This episode is inspired by a question that I asked in my Facebook group: who here runs a multiple six figure business and what were the biggest things you focused on to take you beyond 100k per year?
Over 45 highly successful dietitians weighed in with their thoughts. So I decided to share what these dietitians said in this episode.
I categorized their responses into 12 core themes that came up again and again. These are the main concepts that these dietitians focused on in order to grow their businesses to multiple six figures.
Tune in now to hear what they had to say!
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Episode Transcript
Erica: Are you a member of my free Facebook group, the unconventional RD community on Facebook. If not, definitely go look it up and request to join. It’s a space full of over 13,000 wellness professionals, interested in online business and unconventional income streams. And we have the best discussions every single week.
In fact, this entire podcast episode. Is inspired by a question that I’ve asked to the group. I asked who here runs a multiple six figure business. And what were the biggest things you focused on to take you beyond a hundred K per year? I asked this question to the group in 2021 and in 2022, and the responses were honestly pure gold.
Over 45 super successful dietitians have weighed in with their thoughts. And for this podcast, I attempted to categorize the responses into 12 core themes that came up again. And again. These are the main concepts that these successful dietitians seem to continually bring up as things that they focused on in order to grow their businesses to multiple six figures.
Obviously each person had their own unique spin on their advice, but there were clear common threads that I was able to pull out and weave into this list of core factors to focus on in order to grow a business that generates multiple six figures in revenue per year. I’m also personally running a multiple six-figure base business right now. So I have added my own thoughts and experiences into these tips as well.
This is such a fun and different episode that I’m trying out today. So if you enjoy this one, definitely leave a comment on the episode in the Facebook group, or send me a DM on Instagram or however you want to let me know so that I can do some more of these types of episodes in the future. If they’re valuable to you.
So let’s get into the 12 key factors for growing your business to multiple six figures. According to dozens of dietitians in the unconventional NRG, Facebook community. Tip number one. Was to hire a team. This was probably the most commonly listed tip for growing your business to multiple six figures.
The key sentiment was that you cannot, and definitely should not do this alone. At some point you will become the bottleneck in your business. And the sooner you can recognize that and begin to bring on help. The better off you will be. A few people even shared the type of help that they hire and the order in which they typically hire, which I found really helpful.
Most people said that they started by hiring independent contractors, usually a VA or otherwise known as a virtual assistant. To help with administrative tasks. Next they hired help actually fulfilling their offer or service. For example, if they ran a private practice, they would hire additional RDS to see clients so that they could step back and focus more on the CEO type of tasks.
If they run an online course or group program, maybe with a coaching or support component, they would hire other coaches to help serve their customers or students, et cetera. If they run a service-based business, like freelance writing, recipe development, SEO, or tech services, et cetera, then they would hire other people to help create content or help provide services underneath them.
After that many people chose to hire some sales help, if applicable to their business model, to get some help generating new leads. Next up could be operations help hiring someone to help keep the ship on track from day to day. And finally, you might hire a marketing manager to develop, implement, and manage your higher level marketing strategies in the business.
There was a lot of chatter about letting go of ego as a business owner, moving from saying I and me all the time to us. And we moving into working into your, in your zone of genius and having other people do the rest. For example, don’t force yourself to master skill sets that don’t align with your natural aptitudes.
If you’re not a writer, but you want to grow your audience through blogging. Outsource the writing. If you’re not good at creating graphics for social media, hire some help. If you hate maintaining the tech side of your business. Hire someone else to manage it for you. Hire fast fire quick until you find the team of people that you can really rely on.
Ask for help when you need it. Spend your time doing the things only you can do and enjoy doing and outsource the rest. One person gave the suggestion to make a list of everything you do in your business for one full week. Then organize those tasks into buckets. Figure out what can only be done by you like recording a podcast that requires your voice or a video that requires your face. For example.
