My favorite tools & resources as a weight inclusive fertility and prenatal dietitian
As a dietitian in private practice, I get asked ALL the time what my favorite tools and resources are. In today’s post, I’m giving you the low down on EVERYTHING I utilize to help my practice run smoothly, including a few specific resources that are meant especially to support you in the area of fertility and prenatal nutrition. Goodness knows it’s so hard to find up to date, evidence based resources in the reproductive health field that aren’t rife with fatphobia… so don’t worry, I got you!
Note: this article includes affiliate links, which give you a discount and help me keep this small business running!
My favorite EMR (electronic medical record)
The number one tool you’ll need as a private practice dietitian is a medical record. This is NEVER something I recommend that you DIY - security and a streamlined workflow are so important, especially if you are billing insurance. My favorite online medical record as a dietitian is SimplePractice. As someone who accepts BCBS insurance and may decide to become paneled with additional insurance companies in the future, I knew that ease of billing was going to be one of my top priorities. Not only does SimplePractice keep all my patient files organized, secure, and saved to a HIPAA compliant cloud that I can access from anywhere, I can also utilize it for online patient scheduling, telehealth, AND one click insurance billing. Yes - one click. With a bit of up front set up, it now takes me 2 minutes to submit all of my insurance bills in bulk at the end of each week. Use this discount link to get $150 in account credit towards your SimplePractice subscription, or $300 if you have a group practice.
My favorite payroll software
You might be wondering… “aren’t you a solo practice, McKenzie? Why do you need a payroll software?” As it turns out, there’s actually a tax advantage to incorporating and then becoming an employee of your own business. Last year, my accountant helped me convert Feed Your Zest from a single member LLC to an S-Corp. It’s important to discuss this with your personal accountant to make sure it makes sense for you, but it definitely was worth the hassle for me! One requirement for S-corps (at least in NC) is to have a payroll software. I really love using Gusto - it’s super user friendly! I now use this to pay myself a monthly wage with all the taxes automatically taken out, as well as to pay interns. It’s easy to add an independent contractor or an employee; with just a name and email, it sends all the appropriate forms and gets them set up with direct deposit. It truly is a life saver. Get $100 off Gusto with this link!
My favorite online course platform
You might also have noticed that I run a couple group programs with online courses! I’ve loved using Thinkific to host my courses. I find that it’s one of the most user friendly online course platforms both on the host and student ends. I love how easy it has been to build out a course and sell it all without any extra plugins. I’ve found it really helpful to easily upload and organize new lessons and recorded group meetings, resources, and even entirely new courses in just a few clicks. Thinkific does offer a site builder and an option for communities which I haven’t found quite as helpful, but they are very user friendly for folks who do want to totally integrate the entire customer experience in one spot! Get one month free of Thinkific with this link.
My Favorite Branding & Marketing Resources
“Ok McKenzie… but what about marketing?!?!”
I know - that thing we learned nothing about in school, but is vital to you actually getting clients in the door… it’s a learning curve for sure. I used SquareSpace to build this website from scratch on my own, but had a TON of amazing help from Morgan Sinclair Designs who helped me build out my branding details, from the colors to the logo, but even more importantly, my brand messaging. Before working with Morgan, I had NO idea what an “ideal customer avatar” was, and didn’t have a clear business mission. This is the base of my marketing.
SEO
From there, I followed the Squarespace SEO tips - there’s some pricey SEO courses out there, or you can hire out help, which could be a really great investment! However, it’s really great to find something that’s free-ninety-nine, you know? Anyways - SEO, or search engine optimization, is all about utilizing key words and phrases anywhere and everywhere in your website. This helps your site appear at the top of a potential client’s Google search, so they can find you! Following the Squarespace SEO guide will help you get some keywords in some important places, but then creating additional pages for specific conditions you treat (you might notice the ones on my home page, pictured below) in addition to blogging will really get the traffic flowing.
Utilizing searchable social media like TikTok, Pinterest, and YouTube also helps a ton with this! You might also consider a listing with HealthProfs, which may or may not actually bring you ideal clients in your area (I’ve had mixed results), but definitely boosts your SEO. Listings on other local or professional registries, and link backs from getting quoted by media outlets is yet another way to get you to that #1 spot in a Google search. Get 6 free months of HealthProfs with this link.
Of course, word of mouth and local referrals are always going to be a really strong marketing source for any business. Building up your online presence helps to increase your rapport with referral sources and clients alike, but definitely be sure to get out there and network! I find mental health therapists and physical therapists to be my best referral partners, with OBGYNs, midwives and reproductive endocrinologists falling closely behind.
