Introduction
[00:00:00] Detective Ev: We’re going to be talking about income as a health coach, income as an FDN, different tips and tricks. How much money can you actually make doing this? Then of course, if you guys have any questions, you can drop them below if you are Live. Even if you’re not Live and you’re watching the recording, you can also drop questions because we do go back to these things.
We have real people on our Instagram. We do not have a chat bot or something like that. We get why certain businesses do that, but we prefer to have a real human interaction with you guys. So anytime you reach out in our DMs, we have that as well. All right, so I’m going to get started here in, how about now?
Oh, cool. We got more people joining in. Drop where you’re from below if you’re watching Live. From Columbia! Oh, living in Italy! Two cool places right there. So thanks for letting me know.
We wanted to talk about why certain things make money and some things don’t, right? Because I believe FDN Practitioners/health coaches are in a really good position right now, and there’s stats to back that up. We actually have a whole blog that we wrote on this. So, if you drop the word “blog” below in the comments, whether it’s during the recording or after, we will make sure to send that over to you.
We share some references there. Share statistics about how much health coaches are actually making right now because they’re doing surprisingly well both independently and when they do jobs for other people.
Potential Income: Formula Explaining Health Coaching Success
But this was a formula that I learned at a really young age, and I’m so thankful that I did. This is something that you could apply to almost anything in your life if you decide to get out of the industry completely, which I’m not sure why you would do that in this day and age. But if you did, you could still apply this to other places.
I wish I had my little whiteboard with me, but we’re currently moving so I got the back of this notebook. That’s how much I love you guys. I’m going to taint the back of my notebook even though I’m sure you guys are like me and love these different notebooks. The formula is going to explain exactly why health coaching and FDN makes sense. The reason FDN health coaches are making money right now is because of this formula.
So, we have perceived value. Perceived Value is going to be the first thing, and that is times Replaceability. I think that has an “i” in it. You don’t need to spell well to make good money, let me tell you this. Perceived Value times Replaceability. Then it is times The Number of People Who Can Get that Value. So again, forgive my handwriting, but this is going to be a good formula.
And if you truly understand this, not that I’m some financial expert, but I was lucky enough to have this taught to me by people who are doing very well for themselves. Then it makes very clear sense to why FDN and health coaching is a great thing to be doing right now. Perceived value times replaceability times the number of people that can receive the value. What does that actually mean?
Perceived Value
This is exactly why celebrities make more than teachers, even though a lot of people think this isn’t fair. By the way, I’m not advocating for the fairness of this one way or another. That’s way beyond my pay grade. I’m showing you a formula that actually works. It’s something that I’ve applied to my life. It’s helped me tremendously. Then it helps you make sense of the whole health coaching and FDN thing.
Let’s talk about Perceived Value really quick. And we’re going to use another example first just so the health coaching thing makes sense. Let’s use that celebrity and teacher example really quick cause that’s the classic one.
Why are these celebrities and basketball players and stuff making all this money when teachers don’t make enough? Well, again, I’m not arguing the fairness of this, but here is why. The Perceived Value of a teacher is objectively higher to an individual than a basketball player.
If I’m watching the NBA, let’s use Kobe Bryant, he was a total legend. So, Kobe Bryant, great basketball player. But no one is going to argue that to the individual, a great teacher that you had in high school wasn’t more valuable to you than watching Kobe Bryant on the TV. So, the perceived value of the teacher is actually higher than that of Kobe Bryant.
[00:03:38] Detective Ev: Yet Kobe made millions and most teachers do not make anywhere near that.
Replaceability & The Number of People Who Can Receive that Value
We need to go to the rest of the formula. Well now we’re multiplying it by Replaceability. When we multiply it by Replaceability, we see, okay, well there’s only one Kobe Bryant. He’s a personality. He made a name for himself. He’s one of the best in the world. So, you have that as well.
But then here’s one of the key things that people really miss. It is the number of people that can receive that perceived value. With Kobe Bryant, the difference is you have a low amount, really, it’s just entertainment value, for a couple of hours on the weekends or maybe weeknights whenever they play. But the replaceability was, I mean, nearly impossible to replace him. He’s going to live in spirit forever.
Then the number of people that can receive that value. This is really where these celebrities and stuff make their fortunes. He can give a little bit of value to millions of people on a weekly basis, or he could do this at one time. This is why the income kept pouring in for him.
Whereas a teacher, even though we would consider their job more valuable in society, did not make as much. So, how do we apply this to health coaching, FDN, all this type of stuff? Well, let’s take the average health coach. The average health coach is someone, I mean, the traditional definition here, that’s what I’m using. I’m not saying every health coach is like this.
A Traditional Health Coach
By the way, for those just tuning in, you guys can ask any questions you want below. We’re talking about income as a health coach, income as an FDN. And if you drop the word “blog” in the comments, whether it’s Live or you’re watching afterwards, we’re going to actually send you a blog that we did.
