Launching a Podcast with Madison Fugere

Links: launching a podcast

Website: Serene Moments
Instagram: @serenemoments.doula
Podcast: Instagram: The Postpartum Plan

If you would like to learn more about the Becoming a Sleep Consultant, please join our free Facebook Group or check out our CPSM Website.

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Transcript:Launching a POdcast

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.

Madison is the owner of Serene Moments where she provides support as a postpartum doula and sleep consultant. She is 22 years old and lives in northern Massachusetts. Madison has her BA in child and family studies. And as a prior nanny, infant teacher and daycare manager, Madison decided to continue her love for supporting children and families by pursuing a full-time career as a postpartum doula and sleep consultant. As a young childless entrepreneur working closely with families, Madison strives to help these families through life transitions and position them to find the ‘Serene Moments’ in parenting.

Jayne Havens: Madison, welcome back to the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast. I’m very excited to have this conversation with you today.

Madison Fugere: Me, too. Thanks so much for having me back. It’s exciting.

Jayne Havens: I wanted to have you back on the podcast to talk about, well, having a podcast. I think that podcasting is something that feels really big time to those who don’t have one. But for those of us who do have one, I think it’s no big deal. I thought we could walk everyone through it together. But before we get started, give everyone a rundown. For those who don’t know you, maybe tell us a little bit about your story, who you are, what you do. And ultimately, I’d love to hear why you decided to start your own podcast.

Madison Fugere: Yeah, for sure. So I know I was on here before. I don’t know if people have heard the other episode or not. I’m a full-time sleep consultant and a postpartum doula, and it’s been a wild ride. Honestly, podcasting just felt like something that would be fun to me. I was never really a podcast listener, to be honest.

When I was trying to look at sleep consulting if I was going to do it and I was investigating the program that you have, I found myself over on the podcasts. I was like, oh, my gosh. So I binge listened to all of them. I was like, this would be so fun. If you talk to anybody I know, they’ll tell you that I literally never shut up. I’m always talking. The idea of having a podcast just felt so natural, I think.

Trying to find a topic and having enough to keep me and the listeners intrigued for an extended period of time was, really, I think the biggest thing that I was like, I don’t know how to do this. So with a bunch of thinking and a lot of trial and error, of figuring out what I wanted to talk about and what people would find interesting, I landed with The Postpartum Plan. It’s been interesting and fun. It’s always been something I thought I would enjoy, but I never really knew where to start.

Jayne Havens: Let’s talk about where to start. I think that for those that are listening and they’re wondering should I start a podcast, how would I start a podcast, there are probably a million things that you maybe don’t have to do but should do in order to get your podcast off the ground, get it launched. Let’s walk through some of those things. The first thing is you need to come up with a name, right?

Madison Fugere: Right.

Jayne Havens: So how did you come up with your name for your podcast?

Madison Fugere: There definitely are logisticals to it. Coming up with a name was one of the most complicated parts of it. But for me, once I figured out what I was going to talk about, it was a bit easier to figure out. But there was a couple month period where I was like I don’t know what I want to talk about. I don’t know what I want to do for a podcast. Who is my audience? Who am I talking to? What topics am I talking about?

It kept coming down to the two things of: one, who’s my target audience, and who do I want to be talking to? The other part of it was: am I going to have enough drive to continue doing so? I needed some sort of income associated with the podcast, and I wanted enough topics to talk about that could make it long enough.

Once I settled with I want to talk about all the things that have to do with postpartum, it really kind of clicked for me. Because I’m constantly telling my clients, as a postpartum doula, you should have a postpartum plan. You should have a postpartum plan. Everyone has birth plans, but no one has postpartum plans. And so that was when it clicked. I was like, that should just be the name of it. And so that’s how the name came to be. It was pretty quick once I figured out what I was going to be talking about and who I was talking to. But getting to that point was definitely a bit longer of a process than the actual naming process for me.

