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 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. Hello and welcome. I am so excited here to be joined with Jennifer McGurk.
She is a registered dietitian and she's the founder and CEO of Pursuing Private Practice. Jennifer has been on the podcast before, but it's been a while. She began her career in business as a private practice dietitian and she Her private practice into a group practice and eventually expanded into speaking, offering workshops and supervising other professionals.
She started pursuing private practice to address the demand for business education and coaching within the professional community, Jennifer's passion and determination to empower other business. Owners has helped hundreds of clients in business school and the expand business coaching program. Pursuing private practice is a top rated business podcast.
Jennifer's mission is to encourage others to take up space in business. I love that. Welcome to today's episode, Jennifer. Thank you, Libby. It really has been forever since I've been on the show. I think I was on when you were just getting started. So it's been really cool to watch your trajectory of just building dietitian boss.
So thank you again for having me on. I appreciate that. And likewise, so really happy to connect with you. I was lucky to get some time to chat with you before we press record, which was always a pleasure. And what caught my attention specifically recently with you is that you posted something on Facebook that was really Contributing to a great conversation about the future of dietetics, private practice, and I thought it was such an interesting conversation.
So did other people. There's a lot of comments and engagement on this thread. So I had said, Hey, Jennifer, would you be open to having this conversation on the podcast so we can share with a larger audience? So that's what brought us to today's conversation. We're going to go over a few bullet points from that post, particularly anything you want to add to that or anything else before we get started.
Yes, well, I posted this right before I went to fancy this year, which is the largest dietician conference. As you know, as many of your listeners probably know. So the reason why I posted it because I is because I wanted to get the conversation going before fancy and how. Figure out how I could further this conversation when I was there.
So I have some updates after going to fancy, which I think is wonderful to add to this conversation. And we'll see, like, we'll see. I think the biggest thing with this post, the state of private practice is that. We're not 100 percent sure where private practice in the field of private practice and dietetics is going.
And there are so many different options that we can do like as dietician professionals. I love inspiring people to start their own business because it gives you so many choices. It gives you many opportunities and private practice is an amazing opportunity. And at the same time, it can be just the beginning of you starting your own business and taking it even farther than what you imagined.
So I'm so excited to have this conversation. And as am I, and I really appreciate that just because of timing. Well, I think I'd reached out to you right before Fancy cause you posted this before Fancy. But it's nice to be able to add in any tidbits from Fancy since that's such an incredible opportunity.
I hadn't, I hadn't been able to go in the last couple of years, but I'm glad that you can add that to this. To this conversation today. So I want to kick off, I made some notes, actually, not notes. I actually took your post and put it into a task for today's episode. So I wanted to have the accurate context to what we're talking about.
And on some of these topics, we might hit them lightly. We're just going to organically flow in this conversation and get some of your opinions and thoughts about it. I think you. The listeners, I think you're really going to enjoy this because these are some really good topics that I think we all need to think about as practitioners.
Whether we've gotten started, we are started in business or we're further along because understanding the state of private practice in this economy and in our industry is really important. This is stuff we have to keep abreast of as, as professionals. So many professionals still want to go into private practice, but they are fearful.
Right, we already people were already fearful because we weren't told in school and we might not have standardized education and it feels. It's difficult to master clinical and business skills simultaneously and in today's economic environment. And so what you're saying is that you think that there's a lot more part time hustle, private practices, because professionals don't want to take the risk of leaving their full time job.
Is there anything more you want to add to that observation? I agree. I, yeah, I, what you said was so beautiful and so accurate in my opinion to people were already scared in a great economy. And now in a economy, people are even more nervous to start their own thing and to grow it full time because being a business owner is a risk.
And I think that that's something that I know I don't give myself enough credit for. I don't know if you feel the same way, Libby, but like being a business owner, growing a scalable business is a risk and you put yourself out there. And at the same time, big risk, big reward. Sometimes things don't work.
And I feel like we yeah. Are so scared as a profession to be a business owner period and now even more. So with the economy and people talking about scary things in the world, people are even more anxious around it. And it is a little bit riskier in a bad economy. Do we know Jennifer in terms of, let's say, 2008 or any other economic hardship?