It had a lot of success. People really loved it, and it has statistics and data showing you that we are actually doing really well in the health coaching industry right now and why it might be a viable thing for you to pursue if you are kind of struggling for income or maybe you’re in a job transition or you’re just scared of the times. We get that. But this is still a pretty good thing.
We have the formula, and then let’s plug health coaching in. The traditional definition of a health coach is typically someone who is working with an individual to help them on their health goals, right? If you actually look up what health coaches do, that’s typically how it’s defined.
If they work in a doctor’s office, for example, they might be the person that’s not writing prescriptions. They’re not even really giving protocols as a health coach. But they might be helping the individual or the patient engage in the things that the doctor asked them to engage in. So, whether it’s staying on course with the medication, or maybe they, God forbid, recommended some lifestyle or dietary changes, they can help them with that.
The Value of a Health Coach
Now, for most of us that are watching something like this, especially, or following the FDN page, we would like to do a little more than that. But let’s not discredit it, that job has a lot of value. I mean, what are all the labs and all the information worth if the person can’t even pursue those things and actually stick to them? They’re worth literally nothing then, it’s just information.
So, you take a health coach, and the perceived value is actually kinda high. Most of us procrastinate. Most of us can’t stick to what we start. If you have someone that can actually do this for you, the perceived value is fairly high. But you’re not getting rid of any really severe health issues that way, not just by being a health coach at least.
So, that’s not as valuable as it could be. The Replaceability, I mean, these are online certifications. Not that FDN isn’t, but I’ll explain why it’s a little different soon. The Replaceability, well, anyone can go do most health coaching certification, so they’re becoming more and more abundant. I mean, there’s tens of thousands of these types of health coaches out there.
The number of people that can receive that value while assuming they’re working one-on-one with clients, it’s only one individual who can perceive that value. This is still working out really well for a lot of health coaches. But what if there were other ways where you can kind of add value to the client to greatly raise your perceived value? And if there were different things that you can do to make your replaceability that much harder, it would make you that much harder to replace.
Perceived Value of an FDN Practitioner
I think that’s why a lot of people that go through health coaching certifications, totally not myself, then pursue FDN. I’m kidding, but I’ve said this before, I am one of those people.
I got a health coaching certification, and I liked that certification. It was great, but I didn’t feel like I had the tools to go out and help people. So, there’s many aspects there of why I was making $0 when I did that.
But then I pursued FDN. And FDN, what it did is my perceived value goes through the roof. Because instead of just being able to help someone follow a goal or a prescription medication schedule that was given to them, I’m now able to be a health detective, right?
I can actually look at labs that even doctors are not trained to look at because doctors are really trained primarily to use blood work, and I’m talking general practitioners here. They’re trained to use blood work; they’re looking for just highs and lows in the reference range. They’re not actually trained to look for hidden stressors and clues on these labs. They don’t even utilize most of the labs that we use despite the labs having a scientific basis.
So, the perceived value becomes extremely high because there’s actually only so many people that can do this. That’s the replaceability, right? There’s only several thousand FDNs walking around, and there are millions and millions and millions, I mean, literally hundreds of millions of people who need this work.
You could argue that anyone could take FDN and that would be accurate. But by the time that actually happens, that this space is saturated, you would’ve done probably just fine for yourself that I think you’d be well within retirement.
FDNs’ Perceived Value is Through the Roof
I don’t know if we have to worry about the replaceability thing, although I would acknowledge that yes, one day you could make the case that anyone could do this. So, it would be kind of replaceable. But where this is a little different than a normal health coaching certification too, if you think about it, is labs, deep science, data. I mean, sure anyone can sign up, but it’s not necessarily for everyone. I think you guys know what I mean.
There’s a lot of these cute health certifications out there. You maybe do two hours of work each week. You’re not even allowed to go ahead in the course, and basically everyone graduates, right? It’s like a little metal for participation, kind of, let’s just call it what it is. I mean, that’s what happened to me. That’s really the experience I had.
No one’s grading me, really. No one was checking up on me and seeing that I actually knew the information. They just said, Okay, he did some modules, he must know this stuff. So of course, my perceived value was low. I wasn’t even being monitored.
Whereas FDNs, you’re going to have to train hard, you’re going to have to study hard. Sure, anyone can join in, but you’re going to have to prove yourself to make sure that you actually are going to get access to our medical directors, who are going to let you facilitate these lab orders through them for your clients. That’s not just anyone getting to do that. So of course, the replaceability is a little tougher here and the perceived value is through the roof.
Replaceability of FDNs is Really Tough
How many people do you know would benefit from something like getting lab testing analyzed by someone who’s thinking from a holistic perspective? It’s probably about eight out of 10 people that you know, I would imagine.
True. We study hard. Yes, we do, that’s for sure. And Jo said it’s worth it. It’s absolutely worth it. That’s why all of us are so passionate about this. But that’s the point, right? Some things in life it’s worth working for. That’s why these people study so hard to become doctors and lawyers. There’s a payout on the other side.
