The Power of “Pre-Selling”: How to Launch Your Coaching Program or Online Birth Course Successfully
Hey doulas and birth educators, have you been wondering why your coaching program or online birth course isn't gaining traction like you know it deserves?
If you are ready to discover the simplest (and most stress-free) launch strategy possible, then get out a pen and paper, this episode is for you!
The 3 questions we answer in today’s episode are:
How do I share content without feeling like I’m just stealing another doula’s content?
I've heard you mention on the podcast the importance of doing a pre-sale for an online course, and not recording anything until people sign up... because maybe no one signs up that first time... but what about if only one or 2 people sign up? Would you cancel and give them their money back? Or should you just go ahead with the two students?
I'm a sleep specialist and I hate that all my clients feel so pressured to have their babies sleep through the night. How do we help with that mindset shift and create less stress around infant sleep for moms?
Every Friday, I answer your biggest questions right here on the Birthworker Blog AND the Birthworker Podcast.
To submit a question for next week’s podcast, click here.
If you're tired of feeling like you've wasted time and effort launching your coaching program or online birth course to literal *crickets*, then you wanna listen up!
Question #1: How do I share content without feeling like I’m just stealing another doula’s content? I love being original and putting my own spin on things but it feels like everything has been done already. -Ashley
My biggest tip is to not look at other doulas’ content when you are creating your own content. Do not ever scroll social media for inspiration. I recently found someone from Australia who copied some of my content almost word for word. When I reached out to her, she responded with the classic “Oh, I didn’t mean to!” Etc, etc. I wasn’t sure what to make of it really, but what probably happened is she had my content open on her computer next to a Google Doc, copied my words down, and she forgot to change it enough to make it her own.
That is not a good look for anybody, and I definitely don’t want that to happen to any of my followers/students. What I suggest you do instead is to use an Airtable base to keep on your phone’s home screen to record ideas as they come to you. I provide an Airtable template for my students in Birthworker Academy that includes a topic idea and a place for notes. This makes it super easy when you sit down on your “content creation day” to have 50-100 ideas to pull from, and you don’t have to spend time scrolling on Instagram trying to get inspiration.
I teach my students that go through Birthworker Academy to record any “aha” moment in their content Airtable base. There will be times when students are watching a pelvic dynamics video, or how to set up a homebirth space video, whatever it may be, and they think to themselves, “Wow! I’ve never heard that before!” or “I have never thought of it that way…” And I highly encourage my students to get their thoughts down right then and there!
And this goes for anyone reading, if you have an idea for a post, or have any kind of birth-related “aha” moment, write it down in the moment because you cannot trust yourself to remember it later when you sit down to create content for your social media.
So short answer, keep your blinders on and write down ideas when you have them!
Question #2: I've heard you mention on the podcast the importance of doing a pre-sale for an online course, and not recording anything until people sign up... because maybe no one signs up that first time... but what about if only 1 or 2 people sign up? Would you cancel and give them their money back? Or should you just go ahead with the two students? -Denisse
The main thing here is just that there is no resentment. Personally, I would just celebrate the heck out of those 2 sales and run the program anyway. It’s worth it for the feedback, testimonials, and just the overall momentum of getting it out there.
There are some scenarios where I would consider canceling though. If I made a 4-week program with daily live calls, but I only made those 2 sales, I would have to decide if that is worth my time to have 20 live calls for $100. In that case, I would issue refunds to my 2 students, and completely revamp my sales page and marketing technique.
I want to emphasize the power of hosting a presale and using the results to validate your course idea. During a presale, hopefully, you get 2-3 sales to confirm that this is, in fact, worth your time to create. But that isn’t where it ends! The course doesn’t start the week after the pre-sale, it starts 6 weeks down the road after your big, full-on promotion.
Not only does the pre-sale validate your idea, but it also gives you a “cash injection” to keep you going until the big sale. For example, last February, when I did a presale for Birthworker Academy (back when it was cohort-style), I used the money I made from those presales to hire more experts to teach when the program actually started in June.
So short answer, space out the presale to be 6-10 weeks before the actual start date of the program so that you have time (and some money) to ramp up the program itself and the marketing.
Question #3: I'm a sleep specialist and I hate that all my clients feel so pressured to have their babies sleep through the night. How do we help with that mindset shift and create less stress around infant sleep for moms? -Sarah
I noticed the same thing with birth. Why do so many moms think they don’t have a choice? Why do so many moms think they can’t say “no”? Why do so many moms blindly follow what their doctor says without a second thought? It’s that same mindset shift of, “Hey, what about what Mom wants and what her intuition is telling her?” So I built my entire brand around mindset and autonomy.
So, Sarah, you could build your entire brand around mindset, physiological baby sleep, and the mother’s autonomy over the sleep space. So moms don’t feel pressured when someone else practices sleep differently, or when the pediatrician says your baby should be sleeping through the night at 12 weeks.
When I first became a doula and childbirth educator, I knew I would not fit in with the status quo. Sure, teaching my students different labor positions and what to pack in their birth bag are important topics that they want to learn about, but what will truly help them in the birth room is learning things like when to say “no,” and how to deal with their triggers and biases. Those are the types of mindset shifts I wanted to help moms make that I knew would make a significant difference in their birth experiences.
Similarly, regarding infant sleep, teaching moms the best swaddling techniques and how to time wake windows is all fine and dandy, but the true value is in teaching things like how to deal with judgments like, “Oh my gosh, your baby doesn’t sleep through the night yet?” Or pediatricians telling your clients to cut out night feedings at 6 months because it’s “not good anymore.” Teaching our clients how to be confident in their choices and think for themselves will allow our clients to make confident decisions for their families without feeling pressured.
That is the core of why I created my Childbirth Educator Curriculum for other doulas or birthworkers to use and customize for their specific clients. Not only does it include everything about the amazing dance that is physiological birth, but also the tools to teach their clients that will actually lead to an amazing birth experience. That doesn’t mean every single mom will have a perfect, no-tearing, pain-free vaginal birth. It means that despite all odds, even if a mom has every intervention under the sun leading to an emergency cesarean, they will leave the birth room not feeling traumatized, but rather feeling powerful and confident because every single decision was made by them.
That is how I know this curriculum works.
thank you for listening
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Meet your host, Kyleigh Banks, a side-gig doula turned CEO of a multi-six-figure birth-focused business. Her passion? Teaching birth nerds, like you, how to build an incredibly successful doula business that allows you to quit your day job, stay home with your kids, and most importantly, make a lasting impact on the world.