Times in the past, I guess we don't have stats with dietitians, but in general, is there any observations to know if there's trends? Oh, I don't know. That's I feel like you are so good Libby with research and stats and things like that. I don't know. That's a really good point though. I'm going to try to find that out because I can only go off of that.
And of course, observation is a combination of ways that try to understand this on a deeper level, but even just starting the conversation. Yeah, being the listeners that if they're feeling and experiencing fear, they're not alone. But on the contrary, this could also be a great time for people to get started because good things do come out of economic hardships and it could be a great motivation.
I've read before the reasons people become an entrepreneur and out of force and necessity is one of the reasons it's not the sexist reason, right? Becoming your own boss. Feeling empowered and having flexible schedule. Those are all the fun reasons. But sometimes we have to pay the bills. We don't have a choice.
There's not another option. Another thing that I do want to say to like with the trauma and the stress of the economy the recession with all the stuff going on in the world. We are creating more trauma for humans in general. They are going to have a messed up relationship with food. Talking to dietitians, please know that eating disorders are going to rise.
People are going to have multiple health conditions. That nutrition really does make a difference. It's important for dietitians to realize that they have so much value in providing that care for our clients. And more clients are going to need our support because of everything happening up in the world right now.
They might not necessarily like clients might not necessarily decide that they need support tomorrow in a time of stress and chaos, but things only get worse. Like health only gets worse in these stressful times and they will need support eventually. Yeah, I'm really glad that you added that perspective because I think that can empower the listeners if they're feeling distraught, like just to remind everybody there isn't demand, there is a need people, you know, if we were serving people, we're here to serve our clients and our communities and they absolutely need us through various health outcomes, especially like you're saying the ones you're mentioning and their relationship.
Food because everybody's upset and it also requires extra training for us professionals to make sure that we're being mindful and we're practicing our behavior, change, modification, motivational, interviewing, empathy, skills, all of that during these for ourselves, self care, which I know you love teaching, but also in terms of being sensitive with our clients.
Yes, absolutely. And our peers, I just want to put that out there. Yes, we are humans too. Business owners are humans too. Also struggling. And I feel like sometimes we forget that as well. You also mentioned in your post that taking insurance is more important in today's world. I believe that is. In parallel with what the Academy says, the Academy pushes for insurance as well.
I don't want to quote what they say, but I believe it's part of their vision to promote more dietitians to accept insurance. But we also believe that maybe the consumer market doesn't have extra money to spend right now. And doctors and other professionals are getting pushback about referrals. So if they're not a network, so what are your any kind of additional thoughts on that insurance?
My main world, so I don't know as much about this topic than you do. Yeah, so it's very interesting. I feel like there are two things that are going on at the same time that are opposite and yet very much true. I think taking insurance is really important because consumers don't have extra hundreds, thousands of dollars right now to spend on private pay providers.
And at the same time, I hate like with a passion, the enmeshment that providers have with insurance companies, because insurance companies do clawbacks all the time. They take, which means that they take money back out of people's accounts. If they wrongfully bill, they lower rates. They do not necessarily provide raises for health care providers.
They pay really horribly sometimes. And sometimes they do pay well. And I don't want to say that this is all insurance companies because it's not true. But a lot of insurance companies pay a third or a half of what you could receive as a private pay professional. And you have to do so much more work.
Billing the insurance company, following up with insurance companies on the phone with insurance companies, figuring out the process and the systems of the insurance stuff. So both are true at the same time. I feel like you it's more important that you take insurance because the market is demanding it.
And at the same time. The investment is just notorious and I hate it so much that we have to rely on insurance companies making decisions for us to be in business. I guess the question would be, and this is, I believe under the umbrella of private practice, but I can speak for myself and I've been a dietitian for gosh, I don't know how many years now, a lot.
But back in school, there was no formal process or here you should take insurance and get your MPI. Like that wasn't taught. It was all about, you have to get a clinical job first. Has that changed at all? Because how are we expecting, especially in this economy for dieticians who are newer to understand that this revenue stream, in addition to possibly others could be helpful.
How, what are we doing to advocate for that? Besides just saying it's part of the Academy's vision. Yeah, that's a really good question. I don't think we're doing a lot to advocate. I don't exactly know what we are doing because I am not necessarily in the insurance world either. I believe the Academy is working on figuring out ways that it could be easier for dietitians to get like.
