Introduction
[00:00:00] Detective Ev: Hey, what is going on my friends? Welcome back to another episode of the Health Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. My name is Evan Transue, AKA Detective Ev. I will be your host for today’s show that’s all about the FDN course.
We have repeat guest, Brandy Buskow, today. We had her on, on episode number four. She was the third interview, but fourth episode. Our first episode was myself and Reed Davis, the founder, going back and forth about what this podcast is going to be all about.
And here we are, man, over a year and a half later, bigger than ever before, continuing to grow. The team continues to grow. We appreciate you guys so much. I definitely do, because I wouldn’t be able to do this if we weren’t seeing continued listenership and engagement from you guys. So, we greatly appreciate this.
I absolutely love being able to talk to other people about the health things that they’ve dealt with and share this with the world so other people can find out about this. Today we’re not talking about Brandy’s story though. We already covered that in episode number four. So, go check that out if you’d like to learn more about her in that way. I’m not even going to read a bio in this sense.
What we’re coming on for today is not Brandy Buskow, the Functional Diagnostic Nutrition practitioner, per se, we’re talking about Brandy, the COO. Because she is someone that is running a lot of things now at FDN, extremely well-deserved. She’s been here for years, kicking butt ever since, from my understanding, certainly since I’ve been here. She’s someone that you can rely on 24/7 to get anything done, anytime you need it.
Breaking Down the FDN Course
She’s also very kind. She has this perfect mix between authority (you have to have that as a manager or boss type of person), but at the same time, you got to feel comfortable coming to someone and talking about the things that you might be going through or that you need help with. There is never a time where I feel as if I couldn’t reach out to Brandy. I think I speak on behalf of everyone at FDN when I say that. So, you’re talking today with a really, really great person.
She’s actually going to take us through the entire course today. We’re doing this verbally, even if you watch the video version of this, it’s only verbal. But what we’re going to talk about is the way that you can watch the actual course tour, because we do have a video version of this. www.functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com/course-tour/
This is a little different, it’s a cool way to get an overview. We’re going to talk about the requirements to get into FDN. Who goes to FDN? What can you expect when you’re going through the course? Will I get support? Will I get mentorship? How many hours per week do I have to allot to this? You know, all that type of stuff.
Then how do I graduate? And once I graduate, how long does it take before I can actually go do this work and utilize the lab testing? How much more will I need after that? We are going to break all of that down and more today. There’s really nothing else to say since, again, if you want to learn more about Brandy, herself, or hear her story, I greatly encourage you to go back all the way to episode number four and hear that.
A Little About Brandy Buskow
But for today, we’re going to break down the course. Without further ado, let’s get to today’s episode.
All right. Hello there, Brandy. Thanks so much for being here with us today.
Brandy Buskow: Thanks Evan. Great to be back.
Detective Ev: Yeah, guys, this is someone, who just like Jennifer Woodward and Jen Malacca, have come back on and they were, my gosh, within the first 10 episodes. I think Brandy was even before them. You’re like episode four. So please go listen to her episode if you want the story. Brandy’s got a heck of a story, a lot of stuff with antibiotics. There’s also some mental health things in there as well. There was many aspects that we related on. If you like the stories, definitely go check that out at a different time.
But for today’s episode, it’s not necessarily going to be the full hour that we normally do. We wanted to bring Brandy on because she has a few pretty important roles at FDN. She kind of does a lot of stuff. I don’t know if you even just want to introduce yourself in that way, because we’ve talked about you as the FDN practitioner. Who is Brandy as this pretty major person at FDN?
Brandy’s Different Roles at FDN
[00:03:40] Brandy Buskow: Thanks Evan.
I actually started working with FDN back in 2014, and I started just as customer service. Actually, before that I was working in Self Care. I know Joe Pate was on and she’s talked about FDNthrive and what we offer in FDNthrive to the general public. So back then, we had a similar program called FDN Self Care.
I was managing that from the administrative perspective, then I moved into customer service for the course, sales for the course. Then I ran the medical director program, which is where our practitioners have access to testing. Then I moved into more of an operational role where I was overseeing the overall operations of when somebody gets into the course, how we manage them, how we help them get through the course all the way through to post-graduation and how we continue to support them post-graduation.
That is currently my role. I’m the Operations Manager for FDN and I oversee kind of the day-to-day operations within the company, making sure that everybody’s taken care of, you’re getting your questions answered, you’re getting top-notch customer service, and that you’re feeling supported all the way through the course.
Since we’ve made so many changes in the course, we thought it would be great if we could come on and talk about what has changed, what is different about the course itself, and what can you expect when you enroll. So that’s why we’re here today.
Any Prerequisites for the FDN Course?
[00:04:59] Detective Ev: Absolutely. And thanks for prefacing that.
So yeah, Brandy has worked in all these different things. That’s why, I mean, you’re at the point now where FDN literally would just not be the same if you weren’t doing what you’re doing. Honestly, there’s hardly anyone better to walk us through the course in that sense.
Now, of course, we’re not doing this with video, you guys can actually check that out at www.functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com/course-tour/. But we’re going to touch on the brief overview today. We know so many people are now asking about the course. You guys are always clicking on our episodes where we’re talking about this.
Let’s keep it really simple just to get started, Brandy. When someone enrolls in FDN, like, who can do that? Do I have any prerequisites? Do I need to have gone to college for this? Like what do I need to get into FDN?
[00:05:36] Brandy Buskow: That’s a great question. What Reed always says, is you need to have a passion to help people, because that is the FDN mission. We want to help as many people as possible get well and stay well naturally.
So, while that is the only prerequisite we have, it is important to understand that this is a self-paced online course. You know, being familiar a little bit with technology, you don’t have to be a tech wizard, but haven taken maybe an online course before, have some basic knowledge about how to use a web browser, how to stream things, how to download videos or download audios.
