Going Full Time with Danielle Greene

 

When Danielle became a certified sleep consultant through the Center for Pediatric Sleep Management, she graduated from the course with big goals, one of which was to leave her teaching job so that she could pursue sleep consulting full time. As a mom of two, Danielle was desperate for more flexibility in her life, and she knew that being a sleep consultant would provide with her that flexibility, while also allowing her to continue to make a positive impact on the lives of others. A little more than six months since becoming certified, Danielle has officially left the classroom and hasn’t looked back. Going full time

 

Links:

Website: DG Sleep Consulting
Instagram: @dgsleepconsulting

 

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Transcript:

Intro: Welcome to Becoming a Sleep Consultant! I’m your host Jayne Havens, a certified sleep consultant and founder of both Snooze Fest by Jayne Havens and Center for Pediatric Sleep Management.

On this podcast, I’ll be discussing the business side of sleep consulting. You’ll have an insider’s view on launching, growing, and even scaling a sleep consulting business. This is not a podcast about sleep training. This is a podcast about business building and entrepreneurship.

When Danielle became a certified sleep consultant through the Center for Pediatric Sleep Management, she graduated from the course with big goals, one of which was to leave her teaching job so that she could pursue sleep consulting full time. As a mom of two, Danielle was desperate for more flexibility in her life, and she knew that being a sleep consultant would provide with her that flexibility while also allowing her to continue to make a positive impact on the lives of others. A little more than six months since becoming certified, Danielle has officially left the classroom and hasn’t looked back.

Jayne Havens: Danielle, welcome back to the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast. I’m so excited to chat with you again.

Danielle Greene: Thanks for having me again. I’m really excited to be here.

Jayne Havens: So take us back. Give us a brief introduction. Tell us a little bit about you, why you decided to become a sleep consultant. Then we’ll get into where you are now.

Danielle Greene: Okay. So I am a certified teacher. I’ve been teaching for several years, primarily with younger students. I’ve always taught first and second grade. In recent years, I’ve done a lot with social emotional learning, so that has really become my passion when it comes to working with kids over the past few years. When my son was four and a half months old, we actually hired Jayne. And she helped us get sleep back on track during the pandemic, which obviously was a crazy time for everybody. And add a newborn to the mix, there was nothing easy about it.

And so fast forward, a few years later, my daughter was born. I was bored on maternity leave. I was able to apply everything that Jayne had taught me with my son. And I just looked at my husband one night. We were watching TV and I was like, “Maybe I should just become a sleep consultant.” And I was half joking. Then I texted my mom and she was like, “Obviously.” And so ever since then, my goal was to quit teaching and do this full time. And here we are. I left my job officially this past June, and this has been my first full-time month of sleep consulting.

Jayne Havens: I love your story. It just makes me so proud. I love that you started off as a client and then a student, and now you’re still, I think, in the infancy of your business.

Danielle Greene: Oh, without a doubt.

Jayne Havens: You are absolutely just getting started, but I love that you were able to gain momentum and traction quickly and that you’re able to sort of turn this dream into a reality. It just makes me so happy. So talk to me about the first month or so. When you first launched your business, how were you putting your name out there? Maybe tell us about your first paying client. Give us a rundown of what it looked like back then, and then we can talk about what it looks like now.

Danielle Greene: Sure. So the first family that I worked with was pro bono, just to gain some experience and momentum. One of my really good friends — actually, a former colleague of mine from New York City — is now a full-time influencer and content creator. She has no kids. She’s not even married yet. So what she focuses on has nothing to do with the space that you and I are in. But even so, she was able to give really good advice.

She was kind of the person who pushed me to focus on social media, at least in the beginning. She knew it wasn’t my thing. She knew I wasn’t excited about that. But she was like, “You know what? You’ll never know. So many of the influencers that my friend works with are young moms, and they have infants and toddlers.” So my friend actually wound up writing me a little script. And she said, “This is how influencers like to be approached. Tailor it to your needs. Fill in the blanks, and just see what happens.”