Jayne Havens: What about creating the little graphic that goes in the podcast apps, your logo, and the intro and outro music? Did you do that all by yourself, or did you have somebody help you with it from a tech perspective?

Madison Fugere: Yeah, great question. All I have to say is Canva, Canva, Canva. Literally, I am not a graphic designer whatsoever. But Canva has been my best friend for so many things. Even back in college, as an RA, I used it for posters. Now I use it for literally everything.

I will say that a couple months back from my postpartum business and, actually, firstly consulting as well, I had hired a social media manager friend of mine. She did some basically basic template setup for me. She made a couple different designs that I could pull from. So that did make it a bit easier because she made my ideas come to life on paper. Because a lot of times, for me, I struggled to start to create something because I don’t know where to start. So for her to have like here’s a template, and then I could pull it and adapt things was really nice.

Then when it came to this cover photo, I was like, all right. Well, I want to have the photo in it. I went through and I looked into my podcast app and looked at all the other cover photos that people had. The theme tends to be simplistic, something super simple that was big enough, that when it’s on this tiny little square on a photo, on a phone, you can see it. I was like, all right, well, we want a cover photo. I want the name of it. Then we want it to look like it’s a podcast.

I went into Canva. I literally typed in ‘podcast cover,’ and so many options came up. I just pulled and edited a couple of them and morphed them together. I added my normal branding colors to it and went from there. So the cover photo was really just a labor of love, a little bit of a time commitment. When it came to the intro and outro, that’s a whole another story. I have literally no editing capabilities.

Jayne Havens: Me neither.

Madison Fugere: Oh my god. It’s so bad. I was recording with a guest the other day. I didn’t know that I left such a chunk of time at the beginning. It was like this awkward pause. It was like oh, no. Now I have to edit this. I have no idea how I’m going to do it. Editing — not my thing. So I was actually talking to a friend of mine. She was like, “You should check out Fiverr,” which I had never heard of. But it’s basically like a website. Think like Craigslist where people can advertise their own services. I was like, oh. Okay. Cool. So I went on. I think I paid some guy $50. He did an intro and outro for me. He gets the music I get to pick from. He has the licensing to it, so I don’t have to worry about that.

He normally will even voice record the intros and outros for you. And you can tell him how you want it to sound. He’s a voice actor so he does it. For my vibe that I was looking for, I still wanted it to be my own voice. So I just recorded my own voice. I sent it to him and then he pieced it together. I gave him a couple edits. He updated it for me and sent it back. So $50 and then it was done. I really loved doing that. So that was how the music side of things went, the intro and outro. Because I was not going to try and tackle that on my own.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, I felt really lost on that part, too. I actually hired — I call him my podcast guy. He’s a guy. I have a guy. When I first decided to start a podcast, I interviewed a couple of podcast guys. I landed on this one who I felt like made it really simple. Same thing. He sent me a bank of music that was able to be used for free. I sent him my intro and outro. I wanted to use my own voice as well. I really wanted it to be my personality shining through on my podcast.

Madison Fugere: Exactly.

Jayne Havens: It’s funny. I sent it to him. I sent him my intro and my outro, and I said I’d love feedback. I can’t figure out if this is good or not. The feedback that he gave me — which I’ve since given this advice to so many other people — is to smile while you’re talking. He said that when you’re listening to somebody speak, you can hear if they’re smiling. I thought that that was really fabulous advice. So I went back into my basement where it was all quiet. My kids are upstairs. I rerecorded with a smile. I think it made such a difference. He just pieced it all together beautifully.

I think the point of sharing that you found somebody on Fiverr, and that I have a guy that helps me with this is that when you’re feeling stuck and when things feel really hard and outside of your area of expertise or your comfort zone, it’s okay to hire out. Just get it done. It doesn’t have to be exorbitantly expensive. I think the guy that I work with is entirely reasonable for how he helps me. It sounds like your guy was reasonable too. And we got it done. I think neither of us probably would have gotten it done — at least, not as well as we did — without the help of a professional.

