In this episode of The Dietitian Success Podcast, I interview Letisha Garcia Bates (founder of Endocrine Collective). Letisha shares her journey from building a massive social media following to walking away from it all in pursuit of a fresh, intentional start. Together, we discuss:
- How Letisha’s own PCOS journey inspired her transition from nursing to health coaching and eventually dietetics.
- The challenges Letisha faced with a social media audience of >250,000 people, including the emotional toll of negative comments and online bullying.
- Why Letisha ultimately walked away from her account with 250K followers and started over with a new, intentional approach.
- Tips from Letisha on connecting with followers meaningfully and setting boundaries to protect mental health.
- Shifting from weight loss to health advocacy.
- Practical advice for anyone considering a rebrand, from managing expectations to building resilience.
Links:
Episode Transcript:
Welcome to the Dietitian Success Podcast. I’m Krista, the founder of Dietitian Success Center, an online learning platform for RDs and students. I am on a mission to help more dietitians build confidence and expertise in running successful, profitable businesses. I went to business school so you don’t have to.
My team and I have grown DSC to a platform that serves hundreds of members. We’ve experimented with all types of marketing, tech, sales strategies, productivity tools, systems, and more. And we want to spill the tea on what’s working, what’s not, and how you can leverage our insights to kickstart, expand, or elevate your own business.
Ready to dive into your business school crash course? If so, let’s get started.
Hey there and welcome to a new episode of the dietitian success podcast. You are going to absolutely love this episode. It is so good. Leticia is. A fantastic example of how you can build something up and you can build up a huge following and you can still want to. Burn it all to the ground in order to have, and create a more authentic business for yourself. And for the people that you serve. So it’s just such a good episode.
I’m so excited for you to hear it. Um, this is a quick reminder from me. I’m recording this on November 13th, 2020 for just a quick reminder that this is your last call to join dietitian six. Center at our current prices. Uh, prices go up November 22nd. And so if you joined before that date, You can lock in our current price.
So if you lock in our current price, your price will never change ever, ever, ever, ever. So even if the price of the membership increases for new people, it will not increase for you. So you’ll get the benefit of all of the. New stuff that we add next year and in the future. Um, but you’ll be paying today’s price versus the price of 20, 25 and beyond. So anyways, last call to join us, make sure you join us before November 22nd. Uh, with that, let’s jump into the episode.
Okay. Letitia, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here. I am so thrilled to have you, and I’m just so excited to hear about your journey because you have a bit of a unique background in terms of having sort of worked in a different area. You have a degree in a completely different area, and then found yourself in dietetics.
Can you tell us a little bit about your journey and how it brought you to this point? To this point. Yeah. So, um, I am a nurse. I’ve been a nurse for over 15 years now, and I worked mostly long term, long term care skilled units for about a decade. And, , I think like a lot of people who get into. You know, health and wellness field, my own health journey started pulling me into a different direction.
I went on a personal health journey, and then some things kind of went sideways and I realized the diagnosis I got earlier in my 20s was really impacting me in my 30s and it was polycystic ovary syndrome. And so I. I was starting to hit dead end after dead end with my providers and I just had to take my health into my own hands.
And whenever I started doing that, um, I just noticed there’s a lot of women like me who aren’t getting the answers that they need or aren’t being educated on their. Health conditions and, people were already asking for me to help them because I saw what I was doing for myself. And so I left nursing for, health coaching.
I started my health coaching business. I got certified in health coaching and, I loved it and things were going great, but coming from the medical field and having that background where every
you know, you were questioning okay, well, this hold up in court. What is my scope of practice? You know, you had a code, an ethic, and then now i’m in this field of, I call it the wild west of nutrition, because it felt, uh, Really uncomfortable to me. I didn’t know for sure, you know, what’s what I was doing, um, legal.
If someone were to, you know, have, uh, grievances with me, we went to court, would this hold up? Like, what are my legalities? And I was really starting to lean into, Working and helping people with PCOS. I started PCOS Advocacy and was going to conferences and events and I met and networked with a lot of amazing dietitians that were in the PCOS base.