So I reached out to two influencers that she works with, and I wound up working with both of them. My first paying clients came all from these influencers. The deal was: I gave them a two-week consultation in exchange for promotion on their feed and their stories. And it worked very much in my favor. And so, for the first few months, I’d say all of my paying clients came from Instagram. And so at that point, I was like, oh, my gosh. I really have to keep up with Instagram. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t like it, but it’s working. And so I just kept at it.

Then I wound up starting to get clients from word of mouth and other referrals, which was the goal. And so at that point, I was like I’m going to slow down Instagram for a little bit. I was still working in the classroom. I was still teaching at the time. I couldn’t give my attention to everything the way I wanted to. So I figured if I’m going to give my attention to anything, it obviously has to be my full-time paying job and the clients that I’m working with right now, let alone my family. So I kind of paused on social media a little bit. I picked back up.

Then I wound up working with an influencer who has several followers more than the other influences I had worked with. The most recent influencer that I worked with had 1 million followers. Truthfully, the number of followers, I have learned, doesn’t really matter. But in this case, it really helped. And she was amazing. She wound up printing hunt the sleep plan that I wrote for her and kind of just showing the back of it, so people could see tangible papers. Like, she wrote this for me. And that influencer is the one who sent my business on fire, without a doubt.

Jayne Havens: It’s so exciting. It’s so funny when you share this story because you really are that person that wanted nothing to do with social media. I know that about you. I know you personally. I understand your personality. I understand that you’re the type of person that didn’t want to be on Instagram. But I guess I applaud you for stepping outside of your comfort zone and being willing to accept the advice of this friend of yours who felt really confident that she could help you. I think that’s great.

Danielle Greene: Yeah, it definitely came as a surprise to literally everyone I know. Putting my face on stories is the last thing that I would ever want to do. You know, I definitely have taken a long social media break this entire month of July. I’d say I haven’t really posted anything. My website is about to go live, or it did go live today actually, which is really exciting. So there was a little bit of rebranding happening there. So I figured, well, that’s all happening. Let me pause. I am about to sign on my 10th client for July. So truthfully, I haven’t really had time to be posting the way I was previously, which is fine. I haven’t needed to do it this month.

Actually, I remember back, I think it was April. You may have posted something — I don’t remember which of the two Facebook groups it was. It may have been both — where you were mentioning you were having a little bit of a slower-than-usual month. And instead of just moping around about it, you kind of got into action and did whatever you had to do in order to get the ball rolling again. And that I feel like has happened to me.

So I feel like if August feels slower than July, then I’m going to get on there and do a Q and A. Because, truthfully, that has been my tactic. Every time I’ve done a Q and A, it’s really because it’s been a slower couple of weeks. And for me, personally, the Q and As have always led to sales.

Jayne Havens: That’s so great. Are you willing to share a little bit about the advice that your friend shared with you about how to approach an influencer? What do you say to them that draws interest back to this potential partnership between your business and theirs?

Danielle Greene: Definitely. One of the influencers that I reached out to, I had been following for quite a bit of time. So I kind of knew what she was about. I knew about her daughter who at the time was three months. The other influencer, I hadn’t been following at all. So I made sure to hit follow before I even reached out, so I could kind of get a feel for what she was all about. And so you’re kind of like you’re cold messaging them, and not everybody likes that.

And so I first introduced myself. I didn’t even say at the beginning, though, that I was a pediatric sleep consultant. I simply stated my name. I’ve been a follower for X amount of time. I’ve always resonated with the posts about X, Y and Z. So if they posted about a restaurant that I had been to, I was like, “I loved that restaurant, too. Thanks for making a recommendation.” Making a personal connection there. Always congratulating them. If their child is younger, congratulating them on the birth of their child.

Then I go into, “Similarly, I’m also a young mom. And not only do your posts about X, Y and Z resonate with me, but really your motherhood posts are really why I’m here now.” I explain that I have this young business. “I’m trying to grow my business. And if you’re interested, I would be more than happy to offer you this service valued at the number in exchange for whatever the exchange would be.” That’s where I end it. I really try not to ramble. It’s really an introduction, a personal connection, why you follow. Here’s what I can offer. Do you want to work together? And that’s it.

