Grow your Dietitian Business by Learning These Two Underrated Skills with Beryl Krinsky

Welcome to the Dietitian Boss Podcast. I'm Libby Rothschild, creator of Dietitian Boss. After almost 4 years of sitting in my dimly lit windowless clinical office, I had enough. I wanted to feel like my work mattered, so I did something about it. I created a program that empowers dietitians and nutritionists to create their own private practice from scratch following my proprietary system. Before I did this, I had a private practice of my own while working a full-time job, and I learned a lot about building relationships, marketing, and sales. And I'm so excited to be able to share my proprietary framework with you.

Hello and welcome. I'm here with Beryl Krinsky. She's a successful entrepreneur who is a registered dietitian nutritionist with a master's in food science and a master's in business administration and food marketing. Beryl has over 10 years of corporate experience prior to launching her first business, B B Complete is a corporate wellness firm that offers holistic well-being services for corporations. Beryl proudly employs a team of registered dietitian nutritionists, yoga and Pilates instructors, massage therapists, personal trainers, registered nurses, and licensed acupuncturists who represent the B Complete brand and bring her services to life. With her passion for education and wellness, Beryl launched a second business, the Complete Business Dietetic Internship, called KBDI, and this program trains our future registered dietitian nutritionists Registered Dietitian Nutritionists to help a greater number of populations. And Beryl volunteers for ACEND, that's A-C-E-N-D, as a dietetic program reviewer and sits on several advisory boards for dietetic programs. Beryl is passionate about living a balanced lifestyle and loves animals, exercise, cooking, meditation, spending time outdoors, and always learning. Welcome to today's episode, Beryl.

Thank you so much, Libby. I'm so happy to be here.

I'm really excited that you're here, and I absolutely love what you're doing with your internship, and I'm really excited to chat with you more and share with our listeners about all the great work that you're doing for not only dietitians but for the, you know, general population, which is really exciting. Is there anything else in this bio that you want the listeners to know about?

Oh, maybe just that I've been a foodie ever since I was 3 years old, and so this is definitely not a new passion. And I was really excited to learn about the science of nutrition when I was in college.

Awesome. And in terms of a foodie, what does a foodie mean to you?

Uh, well, when I was a little, like, little, almost a baby, I literally would request things like quiche, cheesecake. I was really into the dairy foods, and I would talk about food, and my parents would take us and take me to restaurants, and I would request certain things. And so that's, that's how I think of myself as a foodie. But I think foodie can be very diverse, and it can be just having an interest in food, and it doesn't mean like a certain type of food. It could be any type of food. It could It could also be cooking. It could be experiencing different cultures that have different cuisines, any of that.

Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I'm imagining a little Beryl asking for a quiche at 3 years old. And I like to ask that question because I agree with you that foodie can represent so many different things for different people. It could mean a deep passion for culinary or culture. So it's just fun to hear your perspective of it. And it's definitely a common trait with a lot of dietitians, right? Just that passion for food and bringing— connecting people through food. So I was wondering if share a little bit about KBDI? That's your dietetic internship. And can you share a little bit about its origin and how it's different? Those— the listeners might be aware of how awesome this internship is, uh, but they might want to know a little bit more of the history and, and why they should choose this internship or how it's unique.

Definitely. So this goes back many, many years, and when I started Be Complete, my first business— that's a corporate wellness firm— I couldn't do it just myself because I had— I envisioned a bigger program. And so as you read off my, my bio, I employ a pretty big team. We have hundreds of different services. And so I reached out to some dietetic internships and also nutrition master's programs that were in the area where I lived at the time where I started Be Complete, and I asked for student or intern volunteers. And so each month I would get a different intern or student volunteer and they would help do the research and development, the background, and even help out with some of the events when we were getting started. And they were so instrumental. I would spend a lot of time with these students or interns and we would have some really good one-on-one conversations. And I noticed a trend. Every single student or intern I had would ask me the same questions. They would ask, how did I know how to start a business? How did I know how to do sales right off the bat? How did I get these connections, which seemed like overnight? And how did I understand how to do strategy? And so after about a year of hearing the same questions over and over, it was— I had a light bulb moment. I can envision it still. It was like a light bulb went off above my head and I thought, why are we not teaching dietetic interns this? In the internship. And I said, I'm gonna change this. I'm gonna create a dietetic internship, get it accredited, and teach our interns about how to start and grow the business of their dreams. So that is the background of the internship, and it took many, many years of developing it and getting it accredited. And then in August of 2020, it was probably the happiest moment of my life. We got the accreditation from ASCEND and then we were able to start our internship.

