Welcome back to another episode of how to build a profitable nutrition business. Today we have an inspiring story from a dietitian who has set up her business from scratch here in Australia after immigrating in 2019. For those that can remember 2020 really rocked the world of most people.
So it was a difficult time to run a business, let alone start up one in the country that you've only just moved to. So I'm sure you'll agree. When you hear Racha's story, you'll be inspired that. It's possible to, really just put the head down, bum up, and achieve some great business goals.
And Racha is certainly proof of that. So thanks for coming on Racha. Hi, Chris. Thank you so much for having me today. Oh, my pleasure. My pleasure. We connected, a number of months ago. And when I heard your story, I'm like, I've got to get this on podcast. It's amazing. And so we've obviously connected on LinkedIn and I follow your journey and it's just so great to see, what you're doing regardless of whether you would just move to what you're achieving from a business perspective is phenomenal for anyone that knew the Australian landscape, health landscape, let alone someone that sort of immigrated here in 2019 and started from scratch. I'll turn it over to you to give everyone a bit of a background on, where you grew up and where the first part of your sort of career in dietetics landed you and then how you landed in Australia, if that's okay.
Yeah, sure, Chris. So I graduated from Lebanon from the American University of Beirut in 2010. And then I accepted a job offer overseas in Qatar, which is still in the Middle East. So I worked there for eight years. I did work as a dietitian in a private practice, but private practice in the Middle East is quite different from here from Australia.
So it was a business of private practice and food service. I was a junior employee dietitian back. Then I, a few years later, I met my husband, he was a client of mine. And then after that we decided it's time to move. So my husband decided to apply for a skilled immigration to Australia. I had my daughter, Layla.
and I was pregnant as well. And surprisingly, we got the acceptance really quickly to move to Australia. I didn't expect it to be that quick and was a bit of a shock to me. Oh it's reality. It's time to move. We're leaving everyone behind. And at first I thought Australia, it's like Qatar. So I've been living away from my hometown.
From for eight years, and I thought Australia is quite similar. But when I moved here, I was shocked. First of all, how far Australia is from all the world or from Lebanon. And if I actually need to visit Lebanon, that would be really hard. It's a very long distance. And it wasn't easy for my family to visit as well, where we had the help in Qatar, because just three hours away from hometown.
And for our Let me say bad luck when we moved here. COVID started, as you mentioned, Chris, in 2020. But what we had to do, it's because I do love what I do. I do have a vision of having my practice. I want to practice more. Being a dietitian, being an overseas dietitian, you have to go through all the DA accreditation process in order for me to practice as a dietitian in Australia.
So what I did is I took advantage of the lockdown in 2020 and started to prepare and study for all these examinations. And this process, Chris, is a very stressful. I think it's the most stressful part and it's very daunting. It's yeah, but I believe it's really important and it's. It's very crucial.
It's just to learn the policies of the new country you're in to learn the healthcare system, which is completely different than the Middle Eastern system. It's as simple as not knowing what Medicare is. It's a completely different system. We don't have that in the Middle East. Getting to know the culture that you're living in, how to approach the clients, the people in Australia was really important because part of the examinations we have to sit for public health community examination as well which I believe has helped a And during this time as well, I was working on YouTube Looms.
So I decided to start up YouTube Looms. And I was still seeing clients by via telehealth from overseas, like private consults from overseas and started to build policies, strategies, a vision of what I want to have from YouTube Looms. It wasn't easy because We're starting from scratch. So I didn't have support on my husband.
And if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have been able to actually build up mutual booms. So it was a very stressful year, but throughout the journey, I was always reminding myself why I'm doing this, what's my goal, what's my vision. And this is what's actually driven me to keep on moving and progressing.
Like if I want to say in the first year or two years, YouTube Looms wasn't a profitable business. I wasn't making any money out of it. It's just building up towards my goal. And having given that I speak Arabic as well, What has helped me is the language. This was an advantage for me. So what I did is I reached out Arabic communities as simple as social media.