And then work on outsourcing the rest of your team. One RD side, creating scalable offers is what got her to 200,000 a year. But building a team is what then propelled her to over 600,000 a year. It may seem counterintuitive to spend more money to grow, but hiring and delegating is the only way to continue to grow and expand beyond what you are personally capable of as one individual. You have to start thinking like a CEO rather than like an employee, which may not come naturally.
Hire other people to do the day-to-day operations so that you can focus on revenue, generating things like bringing in more leads, improving your offer, et cetera. Having a team can also motivate you to do better since it’s not just you anymore. Others are also relying on your business to succeed. And that can be a big factor for some people who are sort of the spearhead for the business.
Tip number two. Let go of side gigs to focus on your own business. This tip is what made the biggest difference for me personally. I was able to hit my first 100,000 a year with a hodgepodge of freelance stuff and my own business offerings. But the problem was I was sped spread way too thin and lacked focus or scalability with what I was doing.
I got to multiple six figures. By quitting all of my side gigs and focusing a hundred percent on my own offerings. It really is important to say no to opportunities that aren’t 100% in alignment with what you’re trying to do. Stay focused on your core vision and offerings without getting distracted as best as you possibly can.
It’s also critical to understand the type of business you want to build and not get caught up in what everyone else is doing. For example, you do not have to be on Instagram to build a successful business. Just like you don’t have to have a blog to build a successful business either. Focus on one core offer marketed on one primary platform until it’s fully optimized and systematized before adding more to your plate.
Tip number three, specialize in something and become an authority. AKA niche down. There were a few comments from people saying that everything changed when they niched down. Some people said it’s when they really focused in, on being an eating disorder, expert, other people praise. You know, niching down into functional nutrition. It doesn’t really matter what it is. It just needs to be something.
Many people echo the sentiment that it’s important to devote yourself to becoming the best you can be in whatever area of expertise you have. You can do speaking and presenting to build your authority. Network work on getting media interviews so that you can perhaps get some brand deals. If that’s something you aspire to.
Uh, work on building backlinks and mentions online to build your authority, et cetera. It’s all about really nailing your messaging and being really clear on what you can offer for people so that when you are getting out there and building your brand, the people you want to attract are the ones who resonate with what you’re saying. So, one thing to think about is when people talk about you, is it super clear what you’re known for?
Are you the go-to resource for something? If not there is work to do. It’s highly unlikely that you’ll be able to build a six figure business. If people don’t immediately know how you can help them. Tip number four, focus on being valuable above all. There was some great advice on these threads about not coming at things, thinking what can make me money, but rather, what can I create that as super valuable for others and then price it appropriately. The money will come if you are truly helping others.
One dietitian recommended asking yourself, how can you be the best part of your customer’s day? How can you make their life better? How can you make them feel loved and appreciated? If people leave your services, feeling positive and uplifted. That is much more likely to lead to a natural word of mouth referrals and longterm success rather than a flash in the pan with no staying power, because people were maybe seduced by our marketing, but then not satisfied with the product or service.
Tip number five, develop scalable offers. A scalable offer is one that you have systematized to be able to serve a potentially infinite number of people so that there really is no ceiling on your income. And the key point here is that your time is not scalable. I’ll say that again. Your time is not scalable.
You do not have an infinite number of personal hours to give to the world. So you cannot have your entire business running through you. If you want to grow and have almost no cap on your potential. The main point here is that if you want to grow into a business that earns multiple six or even seven or eight figures, you can’t remain in the trading time for money model. You’ve got to move beyond that and develop income streams that can scale independent of your direct one-on-one time.
For example, you could develop group programs, expand into a group, private practice, create online courses, run a membership site. Sell products. Do you affiliate marketing or an ad revenue, et cetera, et cetera. The main point though, is that you will hit an income ceiling. If everything you do is dependent on your time, you have to build in other types of offers that aren’t reliant on your one-on-one time in order to scale to multiple six figures and beyond.
And of course, most importantly, create time. Freedom for yourself. If you’re interested in how I have created an automated, scalable system in my business, check out episode 94 of this podcast titled make more money by doing less. It’s a real eye-opener and mindset shifter. If this is an area that you struggle with.