And I just came home from an event one time and said, Hey, I’m going to go back to school to become a dietitian because I knew deep down if I wanted the career that I was wanting and wanted to help people in the way that I want to help, I need to get more education and get the credentials that will allow me to help them in a safe way, safe for me and for them as well.
So, um, so yeah, so I went back and, uh, went back to school and now I am, uh, finishing up. I’m almost into my last semester of grad school and Sort of in the middle of my internship and hopefully next summer. I will be a dietitian finally Registered dietitian finally, but yes, it’s been a long it’s been a long process and a long journey for sure Yeah, that’s so amazing.
I mean like what amazing self awareness to to be like, okay I really feel so strongly about helping this population group, but I know I want to show up and in a certain way. And I know I want to like have the confidence to show up in that way.
So that’s so amazing for you. First of all, I just really love that story. What’s it been like to go back and do, did you have to do another undergrad degree? Yeah, so I was, um, I, I am a licensed practical nurse and, um, so that was a, it’s a diploma, uh, you still do an NCLEX, you still take a licensed exam, but it’s, um, not quite as intense.
You don’t have to have a degree like a registered nurse. And I recall, um, Um, there was at least twice in my nursing career. I kept trying to go back to to get my RN degree and I just could not do it. And now I just know that the universe had a different plan because as soon as I went on the dietetic path, it’s, I’m not let up.
Um, but so I had some prerequisites, but I still had to finish. And, um, I feel like, uh, anatomy and physiology was something I’ve taken several times. I’m also, before I went to nursing school, I, um, got a diploma and certified as a surgical technologist. I just don’t have an area. I just, you know, I didn’t think about it.
I was really young. I was right out of high school. I didn’t think about, oh, you probably need to live somewhere where there’s an operating room to be a surgeon. Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah, I love that field. It’s such a fascinating field. But, um, so I took anatomy and physiology for that. I took A& P in nursing school, and then here I am taking it again.
But, you know, like that self awareness you mentioned, I credit that to my background in nursing, um, because I had that lived experience with a scope of practice and understanding You know, the legalities in medical and health related fields, and it definitely helped me, get like with some of the sciences, um, not necessarily organic chemistry per se, it didn’t help me tell me about it, but you know, like learning, uh, food, medication, you know, complications, things like that.
And, when we got into diabetes, MNT, like that was so even like parenteral nutrition was so helpful for me to have that background because I have been in the position where I’ve replaced I’ve hung to feeding for, you know, a decade, so I was familiar with a lot of the things where some people, you know, uh, that are brand new to maybe even the healthcare field aren’t exposed to that until they get into their internship.
Yeah. So let’s talk about the beginning of Endocrine Collective. What did it look like when you first started? Like, what were the first few steps that you took in order to get it off the ground? So, uh, Intercom Collective is, what I have built up getting ready for a private practice as a dietitian.
When I first started, like, leaving nursing and going, like, as a health coach and running a business, which I had no clue what I was doing. Um, I was under a different name at the time. And the first thing was, Um, that I recall us doing was I just established an LLC and got my name and made sure that, you know, nobody else in my area had that name and that I could use that name.
And, at the time I had already built up a fairly large audience on social media. And so I was able to take that audience and kind of turn that into um my audience as far as like clients and lead but there was a little bit of a wonky transition of I’m sharing my personal life, my personal health journey with you.
And now I am trying to be a professional with this in this space, be respected as a professional. Um, you know, I guess maybe proving I felt like I had to prove my worth a lot of like, okay, like I can help you too. And things like that. I’m sure everyone kind of goes through that. Um, those that’s how I really felt like the beginning of it.
It was using social media. using the audience that I’d already built through my own personal health journey, and then getting that LLC. And then I’ve made a lot of mistakes over the last, like, five or so years. I’m still learning every day on the business end. I think we all are, right? It’s just like one big science experiment of trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t work.
Um, so at the very beginning, when you were talking about So, it sounds like you sort of started just posting about your own personal health experience. What was that like? Like, how did you know what to talk about, what to post about? And I guess, did that feel, was that scary for you? Or were you like, yeah, no, I just feel so good about this.
