In this episode of The Dietitian Success Podcast, Krista Kolodziejzyk chats with Registered Dietitian Libby Rothschild. Libby is the founder of Dietitian Boss, a monthly membership where registered dietitians (just like you) get access to resources to plan, start and grow your business.
Libby and I chat about:
- How she used her skills as a personal trainer to tackle fear of rejection and get paid nutrition gigs in the community to make money outside of her 9-5 job
- Feeling under-appreciated while making $55,000/year in a clinical job
- Do you need more clinical experience to launch a private practice?
- The first steps she took to understand the problem that needed to be solved for RD’s, and building a business around fixing that problem
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Episode Transcript:
Welcome to the Dietitian Success Podcast. Here at Dietitian Success Centre, we’re all about making it easier for you to build your confidence and expertise. Whether you’re a dietitian or a dietetic student, we’ve got something for you. I’m Krista, your host and the founder of DSC. Now, are you ready to ditch the imposter syndrome and join our incredible, vibrant community?
If so, let’s jump in. Libby Rothschild is a registered dietitian and the founder of dietitian boss, a monthly membership. We’re registered dietitians, just like you get access to resources to plan start and grow your dietitian business. Together, Libya. And I break down her business journey, tackling the aha moments that led her to want to start educating more RDS. On entrepreneurship and business, how she’s transitioned her business from group style, coaching to a membership and entrepreneurship words of wisdom that can apply to any RD at any stage of the business process.
Libby, it’s so awesome to have you today. Thanks for joining me on the podcast. Really happy to be here. Thanks for making time for us to talk about all things nutrition, business, and dietetics related. Yeah, absolutely. So I really want to start off by hearing a bit more about your business journey and just how it’s evolved over time, because I know what you started with is a little bit different than the work that you do now.
I know there’s similarities, but there’s also been things that you’ve added to the services that you offer. So I want to hear about that journey. But how did you get into the business? space. That’s maybe a good starting point. And then let’s talk about the evolution of your business.
Absolutely. So I would say that I have done business related things and owned a business for almost 20 years. So I do have a little bit, perhaps more experience than the average. Nutrition or dietetics person, so my first career was a personal trainer, so I did that for nine years and I had a lot of experience talking to people, customer service, all the things that I do believe registered dietitians and perhaps some nutrition professionals might not have as much education on or stress the significance of those topics in terms of As how to talk to people, how to solve problems, solve, if there’s a, I write customer and being fair and those types of things.
So given that I was promoting myself as a personal trainer for nine years that helped a lot when it came to those interpersonal skills and when it came to facing rejection, which I believe is the most important area for a business owner, a lot of dietitians. specifically have a personality type of being more feelings oriented, which is beautiful because we have a lot of empathy.
We care about people. We are caretakers primarily, not everybody, but a lot our occupation is largely filled with caretaking people in a caretaking role. Because of that sometimes we can be a little extra sensitive when it comes to people that. Don’t want to or won’t work with us or even in something a little bit less obvious, like any kind of business encounter.
Let’s say that you pitch yourself and someone says no, and then you might feel so intimidated that you give up. And so I see that a lot, and I think it’s important. And I will share a little bit about how I’ve overcome that, but I think it’s important to acknowledge that as a business owner and find ways to identify and break through the, some of those rejection issues.
So that you can become a more resilient dietitian. And that will transfer over to your ability to communicate better, your ability to use your clinical skills. And if you do choose a path of entrepreneurship, it’s an essential foundation for any entrepreneur. So as a personal trainer that helped a lot in terms of me building my confidence and skills, I worked independently and I worked for Equinox gym.
I’m not sure if they have those in Canada, but here in the, I don’t know where all they are located, but I’ve. Heard how beautiful they are. Yeah. Yeah. Great training program, which I love. Cool. I had an experience there and they made me do floor time. And so when I did floor time, it was a lot of experience that I had to go randomly talk to people.
And I will say I am comfortable. I am an extrovert. I love talking to people. That’s my story. I understand that everyone can find success. I know you’re an introvert. We talked about that on my podcast. So I’m not saying like that there’s no right or wrong. There’s beauty in every quality that we have. But I enjoy talking to people and in being, having floor time and having to go just have conversations with people, it really helped me build resilience and breakthrough rejection because I didn’t take it personally.