Madison Fugere: Right. I mean, the thing for me when I was deciding if I wanted to hire, it took a chunk of time before I decided. I was like, screw it. I’m going to have to. Because I’m very much like a I’ll-do-it-myself kind of a person. The idea, like I mentioned a second ago, about starting a podcast was there needed to be some sort of income-producing activity associated with the podcast. Because I’m definitely multi-passionate, I like to say. But I end up getting super excited about something. I’m putting my all into it. Then if there’s nothing to keep me to continue doing so, other things come along, and sometimes they’re more important. I didn’t want this to get back-burnered.

For me, I was like, oh, I don’t want to invest all this money into this if, in case, it does flop. I was trying to put good juju out there. I’m not trying to say it’s going to flop. But at the same time, this is my full-time job. Sometimes it ebbs and flows. That goes with the career. And so the idea of throwing money at something unknowingly if it’s going to be great was anxiety provoking.

But I was like, all right. $50 is $50. Then in my head, I had a plan on ways to get listeners over to my website or over to my products and services, and get on to my invoicing system. And so that $50 was so worth it. It definitely took me a bit to get there. I’m sure that if this continues to go well, down the line, I’ll probably end up hiring a podcast guy like you have who I can do stuff for me monthly. Because then, I don’t have to do any of it. But for me, it definitely was worth the $50. Because otherwise, it would have been me sitting in this office for hours and hours on end trying to fix things because I’m such a perfectionist.

Jayne Havens: Where do you record your podcasts? Are you just hopping onto Zoom? Are you using one of those audio recording platforms?

Madison Fugere: When I was starting this podcast, I had no idea how podcasts were even done. I thought it was going to be this crazy, super complicated thing. Then when you had me as a guest on your podcast and you’re like, “Oh, we just jumped on Zoom, and I just saved the audio,” I was like, oh, my gosh. That’s so fabulous. Oh, my God. It makes things so less stressful. It’s amazing.

And so when I started setting mine up for myself and for my guests, I really took a page out of your book. I was like, all right. Great. I looked at your interview signup thing, so I could figure out what to add to mine. I was talking to another friend who has a podcast. I was asking them questions, too. I was like, I’m not going to reinvent the wheel here. And so I do use Zoom as well.

I also found that goes along with what you were saying about the whole-smiling-you-can-tell thing. Because if you’re just kind of doing an audio recording, it’s super easy to get distracted by things in the room or whatever you’re doing, that I find if we’re on Zoom, I get to look at you. I’m going to smile more. I’m not a weirdo smiling at myself in my room. It feels more like a conversation. And so I find that it helps a lot more to do it this way. So, yeah, I’m recording on Zoom. That was a very long explanation.

Jayne Havens: That’s okay. When I first started my podcast, I had been on a bunch of podcasts before. I had recorded on a lot of different platforms. I had recorded on Skype. I had recorded on Zoom. There are ones that are specifically for podcasting that record each audio separately. People who are sort of serious podcasters will sometimes say that that’s the best, because the audio is recorded in two separate files and can be edited a little bit easier.

Both of the guys that I interviewed to be my podcast guy, both of them said that a majority of their clients were just recording on Zoom. And, at the end of the day, it was fine. Most people seem happy enough with that. For me, it was a huge weight off of my shoulders. I think the way that you felt as well that, okay, here’s a platform that I’m already comfortable with. I already know how to sign on. I know how to hit record. I know how to save to my computer. I know where to find the files if it doesn’t download right to my desktop. It just didn’t feel scary.

Sometimes when you’re starting something new and everything feels scary and overwhelming, if you can find the little pieces that feel easier and ride those waves, I think it’s so much easier to have success. I know we touched on editing a little bit. What are you doing for editing? Nothing? Totally raw?

