Episode 15: Turning Your Service into Gift-able Support with Kaitlin McGreyes

Molly Cahill
Well, today is the first official podcast episode where I cry. today's podcast is with my dear friend, Caitlin McGrady's. She's the founder of his awesome organization called be her village. If you've never heard of be her village, it is a baby registry essentially. But where you can actually register for things that soon to be moms actually need like doulas and pelvic floor PT and maybe massage or chiropractic or postpartum doulas. All the things that we actually need when we've just had a baby or that we're about to have a baby. So she started doula work in 2014. And she's really passionate about creating access to maternal care for all. So through this gift registry on be her village, she's reimagining birth and Postpartum Support as baby shower gifts, which is just so cool. So what you're going to take away from this episode is she's a really great way of teaching you how to make your services giftable which is just so cool. And this goes way beyond Hey, up, had a gift card link up our website. So if you're thinking it's that it's totally not, and at the very least, I think you'll get a lot out of this episode, but just knowing you can join the be her village registry for free. And this is just such an incredible and impactful conversation. Caitlyn even testified before New York Congress and was able to get doula care approved through New York Medicaid. I hope I said all that right, she talks about in the episode. Anyway, she's an incredible human is an amazing interview, and I can't wait to hear what you think. And for those of you listening that this pertains to, I hope to see you add yourself to her registry. Welcome to holistic marketing simplified a podcast for health and wellness professionals looking to simplify their marketing. I'm your host, Molly Cahill and this podcast is brought to you by holistic marketing hub, our hybrid program that supports you with personalized coaching, captioned templates, and virtual classrooms. In this program, we teach health and wellness professionals how to fish but we also bake their hook, head to holistic marketing hub.com to learn more and use code podcast for $100 off, you can find full show notes, resources and more at Molly cahill.com/podcast. Caitlin, welcome to the show. I'm so so honored to have you because your organization is just something that I think everyone needs to know about. So welcome.

Kaitlin McGreyes
Thank you so much, Molly. I am so grateful to be here. I love everything you do. And it feels so exciting to sort of like take what we've been doing in our meetings that are not public and have the conversation out loud for everyone listen to

Molly Cahill
so just as a primary, I'll tell everybody who you are, what is be her village and why is this something that I selfishly wish my daughter is six and like Where were you seven years ago?

Kaitlin McGreyes
Oh my goodness, I feel the same way. And that's why it exists now. So I am a mother of three children I have, oh, she's seven. Now I have a seven, eight and 10 year old. I've been a doula since after my second birth, I had a VBAC for him. And I created be her village as a way to support moms through their baby shower. Because essentially, what we have is a situation where moms are having baby showers, which is amazing communities are coming out spending money, families and loved ones are supporting parents and the best way they know how which is go to the baby store and buy them a bunch of stuff for their baby. And then you have a really common scenario unfold where parents like me, are, you know, just sort of left alone in their most vulnerable moments and postpartum that are totally unprepared in terms of support for themselves and the realities of, of bringing home a baby. And, and we have this sort of disconnect that's happening where parents are getting overloaded with a bunch of baby stuff, and they have perfect nurseries and put all of their prenatal time and energy and research into all of the things for their babies. And they are completely neglecting the mothers and the communities are completely and the retailers are completely neglecting the fact that the thing a baby really needs is a well supported parent, a well supported mother. And so be her village is an answer to that. We've created a registry tool that helps parents register for support, register for all the beautiful hair providers, everyone who's listening, registering for you and getting gifts of doula support, lactation support, chiropractic care, acupuncture, pelvic floor PT Mommy and Me groups mental health care, like there's just will not give some mental health care but gifts of supportive things for their mental health. And it's a really it's such an like, small thing to just be like, oh, cool, maybe we should give support. And it's also kind of a huge deal to Say, Hey, maybe our babies need us to be okay.

Molly Cahill
It's like having meal a meal train. But for humans like

Kaitlin McGreyes
it's like a meal train on steroids. It's maybe not just meeting your your food needs, but maybe like all of your needs could Yeah, maybe you could be cared for as much as you're caring for your baby. And then everything will feel better because maybe motherhood isn't supposed to be this hard.

Molly Cahill
Hitting because I, you and I had this conversation. When we spoke a couple weeks ago, I was like, I really think my daughter would not have been an only child if I'd had more support. And I had, I mean, let's get the elephant out of the room, right? Like I had my mom, my mom was fantastic. And then when my mom left, I had my mother in law. My husband was deployed, which I know I had a rare situation. But even if you're you have a partner, you know, if you're lucky enough to have a partner whose home, a lot of them are home for what week, maybe two weeks in America anyway.

Kaitlin McGreyes
Yeah, it's really different. Like even mothers and mothers in law, many of them are still working, even if they live nearby. It just doesn't look how the way it used to look.

Molly Cahill
Yeah. And like my mom, the best thing she did for me was my mom's a night owl. And so she would take the 10pm to 2am shift because I had one of those kids who didn't sleep.

Kaitlin McGreyes
I was gonna say like, everybody's, I have three of those kids. So we got it. Yeah.