I knew that some people just might not want a free session with me. People that paid for a session might not want to continue with me. People that continue with me might not continue forever. But what I did learn is how to build relationships and I got a lot of referrals and from that, I was able to build a really good business for nine years, all throughout.
My nutrition undergrad and graduate school, I did stop personal training when I became a clinical dietitian. I always had this vision that I would build a private practice and I thought I was so unique in combining fitness and nutrition. It turns out a lot of people do that, but at the time, a decade ago or so at that time, it wasn’t nutrition still wasn’t considered like trendy almost seven years ago.
It wasn’t something that is as common now in the media as it is. So I had this idea of I didn’t know all the details because I’m not as good at details as I am as big picture, but I had this vision of combining helping people with nutrition and fitness and like a hands on approach and some type of private practice, but because in school it wasn’t really known.
I had those kind of lies and myths that I wasn’t ready yet, even though I had experience starting a business, I knew how to run a business. I still thought, gosh, I just don’t have enough knowledge. My clinical skills aren’t there yet. I got a master’s degree at NYU and even with a master’s degree, I was told you have to get more and more clinical experience.
So I went into a clinical job, worked there was basically miserable because I was underpaid. I was paid 55, 000 a year at working in the highest poverty zone borough in New York City with people who didn’t really want to, didn’t have much interest in seeing the nutritionist. I was an outpatient, so it was like full of predominantly counseling and I didn’t feel very wanted in the role.
I didn’t feel very accepted and the staff didn’t really see a need for nutrition. And they didn’t place consults on high risk nutritionist like needs. And I was feeling really frustrated. So that was the lowest point for me living in New York City. That’s not a livable wage. Dietitians have a very high debt to income ratio, which means that we have a very high amount of debt, especially with this new master’s mandate.
And the average salary that we go into a job, let’s say 60, 62, 000 a year, according to the statistics of labor and Bureau. Is low compared to what we owe for our schooling for most of us that have to take out a loan. I know there’s a very small percentage of internships that pay you but let’s assume that you’re not the minority who gets a scholarship for an internship, you’re paying for undergrad grad and internship and you’re entering the workforce getting an average salary of 62, 000 and that’s even higher than what I got in New York City.
And then the raises and promotions are not so common unless if you become a certified diabetes educator, which takes a thousand hours. So you can assume that’s going to take years for you to get that certificate to be eligible. So I was feeling frustrated. I was feeling frustrated. So what I ended up doing.
Because I had the skills. I had those interpersonal skills as I found ways to train time for money. I worked overtime. I worked at, I did workshops. I worked at other clinics. I did speaking and teaching. And then I landed a position as a speaker for the 1199 union in New York city. And then I landed my biggest contract for four years teaching and like an academic.
Curriculum for dental residents, teaching them about the bridging the gap between oral nutrition, oral health and systemic health. And I actually got an IRB approved research study. So it’s going to be published in terms of teaching and my. My whole study was about getting dentist knowledge and confidence level higher before and after implementing a year long nutrition curriculum.
So I had data over the course of four years and that was what I was most excited about. That was one of my several jobs. But the problem is after, four years of doing this, I was taxed very heavily on all of my side work. And I, at that age, I, at. At that time, I had a service relationship.
I didn’t feel like I had a lot of time with a partner and I was feeling like this can’t be it. I sure I’m making more money, but I am working from 8 AM to 8 PM and weekends, at least a Saturday. And so it was not something sustainable. And I knew that I knew wanting to build a family, wanting to design a life of flexibility.
I couldn’t do that. And I didn’t have the ability to study for the CDE, which would have helped get me more for my base pay because I was doing all these side jobs. So I felt really. So the first thing I did was I said, you know what, let me reach out to my community and find out what other dietitians are doing to make money because I knew I wanted to do private practice, but I didn’t really understand at what point did I feel ready to make that jump.
And my whole business, Dietitian Boss, is about empowering dietitians to get started before they feel ready. In terms of business and really taking their skills and turning that into something that they can make money from and they can create a life of flexibility, which is what I ultimately struggled with and which is an issue in dietetics at large.
Our whole mission and vision is about empowering the dietitian, registered dietitian to be able to have those skills to build a business, right? Because it’s not something we’re taught and it’s not something that is as common as, let’s say, sharpening your clinical skills. So I wanted to fill a gap that I experienced and I was frustrated with and I felt like I was years of my life could have been directed in a different way.
