The RDtoCEO Podcast

The Real Costs of Owning vs. Working for a Private Practice as an RD

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Thinking about starting your own private practice? Join me as we explore the financial realities for Registered Dietitians, when deciding between partnering with companies like Fay, Nourish, and Berry Streets or starting your own practice. We'll break down some of the common startup costs, potential earnings, and how to figure out if it makes sense financially. Lastly, we'll finish up with discussing the non-financial aspects to consider, as you venture into the world of private practice.



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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the RD to CEO podcast. I'm your host, eva Haldis, registered dietitian, who one day found herself a whole CEO of a business. Join me as we navigate the world of entrepreneurship so you can go from being an RD who sees clients in private practice to a confident CEO growing the practice of your dreams. Welcome back to the RD to CEO podcast. Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of the RD to CEO podcast. I'm so happy to be back after taking a week off of posting an episode. I hope you enjoyed my son's intro as well. Today is his first day of pre-K, so I now feel like I have an actual dedicated day to working on this podcast, which is very exciting for me. I'm really excited about today's episode, too, because it's a topic that I've wanted to talk about for a while, and it was actually inspired by a post that I saw on a Facebook group, and it's really about this ongoing conversation that I think a lot of us are seeing around bigger companies like Fay, nourish and Berry Streets and whether it's worth it to work with a company like that to do your billing and sort of working for them, but kind of for yourself, or is it better to have your own thing and do your own billing, or maybe hire someone to do your bill for you. So I really wanted to talk about that for a while, and this Facebook post just sort of was the catalyst that made me feel like it was time to talk about it, and I think really what this episode in particular is going to be. I'm going to talk a lot about the financial reality of it all, but also I'm going to talk about why the financial consideration shouldn't be the only choice and the only decision that you use to help make this the path you want to go down. So while obviously the money is going to be a very important part of it, it's also important to consider the other reasons why you might want to start your own private practice versus working for one of these bigger tech companies.

Speaker 1:

I think because of the evolution of being able to work virtually, for most of us post-COVID, it's really made the ability to have a private practice, I would say, easier than maybe before, when not everybody was online and a lot of people were still solely in the office and doing virtual work wasn't like the status quo. It wasn't the normal thing that we did. I feel like I've said this story before, but I remember having a client in January of 2020. So it was like right before COVID, but it snowed that day, it was like a Saturday too, and we ended up just rescheduling and I was like, why did I just see her virtually? It's so funny that I didn't do it and I wasn't even taking insurance then, but it was just not something we thought of doing, I think, because it wasn't the usual, as it is now.

Speaker 1:

So obviously, as we are seeing more of these companies growing and more dietitians working with them, it's going to feel like enticing, I think, to say like, should I do that? Should I do my own thing? What's the right choice here? And I'm going to obviously give my perspective on it and I'm actually going to talk about sort of like the financial costs of starting up and running a private practice and sort of how to think about your earning potential and so that when you compare it to maybe like the hourly rate that you're gonna get paid at one of these companies, and then we're also gonna talk about sort of that other piece that I mentioned of why the money can't be the only driver here. It's a big one, obviously, we all need money to survive here, but it can't be the only one, especially when it comes to entrepreneurship. So that'll be today's episode.

Speaker 1:

Before we do that, of course, as always, please be sure to like subscribe. Follow along wherever you're getting your podcasts. If you'd like to be a guest on the podcast, you can head over to the website, wwwrd2ceocom and fill out the application there. Not only would love to have some other business owners come on and talk about their business expertise, but I'm also offering some coaching calls. That will be complimentary, of course, recorded, but a complimentary business coaching call. So if that's something that you've been wanting to do, but maybe feel like you don't have the money to invest in it yet, this might be a good way to talk through some business stuff. So if you're interested in doing that, like I said, go ahead and go over to the website and you'll see the link for it there on the menu page. I think that's all the updates I have on that, so without further ado, let's get into the episode today.

Speaker 1:

Okay, when we think about the startup costs of starting your own private practice, what are some of the things that we want to think about and plan for that? We might have to pay up front. When I started my practice in 2019, there were certainly a couple of expenses that I had to pay for up front. But once I started generating some revenue like seeing clients and actually getting some money from that it helped because I could then have that money to pay for some of this stuff. But before I had clients, there's a couple of things that you might have to invest in financially that will have to come out of sort of your own account money now. So maybe this is something that you're like okay, I'm going to start setting aside some money so that I can put that towards starting on my private practice. But what kind of money are we talking here?

