Lessons from a Seasoned Sleep Consultant with Lauren Kalb

This week on the Becoming a Sleep Consultant podcast, I’m joined by Lauren Kalb, a former teacher, educational consultant and pediatric sleep consultant who has grown her business in an incredible way over the past year and a half.

Lauren’s story is such a great reminder that you don’t have to choose between the career you already love and the business you dream of building, you can do both.

Links:

Website: Sleep Tight Brooklyn

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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.

Today, I’m excited to be joined by Lauren Kalb, a former teacher turned educational consultant and part-time pediatric sleep consultant, who’s grown her business in such an impressive way over the past year and a half. Lauren originally stepped into this work while continuing her career in education, but she has quickly built a thriving practice supporting families through the challenges of sleep. What I love about Lauren’s story is how she’s managed to balance two careers, all while steadily growing her business and creating real impact for the family she works with.

In our conversation, we’ll dive into how she got started, the strategies that helped her grow, and the lessons she’s learned along the way.

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

Lauren Kalb: Thank you so much for having me, Jayne. I’m excited as well.

Jayne Havens: So before we get started, share a little bit about yourself. Tell us about your family, your career, and what made you decide to take on sleep consulting.

Lauren Kalb: So I am the mother of two little girls. I have a four year old and two year old. It was our four year old two years ago that actually made me look into sleep consulting.

Our newborn was, I think, six or seven weeks. She had just started sleeping through the night, which kind of just happened naturally, and all of a sudden, our two year old started waking up every single hour. It started in the middle of the night and then it started the beginning of the night. Then she, I think, did not sleep for three days straight. I had pictures of her, like, slumped on the ground, falling asleep wherever, whenever. I was just at a complete loss because she was always such a good sleeper. I worked with a sleep consultant who got her back on track in, I think, less than 24 hours, which was incredible. I started thinking about how I could help families.

That was when I started researching Jayne’s course. I hopped on a call with Jayne the second day I was back from maternity leave. And it was life changing. I did not want to be in education or a teacher forever. I really want to eventually stay home with my girls and bring in some income. And so far, Jayne’s course and all the education I have received from her course has allowed me to make my way there. So after that year, I felt like I could make a shift from education into becoming an educational consultant. That has given me the freedom to spend more time on sleep consulting, really grow my business, and invest more time and energy into sleep consulting.

Jayne Havens: It’s so amazing. I’m so proud of you. You’ve really built an incredible business in a relatively short period of time.

Lauren Kalb: Yeah, and it’s been fun along the way. Like, my husband keeps saying when it gets stressful, it’s not fun anymore. And it’s like there are stresses that come from it, but the actual sleep consulting part is the part that I look forward to. I have not been stressed out about it at all, which I think has been a huge blessing.

Jayne Havens: I remember when we had that conversation on Zoom, you were literally sitting in a classroom, right? We had our talk. You were in a classroom, and I was sitting at my kitchen table. You decided to enroll in CPSM. Take us through what the first couple of months look like for you after you finished the course and launched your business. How did you find those first few families to work with?

Lauren Kalb: So I think just completing the course was the one thing that I thought would be really difficult, but I carved out my day to make sure I was fitting in the course—whether it be on my commute to school, during my preps, or when the girls went to sleep at night. And so I finished the course relatively quick, and then I just started talking to people. So I was part of a June mom group, which is when my daughter was born. I have no clue, because I’m usually such a shy person, scared to get my name out there. I promoted myself and was like, “Hey, I’m Lauren. I have a June baby as well. I just became a pediatric sleep consultant.”

This mom reached out to me. She was a single mom by choice, who was struggling. I still talk to her this day. I actually just helped her with potty training her two year old. But she just shared my name. Then she was putting in the chat, like, “Lauren was amazing to work with.” Another family reached out, and then they were praising me. It was kind of the trickle effect of working with one family then the next. They all were June moms at that point. But then they started passing my name along to the July moms and the August moms, and then my name has just gotten around the neighborhood, which has been amazing.