Molly Cahill
Oh, were you remember, we talked about this variable. I was like I knew did it again. I was like, No, I'm not doing this again. I'm scared. I was like, psychotic, like I had no sleep. I'm like training industry just like really grinds my gears. Not because not that. I don't think moms deserve sleep, and you need to do what works for your family. What I don't like about the sleep training industry is how I make it feel like it's your fault. Like, oh, well, they're not sleeping because you held them. Or like because you nurse them to sleep. Yeah, be your fault. So that's why I hate the sleep training industry. We tried at one night and my daughter left claw marks in her scalp. So I'm like, Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Uh huh. I'm like trauma I need to work through around that. So I'm like, that's why I hate it so much. Because I'm like, you're making these vulnerable mothers feel like it's their fault? Because their baby doesn't sleep, right? Like, if I had just had somebody, like I said, my mom took the 10pm to 2am shift. And it was literally the only uninterrupted sleep that God because I did have such bad anxiety. I had a hard time, quote, sleep when the baby sleeps. That's not really a thing. I mean, I close my eyes and I'd be like, she breathing. Are you okay? Like, yeah, like, so I just think what you did like literally, I remember the first time I met you now I'm like tearing out Why am I crying? I just like, almost started crying because I'm like, this is something that everyone needs. And like, obviously, I'm feeling very triggered from getting emotional, but it's just like, Thank God for you. And this is why I wanted to have you on the show. And I want to get your message out. And you just did something freaking amazing with the New York was the Senate.

Kaitlin McGreyes
State Senate.

Molly Cahill
Yes. Talk about that. Well, yeah.

Kaitlin McGreyes
Oh, sure. And I just want to go back to your Cirrus. Yeah, your tears are what drives me forward. Molly, it is really hard to show up every day trying to make the shift. And it's more than what every mother needs. It's what every mother deserves. It is basic care for us and one of the most transformative and difficult times. And I hear your frustration with asleep industry. I have to say I have met some wonderful, gentle sleep coaches that are less sleep trainers and more sleep supporter. Yes,

Molly Cahill
yes,

Kaitlin McGreyes
I feel I feel that same frustration towards the products that promise you if you buy me I will get you sleep. And the truth of it is that you can buy the entire baby store and still end up feeling as you do because these products promise us that will feel better, and that they will care for our babies when actually that's not true. We need the village we need other people we need our mothers, we need our neighbors we need professionals. We need other moms to feel validated it is one of the hardest transitions we'll ever make. I mean, I don't even remember what my life was like, what was I stressed about? I don't know. It's it's hard to really put into words without scaring parents which I think probably people listening are like yeah, I know. It's hard to like tell people how it's going to be without scaring them and fear mongering them so I just want to recognize that like

Molly Cahill
it can lead to that shame spiral right of like, here I have this healthy beautiful baby like how dare you feel? Any way anything that's

Kaitlin McGreyes
not Yeah, that's why are you not enjoying every single moment of this Her life is so short. It's like, oh my god, like just lay on the gills. Thanks

Molly Cahill
for thinking, what did we do?

Unknown Speaker
What did we do? You know,

Molly Cahill
I thought maybe she slept. And that's what they did. But anyway, I did want to wrap up this thought before we talk about what you did with the settings is incredible, but just that your mom, your mom is great, right? Like, but unless they're like a trained, correct, like my mom's last baby was me. And things are different things are different. And like she didn't know how to help me with nursing. And yes, I had lactation support in the hospital. But she's like, let's give the baby water and put her on her stomach. You know what I mean? It's just like little things that they don't do anymore.

Kaitlin McGreyes
And you know what happens with mothers too, that that is why professionals have to be part of our village now is that mothers feel their own emotional triggers and their own shame, the way you just got this swelling up of emotion from just talking about that postpartum time if that rawness exists for grandmothers too. And it is it can be extremely triggering for them to support someone that they loved. So I mean, think about how much we love our daughters now I'm gonna get choked up thinking about how much we love them. Imagine watching them now go through something that was traumatic for them. That can be very triggering, but it can also be triggering for you to make a different choice, give the baby water no give the baby formula, well, that's not my choice. And it can really, it can create this, like, it's not as straightforward as my mom's coming to help. And when you hire an external professional that has this wisdom that serves people, and that shows up with a non judgmental approach of I'm here to support you in whatever your motherhood looks like. And your transition to parenthood looks like no matter your choices, no matter if you change your mind halfway through your birth for what you want. Like there's just this openness, it is different. So there, there is a place for family, there's a place for friends and colleagues and neighbors. And there's definitely in this 2023 village, the quote unquote, village, it looks like professionals, it looks really different from how it used to

Molly Cahill
Yes. Like I said, no knock on me and my mother in law, she I remember, I got mastitis and let me sleep for like two days. She was bring me maybe to nurse and then she kept her to maybe the best sandwiches. So like I said, I had some great help. But yeah, so this is like I said, let's go back to like, yes, there's a whole systemic issue in America. We're not going to solve that in this podcast. That's a deeper issue. But I did just want to touch on some stuff you have been working towards on that front, which is Yeah, yeah.