Although I learned a lot of things. So at that particular time, I found a way to connect with dietitians that I didn’t in my local community. So at my hospital, I was the only dietitian in my clinic. So it was very lonely. And in my community and everyone I went to school with, like everyone was in a clinical dietitian.
I didn’t really, there might’ve been one or two people in private practice, but it felt so foreign. So I thought, gosh I just want to know who’s doing work like I am. Cause I was getting paid thousands of dollars an hour and I was really impressed with my work, but it wasn’t enough to do that full time to make six figures, which is what my goal was.
So that’s why I had all these six jobs, right? So I went on social media, Instagram specifically, and I just reached out to dietitians and talked to them and had conversations with them, which is what I tell our clients to do, to talk to people in your community. And if you don’t know exactly what you do, let’s say you don’t know if you’re a prenatal specialist, or you’re not sure if you want to focus on diabetes, just start talking to people in your community about what their wants and needs are in relation to nutrition and see how you can be of service.
And that’s what I did when I made extra revenue streams. If we go into that particular story, I found a problem in the community. There wasn’t anybody teaching nutrition and I built relationships with the department heads and they saw I was organized and they offered me a position. And that’s how I believe.
Business starts from your local community and having your, you having the ability to solve a problem and to be of service. So when I went on Instagram and I started connecting with other dietitians I also at that time documented my life and I showed my face and I went on social media and I just said, this is what I’m doing.
I’m teaching. I’m talking about these topics. I’m also teaching workshops and doing all these alternative things to make money as a dietitian. What are you doing? How are you finding ways to create more income and really increase the visibility of a dietitian? At that point, I didn’t focus too much on flexibility.
Now I do a lot more because that was the ultimate goal. I didn’t achieve it yet. It took me a while to create the flexibility that I have now. It took a lot of foundations and that was my ultimate goal. Because you can only make so much money to find so much happiness. But flexibility is something that’s really special for the well being of the clinician, right?
We’re so used to go back to dietitians being highly sensitive. We’re so used to caring for others that we sometimes forget to put our well being first, right? And so I think that it’s important to advocate for that and to develop a career for yourself where you will put yourself in your family first.
So I was working towards that. So Going on social media on Instagram specifically, I started using Libby Rothschild as my Instagram handle, and then years later I switched it to Dietitian Boss, and when I went on Libby Rothschild on Instagram, I just built relationships, showed up, and people had asked me if I could help them do what I had done, and my whole intention was to find out if they could share with me what they were doing so I could make this transition to private practice, but it ended up being that I couldn’t.
Shared with others, my story. And in doing so, I ended up coaching some dietitians and I created a course and the course that I created was about sharing with dietitians, how to market themselves and that course in six months replaced my clinical salary for a year. That’s how much money. So that’s when I quit.
Yeah. So I knew it was time for me to leave that job, which was hard. And I did with long, I will admit it. I had some fears as well, but when I did my job, I was able to then take on more private clients for coaching. And then I was able to create a group coaching experience. And then I was able to create masterminds.
And then now I, and then I was able to hire. Dietitians and train them with the framework that I’ve created to help registered dietitians start and grow a business. And now I have a staff who for years have been able to help me help dietitians to really support the mission and vision of the company beyond just me doing all that work.
Cause I knew I wouldn’t be able to reverse any impact in dietetics if I wasn’t able to have some help. This, the brand has evolved from, I would say one of the biggest things is me being more of a personal brand. Which is great. Nothing wrong with personal brand. I teach people how to create a personal brand.
It’s extremely important as a dietitian. But the issue I felt with building a personal brand is I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to create as much impact. And there would be this expectation that it would always have to be me delivering. And I wouldn’t be able to reach out to more universities and be involved with helping more people if there was an expectation about me.
So I shifted that from it being Libby Rothschild to then being focused on dietitian boss, which is my brand and a methodology I teach, which is trademarked. And at this point now we’re licensed with higher education. We work with universities. I’m actually part of an elective with entrepreneurship and dietetics here in America.
So there’s been really good things that have come from it. It has taken five years, but the story has evolved quite a bit from when I first started just talking to dietitians and finding out. Who’s doing what? How are you making money? And ultimately what are you struggling with as a dietitian?
Which is what I tell our clients to ask people that they want to serve ultimately to find out how you can be a person of service to people’s problems. Yeah. Wow. Okay. That’s so awesome. I’m so excited to unpack so many areas within that story. I want to, I want to go back a little bit to that piece around where you were working in your 9 to 5 job and you mentioned that you were able to get some of these other sort of side hustle opportunities and you had mentioned that part of that was building relationships with people in the community and identifying needs.
