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Jodie Sheraton: [00:00:00] Another challenge that we come across also is that our study throughout university doesn't really provide us with much exposure or information or skills specific to private practice. And in the last 12 months, there's been quite a bit of research that's come out to say that over 50 percent of new graduate dietitians are entering the private practice space.
Chris: Welcome to How to Build a Profitable Nutrition Business. If you love nutrition and you love helping people and you want to be in the game long enough to keep doing that, then this is the podcast for you. Let's get into it.
Today's episode of how to build a profitable nutrition business. We are fortunate to have Jodie Sheraton on. When I read this bio, you'll understand why I say fortunate when it comes to the business of nutrition. Jodie is the one to talk to. So Jodie is an accredited practicing dietician. Eating Disorder Dietitian and the Director of Optimum Intake [00:01:00] Dietetics, Myrtle Oak Clinic and Elevated Dietetics.
She graduated with a Bachelor of Health Science, Nutrition and Dietetics from the University of Newcastle in 2006. Jodi has worked across various positions in both public health, hospital, outpatient and private practice settings. Jodi has created a company to inspire health and wellbeing through enjoyment, satisfaction and the simplicity of food.
Although Jodi has experience in a wide range of nutrition related fields, Her passion and current role is in leading and supporting her team of dietitians, psychologists, and client coordinators. Together, they deliver adaptive, creative and innovative individualised nutrition services where each client is supported and valued.
Jodie provides coaching and supports to fellow dietitian private practice owners to grow their business and teams through increasing their influence in the community. Impact and income. This is why we've got Jodie on to How to Build a Profitable Nutrition Business. Let's get into it. Welcome back to How to Build a Profitable Nutrition Business.
Today, I am [00:02:00] really fortunate to have Jodie Sheraton on board. And Jodie has a wealth of knowledge in the private practice space. There's probably not too many dietitians more qualified to talk in this space than Jodie. And so it's a real pleasure to have you on. How are you, Jodie?
Jodie Sheraton: Hi, Chris. I'm really good.
Thank you so much for inviting me to come on this podcast. I'm excited about the conversation we're going to have today.
Chris: Yeah, I think it's an area we've just been speaking before we started recording. And it's an area that we're both pretty passionate about. And I think there's going to be a lot in this topic.
Before we dive into it, if you don't mind, can you just give everyone a bit of a background so they can get an understanding of why you, you are so qualified about this subject?
Jodie Sheraton: Yeah, sure. Look, it's been 16 years now since I left uni, I studied at Newcastle university and, on graduating, wasn't quite sure where I wanted to work or what I wanted to do.
And I was fortunate enough to get a little bit of casual jobs here and there, a little bit of research assistant work. I was lucky enough to get a pediatric position in a hospital, did some other [00:03:00] casual hospital work. And so I've got a taste for what it was like to work within a It just wasn't sitting right with me.
There was a lot of red tape. When you work in a hospital and I just couldn't deliver the amount of client care that I really wanted to for my patients there. And, they get discharged so quickly and I felt like I hadn't really given them the information that they'd need to go on home with. And so as a Side hustle.
I suppose you'd call it. I thought, you know what? I'm just going to start my own private practice. I had no idea what it would look like, what it would involve. I had no business training behind me at all, but I was like, you know what? I'm young. I'm living at home. I don't really have anything to lose if I just give this a go.
And so from being a new graduate first year out of uni, I did both. So I worked a little bit in the hospital and also started a private practice called Optimum Intake, which I still run as one of my private practices today. And it's just grown from there to now a team [00:04:00] of 40 team members that work alongside me.
Chris: So that's well, 40 team members, that is an effort in itself. Like a lot of dietitians, and we were the same, I was the same when you're at uni, there's this kind of, it's very hospital centric, the training, and I agree, I actually do not like working in the hospital, I've worked in the hospital system, I've had great teams and Workmates.
And so it wasn't the environment. It was the actual work. There was just no continuity. You couldn't, there wasn't enough follow up and, how did that client get on? And you really, I really missed that disconnect. And that was interesting. You talked about that because that's what I love about private practice.
