A New Graduate's Guide to the Nutrition Business World

August 16, 2024

In this episode, we’re joined by a trailblazing dietitian who has cracked the code to building a successful dietetic business. With a focus on leveraging statistics and data-driven insights, she reveals how understanding the right metrics can transform your practice. From improving client outcomes to making informed business decisions, data is at the heart of her strategy. This isn’t just about numbers—it’s about using them to drive growth and success in ways you might not have considered.

Our guest shares her journey of scaling her business by strategically analyzing client data, identifying trends, and implementing changes that have led to significant improvements in both client satisfaction and revenue. She discusses the importance of being proactive rather than reactive, using data to anticipate client needs, and how this approach has set her business apart in a crowded market. If you’ve ever wondered how top dietitians consistently deliver results, this episode will give you a behind-the-scenes look at the tools and techniques that make it possible.

Whether you’re a seasoned professional or just starting your dietetic journey, this episode offers valuable insights that can help you take your practice to the next level. We discuss practical tips for integrating data into your daily operations and how even small adjustments can lead to big changes. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to learn from one of the best in the field—tune in and discover how data can be your secret weapon in building a thriving dietetic business!

Episode Transcript

A New Graduate's Guide to the Nutrition Business World-1
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Sophie Houghton: [00:00:00] Upon finishing my master's, I realized how much. There is to know in the nutrition space. I think sometimes the more study you do in an area, you realize, yeah, the less you actually do know. And I decided that I wanted to be the best dietitian that I could be.

Chris Hughes: Welcome to How to Build a Profitable Nutrition Business.

Chris Hughes: 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.

Chris Hughes: I'm sure you'll agree. It's hard not to be impressed by today's guest. Today's guest is Sophie Horton. Sophie graduated from a Master of Dietetics at the end of 2023. I've asked Sophie to come on and detail her experience of entering that nutrition business space since graduating and how she felt prepared coming into that space through university.

Chris Hughes: Sophie's only been graduated just over six months. She scored multiple roles. She's the head dietitian for the Sandringham Zebras VFL club, [00:01:00] the Southern Saints VFLW club. She also works for the North Melbourne AFLW football club. She has a part time role with Encore Nutrition, and she's also a presenter for a company called Game Day Nutrition, where she delivers sports presentations to high school athletes.

Chris Hughes: Join me now to hear Sophie's experience. Experience in the nutrition business space and how she felt prepared stepping into that space through her time at Swinburne University's Master of Dietetics. Let's get into it. Welcome back to another episode of how to build a profitable nutrition business. This week, we are tapping into the expertise of a new graduate.

Chris Hughes: And so I'm really excited to get on Sophie Horton, who graduated in 2023, I believe from Swinburne University doing a master's of dietetics and with Sophie's achieved more in six months than I feel like I have in over a decade. So it's great to have her on, but it's really, I'm excited to get the perspective of a new graduate coming on and just Sophie's insights into stepping into the business world [00:02:00] from university and, you know, how she felt prepared for that and what steps and advice she got.

Chris Hughes: So thanks so much for coming on, Sophie.

Sophie Houghton: Thanks so much for having me, Chris. Very excited to be chatting with you this morning and yeah, let's dive into it.

Chris Hughes: Yes. So let's step back now. You were a personal trainer initially. Right. So the, like most personal trainers, I mean, for the best part that they're in business from the start.

Chris Hughes: Aren't they? So like, you've probably got, am I right in saying you've probably got some sort of business now as a personal trainer before sort of then becoming a dietitian. Would that be fair to say?

Sophie Houghton: Yeah, absolutely. Definitely fair to say. So working as a PT while I studied my dietetics degree and my nutrition science bachelor's, I definitely had an insight into that business world, I think before finishing my master's and, you know, juggling clients and appointments and yeah, very up and down schedule.

Sophie Houghton: So definitely had a little bit of insight into the business world [00:03:00] before going into graduation.

Chris Hughes: Was your plan to always then go into private practice as a dietitian or use it with your personal training? Like what were you thinking? What was your sort of original thought when you took on a degree?

Sophie Houghton: Yeah honestly, I definitely had it in the back of my head to, to, you know, go into the private practice space and possibly use my dietetic studies alongside the PT qualification.

Sophie Houghton: I really wanted to be able to help clients from both ends, from, you know, the exercise side of things and also from the nutrition side of things. And I think working in that PT space, I was constantly probably seeing a lot of advice being given out that shouldn't have been given out in gyms from a nutrition point of view.