Jayne Havens: And you have found that the answer has been yes, or do you feel like you reach out to a lot of influencers and maybe a small handful of them say yes?

Danielle Greene: I have reached out to five in total, and I have worked with three out of the five. I would say one of them did actually reach back out. The only reason I had reached out to this one originally was because she had been posting, “Oh, my gosh. My girls are up at this hour and this hour.” I kind of observed her stories for a couple of weeks before I even made a move.

And so I eventually did. Then they went on vacation. They came back, and they were sleeping through the night again. So it was kind of a moot point. I don’t know what would have happened. The other one never got back to me. But the formula for all of them is the same.

Jayne Havens: Okay. And you said, obviously, you’re getting clients from these collaborations. What about, like, you’ve worked with a handful of clients now. You’ve had enough success stories. Are those families now getting to the point where they’re sharing your name with others?

Danielle Greene: Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. One of the clients has actually become a friend because she has referred so many families to me. It’s like, at first, I sent her a thank you gift. I was like I talk to her all the time now because every week, she’s sending me someone. I mean, it’s been really, really nice.

I actually had a really interesting experience where I wound up almost working with a sleepaway camp. Because there were a number of seven-year-old girls who were not sleeping through the night, and they were waking their counselor. It wound up not working out in the end because I just didn’t have time to drive up to Pennsylvania. But it could have been a really interesting experience. I feel like a very unique one, for sure.

Jayne Havens: Yes, that would have been fascinating. As somebody who has a seven year old at sleepaway camp, I would want you up there if the girls were keeping my daughter up at night, for sure.

Danielle Greene: And I think back to, like, my own experiences at sleepaway camp, I remember so many girls in my bunk just up all of the time. It was like nobody’s fault, but it did raise the question in my mind. I’m like, oh, have these girls never been sleep trained before? Like, is this what sleep is like at home?

Jayne Havens: Right. Like, are they having a hard time because they’re in a strange place, they’re in a bunk with 10 or 12 girls? Or did their parents send them away without healthy sleep hygiene, and now campus having to navigate this for four to seven weeks?

Danielle Greene: Right. Definitely, for sure.

Jayne Havens: Talk to me about, like, do you have a certain case or family that you worked with that really just sort of makes you smile, like a good success story that you would be willing to share?

Danielle Greene: Yeah, so I actually was very afraid at first to work with toddlers. I don’t know if it’s because I have toddlers of my own. And it can be scary to engage with a toddler. They have actually wound up being my favorite clients of all time. I love the age. I think it’s so fun.

For me, my first toddler experience as a sleep consultant was with this little boy. He was turning four. He had never slept through the night in his entire life. Not once in his life had he slept through the night. And as you can imagine, his parents were incredibly skeptical. Because four years of no sleep is a very long time. And to suddenly put all of your trust and pay all this money to a woman that you don’t know who’s telling you, “I can get your kid to sleep without a doubt in less than two weeks,” they were skeptical. It didn’t happen overnight.

For this family, it definitely took quite a few nights which is also, for me, very stressful because it’s not always the case. And I didn’t hear from them for two days. And all of the sudden, I’m like checking in. I’m like, “Is everything okay? I never heard from you. Feel free to reach out when you’re ready.” They text me and they’re like, “We are so sorry that we have forgotten to text you. Life has just been so amazing.” He had been sleeping through the night for three nights in a row, and they just forgot to tell me because it felt so natural.

They were suddenly living their life, and they had forgotten for the past four years everybody had been utterly exhausted. And I feel like they were just soaking in all of this family time, all this connection time. And despite the fact that I hadn’t heard from them for a couple of days, it was just a testament to really what healthy sleep can do for a family.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, I really resonate with that. I used to be scared of toddlers and preschoolers also. I think when I got into this line of work, my kids were young. They didn’t have any sleep challenges as toddlers and preschoolers because they were sleep trained as infants, and we always just held really firm yet respectful boundaries around bedtime and sleep in our home.

So I never had a kid climb out of the crib. I never had a kid who wouldn’t stay in bed, because that just wasn’t an option in our household. It just never even occurred to our children that that was even going to be a thing. And maybe if it did, we squashed it really quickly. So I was really intimidated by supporting families with two year olds that were in beds or three year olds that were climbing out of the crib. That felt really scary to me.