You really get to see the outcomes more often.
Jodie Sheraton: Yes and when we interview for people interested in coming to work with us. One of the main things that they bring up as to why they might like to work in private practice is that they're wanting to build that longer term relationship with a client that they're wanting to be able to support them at home in their lifestyle and carry them through the journey of achieving their health goals.
So I think [00:05:00] being really person centered and being able to offer ongoing support is something that we love. As private practice dietitians.
Chris: So for anyone listening to this, that's going to be applying for a job, just giving away an answer there. So Optimum Intake has now been away around for 16 years.
You've won a ton of awards for Optimum Intake, and then you've got another practice called Myrtle Oak. Can you tell me a bit about that? Yeah, sure. So yes, as I said, Optimum Intake is our first clinic I opened. And whilst I was doing that part time, I was working in the hospital. So sector part time as well and ended up falling into a two day a week position in the local outpatient clinic focusing on eating disorder treatment.
Jodie Sheraton: So I became an eating disorder dietician through my employment at the hospital setting. And then I was also feeling like there was not enough. Resources in our local community for people to access eating disorder treatment. There was a lot of cross selection criteria that people [00:06:00] weren't meeting in order to get the help that they needed.
And so I thought I already have one private practice. What if I just opened up my own eating disorder clinic in our local community? And so I had some psychologists and a care coordinator. Come and work with me. And we just started from scratch with this eating disorder clinic. And now we have it across two different locations within our local communities here.
So it really helped fill a gap for what we were seeing with access to services.
Chris: Yeah, great. I love that. Like you're not setting up the business to try and get you, make a lot of money. You're doing it because there's a need there. And then successful with it and that's where everything else will, the fruits of your labor coming.
Jodie Sheraton: That's right. And that was back in 2015. So well before that there was any eating disorder plans or a real focus around eating disorder training. So that's a business that was established, but I do want to go back to the point you mentioned about us winning some awards. What I never realized is that to win awards, you have to nominate yourself.
So you actually have to put your own business name forward. You [00:07:00] have to talk up what it is that you do in your business. To win these awards. I just thought someone was handing out awards, but no, you actually have to apply yourself. So I wanted to make sure dietitians knew that if you are really proud of what you do and you feel like you're offering an excellent service to your community, please apply.
Like really use that as a platform to showcase what dietitians do in the private practice sector.
Chris: Yeah, look, it's a great point you made. We had a business up here in central Queensland and we never did that. And there were plenty of awards and it was more, I have a lot of imposter syndrome. I've talked about it on one of our previous podcasts and I, I've even written a book and refused to put my photo on there.
My wife has fought with me for ages about it. That's another story altogether. And so applying for awards was something I, at the time I wasn't comfortable with, but like now I realize how else do people know about you? How else do you promote what you do? You're not out there to trick people.
You're trying to promote the [00:08:00] skillset that you've got to help people. And the award system is actually a great way of doing that. And yeah it's obviously been certainly worthwhile for you. And you've obviously got a great business because you've been successful in a lot of ways.
Jodie Sheraton: Yeah, it was a really great way for us to pay recognition to our team because this isn't just about me and me doing the business. Like it takes the entire team to have everything working smoothly within a business. So it was a way that we could celebrate together and recognize that what we do, we've done it.
We've put the work into it. So it's nice to have that recognized.
Chris: Yeah. I love that. And so there is another business that I actually really would like to talk to you most about today. So you've now got three businesses. Can you tell us about Elevated Dietetics?
Jodie Sheraton: Yeah, sure. So it seems to be a seven year itch that I get.
So every seven years I seem to be like starting a new project or a new business. So Elevated Dietetics, I started back in somewhere around 2022. I, again, I saw this gap, I saw a need [00:09:00] and it was something that was simmering with for me for a little while. Again, it was just that I took the jump, I was like, that is enough thinking about it.