Madison Fugere: Great question. No, just going for it. I think that my biggest theme with all of this really goes along with the topic that I’m talking about, too. I’m talking about postpartum. I’m talking about the first three months, which is really the postpartum period. But overall, the first year of life and just how wild it is. And so I feel like, especially for my target audience, the amount of just real life that I’m bringing to the podcast is super relatable. I’m not editing. I’m really just one taking it and going with it.

If things slip up with my words like I did on literally every episode I’ve posted thus far, and I probably am today, it’s just reality. It feels like you’re just listening to someone talk to you. My little intro and outro is like I want to be my listener’s postpartum bestie. And so I just want to feel like you’re on the phone with your friend. If you don’t know what you’re going to say and you trip up on your words, that’s just normal. I’m not trying to be perfect because nobody is. So I’m not editing anything. I did the other day have to edit. Like I said, I clicked record and I took too long to start talking. Because if you have recorded on Zoom before, you know that if you click it, it tells you. It’s like, now we’re recording. Then I started talking, and I didn’t realize that it’s recording while it’s talking, which is so weird.

Literally, I have an iMac. So I just pop it onto GarageBand and just cut the first five seconds off the front of it and then just downloaded it. I think what you said about all the different recording softwares. The idea of having two different audio files that you can adjust is great. It would be great. Because sometimes you do have guests that talk, more quiet than others, or are using a mic, or aren’t, or audio sounds different. But I think that just adds to the reality of it.

Yeah, I’m not editing. But I am using — which I think jumps into the software in general that I’m using. I have signed up for a Buzzsprout website account. That’s where I’m hosting the podcast. I guess I’m jumping the gun here. But for podcasting, you have to have a website where you host everything, and then it blasts everything out to all the other systems. And so that’s what Buzzsprout is for me.

On Buzzsprout, you can upload your intro and your outro files. Then all I have to do is, after I’m done recording, I literally take the saved audio file. I click and drag it into the system, and it automatically adds the intro and the outro. I get to literally just type in the show notes. I can pre-schedule it so that it posts on a certain day. And I just click save. I even can add a blurb that needs to be at the end of every show notes, which I love. So it’s made things way more simplistic than I ever expected it to be.

It’s so automated. So after I’m done recording with the guest, I literally just click and drag. And it’s done. I don’t even need to add the intro and the outro, talking about editing. It’s literally right there, which I did not expect. Again, it makes everything seem like it was so much scarier before I was doing it.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, totally. The platform that I use for hosting, I think that’s what it’s called, is Transistor, I think it’s called. I’m sure it works very similarly to Buzzsprout. I find it to be pretty user-friendly. My guy who helps me, he actually uploads all of it and puts the show notes in. It’s probably something that I could do super easily on my own at this point. I just continue to use him because I find it to be affordable, and it’s one last thing I have to worry about. He will make small edits. If, in the beginning, I start the podcast and I say, “Welcome,” but then somebody else is talking on top of me and it’s a little awkward, we can just stop and say, “All right. Let’s try that again,” and start again.

Actually, I upload everything into a Google form. It’s the way that he accepts all of the information. There’s a little question: do you want any edits? I’ll say, “Please cut off the first 20 seconds of the recording, or at minute 3:26, please cut out 36 seconds,” or something like that. He always handles it. Then it’s done. That’s something that I know would take me a million years to figure out how to do. I just don’t have the capacity, and I’m not interested. So I love that he can do that.

I also have somebody else that supports me in my podcasting universe. I have somebody overseas that does transcribing. And so she will transcribe the entire episode and put it up onto my website, which I think is really good for search engine optimization. It’s also just a more inclusive way to podcast if you have the written version of the audio.

Madison Fugere: That’s awesome.

Jayne Havens: She does that for me. She also does editing. If I have somebody who comes onto my podcast and every other word is ‘like,’ or ‘um,’ or there’s a lot of dead space, or just the conversation isn’t flowing in a way that feels seamless and beautiful, I will send it to her and say, “Hey, can you listen through this and eliminate all of the ‘ums’? She’ll do that for me. I don’t bother my main podcast guy for that, because he’s really for one or two or three little edits. But if I need somebody to comb through the entire thing, I’d have her do it.