Speaker 1:

So I would say the main sort of initial costs are going to center around, I would say first, obviously you want to consider, like any licenses and permits that you might need to have a business in your state. In Pennsylvania in particular, you can either do an LLC I believe there is a cost there for submitting the application. Some people will go down a more, I would say, like legal route where they might use a company like LegalZoom or an actual lawyer, so that will cost money. In Pennsylvania in particular, the application process is pretty easy on the state Department's website. So I did that all by myself and I think there had to have been a processing fee for that. So that is that cost. You can also, in Pennsylvania, be a sole proprietor, which means you don't need to actually file anything, so that would be like a free way to get started. So if you have any of those things that you need to take care of, that's one thing to consider. Obviously, any of your own professional licenses. So maybe now you work for an employer who covers the cost of those things. So that might not be a startup cost, because if you're working full-time for a company that currently pays for those things, you might have to consider that. But that might be something that you might have to pay for on your own down the road if you end up pursuing your private practice full-time. But other than that, I would say those are probably the main licenses and permits that you'll need.

Speaker 1:

You also want to think about liability insurance. So if you're starting out private practice, you're going to have to get your own liability insurance. Now this episode in particular is going to be talking about the cost of having your own private practice versus working for a company like a Faye, norrish or Berry Street, to my understanding aside from Norrish, I believe which doesn't employ people as W-2 employees. I want to say Faye and Barry are more independent contractors. So if you work for a company that you're not going to be a W-2 employee for, you'll probably then have to pay for your own liability insurance anyway.

Speaker 1:

But something to consider. If you're like I just want to do my own private practice, you'll have to have some liability insurance as well to cover you for your private practice. So that's something to consider there as well. Once again, if you are currently working for a full time job somewhere else, or maybe you have a partner and you're on their health insurance, this might not be something you have to think about. But if you're sort of like planning on, like jumping right into private practice, you'll obviously and maybe don't have benefits from whether it's like a partner or a full-time job that you already have. That's something that you also want to consider is that you may have to pay for your own benefits. But typically I find that people are starting up their private practice as more of like a side hustle, so you might have some of those things already taken care of. So typically, I would say, the things that you're going to have to pay for though without that is, of course, the liability insurance, but the benefits, depending on your circumstances, some of the other things that you may have to pay for upfront.

Speaker 1:

If you plan to have an office space or to like, sublease an office space, have your own office space that you're going to think about rent. If it's your own space, you also have to furnish it and have stuff that's in there. I feel like I didn't realize or even take into consideration about that. Once we opened our bigger office I was like, oh yeah, we have to actually furnish this place now. But because of obviously, like I said before in the intro, the post-COVID virtual nutrition is very common now A lot of people don't really start with an office and so you can do most of your work virtually if that's what you want to do.

Speaker 1:

So if you don't have an office space or don't need an office space, at this point you can. You know, obviously don't have to worry about those kinds of fees, but you will have to worry about, of course, the software to see those clients virtually. If virtual only is going to be your route, you're going to have to have some kind of software too. You know whether it's and there's ways to sort of be cost effective with this, like Practice Better, which we use and I'll put an affiliate link thing in there that I think I get a couple of bucks for if you use it. I believe with Practice Better you will get three free clients before you have to pay Some of the other EMRs out there. They have maybe like a month free. They have options so that startup costs aren't significantly high and then that way you can have a HIPAA compliant sort of portal where that can keep all your clients information and then also have a way to actually see them virtually. There's other ways, of course, to do this. If you end up having a Google business account I believe that's HIPAA compliant for you to store some information. You can also get a Zoom business account so you can kind of figure out ways that's going to make it the most cost effective for you. But ultimately that is something that you'll have to consider paying for.

Speaker 1:

Right Is somewhere somehow to store information and to also be able to see your clients virtually for that telehealth, and if you don't have a computer, that's something you also probably need to invest in if you don't already have one, but I feel like in this day and age, a lot of us already do have some form of computer or tablet or something that we can use to see our clients virtually. So those are some of the main startup costs, and the only other one that I haven't mentioned yet is there's going to be marketing and branding. So it's important to have just some kind of web presence. It doesn't have to be a perfect website. I've always said this before, too. I really wish I would have taken like a screenshot and saved my first website, because it's changed so much over the years. So don't stress about making it perfect just yet. Just have something that you can have your information on there and a way for people to reach you, and just some info to get you started is perfect. So that'll be also something you want to pay for.

Speaker 1:

Of course, I also have on here like logo business cards. I don't think a lot of that stuff is really as necessary to get started. Now, listen, I have had Courtney Vickery who does website and branding, and she'll make a beautiful logo for you, and I feel like a lot of web people will say don't use Canva for your logo. But I've always used Canva to make my logos because I'm not trying to be like I don't need anything fancy just at this point in my business. Maybe eventually I will, but for right now Canva has worked just well for me.