No, it was, I was terrified. Um, I started, so I started after I had my youngest son. Um, he’s 10. So this is like, it’s been a while. And I remember, um, you know, I finally arrived at the point in my life where I was done trying all the quick fixes and the fads. And I knew that I just needed to dig my heels in and change my lifestyle.
And, nothing had ever worked for me in the past. And for some reason, I was like, I thought, I had no idea how to use Instagram. I really didn’t even understand it, like what it was about. I really, I had it on my phone, but I only used it for the filters. And like, I didn’t even, I don’t even think that I knew that once you post the photo, other people could see it.
But so, um, I remember telling, like, thinking to myself, Every time I go for a walk or fix a healthy meal, I’m just going to take a photo and post it. So it just feels like it’s out in the world, like somebody’s watching, and it’s just holding me accountable. And I think I had like 11 people following me. It was probably people that just connected their contacts to the app and, you know, whatever.
So I really shared, um, I was, it started out as a weight loss journey and I lost a hundred pounds. And so it was just really like, every time I cooked, I posted when I worked out, I posted, , at that point in time, I was definitely posting like before and afters and flashback Fridays and transformation Tuesdays.
Like I was so. Like the claws of the fitspo face on Instagram. I was in it to win it . I was definitely in there. And then after I lost a hundred pounds, I had skin removal surgery. I had three pounds of excess skin removed, and that’s when I really started dealing with, opinions of other people. I had a lot of people, uh, share what they thought about me and my body and the decisions and how my body looked before.
And that was really hard. And then I decided I wanted to be a bodybuilder. And so I got into bodybuilding and that’s probably when my account took off the most because I started having this physique. That’s really palatable to look at for the first time in my life. And a lot of people really were drawn to that.
And then it was after. , bodybuilding when my health declined and that’s when I really started transitioning from physique appearance focus to health focus and, going into health coaching and trying to become more of a, I guess, authoritative figure in this space. And so there was, there was just a lot of disconnect, I think over the time.
It was really scary. I was terrified. In the very beginning, and then there were definitely moments where I felt like I was being, cyberbullied in a way that I felt like I couldn’t even show up. And so there was definitely a time where my accounts grew large enough to where. Every day was a hard day on social media.
And so I just took a solid half a year where I just left everything. Like just left all social media platforms. I even had a podcast at the time. I pulled it off. Like I wanted to disappear. I just wanted to be, be off of social media. And so it really took those six months to reflect and even like make sure, Hey, do you still want to be a dietitian?
Do you still want to work in this space? Is this, you know, is this the career that you want? And I realized, yes, you know, like deep, like, yes, this is where my heart is at. I know that there are a lot of people who need help and I want to be able to move the needle for people like that. And so coming back to social media and knowing that I needed a voice online.
And that people who really need to hear what I have to say are there. Um, I really approached social media. Very differently than I had in the past, like five to 10 years. , I’m very more mindful about how, um, my mental health is around it and how I approach my content and really try to only speak to the people that I’m trying to reach and not trying to reach everyone.
If that makes sense. Mm hmm. Oh, absolutely. Okay. First of all, thank you for sharing that. That is just wow, such an incredible journey. But at the same time sounds like it was so incredibly difficult, like so difficult. So did you actually shut down your old accounts and then start fresh? Or is like the account that you have right now, like from, it’s the same one that you’ve had?
That’s a good question. So, um, TikTok was the platform that I had the most followers on. Oh, okay. Um, like 250k. And what I did with that is the name that I had at the time. I didn’t want someone else to have it because I would like, like, if you Googled my, my, my name, Letitia, you would see that username. And so I was really nervous.
Someone else would get it. And I didn’t want, you know, not necessarily a personation, but I just wanted to make sure that I kept my presence. So I just deactivated it so that I could keep the name and no one else could take it and I believe I did the same thing on Instagram and then the ironic thing was whenever I finally.
