50. My Profitable Maternity Leave Plan as a New Mama to my 6th Baby!

I'm baaaack...kind of! Have you ever wondered how successful mom entrepreneurs manage to take maternity leave without their businesses falling apart? Maybe you're pregnant and panicking about how to keep your business running while you bond with your new baby. Or perhaps you're dreaming of taking an extended vacation but worry your income will dry up the moment you step away.

If you're nodding along, you're not alone! As moms and business owners, we often feel immense pressure to be "always on" - but that's simply not sustainable (or enjoyable).

In this episode, I'm peeling back the curtain on my own maternity leave plan, sharing the exact strategies I'm using to keep my business thriving while I focus on my newborn. We dive into:

- The 4 key priorities I focused on when planning my leave (and why they're crucial for any time off you take)
- How I'm serving my existing clients and nurturing my audience without burning myself out
- My secret weapon for growing my audience and making sales on autopilot (hint: it doesn't involve social media!)
- The simple systems I've put in place to handle customer service and admin tasks with minimal involvement from me

Whether you're planning for maternity leave or just want more freedom and flexibility in your business, this episode is packed with actionable strategies you can implement right away.

Ready to create your own maternity leave plan (or just want more freedom in your business)? I've got you covered with 2 all-new resources!

1. CEO Moms on Maternity - the FREE private podcast to give you a behind the scenes of my CEO mom friends, all of whom were due with their babies around the same time as mine!
From mastermind hosts to copywriters and 1:1 coaches, they’re spilling their secrets and I’m so honored to be able to bring them all together.
Go to yaelbendahan.com/maternitypod

2. Get my Maternity Leave Program on PRESALE for just $34! For a limited time, you can grab my full Maternity Leave Program at the special presale price of just $34. This comprehensive course will walk you through exactly how I'm nurturing my audience, growing my reach, and making sales while on leave. The price will be going up soon, so don't wait! Head to

LINKS
📈The CEO MOMS Growth Matrix - feeling stuck or plateaued at your current revenue? Snag your custom roadmap for sustainable growth from $0 to multi-6-figures in this FREE training! >>> yaelbendahan.com/matrix

🔥Join my FREE 3-Day Program, LEVERAGE - the process that’s creating multi 6 figure years (even if you’ve been stuck riiiiight at 6 figures for way too long) working nap times and being a full time mama. Claim your spot here >>> yaelbendahan.com/leverage

💰Offers in Your Pocket - 11 Offers You Can Pull Out of Your Pocket and Sell This Week! Only $9 - yaelbendahan.com/pocketoffers

✨Join the Collective
In the "building" stage of your business? Join the MOMentum Collective - my most accessible mentorship program for moms growing to $5-10K months.

💃 Apply for the CEO Mom Mastermind if you're ready to scale sustainably to $15-20K+ months. Read more about the mastermind here OR go straight to the application here.
Want to chat about the mastermind before you join? DM me on Instagram - instagram.com/theyaelbendahan

