Trusting the Slow Build with Caralyn Hemphill

 

Trusting the Slow Build with Caralyn Hemphill

 

There’s a really uncomfortable stage of building a business where you’re doing the work, putting yourself out there, and wondering when it’s going to click.

For Caralyn, that stage lasted a while.

She graduated from CPSM, worked with a few families pro bono, and then went almost a year before booking her first paying client.

From there, things grew slowly. One client here. Another client there. Enough to gain experience and build her confidence, but not necessarily enough to feel like she had real momentum.

And then this month, she booked five paying clients!

In this episode of Becoming a Sleep Consultant, Caralyn and I talk about what it feels like to build a business slowly, the temptation to compare your progress to everyone else’s, and the confidence that only comes from actually doing the work.

Sometimes growth happens little by little, and then all at once.

I loved this conversation, and I think it will be especially encouraging for anyone who is still waiting for momentum to build.

 

Links:

Website: Sleep Skillz
Instagram: @sleep.skillz

 

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: 

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: Caralyn, welcome to the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast. I’m so excited to chat with you today.

Caralyn Hemphill: Thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to chat with you as well.

Jayne Havens: So before we get started, why don’t you tell us a little bit about you, if you’re willing to share, what you were doing professionally before you decided to become a sleep consultant, and what made you want to get into this field?

Caralyn Hemphill: Awesome. So I’m a mom. I have two boys about to turn 6 and 3. I’m a preschool teacher, and I also teach infant and baby music classes. I am kind of trying to make myself an everything-under-the-age of 5 person eventually. Before all of this, I was an actor. I lived in New York for a long time, and I was pursuing acting. And alongside that, because acting never pays for the first however many years, I was a nanny as alongside that. I loved being a nanny. It was wonderful. It was a great addition to rounding out everything that I was doing.

That kind of introduced this idea of sleep training to me. The mom that I was primarily working with had a really hard time with her children’s sleep, and I never had a problem with their sleep. It was a very classic when I was there, they did wonderful. And at bedtime or early mornings, or when I didn’t have to do sleepovers, they gave their mom a really hard time. And so that’s the first kind of idea of, like, what sleep training was or how somebody might be struggling with it.

Then I had my first son. When I was pregnant, I loved to sleep. Sleep is extremely important to me. I am not a functioning person without it. Back in the day, I would love to do a 12-hour session myself. So I was afraid of having children and this idea that I’m never going to sleep again, right? This thing that somebody tells you.

So I am a very studious person, and I read every single book, and I prepared myself. I had a structure and a plan how I was going to make sure that he slept through the night. And he did. By 14 weeks, he was sleeping seven to seven and had a great nap schedule, and to this day, almost six, an amazing sleeper.

Then when I had my second, there were different challenges. Of course, when you have your second kid, it’s not quite as easy to be so prepared and so on top of things because you’re busy with your life and your other child. But I was still able to get him sleeping through the night by 16 weeks. He is also an amazing sleeper. In fact, he’s napping right now while we’re doing this. My other son is watching a show, and he’s not worried. He’s not like, you know, “My older brother’s watching a show and I want to do that.” He’s like, “I’m going to go nap, and you’re going to get your time. This is me for my relaxing time.”

So all of that, you know, coincided. I was doing these music classes, and I knew I needed something else. I was working basically just part time. It was okay, but I needed something else. I’ve been talking about doing this for a while, but never pulled the trigger. And for my birthday in 2024, my husband bought me this course. So he really, like, pushed me forward to do this and booked the interview with you. That was like the thing. “You have a call on this day, and you have to be there.” It was amazing. I was so happy to get started. So, yeah, that’s the long and the short of it.

Jayne Havens: I love that your own kids sort of propelled you into this journey. I have a similar story where I sleep trained my own kids and found it to be so transformative and so valuable for my family dynamic. It really improved my relationship with my husband. It made me like my babies when they were sleeping. And I love that you’re coming from a similar place where you just saw how valuable it was in your own home and then wanted to help others.

I guess what I want to ask is first, like, what did it look like for you to go through the program? How did you manage juggling your small kids, your part-time work, and then also studying the materials?

