The Practice of Therapy

Libby Rothschild
My name is Libby Rothchild. I'm the founder and CEO of dietitian boss, I created a proprietary system called the dietician boss method that shows registered dietitians how to start, grow and scale a virtual private practice. So I run a coaching company, both coaching and education platform. And I'm really excited to be here today on practice of on the practice of therapy podcast as a guest. Thank you for having me.

Gordon Brewer
Well, hello, everyone, and welcome again to the podcast. And I'm so happy for you to get to know Libby Roth child, who, if you don't know about her, she is the person behind dietitian boss. And so it's a lot most of the time we focus on mental health providers, but I feel like there's just a lot of crossover in the way that we do this type of service business for folks. But Libby, welcome.

Libby Rothschild
Thank you for thank you for having me. And yeah, I would agree. As far as the crossover, dieticians and mental health care professionals, we're all healers, right? And there are so many nutrition practitioners in the space of dietetics that work really closely with mental health providers and for various health outcomes that you know, consumers need. So I'm happy to be here. And I love that we can all support one another and talk about running universal and brick and mortar practices.

Gordon Brewer
Right, right. Yeah. So as I start with everyone, Libby, why don't you tell folks a little bit about yourself and your journey and how you've landed where you've landed?

Libby Rothschild
Absolutely. So I'm a registered dietician, I've got a master's in clinical and I was working in a clinical position, and I was very underpaid. So I believe registered dieticians are the statistics of labor and Bureau I believe are lower for dietitians, and mental health care providers. I've looked at the data. So our average annual salary is 65,000 for registered dietitians, and we're required to have our master's degree, so we're required to have all this education and 60% of us go into a clinical position. And the pay isn't doesn't match the investment we've made for education. And I was actually paid 55,000 for my job. Obviously, I, you know, didn't have my negotiation skills on point at that at that time as a new clinician, and so I was working in the field, and I couldn't afford rent in New York City, right. I mean, I was struggling to make ends meet. And so I worked additional revenue streams, consulting and teaching and operating a business on the side of my job as a clinical dietitian, and that I just accidentally came upon this business that I have now, which is really fun. So what I did is I was working seven revenue streams at my hospital, I was doing overtime and teaching and speaking. And then one day somebody, a friend of mine, four or five years ago said, Hey, what Libby, why don't you go on social media and just share what you're doing? Because you're teaching and speaking, and that seems non traditional for a dietitian. And it was and I said, Oh, yeah, I would love to find more people like me, right, because dietitians are overall pretty broke, right? We are not lucrative the top five 10% make six figures in the field, according to statistics from our academy, nutrition and dietetics. So I was looking for those five 10%. So I went on social media to share my story, and I couldn't find anybody but instead, my peers came to me and said, after I shared my story on Instagram, at dietician boss on Instagram, they said, Can you help me make money? And I said, Sure. So I ended up coaching. And then the demand increased, I created a course. And then I ended up my business grew pretty rapidly, we hit the seven figure mark in 2020, which is really exciting or four years old, in March of this year, and so I've been able to grow a team and create a proprietary process out of helping dieticians, focus on their message, hone in on their mindset and then create organic content on social and create a compelling offer both passive income with a course and then group program, which is leveraged income. So we're not just stalking clients back to back all day. And then sales skills, right, which is something as practitioners specifically healers, like dietitians and mental health and healthcare practitioners, usually, you know, feel a little awkward about that. It's not really in our first it's not really comfortable with most of us. So I've been able after working with 1000, dietitians to codify my methodology, trademark it and then hire a team and coaches to coach with me, and then support more dieticians for our ultimate mission, which is to create more private practice operators in a field where only 8% of us go into business. And with such low numbers, it doesn't really match the needs of consumers, right? A lot of people want health outcomes, various health outcomes, nutrition outcomes. And so if we're not there in a private setting, because a lot of us are trapped in clinical offices, people can't get the help they need from leading experts in the field and dieticians are, you know, the number one resource for food nutrition. So I was really motivated in initially to feel like my work mattered and to get paid my worth, and then I've been able to create a business that's been, it's a mission business, right. And we're backed on supporting the field and creating an experience where we can bring freedom and financial opportunities to practitioners, and then in turn, of course, help more consumers have that support, because we're out there creating more access, which is going to require a lot of passive income. Right? So creating courses in leveraged income to help more people and believe me, people need the help.