The FDN Course is an Online, Self-Paced Course
The other part is we do have intake forms that are part of the course, and you can either use them in Microsoft office, with Excel or Word or Google. We’ve put them into Google Sheets and Google Docs. A little bit of a familiarity with that would be helpful. Of course, it’s not a hundred percent necessary, but it does help you get through the course, because like I said, it is a completely online, self-paced course.
Once you enroll, you get access to the first model right away. You, basically, within five minutes, get an email, you log into the online platform, and you can get started. There’s no waiting for classes to start. There’s no waiting for us to release the content. You go through at your own pace. And Evan, you were talking about before the show, when we were chatting, that that was one of your favorite parts of the course is that you could control how fast or slow you went through the course.
[00:06:58] Detective Ev: Yeah. Five years ago, right before FDN, I had done another program. Not important for today. I just didn’t feel complete with that. I didn’t feel like I got to where I needed to get to, so that’s why I pursued FDN. That one was a yearlong and they forced me to only have a certain amount each week.
Now, I am not stupid. There is a real application for that, especially if it’s a subject I did not like. I would say honestly, FDN is one of the few subjects I’m able to do this with and just kind of dive right in. Thankfully, so many of us that come here, we’re so passionate, we want to learn as much as possible anyway.
The FDN Course Gives Everything a Student Needs
I think there is a time and place for that type of stuff. Sometimes we need it broken down for us, especially, again, if it’s like, something we didn’t really want to do, that can make sense. But we need to know ourselves, because for me, I saw self-paced, I’m like, this is great.
I remember, you could not do this now, there’s a lot more added to the course and it’s been done differently, I finished in like two months and a week or something at the time. My foot was broken. I was a young guy; I wasn’t fully working yet. I just did FDN, it was full-time FDN, and that was pretty much it. And I enjoyed it.
Now it’s broken down in a different way that, that wouldn’t be possible. You wouldn’t want to do it in two months, you know. You got to actually digest the information and absorb it. But that’s the thing, the prerequisites, it’s not like there really are any in the sense of educational stuff. Also, don’t go into this thinking that means it’s like a lot of other online courses or that it’s super easy.
I’ve heard Reed compare this, I’ve never pursued this level of college, but I’ve heard Reed compare this to like a master’s level program. I would have to think that’s fair considering how technical the information is. Now, listen, you’ll get everything you need. I came in as someone with a certification that, again, admittedly was pretty much irrelevant to what I was learning at FDN, and a personal training certification. Those two things. I was able to figure it out.
The FDN Course is Challenging but Supportive
I’m a nerdy guy, yes. But I didn’t have that science background. I had never even taken a biology class past high school. So, did it take study and dedication? Yes. There was a lot of time involved in those two and a half months, believe it or not. But you know, if you have that motivation and you have that desire, you can do this. At the same time, and I’m not discouraging, anyone, just be aware of who you are as a person and what you’re getting into.
It’s going to be challenging, that’s the point. That’s why FDNs are respected. If you have no ability to monitor yourself whatsoever, maybe this isn’t for you in that sense. But we also have support during the course, which I know we’ll probably get to at some point during the overview.
So, we talked about who can kind of go in. I think it’s also important to mention before we overview the entire course, what types of people do we see at FDN? At this point, I’ve seen just about everyone. But I know that you did the postgraduate interviews for a while, possibly you even still do that. You’re talking to all these different people, like what are some themes in the backgrounds? Because we got a pretty diverse community.
[00:09:32] Brandy Buskow: Absolutely.
I mean, we’ve got people who already have certifications, like you mentioned Evan. Maybe they’ve gone to another health coaching program. Maybe they’re a personal trainer. We have doctors. We have nurses, we have registered dieticians. We have acupuncturists, chiropractors, nurse practitioners, pharmacists. They all have taken this course.
The FDN Course is Taught in an Understandable Way
We also have a lot of people who wanted to make this a career change. They were in a totally separate field. They were really passionate about health or (and this is a very common theme amongst everyone, including the people who already had a certification), but they were dealing with their own health issues or the health issues of their family, and they were trying to find answers.
I would say based on what I’ve seen, it’s pretty equal. We’ve got about half the people have an existing certification and the other half, maybe they’re looking for something else. They’re trying to get better themselves. They’re trying to help other people.
This is a story of almost every single person. And Evan, you’ve done a great job of highlighting all of our amazing practitioners and their stories on this show. Everybody has a story when they come into FDN and that’s the beauty. I agree with you, Reed says, this is like a master’s level program. Now don’t let that scare you. One of the great things about Reed is that he has a way of teaching complicated information in a way that you can understand, and that you can explain to your clients.
He will teach you the biochemistry, and the why’s, and how the body works, but you can understand it. That can be very intimidating to people. For myself, I was a mom. I wasn’t feeling well, my kids weren’t great. That’s why I came into the course. I was able to understand the course because of how Reed teaches it. And that’s one of the great benefits of this program is how he teaches it. It’s not too much over your head.
The FDN Course Is Respected & Has Credibility
Now, like Evan said, it’s not like you’re not going to have to go back and study. I remember watching module six, three or four times before I went forward. We give you plenty of time to do that.
So, we have a diverse amount of people who come through this course. Like I said, it can be stay at home moms, recently retired people, or professionals like doctors, acupuncturists, and RNs.
[00:11:38] Detective Ev: Well, listen, put in the work and you get the reward. Because unfortunately, as most people know, and this is why they ended up coming to us, guys, so many of these health certifications, they are great and they do learn some stuff, but there’s no respect for them like there is a college degree or something. I mean, certainly not something like a doctor, right? That’s credibility, and people want to work with you because of that.
We have had doctors on here recently, to some degree, Brandy. Like in the last month and a half, Dr. Kyrin Dunstan, this is an OB/GYN, guys. It’s not a witch doctor. OB/GYN by trade, who only will hire FDNs to help in her practice because she knows the training that’s involved here and the education that’s given. It’s worth it to go through this, because again, you have that credibility. I have people that ask me, where did you get your degree from because of what I can kind of rattle off now through FDN.
