130: DSC is 2 years old! Reflections from 2 years of running a membership site

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In this episode of The Dietitian Success Podcast, I reflect on the last two years of DSC. I answer the questions: When did you really feel things start to shift in your business What are some of the things that have...

In this episode of The Dietitian Success Podcast, I reflect on the last two years of DSC. I answer the questions:

When did you really feel things start to shift in your business What are some of the things that have really contributed to the success of the business? What do you wish you had done differently? What’re the #1 business lesson you’ve learned? How many staff are needed to create a membership and maintain it? What has been your biggest win/moment of pride since starting DSC? Were there ever a low points when you weren’t gaining traction and had fears? What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing right now and how are you tackling it? What’s one lesson your business has taught you that you think everyone should learn at some point in their life?

Links:

Join the DSC membership 7-days free (available until May 12th 2023): https://dietitiansuccesscenter.com/membership

Check out Online Course Blueprint: https://www.onlinecourseblueprint.info/

Episode Transcript:

Hey. How are you? How’s it going? I am sitting down to record this podcast episode. This one is going to be much more. Not that these podcast episodes are ever formal, but I. Chose some questions. So we just celebrated our two year anniversary for dietitian success center. And I decided to do a reflections podcast episode.

We’re just really talk about what the last couple of years have been like. And. I collected the questions both online. I found some. Sorry, I’m still dealing with this cold. My voice. I’m going to be coughing a little bit. I’m sorry. I found some questions online, but then I also asked the.

Our audience on Instagram. Four questions. What do you want to know? What do you want me to share about with regards to my experience in running this business for the last two years? And so I pulled these questions and I’m just going to sit and talk through them. The questions that I’m going to go through.

Are going to be, I’ll start with a little backstory on DSC in case you aren’t familiar with how we started. And what the business has looked like. Over the last two years. And then I’ll get into the questions being, when did you really feel things start to shift in your business?

What are some of the things that have really contributed to the success of the business? What do you wish you had done differently? What’s the number one business lesson you’ve learned. How many staff are needed to create a membership and maintain it. What has been your biggest win or moment of pride since starting DSC?

Were there ever low points in your business when you weren’t getting traction and you had a lot of fears. What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing and how are you tackling it? And then what’s one lesson. Your business has taught you. That you think everyone should learn at some point in their life.

And while I’m recording this, I’m going to. Open up my Instagram occasionally and I’ll check and see whether any other questions have come in. So yeah let’s dive into it

Okay. So let’s start with the backstory of dietitian success center. So I, when I started my business, when I started full-time entrepreneurship, it was not DSE. I actually had a consulting and freelance business as a dietitian. And. So I started doing that. I started doing more hourly work. I’ve talked about my business journey and process in past episodes of this podcast. So I won’t talk too much about that piece.

But one of the things that became clear to me quite quickly and. It’s funny because I actually remember the moment when I was, so I was doing my freelance and consulting thing. And there was a day where I was out running and I, if you’re a runner, you can probably relate to this, but I find that a lot of times,

You get your best ideas when you’re running. ’cause, I don’t know what happens, but I think. That you ended up going into a bit of a meditative sort of flow state and you get these ideas come to you. And I feel like this happens with like longer distance running specifically. And I remember thinking to myself one of the biggest challenges that I felt when I was practicing as a dietitian.

I was, and it was something that I feel like lended itself or led to a lot of feelings of imposter syndrome. Just like lack of confidence. For me. And so it was things that this was a, an issue that I looked back on and I thought, oh, that was really uncomfortable. And part of the reason why I didn’t want to continue practicing as a dietitian.

Was because I felt like there was a lot of topics. In nutrition. That I was getting asked about that I hadn’t learned about in school because I think, and particularly at the time I do feel like things have gotten a little bit better. But our education was so focused on. Clinical inpatient. Nutrition that I feel like a lot of that, like community, just like every day nutrition stuff was missing. And so even things like digestive health, IBS, PCO S hormone health.