Compact licensure, which will carry over into the insurance contracts and things like that, because right now insurance companies contract with individual providers. Hopefully they can start to contract with more groups more. I should say like more seamlessly because right now it is harder to add people and things like that, but.
I think hopefully, fingers crossed, we're moving towards better systems, more care for clients, and not necessarily letting the insurance companies dictate what happens. And at the same time, I don't think we're there. I don't think we're close to being there yet. Yeah, moving in that direction. But I know there was a webinar several months back from the academy that everyone was super excited about.
And I compact licensure. That's what nurses do. That's what physicians do. And I love that they're pushing for dietitians to do that. That's one piece that's making your piece easier, but we still have to think about all the steps to help make insurance. If we do believe and want it to be accessible for practitioners, for dietitians, the question would be like, what, what are we doing on a local, smaller scale to get folks interested.
And then that's a whole other podcast topic, but I'm just putting it out there for food for thought, but thank you for your thoughts on that. And I have changed my tune. I mean, I know I used to poo poo insurance and I've talked about this openly. I think that in looking at my mission and vision here at Dietitian Boss, I just want dietitians to have the skills and create impact.
And if that means they use insurance as well as cash pay, great. No option is perfect, right? Insurance has frustration and so does cash. Right. But I, I can't. Yes. Insurance. I did. Oh my gosh. Thank you for saying that too, because that, that is actually the number one thing that should be bolded and very, very big.
Like insurance has pros and cons. There's no right answer. And that's the thing that I really get frustrated with when I see very polarizing things in the insurance world. It's like insurance sucks. Insurance is amazing. Like there are pros and cons to insurance. And I think you are going to have to give resources to your business when you're starting out.
So if you want to give. Time and branding and networking and really gaining the skills that you need in order to be an expert in a specific area, you might not have to take insurance because you could get enough clients in your practice that you don't need to take insurance. But if you want to put the resources into getting credentialed and figuring out systems for billing, you can easily and I just want to say more easily gain a lot more clients and a quicker amount of time taking insurance because there's less barriers to access your business.
Absolutely. And I, I just want the listeners to know that, you know, you could, you could do both. Yeah. And you could do absolutely do both. Yes. Yeah. A lot, you know, a lot of dietitians that are successful, they'll toggle and they can make those decisions and create their own path. I think that the part that's challenging, let me know if you agree, Jennifer is just making that decision fatigue.
What panel should I take? Should I take insurance? Should I hire another dietitian? Is it a contractor or an employee at which again, the law dictates, to be honest. earlier opinion, and then there's the other revenue streams that you offer. So, I mean, that's a whole different topic, but I do just want the listeners to know that there are a multitude of options.
My question is just about what we're doing, what's been happening to make this more accessible for newer clinicians in general, dieticians. And I don't know that answer. I can look it up, but it's, I do know a compact licensure is, is out there. That's good. That's a larger scale initiative. I'm talking more maybe at a local level, but I'll do some homework on that.
So moving on to some of your other points and so far, this, this is all really, really great. I think this is helpful for dietitians to listen to. We're going to publish this episode really soon. So before the end of the year, they'll get to hear these, these thoughts that you've had in our conversation. So insurance companies, you had said that they're, they're not here to support small business owners or care about their clients.
They want to make a profit. I mean, it's hard to read that, but like, I'm going to let you add some more context. I hate that so many professionals have to rely on insurance billing working in order to make it. I hate the idea. And this is what you wrote. I hate the idea that many professionals are a meshed insurance company to receive revenue in their business.
I load the stories I hear about insurance headaches, not receiving appropriate pay, clawbacks and the time spent on the phone. Yeah. I mean, this is what made me feel like insurance was a bad guy. And I, I, I take back if I was immature in saying that because it's not that simple. It's like, it's a way to, there are pros and cons.
Pros and cons. This stuff scared me. Oh yeah. And, and the thing is like, this is where I think it's a skill as a clinician to be able to hold two truths at once. That are very opposite where this is the reality of taking insurance. And at the same time, insurance really helps people grow businesses because it reduces the barriers to access.
