We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mandi Rodenbeck. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mandi below.

Mandi, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s something crazy on unexpected that’s happened to you or your business

When I wanted to work as a birth and postpartum doula I was absolutely convinced without a shadow of a doubt that I did not want to own my own business. After I completed my training, I went to an established (but newer) agency and asked if there was space to join. I signed on as a contracted employee there and worked as a contracted doula for the next 2 years. The owner had stated very directly that I would never become a partner and I replied back quite directly that I never wanted to be an owner. It was a coworker match made in heaven

During 2020, the owner, and now my friend, started to have fairly unsettling feelings at home. Work life balance was proving to be difficult for her. Kids, Covid, money, anxiety and depression were all weighing on her and her marriage. So in August of 2020, when I was about 4 weeks postpartum with my third baby, I got a call from her. She told me that everything was feeling a bit too heavy and something had to fall and that it needed to be the business. In that moment, without much thought, I asked if she would want help to keep things afloat. She cried out on the phone, “I never wanted to ask cause you told me you would never do it!” And I replied, “I never asked, cause you told me it was never an option!”.

From there, we decided to move forward as co-owners of Great Lakes Doulas. We worked to sign contracts until death do us part. We tied all the loose ends to become business partners and I paid her 50% of the company’s worth to purchase ownership.

After my payments were complete, I got another call from her asking if she could come over to my home to talk. That night she let me know that she was very encouraged by my participation in company ownership and she felt like my help would make her burdens less heavy, but that she had found in the few months of working together that her hopes were incorrect and her burdens felt heavier. She told me that night that she was withdrawing fully from the company and chose to GIFT me the remaining 50%.

The next several weeks I was torn up. I never wanted to be a business owner and now I’m alone in this endeavor which was ABSOLUTELY not what I wanted. I had zero interest and zero knowledge of what it looked like to own a business and I was very scared of doing this on my own. I contemplated shutting the business down and quitting altogether, I thought about restarting a smaller business quietly, I thought about keeping it going. I was sick with anxiety until I made my choice. Which was to put my head down and take the next best step forward.

I convinced myself that there was nothing riding on the success of me building this business and thriving, or watching this business die off, so I chose to just give it my best try and move forward. I worked to rebrand, recreate, and rebuild the business to reflect a bit more of myself since it was all mine now. And within 2021, we served double the clients we had the year prior.

Since 2021. We have quadrupled the yearly clientele and our team grew from 1 person to 9 with an ever growing and developing vision of what this business can do for the families we work with and the community we serve.

It’s crazy that the very thing I identified I did not want from the beginning ended up being the very thing that has brought me so much purpose and satisfaction. I’m still not quite sure what I’m doing, but I am growing and learning with this little business as it blooms over time. I am so thankful I am in this place and am so glad I chose to move forward when I did.

Mandi, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Great Lakes Doulas is an agency located in Grand Rapids, MI and serves families within an hour of the city. We love supporting families as they walk through pregnancy, birth, and their first year postpartum by offering physical emotional and informational support and advocacy. We offer services that support the whole person through birth and postpartum doula support, breastfeeding support, occupational therapy, and now classes! Together, we are working to change the birth paradigm, the postpartum mood and anxiety disorder epidemic, and the overwhelming loneliness of motherhood.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Social media has been critical for the growth of my business. I’m not sure I would be in the place that we are if it weren’t for the connection social media has given me to my audience base. To grow my social media, I first watched reels on Instagram for about 6 months straight before creating any myself. I studied why I paused to watch a reel, I learned about what people are attracted to and I tried to replicate that myself. Since my business is an extremely relational business I knew putting my face in front of people in a real way would help them feel like they knew me and that we were friends before they decide to hire me/work with my business.

When I began putting out my own content I was very consistent and posted every m/w/f at 6:00am. I did this until my Instagram went viral and grew to 22k followers. This happened with one reel I made getting 4 million views.

Since then, I’ve maintained with content that is informational, relatable, and funny to build a community that trusts us as a brand without ever meeting us. This helps us win our interviews with new clients and build our company overall. In addition, I view my social media as my storefront- the place where my customers go to learn about who we are and what we offer. I make my page very relatable, easy to navigate and learn about us, and fun to interact with.

Any advice for managing a team?

I would like to think that my team has a high morale. I think the foundation of all my team being contracted employees is very helpful. As a contracted employee, you are in charge! You say your hours, your fees, your limits, etc. if they’re unhappy with their situation they have only theirselves to blame. In turn, I support them with encouragement and mentorship and support to do their best job. I feel like I ask their opinions as a group on a regular basis as well which probably makes people feel like a valuable asset.

In addition, I think it is important to hold monthly meetings. Every meeting we begin with our personal highs and lows. Everyone shares something that they feel they won at or did well as well as something that sucked for them in their work experience. We have an overall expectation at my company that no one is perfect and we will all have a turn doing stupid things, messing up, forgetting something, etc. But it’s even more important to see over and over that as a team we can support your mistake and move forward without judgement on each other. I truly love this about my team.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.greatlakesdoulas.com
• Instagram: @greatlakesdoulas
• Facebook: @greatlakesdoulas