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Charlotte Bailey

How should I price my doula services?

By Charlotte Bailey

Photo of Charlotte Bailey. Charlotte is a white woman with long dark hair and she's wearing a floral shirt.

When setting up your doula business, one of the most fundamental things you need to decide is how much to charge for your services. Setting your pricing correctly from the outset is an important part of your business success – although don’t worry, you can tweak it as you go along, too!

However, get it wrong and you risk either not earning enough money to cover your basic needs or you’ll be too expensive for your customers. So let’s take a closer look at how you might appropriately set (or re-set) your pricing…

Before we get into the nitty-gritty, confession time…It upsets me SO much to see incredible doulas – not exclusively, but most often women – charging much less than the value that they bring to their clients, struggling to make ends meet and concluding that being a doula is not a viable business option. Undercharging for your services doesn’t do anyone any favours. It actually pulls down the amount that other doulas can charge, making those whose fees are proportional to the difference they can bring to clients seem like they’re over charging. I’ve had potential clients ask me why I “charge so much when another local doula (not an NB doula!) charges half the amount?” Tricky one. I wonder where that doula is now; I haven’t heard her name since or seen her at on/offline doula events or any local networking groups. I hope she is still working, but my strong suspicion is probably not. And then there were the 3 times (yes 3!) I’ve been called to support a client at the very last minute because the 1st choice (cheaper) doula is either no longer able to deliver on their commitments or has suddenly ghosted the client.

The thing is that most (if not all) customers want the cheaper option. Don’t we all love a bargain?! I do! But if a client is choosing to work with you solely because you’re the cheapest option, is that really the kind of client you want to work with and have they truly understood the value of receiving support from a doula? We live in a world of dream-boat clients and extremely testing clients. Go find the dream-boat clients and stop undercharging! (I know there’s a grey area here concerning vulnerable pregnant women and birthing people in financial hardship but I’ll circle back to address this shortly… stay with me!).

Your time is precious. Your skills are valuable. We offer an exchange of our time and skills for money. So how much is your time worth to you? You need to start by figuring that out. This is of key importance, and it’s something that is discussed on the Nurturing Birth courses.

Most self-employed people running service-based businesses – plumbers, private tutors, beauty therapists etc – will charge by the hour and use a structured approach to calculating their rates. They decide an hourly rate they want and calculate out from there. For instance, a boiler replacement may take 6 hours to complete and the plumber charges £85 per hour, thus the fee for the job is 6 x £85 = £510. Or a massage therapist works for £30 per hour and thus charges £45 for a 90 minute treatment. This could work really well when pricing for antenatal and postnatal sessions. However, the problem with charging by the hour as a Birth Doula is that we cannot predict how long a birth will continue on for. It seems grossly unfair to put a birthing woman or person in a position where they’re calculating how much your support is costing them out of fear they’ll exceed their budget, rather than relaxing into their labour.

The answer therefore might be to choose a fixed price for a birth package. If the client is happy with a fixed price then it doesn’t matter how short/long their birth is. Obviously, you still need to know your hourly rate based on roughly how long an average labour takes, but the client doesn’t need to think about this.

I’ve been self-employed for about 15 years. I’ve learnt (the hard way) that if I charge any less than £30 per hour for my time, I struggle to make enough money to live on. But that’s LOADS more than minimum wage! I hear you cry. I wouldn’t feel comfortable charging that! Then please, please understand this:

An employee is paid when on holiday, when sick, when taking a coffee break, eating lunch, meeting new potential clients, travelling between client meetings. They’re provided with an office, the overheads are paid for as well as their business expenses, insurances and pension schemes.

As a self-employed person you don’t get paid when on holiday, off sick, on a break or having lunch. You do not get paid for doing your accounts, updating your website or attending networking meetings to find new clients. You do not get paid for the time spent being interviewed by new clients. You pay for your DBS, insurance, office resources and running costs. You do your own marketing, your own sales, you pay for your accounting and legal fees. You pay for your training and any additional CPD.