I think I’m ready to come back. My personal Facebook account was hacked. And at first I didn’t think anything about it. I thought, okay, I don’t even enjoy really being on Facebook. Usually your personal Facebook is like local and it wasn’t really helping my business. But it didn’t happen. I was completely okay with just, you know, calling it quits, until I realized that my Instagram, which is what I like to call that home base, that’s where I feel the most comfortable, that’s where I connect with people the most, uh, I believe that’s how we connected, like, their, like, Instagram is home to me, and that’s the one, like, if I had to just choose one, that’s where I will be.
It was connected to meta and commerce. And so now I couldn’t get into, uh, I could still access my Instagram and I could keep running that Instagram that I built up. I think I was at 38, 000 followers at the time, but I would never be able to run ads in the future if I wanted to. And there was just a lot of little things that I just wasn’t for sure about.
When I looked at, you know, having a private practice in the future, I just felt like it would hinder me and I hired a few people to help me and everyone just kind of came to the same conclusion like you’re probably better off starting fresh. And so I had a great dietitian mentor at the time who. knew all the history that I’m sharing with you.
And she said, why don’t you just go ahead and name your private practice and just start off? She said, while you’re, you know, finishing school and in your internship, you can go ahead and start creating your audience and start blogging, like do whatever feels good, but just go ahead and get your private practice name established.
And so that’s really where Endocrine Collective came about. And so the endocrine collective that you see on Instagram, that’s a brand new account, had to start all the way at the bottom again, which is humbling, but also kind of nice because when you’re smaller, you don’t have near as much of the You know, the, the negativity yet, maybe in some way that was really protective and needed for me to have another small account again.
And, you know, I do get to build it with a lot more intention than maybe my other account. That was partially my personal journey that turned business and everything else. So I’m, I feel pretty good about where I’m at now, but that was a really hard transition. And it also taught me Hey, social media is fickle.
We could wake up tomorrow and our accounts could be gone. And so Looking at becoming a private practice dietitian, I’ve really looked at marketing differently too, because I don’t want to, I guess, put all my eggs in the social media basket. I want to figure out and learn how can I market myself and my business and services in a way that’s not just solely on social media.
Because a lot of what you see is people encouraging social media, which is great. It’s important. It’s wonderful that we have this option, but, um, I do always have the underlying anxiety about it. You know, I have, I don’t have complete control over it. Yeah. Well, yeah, absolutely. And you have lived experience of it, something going wrong, right?
Okay. So I want to, I’m just, there’s so many questions I want to ask, but I want to go back to, um, that period of rapid growth that you experienced before. Um, and what that was like, like what that felt like in terms of, I can imagine that there was probably this like rush of, oh, this thing I’m doing is like taking off and it’s actually resonating with people and people are finding me and it’s like, oh my gosh, like this is happening.
But then also coupled with That like stress and anxiety of then people’s negative comments. Like it’s such a double edged sword. Yes. That’s, uh, the double edged sword is the best way to describe it. Because that’s exactly how it felt. Especially if you’re someone that has social anxieties anyways. Um, you know, there were definitely moments where I was in awe and like I can’t believe I am resonating with this many people, or this many people, you want to hear what I have to say, um, you know, intellectually, I know that there are a lot of people at PCOS that are just happy to have someone who understands and relate, but it was really, um.
amazing to feel like, wow, like I can actually help people and, um, to, to feel a community to, to care as well, you know, but, um, yeah, it brought a lot of negativity and, um, It started like there was this moment where it was really exciting. I loved creating content. I was excited to create it. I was doing it all the time.
But as the negativity started coming in more and more, I would notice that I would have a lot of anxiety about every single post because now it’s not just. You know, sharing a, you know, fact about PCOS. Now it is, what can they find wrong with what I have to say? And, you know, do I have a citation to back up what I have to say?
Do I have this? Do I have that? Actually, in the process of that, I got so Um, like, cite your sources became like, really popular during that time frame. And I created, what I call now the PCOS research database. I have over 700. PQS research articles that are organized in a Google Drive folder, because I was so exhausted with people expecting me just to hand over these research citations, like, with every word that I said, but now it’s all in there.
