Earning $1000 In Her Private Practice And Treating Herself Is How Kat Celebrated Being Her Own Boss!

Yaa Boayke: [00:00:04] On today’s episode, we have Kat Scherer. She has a master’s in nutritional sciences. She’s a registered dietitian and certified personal trainer in Fort Worth, Texas. She’s passionate about helping women tainted by diet culture to overcome their obsession with food, improve their body image and their relationship with exercise. Kat’s laid-back personality and dry sense of humor help her create a comfortable environment for her clients to learn, grow, and gain confidence in themselves and their food choices. You can find her on Instagram @eat.guiltfree. Welcome to the episode, Kat.

 

Kat Scherer: [00:00:41] Hi. Thank you.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:00:41] Super stoked to jump in. So I want you to share a little bit about where you started versus where you are now. So let’s talk about did you have an Instagram when you start with this program?

 

Kat Scherer: [00:00:55] I did have an Instagram and my handle was actually my L.L.C. name, which is Retroactive Health. And so nobody knew what that meant but that was my Instagram.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:01:09] And what type of clients were you working with before?

 

Kat Scherer: [00:01:14] So in my private practice, Retroactive Health, I was working with people with eating disorders, disordered eating, and occasionally see people with new diabetes diagnoses, IBS, and occasional food allergies here and there.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:01:32] In that role, would you say that you were working with your dream client or clients?

 

Kat Scherer: [00:01:42] I was here and there. I definitely know that I wanted to work with eating disorders and disordered eating, but I found that I was becoming more and more drawn to the women that I was seeing who were struggling more with disordered eating and disordered exercise. So I just felt really being pulled towards those women that I was, you know, not always sure where to find those women or for them to be able to find me.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:02:16] Yeah, definitely. It totally makes sense. So let’s talk about your types of clients now that you’ve crafted your Instagram to attract them. So what is your current niche?

 

Kat Scherer: [00:02:27] My current niche is women who are around the age of twenty-eight and they work and they are either engaged or newly married and have always had a few issues with their body image, some disordered eating, and just feel like they’ve tried diets and they feel like with our society they just don’t know how to eat anymore. And because of that, they find themselves always thinking about food and obsessing about food and worrying about it. And in addition to that, they’re feeling like they’re always having to compensate with exercise. They love exercise, and it’s always been a part of their life. At one point, they’re probably even an athlete when they were younger, but they’re just not sure that they have a healthy relationship with exercise anymore.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:03:21] Yeah, and would you say that your niche has evolved while you’re in the program, or did you just know out the gate that this is who you want it to work with?

 

Kat Scherer: [00:03:31] It’s definitely evolved. So when I started the Dietitian Boss program, I just knew I wanted a virtual private practice. I just wasn’t quite sure who I was going to talk to. So at first, I was like, well, maybe I’ll do weight loss, but in an all foods fit approach. And then I was like, no, that’s just not my message. I really wanted to niche down. So I was like, OK, I’ll do former athletes with disordered eating. I marketed to former athletes for a while specifically, and that was great. It didn’t feel right. I just kind of really took a step back and thought, you know, who are the people that I just enjoy talking with, like who kind of lights me up and who do I have the most success with? And I just said, OK, and niched down to where I am now.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:04:24] Amazing. I think a lot of people can understand that journey of just finding themselves and finding who they’re actually passionate about, and who do they feel the most connected with because alignment is so important with starting your own practice. So now that you’ve niched down, what do you like about working with this niche?

 

Kat Scherer: [00:04:44] What a great question. I mean, when I get off my group calls, I’m just in such a good mood. They’re just fun. They’re fun women. Most of them love food like they’re not picky, they’re foodies. But through time, they just become scared of it. They want to be able to enjoy it again and go in with their girlfriends to happy hours and not be afraid to have dessert with their significant other. They like being fun and social. Yeah. So it’s cool to watch them turn back into the person that they were before they struggled with disordered eating, the person they want to be for the rest of their life.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:05:25] Yeah, totally. Have you always had this dream? Can you list three or four words that come to mind when you thought about running your own business and what it could potentially afford you?

 

Kat Scherer: [00:05:39] I have not always had this dream, and I don’t know if I have three or four words. You know, I would say that, obviously getting to start a private practice in the town that I live in has been such a blessing and has been such a good learning experience for me, but starting the Dietitian Boss is something that I wanted to do to expand my practice and make more money and just have a bigger reach. Yeah, I did the town that I live in. So honestly, I couldn’t have expected any of this. Yeah, it’s just been a great ride. And I always said I never go into private practice, too much work, but now I would never go back to having a boss again.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:06:26] I love it. So it sounds like yours, if we had to do phrases, it would be being your own boss. So you kind of secretly gave us some tips.