The hourly rate for an employee is approximated by dividing the annual salary by two and removing three zeros. So, if an employee earns a £30,000 salary, that’s roughly £15 per hour. But it DOES NOT work like that when you’re self-employed. If you want to make £30,000 per year from self-employment you will have to charge significantly more than £15 per hour.

So, how many hours can you actually charge for?

A great starting point is to decide how many hours you can feasibly spend face-to-face with your clients. If you’re offering birth support and working without a back-up you may feel that 1 or 2 births is the maximum you could support in a month. You may feel you want to limit the number of on-call weeks per year which will determine how many birth clients you can realistically support each year. Outside of supporting at the birth, you’ll likely be offering antenatal and postnatal doula support, so how will that time commitment work around any other obligations you may be balancing? Whatever limits the number of clients you can work with in a year, you’ll need to adjust your fees to off-set the ‘down time’.

The main things to consider:

  • The maximum number of hours you can work each day/ week
  • Travel time and lunch breaks
  • How many days per week you can work
  • How many days of holiday you want each year (the standard for the employed is 20 days plus 8 bank holidays)
  • How many days you need to assign to finding clients (attending MVP meetings, local doula gatherings, networking events etc)
  • How much time you need to set aside for admin (website updates, bookkeeping, invoicing, social media content creation etc)
  • How many sick days you ought to allocate (10 is common in employment)
  • Predicted work rate – this is such a tricky thing to estimate. Research I’ve done suggests estimating actual billable work won at 70% which you can review after your first year of business and it will likely improve with each year if you continue to deliver on a clear business growth strategy
  • Potential Earnings (your ‘guestimate’ hourly rate multiplied by the number of hours you are available to work x 70%)
  • Business running costs
  • Fuel and car maintenance
  • Mentoring/ CPD
  • Insurance/ DBS/ First Aid Certificate
  • Accounting and Legal Fees
  • Phone and Internet
  • Consumables – stationary, essential oils, drinking straws etc
  • Professional/ Networking memberships
  • Revised Earnings – Now you know your running costs you can deduct them from your Potential Earnings. If that’s leaving you out of pocket or short of your financial goals, then you need to adjust your hourly rate! In 2019, the average salary in UK was £36,611 according to this site so what would your hourly rate need to be in order to bring your annual earnings inline with the UK average? Having run these figures myself, I’m willing to bet it’s around £30 per hour.

Please understand that I am not sharing this information with you to be prescriptive. What you choose to charge for your services is ultimately up to you. But I want you to be successful. I want pregnant women and birthing people to benefit from receiving support from energised, grounded, compassionate doulas just like you. I don’t want you to hit compassion fatigue, burn out and pull away from your calling. This is a wake-up call. Reducing your fees may give an initial boost to the volume of clients but it’ll be temporary and working for such low rates is not sustainable. Keep the long-term view in sight and stay out of the race to the bottom.

Before I round off, I said I’d address the point about keeping doulas accessible to those in need.

When I launched my doula business in 2016 I was keen to make doula support accessible to those who were vulnerable and in financial hardship. Having reviewed my packages, personal financial needs and availability I aimed to support at least one pro-bono client per year. It took me longer than I hoped to build up to the number of births per year required to make this happen, but last year (my busiest year for births to date) I was able to offer a return client a hugely discounted birth package so that she could secure the support she wanted, at a price she could afford. I know many other doulas who will commit to supporting a specific number of births via the various different charities as an alternative option.

Please don’t see this as bragging. I’m trying to illustrate the fact that, despite being the most ‘expensive’ doula in Hampshire, I am working consistently and my client base grows each year. I am working well within my capacity, my energy level is high, I am able to afford regular mentoring sessions which keep my doula practice healthy, and I feel great about delivering on my promise to keep doula support accessible. My hope is that you experience the same and so much more.