Just put it out there and see if there's any way in which I can help others. So elevated dietetics is my business coaching and mentoring. Service specifically for private practice dietitians within Australia. So I previously had engaged in business coaching myself, which really helped me be able to form the necessary systems and structures and team support that I needed to grow my practice.
And. It really helped me find a love of business because I think a lot of dietitians, we want to be dietitians. We want to be helping people. So we start our own private practice, but don't really think about the business aspect of it or the importance of us having a business mindset as well as a clinician mindset.
So for me going through that journey, I wanted to help others. Also come to have the opportunity of learning from another dietitian that understands our industry, [00:10:00] understands what it's like to work in healthcare, but also in healthcare as a dietitian, because there are challenges that are unique for us that perhaps other allied health don't experience.
Chris: Such as, can you explain that?
Jodie Sheraton: Yeah. So a lot of other allied health teams actually get access to a lot of greater Medicare, Funding or Medicare rebates. They also have a lot more item numbers. They have, even if we take the latest NDIS funding, they are getting 50 plus hours per plan. We're lucky to get 10.
So there's such a difference between how well. The other allied health have advocated and promoted and have a community based understanding of the importance of their role within healthcare. And dietitians are still really struggling to showcase the importance of having us involve healthcare and to the vast variety of ways in which we can be supporting people.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. I thought, I figured that's what you were talking about because it's, You do [00:11:00] feel a little bit victimized is the right word, but as a dietitian, like you do feel like you're up against it sometime. And it's you're starting
Jodie Sheraton: off on the back foot, it
Chris: is.
Yeah. And even just like for a client to come and see a dietitian, they're going to see a physio. They've got a physical ailment. It's reminding them that they need to see someone. Whereas, they're seeing a dietitian. They've been eating their whole life. They're an expert on eating already.
There's self perception at least. And then so there's, it's a little bit harder to generate that foot traffic through the door because of that I find. Yeah, it's interesting that you say that. So with Elevated Dietetics we, like we, we spoke about previously, I, I.
Was fortunate with our business that I had my wife. Like I'm in total awe of what you've achieved. With the growth of your business, be an amazing clinician and then an amazing business person. I am not an amazing business person. That's, that was the wife in my wife in that business.
And without her, we would have been another statistic. I would have given up and long gone under, so for you to be able to juggle in both of that, like that's a massive accomplishment. Have you always had a bit of a business sense or like [00:12:00] an entrepreneurial drive, even before becoming a dietitian?
Jodie Sheraton: I did study business studies through my HSC. I don't know, maybe you could say there was that. And I did top the class, however, throughout uni, like my intention was never to work in private practice. It was just that I needed extra employment. So I thought I'll just, I'll get some work myself and then really grew to love.
Being able to provide value and feeling like I deserve to be compensated for that. And so I early on my husband and I decided that we would really focus my opportunity to develop this business further because we saw that there was a huge need in the local community. And so we made the decision that we would go all in on my business.
And so I knew that meant I had to generate an income, so it's always, I've always had this, as you said, it's a juggle. It's you've got the business mindset, but you still want to help people. And so I think that's where a lot of dietitians feel stuck. It's how can I help people if I'm charging them?[00:13:00]
So it's a mindset we do really need to explore further to feel comfortable, to really value ourselves and value what we do. Yeah. People will go and pay hundreds of dollars to get their hair colored, or their nails done, or, we pay for different services all the time. Why would we think people wouldn't want to pay for what we have to offer?
And so very quickly I shifted in that mindset from initial days being a bulk billing dietician to knowing that if I stayed in that. model of business, I was not going to be able to continue to work in private practice and I'd have to end up back in a hospital, which for me was a motivating factor to not have to go back there.
Chris: Yeah, no, I sympathize with that. We had, my wife and I had this ongoing debate the whole time we had our business about, increasing price. So we had a bulk billing model and we used that as our loss leader. And then we increased our private But every, my wife wanted to increase prices and I would lose sleep and we'd argue about it.
