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Counting Sheep: A Deep Dive into Baby Sleep Consultancy with Dani McFadden · Work It Like A Mum

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willits and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I'm a working mum with over 17 years of recruitment experience and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women Job Board and Community.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: In this show, I'm honored to be chatting with remarkable women redefining our working world across all areas of business.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: They'll share their secrets on how they've achieved extraordinary success after children, set boundaries and balance, the challenges they've faced and how they've overcome them to define their own versions of success.
• 0:43
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• 0:44
  Speaker 1: No way.
• 0:45
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• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Think of this as coffee with your mates the mixed with an inspiring TED talk sprinkled with the career advice you wish you'd really had at school.
• 0:57
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• 1:07
  Speaker 1: This is the Work it Like a Mum podcast.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by Investing in Women.
• 1:15
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• 1:27
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• 1:41
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• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Now back to the show.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to a very special LinkedIn Facebook Live.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: I'm really excited to be here this Monday evening as people are logging on.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Do let us know if you can hear us all.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, we're live today on Facebook and on LinkedIn and we're going to be chatting with Danny McFadden from the Sleep Consultant Academy about how you can turn sleep consultancy into a career.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: So, as people are logging on, it'd be great to hear your experiences, particularly if you've had children.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: What have your experiences been like of their sleep?
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Because I know that that is how Danny got into the business that we're going to be talking a bit about baby sleep consultancy and, obviously, how Danny started in the business as well.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much, danny, for joining me this evening.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: It's such a pleasure to obviously chat with you and learn more about it.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: You've been very excited.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: So before we really don't have got loads of questions what is baby sleep consultancy?
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's such a big question.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Okay, so it's something that's been about for nearly a decade, although it's been more and more popular over the last few years.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: So if you have a little one in a baby and they struggle with sleep, you can employ somebody or, you know, bring some new as a consultant to help you achieve sleep goals.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: And those sleep goals are massively different for some families.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Some families you know we work with, it's helping little ones settle well for co-sleeping, so they sleep in the bed with the family, and that's their goal.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: But we try to help them.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Maybe, if it's, they're feeding loads in the night still and they're maybe, you know, an older baby and we're trying to get them to settle there.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Or it can be that you know, little one struggles to sleep independently in their own sleep space, and we work with families to do that as well.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: So the goals can range hugely, but it's any different one that struggles with sleep.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Wow, and how did you see that?
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is just a fascinating topic and I think it's until you've had, maybe until you've had kids.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: I'm sure maybe you have some consultants.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: They don't have children.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: You don't realize how.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I mean.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: You know how little they they can sleep as well and how hard it can be.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know everyone makes that joke when they find out you're pregnant, or get you sleep now, because you're never sleep in the future.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: And obviously there's a period at the beginning of the baby where they're feeding on demand.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: They're feeding constantly, they're feeding sometimes hourly, they move through a couple of hours, but once a little, one gets to a certain age and that age is different for all babies.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: But you know, six months can often be a good age for quite a large amount of babies it's not necessarily sleeping through the night.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: We're having not any milk, but it might be the most time to get really good stretches.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I work with families and they're about sort of six or seven months and they say I think the little one still needs a feed, but I want it to be a feed at bedtime and a feed in the morning and then one in the night, but at least getting like a stretch of six hours, so five hours or whatever the goal can be, and that's realistic.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: So so yes, there is a period where you know you're constantly up when little one tummies tiny so they're still suckling loads, but you know it doesn't last forever and that's quite a big age.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: Actually, about six months parents say okay, we think little ones are starting in solids and they're moving through a really good growth and development, but sleep's not moving as quickly we might work them.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: another massive age that we work with babies.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna say what age is it that the parents tend to come to you?
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: And being this age and you won't be shocked, given your background, that it is 11 and 13 months Either.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Just before the stay at home parent that has been doing parental leave is going back, yeah, they cannot function and continue to do what they were doing when they weren't working.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: So that's a big age, at around sort of the 12-month mark, that we start to work with families as well.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Wow, and then I know we're jumping ahead because I've got the question.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: But how long do you typically work with families?
