Ep 38 | Stocking Your Consult Bag

Annie: The episode you're about to hear was recorded prior to the COVID 19 pandemic and subsequent shutdowns on in person services and businesses. We really had such a good time recording this episode, so we wanted to find a way to get it out there to you. So just know that not everything here It applies to what's happening now. Take what works, leave the rest. And thanks as always for your support.

Leah: Hi there, Annie.

Annie: Hey Leah. How's it going?

Leah: Going well, going well. I'm excited for our talk today. We're talking about stocking your consult bag, which is just a fun topic because I know we all kind of do things a little differently. I'm excited to hear how you do things and talk about what we've learned over the years of doing what we do, you know? So I'm excited.

Annie: Yeah, I'm super excited. Um, my bag is like the bane of my existence and the most important thing that I own. So I'll be happy to hear what's in your bag and maybe I can get some things out of my bag, but more likely than not, I'll end up with some more things in my bag.

Leah: I know. I'm always in this like purge, then add, purge, then add. So it is, it is always ever evolving thing, right? But before we start today, maybe this will help you, Annie. My motivation or tip today is going to be taking a minute and slowing down for just little mini breaks throughout your day and your life. I think, and I'm speaking to myself here, I think sometimes we get so busy and hustle and bustle and just go, go, go, go, go. And especially if you're an entrepreneur, I think the entrepreneur spirit just has this. It's like way to just take over and we feel like there's always this driving force behind us. But what I have found really helpful and what I encourage you to do is to just take little mini breaks throughout your day to just kind of reset and helps with your mindset. Definitely helps with energy. I found this to be super helpful with energy, but it might just be right before you go into consult, you just sit in your car and just. Take five counted breaths, or you're having a few extra minutes between visits and you take a walk around a local park on your way to a visit, or you stop and just take some nice, quiet, not rushed sips of your drink of water or the food that you're eating. Just these moments to just take us out of stress and push mode, bring us into more harmony. And I think it helps us show up for. Our clients, our families, and most importantly, show up for ourselves, feeding back all this that we're always giving back out, you know? So I think it's just, it's an important reminder, like to slow down, fill your cup too, and it doesn't have to be like, Oh, I need a, a complete spa day with a pedicure and two hour massage. Although. Sign me up for that. But, you know, it doesn't have to be carving out this big giant amount of time. It can really and truly be these like little mini, mini breaks, just bringing you back in to the present moment and, and how you can best serve yourself and others.

Annie: I need to do more of that. I find it really hard to do that. It's funny cause I have the Apple watch and it's got the breathe. Oh yeah. Like buzzes my arm and tells me to breathe. And I was on vacation last summer and like it buzzed and I was like, my watch keeps telling me to breathe. And every time it tells me to breathe, I'm just like, ah, stop telling me to breathe. Making me more stressed out. And my husband thought that was hilarious because like only you can like find. The idea of breathing to be like more than you can manage right now. And then we were recently watching, um, the Netflix series cheer, which, oh yeah, super fun. We watched it with the kids. There was some like stuff that was a little bit above them, but it was like such a great show.And at one point the coach, the cheer coach, who was like, I would just kept saying like, this woman is like really inspiring to me. And then at one point she's like, Oh, my watch is telling me to breathe. And she like ignored her watch to breathe. And I was like, you're like, I feel you. But I, I know that when I do take the time. to take a break and just be still. And when I make myself do it, it feeds on itself. Like, the more I make myself do it, the more I want to do it. And so I think, you know, being mindful, obviously my watch isn't helping me, but I'm sure I could come up with another way. I like the idea of just like, even just arriving a few minutes early for a consult and even just sitting in the car or It's getting out and stretching. Like there's a lot of things that we can be doing just in those little pockets of time. So thank you for that reminder.

Leah: Oh, I hope it helps everyone. Just remember how important you are and we have to give to ourselves so that we can give to others. So let's keep doing that so we can keep being awesome. All right. Let's talk consult bags, Annie. What, what do you want to say first about your consult bag? What's, where do we even want to start with this? It is so heavy.