How exactly did you go about that? Because I know that’s a big Struggle for a lot of people, right? Is there like, okay, I’m working this nine to five, and I feel like there’s things that I could probably get involved in, but I have no idea where to start. Like, where’s the starting point? So what does that look like for you?
First of all, that’s an excellent question. So thank you for stopping me so I could go deeper with that. I have noticed that I tend to skim over before I’ve reflected more about myself and my strengths, I skim over some of that stuff that I don’t realize is so hard for other people. The thing is, being an entrepreneur, the definition of an entrepreneur is finding opportunities that nobody else sees.
So there is no outline, and that the good thing about registered dietitians, one of our skills, and this, and again, I am giving a generalization about most dietitians, is that they’re really good at following directions. Yeah. , so true, right? Yeah. Memorize live values. You can follow directions. You can write that assessment like a boss, but when it comes to thinking outside the box, it comes, it becomes, again, it’s that rejection, that fear that, oh my gosh, I don’t know if I can do it.
That, that lack of confidence that I know you and I both advocate for with our businesses. Yeah. And so the formula, of course, I have some framework, but it really is a mindset. And when you go you got to show up and you have to stop thinking about what you want and stop thinking about what’s best interest for you and start truly thinking about what other people need.
So what I did, and I, this is my skill, all right, this is my strength. And so what I did, I know this from my personal training business. So when I walked into my job, the first thing I did is I asked for flexibility. I had a nine to five job and I went into the clinic and I said, all right, I need to work night shifts.
Three times a week, can I come in at noon and leave at eight or nine? And my boss said, yes. And I’ll say that I’ll say this. You might think that sounds crazy. I did that because I actually wanted to be able to fit in personal training clients. I thought I was going to continue training and I decided to pick up more clinical because again, another conversation the other day, but I thought I needed more clinical experience.
Point is, I knew I was going to fit work into there. And I knew that if I worked this nine to five, it would be really hard to always have nights. So I wanted to be able to shift that around. So first thing I did is I asked for it. So if you’re listening to this, the tactical step is ask. You always have to be able to ask.
So look at a situation and see, are there opportunities? So I saw that the clinics hours had night shifts. So I said, how can, and then I pitched it like it was of service to them. I said, I noticed that you don’t have any dietitian. was available at night. And it’s actually more accessible if you’re able to offer this service and I can work with a doctor, one of the doctors at night.
So that was a yes. And that gave me flexibility to have more opportunities to work other jobs during the day. The second thing is I was asked, and again, I think a lot of dietitians maybe Let things pass by, but if you have a slight opportunity and you feel like you’re not good enough or unworthy, or I get this a lot oh, I’m not qualified or I don’t do diabetes or whatever it might be.
I had an opportunity to teach pediatrics at another clinic. And it was for a Saturday clinic because another dietitian didn’t want to do it. And it was just coverage. They said, do you want to cover? And I went in and covered and I built a relationship with one of the pediatricians. There turns out that their clinic did not have the pediatric nutritionist.
And I figured out a way. Again, this is an opportunity that I built. I asked the administrator, I made nice with him. And what that means is I went in, I was professional. I asked him how I could serve him. I told him that, I really cared about nutrition and this is how I could help. I said, what are your goals?
You want to increase visits? Here’s how I can do it. So I focused on what their needs were. I showed I could do it and I went in there and I said, I think that, you having me in there in clinic in the morning, three times a week would be a great way to help you increase your visits by seven to 10%.
If I fall below this, then you can let me go. And not only did they keep me, they wanted me for more. They wanted me to come in on Saturday. And so I positioned that, not, Hey, help me. I’m trying to grow my skills as a clinical dietitian. I didn’t say that. I said, I know that you first of all, I asked and validated, and I know that all of the hospitals in general, they want more visits.
So I come from the approach of, and this is very business like, right? What does the organization need? And this is true for a job interview. What is the organization need? What are they trying? What is their mission and vision? What are they advocating for? And how can you support that? So I really get it from that angle.
And I usually get opportunities because I do that. And so my other story is very similar. So that was for my moonlighting opportunity. I had Because and then I got asked to speak once and it was during it wasn’t free work. It was like one of my clinical supervisors said, Hey, they need someone to do a health talk.