I didn't want to do it because you like, notorious health professionals are [00:14:00] notoriously not business minded because exactly. You want to give it away for free. I just want to help everyone. And it's not until my wife made me understand that if they don't value what you're giving them there, you're not going to be able to help them anyway.
They're not going to use it. And if you're not around because financially it's not sustainable, you're not there to help them anyway. And so it was a real shift in my mindset. And I'm not saying, I would not say I was fully there. I'm still being dragged. I'd still love to give everything away.
But but the, the reality is there that I charge for things. And I needed a business coach like you cause hearing it from your wife is not always the best
Jodie Sheraton: discussions you've had together.
Chris: Oh yes. Yes. She did win most arguments, but which is why we survived for as long as we did. But I
Jodie Sheraton: think another challenge that we come across also is that our study. throughout university doesn't really provide us with much exposure or information or skills [00:15:00] specific to private practice.
And in the last four months, there's been quite a bit of research that's come out to say that over 50 percent of new graduate dietitians are entering the private practice space. And it is such a difference from working in a hospital setting with our clinical skills, how we are with what we call patients there.
And the support system we have around us in a hospital to working on your own as a private practice dietitian, where you are delivering a experience for the client. And having to ask for payment in return.
Chris: Yeah, look it's, you're 100 percent correct there. Like we were basically trained or prepared for the hospital system as dietician.
There is a little bit of private practice that was in our degree and I'm not sure how much there is there now, but it certainly was inadequate. And there is that real risk. I see that thinking, and this is thinking from my own experience. There I was used to the government system working in hospitals or the government, the government community setting even where you had all the time in the [00:16:00] world your bank balance didn't wasn't dependent on that person coming back.
You just wanted to help them as much as you can if they come back or, yeah, great. I want you to, but. And then to then set up in private practice, and it had to be a really quick shift. And so I went from like initially doing hour appointments for my, when I was in private practice to, because that was what I was doing in the hospital system to it's half an hour and I had to be as Effective and concise and give value in that half hour.
Now, sometimes I went over that half hour for sure, because some clients needed it. But it's a skill that I really had to learn that you had to be effective and succinct and really make sure that client walked away with a sense of value. And one of the things that we learned, even with our bulk billers is I needed them to feel value.
So even though, for people that, They don't know what bulk billing is. It's basically the government picks up the bill and it does client anything. I'm using the word client because we're in private practice, not patient. I like how you pointed that. But I wanted them to feel value as well because they were paying me with their time.
And if I wanted them to come back, I needed to make sure that they thought it was a [00:17:00] worthwhile exercise. So yeah, I 100 percent agree with everything you've said there. Now, With Elevated Dietetic was that a result of people, was it a, an area that you sought to get involved in or was it more that you had people asking for your wisdom, was it, and you thought, hang on, there's a need here I might, expand.
Jodie Sheraton: Yeah. And I was definitely having a lot of like casual conversations where dietitians were calling me or reaching out to me via email with just, random business questions. And for quite a while, I was happy to just give some answers. And then I was like, you know what, I'm not living by what I'm doing.
Doing as far as I'm trying to teach these dietitians to value their time, to charge for their time. And yet here I am giving away all this information for free and I wanted it to become something that I was determined to put some time and effort into. I had established a team through my two private practices.
I had team leaders in place. I was starting to see that I was [00:18:00] getting some free time. On my own, caseload, I suppose I have now not seen clients for two years. And so have a team and everyone in place and it's working really well, which then afforded me to have what I call Elevated Dietetics, my passion project.
So for me, I'm doing this in a way that I feel like I can give back to our profession, I'm able to support more dietitians and run group sessions or individual sessions and really be there. Like we are for our clients throughout the journey. So rather than it only being like one off conversations here or there and giving them just their next meal.
Next task to get over the hurdle that they're challenged by this allows me to work with them for six months or so in actually get some real change happening. And they often say, Oh, my business has just transformed from working with you. So we've had dietitians that have hired their first team member.