So I'm Racha. I'm an Arabic speaking dietitian, just started here in Melbourne, and this has helped to spread the word because one It's much easier to reflect the dietetic requirement in your own language to your community and understanding the Middle Eastern cuisine as well. This has helped me a lot.
So word of mouth at the beginning was really helping given there's an Arabic speaking dietician and then Diabetes Victoria, they were running a diabetes prevention program here in Melbourne. And they wanted to target the culturally diverse community, and they reached out and asked, can you run this program in Arabic to the Arabic speaking community so I was like yes so what is a really helpful in the journey is I.
try to accept every single opportunity that knocks my door. Even sometimes it could be too much. It could be stressful, especially if you're starting all by yourself. But this is what actually helps you to grow. And sometimes we really need to know that. Being successful is not always or it's rarely a straight line.
So you're gonna do mistakes. You're gonna feel stressed. Sometimes you're going to be unmotivated to continue. But always, I was always reminding myself of why I'm doing this. And again, it was always my husband who's pushing me. It's all right. You're on the right path, and it just needs some time and this encouragement and having a support as simple as a partner is really, really important. Given said that so in 2020. When we were able to go back to clinics when I got I completed my accreditation. So I started as one clinic and then I opened up the second one. The second one was near the Arabic speaking community, which I used to drive nearly an hour and a half to reach that clinic.
Yeah. Yeah. So the clinics were, so these two clinics, one in the Eastern region, which is not the Arabic speaking community. And the far away one is the Arabic one, but I still wanted to go there. I still felt like I'm actually delivering the message to my community, which was really good. And given the fact, Chris, that there weren't much Arabic speaking dietitians.
I was going to ask you that, yeah. That was a big advantage for me because and you felt you're actually helping your community. It's really important. And I believe it dietetics or a dietitian profession. We have a strength that we can deliver our passion and help to the people as, as much as we can.
Then. That long distance driving, and I've got two girls as well, because when I moved here, I was pregnant. So I actually delivered to another daughter in 2020. And I have to mention, we have no help at all, no family at all. That was another question. I was saying, you chose Melbourne, did you have no family or networks there at all?
At all. Wow. And Covid hit, and this didn't help as well to build any friendship or to build any networks, but soc social media linked and these are platforms that can help. And I always try to connect and reach out to people, ask for help, ask for support. And I believe asking is a strength rather than weakness.
And not everyone will actually. I can reply to you or will help you. But there are some people out there who are willing to listen and support you and help you. And this is really important. So yeah, the first two years were really hard. They were very stressful. Given, yeah, no family a baby, a newborn at home, a three year old daughter.
Trying to understand all the systems, not just the healthcare system, everything. Let's say I want to find a school to my daughter while building my business. We moved here. We knew nothing about the systems here. Yeah. So it was quite hard, but again, We need to try to adapt or else it would be very hard to move on.
With my husband's support and always reminding ourselves, why did we move here and what do you want to achieve? Why did you move to Australia? What was the reason for coming to Australia? Let's say better life for our family. So especially yeah, better life.
Australia. It definitely provides you with lots of opportunities if you want to grow. Australia does appreciate your skills, and this is what I always tell anyone who comes from overseas because I know how hard it is when you come here by yourself. But I would say, work on yourself, try to build yourself.
Australia is a place where you can actually grow and this is one of the main reasons why we decided to move here. It's just feeling appreciated, feeling you can, your skills, your you can get recognized, which is really important and getting the good Quality life for our daughters as well is really important.
So everything has an advantage and disadvantage. The only drawback here is that we're very far away from our family. Yeah, we left everything behind our friends. We left. We left a decade in Qatar, we left everything and moved here. But looking back, I don't regret it. At the beginning, yes, sometimes I would stop and say, what am I doing?