If you would like to book a mentoring session to discuss your business practice as a doula please click on this link – https://courses.nurturingbirth.co.uk/mentoring-booking-form

I am literally bursting with excitement to have joined the team of facilitators at NB. Supporting fledgling Doulas as they take flight into the birth world is pure joy; I have limited ability in enabling birthing people to have awesome births, but by supporting Doulas as they support others, the impact ripples on and on. I am filled with hope that together we can make a real difference. – Charlotte

If you would like to reach out to Charlotte to discuss her becoming your doula mentor, click here: https://nurturingbirth.co.uk/mentors/charlotte-bailey/

Charlotte’s Instagram: www.instagram.com/birth.warriors

Charlotte’s Facebook: www.facebook.com/birthwarriors

Doula sales conversations that feel like Magic! – Part 2

By Charlotte Bailey, Nurturing Birth Mentor

This is the second of a two-part series, supporting you with your doula sales techniques. Click here for part one.

Last month Charlotte introduced us to some of her doula sales techniques. This month we share the second part of her article on how to really connect with the right clients.

Skill No. 3 – Sharing the opportunity. During your meeting with your prospective client remember to make them the main focus. They will want to know about you – especially if the meeting has been set up as an ‘interview’ (by the way, I much prefer the terms ‘meeting’ or ‘consultation’ as I believe it evokes a better sense of equality, but you’ll use the terminology you feel most comfortable with). Be mindful about how much you are speaking and how much you are listening. If you ask the right questions, the client will tell you everything you need to know in terms of what they are looking for and why, and thus you can tailor your explanation of what you can offer to their needs. It shows you’re aligned and also that you’ve really heard them. Keeping your language positive, based in facts, and focused on the transformation that your client is likely to experience if they work with you will help. A former business coach of mine, Bill McFarlan, wrote a great book (see below) about how the language we use to describe what we do is SO important and that we often can unconsciously talk ourselves out of a sale by accidentally conveying the wrong thing or simply by talking too much. Getting that balance takes a little practice and reflection but with awareness comes opportunity[E1] !

Skill No. 4 – Following-Up In sales, it is often said that ‘the fortune is in the follow-up’. I think this is SO true. Following-up is doing what you said you would do. If you say you are going to send some info or confirm a meet-up, then do it. My experience as a Doula so far has been that demonstrating reliability and commitment is MASSIVELY important to pregnant women and people. They need to know they can depend on you so show them – right from the get-go – what it’s like to work with you.

It takes the average person 4-6 meetings (or exposures) before they can say yes to an invitation to work together. Therefore, treat each exposure as an opportunity to set up the next expose until you feel you have established a trusting relationship with your prospective client, keeping relationship-building and understanding as the goal of each of those exposures. If you’ve signposted or referred your potential client to some info, you might ask to check back with them to find out how it helped them. Then, instead of asking ‘What did you think?’, you could ask questions that facilitate the development of your relationship whilst demonstrating what it’s like to work with you ie “Tell me what was most relevant for you, which parts weren’t? How do you think you might use this in your labour preparations? What do you feel you need now?”

I can’t remember where I heard it, but I’ve learnt its true; the universe loves speed! So condensing the exposures into the shortest amount of time possible can work in your favour. It prevents your prospective client from being distracted by life or from encountering obstacles that may ultimately prevent them from engaging your services (an unexpected expense or and impulse purchase that eats up their spare funds). Speed also helps you to keep their interest up. There is also the obvious fact that pregnancies are 42/43 weeks in length at the very most; A potential client might approach you in the latter stages of their third trimester in which case, you have to move quickly.

A pattern of exposures condensed into 2 weeks might look something like this:

1 – The first encounter (meeting through mutual friends/ chance encounter etc). Invite them to a PBM group.

2 – Text right away to say how nice it was to meet them. Give them a link to a relevant website/ book/ resource and confirm you’ll see them at the next PBM meeting

3 – 48 hours before the PBM Meeting, call them to confirm the meeting details

4 – Meet at the PBM. Arrange a one-to-one coffee date in 2-3 days’ time

5 – Send a voice message 24 hours ahead of time to confirm the coffee date

6 – Meet for coffee. Ask them about the benefits and usefulness of the resource you sent plus the PBM group. Invite them and their partner to learn more about possibly working with you. Set a time for the consultation. Ask to add them to your Doula Facebook Page.

7 – Call ahead to confirm the consultation and send them some relevant information

8 – At the consultation arrange a time to follow-up. Send them a thank you text after the meeting with any links to references you’ve made and confirm the date/ time of the follow-up.

