EPISODE 4 - incomplete
Chris: [00:00:00] All right, so welcome back to how to build a profitable nutrition business. Today, we are really fortunate to have Alissa Rumsey from New York City in the United States. Now, I actually come across Alissa because she is one of the few people that have actually put together a course for nutrition professionals, and it looks fantastic.
And so I reached out to Alissa and she kindly decided to come on our podcast. And she's got a fascinating journey that I think will be really valuable to share with our audience. So how are you going, Alissa?
Alissa Rumsey: Hey, thank you so much. I'm doing well. I'm excited to be here with you.
Chris: Now, time zone wise, where are you?
Is it what are you Monday afternoon?
Alissa Rumsey: Monday evening, my time. Yeah.
Chris: Thank you so much. We're in Australia and it's now Tuesday morning. So it's great to always coordinate these things. Now your journey you've been a dietician for 15 years and for nine of them, you've been in private practice.
Practice. Can you tell me, or in business, I should say, we call it private practice here in Australia. Tell me about that journey. So where you started off and then where it led for you today.
Alissa Rumsey: Sure. [00:01:00] So I actually started off my career backing up to when I was doing my training to become a dietitian.
My original plan was to work in the Sports nutrition field. That's originally what I wanted to do, working with athletes. And then here in the U S at the time we had to do a year long internship after our undergraduate degree. And I ended up like totally surprised me. I fell in love with clinical nutrition care, specifically working in the intensive care unit.
So I took a job. My first job as a dietitian was with a large medical center here in New York city, a big teaching hospital. And I thought I'd be there for maybe two years. And I was there for almost seven. And they were great because, I started in clinical and worked in clinical on the inpatient side, but they had a career ladder, so I got experience doing a lot.
Not just seeing patients. And so I got my start doing media work there. I got my start speaking and writing doing social media there. I also through them became a spokesperson for the [00:02:00] Academy of nutrition and dietetics with the support of my manager. And that's what really turned me on to entrepreneurship.
I never thought that I would be a business owner. I think I had a small thought of an idea, like way back when I was in my early twenties. But then. Hadn't really thought about it. Until I started doing these other things through my clinical job and just seeing all the opportunities that were out there that I was really interested in.
Chris: Oh, wow. Yeah. It can be a bit of a bug, can't it? Like once, once you start your own business, I've always said that I think I'd rather do 12 hours for myself than 80 hours for someone else.
Alissa Rumsey: Yeah. Yeah. And it was, I think too, I had started doing some different consulting and projects on the side and I had started, I had realized like, okay, I've been here almost 7 years.
I'm ready for something else. I was getting a graduate degree in health communications. And so I was looking for full time roles in that. Like the kind of food communication space and just realized as I was applying that those jobs were going to be such a [00:03:00] small fraction of what I enjoyed doing and what I wanted to do.
And the idea of being able to do lots of these different things at the time was really attractive to me. And I was like, okay, the only way I can do all of these different things is if I work for myself.
Chris: Yeah. Yep. Okay. So you bit the bullet and you went for it. What what were the early learnings or if you were to start again, what are the sort of things that you'd go back and change?
Do you think?
Alissa Rumsey: Oh my gosh. What I will say is that, so for me, I was working full time at the hospital. I was living in New York city, which is a very expensive place to live. Needless to say, I had not saved up a lot of money. I was. Single living on my own. And so a big hurdle for me before I even thought about, or before I even tried to leave was how am I going to pay for health insurance?
And how am I going to do this when, I had some money coming in from the consulting work I was doing. So I ended up actually taking I had the opportunity that came in just [00:04:00] really randomly through a colleague of mine. That was a part time job opportunity working in a corporate wellness setting, 20 hours a week, but full health insurance benefits with which if any listeners are in the United States know that's like a very rare thing here.
So I left my full time job. Very quickly for this role. And so I did not have a business plan thought out. I didn't really know what I was like. I hadn't thought it through because I was like, this is an opportunity for me. I know this doesn't come across often. So I'm going to take a leap. So it was a very big learning curve because I didn't, I work with a lot of entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs and, most people, I won't say all, but most people, I think, and I think this.
Is what works well for most people is you slowly build it on the side, right? And then you like get to a point where okay, maybe I'm not fully ready, but I'm going to take the leap and go out on my own. And this for me I just left because I had this opportunity. So I think there was a big [00:05:00] learning curve just in the sense of, I had to bring money in fast.
