Growing a Sleep Consulting Business without Social Media with Kerri Nachlas
Kerri “Nan” Nachlas is a Certified Pediatric Sleep Consultant, Parenting Coach and Newborn Care Specialist. She offers mentorship to other consultants in the pediatric sleep and parenting arena and is currently serving as a board member of the International Pediatric Sleep Association. She gives back to her community through the local pregnancy center offering newborn classes as well as sleep and parenting classes.
Empowering and supporting women has always been a passion of Kerri’s, so when she combined that love with her love of children, she found her ULTIMATE passion. Kerri started her formal business in 2020. Since that time, she has supported hundreds of families as they have found their sleep, their joy, and their sanity!
On this episode we discuss:
- How Kerri grew a very successful sleep consulting business without having a major presence on social media, OR a website.
- How to create “strategic alliances” for referrals.
- How to articulate your strengths and values so that families will want to hire YOU.
Links:
Join our Facebook group to learn more about Becoming a Certified Sleep Consultant
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Transcript:
Jayne Havens: Kerri “Nan” Nachlas is a certified pediatric sleep consultant, parenting coach, and newborn care specialist. She offers mentorship to other consultants in the pediatric sleep and parenting arena and is currently serving as a board member of the International Pediatric Sleep Association. She gives back to her community through the local pregnancy center offering newborn classes as well as sleep and parenting classes. Empowering and supporting women has always been a passion of Kerri’s. So, when she combined that love with her love for children, she found her ultimate passion.
Kerri started her formal business in 2020. Since that time, she has supported hundreds of families as they have found their sleep, their joy, and their sanity. Kerri and her husband Michael stay busy with their four grown children and spouses, as well as their 12 grandchildren. Her perfect day is supporting her clients while spending time with their family. Kerri, welcome to the show! I am so excited to have you here today.
Kerri Nachlas: Hi. Thank you so much for having me.
Jayne Havens: The reason I wanted to have you on the show today is because I get asked all the time if it is possible to grow a sleep consulting business without social media. I think that you are a really good prime example for how it’s possible. I know that you use social media a little bit, but you’re not using social media to drive your messaging at all. Before we get started, though, I really do want to hop on to this topic. Before we get started, tell us a little bit about you. Tell us about your family, and why you wanted to become a sleep consultant.
Kerri Nachlas: Okay. First of all, thanks for having me. My passion has always been empowering women, and men–if they needed empowered. And I love children. I have loved children since I can remember. I have been babysitting since I can remember. I actually never worked in a retail establishment, or a restaurant, or anything all the way through high school and into college because I had so much income coming in from babysitting.
Actually, my husband retired two years ago. When he retired, we moved out of our community where he had raised our kids, where he had had his medical practice. I realized that our world was going to get a little small, and I’m just not that type of person. So, I was looking around. I’ve always been helping friends and family, my own children, with their children in offering advice, and offering methods, and offering support. I just decided, “You know what? I’m going to do this. This is a great time for me.” It’s kind of like a second career, but it is absolutely my passion. I wish every day. I literally wish I had found this 25 years ago because I’m living my passion, and I love every minute of it.
Jayne Havens: I love that. That makes me so happy. So, what I really wanted to talk to you about today is how you’ve grown such a successful business. You’ve done it in a way that’s a little bit different. It’s not really different from how I’ve grown my business. We’ve talked about this offline. But it’s different from the way that people assume that sleep consulting businesses are built.
I think that when people think, for whatever reason, when people think of sleep consulting, they think you have to have a big social media presence especially on Instagram or TikTok. Obviously, you’re not doing those things. What does that look like for you? How are you growing your business? How are you finding clients if you’re not making reels and TikToks all day long?
Kerri Nachlas: Actually, the answer to this question has a couple of different parts. The biggest one being, those things don’t interest me. I am not a creative person, and I am more of a heart-to-heart person. The support that I offer my clients, the way that I can spend time with them, if I’m spending time on my business, I’d rather it be face to face, or text to text, or any number of ways that I communicate with my clients. It’s not creating content that anyone may or may not see, who may or may not be my client, who may or may not be interested in my topics. So, I just decided that that is just not me.