Sophie Houghton: But having the education knowledge I had, I was always referring to dietitians in that space before I was qualified. So, but I knew that a lot of clients I worked with just wanted to go to one person and get. Get the both exercise and diet advice. So I thought it would be really cool to be able to have to finish my masters and have both of those qualifications and [00:04:00] be able to give be sort of like a one stop shop and give the advice from both sides of things.

Sophie Houghton: But then, I guess, upon finishing my masters, I realized how much there is to know. the nutrition space. I think sometimes the more study you do in an area, you realize, yeah, the less you actually do know. And I decided that I wanted to be the best dietitian that it could be and probably pulled back quite a bit from the PT side of things.

Chris Hughes: Yeah.

Sophie Houghton: I wanted to probably do more work in the dietetic space. And pull back a little bit from the PT side of things. But yeah, I think I definitely working with clients, the PT, I loved that you know, continual contact with clients and, you know, seeing them working with them for a long period and seeing them achieve.

Sophie Houghton: Which I knew that I'd get in that private practice space and dietetics. But then again, going into my course is very open minded and was like, you know what? I might end up loving hospital setting and going down that path. So I was very open to yeah, whatever came into my course.

Chris Hughes: [00:05:00] I mean, it's so rewarding, isn't it?

Chris Hughes: Like when, you know, when you're helping clients, seeing them change like it's motivating, you know, like you get a real buzz out of it. Like I had a previous career as an electrician and you just don't get that, you know, like, so that's what I love about health. Just to tap into your PT.

Chris Hughes: Dietician juggling, you know, like I, I went and done a post grad in diabetes education against my wife's advice. I love diabetes. Like I really enjoy helping people with diabetes, but in the end, I worked out I've still only got 40 hours in the week to work, you know? And so the learning side of it was great, but I, like I've got to, I've got my post grad and never become certified because I just didn't have the capacity to do both.

Chris Hughes: So it's interesting that you say that, you know, like it's, It kind of helps. I mean, it's great having maybe two hats, but sometimes that's a bit of a juggle, isn't

Sophie Houghton: it? Definitely. Definitely. I think, yeah, at the start I looked at it and I was like, oh, this is great. I can juggle both and do a bit of both.

Sophie Houghton: But yeah, when you really dive into it, there's so much to know. And yeah, like you said, you've only got capacity for say, 40 hours a week. [00:06:00] And yeah, once I started working. in the dietetic space. I just wanted to do that for the whole 40 hours and, you know, be the best that I could. So, that takes up all my time now.

Chris Hughes: Yes. And so. When you were at uni cause I, when I went to uni, I wanted to be a sports dietitian, but through uni I completely flipped and I just fell in love with chronic disease, like with the clinical physiology, you know, so was there a part when you were going through uni that like you're sort of changing directions and thinking about different career paths in diabetics?

Sophie Houghton: Yeah, definitely. I think I definitely went into dietetics with that hat that I wanted to be a sports dietitian. And so I actually sought out an internship throughout my masters. So I was working at St Kilda football club as a intern the sports dietitian just because I also knew that, you know, There's not much that you're doing in terms of the sport side of things throughout the masters.

Sophie Houghton: So I thought if I got an internship, I could, you know, get an insight into that area whilst I was studying to really decide [00:07:00] that was something that I wanted to continue in post graduation. But then like you, Chris, I also sort of fell in love with the chronic disease side of things. And I definitely yeah, didn't want to, upon graduation, just.

Sophie Houghton: Pigeonhole myself, I guess, in the sport side of things and still wanted to work in chronic disease. I loved, I did love my clinical placements and and working, yeah, with a range of different conditions, but I also absolutely loved my internship. So, to be honest, in the last few months leading up to graduating at the end of last year, I was very much open to whatever opportunity came to me because I did love it all.

Sophie Houghton: I probably couldn't see myself working in a hospital long term. But yeah, knew that I wanted to work still with chronic disease. And I think that's why the private practice alongside the sport stuff I'm doing now is just perfect for me.

Chris Hughes: Yeah. Great. Yeah. Look, I'm the same. I, the hospital doesn't appeal to me.

Chris Hughes: I mean, I get it for some people. That's the, you know, it's a very important role, [00:08:00] but for me, I missed that and it's certainly hospital dietician roles that can achieve this. But I missed that. continuity of following the patient journey. Whereas the roles I had in hospitals was bedside education.

Chris Hughes: It wasn't, you didn't really get to follow up and you miss that. Don't you? Like, whereas in private practice, you're there for the majority of the journey, which is rewarding.

Sophie Houghton: Absolutely. And I just absolutely love sort of making connections and building connections with people and that long term contact.

