Welcome to the Dietitian Boss Podcast. I'm Libby Rothschild, creator of Dietitian Boss. After almost four years of sitting in my dimly lit windowless clinical office, I had enough. I wanted to feel like my work mattered, so I did something about it. I created a program that empowers dieticians and nutritionist to create their own private practice from scratch following my proprietary system.
Before I did this, I had a private practice of my own while working a full-time job, and I learned a lot about building relationships, marketing and sales, and I'm so excited to be able to share my proprietary framework with you.
If you are a dietitian looking to start your private practice in 2023, I have developed a checklist for you that you can find at Dietitianboss.com. You'll see an option to grab this free checklist right on my homepage, and you'll also see it in a dropdown menu from free resources. This checklist is going to give you a step by step plan where you can cross off what you need to do next to make progress.
Now, in today's podcast episode, I wanna break down what that looks like from a high level overview, and then you can go ahead and grab my free guide if you want to write down and have a resource available for a checklist that you can tick off. And that's a great free guide for you to get started. Now the first step that I want you to take when you're looking to start your private practice.
Is to develop your business plan. Meaning what is it that you are doing? And this is often where I see dieticians who stand out from those who are more successful versus not are the ones who've taken time to think about their goals, their target market. Their services or products and their pricing, and most importantly, projected income and expenses.
There's no judgment here. Maybe you only wanna offer a course and you wanna take it easy while you are working a nine to five job, or maybe you wanna go. Full-time, but you are already taking insurance so you don't have as much time, right? I'm just coming up with some hypothetical scenarios from some of our clients.
Whatever your scenario is, you wanna start to document that into a simple business plan. Now, I have this available in, in my membership called Rebellion that you can join and in rebellion you have access to not only creating your own business plan, but my team and I will review it with you and help you customize your business.
Plan and that can help you with getting a direction in place. One of the most important parts of the business plan is deciding what you would do to measure success, would, what are the steps that you're gonna take? And that's part of when you download the free guide from my site. I actually walk you through 14 steps that you can take to reach towards what your goals might be.
A great way for you to measure progress. We'd be writing down, what is your income goal? Do you wanna make $10,000 a month? Do you wanna make $8,000 a month? Or maybe you just wanna get your first sale. Having all of this documented into a business plan is the first step in terms of starting your Dietitianprivate practice in 2023.
The next step would be making sure, I know it's a little boring, but obtaining necessary licenses and any type of insurance that you might need as a registered dietitian. So that's where you have to check with your state's regulatory board to ensure that you have your proper license and everything is ready to go to practice.
And, and that's why it's important to make sure that you're keeping up to date with scope of practice and getting licensed where you live. So you're just gonna have to do your due diligence, and that's not only true for your dietician. Your license to be a dietician, but it's also going to be true in terms of business insurance or licenses, making sure that you have coverage, to protect you, which is very cheap to get liability insurance.
So you just wanna tick off those boxes in terms of logistics to make sure that you are ready to go. That also counts for a business entity. Now, in a very recent podcast, we talked about that in depth, and we've also had our lawyer come on and talk about what business entities. Are and how you can go about choosing one and what are the resources, etc.
Now, this can depend on your state and it can be easy to obtain a business entity, but you will need to do your due diligence in terms of where you live, and it can be very affordable. It's just something you're gonna need to look at on the internet. Finally, the third piece of starting your business in 2023 would be figuring out.
How are you going to finance your business? Now, this is a topic that so many of you don't realize you struggle with. Now, of course, it can be free or low cost to start a business. You might need a contract depending on the service that you're providing, which I can offer you a as an affiliate. And I have links from our lawyer for contracts.
But in all, I mean, one of the coolest things about an online business, an online dietician, private practice, is that the overhead is very low, and you have that freedom and. Flexibility to work where you wish. With that being said, you will need, there's nominal fees for software, right? Let's say you're paying for an electronic medical record system.
Email marketing services can be free if you use a learning management platform to host your course. There are free options, so it can be really low cost to start a business. , but there's still time involved, and this is the part a lot of people don't seem to plan properly. How much time are you willing to spend and what's appropriate?
Does that match your business plan? For example, if you only have one hour a week, but your goal is to make $10,000 a months in a year, That might not be realistic. Typically, for those of you that wanna make more money, you might need to put a little bit more time and energy into the beginning to get things started, or just accept that it'll take a little longer for your business to get off the ground.