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Raising Your Business Podcast. I'm your host, Yael Ben Dahan, founder of CEO Mom Academy, mom of six and lifelong reading addict. This podcast is here to empower moms to run their businesses and lives like the powerhouse CEO they are. I want you to believe that you can have the business success you desire. And be present with your family and to give you my best tips and strategies for how to make that happen. I'll be sharing the honest reality of balancing business and motherhood, biz models that work for you, marketing simplicity and the mindset of a CEO mom. Now let's dive in. Hello. Welcome back to the podcast. I am actually recording this. On maternity leave. This is not the case for a lot of the episodes that are going to be coming. But this one particularly is and I. Oh, my gosh. My baby is. Three weeks old already. And. He is so cute. He's like ridiculous, acute. He's already smiled. He is just delicious. And we are enjoying being in the tunnel so much. Definitely after the first week or so week and a half of postpartum tears. And. Melting into puddles every time. Every time I freaking looked at him, honestly. And any mama who's been in these trenches knows that's So I'm just like so happy back here and recording it just feels really good. It feels like me, but it's just me holding a baby. I'm literally holding him right now. We're rocking and he's taking a little nap in my arms, which is really nice. So before we dive in to today's episode. About my maternity leave plan. And I specifically wanted to wait until after I had the baby, because I wasn't sure how much if I was going to get done. And I wanted to also just share, what was realistic during maternity leave and what was not. So I wanted to share a couple of things before we dive in. So first thing is. The CEO moms on maternity private podcast. I compiled this mini private podcast to give you a behind the scenes of my CEO, mom, friends. All of whom were due with their babies around the same time as mine. So everyone in this private podcast, little mini-series. Had their baby in June or July. And. These are mastermind hosts and copywriters, and one-to-one coaches. They are all spilling their secrets and I'm so honored to be able to bring them all together. So sign up for the private podcast for free at Yale Ben. dan.com/ceo, moms maternity, and the link will be in the description. And you can just hop in there for free. And get access to all these juicy little mini trainings on exactly what they plant for their maternity leaves, as well as this episode as well. And the second thing is my maternity leave program is on pre presale for just$34 and$34 because I just turned 34 on the same day that I had my baby. And so I decided to start it off at$34. I took maternity leave with my daughter Eliana. Who's now just turned four. In 2020 and still had monthly recurring revenue and clients waiting for me when I got back. I'm currently on maternity leave and I still have leads and sales coming in regularly, and I'm going to be sharing all my secrets in this program. So I'm going to be launching this in the fall, but you get the entire program, not just my maternity leave planner, but you get the entire full program for eight bananas presale price when you jump in now. The investment will be going up as more details are dropped, but you get exactly how I'm serving my clients, how I'm nurturing my audience, how I am growing my audience and how I'm selling to my audience. And. Honestly. This is going to be an amazing program. It's going to be an actual course. Which is going to run in the fall, probably October ish, October, November. And you get to jump in right now at this insane presale price. So get instant access when you join to my planning for time off training. She can get started brainstorming for your time off, whether it's maternity leave or anything else. And then you get the maternity leave planner, which I'm in the middle of finalizing. And that will be coming by the end of July. And the full program again, is going to be launched in the fall. So the investment will have gone up considerably by then. It will be at least a three figure investment. To start with, so I wanted to just share that with you, because this is your chance to hop in for$34, which is crazy. So get it. Now, link is inscription again. Okay, so you get the free private podcast and you get the pre-sale maternity training. And now let's dive into the actual podcast. So I baby proof my business back when I was pregnant with Eliana. Okay. And I literally had a program called the baby proof business accelerator, but life has changed. And so as my family and this was your new leave is a little bit different. Cause it had a lot of existing clients already. I had a lot more different offers. I had a bigger audience. There's just a lot more. To start with and a lot more to manage in a way, whereas before there was a little bit less to manage. Cause I didn't. I was just starting off my coaching journey. So I wanted to share this because it looks a little bit different than my last maternity leave looked because, due to all these things. So I have four main priorities basically when when I was planning the maternity leave. All right. And I'm going to be sharing. Some of the stuff that I'm doing and the stuff that's really in-depth is actually going to be a training in my maternity leave program, because I'm going to bring you behind the scenes of all my funnels. And although, everything that's going on behind the scenes. This is going to be a eight an overview, but we'll give you enough to be getting on with, if you've been thinking about taking time off in your business, whether that's for maternity leave or something else. So the first priority was serving my clients. Okay. So that was means serving my existing clients who are already in my world. That is the most important part because. I want to make sure that they. We're getting what they need. And they, this is feels equitable and fair to them. Then the second priority is nurturing my audience, right? Because again, I want to nurture my existing audience, people who are already in my world. I'm sorry. Have