And that's one of the hardest, hardest, the most important things that we need. So yeah, I guess if there was any way, I don't know how to eloquently say it. You call that like cognitive dissonance, right? Holding two troops. I don't know. So I don't know. I know there's advocacy being done, but. I think just talking about it and letting practitioners know there's no perfect way when you choose.
There's no perfect. I mean, I'm all about memberships and cash pay models that are leveraged, but it takes a lot of work to be able to learn the skills to do that as well on the front end where insurance is just a whole different process. So just, just something to consider and the skills that you have to be open, have an open mindset to spending time on billing and all of those other aspects of the learning curve is, is a little harder on the front end, right?
With insurance. Yeah, it's like anything. I mean, I think so. So I can't speak directly. I never took insurance in my private practice, but I have worked with hundreds of professionals and business school and probably about half of our people take insurance. So the learning curve is basically how to navigate.
a really big world where you are a little tiny part of it. So, a lot of times we don't necessarily know how to get credentialed. We don't know how to bill insurance companies. We don't know how to actually go about setting up the systems with insurance companies. So, I do refer out for those things. I'm not the best person to help you with that, although I can definitely help you make the strategic decision whether or not you want to Go the insurance route, not go the insurance route, learn more about your personality, kind of teach you the setup of how insurance systems work.
And then of course, I always just refer out to people that know more than me. Absolutely. And I think that's fantastic. You know, we would, if we have someone come to us with anything that, you know, that someone else would be able to suit better. So I believe that the last kind of note on insurance before we move on would be that some professionals are making the choice to drop insurance panels.
I don't know if you're seeing that, like, as you said, half your clients with the work that you do, and they're working less. Work less, but cash pay, but ultimately come across making the same amount of profit for less time. It works if you're a solopreneur, but again, that's not true. If you're a group practice, which is not, which is tricky, meaning if you employ other practitioners under you, and they're seeing patients to increase the volume in your practice, you might not be able to bring in enough cash pay referrals.
In today's market, which is a big deal in terms of what business model you choose and how you want to grow your practice and the vision, right? You also think that your clients are ultimately suffering and not receiving care. So many individual providers feel responsible to take insurance and so many have sliding scale spots and just accept it in order to help individual and the system is broken.
How do we navigate this issue? I don't have any answers here. I just really appreciate you posing the question. I know. It's so tough. I think, well, yeah, the last, the last bit on insurance is that I think when you are a solo provider and you want to make an X amount of money, usually that means that you have to see X amount of clients.
That's not a crazy big number. Like if you want to make six figures in private practice, you might have to see 20, 25 sessions a week. It's doable. But when you have a group and when you need to see 100 sessions a week, 200 sessions a week, because you're employing other people, you're paying for benefits, you're paying for all of the expenses that group practices have.
You need those sessions to come through or else you don't have enough revenue to really grow your business and to support your business as a foundational. Part of just running a business. So if you're seeing, okay, a 20 percent drop off of sessions because of the economy, because of people not being able to afford things, that's certainly true for, I think all brackets of income.
I think people are no matter if you're making a lot of money or not making a lot of money, what I've seen and what some of my friends in the financial world have seen is that people are just a little bit more hesitant before they make spending decisions. So because of that, A lot of times we're lessening the appointments that we have the things that we're responsible for.
It can work if you're 1, if you're just a solo provider, and you're 1 to 1, and it's okay to just decrease your revenue a little bit, because you're still taking in that money. But when you have a group and you've all of a sudden decreased sessions. 10 percent 20 percent it's a huge deal. So insurance really helps give that extra wiggle room to be able to give again the barriers to take away the barriers for people to access care.
I appreciate you sharing that and I think it's just great for anyone to have a reality check and listen to the conversation and be a part of this conversation as you've invited them. To do so when it comes to multiple streams of income for protection, which is basically what you're just talking about, a scalable offer can help you leverage your expertise.
And it's perfect to compliment one on one work or insurance work, right? Whether you're solo or group practice and success in selling courses, workshops, group programs, and add on intensive work with certain clients. And you think it's a missed opportunity for dieticians and healthcare professionals at large, but we're afraid to step outside the box.
First of all, this is my jam. So, you know, I feel like you said that. I know that we talked about insurance because I wanted like your questions, your, your points were so good. I really want to talk about everything, but this is to me, this is what I believe so passionately about. And so what do you think would help dietitians?
