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2012On doulas and money…are you squirming yet?
If there’s one thing most doulas don’t like to talk about it’s money. For many of us doing this work, it is the biggest ‘issue’ we have to face when working with clients – we apologise, we offer discounts, we offer to work for free because after all we’re not in it for the money…and then we are over-stretched, stressed out, our families and our own children suffer. We are painting ourselves into a corner. The exceptional few, with a spouse who provides the income or money from elsewhere can work. Doulaing becomes elitist in this way for sure. Women with a real calling and gift for the work are excluded, or need to relegate it to a tiny part of their lives as they expend the majority of their time and energy making money to live elsewhere.
Doulas, it’s past time to break this cycle. ‘Business’ is not a dirty word. Money is a part of all of our lives. As Tara Gentile tweeted not long ago, “Money is changing the world. Why not spend more of it?” Why do we, as doulas, feel guilty about accepting money for our services to clients – services that quite literally often change their lives profoundly for the better? And as doulas, where do most of us spend our money? My guess is that most of us are very mindful of where our money is going – where we spend money can / will / is creating an economic revolution.
I have to say that not long ago I was very much like everyone else on this issue. I’m still working on it. Money can be a scary thing. But I had to pull myself together on this issue. Why? Because birth and healing matter so profoundly to me – this is the work I want to be doing. I can only do it if I accept responsbility for myself and my earnings.
I want to share with all of you a few of the things I’ve learned thus far – and share with you resources that I hope will change the way you view money and your business. Because we are changing the world – and as long as we refuse to claim our place in the world, as long as we fail to value our own services, we will struggle to make an impact on birth culture.
What would happen if every parent, instead of sending their money to the bigs of the maternity and baby industries instead used that money to hire a doula?
This topic, of course, could fill volumes. So I’ll break it down to it’s essence today – share a few things I’ve learned about money, and places you need to go right now to start changing how you view money and how you present yourself and your work as a doula.
Money insight #1: You are not taking something away from your clients when they spend their money on your services – you are giving them, most of the time, an invaluable gift. Accepting their money in return means that you will be there to do the work, and will be there to serve more mothers and families in future. It is about exchange and flow – not about ‘stealing’ or hoarding.
Money insight #2: People value what they pay for. Think about it. Have you ever been given something free or cheap, and just not done much with it? But when you invest a significant amount of money in something it means something – it means that you are committing yourself and your resources, it means you think that what you are investing in is worth your time, your energy and your love. By accepting a reasonable fee for your work, you are giving your clients a gift – an opportunity to commit themselves fully to work and a relationship that will impact them for the rest of their lives and into future generations.
Money insight #3: If you don’t value your own time, no one else will – and it is you and your own family who will suffer. This one is self-explanatory. Think about it. Has this happened to you? It has to me.
Money insight #4: Price is pretty much irrelevant. If people really want something, they will find a way to pay for it. Only very rarely is ‘I can’t afford it’ true. Perhaps they can’t afford the £600 pram *and* a doula – but guess which one will bring more benefits in the long run? How many people who ‘can’t afford a doula’ have a new iPad? A Laura Ashley sofa? A holiday abroad? It’s about priorities. For those who truly can’t afford it, we all know there are options – and by charging a fair rate for your services normally, you will be more likely to be there for those who really need you and who cannot pay.
Money insight #5: Your clients need you to be confident and comfortable when talking about money. How awkward is it for them to have you uncertain, uncomfortable, stumbling. It feels icky, it feels unsafe. We want our clients to feel safe and confident – in us, in the work we do together, and ultimately in themselves.
Money insight #6: There are many ways to run your business, not be ‘in it for the money’ and still earn a fair income for the services you provide. Two things that I have adopted that feel really right for me in terms of my doula work – one, a sliding scale for fees, and two, a no-risk money back guarantee for my clients. To me, the latter especially, shows I’m not in it for the money – it ensures that I am more than 100% committed to the work I do, and shifts things so my clients can feel safe in working with me.
Doulas, I hope you are feeling inspired to go out there and become more comfortable around the money side of the service we provide. On the theoretical side, I can really recommend Tara Gentile’s work and especially ebook ‘The art of earning’ – it really got me thinking and transformed the way I think about money. On a practical side, there are many heart-centered business coaches out there – one of my favourites is the lovely Corrina Gordon-Barnes whose website is packed with excellent, inspiring free resources that will be so useful to doulas. Stephanie Dawn has been offering free calls on this topic as well. Finally, also really helpful are the Birth Your Business free conference calls. Get listening, ladies! It’s totally worth your time.
