like, "I miss my kids. This is stupid and I just hate being here."
Kyleigh Banks: Mm-hmm.
Erica Arsenault: The fact that it made sense on paper felt good to say like, Okay. That's not a big loss. Actually, it’s going to be a really big gain in that I get my babies home more. I can take on more clients myself. Now I'm kind of navigated... I'm almost going backward, I guess, from what you said, those building blocks to opening an agency, I did it first so I could see what are all of my options in running a business, and now I'm backing it up like, "Now how can I refer and get a little fee from other doulas or other providers from that and simplify and extract everything that I'm not super gifted in?"
Kyleigh Banks: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Are you ending the contracts with your contractors too?
Erica Arsenault: Some of them. That's what's kind of cool about that, is a couple of them still have clients through the summer so they'll see those through.
Kyleigh Banks: Mm-hmm.
Erica Arsenault: One just sort of said like, "This is a good time for me. I took on this new job. I'm going to actually stop seeing clients and being on call altogether." Great. Another one is going to be my primary backup. She doesn't want any clients of her own but she's like, "I'm always in town. I would love to just be the backup for everyone." Huge to me to not have to piece that together every time.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah.
Erica Arsenault: We will almost work like a partnership in that I'm the main doula and then she gets to meet every client as well, at least for one visit. Then two other doulas have pretty thriving private businesses on their own. They do childbirth education, one does hypnobirthing, and so they just said, "No problem." They continue... They're like, "I'll kind of just fill in the gap on my own."
Kyleigh Banks:
Yeah. It's really cool. I think one of my favorite parts about your story is that it seems from the outside... This might not be true, but it seems from the outside that it didn't completely derail you. You're not like, "I'm quitting everything. I'm never doing this again." It was a very logical decision that just made sense, and that's kind of what you have to do as a businesswoman.
Erica Arsenault: Yeah. I think... I mean, it's a hard thing that... I think at least every six months you should be checking in, and also seeing your business as just a part of your life, because the business... Let's say that this physical location was thriving but I also need to look at, Is my marriage thriving? Is my relationship with my children thriving? Am I well-nourished and getting enough sleep? Those things all really, really matter to me. I certainly think there's a time for going all-in in particular areas. It's this work-life balance situation. But in order to be sustainable, it has to be sustainable all around. You... Yeah. I mean, in my opinion, any amount of money in exchange for your health is nothing in the end.
Kyleigh Banks: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. It's almost like money probably shouldn't be the driver, it should be the excitement and the love. If you're going to start an agency, you better have a love for that business side too because that's what you're taking away from those doulas. Yeah.
Erica Arsenault: Oh yeah. For sure. I think that is the biggest thing. I do see myself and feel like I am a nurturing person when I'm with my clients, but I'm certainly not more service-minded. I do feel more business-minded, and those are the women that I tend to kind of connect with when I'm helping them with their businesses, is... I think I said to you business-minded birth workers because there is a very big difference between trying to piece together a business when you really, really just want to be with moms and babies. And then me, I'm more education brained and I want to teach you to really be able to do this without me. I will be your doula and I will be present. Like I said, I think being hand in hand with someone is so, so important, but my goal as a doula is by the time we are at your birth, I am just there physically as a reminder of how much you already know and trust yourself. I will keep bringing you back to you, but I'm not the person that's there to talk you through it in the moment.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah. Exactly. You're not the authority over their birth.
Erica Arsenault: Yeah.
Kyleigh Banks: And now you're transitioning into offering business consulting too.
Erica Arsenault: Yeah. It's kind of accidental. It's not official by any means, but what I have found because I've kind of popped in... I don't know if this is a coincidence or not. I took a doula training in Connecticut and it was a just private person that put together a doula training. It was phenomenal, just the coolest thing ever. Then I took a DONA training when I moved home because I knew there were going to be doulas that are contacting me that want to work with my agency, and the only training they've taken is DONA. But then I took that and I was... I won't say shocked... I just had no emotion. I was very apathetic to it. I was like, "This is very bare-bones."
Kyleigh Banks: Especially after taking that private one. Yeah. That must have been a shocker.