Caralyn Hemphill: Yeah, I just, like, loved it. I’m really being honest. When I started doing it, like I said, I’m very studious. And so when I started getting into it, I was so excited and I was learning so much—you should see my notebooks—that I was taking all these notes every time I would take a lesson.

I did find it hard to find the time. I could only really do like 45 minutes at a time, basically during nap times or sometimes at night. But I’m really a tired person after my kids go to sleep. It’s not when my brain is the most turned on. So I really tried to structure, like, afternoons, at least one to two hours if I could manage it each day. That didn’t always happen. It took me, I would say, a couple of months to get through. You know, it took me time, and I wanted to really give it that time.

And then as soon as, like, when you started having the assignments and stuff, that was when it really took off for me, because I really wanted to succeed and do those things well and get— I spent hours writing the Margot sleep plan because I was just so serious about it. And I would go over it again and make sure it all made sense and redo it and redo it and redo it because I really wanted to do a good job. So it was a struggle, sure, but I just was so excited about it that I was really trying as hard as I could to carve out as much time as I could to get it done.

Jayne Havens: So you completed the course, and you decided to take a handful of pro bono clients to get started. I’m really curious about this. I personally didn’t have a great experience supporting families pro bono when I was first getting my business started, and this is something that we chat about inside of the CPSM community pretty often. Some sleep consultants really like the idea of helping families for free in exchange for practice and a testimonial to kick things off. And then others just don’t have a good experience with that just because, you know, when families aren’t paying you, they sometimes have less skin in the game. They’re less committed.

I’m curious what your experience was supporting families pro bono. Did you feel like you were able to gain your confidence through those experiences, and were those families coachable? How did you qualify that they were going to be good pro bono clients?

Caralyn Hemphill: Absolutely.

So I remember having that conversation with you as well on my exit interview after I completed the course. You had said exactly that, and I really took it to heart because I believe the same thing. I think even if you’re paying a little bit, you’re just more committed.

So my pro bono clients have a caveat. One was I submitted to a fundraiser at my son’s preschool that whoever won this basket could get the sleep training from me. I think because we knew each other peripherally through the preschool, she was— it was a struggle, I will say. She was committed, but there was a lot of things she was not willing to change. And I think if she had been paying, maybe she would have changed those things. You know, like, “My older son has soccer, so I’m not going to put her to bed until 8:30 that night,” even though she really should be on this consistent schedule.

So it was a struggle, but we were able to get there, and that made me feel great. I was very happy for that.

And then my other two pro bono clients, one was my husband’s sister and one was an old friend of mine. I kind of volunteered myself because I really wanted to help them. It was more out of a sense of, “I don’t mind that you’re not paying. Obviously, your family or family adjacent, and I really want you guys to sleep. So can I please write you a plan? Can we, like, work together on this?” It went great.

My sister-in-law, she did great. The baby was a lot younger, and he wasn’t gaining weight very well, so she was very anxious about it. But we were able to, like, softly still nursing at night and all those things. And then my other friend, she did amazing. And I have this screenshot. It was her birthday, and he slept through the night finally on her birthday. He went to bed, no crying, just went straight to sleep. And she was like, “This is a birthday miracle.”

Those three experiences, with all their challenges, they were really good confidence builders. They helped me remind myself how much I love doing this and, when the kid does sleep, how good it feels for the family. Like, I get that secondary serotonin boost as well, which is, like, amazing. And so it was helpful. It was very, very helpful.

Jayne Havens: And where did your first few paying clients come from?

Caralyn Hemphill: From Facebook. I really took your advice to always be the smartest person in the room. Never advertise myself, but just answer a question as if I’m answering that question and, you know, to really help that person, to give up information. I’m not gatekeeping anything. So I’m going to try and solve your problem. And in fact, usually, I think that first client, it wasn’t that person that I responded to. It was somebody in the background. And I’m pretty sure almost every one of my clients has come that way. I’ve responded to something, and somebody else has seen it and gotten in touch with me.

And then a couple of referrals from previous clients who have told somebody, and then they’ve come to me. So, yeah, I haven’t done any marketing. My Instagram is not great. You know, the social media aspect I’m still learning to get better at. And I have plans to do some of the events where we—a workshop, rather. I have plans to do that, but I haven’t had time to really put it all together yet. And so it’s still on my to-do list for the future as my business grows. For now, everything’s basically come from Facebook.

