Become a Doula – Increasing Your Earning Potential, Part 1 of 3 – Diversification, by Leanne Palmerston – Savvy Doula – Darlene MacAuley

Increasing Your Earning Potential, Part 1 of 3 – Diversification, by Leanne Palmerston

Feb 19th, 2010 | By Darlene MacAuley | Category: Creating Structure, Products, Services, Starting Your Biz

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I love it when other business owners share their wisdom. It offers me a fresh, new perspective about small business, and I always learn something new. This week, I am excited to introduce guest author Leanne Palmerston of Hamilton, Ontario Canada, who has written a 3-part series for the Savvy Doula Business Blog. Enjoy!

Welcome to the first of a three-part series on increasing your earning potential. In this series, we will look at specific things you can do to improve your bottom line and bring more money into your doula business.

The one thing I discovered when I became a doula was that being a doula is not enough. Because of the highly variable nature of serving at a birth – being on call for days or weeks, being at a family’s beck and call at any hour or day – making a livable wage as a birth doula can be a big challenge.

Even if we were able to fully book our schedules, many of us wouldn’t take more than 2-3 births per month, or about 1 birth per 10 to 14 days. When all is said and done, that amounts to little more than a part time income.

Success to some of us may be just that. However, I’m guessing that if you are a regular reader of Savvy Doula, you are interested in maximizing your bottom line.

In order to do that, you have to be more than just a birth doula. In order to increase the chance of creating income, you must diversify.

Often, a doula’s first step in diversification is to become both a birth and a postpartum doula. After all, providing prenatal, birth and postpartum support go hand in hand. A doula can offer both products separately and as a package, doubling her chance of creating income.

The bottom line: to earn more money, you must offer more products.

In the next article in this series, we’ll examine the two types of products doulas can offer to increase their earning potential.

Leanne Palmerston is a doula, childbirth educator, radio personality and writer in Hamilton, Ontario Canada. She’s writes about birth issues at Hamilton Doula, a crafty life with kids at The Clever Mom and whatever strikes her fancy at Momcast. You can also find Leanne on Twitter and Facebook.