Kaitlin McGreyes
So I mean, I want it to be I have a daughter, we have daughters very similarly aged, my daughter just turned seven. And she is the person I'm working for, and all the mothers in between me and her, right. So I look at her. And I think, man, I really want it to be so that when you go and you have your baby shower, and you make your baby registry, that you're getting the stuff for your baby. And also people are talking to you about support. And not just because I'm your mom. And I'm a doula. And I've been talking about it since you were two years old. But I want to sort of normalize that so that we're not finding ourselves blaming ourselves for not preparing properly, so that we're not finding ourselves overloaded with all these things. And I think it's a multi pronged approach, right? So with be her village, we're doing it through gifting. We're doing it by saying, Hey, we're gonna build this platform, let's use the container of the baby shower, and the baby shower registry that people completely everybody whether you know what a doula is, or you know, the benefits of acupuncture, or you you know, quote, unquote, believe in chiropractic care, you know how to watch, which is like, that's a whole other podcast. You You know how to use the baby registry, you know how to do these things. So let's bring the support that exists into that conversation. But there are also so many people working on getting coverage through insurance, getting coverage through Medicaid, and talking about the fact that all of us, every single one of us deserves care. And so I have to say I did testify in front of the New York State Senate, they had a joint committee for like health and public health committees. And it's really cool, because the person who invited me is Senator Brooke, and she is a mom who used to doula and then got elected into office and like, that's how these things shift. By the way, it's, it's not by convincing the existing people in power that we deserve humaneness and basic care. It's by us, building the businesses, getting the offices making the laws, it's really it's about sort of stepping up. It's activism in all different levels. You know, it doesn't, doesn't have to look one way it doesn't have to involve like a sign at a march. So I went to this committee hearing and she took her birth experience and the powerfulness of being supported by a doula and she did She wrote a bill, she said, we should all be doing this. And she essentially worked with her colleagues and with the governor. And they're working on getting a fair wage for doulas paid through Medicaid in this next budget. And that wage is comparable with what we would be paid in a private setting where people are paying out of pocket. So it's not, it's not like a total Band Aid solution. It's for people on Medicaid, which is not the same people that are using beer village, which is not the same people, you know, it's like, there's so many different groups of people who need this care, but it is one of the areas that we need to shift. And I am all for Medicaid expansion of doula coverage, even though some people disagree with me on this, mostly, because I think that we need to collectively as an industry, work together to get ourselves into the mainstream, because every single person knows how to buy a stroller, every single person knows where to find a diaper bag and knows, you know, that they need pacifiers, and, you know, binkies, and whatever they just like, know where to find the stuff. And a really good portion of them don't even know our support exists, never, never mind how to find it. And that's the shift that has, that has to happen. So with beer village, we're making it really easy to shop for care in your local area the same way you would shop for a stroller on Amazon, you know, you can see people's prices, you can read about their services, you can see if they're available, where they're located. And we continue making it easier and easier as we build. But it's really it's important to just in every area that we can continue having the conversation with the lawmakers, with the insurance companies with the hospitals, and with grandma, when it comes time to. Yes.

Molly Cahill
One thing that you and I talked about on our last call was I had mentioned be her village to a few of my friends who were recently pregnant. And there's like, yeah, okay, whatever, because you go to the website, and if it's like, okay, I do look here at like, doula support, it's gonna cost you know, we'll say 1000 is probably more than but you know, it was, let's say $1,000. So, one thing that you are working with your what do you call them? Your mission?

Kaitlin McGreyes
Your cars and our coalition? Our birth workers are practitioners, yeah, you are

Molly Cahill
working on making their services giftable. And that's really the main thing we want to touch on today. So someone, if you're listening to this, you can totally get something out of this. It can be hard to go to, you know, a website and see something cost, oh, they want to do law, and they've only raised $25 out of 1000. So there's two ways to look at it. Right? Like one you could look at it as a you know, you get more than that. I mean, I know for me, Yes, I'm very privileged. I'm very blessed. But I know I got way more than $1,000 worth of stuff at my baby shower. There's no doubt about it. Like, I've been very privileged, very blessed some of it I did need, I mean, you need a car seat, you need a stroller you need, you know. So it's not to say that, but you know, so that's just kind of one way I feel like just kind of changing the way you look at it. But then also, let's talk about how can these birth workers and my audience is in terms of birth, um, I would say mostly prenatal chiropractic should be the most listening to this. But there's also we do have some doulas that, listen, I do have health coaches. Yeah, I have I have a client specifically who has like a course for pregnant women for like, you know, preventing pain and diastasis recti and all that stuff. So let's talk about making your service. giftable.

Kaitlin McGreyes
Yeah. Oh, I love it. So so that's the thing, right? I think many of us and I've been a doula since 2014. So I get it, I get this. We've we've built our businesses to, to speak to the parents. So we've priced it out for the parents, we price it out for someone who's sort of like factoring in their entirety of their care, right, we're speaking to the benefits for them. And it's a really different tone than when you are selling a gift than when you are speaking to someone who wants to treat someone that wants to rate point. Yeah, that wants to give somebody something luxurious and special and something they wouldn't buy themselves. So there's a few different things here that B her village is helping practitioners with. One is the price point is completely off the price point for baby shower gifts at least three years ago, and it's probably a little bit higher now because everything seems to have doubled in price overnight.