And let me know your thoughts. Do you, as a doula, struggle around money? What have been some of your biggest life-lessons around this issue in relation to your work? How are you doing with the money side of your work right now?
Hannah
Great blog! I learned the hard way….. being too kind and giving. Now I have found a fee system that i am very comfortable with. It means I feel valued. My family feels valued and it makes up ( a bit) for the lack of income whilst my lovely hubby looks after my kids
. I almost wonder about about a hardship fund as I think paying something means everyone gets the most value.
RebeccaAWright
I agree Hannah. Thanks for stopping by.
Mars Lord
Thank you Rebecca. Beautifully articulated
Jane Clement
Oh this rings so true with me.I am a mentored Doula, just about hopefully to become recognised, but I sometimes think that I cant afford to carry on doing it. Last year I earned £1000….not a lot really, and I love being a Doula so very much. Thanks for this article, its so helpful x
RebeccaAWright
Jane, I totally understand where you are coming from. I hope you complete your recognition soon. I actually don’t agree with the financial restrictions that are placed on mentored doulas. If we value our own work and are confident in what we charge, why do we need to restrict others? I’d really encourage you now to start upping your game, learning about how to make you doula business sustainable. A great place to start is with the free resources offered by business coaches like Corrina Gordon-Barnes (UK based as well!) or the team at Heart of Business.
DaddyNatal
Couldnt agree more, I wrote this piece quite a while ago, enititled most important day of your life. Admittedly and I apologise I missed Doulas out! (very remiss a re write is now required) please have a read and I think it will add to what is discussed here but may also get you to think about other factors.
http://www.daddynatal.co.uk/blog/?p=22
RebeccaAWright
Thanks for stopping by, Dean, and for sharing.
Tara Gentile
Hi Rebecca! Thank you for writing about this so eloquently and addressing the topic with your community.
I didn’t use a doula when I gave birth to my daughter. Oh how I wish I would have done my homework on that one! If there is ever a “next time,” I can assure you I’ll be happy to pay a HANDSOME (or lovely?!) sum of money to a doula to help me through the process.
What you do is absolutely invaluable! You need to be comfortable with the financial side of it.
RebeccaAWright
Thanks for stopping by Tara and for your comment. Reading your ebook was the beginning of it all for me, so thank you so much!
Hope you find the perfect doula for your next birth!
Siobhan Smith
As always beautifully written and totally true, clients need us to take a professional approach to our business as many of them come from professional backgrounds themselves, I have been chastised for using the word “professional” in the past when relating it to the doula world but if you have invested money in training and offer a service for which you charge a fee what else would you call it ?
Angie
Brilliant post! Thanks. I’ve just moved from a place where doulas were well paid to one where they make as little as 20% of what we were charging. Hoping to change this.
If people truly can’t afford a doula they can ask for this to be their communal gift from family & friends, rather than all that baby-shower plastic unnecessary stuff.
Kaurina Danu
I don’t have issues with stating my price anymore. People spend on average tens of thousands of dollars on their weddings because it is a special day in their lives. The birth of their child is also a special day in their lives and like a wedding planner, I can help make it so much nicer. So I figure what I do is probably worth thousands of dollars. I’m not asking that much, so I have no problem stating my price.
It might be useful for other doulas to have that mindset of being worth like $5000. And if clients try to get squirmy about the price, talk about the similarity between weddings and birth.
If someone is really unable to afford that, i am very flexible and I tell them why – because i am committed to this work. But I never bargain. It’s more like an honour system, where they honestly say what they can afford.
A few clients have even paid more than what I ask.
RebeccaAWright
That is so true and such a brilliant way to put it. Thank you for sharing.
Tracy
Rebecca, thank you for addressing this issue. I think many doulas struggle with the question of what to charge for their services and often feel guilty because mothers often claim they can’t pay. But you are correct that they will find a way. And, if we do charge the majority of our clients a rate that demonstrates the value of what we do, then we can discount our rates for those who truly cannot afford full fee. This is what I have been doing. I set my fee at what I consider to be a very reasonable rate for my experience, but when I see true financial hardship, I am able to make exceptions because I earn a respectable income from my other clients.
RebeccaAWright
Thanks, Tracy. I couldn’t agree more. I love that you have found a way to work sustainably.