Speaker 1:

So you can certainly do something that's like cost-effective. You don't have to invest a significant amount of money into like the perfect website, the perfect logo, all those things. If you want to, of course, go for it, but I would say, when you're really thinking about startup costs, that's one way you can really save money is just doing some of the stuff yourself. There's so many free templates not free, but there's so many templates out there that you can use now and a lot of websites, like Squarespace, for example, is just very easy to use. It's like drag and drop.

Speaker 1:

I know for me, computer stuff is like website design. Stuff comes easier for me. I know that's not the case for everybody, so I also understand that you might be one of those people that's like what are you talking about? That feels so daunting and hard, but there's a lot of ways that you can do a very basic website on your own, once again, just to get yourself started. So this is going to be some of the initial startup costs, some of the things that you're going to want to think, okay, here's what I'm going to want to pay and all these things.

Speaker 1:

I would say most of the time, people aren't really paying rent or having an office space right away. Maybe if you're sublet, leasing a place or just like doing there's some maybe offices that you can get, like a day at the office and you can spend a couple like $50 to $100 a day that they use it or whatever it might be. So that might be something you want to look into, but typically I think, since most of us are going to be virtual, that's one of the bigger costs that we can really save on and I would say most of these costs end up becoming reoccurring fees. So it's stuff that we're going to be paying for monthly subscriptions that we'll need to like. Once again, whatever you decide to use to store your information and do your telehealth visits for you know your website, you'll have to pay like a monthly amount. Some of the licenses and things might be like more of like a one-time cost. So like if you apply to have an LLC, that'll probably be like a one-time cost. Some states require you to update that stuff periodically, so you might have to do that yearly but not so much monthly. So that's going to be sort of those, once again, in the very beginning, initial startup costs.

Speaker 1:

The other thing that you'll want to maybe think about is having some money set aside for the unexpected expenses that can happen. But typically I feel like in general I feel like over the years, I haven't really had significantly a lot of unexpected things. The main unexpected thing that you might want to think about is slower periods. So let's say that you are having a really busy month, things are great, and then the next month is really slow. You might want to think about that ahead, as you're planning how much to pay yourself which we'll talk about in, I think, an episode in and of itself but say you're planning how much to pay yourself which we'll talk about in, I think an episode in and of itself but say you're like, okay, I'm gonna pay myself a little bit more this month, but it might actually be better to just put that money aside in case you might need it on a slower month when things are not as consistent. So that's one of the bigger expenses that you might want to think about. That might be unexpected is like if things slow down.

Speaker 1:

The other one is tax season. I find that my accountant gives me estimates every year and sometimes I'm ready and have an accurate amount of money saved. I've had times where I've had less put aside than I needed, so that was unexpected and I needed to come up with that money in time to pay for those taxes. That was, you know, could be something, but I would say like tax season and planning for it, and I'm going to talk about sort of figuring out how much money to set aside for what in a few minutes. But that's one of the things that might become an unexpected expense if, say, you don't put aside enough money. And the other thing is I haven't had really a lot of unexpected expenses that have come up over the years. I wrote down a couple just to help me remember, because I have a group practice. I have an employee that lives in another state and I think I just didn't pay attention to something and I didn't end up paying or filing for something that was required for New York State for New York State, and so then when I figured it out, I ended up having a penalty that I had to pay, which I think ended up becoming I think it was originally like $500, but I think they reduced it but it was still somewhere like between 250 and $500. So, once again, just wasn't expecting it and could have been worse if I didn't figure it out sooner. I feel like this time of year in particular, I feel like I'm getting a ton of emails from every company that's like we're going.

Speaker 1:

Our price is increasing annually. It's probably because it's like the fiscal year is starting, so that's going to might happen. You might have a price increase on something that you currently are paying for. If you're working for yourself and your computer breaks and that's how you see your clients, you're going to have to replace your computer. So that could be an unexpected cost. Of course and this is really thinking about things from a solo practitioner's perspective but also if you're an employer and you provide something like that for your employees, you have to be prepared for if something like that breaks and what's going to happen and how is that going to be replaced. Obviously, the same thing goes for if you have an office space and you have furniture. Something breaks, you need something replaced. That's going to potentially cost money as well, and, of course, taxes was the last thing I put, but I did talk about that already. So those are going to be some of the operational costs of things.