Just, some of those questions and even just working with people in the community. It was like, okay. I was getting asked about these things constantly. And I was like I don’t know where to start with regards to the low FODMAP diet and helping somebody navigate through that. And so I just feel

There was just a lot of gaps for me and I know. That’s part of. It becoming and being an entry-level dietitian is just that learning curve. But I was also at the same time, I was like, oh my God, I’m spending so much hour, so many, so much hours, so many hours each week Googling things, which made me feel like.

S H I T I’m going to probably swear a couple of times during this episode. So if you have young ones just put in your headphones but I, Googling stuff because I was like, I didn’t know the answers to these questions. And I was looking for high quality stuff that was actually for dietitians, not just for the general population.

And then I was also like, why am I spending so many hours of my week creating client handouts? And on this administrative work, doing this research, creating these handouts. And what if my client doesn’t even show up. And it was just, it felt so backwards to me. And so anyways, I was out for this run and I was like, what if there was a better way?

And so that’s really where the concept behind DSE started now. What do you see is today? And what I had originally envisioned for it are two very different things in a good way. I’m glad we are where we are at, because. When I started thinking about DSC, it was just so much more complex than it is now. I was like,

And one interesting thing is that, and I’m not sure why this was, but I overemphasized the course videos component. And I feel like I under emphasize the handouts. So even some of our first topics that we released in terms of content. There was like a lot of course video and then there would be like one handout to go with it. And now it’s the opposite. Like it’s okay, there’s course videos, but like the handouts are super.

Important part of every topic that we release, because we know that our audience uses those a ton and they love them. And so I’m glad that DSC has evolved to what it is now, but and I also just had I had so many ideas at the beginning. I was like, oh, we’re going to do merch and we’re going to do events and we’re going to do work and we’re going to do conferences and we’re going to do all this stuff.

And then when I really started to map it out, I was like, whoa, this is a beast and I need to simplify this. And we really just started by introducing. Courses for just some topics, not everything. Not even remotely close, obviously to the library that we have now, because since then we release new content every single month. So it started off very limited.

But that was the whole idea. That was the whole mission is to make it easier for dietitians and dietetic students to build their confidence and expertise in different nutrition related topics. And then also the component of that too, was I had started doing a lot of business education and business coaching.

That’s something I’m really passionate about is just talking about business and teaching about business. And aye. I also was like, oh it would make sense to also turn that into a second tier of the membership. So we have tier one, which is just the nutrition stuff. And that’s really more so for those people that are not interested in running a business,

Primary care practitioners, clinical health team long-term care, et cetera, dietitians. And then we have the tier two, which is for those people who want the nutrition stuff, but also want the business stuff. And so that’s really how. DSC started. I have three podcast episodes. That are

I think within the episode 50 range, I’ve referred to them before, but there’s three podcast episodes that talk about how to build a business. If I remember I’m going to refer to those in the show notes for this episode. But definitely check those out because in those episodes, I get a little bit more detailed about what the building of DSC looks looked like has looked like. And now.

So we just celebrated our two year anniversary. And the business has changed a lot over the last two years. So we now have a team of five people. There’s myself. There is a Olivia the content manager. There’s Maria, the operations manager, there is Brooke, the growth marketing manager, and then we also work with.

Nicole from wellness marketing co on our social media strategy. And that’s been. Really cool. Just to see how the business has evolved in the last two years to this awesome team. Of people. We went to fancy last year, which for those who are familiar, it’s a big conference in the us for dietitians. So we set up a booth at fancy. We.

Have switched our website over to a custom site. So previously we were using. A platform called Kajabi. And then we switched over to a custom WordPress site. We partnered with some developers to create that for us. So that we have more freedom to be able to do what we want to do and really customize the user experience. So that’s just phase one of what we want the business to eventually look like. We called that project DSE 2.0.

So yeah, it’s changed a lot. My role in the business has changed a lot, which we’ll speak to in some of these questions. But it’s been a, it’s been a journey. And so I’m excited to dive into some of these details and some of these questions. So let’s start off with the first question. Which is, when did you really feel like things started to shift in your business?

And I think, the term shift can be interpreted in a number of different ways. I feel like in this case, it’s speaking more to financially. When did you start to feel that things. Maybe got more consistent. Actually, you started to make real money from the business consistently. There was that consistent growth.