The FDN Course Teaches Bits & Pieces of Every Little Part
And I love what you said about the way that Reed teaches, because it’s something that I’ve had to work on myself. But I know we have other FDNs that I won’t point out names, but they would admit this probably, we’re nerds and we can’t hide that. It’s pretty obvious that we kind of have that side.
Where like Reed could kick it with just about anyone, he could sound like a sports bro sometimes. Right? He could talk about the day-to-day stuff. Then you realize the brilliance of this guy with all these different things he’s done in his life, and the fact that he created this course. You’re like, wow, this guy has kind of the best of both worlds where he could still act like a normal person, but a huge intellect to be able to do the variety of things that he’s done. It’s pretty darn cool.
I really think that’s an important point for people to know this is broken down in a way that if you have the will to do it, you can learn it. You don’t need a background in biochemistry. I had zero days of biochemistry in my background, and I learned some stuff. So, it’s not going to be enough to have a PhD in biochem, but that’s not what we’re here to do anyway.
That’s the whole point. We’re here to learn about the specifics that are necessary for helping the body truly restore itself and heal. We’re not treating anything specifically. We’re identifying everything in a non-specific fashion, so you only need to know bits and pieces of every little part.
The FDN Course Teaches a Methodology
So, all right. I get into the course. I now know that all these different types of professionals are involved in this. And yes, that’s what was so cool about the podcast is highlighting all these different people and their amazing stories.
I loved when Reed had that idea for the podcast, because I figured this is genius. Everyone in this community has an incredible story that I love listening to and most of our audience loves listening to. Now, I know as long as I want to do this, I have this passion, I can come and do this.
So, what’s going to happen when I start it? Like, where are we going to start in the course? Because you said I can start literally the same day, and that’s true. I had my username and password within 10 minutes of signing up for the course. So, what will I start to learn first? Like, how will it go?
[00:14:07] Brandy Buskow: Once you get started, Reed kind of starts to talk about the background of FDN and how he came to create this methodology. And it really is a methodology. It’s a way of looking at the body differently and it’s a way of identifying those hidden healing opportunities that, you know, most of us don’t know are there.
We all have these symptoms, and you go to the doctor and they’re like, take the supplement or take this pill to suppress the symptom. What Reed teaches is a methodology to be able to kind of peel away those layers and find out what is causing the symptoms. And once we know what’s causing the symptoms, how can we make lifestyle changes to improve? That’s what he teaches.
The FDN Course is Academic & Practical
He talks about the methodology and then he starts to go in step-by-step in the different areas of H.I.D.D.E.N., which Reed talks about in another episode. But it’s basically hormones, immune, digestion, detoxification, energy systems, and neurotransmitters. With H.I.D.D.E.N., he’s basically starting at the beginning with the hormones and he’s going progressively through each area, helping you to understand why it’s important to know what’s going on in these areas, how to use functional lab testing to identify the healing opportunities. Then once you know what the test is telling you, what do you do with the information?
The first two-thirds of the course is all academic. It’s a 16-module course and the first 13 modules is all the academics. Reed gets into the hows and whys of the FDN methodology. Then in the last three modules, you’re actually putting into practice what you learned. You’re spending time with a mentor and you’re doing role-playing and practicing being the practitioner and they’re being the client. We’re giving you mock clients to practice on.
You get eight opportunities to meet with a mentor to practice. So, by the time you’re done, you know what you’re doing. You’ve practiced, you have confidence, you get feedback, and you’re ready to start working with clients.
As you finish a module, the next module opens up for you. As Evan mentioned, he went through in about two months. I would say the average now is about six to eight months because we’ve added so much content. And there is so many practicals at the end of the course that we suggest or recommend that you give yourself at least two months to complete that section, the final section of the course, where you’re doing the practical sections.
The FDN Course Provides Plenty of Support
While we give you a full 12 months, most people complete it within six to eight months. They pace themselves well and you get support from our team. We have a core supervisor who is there to answer all of your questions. She’s there to ping you and say, hey, I’ve noticed that you’ve stalled. Do you need some help? Like what do you need? What are you getting stuck on? She’s there to support you along with all of the mentor team and the support that you get in the Facebook group.
[00:17:07] Detective Ev: Yeah. I think that’s been the coolest thing to see this change over five years. Cause, I was ecstatic about FDN when I went through it, and it has never stopped being added on to. I mean, dramatic differences. It’s not even just like a 5% change. There’s 20%, 30% changes.
I think what’s really cool is as more content has been added, the support has matched it, if not exceeded that. When I went through, guys, people don’t even realize this probably, and especially Brandy, same thing, there was no FDN training Facebook group, there wasn’t Live calls for the trainees each week. We did have the Fantastic Friday Call, that was actually great. I called in to that all the time to talk to Brandon and those guys. That was helpful.
But now, you can go through (and I think it’s the best of both worlds where you have this self-paced nature), but you also have these mentors in the group to indirectly keep you on track. It’s not like someone’s not monitoring you, don’t get me wrong here. But I think it is powerful to have a group that you could interact with every single week, technically every day.
There’s Much Interaction Within the FDN Course
You know how it is, some trainees use the most out of that group, they actually are in there all the time. They’re posting, they’re creating study groups. We’re not facilitating those to be clear. Someone asked me that before. It’s like usually the trainees that are doing that. But guys, I mean, there’s hundreds of people in that group at any given time. And the minute that they’re done, they’re out of that group.
They have an ability, as we talked about in a different episode, to join a professional’s group that Brandy and I are both a part of, if you choose to do that. The point is, it is just trainees, people like myself, people like Brandy, mentors, and Reed Davis, himself.
I just saw a trainee named Stephanie post the other day (she’s going to come on the podcast, eventually), she said she has a bunch of certifications. She’s like, what other company do you know does the founder hop on Live calls every single week with us. Then he’s also doing this in the professionals group.