And in terms of the payout for health coaches, FDNs, and these types of professionals, if you want to learn more about this, we wrote a great blog on it. So, if you haven’t already, drop the word “blog” below in the comments. And even if we’re not Live, we’ll have someone reach out to you and send you the blog that we did because a lot of people liked this. There’s data and statistics to back up what we’re talking about and how well the health coaching industry is doing, let alone the FDN industry.
So, the last thing on here was the number of people who can receive that perceived value. Well, if you’re working one-on-one with an FDN, by definition you’re working one-on-one. That’s not a lot of people. But thankfully, the perceived value was really high. Right? And the replaceability, at least at this time, is pretty tough. There’s not a lot of FDNs walking around. There’s not an FDN in every town. There’s not even an FDN necessarily in every city, I would imagine. Although we are getting close, that’s pretty cool.
Potential Income: Add Group Programs into the Mix
But each FDN can only work with so many people at a time. It leaves it to be a space where many of us can participate and still get a piece of the pie, help other people. It’s a really cool thing.
But now we could talk about how people get into group programs. There are FDNs out there. You know, sometimes I’m a little hesitant to even say these things cause I feel like it’s so cool that it sounds unbelievable. But they put it in the blog so there’s no reason I can’t say it.
I’m the only one in Norway, I think. Well, here’s the point, Vanessa, right? If there’s so few FDNs in Norway that you think you’re the only one, that means it’s not saturated in any sense. That’s really good. And that’s a big country. That’s actually one of the places my girlfriend and I want to visit first. Europe, we want to go to Oslo one day.
So, the group programs, people are killing it with this. We have FDNs legitimately speaking, that are making $70,000 a month from the group programs that they offer. And it’s because they have a high perceived value. They’re not really that easy to replace. And on top of it, the number of people that they can affect at one time goes up almost unlimited depending on how many people they can bring into the group.
So, does that make sense how this formula works? Again, I’m not arguing whether it’s fair or whether we should change something in society. I’m just telling you how to use it because it was taught to me and it’s working really well.
Potential Income: Raise our Mindset and our Income
It’s why as a public speaker, I mean, this works out well for me. I can go give perceived value to hundreds of people, if not a thousand at one time. The replaceability is a little tough cause most people hate public speaking. The number of people who can get the value of course, is a lot and the perceived value is pretty good depending on the topic. This is what allows us to make good money as FDNs.
And Reed Davis, the founder of FDN, I don’t know if you guys know this, he actually has a goal. He believes that every single FDN should be shooting for a hundred thousand dollars a year, assuming that they want to do it full time after graduating. It’s so weird how our mindset can limit this or perceive that number one way or another.
Cause some people will say like, I can never make six figures. Then half of us are out here like, my gosh, in the world we live in today, six figures is like the new 50,000. Right? I’m not saying that in an insulting way to someone who doesn’t make six figures. I’m just saying I think we need to elevate our mindset a little bit. We need to set that as the standard for ourselves.
I mean, the food’s going up, the gas is going up. I’m not saying that to scare anyone, but we have tools that we can use to actually raise our income and we need to engage with those. If the rest of the world’s going to go up, and maybe the boss you have right now in a separate field isn’t paying you more, well, you need to do something then and take action to get more money, more income.
Potential Income: Taking it to the Next Level
The only way you can do that is by providing more perceived value to more people. That’s the only way that you can do that ethically, at least. We recommend doing it ethically, that’s for sure. That’s a good way to live your life.
So FDN, I mean, just the fact that Reed has the basis, the goal for everyone, people need us now more than ever, of course. And I’m actually going to talk about in a second how this is one of the things that people will spend money on, even if they don’t have a lot of money.
But to finish that original point, Reed talks about all the time, like that goal being a hundred thousand dollars a year mark. If that’s his goal for the average FDN, I mean, imagine if you want to be not average.
Maybe you want to put in an extra five hours a week or a couple hours a day. Maybe you want to work on yourself in a personal development sense, and you want to work on your personality, your ability to speak on camera, your ability to close on a sales call, your ability to market yourself. This is the base for the average FDN. We’re not talking about the people that want to take it to the next level.
Because the people that take it to the next level, we’ve seen them do half a million dollars a year. We’ve seen them do $70,000 a month. I mean, it’s kind of crazy what we can do here because there’s multiple ways to do it.
Potential Income: Multiple Ways to do FDN
You could work one-on-one; you could work in groups with people. Of course, you could speak or write a book on the topic. The book stuff, I wouldn’t underestimate that. You might not make money off the book itself, but the book can be a great business card of sorts to get you those speaking gigs and to get you one-on-one clients. A lot of people like writing about their stories, so it’s kind of cool.
Now if you’re just tuning in and want to know what we’re talking about today, we are discussing income as a health coach, income as an FDN. You can actually drop any questions that you might have below. I’d be happy to answer them. And we have some other FDNs on that might be able to assist there as well.
Then on top of that, if you want some of the statistics that we’re referencing, because there’s a lot of money being made in the health coaching industry right now. It’s doing really well, and most people can’t even do what we do as FDNs in the health coaching space. We’re like high, high level health coaches. I don’t even necessarily think it’s fair to call us health coaches, but it’s good for marketing purposes, I’ll put it that way.