So I was doing like, I leaned on my network, which is something that I continue to do and I'm so glad I did. But I skipped over a lot of what I consider now some of the like foundational work, some of the grounding work around, my why and vision and mission and values. And I jumped right in to taking on clients and contract jobs, partly because that was Financial necessity at the time.
Chris: It was sink or
swim for you. You really had to just make it work, didn't you? I can relate to that because we were in a similar situation. So all of the things that you talk about, like mission and values, they'll come later, which is crazy now looking back on it, isn't
Alissa Rumsey: it? It is. It is because that's when I start working with folks that I'm like, this is where we're starting because this is the grounding.
And I also tell people too, right? Because for me. It sounds similar to you. It came later. And I think to my business has [00:06:00] shifted several times over the last 9 years. And I think these things can shift as we change and as, we have different experiences as humans. So if you've started a business and you haven't done this yet.
It's not like bad or wrong, and I think it is something that can be so just like grounding and this foundation of which to build on. So I did not do that. And I think I wish I would have, because I got around to it over the years, but yeah, I think I felt not super grounded in who. You know what my business was and what I was offering for a while.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. No I completely relate to that. It's my why was feed my kids. So I just needed to work, but like you say, it's something like with the mission and the values you review regularly. Cause like you say, it shifts and changes. So it's a great process to go through. It's but if you can't obviously just try and do it first.
So you grew your business. And you've got, you've clearly been successful at it and you've been able to stick at it now for nine years, which is, better [00:07:00] than a lot of people, because a lot of private, a lot of businesses don't last more than five years. So what are the things that you've been able to implement that have been a bit of a success story for your business?
Alissa Rumsey: I think for me, a huge thing at the beginning, and how this continues is just leaning on relationships and building relationships. And that was something that, you know, when I, so when I started my business, I'd been in the nutrition field for eight years or something like that, seven years.
And so I had built. a lot of relationships. I was involved in our local dietetic association. I was involved at the state level, at the national level working at a large teaching hospital. We had, dozens of dietitians, lots of dietetic interns and students coming through. And so it was something that I was just, I was doing.
And that was, in my early years, that was how I got almost all of my work for my first couple of years. And I think, it's gone through phases and I feel like it's coming back for me full circle because for [00:08:00] many years, search engine optimization with. Is what has got me most of my clients and now it's like changes with AI and Google algorithm changes.
I think it's still important and I'm coming back to these relationships are really are what is important too. And I'm always looking to refer people out and just being able to connect with people that are. Are doing different things that might support my clients. So I think that's 1 of the things of just, having that network.
And again, networking sometimes has like a negative connotation, but I think of it as building really authentic. Relationships with people and not just 1 email. Hey, here's my info. If you want to refer anyone to me, but no building how you build any kind of relationship, friendship, partnership getting to know someone.
And and so that's something that. I leaned on a lot at the beginning and certainly throughout my career too. And that I'm coming back to it and having [00:09:00] conversations with a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners over the last year. I think it again is just such an important thing.
Chris: We're such a personality profession, aren't we?
Like I, we had staff throughout our, when we owned our business. And one of the key things I was looking for is the ability for someone to be able to communicate effectively and there was outgoing. And that's where that relationship building comes from, which when you own your own businesses, then, networking.
Okay. So yes, like you said, it can have a negative term as if you're just trying to use people, but it, like you said, it's actually about relationships. And I think dieticians are pretty great at. Creating relationships because our effectiveness as clinicians depends on how well we engage with their clients.
And so that can work for business. Yeah,
Alissa Rumsey: absolutely. I think there's so many parallels in the work, cause now I still have a small private practice and then I work with other clinicians and nutrition professionals. And I say the words parallel process multiple times a week, I think, cause yeah, the.
The building relationships [00:10:00] for our clients to help with their health and wellbeing. And then a lot of those, it's very transferable skills in terms of building relationships with other people who, we can start to network and work with.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. No, I love that. And so something that is a passion of mine and hence what we're talking was that lack of business skills that.
You can talk for the United States, but certainly in Australia, we've got, I think over 50 percent of our dieticians and nutrition professionals in general that are going into private practice to going into business. Yet a lot of our training is very clinical focused and you would expect that, but there's very little in terms of actually helping someone survive as a business.
And tell us about your journey. Building the course and where you landed in that space.