It’s not like the guy’s not busy. I would say he’s pretty busy. You’re very much interacted with. It’s not a hand-holding thing, but the hands are there for outreach if you actually need something. I think that’s pretty fair to say. Again, Reed and I talk more about the labs in a different episode.
But for you, Brandy, just in terms of the course overview, even if we don’t break down the specific labs right now, what order can I expect to learn things in?
The FDN Course Teaches to Run All 5 Labs
[00:19:09] Brandy Buskow: First, we start with the hormones. Reed really dives into the hormones. We’re talking about estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, cortisol, melatonin. And as Evan mentioned, Reed’s going to go into the hows and whys of why he picked the tests that he did in a different episode. But we start there.
Then we go into what we call metabolic wellness. We’re looking at oxidative stress. We’re looking at the liver. We’re looking at the detoxification capacity of the body. From there, we jump into mucosal barrier, this is the gut. What’s going on in your gut? Is it absorbing nutrients? How healthy is it? Does it need support? We start talking about the gut.
Then we get into pathogen testing. Now, pathogen testing isn’t the be all, end all. You can’t just do a pathogen test and fix people, but it is important because it’s a stressor. We talk about what are the stressors in terms of pathogens that can affect the gut, affect the body as a whole. We go through all of that. We talk about stool testing, what to look for, what happens if you find a pathogen, how do you address it.
Then we move into food sensitivity testing. This is a great subject. Reed actually has redone all of these modules last summer is continuing to update them. I’m really excited about the food and the food sensitivity sections, he spent so much time in here. He’s done a great job of explaining the importance of removing foods that are inflammatory, why you need to do that, and the benefits of food sensitivity testing. We will never come on this program and tell you there’s a perfect food sensitivity test, it doesn’t exist. He talks about why it’s a tool and it’s important.
The FDN Course Implements the D.R.E.S.S. Program
Then he gets into how do you figure out the right diet for your clients and why food is so important. There’s a lot of information about that. Then he gets into what we call our D.R.E.S.S. Program. Once you’ve gone through the tests and you’ve looked at all of these different areas, then he starts to talk about, okay, what do we do?
What do we do with diet? Like we talked about the food. What do we do about rest? Sleep is so important. We know how sleep is important. Evan, I’m sure you talk about it a lot on the podcast. He dives into sleep and rest; he dives into movement and exercise because that’s important. Are we going to teach you how to be a personal trainer? Absolutely not. But we are going to talk about the importance of movement and how that’s all part of a good lifestyle program.
We get into stress. Stress is important. There’s all kinds of stressors. And we kind of weave this in throughout the entire course, we talk about stress and its impact. Then we talk about supplements. Again supplements are important, but remember it’s supplemental. You cannot fix everything with supplements.
The FDN Course Teaches to Titrate Supplements
One thing I will say here (and I’m sure the team won’t mind), is we are revamping our entire supplement module this fall. If you guys are in the course currently, or you’re planning to join the course, look forward to that supplement module. We are taking all of the feedback we’ve gotten from all of our students, all of our grads, and we are making a very comprehensive supplement protocol for you.
Again, not because we want you to just have supplement recommendations for clients, but we understand that it’s an important part and we want you to be fully educated. I think FDNs are really top-notch practitioners and know quite a bit about supplements.
[00:22:33] Detective Ev: Yeah, it’s tough to pick like what area they know the most in. There is a lot of great people out there that have their specific things that they’re well versed in, no doubt about it. But the supplements, the way we apply those supplements, and teach people, like, really work this in, that’s where it’s magic. Because there’s some people that (I’m sure the listeners can relate to this), they’ve reacted very poorly to a supplement.
We have almost a fail-proof system to figure out when exactly that person got sensitive to it. Because as a hypothetical, let’s say a supplement was a tincture and it was 30 drops of something, then the person reacts terribly. Unless it’s an allergic reaction, the great chance is that they did not react off just one drop, but they also reacted before 30.
We teach you how to find what is that perfect dose for them, because it’s still a helpful supplement at some level. It’s just maybe not 30, nor might it be one, right? It’s gotta be somewhere in the middle.
Many Resources Provided to Help Students Through the FDN Course
It’s very practical advice. But still to this day, I have not heard that anywhere else. I think the only exception is on the back of the Microbiome Labs bottle with the MegaSpore. They tell you to put that on a slow progression. Nowhere else really has to do those things. I think that makes a lot of sense.
You guys, there’s a lot to this. It is quite a few modules and obviously you just summarized that. But how many hours total is the course? Because I know that you said it’s 16 modules, I don’t think we talked about the actual hour time, especially with these additions to the course.
[00:23:52] Brandy Buskow: Yeah.
If you take into account the time with your mentors, doing your quizzes, doing all of the modules, studying, and then also attending the support calls in the Facebook group, which aren’t mandatory, but we recommend them. There’s the Fridays with Reed, which is called Trainee Study Hour, you can pick his brain and ask as many questions as you want. Then there’s a show with Elizabeth, one of our amazing mentors. She is so smart. She’s so good at teaching. We have an hour show with her on Wednesdays.
If you take all of that into account, it’s about 150 hours’ worth of content. And there’s so much more that you can do if you want to. We’ve got so many resources that you can get access to, but that’s just a baseline to get through the course.
The FDN Course Can Be Done Part-time in Less Than a Year
It seems overwhelming, but you can get through in six to eight months. I took the course with three babies; they were three and under. And I did this while they were napping and at night. I was able to finish it in a year. It’s definitely doable part-time, you do not need to be doing this full-time.
[00:24:52] Detective Ev: I really appreciate you saying that because, listen guys, are there tragedies that happen in life? Sure. That could be an extenuating circumstance where fine, fair enough. I would respectfully call out people though, if you haven’t finished within a year. Just use that as an opportunity to say, okay, maybe am I managing my time the best?