And, I think that when I look back over the last two years, I actually don’t, there is not one single thing that made everything change. I think often we’re looking for that like magic bullet. That is going to be the thing that makes everything change and a chain makes everything change. And I feel like that rarely happens.

I think sometimes it happens in some businesses. It wasn’t the case for me. But. When I really look back, I feel and I know this to be true. It is the accumulation of small, consistent actions over time. It is the accumulation of showing up on Instagram and yes, have absolutely taken.

Breaks from Instagram, there’s been times where we didn’t post anything for a good month. Even though I, I preach about consistency, but there’s been times for sure where we, it, things got in the way stuff got really busy. I was not allocating my own time appropriately. And I knew that this was an important thing to do, and I just wasn’t doing it.

Now since have learned from that and have started to outsource the things that I know. If I’m just being super real with myself, I know I’m not going to do. Like I know, I just. I’m just not going to do because. I think over time too, I’ve gotten really good at learning what my superpowers are in the business and what, how it makes sense for me to spend my time and how it makes sense for me not to spend my time.

And so that w that’s one that’s been outsourced, but, thinking about those small, consistent actions over time. Posting to Instagram publishing podcast episodes, This podcast we’re on episode 130. So it’s been going on for a while and yes, there have been weeks that I have missed, but all in all.

There’s been 130 episodes, so it’s been pretty darn consistent. Learning how to, and then also just learning how to talk about the benefits of DSE and doing that consistently and doing that regularly. Getting in front of new audiences. So I will do. Anything. To get in front of new audiences that.

That sounds you. A hilarious, but pretty much anything, honestly if somebody wants me to speak somewhere for their audience for free. I do it because to me it’s so worth it to get in front of new people. Expose them to DSC. There may not be a direct. ROI and often there’s not right. I’m not, sometimes I’ll be presenting to a group and I’ll notice that people from that group actually joined DSE while I was presenting.

But that doesn’t always happen. And, but I know that I’m just planting a seed and I’m sharing about what DSE is so that when somebody’s. So that people can connect to those pain points that we help to solve. And the idea being that hopefully one day they decide to join when the time is right for them.

And so it’s more so the accumulation of those small, consistent actions over time than any one big event. And so this is just that reminder to continue to be consistent. Consistency does not mean perfection. There’s always going to be times where things get in the way life gets in the way. Even this episode, I had planned to release it last week and I’ve been sick all for a while and my voice is still recovering and it’s just, I could just couldn’t do it. And so that’s.

That’s part of it. That’s part of the process, but here we are today, we’re posting it. We’re publishing it. We said we were going to, we’re doing it. It’s a little later than it was going to be, but it’s happening. And then I think, the other thing that caused the shift to happen was really making the decision to prioritize DSC and to really simplify my business.

I, when I first launched ESC, I was doing so many different things. I was doing like. I had a three-month one-on-one package. I had 90 minute intensives. I had DSE. I was selling, I was working on online course blueprint, which is another course I sell. There were so many different offers that I had, and it was like, wait, but why aren’t you just, and I remember my husband saying this to me at the time

I’d be like, oh my gosh, look at this thing I’m working on. And he’s but wait, what about DSC? Isn’t that the thing that you should be working on? And I was like yeah. Yeah, but look at this fun thing. And it’s. Even when you have this business that you is truly your

Pride and joy and that you love that’s shiny objects. That shiny object syndrome still exists. I’ve gotten so much better at. Not. Not spending my time, like making sure the DSC is the priority. And just simplifying. Really simplifying so that I’m only promoting one thing. If you go on to our Instagram right now, we promote one thing and that is DSE.

And I think this year we have it planned that two months of the year, we’re going to really plug online course blueprint because. That’s a great offer. That’s a 12 week course that I sell on. Creating a marketing. And selling online courses for healthcare practitioners, but. Otherwise it’s DSE and that is it.

So yeah. So that’s that what are some things that have really contributed to the success of the business? And I also, by the way, I want to go back and I just want to talk about what is, what does success even mean for this business? I’m not going to get specifically into revenue numbers.

I don’t know. I just, over time I feel. Less. Comfortable sharing that stuff only because. I think comparisonitis is like such a. It’s, I don’t know. It’s something I grapple with. It’s something that I debate a lot with myself because, I think on one hand I really value transparency because I like to.

