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 dietitians and nutritionists to create their own private practice from scratch following my proprietary.
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.
Today's episode is a special one. We're gonna be talking about assertive communication. And how to communicate a assertively as a Dietitian, and the benefits are enormous, including increased confidence and potential to [00:01:00] earn more money when you identify and practice assertive communication. So as a Dietitian, effective communication is a key component of your success, and you need to be able to communicate effectively with your clients.
Your colleagues, other healthcare practitioners and professionals in order to achieve positive outcomes, right, for your clients and to build a successful private practice and a brand that people can recognize, recommend, and refer to, and one of the most important skills. The most important life skill is to develop effective communication habits, also known as assertiveness, assertive communication.
Assertiveness is the ability to express your opinions, feelings, and needs in a competent and respectful manner. And I wanna share five tips for communicating a assertively as a Dietitian. Firstly, I wanna share that today's episode is sponsored by Practice Better. So if [00:02:00] you're a registered Dietitian, Looking to manage your private practice with ease, and I want you to get started with a Practice Better Plan for free for 14 days and as an exclusive offer for our listeners.
You can get 20% off for your first four months at any paid plan when you use the promo code. DIETITIANBOSS20 at checkout. Well, back to assertive communication. The first thing you wanna do is know your audience. So before you start communi. It's important for you to understand who your audience is and consider their needs, wants, and perspectives, and this will help you tailor your communication in a way that resonates with them and gets your message across more effectively.
So I remember when I was practicing assertive of communication as a nutrition consultant. I was, had to do a negotiation, but they wanted to pay me a certain rate, you know, thousands of dollars [00:03:00] for presentation. And I negotiated up and I was able to understand who I was talking to, understand the budget they were working.
To understand what would be professional, but also support both of us. So I knew who I was talking to when I had the conversation about my rates as a nutrition consultant, so I hope you can reflect and think that it's not just. Oh one and done. One size fits all tactic. When it comes to communication, you really do want to be mindful and respectful of who your audience is.
And if you're dealing with or you're working with brand sponsorships, it might be different than if you're working with, let's say an organization, you're working with your clinical manager, or you're working with a particular type of clientele. Maybe you're working with eating disordered clients versus you're working with a disease state mid, let's say diabetes.
So I want you to think. About how you can tailor your style to match your audience, that's gonna make you a really effective communicator.[00:04:00]
Running 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 fuel you like helping more people and spending less time on administration.
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. [00:05:00] 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 Dietitian looking 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 checkout. It's time to say goodbye to a patchwork of software and hello to an organized, efficient practice. [00:06:00] The next tip is I want you to be clear and concise. When you're communicating. It's important to be clear and concise. Be sure to state your message in a straightforward manner and avoid any confusion.
Now, believe it or not, this is a really hard part about communication. I think many of us, especially Dietitians, wanna take a really long, and I struggle with this too, wanna take a really long time to explain something. But really the most effective educators are the ones who can be very succinct. And it's a skill, just like selling.
It becomes easier and more natural the more you think about it and the more that you do it. And of course, the more that you know who your audience is, like who are you talking to? So you wanna avoid any jargon or ambi. in your communication, and you also wanna avoid any misunderstandings because if there are misunderstandings, that's the fastest way to [00:07:00] confuse somebody and confuse people.
Don't feel like you're communicating in a very collaborative or effective way. So you never wanna confuse somebody and it's just something to think about in terms of nutrition and education. Is your a little bit too high level? Are you getting feedback? Are you meeting someone where they're. . So think about being clear and concise as a communicator.
You also wanna use I statements. So I statements are powerful as a tool for assertive communication and instead of blaming or accusing others, which can feel really easy to do, sometimes you wanna use I statements. To express your own thoughts and feelings. For example, instead of saying you are wrong, right?
Maybe someone's says something about nutrition and, and you're like, Nope, that's not true, cuz you're so annoyed. You wanna say, I see things differently, right? You wanna frame it in the context of I, this is gonna help you maintain a respectful and [00:08:00] constructive dialogue and it'll help you be respected.
it'll help you really develop better relationships. So I want you to think about the last time that you blamed someone versus saying how you saw things. And it can be a tactic that you can implement sooner than later. And I, I practice that a lot with my team. I try to use I statements as much as possible, and it's, it's a habit I've had to build.
The next tactic would be to stay calm and confident. Assertiveness requires confide. And calmness, speak in a steady and controlled tone and avoid raising your voice or any aggressive behavior. Aggressive would mean yelling, and that's not assertive. Assertive would be calm and composed and confident, so you don't wanna kind of, you know, tow that line between assertive and aggress.
Which can be easy to do, right? It just takes a little bit of practice and it's gonna help you communicate a [00:09:00] assertively without appearing aggressive or confrontational. Sometimes people that practice assertiveness can be seen as aggressive because they're standing up for themselves, especially women.
Unfortunately, that's a negative stereotype that women have in terms of us standing up for what we want or negotiating. So it's, it's just something to really be aware of and reflect on. The next tip would be to listen actively. . Finally, it's important to listen actively when communicating, and that's part of motivational interviewing, right?
Practicing active listening. That's good counseling tactics and skills, but you wanna pay attention to what the other person is saying and respond in a way that shows that you understand their perspective. And this is gonna help you maintain a respectful and productive dialogue and avoid any conflict.
in conclusion. Communicating a assertively is a key skill for success, especially as a Dietitian and by [00:10:00] understanding your audience in any given scenario, right? Maybe you're talking to your staff or you're talking to you're interdisciplinary team, and that might be different than when you are talking to clients.
In a clinical in a private practice setting, you wanna be clear and concise, use eye statements, stay calm and confident under. And listen actively and attentively, and you can effectively communicate your ideas and opinions and needs and build strong relationships with your clients, colleagues, and other healthcare professionals.
The moment that you start to pay attention to some of these tactics that I shared today. So I hope that you learned something new in terms. Communicating assertively and why it's so important to do so as a registered Dietitian. Whether you are in a clinical job or you are working private practice part or full-time.
If you're looking for support to start, grow, and scale your Dietitian private practice, I wanna invite you to work with me [00:11:00] 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.
