This March (2023) marks 3 years of owning Dana J. Fryer Nutrition LLC. It is such a great milestone because my business has allowed me to expand my skillset so much and mentor hundreds of dietetics students and work with so many great patients.
Starting out my dietitian career journey, running my own business was never something I sought out to do because I had my "Master RD Plan" of completing my dietetic internship and than going to work at one of the Boston hospitals, maybe get my CNSC or teach a class at a college, but that was the plan! I focused on my studies and made the right connections to help make sure that by the time I had passed the RD exam I was in the perfect place to get that job (yes, very type A RD...I know!)
So then how did I end up where I am today, running my business for 3 year now and working part time as an outpatient oncology dietitian...well that would because I graduated and passed my RD exam about 3 weeks before the COVID lockdowns of March 2020, I had just spent all of my money on a vacation to Spain (no regrets), because I had thought I would be starting my inpatient job within a few weeks and was going to get that nice full time paycheck (after a year of an unpaid internship I thought my $25/hr was HUGE money at the time). In the span of a week not only was I told I couldn't start my inpatient job because of hiring freezes, but I also got furloughed (such a lovely term they used to make you feel better about being let go due to COVID) from my 12 hour a week research assistant position.
In talking with my friends and family about how devastated I was about this turn of
events, they gave me some great ideas to jump off of (which is reason 100 to surround yourself with quality people that are thinkers). One friend mentioned that she had used a tutor to student for the RD exam, but that she wished I could have tutored her for the exam because I always explained thinks so well and made it easier to understand. Another friend who was also furloughed told me she would help me build a website. Within 2 weeks www.danajfnutrition.com was up and running and my first student found my through Google (thank you SEO!). After I got the tutoring up an running I also started adding on private practice clients and I was making enough money to pay for my $700/month and buy food, which was my true metric of success. All the while the updated master plan was to do the business until I could start inpatient, maybe work a few hours a week if I had clients, but not to put into much effort into besides maintaining the website.
By the time I was finally able to start working inpatient in late June of 2020, I was really starting to enjoy the tutoring and seeing private practice clients and decided to continue to see clients at night as I started working full time at the hospital. As the business grew and I was starting to have to work every night and weekends to keep up with the demand for tutoring, I knew I had to make a change because I was getting too burned out working at the hospital day and then having no time off when I
was home. This caused me to add on group tutoring/recorded classes in the winter of 2020 and the launch of my first fully self-paced program, my Signature Self Paced course in February 2021. This allowed me to increase my tutoring volume while having a better schedule.
In my second year in business I started started my internship program to expose dietitian students to entrepreneurship . Through that program I have already had 4 interns and also become an official practicum site for Boston University. I accept of to 3 interns per year and this is a remote (unless already in Boston) and part time experience. Undergraduate, graduate and dietetic interns may apply for the program.
In my 3rd year of business I had my biggest business growth yet and made the decision to leave my full time inpatient job. This is something that was really difficult for me as working an inpatient dietitian was my first "dream job" and to have gotten it and leave it made me feel like it was giving up everything I worked so hard for. I absolutely loved my job, my patients and my coworkers, but if I wanted
to continue to expand the business and have a work life balance, I couldn't be at the hospital 40 hours a week. While I could have worked for my myself full-time I didn't want to because I love working in the clinical setting and it is something so different than private practice (and honestly also wanted to keep my benefits). I was so happy when I found a 24 hour position in an oncology clinic that had a strong focus on interdisciplinary care and valued the role of a registered dietitian. That transition allowed me to expand the business, add on the podcast, new state licensure for my private practice clients and to build new partnerships with dietetics interns and companies to provide tutoring and guest speaker services.
I would have to say the best part of my business is the fact that it allows me to be involved with all the areas of dietetics that am an interested (clinical, nutrition support, chronic disease prevention, advocacy for the field and dietetic educations) while also having a work life balance that I did not know what possible with being able to work partially remote and having multiple streams of income.
Exciting things to come to DJF Nutrition in this upcoming year will be insurance coverage, monthly nutrition client newsletter and a new nutrition support course for dietitians!
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