044: One Year Anniversary For the Freelance Dietitian Podcast!

It's the one year anniversary episode, baby!!!!

Thank you for regularly tuning in and helping the Freelance Dietitian Podcast grow. I love each and everyone one of you for supporting this passion project.

Hit the play button for some fresh freelance tips AND listen to brand new segment for the first time ever: reading & answering listener questions real time on the show!

Here is a link to the season 1 podcast episode that inspired today's content. 

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Transcript

0:00

Hey, and welcome to the freelance dietitian podcast. A show that teaches you how freelancing can help you meet your financial While giving you space to unplug and enjoy your life. I'm your host. Julia is like, Shefsky a published freelance writer in the nutrition and wellness space. And in today's episode, we're celebrating one year of the freelance dietician podcast. And hey this is Nik for a surprise Hello.

Julia: 0:41

Hey everyone, and welcome to the one year anniversary. I cannot believe it's been a full year since I started the podcast. I just wanted to give a huge thank you to every single listener who tunes in. Every single person who shares the podcast with their friends and sends me a message and asks more questions, it's so awesome being connected with all of you. And I do not take it for granted. So, cheers. We can clink our imaginary glasses, and celebrate, and I can't wait to keep producing more content for the show. Cheers to another five years. Today I was planning on doing a revamp of one of the most popular episodes I ever released on the show, which was back in season. Episode three, Where To Find Freelance Jobs. And you know what? I listened to the episode again and it still stands. It was a, it's a pretty well researched episode, and I think all the tips I provided are relevant. So I thought instead of reinventing the wheel, a link to that episode. So if you haven't heard it already, you can go back and tune in. But I thought today it would be better to focus on some gaps that I'm noticing in the freelance knowledge in terms of how to pitch your. How to make your business stand out and just how to present yourself online I know I've said this before, especially in last week's episode, which was with Colleen, my freelance coach, but there is a serious deficit for dietitians and business knowledge, and that makes sense. We went to school for sciences. Maybe you took ongoing education and you did public health or something clinically related. Maybe you did your mba, which is becoming more popular. But on average, I don't know, a lot of RDs who've received formal business training We to keep learning and we need to educate ourselves because I'll use writing as an example, but when you're competing and pitching against other people who have gone to school for journalism and for writing, and they've specialized in copywriting. Yes, you are super qualified as an rd, but you also need to make sure that you know what you're talking about when it comes to marketing. Snowballing off that example a little bit. When you're pitching yourself, I, I hear a lot. It's like a reflex and it goes like this. You should hire me for your blog because I'm a dietitian, I'm a licensed and credentialed healthcare professional. I'm a nutrition expert and because I have good writing skills and I can convey this message in an engag. And that's all really true and dietitians are awesome, but you can tell that's a very one way conversation where it's focused too much on the freelancer and not enough on the deliverables that the client wants to hear about. That's what's gonna make them excited in their seat. So instead, you could present yourself in two lines, and then the rest of the time you're talking about why it's gonna benefit the client. So you say, Hey, I'm a registered dietitian. I'm an expert in nutrition on the topics xyz. I can help with the keywords research for your blogs and implement them into writing so that can help build up organic traffic to your website, increase the number of conversion rates from readers into paying clients, and leave your readers hook so they keep coming back for more. Do you hear, see? Do you hear like how different that is? It takes practice. You need to know the language of business very well, but you will get there. I think when I first started freelancing, I was just focused so much on writing and acquiring clients that I neglected that part of my knowledge until much later on, and I regret doing that. I wish I had started. Let's do another example. Cause I think it's just the best to see it in action. So for video topics, because video is trending still, you could say, you know, why would I hire a dietitian to be my video editor? Well, you should hire me because I'm a dietitian. I can fact check the nutrition knowledge as I go, and I also have awesome editing skills that will make sure your video is following the most recent trends, and it has a chance to go viral and reach millions of peoples to your brand. That kind of language is gonna be so eye catching and jaw-dropping, and it's gonna make the client bounce on their seat and wanna hire. Those would be the major tips that I want you guys to start thinking about as you enter the lance scene and expand your skill. I personally believe it is well worth it to invest in a couple courses specifically about marketing. Learn the lingo, learn the deliverables, learn what makes an excellent marketing person versus somebody who's just not getting it. You'll see, I see it on LinkedIn all the time. Storytelling is in fixing a solution. Cold Turkey is out, and if you don't already know those two things, then you're behind and you need to start researching your. I got a lot of that knowledge when I hired my freelance coach, Colleen, because she worked in marketing and advertising. That was her background and that is why I chose her. I'm still hooked up to her. I still follow her. Marketing is only effective