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 BizI 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 Inspired Birth Pro 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 Inspired Birth Pro, 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, and placenta services provider in Hamilton, Ontario Canada. You can get in touch with Leanne at her website Hamilton Doula, Twitter and Facebook.
These posts may also inspire you:
- Increasing Your Earning Potential, Part 2 of 3: Two Types Of Products, by Leanne Palmerston
- Increasing Your Earning Potential, Part 3 of 3: Product Suggestions, by Leanne Palmerston
- Tips to Diversify Your Birth Business
- A Fun Way To Connect With Former Clients
- A Double Dip – Marketing and Easy Income Tip for Birth Pros
[...] this morning, my three part article entitled Increasing Your Earning Potential began running. Part 1, which was published this morning, is about how diversifying your product [...]
[...] Part 1 – Diversification [...]