Stephanie Dawn
Great blog Rebecca! Such an important topic and one that I am deeply engaged in at the moment with my colleagues, my private clients and with the women and men in my group programs. I struggled for years with money! I was a free spirit! An artist and an environmental activist, two life choices that are not associated with wealth! Thanks so much for the mention! The free call happened last night
If only we had connected sooner…next time! I talked all about my past and the difficulties that led me where I am today…The program I am offering that speaks to many of the topics you mention here is called Birth Business Heaven Now! and here’s the link for that: http://bbhn2.eventbrite.com/. What I have found in my coaching practice with birth pros is that the money stuff is deep, it’s been entrenched over many decades and centuries of ‘agreement’, that birth work is noble work, not work you earn a living doing. Well in this day and age, when the WMMC (Western Medical Model of Care) is enormously well funded, birth professionals MUST stand in their value and charge what they are worth or NOTHING will change. We explore all of this in this 4 week Coaching Program. It’s rich! I am happy to offer your readers a promo code which will reduce the amount of the course by $50. That code is: LOVE ~ Peace to you!
RebeccaAWright
Thank you Stephanie. I love the work you are doing with birth pros, helping our tribe to connect with good business practices so that we can be there for the long term.
Sam
True that!
If we believe in the motto “A doula for every woman who want one.”, we also need to have doula available to attend these birth. If we cannot secure thriving wage (not just living wage) doing doula work, we will have to go get a day job and losing the necessary availability to be a doula. Fair trade is not just for the so-called “third world”, it should apply to us to.
And have you realize that masculine profession (medicine, law, IT, engineering) get paid internship, but feminine profession (nursing, teaching, social work) don’t?
And do you realize that has free-lancer we have a lot of extra fees to cover? Our publicity, our retirement fund, our continued education, our health benefits… In any other profession, a free lancer would charge twice as much that what an employed worker would make, because they have none of the benefit and security of an employed person.
RebeccaAWright
Exactly, Sam!! It all starts with self-respect.
Heather Neville
There are a lot of doulas out there uncomfortable with asking for money, but I think there are more and more who are not (myself included) for the reasons that you outline above.
I do not give a money-back guarantee (there are way too many people out there who are willing to take advantage of it…) but I do offer a sliding scale for clients who truly can’t afford it. I also do a couple of volunteer births a year for moms with serious need (this year I have been a doula for a refugee claimant who was on her own and new to Canada, as well as for a teen mom). I intend to maintain this as part of my practice for as long as I’m in it.
I have, in the past, made exceptions wrt getting my contract signed and retainer fee paid up front for women who, for whatever reason, said they needed more time (in one particular case, a client’s partner was out of the country for a month and the client needed support right away). I no longer do this though, because I have had people turn around and refuse to pay or try to get away with paying me a fraction of my fee (and I am not talking about low-income people).
You’re absolutely right – we need to be valued for the work that we do and in our society, charging money for it is the main way of reinforcing that value, regardless of whether we ‘need’ the money or not. When I do volunteer births, I still provide the client with my letter of agreement – I just cross out the dollar amounts and initial the amendments. This way, people know the dollar value of what they are getting for free and they respect me more for it I think.
Another good thing to mention is that when we give our services away for free or for too little to people who should rightfully be paying us, we not only do a disservice to ourselves as individuals, we do a disservice to all other doulas who want to be valued for the work that we do.
If I won the lottery tomorrow I would switch to doing only volunteer births for women in true need. If I ever worked for a client who could afford to pay I would charge them an appropriate fee and give the money to a charity supporting mothers if I didn’t need it to support my own family.
RebeccaAWright
Great, Heather! Sounds like you have found a way to make your doulaing work well. Thanks for sharing. I’m finding that by upping my game, and not just taking anyone as a client, but focusing on really working with the right clients works well for me. Corrina Gordon-Barnes calls it your ‘love-love-money tribe’ – when you connect with them, they want to pay you because they love and value you as much as you love and value them.
Frustrated
Oh, I wholly agree, and both my Web site and my doula packet spell out my fees unapologetically (though I also talk about my sliding scale and discounts). I’ve only called myself a doula for a couple of years, but I’ve been a birth professional for much longer, and I know the worth of my services.
What kills me is that I live in an area where there are dozens of doulas in training, all willing to attend births (for clients who could afford them!) for no fee at all — so they wind up funding parking, food, and childcare *out of their own families’ pockets*. Since there’s no way I can compete with that, I’ve been focusing on teaching childbirth classes instead of trying to drum up doula clients. At the rate I’ve been attending births it would take me years to complete the ones I need for certification, and I’m no longer sure it’s worth it.