Molly Cahill
$27 so

Kaitlin McGreyes
alone to go grocery shopping, I'm like, I just need one thing and it's $75 Every time no matter what it's like the new 25 So our our services and support typically are at least $100 Usually a few 100 bucks to 1000s of dollars. And the gift, size and price points that people are comfortable with is $25 $50 $75 $100. And then maybe more than that, especially if it's a group gift, but it's really there's this disconnect between our service industry and the size that people are comfortable with spending on gifts. There's also the messaging, it's really different to message to a gift buyer to say, hey, you wish you could take care of her. But you have to work. So let me do it like that messaging is really different from this is a three visit package for 45 minutes, like it's when you're speaking directly to the person who's going to use the service, you want to give them the real specifics on it. When you're speaking to the person who is buying it as a treat, you have to convince them as to why it's impactful, why it's meaningful, why it's unique, and you have to meet them where they are on price. And the reason why I feel so excited about this is because the retailer's, the baby box stores, the baby product companies have perfected this. They have perfected the algorithm they have perfected knowing you're pregnant before you do I mean target. Article about target before I did any of this about like, they know you're pregnant before you have announced it. Because you they have like sort of created these things. It's unbelievable what they can do. And what happens like part of the reason we get overloaded with all this baby stuff and then don't even know about support is that there's literally millions of dollars and marketing dollars being spent to get in front of people and convince them they need the things. And our industry, our entire industry needs to work together in one spot, not be afraid to collaborate, not be afraid to join up with other people in your local area. And we need to start speaking to different people, we need to start speaking to the gift buyers so that we can have ourselves become the gift. And with be her village. That's what we're doing. We have literally made a gift registry platform where instead of strollers and car seats, it's doulas and pelvic floor providers and chiropractors and acupuncturists. So it's really easy. And like, literally just press pause right now and go sign up, be her village.com, it's free to sign up, it's free to add your services, and make yourself literally the gift. But it doesn't really end there. It's not as easy as just sign up. Nothing, I wish I wish it was but nothing in life is as easy as just sign up once and it's over, you really have to put some energy into marketing yourself in a different way and becoming the baby shower gift. And that is the work that we're doing in our coalition. And that's where you can join us we have multiple meetings every month, we send out a weekly email. And we we don't just sit around going because I'm not I'm not a sit around, or I don't like just talking about problems. I really like to take action on them. You don't say

Molly Cahill
really do

Kaitlin McGreyes
it. So I don't I didn't want to create this like taskforce or this coalition where we just talk about the problem and don't do anything. So the be her village birth worker coalition, is where we get together. And in order to make this huge national shift in the $12 billion baby gift industry, where we all need to become the baby shower gift we actually work on every month we have a challenge. The first month we did stroller versus doula, and it was surely versus really whatever your practices, that was just the easiest way to sort of go for it, where we went out, we researched how they're marketing strollers, and then we marketed ourselves in the same way. This Oh, this past month, we did Mother's Day becoming the gift. And we created Mother's Day gift offerings that were totally outside the box, it was the coolest thing. We gave everybody the marketing materials, the memes, everything, it was just like, it's like, let's flip the switch on this and make ourselves the gift. And this month, we're working on a Mother's Day gift guide so you can loop in your community. And next month, something new, like there's just there are these actionable steps that the way we're going to build this make $12 billion of gifted funds come our way, is by claiming it every month for our own businesses. So it's not just like this, we should we should change the world like no, no. So well, how are you going to get $1,000 of gifted funds in your business this month? That's what we're working on. And it feels really, really exciting.

Molly Cahill
I love all of this and I had this vision but the marketer in me Well, first of all, the marketer in me just had a dumb moment when you're like the language around when you're marketing to someone, as Hey, by me as a gift as versus the language of marketing to somebody as Hey, hire me as your help is different. Like Duh, I should have like marketing one on one. That's brilliant. So that's one nugget I took from that I hope everybody has. The other is did you do you remember those memes that went around? It was like choose your it was history and COVID and you know, like old school Street Fighter, the Nintendo game, you know? So if You're watching the video, you'll see like here, they're saying we're in this like punching stance and they're like rocking back and forth. It's like, choose your fighter. You know, like, you got to choose your I'm like imagining you like choose your doula. It's like, you've got Caitlyn. She's the gruff New Yorker who's gonna tell you like it is like, you know what I mean, you're like, you've got Foley, who's gonna wrap everything and not that you're a gruff New Yorker, we

Kaitlin McGreyes
take that as a badge of honor. I was like, Oh, I like the New Yorker. And this I liked actually, you and you're like, in pretty fake, like, it's totally the character, Hey, your beard, or your village