Why am I doing this to myself? Why am I draining myself? I was living a happy life over there. Work was good. I had a great job. Everything was around me. But then again, it's really important to sit down by yourself and put your goals and ask yourself why you're doing this. And again, when you remember your goals, you'd be motivated again.
And it's normal to go to pass through those ups and downs. And I believe these drawbacks or setbacks, what actually push you to move forward. There's so much in your story. Sorry, Racha. So like for anyone looking to start a business you've basically moved and what could have been perceived as a weakness, showing up in a foreign country with, you've actually used it to turn it into an advantage.
and tapped into what seemed to be a vacuum. Okay. There wasn't many sort of Arabic speaking dieticians and you've used that to your advantage to grow. The other thing that I've absolutely loved that you said there, and I'm rewording this is say yes to everything and work it out later. Which is such great advice because it's I think it's easy to panic, isn't it? It's easy. It's easy to say no. It's hard to say yes. But the reward that comes from that, and there's a couple of experiences through our journey. I see some similarities in your journey, but only in the fact that we didn't make money for the first couple of years.
And I had a very supportive wife, but mine was a walk in the park compared to what you've been through. So but there was a few opportunities for us where, like I said yes to things where I was, pardon the French, shitting my pants. And it ended up just really providing so much growth and reward from saying yes.
So I there's so much in that story that I think anyone listening to this can really use and grow from. Definitely, Chris, if you say no for every single opportunity, you wouldn't learn, like when I say yes for something, even if I'm not enjoying it much, I will definitely learn something from that experience.
And I believe every experience and every opportunity that has knocked my door, it did push me forward for another opportunity. It's as simple as meeting someone new and you're in the community in the networks. It's like meeting your Chris, for example, and then using your platform mealsie as well, which has helped build up our business as well.
Saying yes is a great tool. You might not continue what you started. Started, but you'll definitely get something out of it. You'll definitely learn something and it's just a tool to keep you moving forward as well. And I believe this is what has helped me a lot in my journey.
It was very rewarding. And it, it's not easy at all. Some, sometimes, as I mentioned you're very stressed, you're very tired. There were long nights where I'm still working. Dietetic is not easy. And the private practice. Specifically, it's not easy when I'm building my business. I have to build the policies.
I have to build patient resources. I have to make sure client satisfaction is up to the standard. So you worry about every single thing in your business, which is It's like your third baby and you want it to grow as it should be. So definitely yeah, these are very rewarding opportunities that move you forward.
And then Moving forward. So when we started these two clinics, and then word of mouth has helped a lot. So word of mouth and started to get very busy. And when you do private practice, you have to do a lot of after work as well, like writing letters, finishing all the admin work.
So when you start a private practice as a dietitian, you have to do admin work as well, which is very different than the Middle East. So then at this point, Got so busy and I got so drained. And my husband was like, why don't you hire another dietitian to help you? And it was like, that's was worrying me.
That was a bit hard for me to take that decision. What if that dietitian doesn't work? Following my own policies, following my own strategies. What if clients don't accept her as another addition to the team they're used to seeing Racha, for example, but it was one of the best decisions, honestly, and I was lucky enough, like the first dietitian that I hired is a great dietitian.
And once you put your business policies clear to the team and strategies clear to the team. It makes when you have systems in place, it makes things much, much easier. So when I got the first dietitian she took over the clinic, which is far away from me. The one that I used to drive to, one and a half hour to and luckily, she was born Australia, but she does understand the Arabic language.
And that was really good as well. And she got busy as well. And then it became easier for me to hire dietitians moving forward and opening up another locations. The challenge was that. Having those locations spread all over and managing all these different locations is really hard. It's not easy. And that's when I reached to having starting business coaching.
That's what I learned. There's something called business coaching, which I really didn't know about. And and business coaching, I believe, is really important. Even if you are a startup dietitian, a graduate dietitian, you can reach out to a business coach, which can help you start up as well and learn from someone else's experience.