Speaker 1:

And so, having that in mind, how do we sort of like figure out what your earnings can be and sort of the potential profit of being in private practice? And how do we figure out, like, is it profitable to do it on your own versus working for a company that does some of the work for you and then pays you hourly? Obviously, all of this is also going to depend on what your revenue is and, if you accept insurance, what state you live in. What's like the average reimbursement rate? What's the average private pay costs that people are willing to pay? Are you doing one-on-one visits? Are you doing group visits? Are you offering any other kind of packages, things like that? Obviously, my experience is in one-on-one visits and we do accept insurance. So I'm going to kind of talk from that experience and that perspective. But I think the way that we want to look at profit and all those things is going to be similar, because it's all going to be coming from what is the revenue that's coming in ultimately? And so that's going to be obviously a dependent thing on how much money you're going to be able to get per client or per group or whatever it might be, per the amount of time that you have to work, and then how many clients you can see or what's typical, depending on the niche that you're working with and all these things. So that's all going to factor into sort of what is the revenue possibilities for you, and then we'll talk about okay, then what is the actual profit of that going to look like?

Speaker 1:

There's a lot of different things I've seen over the years on sort of figuring out how to figure out your profit and things like that. I heard this very early on and I would say it's probably still pretty accurate that when you think of revenue, so this is like money coming in. So we're going to think of this as like one client, so you see one client for one hour and whether it's your private pay costs or insurance, there's going to be a certain amount of money that you're going to get for that one hour from the client, right? And so if we take that, what the rule of thumb that I've always heard is 20% should go towards your expenses, 30% should go towards taxes and then 50% can be your actual income that you take home, slash your profit. So I actually did a little bit of a breakdown of this to see how like accurate it could be based on like what I do Now. Once again, let's just like the expenses part might be a little bit different because for us, you know, as a group, practice like I'm paying more money for, you know, practice better because we have several users on there, so it'll be much cheaper depending on, like, your actual expenses. So let's, let's, I'll take that into account.

Speaker 1:

But generally speaking, based on some of the things that have, you know, been my experience or things like that, this is sort of how I broke it down to see does it sort of fit that like 20, 30, 50 model? So this is just average. This is not really it kind of could be where things are at currently, but I would say, like our average reimbursement I put at $120 with insurance companies. So if we break it down like sort of bit by bit, and so I separated out what my biller, the biller, costs and other expenses, so I sort of made those two separate things and then, of course, the taxes and then what was left over. So if we think about average reimbursement.

Speaker 1:

Average pay for one client for one hour is $120. I think with billers I put 6%. Some billers, once you have a certain amount they'll charge you a lower percentage. I did 6% because I feel like that's the average I've seen. I've also did an example of so if it was 120, the 6% of that is $7.20 would go towards my biller. Before I did a percentage model, I worked with a company that did it per unit and I think before I left it was like 175 per unit. So if we think of one hour session, four units, that's $7. So it ends up actually being kind of the same. So let's say you start out $120 that you're getting from your client for reimbursement. Now 6% is going to go to your biller or whatever it might be. So that's about $7. Now you're down to $113.

Speaker 1:

I looked at our expenses for the month which once again I think are going to be higher than if somebody is an individual solo practice, but it was about $1,600 a month with everything if somebody is an individual solo practice, but it was about $1,600 a month with everything. So then I took that and divided by four to make like $400 a week on expenses, how much work generally costs, and then divide that by five days, so five days of the week, say you're working five days a week, that's about $80 a day on expenses that you're paying. And then say you see five clients a day. So for every client you're seeing, you're gonna be, you know, $16 an hour that you're spending on expenses. So with all that then you are down to $97.

Speaker 1:

I also took 30% of 120, which is, like I said, that reimbursement rate for taxes, which brought us to about $36 of that. So from the total that we had left over after some of our expenses, with $36 coming out for taxes, that leaves about $61 per hour of work income. So that actually worked out almost perfectly, with the expenses being about 20%. Obviously 30% for taxes and then about 50% left over for profit. Because I'm an employer. That money is also not going to me, but it's going to be going to. There's an additional expense as a group practice owner that's going to my team. So actually, because I pay about $50 an hour plus we do some admin time for the business profit that's left. It's pretty low, as you can see right. It's about like $10 per hour of a clinician seeing client.

Speaker 1:

So this is also where, sometimes I think, people are like I want to hire an employee and I'm going to make a lot of money, and you're like, wait, why am I not making more money? That's why, because there's a lot that you have to pay upfront before you're actually going to see a significant enough profit, right. But if it's just you, you could ultimately go home with $61 per hour if we're using this model to think about it, right? So that's sort of how you want to estimate the money you're going to make. Now let's compare that to you work for this other company and you're an independent contractor, and they're paying you $50 an hour. So if that's the case, right, they're paying you $5 an hour because they're paying for some of the other stuff, but if you're an independent contractor with them, you're still going to have to pay taxes on top of that, right? So that's later on that you want to think about that as well.