as if the consumers are buying in. So you wanna follow people who are doing very well have something to show for their business. If this is an area that you wanna learn more about, I'm really considering doing like a one-off workshop. It would be paid. Um, but again, I just feel it's a huge deficit and RD knowledge, which is no fault of us. We were studying science and Crub cycle. Counseling and developing or counseling skills. But I think if you're planning to transition to freelancing, you have to learn how to pitch yourself and learn the lingo really well, especially if you wanna get traction faster. So let me know if that's something you're interested in. I'm happy to build it out and just do like a one off workshop, maybe an hour, an hour and a half or something on Zoom. Uh, but yeah, I hope that helps. I hope that is. Biggest nugget I think that I have discovered between last year and this year. Uh, and it really has just completely changed how I approach freelancing, pitches, assignments, and projects. I wanted to take the second half of the episode now to do something a little bit fun and celebratory and just different. I had asked listeners to write in with some questions, and so I have their permission to read their names, so I'll give'em a shout out and then I'll answer their questions live on the podcast, which is kind of. So Stacy asked how to make money from your podcast. Okay. This is such a great question. I could talk about this for hours, but I'm gonna keep it short and sweet. You can make money on your podcast basically the same way that you could monetize a blog. You could do it through ad revenue, through sponsorships, through affiliate links. I think that you will make the most money. If you use your podcast as a marketing vessel to guide people towards a high ticket course that you would sell through your business. It's unlikely, unless you have literally like 10 million downloads per episode, make a killing off of ad revenue in your podcast episodes, you will profit more when you're guiding people to buy higher ticket items directly from your. Uh, I hope that helps give a little taste of how you can make money from your podcast. It's a huge under top tool. The reason why it's so effective is because of the storytelling nature. You're in someone's ear every single week, maybe twice a week, depending on your podcasts schedule. You're with them through every single season. You're growing. They're listening to your stories, they're writing in, getting involved, like it just has such a deeper sense of connection and deeper buy-in, which is why historically people are most likely to purchase something from a podcast host because there's just that like know and trust factor that's been established. The next question I have here is from Nicole. Hi Nicole. She says, What do you do if you get an inquiry on Upwork with something that doesn't align with your values? How do you politely decline but not burn the bridge? Ooh, this is such a great question, and this is. When you're first starting out, you need, well, you wanna be firm with your boundaries, but you also really wanna hold onto your clients. You have to be, you have to push back a little bit in a professional way and also be collaborative. So I would say personally, hey, thanks for sending that pitch idea. You know, I'm not comfortable talking about. Topic in nutrition. It doesn't align with my values, and I, I do not want my name written on that type of article. However, here are some other similar topics that do better align with my values. Can we cover these topics instead? And then of course, you would list the specific ideas. Always remember that when you tell a company or a client, No, I'm not gonna write about that because it's not backed by science. It doesn't align with my values. You are helping them. You are stopping them from getting egg on their face later on because eventually people will call them out and say, Hey, I can't believe they publish this article. It's on such a icky topic. There's no science to back it. And you obviously don't want your name associated by it, so that's how your clients should be. That's how a good client should be interpreting when a health professional says, No, I'm not gonna write about that. I had a very great client flip it on its head so, Sharing again, just a personal story. I hope that's okay with you guys. They wanted me to write about lemon water and why it helps with weight loss and I was just like, No. Like I do not support that kind of messaging. It's not evidence based. I'm not having my name associated with that. No. Can we do something else? And the editor signing it was, Very intrigued and she said, Oh, like, that's so great to hear. Thanks for bringing that up. Can we do an article then where you debunk it and specifically write why Lemon Water cannot help with weight loss and boom, I got to write an article that I was one more passionate about that felt good to have link to my name and yeah, and I debunked it. So that could also be a scenario that happens and I hope it does. Fingers cross fruit. And for you it. Setting a boundary is a good thing. It really, really, the next question I got was from someone I forgot to ask for permission to say their name. So it's going to remain anonymous. But they had asked about finding liability insurance for freelance writing. This varies significantly between Canada and the states. And beyond north America. I think the first step I would do is contact. Whoever provides you with your insurance already and just see if they will cover you also for freelance writing. Because they might be able to, if it's not eligible. Then you need to go and find freelance liability insurance. Which is basically just business insurance. The most popular ones for freelance writing are dinghy and thimble self-insurance is really popular in Canada. I think it's about 28 bucks a month. There is a point though, where if you're doing freelance writing and you're also doing brand work and media stunts, not media stunts. Media