an audience. When I get back from my leave, then the third priority is selling to my audience. So obviously making sales and this would be front end and backend sales. And then there is growing my audience. Okay. So getting in front of more people. So I'm going to be walking you through. Basically what I'm doing in those four categories. Oh yeah. And then the last part, oops, sorry. So it's five. The last part is really customer service and admin. And that again, that's going to be a lot of templates and things like that, that you are going to be getting in the maternity program, but that's that's just ongoing it's stuff that needs to be happening all the time. It's just the differences. How involved am I on a day-to-day basis? Okay. So serving my clients. So obviously I have my CEO, mom mastermind that's my highest level mastermind, deepest level of support people get Like literally one-to-one coaching, like inside of slack with me throughout the week. We have at least two to three calls a month. It's a really it's a really in depth sort of mentorship. It's my highest level of mentorship besides for one to one. So I have that. I have a momentum collective as well. And I have my CEO mom academy, which is they don't get live support from me, but they do get, they get to ask questions every other week. And I. Create a loom video and I answer all their questions. They get to twice a month. Q and A's. So I want to make sure that my, my clients felt supported during this time. So what did I do to make that happen? So the first part is peer coworking. So my copy coach, Jen, I'm lucky enough to have an incredible copy coach inside of the CEO mastermind. And she literally goes through everyone's copy and just set it up and makes it amazing. And she's also really very brilliant strategist as well. So she's a really incredible co-coach to have, and that is Jen hill Myers. I love her so much. She's one of my. Oh, gee clients back from the first coaching program I ever ran back in March, 2020. And I just love her so much. We are hosting peer coworking sessions for my CEO, my mastermind, and my momentum collective ladies. Because that's going to help them show up. Connect with each other. Really, just knock out some work, especially during the summer. And then just keep that community feeling going and I'd started to make them like all in one. So my collective and my mastermind together. Because I don't think that it needs to be a differentiation. They're all incredible, wonderful women. And they are all moms growing their businesses. And I just thought like, why not? Like, why not just save Jen time and host it all together. So that's like a general coworking session for all my clients. The second part is peer mastermind sessions. So at my mastermind ladies for my CEO, my mastermind, they get two bonus things. They get peer mastermind sessions twice a once a month. So where they come in and brainstorm together and mastermind together. They've already been, they've already had one so far and it's been, it was so mind blowing and amazing. And people came away with so much value and I really think that's one of the beauties of being in a mastermind is the collective as well, like the collective of women and the hive mind, so to speak. And so I just I just really love this. And it's a really great way to keep the community feeling going. And, Let them have this amazing way to connect with each other at this higher level. The second thing that they get is guest experts. So I brought in a bunch of guest experts ranging from parenting to finances, to YouTube and. Ads and a whole bunch of different things so that they could get value. Just get some value. During the summer. While I'm offline. Okay. Sorry. I was yawning. I'm yawning because I'm tired. I have it. Three week old baby. Um, this was really important to me. I wanted them to continue getting value. Even if it was not for me. And I'm lucky enough to be part of a bunch of different communities. And it was not hard to find some incredible guys experts to come in. I know they're being fully supported when I'm offline and of course they have copy reviews, so they don't have necessarily strategy reviews for me. But like I said, Jen is a very amazing strategist. And the people I've asked her why and get copy reviews from Jen. On a regular basis, they can still get that support even while I'm out. Okay. So that is serving my clients. Then we have nurturing my audience, right? Okay. So now we have nurturing my audience. We have this podcast. I did take a little break, because I recorded a few before I had the baby. I'm recording a couple after. And basically I'll be pulling pieces from this podcast and turning it into content. It's not going to be it's going to be that kind of my primary content that I'll be greeting with a couple of, maybe two or three posts a week. Potentially for other things and I'll be just sharing just my thoughts and feelings. While I'm on maternity leave. As my social content. When it comes to email, I have a plan for three emails a week minimum. So depending on again, what I'm selling and what's going on. So there will be a sales email on Mondays that will have a modified CMC, my co CEO mom, confidential newsletter on Tuesdays. So I'm not going to have exactly the same segments that I did. Before, because I don't want to reuse it exactly. I don't want to repurpose it exactly the same way because some of the stuff isn't relevant and I don't have the capacity to add in all those things, things, I'm reading things, I'm watching, whatever. But I do have a lot of pieces. That will still remain the same. So we're probably going to have. Any free stuff, any new free stuff that's coming. My, that week's podcast or some sort of previous podcast episode. Any new offers that are out at this at the time or any new low ticket or high ticket offers or any opportunities to work with me. We have memes of course, cause names are always important. And any, any social media content that I want around up and be like, Hey, read this. So that's going to be like my CMC. And it might be a little bit different every week, but it's still going to be hugely valuable. And of course we have our amazing