Alissa Rumsey: Yeah. So when I started my business as I said, big learning curve, I had zero business training. And I had mentioned before that I was a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
For a [00:11:00] couple of years and not all of them were entrepreneurs, but many of them were. And so I had at my disposal, these like really amazing friendships and connections and people who could really like helped me get to that next level. And as I started talking with other dietitians, they were just clueless.
They're like, I don't have. Those people in my life, like I have no idea where to start when it comes to starting a business. And so back in 2017, I started hosting in person weekend long workshops in New York City for called the dietitian entrepreneur mastermind retreat. And I assumed that was going to be people like in the New York state area.
I had people flying from all over the country and even some international like coming to New York for this. And that blew my mind because for me, I was like, okay, yes, I think I have things to share, but also. I wanted to get people in a room and really talk things out and have time to really work on the business.
I know for me, it's [00:12:00] so easy to just get like in the day to day to day
Chris: and not
Alissa Rumsey: have time to step out in big picture. And so that was my goal. And then I thought, whoa, this is really a hole that is not being filled right now. And so that started in 2017. And so I ran, I think, 11 or 12 of those over about four years.
I was doing four a year and then the pandemic happened. Which was actually, it was great because, so I had one booked for March of 2020. Needless to say, we had to take it online and it worked so well. Which I was not really sure. I don't know about doing, weekend long workshop online and it worked really well.
However, then I was seeing right yeah, in March, people were very gung ho about being online within a few months, I don't know about you, I was feeling zoom burnout. And so I thought okay, I don't want to run this just as an online workshop, but what can I do to put this [00:13:00] information out there?
So what I ended up doing was. Turning the parts of it that were for aspiring entrepreneurs into a self paced course, which is the dietitian entrepreneur foundation course. And my goal with that, it's all self paced and my goal with that was to, I think nowadays, I think it's very different from 2017 when literally I didn't know any business coaches and now there are a lot.
Or a lot more, let's say in the nutrition space and it can be really expensive to hire a business coach. I wouldn't have been able to do that when I was first starting out. And so my goal has been to, put the information into a format. That people can consume at their own pace that they can go back to that's really action oriented.
Also, them not having to spend 5 to 10 K to get their business off the ground. Because yeah, here in the U S at least dietitians are still generally underpaid and really wanting to support the profession in that way.
Chris: Oh, that's [00:14:00] amazing. Australia is the same. Like we're for the qualifications and experience that we have, we're an underpaid profession.
So yeah, that's, and like you say, the business coaches that they are expensive, many worth every cent. I'm certainly not detracting from that, but not everyone can afford it, particularly if you're a new graduate. So yeah, that's amazing to hear that.
Alissa Rumsey: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. And it's been, again.
It's been, I take the feedback and so I created that in 2020 and then just revamped it in the fall of 2023. So now it's all new material. Like I rerecorded everything because, obviously the business industry changes. And I was shifting and changing and looking at business from a little bit of a different lens.
And yeah, it is now completely updated and yeah, it's something I'm really proud of putting out there.
Chris: So do you do still do in person at all now as attempting to go back to any of that just from just from the relationship perspective?
Alissa Rumsey: Yeah, no, that is a great question. And I have a colleague who's let's.
Do it in person. [00:15:00] I really want to do it in person. I think where I am just in life, it's, I would love to, at some point in the short term, I think it's going to be mostly online primarily because I don't know if you've run in person events, but there it's, So much planning and it's a lot of heavy lifting and just something I know I don't have the bandwidth like personally for right now.
And gosh, like just the energy in the space. Like I still remember it's been almost four. It's been over four years since I posted one in person and it was always just I would leave exhausted, but I would leave with such a full heart of just being able to connect and have those in person connections.
So never say never. I would love to bring it back at some point. And I do think that, there are a lot of people, myself included, who are like wanting to get back to in person connection. So I hope to at some point.
Chris: No I have run events and I do get the amount of energy required.
So I certainly understand [00:16:00] where you're coming from. And look I appreciate your time today. I just want to quickly finish off with one sort of question that I'm going to make part of the podcast regularly, and it's, if you've got you're talking to someone who's just about to start their new business.
What's the three, and this is aside from doing your course, that's a given. I've got to do your course. That just makes sense. But what are three key bits of advice that you would give them before starting their business?
Alissa Rumsey: Oh, okay. That's a great question. So number one, I would say Setting expectations around.