Sophie Houghton: So yeah, it was, I found what I did find hard in the hospital setting was yeah, doing a bit of education for 15 minutes on a Friday afternoon and then coming in on Monday and your patients being discharged and yeah, you don't really know what the next steps are in their journey. Where it's. In, you know, coming from a PT background, seeing clients, you know, a couple of times a week and for years on end and really being a big part of the journey and having that constant contact with something that I absolutely loved.

Chris Hughes: So you done an undergrad of [00:09:00] nutrition at Deakin university, and then you've done your master's through Swinburne in dietetics. Nope. You know, a long time ago when I went to university they, university was very hospital centric and it needed to be at that time. I'm not being critical. Like, that's where most of the jobs were but in turn, like, now, Pete Clark told me the other week, I do forget the statistic, but I think we're getting up to 50, 50 of new grads going into private practice.

Chris Hughes: How do you feel uni has prepared you for that private practice space? Cause I do believe, and this is not. I'm not casting across all degrees, but I am aware of some of the stuff Swinburne's doing, which is quite exciting. Like, they've got some great initiatives around that private practice space.

Chris Hughes: Did you find that program useful when it comes to Definitely.

Sophie Houghton: And I think that's really in the end, what gave me the confidence to go down the path that I did is the course at Swinburne. And the awesome things they're doing there. [00:10:00] I think, yeah, the course was still quite hospital centric, but we did have a two week business intensive unit in our course.

Sophie Houghton: And I think. I'm not sure that all unis actually have a business component in them. I think it. We're working towards it. Most students are working towards it at Swinburne. Definitely do have it. And yeah, it was absolutely incredible. It was run by Jennifer Donnelly. And shout out to

Chris Hughes: Jen.

Chris Hughes: Yeah.

Sophie Houghton: Shout out to Jen. Who's also my mentor now as well. But yeah, she absolutely was incredible and inspired and empowered. To take a different path upon graduation. And that statistic you said is interesting because I think thinking back to it, probably 50 percent of my cohort have now gone into the hospital setting and probably 50 percent have gone down a different path and have started their own business or working in private practice and doing other things in this, in the dye tech space.

Sophie Houghton: So yeah, it's pretty spot on and it's pretty exciting to think that but yeah it's [00:11:00] moving away from. Being completely hospital centric. And I think. Without that business two week intensive that we did you know swim burn course the statistics for my cohort probably would have been quite different.

Chris Hughes: Wow so so if we can dive in not too deep but what are the sort of things covered in that two week intensive because on I'm thinking about myself upon graduation, right? As a new grad, I would have been shitting my pants about starting a business because I was still drowning in all the clinical information.

Chris Hughes: So like I would have felt really unprepared. So that's awesome to hear that. You know, there's a two week intensive that sort of obviously is giving you the confidence to to do it. You know, tread that path early on. Well, what sort of information is covered in that?

Sophie Houghton: Yeah, we talked.

Sophie Houghton: So we talked a lot about you know, creating business and financial plans. We do that really. And we had lots of guest speakers come and talk to us as well, who had gone down different paths and were working in [00:12:00] hospital. And yeah, gave lots of business tips and things. I think one of the biggest things was we did a that was about creating your own small business whether that was, you know, setting up like a private practice or my partner and I, we set up a business where we were going to go and talk to schools and run sports nutrition presentations.

Sophie Houghton: And within that assignment, we. Had to, you know, work out the costs of sessions and how we were going to advertise and, you know, yeah, make, ultimately make money. And then at the end of the two week intensive, we actually pitched our business to the rest of the class. But yeah, rather than, you know, obviously in clinical placements and things, we're doing lots of nutrition counseling.

Sophie Houghton: And like you said, we're drowned in that clinical knowledge. This two week intensive was thinking about, yeah, like, you know, if you were to run your own business, how you make money, make profit, how you know, what you do from a tax perspective. Yeah, like all of those business skills [00:13:00] that I think we don't have an answer that we so we just think that it's not possible to go into that space.

Sophie Houghton: But even in saying that we also We're just showing where to, if we wanted to run that path, where to access resources that would help us to succeed. For example, we had one session where Jen showed us the small business manual from dietitians Australia,

Chris Hughes: which

Sophie Houghton: is, yeah, a really nice big manual that basically steps you through all different things from how to.

Sophie Houghton: you know, work with Medicare the NDIS scheme private health insurance, because they're all things that going into private practice or starting your own business, you need to know how to do. Yeah, you don't learn that work, you know, working in a hospital or doing the appointments in hospitals.

Sophie Houghton: Even though we couldn't cover the nitty gritties of absolutely everything in that two week course, she gave us the knowledge to know where to actually look when we finish to find How to process Medicare claims and how to set up a proto account and

Chris Hughes: things like that. Oh, [00:14:00] far out. That would have been amazing.