I do have a little bit of an Instagram presence. I have a little bit of a Facebook presence. I don’t have a website, because I don’t feel like… Well, I would like to have a website. I just don’t have the energy or the interest in creating content for it. What I did was I just decided that I would start working my business by connecting with people. If I serve them well, I have done my job. They will tell then anybody that they love, that they can trust, and I will offer them support.
One of the things I realized, too, is on all of the sleep consultant groups, one of the things that’s the biggest challenge is content creation, creativity, how to find your topics, how to walk that line of what’s appropriate. I just don’t have time for that. Like you said before, we have 12 grandchildren. I limit my clients to five at a time, but my clients are filled consistently. I just really want to know that the time I’m putting into my business is time I’m connecting with my clients and using it for my clients.
Jayne Havens: I love that. I really identify with it. Anybody who’s taken the Center for Pediatric Sleep Management Course knows that this is how I operate my business as well. You know, I do have a presence on Instagram and Facebook, but that’s not really how I’m building my business. I really just do that to stay in front of, frankly, the people that already know me and already love me so that they’re reminded that I exist, so that they tell their friends or their extended network about me. I’m not trying to sort of pull complete strangers as clients off of Instagram. It just feels hard, frankly. It feels really, really hard.
Let’s go back, though, a second. Because I understand, I fully identify with doing a good job and that leading to referrals. I 100% agree with that. But let’s back up to like the very first client or two. How do you get your business off the ground before you have those referrals? Do you remember what it was like to get those first 3, 5, 6, 8, 10 clients? What did that look like before you had people spreading your name like wildfire?
Kerri Nachlas: What that looks like is, one, my reputation spoke for itself. My reputation preceded me a little bit in the child arena, even though I wasn’t in the child arena. When I made the announcement, “Hey, this is what I’m doing,” everybody was so excited for me. Even like women my age, they were like, “I can’t believe you’re doing this. This is so incredible. I’ll make sure and let my kids know.” Because they’re grandparents as well.
One of the key things I did was I created strategic alliances. What that means is I went out, and I found health and wellness collectives. I found pediatricians, chiropractors. I reached out to them. I said I know who you are. I know what you do. I’ve been on your social media. Because people do identify through their social media. I will tell you; people do come to my social media. But what’s interesting is, typically, when I see a name pop up on my social media, I will get them in my calendar in the next two or three days. Because they come to my social media on purpose, through referral.
People don’t just find my social media, really, and that’s okay. But like you, the content I put on there is really for the people I’ve already worked with or met, or I use my social media to then share. I’m always sharing ideas for what they can do during wake windows and what they can do for developmental milestones, and things like that.
In instant messaging or DMing them, I will share, “Hey, I thought about you guys for this,” or, “Spring is coming. This is a great wake window activity.” So, it’s really about still connecting my community that I’ve already built or I am building versus any Tom, Dick, or Harry finding me out there. But to answer your question, I just really feel like… I forgot the question.
Jayne Havens: You had mentioned that you were making these strategic alliances, and that was really what helped you to sort of get your business off the ground.
Kerri Nachlas: Yes.
Jayne Havens: I couldn’t agree more. You and I are two peas in a pod this way. If you don’t have other professionals in the parenting space that see value in what you do, it’s very hard to make big waves, right? Other professionals have to value your services.
Kerri Nachlas: And you have to align with them. I cannot go to someone who is XYZ, understanding on that platform no matter what, if I don’t necessarily agree with it because my values don’t align. So, if I’m working with a client… I mean, if I’m working with a referral source, I want to make sure that we speak the same language, basically. I want to make sure that the clients they send me are my people. Then I also want to make sure that I’m their people. Because I’ve never had a client that I didn’t connect with, and I can’t imagine what that would be like. But I also know that because my business is based on referrals, you’re like the five most people you hang around. Nice people don’t typically hang around with mean people. So, the referrals I get are typically really nice, really aligned with my thought process and my vibe. It works out really well.
Jayne Havens: Yes, I love that. What are some ways that you have separated yourself from other sleep consultants? How are you different? What are your sort of strong points that you speak to when you’re speaking with a prospective client?
Kerri Nachlas: I do a little bit of a hybrid model. What that means is, I look at the big picture. Sleep doesn’t start at bedtime, and parenting doesn’t start when they melt down. So, I really work hard to find what the entire day looks like. I don’t really talk. I don’t take up a lot of their time in talking. We have a really good initial conversation, and then I write the plan.