Molly Cahill
is in pig by Yeah, I almost like you said I don't look at any body as a as a competition. I always tell my chiropractors or health coaches or whomever I'm like, there's gonna be it. It might not even be something you can put your finger on, where you're like, oh, I don't like this person. Ooh, love this person. And then you might have a completely opposite reaction, like, Oh, really, I didn't really jive with her. And you might not, you may or may not know what it is. But it's just knowing that everyone has something unique. And I always say there's nothing unique on the internet. The only thing that's unique on the internet and it's going to come through in your marketing is you. That's why I get really like a broken record. When I come to these peoples pages, especially a frickin doula your face, Mama better be on that page, because you are going to be all up in my business. And I want to know who you are, I want to know that you have an affinity for the office and plants and you have four cats or whatever it is like I want to know these things about you. And that just kind of takes that whole like you said, you talked about working together. It takes the whole competition piece off the table, right? Oh, absolutely. Once you shift your mindset of like, no, there's plenty of babies are born every however second, like there's plenty of work to go around. There are

Kaitlin McGreyes
so many people that don't even know we exist. The competition is not the other chiropractor. It's not the other health coach. The competition is Jeff Bezos, the competition is the competition is this new? Sorry, it's new, but it's true. It rhymes. It's the abundance mindset is everything. It's how I operate my business. It's how I encourage people, we're all about collaboration. And you know, it's really funny when you start really talking to people about how they make their decisions. I remember seeing this in my Doula work. And I know it happens with be her village. It's like people would prefer one medical provider over another because of like the tone of the Secretary's voice when they call that like they have it's like the things they make decisions on are not anything you would ever be able to plan for or, or adjust for. So being able to, to have your network as vast as possible. I mean, think about I when I became a doula the way I built my Doula practice was by getting clients from doulas whose schedules were full, or whose or whose price was too high for the person they were serving, or, or whatever, there's just, there's always referrals, there's always this feeling of we can share. And when you feel abundant, and you are generous, this funny thing happens. And it makes me feel like the whole thing is a simulation. But again, another podcast, perhaps, is this idea of like, when you pay it forward, it comes back to you in so many ways that you could not even predict when you are being generous, but it is just this idea of of letting go so that you can have your hands empty for when something can can fall into them you can't receive if you're holding on so tightly. And that really plays out when it comes to building your professional network absolutely is you have to work together. And the more we work together, the more people we can reach. And that's really what it comes down to. And it actually leads me to this last part that I want to make sure I touch on, which is this idea that we we sort of with the scarcity mindset, we we think about it as like, there's only so many people that know our care exists. And then the people that know our care exists and understand the value of it is an even smaller amount, right? It's like this funnel, it goes down and then the people who know we exist, understand the value of our care and have the funds to pay for it. It ends up in a location where we have 30,000 people giving birth, you can feel like you're fighting over 100 women, that array that have like hit all of those marks. And part of what excites me about talking about gifts about talking about gift registries, and about shifting this conversation with our clients is that you then open up that amount of people that know you exist, right? Like you if you talk to people and meet people where they are by talking about gifts registries, and talking to them about meeting their parenting goals through products and support. It's like sort of this way of of bridging that gap between where we are talking about sport to people that already know about Got it, right, and the the rest of the people who were completely missing. And so one of the things that we did at Bihor villages, we hired a gift registry and baby product expert, to co create a course with us so that we could get the people who are already in the room with pregnant people and families, we could give them a tool to go out and, and reach the person that doesn't know that their care exists reach the person that's not thinking about Cairo, chiropractic care, who has never even considered health coaching, who's getting bombarded with target advertisements, and offer them a registry consult and offer them this curated experience offer community classes offer this bridge between your practice and the people you're speaking to, and the much wider audience. And to me, it's very exciting, because it's like, we're literally changing the conversation, one family or one class at a time. But we're also shifting our entire industry into the mainstream by capturing the people who are thinking about baby registries and not thinking about the support. It's like, we're arming the practitioners with that knowledge so that they can have a more full conversation and reach people in their community. And when you talk about abundance theory and abundance mindset, when you start thinking about the fact that 75% of new moms are making baby registries. So that means when you start talking about baby registries, you're talking to 75% of new moms in your town. That that's abundance that's like we don't have enough people to serve them. Like it's like a whole new problem that we come up with. So that's part of it. As we we encourage people to become the baby shower gift, get on the website. Come join our coalition, learn how to change the language, but also become a gift registry expert go out in your community and have these conversations so that you can reach the masses so you can reach more people. And we can make chiropractic care acupuncturists, health care, health, coaching, sleep coaching, doulas, we can make that all as normal as yoga as normal as diapers as normal as cribs and strollers.

Molly Cahill
And I just want to point out, so this is, this doesn't even just apply to the things that people consider more quote, alternative, I don't know why it's called alternative way. You think about pelvic floor PT. Like that's a medical a very medical model. And still, there are 1000s of women, her paying on their cells every day. It's not that, but it's because it's just become, well, it's just how it is. If you've had babies, it's just

