What no one tells you about building a nutrition business

Nobody teaches you how to run a business when you’re training to become a dietitian or nutritionist. You graduate with heaps of nutrition knowledge and a dream to work for yourself, but when you make that jump to freelance, you soon discover there’s more to owning a nutrition business than you first realised.

We often glamorise self-employment, especially when we watch other nutrition professionals build successful businesses. So, of course, it can be confusing when your efforts aren’t creating the same outcomes.

Having spent the past five years freelancing as a nutritionist, I’ve learnt many lessons that nobody told me about. Because I wish I’d known them earlier, I want to share some of my top lessons with you.

Lesson 1: it takes time to build a successful business

In a fast-paced world, many of us expect fast results. But just as your clients need time to see results, you won’t build a financially stable business overnight. Even the nutrition professionals you admire probably didn’t either.

Shift your expectations away from overnight success. If you want a thriving business, you need to be in it for the long haul.

Lesson 2: consistency is the key ingredient to success

I can’t emphasise this enough. To grow your business, you must show up consistently – not just when you feel motivated or when you have a little more time on your hands. 

Let’s take marketing, for example. The reality is that most people won’t choose to work with you the first time they come across you. They need repeated contact with you over time before they decide to invest in your services. But if you’re only marketing yourself once in a blue moon, then they won’t get the necessary touch points before they convert.

What consistency looks like is your choice. Continuing our marketing example, it doesn’t have to mean posting every single day on social media. It could mean posting twice a week. But whatever you commit to, stick to it. Even when it feels like nobody is listening. Because eventually, with consistency, they will be.

Lesson 3: decision fatigue is real

When you work for yourself, every single business decision is yours. Pricing, software, marketing, client policies – you call the shots on it all. This can get overwhelming and exhausting. You might even notice that outside of work, even choosing where to go for dinner feels like too much (hello, decision fatigue!).

This is why community is essential. You’ll always be the one making the final call, but having other nutrition professionals around you as a sounding board makes those decisions far less draining.

Lesson 4: you will always be learning

When you run a business, there’s so much to learn and do. You’re no longer just a nutrition professional. You’re also a secretary, a bookkeeper, a marketer and so on. Most degrees don’t teach you these skills, and so it’s important you spend time learning these skills, so that over time you can improve and fine-tune them.

It’s actually what made me launch The Freelance Nutritionist Collective, because I knew so many other freelance nutrition professionals were quietly figuring this out the hard way, the same as I had.

Be kind to yourself during this journey. You’re not expected to have it all figured out immediately. But, with time, you’ll look back at early decisions and cringe, and that’s a sign of growth!

Lesson 5: you’ll probably work more than you expected

All freelancers start with the classic fantasy of working less and having lots of time off. The reality is that when you’re solely responsible for generating your income and completing all your work, you often end up working more than you did when you were employed.

That said, working long hours doesn’t make you a better freelance nutrition professional – and this leads me to lesson 6.

Lesson 6: it’s difficult to switch off mentally from work

When everything is your responsibility, it’s really hard not to find your mind wandering back to work, even when it’s 9pm on a Friday night, and you’re watching a film. It’s really easy to let your business take over your life, but it’s vital you don’t.

If you want your nutrition business to thrive in the long term, you need to take care of yourself. Set working hours and stick to them. If you’re on holiday, put an out-of-office on and step away. Despite what hustle culture tells you, working around the clock isn’t “cool”, and it’s a fast track to burnout. And, if you burn out, your business will flop. Take it from someone who’s burnt out before!

These lessons aren’t to deter you from working for yourself. They’re the things I wish someone had been honest with me about when I started. The good news is that you’ve been told now, and you don’t have to experience these alone. Find yourself a community of freelance nutrition professionals who understand exactly what you’re going through, and you’ll make your freelance journey so much easier!