Gordon Brewer
Right, right. Yeah, you got my wheels turning here, just thinking about kind of the parallels between going from, you know, working, particularly for mental health providers going from agency work or clinical, you know, I, you know, I think about dieticians, a lot of times work like in hospital settings, and, you know, places like that, but being able to step out and do and do exactly what you've identified in your niche, which is the individual kind of one on one or one to many kind of help around, around nutrition issues. And that sort of thing, it just is great. And I think there's my, my guess would be is that there's just a lot of opportunity there for people,

Libby Rothschild
a ton of opportunity. And there's also a lot of connection between mental health care practitioners as well, because a lot of people that have nutrition issues, they do also need the mental health and support. So I think there's a great opportunity for us practitioners in healing professions, to work among each other and see how we can support one another, both for our mindset, and then also for business. And a lot of our clients will get, you know, bridge relationships, they will make relationships with other mental health care practitioners and refer to them which I think is so great, is an opportunity for us to really help the client, right, helping the patient and the end user is is what it's all about.

Gordon Brewer
Right? Right. So yeah, so a question that comes to mind for me, because I'd love to get your perspective on this. When you're working with dieticians that are maybe working in an agency setting or in a hospital or whatever, setting and they're they're thinking about okay, I'm going to make to I want to make the move into private practice. What what are some of the things that they need to start thinking about with when they make that move?

Libby Rothschild
Yeah, great question. So I think that it's a lot of mindset. So there's this whole thought that private practice has to look and feel a certain way. And that's something that I tried to bust as myths, right? Private Practice does not mean you have to be in brick and mortar, it doesn't mean you have to take insurance, it doesn't mean you have to have coaches or clinicians working under you. So there's a lot of different ways that you can create a private practice, you can do a hybrid model, you can absolutely start on the side. So one of the first things I like to share with practitioners who are interested in going into private practice, is think about what that might mean for you. And what's realistic, we're setting some goals right now, which can include launching a small course, right? So I show our clients how to create a $97 online course, it's under an hour, you're not creating a really long, lengthy courses, your first digital launch, right, you're creating something that is consumable, that solves a problem that people have that they come to you for. And even that alone as a revenue stream can be a great way to to get things moving. Now, I think a lot of clinicians think that there has to be this traditional, it has to be nine to nine to five, it has to be full time. And so I just want to share that that's not true. There's a lot of ways you can start and it's a lot more easy and manageable than you might think. So it's just getting these these ideas of what we've heard outside of our heads and thinking that we're not good enough. We can't start yet we don't have what we need. We need more clinical experiences is the biggest thing I hear. And that we have to go into this clinical or agency work because we're not good enough yet, or we don't have enough experience. When in our field, you know, you're not required to have a master's degree, we have a dietetic internship, we have to complete four years education in the field, we definitely have what it takes. And there are small ways to start and build up our clinical skills as well as we are providing service and even products to consumers. So the two things is that demystifying that you don't need more experience, you can start and then you can start small, right? So a lot of people think that it's this all or nothing mindset, and it's overwhelming, partially because we don't know much about business. I don't know about mental health care practitioners, but there's no mandatory curriculum about entrepreneurship for our field. So it's like we just don't understand what that looks like. And of course, it feels overwhelming, because we're getting all this information about different stages of business. And so we think because our peer or someone who's 10 years in, has her or his business look a certain way that ours has to look that way and that's just not true. So it's again, a lot of that mindset of not comparing yourself to the next person on social media, but to really think about yourself and if we can Do that and just say, what are some goals that I have? What are some small steps I can take? That's when I see the most success and practitioners is when they can really focus on their mindset.

Gordon Brewer
Right, right. Yeah. And I think that's a universal thing for a lot of entrepreneurs is this whole imposter syndrome, of, of comparing, comparing your start to somebody else's middle is, is probably not a fair thing to do. For anybody that is, is going into this. And the other thing that you mentioned, Libby, that I think is just something that I think is really important to bullet point, is being able to think outside the box with moving into private practice or moving into, you know, running a small business or being an entrepreneur, in that there are any number of ways to create money for yourself. Yeah, and it doesn't. And just because you've gone to graduate school, and you've got this degree, and you've got this certificate that says this is what you are, that that knowledge translates in a lot of different ways. And there's no rules that say you have to just do just that.

