Introduction
[00:00:00] Detective Ev: 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 on why to sell programs and not one-off sessions.
First of all, I just wanted to thank you guys. I do this occasionally but should do it more often. Thank you for leaving reviews and sharing such positive feedback with us on Apple and Spotify. The comments that we get are so appreciated. It looks good to people who are searching for alternative health information.
Maybe they haven’t heard of us, or they are like so many of us when we first get into this world of alternative health. You kind of feel like you’re going underground. You have never seen this before, but there’s a whole world down there, right? Like if you dug underground, you would realize there’s these ecosystems. There are tons of stuff to see.
I feel like that is at least somewhat similar to what happens in the world of alternative health. You are operating in the day-to-day world, totally normally, totally unbothered, and you finally learn about this stuff or get a hint of this stuff. Then you start talking to all of these random people who seem to know so much about this or have different theories or different experiences. You’re left wondering where the heck was this all of my life.
It’s not like it’s just a few people that are into it. There are tens of millions in America alone that are highly interested in this. There are hundreds of millions of us all around the world. So, thank you guys so much for leaving those reviews.
FDN Educates on Ways to Heal
If you’re someone who listens regularly and has never done that, I hate to be one of those hosts that asks for it directly, but we would greatly appreciate it. And that’s only if you’ve listened regularly and truly actually like it. We want as many people hearing this information as possible, getting these stories into their ears.
Yes, we do include business stuff on here as we’ll kind of be talking about today. Yes, we include stuff that is mostly just for FDN practitioners, sometimes, in certain episodes that is. The bulk of what we do and what we will probably continue to do as long as this podcast is around, is teach people ways that they can really heal themselves. And we’re helping them hear that through stories in addition to actual science.
Because for some people, and many of those people listening, you guys are like me and like many FDN practitioners out there. We love the science, we love the studies, we love digging deep into that. That is wonderful. Other people really need to learn almost exclusively through stories. And although this is not how my mind works, some of them really don’t care about the science behind it.
They just want to know, has it worked for someone else and they want to listen to that. They’re inspired by it and they will go do what that person did, regardless of whether or not they have the full understanding of the science behind it. Fair enough. Totally fine with me. That might not be the most ideal option to do with everything, but in this world, it’ll work well enough in terms of FDN.
FDN Facebook Trainee Group
However, with all that said, what we’re going to be diving into today is an FDN trainee inspired post. I posted in our FDN training group. Because if you don’t know, if you join FDN, one of the things that you get now, and this was not always the case, this was actually not available when I went through the course even six years ago. One of the things that happens is you get added to our Facebook trainee group, and so you get to communicate directly with mentors.
You get to communicate with staff, such as myself. You get to communicate with people like Reed Davis, the founder of FDN. He’s in there and goes live once a week. A mentor also goes live once a week at a separate time. Pretty cool.
We have all kinds of stuff going on in there. If nothing else, you can just maybe form a study group with some of your fellow trainees. But I posted in there what would they like to learn. What I was trying to do with this is figure out ways that we can listen to what they were asking for and then take that content and apply it in such a way that it’s interesting for everyone. So, this is more for the practitioner today.
If you’re someone who is just listening, because you normally listen to the stories, I do admit this might not be as relevant for you. But if you are some type of health coach, if you are any type of medical professional that’s offering holistic services, even if you’re not an FDN or never plan on becoming an FDN, totally fine. This could still be something that helps you today.
Sell Programs: Sales Script
We’re going to be talking about how and why we sell packages in our coaching. We really do not recommend one-off sessions with FDN. There might be a small disclaimer on that. I even admittedly do something, but again, it has a disclaimer on it, that would be away from the package deal. But we’ll explain why that is the core of what we do and how not only does it help you as the practitioner, but it helps your client. So, everyone wins with this. Anyway, let’s get started.
One of the first things that you will learn when you start talking about the coaching side in the world of FDN and you’ve gone through the lab part of the course, you’ve gone through the diet part, rest, exercise, all that stuff, you’ll start getting to how to actually onboard a client, how to talk to them and what to do.
We do provide you with a quote/unquote “sales script”. I say sales script, listen, I’ve been in sales. I’ve done car sales in my life; I’ve done door to door. It was something that helped me get comfortable with people cause I used to be very awkward and very nervous with people. Maybe some would still say I’m awkward, but I feel okay. That’s what matters, right?
But one of the things that you realize in those types of sales settings, not always, but a lot of the times it could start bordering on manipulation and not in a positive way, right? Because a chiropractor could do a manipulation, that’s not anything bad. But this is kind of a negative manipulation where we are using tactics or half-truths to get into these people’s heads and do things that we don’t really agree with.
Sell Programs: Qualify the Client
Admittedly, not that I’m perfect, I have many flaws. I’m a human being just like you. But it was actually one of the reasons I got out of car sales, originally. It was because they asked me to tell someone that a used car was there that was not there, and we knew that. But they were looking at one that was fairly similar.