Jayne Havens: I love that your business, it seems, has grown primarily via word of mouth. And you know, that only works if you’re really good at your job, right? Because if you don’t do a good job with families, then they’re not going to refer you. And so it’s so clear to me, when somebody’s business is totally driven by word of mouth, that you’re just really great at what you do. So you should be proud of yourself for that. Besides word of mouth, are you connecting with professionals—whether it be mental health professionals, whether it be preschool directors, daycare owners? Are you leveraging those connections, or are you really relying heavily just on your former clients sharing your name with their friends?

Lauren Kalb: So I would say 80% of my clients come from other clients. I have started forming some relationships, but it’s not where I get most of my clients from. So a lot of postpartum doulas I’ve started connecting with, that’s more so recent connection as of the spring. I’ve connected with two different agencies for that. Then a lot of therapists actually reach out to me that are working with new moms. I don’t find that a ton of clients are coming from them, but my clients are meeting with their therapist and recommending me. So I think then the therapist kind of is like, “Oh, I’m interested in this because you’ve actually made such a difference in my client’s life.”

And so I do have a bunch of therapists I’ve worked with, but my biggest referrals of networking with other people are the lactation consultant that I’m really close with, feeding specialist that I’m close with, and then some preschools, my pediatrician, but not many huge places. It’s all through my daughter’s preschool. People have reached out there. I just recently had a huge preschool reach out to me, which has a network of 500 families that they want to have me for presentation in September. So I’m curious to kind of see how that goes and where that will take me. But really, it’s just word of mouth right now, and then some people are coming from other networks.

Jayne Havens: I love that. So I think you’ve been in business about a year and a half. Is that right? I looked back, and you passed the course about a year and a half ago, maybe a little bit longer. Was there a moment where you felt like you were really starting to pick up traction? How long did it take, would you say, for you to feel like you really had a consistent flow of families, even if that flow was lighter than it is now?

Lauren Kalb: Yeah, I think after the first six months, I started really seeing consistency. It went from having three clients a month maybe that first February, which felt like so many, to then having one in March, and then four in April, and then back to two. Then once July hit, I really picked up.

Last July and August was probably my — well, not right now, but that first year was my biggest revenue months. It simultaneously happened when I read in my website with Kelly that you recommended in the course. I also paid for her SEO. I started getting more clients through just Google searches around Brooklyn. So I don’t know if it happened simultaneously, or my name was just getting out in summer. It just seems so much crazier than the rest of the year for me. I don’t know if other sleep consultants feel that way too, but the last two summers have been where I’m making most of my money.

Jayne Havens: That’s so interesting. I’ve never really tracked which months are bigger, busier than others, but I will say that July of this year was nuts. Like, totally nuts, right?

Lauren Kalb: Totally. It was like one person after another.

Jayne Havens: For me, like August feels a little dead. August is slow for me. I don’t know if families are away right before school starts, or maybe they don’t want to get started right before school starts. I don’t know. But July was nuts, and August feels quiet for me. But I’ll take it. Because after a busy month, I’m like just fine to chill out for a little bit.

Lauren Kalb: Well, June was really slow with me and I was like, this is — I still made a decent amount of money. It was so slow that I reached out to all my past families and did a referral program and an ask-me-anything call for not that much money off. I think like my ask me anything is $225, and I gave families 50% off. And I still ended up making like $3,000 from just doing a bunch of 30-minute calls. And I was like, wow. Okay. June was slow, but it was like quick calls that were quick fixes, which was so nice.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, I always like the change of pace. Sometimes when it’s slow, you can take that slow time and, like you said, do outreach. I just call that rebuilding season, right?

Lauren Kalb: Yeah.

Jayne Havens: Like when you have some time off, you can actually dig into your old email files and see who book to call with you that didn’t sign up. Maybe it’s time to follow up with them and see if they’re still having a hard time. That’s the kind of stuff that I don’t necessarily have time to do when I’m really busy. Then when I’m slower, I can take the time and actually dig in and do my follow-ups, make networking appointments, and rebuild for the coming months.

Lauren Kalb: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more.

Jayne Havens: So let’s talk about your career in teaching and now educational consulting. How would you say that your experience as a teacher has influenced your work as a sleep consultant? Do you lean on that when you’re talking to families? Do you say, “I have a former background, or I have a background in education”?