Do you want to do a five minute presentation about nutrition during one, during your working hours? It wasn’t necessarily outside. I said, sure. So I went down there and I was prepared to do, it was at my hospital. It wasn’t a big deal. So this is another thing of a dietitian. If you’re asked to do something scary, I happen to like speaking, which I know is not normal.
Public speaking is like one of the biggest fears. I walked down there and I brought visual handouts. So I had a lot of resources. I was available afterwards and they liked me. Someone in the audience said, Hey I want you to do a paid talk for a thousand dollars. You couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it.
So it was a talk during my working hours and someone asked me to do another talk. And then the next person I got into this I don’t know, this network or something where people had asked me to do more talks. So I ended up speaking at several conferences. Because I had also a master’s in clinical nutrition, they would just ask me random topics.
Can you talk about lung health and all these random clinical situations with nutrition? And I said, sure, because they had seen me as a speaker and I rolled with it. And then one day, my other job, I know I have quite a few, so I’m just going to give you one more about how I got landed in my last position, which was one of my biggest.
Someone had asked me, it was similar, if any nutritionist wanted, and again, I had developed a reputation. So I really had built my personal brand about around being a registered dietitian who cared a lot about nutrition, who had energy and who was willing to show up, which I would say is most dietitians.
So it’s not like I went in and chit chatted. It’s not a, I wouldn’t say it was a popularity contest. I didn’t go in and chit chat and bring anybody any gifts or anything like that. I just showed up and I was ready to work and I was ready to align what I did and what I produced. With what the bottom line was for the organization.
So when I knew when I went into my pediatric clinic that I was what’s called moonlighting, I was doing some extra hours overtime for at one of my various jobs. And it’s randomly a dentist walked in one day and said, I’m looking for somebody to talk about sugar sweetened beverages. And I was immediately, she was immediately directed to my room.
One of the pediatricians said, Oh, there’s Libby. She’s not here permanently, but let’s go talk to her. She’ll do it. And so she came in and she said, don’t worry. It’s for pay. That was the first thing she said. So she said, can you just, she said, there’s a grant. Can you put together like an idea of one or two lectures?
And then you’ll do sugar, sweet and talk about sugar, sweet and beverages. I said how many lectures? Yeah. She said, I don’t know. I’m not sure. So I said, all so this is another thing I do really well is, and I know this relates to a lot of dietitians, personality trait, I’m highly organized and prepared.
I’m, I have a backup plan for backup plan. So I went into this office and mind you, I didn’t have much information. And so this is another thing. Dietitians, if they don’t have enough information, they get scared and they give up. So I want to tell you that if you don’t have enough information, lean into it.
Especially if you’re doing something innovative. Like for me, I was involved with teaching, dental residents about nutrition. And that’s at the time, six years ago, that wasn’t a thing might be more common now, but it was not a thing. And it was based off a grant, which means that there are certain money allocated.
You don’t always know how much, et cetera. So I went into this meeting with the department head of dentistry, who is still, I consider him a mentor to me today, wrote him a very nice thank you letter after years of working with him. We had a meeting with him and four other people right off the bat, very intimidating.
I showed up, wore a nice necklace to feel confident, and I had stapled. The, this curriculum that I created with objectives and I taught myself how to do all of this. So I just created this wild, crazy 12 lecture year long academic curriculum and said, this is how I can help you. If you’re trying to teach nutrition and medical students for a year, they, I don’t even think they had the budget or they had even thought about teaching a year long curriculum.
And the chairman said he liked that I was organized and he believed in me and he liked that I showed up on time. So he hired me. I was. paid thousands and thousands of dollars to do this. And they kept renewing my contract. So again, as a recap there, I had very little information. I did try to ask. I didn’t get too much.
I just showed up and tried my best. It was a little uncomfortable. I felt out of my league, but I leaned into it and I got the position. And I got renewed, developed relationships. And then, that’s, that was the kind of, what had, that was the prequel of what happened before I was able to build Libby Rothschild that turned into Diogenes Ross, right?
Because that was the story I told once I started teaching these lectures after a couple of years, got approved for research. That’s when I started telling the story about how I was creating all these alternative revenue streams. And that’s when I started helping clinicians do what I did, which is find a way to market themselves, right?
Both offline and online. I’m mostly known for helping dietitians market themselves online, I will say marketing yourselves offline, the way I just shared that you asked her. So that’s. Most businesses start, and I don’t want to put any shame to you starting with your community. There’s so much power in that your church, your think you’re even just tapping into the peers you went to school with.