Chris Hughes: Like even when I started my my main private practice like multiple years after graduating, like a little course like that would have been phenomenal. So that's, yeah, that's really encouraging to hear that such things out there. So, so you graduated at the end of last year. I think it's fair to say that you've got a lot of get up and go.

Chris Hughes: You established your own business initially and still doing that. So you managed to score contracts with a VFL club and an AFLW club. Tell me about your process. So like, okay, you've graduated. You'd already be doing like an internship with the St. Kilda football club. This is all off your own bat, isn't it?

Chris Hughes: Like you've just got up and, you know, got stuff going. How, like, how did you find like, you know, from graduation to, okay, I've got to get moving. Is it the instant you graduate, you've just gone and started? Yeah,

Sophie Houghton: great question. I was actually on my [00:15:00] final placement down in Warrnambool in end of November last year.

Sophie Houghton: And so I'd been working at St Kilda Football Club with my internship for the year and then found out that the VFL didn't work. was actually moving on. So she got a full time job with Melbourne storm as their dietitian, which is really exciting for her. And so cool for, yeah, sports dietitians, you know, to be moving into the full time capacity.

Sophie Houghton: So it's so exciting. So she was moving on from the Sandringham Zebras and obviously, yeah, St. Hilda's VFL affiliate. I found out about that position Yeah. And reached out to her and she was conducting interviews when I was on placement in Warrnambool. So actually in one of my lunch breaks in my last couple of weeks of placement, jumped on a zoom interview.

Sophie Houghton: So yeah, that was that. And then I actually found out that I got the position, I think in my last week of the five week placement. So it was very lucky to sort of score a job in the industry before I actually graduated. [00:16:00] Yeah. And then jumped into that. We talked about preseason in December, so jump straight from placement into that first role.

Sophie Houghton: And

Chris Hughes: Sophie, sorry. So just to be clear, so was that an employment role rather than you were contracting to them? Like, how does that work?

Sophie Houghton: Yeah. So, employment for the season.

Chris Hughes: Okay.

Sophie Houghton: Yeah. So I started to go season contract. And then. And so, yeah, I knew that I'd be jumping in from December until December the following year, kind of thing.

Chris Hughes: Yeah. Okay. Oh, wow. And so that, how many hours of your week? So you sort of, because you, I mean, we were speaking before before we started recording it, and your week is basically made up of different contracts and employment roles. So, like, with that role, how many hours a week did you start off with?

Sophie Houghton: Yeah, great question. So with that one, sort of around five to six hours a week, so not a huge amount of hours. And like a lot of VFL clubs don't even actually have a dietician. So, yeah, [00:17:00] it's really cool that we do it sets and the boys have yeah, a contact to have me to work with them, but a lot of VFL clubs don't even have the money to pay a dietician.

Sophie Houghton: So, we're lucky to even have five or six hours a week, but knowing that obviously that wasn't enough to make up my working week, that's sort of probably what pushed me into starting up my own business. Because. I guess private practice and working in sports sort of go hand in hand more so than getting like a part time job in a hospital and juggling that alongside the sporting role.

Sophie Houghton: Especially because, you know, once you start working with a sporting team, like I found that I would, you know, have people at the club come and talk to me and say, Oh, I know this person, you know, this young athlete who needs a dietitian or can you say, you know, So can you consult with my mom and things like that?

Sophie Houghton: So you do get a lot of generate a lot of referrals from working in the sporting space. So pretty much as soon as I got that role and started working, I thought I need to set up my own business so that when those referrals do come in, I am able to see those [00:18:00] clients.

Chris Hughes: Yep. Okay. So what advice were you given them for setting up the business?

Chris Hughes: Like, what are the steps that you initially did to get yourself set up and operating?

Sophie Houghton: Yeah, so I think like the day after I finished my last day at uni, my last placement, I messaged Jen that next day. I was like, Oh my gosh, like I'm jumping into the private practice space. Like I feel so empowered from that business unit you did.

Sophie Houghton: Like, will you mentor me? And she replied back instantly and said, of course. So I was very lucky to score an awesome mentor. And I think that's probably my, one of my biggest pieces of advice, if you know what I mean. That you do want to go into this space, getting the right mentor is really important.

Sophie Houghton: And in saying that I actually have two different mentors. So Jen's sort of my business mentor. And then I do have a another mentor up in Brisbane Aiden Muir, who's a sports

Chris Hughes: dietitian. So

Sophie Houghton: he's also another mentor as Jen's not a sports dietitian. I thought I also wanted to get a mentor in that space too, [00:19:00] knowing that I was working with athletes.