Yeah. I, I think remembering that building a private practice and starting a business. Starting 1 to 1 is such an amazing foundation for you to scale. So thinking about scaling, taking your intellectual property from your private practice, whether it's your method of working with clients, whether or not it's, you know, having a workshop that you've created.
Seeing how the process of one to one is very similar for a group of people and creating a group program, you know, these types of scalable offers really do help leverage your work in solo private practice. So I really believe that a lot of people get into private practice because. They want to help people.
They want the flexibility again. What you said, Libby, in terms of necessity, there are so many reasons that we get into it. But then I think we don't necessarily push ourselves outside of our comfort zone as much as we should. And me being around different business owners and having. The ability to see people through their journey of private practice and expanding into different types of business offers has been like the absolute most honorable thing that has been a part of my own business journey, coaching people through this because seeing people's boundaries change, seeing the evolution of just their strengths.
Being put forth into the world and really helping people work in their zone of genius is something that I absolutely love to do. And when 1 is wonderful, but for a lot of people that have a certain personality type, they're going to burn out on 1 to 1 and now having a scalable offer and having a model where you can take your expert expertise and reach even more people.
Is truly amazing. And it doesn't have to be you doing all the work, which is something that I think is really important to understand as a business owner. You don't want to create an amazing job for yourself. You want your business to be an asset. And I just want to add to that. Yes. To all of that and creating an asset from being an amazing job is a process.
Oh yeah. A hundred. Yes. It takes some time and energy and, and a lot of learning. And I think it's a really great way for dietitians to look at adding value and thinking about what their mission and vision is and how they can align. I believe every dietitian can incorporate some type of a scalable offer.
I'm not saying it has to be a membership or group program or an intensive, but. Thinking about what might work and testing and incorporating these multiple revenue streams is absolutely important and rewarding. Oh my gosh. Yes. And having support, whether or not you have a team member, a virtual assistant, contractors in your business, helping you typically when you get to the scalable offer, part of your business journey, you're going to need a team of people.
It's very hard to do everything by yourself. And You will probably burn out if you try, but getting to have that support and providing a job for someone is just the most incredible thing. So it really goes both ways. Yeah. And if you can find the right person that's aligned and loves the work they're doing, it's ideal, right?
Because if they're not going to, they're not going to retain, if that's not a fit, a lot of skill set when it comes to that, if we were just to, just because I love this topic so If we were to summarize in your perspective, the three biggest. Barriers that you see dieticians experience when it comes to this missed opportunity of a scalable offer.
What would you say they are? Oh, barriers. I think not not having. Enough examples of scalable offers in our profession, I think is definitely number 1. There's not a lot of people doing this type of work. So we think private practice is only 1 to 1 forever and ever and ever. So I think the examples and like, the inspiration is definitely a barrier.
I'm going to pull a Stephanie Claremont and say technology. She talks about technology all the time. As a barrier, and I think that I mean, I love technology, so that's not my barrier, but I think for a lot of people, they're scared of the technology. They're scared of setting up the systems and figuring things out to really focus on scaling because a lot of people think, Oh my gosh, if I have a scalable offer, it's so much more work for me.
But when you have the right systems in place, it's less work for you. And what is number three? I mean, maybe it's mindset. I think that's another important 1 to like, people just people fearing, you know, other people, not necessarily getting results if they're not with them. Every single step of the process.
I think that mindset shift is another barrier. I would agree. I might put mindset is number 1, but it's so so as a recap, you said. Examples because inspiration, which makes sense because private practice is still considered taboo. So if you're looking at alternative ways to do private practice, beyond insurance, beyond one on one, even telehealth is still new, right?
It's a lot of newness we're throwing out there. And then we're adding this model and it's, it's a very future concept. So I can see that more examples are better, which is why I think it's great that dietitians are able to talk about it and share their stories. Yeah. We agree technology, because again, it's, it's a lot to learn.
And then if you make any changes and need system updates, you have to learn how things work, things break. So there has to be some type of, uh, upkeep and then people overcomplicate it and then make a lot of unnecessary tech moves that are either you either automate too soon or too, too late. And so there needs to be a finger on the pulse when it comes to that.