9 – Follow-up when you agreed to. Ask if they have had enough information/ time to make a decision. If not, ask them what they need in order to do that and/or if there is any way you can further support them in making a decision (do they want to meet you again? Do they need to meet some other Doulas? Can you assist in connecting them to other local Doulas?). Arrange a time to check back with them and repeat until they have either arrived at a ‘no’ or a ‘yes’.

10 – Top tip: If you get a ‘no’, follow-up one last time anyway. Sometimes things don’t work out and having established a rapport with you, they may come back if you reach out. Sometimes feelings of awkwardness or a worry that they may have hurt your feelings prevents potential clients from coming back. Let them know that whatever their decision the door will always remain open. You never know, they might end up needing a back-up so find a creative way to keep in touch.

Now, you may feel resistance in consciously seeking to develop skills to turn conversations with potential clients into actual bookings. This could be because of the stories you hold about [E2] sales transactions or because of a lack of belief in either your ability to support that client or in Doulaing, in general. Spend some time with this. Ask yourself what stories you hold around sales, where they come from, if they serve you and what needs to happen for you to release them. Thereafter, the potential is that you are free to acquire any sales skills that will help to drive your business forward. All skills can be learnt and, with practice, mastered. However, skills – just like relationships – take time to build so be patient with yourself and allow time and space so that you and your dream clients need to build enough rapport that the magic happens. And it will happen!

Further reading (in no particular order)

  • Drop the Pink Elephant: 15 ways to say what you mean…and mean what you say – Bill McFarlan
  • Booked – Josh Turner
  • Awaken the Giant Within: How to take immediate control of your mental, physical, emotional and financial destiny – Anthony Robins
  • Playing Big: Find your voice, your mission and make things happen – Tara Mohr
  • Purple Cow – Seth Godin
  • The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen R. Covey

Fresh out of University, Charlotte founded a social enterprise in 2005 and was a workshop facilitator for 10 years, running projects in the UK and internationally to foster the empowerment of marginalized communities. She later studied Midwifery with the intention of becoming an Independent Midwife before her final pivot in 2016 when she became a Doula. Charlotte understands that fostering women’s empowerment includes enabling financial independence and has, throughout 15 years of self-employment, taken a keen interest in educating herself and mentoring others on how to achieve this.  Charlotte offers Birth and Postnatal Doula services in Hampshire and has recently joined the team of Doula Mentors for Nurturing Birth. 

Doula sales conversations that feel like Magic! – Part 1

By Charlotte Bailey, Nurturing Birth Mentor

This is part one of two blogs. Click for part two of “Doula sales conversations that feel like magic”

Let’s be honest here; for most of us there is a jarring incongruence between the idea of being a Doula and of being a Sales person.  The two roles, in my mind, certainly took some time to reconcile but once they did, in a way that felt natural and appropriate, magic happened! I stopped feeling like I was selling and started feeling like I was serving.

Recently, in one of our Virtual Cuppas, a Doula shared her frustration that despite having lots of positive conversations with potential clients/supporters, these conversations weren’t translating into client referrals or bookings. This particular Doula was upset and suspected something was blocking her results. I would like to offer this blog to anyone who relates to this, as a way of providing some possible insight into what those blocks might be and which practical steps can be taken to push through them.

In order to be the best Doula we can, we all have skills to hone…active listening, holding space, appropriate signposting etc. But building a successful Doula business (whatever size of business that means to you) means developing beyond these skills and acquiring new abilities to grow and manage a start-up enterprise. This is where the application of sales skills can be of enormous assistance in learning how to find potential clients, how to talk to them about what you do and how they might benefit, and how to nurture authentic relationships with potential clients until they feel ready to make a decision to work with you (or not!).

In a series of two blogs I will talk you through some of the key skills that will help you to find and connect with your perfect client – and build your doula business!

Skill No. 1- Finding possible clients

In 2018, around 735,000 babies were born in the UK. That’s a lot of babies! And when you consider how few Doulas there are in the UK in comparison to the number of babies that are born, that’s a lot of potential clients.

We know the benefits of working with a Doula, but most people don’t. And so our first job  is to help people to understand. This means sharing the facts with enough people and you’ll naturally start to find your clients. So, where can you share these facts?

