By Kristin Laffrey, business coach for women leading impact in fertility, birth, postpartum, motherhood, parenting and matrescence.
Here is one thing that may feel true right now - you have 100 ideas for your doula business - all of the different offerings you want to create and bring to life. You love to brainstorm new ideas and explore different options… but so often those ideas don't make it past the ideas phase.
What is so important to recognise is that your ideas and your creative mind are your strength UNTIL they become your weakness.
Because although I see ideas as the greatest strength for so many women, I also see how it can easily become their greatest challenge.
Common reasons for becoming overwhelmed with ideas
There are many reasons right now you may be feeling overwhelmed with an abundance of ideas but here are some of the key reasons that I see women holding many ideas within their business. Neither of these are right or wrong but it is important to connect to why you are finding it challenging right now to get clear on what you are creating within your business or executing on your ideas to see your ideas through to completion.
Here are some of the common reasons I see for many doulas:
You are creative and ambitious
Sometimes it's important to acknowledge the fact that you are a visionary, you are creative and you are extremely passionate about what you do and like I said before, this is not necessarily a bad thing UNTIL it becomes the thing that holds you back from prioritising and executing ideas, building sustainable offers and growing your doula business.
You are unclear of your Core Business Offers (CBO)
One thing I encourage of all my clients is to clarify what their CBO are. These are the core offers within your business and your client journey that supports clients to move into your offers.
As part of the Mothermind Business Academy, we specifically focus on building these out because we want to ensure you don't have 8 random offers but rather a strong core business that you have solidified and built out because this is what is going to support you to create a steady flow of clients but also a steady income stream to be able to strategically grow your business from.
You are looking to diversify your income streams
For many doulas it can be so tempting to create virtual service packages, self-paced courses, group programs and low-priced resources to add additional income streams to their business. And although there is nothing wrong with this, it is important to connect to how you are not just going to create them but also create a replicable marketing strategy around attracting clients into these services.
I have many doulas that come to me with so many different offers but because they aren't seeing a steady flow of clients buying the offers they already have, they are looking to create new offers to attract more clients. One of the greatest misconceptions in business is that to attract more clients and create more income you need to create new offers.
What I see time and time again as the most effective way to grow your doula business and increase your income without having to work more and more hours with clients is to create your Core Business Offers, create a replicable marketing strategy around selling those offers and then from there adding more offers along with strong pathways for attracting clients into those offers.
So if you are looking to diversify your income streams, that is great! But this is even MORE of a reason to really focus on how you are marketing and selling your current offers to ensure you have the demand their to grow your business and create more income.
If this is something you are wanting to do but not too sure where to start, I highly recommend jumping onto the waitlist for the next round of the Mothermind Business Academy where we build solid foundations within your business to package and position your offer to appeal to the right clients AND build out your marketing strategy and sales process to ensure you are creating a flow of clients to sell your offers.
Ways that ideas can hold your doula business back from growth
Whether it's because you get excited by the ideas of what you can create, whether you are looking to diversify your income streams within your business or whether you are looking for the next thing to change the results within your business here are 4 ways I see new ideas holding women back:
Lack of focus and direction:
Having too many ideas and not knowing how to execute those ideas whilst maintaining other areas of your business can create a lack of focus and clarity around the direction of your business - which can ultimately lead to not know where to prioritise in your business.
Spreading your time, energy and finances thin:
Spreading your resources across too many ideas may result in diminishing the impact and the success of different ideas. It's important to connect to what resources you have available to you and how you can allocate those to meet the needs of different ideas that you need to execute.
Dealing with overwhelm:
Having too many ideas or changing up your business too often can lead to not knowing where to start and what action to take.
Lack of implementation:
The key with your ideas is that you are ensuring you are seeing them through to completion. Not jumping from idea to idea but rather recognising what needs to be executed to build sustainable offers within your business.
Two priorities to reduce idea overwhelm and execute ideas in your business
Priority #1: Refocusing on your Core Business Offers
Right now if you know you keep coming up with different ideas and in doing so you are feeling overwhelmed and not knowing where to focus your attention, this is where I encourage you to come back to.
What is your core business right now that you want to build out?
What are those essential offers to your business that you know you want to build and focus on attracting clients into?
This is where I encourage you to start.
Priority #2: Simplify your repeatable strategies for attracting and booking clients
What is so easy to forget in business is that once you are able to build out an offer that deeply serves your clients AND you are able to create a replicable marketing strategy and sales process for attracting clients into that offer, this is a process you are able to REPEAT as you build out other offers.
But right now if you are looking at new ideas because you aren't getting the results you desire within your current offers, allow yourself the opportunity to deep dive into what needs to shift within your current strategies to support that to happen.
The greatest thing you can do for yourself and your doula business is execute those ideas until they are refined and effective within your business.
So where do you need to focus right now? Where does your business require your time, energy and finances? If you were to direct all of that to doing one thing really well, what could that mean for your business?
If you haven't yet downloaded my free Massively Intentional Action Plan, this may be the time to do so. This weekly action plan breaks down what activities you need to be undertaking within your business each week to attract your ideal clients and sell your offers. I have even broken each activity into daily actions for you to take within an hour each day so that you know exact what actions to be taking each day within your business.
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