So it's a theme. It's a theme that comes up in these podcasts all the time and listeners. Might be tricked into thinking that I'm selling business coaching. I'm not a business coach. I've had business coaches, but it's not something I offer, but it's a theme that all of my guests tend to bring up.
And it's something that I strongly advocate for. However, Chris 15 years ago, certainly would not have. It was, I just would have gone, nah, you don't need a business coach. But in reality, of course you need a business coach. You get a coach for everything else. Why wouldn't you get something that's such so important?
Hundred, hundred percent. It's a big investment. Definitely. It's not cheap. You mentioned that in one of your podcasts, it's not cheap, but it's rewarding. So instead of trying and wasting time and wasting your efforts, get talk to someone who has actually done that before and learn from their mistakes as well.
And it has helped me a lot. And I wish I have invested since I started in a business coach, but it does help. It does help you to refine your goals. And take, you'd be very confident when you're taking decisions for your business. It helps you to enhance your leadership skills, financial skills, because we don't know everything.
And when you want to build a private practice business you're not that skilled in financial aspects as well. So this is, I think what I was missing as well. So I needed someone to help me in that perspective. And that was really helpful. So I started first with a business coach who was in the dietetic field who has helped a lot.
And now at this stage, we moved to a business coach, not in the dietetic field. Which is also helping really well, but you equip yourself with all the knowledge and the mindset when you have the proper business coach. And let's say you started with a business coach and you feel you're not going along.
There's nothing wrong. And taking on to a next step, or maybe sometimes you've learned enough you've done really well with that business code, but you need something new. You're looking for something different. Your business is at a different stage. Then there's nothing wrong by moving on and going into something new and learning new skills as well.
This is a critical important aspect that I believe we need to invest in as well. And what, what is really important is networking. As we mentioned, it has helped me a lot. LinkedIn has helped a lot. This is how I met you, Chris. And I met many other dietitians and many other professionals.
When you meet other professionals, it helps opens opportunity as well. And you discuss. And you share similar experiences and you discuss similar concerns, and this can help you share thoughts to grow your business as well. Moving forward. So we now work on 10 different clinics 10 different clinics.
We offer different services, not just the Arabic community as well. Definitely. So we're working with. All communities, different languages. And yeah, it's growing and going in the right direction. It's not always. A great experience. It's not always wins. Definitely there are drawbacks. Definitely there are lapses, but what helps me is definitely working towards a goal.
So now I have a different vision, different goal moving forward, what I want to achieve. And this is what's really helping. I love it. I love it. It's were you born with an entrepreneurial spirit, Racha, or is it something that you've thought, this is my opportunity in Australia to, to, provide income because you were working in private practice in Qatar, but it wasn't your private practice.
Am I correct? Yeah, I was an employee. It wasn't my private practice. When I work, there's a private practice that I used to work and it's more into food service and consultations as well. It's very different than here. We don't have, it doesn't have the same health care system as here. But I, so I started as a junior dietician and then I moved on to become the chief dietician over there.
Which I was managing a team of six dietitians and we had a kitchen where we used to service healthy meals. It's something similar to the healthy meals systems that are here, but these were actually prepared by dietitians and for medical conditions. We used to service hospitals as well. So it was both more like.
Consultation managerial position at the end when I ended and then the food service system as well. But when I moved here, I wanted to apply what I learned and at the same time, open my own clinic, and I. I didn't know it was that different to be honest. So I thought it's going to be quite similar. I had that vision of healthy meals in my mind, catering as well.
But now it's a completely different vision for new children. It's completely different. We don't have the medical system. We don't have the government funded consultations. It's very different. And this is what all I learned here, which is, I believe is a big advantage to Australia. We don't have this communication between other allied health, between doctors and GPs.
When I say we don't, that's in the Middle East. So there's not much this multidisciplinary team work towards achieving your client's goals or your patient's goals. So it's more like a self private practice where just private practice. clients come to you or where you work at the hospital. So what is really nice here, you've got that communication with other allied health, with GP doctors, you get referrals from doctors and you all work as a team towards your client's goals.