Annie: And I have spent a lot of money on bags. Yeah, I've tried different bags. It has got to go on my back. I need to have it on my back. I need to have one hand free for my phone and the other hand free to hold my beverage. And I do not want to be, I've tried the roller bag that I drag behind me. That just like trips me. me. I am not coordinated enough for that. I've tried like a backpack and like the, I had the Marsden scale for a while and it comes with a little rucksack. And I was like, that's my backpack. And I'll just like put everything in there. And then I had another bag that I hung over my arm and I was like, Oh, this bag that I hang over my arm. I hate it. My arm is tired. I don't want anything hanging on my arms. So there, if you go into the paperless private practice group. One of our members posted a video about a backpack that's actually a softball backpack. And she posts that video. I, she gets full credit for discovering this bag. I bought that bag. I love that bag. The Tanita scale does fit inside. Like she told me it would, I put everything else in there. It, everything is on my back. It's giant. I look ridiculous. That it works. And I, and it makes for a good joke, like with my clients will sometimes be like, that is a great bag. And I'll be like, I know it's a softball bag. It even has hooks in case I ever need to hang it on a chain link fence. And that's like one of my go to like patter things that I do to try to, cause I try to make my clients laugh. And that one actually lands a lot of the time. What is, what bag do you use? So for free.

Leah: So you can for I think where you live and how you move around for your consults makes a big difference on the bags that you have because I'm most of the time I'm just driving into somebody's driveway and taking my bags from my car to their house. That's generally how most of my visits are. So I don't have like a backpack or anything. I carry a little tote that Like when you open it up, it has all these little pockets on the inside, and I really enjoyed that. Before that, for literally, I think like six years, and I don't know how this bag survived six years, but I had this really cute like mini overnight bag that was on wheels, like a piece of luggage that was purple, because that's my thing. That's totally the reason I bought it, but that actually was a great purchase. I loved that bag so much. I was so, so sad when it finally died and I, like, used it until it was falling apart and I was like, oh, I probably can't use this anymore because something's going to fall out of it. And I actually liked that one better because I felt like things were a little bit easier to grab than the bag that I have right now. But I do like the bag I have right now because it does, like, open up nice and wide and then I have all this, like, pockets that I can organize things in. So I do, I do like an aspect of it, but I'm always in the search for like the perfect bag and like you, I've tried different things and trying to see like, is there a better bag out there? I'm always like spending money on different bags. So now I have like all this, like. Luggagey kind of bags. And my husband's like, can we clean out some of these bags? I'm like, no, because it might someday be a console bag. So we're keeping them all. And I get in trouble for that. And we're always trying to like find places that we're going to store these bags that I have that I won't let go because they may be a console bag someday may turn into the perfect console bag.

Annie: I mean, I, I think you're, if you're anything like me, you have definitely had like an afternoon at home where you empty out the entire contents of your bag on the floor. And then either repack it or test it in a new bag. Like I, like when you said like you have a tote with the pockets on the inside, that just like calls to my heart on such a deep level because that's what I want. But like, I cannot, I can't carry it. I just want like, you just like open it up and there's like everything aligned around the edges. Yes, that's exactly how it is. And I bet it looks so cute. You've got to post a picture. We have the picture of the inside of your bag because I aspire to that. That's so cute. That's, that's one of my dreams, but not realistic when you live in New York.

Leah: No, I think that makes it so much harder. And so when you're thinking about your bag, I think there's a lot of things you have to consider. So one is I don't have to overstock my bag because I do have a big giant tote that sits in my car that has like a lot of the bulkier supplies that I might need. So I will have one of everything I need or maybe two, but then I can run out literally to my car almost in every instance. pretty quickly. And then the other thing is like, how much walking around are you gonna have to do? Because then you can't, you both have to have a bag that works really well for walking long distances, but then you also can't like overstock it, you know? So then you're like, have to be thinking, I gotta restock this bag. at least check that once I use a supply and I need to put it back in there, like put a new one in there. It's a lot to think about. So how are you with all those things to think about or have you thought about ways to kind of organize yourself so that you could decide what is going to go in my bag? How am I going to keep that in check? How am I going to restock? Where have you started with that?

Annie: I mean, I do know that if I. The minute that I see that something is running low, then I, or I reorder right away rather than like, wait till it gets a little lower. Does this come on prime? I need it. Cause I mean, I did. I think I talked about this in a recent episode, like opening my bag and seeing like. I don't have any gloves in here. And so like my, because what I said I'm supposed to do is I buy two boxes of gloves at a time. Whenever I restock one goes in the bag and one goes in my car. And once the one in my car goes into my bag, I buy two more. So like, it's like a system, it's a system, it's a flow. The gloves flow through the various levels of things and get where they need to go. I also, my problem is actually. When I do clean out my bag, I'm like, I completely forgot that I own this thing.

Leah: It's like remembering what you actually have available to you.

Annie: Yeah. Cause I mean, I, I do the thing where I'm like, I go to a training and then I buy all the things from the training and they all go in my bag. And then I was like, I totally forgot about the Z Vibe that I bought, but I wish I'd remembered. I had that cause I could have really used it with my client today.