So I agree with that technology, because that's the medium that we use to, to support these offers. And then mindset, whether it's. I don't know if I could do it or I'm feeling uncomfortable. And it kind of relates back to the first point, which is I don't have enough examples. I would also add misinformation.
That's the biggest thing I see with scalable offer is that that, that we serve here at digestion boss, they just don't know how to do it. So the, the facilitation skills that come with running a group are different. Then running a private session, customer service and being clear with expectations and designing a program like program design is a skill learn it.
And I love teaching it, but it will take some time to figure out the, you know, adult learning continuum, how to create, how and when to use your resources and manage them to create an experience. That really supports your client, are you creating an experience for 1 client with 1 outcome? Or are you kind of creating an experience for that's too broad.
So, so that kind of goes into product marketing and I could go for whatever you're creating. It doesn't matter if it's a workshop. It could be more for like, a group program that has, or course has instructional. Design to it with, with exercises. But I do find that that's a gap for people further along is that they're not sure how to advance it and how to improve it and how to get feedback and how to accept feedback and how to create feedback mechanisms.
So I'm thinking more from a systems approach, not just tech, but like, what system do you have? Like we have a client improvement sheet and we have assisted, like our operations manager is in charge of reviewing it, bringing it to a team meeting, analyzing, making suggestions, figuring out. What we could do to improve our, our process.
And I think that that's a skill that we, we have to, even at the beginner level, like you have to learn how to do that. I know that's a conversation a lot of dietitians are having. And when you do one on one it's different, you know, it's easy. Oh, I'll just, you know, call Mary and figure out what I can do.
But when you have a group and we're talking about a large volume, there's a lot of different systems that need to be in place. So, okay, as we wrap up and talk about a couple other points, there are so many opportunities. To work with as much or as little right now that you've said, and the amount of flexibility and private practice is enormous.
I would say more than ever. These are your words. Yes, more than ever. Yeah. Yeah. I think that in economies like this, where people might not have thought about a side hustle. Any other time in their career when the economy is down and inflation is high, people are like, what can I do to make a little bit more money?
And I think private practice is so perfect for that. You can be very successful in private practice, seeing a few clients a week, get a couple hundred extra bucks a week, like if not, maybe a thousand extra dollars a week. And that makes a huge difference in your family. So I really think the flexibility is key.
Yeah. And in addition to your family, it makes a huge flexibility in your confidence. If you're from clinical for 10 years or corporate, or maybe you took a break after delivering kids or caring for family, whatever it might be, there's no rule. Unless if you really need the money for your family, of course, it's an individual decision.
You can ramp up, you know, that nobody's saying that you, you have to see 20 sessions tomorrow and that goes into the fear of success and the fear of failure. But I love that you're saying Jennifer. You need to start out, you know, start out small and figure out what you do and don't like and learn because it's such a open landscape that there's so many choices we can make.
So taking those small steps forward can help us kind of iterate along the way. The last thing before we wrap up, I wanted to talk about was that you said something I agree with. And well, I mean, I agree with everything you said. You said, I believe that social media will become more important to grow a business in the next few years.
And at the same time, more and more people are annoyed and frustrated. I do not have a great answer for this one is what you've said. Yes. You can teach me Libby. Love hate relationship with social media for so many different, different reasons. And I know it's, it's still new for dietitians to use social media and as a business tool.
So when you, anything you want to add to that, or do you want me to ask you like a poignant question about this? No, I think so. So this is the trend that I am seeing in private practice that people that are setting up and starting can absolutely get their first few clients with the people that they know, networking, local community, reaching out.
But I really do think that in order to build visibility and build your audience, especially if you want to eventually have a scalable offer where it's not just a full practice, social media is really needed to gain traction visibility, but, but there are so many different channels of social media, right?
Like we have Instagram, we have Facebook, we have Tik TOK, we have reels, we have, I mean, I don't know if you would put LinkedIn as social media, but like we have LinkedIn. You know, there's so many different avenues to do it. So figuring out the messaging on social media is a different thing than actually using the channel.
Using the channel to bring forth your message to your ideal client is the most important thing that you can do on social. And at the same time, I've worked with So many people that are working on comparison itis on Instagram, recognizing that the algorithm changes all the time, recognizing that they log on to a social media platform and just feel blah.