Speaker 1:

Or if you're working for a company that you're a W-2 employee of, and then they're going to be paying some of those payroll taxes and things like that, your take home might be a little bit less than that. So those are things to consider, whereas in this case, when we're thinking about it from our own private practice, it's actually we've already set aside the money for taxes. So $61 is the income that you would get remaining. Hopefully, I know for me, if I was listening I'd have a hard time following the math. So if you need a visual of this, you can always just shoot me a message. I'm happy to send over how I sort of did the math on that. But think about it as like, once again, 20% towards expenses, 30% towards taxes and 50% towards your, that's going to go towards your income of the revenue that you are receiving.

Speaker 1:

Always good to check in with an account, of course, how much you want to set aside for taxes, but generally speaking, I feel like that's the general amount that folks typically will recommend. So of course, this is something to think about when you're like, okay, well, $61 an hour, that sounds pretty good. But then it's like, okay, well, do I have how many clients? Then do I have to see a week to make that an income that can sustain my life and am I getting that amount of clients every week? That's a thing with private practice that is really hard. It's like the benefit of it and the challenge of it is the flexibility around schedules and having more availability to do other things. However, there's going to be fluctuations. That also occur when it comes to clients, right? I mean, I did an episode just recently on the summer slowdown. Like things tend to slow down during the summer. There's gonna be months that are really busy. There are months that are gonna be slower.

Speaker 1:

This is where thinking about those unexpected costs that you might have, like the slowdown of certain periods, to have that money set aside to pay yourself more consistently, will be really, really helpful and ultimately be a way that you can sort of have a dependable income even if things are sort of slowing down. The other thing that's nice is if you start your private practice as a side hustle, I didn't spend that money because I had a full-time job that was sustaining my life and an income that was doing so. So the money that I was generating from my private practice on the side, I didn't quite need in that moment, and I'm so grateful that I did that, because then, when I actually quit my job, I had that money as like a buffer to help me as I was slowly growing the practice and doing all the things. So that was a way to sort of just have that money there and ready for when I needed it. So that is something to consider when you're starting out as a side thing, that that might be the best route to take versus unless you of course need that finances, because maybe your full-time job isn't paying you enough right and so you do need that additional income. So that's, of course, depending on what the circumstances that you have.

Speaker 1:

So that's what we think about working for ourselves versus another company, and you're going to have to look at what those companies have, to look at how much they are paying you or whether they're taking from a certain percentage from, let's say, they might do a percentage, depending on the insurance company. They might do a certain cost per unit. It really depends on the company and what they're offering to you. But I find that, because of some of the other things that people really maybe want more control over and have more autonomy over by having their own private practice. It's nice to have that, of course, but when you work for another company, like one of these bigger companies, they might also take care of some of those expenses. So it might also be a cost that you don't have to really consider, but maybe you're not getting paid as much as you could if you're working for yourself. So that's really where they're going to have to do the cost benefit analysis for you of like, what are they offering me, what can I do on my own?

Speaker 1:

So when you want to think about, obviously, what is comparing your own practice to working for another company, I mean I'll tell you the benefits of having your own private practice, of course, autonomy and control over your own schedule, client load, the type of clients you see, the services you offer. You are the boss. You can decide all those things and it's up to you pretty much entirely. That's a really nice part of it. I mean that's one of the main reasons I started. My own practice was like I've said this multiple times before too is like I just hated having to stay at my office job until five o'clock, even if I had nothing to do. I was like I don't feel like I need to just like be here for no reason, right? So that was one of the reasons I really wanted to have my own business was that I could have control over my schedule and the autonomy of like what I wanted to do.

Speaker 1:

The other benefit is, you know, you can build a higher earning over time and really depending on, like, where you see your business growing. I think for me, I had always imagined I'd be a solo clinician and now I'm in group practice and I started doing coaching on the side, so my earning potential has really shifted from what I thought it was going to be. You know, either way, the business itself has really grown. The revenue as the business has grown, I've been able to bring on and pay a good wage to my employees, so that's something I'm really proud of as well. So there is a bigger earning potential.

Speaker 1:

It just takes time and, of course, it's like the opportunity to build something that is your own and your brand and reputation and being able to do this thing that you want to do. And if you're someone like me who's one multi-passionate especially people like who have ADHD or are neurodivergent having your own business can be really fulfilling and really can bring a lot of personal satisfaction, a lot of freedom to shift and do things that really inspire you and make you feel excited and really get to work in alignment with your values, which I think is also one of the main key things. I could never imagine working for someone else, because it's like I'd have to find a business that worked in alignment with my values and did the things that I wanted to do. Now that I'm here, I can't see ever working for somebody else again. I mean never say never, but really getting to work for myself and have my business be the one that I want and to be able to build it the way that I want. It is like so awesome and I love it so much. Right, so like that's something that is maybe like one of the non-financial rewards, but like is really just the rewarding part is just truly enjoying the work that I get to do.

