So your dietitian nutrition coaching business is growing and you’re looking to hire someone (or some people) to help you grow?
My name is Tony Stephan, I’m a registered dietitian and I teach dietitians like you how to create online nutrition coaching businesses. In this blog I’m going to teach you how to grow and outsource also!
A little less than one year ago we started looking to hire a new person for our rapidly growing business. This topic is something that my students always ask me about. So, I figured what better of an opportunity to teach you more about the key hires that you will need to make in a growing online dietitian business.
Remember, these tips are for advanced entrepreneurs who are scaling their businesses. If you’re a new dietitian just starting out, don’t get discouraged if you’re not at this place yet. You will be!
Look, none of us RD’s went to school for management or business operations. I know I sure didn’t! I had to learn all of this the hard way when I created my business. I want you to learn from my mistakes so that you don’t have to waste time and money!
I’m going to walk you through some options that I’ve done. And don’t just take my word for it. I’ve helped over 100 dietitians in our I Believe Mastermind use these same tactics to grow their team!
Understand This First:
Understand that after you are scaling past a solopreneur point in your business, the way to make MORE impact and MORE income is to do less. Not more!
You need to identify your zone of genius. For me, my zone of genius is 3 things. Delegation, motivation, and selling. I’m getting much better at delegating things out, I am the only person that can coach my clients and motivate them and my team, and I’m by far the best at selling on my team.
So those are the 3 things I do, and everything else I get rid of and hand off to my team. And trust me, I’m a control freak when it comes to my business. But I HAD to learn how to scale and get rid of tasks that aren’t in my zone of genius. That’s the only way I could grow my business to what it is today!
Admin Role:
The first person you want to look to bring on for your business is an admin role. This is the first person I brought in also! Back in the days when I did nutrition coaching, I had 80+ clients. My admin started helping with emails, billing, onboarding, and new clients.
The admin role is someone to take away those tasks that you have to do when you’re a solopreneur in your business, but you SHOULDN’T be doing these forever. Like I said earlier, I know my zone of genius. I want you to identify your zone of genius before you move on to hiring someone to make it easier to delegate tasks.
My admin started at $250 to test out the position, and we grew her into a full-time paid salary! Start slow. Start with someone you already know, maybe a former client or a nutrition student looking to gain entrepreneurial experience. Go on your Facebook support groups, get on your social media platforms, and you will find someone.
Do a time log and identify what the tasks are that you can get rid of in your business. That’s where your admin will be most valuable to you!
Find a Co-Coach:
In the beginning, I hadn’t planned on going this route. I moved from B to C (business to consumer) to B to B which is helping YOU amazing Rd’s with your businesses.
First I started helping other clients hire co-coaches for their businesses. Jenna Werner is a great example of an RD who I helped on board a co-coach. A few months ago, I was growing so much inside of the Dietitian Nutrition Coaching Certification Program that I needed a co-coach too! So, I brought on a past student of the DNCC and the RD Business Ignition Program, Olivia Kitz RD. She crushed it in the certification and the ignition program, and had her own successful business so I knew she would be a great fit on my team.
Now, YOU built an amazing dietitian coaching business and more and more people want to work with you. But the more clients you add on, the less time you have to help each of those clients. This is where another RD comes into play.
When hiring another RD for your team, you can do revenue share. What I generally teach is the 50/50 revolutionary. Example: you onboard the client, you bring them in, and Suzy the RD coaches them. You take 50% of the profit, they take 50% of the profit.
Remember, I am simplifying every one of these options. This topic could seriously be a 5 hour training in itself! But I want to emphasize the benefits of having a co-coach. Your brand keeps growing and you can stay in the realm of nutrition coaching. Obviously you will have to coach the person that you bring onto your team so they can coach with your style. That’s what we did with Jenna Werner using the Dietitian Nutrition Coaching Certification!
I’ve had other very successful people I worked with, Nicole Hagen and Alex Groff are two examples, grow big businesses who didn’t want to go the route of hiring a co-coach. So don’t feel like its 100% necessary to grow without a coach, but it’s a great option if you’re open to it! Just identify what would work best for you and your dietitian coaching business.
Sales/Closer:
If sales is not your zone of genius, another route you can take is getting a seller/closer. Yes, this is someone that will take your sales calls for you!
I don’t always recommend this route, however. I think YOU should become the client attraction expert in your businesses and you should learn how to sell.
Generally these people will work anywhere from 10%-40% and even 50% commission of a sale. So, if you sell a $2500 paid in full program for your coaching services (which is what we teach in the mastermind), the closer would take 50% of that.
Hands down, you should be able to speak your business better than anyone else in your program. If you can’t do that, maybe this would be a good fit. But I highly recommend that YOU are the one selling your services. I’ve seen a lot of people go this route. Mostly people who have huge businesses. No clients that I have worked with have gone this route, and I haven’t done it myself, but it is a potential route if you think it would fit best for your needs.
Just understand that this route may cost you a big portion of commission from the sale. Also, I couldn’t imagine non-RD closer being able to understand an RD business like we do. So if you do hire a closer, you may want the closer to be a dietitian.
Head of Operations/Project Manager:
Let me tell you a little bit about all of the people in our business framework that we are responsible for. In other words, the people we deal with for our business who are independent contractors.
First there is the admin role like I described above. Then we use interns and students all the time. I use and editing company to edit videos for Youtube and social media. We have 2 amazing videographers, Adam and Jake. We have an event coordinator, aka my wife Andrea. Now we even have a funnels expert, as well as a CPA.
I get emails, text messages, and slack messages all day everyday from all of these people. I’m constantly texting and getting updates from my team, so that’s where a project manager comes in. A project manager who I, and yourself, can delegate to. They can go through and get all of these people in line so that I don’t have to. Basically, they are the mediator between me and all of these contractors. It’s an efficiency thing.
This is something that I’ve learned from my mentor, Bedros Kuelien. He only talks to ONE person. That one person then goes and communicates with everyone else. It’s about making yourself available on a limited basis as your business grows, in order for you to focus on the tasks that will help your grow even bigger.
The Take Away
When you are hiring in your business, it can be scary. It is, I won’t lie. But you can’t hoard money. If you’re at this point in your business where you’re growing, then you’ve already made money and created success. In order to grow more, you HAVE to invest money back into it. You can’t hold on to money because of scarcity. Investing back in your business is the only way to scale it and grow. If you want more impact and more reach, you can’t do it alone!