Madison Fugere: That’s awesome. That’s so cool.

Jayne Havens: It’s great to have people, right?

Madison Fugere: Yeah.

Jayne Havens: Let’s talk about the why behind all of this. I think you touched on it already a little bit, but I want to unpack that. Because when people are going through their entrepreneurial journey, and they’re trying to figure out, where do I show up? Do I start an Instagram account? Do I have a Facebook group? Should I have a podcast? Should I create a blog? The answer to that is, like, I don’t know. Should you? What’s in it for you? Why are you doing this? What are your goals? What are you looking to get out of it? You touched on the fact that you wanted the podcast to generate income for you in some way. Can you explain what your vision is for how the podcast is going to generate income for your business?

Madison Fugere: Yeah, first thing that popped into my head when you were just speaking is that I had a blog. I was listening to so many different things about SEO, like your website needs to be updated constantly. I was like, okay. I’ll do a blog. Whatever. I absolutely hated it because I am the worst speller. I absolutely hate writing because, like I said, I can’t spell for the life of me. Like I said, I also talk a ton, so it felt like the wrong avenue.

I had someone actually revamping my website and I was changing it up. When I did that, I was like, screw it. Get rid of the blog. I’m not going to do it. That’s when I started truly thinking about the podcasting reality of it and how to move forward on it. Because I was like, this could be a really great option instead because I have this knowledge I want to share. And so I got into that idea. I was like, this is going to be great. I want to do a podcast.

But then, I was like, like I said earlier, I need something that has enough topics. Because I want to have many episodes, and I need something that’s going to keep me from throwing it on the back-burner. Because I need something that has some sort of income associated with it. That’s kind of what got me to this topic. Originally, I was like, oh, well, I’m a young entrepreneur. There’s so not many of us. So that would be a great topic. But then I was like, okay, but what am I offering to them that would be an income-producing activity? Not really anything besides just the community which, again, is fine. But knowing my personality, I knew that was going to fade fast.

And so I really stuck with this postpartum idea. It was because I was doing a prenatal course. It was a different type of prenatal course, where we had a pelvic floor therapist. We had a lactation consultant. I was doing sleep and postpartum. We had a birth doula. We were told to prepare 80% of our knowledge and to present it. I went to present it, and I was supposed to only have 30 minutes. I ended up talking for 45, and I could have gone longer. I was like, “I’m so sorry. I just didn’t realize how much I had to share.” That’s when I was like, “So much knowledge. Let’s share it.”

But how am I going to share all this knowledge in another way? I was like, the podcast. That’s it. I’m like, all right. When I start this podcast, how do we find a way to make money off of this? Well, I had just launched my membership, which I talked about last time I was here with you, which is originally was just for past clients of postpartum or sleep clients. It was essentially like an avenue for them to reach out to me and have continued support, but then also for me to share knowledge every month via a newsletter and a Zoom call.

I was like, what if I were open this up to listeners? So I ended up increasing my price by $10. I have this rate that is for like anybody that wants to join. Then when clients off board with me, I send them the information for the membership. I explain to them that they get $10 off, which was the original pricing they’re paying. So they are still intrigued to join, and they get a discount versus any random listener that’s listening to me from halfway across the country. I was like, “Great. That’s an awesome option.”

Then I kept thinking. I was like, well, I have all these documents I share with my postpartum clients and with my sleep clients when they off board. I’m like, I’ve spent all this time on Canva creating these to make them look pretty and to make them easily readable. What if I were to create just these e-documents? I thought about it because I literally went on Etsy a couple of weeks before to get an e-document myself. I was like, oh, $1.50. Sure, I’ll drop that. Or like, oh, $6. I can drop that. It’s so easy. I’m thinking about it. This person sold thousands of this e-document. Why not turn the documents I’ve already created and make some more? Because they’re useful to my clients. Now they can be useful, and they can be an income-producing activity for all these listeners.