So, you can drop the word “blog” below and we will actually get you that blog that we sent out to our email list. It did really well. People really liked it because it showed you real stuff and real reasons as to why health coaching is a great thing to be pursuing right now.
Too Unhealthy to Make Any Money
Jo Pate also said in the comments, people need us now more than ever, and that was one of the things I wanted to touch on. The world is getting sicker. We do not need any studies to know that. I mean, you could see it, but of course there are studies to back it up.
The point of me mentioning that is people will spend the last bit of money that they have on health stuff. Now, I’m not saying that we do that to take their last penny. That’s ridiculous. The reason I’m saying this is because they actually need to get healthy to make more money and to do good things in life.
You may have heard my story before if you listen to the Health Detective Podcast, which we do for FDN. I was an 18-year-old guy who barely could put in a 40-hour work week, cause I felt so terrible, and it was getting worse and worse. I had a disease diagnosis at one point, that could have qualified me for disability if I gave it enough time. I know what it’s like to not be able to make any money because someone is so unhealthy. That was me.
You could actually switch this around. People look at this as an investment when they’re not healthy because they’re like, Dude, I can’t do anything anyway. I need to just put in my money for this. Maybe I need it for the credit card.
Potential Income: People Need Us Now More Than Ever
Again, I’m not really for taking people’s last penny unless I know for a fact in my heart that I can help that person ethically. I can get them to that next level so that, yeah, maybe they spent $3,000, $4,000. $5,000 with me and with the labs. But I know that I can turn that into a six-figure job for them when they’re able to be healthy again and happy in their relationships, right?
People need us now more than ever. There’s more sick people out there than ever before. We have unique answers that, man, if we go back to that formula regarding the replaceability. And if you’re just tuning in, you could watch the replay because it’ll be saved and posted on our Instagram.
We are really hard to replace right now. There is not many people doing what we’re doing and getting the results that we’re getting. That’s why FDN saw so much growth in the last 10 years, let alone the last two years with the pandemic and everything going on. So, don’t underestimate even during a recession, even during tough financial times, people’s ability and willingness to spend the money on things that matter if they know that we can help.
Jo Pate said they can spend that much and more just searching for answers and get them nowhere.
Potential Income: They’ll Spend it to Get Real Answers
Yeah. This is something I always kind of shared. It’s really sad for my family but my mom always has given me permission to share it. My mom and dad, because of my mom’s undiagnosed thyroid disease and all the other things that came with it, cause it’s not like Western medicine treated that particularly well, they spent over a hundred thousand dollars on her health.
And my parents, I mean, they work their butts off. They didn’t have a hundred thousand dollars to spend, if you know what I mean. There are people out there all the time that would kill to find someone that they only have to spend three to five grand with depending on how you structure your packages. They’ll love to spend that with you. They’ll literally put it on the credit card just to get those answers so that they can get back to their life.
Someone said, health is priceless. Yeah, that’s absolutely the case.
And hi to all the people that are just tuning in. We’re talking about income as health coaches, income as FDNs. If you have any questions, you can drop them in the comments.
Or you could drop the word “blog”. You might have seen a bunch of people doing that. The reason they were doing that is because we’ll send you in your DMs, (I think that’s how we’ll send it to you; I don’t know how else we would), we’ll send you the blog that did really well lately and it was all about how great the health coaching industry is doing, data and statistics on how much money average health coaches are making, let alone FDNs.
Potential Income: FDNs are Above Average and Worth It
You know, a shameless plug, I do think FDNs are a little above the average health coach in terms of the value we’re able to provide to people. Someone else said it’s worth it to find real answers. I would’ve never found what was going on in my body without this. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s what it is, right?
I’m working with a client right now. This person is someone who, I want to be vague cause I’ve never asked them if I could share anything yet. It’s someone who struggles with severe mental health stuff and other like acne type of things. This individual works as a self-employed person. They’re a sole proprietor, right? They have their own business. It’s not like a brick-and-mortar thing, but they do work for themselves.
When you work for yourself, man, and you’re sick, it’s one of the scariest things because you are the one that needs to show up constantly. I’m not saying this in a way of condemning them, I’m showing you what people will do. I’m actually impressed with this person. This person is an adult, and they had their mom pay for this stuff that we’re doing. And I don’t feel bad taking that cause I know how much we’re able to help this person.
We were on the consult together just last night and he was so thankful about the things that I was showing him and how we can get him better so he can go make that money and pay it back.
Are any herbal remedies taught in the course? Yeah, to a degree. Cause we’re really big on intelligent supplementation and a lot of our supplements do teach herbal things.
Herbalism
But if you really want to dive deep into herbalism, one of the things that you can do after you take the main FDN course is one of our advanced courses is actually in herbalism. You can take a whole intensive on herbalism offered, one of our teachers. So pretty cool. And you can get really nerdy with that if you want. Great question.