 

Kat Scherer: [00:06:38] Yeah. I have to be long-winded. I don’t have three or four ways.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:06:45] I love it. That’s what I love about you and that’s your personality and people are going to really jump onto that and attached to that because that’s the great thing about being able to have your own business and just be yourself. So, yeah, I love it. Can you give the listeners a specific example when you felt like, yes, I’m really doing what I’m passionate about, I’m really building know, like and trust because part of growing your business is to be comfortable and feel like you’re building some authority. So can you share an example of how you’ve been able to do that on Instagram?

 

Kat Scherer: [00:07:23] I think it’s when I finally just allowed myself to be myself on Instagram, obviously, to show my face on stories and just pretend like I’m talking to my best friend and just kind of having fun with it. When I started to be more authentic, I started to get some more messages from people saying they appreciated my content or keep going or doing a great job. So that’s really when I noticed it.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:07:54] I love it. Yeah. When people DM you, it’s so powerful. Like, yeah, likes people are like, oh, I’ve got all these comments, but it’s really the messages and that’s really helpful to you. And you just know, like, OK, I’m speaking to my people. They’re finding me. My tribe is being built, which is awesome.

 

Kat Scherer: [00:08:11] That keeps you going for sure.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:08:13] A big part of this program is setting goals, and can you share some of your goals in particular what your short term and long-term goals when you started the first day of the program, like what were those goals that you set for yourself?

 

Kat Scherer: [00:08:29] Financial goals, I assume, or any goal?

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:08:32] Any goals, because we have a lot of people that are coming from having not even an Instagram, being afraid with the camera. So any of those goals that you want to share, feel free to.

 

Kat Scherer: [00:08:42] Ok, right. Definitely mindset. That was probably my biggest goal because it was starting the Dietitian Boss program that made me realize that I was in a fixed mindset. I wasn’t allowing myself to be in an abundance mindset and have the confidence to stay in that mindset, so that’s probably was my biggest goal starting out and then that evolved into being more confident was showing up. On stories, showing my face and being myself, yeah.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:09:24] I love that those are amazing goals to have, like, yeah, money goals are great and all, but you don’t make the money unless you actually have the mindset and you’re willing to show up. It’s like all interconnected. But you definitely can’t even get to those bigger picture things without addressing them. So I’m so happy that you shared that, and I’m hoping the listeners will really feel that and get a better understanding that starting a business isn’t just about, oh, I’ve got to make 10K and reach my revenue, and this is my outgoing and I’ve got X amount this quarter. It’s like you have to have your mind right, for sure.

 

Kat Scherer: [00:09:59] Yes, absolutely. I would definitely say I started out being like, yes, I would start this program and make 10K tomorrow. Then I was like, oh, no, wait, I got to get this mindset right.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:10:09] So what’s your next goal? Because I know you’ve worked through it quite a bit. So what’s the next goal that you have for yourself?

 

Kat Scherer: [00:10:19] My next short-term goal is to enroll more women in my group program. You know, my first group program at six weeks long. The last call is on Tuesday and it’s gone by so fast. I plan to hopefully reenroll at least two of those women. I’m going for all four. Just keep enrolling women and getting my message out there and still showing up on stories and being confident and having my abundance mindset.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:10:56] Love it, love it, love it. And then what would you say are the actions you’re taking to set those goals? So you’re going to reenroll these women, like what are some of the things that you’re going to work on to do that? I think this is kind of a fun question because oftentimes we’ll ask people what they’re doing, but we don’t ask how are you planning on doing it? So I’m curious what your strategy, even if it’s like a little snippet and you don’t want to reveal all the secret sauce.

 

Kat Scherer: [00:11:22] Got it. Well, luckily, we have this awesome coach in the Dietitian Boss program that gave me some tips to do to re enroll some of these women. But to start, I am scheduling a graduation call so I can get face to face with them and talk about their progress and next steps and then talk about how I can support them in this next step.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:11:43] Love it. Such a great strategy. People forget client retention is one of the most powerful ways to have more predictable revenue. It’s not always about client acquisition. The best companies spend a lot of time on the front end getting the acquisition piece. But if you can keep re-enrolling, resigning, getting referrals, it’s such a time saver.

 

Kat Scherer: [00:12:03] Mm-hmm. Yeah, I’m excited.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:12:05] And so far, how much money have you made and what have you done with the money that you’ve made from that like maybe go on a vacation, save it?