The membership thing is launched. The documents are in the works, because I have to figure out a way to add them to my website so that it’s seamless. You pay, and you get it in your email kind of a thing. Because I don’t want to use something like Etsy or whatever. Because if I’m charging such a small price, the fees take so much of it.

Jayne Havens: They’d take a cut, yeah.

Madison Fugere: Yeah, so I have my website guy. He’s super sweet, a friend of mine. He has offered to amp up my website. If anyone’s looking for a website guy, he’s great. He was looking for a couple different systems for me to see what would work best. So we’re still in the works of that, and I’m still creating some more documents. But that’s my hope behind it. It’s people go over the website, and they purchase a document for $5. Then I’m going to hopefully do a sleep schedule for this age bracket and that age bracket or just a sample schedule. And, ideally, people are able to grab those. That makes it financially worth it.

Jayne Havens: So really just generating traffic to your website to either your membership or download these inexpensive deliverables, and hopefully you can show up and just talk every week, and people will connect with you, head over to your website and purchase.

Madison Fugere: Right. Exactly. I think the other part of it which I think more people know about sleep consulting when they do postpartum work. I didn’t know postpartum doulas were a thing until I became one. But it’s also, I’ve always said I’m not just marketing for myself, but I’m marketing for the community. We always say, as sleep consultants, that we’re trying to take the stigma away of sleep training. As a postpartum doula, I’m constantly trying to teach people about postpartum work. Because no one knows it’s a thing. I think it’s also just getting those aspects out in the world.

Jayne Havens: I think that that’s so important. I’m glad you touched on that. Because one of the questions that I get asked most often from prospective sleep consultants, people who are interested in enrolling in Center for Pediatric Sleep Management: is the market saturated? Are there already too many people doing this? Is there a room for more people in the field? My perspective on this, and it’s the same for postpartum work, is that both of these fields — sleep consulting and postpartum support — are emerging professions.

A lot of new parents don’t even know what a sleep consultant is, don’t even know what a postpartum doula is. The only way that more parents hire sleep consultants and more parents hire postpartum doulas is if more sleep consultants and more postpartum doulas enter the market and start supporting more families. The more normalized this support becomes, our field grows. I think there’s so much room for growth.

As you said, most new parents don’t even know what a doula is, don’t even know what a sleep consultant is. I really do think that what you’re doing is so important for the doula industry, and I’d like to think that what I’m doing is similar for sleep consultants. I’m trying to normalize this type of support. I think that parents, especially mothers, should not feel that they have to be at rock bottom to seek support — either postpartum or for sleep struggles.

They should seek support because parenting is hard. Having a baby is hard, or having a three-year-old is hard. When you’re struggling, you should get help. It’s really unfortunate that that is not a blanket feeling right now, that parents really feel for whatever reason that they have to wait until they are completely suffering and borderline dead inside to get help. I think that that’s sad. I love that it’s one of your goals to change that.

Madison Fugere: Right. I think another big part of it is the stuff that nobody talks about. We’re trying to get the news out that there are options for you. But sometimes people will talk about sleep, about, oh, my kid sleeps. My kid doesn’t. But the second someone says, “Oh, my kid sleeps through the night,” that makes that mom or that parent who doesn’t have a kid doing that, they don’t talk about it. Then they feel even more alone.

Same thing with postpartum. People are feeling overwhelmed with postpartum. They don’t know what to do, but they don’t talk about it. So it’s so quick to get to this point where it’s like, “Oh, you’re the only one feeling this way. You need to figure it out on your own.” That’s just simply not the case.

Telling and teaching the world that these professions and this support exists, but also telling and teaching them that it’s okay to ask for the help and that you’re not alone, that’s such a huge part of it. Everyone’s experiencing some sort of parenting struggle in one way or another.

