A CPSM Graduate Spotlight with Aly Dabbs

 

Aly lives in the Nashville area with her husband and two young boys. Over the past year, Aly has channeled her passion into becoming a sleep consultant—a journey that began after she and her husband hired a sleep coach when their own child was struggling. They had such a transformative experience that Aly decided to become a sleep coach herself! Aly Dabbs

Aly has a particular passion for supporting exhausted moms through the challenges of toddlerhood. Her goal is to provide support to moms during what can be a difficult and isolating time, helping them find balance and rest so the entire family can thrive. Aly Dabbs

 

 

Links:Aly Dabbs

Website: Restful Baby
Instagram: @aly_sleepconsultant
Podcast: Aly, The Restful Mama

 

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.

Book a free discovery call to learn how you can become a Certified Sleep Consultant here.

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Transcript: Aly Dabbs

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.

Aly lives in the Nashville area with her husband and two young boys. Over the past year, Aly has channeled her passion into becoming a sleep consultant—a journey that began after she and her husband hired a sleep coach when their own child was struggling. They had such a transformative experience that Aly decided to become a sleep coach herself!

Aly has a particular passion for supporting exhausted moms through the challenges of toddlerhood. Her goal is to provide support to moms during what can be a very difficult and isolating time, helping them to find balance and rest so the entire family can thrive.

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

Aly Dabbs: Hi. Oh, my gosh. Yes, thanks for having me.

Jayne Havens: So before we get started, why don’t you tell us a little bit about you? Share what you’re up to, maybe a little bit personally, a little bit professionally, and why you decided to become a certified sleep consultant.

Aly Dabbs: Yeah, so I have two boys. I can’t believe it. In actually two weeks, one is going to be three and one is going to be one. And I just can’t believe it. We live in Nashville. My husband and I have been married for five years today, actually.

Jayne Havens: Happy anniversary.

Aly Dabbs: Thanks. Other than that, I’m pretty boring. I host a book club. We spend time with our kids. We go on bike rides and try to do outdoorsy things but pretty low key.

I got into sleep consulting because when my oldest was a baby, he slept pretty well overnight. What I mean by that is, he was getting up every two hours to feed. But he didn’t really have any trouble falling back to sleep, so I didn’t have these hour stretches of trying to get my baby back to sleep in the middle of the night. But he did not nap. Naps were horrendous. I was working from home, and I was missing meetings. I was super tired, and I was spending a lot of time just trying to get him to nap. I remember texting my girlfriend, like, “This is the definition of crazy. Every day I’m expecting this to be different, and it’s not.”

I kind of had remembered this podcast episode that I listened to when I was pregnant, and it had a sleep consultant on as a guest. And so I kind of dug back. I re-listened to the episode, and I ended up reaching out to her. We hired her. She worked with us and kind of taught us when and how babies should sleep. And really, the big thing that I got out of it was that I kind of was getting in his way, and I needed to just leave him alone a little bit. That helped.

Everything else kind of like improved. His naps were better. He was getting longer stretches of sleep overnight. I just remember thinking, if you bottled all of this up, it felt like magic at the time. I just loved it. It was a game changer.

And so then fast forward a little bit when I was pregnant with Nolan, our almost one year old, I kept thinking like I wanted to do something different. I kept feeling this pull that I needed to do something meaningful, something that my family, my kids, my husband, that I could be proud of instead of this normal 8-to-4:30 job that I wasn’t really happy with anymore. I was racking my brain. I was trying to figure out what it was that I knew that I wanted to be able to help moms in a time that feels really, really hard and isolating even if you have all the help in the world.

Sleep consulting just kept coming to the top. So I figured, hey, I need to kind of dig into this a little bit. So I did some research. I looked at different programs, and I found you. I got on a call with you pretty quick, and I absolutely loved it. I dove in, and it’s been amazing.

Jayne Havens: I love that story. And you sort of touched on this. You’re working full time as you’re building a sleep consulting business. I’m wondering how you juggle that. Because you have a job. You have two young kids, and you’re trying to grow a business. What does that look like for you?

Aly Dabbs: It’s kind of hard some days. I had to really schedule out when I was going to dedicate time to my sleep business. Because one thing is, and I know that some time has to be sacrificed but I don’t want to lose out on time with my kids to be able to do this business too much. Because the whole point of this is so I can then quit my job and do this full time to have more time with my kiddos.