appearances. Sorry, I'm laughing at stuns, cause that would make your insurance go But if you're also doing cooking demos and one-on-one counseling, like all this smorgasborg, you're going to need to consult a lawyer and invest in several different policies to make sure you're covered. So just keep that in mind. There's a lot of research you need to do to make sure you find something that fits good for you. I don't have a one fits all answer because like I said, everybody's business needs are very unique and very different. I do know also that some insurance companies. May provide you only a freelance writing is less than 50% of your income. Like there's all these different caveats. So if that sounds Greek to you, I urge you to invest in a one hour session with the lawyer, just get straightened out so that you can feel confident moving forward that you're covered in your business. okay, I'm just looking at my phone here for our next question. So this is coming in from Bailey. She has written in and said, Tell us more about your current clients, brands, organizations, et cetera. So as you guys may or may not know from the October episode, I lost my biggest freelance writing client. And to be honest it really threw me for a loop. my style didn't fit theirs anymore, and it was the first time in my life that I have ever been let go from anything, and I am not gonna lie. It really rattled. I knew logically that I'm still skilled, I'm still capable and I can still do a good job. But it really shook me and I wasn't prepared for how much that was gonna be a setback. I'm sure many of you like we all tend to be overachiever and Keens in the dietetic profession. So to be let go from a gig where you are doing so well for eight months, it is literally like having the floor ripped out from under you. So I haven't been pitching very much for freelance writing because I've been licking my wounds, and I finally feel ready. I finally some wind under my wings and I've been updating my portfolio. I've also added on video services specifically for recipe and nutrition. Video is the future, and I just, I, I'm a little nervous, I don't do a lot of video work, but I think it would be a huge disservice not to even try and pitch myself in that area because that's where all the money's going. I still do some project work for a supplement company, so I write blog articles for them on the side, which I really enjoy. I've been with them for over a year, and they're just lovely people and the topics I find are very light So pretty easy pieces to write. In the meantime, I'm doing a lot of cooking demonstrations for the cancer population, which has been so rewarding and so, so. I have never worked with cancer patients before, and let me tell you like it's the most rewarding work I've ever done in my life. Like they're so appreciative of dietitians. I find that the nutrition classes are a much lighter topic compared to what they normally have to. Go over in a whole day. And because it's a group setting, people arrive there wanting to have a good time. It's very joyous. We all get to try the food that I make, and sometimes it's great and sometimes I miss So it got me thinking, and I've been really considering focusing more hyper local and doing some more in person teaching sessions with big corporations who have a budget for lunch and learns, and then also doing some more cooking classes for. Different populations in my local community because after Covid, people are loving it. It's so nice to get together and do in-person learning online is fantastic, but sometimes it just doesn't translate the same. And then I also teach other groups on the side about diabetes and heart health. And just like a mishmash, I really love teaching. And then I had a question here from Sarah. Let me just pull it up so I can remind myself one. Oh yeah. So Sarah had written in, can you list the number one thing, what you love about podcasting, which I think is such a sweet question. It's the storytelling element. Ever since I was little, I have been obsessed with storytelling, getting the inside scoop, getting the, you know, lived experience from the person behind the microphone or in the movie or whatever, modality. In a book, like it just gives me chills to hear from people having a chance to express themselves unfiltered. Because in Hollywood, you know, everything is so produced and so picture perfect. And I think in podcasting, I actually like when it's a little bit more raw, unedited, and you get the real personality. So that's what I love about podcasting and I try to bring that onto this show as much as possible. It may or maybe it won't surprise you to learn that. Exclusively listen to comedy podcasts, entertainment podcasts, food podcasts. I very rarely listen to any business podcast these days. Once I started to create content in the space, It's just, I don't wanna listen to it too. You know, like I just wanna have my own original thoughts that I bring on the show. And it's really important to me to help make the Freelance dietitian podcast stand out because that's the whole point of creation. I really like having that outlet available. So that's it that. Everything I wanted to share with you today, I really hope that you enjoy this podcast. Thank you again so much for sticking around for wonderful year. Cheers. Too many more to come. If you have questions about this episode or if you want me to expand on something a little bit more, send me a message and I'll do it. Next week, I am bringing on Elis, the Wonderful Food Stylist Rd. I cannot wait for you guys to listen to the conversation. It is super playful, super inspiring. So creative and so fun. And I did sign up and take a couple of her courses actually were excellent, especially the food photography one and then also the one just, uh, she does like a brand work one. So I bought the bundle and it was really good. Highly recomme. All righty. I hope you guys have a great Tuesday. Have a great rest of your week and I will be here next week with Elise. Bye.