Leah: So I think it is like you making a list could be really helpful just to kind of. This could be, um, if you listened a few episodes back, we talked about policies and procedures. So one of the things we have on our policies and procedures is a list of kind of like what you have to have in your bag. So because we have more than one consultant, and I think this is good, even if it was just you to just have a list. It's like this is what I'm going to put in my bag and this is how many I'm going to have on hand of any particular item because you know, okay, that would take longer to get to me. So I need to make sure I always have three on hand before I reorder, whatever. That has been really helpful for us.

Annie: And I would totally pay you a million dollars to invent me the smart bag, , internet of Things as you take it out, then yeah, as I take it out, it restocks it. So just FYI, if you, I'm working on it, . You can make this like, just, I will like, you know, sign over my retirement fund to have that bag that will tell me when I've run out of things. And remind me, like during a consult, don't forget Annie. You have this little textured ball that you bought after going to Susan Howard's bottle battles training. We're coming really handy right now. If you only remember it was in your bag.

Leah: That is awesome. Okay. I'm going to work on that. I'm going to get my developers right on that. We're going to get that out stat situation, but until then we might have to depend on the good old list of items and a process for restocking. I love your process with the. Kind of like one goes in, then another one, then you order. I like that process. We, because we're multiples of us, have like a reminder on our calendar, and it's a certain day of the month, and the admin just kind of texts everybody and says, Does anybody need anything? Is there anything you're running low on? I actually house all the things and then distribute as needed. And there's some things that they are kind of like responsible for themselves, but then some things that, that we use. So we just do like a check in and they have a list and they can just kind of let us know if there's anything that's needed from that list and. Just having it as a reminder is so helpful because it's definitely not top on my list until the thing is not there and then I'm like, So having it as just a set thing in my phone that and then we get a text.

Annie: It's so nice to have that as a reminder so when you're placing these orders, you have to think of the different categories that these items are going to go in. So first of all, there's the larger cost items that you know, are like just for you to use. So that would be something like your scale, but it also might be your baby doll that your demo, your demo breast, and even things like I keep a disassembled lactate breast supplementer in my bag so I can show people how to use it. But that thing is too. Pricey for me to just give it away. So I have it like this is just my demo one because when you are giving things to clients using things in a consult, you have a business decision to make. Are you going to sell this or are you going to give it away? And if you are thinking about selling supplies, so carrying around at breast supplementers or nipple shields, or that's another thing, I just give those away. You have to kind of decide you have to first of all, find your state. Laws about taxes. Do you have to charge sales tax in your state in the U. S. Or what applies to retail? Do you have? Are there any certificates that you have to file? Is there anything legally that you need to have in place in order to be able to accept money for products that you're providing to your clients? So maybe it's just better to just give it away. And then it becomes a price break thing. It's like I'll give away everything. a nipple shield that was, you know, under 10. I buy them in bulk. So, um, I always forget what the per, it doesn't matter like what the pure per unit price is. I don't care. I'm giving, if you need it, I'm going to give you one, but a lactate at breast supplement or that retails at like 70. I don't really want to eat that. And I do not have the time or the interest to find out how I'm going to sell it to you. And that is why you can get it delivered to you. You can order it online, go up, maybe even depending on where you live, go out and buy it, you know, maybe find out who locally sells them. If that's the thing. So you do have to make that decision. Is it a business expense or is it something that you're selling? And if you're selling it, you need to be following the law about it. And then they're just like the It's consumable, like your gloves, your exam gloves that you're using, or wipes to clean your screen.

Leah: And just be thinking about if you are going to be selling, just you want to think about a system to keep track of all of that early on. We early on, we did more sales and then I was like, Oh gosh, this is like way too much to think about. And all the sales tax and having to file every year, it was just like a lot. So we moved to not doing. Any sales, but when we did, we really had to have a good process for it and a good system to make sure that we were tracking everything appropriately, because then you have to like in our state, you have to, you know, file a report of that. And so it is definitely some extra considerations there. And then I think you have to really be mindful of just any ethical concerns. So if somebody is like, Hey, I. Develop this super amazing, awesome thing, and I'm going to give you a hundred of them, and then you can just give them away to your clients. Uh, could really be a conflict of interest there because now you're going to be showing favoritism and maybe influencing that purchase. Which is definitely not something that we want to get involved with.