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Well then, how long does it take?
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: So we have our own practice as well as teaching and training sleep consultants, we have what we call a responsive, kind of gentle approach to sleep consultancy.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: So in our training, when we train students, we teach the entire spectrum of sleep consultant methodology because there is space for everything.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: We personally have quite a gradual approach and that suits some families, so we can be with our families anywhere between two and three weeks.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: So we often do that?
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we can do that.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: But people come to us to choice to work a little bit more gradually, where you might have another family that just needs to go a bit more pace.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: The little ones very independent and don't like lots and lots of support, and then you can see results in five days, so that they're completely different.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: And what I always tell my graduates and the reason that we don't train you just to be how we practice in our own consultancy we train everything is because you have to have, you have to believe in the service you're offering.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: You just won't be able to support a family.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: So if you sit in a certain space where you believe in going very gradually, very gently, you really wouldn't be able to support a family with a more progressive model, because I always think if you wouldn't use it on your own little ones or your own niece or nephew, then you probably can't support a family with much conviction.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: So you will come on a journey of us to do sleep training and find out the pros and cons and benefits of all the different training methods, and they end up finding their spot themselves as they go through the course, which is lovely.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Really nice.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: So how did you get involved in it then?
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: We got involved with eldest son.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: So you know I've been very open my journey.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: I think that so many people never used to be, but we lost a baby before we had Teddy.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: So it very much suited me when he was born to just have my chest the entire time and that was.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: I was happy with that.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: And so many families come to me and think should I do this, should I do this or can I not do this?
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Is that wrong?
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: No, it's what suits a family at a time.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: And also my little guy had reflux so he needed to be upright quite a lot, but then the free-fucked pass.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: When he was about four or five months we started to come out the other side of that and then by about six months, you know, and I was reading about things like SIDS and all that sort of thing you know, but we got about the six month mark and I was like I'm ready to put him down now, you know, for him to sleep in the bassinet in our room
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: rather than kind of being on me, obviously, I put him down and he goes yeah, you love being on your chest, so that's where he'd got used to, and I tried to do it myself.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: So I tried to kind of ease him off my husband as well and we just didn't have a very good time with it.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: I only recommended, you know, reach out to sleep concerns, which is what we did, and it changed our life, but not to the point not obviously so much so that we ended up training and doing it ourselves.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: But the impact to our family was so big I think I was kind of going down a bit post-nation to pressure.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: I wasn't getting any sleep.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: I was, you know, up quite a bit, and so this change to us made me enjoy being a parent again, like you know it really was.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: I was, I kind of hit a low point and we worked so many families in positions you know all other families that kind of haven't got themselves into that point and they just want to make smaller change all the way through to families that have got kind of big journeys that we support them on.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: So that's how we got into it and yeah, it's yeah.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: And what were you doing before then, before you were doing this?
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: So and this is what's always really interesting, we said that before.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: So for the beginning, when we first started, chris used to be in operations.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: I do high job.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: You know it was completely different careers that we're doing today and so many people when they come to us and say about training, business doesn't go from.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: You know, I suppose if you apply for a corporate job or a retail job or anything, you apply for a job and you know what you're getting paid from day one.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: That's what happens and you know this is a slightly different.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: So so many of our students I would make the decision to do it as a beginning.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: I have a second income, or we work with lots of our students on maternity, or they're actually just coming out of a period of kind of not being in the workforce after with career responsibilities and then starting to build this up as a bit of a transitional thing, and that's what so many people do.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: There are people that come out and say, right, I couldn't do this from day one, but it does take a little while to build the business, build the build out, you know, a really good, stable income from it.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: So we typically say to people it can take about six months before you could potentially step away from another job.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: But that's quite good.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: You know, I mean, as somebody that's a business owner myself, it took me six months to stop being afforded, basically paying myself.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: And even now I'm paid.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: You know I pay myself way less than I would do, but you do, I think you do it for things, but I mean that's really good to know.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, talk us through, I guess, the early days then of your.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: You know we'll come talk about the training, but what, what do the early days look like then of being a sleep consultant and what's that lifestyle look like and career look like?