RebeccaAWright
It is hard. In a way, my situation is similar – I live in an area where there are few doulas, and the majority chronically undercharge. But don’t give up hope! I actually don’t believe that price is the main issue. For some it will be, of course, but those are not the clients who will love you and who you will love working with. Please do have a look at the resources of Corrina Gordon-Barnes and the guys at Heart of Business. Take this opportunity to up your game and through your example you will mentor the newer doulas into greater self-respect. Let these incredible heart-centred business coaches ‘doula’ you in your business journey. They have so many amazing free resources to get you started. Wishing you all the best. xx
Roz Macklin
Yes. I find asking for money so difficult. I have been a Doula for a couple of years now. I love it so much and wish I didn’t have to charge but I have to earn a living and I’m sure people understand that.
Zara de Candole
Thanks, Rebecca!
I have learned in a very short space of time to be totally relaxed when talking money with clients. I used to um and er and mumble about it being an all inclusive price etc etc! Now I am confident about what I can offer and as you rightly say, somethings are worth paying for.
Grace
Wow. This hit home. The majority of the births I’ve attended have been for free, and the two I was actually paid for were $100 and $200. I think because I’m so new in my career, it’s easy to offer for free, simply because I love going to births, and I know what it’s like to not have money for “extras”. I live in a rather low-income area; there are probably about a hundred or so doulas in my area to compete with (no joke!); there is simply not enough to go around–in every sense of the word. Finding a way to market my business, actually earn an income, and still serve women in a way that works for them–seems an impossible task! But this encouragement was helpful. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one…
RebeccaAWright
Hi Grace,
Thanks for your comment. You are certainly not alone in your challenges. But you know what? You can do it! We all can do it. We need to think about our services seriously, as a business and up our game. There are some amazing, heart-centered business coaches out there with so much to teach us. I’d encourage you to look into what they offer – let them ‘doula’ you through creating a profitable doula business. Because your work is needed – our work is needed.
I cannot recommend the work of Corrina Gordon-Barnes of http://www.youinspireme.co.uk enough – she did a fabulous call last week with Mark Silver of http://www.heartofbusiness.com last week on websites that has helped me to see marketing in an entirely new light. Check them out. They have so many free resources.
Best wishes to you and thanks for stopping by,
Rebecca
Allie Chee
Hi, Rebecca,
I devoted 4 full chapters of my book, New Mother, to the value and necessity of hiring a doula and postpartum doula.
I discuss at length the business aspects of the job; and advise that those people with experience and strong skills should be highly respected and rewarded financially.
Brava, doulas!!!
Allie Chee
Author, NEW MOTHER: Using a Doula, Midwife, Postpartum Doula, Maid, Cook, or Nanny to Support Healing, Bonding, and Growth
RebeccaAWright
Wonderful Allie! Thanks so much for sharing this, I love the sound of your book.
Maisie
Great post Rebecca!
Even though I’ve always stayed in line with what other local doulas charge, and had clients who were happy to pay that, most clients would tell me after the birth that I don’t charge enough. I haven’t had issues with doula-ing and money, but I’ve noticed that I always collapse when it comes to treating people outside of a clinic environment. I read ‘The Soul of Money’, and it helped SO much. It totally changed my feelings about financial transactions, as did the Heart of Business home study pack. And hey presto, the next birth I did, my clients tipped me £500, so that was the signal I needed to raise my prices for doula-ing and treating. It also meant that I was secure enough financially to do a birth at a greatly reduced fee, for a couple who didn’t have much money.
I think a lot of parents don’t realise what they’re paying for till they come out the other side, so what starts off as an added expense for some of them, ends up being one of the best investments they’ve ever made (I’ve come across quite a few dads who felt this way). Since doing all this money work, I’ve identified that I need to work on explaining what exactly they get when they hire me, in terms of the lengths to which I may end up going for them.
RebeccaAWright
Beautiful, Maisie! I love this so much, and I totally agree that most people don’t understand fully until they’ve been through the experience. Heart of Business is so fab, and I think most of us doulas could really benefit from working with a heart-centred business coach of some sort to ‘doula’ us through the process of becoming sustainable in our work.
Tara Brooke
Great post Rebecca! I couldn’t agree more. As doula’s we need to value our relationship to our work as well as to our household and families needs. I like to call this Financial Self Care when I train labor support and postpartum doulas through Doula Trainings International which focuses a big piece of their curriculum on the “business of being a doula”. This is SO important in order for doulas to have longevity and to truly embrace their soul- filled work as a professional career. otherwise, burn out sets in and women and families don’t get the true VALUE and support that they need.
Hey doulas! Does your business need help?! | Rebecca A. Wright
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