Speaker 1:

So, of course, what are the challenges? Lots of them. I'm going to make it seem like it's not also awesome, but there's a lot of challenges, of course, that come with being an entrepreneur and especially in private practice, there is financial risk. Every month, things can change and things do right. Sometimes things are just slower. The thing that's been the most helpful for me is always have a plan, when things slow down, of how do we pick things back up, and really giving my business time to like slowly build over the years has helped sort of remind me of that and also see the data that, like we do consistently get more inquiries, or we have a certain amount, or like these are the strategies that I've worked in the past and having that to help me figure out, like, what do I need to do when things do slow down? But there's always that risk, right, and so, like I think that's what I was talking about earlier is having some money set aside for those unexpected things, like a slow down period, where maybe you're not generating as much revenue. Maybe having somebody on the side can help if you need to pay yourself if things aren't as busy.

Speaker 1:

The other challenge that is probably one of the biggest is that it's all on you. You're responsible for managing all the things, making all the decisions, and you have to motivate yourself to do it, which can be challenging at times, and I often talk about my lack of time and my limited schedule. But I also think that it's been sort of a blessing for me, because I think, had I had, if I didn't have my son and was starting my practice, I don't think I could have done it if I had all the time in the world, because I think it would almost be too daunting and I would be hard to motivate myself, whereas now I'm like you only have five and a half hours, girl, you got to like get it done when you can, you know, and so that's actually just been like a helpful thing for me where I think otherwise would have been really, really hard. So it really is all on you when you are the owner of the business and you also may have to do some of the admin, the marketing, billing, right Parts of the work that maybe you are like well, I want to go to become a dietitian, not to do like billing, to do admin work. But when you have your own business, there's a lot of that stuff that you have to do upfront. Over the years I have, obviously, I have a biller that does our billing. We have an admin. I've had like a VA admin on and off, mostly on for the last year at least, but before that because I just needed help with that stuff because I've always struggled once again with my ADHD just keeping up with some of the more admin stuff. But that then, of course, is a cost to my bottom line. So that's a thing and the other thing is, of course, depending on if you have a full-time job and it's your side business, there might be a work-life imbalance.

Speaker 1:

For a little while, when I was starting my practice, I was working full-time. If you're familiar with the Philadelphia area, I live in the suburbs I was working in West Philly. At that time I was commuting to work and then I was driving about 45 minutes to an hour to work and then I was driving 45 minutes to an hour to the office seeing like one or two clients and then going home like two to three days a week I would see. Sometimes I would see clients on Saturdays. When I was about, when it was like right around March of 2020, I was like at about 10 people a week and I was like, holy shit, how am I going to sustain this? I was like in my first trimester of my pregnancy as well, so I was exhausted all the time and so you know I've said this before too like this is one of the silver linings of COVID for me and I don't like to say that there was silver linings to that time, because it was really a traumatic, challenging time for so many but it allowed me to like be home and save time just from not commuting to the offices that I had to commute to right, that was like two hours of my day, so that just like helped.

Speaker 1:

But there was certainly an imbalance for a little while there, because then I was like, well, I see clients on Saturdays. Like what, if I'm going to do, if I have this, like, if I have to see this event that I have to go to for a family member, now I can't see clients that day, right, like that really was going to be an impact for me. So especially in those early stages depending on, like, if you have a full-time job and you're doing this on the side, there might be a little bit of an imbalance there. The other thing is there's a saying I feel, like I've said here before, is like you quit your nine to five to work 24 seven. I don't want to glamorize that, I don't want to say that that should be the reality, but sometimes it can feel like you're like thinking about work all the time, you're like doing stuff for work all the time, like your mind is just on work, because when it's your job that you have to sustain, and like it is up to you to create this revenue, it's hard to not think about it all the time and it's also hard to not sometimes at like 9.30, hop on my computer and be like, oh, let me just do this thing real quick. So you have to sort of create this boundary around your life eventually. But there might be a little bit of that imbalance, especially early on when you're slowly building so some challenges of like owning your own thing.

Speaker 1:

I think having another company that does some of the admin stuff for you maybe has a steady paycheck, maybe they offer benefits, right, they reduce some of that responsibility and risk. So, like it's, you know they're doing the marketing for you. Like I've been getting Norrish TikTok ads on my TikTok algorithm for the last three or four weeks. I don't even know why. I mean, maybe it was on their website. Now they're just on my algorithm, right, and they're a good commercial, by the way. I was like, wow, this is actually pretty good. So they do all that marketing for you, right, and so that can be really helpful.