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's the flexibility.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: So there's two big reasons that you go to sleep consultancy.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: One is the love of helping families, and I always people say to me who's the sleep consultant?
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Empathy is one of the biggest traits that you need to go into this.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: You often meet families that are in kind of quite a difficult point in their lives.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: They're coming to you, they're sleep deprived.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: It's quite an emotional journey and you know, being able to support someone and really resonate and connect is one of the main things that you qualities that you need.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: We can teach the rest, since that needs to be there, and often being on a sleep journey yourself or, you know, watching family and friends go through tough times of sleep really gives you that empathy.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: So that's something that you need from kind of day one.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: But you asked me.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I was asking what the career is.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: So we're talking about the training.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: But you know what you know.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: What do people?
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: What's the day in the life of a sleep consultant?
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, sorry, yes, and then.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: But the other main reason, apart from kind of wanting to do that with the families, that's why I was going with flexibility.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: So so many of our graduates are looking for a more flexible kind of work life balance.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: So at the beginning, like with any business, you know you immerse yourself in it.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: You do say that the first guy I'd say kind of few months you've got, you'll get everything off the ground and people go to different routes of marketing.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: So it's trying to be wanted by socials.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: If you want to do it by local, it depends where you are and that's where you're going to spend a huge amount of time.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: And the nice thing about that is you just do that in your own time.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: So if you've got a little one that naps and then you've got evenings, you can have your full day with them and then be working kind of on stuff in the afternoon, in the evening, and you can build up the pace that you want to.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: If you've ever met my husband, he kind of we first branded as the Debbie Sleep Consultant.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: That was not his route.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: He is full gun kind of into everything.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: So he spent lots of hours at the beginning doing that.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: But that's the nice thing.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: It's there's a certain amount of things that you need to do and you either do it at whatever pace you need to be, you know, getting yourself registered, getting yourself set up.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: But the nice thing is when you start working with clients, once the business has been kind of up and branded, most of your families that you work for that are kind of wanting to work with you.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: I've also well, they've all got little ones I've always said wouldn't be working with you and there's a lot of time, or during, kind of while there are ones at school or one of the ones gone down the after bed.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: So there's so much flexibility.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: So your day starts depending on what you are.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: So you might be that you're working full time, so you can only do evening consultations or weekend consultations.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: When you first set up, you might be on maternity leave or taking a period of absence, for you know caring leave, so you've got more folks.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: So it all depends on where you are and my graduates tend to fit into kind of one of those three camps.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: I've kind of out of work, taken a period of leave part time and then looking for something.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: They don't want to go back full time and they won't take a second, or they're working full time and then this is going to be taken over.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: It's going to be more gradual burn as it starts to take over their full time in contact.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Brilliant, so talk to.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: You talked about hi, stuart, thank you for watching.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: You talked about like system you're setting yourself up, so income and trains with you.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: How much support do they get in setting themselves up?
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: And you talk about registering and oh yeah.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: so there's two ways that you can train with us.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: One of them is to come and do a certification.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: So every sleep consultant that works and practices needs to have Della certification.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: So we partner with the Open College Network to do that.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: They're one of the best providers.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: It took us longer to get it off the ground because we wanted to partner them.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: They're monitoring and he thought this was fantastic, so we do it with those and that's all done online in your own time.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: And everybody couldn't just think you know, I've had a poor sleeper and I got them sleepers, so I'm going to just you know you couldn't do that.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's how we started training is that when we look back, so five years ago, and look at the quality of the certification we did, if we knew now it could have known then what we know now.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: We would have been better sleep consultants from day one.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: So the course is packed with so much information and sometimes people say, oh, you know, there's too much.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: You know, we don't want to ruin world, so we have too much information.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: But you got lifetime access.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: People use it.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: They call it their Bible.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: So even if something might sound a bit, actually it's a bit complex for what I'm doing at the beginning you just go back and keep tapping into it, like it's constantly there for your referral, for having all your training, which is lovely.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: It's not one of these ones where you kind of you do it and then that's, you know, it's gone once you've submitted your assessment.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: It's your material and you do get support with that.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: So we have a Facebook community that we support.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: It's peer to peer support.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: So you know, obviously consultants that are just starting out use that as a platform to talk about oh, I've got this new client and this is happening with a little one.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: What do we do?