Like it’s all about not just building relationships, although it really is that it’s about solving problems and finding out somebody needs and how can you be of service. And luckily that is something being prepared is something dietitians feel really good about. So I think that’s something the listeners can lean into from my story.
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And I think what’s really cool about what you just shared is I almost feel like all of those situations can be summarized down into sort of two key factors or two key things that you continue to go back to, which was the number one thing, making it about them, not you. And then the second thing was around over delivering, like even your story around showing up having this, curriculum typed out with objectives that you didn’t really know if they needed it or what, but it was like, that just really set the tone for the relationship.
And so I think that those and the reason why I just wanted to pull those out is because I feel like those two lessons are golden nuggets of wisdom that can then apply to. Everything else in a business journey. It’s make it about them and over deliver. Yeah. And thanks for sharing that great summary.
And I just want to say that I was feeling insecure, secure enough to do it. And it, this built up, right? Like my story about all the positions, the dental position that I had that paid the most, that didn’t happen first. What happened first is me asking for flexibility in the schedule, me working some overtime shifts, me finding ways to do workshops and things of that nature, and then the speaking, and then the teaching, right?
So it it built, right? Blocks of a foundation. So each job I got, each job I secured and retained did build my confidence with time. And I think that’s also another issue that And dietitians, nutrition professionals can struggle with is taking those first few steps. But I do want to say about, especially about that pitch was showing up and being prepared and creating objectives and stapling it.
I was scared and I showed up anyway. And I feel that I feel the dental chairman who gave me the position, I think he knew I was feeling insecure because Later, I had told him when I told him and he found out about the success of Dietitian Boss and then I had, I’ve been able to help over a thousand dietitians and create a million dollar business and annual revenues through the work that I’ve done with Dietitian Boss.
He said he wasn’t surprised at all. And he knew that I had to do that. And it was really sweet to have him say that because at the time when we were working together for four years and he was my mentor, he oversaw the department and agreed to the research that I submitted encouraged me to do the research.
I think he saw that I was growing as a professional, but I still felt like I wasn’t good enough. I questioned why me? Out of all the dietitians, I’m not the smartest. I’m not the boss. I wasn’t the manager. Why would you choose me? I never got the answer to that, but let’s just, we can hypothesize that me being organized and enthusiastic and taking opportunities might have been something that not everybody else did, but I don’t want to give off the impression that I was so confident walking in the door.
I wasn’t, I was insecure and it built with. Time, my ability to feel more confident came with more experience. And I think that’s also, in addition to rejection, one of the hardest things for nutrition professionals to really accept is just taking those few. Totally. Okay. So then if we fast forward to today and the dietitian boss brand, what does that look like in terms of who you help and what you guys do?
Yeah. So we help registered dietitians who are looking to start and grow a business. Now, that business could be private practice. It could be making money through brand sponsorships. Private practice does not necessarily have to mean that traditional brick and mortar that we all… I agree. Thank you. Yes.
The literal definition of private practice means that you’re not owned by a government, you’re not owned or operated by a government entity. So what that means is it basically business owner, any business owner is considered private practice. Now it’s a little hard. I know when it comes to, we’re not going to get too deep into this, but when it comes to marketing and branding, it can be a little tricky because the perception of dietitians is that a private practice means you’re either taking insurance or cash pay and you have to pack coaching sessions.
And in this modern world we live in, operating a membership is technically considered a private practice. So for our clients. That is the way that they’ve decided to package their products and services in the modern world and the post COVID modern world. So I help registered dietitians start and grow a business.
Our company does, and I’ve created a proprietary system, a step by step process that helps them specifically through the marketing and the sales. And we help with operations and help dietitians from ground up. And we’ve been able to serve over a thousand. Our podcast dietitian boss has over half a million downloads and you can, your listeners can take.
Listen and learn the stories of hundreds of our clients. We’ve interviewed and check out our website. And we’ve got a lot of great success from very influential dietitians that you see and respect. Now we’re once or our clients and alumni. So it’s been really fun for me and our team to be able to contribute to the mission and vision of supporting the wellbeing of dietitian and helping create that flexibility.
At first it was all about. Me helping dietitians make money and after reading and unpacking what they want, it’s really money because there’s a point of diminishing return. And there are research studies on that when it comes to how much do you need to feel happy? It’s really, it’s about creating meaning, but doing so with flexibility.