You, like, you have the link, it’s. Free. It’s open 24 seven, just go there because it was so, it was, it was every single day, multiple times a day. And it boxed me in to this point of like, I don’t even know what to talk about anymore because I don’t know, like it’s hard and I still struggle with that. Like, I, I don’t want to, um, you know, say that some form of like PTSD, but I still struggle with that apprehension about content, even with.
having a smaller Instagram and not dealing with that on a daily basis anymore, I overthink every post compared to just, you know, I know a lot of people are like, just get it out there. And I’m like, I’ve done that before. And sometimes it’s really hard because, um, I can’t just get it out there. I have to think about, I have to back up everything and I have to make sure I word it.
Correctly, you know, it’s just yeah, it’s a long it’s a lot of thought for just a post which can be really heavy sometimes Oh my god, so heavy sometimes for sure And I think you’re well I know you’re not alone there because I hear that from every other dietitian that I talked to that stress that comes with wanting to Right.
A big change in, which I was just telling someone else this today, nutrition is so personal to everyone. And we just happen to have this field that touches everybody, you know, absolutely everyone. And some people have some really strong opinions and emotions about nutrition. And so even if you’re, you know, maybe you’re sharing that something isn’t.
like, maybe not evidence based. Like, hey, like, there’s no evidence to support such and such. People take that as, like, harsh criticism if that is what they enjoy or follow. And it’s just, it’s really hard to, like, um, protect yourself and come across and get your messaging across without, you know, upsetting people anymore.
They can be really heavy and really challenging to navigate that. And there, is there anything that you found helpful in terms of Things you can, you do to protect yourself, or is that sort of a constant challenge? That’s a good, um, there are definitely, there’s definitely content that I don’t touch, uh, to protect myself.
Um, I know, for example, I call it call out content. I don’t know what, what the term is. But like, you know, calling out maybe other creators that are misinforming people, I will not touch that. I will not touch that. I have nothing against. I follow and support other creators who do that. I just know for me personally, um, it would just bring me so much negativity that it would, it would be very hard for me to function.
So, um, I just do not do, uh, any content like that. Um, there has been some content. , within my niche that gets people gets a lot of emotional reactions and so I just, I still talk about them because I believe it’s important to have that message, but it may be like once or twice a year, and when I mentally able to deal with it, you know, when stress is a little bit lower, I’ll talk about it, but there are definitely some things that I’m just not.
Why as open to discuss as I have been in the past. Um, So yeah, those are some of the things and um, I also Am very good at taking breaks now um, I think before You know Like you had mentioned like when you’re growing and people want to hear what you have to say You do feel some sense of obligation of like I have to be here.
I have to answer your messages I want to I want to be there to help you Um Um, I’m very good at being like, okay, um, I’m going to take a week off here or I’m going to take this time here. If life gets a little chaotic and busy, I’m going to log off. Where before I wasn’t, uh, I was not really good at balancing that.
And when your account was so large, were you getting approached to do things like brand work or like sponsored content? I still get, I get approached on a weekly basis. I’m, you know, and this is probably something like as a future private practice dietitian I need to, be a little bit, uh, more mindful of, but I’m not a huge, like, I didn’t really do a lot of partner branded content and, supplements is probably the biggest one.
And I think just being, you know, in the nutrition field, um, I don’t trust a lot of, you know, supplement companies. I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. And so I just have, You know, a couple of brands that I’ve worked with really closely and I trust them and I just stick to them. I’m not going to just jump on to every other one, but there have been so many times I’ve, I just, sometimes I don’t even respond.
I just, I just delete them and keep on going. Um, but I do know in the future, like, especially if there are brands that I feel very connected to and strongly about. I would be open to doing, you know, partnerships and collaborations and things like that. I just haven’t really done that much in the past. And, um, I listened to a lot of what my niche.
Um, even if it’s not directly on my account, and I also have had that fear of, I don’t want to do a lot of that kind of content because I don’t want to come off as like inauthentic and disingenuous either. Um, so that’s, that’s a hard thing to balance I feel like. Oh yeah, yeah. Um, And how, like, what was the experience like of trying to turn an audience of that size into a business?
Like all of a sudden showing up and being like, okay, like I’m now offering health coaching. Like, what was that like? Did you get like immediate bookings or was it just sort of a, Oh, interesting. Okay. So it was like kind of quick. Oh, I did, but I think that there’s a caveat to that. So when I really went down that pipeline of What you see a lot of health coaches doing and that’s that someone loses weight and then they become a coach and they help other people lose weight.