And like, I think there's research and again, Libby, you are the research person, you can tell me this, but I think there's more and more research coming out that social media is like contributing to some of our depression and anxiety and. Figuring out like how social media is actually impacting our mental health.
So it's again, one of those things that you need to recognize that like, it's going to be an important tool, growing a business, especially if you want to increase your audience. And there are things that we have to be careful about as humans, as human business owners, that we don't want to fall victim to depression and anxiety comparisonitis on social.
So what are the boundaries in place that you have to have with social media? Yeah, I'm glad that you, you mentioned the boundaries piece. Well, what I want to say on that is that it's still really new, right? So working with a tool that's very, very new in terms of, yes, there is stats. And unfortunately, a lot of it is negative about how people, and as I'm sure, you know, about children and social media and we have, I mean, every day there's something about.
Tick tock and social media being banned, so I would say that there, there are negative things, but we also have to realize that every day we have, I can't quote it right now. You mentioned, I know stats and I'm like, oh, I don't know this. That's at the moment, but that's okay, but there are, you know, I, I don't want to misquote it, but a lot of people logging on multiple platforms.
Yeah. Day. So if people, especially you look at certain, you know, demographics, and Age groups that are logging on consistently. It's an, a free opportunity for us to show up. What I want to say is I don't think it's, it should be our only avenue. I believe in online getting content marketing, and that would be using blogs, long form content, whether you're doing podcast episodes like this, I'm a newer fan of.
Using YouTube, which is something I wish I did earlier, but I didn't quite have the, the energy for all of, there are a lot of steps. I'm going to be honest, like it's possible, but there's steps when it comes to post producing a YouTube video versus just an audio podcast. So with that, I believe incorporating social media with other strategies for online marketing will help you set the stage for a scalable offer, but the boundaries in place would need to be.
Okay, when do I not add to a conversation? When do I leave a conversation? How many minutes a day am I using? And that can be challenging for people, especially because social media is such a integral part of our conversations. And for those of us, there is stats that show we're more introverted. Post pandemic.
And if we were not leaving house as much, we're working from home, like, like me and you, that can create this disconnect that we have social media fill a void. So I think looking at the way that we see social media and we limit it and use it for business purposes, it's helpful. I think the conversation gets.
Convoluted when we, when we see social media is negative and blame it, but we're really mixing business and pleasure and we're using it not always strategically and then it gives it a bad reputation. So it's hard. It's really hard to, to, to compartmentalize. What is your relationship with social media?
Just like we all have a relationship with food, substances, relationship with money, relationship with ourselves, like what's your relationship with social media. And I think really having insight into that is so powerful, not only as a business owner, but also as a human. And what are, what's your values, what's your boundaries?
How are you going to handle your relationship with social media? I think I'm going to make a prediction because today's episode was about your prediction and talking further into your post, which was so awesome. Thank you for being here. I predict the same way that there's money mindset coaches. There's going to be coaches for how you, your relationship is like with social media and maybe even broader online marketing.
Um, in the next few years, I still don't think people can distinguish between content marketing and social media marketing in any forms. I think it's still a little. Convoluted in terms of, Oh, is there a difference between SEO and TikTok? Because it's still new and that's understandable in any, any harm. I just, what I mean is that it, this is still such a new topic that I think there will be more people helping with management relationships in context of how do we use these tools effectively in the future.
Oh, I have a media manager, but like a mindset, social media manager. Yes. Oh my gosh. Let me, I. I think that I've never heard that before. You were the first person that has said that to me that I've heard that before, but I agree. I think that that could be a thing. Don't trademark that. Okay. My lawyer will be like, Oh, another trademark.
Another URL. Right, right. Yes. We don't want to log into my domain. com. There's a lot of them. This has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for taking your time. I even got the pleasure of chatting with you before we hit record, which I really am grateful for. Is there anything that you want to end the episode with for the listeners?
No. Yeah. Come and find me. I am pursuing private practice. com. We have lots of free resources. There are tons of information and free trainings for you all. You can come connect with me on social media. I have good boundaries. Like we're talking about. We are at pursuing. private. practice on Instagram.
Awesome. Thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure. You're welcome. If you're looking for support to start grow and scale your dietitian, private practice, I want to invite you to work with me and my team. We have a few different options. Head over to dietitian, boss. dot 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 connecting.