It is a slow, long process. It is for the vast majority of people. It is not like overnight, you're going to have all of these clients and all of these things. And I see a lot of folks sometimes go into it with that expectation often because that's how business coaches sell and they sell making a certain amount of money per month, which is so not my ethos.
And that can be really hard. And then I find people have, they're losing confidence [00:17:00] because they're saying it's not working. What am I doing wrong? So I think having patience and giving yourself grace, like starting a business is a lot of work. And it is it took me several years before I felt like I was in a point where I was.
really more like stable and consistent income. And that's normal. I'll say that's normal. Which is sometimes hard because When you just look online at what people are saying, they're selling like the pros of entrepreneurship, which there's a lot, right? I still work for myself nine years down the road and it's really hard and it can be a slog.
So I think like having patience, giving yourself grace is number one. So the second thing I would say is finding your people. I think having community and being in community with other people who are going through similar things who get what you're going through and can offer support. And honestly, just like listening I have it like my text chat friends where they're my friends, but they're like, [00:18:00] we have just an ongoing every single day.
There's text in our text chat and honestly, a lot of it is venting and Oh my gosh, this just happened. And not even asking sometimes asking for advice, but just having people that you can say things to that they can be like, Oh my gosh, me too. That's happening to me too, because that validation that you're not alone and that you're not in it alone.
And just to have the support and those like ears is so important. And that's, I also run a six month group coaching program called The Liberated Clinician. And that's why I started that program because I think it can be really lonely to be an entrepreneur. And so how can you find places of community and people who, can be a sounding board and can really be there to support you because there are a lot of people.
A lot of ups and there's also a lot of downs in entrepreneurship.
Chris: Yeah. I love that. Look, you seem like such a genuine caring person and the products you've created aren't about the money. They're about [00:19:00] helping you nine years ago. So I love that. And because I felt that isolation and I had the benefit of having my wife in my business, which helped me, there was a bit more pressure because we had to earn enough for two wages.
But but that feeling of. Feeling isolated is so real. So I love everything you've just said.
Alissa Rumsey: Yeah. And then the third thing I would say is, and this goes back to the conversation we were having of what I wish I did at the beginning of some more of the foundational work. I think having a grounding in your values, in how you want to show up, and then Making decisions, business decisions and life decisions generally, like through that lens is so important because, and this still happens to me 9 years in, but certainly when I was starting out and different opportunities would come my way and.
It can be hard when there's some like very real financial need or financial scarcity of a gut check of is this a fit for me and something that's been so helpful for me is just [00:20:00] knowing my values know what I'm committed to and then when opportunities do come my way. Using those as a lens through which to make the decisions through my business and because there can be a, there's a lot of hard decisions, right?
That come in running a business. And so having that grounding has really helped me both in making decisions, but also if I do get like negative feedback or constructive feedback, it helps me. Really know Fiona Sutherland has this I think it's a blog that she wrote about Troll vs.
Teacher. And it helps me really have this grounding of okay, is this something I can, I should take in and really learn from? Or is this something that okay, nope this is not actually something that I do need to take in. So it lets me be less reactive, less defensive when stuff does come up.
In that way just of having that grounding.
Chris: Yeah, I love that. Like a decision making framework for your inner voice. Yeah I can relate to that one as well because you, [00:21:00] like sometimes your negative voice can take over and you take everything on board and, some things you just need to, let go and move on.
So yeah that's great. Three really key bits of advice that I think any person starting out or a veteran in nutrition business could benefit from. Alissa, so where can any of our listeners listening to this get in touch with you or follow you or learn more about your course? Or the liberated dietitian, like what's the best way for people to get in touch?
Alissa Rumsey: Yeah. So my website is alissarumsey.com. And then if you want to learn more about The Entrepreneur Foundation Course, that's that self paced course, that's alissarumsey.com/foundationcourse . And then The Liberated Clinician is also a program I run twice a year. So that's a live program. And that's alissarumsey.com/the-liberated-clinician . I also have, and I can send you these links for the show notes, but I also have a lot of free downloads too for folks who are either starting a business or are, have already been running a business. Things like a [00:22:00] financial forecasting worksheet, an ideal client worksheet. And so you can also find those at alissarumsey.com/resources .
Chris: Yes. We'll be sure to put all of those links in the show notes. Alissa, thank you so much for coming on. This has been absolute gold. Certainly a lot of information that our listeners will benefit from. Thanks for your time.
Alissa Rumsey: Of course. Thanks so much for having me.