Sophie Houghton: So, yeah, I think. Getting a mentor in the business space if you want to go down into private practice. So I think this is so, so important just to having Jen support really helped me. Yeah, to take off straight away in December. Her advice. So that small business manual that I talked about before, I basically pull that out.

Sophie Houghton: And It's got so many great steps in how to start everything up and really followed that. And if I had questions, shot down an email and she helped me out from that side of things. But I think one of the biggest pieces of advice from her and also from Aiden, my other mentor, was to keep costs as minimal and as low as possible to begin with.

Sophie Houghton: It's obviously when you're first starting out, you don't have, you know, you're not going to have your books full. And yeah, the last thing that you want to do is to be paying rent somewhere and not having the clients come in and ending up, you know, at out of pocket [00:20:00] yourself. So I think to be successful, it's really good to try and keep things as low as possible to begin with.

Sophie Houghton: From there, cause I, yeah, easily got carried away with, you know, getting the best the best subscription for a website builder and, you know, paying hundreds of dollars for a logo and things like that and paying rent to use a room. But that also scared me because I was like, well, yeah, what if I have all these costs and then no clients to begin with?

Sophie Houghton: And yeah, It's probably not going to last in the industry. So that's

Chris Hughes: great advice because you can very quick. All those costs add up so quickly. And so you initially were doing telehealth, weren't you? So you all potentially still are. So you don't have a room anywhere. Is that correct?

Sophie Houghton: Yeah, that's correct.

Sophie Houghton: So I decided just to do telehealth. And I think in, yeah, in this day and age, people prefer and people like to jump online. They're used to it. So, Yeah, I didn't find too much drama with just offering telehealth from me and it kept costs [00:21:00] low. So, yeah, I started to go down to begin with.

Chris Hughes: Yeah, look, that is such great advice because I mean, there's so many things now that you can do for free or very cost effectively, whether it's a website logo on Canva, starting off in telehealth to dip your toe, build up that caseload.

Chris Hughes: Because I know when we had our business. Rent was our second biggest expense outside of wages, you know, so it was like, I mean, wages, you obviously can't keep low, like it's, you know, you got to pay people and pay yourself, but but rent was just something that was, you kind of at the whim, you know, you've got to see X amount of clients each week just to meet those costs.

Chris Hughes: And so something like telehealth is brilliant for it. Did you set up a like a booking system? Like, do we using a particular software provider to take your bookings?

Sophie Houghton: Yeah. Yeah. So I, again, like use the small business manual and how to look in there. There was all different suggestions. I actually use Halaxy to begin with.

Sophie Houghton: Halaxy was [00:22:00] free and it's free to use. I think you can pay for certain settings, but yeah, I didn't have to have a fee. Subscription or anything for Halaxy

Chris Hughes: they make their money on the SMS and

Sophie Houghton: the,

Chris Hughes: Payment. They take,

Sophie Houghton: Yeah, which is something you don't have to opt in for. So I, yeah, obviously to keep us low, didn't do all those fancy things.

Sophie Houghton: And so again, they're things that I can look to do in the future. Once I build the business up a little bit.

Chris Hughes: Yeah,

Sophie Houghton: and I guess the other big piece of advice that I was actually given from the dietitian that I took over from at Sandy Football Club who's now working at Melbourne Storm, Georgia Walker, she did say to me when you're beginning, you know, If you're working as a PT or you've got some work at the gym, keep that bit of work on the side while you're building up your business.

Sophie Houghton: No, you don't have to, when you're starting out, you don't have to be working full time dietetics when you finish you know, make sure that you've got some income that's set on the side and, you know, you're getting each week. And then it takes a lot of pressure off you as well with your own business.[00:23:00]

Sophie Houghton: Again, one week you could see, okay. Five to 10 clients in the next week. You might not have, you know, anyone booked in. So I think that was really good advice that I took on board. And yeah, just make sure that I kept a few hours of work a week.

Chris Hughes: Yeah. Yeah. Great advice. Great advice because it's, and it's so stressful, you know, like the thing with dietetics is.

Chris Hughes: You know, people will cancel you know, rainy days. We would have more cancellations. And so you would be stressing because like when people don't show up, you don't get paid. And so having that fallback option is great advice. So, yeah, that's fantastic.

Sophie Houghton: I have

Chris Hughes: this one.

Sophie Houghton: Yeah, actually something I thought of as well, Chris that I know that a lot of people are sort of scared to go into that private practice space when they begin as they're like, I'm just, you know, just fresh out of uni, like I could get anyone.

Sophie Houghton: And I, I definitely felt all of those feelings as well. But one thing that I did. Two was I set up like a email that went out to clients when they booked in and it just had [00:24:00] a simple question sort of saying, what do you wanna get out of this consultation and why are you booking in? And that I found really helpful because I had a bit of background around the client before they came in.