Social Media
Ok… now speaking of social media… where the heck do you even start??
At the risk of sounding silly, you really do just need to START. Perfectionism really will get in the way of your success with social media marketing. Instead of waiting to get it all exactly right before hitting post, just start getting content out there. You can follow a few RDs to get some content ideas, and just get going! People really do want to hear what you have to say. Strategies for Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and YouTube all differ slightly. Personally, I got burnt out with posting on Instagram, so I decided to outsource some help to my lovely virtual assistant, Madison’s Virtual Magic. Madison helps me with Instagram and email marketing, which REALLY helps take the load off! She offers a wide range of services that are so, so valuable and supportive of a dietitian in private practice. Highly recommend her as well as Morgan to get your social media launched with the best kind of support! If you reach out to Madison or Morgan, let them know McKenzie sent you :)
Email Marketing
Social media feels like it changes on the daily, but email marketing is here to stay, and it’s pretty consistently shown to be effective in building a relationship with your audience. Sending out a quick email, whether that’s a life update, new blog post, or repurposed social media video, is one of the most direct ways to keep your remind your followers that you’re there. I’ve found it’s also a great way to further the clinical relationship with my current clients. To get started, all you need to do is come up with a free opt-in (like a downloadable guide, or free video), and then link that to whatever you’re using to host your newsletter. From there, you can create a series of sales emails and start sending out weekly emails on top of that. Madison helps me a ton with this!
There are quite a few email marketing platforms out there, but the one that I landed on was ConvertKit. ConverKit is one of the best platforms out there when it comes to integrations with other platforms (like Thinkific), and has high-powered visual automations that let you see exactly how your sales funnel is set up. On top of this, ConvertKit has the ability to easily create landing pages for you to build a waitlist, or market to a specific subset of your audience. I’m on their Creator Plan, which offers the perfect amount of automations and integrations for my business currently. Sign up for a free 14 day trial of ConvertKit’s Creator Plan here!
Doing the actual job - medical nutrition therapy as a weight inclusive perinatal dietitian
Handouts
Alrighty, let’s talk client care. As a weight inclusive dietitian, it’s really important to me that the resources I use for my clients are safe and free of weight centric, diet-y messaging. It’s also been frustrating trying to find handouts that contain evidence based, up to date information for fertility and pregnancy. That has led to me creating a lot of my own handouts, which I have for sale on RD2RD Marketplace so you can access them too! I encourage you to put up your own handouts if you have them, the more the merrier!
Meal Planning & Food Logging
Let’s be real - working 1:1 with clients takes a lot of emotional energy, and we only have so many spoons to give, but it is one of the most consistent sources of income as a private practice dietitian. I also have noticed over the years that many patients need extra support outside of biweekly sessions. So, instead of maxing out my schedule with 1:1 clients, offering between-session support through meal planning/recipe ideas and food log feedback has helped me not only scale my income and reduce burnout, but also see better success in my clients when they have more tools and accountability to practice implementing their nutrition goals. EatLove has been an amazing tool for providing my clients with flexible meal plans. Not only do they have a large database with thousands of nourishing and tasty recipes, but I can customize my clients’ nutrition prescriptions on the back end, and then put it on “safe mode” so my clients don’t have to worry about seeing any of the calories, grams of carbs, etc. EatLove also has food logging and nutrition analysis capabilities, but I actually like using a separate app, Nourishly, for food logs. Nourishly is set up for clients to be able to log food, exercise, thoughts, feelings, blood sugar, and many other symptoms, and is super helpful for my clients as they build a mindful, intuitive relationship with food and their bodies. Use this link to get $50 credit towards your EatLove membership! No discount codes for Nourishly, but you can still check it out here.
Learning the MNT for reproductive health
And finally…medical nutrition therapy for fertility and pregnancy is a big learning curve, especially when you implement it in the context of this crazy, diet obsessed world we live in, and a perinatal medical care system rife with weight bias. Oh, and, figuring out how to actually run a successful private practice….It’s a lot, to say the least, but you do NOT have to tackle this alone! I currently offer supervision and business coaching for dietitians and other wellness professionals looking to improve their expertise in the area of weight inclusive nutrition for reproductive health. You can read more about working with me here.
On top of this, I’m really excited to say that I’m finally working on my first dietitian webinar! I’m planning to get it approved for CEUs, and will hopefully launch it sometime in Fall 2023. I’m planning to host it live, and also have a recording available for purchase. Fertility, Pregnancy, and Postpartum Nutrition: The Weight Inclusive Approach is going to be super informative. Get on the waitlist for the dietitian webinar here.