Congratulations. And for those who are listening, and I just want to make sure we're not making light of this, creating an accredited internship is no easy task. So I've pulled up the paperwork myself and looked into it and there's, there's a lot of steps. I know you're heavily involved with the Academy and you're a reviewer, so you're aware of what goes into it. But it's, it's a huge accomplishment that you were able to create this. And it's also really helpful for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics because you're really helping the mission and vision of creating more entrepreneurs, which is part of our mission, but also for the Academy, it's helping showcase that dietitians are the number one expert and resource in food and nutrition. Because if we can't communicate our message through the business skills, right, the sales and the strategy and the connections, then we're not really doing the service that we could be doing to help consumers. At least that's my perspective. Oh yeah.

Oh yes. I absolutely agree. And I think too, with the power of private practice that dietitians can own, operate, really grow and thrive, it doesn't limit the number of consumers we can help worldwide. And so it's, it's a win-win-win.

Absolutely. And if you could share a little bit about how much did your corporate wellness company help you with the skills that you needed for creating this internship?

Let's see. They definitely have synergy, and I think that having some of the prior experience at negotiation and contracts and proposals helped with getting the internship off the ground.

Yeah, absolutely. And I, we're gonna dive more into that in a minute as well, but I wanna talk about, I love that you, you sound so intuitive, like, hey, these dietitians were asking me these 4 main questions. And they asked me over and over again, right? Strategy, sales, how do I start the connections piece? And so you solve their problem through academia, right? By creating an outlet through education that would help them, which is, which is really tremendous. It's a great achievement. So with that, I'm, I'm assuming that you teach that skill, right? Of how to help people understand and listen to what people want and need. And then that's really the strategy in business that I've seen a lot of dietitians struggle with, right? Doing that market research, listening to people's wants and needs, and then being able to to actually provide those answers to consumers. Can you talk a little bit about the benefits of learning business skills, even if a dietitian isn't exactly sure about their future path? Right. Because not every dietitian goes into dietetics and says, I want to start a business, but they might later decide that that avenue is attractive. So can you talk a little bit about that, like the benefits, which can be a hard sell for someone who's not so confident about business from the get-go?

Yes. I could probably speak about this for hours and hours, but I will, I will make it concise. I'm gonna refer back to a wonderful speaker I saw in the past, and his quote is, "Everyone is in sales." Everyone is in sales. You might not think that a clinical dietitian needs to understand sales, or you might not think a food service dietitian needs to understand sales. However, if you are a clinical dietitian or if you are a food service dietitian, and you understand and ultimately master sales, your career, it's going to rise so much higher than someone that doesn't understand sales. Having the ability to, as Libby said, understand someone's problem and then create a solution to help solve the problem, that, that's the core of sales. You are going to get promotions, you are going to get recognized, you're going to enjoy your job more. You're gonna have better relationships at work. Are so many tremendous benefits of just having that one piece. And you don't have to necessarily ever become a, a sales VP or something like that, or you don't have to have sales as your career, but just having the background and also the confidence in yourself to learn more and to practice and execute sales is hugely beneficial to every single person's career and even in your personal life. And then I think the next part about business skills that everyone can learn about, and it can help elevate your career, is networking. And I, I talk ad nauseam to my interns about networking because networking is within— it is possibly the number one thing that has helped me the most in my businesses. The power of networking can enable you to get into very, um, ironclad situations that you would not be able to get into unless you had a connection. Networking can help you get jobs that aren't listed on job websites. Networking can help you get promotions that aren't even available to the public. Networking can help you get contracts that are almost impossible to get. And I'm not just saying this, I actually did all of this, so I know this from firsthand experience. I might not have even started my first business if I wouldn't have done so much networking. And I can tell you, I wouldn't have grown as fast if I wouldn't have done the networking that I did. I know that it can be challenging to do networking if you're shy. I get that. And it can be challenging to do networking if you don't— if you feel like you don't have a lot of experience yet. And I get that too. And so what I encourage everyone to start out with is call it like the low-hanging fruit networking. You wanna practice, you wanna get a lot of practice under your belt so that you start to feel more confident with it. If you are currently in your DPD or if you're an undergrad, start networking with, uh, your dietetics club. You could even consider joining other types of clubs where it might not be 100% dietetics, but it could be another thing that you're interested in, maybe like a book club or an athletic club. You can also network with your community. So perhaps you go, maybe you have a religious organization or affiliation, network with people in your religious affiliation. You can also volunteer so you can network that way. Those are things that will help you feel more comfortable with networking. And then as you progress and you continue in your career, you will want to join clubs and affinities that can help you with future networking. So for dietitians that have private practices, you can join what's called a Chamber of Commerce, and that is a professional group that's located throughout all, um, communities throughout the country. And that's a really great way to network. I have picked out some specific networks for, um, human resources. Those are the, uh, organizations that I do a lot of networking with and also health insurance companies. So you can figure out, you know, who will be your future target, and then you can kind of gear your networking in those directions.