Sophie Houghton: So if I did wanna do a little bit of background reading or research or, you know, bring them up and ask 'em a couple of other questions before I came in, I could do that. And that really gave me confidence. To jump straight into the private practice space, because obviously in the hospital setting, you can take your time and read through some notes and have all that background information about their patient there.

Sophie Houghton: And I think it scares people that anyone can come into private practice and sit down and they don't know what they're coming in for, but I actually think that clients really appreciate it. Even if you. If they didn't write anything in my initial client form that I gave them, if I just gave them a buzz and just ask them, yeah, what they wanted to get out of the session and why they're coming to see me, they actually really appreciated it and that's something you can do completely.

Chris Hughes: There's one question you asked there, which we brought into our pre appointment form, which for me was, it just took the weight off my shoulders, and that was, what do you hope to get out of this [00:25:00] consult, right? And because we would get referrals from doctors. And the doctor might have all their medical history, but not really say what it is the client's coming for.

Chris Hughes: And you're kind of sitting there at the start going, well, and sometimes we had clients on care plans that didn't even know what they just referred, you know, and it's kind of like we're wasting five minutes at the start, but we put that in our client questionnaire, the pre appointment questionnaire.

Chris Hughes: And it was phenomenal. You then know, okay, well, I'm here because I want this. And it's got nothing to do with what the doctor said, but that's what the client wants. So that's what you then addressing. So I love that. So that's fantastic. And there's actually really cool tools like low cost tools through Zapier or many chat that you can use, you know, in addition to email, you can use through social media, like through Facebook or Instagram that can actually automate a lot of those questions for you.

Chris Hughes: It's very conversational. So, yeah. I can yeah, show you a bit of that stuff. It's really cool looking.

Sophie Houghton: I'd love that. Yeah.

Chris Hughes: All right. So, so your week now we're nearly finished, right? So your week [00:26:00] now is with made up with the Sandringham football club. Yeah. You've got a role with the AFLW side, which is sorry.

Chris Hughes: I'm not AFL,

Chris Hughes: North Melbourne.

Sophie Houghton: And

Chris Hughes: then you've also now working for Encore Nutrition down there in Melbourne. So you're now part of a team of dieticians for two days a week. So you're, like, hell, that's a fair bit of diversity, but you look like you're just loving life. Tell us just a little bit about each of those roles.

Chris Hughes: I mean, the Sandringham one you've told us about.

Sophie Houghton: Yeah. The

Chris Hughes: AFLW and the Encore I'd love to hear about, and just sort of where you landed and how you're finding those positions.

Sophie Houghton: Yeah, absolutely. So I guess going back to running telehealth with my own business, I am talking through, I think I mentioned before that when you start working at a sporting club, you do generate a lot of referrals through, through there.

Sophie Houghton: And I found that working in my community with the Sandringham Zebras, I was, [00:27:00] Getting a lot of inquiries through my business, but people wanting to see me in person because they were local and, you know, especially people that already knew me they wanted to come in and catch up and chat, not on over the computer screen.

Sophie Houghton: So. I mean, I've consulted with people in, you know, all around Australia which has been really cool and telehealth has been awesome for that. But I think the people that already knew me or lived, you know, five minutes down the road from Sandy footy club, they really wanted that in person consultation.

Sophie Houghton: So I guess I was from the, from, you know, the start of the year, I was offering telehealth, but still looking at options for a room that I could consult from. And Yeah, I talked to, you know, a couple of physio clinics. I looked at renting my own room, but again, it just, it scared me having that rent to pay on top of my apartment rent each week.

Sophie Houghton: So yeah I think starting out, I liked the idea of paying a percentage of my [00:28:00] consults. To a clinic that I worked at rather than renting a room as such. And yeah, I did speak to a few physio clinics and things, but you also have to weigh up if you are going to work out of it, a medical clinic or a physio clinic or things like how are you going to generate referrals for clients and working in the medical clinic would have been great because obviously doctors can refer to you, but I think, I did get some really good advice from my mentors that working in a physio clinic, realistically, how many physios are actually going to refer to you as a dietitian?

Sophie Houghton: Yeah, to be pulling a lot of my own clients into this physio clinic and then paying a certain percentage, so I had to weigh up whether it was worth it. So I actually did turn down quite a few clients. Opportunities to rent rooms or work out of rooms to begin with and then, but we're still looking for somewhere in person because I knew that I wanted to be able to offer in person consults.

Sophie Houghton: And then on core nutrition, [00:29:00] they advertised a role for actually an admin and receptionist a couple of months ago. And I ended up actually applying for that role. Yeah. And long story short, ended up getting offered a position as a casual dietitian there rather than the session admin role. Which is like perfect.