Kaitlin McGreyes
sorry, it's common, but not normal. And it's such an important distinction. Because in every other developed country in the world, every other country that has a developed society, which is such an awful term, but it's true, like every other wealthy country in the world has automatic lactation care has helped visitors, doulas nurses, people visiting you in your home, when you just come home with the baby, when your health care still needs attention. They at your six week visit, they hand you a script for pelvic floor PT, it's just the norm. It's just what people expect. They just care for their mothers. And it's a really uniquely and unfortunately, uniquely American problem that we're sort of discarded, we're not seen as important, we're not seen as worthy of care. And many of us have internalized that we have internalized this idea of like, I'm not gonna get a night nurse, you know, I don't I don't need that. It's like, Well, why not? I mean, like, do you want to be this martyr? Or do you want to be this person that's depleted and exhausted and has progressive pelvic floor dysfunction for the rest of your life, when like a few visits to a PT could be the standard. And there's so many layers to unravel there. And like you said, we're not going to solve the systemic issues of this country, and how we treat mothers in one podcast. But like, I will argue that I think we can do it more expediently through the gift registry and through the retail industry, because it's familiar, because we don't need to convince people that these laws need to be shifted, we don't need to, like convince people we're worthy, we could just be like, Hey, this is like a way cooler gift for your baby shower, you're already having like, it doesn't have to be this, this convincing thing, we can just show them that this is a better gift to get. And we can speak to them in the language that they're used to seeing in the stores. And honestly, every time we we internally at be her village, change something on our website. The first thing we do is go to buy buy baby.com We go to Amazon, we go to Target and we shop for their things and that guides us into what we should be doing because we don't have millions of dollars for marketing. And we're and we see what's working for them. And so we just do the same thing because we need to be as familiar as possible. To the mainstream as much as the quote unquote, alternative healthcare and the holistic health care is this sort of identity that we put on ourselves? Doesn't everybody deserve it? Like, I, you know, I love the word holistic, because it really is like looking at the full picture of something. But there's so many people that if they knew about us would be so excited, would be so cared for. And it's really just about getting to them and reaching them, you know, that

Molly Cahill
actually might be another like great nugget for any of body listening to take away because when I think of the word holistic, my definition is not no allopathic care, no medications. That's not, I think of like, yeah, there's a time for acute sensitive management, like I had an epidural with my baby. And I think people think, Oh, if I have a doula, or if I do this, like I'm going to be shamed into, which is funny that I'm saying this out loud. And maybe this is helpful, because I'm somebody who's in this world. And I know that that's not what doulas do, but that that just popped in my brain. So I don't know Maybe there's another little shift like for the moms who don't consider themselves quote, the crunchy mom's, like marketing to them to say no, like, I'll support you through any birth. Yes, it's,

Kaitlin McGreyes
it's so important to make sure that we don't get in this like sort of echo chamber, again, competing for these, these this small set of people, of course, I mean, be her village was similar. I just want to point out like, we started our first registrants, were people who already have their entire team booked. Like they knew they were excited, they used us. But as we're growing with the the vision that we hold, always of being the mainstream of being the household name, we speak to the people who have no idea what a doula is, who have no idea why they would want chiropractic care, who don't understand why they might need postpartum care. We're just speaking to them. And we're sort of gently educating them. And we're, we're painting ourselves as a registry for every single person. And that is absolutely, part of what we need to do is we need to, and this is the marketing shift, right? It's like speaking to the benefit that everybody can, can engage with you on.

Molly Cahill
I think that was interesting that that just popped in my mind. Like, oh, I need to say this out loud. Because if I'm thinking this, and I know then, yes, and you it's funny, these are all DNA from we live in Gulf Breeze. Um, she was, I mean, she worked with us for years. He's like, one of my favorite humans on the planet, shout out Dallas. She texted me the other day, and she's been following me on Instagram. She knew what I did for work. She goes, Molly, pregnant women get adjusted. I was like, yeah, she's like, what? And she's been following me like, not that I am. But you know, like, I talk about it a lot, right? It's just like, most people just don't like you said they just or they assume you know, that they're going to be shamed into well, if you're an if I'm not anointing you with essential oils, then you know, you're not my person. And it's just so not that and what am I lovely new clients, and I love the name of her office. It's delightful chiropractic. Isn't that lovely? We had a post about like teething babies and Tylenol. She was like, Oh, I don't want to use that because she's like, I want this to be a safe space for every mom to land no matter her choices. And I was just like, man, that's so powerful.

Kaitlin McGreyes
It really is. It really is. And yeah, there's there's a huge hurdle in that information. And I just want to sort of like shout out to the chiropractors that are listening, that when I had my VBAC i a part of my preparation was going to a chiropractor weekly, because my my cesarean was due to poor fetal positioning, which I believe was partially just my lack of preparation, and lack of you know, caring about that, or knowing that I was too busy making my baby registry. And when. And when I had my at the festival, be back at I had him at 301. I am I called my chiropractor at like, 6am, like three, he was one of my first phone calls. And I left him a message just like thanking him up and down. My chiropractor was such a big part of my backstory. And I just like I have special things for everybody out there that's treating prenatally and that's working and helping people achieve their goals.