Yeah, great tactical tips there. Thank you for sharing that. And what I want to say from my experience, I fully agree networking and sales are really important. Those are the two scariest things that most dietitians communicate that they feel really intimidated because dietitians typically, we're heart-centered healers. And so sales feels scary and slimy and networking, whether you're an introvert or not, although most dietetics professionals do identify as an introvert, it can feel really scary, especially if you don't know what success looks like. So what do you do? Or, or I mean, maybe it's just the constant education and talking about it, but is there any specific tactic that you found helpful that helps dietitians overcome their mindset? Because with, with our program here at Dietitian Boss, It, for some of our clients, it takes them a really long time to transition their mindset from thinking that sales is dirty or thinking that networking isn't helpful. They think that they're not getting the results they want when it, it, I keep saying it's a long-term play, right? And that even just showing up to an event once a month can be a metric of success because you're kind of getting more familiar with putting yourself out there. But what have you noticed has helped dietitians transition in addition to your amazing internship?

Let's see. We teach a lot about communication. Networking, and sales within our dietetic internship. And I think the activity that helps our interns the most is when they do their go-to-market final business plan. And so we have, we call it like our Shark Tank for, for final business plans, and we have a tremendous amount of preparation leading up to it. And so I work with the interns individually to make sure that they feel really confident with their business plan, their financials, their elevator pitch. All of the components of a winning business plan. And then the actual Shark Tank event, we have a panel of judges and the interns do their elevator pitch live. It's a 60-second elevator pitch. They present that live in front of the judges and their fellow interns, and then the judges have already reviewed their business plan, and then they ask them questions and the interns answer in real time. And so I think it's the scariest thing that our interns do. I think it's probably scarier than a lot of what happens in dietetic internships. Yeah. And it also helps our interns grow leaps and bounds, I have to say, above other interns because they're getting this tremendously valuable experience, real-world experience in the dietetic internship. And then they have their final business plan ready to go. It has been fully vetted. We even have a financial analyst look at their financials. It is a fully vetted business plan. And then some of our graduates have taken their final business plan and launched their business. So I think that has really helped our interns.

That's amazing, Beryl. Thank you so much for sharing that. And I, I love that for both those who are presenting their business plan and those who are part of watching and observing, because that energy is so contagious. For a lot of our clients, what we do is we try to help them build small habits for mindset, and it could be affirmations. You already mentioned some great tactics about joining a Chamber of Commerce, or if you don't have yet, you know, your registered business entity, getting involved in your community, whether it be a religious affiliation or a hobby or volunteering, is also just a great way for you to feel more confident about your interpersonal skills, right? Even just verbal communication, etc., which I don't think is talked about enough in dietetics personally, in terms of like our need need to work on our communication skills. So I just— a quick follow-up to that. You mentioned that newer dietitians struggle with negotiation and sales, right? That, that's, I believe, what we just spoke about. But what about seasoned dietitians? Are they struggling with the same thing, or do you think that they're like— is there a level after that that they still struggle with in terms of anything business-related?

Well, people that I work with are, are usually in our internship, so I can't speak to in general dietitians that are already within their career, but just like anecdotally, what I have found is that dietitians perhaps don't excel in concise communication or maybe some digital technology skills. Yeah. And I think that negotiation also is something that it needs to really be practiced in order to be, become an expert in that. That's what I would guess would be some of the, maybe the challenges with someone that is in a traditional dietetics role that hasn't done any outside business training.

Yeah, that's, that's really helpful. From what I see, definitely, and it depends on their career track, right? If we're talking about a seasoned dietitian who's in a traditional 9-to-5 job, or if we're talking about a seasoned dietitian in private practice, what I've seen with our clientele and, and with the industry of dietetics definitely digital communication, right? Because learning technology and using and implementing technology consistently is a skill that, you know, we have to learn, and it can be challenging, especially as technology can change and with AI. So that is definitely a challenge. Um, additionally, finding different new ways to create alternative revenue streams and sustain alternative revenue streams, which happens to be one of my favorite topics. So for example, a private practice dietitian who might be taking insurance might wanna have another revenue stream, and then that dietitian or their practice would have to learn the skills to then either, you know, whether it's cash pay or an online program or whatever outlet or whatever revenue stream that might be, brand sponsorships, affiliates, programming, et cetera. The skills that we need to acquire to be able to create those income streams consistently can be a challenge that we can overcome. But I've seen that for, for more seasoned dietitians, those are what I see the setbacks are.