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: It's that kind of thing.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: So that's really nice.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: But that's more aimed at somebody who is confident to set up a business themselves.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: So we have lots of people that maybe have a bit of a marketing background or set up a business.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: I know one of the ladies that's just joined had kind of a side perp in business, so he really knows how to set up a social media account and those kind of things.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: So that was enough for her and that's what we did at the beginning.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: But we also offer full business support and set up.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: So you would do all the reading for your certification and then come on and join us for a weekend.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: It's all virtual, since we train people all over the world and you do a full day on the Friday and then a half day Saturday, half day Sunday, but first weekend it's all about sleep.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: So we actually, instead of it just being that you've read the literature about different sleep training practices, we ask our clients to do a diary, like a sleep diary, a journal, for a few days before we sit down and work with them, because then we get to know the little one and what's happening and we give the real case, real diaries, to our students like the day before coming on the course, so they can make all notes and almost try to formulate a bit of a plan.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: What would I do?
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: I've learned all this stuff, but what would I do now?
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: And then the day is really immersive.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: So we obviously after introductions we go into your groups and talk with other people on the course what would you have done in this situation?
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: I thought about using this method and it's lovely.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: And then you come back and we talk about it as a group, what people have done, and there's no right or wrong because there's all different methods you can use, but it's the pros and cons of all of the different ones and then we talk them through what we did, how it pans out, what happened and there's loads of examples.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: Through that, through the first eight weeks, it's elevating the knowledge into kind of practical use and that gives a lot of people confidence because you feel like we do quite a lot of those maybe four, five case studies throughout that weekend.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: You always feel like you've been with the process in a safe space rather than working with a family for the first time and going through that.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: So that's the weekend we go into complex cases, all different things you want to do.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: And then the evening.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: So there's five to our evening sessions and that's the business side of things.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: So our Instagram accounts about 40,000 followers.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: We kind of go behind the scenes on that.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: How did we get there?
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: What do we do?
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: What's the strategy?
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: More importantly, what have we done wrong?
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Because we made loads of mistakes.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: I think people don't always open to talk about the things that we've done wrong.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: We've definitely made some mistakes on this journey.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: We do local marketing, digital marketing there's loads on that side of things.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: And then one of the sessions is great.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: It's actually a branding session.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: We did the PR company, so thousands on it and we do that session or a very similar session where we help them come up with their brand name logo, that kind of thing.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: And then we do the client process.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: It's really, it's really it does sound really good.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds fantastic.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: And how many people do you have then doing that training?
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: We talk around 10.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: It's like an intimate group.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: It's lovely, it really is and turns a nice number, sometimes 12.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Now this is where we may go over the 10 if somebody is completely not attending all of the sessions.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: So we had a lovely lady on the cohort that we just had in Australia.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: It wasn't actually on any of the live sessions, it was just a framework that we gave and what we do for all of the classes.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: If you can't attend in person, they're all recorded, so then you watch it back.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: So that was it depends.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: If we've got people that are completely virtual and aren't there, then we'll take a bigger number to give everyone the opportunity, because we only do for a year.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: That's the thing.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: I was going to say when's your next one then September.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: So the next one is September.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: The end of September, the week of the 22nd, is the main weekend, and then the evenings will kind of are over the next three weeks after that weekend.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: And then you work that month, okay.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: So it takes about a month, doesn't it?
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Well, it was the main weekend and then we don't like to then kind of force you into the business stuff.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: So we take a few day break and the evening sessions we have two a week, because we first start with the branding and that will give.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Then we give you a few days to kind of get that into place and then we get into some of the marketing.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: Because it really is, there's lots of work to do in between.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: You can do your own time.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: Lots of people use their evenings and things.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: So it's not hugely intense like that, but like but I know that there's other trainers that you can do over six months with playground, with different dates and actually people losing momentum.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: So a month's a nice time to give you that space to digest but also keep you moving.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: I'm like the most impatient person in the world.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: It sounds good because it allows you to.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: If someone's watching this and they thought you know 2023, we you know it's whizzing through this year, but you know this was the year they were going to do something for them they were going to.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: You know, change is a really good opportunity to finish the year strong, isn't it?