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I know we’ve all seen it. Yeah, of course. Yeah, I went through that and weight loss is a really good business model. Like there’s no shortage of people wanting your help to lose weight, especially if they saw you do it yourself. They, you know, honestly, I probably didn’t even need to go out and do health coaching certs.
Like I could have just done it, which we see people doing that too. It’s not ethical, but still like, um, you know, I was That was it was easier for me to do that because I was promoting like I was a weight loss coach plain and simple. , and I did what a lot of weight loss coaches did. I posted transformation pictures of my clients and showed them how, you know, how I could help them and so on.
Um, I don’t know if it was about a year or so after I started coaching and I really was leaning more into the PCOS side of things. I was, I was kind of reluctant to do it because I felt like, oh, there’s lots of PCOS coaches and, you know, like they don’t need me, but I just kept getting pulled into that direction and I stopped resisting.
And then I started kind of realizing that Weight loss was not like the solution for everyone, and I was watching, I could get my clients to lose weight, but to help them be sustainable was a different story, so it was like what we see a lot of times, like as soon as they stopped working with me, they would regain the weight, and, uh, I did a lot of self reflection, and I kind of felt like I was part of the problem.
And I got more involved in PCOS advocacy where I learned more about the weight bias and weight stigma and I just couldn’t, um, continue being the weight loss coach the more I learned. And that is when I think it kind of became harder because it like, I stopped sharing before and after photos. So it became hard to give social proof of how I could help people, you know, improve their PCOS and change their lifestyle habits and reduce their risk of, health conditions down the road that didn’t sell.
It’s not as sexy as getting you to lose 20 pounds in a few months. Um, that’s whenever I really was like, okay, like, this is, this is a lot harder. And I think that’s whenever I really started, like, Uh, thinking about marketing, what that looks like, um, and so on. So that was more challenging than going from sharing my journey to being a weight loss coach.
Mm. I just want to say, like, what an incredible journey, like, what a beautiful, incredible journey and thank you so much for your transparent, like, I still have questions for you, but like, I just want to say thank you for your transparency in this because like, you know, I just feel like so many dietitians can learn so much from the journey that you’ve been on, and like, I just feel like there’s been so, like, I think all of these things are only going to make you, so much better at being a dietitian, because you’ve seen, every side of the coin, which is like, oh my god, like, and you’ve lived through this stuff, and you’ve, seen the other side of it, and It’s just so incredible and I’m just so inspired by you.
So I just want to say that. It’s just so fascinating. Um, okay. So what is different in terms of growing your audience now? Because how many followers do you have approximately on Instagram? I’m like at 8, 8500 now. I’m still under the 10, the 10k mark. Some, for some reason in my mind, it doesn’t feel official until you hit, um, But like five, whatever, five figures.
But yeah, it is a little, it is different trying to figure out how to grow. Well, how has it been different? Like, I feel like, I think that’s something I’ve heard and has been echoed across a lot of people is just like, The difference in having posted content like eight years ago or something like that and seeing how that brings people in Versus posting stuff now and just like it’s a different landscape It’s not as easy to like get traction or to grow.
Has that been your experience? Yeah, I definitely like it if even with um the kind of content that I have I feel like it would have been so much easier 10 years ago, eight years, maybe even five years ago. And of course, like, now we’re all experiencing, like, People want video based content. It’s not just, uh, you know, I remember when all of us were just doing Canva infographics and that was doing great.
Yeah. And then also like the, the attention spans are a lot shorter and I am notorious about, and I think I’m this way because I, um, Like, especially people with PCOS, you rarely seldomly get educated in your doctor’s office, and so I’m just like, oh, like, I really want to explain this to you or help you understand this or whatever the case is, and we’re falling into this attention span where people don’t want to go through carousel slot after carousel slot and like, you know, so it’s just, it has been really hard to navigate.