Tip number seven, create higher ticket offers. There was a good amount of chatter in the group about raising your prices to reflect the true value you provide, because oftentimes people underprice themselves when they’re starting out. And then sometimes they never circle back to evaluate their pricing strategies and whether they are aligned with the true value of what they’re providing.
I know I’m definitely guilty of this. And this is important because generally speaking, it is easier to sell a few higher ticket items than a zillion, low price things. You can make money more easily. By staying focused on selling a premium product or service rather than trying to attract the masses with something low priced.
Just to do some math here. If you created a high ticket offer that was priced at $1,500 per month. You would only need 12 clients each month. In order to make $200,000 for the year. In contrast in order for a $15 a month membership site to make $200,000 per year, you would need over 1000 paying customers every single month.
That’s a big difference, right? I think the lesson people were trying to convey here in these types of comments is to not be afraid of premium priced offers. But I do really think it’s important to always listen to your gut on this one. It’s true. Not everyone needs or wants a premium price to business.
For example, I used to run a functional nutrition membership site that was only $15 per month. And I was able to grow that to nearly 300 paying members or roughly 50,000 per year in income, before I shut it down to focus on other things. Some people may have scoffed at that idea. But honestly, I love that I was only responsible for creating two really high value pieces of content every single month for our members. And that’s it.
It was a very part-time thing I was doing for pretty good payoff. And most importantly, it was work that I actually enjoyed. I was writing and researching and I was not doing any one-on-one work at all. And I felt like it was work. That was actually genuinely helping people. So I think the point here is to figure out whether your pricing decisions.
Are coming from being in alignment with your values and your desired business model. Or whether they’re coming from a place of lack Or feeling like you’re not worthy enough to create a high ticket offer. Again, high ticket is not for everyone. It depends on the type of work you like to do, and the type of business you aspire to run. But typically you can reach your financial goals faster with a higher ticket offer than with a lower ticket offer. But again, whether you enjoy that lifestyle is another story and it is something that’s really important to think about as you plan out your goals, because it’s not all about the money.
It’s important to enjoy your work as well. Tip number six, work with people for the longterm versus one-off offers or sessions. This is yet another tip that revolves around pricing long-term income generation and income diversity. Most of the hiring business owners who commented on the thread, worked with people in some sort of longer-term way, rather than one-off items.
This can allow you to earn more money per customer and get them better outcomes, because let’s be honest, working with someone once for an hour is unlikely to create lasting results. Some ways people tackle this issue was creating multiple month long packages to work with someone. So this could be you, you know, like a package for one-on-one work or maybe a package for group coaching.
Starting a membership site or people pay monthly for continued support. Or even layering a support and accountability membership on the backend of another paid product, like a course or a group program. No matter what type of work you do, whether it’s working with clients, selling products, or even doing things like writing or brand work, you will probably see a benefit from mastering the art of upselling.
Or offering people larger or longer term packages rather than one-off services or projects. Tip number seven, doing the mindset work. So, so, so many six-figure earners said that working on their mindset was one of the biggest keys to getting their business to the next level. A lot of them specifically mentioned money mindset, but it was bigger than just money.
It’s about money, confidence, clarity, and honestly, just getting out of your own way. A few people gave the advice to focus first on creating an exceptional customer experience and then charge what you’re worth. Have confidence in yourself and know how valuable your offers are and how they can truly change people’s lives.
There was also a lot of tips around grounding yourself and not accepting everything that comes your way, especially not out of fear of needing the money. Saying no makes space for things that are actual perfect fits. If it’s not a hell. Yes, it’s a hell now. It’s also important to know that you are not the right fit for everyone and that’s okay.
If your brand is not actively repelling certain types of people, you’re probably not niched down enough. Another tip was to not be afraid to ask for what you deserve. Don’t undersell yourself. If everyone is saying yes to you without batting an eye, it’s probably time to raise your prices. And I especially loved what dietitian Ashley Koff said.