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: And then this is where the reason we love training in September is the summer's quieter.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: The sleep consultant gets the people away so that their summer can be a quieter period.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: But once you start getting towards the end of the year, people say I've got, I'm not, I need a baby.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: I can't do Christmas with a baby not sleeping, or new year new me Does.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: January and February is so busy.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: So it's a what why we love and we pick the date in September.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: It means that you're training and you're kind of coming up into a really busy season which just gives you a lot of opportunity to work clients and grow quickly.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: It's nice.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: It's a nice time to train.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: I think it's yeah.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Well, thanks Wendy for joining us.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: So someone's finished your course, They've got their qualification.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: So you say you kept the business training on to about 10, 12.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: You've kept the cert certification, or?
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: is there anyone who do their certification?
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that a time, or can you do that anytime?
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, anytime.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: The certification.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just someone that wants to do a completely self-paced and they work through that themselves, so that's quite nice, and then they can join the community at any point, so that's fine.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the reason that we do the courses four times a year is just making sure that we can support everybody.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: So once you come off the course, there's a lot.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: There's three months of support.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: So one of the things that we love doing is we actually for the cohort.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: You can get put into a WhatsApp group and these I said you know we obviously we love having men.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: My husband's a mouse sleeper so we have trained another guy.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: I know there's another man out in Europe now which is lovely to see his dad's being part of the space, but I mean, it's a lot of women.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: So when they come off the cohort they're going to after the session one, they're going to a WhatsApp group and the support they give each other is amazing.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: Like these are your crew I guess is the way you need to put it and they are supporting each other clients, they support each other and their socials.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: They're busy, they send each other there All their different bits for feedback and it's just a really lovely honest, connected space.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: It's really nice and they go on.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: You know I'm in groups from you know, from the beginning, and it's so nice to see that they're still alive, but what we do is we know that people one of the biggest kind of reasons that people so I'm really nervous about this is then actually, yes, I guess, the training's supportive.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: However, then going to work with a real life client with their baby feels a bit daunting.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: So we mentor you for your first client.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: So, once you've got the baby's logs, the diary that you've often collected all people doing this are questionnaires or different ways we sit down and zoom like this and we will go through your observations and things from the diary to make sure that you've got someone you know that's experienced to talk it through, help you with the program that you're going to give the little one.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: And then, however long you support them, we support you.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: So it could be that you're there, message some of the family's messaging and saying, oh, this has happened, and you say, oh God, I don't know what to do.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: You know we're behind you the whole way to hold your hand through it.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: So, and that first one like everything, the first one is the way to do it.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: So, once you've gone through a process, yeah, and then and then what we do is we do weekly calls with our graduates and we try to make sure that everybody can attend.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: So one alternate weeks it's a lunchtime and then an evening.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: So one week lunchtime, one week evening.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: One week lunchtime, one week evening.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: So you're always going to get the support wherever you know.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: It's not just if you're a night worker and there's an evening session.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: So we make sure that everyone can attend.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: Obviously, everyone can attend weekly if they want.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: But when you start working with clients, it's a really nice check in to say this is going on, what's your view, and we talk you through and support you.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Or I've got loads of graduates that join the call and often they support each other, which is even nicer.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: That's really, and is it just your cohort that joins these weekly calls, or no, you go into it and it's all about graduates, so you can join your cohort if you did the project once ago.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's the thing.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: So you get three months support.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: You can continue with it.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: People do.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: We love having a big community.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: You can continue past your kind of three months and continue with a weekly course, because even if you don't have a question, sometimes we have people come and they haven't got anything to talk about, but they love coming to listen to the sort of chat you're having.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Just build up your knowledge, immerse yourself in it.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: It's just continuous training really.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Thanks a lot for joining us today.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: I'm trying.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: There was another question, so it's just slipped my mind.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: I'm just seeing if I've written what I've written down.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: I did have another question and it has just absolutely slipped my mind.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: How do people find their early clients?
