How to Onboard Your Doula Clients from Consultation to Contract
Are you ready to STOP letting prospective doula clients fall through the cracks because you’re disorganized on the back end of your doula business?
If you’ve been wondering how to systemize the onboarding of a new doula client (and turn more consultations into PAYING clients) then get out a pen and paper, this one’s for you.
Things you’ll learn in this episode:
How to stop dropping the ball and start booking clients with EASE…
The #1 thing you should be doing AFTER your client signs their contract…
All the free systems I use behind the scenes to save me time (and money) every single day…
… and a whole lot more!
Let’s break down my entire process from the moment someone lands on my website until they *officially* hire me as their birth doula.
The very first thing that needs to happen is that someone finds you (maybe through a referral, maybe through a google search, or on social media… maybe through your blog or youtube channel… if you listened to episode 5, you learned all about blogs and youtube channels…)
Then they land on your website and hopefully decide, “Okay, I think I want to hire her as my doula.”
And the next step is getting on a consultation call.
That brings us to the very first question you need to consider…
Do you want to allow your prospective doula clients to book a consultation with you straight from your website or do you want them to fill out a form first?
Option 1: Allow them to book a consultation with you straight from your website.
You can embed your calendar on your website using a tool called Calendly.
Option 2: Have someone fill out a form on your website.
After someone fills out the form on your website, you will email them to set up a consultation or meet ‘n greet.
When you use option 2, it can immediately weed out some people who might not be a good fit for you.
For instance, if you’re sending people straight to a calendar to schedule a consultation… what if you’re already fully booked in November and December? There could be people scheduling consultations with you for November and December due dates.
Of course, that’s not optimal and it would be a huge waste of their time if you’re going to just say, “Sorry, I can’t take you on as a doula client, I’m fully booked”...
If you choose option one, where the client fills out the form before setting up a consultation, you could avoid situations like the one above.
Inside Birthworker Academy, we dive really deep into how to set up that initial form on your website and also how to embed your calendar right on your website… unfortunately, those types of lessons are not blog-friendly, but I can share my favorite tools!
I already mentioned Calendly for embedding a calendar, it’s AMAZING.
Now, for submitting forms, I recommended a free software called AirTable.
Both Calendly and AirTable can be embedded straight onto your website page or you can link to them using your “LinkTree” on social media if you don’t have a website yet.
Though it’s true that a website will 100% make you seem more “professional,” everything we are talking about today can be done without a website… and without ANY paid subscriptions at all.
As soon as the prospective doula client chooses a date for a consultation, they will get an email confirmation with more info, like the date, time, and zoom link.
The next step in the doula-client onboarding process is that you actually have a consultation with them!
This blog is more about the flow, so I won’t actually go into how to lead a killer consultation… but if that’s something that you’d like to learn about, shoot me a DM on Instagram @birthworkerpodcast and if enough people are interested, I’ll do a future episode all about consultations.
But I do want you to know three things…
ONE: If you prefer to do a consultation over the phone, do it over the phone…. If you prefer to do it on camera, then jump on zoom and do it on camera! And if you want to meet them in person, go for it!
Better yet, ask the client which type of meeting they would feel most comfortable with.
Me? I started off ONLY doing phone calls, but now I do about half on the phone, half on Zoom, and VERY few in-person consultations.
TWO: It’s important to know that the consultation is essentially a 2-way interview. You want to make sure that this person is a good fit for you just as much as they want to see if you’re the right doula for them!
THREE: Consultations are absolutely NOT education sessions or coaching calls. It’s more like a meet ‘n greet to see if you like each other, and an information session about your services.
Okay, what happens after the consultation?
You, the doula, should text the prospective client immediately and say, “Hey, it was so great to chat with you! I’m putting together an email right now and I’ll send it your way soon.”
Then, you should sit down and write them an email IMMEDIATELY. Yes, within the next 15-30 minutes.
The gist of this immediate email is to say:
Great meeting you
Here is an overview of what we chatted about. Here is the package that we talked about on the consultation call. Here are the prices and payment plan options.
If you decide that I’m the right fit for you, let me know, and I’ll put together a contract and an invoice so we can get started.
Do you have any more questions?
And then you hit send and wait.
Sometimes they’ll text you back right away and say, “YES! Let’s do this!”... and sometimes a day goes by, and another, and another… and before you know it, it’s been a week and you haven’t heard anything!
Here’s what I suggest you do in situations like that… you should follow up with them again via email 4-7 days after that initial consultation.
Full disclosure: I don’t send any follow-up emails after that first immediate one. Would I get more clients if I did? You bet…. Why don’t I send another follow-up? I wish I had an answer for you… I just don’t.