So when it comes to how are you going to finance that question is how much time are you gonna dedicate and how much are you gonna use? For spending. Are you okay to invest some money into your business? That might be through software. It also might be through a business coach. Maybe that's through working with us and Rebellion, which is a low cost option.
It's our community or membership. , or it might be through our mastermind or society flagship offer, where you have more available support, one-on-one support, exclusive support from me and my team, helping you work with you as you're making progress in your business planning. So that is a question you're gonna have to ask yourself.
What are you willing to spend? And what would that look like? The fourth step would be establishing a professional identity. And this is one of my favorite steps, right? And that is when you look at developing your presence, Your social media presence, a presence online, that can even mean a sales, a web page.
It doesn't mean you have to have a website right away, but you can develop a web page for a sales page, like on a learning management platform, for example. Teachable is free or there are low cost learning management platforms that you can use or if you're using an electronic medical record system, that's all considered your online presence and then associated marketing materials.
And so that might even mean the content that're. Creating on social media. Additionally, your name and your logo, et cetera, which I provide logo templates for you that you can use in Rebellion, our membership.
Writing a private practice requires technology. If you wanna scale and deliver a standardized experience, you will need to start using software with your private practice. And I want you to have more time to focus on the parts of your practice that feel you like. Helping more people and spending less time on administration work.
And that's why I recommend Practice Better to my clients. Inside of our Academy membership and coaching programs, practice Better is a complete practice management software for nutrition professionals like you who wanna start and scale their private practice without the burnout. Practice better helps automate your bookings, charting and invoicing, but it's way more than.
Creating protocols and treatment plans and tracking your client's progress is easier than ever. So your clients can be engaged in every step of their plan, and you can provide a high level of care without burning out. Practice better also integrates with your favorite software. So that your client data and recommendations sync securely and seamlessly.
You can import data and results easily from lab orders, fitness trackers, and even integrate practice better with your email marketing and your marketing funnels and with their programs feature, which is my personal favorite. You have everything you need to build and run an automated group, program, or me.
So that you can earn passive income, and it's pretty streamlined in one software. If you're a registered Dietitianlooking to manage your practice with ease, you can get started with any practice better. Plan for free for 14 days as an exclusive offer for our listeners here at Dietitian Boss, you can get 20% off your first four months on any paid plan when you use the promo code DietitianBoss20 at the check. It's time to say goodbye to a patchwork of software and hello to an organized efficient practice. The fifth tip would be finding a location. So that means if you are in person, you're gonna have to find an office. And if you're virtual, like most of you listening, or you wanna be virtual, you're not gonna actually find a physical location.
You're just gonna have to identify your virtual tools. So do you have a laptop you can use? When and where are you able to work on your business? So being in location independent means you have so much autonomy, but for those of you that aren't used to it, it's kind of like taking a distance class.
You're gonna have to be self-disciplined. So when I first started, I would work on my business during my nine to five when I had breaks, like my lunch break, and then I would work. At night when I got home for a certain amount of time, and that helped give me extra time and flexibility to work on my business.
So I want you, I wanna ask you where and when are you gonna work on your business and what location will you work out of? So if you're online, it just depends on your service. If you're offering online coaching, Private or group that'll be through the internet. If you're offering, let's say an ebook or you're offering a course that's going to be housed on the internet, and there are definitely different options of how you can house those digital products.
And if you're interested, I can go into depth about options in a different episode. So you're gonna have to ask yourself about. Where will your assets live on the internet? The sixth tip would be hiring staff. Now, that is not something you're gonna do right away. As you grow, as you start making money in your business, you will realize that you are gonna need help.
And I have another free guide on how you can hire your first virtual assistant. You can find that on my website at Dietitianboss.com. Now, if you're not yet ready to hire, Stick with me cuz you're gonna need to focus on the checklist that helps you get started, right? The nine steps that are gonna help you get clients consistently, but just know what to expect.
When you get to the point where you can start hiring staff, you're gonna wanna make sure you're clear with what is it that you want that person to do. Typically a good first hire is a virtual assistant and they might help you with administration. They might help you with social media posts. They might help you with running your programs or technology set up.
Or you might even have a CPAA bookkeeper help you with managing how much money you're making so that you have clear financial numbers and you can prepare appropriately for taxes. So those are the first types of hires that you might get as you're struggling to grow in your business. Business, which are really exciting hires, but for many of you can feel stressful because it's a new skill and you've never fluxed that muscle before.