That’s not an advanced course that’s actually talked about that often. It’s one that I haven’t gone through. I’ve heard tremendous things about that. We have a few FDN clinical advisors that are herbalist. It’s fascinating to me what they know about certain mixtures and how like this supplement interacts with that supplement.
So, if you’re just tuning in, we’re talking about income as a health coach, income as an FDN. Ask any questions that you got. I’m kind of going through some stuff and then I will tune out if the questions stop. Or, alternatively, you can drop the word “blog” below because what we’ve been doing for people is sending out this blog that did really well on our email list.
The reason it did well is cause we provided a bunch of data and statistics regarding how well the health coaching industry is doing right now and different options for people.
So, one other thing I wanted to share today is different ways to make money as an FDN or as a health coach. Obviously, we talked about you could do group programs or you could speak, or you could just work with people one-on-one.
Potential Income: FDNs Hiring FDNs
But there’s also opportunities that don’t necessarily involve doing your own thing. Thankfully, there are increasing opportunities to work for other people. We have a lot of graduates out there. We have a lot of graduates that are actually doing this as work. As they have more and more success, who do you think they hire when they need someone to help support them in their practice? They go to FDN.
All of the time now we have people posting in our professionals’ group, which is something you can get access to after you graduate. It’s like our tight-knit community where we help each other with advanced business training, money-mindset, a bunch of health stuff that’s just part for the course. They’ll go in there and they’re hiring FDNs right now.
I saw one listing, they were hiring an FDN for $75 an hour. This is going and working for someone else, for just completing the FDN course. I say “just” as if it’s like something you do over the weekend. I mean, it’s not that. But compared to most other things that would be required to make $75 an hour, I think an eight-month, nine-month course is a pretty reasonable thing for people.
I actually don’t think I’ve shared this on here yet. Because of the economy, people are a little scared, right? So, it’s easy for me to say as someone who’s been doing FDN for years that, oh yeah, everyone should do FDN or health coaching or whatever. It’s a good industry. But the people in my life are better proof of that.
Health is a Precious & Prioritized Commodity
My girlfriend just started pursuing FDN about a month and a half ago because she sees where everything is going, and she believes that this is a great way to make money still.
One of my best friends in the world, he was a chemist. Smartest guy I know, literally. Analytical chemist, and he ended up leaving his job, which we’re not necessarily suggesting you go quit your job to do FDN. Make the money with FDN first, and then if you want to transition out of the job, that could be a good thing to do. But he just said he had a bunch of savings, so he said, you know what? Screw it. I hate this. I’m out of this.
Now he’s pursuing FDN as well. Outside of the fact that it’s really cool to have one of my best friends and my girlfriend be going through FDN, I think it shows that there’s real belief in this. They see me, they see my life and the things I get to do with my colleagues, and they know that this is something that, I mean, the world would have to completely collapse for us to go out of business. Then you got bigger problems than just income.
But the point is, in terms of the scale of jobs and how they would kind of go and go and go if economic downturn really continues to happen, we’re one of the last because people need to be healthy. People want to feel well, they want to have good libido, they want to have clear skin. They don’t want to be dealing with mental health issues all the time. This is one of the first things that people will prioritize.
Potential Income: FDN Gives Grads Confidence to Go Do This
Thanks for everyone who’s joining. Again, if you have any questions, you could feel free to drop them below. You can ask anything about FDN or just ask anything about the income mindset and all the things that can be done with the FDN program.
Let me see if there was anything else I wanted to talk to you guys about today. Oh yeah, of course. The story of Christa Lyons, someone I just interviewed for the Health Detective Podcast. If you don’t listen to that, that’s usually the main place I’m found at FDN. You can check that out.
Christa talked about how she was a health coach for years. Then in FDN, one year after graduating, she went up four times in income. But I appreciated her humility and transparency with this. She said Ev, it wasn’t actually that even just FDN allowed me to take on so much more clients or just charge more in and of itself. She said it allowed me to take on clients because I actually felt that I could help them.
That’s another way that FDN and the right health coaching program can help with income is feeling like you actually know what the heck you’re doing. Because how many of us have graduated from a certification and we’re like, Yeah, I got my piece of paper. Then you’re like, okay I have no idea what I’m doing.
We want something that actually gives us the confidence to go out and charge money so that we can make income. That’s important too. And FDN is definitely a program for that.
Potential Income: FDN Business School
Taylor said, Does the program help you build a business? Great question. FDN focuses on this a ton nowadays.
Now, to be clear, in the main FDN course, we do not have extensive business training. We teach you how to take on a client, onboard them, and stuff like that. But we’re not talking about the marketing side of things or all the other complexities of it.
But because people like you and like me, admittedly, wanted to know more about the FDN business side of things, or like how do we do this as a business, we now have a Business School, which is extremely cheap and affordable compared to the FDN course and for what it offers. You can DM us and ask about that, and we’ll get a real human talking to you about what we do in the business side of things.
Also, I have an episode with the person, Jennifer Woodward, who created FDN Business School. She’s an FDN herself. That episode’s on the Health Detective Podcast, so that’s Episode 173. If you go and search on Apple or Spotify, you can listen to that episode and what we offer there.