Speaker 1:

Some of the other companies I think Berry Street and Fay maybe maybe they don't do as Some of the other companies like I think Berry Street and Fay maybe like maybe they don't do as much of the marketing, but still the bigger these companies are like people are going to go to them to look for a dietician and, like you, might be the one that they end up, you know, going to, depending on what state you're in. So that's nice, especially if you're like I don't want to do marketing, I don't want to do networking, right, that's certainly something you'll have to do if it's your own business, and so that's nice. And they may also have other opportunities for, you know, growth and development within that more structured, like work environment where you know, once you're on your own, you have to sort of figure that stuff out yourself, right, and like, do all that stuff yourself. I think one of the best parts that I love about having a group practice is like having an office environment with like other people. Like I really missed that when it was just me. So now that I have a team, it's nice because I check in with everybody throughout the week, we have a team meeting. It makes it feel like a little bit more of a structured environment that I think I really wanted and needed. And so when but when you're on your own, it's like it's just you and your clients. So that's something else that might be one of those trade-offs if you are working for yourself versus one of these companies, Of course, and there's also less autonomy.

Speaker 1:

They may say you have to use a certain. If you're a W-2 employee. They may say that you have to doa certain amount of clients a week. They may say you have to use our forms. They may have their own rules that you have to follow if you're a W-2 employee. If you're an independent contractor for one of these companies, they really can't tell you what you have to do. So you can refer to my W-2 versus 1099 episode, but really as an independent contractor, you are independent from that company so they really can't tell you what you need to do. But of course there is potentially some autonomy that is lost when you are working for another company or if they're getting you know if their brand or values or mission can change and they may not be in alignment with you anymore. You know that's something else that you may not have any like say or control over Right.

Speaker 1:

So I know that that that is something else else you wanna think about, you know, especially because I think some of these companies are really like big on pushing like a non-diet approach or a weight-inclusive approach and then they also offer weight loss. I think for a lot of us like weight-inclusive dietitians out there. We know that's like not really an alignment, and so that's just something else that you want to think about when you are considering possibly working for one of these companies. I think, too, if private practice is something you want to do but you're like I don't want to work for one of these companies and I also don't want to do all this other stuff by myself, there's a lot of amazing group practices out there who hire dietitians that have a smaller team built feel and have all that benefit of taking care of the admin stuff and do all that stuff and you still get to do private practice and it could still be an alignment.

Speaker 1:

Like that's, I think, the beauty of the, the small business group practices like mine and some some many that I know and so many that I know that you know they're. We're not these big tech companies and we do have a much more like. Everything is much more team centered and, especially for my team, we're not huge and so we collaborate, we make decisions together on a lot of things, and that's really nice too. So it's not like one or the other is the only option for you, because there's a lot of really amazing great group practices out there that I are often hiring. So if that's something you're interested in too and you're looking like where can I even get one of these jobs, let me know. I'm sure I can help you. And also a lot of the Facebook groups that are out there for dietitians. Dietitians are often posting in there when they're hiring, so keep your eyes out for that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1:

So ultimately, I mean, I think this is really where the financial piece and the like other piece we have to sort of think about is do I want to be a business owner? Do I want to be an entrepreneur? Do I want to have all the responsibility to do all those things? Do I want to be the one that's in charge of networking and marketing and bringing in clients? So I want to be the one that's in charge of making decisions, of like admin stuff comes up, you know, being the one that's sort of the leader, especially when you're a group practice like, do you want to be that person that's doing that job? Because it is a different job than the clinician job that you are used to doing one-on-one.

Speaker 1:

That's really the hard part of like early solo practice or even early group practice and when you're sort of wearing all the different hats, it can be really a lot, especially if you are still working full-time somewhere else. That's really hard too, because there's just a lot to juggle there. But ultimately for me I was like I want to have my own business and that has driven me this whole way through, because the values of what I wanted to build and being able to have that freedom and that autonomy were the things that really kept me going, because that's really ultimately what I wanted. And so that's going to be the key, because I'm sure I could work for somewhere else. I think about that sometimes. I'm not going to lie. Sometimes I'm like I could just work somewhere else and make more money and not I mean, it's like leave, leave the job and just and go. But I also know for me like ultimately that just it gets boring and I'm just like over it. I just like hate it so much. I need sort of this like stress constantly to keep me going Right. That's like sort of my adrenaline ADHD part that has to like push it, but it helps me feel really fulfilled as well. So it's like at the end of the day I really like this part, and I think, especially when it comes to group practice, we can't do it based on, like just making more money, because if you remember when I went through, actually what's left over it's not that much money at first right, and you really have to like dedicate a lot of time into building before you can actually generate enough profit that you can sustain an actual livable income for yourself through. So that's really what I hope that you could take from this episode, is that, like, of course, I think both things can be profitable.