Jayne Havens: One thing that you didn’t mention but I want to mention just for you — I think it’s true for me too, but it makes me happy that you’re doing this for yourself and your business — I do think that creating a podcast does give you a level of credibility. You’re showing up every single week. You’re putting your knowledge, your expertise, your personality out into the universe.

People are going to listen to that. They’re going to connect with your voice. They’re going to connect with your speaking style. They’re going to connect with your interview style when you have other guests on your show. They’re going to learn to know, like, and trust you — which is exactly what we want out of prospective clients, or students, or whatever it is coming into our universe.

I think that for everybody that’s listening that’s sort of an aspiring entrepreneur, or maybe they’re already on their entrepreneurial journey and they’re thinking, “Podcasting is way over my head,” I guess I’m sitting here across from the Zoom with Madison. You’re relatively new in your entrepreneurial journey. You’re putting yourself out there as an expert in the field and a force to be reckoned with. I think that it’s a really fast-track way to have your audience take you seriously. Because, for whatever reason, people think that podcasters are the real deal.

Showing up every single week and being inside somebody’s ear or on their car speaker, I think that that’s hugely valuable. So I applaud you for doing it. I was really overwhelmed when I was first getting started with it. But what I realized is that it’s such a quick way and an easy way for people to connect with me or you on a really personal level without having to have a whole conversation.

Madison Fugere: Right. I think another big part of it, which also speaks to the whole ‘is the market oversaturated,’ is that postpartum work and sleep work are both fields where you’re truly inviting somebody who’s a professional into your life at such a vulnerable time. That when I do interviews with anybody for either of those services, I’m always like, I want you to go talk to other people. Because as much as I want to support you, and I know I could help you, you need to feel so comfortable with not only the person that’s coming in and the things that they’re saying, but their personality. Because they’re becoming part of your family, especially if you’re doing in-person work. Virtually, as well.

Being able to have a podcast where they are able to relate, it makes them feel more likely to reach out. I get a lot of people that come to me from referrals saying, “Oh, I interviewed four other people. But because I got a referral to you and this person trusts you, I trust you.” It’s really so much about trust and relatability. Being able to just be a person and not just being super salesy and being all about the money and all about the stuff — I mean, I don’t think anyone’s in this field just for the money. But being able to truly be another human that they can connect with, really, that podcast starts that. So it’s amazing.

Jayne Havens: If you’re not already doing this, I would recommend that you refer your prospective clients to your podcast and have them listen to a few episodes. Just have them hear the way that you speak. Have them hear the way that you share thoughts and opinions on things. Because I do find that it happens for me.

When people listen to the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast, they get onto calls with me. They’re like, “I’ve listened to 30 episodes of your podcast. I feel like I know you. I already am ready to do this.” It sort of gets them in the mindset where they really trust me, and they know me. They feel like they know my personality. So if you’re not already doing that, I would definitely start that ASAP.

Madison Fugere: Oh, definitely.

Jayne Havens: Before we wrap up, share with everybody your website, your social media and, obviously, your podcast.

Madison Fugere: Yeah, for sure. I’m Serene Moments Doula on everything — Facebook, Instagram, whatnot. Then I am on Spotify, Apple Podcast and, I believe, Google Podcast or whatever it’s called. For the podcast, it is The Postpartum Plan. You can find all of the links and whatnot on my Instagram as well. I post updates on there when I’m launching things. I’m trying to post every week. But sometimes things fall through like this week, and then it’s a couple days late. But we’re still kind of starting up here, so I’m working on it. But some of the episodes have been so cool so far. I’ve recorded with a couple guests. I have another guest podcast popping up soon. So yeah, it’s a fun time.

Jayne Havens: Well, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and expertise on this topic. I hope that through this interview, maybe we inspire a few others to join us on this adventure.

Madison Fugere: Yeah, thanks for having me.

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. Launching a podcast