Sophie Houghton: So I'd actually watched Lauren and Elyse. They run Encore. Since before I started studying nutrition science, I think they opened up their doors in 2017, which was the year I graduated high school and followed them on Instagram, you know, since they started and really looked up and admired them.

Sophie Houghton: So I actually just applied for that admin role because I was like, these guys have been my role models for ages. Like I don't even care if I'm working as a dietitian. Like I'd love to just work alongside them and yeah, have them as mentors in my life. So ended up interviewing for that role. But got a job as a dietitian casually and yeah, and now they're sort of two days a week.

Sophie Houghton: Which is so cool. So they specialize in ED [00:30:00] and oncology. And since starting working in the sporting space, I've realized how much the eating disorders and sport do go hand in hand. So a lot of people go, Oh, that's yeah, quite different to sport, but it's actually. The perfect space to be in. Yeah.

Sophie Houghton: I think anyone that's working at that high level, that elite sport, there's always that risk of the ED sort of thing. So, and I think fresh out of uni, it's so important that I do get it. Adequate support and mentorship in working in that area. So Lauren and Elisa are the best people to be learning from there.

Chris Hughes: Oh, how good. Yeah. Look, I mean, you certainly got an impressive attitude of just throw yourself out there, absorb as much as you can create the networks and then the networks will look after you, which is certainly what seems to be happening for you, Sophie. So well done. I just wanted to take a step back quickly when you were talking about.

Chris Hughes: You know, setting up face to face and offices and just sort of share my point of [00:31:00] view there. You're a hundred percent correct in that. You've got to be really careful if you do set up an office as to who that's with and where it's at. And I see so many dietitians that fall in with doctor practices and which is great, but there's, you've got to be thinking, is there enough work here that it's going to sustain.

Chris Hughes: The days I'm here, however many days that may be. And will the other thing is that other doctors in the area are less likely to refer to you because they don't want to send your, their clients to another competitor. Even though they may not say that essentially what will happen for the most part.

Chris Hughes: And then. Also doctors like people that bulk bill. So, you know, I historically was a bulk billing dietician. And we did that. I wasn't initially like we, we would charge a gap on our private clients, charge a gap for everyone except for concession card holders, but when we demo bulk billing, our referrals just flooded in.

Chris Hughes: I was thinking, Oh, this is great. But I was absolutely flogging [00:32:00] myself to death. On the bulk billing model and we were sort of stuck in that model. Then it was beneficial. We used it for a, like a, what we call a loss leader. That would then a lot would then come on private, but it's certainly not something I'll be recommending to a new grad is to sort of go down that path.

Chris Hughes: So be very careful. Anyone listening to this is to where you do get a room because you've got to think of your referral source, the quality of that referral, and then even getting in with the physio, you've got to be thinking, well, You know, if you are in that care plan space yes, in the private space, physios and dieticians can work in unison, but in the care plan space, they're actually a little bit of a competitor.

Chris Hughes: Now, I don't like that mentality of, you know, because I think the world's big enough that there's enough business, but when it comes to care plans, they only get five visits and, you know, You know, like I've worked with exercise visitors and it's like, Oh, wow. They've got this many visits. I've only got this many visits, but this person really needs to see a dietician more.

Chris Hughes: And you kind of get into this headspace where it's you know, like you, you've just got to be careful about you know, the referrals and sort of how they go around. [00:33:00] So I, I do like that. You've thought very deeply about, you know, where you're going to set up and Thinking about your referrals.

Chris Hughes: So I think that's great advice to anyone listening. It's not that working out of a diet, out of a doctor's or working out of a physio is a bad idea, but you've just got to put a lot of thought into it as to where you're going to go.

Sophie Houghton: Yeah, absolutely. That's such great point, Chris. And I think that was also one thing I thought, like, if I'm working at the sporting clubs and then I go work at it out of a physio clinic, like the physios at the sporting, other sporting clubs I'm working at are less likely to refer to me.

Sophie Houghton: To see people at, you know, out of a physio clinic because yeah, again, like they're working at their own clinics and they don't want their clients going to another physio clinic. So, yeah, it can be like super, like I know when I first talked to this first clinic, it was like in February and it was like, I just want to, you know, a lot of my cohort were getting full time hospital jobs and I was feeling like I just wanted to jump into it just to, You know, take up the opportunity.

Sophie Houghton: Yeah, I'm not soon after graduating, but I'm so [00:34:00] glad now that I didn't because everything's worked out so much better. And it's worth waiting for the right opportunities. But yeah, it can be really tempting to just throw yourself into opportunities without really thinking hard about them. And I think that's where my mentors.