Cause you’re talking really about a handful of hours per week, that, if you break it down by the day (I mean there’s 365 days in a year, right? We’re not suggesting that this takes 365 hours or anywhere even close to that), you don’t even need to really do an hour a day. I think most of us have that.
I’m an efficient person. I know you’re hyper-efficient. I’m sure we still waste time. I see you check out Instagram stories. I know I post on Instagram. If you’re doing that, you got the time for FDN. You’re talking to two people who get a lot done typically in the day.
It can be done. It’s just, it’s the will to do it. It’s actually a blessing that we are able to self-pace it, but for some people that can be the curse. Set it down, get into a study group. Post it on Facebook, post it in the trainee group, hey, anyone just start? Are you on module one? You want to check this out?
Try the FDN Course for Free
Speaking of which, I wanted to mention this while we’re on the show today. Normally I record these afterwards but got to do it right now.
Guys, if you’re listening to this, it’s probably for a reason because the title was pretty indicative of what we’d be talking about today. If you’ve been thinking about the course and you haven’t heard this before, you can actually go to fdntraining.com/tryfdn that’s fdntraining.com/tryfdn.
What we let people do now is try the first module of FDN completely for free, there’s no credit card required. It’s not like you get hit with a payment a month later. The thought process is this, we know for a fact the people that want to do this are out there. You and I were desperate for stuff like this. When we found it, it’s like, yes, thank you.
Why would we not give some of it away for free? Then we’ll know instantly if this person wants to do it or doesn’t want to do it. If you don’t want to do it, no harm, no foul. And if you do want to do it, great. Now you can actually purchase this course and make that investment with confidence that, hey, this is totally worth it for me. This is going to be a good thing.
Can the Investment in the FDN Course be Recouped?
What are some, Brandy, back to you, frequently asked questions that our course advisors are getting a lot?
By the way, if you guys haven’t done that yet, you can schedule a call always from the FDN website, fdntraining.com or functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com. You could actually talk to a course advisor.
And just to be clear, not really consider these people salespeople, right? They’re not doing anything crazy. It’s literally answering questions for people. We will recommend you to other programs if we really find that you’re not a good suit for FDN. So, this is truly an advising call.
What are some of the most frequently asked questions that they’re getting? I know you work a lot closer with that team. Of course, I was on it at one time, but I haven’t been there in a little bit.
[00:27:20] Brandy Buskow: There’s two things. The biggest thing that people are asking is, am I going to be able to make my money back with this program, which is a great question. It’s absolutely an investment.
But anything that you invest in yourself requires work for you to get out what you learned. I can sit here and tell you it’s absolutely worth the investment and that I would pay it again and again and again, because I know what the program can do, and I’ve seen the power of it with my clients. So, can you make back the investment? Absolutely.
If you are a professional right now, if you are a doctor or a chiropractor or even a personal trainer, think about it this way. How many clients are you referring out to somebody else because you don’t have the answers and you can’t help them? You know, is it four? Is it five? Is it 10 a month?
The FDN Course is an Investment That is Worth It
If you could keep those people in your practice and you didn’t have to refer them out because you had the tools to be able to help them, what would that be worth to you? So that’s one thing to think about when it comes to the investment. And it’s not even a big investment if you look at other programs out there, but it is an investment.
If you don’t have a practice, the other side of the coin is, yes, it’s an investment. But one, you get to work on yourself while you’re going through the course. We did not mention this. We include the cost of lab testing for you in your tuition. You get to be your first client. You run the tests on yourself. You do not pay anything out of pocket because it’s included in tuition. You get to be your own walking testimonial to start.
And once you’re done, I think every practitioner will tell you, and if you’ve listened to the stories here, then you know, once we’ve run the tests on ourselves and we’ve started to help ourselves, we are so passionate about it, we’re telling everyone. All you need to do is get three, four, or five clients, maybe, probably less than that, and you pay for the course.
It’s absolutely worth it because, again, it’s helping you not have to go to five different practitioners to figure out what’s going on. So, if this is only for yourself, you’re stopping yourself from having to go to all kinds of practitioners to figure out what’s wrong with you, because you can help yourself. If this is for your kids, same thing. How much money you going to save by not going to 5, 6, 7 other practitioners?
Doing FDN and Loving It
If you want to build a practice, you can help other people stop them from having to go to all of these different coaches and trainers and functional medicine doctors and all of these things. You can actually help them.
That’s the first one. And, Evan, I’m sure you probably got that a lot too when you were answering questions on the course support team.
[00:30:05] Detective Ev: Well, right. And it was actually the funniest thing, I’m sure you’ve gotten this too. The immediate question is, why do you work for FDN?
Like, what am I supposed to say? Because I literally love it this much that I want to be here. That’s the case with people like you and Jennifer Woodward and stuff. I get that, that sounds cheesy or almost unbelievable to people. You can look me up. I do many other things outside of this. I don’t rely on this. It’s something I love doing. Jennifer Woodward said that best to me one time. She’s like, you would never do this for the money. You do this because you love being here, and that’s the bottom line.
My whole answer though is yes. That is something I get often. I think, again, it’s one of those times where you need to know yourself. But we offer pretty much anything for any type of person now.
I guess what I’m getting at is this, when Jo had her episode (and if you haven’t heard that go back for Joe Pate, it’ll say FDNthrive in the title). The reason you want to check that out is because the most efficient route to earning a living with this is starting your own online business.
The FDN Course Offers Additional, Optional Business Programs
Now, could you start something in person? Sure. Could you work for someone else? That is also possible. I’d say the most efficient route and the quickest way is to start an online thing. There’s no overhead, or at least very minimal compared to a brick-and-mortar store. Your advertising can literally be your social media sometimes.
But then of course there’s people that they think, oh, that’s great. I already know who to market this to and talk to. Then there’s others that say, well, wait a second guys. I love this, I’m passionate about this. I’ve never ran a business. You know, I’ve never done anything like that. And that’s okay. That’s why we have these other programs that are completely optional, that you can take after FDN, the course itself, and you can learn that stuff.