That helps me learn. But then on the other hand, There’s this comparison, itis that can happen where, you feel like you failed because you’re not doing something as well as somebody else. I don’t know. I’m not sure. Maybe this philosophy will change right now. It feels just not super aligned.

But what I can say is that year over year and okay, so we’re going into our third year. We’re in our third year. Of DSE and also, so we calculate revenue numbers based on like our fiscal year which is fed first to January 31st. And so I’ve actually been a full-time entrepreneur for over three years now. So if I look at like my revenue.

As a business owner. Year to year. It has doubled. Year to year. So that’s been great just to give a sense of what. A general sense of that revenue piece without speaking specifically to numbers And just seeing that consistent growth in members. And now this has not been, so it’s been overall consistent growth, but there’s ebbs and flows. Like we absolutely will. One month we’ll have.

X number. Members. And then the next month we’ll drop below that. So it hasn’t been that every single month we are increasing members, it’s it is an up and down, constant up and down. But the net increase over the year. Has been positive. So obviously. Obviously, if the revenue numbers are positive.

Or rather if the revenue numbers have been increasing. So anyways that I just and having a team, so that to me is. Metric of success as well is having a team. Being able to invest in things like the, having a new site. All of that good stuff. Okay. Let’s go back to the question. What are some of the things that have really contributed to the success of the business? So first one is dialing in on marketing channels and having.

I would say four really solid referral streams for marketing. We have the podcast, we have Instagram. Word of mouth, which involves me getting in front of new audiences, but also our members telling other people. And then Google SEO. Really spending time and energy, shout out to Olivia who manages our blog and creates some really insanely, incredible blog content.

And. Investing time and energy into really learning about SEO so that we can ensure that our blogs are actually working well for our business. Those four channels have been things that we probably spend equal amount of resources on, and they all bring in. Pretty much the same number of customers. So that’s been really important. So really figuring out what are the marketing methods and tactics that work.

And continuing to do those. The other thing I think that has contributed to success is listening to so creating based on what our members want and need. So one of the things that we do that I think is really unique is we we are very open when. Our members send us a contact us form and they’re like, Hey I really need this handout.

And I can’t find it anywhere. And if it’s something that’s relatively simple for us to create It’s happened recently. Somebody was looking for, I’m trying to think of the specific example. I think they were looking for fiber and protein. For kids specifically. And we have so much content already on kids, and then we have so much content on fiber and protein. So it was so easy for us to just take components from all of those and just create.

A new handout. And so we did it like we had that turned around, I think at 24 hours. Now that’s not always the case. We can’t always do that. If somebody is requesting, a whole new course on whatever it might be that’s not always possible, but if it’s like super simple topics, We’re so open to just being like, okay. Yeah. Cool. Let’s create it for you.

So I think that’s something that’s really different with regards to DSE versus other businesses. We just try and be super member centric. And just pay attention to what our members want, need, ask them. And create based on that versus creating based on what we think they need. It’s no, what are you actually telling us that you need?

So that’s been a big one too. And I think, we’ve, we’re really also focused on. Just like customer service too, and making sure that every interaction. With a customer is super positive and they feel like they’re heard, they feel like they’re seen. That’s really important to me personally, and it’s important to our team too. Yeah, I’m super, I’m proud of us for that truly. And then the last one I would say is just.

Around team, I think the benefit in investing in team. Is that suddenly you can then spend more time within your zone of genius and within that area where you feel like you do best and

This is always a hard one, right? Because at the beginning of your business, this is just not possible. You don’t have the money to invest in team. And that’s so you’re the Jack of all trades. And I think that’s actually really important. You have to know how to do all of the different components in your business in order to be able to effectively teach somebody else.

How to do them. And so you have to go through this process of being the Jack of all trades. Then there does come a point where you have to think to yourself Okay. How am I spending my time? And am I spending my time doing the things that I need to do? To bring more people into the business or to bring more customers in or more members in our more clients in.