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Do you do consultancy by Zoom or face?
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: to face.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: It all depends.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: We just have a really lovely graduate that just trained with us who is a sleep consultant and just in home.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: So she's ready to pivot her business to be an online.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: So she come to join us because she's that.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: She knows how to do in-home support, but not when people say so.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: There are loads of sleep consultants just like her that do in-home support.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: It's an.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: Obviously there's a higher cost for that.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: You can be a couple of thousand pounds for you to be in someone's home working with the little one, because you are there.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying, this is absolutely different.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: There's so many different ways that you can do it.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: You can just go and support bedtime with the little ones initially settling, or you can do the whole night, or you can just do a few nights, or you can do two weeks.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: The possibility is endless.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: So I personally don't do any in-home anymore just because with my I've got three boys under five.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: It just doesn't work for me.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Tv supports, and some of them kind of on a shift, so all of my business is completely virtual.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: So I do.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: I work with people all over the world, loads locally, loads across the UK, and we would work with the diary.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: Once I've received that, we would sit down on the zoom call for about an hour, talk through my observation their sleep goals and then talk about the plan and then they have a plan and then I typically support them.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: I love WhatsApp groups and the reason that I love supporting a family of WhatsApp group is I can do it anywhere, so I can be on the school run and they've message a question and I can.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm actually kind of dragging a three-year-old along and I can quickly send a voice note to answer the question where some of my graduates work, but you can't do it around full-time work, so they just.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: My biggest tip is the honest, transparent communication with your client.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: So if you say to them I'm available from eight to seven to eight in the morning, I'm available, you know I'll respond between 11 and 12, which is your lunch break, or then between, say, seven to eight in the evening, when the kids have gone down.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: They know when they're going to receive communication support and that's enough support to offer.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Or versus me, who doesn't like to be tied to the computer for certain hours in the day and just wants to be out and about doing stuff and have that flexibility.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: So I love WhatsApp groups and just support someone on the move and it means that they're actually full of them.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Working less because I've not got these sort of set hours.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: I know I need to be around, but it depends on how you're.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: That's the beauty of it.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: Depends on how you are structuring your business.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: That's too.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: So many people, so many sleep.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: Consultants don't do WhatsApp support.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: They say, including this price, you get five emails.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: So you know we check in every couple of days via email.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: So they take notes and then we check in because you know you need to give someone time to embed it's.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: You know, sometimes when you do daily support, someone said oh, you know, this is my trouble on day one.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Well, actually, let's give it a couple of days before we check in.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: So again, it's also a really nice way to support someone.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: There's never a wrong one's better than the other, they're just different.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: So it's making sure that you suit your lifestyle, your family, kind of what else you've got going on.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: That's the nice bit about it.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: So how lucrative is it?
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: What do learnings?
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Obviously consort, you know.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: What can you actually make?
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: This is the number one question I got asked.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: So it's as long as a piece of string and I wish I could give you a set answer.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: So I try to frame it into.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: It can be amazing second income or it can be a six figure business, but the possibility is endless.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: And it starts, you know, somewhere, and you can grow and continue to grow into your comfortable and you're working the amount of hours.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: So let's say you're an average starting sleep consultant could charge 300 pounds per client when they're first starting out.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: That's a good life number.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: And how much would that be then for 300 pounds?