Yeah, that, that makes sense. And I think when people think about private practice and they, they think about solopreneurship, and I try to inspire my interns to think a little bit more broadly because I always say, you know, you're gonna get, it's really hard being a, a one woman or one man show. And you, in order to really grow, you really need to have a team. So I try to, you know, help them shift their mindset a bit and think a little bit more, more big picture. And I love that you're passionate about alternative and recurring revenue streams. And I think that is so, so valuable to teach dietitians and dietitians-to-be. And I have, you know, I've seen that with people and that has really elevated their careers and their success. And that's just like such an important skill to learn.

I think we're going to have to pull that quote because I couldn't agree more. And there— I don't know if you've seen this, Beryl, but there's some controversy. I've seen it on LinkedIn with dietitians saying we don't need alternative revenue streams, we just need to get paid more in our 9 to 5. And yeah, so I'll tell you my take on that, but why don't you tell me your take on that first?

So this is what I think. And basically you can, you can have a great 9 to 5 job and you can have a really secure 9 to 5 job, but there's going to be a cap on your earnings. Even if you have a really high, like, 6-figure income, there's going to be a cap on your earnings. So if you want to break into 7-figure, guess what? You're going to need to have other alternative streams of revenue. That is the only way. That's the only way. That's, that's what I think.

Yeah. So thanks for sharing that. I fully agree. Also, for financial freedom when it comes to business, fundamentals, diversifying how you receive your monies, whether it be from, you know, property, like passive income, if you're going that route and you're investing, or whether it be through having an additional revenue stream, like you're creating a course or something, or you're doing speaking and consulting on the side of another job, whether that be a traditional private practice or even a 9-to-5 position as a dietitian, that's actually creating security for you. As we all know, with the economy and things we can't predict or imagine, multiple revenue streams is actually helping us reach financial freedom, which is really important. So, um, that is a— I guess that's a whole other podcast topic, but I appreciate hearing your perspective on that. A couple more questions here before we wrap up today's interview. I'd love to learn more about your, your, your first business. So we talked a lot about your internship and about interns and about the value you bring, and that the main thing I'm hearing is negotiation and sales are super important. Foundational elements for dietitians in business, dietitians in general to master. And it can— they can translate to so many different aspects of enhancing our career as dietitians. But can you talk a little bit about your Be Complete? I know that you are big on the team, and I love that. I fully agree. Can you just share a little bit about what, what that involves and what that's like?

Yeah, definitely. So Be Complete is my first business. And when I thought, as you mentioned, my background is nutrition and food and marketing. And when I thought back to when I was an employee, you know, before starting a business, when I was an employee, I thought back to my well-being. I thought back to my lifestyle. And I have all this education, but I was not my healthiest, that's for sure. Because when you're working in a corporate setting or, or whatever type of workplace setting, if your employer doesn't value the employee well-being, it's almost impossible to be as healthy as you can be. And like, for example, at— and I had a great employer, but they would give us soda all the time. They would give us like Twizzlers. You can substitute much healthier snacks, you know, for your employees versus like soda and Twizzlers. So anyway, I thought about what could really help employees, and I thought about what employees struggle with. And I also knew that Some employees need help with nutrition and some employees need help with movement and, and almost everyone needs help with stress reduction and some people need mental well-being, etc. And so I developed a wide variety of services that can help all different types of employee populations. The first year, so after I quit my 9 to 5 and, you know, started Be Complete, I didn't know exactly what, what it was going to be. And so I took a year, I worked as an independent contractor for 1 year, and I worked for some national wellness companies, and I kind of like got the lay of the land. I saw what employees really responded to in a favorable way. I saw things that didn't work out so well. And so that's— that helped me develop the first book of services. And then it has evolved over the years. I've definitely tried some things. Like, for example, there, there's a service called biometric screening, and the big companies that everyone's probably familiar with are Quest and LabCorp.. And so a company can hire Quest or LabCorp to come in and do the finger prick to, for the employees to get their, their cholesterol and their glucose and things like that. I saw a huge issue with the quality of the onsite biometric screenings. And so this was like 2018. I decided we're gonna do that. And so I hired a lab manager and I got the actual lab clinical certifications for 2 states and a CLIA and CLIA license and like all this jumping through many, many hoops. And so, you know, we did a handful of biometric screening events and ours were much, much higher quality. However, it was such a labor-intensive and expensive thing to do that when COVID started, I dissolved that service. So kind of a long story to say that the services continue to evolve over time. And I've kind of figured out what we do the best that can help the highest number of people. And so that's kind of how our services are now.