Molly Cahill
Yeah. And back to like, the whole American conversation to one thing I wanted to add is, so I think a lot of times we, like you said, talking about getting in the echo chamber. And you see a lot of stuff going around. We're like in other countries, they do this and other countries, they do that. And you always think Is that true? Like to other countries see things and say, in America, they do this like it's you know, but truly, my mother in law, my husband's oldest brother was born in Amsterdam. And my mother in law still tells the story of where she got home from the hospital. And then her doorbell rang and it was a nurse. And she was like, Oh, hi. She helped she helped her nurse. She did the dishes, she you know, helped

Kaitlin McGreyes
Majan like imagine, I honestly think cannot even imagine it even though that's the thing I'm trying to make happen normally, I cannot even imagine. I spoke to a an American expat who married a Swiss sky and they moved to Switzerland. So she had I think she had her first baby in America and then her second baby in Switzerland. And she got six teen 166 teen midwife visits in her home between coming home from the hospital and the six week visit. And then and then she was handed a script for pelvic floor pt. And as she said, and then I went laid in a room and did pelvic tilt with a bunch of women, which like, how cool to just have this built in community, when you're ready to emerge from your little love nest where you're being cared for. I can't I can't even process what that looks like. I was I was so aligned. I was so my husband was still in the hospital. Sorry, I was still in the hospital when my husband went back to work with my first he didn't get even one day off. Oh, Jesus. He didn't get one day off the second day. But he got three days off. And the third baby got four days off.

Molly Cahill
Oh, four whole days. Wow.

Kaitlin McGreyes
And I had my kids close together, it was a little bit like a band aid. It's like either do it or you don't like if I had waited and waited like even one month more it would just none of them would exist. But I was a little bit like I'm home with them. This is hard already. Let's just Let's make and complete our family. But yeah, I was home with three very small children a newborn a 21 month old, an almost four year old. And on Jade

Molly Cahill
hair. Gray. God bless you.

Kaitlin McGreyes
But But I have makeup on to hide and somewhat the bags under? Because it's hard. It's hard

Molly Cahill
that so I don't this isn't even something we plan on talking about. But because I want I like this podcast to be super actionable. And I like to be filled, filled full of like things like, Oh, I gotta go implement that right away? Yeah. Do you have any tips on marketing language around? The people who are like, I don't want somebody I don't know, in my home? Ooh,

Kaitlin McGreyes
that's a good question. Yeah, I think I think probably the best thing to do is like, paint the picture of the comparison, because it's not usually a familiar face. In your home, or an unfamiliar face, which is sometimes like the dichotomy we can create. It's being completely alone, or having someone familiar that you've met prenatally in your home. And I think that maybe just making that shift, if that's if the hurdle is it's unfamiliar, it's like, well, let's meet. And that can be the call to action can be, let's get comfortable with each other. The call to action would be let's let's become friends. Let's let's get familiar. Before your baby comes now is the time and and that actually is such a great lead into like a free console, a phone conversation, zoom, call a and hey, like, No pressure, just let's maybe do this, let's get on a zoom call, or why don't you come into my office and let's chat through it and see how you feel? Yes, it it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be an unfamiliar person. By the time you work together, you'll actually you'll you'll feel good. And you should only this is what I used to tell people when I was doing it, you should only be working with me. If when we get in a room together, your body feels calm, because your body will tell you everything you need to know. And if you're finding yourself tense, and you're finding yourself, like feeling a little closed up around someone, you should absolutely not work with them. And and it's a two way street, right? So I think part of it can just be that sort of invitation to engage in a really low pressure way. And one of the things I liked to do and encourage people to do is you can also just hold a free event like hey, just come learn about chiropractic care, you know, and learn to stretch or, you know, I mean, there doesn't have to be or like for a nutritionist like common Make, make a labor Read with me, you know, you can find creative ways to invite people into your space. And often when you get them, they're just being in the room with you. It sells itself. They want more of it. They they feel their bodies relaxing, they feel the support in that prenatal time. So

Molly Cahill
yeah, and then you get referrals. And it's like, oh, my friend used you and it's more and more and more. I love that. So Caitlin, I want to make sure we go ahead and wrap this up. Let's wrap it up with your example. You give me a beautiful example of how some people are making their services. giftable. Do you remember putting you on the spot? Do you remember what that example I can think was a yoga?