But I agree with you. It’s so fun. It’s so rewarding. I love that I often interact with my clients. I don’t know if you do that as well. But I’ll send them videos, or I’ll get on FaceTime with them. And I just love empowering little three- and four-year-old kiddos. Their parents are blown away by the fact that they listen to me and that I can help them to teach their child to listen to them and to get everybody on the same page and to realize that sleep is not a bad thing.

Sleep feels good. Rest feels good. When you wake up rested and you have a full night of sleep, three year olds can recognize how much better that feels than the alternative, which is being up four to eight times in the middle of the night.

Danielle Greene: Right. And I also think that not only is it empowering for the child but for the parents as well. I find that when I’m working with toddler families, I’m really working with the toddler for the first few days, and then things kind of get better. Then for the remainder of the two weeks, it’s really a lot of parent coaching, which wasn’t the intention, obviously, for the parents.

But then they start asking all these other questions about, “How do I do this? What about this and the potty?” I’m like, it’s all about control. They don’t even realize. I’m like, you just need to regain control. That, for me, has what it’s come down to for so many of these families with toddlers and preschool-aged children. Lots of parent coaching.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, I think you and I are like in a very similar season as far as our businesses evolving. I’m also doing a lot of sort of off-label parent coaching. Because I get these kids sleeping through the night, and then they’re like, “That’s amazing. But we can’t get our kids out the door in the morning to get to camp.” Or, “My kids are refusing to sit at the table for dinner.” And it’s all the same stuff, right? It’s all the same thing.

Danielle Greene: It’s all the same.

Jayne Havens: And so we can apply the same sort of setting expectations and follow through that we implemented at eight o’clock at night to eight o’clock in the morning when it’s time to get out the door.

Danielle Greene: Exactly. And I have to say, just speaking to that transition piece of getting out the door, one of the things that I have found so rewarding about going full time with sleep consulting, obviously, the flexibility piece is a no brainer. It’s a given. But I have to say that there was so much joy sucked out of my life prior to this that I didn’t even realize was being sucked out of it. Right? Like, I knew I wasn’t happy at my job, but I didn’t realize just how much the rest of my life was impacted because of that.

And my entire home feels so much lighter now because — I don’t want to say because the mom is happy, everybody else is happy. That’s obviously not how it works. But you feel it, right? My son can feel that I am so much lighter and so much less rushed because I don’t have to get to school in the morning, right? I’m like, yes, it’s summer but it’s going to continue into the fall, which I’m happy for myself. But I’m really excited for him that we don’t have to feel as rushed in the morning. Yes, you’re still getting to school, and you will probably be the first one in the carpool line because that’s just who we are. But it’s not because I have to be anywhere.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, you and I, I think, are very similar people.

Danielle Greene: I think so.

Jayne Havens: I’m also first in line at carpool every single day, just because that’s the type of people that we are.

Danielle Greene: Right. You’re not getting to a nine-to-five job, which is amazing.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, and I think to your point, the way that you feel so much lighter now that you are doing work that you love and you’re not working in a situation where you are maybe just burnt out and overworked and perhaps underpaid is very similar to the feeling that I think our clients feel when they come out of that fog of not sleeping through the night for so many weeks, or months, or years. I think sometimes they don’t realize how tired they are.

They don’t realize that the lack of sleep is creating a situation where they’re feeling depressed, or low, or just unmotivated and uninspired to show up as their best version of themselves as parents until they finally get a few full nights of sleep and then they realize, like, wow, I was really in a bad way and didn’t even realize it.

Danielle Greene: And I have to say, one of the clients that I actually just wrapped up with, when we had our discovery call, she kind of put out a disclaimer and was like, “Is it okay if I have been just diagnosed with postpartum depression?” I said, “Of course. First of all, you don’t need to ask for permission for anything. Of course, it’s okay. I will obviously keep that in mind.” They’re a totally separate thing.