And this is what, this is actually what driven me to move forward because achieving your client's goals and having other Doctors or other allied health saying thank you for the efforts you've put to help your clients achieve that goal was really nice. Another thing that wasn't very, when I moved here, so in Qatar, we have, we've got that body composition analysis scale.
I think you've got that in at your clinic as well, Chris, the in body. So when I moved here to Melbourne, not many dietitians use that . And I think this was an advantage as well. Having clients to see their monitor, their progress journey and seeing numbers on the report rather than just a number on a scale.
We started to have clients who are just coming for that. And body scan, which is really helpful too. So in investing, what I'm trying to say, investing in your business is important. So at the beginning, it's not just. To make money out of it. You need to put that money towards growing your business and yeah.
And achieving those, the vision that you're looking forward to it. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. We were the same advice. We, my business coach at one point gave us was it's, you've got to provide a service that your clients can't just get at home. And you're balancing that with. Clinic being, clinically relevant and verified, but it was, things like investing in an in body.
We used to do the, I don't have any clinics now, but we used to do the indirect calorimetry through breezy breezing. So we'd be measuring a metabolic rate so little things like that were quite unique. Yeah, I certainly know what you're talking about there. Sorry, just quickly, so the food service element that you're working on in Qatar, can you see elements of that working in your current business?
Because a lot of these meal prep services are popping up and do you see that as a viable option to add on for more dieticians? It could be in the future, not at this stage. Uh, it's just, it needs a lot of preparation, a lot of investment as well to have that patient to supply all these meals, but it could be something that I like as well.
Something that I enjoy. And this is why our meal plans are very well known to be very detailed with all these recipes, because I've been working in that field for eight years, creating recipes calculating calories and coming up with all these macros to be dedicated on that meal. It could be something that we might look into it in the future, but not at this stage at this stage.
I have something more in mind, just opening up an official, let's say a clinic for new to blooms. We're definitely going to keep those branches that are working, but a more dedicated space for new to blooms as well. And yeah, but not at this stage. Okay. Yeah. We found mostly we had our own offices and I think I might've talked about this on our most recent podcast.
It's something to consider. Isn't it? When you're setting up a practice because. working out of doctor surgeries is great, but it can also limit you because it can limit your referral sources from other doctors and whatever. So having your own clinic, there's obviously there's more upfront costs, but there's a real value in just having that own dedicated space.
Definitely I believe it's very important at some stage. It's important to have your own clinic. Definitely the GP clinics did help us, but there is a point where you feel it's time to know, create your own clinic. It limits your referrals. Yes, as you mentioned, not everyone at all other GPS would be happy to refer to another GP clinic as well.
Given where specializing as well in fertility, women's health, it's good to have that. Dedicated space to and this is my goal for now. And this is what I'm aiming for now. Yeah. Oh, how exciting times ahead. Racha, thank you so much for coming on. I tend to finish with one question.
And there's so much wisdom you've already shared, but if you give one piece of advice to any. Not necessarily a new graduate, but anyone entering the nutrition business space, what would that piece of advice be? I would say be brave and don't be shy to ask knock doors, ask your questions and try to invest in the space where you're not very knowledgeable about.
So if you feel like you want to empower yourself in specific skills, do reach out, do reach out to mentors, do reach out to mentors. Again, business coaches, and there's nothing wrong in making mistakes. So if you fail at one point, take this as a learning aspects towards your second second journey. So failing is what has actually helped.
And this is what actually drives you to learn and grow towards your goals. Oh, I love that. That's fantastic. All right. What we'll do is we'll put your LinkedIn profile in the show notes. So for anyone listening, they can just look up Racha Slim, R A C H A S L I N, but we'll put the link in the show notes for people to connect with you.
Great. All right. Thanks so much, Racha. It's been great talking to you. Thank you. Brilliant.