Speaker 1:

I think, ultimately, what it comes down to is, like, what do you want it to be for you? Like, what do you actually want to do? Do you want to just be the clinician and see these clients and be able to like do that part and leave, or do you want other things that will sort of like be exciting, like doing some of this admin stuff? Like I actually like some of the stuff that I do that's more admin based, or even networking sometimes can be enjoyable. You know I've met a lot of great people. I've made a lot of actually great friends through that. So there's parts of it that are actually really cool. There's parts of it that also kind of suck, but I like that part, I like making decisions, I like doing some of these things.

Speaker 1:

It can be really tiring sometimes, but ultimately that's why I stay being an entrepreneur and stay doing business. So I think that's really what it's going to come down to, because you can work for a different company and make equal to, maybe more, more even, depending on the company than you might make on your own. But what do you want to do? And I think, also coming down back to why, what is your why around doing it and is it going to be something that's going to feel sustainable for you? Because growing a business takes time, and that's the other thing. It takes time and it doesn't happen overnight. And it takes, you know, it's a slow build, and that's the other thing. It takes time and it doesn't happen overnight, and it's a slow build, and I think, ultimately, that that's the most sustainable. The slower you build, the more sustainable it can really be, and so that's sort of, I think, what I will leave on.

Speaker 1:

So, of course, with all of this, there's no one size fits all answer, and I think me simplifying it this way isn't always going to be like okay, I think I know not what I want to do. I think there's going to be a lot of variables that are going to sort of depend on your decision. I think, for me, the place that I was in in my life, I was like ready to have a private practice, but I think, had my son not been born during a global pandemic where I was sort of like pushed not pushed to quit my job, because they certainly weren't pushing it but I was like I'm not going to go to a university in July of 2020 and expose myself and my six-week-old to potentially COVID when we didn't know what was going on in the world still with it, so it kind of like forced my hand a little bit at like quitting that and really pursuing my private practice. I don't know if I would have taken that leap had that situation not happened for me and having this little baby at home, I don't know if I would have started growing my group practice. And so there's no one size fits all answer when it comes to it, because there's a lot of variables and for me, growing a group practice was the way to keep my business going when I didn't have time to see clients anymore, and it has allowed my business to continue growing. As I've had more time and been able to like, as my son's got older, it's obviously become like easier for me to, like you know, have more time to do more things with the business.

Speaker 1:

But that was sort of the circumstance that led me here, and so that might be that case for you too. It might not just be a financial decision. It might also be, you know, if you have kids and you have to stay home for them, like having your own business can be really flexible, but also, once again, you may be able to work for a different practice and ultimately, when you're deciding whether having your own business is the right move for you. I hope this was helpful. I hope it was a helpful breakdown. Once again, if you want like a visual of what I was talking about, sort of the breakdown, I'm happy to create something and send that out. So if you want that, let me know.

Speaker 1:

The other thing I would highly suggest and I often reference it on this podcast is the Profit First for Therapists book by Julie Harris. It's written for therapists, but it's really for private practice owners and it really helps break down some of the more financial stuff on there. The Way Inclusive Innovators podcast. Actually, today this week that I'm recording released an episode about allocating certain things for profit, so I'm going to actually link that episode in the show notes as well, because that'll be a good. It's a timely episode for this topic that I'm talking about, so that'll be a good, helpful resource as well. I'll also link my two financial episodes that I've done as well so far, which are, I would say, probably one of the more popular episodes, and I think because we, of course, we need money and that's a very important topic to consider when you are an entrepreneur. I think that's all I got for today.

Speaker 1:

So please, as always, be sure to stay up to date on podcast episodes by subscribing wherever you're getting your podcasts. Join the mailing list. I did send out a newsletter last week. Maybe every time I skip posting an episode is when I'll actually send out a newsletter. So if you want to be on that, go ahead and visit the website, wwwrdtoseocom and sign up there. I also do offer business coaching, and some of the pricing is going to be changing soon, so if you are interested in getting some coaching at the current pricing, be sure to reach out and maybe we can get to working together. I hope this episode was helpful and I look forward to chatting with you next time. Bye, thanks for listening to the RD to CEO podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes for any resources mentioned or find more at wwwrdtoceocom. Never miss an episode by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts. See you next time.

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