She said that she’s working on answering the comment. Wow. You’re expensive with, I am really, really good. A few people mentioned the value of coaching To help challenge them to move to the next level. But essentially it’s just about getting out of your own way. It’s usually not that you’re unable to do something. It’s more about your own mind limiting you from moving forward in some way. You can do the inner work or you can work with a coach to uncover exactly what’s holding you back and how to push through those things to make real progress. Tip number eight, streamline your processes.
Remember when we talked about creating scalable offers. Things that can be sold over and over again, whether you are directly involved or not. Well, coming up with a scalable offer is step one, but actually doing the work to scale, it is another step entirely. You could create the world’s best course, but if you don’t have a system to sell, maintain and deliver it,
It’s probably not going to be very successful. You really need consistent repeatable launch processes or something like an evergreen funnel to keep people enrolling in your offer. Someone in the Facebook group recommended creating systems and processes for every single thing in your business. Document how you do everything so that if need be your business could run without you for an extended period of time.
Learn how to build your team and processes to take yourself out of the equation as much as possible. That is the key to scalable growth.
And if you’re interested in learning how I set up my evergreen sales funnel that generated over $270,000 in revenue last year. With Jess, myself and one part-time employee. Check out episode 65 of this podcast titled $84,000 in seven days. Unpacking my evergreen launch. I walk you through exactly how I set up my funnel.
And how it works in the long run to generate sales each month without having to do any formal launches, highly recommend. Tip number nine was to know your numbers. It is essential to track your key performance indicators, your KPIs. And know what is working or not working in your business. You can track things like how you’re growing your audience, bringing in clients.
Converting people into customers, retaining customers, et cetera. Specifics will vary depending on your business model, obviously, but if you don’t know whether the things you’re focusing on are moving the needle. It’s hard to determine what you need to do to grow. I think this concept is so important.
That I actually created a tracking spreadsheet in my SEO made simple course. For my students to track their traffic and ranking stats, understand where their visitors are coming from and stay organized with the strategies they’ve tried and how they went. So that they can double down on what’s working.
There’s even a handy tab in the spreadsheet for troubleshooting common issues, like what to do. If you had a sudden drop in organic traffic one month or tips for boosting your click through rate, et cetera. I love the concept, that data doesn’t have emotions, take your ego out of it and let the numbers guide you to what’s working or not working.
And make your business decisions accordingly. Tip number 10, master your lead generation. A few people talked about how organic audience growth was enough to get them to six figures, but that when they were ready to kick it up into the multiple six figure range, they started experimenting with new lead generation tactics, like paid ads, leveraging other audiences, being a guest on other people’s podcasts, doing presentations, speaking engagements, et cetera.
The key here though, is that the people focusing on audience growth. Already had their signature offer and scalable systems dialed in. Then they could focus on pouring more people into the system. They already had set up knowing that a certain percentage would reliably convert into customers. If you start using all these expensive or high effort methods to grow your audience before you have your solid selling systems in place.
Then that’s kind of like pouring water into a bucket with holes in it. You will lose a lot more potential customers. If you’re not ready to serve them when they find you. But there were also a few people in the group reminding everyone that focus is key and that it is okay to not be on every channel out there.
Focus on mastering what you’re good at pair one core audience building channel with some solid email marketing and automations, and you will barely let very likely be able to reach multiple six figures with just that set up. Only expand once you have those systems in place and feel good about them.
One person in the group had a great reminder that it’s often the ability to focus and actually take action on those core daily tasks that move the needle. Things like content creation or list building or writing emails or pitching or whatever it may be for your business. It’s the consistent small actions day in and day out over several years that really add up.
Also someone really noted that if pitching is part of your lead generation, don’t forget about the value of following up.
Also if pitching is a part of your lead generation, don’t forget about the value of following up a few people touch on that one. Don’t assume that an initial lack of responses and no. I can’t tell you how many emails I’ve accidentally forgotten about, but then ended up following through with, after the person followed up.