But I have two or three days a week that I get up at 5 AM, and I have a plan. Like on Mondays, I batch my social media content for the week. On Tuesday nights, so some mornings I get up early. Some days I stay up late and get my emails done or whatever it is that I need to do to do all the business admin things that keep everything going. So I kind of just really schedule out this time and what I’m going to work on.

That helps too. Because, okay, I am up at 5 AM but I know exactly what I’m going to work on, instead of just like, okay, well, I need to get all this done this week and just really, really schedule it out. I think that that helps a lot.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, and my guess is, like, I always say that I talk to a lot of people who are sort of interested in doing this work, but they’re not sure if they have the time. They’re not sure if they have the capacity. I think it boils down to like, do you want to be doing this work? Right? And for you to be getting up at 5 AM to batch social media content, you must love your business. You must be really excited about this if that’s how you’re prioritizing your time, right?

Aly Dabbs: Yeah, and I remember when I first started out. Because I graduated the program, gosh, almost a year ago. I think next week it will be. I had my baby two days later, and I was in the hospital trying to get in all these Facebook mom groups and just connect with people and start talking to people and get some experience, maybe get on some calls and do some pro bono clients and things like that.

And if I’m being honest, my business kind of took a backseat because I just had a baby and then I didn’t really know all the business things. I learned a ton in the course. But just kind of where I was in my time of life, it was just really hard. And so all of that did take a back seat.

It was this, I think, February that I was like, okay, well, I need to kind of start getting back to this and put some energy into it. And so I jumped on a call with you, the follow-up call, post graduating. I didn’t really know what to talk about. I didn’t have questions.

I’m only mentioning this because this call really stood out to me. Because I was just like, “Hey, I have this super long to-do list, but I felt very overwhelmed and lost. My list was so big that I didn’t know where to start. I kind of went through this big avoidance period where I didn’t know what to do, so I did nothing.” I got on this call with you, and I got the tough love that I needed. That being an entrepreneur is hard. You don’t have a boss. You don’t have someone holding you accountable, checking deadlines, checking work product, making sure you’re doing all the things that you said that you were going to do.

How we show up for our businesses is what we get out of it. If we put in the work, we’re going to see the fruits of our labor, right? We’re planting seeds. We’re seeing those results. And so what you put into it is what you’ll get out of it. And how I showed up for that call and how I was showing up for my business at the time was very reflective of that, because nothing was happening. I could have left that call and felt very discouraged and disappointed and being like, “Well, I guess I didn’t make it.” But I took that and I was like, “No, this is the push that I needed.”

I got on a call with Allison Henderson, a social media coach, that week. I took your advice and got a business bestie from the CPSM graduate group, which is just a wonderful community of support. Since February, I connected with one lady in particular, and we really are business besties now. I love her. If I don’t talk to her even for one day, I’m like, “Hey, where are you? I miss you. What’s going on?” So we’ve really gotten to have that relationship, have that support.

I just decided like, no, I’m doing this. Now let’s figure out how. Okay. There’s obstacles. I have kids. It’s hard. I work a full-time job. But how can I work around those obstacles to be like, okay, well, I need to get these emails sent. Instead of just saying I need to do it, like, when am I going to do it? Okay. I’m going to do it Mondays at 5 AM. Done. I have a checklist every week. Instead of that really big, daunting to-do list, I have a small, attainable checklist to be like, I can do this week to week, small list and just keep going one step at a time. That was really helpful.

Jayne Havens: I’m so proud of you. You really have come a very long way since the beginning, and it’s very impressive. You mentioned to me offline that you sort of started niching down, and you’re really enjoying working with toddlers and preschoolers. Can you speak to that a little bit? How did you land in that place? Are you marketing yourself as a toddler and preschooler sleep expert? What do you love most about it?

Aly Dabbs: Yeah, I had listened to the podcast and seen different things about the whole niching down topic and just wanted to learn more about it. I really thought about it. And as my oldest, now he’s almost three, the older he’s gotten, the more I’ve just fallen in love with this toddler age group. I guess I didn’t officially — I guess I did niche down but I still work with babies and toddlers. But I’ve kind of worded it to where like I specialize in toddler sleep.

So yes, I still help the teeny tiny babies and all of that, but I really just love working with the toddlers. I shifted all of my social media content and my website to be geared toward toddler moms. But I just fell in love with the age group just watching my own little boy grow. The level of communication and involvement is so wild to see, like how much they just get it, and they can be involved in the process.