 

Kat Scherer: [00:12:15] Mm-hmm. I made a thousand dollars in November and honestly it was Covid, I didn’t get to go anywhere. That is a part of my long-term goal. But what that thousand dollars did is honestly just gave me so much confidence. I actually think I allowed myself to go shopping, I went and bought some winter clothes because I went somewhere other than Target, like nothing wrong with Target. I love it. But I went to a boutique in town and I just kind of permitted myself to just say, hey, I earned this. I’m going to find myself some things that I want to need.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:12:57] I love that. That’s such a good feeling. It’s actually getting kind of exciting; Target is no boutique. But yeah, I get what you’re saying. After going there over and over, especially during Covid, I’m like, I’ve got all the tie-dye sweatpants. I don’t know if I need another pair, but I agree it’s nice to reward yourself with something extra to make you happy.

 

Kat Scherer: [00:13:19] Yeah. I bought myself a 70-dollar sweater and I normally would never do that. And it’s a very warm sweater.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:13:29] I love it.

 

Kat Scherer: [00:13:30] I was pretty excited.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:13:31] I love it. I’m just shocked that it gets cold enough to wear sweaters in Texas.

 

Kat Scherer: [00:13:35] Right now, it’s 50 degrees. I mean, we were at thirty this morning. That’s really cold for us.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:13:42] Oh, wow. Oh, my goodness.

 

Kat Scherer: [00:13:44] Yeah. Yeah.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:13:45] On the topic of money and seventy dollars sweaters, a lot of people are coming from different places in their life and their perspectives about money is really kind of dictated from that position, whether where they are currently out or the way they grew up. So can you share some of your money stories? Like what limiting beliefs you had about money.

 

Kat Scherer: [00:14:12] I grew up not really knowing a lot about money, which is funny because my dad is so like, you have to budget, you have to budget, and in case you ever listen to this, hey, dad, you’re really good at budgeting. But it made me very frugal. I consider myself to be a very frugal person, and I married the one who is the total opposite. Oh, so I think that ties back to what I was saying earlier, like that thousand dollars that gave me the confidence to be like, OK, you can go buy yourself something like it’s OK. I really struggle every time I buy something; I have buyer’s remorse. But this month, I really didn’t.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:15:01] That’s incredible. That’s something that a lot of listeners love to hear, the fact that you’re vulnerable and sharing that because that’s a place where people are coming from. And oftentimes it’s because maybe, you know, with the earnings that you get, it’s very predictable. So, you know what you can really allot. But when you add this extra layer of having your own private practice and adding an extra one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, five thousand, ten thousand a month, you start to like to open up your life to abundance. I can do more. I can treat myself more, which is a great feeling.

 

Kat Scherer: [00:15:32] Oh, absolutely. That’s awesome.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:15:35] Part of the way you’ve been able to get clients is working on your content creation process. A lot of people are afraid to get out there and post stuff. So I’ve been asking a lot of our guests on the show to walk us through their content creation process. So how did you really develop and nail down the messaging, like the words on your post? Where do you get that information from?

 

Kat Scherer: [00:16:03] Well, you. Aside from that, market research and, you know, I do have the pleasure of seeing some of my ideal clients in my private practice as well, but definitely market research and just learning more about the words that the women that I see would use. You know, I’m in the food freedom world and a lot of my IC doesn’t really know the term intuitive eating. So that was kind of a challenge at first, trying to figure out the right words to use and still working on that. But definitely, when I started using more of my client’s words is when I started getting more reach and more engagement.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:16:52] I love it. In terms of getting inspiration, a lot of people will go on to follow accounts before they join and look at them and they’re like, oh, my God, their content is so great. So where do you get your design inspiration? I’m always amazed when I look at people’s designs, you have your signature Kat style when I look at, I’m like, Kat style. So where did you get your inspo?

 

Kat Scherer: [00:17:14] I definitely started out getting inspiration from like I would go look at Dietitian Bosses like Bonnie Aroney or Coleen Christianson. I just love Coleen’s sense of humor, and so I definitely got ideas from them. Just the other Dietitian Bosses in the group, kind of piecemealing things that they were doing, like, that’s neat. I could do it this way. And, you know, after trying probably 10 different things, I kind of have three different styles laid down that I’m working on rotating. In that, too, I also learned that people like seeing me in the post. I thought at one point they’re getting tired of me, so I quit showing pictures of me, and then my reach went down like, OK, I actually like seeing me inserted into these posts. I think they think it’s really fun. Sometimes I think it’s really funny. I think when it makes people feel good, they want to come back. So I don’t know what they think about it is funny, but I don’t worry so much about that.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:18:20] On the topic of that, and you landed on a really good point, and this is a point that I know you know this from being on all the coaching calls, but we really try to hone in on experimenting and kind of figuring out what’s working and what’s not. So on that note, a lot of people get caught up when posts don’t do well. So what do you do when your posts don’t do well? And how does that make you feel?