We've had dietitians that have opened up their own clinic space rather than working out of doctors rooms. So [00:19:00] it's just been really great to see the progression that when you invest in your business skills and you spend time working on your business grows and flourishes. And that's the transition I had to go through with reducing my own client load.
So I could spend more time invested in building the business so that I had, covering payroll for 40 people each fortnight, like that takes work and energy to happen. You
Chris: said shivers down my spine.
Jodie Sheraton: Yeah.
Chris: We had 18 stuff and that was always my stress. It was like when people were canceling is all I could think about was as long as we can pay everyone, as long as we can pay everyone.
Yeah. Yeah, so how do you feel? This is just a side question. How do you feel after, starting a business in 2006 or 2007 to seeing clients for so long to a couple of years ago, stepping out of that space.
And I, I asked you that because we sold our business and. I now work on MEALZEE full time and just this year I've actually got back into, I haven't been consulting as such, but I have gotten [00:20:00] back into just helping clients as a bit of a side project, more so to, to test drive MEALZEE. And I've had people reaching out and I'm loving getting back into that.
I guess client interaction, but I love that it's not the only thing I have to do. My passion is actually working on MEALZEE and building out a, a solution that can help people. But for a bit of a time, I felt a lot of relief not seeing clients, but then there was a bit of a void there.
How are you feeling about that space?
Jodie Sheraton: It was definitely a process. It didn't just happen overnight from going, probably I was doing four days a week of seeing clients and one day a week of catching up on business that minute. Team meetings and that sort of thing. So I started off by just removing a day at a time, perhaps every few months I'd be like, all right, I'm going to reduce another day.
And then the last probably four clients that were really long term clients, it was so hard for me to, Hand them over to another team member, but I just gave myself a date and a deadline and was like I have to prepare these clients. Cause again, I was working in the eating disorder space.
They were long [00:21:00] term clients. I built such a rapport and, treatment relationship with them that I wanted to make sure that who I was handing them over to. They were going to be a good match. And so that date rolled around, I'd prepared them. And at the same time, I was building this real love of the business aspect and supporting our team.
And it allowed me to have more time to build the systems that helped to support the team further. The team were enjoying their work further and feeling more supported, which, goes into reducing burnout and overwhelm and everything else that us as healthcare providers can experience. That yeah, it just allowed me to eventually finish up.
So I still have conversations about clients, I think, because I'm still so close to the team. It's not as if I never hear about clinical aspects. It's just, I'm not the one having to deliver and sit there for the hour to deliver that information that for me, it came down to where can I have the greatest impact.
And so if I can be there for my team, I can grow my team to have a bigger impact in the [00:22:00] community. And then I was like, what if I then stepped into supervising other private practice dietitians on their clinical skills. And then I, Felt that I was increasing my impact there. And then I made that shift into Elevated Dietetics to be like, I can impact and help healthcare and help dietetics as a whole sector.
If I'm supporting other dietitians to grow their businesses, which would allow them to grow teams, which would then have bigger impacts in their community. So for me, it. Came back to feeling like I was able to have a bigger impact by changing the way I was working as a dietitian into more of the business and management side or business and leadership side.
Chris: And such a much needed spaces we were talking about before, because they're coming out unprepared. It can really be a disservice to the profession and put if someone's going to see a dietitian for the first time, I've never seen a dietitian. and they go to see a new grad who's completely out of their depth.
And even clinically, like I think of the service I provided when I was a new [00:23:00] grad and it was terrible. I don't know if I'm too harsh on myself, but it was just this, I'm going to give them everything I've learned. And they walk away confused. And that was still something I struggled with over the years, and you Without having a proper mentor, we've got all these potentially all the 50 percent of the workforce, the dietetic graduates are out there in the private practice space unprepared, both as a business and clinically we as a profession are at risk. And the service you're providing is absolutely imperative that we get that out there.
Or at least until unis come on board. And I don't think they've got the capacity because of the curriculum is so poor with what they teach already. So there's a real need. And there's not many business coaches, dietitian business coaches in Australia. There's two or three, if I'm correct. Whereas America is littered with them.
