Becoming a nutritionist is a very rewarding career, our role is to help our clients feel healthier by helping them make changes to their diet and lifestyles. At Health Nutritionist our nutritionists provide evidence-based nutrition advice to ensure any dietary changes are long term and sustainable. However, the one aspect of our nutrition profession that perhaps isn’t so straight forward is choosing the platform to promote our service and gain new clients – especially if you are a recent graduate and starting out.
Prior to founding The Heath Nutritionist, I tried several different platforms and approaches to gain new nutrition clients, some with success and others were largely a bit pointless. I hope to share my journey to help any nutrition professional facing the same challenges.
The first starting point of seeking nutrition clients is to decide if you want to set up your own business or work with an established clinic. Both have their pros and cons, but from my personal perspective, I certainly gained a lot during my time working as a nutritionist in a private clinic. These roles tend to be very competitive/hard to find so it may take a very long time but do persevere, something always becomes available.
On a side note, if you are starting out and are feeling overwhelmed and want to understand the first steps of going freelance, we run an introductory talk which explains the basics and first steps to consider. Details of this talk can be found on our events page.
Let’s assume for now you have the freelance infrastructure set up and you are super excited to find your first nutrition client. You may hope that the clients will find you on your social channels but could find having a few weeks go by without any leads. The next step is to think about advertising; I have heard of stories of nutritionists spending quite a bit per week without any real noteworthy returns.
So what’s next?
The choices that I found were Bark and Bidvine which offer nutritionists the chance to buy credits and bid for your services to each client. They essentially do the work to try and source clients and then it’s either an open or closed bidding system. Often it’s the highest bidder to the platform winning at the lowest cost to the consumer. It’s a set up that works but can involve a lot of upfront money and quite a lot of competition alongside fellow nutritionists.
How does Bark work?
Bark is a platform whereby customers seek help across a wide range of areas. You as a nutrition professional buy credits and then can contact the customers that are seeking a professional. Other professionals also can contact the enquiry and often it’s a first come first serve basis or you end up competing on price – the cheaper cost to serve the consumer often being the deciding factor.
How does Bid vine work?
Bidvine operates in a similar way to Bark except you chose to pay for each lead rather than paying for credits. This setup up gives you more flexibility but still involves you paying for a lead and then competing with other professionals to win the business.
How does nutritionist resource work?
Nutritionist Resource is an online directory of nutrition professionals. Clients search through the vast directory of nutritionists, nutritional therapists and others on their platform and then they send you an email. This can be a nice option for finding your profile. They charge £20 a month subscription (Correct as of 2021) to join their platform.
Some of the frustrations starting out and building my nutrition business led me to create the Health Nutritionist. As a registered nutritionist, I founded Health Nutritionist to help clients find the right nutritionist, building a holistic community for both client and nutritionist alike. For nutritionists our teamwork to support each other, providing mentorship, coaching and support. I often say we go into this profession as we are caring professionals what better way to help others to help them fulfil their career in the process. We are a small community that take on new team members regularly so please get in touch if you are interested in being part of this.
Charlotte Turner RNutr founded the Health Nutritionist, a supportive nutrition community to help individuals clients feel healthier through evidenced-based nutrition.