I mean, we have the Business School that’s going to be coming out. We already talked about that on the podcast, but there’s going to be a more in-depth episode, really breaking that down, soon. I’m super excited for that. Then if that wasn’t enough for you and you really want to literally, actually be handheld, you can do FDNthrive.
We will take someone (I made a joke with Joe Pate), that’s never even done a lemonade stand in their life and we can teach her how to do this as a real job. There’s really no excuse for that. Other people ask too, are there job opportunities for this? The answer is, yes, and increasingly so. What’s even the cooler part, I think this is a testament, when you see these job listings in AFDNP, are there outside sources sometimes, yes. You’ve seen that.
The FDN Course Can Lead to a Flexible Business
There’s like doctors or chiropractors that want an FDN or Dr. Kyrin Dunstan. But a lot of the times, it’s FDNs whose practice is so successful, now they’re hiring other FDNs. What was that recent listing, $50, $75 an hour for 5 to 10 hours a week of remote work? Not bad guys. Now, when there’s thousands of graduates, I would not bank on just getting those types of jobs. But they do come up. It happens all the time and it’s pretty good money. You can learn from someone else.
I would say the main way to do this though, is to get in business for yourself. And like anything, (I don’t know how much business people have studied before listening to this), business is usually a personal development type of thing, but so is your health journey in many senses. That’s a separate topic, but it kind of is a personal development journey too.
The more that you work on yourself, the more this works. I know this for a fact, the FDN course, there are people out there, our top graduates, there are some, I’m not going to mention names for privacy, but there’s some making a quarter million dollars a year, guys. Then there’s others that make $50,000 a year.
There’s some that do it full-time and literally just want to become crazy with the business of this, take 40 clients a week. Then there’s others that want to do it part-time, supplementally, because it’s close to their heart. The flexibility is up to you. How you run that practice afterwards, FDN trusts you with.
There’s No Excuses with the FDN Course & Subsequent Programs
We teach you a system. We teach you how to take the clients, but you have a lot of freedom and flexibility. We’re not micromanaging people after they’ve done this. There is more than enough ways to make money with this. The last thing I’ll say is perhaps even your own health recovery will be the way that you can make money with this.
I’ve mentioned on here before, I do a lot of speaking in schools and I contribute that to FDN. Well, they say, what do you talk to kids about, FDN? I mean, a little bit, but obviously, usually a 14-year-old doesn’t want to hear what we’re talking about. Hey guys go to bed on time and eat better.
But what I mean by that is if I never got my health under control after 13, 14 years, what FDN did for me, I couldn’t go work that job. I wasn’t even able to work 40 hours a week before the age of like 20. I was just sick, man. I was really sick. So, it gives you that freedom in ways that you might not even think about.
Maybe it is FDN, maybe it’s something else in the similar space that you’re now able to do because you can show up on time and you can have the energy that you need to go pursue that. I know that was long winded, but I hope that’s actually useful though, because there are many opportunities here. I think it’s fair to say at this point, with the development of what we’ve offered in the course and after it, I would almost say there’s no excuses.
The FDN Course + FDN Business School = Thriving Business
We literally give everything that one could possibly need for the business side or whatever. FDN obviously works. There’s thousands of grads doing it, but then the question is, well, did some of them have businesses before? And yes. But again, we help you with that. I really genuinely don’t know anyone, Brandy, that couldn’t figure this out at some point. It could take longer for others, but I mean, you’ve seen this, a lot of people nowadays, already have clients lined up before they even graduate.
[00:35:08] Brandy Buskow: Absolutely. For sure.
That segues into the second question that people ask is, do you give any business training and I’m going to let Jennifer Woodward, our amazing Jennifer Woodward, talk about all the things that are available to you as a post-graduate. But as Evan’s mentioned, and we’ve teased a little bit in this episode, we’ve just created FDN Business School. With FDN Business School, there’s absolutely no reason for you not to have a thriving business.
We take you step by step, from step one to step 10, what you need to do. We give you the tools to, how do you open accounts with supplement companies, lab companies? How do you set up your business? How can you take money? How do you have a call? How do you price your packages? How do you manage your clients?
We give you time management information. We teach you how to make a landing page. We teach you how to make a freebie. You don’t need a website. You don’t need all of these fancy things. We teach you all of that. Like I said, Jennifer’s going to dive deep into FDN Business School, but you know, we’ve created all of the tools available to you.
The FDN Course Admission is Worth it
The question really is, how dedicated are you? If you follow the steps and you do the work, you can have a successful business. Now we can’t spoon-feed you clients. I know everybody would love that. We can’t do that. But we give you all the tools that you need. Again, just from the perspective, like Evan, like you said, just being able to allow yourself to heal and learn what’s wrong with you and feel better, that is worth the price of admission alone.
Because, if you think about it, if you continue on the path that you’re on, maybe you’re not feeling well. Maybe you’ve got Hashimoto’s, maybe whatever. How was that going to impact you financially, mentally, emotionally with your family 5, 10, 20 years from now? You know, are your medical bills going to be high? Are you going to be losing work? Are you not going to be able to participate in life?
Even if you’re terrified of starting a business, but you’re looking at the investment to help yourself, think about it from that perspective. It could change your life. And I agree with you, Evan, everybody who works for FDN, also has a practice on the side. It’s not because we don’t have a successful practice, we just love FDN so much that we want to share it with the world. Everybody loves what they do here.
The Medical System Will Take from You Until Nothing’s Left
[00:37:26] Detective Ev: When you’ve seen the things that a lot of us have seen in ourselves or our family members, hits us even differently.
We’ve all been through some crap. It’s a lot different when, you know, I’m 13, 14 years old and watching my mom go to the hospital all the time. No one’s diagnosing her. I don’t know anything about this. Then (I hope it’s okay for me to say, she’s been on the podcast before), I eventually find out when I get older that my mom and dad spent over a hundred thousand dollars in conventional medicine, trying to figure this out.