I also feel like we’re in a space where you have to hook them in within that like first couple of seconds. So, you know, whatever it is, it has to almost be, I don’t, I don’t have clickbait. It’s the right word for it. But, It’s really hard. Like if you’re just talking about some boring nutrition stuff, you got to find a way to make it exciting or catch people’s attention.
And that was just, I, you know, I felt like we used to just be able to get on and just talk. And that is not the case anymore. You know, something I miss and that I’ve also noticed, and I’m trying to get that back with my audience now that it’s smaller. It’s, it’s really hard to feel connected to my audience compared to what it used to feel like.
Um, even when I had a larger audience, uh, it was just, so people used to comment even just to, to, to be, to just engage with you. Now people don’t comment unless they disagree with you. So true, eh? So I was like, you know, even with having, you know, 8, 500 people, you would think that I would feel so much more connected compared to 38, 000 people, but I’ve really struggled with that.
So I’ve actually started, um, you know, just people, if I notice, you know, someone’s engaging with my content, I’ve been just reaching out to them in the DMs because I was like, I don’t feel connected to the people anymore. And I think. from a business standpoint, we have to be connected with our audience and leads because like, why else would they want help from us?
Um, so, so that and growing is really different than where it was in the past. Yeah, that’s so fascinating. And I feel like, like, I find that too. And I mean, we have a small audience. I mean, in the niche of dietitians, like, you know, small little audience, but I find the same thing. It seems like it’s harder than ever to, yeah, just kind of like break through the noise and just truly, yeah, connect.
Be like, no, no, no, like I actually want to hear from you. You know, like I actually want to have a conversation with you. I actually want to talk about this topic with you. Even if I’ve never met you, like I, I want to do that. And I, I agree, like it can feel like a real. echo chamber where you’re just putting stuff out there into the world and you’re like, hello?
Anybody there? It’s just hard. And I think, um, which call to actions were really important. Um, I know we’re, we’re all using them, but sometimes it’s like, has our audience got desensitized? It is really hard to get someone to You know, comment or, uh, again, unless they disagree. And the huge, those aren’t the kind of conversations I want to entertain all the time, you know, like I want to just like, just give you a support and, you know, or even just know that like, Hey, like this really helped you and, you know, things like that.
Um, something else I’ve noticed recently in my content is, um, you know, like people don’t really have to like your post or follow you anymore for you to continuously show up for them. So I don’t know if it’s. Um, like when we were talking about growing, you know, if, as long as they see your content and I guess look at it for X amount of seconds, um, they’re going to keep, it’s going to keep getting pushed to them.
So where, where’s the initiative to follow? That’s a lot different than where it was. I will have people will save my content way more than they will like it. Yeah, like they will save. I have more saved usually than I do anything, which is great. I’m glad that people are, but I’ve just noticed like that’s really different from what it’s been in the past for sure.
I think you’re so right. I just recorded a podcast episode about this a few weeks ago about how like the metric of success now is not number of followers. It’s things like saves and shares. Right? It’s like, that really shows how somebody felt about your content. Right? Like, cause you’re right. I mean, and I think about my own behavior.
Like I’m scrolling through my feed and I don’t necessarily like, like double click on something to like it, even though I liked it. Like I would have read through it and I’m like, I didn’t necessarily engage with it. Like, and that’s how everyone is. I think nowadays, , it’s just, it’s so different, but also to your point around, Also why it’s so important to diversify your marketing to beyond just I know obviously we’re talking a lot about social media right now because it’s fascinating but it’s like okay but like how else are we building meaningful connections with people that is not just It’s social media, because you’re right, it’s fickle and it’s harder than ever to create meaningful connections.
So it’s like, that’s what we need is some way to build those meaningful connections. I really have thought like, especially in the, in my space, the PCOS space of, of, um, like communities, like really important. Like we need that because a lot of us don’t have that support in our daily lives. And, , I’ve had the conversation with some other advocates of like, We’re all seeing that we’re missing that and, um, like used to online forums or like groups, they kind of started becoming, I don’t know if toxic is the best word, but you know, they kind of became an echo chamber of negativity.
And so people started shying away from that. And then now. Our social media platforms where we used to connect like people aren’t connecting as much anymore. And so it’s really concerning Which I know social media is going to evolve and we’re going to you know Notice things are changing and trends are changing but it really lately.