My plans are always written from a parenting standpoint and from a sleep consultant standpoint after 12 months. Because after 12 months, it really starts to blur. What that looks like is, we talk about what the child is expecting from them. I also work with my parents really well in making sure that they have a foundation of respect and communication with their child. We do everything very respectively.
I work from any number of methods. There’s not one method that I follow, A to Z. What I actually do is I say, “We’re going to take this, and we’re going to add this. We’re going to take this out, but we’re going to add this in.” Then I come up with these incredible methods that are almost failproof, like literally 99% failproof for toddlers, for anybody over a year old, really anybody over nine months old. I have incredible success with anybody under that–fourth trimester, that kind of thing.
I did become a newborn care specialist, because it was important to me that I understand exactly who that little fourth trimester baby is and what I could offer the parents. Again, I don’t feel like that school is ever out for the professional. So, I felt like the more I learned, the more I had to share. In learning those things, I was able to share then any number of things that some sleep consultants wouldn’t really know had they not taken the Newborn Care Specialist Course or had they not applied it in a certain way. So, I apply it from a very practical standpoint. We have 4 kids. We have 12 grandchildren. Any number of nieces and nephews, there’s always children in our house. I apply it from a very practical standpoint versus a textbook standpoint. I don’t know if that makes sense.
Jayne Havens: Yes, it makes perfect sense. I think what you’re doing, you’re doing two things. One is you are committing to a mastery of your craft by really taking continuing education and always be willing to learn more, and speaking to people that are in related but different fields from your own, and scooping up whatever knowledge you can there. Then you’re really tailoring your approach to the individual family and the individual child that you’re working with.
Frankly, I think a lot of confidence comes through because of your education. I think that families see that when you show up for a call and you can speak to, not just sleep training but parenting, not just XY and Z but like a bigger picture. I think that that gives our clients a sense of comfort that they’re in really good hands, that this isn’t just somebody that took a course and went on her way. This is somebody who really knows her stuff, who’s committed to continuing education, committing to the fact that you’re never finished learning.
In so many ways, you and I are aligned this way. I’m never done. I’m constantly reading books on parenting, and signing up for webinars, and scooping up any knowledge I can. Because I really believe that it’s when you fully understand. You can’t just take a course, and then you have all the answers. You have to fully understand what you’re doing. I think that that’s like a life’s work, right?
Kerri Nachlas: It is.
Jayne Havens: It’s a life’s work.
Kerri Nachlas: I think you can read the science, and you can totally understand it. You can read the methods, and you can totally understand them. But when you’re talking to a parent, it’s not even that. They may call you for a sleep problem, but it’s not really a sleep problem. They may call you for a parenting problem, and it’s not really a parenting problem. It’s not really a parenting challenge. It’s really more of a sleep challenge. In knowing all of the things that I know I can apply and knowing all of the things that I have had experience with, I’m able to then say, “Let’s look at it this way.” These parents are so committed to their families. They’re so committed to being coachable that it works out incredibly well.
The thing, too, is that I feel like I connect with them because I do have the competence. I do have the knowledge that they’re looking for. Because parents are very, very capable these days. They thank me. They’re like, “Thank you so much for helping me to be the mom I am.” I’m like, “No, please understand it’s all you. I’m just offering support.” Because these parents know what to do. But I do believe that with the inundation of social media, the judgments, the information overload, the this is right, this is wrong, good moms do this, good moms don’t do this, it’s too much. I always tell them, “The first thing I’d like you to do is step away from your social media and unfollow, or just mute some of the pages that really cause you anxiety. Because if it’s causing you anxiety, making you question who you are, that’s not really what you want speaking into your life right now.”
Really, empowering them is part of my passion. It always has been my passion. Rather than empowering them through medical administration, or a coffee shop, or a medical spa–which is all the businesses we’ve owned–I get to empower them in their own parenting, which is the most incredible journey of all. So, I love it.
Jayne Havens: I love that. I think that your passion really bleeds through. I think this is another thing that probably, subconsciously, you don’t even realize. But for those that are listening, I think this is really important to acknowledge. When you come at your business from the angle of truly wanting to give and wanting to support, that will lead to more business than any sort of strong sales efforts that ever could be.
