Drumming Up Business at the Airport with Jayne Havens

 

Links: 

 

If you would like to learn more about becoming a Sleep Consultant, please join our Facebook Group: Becoming A Sleep Consultant

CPSM Website: Center for Pediatric Sleep Management

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

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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.

Jayne Havens: Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast.

I just got back from a weekend in Boca. I was there celebrating one of my best friend’s 40th birthdays, and something happened at the airport in Baltimore on my way down that I just feel compelled to share.

So here’s what happened.

I was sitting at the airport waiting for my flight. One of my discovery calls from the day before had to cancel at the last minute. This mom was really desperate to connect before the weekend. So I offered her 8:30 AM Friday morning because I knew I was just going to be sitting at the gate in the airport anyway.

I’m on the phone with this couple—a mom and dad. They have a three-and-a-half-year-old little girl who hasn’t slept through the night in four months. They’re absolutely exhausted. And as I’m asking them questions, they’re telling me what’s going on, and it becomes pretty clear to me that this isn’t really about sleep. Their daughter knows how to sleep. This was really more about a dynamic within the home that was impacting sleep.

As someone who’s been working primarily with preschool-aged children for the past few years, I’ve really started to notice some patterns about a larger dynamic that’s really at the core of why these parents are struggling.

I start asking mom and dad questions about what the daytime looks like in their home. What does it look like to get dressed in the morning? What does it look like to brush teeth, put shoes on? What does it look like to sit at the dinner table? What does it look like to leave the park, clean up toys, get into the bath, get out of the bath, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera?

Sure enough, they’re answering my questions, and I’m thinking, yep, this is exactly what I thought was going on. So I start explaining to them that their daughter does not have a sleep problem. She has slept beautifully her entire life. Her parents even told me that she was sleep trained as a baby, and things only really unraveled recently in the past few months.

All of the pushback that they were getting throughout the day was actually no different than the pushback they were getting at night. But bedtime and overnight sleep are high stakes. Parents can handle their child giving them a hard time about brushing teeth or putting their shoes on when it’s time to get out the door and go to daycare. But when it comes to bedtime, this is really where parents break. This is their hill to die on.

The problem is that if their daughter has wiggle room all day long, if she knows how to move the goalpost at 10:00 AM, why wouldn’t she try to do the same at bedtime?

And so, anyway, I’m explaining all of this to them. And while I’m talking, I notice this woman sitting two seats down from me. She’s nodding. She’s like, really nodding. She’s like, “Yes, yes.” I see her, like, really excited about everything that I’m saying on this call. At one point, I saw her actually ask my friend, who was sitting next to me, switch seats so that she could listen in closer.

I’m trying to stay really focused on my call, but at the same time, I can’t help but notice that this woman is basically participating in my discovery call at the airport.

So I finished the call, and almost immediately she turns to me and she’s like, “Are you a parent coach?” And I said, yes, and I’m also a sleep consultant. She goes, “That’s a thing?” Like, she had never heard of it before. So anyway, she tells me that her daughter and her son-in-law are parenting exactly like the parents she just heard me speaking with.

She asks if she can share my information with them because they could really use some help. So I asked her for her phone. I put my information in her contacts, and I told her to share my cell phone number with her daughter. I told her that even if she wasn’t really ready or willing to work with a sleep coach, I would be more than happy to just jump on a call with her and share what I shared with these parents so that she can have a greater understanding of what was going on in her home.

This woman was so grateful. She was so excited. We had this amazing conversation. And as our conversation was wrapping up and we were getting lined up to board the plane, she sort of casually joked that maybe she should become a sleep consultant when she retires. And I couldn’t believe it. This was totally becoming a twofer, right? Like, I was maybe going to help her with her grandkids and then also talk to her about becoming a sleep consultant. Such a weird situation to happen in the airport.