  1. Pregnancy and Postnatal Support Groups  – What a fab way to meet local expectant parents and local birth workers. These are ‘promotion-free’ groups so you won’t be asked to talk about your business but you’ll have a mutual space where you can cultivate relationships with pregnant women and people. Naturally at some point they will ask you what you do for a living and you’re welcome at that point to tell them you are a Doula. They may have more questions, in which case, swap details and offer to meet outside of the group set-up.
  2. MVP Committees – As above, you won’t be invited back if you arrive at an MVP meeting with the agenda of finding clients, but by making valid and stand-out contributions to the meeting, you may find that you naturally attract the attention of expectant and new parents who feel a resonance to you.
  3. Doula Databases – There are international doula directories such as the Nurturing Birth Directory, Positive Birth Movement Directory, Doula UK Directory. There are also national or regional ones, eg Hampshire Doulas. How you write about your services and how you tell your story is really critical here. You might want to work with a Sales Consultant or professional Copywriter to put together an all-singing-all-dancing piece of text that you can adapt for use across your website and directory entries to ensure anyone reading your bio and/or business info really understands what you’re all about and knows how to contact you. Any online presence that links back to your website will help boost your Search Engine Optimisation. The greater your online presence with consistent text which clearly describes what you offer, and links that all point in the same direction (don’t forget to check them frequently in case a site you’re linking to has changed) will mean people searching for someone like you are more like to find a hit with your site.
  4. Online – Facebook groups, Linked In, Instagram, Twitter. Either run your own group or join existing groups that have a cross-over in their target audiences with your ideal client. Make time each week to comment and contribute in those groups – not about yourself or your business, but in relation to what group members are asking for. Offer genuine support without the intention of getting anything back from the interaction. If you show-up in those groups consistently enough, people will get to know you and start to investigate further so make sure your FB business page and your personal page are linked. Adding ‘doula’ to your online name means that people know straight away who you are if they are looking for a Doula.
  5. Networking Meetings – A great environment for sharing your business and opportunity. Everyone in the room is there to hear, share, learn, support and refer. Over time, you’ll cultivate trusting relationships. By investing time to learn about and support others and making appropriate referrals, others will do the same for you. Turning up once and vanishing will not bring results. Go along to a few different groups to test out which feel like the best fit for you and then commit to going regularly and booking 1-to-1 meetings with each member to get to know them better. Gather people’s contact details and find creative ways to stay in touch. This could be by hosting coffee mornings for business owners with target audiences that mirror yours, by inviting them into your FB business page and posting regularly, or by adding them (with their permission) to a newsletter database. Asking for referrals is a key part of networking, or starting a conversation with the question ‘Who do you know who…is pregnant/ had a bad birth experience/ is expecting a grandchild and wants to give a valuable gift…?’ offers a gentle and encouraging way to provoke peoples’ thinking beyond their own needs. If someone tells you they know someone who might be interested, ask them to set up a coffee date so they can introduce you. Ask to set a provisional time there and then in order to secure their commitment and move things forwards (see section on Following Up for more tips here)

Skill No. 2 – Inviting possible clients to learn more

Do you know who your ideal client is? We know that there is a potential for every expectant and new parent to benefit from hiring a Doula, but, egos aside now, not every potential client will feel you are the right fit for them. So, who is it that you are looking for, specifically? Spending time really getting to understand who your ideal client is will enable you to spot them when you see them. And more than that, they will resonate with you, too, and your ‘sales’ conversation will feel so natural and easy. Once you have identified your ideal client and cultivated a relationship with them, the next step is inviting them to have a focused meeting with you to discuss how they might benefit from working with you.