The seventh tip would be to purchase any type of associated supplies. Now, for those of you that are not working in person, which are many of you listening, that would mean that you are gonna be purchasing software. And this is actually a really big topic because you're probably wondering, what software do I need?
How much does it cost? How hard is it to use? And you might be having a little bit of a panic attack because it feels overwhelming. There's already so many skills you need to learn. In terms of running a business and now you have to add software on top of that. So I wanna remind you that you can keep things simple and free when you first start.
You don't need to use an electronic medical record system, but if you are already, that's great. You can, if you do wanna use a learning management platform like Teachable or think if you can use as well, if you want to use email marketing for free, there's mail. If you wanna pay low cost, there's options like Convert kit.
So there are different technology platforms for different needs in your business, but not all of them cost money. They do cost money if you, let's say, MailChimp, I can't remember how many subscribers that you have to start paying, but there are situations where you do have to start paying that when you have a certain amount of, either users.
Or subscribers because that's an indication, for technology that they would want you to not use the free option anymore. And then Canva, which is where you can use, you can create design elements for social media and other design assets online. They have a free option with many great features without you needing to pay for an account.
So again, a lot of software that you will need for the day-to-day. Even scheduling social media posts you can use Meta for free later is free. The first two posts you schedule. Per week forever. So you can post, you can auto schedule two posts a week for later. That's eight posts a month, and you won't have to pay.
So again, lots of great options here if you're looking to do this and bootstrap it. Now if you are looking to invest and you wanna know options for what can you do to purchase low cost software, I can do an entirely new podcast episode on that specific topic. I wanna make my way down the list. We're almost there.
number eight would be networking. This is something so many of you also struggle with. So that can include attending in-person events or even virtual conferences. Joining professional organizations and getting involved and using social media and other marketing tools to promote your private practice.
So what that means is you might wanna find specific people that support other people within your, let's say, specialty. Maybe it's eating disorders, maybe it's. Gut health and you wanna develop a relationship with those people. And in developing a relationship, you might find that people that help people similar to you, they don't specialize in in the areas that you do.
Or maybe you're full and they're not. And there's some way that you can have synergy with people who help similar people or even. Different people than you. It can also lose your confidence when you find people in your community or people that are working towards similar goals as you. And that's another reason why joining a community can help foster these relationships.
And if you join Rebellion, our membership, you'll find there are other dieticians. Starting and growing their private practice that are looking to network, they're looking for community and they're looking for support. So I wanna remind you and share that you can easily find other dieticians, whether you try to connect with them online for free, or you join a paid community like ours.
There are people out there who are also growing their private practice and they're looking for connections and friends like you to support them on the. And then finally continually evaluating and improving your business. People often underestimate the challenges that come about growing a business.
There's so much involved not only with your mindset and your skills, but also with finances, with taxes, with learning your numbers, reading your financial statement. Keeping up with the trends of social media, looking at how artificial intelligence is changing the marketing tactics that you might need to employ to grow and advance your SEO tactics as you grow in business.
And there's different needs and different expectations as you grow in business from when you start to then when you start to advance and start to get clients and retain clients and maybe create multiple offers. So I wanna remind you that continually getting support. and documenting your metrics and reviewing your financials and keeping a positive mind frame if you don't have clients yet are all what's gonna give you the leg up on your ability to keep a positive mindset.
And those of you who focus on your mindset and staying positive, even if you're feeling frustrated, are better off, they're on a better path towards achieving the success that you want from the business plan that you've created. So I hope today's episode was helpful. I just walked you through nine tips.
On what you can do to start your private practice in 2023 for dieticians. If you want the full guide to supplement this ex, this episode, and you wanna tick off these steps that I've outlined for you to actually take action on these nine steps, I want you to head over to Dietitianboss.com and grab my free guide.
It's on my homepage and it's titled The Free Checklist. Nine Steps to Start Your Dietitian Private Practice. If you're looking for support to start, grow, and scale your Dietitian Private Practice, I wanna invite you to work with me and my team. We have a few different options. Head over to Dietitianboss.com and apply to have a conversation with somebody from our sales team.
To discuss your options for your budget and stage of business, head over to Dietitianboss.com and we look forward to connect.