But basically, what this is, Taylor, is a business school for FDNs that takes someone who might not even know the taxes involved with business, they’ve never sold anything even at a lemonade stand. It can take them in 90 days to someone who has all of the things set up, the emails, the website, the marketing side of things. What do I say on a call when I talk to someone? How do I get leads to even talk to someone to begin with?
Potential Income: FDNthrive for Real World Experience
Jennifer said in her own words, she wanted this to be designed to be something that someone could come in, doesn’t have a shred of business experience, and after those 90 days knows what they’re doing, feels confident with it, and can actually go start charging clients and making a living doing this. So yes, we do offer that now.
Then of course, FDNthrive, in a sense, even cooler. FDNthrive will give you real world experience with FDN clients. That’s ran by Jo Pate and it’s a lot more intimate. There’s like a lot of one-on-one stuff there. That’s a great program as well if you need it.
Does insurance pay for the labs? That was by PDXsole. I’m sorry, I don’t know what your real name is, but PDX, the insurance companies do not pay for the labs. Kind of interesting how they don’t pay for our labs, and we get the results that we do. Right? But besides the point. Sometimes HSA will pay for the labs which is cool.
There is one main lab that we use, the GI MAP, that in theory, if a doctor ran it, it could be covered by insurance. I don’t take that route, like I’m not going to go out and find a doctor that does that.
You know, my clients are pretty gung-ho and pretty ready to do this. I find that that’s the case for a lot of FDNs out there. Thankfully they’re never usually trying to nickel and dime the $400 for the lab test. They are ready to invest in their health. And that’s the people we recommend taking on.
First Business Steps: Share Your Story as You Go Through the FDN Course
But yes, in theory, one of the tests could be covered by insurance, but that would not be through us anyway, unless you’re a doctor or another type of licensed practitioner.
The answer really is, that as an FDN, no, none of the labs are covered by insurance. But I’ve never seen that as a huge issue.
Been there, done that. FDN gives confidence for sure. Yep.
Someone said, how do you get started? Jump in after graduating from the course? What was the first thing you did to start your business? This was asked by Megan. Great question.
And by the way, guys, if you’re just tuning in, you can ask any question you want below. We’re talking about income as a health coach, income as an FDN, business stuff, or you can ask anything about FDN in general.
The steps could be a little different depending on the person. Megan, I’m going to give you the things I’ve seen work best for most people. For some people, this is so smart. They either already had or started like a blog or a posting series.
There’s someone doing this right now. I forget who it is, she has a weird username. It’s different than her name is what I mean. I can’t think of it. But she is posting her journey of going through the FDN course. So, she’s posting all the labs as she’s doing them, she’s posting her health story. She’s not selling a thing. There’s no one asking for payment, nothing like that. She’s sharing what she’s doing.
So, what do you think that’s doing for her business?
Run Labs on Yourself as You Study FDN
She’s getting all these people commenting, saying, oh, what do you do?
[00:28:54] Detective Ev: How can I get these labs, or whatever? She’s building a client list before she’s even able to take clients as an FDN cause she hasn’t graduated.
I didn’t do that. If I could go back, the biggest thing I would do is be sharing my journey, going through the FDN course on social or on a blog even so that people can follow me, and they see what I’m doing. Then eventually by the time I graduate, we’ve been building a relationship for 6, 7, 8 months. Now that’s a good time to invite someone if they actually qualify for it or need it to maybe work with you as a client.
You actually get five tests included in the course, your time at FDN. You will be using labs and then one, not lab test. It’s still a a test, it’s just not a physical lab test. You’ll get four of those and then one of that non-physical one.
You’ll be going through these tests while you’re going through the course, and so you can show people, hey, look what I found on this one. Oh, look what I found on that. And they become very interested in it. You weren’t being obnoxious, you weren’t selling. So that’s one way to do it.
Public speaking, if the person’s willing to do it, is undoubtedly the best. It’s how Reed built his business. He actually has a program for us called Reed’s Famous Lecture Packages. They’re like a hundred bucks, and you get a one-hour call with Reed Davis, the founder of FDN in addition to these slides that he literally gives you and you can customize yourself for your presentation.
First Business Steps: Lecture Packages & Public Speaking
We had a woman come on for Instagram Live. She’s an FDN, her name’s Kim Boehm and she’s also on the Health Detective Podcast (Episode 157) if you wanted to listen to it there.
Kim went and she didn’t reinvent the wheel. She said, I’m going to do exactly what they tell me to do at FDN. So, she went through the course. I think she graduated in like seven or eight months. Within six months after graduating, this woman was doing $10,000 a month as an FDN, did not have a health coaching business before this.
You say, well, how is that possible? Because Kim went out and did the lectures. Her first lecture, I think she had 12 or 13 people show up to a little free talk at a library. She sold seven clients from that talk, and she did not invent any of this. The FDN system, already there for her. She just went through the program. The lecture packages and the slides, she purchased that for a hundred dollars and talked to Reed on a call for an hour. They game planned and strategized. First time going out, sold seven clients on it.