My hunch is that many Doulas will think that they must start off with a great reputation and impressive amount of experience and thus have a lot of influence in order for potential clients to want to have a consultation with them. This is not true. If your invitation to meet is so that you can learn more about them and to share more about what benefits a Doula could bring to them, then you’re more likely to secure a meeting, even if you’ve not attended a birth yet! You’re not hunting for a sale here, you’re looking to deepen your rapport, to build a friendship, and to support that person in deciding if they want work with a doula or not. You might not even invite that person to a one-to-one meeting with you, but rather an event where they get to learn a bit more about you first in a non-threatening way whilst gaining benefits from attending the meeting. I like to invite pregnant women and people to a local support group – usually the Positive Birth Movement Meet-Ups or our local MVP committee meeting. It gives us both a chance to meet again and continue to build our relationship. The more a person knows, likes and trusts you, the more likely they are to say ‘yes’ to working with you.

In either case there are some fundamentals about the emotion of inviting;

  1. You must emotionally detach yourself from the outcome. Remember, our initial goal is to help parents to be to  better understand what benefits a Doula would bring to them. It’s not to book a new client. In other words, if you shift your focus away from your own needs onto theirs, away from signing a client and instead to supporting them with their needs, things get a whole lot more enjoyable and lot simpler. Whilst this sounds easy, it may feel difficult to do, especially if you have a strong desire to secure that first client or a real financial need. But being aware of your own ‘stuff’ and choosing not to allow it to cloud your intentions will hopefully keep you in good stead.
  2. Be yourself. Be your best self, but keep it authentic. You have nothing to prove. You are already enough. The more ‘real’ you can be, the more attractive you will be to your dream client and the more comfortable and trusting they will feel in your presence.
  3. Bring the passion, the enthusiasm, the FUN! Positivity is infectious and it’s ok to get a little fired-up so long as the focus remains on the woman or person that you are talking with. If you are feeling nervous before a Networking Event or a one-to-one, why not take a few moments before entering the room to buzz yourself up. Maybe listen to some motivational music to help change your state, something that makes you come alive, or take some grounding deep breaths and envision yourself shining. Remember, you’ve got this!
  4. Check your posture. The way you position yourself physically and emotionally will speak volumes to whomever you are interacting with. Are you someone who is often apologising for things that are beyond your control? Are you (unintentionally or otherwise) dumbing down the value of what you have to offer? Why? Do you believe what you have to offer is of value? Do you believe you can deliver? Have you already mentally decided that this potential client will reject you before you’ve even invited them to meet with you? Is your body language communicating feelings of self-doubt/ insecurity or of assuring confidence? Working on your mindset and your emotional posture here is key. I’ve listed some books below that may help you build your self-belief and confidence.

Once you’ve invited your potential client to meet with you again, confirm the time and their commitment there and then, rather than leaving things open and in their hands. The chances are if you do the latter, the energy of your initial meet-up will be lost. If they’ve told you that they’d like to see you again, confirm the date and the time and add it to your diary immediately, so that they see you are serious and committed. Ask for their permission to contact them the day before and confirm they are still able to meet. Take their number in order that you can do this. If someone has said they will pass your details on to someone they know, ask them when they are next seeing that person. If they say Wednesday, for example, ask if it would be ok to contact them on Wednesday afternoon to find out how the third party responded and what the next steps might be. Again, make a note of the date and deliver on your commitments.

I hope that these tips help you to feel more confident about approaching your doula sales and marketing. Look out for the second half of this blog in October!

Useful reading to help you with your doula sales (in no particular order)

  • Drop the Pink Elephant: 15 ways to say what you mean…and mean what you say – Bill McFarlan
  • Booked – Josh Turner
  • Awaken the Giant Within: How to take immediate control of your mental, physical, emotional and financial destiny – Anthony Robins
  • Playing Big: Find your voice, your mission and make things happen – Tara Mohr
  • Purple Cow – Seth Godin
  • The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen R. Covey

Fresh out of University, Charlotte founded a social enterprise in 2005 and was a workshop facilitator for 10 years, running projects in the UK and internationally to foster the empowerment of marginalized communities. She later studied Midwifery with the intention of becoming an Independent Midwife before her final pivot in 2016 when she became a Doula. Charlotte understands that fostering women’s empowerment includes enabling financial independence and has, throughout 15 years of self-employment, taken a keen interest in educating herself and mentoring others on how to achieve this.  Charlotte offers Birth and Postnatal Doula services in Hampshire and has recently joined the team of Doula Mentors for Nurturing Birth.