Jayne Havens: That’s amazing. I’m so glad that you took my advice. I really do believe that showing up— look, there’s so much free information. If you just want to Google how to sleep train your baby or ask ChatGPT how to sleep train your baby, like, the answer is there, right? Parents aren’t struggling with this because there’s a lack of access to information. That’s not what this is about.

Parents are struggling because it’s emotionally heavy. It feels really hard. Parents are anxious about the process. And really, our value, I think, entirely is all about support. And of course, we need to know what we’re talking about, and we need to give good advice, absolutely. But the value comes in our support.

And I think the difference between those who are seeking free advice—whether it be in Facebook groups or just Googling or wherever they’re getting their information—versus somebody who’s hiring a sleep consultant is the person who’s hiring a sleep consultant understands that the information is there, but it’s still feeling hard for them. And so they are looking for accountability, coaching, support. And so being the most helpful person in the room, being the smartest person in the room, if you’re hanging out in Facebook groups, is absolutely the way to land that client. If what you’re looking to show them is that you’re supportive, right? You’re not gatekeeping.

When somebody asks a question in an online community, usually, those people are the freebie seekers, right? They are just seeking free advice in an online community, which is totally fair. That’s why those communities exist. But there are so many people that lurk and read those threads, and they’re not the ones posting and asking for free advice because they’re the ones that are more inclined to actually hire paid help, right? So let your post do the work for you, and those people slide into your DMs or they hop onto your calendar. I’m glad that that’s working for you.

Caralyn Hemphill: And in fact, a client that I just wrapped up with, I saw that she had posted, answered somebody’s question, essentially giving my entire plan. It’s almost word for word, like, “Do this, then do this. Do this, then this, then this, then this, then this, and this.” And I found myself a little upset initially because I was like, “Hey, girl, like, why are you giving it all away?” And then I was like, “Wait, wait, wait. It doesn’t matter. That person—great that she’s sharing that information. She feels empowered, too. Maybe she’ll want to do this training thing. She wants to feel empowered to help this person.”

And then we had spoken, because we still haven’t even done our wrap-up call, and I just mentioned in passing, like, “I saw that you gave advice to that person. That’s so great. If you want, you can always just link my handle as well, so that if they wanted to hire me as well, that they would have the information.” And she was like, “Oh, I did. We ended up in DMs, and I let her know who you were.” And I was like, “Great. Great, great. Awesome.” I don’t have to feel that I’m gatekeeping.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, yeah. No, that’s a perfect example. Because she shared all the information just as you would have, right? And when she heard that that person actually might need more than just information, that’s when it’s appropriate to say, “Here, I have the person that can help you with this.”

Talk to me about your business growth. I’m sure there have been ups and downs, right? Like, when you’re starting a business, there are probably moments where you feel like you’re on top of the world, and then there are other moments when you feel like this is crashing and burning, right? Not to be overdramatic, but how have you handled the sort of, like, mental and emotional roller coaster of growing this business of yours?

Caralyn Hemphill: Yeah, it has definitely been difficult. That first year, I had a whole 11 months of not booking any paying clients. I did those three pro bono, but nothing else was coming my way. I probably wasn’t as invested because I wasn’t as confident yet. I don’t want to, like, think regrets in the past.

Once it started happening, I booked her. And then strangely, I booked almost the exact same type of client in January. So it’s been, like, up until literally this month, I’ve had, like, one client a month. And that’s felt okay because it felt like I’m still learning this. I don’t want to have too many clients at the same time. I want to make sure that I’m committed. And so if I’m having one a month, I have my other part-time jobs. This is kind of the icing on the cake a little bit right now.

And then I think I mentioned to you in our CPSM Facebook group that I plan to take this entire month off of work. I’m not teaching at preschool. I’m not doing any music classes. I’m at the beach. I’m at my in-laws’ beach house. I’m just going to take my kids out of everything, and I’m going to be Mommy Summer Camp. We’re going to go to the beach every day, all this stuff.