These parents have also maybe been struggling the longest. These kids can bite and kick and run away. They’re screaming, and they’re spending hours trying to get them to sleep. Or, they’re in parent’s bed, and it’s affecting other things. I guess my main focus is really taking this dreaded bedtime of maybe two hours and making it fun.

And the babies, they adapt, and they’re so much quicker. You can sleep train them. You see those results, and it’s amazing. I love getting all the baby pictures that my client sends me and stuff. But I just feel like the level of involvement and how much fun you can have with the toddlers is amazing. And I love it. I send little videos to my toddlers that are age appropriate. A lot of times, the moms will send one back of their little guy. I’m like, oh, it just makes me so happy. I get to see their little smiling faces and how proud they are when they have wins overnight at bedtime.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, I love it. I’m also working heavily with toddlers and preschoolers. I find that it’s — I don’t know. Maybe it’s the same with infants. But my toddler referrals are all toddler referrals, right? So my clients who have three and four-year-old children who are not sleeping, once I get them sleeping, then they’re like they have to tell all their friends who have three and four year olds who also do not sleep. And so it’s sort of a self-fulfilling thing where you work with one, and then the next one comes, and then the next one comes. Do you find that that’s happening in your business as well?

Aly Dabbs: I think so. I don’t know if it’s just because they have been struggling for so long that they’re just like, “Oh, my gosh. This did feel like magic.” A lot of the parents that I’ve been working with, of my toddler moms, I’m finding that they are pregnant and expecting second baby and they’re just like, “I have got to get sleep in a better place. Because this new baby is coming, and I’m not going to be sleeping.”

Maybe just with the referrals and stuff and how great it feels, it’s that maybe they just expect like, okay, I’m not going to sleep for the first year or something. But when they’re dealing with three- and four-year-olds, they’re like, okay, my baby or my toddler should be sleeping through the night. And so when they’re not and they don’t know how to fix it, and then you come in, or I come in, then it does feel like this really big thing. They’re like, “I have to tell everyone.”

Jayne Havens: Besides word-of-mouth referrals from past clients, where are you finding your clients? I know you said that you’re working to build your social media. Do you get clients from Facebook and Instagram? Do you have other things that you’re working on to build your business and your marketing footprint?

Aly Dabbs: I have learned a lot about Instagram and really been funneling a lot there. But aside from that, I’ve been working on kind of two projects, I would say. I launched my own podcast this summer, and so I have really been putting a lot of love and energy into that. It’s really just like a space for all things motherhood and sleep is what I say, in that we’re just supporting other moms through all things momhood, right? Like anything that comes up. Then I sprinkle in my sleep things as well. But I’ve been using that as my platform to reach moms, connect with moms, support moms, but then also maybe be salesy without being salesy.

Then coupled with that, I have been doing a lot of baby expos and baby fairs. Really just getting my name, my face, out there. That’s been really cool because I’ve gotten to connect with other vendors. I’ve gotten to meet people in the community and really take — people are everywhere — really get to lay down roots in the community of where I’m at. I’ve really seen a shift in the people that are calling me and the families that I’m working with. When I very first started working on Facebook mom groups and everything, maybe someone was in Texas or wherever. But the calls that I’m getting, I think all of my clients this summer have been all local middle Tennessee moms. And I really, really like that.

Jayne Havens: I love that too. I actually sometimes wish I had more local clients even though we don’t — do you ever do in-person sleep training? I don’t. But I’m wondering if you do.

Aly Dabbs: I don’t either. Some people ask, and I’m just like, “Oh, well, maybe I would consider that if the need arose.” But all my services are virtual, and then that’s kind of like it’s never really gone farther than that.

Jayne Havens: I have mixed feelings about it. Because whenever I work with a family that’s local, it’s like, “Oh, I recognize your area code. This feels really comfortable. This feels like we’re close, and we’re at home.” But also, I still don’t go to their house. I don’t see them face to face, so I’m not sure that it makes much of a difference.

But I do think that it’s valuable, and it’s nice to build up connections within your own town and your own circle. I do think it’s easier and faster to grow when people who are within your community — whether it’s like your kids are in preschool together, or you go to the same church or synagogue, or you spend your summers at the same pool, whatever it is — I do think it’s easier to make long-term, strong, meaningful connections if you have those local connections in place.

Aly Dabbs: I would agree with that. I think that that connection and the trustworthiness thing, it just grows because they know like, oh, you’re here. You’re a mom. I’ve seen you around, or maybe I’ve met you. I’ve gotten to meet a couple of my moms that are local just at kids play places and things. And so that was really neat. I’m like, “Oh, I just worked with you. Now I get to actually meet you instead of just talking to you on the phone or seeing you on a video chat like this.”