I feel like there’s a huge disconnect in Getting us connected. Even for those of us that just need support too. , hopefully that changes and we can figure out a way to move the needle for that. But I think showing up and doing something that you had done, uh, initially, whenever I first started following was reached out with just like a really quick video, like the world to me, like that was my loyalty from then.
Cause I was like, You know, she really stopped in the middle of her day to just shoot me a quick message. And like you said, like that, let me know that you really wanted to hear from me. Um, and so I think that maybe going back to some of our old, just like, just chatting with each other methods are what we’re going to have to start reverting to, to really, um, get connected with our audience.
Well, and I think to like, so to that point, like one of the things that we do is when we get a new member and they put their Instagram handle in their checkout form, we send them a video message on Instagram to say like, Hi, like, so great to meet you and have you as a part of our community. I agree with you that I think there’s a resurgent, there needs to be a resurgence in that, like, how do we maybe take those techniques that are not like scalable necessarily, there’s like time that has to go into each one of those messages, but it’s meaningful.
It’s all about those meaningful connections. And I think that there’s going to be a resurgence in like, in person, the desire for in person things, you know, meetups, in person groups. in person conferences, like that sort of thing too, because I think we’re all in a post COVID world. I think we’re all kind of like desperate for that, honestly.
I really think so too. Like, I think that that is something that we’re going to see. I don’t think social media is going to go anywhere, but no, agreed. I just definitely think people, and especially even in social media, in an AI world where people are just generating out, you know, You know, not saying that that’s a bad thing, like I think AI has been so helpful, but content is nowhere near as personable as it used to be in some senses for a lot of people.
And so just getting back to just being humans again and connecting, I think a lot of people are craving that. Mm-Hmm. . Yes. I could not agree more. Okay. So what’s next for your business? What do you see in the future? Um, I think so right now it all just. Planning and creating the foundation and stepping stones for running a private practice.
So, um, I’m an intern with complete business dietetic internship, which was the only internship I’ve ever heard of that focuses on business and like private practice. And I stopped health coaching. Like I, I had, you know, uh, got my client list down to zero because I wanted to this time to really soak everything in with my internship.
And then also Because I had like a good five years of being a health coach and realizing there’s a lot of stuff I didn’t know like maybe like bookkeeping and taxes and you know, all of that business stuff that nobody really teaches you unless you go into business. Um, I’m just, I’m laying the foundation now and planning for, launching the full private practice, um, next summer.
And, um, I really came into diet like I knew that I wanted to be a private practice dietitian like coming into dietetics. So, you know, where a lot of students or even interns still aren’t sure I knew private practice was going to be where I ended up. And, I also knew that I didn’t want to be by myself and so something in the PCOS space that we often share is like you kind of have to build your health care team because it’s such a complex condition.
It requires a bunch of different professionals. You have to build this team and people are struggling even to find one health care team member. So, um, my goal is to use my private Practice as a platform to build that team for people. And so, I’ve been collaborating with nurse practitioners and mental health therapists and just trying to figure out how can I create this health care team.
And then provide these services tell the health so that I can increase access to care and start helping people and given them that team already pretty built in for them. So that is my goal with intercom collective. And then I also want to be able to branch out to other hormone related conditions beyond PCOS with that as well.
Wow, so incredible and so inspiring. I’m just so excited to see all of the amazing things that you do. Um, yeah, it really just feels like a pipe dream of like, no, no, I see this. I see this happening for you. And then there’s some days of like, okay, I’m actually doing this. Like, You are actually doing this like you’re doing it every single day.
You’re making it come to life. So Thank you so much for your time today. And again, thank you for your openness I know so many dietitians are going to learn so much from your story So you’re amazing and I just appreciate you I appreciate you for having me here and everything that you’ve offered for support.
I just i’m so happy to be here Yeah, of course. And where can the audience find you online? Um, Instagram at Endocrine Collective. That’s my home base. That’s where I will be. Um, so you can definitely find me there. Okay. Amazing. Well, thank you so much. Thank you.