Lauren Kalb: So I think that it’s all connected. Because of working with families and education, I’ve worked with so many families. I think that’s really where I always shined, where I was able to communicate with families, provide them with feedback, and really teach them how to help their students at home.

And with sleep consulting, since it is so much communication with families and you have to be really clear, it’s all stuff that I have used in education—especially when it comes to report card conferences and having to do those velvet hammer conversations. It’s really telling them holding that boundary and making sure that they know what their student’s need. But also, now that it relates to sleep consulting, making sure that I tell them exactly what I see in their child and what they need to do in order to help their child. I think the biggest thing is communication.

So last week, I actually worked with a family that refused to get a video camera and did not text me until it was the middle of the night. I kept reaching out. I kind of was like, I put a hold on it. I was like, “Listen. Once you get a video camera, you’re not going on vacation next—” They were going on vacation this week, and they wanted to jam it in before vacation. And I was like, “Let’s hold off. Get a video camera. Come back from vacation, and we will get started. We’ll restart everything.”

I think it’s just that communication piece that is so essential in sleep consulting from both parties. So I make sure my families know the more communication with me is better—and I’d rather that, so that we are successful. I haven’t really shared with the families I work with that I was in education. And I think it’s a combination of, well, I guess I definitely should and could. I have found that I started working a ton with babies, so it wasn’t as relevant.

Now I’m getting more and more toddlers, which families are like, “Wow! Is there something else that I don’t know about you? Because you’re really good at this.” And so now that I’m getting more toddlers, I think I’m definitely going to lean into education. I’m also becoming a parent coach as well. And so, like, they’re using me for those situations, as well as sleep.

Jayne Havens: So you mentioned that you supported a family through potty training. Can you share a little bit about your sort of evolution from doing just sleep consulting to doing parent coaching, which involves, I’m sure, situations beyond potty training?

Lauren Kalb: So I’ve actually had, I would say, like six or seven families come to me, not just with sleep, but to do potty training and sleep at the same time. I find that it is a lot of families that aren’t starting potty training—it’s more so they’re struggling to get their child to poop on the potty, and pee is totally fine. It’s like setting up family meetings, having conversations with them, role playing and whatnot. And so I don’t want to say it’s like fully potty training. It is technically called potty training, but it’s more so like setting those boundaries with kids and making sure that you’re setting them up for success and also role-playing a ton with them.

Everything I do is all based on role-playing after the age — we’ll do role playing with 12 month olds, and parents are like, “But they don’t understand it.” And I’m like, “You’ll be shocked. Yes, they do understand it. Let’s do it,” and just getting them on board with it.

Jayne Havens: One thing that I heard when you were saying to that family that they need to get their video monitor and let’s not start until they’re back from their vacation — one thing that I sort of sensed from you is this confidence in your ability to hold boundaries with your clients, which I think is like really beautiful modeling for what then your clients are expected to do with their children. Right?

This is something I see brand-new sleep consultants really struggle with. They start working with a family, and the family pushes back in some sort of way—whether it’s they don’t want to get a video monitor, or they want to start four days before they’re about to leave for a family vacation. Right?

A really green sleep consultant might say, “Okay. No worries. We’ll just work with what we’ve got.” And your attitude is like, “No, we’re not doing that. We’re going to set you up for success. We’re going to do it in a way that I know works. Let’s kick the can down the road a week and really make sure that we’re all ready to be successful.” Is that something that you had to sort of grow into, or did you always have that confidence from the very beginning?

Lauren Kalb: I think I’ve grown into that. I’ve learned the hard way of thinking I could jam it in before vacation, and then it all doesn’t work when they get back from vacation. I also think I’ve learned over the year and a half what I want sleep consulting to look like for me, and the flexibility I want to give families.

I’m in Brooklyn. A lot of families do have second homes that are traveling each weekend. And so some families, I’ll be like, “Actually, I want to start with you on a Monday or Sunday, have four nights in home, and then you leave every single weekend. So I want to make sure that your little one can sleep in your home and your vacation home.” And oftentimes, they do phenomenal. But that’s a lot of people’s realities. So I figured out how to be flexible—create that flexibility but also hold boundaries with families.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, I think that’s exactly right. The example you just gave is exactly what I was going to share, because I have a lot of that too. So in a situation where it is the reality that these families are traveling every single weekend, okay, that’s fine. That’s your reality. Let’s build that into the plan. That looks very different than a family that just happens to be going away for their one summer vacation, four days after they hired you, and they want to spend four days with you, then in Disney World for a week, and then they want to be back. Obviously, that’s not ideal, right?