Jayne Havens: I think you mentioned again offline that you’re supporting about three to five families a month right now, which is amazing. That makes me so happy to hear. Is this a comfortable workload for you? Do you want to grow your business? Are you feeling like you’re sort of at capacity with trying to juggle your nine to five and then also your sleep consulting business?

Aly Dabbs: I do think that it’s comfortable. I would like to kind of meet maybe like five to six. But I think that right now, that number, maybe five to seven would be max with me right now. I’m really comfortable with where that is and growing. In March and April, I was working on growing my business and doing all the back-end things. And it really did flourish starting in May to where I started getting calls and working with clients. Since then, it’s been pretty consistent.

Hopefully, that does continue on as I put in the work. Then more clients each month would be great and then help to be able to quit my full-time job and do this full time. But I would say, right now, the five is a really good number. I could maybe do like one or two more. But I think that it would be a little bit harder to juggle everything and be able to still support those families fully.

Jayne Havens: Fair enough. But you mentioned your goal is maybe one day to transition out of your full-time job and do sleep consulting instead. I love that that’s like a maybe down the line, right? Is that what it looks like for you?

Aly Dabbs: Yeah, I really like working. I’m a paralegal, and I have a really good working relationship with my boss. I also like getting out of the house and doing that. And so, right now, it works for our family. My husband works weekends. I work during the week. Then everything else just kind of falls into place. But it would be nice to be able to just be a business owner and then have all that extra time with my kiddos and things too.

Jayne Havens: Okay. Well, look, you’ve only been at this a year, and you’re already I think sort of — I think you’re sort of exceeding your own expectations. Definitely, you’re ahead of where you thought you would have been if you look back to 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, months ago. So I think you’re ahead of the game. You’re doing great. I hope that you continue to grow organically and in a way that works for your family, works for your lifestyle. And if at some point down the line you can shift from working in an office to just doing sleep consulting from home, that would be incredible.

Before we wrap up, do you want to share? I would love to hear more details on the podcast. Let us know where we can listen. I would love to tune in. And if you want to share social media, your website, whatever you want to share with us?

Aly Dabbs: Sure, and thank you for that. I am really happy with where things are and really excited to see what is to come. I do want to share just for the listeners who maybe are just starting out, even when there’s months that are a little bit slower, or less clients, or maybe I’m not getting clients, those stretches, I really hold on to and love seeing the wins in other ways.

Like to be able to have that time to build up my website, or getting on more intake calls, or whatever it may be. Even if there’s not money coming in, there’s still all of these other seeds that are to be planted that I will see results on later. And instead of really focusing on the number of clients, I look at the overall picture of how my business is growing.

The podcast is really special to me. I would love to share it. It’s Aly, The Restful Mama on Apple Spotify, wherever people get podcasts. I have about, I think, six episodes today, and so I’m really excited to let that continue. I’m kind of on this series of meeting with different experts and professionals in the mom-baby world and kind of talking to them about their experiences in supporting moms.

Really, it’s just all things motherhood and sleep. We all have ups and downs. We all go through the same thing. Even if we feel like our motherhood journey is very specific to us, we’re all just doing the same thing. We’re all just on the same ride. It’s great, and it’s beautiful. It’s hard, and it’s all the things. My social media, I am on Instagram @aly_sleepconsultant. Yeah, that’s me.

Jayne Havens: Perfect. I love it. I really appreciate you taking a moment to point out the beauty of the slow periods and how to use them strategically, because I think that this is something especially brand-new sleep consultants get really tripped up with. We as entrepreneurs don’t start our businesses with a full book of business. That’s not the way it works in the beginning, right? You start off just by trying to find one or two people that’s willing to get on a phone call with you. Maybe you have those phone calls, and they don’t go great. Then you feel like, “Oh, this is too hard. I can’t do this.” Right?

Instead of getting down and feeling like I can’t do this or I don’t want to do this anymore, I love how your mindset has really become like, “What can I do? If I’m not supporting families right now, what can I do to be supporting families next week, next month, next year?” I think that that’s a difficult mindset to achieve. It’s really great and impressive that you’re there. And as long as you have that attitude, your business will continue to grow. Because, as you said, you’re planting the seeds that will bloom down the road. So amazing, incredible. I’m going to check out your podcast. Congrats on your early success, and we’ll have to do this again soon. So thank you.

Aly Dabbs: Thank you so much.

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.