Libby Rothschild
Yeah, and I don't know the personality profile of a mental health care practitioner specifically, I'm assuming it's similar to most healers, which is very compliance based right registered dieticians are very rule systems compliance based. So it kind of goes hand in hand with what you said, it's hard for us to think that something doesn't fit in the actual box. Because in school, we're taught that way. And I'm absolutely we want to respect our licenses, we want to Reno be mindful of all of the laws that we need to be, you know, if we want to care about her license, we have to, like prioritize that, right? We have to do our due diligence when it comes to business. But I do often see clinicians overemphasize that and they almost let that create, they create these barriers and obstacles, instead of just doing the mindset work. And the mindset work is hard. And that includes zactly, what you said, comparing yourself to yourself and not you to someone else's middle. And I tried to be cognizant with my marketing as well, on social media, I don't want to make it sound like people compare their journey to mine as well, or their journey to one of our clients journeys. Because it's always about looking from within and setting your goals. And that's what's hard for clinicians is that thinking about what you want it to look like, in midst of this world, going remote can be really challenging. And I think that's why it's more important to have more representation of private practitioners. So we can get a sense as clinicians and healers, what are my What are my options, exactly what you said, like, we don't understand there's affiliate revenue, brand sponsorships, there's options to do speaking and teaching, even if you do work in a clinical setting, like when I did, I found income opportunities at the hospital, I'd found some teaching opportunities, and I think people aren't aware of those non traditional options that we can leverage. And what we need to do is build our communication skills, we need to build our opportunity or leadership capacity, and our self reflection, right, or introspection skills to think that, you know, we are worthy, and we have the opportunity. And those aren't his, you know, sexy, his marketing some of the other things, but that's really where we where we need to start

Gordon Brewer
the right, right, I couldn't agree more, particularly around thinking about diversifying your income, I think, you know, it's, you know, again, I've learned a lot of stuff the hard way, but I think one of the things that is real important, just like with investing, I mean, if somebody is doing, you know, investing in the stock market, you want a diversity of things that you can potentially receive money from. And I think by really thinking about, you know, doing just little things like like you mentioned, affiliate marketing, being able to do some courses or creating, you know, even doing some adjunct teaching, all of those kinds of things are ways to create additional income, and all of that compounds and adds up. And, and you end up doing pretty well financially by doing those things.

Libby Rothschild
Yeah, there's there's a lot of opportunity. And again, it depends on your exact pain points. Right. So what are your concerns? So again, looking within just because someone else makes money or is interested in six or seven figures in annual revenues doesn't mean that you know, you as a clinician need to prioritize that. So I think the first step is asking yourself, like what matters to you right now. And if it is brand recognition and thought leadership, which many of us in these fields care about, then setting a goal around that might be helpful, and if it is revenue than looking at a way to come up with a strategy to prioritize what those goals are, and be realistic about setting process goals. So oftentimes, I see clinicians will set these lofty goals which are great and I love seeing people set big goals, but they you know, forget the step or the process goals don't mean the work that you need to do to get there is just as important, if not more important than the actual destination, right? And that's where the whole it's a marathon not a sprint comes in. Because as clinicians we're just you It's a new school of thought for us. As far as what it does business fundamentals are very new. And I think being kind to yourself, and creating the environment to help yourself succeed, no matter what how you want to diversify your revenue streams is important. Because there's going to be a lot of new things, right, especially in this remote environment where you might need to learn how to use a project management system, or tech integrations or email marketing. And things might not be working as you had wanted to, or maybe social media went down. So there's a lot of things that were that are going to throw us for a loop, right, or maybe you're working with a staff, a virtual assistant, and something happens with them, or they're sick or something happens to their family. And so we as, as leaders, and business owners have to develop those skills to pivot and be kind leaders and make decisions based on our values. And that takes a lot of self work. It's not just something you wake up and do like that, that's really creating an environment where you can grow, and that it takes dedication and time, and it's really rewarding. But I think that practitioners don't realize that that that takes a lot of dedication.

Gordon Brewer
Yes, yes, absolutely. It's a it's really a constant thing, as you're kind of mentioning of sharpening the saw and really figuring out those things. And to go back to what you said a minute ago, too. And folks hear this from me all the time is you've got to start with your why, you know, what, what is it that what are your internal motivations for doing any of this stuff, and really staying focused on that?

Libby Rothschild
Yeah, and that's the deep work that's hard. And whether it's telling your story or identifying, you know, what, what's important to you. And I think that's so important, because we all are going to have bad days, or are going to have rough times. And so going back to the your, your purpose, whether you've got a vision board on the wall, or you're doing affirmations, or some type of practice is always going to be really helpful. And I see the most successful, you know, practitioners in business are ones with clear why's, who also talk about it. They talk about it a lot. And I find that so inspiring, which is why I think creating an ecosystem of practitioners not just in your own field of mental health care practitioners, but maybe looking at people in acupuncture Pete You know, maybe some doctors and dietitians it's really good to build and like you said, sharpen your Scott, your saw and and build your business acumen to really see other people but then learn the skills to not compare and just be inspired by them and support them.