And what I didn’t say was, let’s see how you feel in two weeks, right? Then the two weeks end and she was like, “I think I can go off my meds. And I wasn’t going to say I told you so. Obviously not. But I mean, it’s just like sleep impacts literally every area of life.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, actually, I have a few clinicians who specifically support moms who are struggling with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, and they refer to me. They come to me with postpartum depression or postpartum anxiety. And I can confidently say that nine and a half times out of ten, it’s actually sleep deprivation that they’re struggling with.

Danielle Greene: Exactly. Without a doubt.

Jayne Havens: And once they start sleeping through the night, the fog is lifted. They’re not feeling so anxious. They’re not feeling so depressed anymore. Then they can actually work effectively with their therapist to get to the home stretch and really feel like they’re in a great place. It’s an amazing, amazing partnership. It’s team effort getting these moms to feel like themselves again.

Danielle Greene: And I can attest to that. I was never formally diagnosed with postpartum depression or postpartum anxiety. But when I first reached out to you all those years ago about my son, I was not in a good place. Like, I was locked in my New York City apartment because we were in the middle of a pandemic, and my son was not napping. We couldn’t go out anywhere. So I was a mess. I mean, I was a mess. And I don’t even know if I admitted it to anybody, or even to myself, until after the fact when I was like, wow, he’s taking naps now. And I can do whatever I want for two hours. Right?

Jayne Havens: Yeah, so we talked a lot about all the amazing things that are going on in your business and how it’s all making you feel. Is there something or anything that’s feeling like a challenge to you and your business, and how are you working through that?

Danielle Greene: I think at this point, it’s summer, I really wasn’t expecting my summer to pick up this way in terms of business. I was honestly expecting to have a slower summer. Intentionally, my son is starting a new school. So it’s kind of trying to just lean into that and give him extra attention and love as we make that transition. But I think the thing that feels scary to me, and I don’t know if you feel this way ever, but you just never know what each month is going to bring. Right?

For me, prior to the summer, it was always like I would have really big, busy starts of the month and then the rest of the month would be kind of like crickets. This month has just been like signing on new clients constantly, and same with last month. I’m always just like, is that going to be August? Is that going to be September? Right?

I think the uncertainty piece of it and the unknown is a little bit scary to me. And it’s like, what is my strategy going to be when that happens? Because the truth is, I don’t want to have to lean on Q and As on Instagram every time. So I’m curious. Like, what do you do in those situations where if you feel like you’re having a slower month or slower couple of weeks, what do you do in order to pick up again?

Jayne Havens: Yeah, so I’ve noticed, I think this is something that all small business owners struggle with mentally. Because we don’t earn a salary. We’re not getting a steady paycheck every week or every other week. So I think, to some degree, this is just something that we have to figure out in our own brains and just become a little bit more comfortable with the uncomfortable.

I started working with a bookkeeper maybe a year and a half ago. What she and I noticed is that — she tracks both my income from sleep consulting and then also from Center for Pediatric Sleep Management. And what she noticed is that every other month in sleep consulting, I have a big month and then a slower month, and then a big month and then a slower month. Literally, it’s been this way for a year and a half. It’s very consistent.

I think that what that shows is that, in my slower months, I feel that slowness, and I spring into action. I start talking to more people. I start having more conversations. I start working on generating some more business, and then it shows the following month. I think that that’s probably what’s happening.

And it’s almost probably at this point second nature for me. I’m not even realizing that I’m doing it. But what I do is, when I have slower months, instead of wallowing and worrying about where my next client is going to come from, I just start to have conversations. First of all, that fills the time, and it makes me feel like I’m being productive. It doesn’t just make me feel like I’m being productive. I actually am being productive. And I do think that the productivity also eventually leads to generating more income. And so I just get into these waves of highs and lows, and I become comfortable with that. It’s probably, at this point, second nature for me.

But I’m also a little bit of a hustler at heart. I like to work hard. I don’t like to sit around with nothing to do. That doesn’t feel good to me. So I like to spring into action in my business. And so it doesn’t feel that hard. But yes, I think that mentally, that is a challenge. It’s interesting that you say that the beginning of your month is busy and then the end of the month is crickets. I wonder if that’s because if you’re looking at whether it’s your Stripe account or your balance sheet, your QuickBooks or whatever. In the beginning, you’re hustling a little bit to generate some income. Then you get busy, and then you don’t have time to continue to market yourself.