And, I really found. That my answer to that question was no, I’m not. I’m spending so much time on creating content on creating content, like member content. On On oh, what was the other thing I was going to say? Operations type things. So like scheduling emails to go out to the email list writing blog posts, editing content, doing website updates,

I was like customer service. I’m spending so much time on that stuff that I was like not doing the thing that was necessary for the business to grow, which was getting out there, finding new members. And that. This actually, I want to speak to the question of the number one business lesson I’ve learned.

Which is this idea that sometimes. There will come a point in your business. Where you have to put the cart before the horse a little bit with regards to making a necessary investment. So a lot of times we’ll say to ourselves I can only hire that person. Once I get to this amount of revenue.

When in reality, you have to ask yourself the question, am I even going to get to that amount of revenue without hiring this person? Because the way that I’m doing things right now, clearly aren’t working to get me to that next level of revenue. And so it’s like asking yourself and being super real with yourself. Can I even get there? Can I even get there right now?

And if the answer is no, then you may have to put the cart before the horse with regards to, you may have to make the investment first so that you can see the return. And that has always been the case for me. Every single time I’ve hired somebody new in the business. It’s been scary. It’s been like, okay.

We’re doing this and it’s a little bit of a leap of faith and then it always results in a greater ROI than I could have predicted because it makes sense, suddenly when I’m not scheduling the emails, that is an extra hour in the day that I can go out there. I can do an Instagram story.

I can. Communicate with new people. I could do a workshop. I can do whatever I can get visible. I can do all those things that need to be done in order to bring people into DSC.

Yeah. And I’m not saying that we need to break the bank right at the beginning with regards to making a hire. You can ask yourself, what could I afford to pay somebody every week? And maybe that is hiring somebody at $20 an hour for two hours every week to. Manage your client onboarding or to post your Instagram or to whatever thing that you’re spending, doing something admin related whatever you’re doing. That’s not generating revenue. That is the thing you can outsource and.

If it’s $20 an hour for two hours a week, it’s okay, so that’s $40 a week. That’s $160 a month. How much do you spend or how much do you charge for a client? If your hourly rate is $160, will you need one extra client in order to see that ROI? That’s it. In order to break even.

That’s it. And so having those two hours back as long as you’re spending those two hours doing the things that will bring new people in, you’re going to see the ROI. You can start small and that’s what we’ve done. I’ve done two. I have always started with so with regards to team, we’ll start out with a set number of hours that I feel comfortable with and then increase as the business increases.

All right. Got tacos. That question about the number one business lesson and some of the things that have really contributed to success. Now, the next question is things or what do you wish you had done differently now? Honestly,

I don’t know, like this one’s a hard one and I don’t necessarily think. That there’s specific things that I would have done differently because I think that in business and I once heard this. Ideas so simple, but it’s you can’t skip steps. I think that’s so true. Every misstep or step is the thing that you need to do to get you to the next step.

Or missed up. It’s you just, you got all the things that I’ve done have been necessary to get me to this point now. That’s the general view that I have a business. I am like, there’s really nothing. There’s no regrets, no rug rats. It’s No regrets. I’m just doing it. I’m doing my best. And there’s going to be things that don’t go right away along the way, but Hey, we’re just going to learn from that and we’re going to move on.

Now the one thing that I. Look back on it. I’m like, Ooh, I, I’m still not sure about that was wish I had named the business nutrition success center. And I do own that domain. So don’t try and snatch that domain out from under me underneath me, because I may actually switch at one day.

I yeah, because one of the interesting things that we’re finding as we are now able to offer with the new website, we can offer group memberships. What that means is that if you’re a part of a multi practitioner practice of four or more people, Then you can get a group license for all of your staff.

All the people that work with you so that you can all access DSC content for a significantly discounted rate. And so as that’s happening, one of the cool things that we’re finding. Is that we are having a multidisciplinary teams join. So we are seeing nurse practitioners join.

We are seeing, teams of dietitians and risk practitioners, joining, uh, dietitians physicians, joining how all sorts of different health. Professions that are health professionals. And yeah, I think that, you know, dietitian while I think that it was necessary at the beginning to really speak to our ideal client.

I wondering if we’re evolving. In that direction now. So that’s something I think about a lot, That is what it is. Okay. So the next question is how many staff are needed to create a membership and maintain it? My answer to that question is zero. Staff are needed. To create a membership and maintain it. And I truly mean that I started off.