When you really, truly take every conversation and speak to them from a place where you are 100% committed to help them meet their goals, and to make their household a more peaceful place and a happier place for everybody, when you really come at it from that perspective, which I think you do without even thinking about it.
For some people who are just starting to get their businesses off the ground, and they have this sort of scarcity mindset of, “Is this person going to hire me? I’m scared I’m not going to get the client,” sometimes you can come at it from a perspective of just trying to win the deal rather than actually showing them how you can best support them so that everybody’s lives can be improved, right? If you have that attitude, I think it’s sort of like you can’t lose.
Kerri Nachlas: I agree, because I do feel like sometimes it’s all about the sales. I’ve been part of sleep consultant collectives that have talked about sales, sales, sales. I just don’t see it that way. I see it as when you connect with someone who has reached out to you, when you offer them something of value, and you show them exactly how you’re going to show up for them, you don’t have to sell them anything. They’re going to want to work with you because you know what you’re doing, because you’ve shown them that they’re important, and that you’ve been able to listen to them, meet them where they are, and show them what it could look like.
Everybody is always about, “I don’t want to give up too much information on my discovery calls and stuff.” It’s like, you know what? I don’t really watch that. I don’t look at it and say, “I think that’s too much information to give out. That’s part of my plan.” That’s not it at all. I can literally tell them, “There’s nothing I will tell you that you can’t find on the internet. But the support is where you’re going to see the difference.” That’s huge for parents.
Jayne Havens: Yes, I completely agree. I think that when you come at it from a place where you truly believe that there’s enough business to go around…
Kerri Nachlas: There is.
Jayne Havens: There is. There is enough business to go around. When you come at it from that perspective, it’s really when you can come at it from a place of really just serving and supporting rather than trying to land the deal–which I think is hugely valuable.
Kerri Nachlas: Right. Everybody talks about having a follow up system. When do you check back with them to see if they want to work with you? I’ve never done that in my life. Because they tell me right then, “Okay, when can we start? They say, “Okay. Let me take this information to my husband. I’ll get back with you,” and they do. Again, the value that I’m creating for them is not a pressured sales pitch. It is truly value and connection, which will speak volumes over a sales pitch any day.
Jayne Havens: I really identify with that. I actually used to follow up a lot when I first started my business. I had a whole system. I had leads in my cell phone, and I would keep a list. I would send them an email a few days later. To some degree, sure, the fortunes in the follow up, right? You’ll definitely get some more clients that way. But what I realized is that, actually, the families that were most committed to making a change in their home didn’t need that follow up. Frankly, the ones that I was following up with, sure, maybe I landed some of those clients. But were they fully committed? Were they really ready to get to work? Were they my ideal client?
Kerri Nachlas: Exactly. That’s the key.
Jayne Havens: Now I realize, just as you said, the ones that sign on to work with me, they want to work with me. We’ve had a good conversation. They’re ready to go, and we go. If not, then maybe it’s not the best fit. And I’m okay with that, too.
Then there’s also an added element of just confidence that there’s enough to go around, right? Every single time that somebody doesn’t say yes to me, that doesn’t mean that I’m not a good sleep consultant. That doesn’t mean I didn’t do a good job on the call. It’s not that loaded, right? It just means that they decided something else, and that’s okay. I’m really okay with that. I think it’s super important.
Kerri Nachlas: The other thing is I make sure that they are committed to the process. Because if they’re not, it makes it very hard for the follow through from their standpoint. Because again, I can only support them. They have to do the hard work.
I had a client who reached out to me last week. We talked. She said, “I absolutely want to do this, but I’m leaving town for four days.” I said, “No problem.” I said, “I’ll send you a list of things I need you to get together before we get started. When you get back with me, we’ll get started.” She said she wanted to start today, but she didn’t get me back the list of things. So, she messaged me this morning. She said, “Are we ready to start today?” I said, “I’m so sorry.” I said, “I took your spot for another client, because I didn’t know if anything had changed. I didn’t hear back from you. If you want to get me that list over today, I’ll be happy to start with you on Wednesday.” That’s what we did. She was fine with that. She knew that part of this is going to be on her.