It didn’t work. It led to her thyroid being removed and her on a lifelong medication now, because she doesn’t have a thyroid. Kind of an important organ. You know what I mean? That’s what this system will end up doing for the chronic disease people and those not in an emergency situation.
God forbid this was someone’s first time listening, I mean, we could not promote Western medicine more. We’re very rational in our functional perspective. We have doctors on all the time that go through FDN. Western medicine is fantastic for the emergencies, but for many people in that chronic disease space, that system, not the doctors, the system, will take your money until you don’t have any left. You’re left saying like, what the heck just happened to me?
I don’t mean to be pessimistic. I don’t mean to be dark. It doesn’t take too long to find people that’s happened to. All you gotta do is listen to any one of our episodes here. My parents did not have a hundred thousand dollars. I don’t think they had $25,000 to be spending on this.
Course Admission Can Be Recouped in One to Three Clients
It’s really one of those things where I don’t know if I’m just that biased because it really was that impactful for me, both income wise and health wise. But to me, when I was on the sales calls sometimes, I’m like, what are we talking about here, guys? Like 6, 7, 8 grand for this?
I wish I could show them how much this was worth it. I’m like you could make that back in three clients. Some of the people that are doing this for years, they’ll make that back in one or two clients. These people will pay this amount for what we’re doing here. Again, I have my bias, anyone listening, I’ll fully admit that. I think it’s a bias that’s at least justified because it’s true.
Without this, I might’ve ended up on disability by the time I was 19, 20, I mean, forget making money. I would have just been living off the government for that. And if someone has to do that, I’m not condemning it. I didn’t have to do that because of FDN. Of course, I want to go live my life free and do what I can and impact people. I think that’s a wonderful thing. I love our passion.
We kind of got off on some side things here. So, we’ll wrap this up, Brandy. We talked about the beginning of the course. Anyone can join, but don’t think that makes it a hundred percent easy, right? Go in with the mindset that you’re going to study. All different backgrounds come in. It doesn’t matter if you’re a doctor or a personal trainer or you’ve never done a certification or degree in this space before.
How to Finish Up in FDN
We just had Xiaoyun Pan on recently, she was an engineer. She had two master’s degrees in engineering. A pretty smart woman. But she had no background in the health stuff and she did FDN, right? So, all different types of people come in.
We talked about how to start. We talked about the overview. What does this course actually look like? How are we going to learn it? And when we get that mentorship. The direct mentorship’s latter in the course, as Brandy said in summary. But the Facebook mentorship, and those Live calls, that’s week one. You can join that right away.
Now we should talk about how we kind of finish up here. You know, if there is so much respect for FDNs, I think anyone that’s kind of thinking and using your head would realize, well, there must be pretty good testing and actually qualifying people. So, how do I actually finish up this course? How will I graduate? What is that going to look like?
[00:40:33] Brandy Buskow: Sure.
Once you’ve gone through all of your practical sessions, you have a written exam. You submit your written exam and once you’ve passed with at least a B, you have to get at least a B, then you have a final verbal or oral exam.
You’re getting tested on the concepts that you learned in the course. Don’t be afraid. So many people are terrified of the session, but that’s the purpose of the practicals with your mentors is to prepare you for that written exam and to prepare you for the final oral exam. We have very few people who don’t pass because we prepare you so well.
After the FDN Course, is AFDNP
So, there’s a written, there’s an oral. Once you’ve passed both of them (and you find out when you’re in the call on the oral exam, they’ll say, congratulations, you’ve passed. You don’t have to wait anytime for that.), then you get to book a postgraduate interview with either myself or Jennifer Woodward, where it’s your opportunity to give us your feedback on your experience in the course.
We take that very, very seriously. We talk to every single one of you and we ask all of you the same question. What do you think that we could do better to give you a better experience as a student? We keep notes on every single person and those notes are what helps us to make better improvements to the course.
I will tell you, in the two and a half years that I’ve been doing postgraduate interviews, I haven’t had one negative comment, not one. Not one person even telling me, I wish I never would have enrolled in this course, it wasn’t worth it. I’ve never had anybody tell me that. That does speak volumes to the experience that people have.
Once you graduate, that’s when you move on. And like Evan said, it’s not mandatory, but it’s optional and we highly encourage it, that you join the Association of FDN Professionals. That’s our post-graduate support group. Jennifer Woodward and her team supports you in getting your practice started to get you going. You also get clinical support in there as well.
FDN Encouragingly Nudges You Along to Effective Service
So, once you graduate, it’s not like you’re left on your own and you’re like, okay, figure it out. We have clinical advisors in there that are there to help answer your questions. Everybody else in that group wants to help you. FDNs, aren’t like, well, I’m not going to help you because then that means I don’t get clients. No, you post questions in there and everybody’s jumping in. They want you to be successful.
So, you get support post-graduation as well. Again, I’m going to let Jennifer talk more about that in her podcast with you. A little tease for you guys to wait for that episode to come out, because she’s going to go over all the amazing post-graduate support we offer.
[00:43:08] Detective Ev: That’s a great explanation. The one thing I want to add is we don’t mess around in the beginning. When you sign up, you could literally do that today if you were already interested, and you can start working on the course in five minutes. Similarly, when you graduate, we’re not messing around either.
Within, what, usually it’s about 48 hours business-wise, you are going to have access to the medical director program, which is how we facilitate these lab orders. That’ll make a lot more sense if you’re in the course. But that’s how we get access to these things so you’re ready to go. You can get to work; you can start doing this stuff.
FDN is very efficient in that way. It’s like, all right, let’s get you in. Cool get started. You do this at the pace you want. All right, you finished up, you did what you’re supposed to do. Great. Go do the work and go actually help other people.