Like they're everywhere over in the States. And, obviously there are 10 times a workforce as well, but yeah, like when I come across you on LinkedIn a couple of years ago, I think it may have been, and I was like, Oh, thank God someone's doing this. It's such a much needed [00:24:00] area in Australia in particular.
Jodie Sheraton: Yeah. And look, we through Optimum Intake. We have hired new graduates and we often take about two new graduates per year, and we have a whole training program that we put them through they get paid to attend to come to that through Optum Intake to feel like they are well equipped with the skills that are necessary for this environment of working within private practice.
We do talk about the difference in how do you run an assessment when you don't have. A whole hour to prepare beforehand where you don't have a whole medical record of that patient sitting in front of you. And that you've, you've got to, as you mentioned before, you can't just spend oodles of time talking to them.
You've got a schedule that you have to stick to for the day. You have multiple people that you need to see for the day. You need to have that conversation of how do I invite them to come back, knowing that they're going to pay a couple of hundred dollars to come and see me again. It's. It's the whole money side of it.
It's our clinical skill. As far as private practice, [00:25:00] it's the customer experience as well. And that's what led me to put together a bit of a framework. So I have like a three circle framework with what I've put as the triangle in the middle where they all overlap is the success sweet spot.
So the first circle is our clinical knowledge. We'll always be doing CPD. We're always going to be working on those dietetics. skills, but we also have to start thinking more about the customer experience and the client value that we're giving them. Because if we don't have happy clients, we don't have a healthy business.
So thinking about how our services are impacting our clients and their experience. And then we need the third circle is the business aspect as well. We need to be very business savvy. Savvy to be having negotiations around contracts to be, negotiating our rental agreements with where we're working to understanding accounting to marketing it's there's so many business elements that you probably don't realize.
And I definitely didn't until I was in business and then Oh my God, I don't know enough [00:26:00] about this or that. So there's a lot of time that goes into developing those skills as well as your.
Chris: Yeah, and it's the more you learn, the more you realize you just don't know, but you need to be a generalist, don't you?
Even for like social media, my wife is a social media marketer. She has one of my course creators and like the thing that she advocates to her clients is a lot of people just want to delegate to their VAs, but she goes, no one knows your business like you do. You've got to, so you can delegate tasks, but you've got to understand how it all works because you're the one that can think and be the conduit for the stuff, the information you want to get out there.
So as a business owner, you really do have to have that generalist knowledge across all of those things. Those key areas, don't you?
Jodie Sheraton: That's it. Cause at the end of the day, what works well is the result of you. And what doesn't work well is the result of you as well. You are solely responsible for the success or the failure of your business.
So you need to be across it all to have that. Basic foundational understanding, and then when you [00:27:00] build your business to a point, yes, you can start to delegate out those roles, but you're still responsible for that person doing the role successfully.
Chris: Yeah. It's, you've got an amazing program. I love that, that you're putting your new grads through.
I would basically just throw them in the lion's den. Like I'm like, I would give them skills and I would upskill them, but I was just, I knew that on the job is like we would have. Weekly meetings and clinical meetings and the ability to, reflect and learn, and we would all learn from each other.
But I always, I just need to get you the job and you'll learn and you'll find your niche and see what works. But I love that there's a program you've been through. Wow. Yeah.
Jodie Sheraton: And so we've done that for quite a few years now, and we've been able to put it into a yeah, a training platform. And so this year I've decided that I want to share that with more students because I feel that the universities are recognizing that private practice is a real career opportunity for dietitians.
And they're starting to bring [00:28:00] in some, telehealth type clinics and giving them some sort of consulting type of role, which probably does mimic more of the private practice sector. It's just not there yet for students to get a really good handle on what it means to be a private practice dietitian from that skill point.
And also understanding business, understanding, provider numbers, yeah. All of the topics that I've discussed already with bundled together and offering that for students across any universities in Australia, if they're interested to come on board and we're starting that this April.
Chris: Oh, wow. Oh, wow. That's exciting.