I needed to let her know that if we’re going to be successful, our communication is very key as well. I can’t do this without all of the information that I need. So, it worked out really well. But I run it like a business when it comes to what do you expect on how can I help you, and what are you willing to put into it. They always rise to the occasion because they want to sleep. They want their child to be happier. Because a child that is not understanding the boundaries is not a happy child.
Jayne Havens: Yes, I completely agree. Let’s shift gears a little bit. I want to talk about websites or lack thereof. Another question that I get asked often is, can you have a sleep consulting business without a website?
My answer to that question? Yes, of course. Of course, you can. I personally think that having a website is super valuable. I use mine a lot, and I would be lost without my website. But I would love for you to share what it looks like to have a successful business without a website. Logistically, for me, people pay me via my website. People inquire via my website. People learn about me via my website. This is how my website is being used by my customers and prospective customers or clients. Without that infrastructure, what does that look like for you to take payments, for you to sign on discovery calls, for you to educate people about what you do without that infrastructure?
Kerri Nachlas: Ironically enough, I do have a website in the works. But it’s been in the works for about 18 months now. My website designer is waiting on me to get her content. Like I mentioned earlier, content is not on my list of priorities. Not that I intended it to be this way, and I do feel bad. There are times a website might be convenient to be able to say, “Here’s my website.” Especially when I get into these wellness collectives, people are like, “Give me your website. I’ll be happy to share it.” I’m like, “Oh, I don’t have one.”
What I’ve found is, when you tell people why you don’t have a website, it’s truly heartfelt. It’s truly the only reason I don’t have a website is because the amount of time that I have to give to my business, I would rather spend it with my clients versus updating a website, working on a website, creating content for a website. I don’t need it the way my flow is set up. What I do is I have a Calendly account that I send out when somebody messages me. I get inquiries through text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Instagram Messenger. A lot of my referrals even come through Facebook Messenger and Instagram Messenger. Because like I said earlier, they jump on. They kind of read through my posts. They see that I’m a total goober because I have no color combination. I have no flow to my social media. It’s literally, “Oh, that’s cute. That’s funny. That’s a good idea. That’s good information. Let me share that.” It literally has no rhyme or reason to it. They see this girl is kind of a goober, but she knows what she’s talking about. So, they message me. Then I say, “Great. Here’s my Calendly link. Let’s get started with a little introductory call. I can learn more about you, your challenges, your goals. You can learn about me. We’ll see what it looks like to work together.” Then they schedule and then we talk about it. We set up a time that they’re going to start. I jump on Stripe, send them an invoice, and we get started.
It’s really okay for me to kind of just have that availability. I have gotten behind in my invoices before. I’ve actually had people reach out to me and say you never sent me an invoice. I was like, I know. I said I have like seven invoices to send out. I’ll get those to you. It took me like three more days. She messaged me again. She’s like, “I don’t want to bug you. I just want to make sure that if I’m getting it, I’m paying it. I said, “You have not gotten it yet. I will get it out to you.” Literally, you can build a business in spite of everything. I do everything kind of backwards, but it works. Because my heart is there. My support is there, and my connection is there.
Jayne Havens: Which actually you just sort of answered my next question, which is, I sort of wanted to ask you, what is it that makes you so successful? Because you’re not doing it in the… I don’t want to say traditional way but like the stereotypical way.
Kerri Nachlas: Sure.
Jayne Havens: What is it that makes you so successful? I sort of think that it’s you’re truly authentic.
Kerri Nachlas: I am. I am very authentic.
Jayne Havens: I think it’s that you are truly authentic and that you are truly an expert also. It’s those two things. But anything else that you would add to why clients are drawn to you, why you’ve been able to build a business without all of this infrastructure? What is it? What’s the secret sauce?
Kerri Nachlas: It really depends on the client. But really, what it comes down to is, I meet them where they are. I absolutely share my heart with them while they’re sharing their heart with me. I tell them why I do agree or don’t agree with certain things. I tell them why we are or are not going to do things. I always go back to our original conversation so they know that they were heard, they know that they were understood, and they know that we’re on the same team. Then I send them a lot of encouraging “Teamwork makes the dream work.” Because it’s true. I send them a lot of, “Could you be a little bit more of a rockstar? I don’t think so.” Those are things that really make them feel like this is not your typical social media that’s telling me I’m doing everything wrong. These are people that are doing everything they can to the best of their ability, and I’m just there to cheer them on.