Gordon Brewer
Right, right. Yeah. So I'm curious if I put you on the spot a little bit and use your you think of someone or somebody you've worked with, or maybe a story about somebody that has kind of gone from that traditional kind of agency kind of work and built their practice and what that looks like, and how did they get there?

Libby Rothschild
Absolutely. So as far as our clients who have done that, well, we've got clients who both have done it while they've been in their clinical position, and those who have skipped clinical or agency work and just gone straight into it. And their journey might be that they ramped up of course, there's, you know, various journeys for different people depending on their goals. If I were to give you one example of a past client of ours named Colleen, she is if you find her on Instagram, no dot food dot rules, so she trademarked no food rules. And she helps women identify food rules and eliminate them so that they can live a life of food freedom. And she was working. When we started together, she was working a clinical job. And through our coaching, she was able to identify, well firstly develop a really clear brand and use social media to market her brand by following the dietitian boss method. And she was able to leverage her income. So she did have some limited coaching that she provided for her clients. She also first did boot camps. And then she started running group programs. And then she was able to parlay that into a membership. But now she's got a successful membership just got a monetized YouTube account. She was taking private clients like on a limited basis last time we spoke, but she can choose how she wants those income streams to look. And they've looked different over time. So to share how she was able to do that, she defined her brand, she used social media consistently to market her messaging and share how she was able to transform women's lives and help them eliminate food rules so that they could live a life of food freedom. And she shared her journey and talked about the pain points of her clients. And that attracted people, right, and then she acquired the skills to be able to sell them into her services. And then she was able to with her offer, package it in a way that delivered what they needed. And it was able to create systems and processes around customer support and the operations of an offer. And then with feedback and a lot of clients going through the offer. She was able to adjust the offer to fit more in line with what she wanted, which was shifting from that group to then a membership where it's more community based and a little bit less of her delivering the service and that's what she chose to do right now. Our clients all have different ways of how they choose to do that. But that was her journey. And going from a clinician to a full time practitioner who gets money from I know, you mentioned multiple revenue streams brand sponsorships monetize YouTube membership. And I believe she also launches a course I think it's once or twice a quarter. So she's got a lot of ways that she's making money. And she's a leader in our field.

Gordon Brewer
Right, right. Yeah, a lot. I love that story that I think that, again, goes back to this whole thing of thinking about diversified ways of creating income, as opposed to being in business where you're, you know, the, the thing, our product and service, both as mental health providers and dieticians, is our knowledge and our expertise and our time. And that's what we offer to people. And so when you can go from the one to one kind of model to the one to many, that's when things can really change for us.

Libby Rothschild
Absolutely. And I think also, there's a process during that shift, right? It's not an overnight oh, I want to offer one to many leveraged income is like, I'm gonna work less hours overnight. It is, there's some systems that are going to have to be put into place and some testing, and then some strategy to ask yourself as a practitioner, how do I want this to look? What's the customer journey? Right? How do I want my customer to go from one offer to the next. And then one thing I see a lot of practitioners skip is, who is this offer for and who is it not for, and just really getting clearer with the the offer and how it's going to help the right type of person and then marketing towards that type of person, and then having a plan to progress them. So that you can ideally retain clients and whatever offer mix that you've created, and then you know, give some space to evolve that. And that's obviously a little bit more of an advanced concept, and online business. Because at first, when you're starting out for your listeners who are beginners, you just want to get those clients, right. Even if you're if you're offering leveraged income, even if it's a group program, or course your your goal is to get clients and then once you're you know, fully stacked up and whether you're doing however you're offering, right, let's assume that you're coaching or you're offering counseling, the next step would be just to have an option of income that perhaps doesn't involve as much of you or involves less of you if it's the course or even if it's your offering some group on the side. And then the third thing would be to look at how you're going to use that income stream and multiple with respect to your other income streams and how you want it to look, do you want that to be your side business? Or wherever you created? Do you want that to be your primary income stream? Do you want that to be part of your offer mix where people are going to mainly come through your passive source, and then they're going to get to use it, there's a lot of strategy to figure out how you want the customer journey to look and how that's going to impact both the client and you. Right? So we have to think of both of those things like how do you want to receive monies? Are you going to look at scale, are you looking at bringing more people in the front end, or however that's going to look and then you always want to make sure it's benefiting the client. And that's where we get a little more strategic is identifying how those income streams are going to support your business goals. And then always thinking about the customer. Because if you don't put the customer first and think about their vision, you're not going to create a sustainable ethical practice. So it's always about how you can benefit them. And there's a lot of nuance to that, right? Because you can offer low ticket meaning something that's inexpensive, and you can offer high ticket even if you're not delivering it. So maybe you're offering a private consulting package, but you're actually having someone on your team provide that coaching. So this is where it gets really fun. And there's a lot of nuance. So this is why businesses is such a fun topic, because there's so many ways it can look. But some practitioners that aren't that are new to it can also say oh my goodness, that's where they say, I don't know where to start. Right. Yeah.