Now Kim is also, I would consider her a strong public speaker, so that’s something to note. But I mean, this is nothing that someone couldn’t learn.
I would say document your stuff on social media for sure. If you have the ability to public speak, that is one of the best things you could ever do. Then maybe third, this is like in order of how I would prioritize these things to a degree. One and two are tied. But number three that is not as great, but does work, is you could take on family members for free.
First Business Steps: Take on Family/Friends for Free
Now, you might regret that later because it could be more of a hassle than it’s worth. But if you take on a family member for free and just charge them the price of the lab, what you do have, Megan, is you have people that have data. You can make the trade off like, hey, can I share your story on Instagram or social media in general?
Now you have your uncle’s lab test results back. Maybe he ran three labs. Yes, you didn’t make any money doing it. But you can get on Instagram and show, okay look, my uncle, he has this kind of stuff going on. We’re working together right now and oh my gosh, we found this bacteria on the gut test. We found this food sensitivity. People love the labs.
If you want a little tip on advertising in FDN business, show the lab results. People love it. And I don’t have to prove that to you because one of the reasons you’re probably watching this is because you love getting your own lab results back and figuring out what’s going on in your body.
So, Megan, I hope that answers your question. And if you have anything else, let me know.
Priscilla said, can you sign up for advanced courses without being an FDN? It’s not something we talk about often, but yes, you can. Any of the FDN advanced courses can be purchased without being an FDN. It would probably help you to have the mindset of an FDN before going into them, but they are made and designed that other health practitioners can use them. If you’re interested, for sure give them a try.
What else we got here?
FDN is a Self-paced Program
[00:32:42] Detective Ev: Is the program self-paced? How much time estimated does the program require weekly to complete? Stay at home mom here. Okay, cool. Well, we have a lot of stay-at-home moms. We have moms that are working, doing this, so don’t worry about that.
It is self-paced for that reason because we have a lot of professionals that come in and want to do this in their own time. You could finish realistically if you wanted to push it a little bit, you could finish as soon as six months. Right now, I think the average is about eight to 10 months. I think 10 months is a little long for most people. I do think this can be done before that.
But also, I’m biased because I never went through the course at a time that I was working full time. So, it’s not really fair for me to say that it wouldn’t take 10 months if I had other things going on, or if, gosh forbid, I was a mom.
It is completely self-paced. You can do it on your own time, and you do have 12 months to complete it. We don’t shut you out if you don’t finish in 12 months. I mean, there’s other things that you can do. You can get restarted for, I think, it’s like a hundred something bucks. Don’t quote me on it, but it’s very cheap.
But there’s no reason really someone shouldn’t be able to finish in 12 months unless an unexpected life event happens.
Integrating FDN Course Work for Moms
It is perfectly designed to be finished in eight months, and this is assuming that the person can do about 10 to 12 hours a week. It could be as little as eight hours a week if you were already someone who maybe had a lot of background in this. But if you didn’t have a lot of background, it could be more on the 12-hour side. We’re talking not even two hours a day dedicated to FDN.
A lot of the videos that are in the course are 20 to 30 minutes. So, all right, the kids haven’t woken up yet. Bam, I do 20, 30 minutes of FDN in the morning. All right, cool. They’re distracted with the TV. I can do another 20, 30. Also, they’re eating dinner or something. Then do 20, 30 minutes there. So, it’s very easy to integrate it into one’s schedule. They’re not like two-hour videos typically. So, great question.
Alright. Do we got anything more? I see Nick Logan. Long time no see brother. Hope you’re doing well.
Megan said thank you. You’re welcome.
PDX said, does the public reach out to you looking for practitioners in their area? And then do you all forward the leads to us? This has been asked many times, so fair question. It does get asked. I know eventually one day we’d love that. As of right now, there is not just a database listed with FDN practitioners.
Most FDNs Work Online
However, there are people that come to the main FDN course side of things. I know this cause I used to do like course enrollment. Some of you might have signed up through me even. But they’ll call us and say, well, hey I like the course and all. I don’t want to do it; I want to work with an FDN, and I’d like someone local.
Now most FDNs don’t work in person, they’re working online. But the bottom line is we will try to do our best to say like, okay, like listen, we know Sally Sue is in Alabama and she’s in this town. We’ll try to hook you up with someone close to that.
But honestly, you don’t need to rely on that to get clients. We help you in other ways with the business side of things to be able to get those clients elsewhere. But occasionally it does come in and yes, that could be a way that you get one or two clients.
Was full-time corporate when I went through the course, took 12 months. Okay, cool. Well, and Jo, you had a lot of other things going on too. Yeah. All right. Fair enough. That could be 12 months for some people because Jo works her butt off. If it took her 12 months, it could be realistically 12 months for people.
What labs are taught in the course? That’s asked by Casey.
Great question. I always try to separate this for people and I don’t want to be confusing. We have access to over 60 labs as FDNs once we graduate.