And one of the best ways to do that is by creating something online by either leveraging your time through a membership or group programming, or finding some type of passive income through a course. Or again, it could be brand sponsorship, whatever way you want to package and create your products and services and sell them, having the ability to help more people because you can market online and deliver online is still something that’s so not common.
And no, we don’t even have stats from the academy dietetics or anything related to show the percentage of dietitians who are active in the online space and creating revenues and profits. We do know that six to 8 percent of registered dietitians in America. And you’ve said somewhere in Canada own a business.
And we do know that the top 10 percent earners are in private practice earning 100, 000 a year, which means most dietitians are earning much less than that. So I, a big part of what we do try to increase the amount of business owners in dietetics and give them the skills that they weren’t taught or conditioned to believe and accept in school and really building resilience through community and through my step by step.
Methodology and framework that is now in higher education. So we have future goals and hopes to work more with more electives, universities, dietetic programs, and of course, more registered dietitians hands on through me and our team of coaches. Very cool. And so I know, I think when you started Dietitian Boston, you can correct me if I’m wrong, you, it was more of a group program structure.
I think you maybe did some one on one, but I could be wrong. And then has evolved into a little bit more of a membership structure. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I just started with coaching coaching privately is what I started with. And then it created that course on marketing and then the demand grew and I did group programming for years.
And then I was able to have coaches under me help. Now we have masterminds, which are invite only. So that means we have small groups of dietitians based on your stage of business. And so we’ve got like a, get you to full time mastermind. And then we have a, your full time operator gets you to scale mastermind.
So we have those two masterminds that we support you with. And then we also have a membership. So our flagship program is our membership and it used to be our flagship coaching was group coaching. And we used to add and that we had a system for it. It was great. We had tested three months or six months and then people would continue or they might move on to the mastermind or some private coaching after that.
And with feedback and learning and with the price point and learning more about the audience and getting them to retain. and education I had done, I learned that the membership model was more accessible to align with our goals of helping, we want to reach 10, 000 dietitians in the next years. And so in order to reach that amount of dietitians, create an eight figure business and really be seen as a number one resource for business and marketing, which is our mission and vision.
That will require that we have a price point that more people can afford at that baseline. Of course, we’ll have a percentage of those dietitians that will join our mastermind in our private coaching, but it’s flipped from how we first did it, which was saying, Oh, you start with us with thousands of dollars and that worked, but I didn’t feel it aligned with our longer term vision.
So again, it took the company years and also rebranding which was a bigger deal than I had from personal brand to organizational to then learn what is the best entry. Entry level price point and packaging for a dietitian who wants to start with us and then progress into other services.
Doesn’t mean you can’t come to us and start coaching right away, but we design it so that you start in the membership. And then from there, you might decide you want to do the mastermind or private coaching and the memberships awesome way to give resources and community and CEUs. Live training, hot seat coaching and experts bring in experts like yourself.
And I know we’ve talked about having you as a guest come in, provide some knowledge, experience and education for dietitians. So the idea is to educate and inspire dietitians to start and grow through the membership. We have different levels. So we’re working on certifications and adding to that.
So I spend a great deal of my time in my team’s time. Working on I have an outline and a plan and then we have we plan out what we can work on and how many membership improvements per quarter we can implement to get better systems in place, better feedback and learn how we can really. Grow the membership, not just terms of volume and retention, but in terms of actual feedback, right?
Tangible feedback numbers so that we can improve the service and be even better. That’s amazing. And it’s scalable. It’s scalable. So exactly. Totally. All of my offers outside of private coach, technically coaching is if you just get coaches under you to do private coaching in a private practice setting group.
group practices scale by hiring coaches under them. So that was one way I could have done it, but I decided in order to serve more dietitians, which again, I want to serve 10, 000 in the next, let’s say up to 20 years, 10 to 20 years in order to achieve that. If you reverse engineer that goal, Like what offer would fit that and what offer would really help contribute to making business and dietetics more known and it would be a model that would be more conducive to helping more people that would be a more accessible price point for those people.
And that is why we went from the group to the membership and we’re still looking at the numbers and seeing the improvements and retention of all the guys. It takes time to iterate. Yeah. So the membership is actually a year and a half old. So it’s still a newer offer. Think of it, but it’s been really great to have an opportunity to align with our longer term vision in the company.