Gordon Brewer
Right. Right. And you mentioned you mentioned you have kind of a method that you've kind of developed, you want to give us a thumbnail view of that.

Libby Rothschild
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So so the dietitian boss is a proprietary process that helps you focus on your mindset. So first and foremost, business fundamentals start with you. So identifying your growth or fixed mindset, ideally shifting towards a growth oriented mindset. So I have a whole framework for identifying and working towards developing a growth oriented mindset and business, which is super important. Especially we've got remote work, all kinds of stuff. And there's a lot of new learning that as practitioners that we need to adapt to even social media, right? It's a big topic, I'm sure with your, with your audience as well. And is that impact or how does that affect the work you're doing? And what role do you want to play in in your brand recognition, even if you're fully booked? Social media is your online, it's your business card. It's your online business card. So it's creating a mindset of growth oriented mindset around social media is really important. So first pillar of my methodology is mindset. And second pillar has to do with messaging and there's nothing more important than clarifying a strong message, especially in our space because there's a dime a dozen food freedom practitioners, weight loss practitioners, people In the spaces that are saturated, so what's important is to define your value proposition, how are you unique? What is it about you, that's not the same as the next person. So messaging is very important. And I, we got to start with the messaging first, the mindset, and then the messaging and the strategy around that. third pillar of my framework is creating an offer that supports your goals, right. So the strategy of work, even if it's short term, so if you're we've got a lot of women who are pregnant, and they don't want to deliver the service, you might want to go right to a course, right, if you're not able to deliver that service. And then we have some people that say, I'm taking insurance, can I just do something small on the side, right, I want to get my toes wet and offer a group program. So then we're going to create the offer that's, that's based on your goals and your unique situation in life right now. So that could be coaching or consulting, that could also look like more leveraged income that will be one to many in in various forms. And then the next piece of my framework would be enrollment skills. So finding a way to get people into your product or service. So sales, conversation, sales calls, if you're selling people into consulting, or counseling or coaching, and then it's setting up the right copy in a landing page, if they're going to buy your course. And then the final step of my framework would be content. So I'm known for social media and helping practitioners leverage social media to increase their brand visibility, and then solve problems on social like get people to say, I want to work with you, whether it's a product or service. So really having your messaging translated well onto your content. And I do have a free guide that shows you how to just plug and play some of the captions I've created that you can check out on that on one of my resources. And that's free for your listeners. And it's really helping you take the guesswork out of just putting something out there that is going to represent you well. But it has to speak to the problems that your target market struggles with and show the transformation that you provide. So I've got a lot of frameworks and checklists around this consecration, but it's not rooted in the tactics, which a lot of people try to Marketo. It's about reels, and it's about colors. And it's less about the tactics. And it's more about the messaging, right, and really being there to showcase that you can help support your clients transformation, whether it be that, again, whatever that outcome might be in our world in nutrition, that might be sports performance, right? That might be lifecycle nutrition, it might be feeding for growth, it might be weight loss, it might be food freedom. But that's that's really where the content has to show is about the problems you're solving. And let me tell you practitioners, pushback a lot with that.

Gordon Brewer
Yeah, I can't imagine. Yeah, yeah. Well, Libby, I've got to be respectful of your time. And this is this has been a great conversation. And I think we've given us a lot to think about, tell folks how they can find out more about you and where they can get your stuff.

Libby Rothschild
Absolutely. Well, it's a pleasure is mine. So I've absolutely enjoyed chatting with you. So thank you for making time. So if you go on Bitly, and then it would be backslash podcast, Libby, you can find some resources from what I talked about on this podcast. And I've got a free caption download that you can grab. You can also find me on social media at dietician, boss, and say hello. And you can see an example of what I mean about creating content that speaks to the problems that you're solving and the pains that your audience experiences. And that is how you know you can better illustrate your brand and get sales. So that's definitely something that I will live and die by.

Gordon Brewer
Yes, yes. And we'll have we'll have links here in the show notes in the show summary so you can get to that easily. Well. Libby again, thanks so much for being on the podcast. This has just been again a great conversation I think given us a lot to think about and just and just to in the crossover world between dietician world and mental health world and there's a lot of the, the concepts are very much the same in terms of running either type of practice, so thanks again.

Libby Rothschild
Yeah, pleasures been mine. Thanks again for having me. Okay.