Kaitlin McGreyes
Oh my goodness. Yes. Okay, so part of what we're working on in our coalition are these actionable challenges every month we have a new one. And our challenge last month was becoming the gift for Mother's Day because we should all have Mother's Day promotions. And it was my favorite because there was this wonderful she's this older woman with an Irish brogue. She's my favorite. I just love her so much and she's asleep. consultant, and she is she's who you deserved Molly, I just want you to know she's nobody's crying now with Joan. Joan is just like everyone's feeling. He's crying now, nobody's crying it out. Everybody's feeling really good. There are good ones out there. So. So Joan, we were we were all sort of we have these office hours. So we were all working through what it could look like to turn our services or larger packages into a giftable promotion. And Joan said, you know, I, I did this last year, I put a gift card up for Mother's Day and nobody bought it. And it's like, yeah, because you know, it's not just about the gift card. It's about making it giftable and talking to gift buyers. So I said, John, you're asleep consultant, like, literally sleep is the gift Every mother wants, like your I don't know what we're gonna come up with. But let's see. And we started working through it. And I said to her, you know, what, have you went to a yoga studio in your community? We all have them. And that is sort of like this, like alternative holistic light, like people do prenatal yoga, you know? And what have you went to them? If I was putting myself in a gift recipients position? I love shavasana, like shavasana is why I do yoga, it's not for the workout. It's for the lane that release that stillness. What if you did a, like a pairing up with a yoga studio and you offered a sleep centered, sleep focused yoga class with a 40 minute Shavasana. And her eyes lit up? And it was like, Oh, I know exactly what studio to do. And then the whole group started chiming in, oh, yoga, Nidra, I guess is the thing I didn't know about this yoga. Nidra is like a very sleep centered relaxation centered thing. And then she said something that you touched on Molly earlier on in this conversation, she said, You know, I could use that, that shavasana and some of this contact with them to talk about not just how they can support their babies to sleep, but how they can calm themselves down. Because the few moments we get to sleep when our babies actually do sleep, we often our minds are racing, and the things that we can do for ourselves to calm herself down will get us more sleep because Jones focus, which is why we love Jones so much is not necessarily baby sleeping and baby sleeping through that is how do I get the mother more rested. And that can look a lot of different ways. You know, it's not about crying it out. Nobody's nobody's getting wrestling, you're crying it out. And so we crafted this awesome offer that I wish I was in her area, because I would absolutely take it a one hour yoga, sleep yoga offering with a very long shavasana you get information and tips on how to get better sleep for yourself, you get tips on how to structure better sleep for your babies. And Joe not only will bring in revenue, because she's going to sell tickets, this she has now made a wonderful connection in her community with her yoga studio. But she also has all these people that now have listened to her sweet Irish brogue have gotten real value from her. And I would bet anything that one or more of those people will sign up for her full sleep package once they get a taste of it. And that's the kind of thing that we're doing in the bigger village coalition we are we're just really doing outside of the box thinking how do we create gifts? Not how do we add a gift card? Not how do we just say, Oh, we're gifts now but like how do we really take apart what we're offering and create something brand new.

Molly Cahill
Just like feels like this sigh of religious feels great. I love it. And you know, you can even look like I think about community acupuncture clinics that those are like usually more of a lower cost way to look, you could do some there's so many things you could do with this. And I think the main thing, the main thing I want to leave everyone with today, whether you are someone who this pertains to in the fact that you do provide any type of, you know, pregnancy, postpartum services, it's just this mindset that we have to be some type of martyr or she are so strong. I don't know how you do at all like as a compliment. Like, I think we tend to have this feeling that if we're not suffering, we're not worthy or something. I had my friend Sarah Wiles on whose she trains virtual assistants, we're talking about it in a different light, right, like hiring help in your business. It's like, we kind of have this undercurrent of like, well, my mom didn't have this or my friend didn't have this. So I don't deserve it because I need to suffer along with everyone else. And it's just, if we can change that, and we can start supporting mothers and we will legitimately change the world.

Kaitlin McGreyes
It's so true. It's so true. That's so beautiful.

Molly Cahill
So how can we find you? What is the first step everyone can get on? Make yourself giftable you can get on the Bihar village registry. How can they find you Caitlin?

Kaitlin McGreyes
They can go to either village.com B E H ER village.com. There's a Get Started button, click there hit businesses, and you will get taken to all the options. You can add yourself and your services to our site, you can get signed up for gift registry expert certification, you can join our coalition, get in the meetings, learn how to make yourself into a gift take action in order to bring in gifted dollars. Yeah, we would absolutely love to have you. And of course, we have an offer of 20% off through Molly, I think it's holistic. 20 is the code. So feel free to use that use the links in the show notes. This is we want you we want you to come and join us and make the shift. It's it's how we do it right. We have to do it at the micro scale within our own businesses. It's like that quote that I had on the wall when I was like 12 years old on a poster, like Be the change you want to see. That's probably probably somebody famous has said that, but that's what we're doing. We are actually being the change. We are making the shifts within our own business within every conversation. One mother and one baby gift at a time.

Molly Cahill
Beautiful. And yes, Instagram is also amazing. Yes, sorry,

Kaitlin McGreyes
Instagram to at be her village. I am the one that sent the stories. I'm the one that's in the messages. So it's really easy to be in touch with me and I would absolutely love to hear you. That's how we started Molly. So this is

Molly Cahill
Darcy Darcy. Yeah, she's connected us. Yeah. So this is incredible. Thank you so much for your time. And I hope you see some registrants Come on, and I can't wait to come into your community. I'm doing a duet guest teaching in a few weeks too. So I am so excited. I'm excited.

Unknown Speaker
Thank you so much.

Molly Cahill
Thank you for listening to holistic marketing simplified, brought to you buy a holistic marketing hub, our hybrid program that supports you with personalized coaching, captioned templates, and virtual classrooms. In this program, we teach health and wellness professionals how to fish but we also beat their hook, head to holistic marketing hub.com to learn more and use code podcast for $100 off. And hey, you know, every podcaster at the very end of their episode asks you to rate and review their podcast. Well, that's because it's super important. These podcasts take a lot of time and heart and effort to produce to bring you free information. So in order for me to be able to continue doing that we need more people to find out about the show. So if you could please just take like two minutes out of your very busy day to leave me a rating and share this on your Instagram stories and tag at Molly a K Hill. That's c h i ll I would greatly greatly appreciate your support. I truly appreciate you so much. I know your time is valuable and I can't wait to see you in the next episode.