Jodie Sheraton: Yeah. I'm so excited to be able to share more of this so that when dietitians do want to start in private practice, they're not starting from scratch. They'll have these core skills that they can bring with them and feel more confident in being able to make decisions around signing.
different documents, whether it's a contract or an agreement or something, they'll at least know what to look out for so that [00:29:00] they're not getting caught in a bad situation.
Chris: I am, whether you're doing this or not, but this is almost something the DA need to partner with you with to really. Try and capture the entire audience.
Jodie Sheraton: Yeah. So I've spoken to some universities as well. And so having some discussions there, and I know DA does have their small business manual booklet, which is also a great resource. I guess it's not really the skill development that I'm offering through these books.
Yeah.
Chris: I had the booklet and a book is great, but you learn from people I find. And then the thing that you said before that I really loved was that, it was a six month, it's the journey that you're helping them with. It's not that. Come see me once and I'll set you up.
It was, you, because it's like when you see a client, if a client comes to you for weight loss, for example, you're not helping that client one appointment. It's the journey and it's the, the ups and the downs along the way. That, that's a really important element. I would imagine.
Jodie Sheraton: Yeah. And just having it flexible because, if you're a third year or fourth year student, you've got placements, you still have that [00:30:00] university degree that you've got to, tick a box for, but this course can be done at your own pace. throughout that time. So it's something that can really compliment your experience where you're going out into the community placements.
You've got food service placements, you've got your clinical time at the hospital, and this is giving you a little bit of that background look or behind the doors look into what private practice can offer.
Chris: Yeah. Okay. You've been really valuable with your time, but. I'm going to put you on the spot with one last question.
If you had three key bits of information that you could have transplanted into a new grad's brain, into their mind, that they knew when they're graduating and going into private practice, what would those three key points be?
Jodie Sheraton: I would love them to have the mindset that you are valuable and therefore you need to charge for that value.
Because we know that money in business is what allows you to stay in business. And so being able to [00:31:00] charge for your services is just critical for any business. The next point would be open to the lifelong learning journey. You will never be able to do enough CPD reading, learning. To know it all. And you don't have to, you can still offer value straight out the bat from university, about nutrition.
You now need to learn how you're going to communicate that in your own unique style. So that's an exciting journey that they, and then number three would be to build a community around you. It's really hard and lonely if you do this on your own. If you've got friends and family, have them support you, you can build your own network through different interest groups or getting supervision.
Getting business coaching having a network of people around you is what's going to help support you when you come across challenging times in business, which you will, which we all do at every stage of business. So I think that support network is a [00:32:00] good way of you protecting yourself for the longevity of building a career within private practice.
Chris: I love that. And I think even other dietitians, I think we've got a pretty great profession that, it's not competitive. People are out there to see other people succeed for the most part. And so yeah, that community is really important. And the professional development, that continued learning I love because that actually kept me excited.
When you're seeing clients, back to back multiple times a day and sometimes it's a little bit like you're not a broken record because everyone's slightly different, but you are a lot of the time giving the same information. And so research is what got me or PD is what got me excited.
I've learned something new and I'm great. I can incorporate this into, what we're teaching and. Yeah. So I love that. Jody, thank you so much for your time today. It was amazing. How can people get in touch with you? So we will put this in the show notes, but if you've got areas for, anyone listening that wants to get in touch and learn from, what you provide, then what's the best way for them to get in touch.
Jodie Sheraton: Probably going to my Instagram page. So it's @elevated_dietetics. I often share [00:33:00] a lot of private practice tips. I do a lot of advocating for us on there. A lot of shared challenges, topics that I'll bring up on there. So yeah, it's a lot of free value that you can get just from following me online at Instagram.
Otherwise my website, elevateddietetics.com.au.
Chris: All right. Thanks, Jodie. Thanks, Chris. Do you find this podcast valuable? There may be other nutrition professionals out there will also. If you like, share and subscribe, it's going to help other nutrition professionals make an impact on the world, just like you.
Thanks.