So I’m really excited about that. That’s amazing. And do you, I’m always, I always love the opportunity to give a little bit of a sneak peek behind the curtains when it comes to, what people learn in programs. And I’m curious do you feel like there’s a piece of content or maybe a topic that you teach in the membership that really resonates with people?
Maybe it’s the most popular topic. So two topics that are the most popular. Firstly, I am known for branding. So really helping dietitians get really clear with their specialty. So who do you serve goes back to solving problems, right? That’s what I’m best at. Like my number one skill is solving problems.
So if you go back to my story, I solved a problem by saying, you need more visits. Here’s how I can do it. They couldn’t say no to me. So when it comes to helping dietitians, it’s really uncovering their brand story and helping them evolve the way I did. I was clearly a dietitian boss, helping dietitians super clear, but then with time there, there was some modifications.
It’s not Libby Rothschild anymore, just representing it’s really an organizational brand and what comes with that and the expectations. So when it comes to dietitians, it’s helping them define the problem that they solve the solution that they offer, and then the outcome that they’re willing to, that they provide for their audience.
And in learning, so it requires analytical skills, market research, and it also requires soft skills, conversations, narrowing down what you hear most from people in a certain group, a population, so that you can get really clear with how you can better position yourself and differentiate your brand. So I would say I’m number one most known for that because if you look at our most successful clients, they’re dietitianboss.
com, they all have really clear brands, right? No food rules, PCOS, weight loss PCOS and food freedom. Like all these dietitians are able to be really clear with their marketing efforts and that helps them create significant impact. Whether they’re targeting neurodivergence or food freedom or weight loss or sports nutrition, we’ve been able to help through every single niche in chronic disease and in sports and pediatrics.
And it’s been really amazing to see the results. So number one, it would be the branding, which I think is important at all levels. At the beginning talking to you and then as you evolve and you’ve already, you’re already making money and you’re growing, you still need to work on tweaking your vision and how you align with your vision.
So it’s a constant process when it comes to branding and marketing. And the second thing that’s the most wow in the membership would be the packaging. So it would be how I help dietitians with packaging and leveraging their time. So coming up with a, sure, anyone can just offer a private coaching session, but then once you sell that as a dietitian, it’s like then what, how do I package that service?
How do I promote it? And then how do I sell a certain amount before I increase the price? And it’s, it sounds so tactical, like just charge this much and then increase it to that. But there’s a lot more that goes into it. And then we also combine that with your brand. Who are you serving and how are you talking to them, right?
And learning those interpersonal skills and having conversations with people that can really help you when it comes to progressing your price point. So I have models for one on one and how to increase your price point and how to package your deliverables appropriately. And then how to leverage your time through group coaching.
I do teach about memberships, but my flagship would probably be group coaching. And creating and packaging your program to leverage your time so that you can serve more people and then courses as well. So those are the top things I would say. The third thing would be sales and the only reason I didn’t put sales higher.
I love sales. Most dietitians hate sales. To try to sell something that will work less sales. But it was one of my favorite things to teach. Marketing is number one and sales is. Is number two in terms. So I love the brand positioning than the brand identity stuff, because it’s so powerful. And then I really love helping people with sales conversations and sales calls.
I have formulas. Everything I do is formulaic step by step. I have checklists. You can grade yourself. You can practice with mocks with one of our coaches. There’s a lot of I use a lot of instructional design elements. So like actual, like Teachings and learnings that can really help you improve which is what makes us stand out as a methodology.
So the issue is just that there’s a lot of resistance when it comes to sales. So I would say it’s not as relatable than it, than some of the other two I mentioned. So those would be the most popular asked for resources. Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing everything that you shared today. It was so great to chat with you and you offered so many pieces of wisdom in that story around your business and how it’s evolved over time.
Where can the audience find out more about you and the work that you do? Absolutely. So thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure. You can find me at dietitianboss. com, on Instagram at dietitianboss, on YouTube at dietitianboss. And if you want to check out our membership, it’s called Dietitian Boss the Library or the Library, and it’s an affordable monthly membership where you get continuing education credits.
And we teach you and walk you through the steps that you need to start and grow your business. So whether you’re looking to get started or you want to ramp up your revenue, we’ve got solutions for you and along, along with assessments, coaching, and community. So it’s a really great place for you to follow my framework.
I will link to all of those in the description of this episode. It was so good to talk to you. Thanks again, Libby. Thanks so much for having me, Krista.