This membership by myself. Now I did. I did hire. Contractor dietitians purely for the sake of content creation. But if you are a dietitian that is creating a membership for a nutrition membership for your specific subject matter, and you can be the content creator for all of that stuff, that piece is totally unnecessary.

And so the reason why we’ve, so just to give you a sense of timeline, like DSE was launched in April, and then I think Olivia started in September. So April, may, June, July, August, September. So that was five months where I was doing it entirely by myself. That is it’s totally doable. Totally possible. As long as you are committing to.

As long as you are committing to releasing content regularly. So that can just be once a month, then you can totally do it by yourself. You can absolutely be a solo. Printer and have a successful membership site. And as it starts to grow, yeah, you’re going to want to start to hire somebody because you’re going to start to get more customer service requests, but truly that doesn’t happen until you reach a certain number of people, over a hundred, over 200 people.

Anything under that is totally manageable to do by yourself. So zero staff are needed to create a membership and maintain it, but of course, as your business grows, you’re going to want to offload some of those tasks.

Next question. What has been your biggest win or moment of pride since starting DSC? So one of my absolute biggest moments of pride. As a business owner as an entrepreneur, and this really links back to just one of my core values as a human is the ability to hire dietitians and reinvest back into our profession and contribute to the lives of people that is like,

And and what I mean by that is like contribute financially to people’s lives to help them and to help their families like that. There is nothing to me that is more fulfilling. Then being able to do that and. I like.

I’ve had.

And I’ve had this dilemma myself like this whole, are there more things that I could do by myself in order to spend less? Because honestly, I invest a lot of what we make. With DSC into the business or into our staff, into the team. And of course with money that you like with money leftover, you can, some of that, you can pocket that as an owner.

But it’s balancing your life as an owner, obviously with making sure that you are having to do everything by yourself. But then also again, like I go back to this core value for me as an entrepreneur. As a female entrepreneur. As a dietitian to say, okay, this thing that I have created, this thing that we have created.

Can support other dietitians and not as just that. That means so much to me. So that’s a big, that’s been probably the biggest win. Honestly, as a, for myself personally, as a business owner. But then also the other piece too, is just when we get specific messages from dietitian saying I was able to do this because of your content. So

I was able to work with this client because I took this course. And again, to me, that’s like being able to feel like we are directly contributing to the financial stability of dietitians. And the success of our profession as a whole, by helping our people, by helping our dietitians. Practice, in the best way that they possibly can and provide amazing patient centered care.

That is like so powerful to me. Or, I learned more about this and now I have more confidence when I’m talking about it with my clients. Or, these handouts saved me three hours this week. Like those specific examples, which we get all the time. They mean the world to me. So those have been huge moments of pride for sure.

The next question. Were there ever low points in your business where you weren’t gaining traction and you had fears? Yeah, every single day. For the first, probably year of my business, when revenues were super inconsistent, questioning is this even gonna work? There would be weeks at a time there where there would be no new members joining. There would be times like with people leaving the membership. That was, now I’m like not phased by it, but at the beginning I was like, I took it as like a personal, just like failure when people would leave the membership.

And. Yeah. Those, yeah. Expect that the first year of your business is going to feel hard, really hard, and maybe even more than that, and I’m sorry, I don’t want to be. A negative Nancy. But what I do want to do is I do want to be realistic. I do want to be realistic because that’s so important. That’s okay. Just because it’s hard. Doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing it is still worth doing.

You will come so far as a human and you will prove so much to yourself within that. Year first year of your business that you need to do it. If it’s something that you want to do, you have to do it. And so yeah, expect that the first year is going to be inconsistent, expect that there’s going to be times where you get no clients expect that there’s going to be those moments that happens to everyone.

I was just part of it. That is just part of it. Nobody said it was going to be easy. Yeah, of course there’s been low points. Totally. And there’s those points where you are like, am I just failing at this? Do I just suck at this? No, you don’t suck at this. You just need to give it time.

