Highly Effective Business Success Tips for Midwives

Business Tips for Midwives

 Here are some  business tips for midwives: 

1. Keep the big vision in sight

A big vision will take you far. I put this tip first because when things go wrong on the path to your success, and they will, keeping the big vision in mind will enable you to steer your way back to a successful course. It may not always be the course you imagined, but your big vision of the midwife business becomes your north star, which in turn helps you navigate and orient yourself through the darkness. Your personal midwife vision is your foundation, compass and celestial beacon, lighting the way forward to help women and the community.

2. Fuel your vision with perseverance

What should go hand-in-hand with a big vision is the perseverance you’ll need to keep moving forward. If you’re a Game of Thrones watcher, there was a great line in a recent episode when Stannis Baratheon was being advised about the lack of wisdom in starting a battle in the snow. He responded: “We march to victory or we march to defeat, but we go forward, only forward.”

Sometimes, when things get challenging on your midwife path as a business ownership, you have to commit yourself to moving forward, regardless of the discomfort and fear surrounding the next steps. When you fuel your big midwife vision with perseverance and the spirit of “only forward,” you eventually meet your success.

3. Make a plan, but be flexible

You need a few sets of plans, even if each is only a few pages. A business plan, with an accompanying marketing outline, are important blueprints for success. They help you map out the major landmarks of the road ahead, define your success and break the journey into important metrics you can track your progress against.

I’m not one for a giant, robust plan nobody will access, but I do advocate a more modest go-to plan that can act as your basic instruction manual and hold you accountable to specific numbers. The reason I don’t support highly detailed plans is that I believe you need the flexibility to alter the course as necessary. Midwives are good at being flexible with birth, just need to apply it to our business course. Sometimes, large changes to the plan will be necessary.

4. Embrace your expertise

If you’re already innately good at being a midwife, embrace it. Don’t try to be all things for all aspects of your midwife business. Hire out or sign contracts with agencies for the things you can’t do, and focus on your strengths as quickly and often as possible. Don’t be a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none. Be a business owner, not self employed. 

People that try to do many things waste too much time doing a poor job at each task within the business. Have a mastermind team for running the business (attorney, accountant, marketer, business consultant, office manager, biller, receptionists, medical assistant, birth assistant, midwife team, and payroll services).

5. Don’t reinvent the wheel

What is already working in other people’s midwifery business models, in software applications and other business operations that you can emulate instead of re-create? Don’t waste your time trying to set up systems when you can simply purchase and install one, saving precious time and spending little money. 

I always keep my burn rate in mind and run as lean as possible. But sometimes the best decision is to take on the expense of some good systems so you don’t have to waste time and make mistakes building your own. 

Using Birth Tracks for statistics, Midwives Advantage for outsourcing billing services, Athena Health for EMR charting and administration support, and attending Midwifery Works Conferences for keeping up with business changes are just a few examples.

6. Don’t burn out

This isn’t just a stale piece of advice: Your health is literally the most important thing in your life. When your body gives out, you’re done. Midwives are so good at taking care of other people, but do a terribly job of caring for ourselves. 

Your heart doesn’t care how good a business you have; your circulatory system isn’t all that impressed with your money or accomplishments. . . you get the point.

Personally, I try to eat really good food, get good sleep and take as much time as I can manage day by day to laugh with my kids and see my husband. You will burn out if you sacrifice your physical and mental health on the altar of your business. So, take care of yourself.

7. Leverage everything

Life hacks may seem like just viral fodder on the internet, but they can teach an important mini-lesson in leverage. When you use leverage to your advantage in every aspect of your life, you go further, faster. Leverage outsourced midwife business help to streamline tasks and gain traffic time for important phone calls. 

Leverage down time waiting anywhere (the doctor’s office, your kid’s school, your mechanic’s waiting room, your airline flight) to get stuff done. Your smart phone is a great resource to keep working in your downtime. Listen to audio books versus radio while traveling to home visits.

8. Keep your sense of humor

If you can’t laugh at yourself, you’re missing out. Laughing is a good cure to diffuse stress, infuse some lightheartedness into life and get some perspective on the fact that, hey, this is only life after all — you don’t have to take it so seriously.

So, try to laugh more and stress a little less. It strengthens your emotional and mental well-being, keeps other people from getting under your skin and keeps you cool and collected, plus a lot more fun to be around. These are all a must to have a long and fulfilling midwifery practice.

We created the course, Tips for Running a Successful Midwifery Practice, to teach you all you need to know about being a midwife.