quick tips. I have so many quick tips saved up from previous CMCs and from my courses as well. So there's going to be stuff like that. Then we have a promo email on Thursdays. So I'll be talking about that a little more when it comes to growing my audience, but. Promo email, meaning anything that I am promoting for somebody else. So any summits or bundles that I am a part of is going to be happening on Thursdays. Example, and I'm going to be again, sharing this and growing my audience. I'm part of Gemma bottom Carter's AI unlocked summit. I was part of the next level of business bundle. I'm part of a few other bundles coming up. That is going to be like, like my promo day. And that's where I'm going to be sharing those things. And then again, content, like I said, I'll be doing posts as I feel like it and repurposing content for my emails and for my podcast, it's not going to be any sort of like major creation. And I'm going to be Lee, using those posts to lead towards many chatbots. Because I like, I love using those And I already have a bunch of keywords sending people to different offers. I'll be just repurposing those sequences and, using those keywords, some people to comment those keywords. When it comes to growing my audience, did a few podcasts interviews if we're going offline. So that is going to be leading people towards towards my low ticket offers or towards my free offers. And then I did primarily a bunch of collabs. I'm not going to be, I was thinking about running ads as not to run ads because I wanted to test. A couple of funnels first and see how they did. So I'm doing collab offers. So I'm part of, like I said, the next level of business bundle the AI and locked summit. I have a, another couple of bundles coming up as well, and then I'm going to be doing. Any reels that I run are going to be running towards many chatbots, they'll either be running towards low ticket paid offers. Or or towards freebies and I might just run engagement ads towards ones that are already converting walls. If I see that ones are converting well, then running engagement ads are really simple. And that does not take a lot of time or brain power because you're literally just. You're just running ads for engagement. It's not anything complicated. I did not want to have to manage ads like at a high level. During maternity leave, it just felt really exhausting to me. Content that converts well. Is going to be pushed out to more people using ads. So that is growing my audience. It's very simple. I found collapsed to be my favorite way to grow my audience. And that is still my favorite way. And it's a really great way to get people into my world. I've had my, literally at people coming into my world every single day now because of the bundles that I've been a part of, like literally every day. I don't think there's been a single day since my baby was born, that I did not have people coming into my world. Due to those bundles, either they're buying them or signing up for them and then redeeming the offers right away. Or they're reading them. You're deeming them later. But I've literally people coming into my world every single day. And that is what I want. And then there's selling to my audience. So when I say front end and backend, it was means live and automated. So again, I'm going to be sharing the actual funnels that I'm running in my maternity leave program. So I'm not gonna be going deep into this right now, but I'll give you a little overview. But right now, for example, I have my birthday sale month. So I'm doing kind of July 15th towards. Until August 15th only because I meant to do it during June. And I just was too busy having a baby. His circumcision that my sister had a baby, 10 days after me. And then she had his circumcision and my whole family's here, my sister's visiting from the states and I just didn't have the mental energy to even have my, deal with my VA running anything for me. So I'm like, you know what, I'm pushing it off for a few weeks. And I feel really good about that. So I have my birthday sale month coming up, which is, now I have my maternity leave program, which is an amazing value. I'm going to have a really nice workshop bundle. I have a mini mind coming up, then I'm going to be doing a presale for during. my birthday sale month. So keep an eye out for that. So that's that's front end stuff then of course, there's backend sales. I have a baby. Yeah. Okay. So we had the backend sales back in sales, or more personal outreach to people who I think maybe need more support or might want support after. Or people who are reaching out about about one-to-one or intensives or things like that. That's the backend stuff. And also upgrading people from one, one container to another. But then we have also the automated. So these are the backend sales that are happening without me doing anything specific. And this is stuff like I've been creating. And I created before I left and I am creating more ways people to come into my world and immediately by. And I'll be walking through all these specific funnels and my maternity leave program, but here's a little taster. So we have obviously the maternity leave private podcast. Which will lead to my maternity program and then to my September sales mini minds. So that is coming up. And the mini mind is a really great way. So if anyone is considering going on maternity and they wanted to get a nice cash injection in, this is my kind of six week process, I'll be teaching my six week process and walking through together with people. Basically my six week sales explosion method, which I teach myself as explosion masterclass, and you'll be getting mastermind level support from me. Basically, I'll be having a look at your strategy at your specific offers exactly how I'm going to be doing it. This is a really great thing to run before you go on maternity leave to get a nice little cash injection in. And as well, you, a lot of the stuff that you create during that sales explosion. Time frame, I guess would be a good word are going to enable you to create some backend and evergreen stuff happening later on. I have my maternity leave private podcast, leading maternity program. I'm going to upgrade