I promise you, you just need to give it time. And I was just talking to a client about this, actually, it just, this idea of We, the like marketing takes time. Building the know like, and trust factor. It takes time. Don’t expect that when you open your doors, you’re going to have this huge influx of people immediately because you nobody knows you, nobody knows what you have to offer. So anyways,

Yeah. It’s okay. If you’re going through that beginner, low point. It’s totally normal. Just stick with it and just connect back to, like, why are you doing this in the first place? For me, one of the things that helped me get through those times was like, Hey, I just have always wanted to do this. Like I’m a creative person. I’ve always been entrepreneurial. I’d want to see.

I just wanted to challenge myself to release this thing into the world that I’m super proud of and that I built. And so

Sorry, just having some water here. If, just connect back to those wise. And if you’ve done that, then your business has already been a success. It’s already been a success.

What are the biggest challenges you’re facing in your role, your business right now? And how are you tackling them? So right now, right? In this current moment, I am tackling the challenge of trying to figure out how to. Track and measure metrics. Now, this probably sounds so boring, but it’s important.

I. I’ve always known the importance of having, knowing your numbers and tracking metrics and specifically for a membership site, there are certain things like. Monthly recurring revenue churn rate. So how many people leave each month? Lifetime value of a customer that are really important to know. And these.

Like knowing. How to figure out the right way of tracking these things is not my strength. I love looking at the numbers, but there’s a disconnect for me in terms of figuring out how to do it in. An efficient way. And one of the challenges we’ve had. With the new website, is that the way that we were tracking before, which was pretty much using analytics within Kajabi?

Now that we’re not on Kajabi anymore, we don’t have that. And so now I have to come up with something, come up with a way to track this stuff so that we can make decisions based on that information we can make data-driven decisions. That’s really important. So I don’t know. I’m in my head on that one right now.

Trying to figure that out. Another challenge that I’m focusing on this. This year as a business owner is really around healthy profitability. As an online business, luckily, so just to define profitability is your revenues minus your expenses. So how much money you’re bringing in.

Minus how much is being spent in the business and the difference between those two numbers, what is leftover is your profitability. And I I, up until this point have been really focused on reinvesting back in the business. And we have remained profitable. Every year. And luckily with an online business it’s a much easier to be profitable than a business that requires inventory, or you have brick and mortar,

utilities and rent and stuff that you have to pay for, but I really want to focus on being more profitable this year. So now that we have our team in place, now that we have really solid systems, I want to focus on growing revenues and not necessarily growing expenses. Yeah, that’s just been something that I really want to do as a business owner.

I want to have a really solid. Like sometimes they call it a slush fund in business, which is basically like, what’s your fallback fund where you have this like cash sitting there that if you need it for something, it’s there. So that’s been a focus for months for me personally. I am also thinking a lot about just like leadership and who do I need to be in order to be the most effective person for my team.

Yeah, that’s been a big one for sure. And then

Yeah. The, those have been really the biggest pieces for me. I was just debating whether I was going to share this, but you know what, I’m going to share it. That’s why there was that a really long pause. So I, and then the other thing which I have not talked about yet online or publicly. Is that I am having a baby later this year.

I’ll talk about that more. At some point but that’s been a big focus for me too. Yeah, obviously is planning for being a business owner. Having a baby. That’s been heavily on my mind. Yeah, that’s, equal parts, exciting and oh my gosh, this is.

Real in terms of being a full-time entrepreneur. And figuring out what that looks like, people do it all the time and. I am lucky enough to come from a family of entrepreneurs. And I have amazing examples around me. Anyways surprise.

It wasn’t necessarily planning on talking about that yet, but you know what. It feels right. That’s happening in my world personally. And again, I’ll talk more about that experience and what it’s been like so far, and also just like planning. Planning for that as well. And what that looks like for me and for us as a team.

And then the last question is what’s one lesson. Your business has taught you that you think everyone should learn at some point in their life. And I don’t have one here. I have so many, but. We’ll try and keep it to a few, just like a few that are really important that are really top of mind. The first one being that I feel like, small, consistent actions are so key. There are rarely ever single moments.

Where you feel like everything changed in your business because you did something it’s just about continuing to show up and continuing to do the work and be there and be present and just believe in yourself. So that’s a big one. And then I think the next piece is just that. Investing in your personal development. Isn’t an absolute must.