AFDNP Alone is Worth the FDN Course Admission
Yes, we will talk about AFDNP more. I used to say this when I was doing the course advising calls, genuinely, if you use AFDNP, I don’t understand how that’s not worth the price of tuition. I can go in at any time and ask the mentors clinical questions that are rather tough, in addition to the Live calls that are being done. There’s multiple Live calls every single week.
If I have a client that paid me two or three grand, and the question that gets answered is the reason that they fully got to where they wanted to be, now they’re super happy, versus, maybe they were stuck on a really tricky thing. It just happened to be a tricky client. That is worth a lot of money to me, you know? There’s so much value at FDN. I always think it should be more, but I would encourage people to do this while they can.
The one thing I will add just to kind of finish up for today and then I’ll pass it back to you, if you have anything else. For those that are listening, I think some people might be thinking this way, they’re like, well, wait a second, if so much gets added to the course over time, how does that work for someone like me or you who graduated?
What year were you again?
Brandy Buskow: 2014.
Detective Ev: Jeez. Okay.
I was 2017. We got some OGs here. Then there’s people on the podcast that are like, 2012 and stuff. It’s nuts. So long-term, FDNs here. We didn’t have to pay anything extra to get that additional course content. It’s a lifetime price. I can’t believe he does that, but that’s just something that we do.
The FDN Course is Increasing in Value Every Year
So, all of that 20%, 30% new information that came in the last probably five years, or maybe it’s even more, I don’t know, at least that, I can go access right now, the day that it comes out, and I don’t have to pay anything else.
Does FDN go up over time? Yes, as it should, because there’s plenty of stuff being added. But FDN also increases in value every single year, if not every single six months. When you get in, you’re literally getting like a best price for 5, 10 years from now. I’m so glad I started when I did, it was a no brainer. I’m sure someone else is going to be saying that five years from now that maybe signed up today or tomorrow. I think that’s worth mentioning.
Now, I love how you and I end up still talking for almost 50 minutes anyway because we have such a good rapport. Brandy and I work with each other all the time. I want to make sure we didn’t miss anything. We definitely talked about prerequisites. We gave that course overview. We talked about exiting and stuff.
And if you guys want a full course overview, click on this link: www.functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com/course-tour/. You’ll be able to see it. Brandy’s going to do a screen share, and like literally show you what this course looks like.
The FDN Course Has a Recertification Process, Every 2 Years
[00:46:05] Brandy Buskow: You can get access to the course tour and see all the behind the scenes and get all your questions answered.
[00:46:09] Detective Ev: Okay, cool. We encourage you to do that.
Is there anything that we still need to say today or that we missed?
[00:46:15] Brandy Buskow: The only other thing, and you kind of brought it up, which is really important is, we do have a recertification process. Once you’ve graduated, every two years, you are required to recertify, which is a very nominal fee and six hours of continuing education. The reason that we do that is we want to make sure that you are staying active in the space and in the health field.
It doesn’t have to be FDN advanced courses. It could be any course in the health field. That is just to ensure that you’re staying active and staying up to date. Being up to date with your recertification is what ensures you to get access to all of these updates that Evan talked about.
So, if you enrolled in 2008, when Reed did his first course, and you’ve kept your certificate up to date every two years, you have all the access to everything that we’ve ever added to the course and all of the amazing bonuses and extra content, which is another really big differentiator between us and other programs. We did a recent review of all the programs out there, and we’re one of the very few that gives you that ability to have access to updates without paying more money.
The Nominal Recertification Fee is Minimal
[00:47:21] Detective Ev: Yeah. That’s absolutely true. My other certification didn’t do that. They actually closed me out after a year.
Again, I’m not the businessperson. I almost think it’s a little like too generous. So, use it while you can, guys. If it’s too generous take advantage of it.
Just to be clear for people, because I know that it might change in the future, I guess, but at the time of recording this, the nominal fee that Brandy said is only $99, guys. We’re talking literally, my gosh, that averages like $4 a month if you did it that way over two years. I think that’s pretty fair if you’re going to get the course increase.
I think it’s actually worth saying that price, right? Because if you hear, like, nominal fee, I know you would never think about it this way, because you’re just such a genuine person. I’m thinking in my head like, oh my God, maybe she means like $700. No guys, it’s 99. Like it’s really nothing.
Well, also, we should say, if you’re in AFDNP, check Jennifer Woodward’s episode when it’s out, that meets your continuing education requirements.
[00:48:09] Brandy Buskow: You don’t have to take anything in addition.
[00:48:12] Detective Ev: I don’t really know what else you want, but literally they try to give you guys everything.
Brandy, thank you so much for hopping on here with me today. If you guys go through the course eventually and get to the other side and you’re in the graduates’ thing, you’ll see Brandy all the time interacted with us, especially as people who are staff members, of course. But you’ll see more of her then too.
I thank you for getting on.
Conclusion
If you guys are interested in Brandy’s story, definitely go check that out in the fourth episode.
Then of course, as a reminder, if now at this point, you’re saying, all right, I definitely want to try the first module of the course, you go to fdntraining.com/tryfdn, no credit card required. Try it out and let us know what you think one way or the other.
Thank you, guys, so much.
Brandy Buskow: Thanks, Evan.
Detective Ev: Okay. That’ll wrap it up for today’s episode with Brandy Buskow, head honcho at FDN. If you guys want to hear her full story, please go to episode number four, check it out there.
If you are interested in learning more about our Summer Open House and all the events that we have going on, it is still June, if you’re listening to this even remotely close to when it was published. So, there is still time. Go to fdntraining.com/summer that’s fdntraining.com/summer.
Then of course, if you are interested in the full course tour where there’s visuals, it’s very focused. We walk you through the entire thing so that you know what you’re getting before you choose to sign up for FDN. If that’s what you want to do, then go to www.functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com/course-tour/ and you will be able to check out the course tour there.
Well, next time that we’re back together, I will have another interview for you guys. But until that time, take care.