Sophie Houghton: came into play because I, you know, without them, I might've just jumped into it. But I really took a step back, had my hour, you know, chats with my, both of my mentors that month and we really pulled apart the opportunities. And they got me thinking about things that I hadn't thought myself just from their experience.

Sophie Houghton: And then from that, I decided yeah, that it was an opportunity that I wanted to turn down at that time. Yeah. Which I'm so glad now because obviously working in an amazing team of dietitians and it's just a dietetic clinic. So, yeah, I don't have any of those issues.

Chris Hughes: Oh, how good you sounds like you've got a great network around you, Sophie, because you won't have to make half as many mistakes as I did.

Chris Hughes: Now, just to finish off. So, if there's one piece of advice you could give [00:35:00] to any person starting out in the nutrition business space, what's that one piece of advice that you would give that's going to help them to make it a success?

Sophie Houghton: Yeah. I think

Sophie Houghton: I've got like a few things come to mind. I think the biggest thing, which I've said a million times already this morning is to get a mentor and get the right mentor for what this ACU

Chris Hughes: Can I add a

Sophie Houghton: couple more points group?

Chris Hughes: Go for it.

Sophie Houghton: I've just My brain's going crazy. I just thought of all these things.

Sophie Houghton: So get a mentor. I think if you are, you know, still studying a dietetics course and you're not sure if the hospital setting is where you want to be, I think really trying to get some volunteer experience while you're studying is so beneficial. It was even just nice for me knowing that, you know, I've had that volunteer experience in sports.

Sophie Houghton: So if I didn't love the hospital setting, I knew There was another avenue for dietetics, whereas a lot of, you know, people in my cohort, they didn't like, when they didn't like that setting, it was very much like, [00:36:00] oh my gosh, like, have I made the wrong decision doing this course? Because that's all they knew was that clinical placement.

Sophie Houghton: But because I had the experience at Saints, I knew that there was a whole different side of dietetics and the days were just completely different. There's, yeah. boarding club as to what they were in the hospital. Thirdly, you don't have to rush into full time work. So I think everyone feels a lot of pressure when they finish dietetics to get full time work.

Sophie Houghton: And although I was given an opportunity prior to graduating, like I said before, it was really only five or six hours a week that opportunity was. So, Yeah, I had lots of people in my cohort that were working full time before I was and before I built up my week with these other opportunities. So take opportunities, say yes to things, but don't feel like you have to rush into full time dietetics.

Sophie Houghton: If you, yeah, if you don't want to work in a hospital setting you know, get part time work elsewhere. Start up your private practice and, your weeks will build before you know it.

Chris Hughes: Yeah. Yeah. I love that.

Sophie Houghton: Thanks Chris. Finally, as well, I think I forgot to mention it before, but in the entrepreneurial [00:37:00] dietetics two week intensive that we did do at spin burn.

Sophie Houghton: Another thing that we were told about was that the Australian government runs a program called the self employment assistance program.

Chris Hughes: Yeah,

Sophie Houghton: I think and. This program offers support to all people wanting to start up small businesses, which I actually did at the start of my small business. It basically is, I think it was sort of like a, it was between 4 or 8 week program.

Sophie Houghton: And I think it was a few hours a week. I did mine through Holmes Glen. Okay. And we actually. Put together a business plan and a financial plan in these small classes. And then from that program you've got access to a year of business coaching as well. One on one business coaching, as well as income support if you're eligible.

Chris Hughes: How good's that?

Sophie Houghton: So yes, I think that's another thing without doing that two week intensive business intensive with Jen, like a lot of us wouldn't even know about that program on [00:38:00] offer. And I think something, you know, a program like that is huge in helping us succeed in starting our own businesses. So

Chris Hughes: if you're

Sophie Houghton: listening to this and yeah, you're thinking of starting up your own business, definitely jumping on that self employment assistance program that the Australian government offers would be a really big step forward.

Sophie Houghton: Piece of advice for me.

Chris Hughes: We'll we'll find the link and put it in the show notes for people because that's amazing. Yeah, we, there is so many services out there that the government offer you know, people complain about how much tax we pay, but we live in a pretty amazing country that offers, you know, a lot of these opportunities that help can help small business.

Chris Hughes: Sophie, thank you so much for your time. I know you've got such a busy week. You're you've got so much going on. I'm going to love to follow your journey over the years to come and hopefully at some stage we'll meet in person and have a coffee.

Sophie Houghton: Absolutely. Chris, thank you so much for having me on.

Chris Hughes: No worries. Thanks Sophie. Did 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. [00:39:00] Thanks.