So I gave her a smile. I told her that, in addition to supporting families, I also train people to become sleep consultants, and I would love to talk to her about it. She literally couldn’t believe it. She was so excited, and she was like, “Wait, I’m going to email you next week.” So great. Super exciting. I mean, like, what are the chances?

She and I are connecting later this week. We’re going to talk all about CPSM, what it looks like to become a sleep consultant. And of course, we’re also going to chat about how we can best help her daughter and son-in-law with her grandkids.

I share this story on the podcast because I wasn’t even trying to drum up business. I was simply taking a call from the airport, and someone was eavesdropping on my conversation. That person could potentially become a CPSM student and also refer a sleep client to my consulting business.

When people tell me that they don’t know if they’ll be able to grow a successful business, I always come back to these moments. Because they literally happen all the time. These people are literally everywhere.

The work that we do as sleep consultants, it’s super interesting. It’s really meaningful work. And trust me when I say, almost any parent or grandparent who hears that you do this work is going to have a story to share with you about their own experiences. When you’re willing to engage and have thoughtful conversations about the work that you do, how you help people, this is how your business grows.

This was all a pretty magical moment, and I was super excited about it. When I got onto the plane, I decided to take it one step further. I found myself with two hours to myself, and I was on a little bit of a high from what had just happened at the gate a few minutes earlier. So I decided to snap a selfie of myself on the plane, neck pillow around my neck, head-to-toe in athleisure, and make a post about this really magical moment that had just transpired.

My post was written truly from the heart, full of genuine excitement, and honestly, I just posted it because the story felt too good not to share. I didn’t have any big goals for this Facebook post. I wasn’t anticipating anything would come from it. I just was excited to share the story.

So I shared my post in the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Facebook group, but I also shared it in a group for postpartum professionals and one other group, maybe two other groups that I’m in for female working professionals.

In all of these groups, my post went slightly viral. People were liking, loving, commenting, and sliding into my DMs, wanting more information on either my consulting services or how they could become certified sleep consultants themselves. And in the two hours that I was on the plane, I had 34 people in my DMs wanting information about how I could help them in some capacity.

34 new leads in two hours.

Let me just say, I was very busy on that Southwest flight to Florida, and I was enjoying every minute of it. From those three to four Facebook posts that I made last week, I have now lined up three discovery calls for CPSM, two people actually enrolled in CPSM, and I had two families book discovery calls for sleep consulting and parent coaching.

This is only a few days later. Everybody else who I had connected with is now either hanging out on my email list or has joined my Facebook group, and they know how to be in touch with me if they’re ready to either enroll in CPSM or seek support for sleep with their own children.

I want to remind you that I wasn’t even trying to drum up any business. This all happened because somebody was listening to me take a discovery call at the airport. So if you’re in the process of growing your own business right now, especially if you’re in those earlier stages where you’re working really hard and you’re wondering where the clients are going to come from, I think it’s so easy to assume that there’s some sort of formula that you’re missing.

I really want you to understand that that is just not the case. I think that in some people’s minds, they just think, “Ugh, if I could just figure out the right thing to post on Instagram or the right person to network with or how often you’re supposed to email your list, the clients will come.”

Obviously, I do believe in marketing. I believe in networking. I believe in putting yourself out there. I talk about this stuff constantly. But also, I think that sometimes we underestimate the value of simply talking about what we do.

In this moment in the airport, I wasn’t marketing myself to this woman. I wasn’t trying to get her attention. Frankly, I wasn’t even talking to her. She just happened to overhear me doing my job, and what she heard resonated with her enough that she wanted to know who I was and what I did. That’s marketing too.

And yes, I did take it a step further and I shared this story on social media. But I did it from my heart. My intention was not to go viral and drum up a bunch of leads. My intention was to share a great story, make some people smile, and hopefully inspire them to show up as their best selves always in their businesses.

I think sometimes when you’re brand new, you feel the need to have this perfectly rehearsed elevator pitch. Someone asks you what you do, and suddenly you’re panicking. “How do I explain sleep consulting? How do I make this sound legitimate? How do I articulate my value? What if they think it’s weird that I even have this job?”