Erica Arsenault: And really even if you have given birth yourself, I felt like a DONA training was even kind of mild for childbirth education for yourself. I don't know. There were just so many missing pieces. I was like, "But what... What about... Well, what about... What... Okay. That's it? Okay, great. Have a great weekend." And was so short, this. So short. I took that training just to see where are women coming from when they're coming out of that experience, and because I took that training, I ended up popping into a lot of DONA trainings as a guest speaker. I gave out my email like, "If you have any questions or are interested in an agency or you live near me, definitely reach out." It was always the same thing with women reaching out afterward like, "Okay, so I finished my training and now I need three clients before I can get certified and I can't find these clients. How do I find them? What do I do?" That's frustrating.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah.
Erica Arsenault: Because you're like, "Well, that's the whole point, is serving women in birth. If you're having trouble connecting with these women, that's going to be a big driver in how successful you are." So because that was the question I kept getting, that's when I would pop on the phone for 30 minutes and I was like, "Listen, let's figure out what's actually the missing piece here. Let's drop the idea that you have to get certified in any amount of time." Because it, again, is like this act of desperation where you're like, "I've just got to find pregnant people. I'm going to go to the park and I'm just going to find them and then I'm going to strike up a conversation." That's weird. Definitely don't do that. Don't talk to pregnant women if you don't have a reason to.
Kyleigh Banks: Right. That's why births aren't a requirement for completing this program because that's exactly why. That stressor is leading women to not be doulas, especially if they would be a really good doula but they just feel stressed and they have to do births for free to find the certification births and... No, I'm not about that.
Erica Arsenault: What I do... Then, like I said, it's very informal because it's normally like I'll talk with someone and we kind of either click and they're like, "Wow, this makes so much sense. I'd love to talk with you more." Then we can move into that kind of mentoring relationship. But sometimes it's like, "Oh, you just needed me to give you permission to do this differently." Then they just go and they do it and they don't need me and I don't... I'm not going to sit on the phone with someone every single month when they don't need me. But we always go for women that I am mentoring always back to basics. We talk about what it even means to be a doula. When I tell them like, "When I said that I was a doula, people sort of came out of the woodwork when they became pregnant and they were like, 'Oh, you do this? I want you there.'"
I asked them like, "How are you acting as a doula in your life? How are you showing up and just serving other people? This birth aside, nothing related to pregnancy and birth, just how are you showing up for other people? How are you consciously setting your ego aside and really listening to your friends when they need you? How are you growing in empathy? How are you leaning more into your humanness? How are you being more connected to your own body and doing research on those sorts of things?"
That's usually the biggest missing link because they feel like, "Hustle, hustle, have to find someone who's pregnant, have to get my pricing right and get my website right and have the perfect name." So that too. I usually show them very... I know you can pay someone to make you a fancy website, but I usually hop on Squarespace and I'm like, "Tell me your information. You have a website, let's move on."
Kyleigh Banks: Exactly.
Erica Arsenault: Who cares about that.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah. Yeah. I give you 15 minutes to pick a business name, move on. I give you 15 minutes to pick your colors, move on. It doesn't matter. Yeah.
Erica Arsenault: No. It doesn't matter. And reminding everyone, I've never even had a client hire me because of my knowledge.
Kyleigh Banks: Mm-hmm.
Erica Arsenault: Certainly not because of what my website looks like or my name. I mean, I named The Rising after a Bruce Springsteen song. It's just so unrelated to anything, but I always have clients that want to work with me, come to me because of the way they feel around me, the end. Then I surprise them with my knowledge and my skillset and they say like, "Wow, I had no idea that you could help me with this or that you knew resources for this." That's a bonus, but... Even these new doulas that started an Instagram account, you have to have a purpose because otherwise social media is a total time suck.
Kyleigh Banks: Mm-hmm.
Erica Arsenault: I'd like to be very honest in that... You seem to love Instagram, which I think is really great, and I say that because you show up there a lot.
Kyleigh Banks: Can I tell you that I actually hired that out. I hired that out last year. Yeah.
Erica Arsenault: You couldn't even tell the transition.