I’m just not that organized. And I get a lot of emails, so. Don’t take it personally from me or probably from like anyone else you emailed, if you don’t get a response the first time around follow-up follow-up follow-up. Tip number 11. Expand to multiple income streams. Some people in these threads gave the advice to use multiple revenue streams to get to multiple six figures.
I do think a lot of this depends on your business model personally, as you probably know, if you listened to this podcast, I am a huge fan on focusing on that one offer or monetization method. Both platform and an email list to start. But once you feel confident that you have systems in place that can scale that one offer, then you have the green light to start thinking about strategically expanding.
In the long run, it is good to have more than one income stream. If everything relies on one method of income, you could be in trouble. If something ever happens that cuts off that stream. Some examples of ways people expand their income streams include blogging, YouTubing or podcasting with the intention of earning ad revenue.
Building an audience or area of influence and expertise in order to work with brands. Doing affiliate marketing, where they promote other people’s products and services to their audience. Offering additional services, perhaps with people working underneath them, like writing photography, coaching, et cetera.
Selling physical goods or supplements licensing your content, creating online courses or membership sites, or even creating paid trainings for other professionals or businesses in your niche. If you want more tips on ways you can expand your income streams. Check out episode 37 of this podcast, titled seven ways to diversify your income for financial security and freedom.
I walk you through five questions to ask yourself. To get clarity on what type of income streams it might make sense to add within your unique business. A great place to start is to think about what people might need before, after, or in addition to your core offer. This is fun, fun stuff. And adding a new income generating method can definitely expand your bottom line, but don’t rush it and don’t spread yourself too thin. You will know when the time is. Right. So trust that feeling.
And finally tip number 12. Learn from failures and never give up. Understand that failing forward is a part of the process. What can you take from your quote unquote failure and improve upon moving forward? So many people said it was that consistent action over many years towards one goal that finally got them to a multiple six figure business.
Versus, you know, maybe switching targets every year. If you’re not seeing quick traction. Take the time to deeply learn the strategies you need to implement on whatever audience building channel you’re focused on. And then give it time at least one year of solid effort before making any sweeping changes.
There were also so many sentiments that it’s important to take risks in your business to try things before you feel a hundred percent ready. And to let go of that control a little bit in your business. You won’t exceed your wildest dreams by playing it safe. Push yourself to try and do things that seem a little bit outlandish.
Because honestly, why not? You. If it’s something you’re interested in and that you really think is meeting a need, just go for it. Guaranteed that even if it doesn’t play out how you initially hoped you will still learn a ton. Also stay fluid. Don’t be rigid with your business. Stay open to learning and to changes in the industry.
Experiment and try new things, pay attention to what’s working and be open to leaning into that. Even if it’s not quite what you were initially expecting. Above all stay light, joyous and playful in your business. That energy will shine through and it is truly infectious.
If you love what you do and are passionate about serving your people, that will take you very far. I hope you enjoyed this recap episode and digging deeper into the cumulative advice
from over 40 entrepreneurial dietitians in our industry who are earning multiple six figures in their businesses. I’m sure. You’ll see me ask this question again in the group in 2023. So be on the lookout for some more awesome responses. And Hey, I have a favor to ask you. If you are really enjoying this podcast, I love it. If you could share it with a few friends.
I was just looking at some of the stats for my business in 2022. And word of mouth is actually one of the biggest ways people hear about my brand and SEO course. So I would love to keep that ball rolling. If there’s someone, you know, whether they’re a dietitian or not honestly, because a lot of people tell me that they share their podcast with.
That they share this podcast with their friends and family and other industries who also get a lot of value out of it. So if that resonates with you, send them the link to the show, you can send it either directly on my [email protected] slash podcast, or send them a link on the listening platform of your choice, like apple podcasts or Spotify.
And thanks again for tuning in with me every week. I really appreciate it. And I don’t take your listenership for granted. So seriously. Thank you. Thank you. And I will catch you next week with some more helpful content.
Erica Julson is a registered dietitian turned digital marketing pro. She has over 12 years of experience blogging and building online businesses and has taught over 900 wellness professionals inside her signature program, SEO Made Simple.