 

Kat Scherer: [00:18:47] It’s really easy to feel bad, you know, there’s a good second where I’ll feel defeated and then I have to remind myself, it’s Instagram, you never know what’s going on. It’s OK. Just keep going. But the other Dietitian Bosses in the group have been so helpful with, you know, you can pop on the Facebook group and tell them what’s going on and get encouragement and immediately feel better. So having the support of other women in the Dietitian Boss group, because, yeah, there’s going to be things, you know, we’re posting during the election and lots of stuff was hidden because of the election. Lots of hashtags. So just working through that and knowing that you’re still getting out there and as long as I’m putting it out, people are going to come. But if I stop, they’re not going to come.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:19:35] I agree. That’s such a good point. A lot of that’s just about starting imperfectly. The method we really encourage people to start imperfectly, and if things don’t go well, you just keep showing up. So was there a time when you were advised by your coach or colleague about how to do something imperfectly and how you felt about it?

 

Kat Scherer: [00:19:57] I’m a dietitian and so we all have type A tendencies, so we don’t really know how to do things imperfectly so it’s really, really hard. So much so that I wasn’t wanting to when I first started the program, I wasn’t wanting to post because I felt like my message wasn’t clear and I didn’t know what to do. Once I was told numerous times,  it’s OK to post something imperfect and just start getting my message out there, just doing it a couple of times and realizing and then getting good feedback, whether it be from people following me or other Dietitian Bosses or the Dietitian Boss coaches, you know, kind of taught me what I needed to do next to start working more towards more imperfect action, not perfect action, but more imperfect action.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:20:50] I see what you did there that you avoided really saying perfectly because, you know, we’re like no imperfect, somewhat good is good. I like what you did there.

 

Kat Scherer: [00:20:57] Yeah. Yeah, I do that with my clients, too. So I try to make sure I walk the walk here.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:21:05] A big part of doing that is posting your content, because when you post your content, you’re opening up the door for people to find you and get them on sales calls. And that’s what we all want. So can you share a little bit about how you approached sales and how your mindset has evolved since being enrolled in the program?

 

Kat Scherer: [00:21:25] Mm-hmm. So I’ll start with the second part for sure, because being in private practice, I was like, I can do sales. I have this down. I don’t need help with that. Not the case at all. Because I realized when I started the Dietitian Boss program that when I was on the sales call towards the end, if there was a moment of silence, I would be like, oh, OK so do you want to book or do you want to think about it and call me later, I always gave them an out. Why was I doing that? I just felt bad, I was like, why do I feel bad? They want help. I know I can help them, so why wouldn’t I close the sale? So from that standpoint, I would say my sales mindset has evolved completely.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:22:12] Love it.

 

Kat Scherer: [00:22:13] You know, and just having the confidence to book the sale.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:22:23] I just wanted to know; how did you feel about pitching your offer in general on social media? You’re coming from private practice, which is completely different, right, face to face versus a phone or video call.

 

Kat Scherer: [00:22:34] Mm-hmm hmm. Totally different. In fact, I said I would never do it. I said I would never do it. Now here I am doing it. So definitely nervous. I felt very vulnerable. I was worried about being judged or made fun of or like, oh, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about or she hasn’t lived it or whatever, and I haven’t had any issues so far. I just put my message out there and I know my message can help people, and that’s the only thing I worry about.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:23:06] I love that. What were the steps you took to improve your sales skills, you said before, you would kind of give them an out. What were the things that you say helped you kind of get it more solid, like, OK, I didn’t give them too many options, I was more clear.

 

Kat Scherer: [00:23:25] The Dietitian Boss modules that you get in the program that help you and walk you through step by step what to do on the calls. I just started putting that into practice, especially with my private practice and having the opportunity to kind of practice on them and just being more confident and, you know, asking them, what is it that are your biggest pains, what is it that you want? Then tying what I can do to help them back to what it is that they want. If they give me a little bit of push back at the end of the call, I can be like, OK, well, you said you wanted to be able to do this, that and the other and kind of remind them of why they’ve called me. I find that that helps.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:24:12] I love this. Amazing. Such a good note. The last thing that I will ask you is can you provide a specific example of how the Dietitian Boss method has empowered you?

 

Kat Scherer: [00:24:29] I love it, this is kind of broad, but I also feel like it’s so important, if it wasn’t for the Dietitian Boss method, I don’t think I would have ever taken the leap to expand my reach. I’m not sure that I ever would have been confident. I probably still would-be giving people an out on sales calls. And it’s just given me a sense of confidence that I’ve never had before and on days that aren’t going very well or days I’m feeling exhausted or stressed, I just kind of remind myself like it’s OK, you can do this. I have the support of the women in the group and the coaches to remind me of that.

 

Yaa Boayke: [00:25:26] Amazing. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode. As a reminder, you guys, you can find her on Instagram. You can get to know her really fun, dry sense of humor and laid back personality if you go follow her and you can find her @eat.guiltfree.

 

Kat Scherer: [00:25:48] Thank you.