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: And it all depends on your profile so it's hard me to answer.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Let me answer for me.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: So I'm 400 pounds to come and work with me and I work with a little one.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: At the moment.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Applies as well as always change.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: Right now 400 pounds.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: I typically, on average, will spend about four hours with that family.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: So I'll get the diary, I'll assess the diary.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: That can take me a period of time.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: I do the consultation, I type up the program.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: The reason I'm probably less now is because I have with what in the 1300 families I can write a program so quickly.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: When I first started it was probably long.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: It was longer because it would take me longer to write a program because you're not in the flow of it, like I, just very quick.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: So you can be a family about four hours, but that's on average and I typically I still track that.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: So sometimes I can be with a family like three hours.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: They're just.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: You know the little one for lies with the program.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: They check in with me and it's kind of a thumbs up.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: Things are going really well and there's not many tweets that you need to make and that's why I do daily.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: Sports works like tweets in real time versus.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: You know I have another family and I might live with my five hours, maybe even a bit longer, because a little one struggles and there's much more support.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: But yeah, so that's how it works.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: But I was so I talked about an average.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: So it's an average of about four hours, I would say, per family over the course of to me for a free week period, but something we're doing two weeks it might even be less.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: So that's to say it's about 300 pounds.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: They you take on one client a week, which is obviously very manageable.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: You're looking at about 1200 pounds a month.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: So part time really, yeah, I mean four hours a week.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: You know half a day of work could be about 1200 pounds.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: So then if you say you might want to take two families on per week so 600 pounds a week you're starting to look at what.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: 2400.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Now you get my math, so it's an income.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Then, isn't it for a lot of people?
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: Then that's where it comes to yeah, and it can.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: And then that's what we say.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: When you start up, you know there are quick routes to get clients and that's using Google, advertising and things like that, which we talk about.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: That there's quick routes to get clients.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: Or you build on a very local space and you that might build a little quick slur, which is again wonderful.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: But we have loads and loads of strategies of how to be your first client, depending on what happen you're going to take, and that's like one of the big sessions that we do on the course is how to get a first client.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: We also could give you a first client.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: We always encourage our students to get a paid client to start with, because there's a psychology to it.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: When you invest some money in something, you just give it your all because you're ready, you've made a step and that's the only thing you need from a client is just to be ready to make change.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: That's all in the new.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: Do the rest.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: You guide them through that, so we often do.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, we've got a big social media account and people love a freebie.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: So sometimes people say to me do not, I'm not comfortable.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: Childism the first one.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: I just want to do it that way.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: We can do that.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: But we love it when we say we've got so many routes for you to get paid clients to start with, and they give you that commitment to just really focus on it, because I would hate thoughts on you know to start and then the person can give it their all because it was not you know, not.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: So that's always advice, but we have loads of options, which is lovely.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: So but yeah, getting your first client, that's that's one of the next big question where do you get your first client?
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: I mean it sounds great.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: It's a really lucrative career.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Somebody that wants something that's quite you know.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Not, it's not passive.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Someone says passive because you obviously have to go and find clients, but you know it's a career that can really work around you and the tip of it becomes a full time career and it all depends on people's earning potential.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: You know we were in financial services so our tip and point was a bit higher than others that they aren't looking for.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: You know it depends what you work, what income you need to.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: You know, run your household.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: But the big, big tip and point for most people is once you've got a last amount of clients, those clients recommend you and when those clients start recommend you, it's like a spider's web and those clients recommend you and then those clients recommend you and you end up.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: You know you build a lovely portfolio.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: I have a lady that studied with me in November.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: She fully set up her business for about January and within about four months she'd gone down to three days a week job.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that was what her goal was and we had a call.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: She was on her call a couple of weeks ago.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: She said that she's now turning down clients because she couldn't manage three days at the job and clients and she's got a big life choice to make as well.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: She just goes into this now and she never thought that's not what the goal was when she first trained.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: It was to have a bit more flexibility, still work three days in a career she quite, you know, she enjoyed, and then have this and actually she said, wow, actually this could take over and I could be fully flexible at home.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: So it's, the possibilities are endless.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, and it's a job.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: I think you were just kind of saying there when it takes you to pay back your investment, you know when you're starting it's about eight clients, so there's not many businesses that you can.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: You know some businesses don't make profit for like two years.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: You know when you're setting something up so it can pay back quickly, which is nice.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: So.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the investment then.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: So what's the investment?