Functional Labs FDN Teaches
In the course, we are teaching a specific system that works extremely well and most people, like the vast majority, are going to get 80% better if you just stick to the system.
The other labs that we have access to could be to course correct in certain situations or maybe it was a lab that really helped you. It’s really just cause we don’t want to limit you as FDNs, but there’s certain ones that we only teach in the course.
You’ll learn about food sensitivity testing. You’ll learn about gut testing and basically like what bacteria, parasites, yeast, and stuff are in there. There’s leaky gut tests and liver functions. There’s hormonal testing.
There is one test that’s not actually a lab test at all that I already mentioned before, and it’s called the Metabolic Typing Test. What this does is help people figure out the specific macronutrient ratios and food pairing combinations that they need to feel their best and be healthy.
I always make a joke that my metabolic type completely shocked me. My one shake that I make, I call it like an “Ev shake” and so does my family. It could probably give the wrong person a heart attack cause it’s so high in saturated fat, but for me, because of my metabolic type, it’s perfect. I feel satiated for hours. I have great energy and my labs have never been better. So go figure. Right?
Those are the tests that we teach in the course. Then we teach you how to look at those all together from this big picture perspective. We’re really trying to figure out clinical correlation and clinical correlation’s a lot different than a diagnosis.
Diagnoses vs. Clinical Correlation
A diagnosis would be, all right, my blood sugar’s been at this level for the last two times that I got it measured at the doctor’s office. So I am, by definition, diabetic. Clinical correlation would be saying, we see your blood sugar’s high in the afternoon, and we notice that’s also when you get really anxious. That’s clinical correlation, but it’s not diagnostic.
We’re teaching you how to clinically correlate with these labs to find hidden healing opportunities in the body that we can use to help the person get back on track.
So, it took me six months and I was dealing with brain fog. Awesome, Tracy.
All right, so if you guys have any more questions, drop them really quickly. Otherwise, I will be signing off.
And if you were wondering why did people comment, “blog” randomly? Maybe you tuned in really late. Drop the word “blog” if you want our blog where we’re talking about how much health coaches are making right now, how much FDNs are doing right now. We have data and stats to back that up. And if you drop the word “blog” in the comments, we’ll actually have someone DM you so you can read that. Again, people really love that one when we sent it out in the email, so you guys might like it too.
I’m going to give you about 20 more seconds. Any final questions? Maybe I’ll give a final word of advice. I mean, listen, right now people do need this stuff. People are suffering with their health, and we have a tried-and-true system.
Potential Income: FDN is Time Tested & True
This isn’t something we started last year. It’s not something two years ago. I mean, I’ve been a practitioner for five and a half years. There’s some that have been practitioners for 13, 14 years as FDNs. Then Reed Davis, the founder, before he was teaching the course, he’s been doing this for 20 something years.
This isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Again, it’s time tested. And if you guys want to hear more stories about people having success with the business side or the health side, check out The Health Detective Podcast. If you don’t know me from there, that’s actually what I mainly do for FDN, nowadays.
We have over 180 episodes interviewing people who have overcome crazy health challenges or really succeeded in their business because of FDN. And man, all you need to do is listen to five of those episodes before you’re like, okay, this is this type of person, like in terms of their personality. Because maybe you think, well, you have to be super extroverted to go do this.
There is every type of personality on that show at this point because of how many episodes we have. You will relate to someone. You can see them having success and then you’ll realize, oh, maybe I can go do this.
What’s the typical income in the first year?
Someone said their favorite podcast. Thank you so much, Casey. You made my day. I appreciate that.
The typical income in the first year, I don’t even know if we have data on that, so I have to be very careful with that. Reed Davis’s goal is for the person to make a hundred thousand dollars in the first year.
Potential Income: Grads Doing FDN as a Business are Doing Well
Do I think that is realistic full-time? I 100% do, even without prior business experience.
We have people that have clients lined up before they ever even graduated. They sign up two, three people right off the get go. That could be $2,000 to $6,000 in profit depending on what they’re charging at the time.
Thank you for dropping the podcast link below, Jo.
But yeah, maybe we can eventually get that where we can have like the typical income earning for people. Some graduates also do it as a hobby, by the way. They’re never going to start a business. But for the people that do start it as a business, seems to be going pretty well.
Again, you can go to The Health Detective Podcast to check out some of the stories. Those people are legally allowed to share how much they’re making and what they’re doing so you can hear it from them.
Thank you, guys, so much for tuning on today. And thanks for asking questions and being engaged. I’m glad I got to talk to you for 46 minutes. Sometimes when I do these Lives, I’m like, what have I been saying for 46 minutes? What came out of my mouth today? I’m hoping it was something good.
Again, last chance, drop the word “blog” below. It’s not really the last chance. If you’re watching this on the recording, you can do it then too and we’ll come back to it.
But drop the word “blog” below and we will make sure to send you guys that blog where we’re talking about how great of an industry health coaching and FDN practitioners are in right now during this economy.
I’ll see you guys soon and thanks so much.
Conclusion
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