But let me tell you… there have been multiple people over the years that send me and 3 weeks later saying “OMG I FORGOT, ARE YOU STILL AVAILABLE?”... So, take my advice and send a second follow-up email.
HOT TIP: With this second follow-up email – the one that you send if they haven't responded within 4-7 days – create an email template!
Write the email once, and save it to a Google Doc in your Google Drive so you can then copy and paste that into an email when you need it.
Little shortcuts like this might only save you 15-30 minutes each time you need to send a follow-up email, but over the course of a year, that’s potentially dozens of hours that we just saved you by simply creating an email template!
Before we talk about doula contracts and invoices, I want to share two systems so you don’t drop the ball and forget to follow up with people.
ZAPIER
I use an automation system called Zapier (you can learn more about Zapier and all my other recommendations here).
Zapier is an automation tool that you can use to send yourself a reminder text 1 week after the consultation call so you remember to follow up with your prospective doula clients.
The best part? Zapier is free!
AIRTABLE
All throughout this entire onboarding process, make sure you’re keeping track in a management system like AirTable.
Why do you need to keep track?
Imagine having 10 doula client inquiries in a single week…
There would be no way in the WORLD that you could remember everyone’s names, due dates, which packages they were interested in, which people you’ve already sent contracts to… right?
Instead of trying to remember (and then totally dropping the ball), use AirTable to easily track every single step of the process.
And now, it’s time to get down to business!
We’re at the point where this soon-to-be client says to you, “Okay, let’s do it! I am ready to move forward with this one specific package.”
So, how are you going to collect money and coordinate the signing of contracts?
I want you to see the signing of the contract and the payment of the invoice as one step.
When someone emails you that they are ready to have you as their doula, you can reply to their email and attach the contract as a PDF.
Side note: since your packages may change with each client, you might edit your contract for every single client based on the support they need and how their package ends up coming together.
I created my contract template in Canva, and even though my contract has totally evolved over the last few years, it’s still the same layout.
After I customize the contract in Canva, I download it as a PDF, and send them an email with the contract attached.
They sign the contract, send it back to you, and that’s when you sign it
And now the contract is complete! Time to celebrate? Not quite…
It’s time to send the invoice.
Honestly, you can set up your invoicing in a billion different ways…
For my in-person doula clients, I send invoices through PayPal. I use Paypal because it’s really easy to break the payments up into a payment plan and it’s really nice to have all the analytics right in the PayPal Dashboard.
As soon as that payment is made and the contract is signed, they are official your client!
This is where most people stop. But not you. You’re going to send your new doula client a “new client intake form.”
Intake forms are amazing because they help you know a ton of information about your new client without having to rapid-fire ask them a ton of questions.
Another thing that’s worth mentioning… If you don’t have something like this implemented in your onboarding process, once you have 10-20 clients it’ll be hard to remember everyone’s due date, partner’s name, address, birth history, and all the other details that you should know.
You can either automate this in your business (so when someone pays an invoice, they are automatically sent an email with a link to fill out the intake form) or you can simply send them the link to the intake form in a text message as soon as their invoice gets paid.
I set up my intake forms in AirTable so the answers get stored in a spreadsheet and are super easy to find for all of my clients.
If you want to see what a survey form looks like inside of AirTable… I use this same type of form when you submit a review to this show to receive a free gift.
On the intake form, you can ask them questions like:
Where did you hear about me?
Have you given birth before?
How many kids do you have and what are their names and ages?
What's your partner’s name?
Do you have any pets?
What’s your address?
Who’s invited to your birth?
Have you hired a medical team to support your birth?
Why did you choose your planned birth location?
Once they fill out the intake form… now you’ll be able to sit down and map out the best way that you can start supporting them from DAY ONE.
It’s time to take a step back and imagine you’re entire onboarding workflow for your doula business.
It’s perfectly planned. Just think, there isn’t a single place where a prospective doula client would slip through the cracks when you’ve set up your onboard system like this.
At no point will they say, “I’m confused about what’s next.”
At no point will they say, “Jeez, I feel like this doula is so unorganized.”
Yes, there are a lot of moving pieces here… but you now have the exact workflow. Step by step. A-Z… from the moment they land on your website all the way through until you receive that intake form with all of their information, so you can know how to serve them best.
Not only will you look like a total pro, but you’ll give off an energy of confidence and competence.
And damn, that goes a long way.
Before you go, you have to grab my free resource with ALL of my tech suggestions that we talked about today. You can download it right here. I call it my 'TechStack' PDF and it’s a HUGE hit with the students inside Birthworker Academy so I know you’ll LOVE it, too.
thank you for listening
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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.