Kyleigh Banks: That's really, really cool.
Erica Arsenault: Mm-hmm.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah, I don't show up in my comments, really. I personally show up in stories, I try to, but yeah, my grid posts... I hired it out because it's hard. You're right, it's a time suck and if you want to do the other business-y things, it's hard.
Erica Arsenault: Yeah. Okay. Good to know.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah.
Erica Arsenault: I mean, I did that for my business too and no one knew.
Kyleigh Banks: Mm-hmm.
Erica Arsenault: But yeah, what I will see is when women take a doula training... The same way you sent out for your training all of our Instagrams. You take a doula training and you're like, "Oh, okay. Let me go look at what every other doula is doing."
Kyleigh Banks: Mm-hmm.
Erica Arsenault: I encourage you, if you're listening to this and you have a level of self-control and discipline, do not do that. Has nothing to do with you. It's not your business. I mean, it's not your business. It's also none of your business. It just... Because what it does is causes this regurgitation of information. I kind of see it go through in waves because there's definitely a birth community online. Everyone is starting to weave together and it's like if HeHe, for example, who I adore and puts so much freaking work into her business... It's so obvious, and talk about showing up all the time.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah, she shows up.
Erica Arsenault: She shows up. She's a really good example. It's like I'll see her post something and then for the rest of the week, all of these other doulas trickle out the exact same information.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah. 100%. Yeah.
Erica Arsenault: Which is fine to say things in your own voice, but it's also really good to tune in to the women that you're serving. For me, if I'm following... I mean, HeHe's a good example. I'll just stick with her. She's in Boston, right? Big area. She also is a good example of having an agency that is all over the place, so that's another option. She is putting out information for her clients, people that are potential clients. She does a lot of what I would call even higher level information. She seems... This is all my opinion, but she seems to attract women who are already pretty confident in what they want. They want as much knowledge as they can get their hands on.
Now, a lot of women in my community are the exact opposite. They're just like, "I'm going to walk into the hospital and let me... Whatever happens, happens." So I'm working from a totally different space and if I am giving all this high level information, I'm totally missing anybody that I could actually be serving because they are really just probably not listening to me at all. I think that is the biggest missed opportunity, is that if you are serving women locally then there's not really a need for extensive posting on social media with hashtags that are reaching far and wide. Unless your intention is to reach women out of your area, then of course, different strategy, but if you're like, "I just want to serve women in my town," then maybe get off social media and go see people in real life.
Kyleigh Banks: Mm-hmm. It's so cool that there's so many different ways to do it. My favorite thing that you just said right there is you have to know your purpose. Don't just regurgitate what everyone else is doing because what HeHe is doing has nothing to do, probably, with what nearly every single person that's taking this program right now is doing.
Erica Arsenault: Right.
Kyleigh Banks: And so why regurgitate what someone's doing if that's not what you're doing, that's not what your community wants? So yeah, listen to your people, see what they want. Are they interested in the information, like statistics around induction, or do they just want a hype person to be like, "Trust your body? You got this." Because it's very different people. Yeah.
Erica Arsenault: For sure. The biggest research you can do... I actually did this. I'm a really good eavesdropper. It's not really something I should brag about, but I eavesdrop a lot. I was at breakfast with my husband this morning and there's a table behind us, group of moms, and one actually happened to be a client so I said hi to her really quick. She's very pregnant. But all these moms are just chatting mom things and I'm just hearing them because they're moms and they're loud, but just hearing the things they're talking about and the things they're worried about. They start talking about radiation from their cell phone like, "Yeah, I feel like when I'm pregnant I should probably not have my cell phone in my pocket all the time." Just random conversation they're having but I'm logging this. It's like, "Okay. That's something that in realtime moms are worried about, wondering about need, education on." Boom. Type of note in my phone like, "I'm going to throw something up about that."
Kyleigh Banks: Yes.