Lauren Kalb: Yeah. No, thank you.

Jayne Havens: Exactly. What advice would you share to brand-new sleep consultants who are just at the beginning phases of this and feeling like they’re still trying to figure it all out and get their feet wet?

Lauren Kalb: So I actually just talked to one last week, or Friday, Molly. I think that my biggest advice for her was: you don’t have to have everything together in order to get started. I think what I hear so many sleep consultants ask me is like, “Well, how do you do the website? How do you set up this? How do you set up that?”

All of that was not created for me when I got my first client. Liability insurance, I had. I had a payment system, but my website was not perfect. It was far from perfect. I didn’t have any flow of things. My sleep plan was not perfect. Now I have a template on Canva. It’s all pretty. It was not like that. The first sleep plan was like just a Google doc.

Nothing fancy. I think for all new sleep consultants, not to get hung up on all the little things that will come as your business is growing. You don’t have to spend a lot of money upfront. Start getting your clients and making some money. Then go make your website fancy, or go hire someone to help with Instagram if you want too. But Jayne’s course has provided all the necessary things to start. Just get started. Don’t be scared to get started.

Jayne Havens: I think that’s fantastic advice. I ran my sleep consulting business, I think, for three years, literally sending my sleep plans in the body of an email. It wasn’t even an attachment. Like, it would say in the subject line, “Sleep Plan-Riley-2 years old,” and that was it. Then in the email was the sleep plan. I didn’t have a pretty document. There was no header. Nothing. I built a very successful business, earning six figures as a sleep consultant, sending sleep plans in the body of an email. So I think that that is fantastic advice. I agree with you completely.

Also, as you gain experience and as you start earning money, you can do exactly what you did, which is to reinvest and to have somebody build you a beautiful website, to maybe put some systems in place and have better workflow. But I agree with you entirely. None of that is necessary to be successful. I think you’re proof of that. And I do agree that it keeps a lot of people stuck. People say to me all the time that they’re afraid to put themselves out there because they don’t have X, Y, and Z ready or set up. I don’t know. I just think consulting was a thing long before the internet, right?

Consulting existed before Instagram. You don’t need Instagram to grow your business. Consulting was a thing before Canva, right? So you don’t need a beautiful Canva doc. I still don’t. My sleep plan is a Word doc with my logo at the top, and that is it. It works for me, and nobody’s ever questioned me. So I think that that is fantastic advice. And for you, if you’re thinking ahead to the next year, next year and a half, where do you see your business in the future?

Lauren Kalb: I think the plan is — so the original was a little different than what the plan is now. I think I always thought it would stay part time.

As scary as it is to go full time, I’m starting to see it become a reality. And so the best thing about becoming an educational consultant is I can work per diem one or two days a week. And so I do think there’s a still piece of my heart that is still in education. So the goal is to possibly do that one or two days a week and really make sleep insulting full-time—so kind of flip-flop it a little how it is now—and give me the ability to stay home with our children and also work with families. I think, eventually, down the road I would love to do like in-person visits and supporting families overnight. But that’s a year or two away.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, maybe when your own kids are a little bit older.

Lauren Kalb: Exactly. A little too much right now.

Jayne Havens: I get that. Well, I just have to congratulate you on all of your success. It’s so clear that you’ve gained so much confidence over the past year and a half. That’s what I see as the biggest marker for growth in you, and I see this in other sleep consultants. That when your business really starts to take off, you gain this aura about you.

Like, you just know what you’re doing. I love that you have that a year and a half in. I can’t wait to see where you are another year or two down the road. So congrats on all of your success. This is only the beginning, right? A year and a half into your business is literally only the beginning. So you’re just getting started.

Lauren Kalb: Well, thank you so much. I appreciate everything you have taught me.

Jayne Havens: We’ll have to have one of these conversations another year or so down the road.

Lauren Kalb: Absolutely.

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.