email sequences that move people from my maternity program into other things. And I'm creating some evergreen newsletters. So I got this idea from Leanne Scott, but the truth is I've been doing kind. I've been doing kind of this method. Oh, for awhile. So basically having almost like an automated. Forever funnel, so to speak, which Jenna, Gemma, bottom Carter mentioned it. A lot of people have mentioned it. I've I actually teach it in my leverage CEO accelerator. Just having a long evergreen email sequence. That basically Is just your best content with potential PS. Calls to action to buy any of your stuff. And having evergreen value going out to your list on a regular basis. With potential upgrades either to affiliate offers that you promote or to your own offers. So there's going to be a bunch of automated ways people can buy and I'm adding more and more, and I've actually been building like, that's like my plan now is I have been very like off, relatively. Throughout this year. Between the pregnancy and between the war that's been going on and a bunch of family things have been happening and it's just been a lot. But I've been building out in the background more and more automated things. And again, I'll be sharing the details of that inside my maternity leave program as well. So that is the automated stuff. And again, like it's. The whole basic idea of this is I want people to become, to come into my world. Through multiple pathways. And make sales through multiple pathways as well. I want to open up the flow of money from as many directions as possible and have like specific kind of landing pads that I want people to end up eventually. And all of those sales pathways lead to this one. Major landing pad, if that makes sense. I'm really excited about that. And it's going to be really great and it's going to be something that builds slowly over time. It's not going to be like a, one-off like big oh, I'm, a hundred K a month or whatever, but it's definitely going to add up over time. And I'm really excited about this. And the last part is obviously the customer service, is there anything that's being sold or asked for? So I'm going to have a common list of most commonly asked questions. And Check into the, my VA every other day or so to answer any questions that aren't common. So anything that she can not solve herself. Is going to be, she can reach out to me and I'll answer her within 24 hours or so. And then she can get that out to whoever's asking the question. That's the basic behind the scenes of my maternity leave. I was interrupted at quite a few times while recording this, so it might be a little choppy. But that's CEO, mom life and I'm on maternity leave. And I wanted to. Share this now because I wasn't sure how much of it was going to work out. Like after I actually went on maternity leave. So I wanted to basically give you my basic plan. But I also wanted to be like here's, what's working. Here's what's not working. What didn't work was. I did not have as many podcast episodes batched as I wanted to before I went offline. So I'm, I am batching a few, but they're like short little Very simple podcast episodes that are just high value, quick shots of inspiration or strategy really easy stuff. And then I have one that I did batch ahead of time that are going to be coming out throughout the summer. And. A couple of interviews I've done as well. And, there's a few things that didn't, I didn't have as many automated email sequences done as I wanted to get done, but again, I'm just like leaning into this being my Slingshot my Slingshot era. So I'm pulling back to spring forward. And I'm just building a lot of things out. I'm in a much more. Soft and sustainable way. And that's or my content is coming out as well. Like I'm having my podcast content. Batch, but I'm having my social media content be more, in the moment sort of stuff. Things that I'm feeling Stuff that's been working for me. So it has been working for me what it's like being on maternity leave. And my little man is waking up right now. So I am going to be hopping off, but if you learn nothing else from this episode, I want you to remember everyone's ideal maternity leave is going to be different and I'm going to be sharing probably some more reflections, like lessons I learned from my maternity leave. So I want to know any questions you have about taking maternity leave as well. Or about postpartum. I'm also curious if you want to know my birth story. I'm, it's actually quite an exciting story. But I want to know if you're interested in sharing, if you were interested in me sharing it. Obviously my Mr. Neeley program is happening. In the fall, but you can hop in at this amazing presale price. I wanted to remind you before I hopped off. And I'm going to go feed this little guy and change his diaper. But I want to remind you that this is an incredible time to jump in. It's never going to be this price again, and it will be going up. The investment will be going up as more details are released. So this is your chance for the next week or so to jump in at this presale price before it goes up, it's going to be going up gradually throughout the summer. So this is your chance. Let me know if you have any questions about anything I shared in here, and I'm really excited. This is going to also be part of the CEO moms on maternity podcast. I'm really excited to share that let me know if you have any questions about this episode, am I to a follow up with answers to those questions as well? Have a wonderful rest of your day. It's been great to be back and I cannot wait to hear your thoughts on the CEO moms on maternity podcast. I can't thank you enough for listening to Raising Your Business. I hope this episode has inspired you to take another step towards building a business and life that you love and growing your income in a way that works for you and your family. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a second to rate and review and let's connect on Instagram. Screenshot and share it on Instagram stories so we can get the word out to more mom business owners like you. Tag me at the EL Bendahan and share your biggest breakthrough from today. See you next week.