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Because you've got the certification and the course.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Yes, so just to do the certification, it's 399.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: So 399 pounds.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: And then you know, with that you get your certificate and everything.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: Once you've completed that, yeah, the to come and train with us in person it wasn't in person but live training is 299, 2999.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: It's just under the 3000.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: But you get the certification included.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: So you don't do that in top.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: That's, you know, once that includes both.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we ask our students to do before they come and train with us, they have to have done their reading for their certification, because what we don't want to do is be on the call saying this is a sleep training method.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: This is you turn up with the knowledge.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: There's about 10 hours of study before you you join, you do in your own time and then we bring it to life.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: You know, we want it to be really kind of immersive and using the knowledge to enhance your sleep skills rather than kind of being on a blackboard.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: This is the different training methods.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: So that's the only real prerequisite we say is you know, we've got a course in September, just having enough time for you to do 10 hours.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: Now, I know some people would want this for two and a half months to read those 10 hours.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think when you're on holiday you could probably read a bit of it.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah you can do it by your phone, which is quite nice, and then you've got other people.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: I had somebody sign up for one of the courses, like with a week to go, and this is like 10 hours, not above.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: I can back through that.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: So it depends on your style, when there's themselves in your cram or on, oh yeah, brilliant.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: Oh, it sounds fun to, and you know what else I mean.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: There's always.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: You're never going to have shortage of clients, because there's always babies that do not play.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: And this is kind of this is the big driver of the family.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: The Academy, people have weightlifts, so you know it's us, it was Chris, and then I come on board.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: Then we had someone in Ireland because we just couldn't service clients out there and we've got to the point now where we're more comfortable.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: We have to turn people away because I could do more hours, yeah, but also then I come from where I start to compromise.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: I've got three under five and, yeah, the biggest, rather than me, is flexibility.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: I, chris, wanted to do something to support and give back.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: That was his big driver.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: He worked in, you know, corporate life and felt that the cog in a wheel and he was really moved by being able to change people's lives in a way.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: And I love that.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: I love that we do that.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: But my huge motivation is the flexibility it gives around the family.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: You know, just being a sports day, being there to take kids, that's another driver.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: So I would say I work part time.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: Basically, I will cap the amount of clients I take on to make sure that I have.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: You know, I'll take on less every summer when my eldest is off school and my little guy's off preschool.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: So that's the nice thing is you can complete control over what hours you work.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: And you know, like you said, there isn't always babies being born and there's always babies then that don't sleep and there's always there isn't a sleep drive.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: I need your help.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: You know people got weight lists and we love it when someone comes particularly, and I always ask someone because we have a call.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: That's a thing.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Please book a call if anyone wants to ask the questions that completely pass our journey.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: I've always loved having a call with people to talk them through what the options are.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: And you know I love it when someone says that an area I know it's on the service like completely there's no one there or very few people there.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: Or I also know that people are coming to us from all over the country because there's just not the call for sleepers in the area.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: And it's so nice to know that.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: That services there for families because it's so important for mental health, for, you know, confidence when everyone's going to nursery, it's another big stage again around that.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: That's why I think the 11 to 13 months is such a big age.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: If a little one is kind of breastfeeding to sleep and has got, you know, won't go to sleep unless they're breastfed, there's such anxiety for parents when they're taking little ones to nursery and obviously there's no food at nursery so they just don't have to go to sleep.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: So it's trying to break.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: Maybe that's it.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: That's another big one before we get to nursery and obviously that I guess if a stibbling being born that's probably the old ones not sleeping there's a lot, isn't there a lot of trick, which is obviously good for your business and good for your business.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: So how can people find you learn about you and the courses?
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, so we are the Sleep Consultant Academy.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: We're on Instagram at the Sleep Consultant Academy and also our website.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: We've got the Sleep Consultant Academy dot com.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: I think we're on your website.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: There's links to us there, so please come.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: As I said, I love a call or just.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: You know we don't want to commit to a call.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Maybe you just got some exploratory questions.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: Drop us a DM or an email and we're happy to talk you through anything.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Brilliant.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much, danny, for joining us this evening.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much to everybody that has watched live and on the replay, and I'll make sure that the replay is sent out to those that have asked for it.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, danny.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Thank you, have a nice evening.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you too.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Bye, bye.