What I’ve found is, it really creates a connection. You are talking about one of the most dear things in their lives. Their most precious thing in their entire lives are their children. When you support them and love them through some of the hardest times they have with their children, you become a very special person to them–just very organically.
I am very authentic. I mean very authentic. They will hear my grandchildren in the background. They don’t care because I hear their children in the background. I will talk to them while I’m on the boat. It’s like they get all of me. They know my life. They know exactly where they stand with me, and I respond to them. Because here’s the thing, and this is one of the things that I think I find the most frustrating for other sleep consultants: it’s they want to compartmentalize. This is a really important thing to me. I hope I don’t come across negatively. They want to compartmentalize their work hours from nine to five. “I don’t take evening calls. I don’t do evening this. I don’t do evening that.” Then how are you going to be a sleep consultant? Because sleep happens at night. The challenges happen at night. The parents are paying you for the support that needs to happen at night, because otherwise they can get it on the internet.
I’ve seen so many sleep consultants who say, “I don’t take calls before nine, and I don’t take calls after five.” I don’t understand how that works. You can’t sign up to be a doctor and say, “Oh, I’m just going to work from noon till eight every day.” That doesn’t work that way. When you sign up for something that’s so specific, you have to kind of follow along the general practice of that arena. This business calls for nap time support, nighttime support. I just can’t. I think that’s a big deal.
When people say, “Well, I want to be the best I can be. But I can only do it from nine to five,” that’s when parents are working. So, you’re asking them to take time out of their work. You’re asking them to switch. I know. When I worked and had kids, I would spend the time from the time I dropped them off until the time I got to work going from mom mode to management mode. Then I’d spend the next time driving home from management mode to mom mode. In the middle of the day, if somebody needed to call me and talk to me about something so important like sleep, and discipline, or parenting, or methods, my mind was not always right there. As much as I could try, you were in a different mode at that point in the day. So, I really feel like sometimes the connection is because I’m there for them when they need it, versus saying, “Now that you’ve paid me and I know you need the support, I can’t talk to you tonight after five.” That doesn’t make sense to me.
If you are thinking about this business as an option that you might enjoy or that you’d be good at, I would look at it from what it would require of you too. Because you can’t start it knowing it’s a bedtime business and not work bedtimes. That doesn’t make any sense to me.
Jayne Havens: Yes, I also think it’s important to note that–I think this is related–when you decide to start your own business, it takes time to build that business.
Kerri Nachlas: Absolutely.
Jayne Havens: So many people inquire with me about becoming a sleep consultant. They want to get certified. Maybe they already have a nine to five job, and they’re miserable in their nine to five, or they are seeking a passion project, or whatever a million reasons for why people do this. A lot of people expect that you just like sort of snap your fingers and it’s up and running and ready to go. Whenever you get involved in anything entrepreneurial, it takes time. It takes sort of like blood, sweat, and tears, right?
Kerri Nachlas: It does.
Jayne Havens: I don’t sugarcoat it. People look at me, and they’re like, “Oh, she has all these clients. She has this successful business. It comes easy to her.” No, I work harder than anybody. I know you know that. I work harder than anybody. Success in any business, particularly this one, comes to those who really give their heart, their soul, their time, their energy. It’s all of it, right? Because when you’re supporting families, they want to see that you’re there for them. You’re there for them, just like you said, at night. You’re there for them during the day. You’re there from them whenever, and you have to be there for your business in the same way. Because if you’re not there for your business, then your business does not exist, right?
Kerri Nachlas: That’s absolutely true. It’s not that I don’t have boundaries. I do have boundaries. The difference is that I know bedtimes happen at night. I know that, logistically, my clients need me to be available, to check my phone at bedtime. We had a big dinner a couple of weeks ago at our house. It was past over. It’s like we had 20 people coming. What I did was I front-loaded my clients just like I front-load the little people when we’re working with them. I front-loaded my clients and I said, “Here’s the thing. I’m doing this dinner tonight. It’s going to take me all day. It’s going to take me all night. But up until about four o’clock, let’s make sure you’re set for tonight. If you truly need anything, absolutely, don’t hesitate to text me. But if I don’t get back to you, that’s why.” They’re always, always like, “No problem.” Because the difference is I have supported them so well that they don’t feel like I’m not doing it even though we’re only working two weeks together.