You are not the person today that you need to be in order to get to that next step in your business. That’s something I always remind myself of. I. That’s something I didn’t come up with that. I’ve heard that before, but it’s who do you need to become in order to get to that next step in your life and your business?

And a lot of times that means doing some D some reflective work on what are your limiting beliefs that are holding you back? What are your, yeah. What are your beliefs about yourself, about money, about your business? That are preventing you from taking that next step. And so that might mean just listening to more professional and personal development podcasts, maybe reading more books.

Personal development books it could mean investing in coaching or some sort of a program. There’s so many different ways we can do this. But it’s just, that is an absolute must, especially as a group of people that generally have very limited education in business. And exposure to business, it’s just.

Something that is so necessary. The next piece is if you can see it in your mind, it is possible. I think that, in business, it becomes really important to visualize what we dream of and what we see for the future of our business. And that is, and, even coming down to.

Creating a sort of like a vision board of what you feel like your life will look like. When your business achieves the goals that you wanted to achieve. Because I look back on like the vision boards I created when I first started my business and it was like, What, you know what, and they said all of these things felt so unattainable.

And they were just like lifestyle things. I work for myself entirely. I work for myself full time. I, have the freedom to be able to train for things that I want to train for and to be able to do things in my personal life that I want to do, because I have the financial ability to do them. Just even things around a business and oh, hitting that six figure, mark, all of those pieces that felt so unattainable at the beginning.

And then you look back and you’re like, whoa, those happened. And I feel like a lot of it is because I, you think about it, you visualize it, you see it in your mind, you have a clear north star that you are. That you are aiming for. And I think things are so much likely to happen when you have that in your brain.

And then last but not least, I think. One thing that I feel like is really important. As all of us are busy in our lives, it’s Remembering the things that are important to you and remembering that if something is important to you, you have to make time for it. Nobody is going to give you time. Nobody is going to magically create more time in your week.

And we just, if something is really on your mind and on your heart, it’s up to you to figure out how to make that happen. Even if it’s just spending 10 minutes a day on it. Even if it’s doing less of something else, like watching TV, That’s maybe not serving you so much.

That just needs to happen in order for you to do the thing. I. I hear this sometimes and it grinds my gears. Honestly, it’s just this. When I talk to people about like something like reading, for instance, and, reading these personal development books. And sometimes I’ll get the resistance of yeah, but I just don’t have time to read for fun and it’s oh, okay. But.

Again I really think that if something is important to you, you gotta make the time for it. What are you spending your time doing right now? What if you just stopped watching Netflix 10 minutes earlier than you normally do each night and spend 10 minutes reading. That’s truly how I have started reading. Like I don’t read except for 10 minutes before bed, every night.

And on holidays truly. But yeah, it’s just like you got it. You got to do it. You got to make the time for it. If it’s important to you, and if it’s not important to you, that’s okay. You don’t have to make the time for it. But it’s up to you to decide, what is important to you and what’s not important to you. Okay.

Hello, long episode, but honestly that was fun. That was therapeutic to go back and to just think and listen or thinking. Listen. I think about the past couple of years and what that’s looked like. And running a membership site. It’s been really fun. Eh, all in all, it’s been really fun. I love what I do. I’m obsessed with what I do. I’m obsessed with my business.

I’m obsessed with all of you, people who are out there listening to this podcast right now, you are just the absolute best. Yeah, it’s so great to chat with you every week. Honestly, this’ll this week will be a twofer. There’s going to be this episode and then there’ll be, there will be another one.

As per usual on Thursday. I hope that you enjoyed this. I am. Going to sign off now. But I hope you have an awesome. Week, and I will. See you. On Thursday for another episode. Thank you again. Thank you for everything. Thank you for making these past two years of DSC possible. Thank you for supporting us and the work that we do truly. We could not do it without you.

It’s just it’s you all are incredible and amazing, and we really have the best customers and the best members like. I love you all. I truly do. So yeah. Send me a message on Instagram. If you connected with anything in this episode, I want to just talk to you. I want to hear from you.

I love to talk to other people, other dietitians. So, yeah, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Okay that’s it for me have an awesome week i will see you on thursday.

Heads up!

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