Erica Arsenault: I mean, it's kind of freaky because they're probably going to be like, "So weird, we were just talking about this." My client will probably call me out like, "Were you listening to us?" But same thing, if you're going to moms groups, if you have children, you're meeting up with other women or you're going to kids' birthday parties, just pay attention to what moms care about and are talking about. That's really a good indicator of where your education online can be headed because I also don't think so many women get on Instagram for an education. They're not sitting there scrolling in the middle of the night to learn as much as they can.
Kyleigh Banks: Mm-hmm.
Erica Arsenault: They just want to connect with someone or think someone's funny and kind of go from there.
Kyleigh Banks: Absolutely. Yeah. If you're creating that education for your clients or... Because they're not going to Instagram, like you said, to get a full-on education. Create an online course potentially or create a course for your clients, but Instagram is community based. It's emotional reaction based, so that's why if you look at my Instagram, I don't ever talk about options or research or percentages or nothing like that. I'm literally just dropping one-liners that make people think like, "Wow, I never thought about it like that before." My purpose of Instagram is to get people into my private communities. That's my very clear purpose, and I know that with every post I make I want to get people on my email list, I want to get people in my Facebook group or whatever. Yeah, knowing why you're doing it.
Erica Arsenault: Yeah. I mean, what you're doing is working because as a doula who's already taken multiple trainings, knowing nothing about what your doula training was going to have in it, I was like, "Oh, she's having a doula training? Yeah, I'm paying for that, no problem." Because same thing, I was like, "I feel connected to the way that you speak and the things that you say and that's what draws me in." I'm like, "Okay, we have a similar mindset. I know it's going to be good." Now I told you it was like, "If you're in this doula training, you've got a steal," because I just am imagining the back end of you putting this together. Got to raise your prices for your next go.
Kyleigh Banks: I'm definitely tired so thank you for saying that. It's cool that someone notices. I know that if someone's not... Hasn't done it before and they don't understand the back end, it seems like real easy, let me just throw this together, but you know that that's not how it is.
Erica Arsenault: I mean, I truly will never... I really think I can say this. I will never ever put together a doula training because it's too much work.
Kyleigh Banks: But look at you, you have a studio. Yeah.
Erica Arsenault: Still. I still think yours is more work. I really do, like mental... Just the logistics of it.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Erica Arsenault: Spreadsheets galore, I'm sure.
Kyleigh Banks: Yes. Lots of spreadsheets. You'll see a lot of spreadsheets in play in the program.
Erica Arsenault: Yeah.
Kyleigh Banks: It's really unusual that someone loves birth, they have that energy about them to hold space and to sit on their hands and to just have that like, "Everything's going to be okay even if it's not okay." That energy, but then also have the business mind. It's really rare, honestly. But I think if we can bring that business mind into birthworkers, they won't burn out as fast, they'll be able to support their family with the goal of actually supporting moms and actually changing the birth community. I think it's really important.
Like you said, you go to the other training, that one big training that everyone takes, and you leave and you're like in Facebook groups, "How do I make a website? How do I find clients? What should I charge?" I'm like, "They didn't teach you that? That is so basic and fundamental." Of course doulas take trainings and then never actually become doulas or never actually attend births, like of course. So that's my mission, that's why I wanted to put this together is so they can be a doula two decades from now and not burn out before then.
Erica Arsenault: Yeah, I mean, you won't burn out as easily because you have that concrete amount of money, frankly, coming in. But I think for me, it's also I get to use both parts of my personality so I get to use this mothering, nurturing side when I'm one on one with my clients and when I'm at births and really tap into that, which for me actually takes more work to turn down the alpha and be like, "Okay, I'm here to serve full out." That is way more exhausting, but also way more invigorating for me.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah.
Erica Arsenault: Then I also have the business side so I don't feel like, "Oh, all I do is talk about birth all day every day," because I am also on the back end helping people with their systems and strategies to scale and finding ways that they can market specific to their communities and all of this, and this hat, this hat.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah. Put your mom hat on when you get home.
Erica Arsenault: Yeah.
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Meet your host, Kyleigh Banks, a side-gig doula turned CEO of a multi-six-figure birth-focused business. Her passion? Teaching birth nerds, like you, how to build an incredibly successful doula business that allows you to quit your day job, stay home with your kids, and most importantly, make a lasting impact on the world.