What should I be charging for one on one nutrition consulting as an RD? How do I charge what I’m worth when potential clients seem to often underestimate my pricing? This is a question ALL RD entrepreneurs must answer when first starting up their RD nutrition coaching business. So know that you are not alone in finding a way to charge what you’re worth. In this article, we are going to talk about what it takes to charge what you’re worth as an RD nutrition coach–because YOU are WORTH IT!
Before we get into the bulk of it, first allow me to introduce myself. My name is Tony Stephan and I’m a dietitian business coach. I help RDs make more IMPACT and more INCOME through nutrition coaching. However before I became a dietitian business coach, I was an RD nutrition coach (just like you). I served thousands of nutrition coaching clients over a time span of 12 years. My successful nutrition coaching business is what led me to where I am today. Now allow me to share with you everything you need to know about how to charge what you’re worth as a dietitian nutrition coach.
Why Can It Be Such A Challenge To Charge What We’re Worth?
In a world where everyone claims to be a nutrition expert, it can be a challenge to stand out in the crowd. It also doesn’t help that many self proclaimed nutrition experts tend to charge cheaply. So what do you do when you’re giving your offer and your client says, “Well, I know someone who charges less”? It’s a conversation we can almost expect to experience as dietitian nutrition coaches. So how can you prove your worth and stand out in the mass of nutrition experts and self proclaimed nutrition experts when there are so many voices in the diet industry?
That’s exactly what I’m talking about today. Here are 3 tips to help you charge what you’re worth as a dietitian nutrition coach:
Know Your Worth
In terms of knowing your worth, remember YOU ARE THE RD! There are unqualified nutrition professionals making bank off of your ideal clients’ vulnerabilities. So why can’t you, the RD, charge what you’re worth and actually help your ideal client population? You, the nutrition expert, are incredibly valuable! Don’t forget that.
So now you are probably thinking, yes, I AM the nutrition expert and I am VALUABLE. But now how do I figure out the exact dollar amount of what I’m worth? The beauty of entrepreneurship as an RD is that, for most of us, there is no set dollar amount exactly. As long as you’re providing VALUE and your potential client understands the value that you’re offering, there is a lot of leeway in terms of what you can charge.
You see, what someone chooses to pay is based on perceived value. Perceived value means that if you can convince your potential client that your services are worth a million dollars, then it is worth a million dollars. A million dollars was an exaggeration, but it gets the point across–as long as you can communicate and convince your potential client of your price, then that is what you can charge.
So this is why it’s SO important to know you’re worth and have confidence going into creating the price you want to charge. Because here is what’s important to know: You first have to be sold on your value before you can sell to anyone else! If you’re not sold on the value of your nutrition coaching, how will anyone else be? Ultimately only you can decide what you will charge as a dietitian nutrition coach, but always remember to never underestimate your worth when making this decision.
Don’t Back Down From Your Price
As we mentioned above, there will always be those potential clients who aren’t willing to pay for your services, no matter how confident you are in your offer. There are even people who expect you to give them nutrition advice and sessions for free. When this happens, it can be very tempting to give a discount or offer a limited amount of free nutrition advice out of scarcity. However backing down from your price DOESN’T help you or your client and that’s because when people PAY they PAY ATTENTION.
In the end, people pay attention to the things they invest their money into. If someone isn’t willing to pay your price, it indicates that the client may not be the most invested in their goals anyway. And ultimately, you may find that those same potential clients who told you “no” at first will come back again later as they further see the worth of having you on their side! So it’s really worth it to not back down from your price and charge what you’re worth!
A mishap that I often see newbie RD nutrition coaches make is undercharging what they are worth through frequently giving hefty discounts, freebies, and so forth. I’ll tell you this, you DON’T want to be the cheapest RD on the block. When you’re the cheapest RD on the block, it forces you to “compete” with all of the “cheap diet products” and “cheaper nutrition coaches” out there. So it’s very difficult to compete by being the cheapest RD alone! If you want to be able to charge what you’re worth as a dietitian nutrition coach, you MUST be able to provide VALUE. If you provide value, then potential clients will stop looking at what they will lose and instead they see what they will gain from working with you.
Quality Over Quantity
If you want to be able to charge what you’re worth as an RD nutrition coach, you have to go for quality over quantity. You may not be able to be the cheapest dietitian nutrition coach, but you can be an incredibly valuable dietitian nutrition coach in your niche. The good news for us as dietitians is that there are a lot of “quantity over quality” products and “quantity over quality” nutrition coaches out there. So bringing value to your niche and being a quality nutrition coach makes it much easier to stand out in the crowd. What I always tell my coaching client RDs is that you want to be a boutique, not an everyday run of the mill service. When you focus on quality and produce quality results for your clients, it gets people’s attention.
If you’re looking for a way to set up a solid structure for your nutrition coaching business, you’re in the right place! In our dietitian nutrition coaching certification, we help RDs who change lives everyday while making more IMPACT and more INCOME. In the Dietitian Nutrition Coaching Certification, we teach our students how to set their dietitian nutrition coaching business up for success so that they can guarantee value for their clients and charge what they are worth!
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