Actually, a lot of my clients are on one-week packages now, because they don’t require the two weeks. It’s like I found myself drumming my fingers at the end of the two weeks or the second week. I found that I was looking for things to help them with. I even felt like I needed to refund them part of the money because it was just not two weeks of service. I just decided, you know what? I’m not going to put myself through that guilt. I’m just going to do a one-week package, and that has been so successful.
What happens is, they don’t care if I take that day off. Because it literally is taking a day off. It’s their bedtime, and that’s what they pay me for. But what I’m doing is, I’m making sure they’re front-loaded. I’m making sure that they are successful. I’ve never had one parent say to me, “That was the worst night ever. I can’t believe you took it off.” Never. They feel empowered. They’re like, “Go. Yes, enjoy your family. Enjoy your friends.” They’re so supportive of my lifestyle, because I’m so supportive of theirs.
Jayne Havens: Such golden advice. I love that. Before we wrap up, where can everybody find you? I know not on a website, right?
Kerri Nachlas: Not on a website.
Jayne Havens: Where can everybody find you if they want to check out your Instagram? Tell us where we can find you online?
Kerri Nachlas: You can find me at Solutions with Nan on Instagram. You can find me at Solutions with Nan on Facebook, or you can find me at Kerri Nachlas, which will link you to Solutions with Nan on Facebook or Instagram, either one. It’s all Instagram and Facebook. I don’t have a TikTok account.
Jayne Havens: Me neither.
Kerri Nachlas: I just like doing face to face, belly to belly, heart to heart stuff versus, “Look what I created. This took me three hours.” I’m just like, “No, I don’t have time for three hours on content creation when I could be serving a client.
Jayne Havens: Or talking to people.
Kerri Nachlas: Yes, absolutely. That’s the thing. It’s like when I send examples of what I work with. Because a lot of times when you reach out to a collective, or to a wellness center, or a chiropractor, they’re like, “Can you give me some examples?” So, I send them some of the things I work, some of the documents I use, some of the things I work with. Those things take time. I’d rather spend time doing that than creating content, quite honestly. If you go to my Facebook or my Instagram, don’t judge me.
Jayne Havens: Nobody is judging. I am super proud of the business that you’ve built, and I’m really grateful that you are willing to share all of your knowledge with this community or audience today. I’m really, really grateful. I think it’s really important for people to hear that it is possible to do it in a way that feels outside of the norm.
One of my grads so famously said that her business really started to thrive when she started to do it in a way that worked for her rather than how I was running my business. I think that you’re a perfect example of that, although we do it sort of similarly. When you really fully realize what your business is all about and how it can work best for you, I think that’s when you really start to take off. Thank you for taking a minute to walk us through what that looks like for you. I’m really grateful.
Kerri Nachlas: I want to tell you one thing. The thing is that when I took your class, your course, I wasn’t sure about this. I wasn’t sure what my business was going to look like. But I did feel completely supported by you and whatever that looked like. I love the community that you have created where you can ask the questions, and you can say what’s working for everybody, what’s not working. Then I drilled it down for what I know to be true about myself and my style. But I loved everything about what I learned, everything that I did there, everything that I saw there.
The thing is that I think because you don’t squash anybody or say, “That’s wrong. That won’t work,” you say, “Try it, or maybe do it this way. Maybe look at it this way,” I think you are empowering women both sides, not only in the parenting arena but in the consultant’s arena too. I think that is fabulous. Because if you had told me I could only build this business one way, I would have been like, “Okay. Well, this is not the business for me.” But on our first call, you specifically said the business can be built any number of ways, and that stuck with me.
Jayne Havens: I’m glad. I love that we’ve just become really good friends that I really value. I learned a lot from you. I know that you learned sometimes from me, I hope.
Kerri Nachlas: Yes.
Jayne Havens: So, I think it goes both ways. I’m really glad to have you in my circle.
Kerri Nachlas: Yes, me too, as well. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to be on your podcast. I’ve enjoyed it.
Jayne Havens: Of course. Have a good one.
Kerri Nachlas: Thanks, Jayne. You too.