And then at the end of July, I got a client that wanted to start right then at the beginning of August, and then three more people right away. So I’m about to start my fifth client this month. That’s, like, humongous. I haven’t had anything like that. I feel on top of the world. I can’t believe that I get to be at the beach. This morning, I was swimming in the ocean with my kids, and now I’m talking to you on the phone. Like, I get to have the relaxation that I want and deserve and be with my kids, and then also have this really fulfilling career and help people. And it’s felt amazing.

Yeah, like I said, it’s basically just always come from Facebook. And then this was two Facebook people, a referral, and then a, like, desperate Facebook person. And yeah, I will say, it was hard, right? It did feel I wanted to feel successful, and I was waiting for that. And now that it’s here, it just took time. I think it just always takes time.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, I think it’s really important for people to hear this. Because when you’re starting anything new, whether it’s a business or anything else, there’s a learning curve. And there’s a period of time where you just feel like you’re not going to be able to do it.

I think it’s the same with the way when we coach our families through sleep training. There are so many incredible parallels between the work that we do for our clients and then also what we see happening in our businesses, right? And at some moment, when things just start to click, you’re like, “Oh my gosh, this is actually happening for me.”

Caralyn Hemphill: Exactly. Yeah.

Jayne Havens: Whether it’s, like, “My baby sleeps through the night,” or, “I just landed five clients this month. How is that even a thing?” Right?

I’m really, really proud of you for sticking it out because one client a month is not for nothing. Like, you should be really proud of that. And especially, you’re juggling two young kids, you’re working part time, and you’re trying to grow a business. I think part of your success has just been also that you’ve had really reasonable expectations for yourself all along.

I think some people get into this line of work and they think, “Oh, I’m just going to have, like, five or six families right out of the gate,” and then they get really disappointed when they don’t. I think your mindset was perhaps a little better on the front end where you realized, “All right, this is going to be slow. I’m going to figure this out as I go.” And then boom, it starts to click. How fun is that?

Caralyn Hemphill: I will say somebody in the CPSM Facebook group, another person, she graduated, and she just started booking. She was asking questions all the time. “This client, and I booked this client. It did get in my head a little bit where I was like, “How is she so busy?” But it’s okay. Like, I later learned she had a different revenue source, a different person, like, way of getting into it. And that’s great for her. It’s not my journey. So there were times where I had to remind myself, like, that’s okay. It will happen when it happens. We will get there.

I think, also, my music classes was also an entrepreneurial endeavor. I wanted to teach these— I took a course. I was teaching these music classes for babies, but I was in a new city, and nobody trusted me. So that, I think, set me up also up for success for this, where I was a slow growth.

But every time I did another one, then those people told people, and they were excited about it, and then new people would come. So that was like I just had to do it. I needed to be working, and I needed to be making money. And so I was a little more gung-ho, and then that trained my brain exactly to stick with it, and it will happen. And hopefully, just this momentum keeps going.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, I think momentum is a really beautiful thing. I’ve noticed over the years in my own business that I’ve really been able to dial back my own marketing efforts and just sort of rest on the years and years and years of families that I’ve supported. You know, I’ve had thousands and thousands of families at this point. And so if I literally sit back and do nothing, people will still reach out to me just because of sheer volume.

And of course, it takes time to get to that point, but it doesn’t take as much time as you think. And if you’re doing a really good job supporting these families and they’re having really transformative experiences, I really do think that the momentum is going to build pretty quickly. The snowball is going to grow. And what has just started to feel like, “Oh my gosh, this is happening,” is hopefully, you know. It’s not to say you’re not going to have slow months. Like, maybe next month it’s quiet, and then two or three months from now, you have another five or six families. And you’re going to start to see, like, fewer steps backwards, more steps forward. And I think that that’s really exciting.

Caralyn Hemphill: Yeah, I’m hopeful, but I totally agree.

Jayne Havens: Where do you hope to be with this next year, five years from now? Do you want it to one day turn into sort of, like, a full-time business as your kids grow up and they’re in school a full day? Or are you sort of always looking for this to be a bit of a side hustle or passion project?

Caralyn Hemphill: For now, this is what I want to do. I love it. I want to add potty training. I want to add coaching. I want to add, like I said, I want to be kind of an everything child for now under the age of 5, because I feel like that’s really where I’m strongest. And then maybe eventually I’ll get into preteen or whatever. Who knows? But I love doing this. I always really have.