That's amazing. I love that story and I love that you saw that problem and that's so entrepreneurial of you to test something and then say if that particular service line didn't work, then you cut it and then offer something else. So I love that story and that's, that's no, that's a big task that you took on. So that's really, you take on really big tasks. So I love that. Yeah, I think that's so valuable and meaningful, right? Like really changing the employee's experience and then now changing and improving academia for dietitians. It's a much larger scale than helping an individual dietitian because you're helping the entire, you know, you're with education, you're offering an internship. So. I love that, you know, thinking big and really creating big, huge impact in the field. So thank you for sharing a little bit about more about your first business. So as we wrap up today, my last question would be, where do you see the future of dietetics heading? And then finally, what steps can dietitians take to create a better future for our industry? We've talked about what you've done. What can dietitians do?

I see the future. As more entrepreneurial. And I see more dietitians wanting to do something that is a little out of the box and maybe will start to become just normal. I think people— I think people will still get regular 9-to-5 jobs, but I think they will do a private practice on the side. And I think people will really thrive. And I think people will also look for other types of, of consulting opportunities and, and like you said, creating courses and things like that to supplement perhaps a traditional job, because I think those things people find a lot of joy. It's, it's real. They're really, it's really fun to do things like that. And it also helps a wide number of consumers and even people that aren't sick, like they're not in the hospital, but they're trying to be as healthy as possible. So I see that for the future. I, I think that what people can do, so like someone that is already in his or her career and you know, they've already worked for a handful of years and they don't wanna go back to school, and I totally get that. I would really highly recommend working on networking and perhaps even thinking about taking a, a community college course in sales or finance or. Some different business topic that is going to be extremely beneficial that hasn't been, um, taught or studied before. And you can also do courses with, like, for example, Tony Robbins. I've done some of the Tony Robbins training, and there are other sales leaders that do trainings that are, you know, they're, they're life-changing, they're amazing. So I think that's a really great opportunity for people too.

Yeah.

And then on a free level, you know, you've got your local library and you can always get an audiobook or check out a book about sales. And then there's YouTube as well. And a shameless plug for our channel here at Dietitian Boss because I talk a lot about sales and marketing and I love that you have passion for that as well. So those are great tips. Follow-up question to that, Beryl, when you're saying you anticipate or you believe that more dietitians will go non-traditional, How do you think we'll be able to, to measure that and say that that's happened? Like, what do you think? There's any way for us to know that, or is this just kind of like your hot take on 2024+?

Well, the Academy does measure where people are in their careers. So like they have— they do have data on how many clinical dietitians are there, how many business dietitians, things like that. So we can look at that data over time. And see if that has changed, which I think it will.

Yeah. So right now, the Academy Survey and Compensation Guide, if that's what you mean, 6 to 8%, that's 6 to 8, under 10% of dietitians are business operators. That's very small. And that's the most recent that I've seen from the Academy. And that is only available for Academy members. So if we're talking about the same statistics, you're saying you think that'll increase?

I think so. Yes.

My only caveat to that, I mean, obviously that's what I want. My only My only point of contention with that is I, I wish we could know why or like what attributed to the increase. I wish there was a follow-up survey to say, okay, if we're going from 68%, we're going to 10 to 12%. I would be curious for a follow-up as to what attributed to that increase. Was it COVID, you know, was it, you know, desire for extra monies, etc.? So to be continued. We'll have to see in the next few years what happens. But thank you so much. Is there anything else or if you want to plug? Your social media so folks can follow you. All your information will be in our show notes at dietitianboss.com. But if you want to make sure you plug that so folks can follow you.

Oh, sure. Well, the internship is KBD internship and then be complete is B-K-O-M-P-L-E-T-E.

Awesome.

If you're looking for support to start, grow, and scale your dietitian private practice, I want to invite you to work with me and my team. We have a few different options. Head over to dietitianboss.com. And apply to have a conversation with somebody from our sales team to discuss your options for your budget and stage of business. Head over to dietitianboss.com and we look forward to connecting.