Annie: And that's, I would refer everyone to legal and ethical issues for the IBCLC Elizabeth Brooks has a chapter all about what happens to you when you take something free from someone and you may feel like, well, I'll take. You know, I'll take 15 breast pumps from 15 different companies, but you're still influenced by the fact that they gave you something for free. So the ethical position is. pay for it. And you can pay wholesale for it. Nobody's saying you have to go pay retail at the highest bidder from the highest possible seller, but you should pay something for it. Then you're going to decide, do I want to give this away? Do I actually want to, you know, recommend it there, you know, taking free samples of, you know, things like, you know, nipple butters and herbs. And, you know, it feels. easy. Like, I'll just give this to my client, but there is always a relationship attached to that. There's a reason that they spent money to give that to you for free. I used to do yet another one of Annie's random jobs that she did. I used to do product placement, so I would be working on a movie and it was my job to call the cosmetic companies and the hair care lines and like furniture companies and like, you name it, clothing lines and say, here's the movie. Here's the star. Do you want to give us any free stuff? And they would send it because they knew that if we got it for free, we were more likely to use it. And then they would send the cosmetic companies would send extra and they would say, you know, can you just give this to the star? Just like put it on like in front of her, because if she picks it up and uses it and it was free, and then she'll be like, Oh, I'm going to go talk about this to allure magazine or whatever. It was insane. I'm the amount of free things that people wanted to get to us. And I can only imagine it's even worse now. Cause this is pre Instagram and pre influencer culture. This was really about like, they were trying to get products like on the TV show or in the movie. And then. in the stars hand so that they might talk about it and use it during a photo shoot for a magazine. Wow. So that, that association is so real and we like to think that we're not influenced by that, those kinds of things, but we are just assume that you are. And put steps in place to, to prevent it from happening and really keep yourself free of that conflict of interest.

Leah: Definitely. I think that's a huge consideration. And I think the other thing that you might be thinking about when you're thinking of stocking your bag is like, are you going to, maybe if you have an office, are you going to have like retail in your office, but then be out in the world? And like, are you going to be Toting those things with you and like selling other things. Are you renting things? So those things need to be considered to travel with you. So if you like have pump and scale rentals, but you do home visits, like, are those going to be in your vehicle kind of waiting on you? There's so many things to consider with that. That sounds like really overwhelming.

Annie: Just kind of describing it. It is. Or like, if you have a website, you might say, I don't actually want to carry all this stuff and sell it, but boy, I'd love to have a page on my website that lists all these products. that people can buy and that I can get affiliate income from that. And you really, if you, you could do that, but you need to be disclosing to the client that you're getting affiliate income. And you also need to say, you don't have to use my link to get it. Here's also just, you can go get it yourself or provide them with options. You can get into some kind of like gray area with affiliate stuff a clinical relationship in a way that is, you know, the most of our society for business or culture for business owners is pushing people towards these affiliate relationships for passive income. But there are ethical considerations that we need to make as clinicians around this stuff, because Our ability to make passive income might be harmful to our clients health outcomes.

Leah: There's just a lot to consider when you're, when you're looking further like that. And yeah, just go back to Elizabeth Brooks book and, and review so that you make sure you're making the best choices for yourself and, and the most. ethical and legal considerations are in place. So this has been so fun and we definitely need to go through, I know we've had a podcast before about like what is physically in our bags, but this was more about like making sure your bag stays stocked and how you're going to keep that more organized. And I hope we gave you guys some tips there that you can utilize. But as we wrap up here today, Annie, what is your tech tip?

Annie: So my tech tip today is going to give you some breathing room in your life because you can use the vacation responder on your email program to give your new clients scheduling information. So setting up an auto responder so that when somebody emails you, they get, thank you for contacting me. If you want to book online, here's the link. Here's when I respond to new emails or you can expect a response by the end of the day and just kind of like, so you're not feeling like, Oh no, somebody emails me. I have to get back to them right away to tell them how to schedule, especially when you're available. And that can add to that frantic feeling that Leo was talking about at the top of the episode with her motivation. So by knowing that that is taking care of automatically, that can really help. And I actually have mine set up. I have two different email addresses. So I have my public email addresses. Hello, it's city lactation dot com. And I actually Don't check that. That one is not on my phone, so I actually can't see that one on my phone. It's for new appointment inquiries. Once somebody becomes my client, they get my non public email address, which is just Annie at city lactation dot com.So sorry, which is now public, but at least I know that that that auto response is handling the top. Here's how you book an appointment with me and everything else can wait.

Leah: Yeah. Yeah. I love that tech tip and it's such a good reminder to help set expectations that, you know, we respond in 24 hours or here's how you can book appointments. I love it. That is super helpful. Well, it's been fun talking about our bags today and definitely a topic I would love for you guys to engage with us and let us know what. How you're stocking your bag, what considerations have you had? Um, what things are you thinking about when you're considering purchasing or giving away all these things. We'd love to have you guys give us some feedback there on what you're doing because we're always learning and growing together. And Annie, it's been great chatting with you today.

Annie: It's been great talking with you till next time. All right. Bye.