You know, my background is in acting. There’s something about the human connection, and, like, that is, I think, what I was always really searching for. And so I feel extremely satisfied and extremely proud of myself and happy to be doing this. I would love, honestly, like, to not even be doing the preschool teaching anymore. It’s lovely. But it’s way more exhausting and difficult, which is so funny that it is, but it is.

Also, like I said in the beginning, I really don’t like the saying that once you have kids, you’re never going to sleep again. I hear it all the time. I heard a celebrity say the other day, you know, on the podcast. Like, “I haven’t slept the same since I had my kids.” I just don’t believe that to be something that we have to face. And so if every one family that I can convince that that doesn’t have to be the case, it’s, like, huge, right?

Jayne Havens: I think when you get into this line of work, not just to make money but to actually change lives, that’s really when your business grows, I think. When you’re chasing the dollars, there’s a different energy that comes along with that than when you’re just chasing the transformation for somebody else. You know, like, you’re getting this dopamine hit from literally helping somebody else sleep through the night.

I think that energy is so much more productive and will ultimately lead to so much business growth. Because your prospective clients, the families that are considering hiring you, they can literally feel that in your communication. They can feel it in your aura, and it draws people to you, you know. And I feel that so deeply about you that so much of this is just about you actually want to help people. And when that’s your energy, and when you feed off of other people’s results and success, you can’t not be successful with that type of energy.

Caralyn Hemphill: Yeah, I completely agree.

Jayne Havens: What would you say to somebody who is maybe a year behind you in that space where they’re just getting started? They haven’t built that momentum yet. They don’t have that confidence yet. What would you tell them?

Caralyn Hemphill: Keep at it, really. And like I said, put yourself out there. You have to talk to people. It is about the SEO, and it is about your website, sure. But it’s not. It’s really about being the smartest person in the room. Be very confident in what you know and just continuing to believe in yourself, and then it will start to happen.

Jayne Havens: I really do believe that to be true. I think so many people when they’re growing, whether it be a sleep consulting business or anything else, they are looking for their confidence before they have the experience. And what I know from speaking with so many of you guys—whether it be on the podcast or just in DMs or inside of our Facebook community—is that the only way that you actually gain the confidence is through the experience.

And for most, it takes six months to a year to really support enough families where you really start to feel like, okay, I’m really good at this. And even if you’re really good at it right out of the gate, you know, like, I know that you were highly educated. You knew your stuff from the very beginning, right? Like, before you even took the CPSM, of course you knew your stuff. So it’s not that you didn’t know. But until you really get into it and start supporting families and get them results, and you learn your systems and you have everything down pat, like, the confidence doesn’t come until you’ve done that a handful of times.

Caralyn Hemphill: Yeah, and also, like, my first couple of clients, I was flexible with. I think that I said we could do a one-week. I could offer just one-week training for a lower cost. And if we felt like we would hadn’t succeeded, we could add the extra week on.

Because I was feeling like I just needed her to know, again, that I wasn’t in it for the money, that this wasn’t like I’m trying to tie you into a system you’re going to pay me. I wanted her to know that, like, I’m here to help you. And so if this doesn’t sound right, then let’s start here, and then let’s move forward if we think we need to. And we didn’t need it with her. They were great. It was a really little baby, and so we were able to get great soothing ladder steps in, and it all worked out.

So I think also for people who are starting out, like, be flexible. Be interesting about how you’re going about it. Don’t be like, “I charge this amount, and you have to pay, and it has to be like this.” Find a way to make other people comfortable and make yourself comfortable so that you’re getting the experience, like you said.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, I think that’s really great advice. Before we wrap up, do you want to share your website, any social media accounts in case people want to follow along?

Caralyn Hemphill: Yeah, sleep-skillz.com is my website, and my Instagram is @sleep.skillz.

Jayne Havens: Okay. Caralyn, thank you so much for taking the time to share your story. I’m really proud of all of your hard work and your success. You are absolutely gaining momentum, and I can’t wait to see where things land a year from now, a few years from now. So good luck, and great work.

Caralyn Hemphill: Thank you so much, Jayne. It was great talking to you. 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.