But the more that you do this work, the easier those conversations become because you’re not pitching anything. You’re just talking about what you do.

I can talk about sleep consulting all day long. I can talk about parent coaching all day long. I can talk about becoming a sleep consultant all day long. Not because I’ve memorized a perfect sales pitch, but because I know what I do. I know how I help people, and I truly believe in the value of the work. That confidence comes from doing it.

The confidence comes from getting on discovery calls. It comes from actually working with families. It comes from answering people’s questions over and over and over again. It comes from talking to other professionals about what you do. It comes from saying, “I’m a sleep consultant,” enough times that eventually it doesn’t feel weird to say it anymore.

And let’s not forget this entire interaction, this whole amazing situation that happened, happened because my schedule got messed up. This call wasn’t supposed to even happen Friday morning at the airport. I had closed my calendar because I was going to be traveling. But when this mom had a work emergency on Thursday that led her to have to cancel her call, I decided in that moment to make it work for her. I could have said, like, “Sorry, I’ll speak to you next week.” But I made a choice to take that call at 8:30 AM on Friday morning from the airport.

Now, I’m not suggesting that everybody start taking their discovery calls in crowded airports because maybe someone will overhear you and hire you. Obviously, that’s ridiculous. But I do think that it’s a good example of how opportunities can happen when you’re saying yes to your business.

When you’re out there talking to people and meeting people and telling people what you do, that’s when things start happening for you in your business. If you’re not out there talking about your business in one way or another, no one can know what you do. And if no one knows what you do, they can’t hire you, right?

Most of the time, taking a call from the airport won’t lead to a complete stranger listening in and asking for your contact information. But sometimes it leads to something. Maybe you connect with a doula while sitting at your daughter’s ballet class. You have a nice conversation, and six months later, she reaches out because she has a client who could really use your help.

Maybe it’s you sitting on a bench at a park. There’s another mom there, and you’re both watching your kids on the swings. You’re telling her about what you do, and she has a sister who is in dire need of support from someone just like you.

Maybe you hire a babysitter so you can go speak to a group of new moms at 6:30 at night. You’re told to expect about 30 people there that evening. You’re so excited to be front and center with a perfect audience, but only three moms actually show up for the event. You’re bummed and feeling like maybe you wasted your time until one of those moms tells you that she’s the director of a preschool, and she would love to have you come in and speak to their parent community, as well as do a separate training for the teachers.

This last story is real. It actually happened to me last week.

You don’t always know in the moment which conversations are going to matter, but the truth is they all matter.

Every conversation has the potential to lead to new connections if you play your cards right.

And yes, in the beginning, this all feels very uncomfortable. And yes, I know some of you are afraid of being salesy. But trust me, you don’t have to be salesy. You just have to talk about what you do. Talk about who you help. Be interested in other people. Ask them what they do. Make connections. Let people know that you exist.

Because here’s the thing: if that woman sitting next to me in the airport had asked me what I did and I had gotten all weird about it or downplayed it or said, “Oh, I sort of help families with sleep,” that conversation would have gone very differently.

Instead, she got to hear me shine. She approached me, and then I got to tell her exactly what it is that I do. I’m a parent coach. I’m a sleep consultant, and yes, I train people to become sleep consultants as well. And now we’re talking later this week.

Will she enroll in CPSM? I have no idea. Will her daughter hire me? No clue.

Actually, that’s not even really the point. The point is that this is what building a business can look like.

Building a business is about having conversations. It’s about building relationships over time. Apparently, sometimes business building looks like making connections with complete strangers who are listening in on your work calls at the airport. And I’m here for it.

If you allow it to be, growing a business is actually really fun.

So keep talking about what you do. Keep putting yourself in rooms with other people. Keep having conversations. Keep getting better at your craft so that when someone does hear you talking about it, they hear someone who knows what they’re doing.

You really never know who’s listening.

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.