So your cycle is the same as mine. But mine is on a one-month cycle, and yours is on a two-week cycle. Maybe we’re doing the same thing, you know. And you’re just spending the first month, the beginning of the month, working hard. Because you’re like, “It’s a fresh month. I got to do well. I’m going to talk to people. I’m going to make connections.” Then that starts to pay off. Then you get too busy to do that for the second half of the month. I think it gets easier as you gain confidence, when your reputation sort of speaks for itself.

I am at the point in my business — and I think you’re probably really close, if this hasn’t happened to you yet — where even if I just sort of sit around and do nothing, a handful of people will be reaching out to me every single week to get onto a call with me. That doesn’t mean that they’re all going to hire me. But I’m getting inquiries regularly just from friends of former clients who got my name, and they’re struggling, and they reach out for a call. So the more families you help, I think word of mouth starts to do the work for you.

Danielle Greene: Yeah, definitely. I’ve certainly noticed that over the summer. You know, the other day, I was like, “Oh my gosh, I haven’t had a discovery call in a week.” Then just the other day, two people booked for this morning. So I mean, you kind of just have to trust the process. What I’ve been doing clearly has been working. It doesn’t mean I have to stop; I should stop or slow down. I have to keep up. But yeah, I think I definitely agree with you.

I think that it’s funny. Something that I noticed now that we’re in summer and I’m not teaching is, I go to Trader Joe’s once or twice a week. And when I was teaching, it was either on a Sunday morning or once my kids went to bed, because I obviously couldn’t go during the day. And now I’m going during the day, and there are all these moms and babies there. That is so not the scene I had ever been encountered with or engaged with at Trader Joe’s. And suddenly, I’m like talking to all these moms at Trader Joe’s or another grocery store.

I’m not trying to be creepy. Sometimes I’m right there. I’m like, “Oh, what a cute baby.” Then if they continue the conversation, obviously, I will continue. But even just a couple of weeks ago, they’re like, “Thanks. But it would be nice if she slept. That would be even cuter.” And I was like, “Well, would you believe me if I told you she could in two weeks?” And she was obviously so confused. But that was it. That’s all I needed to say for them to book a call. So even just like having that time to go to Trader Joe’s during a time when I couldn’t normally go has been clearly very effective for me.

Jayne Havens: That’s amazing. I love that story. So your website is launching, as we speak. You made it the first six months in business without a website? Did you have a website? That’s amazing.

Danielle Greene: Yeah, which was really surprising. Because, given my personality, I wanted it up and running before even I signed up for the course. Right? Then I clearly didn’t have one, and it was fine. Then should I pay all this money for a website? I mean, I should have. I’m excited to have it. It will definitely be helpful in the long run. But yeah, I didn’t have a website up until today.

Jayne Havens: That’s amazing. Well, congrats on the launch. Do you want to share your website, social media, anything else before we wrap up?

Danielle Greene: Yeah, sure. So my instagram handle is @dgsleepconsulting. My website is also dgsleepconsulting.com.

Jayne Havens: Well, congrats on your early and rapid success. I’m not surprised.

Danielle Greene: Thank you.

Jayne Havens: I’m not surprised at all. And we’ll have to keep checking in. I feel like if you’ve had this sort of success in six months, I can’t wait to see where you are another six months or a year from now. I really, truly believe that this is only the beginning for you. And it just makes me really proud. As somebody who I helped when you were way back in the weeds a long time ago and to see now that you’re supporting other families, it just makes me so happy.

Danielle Greene: Thank you. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Outro: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast. If you enjoyed today’s episode, it would mean so much to me if you would rate, review, and subscribe. When you rate, review, and subscribe, this helps the podcast reach a greater audience. I am so grateful for your support.

If you would like to learn more about how you can become a certified sleep consultant, head over to my Facebook Group, Becoming a Sleep Consultant or to my website thecpsm.com. Thanks so much, and I hope you will tune in for the next episode.