And it was similar to be clear, but it was not the car that they wanted. It was not the same mileage; it wasn’t the same year. A lot of things were different about it. Enough that I didn’t feel, it’s not identical, that’s the bottom line. They wanted me to say on the phone, tell him we do have that car because this guy’s driving from like two hours away.
I mean, it’s already not really a great thing morally to do if they’re 10 minutes away. But I’m like, two hours away, you’re going to pull them all the way here. And then I’m supposed to tell them, oh, the car just got sold. Which was true, except I knew that before we got on the phone. It’s not like I just found it out after when he was driving there.
That’s not the type of sales script we’re talking about. Sales script for us is something that actually qualifies the person to make sure that this is someone who can get through a program like this and someone who wants to get through a program like this. Because the other side of the world of like FDN and health coaching, and if you’ve done this for a while, or even six months, you probably already know this, the client has to be willing to do the work.
Sell Programs: Telling People “No”
There is nothing worse if you are owning a business and working in a business where you are working with clients directly, than a client who has spent a significant amount of money that does not want to be there. You lose and they lose.
The problem is, the farther that goes along, now it’s kind of hard to refund them, right? Because you’ve already done some work and you’ve put in effort and money’s gotten spent that maybe can’t come back. But now they’re pissed off, so they’re terrible to work with. They’re not doing the things that they need to do to get healthy. It’s a mess.
So, when I say sales script for FDN, I mean, yes, of course it is trying to lead someone to a sale. But what is nice about our sales script, which was never included in anything I did in car sales or door to door by the way, is that a person could be told, no, we don’t want to work with you. As an FDN, we will say, no, we don’t want to work with you.
Okay, well, is that just a reverse psychology thing? It is not. When we are going through this sales script, we are qualifying the person, we teach you how to do that, to make sure, again, they are actually able to get through something like this. We teach you how to look out for red flags that might imply, indirectly, or just be very obvious, that this person cannot get through this and doesn’t want to do this, not actually. At which time we will tell them, hey, you know, I don’t think this is for you. I don’t think this is going to work out.
Sell Programs: Give Them Some Direction
Not that you have to do this, but one thing I would recommend, I’ve always done this, I think it’s just the right and good thing to do, and if nothing else, it’ll send out some positive karma for yourself. You could do it for selfish reasons if you really wanted to. But I do not get off a free call with someone without giving them direction. I will never, ever, ever do that.
Yes, we maybe got on a free call. Maybe it wasn’t for you. I don’t know how to work with you at this time. But unless that person was somehow rude or bad to me, which has never happened yet, not on an initial call, at least, I will make sure that they are set in the right direction.
Maybe it’s a book recommendation, a course that’s only like $200, $300 and I know that they can afford that. It could be another practitioner that just vibes with them better. So, it wasn’t really a money thing, it’s just that we didn’t connect. I will never leave someone who is struggling with their health hanging. Again, that’s just me.
I can’t do that because I know what it’s like to feel helpless with this. It’s scary and it’s unfair. Our life is too short to not have any hope when it comes to chronic health issues. I will always give them something. But you can choose to do that or not do that, that’s up to you.
Assuming that the person is good to go, and we are ready to work with them and they’re able to work with us, congratulations, you just got a client. You onboarded them; you got them sold. You got the credit card information, and the money has been sent.
Sell Programs: Limiting Beliefs
Now we talk about why we do these package deals and why we are not going to do one-off sessions with someone. When you are trying to help someone who has had chronic health issues over a very long period of time, which might be many of you listening, just think about this for a second. How well does that go when you try one simple diet or you try one simple supplement or you go to the acupuncturist one time or the chiropractor one time, or get a massage one time? It doesn’t really work, does it? We know this.
What’s funny is I could sit down with 99.99% of practitioners and ask them that exact same question and they would answer me and say, no, I know I can’t get them better in that way. And yet, for some reason, once they get on the phone with someone, or if they’re talking to someone in person and about to onboard them in that way and sell them on their program that way, for some reason, we will diminish ourselves enough to only sell them one or two sessions with one or two labs. How does that work?
I think what we do is, one, we have maybe limited beliefs. We don’t think that we can actually charge the amount that we are worth or the amount that we need to properly serve the client. On the other side of this is, and I don’t recommend this, but I think some people get into this work in maybe a desperation state. This is actually not many people, it’s a minority, but it’s just large enough that it’s worth mentioning and something to just watch out for in yourself.
Sell Programs: Avoid Selling from a Place of Scarcity
Do not jump ship at your job or maybe another business or whatever career you might be in when you’re going into something like health coaching or FDN. This could apply to many different industries that have nothing to do with health, but it’s basically the thing of working with people one-on-one. When you’re working with someone one-on-one, the last thing you want to be doing is selling from a place of scarcity.
First of all, I 100% believe that energetically that will show. Whether it’s explicitly obvious or not, someone’s going to be able to pick up on that. Whether they pick up on that by directly seeing, wow, this person is not confident at all, I’m really nervous about it, or whether they make another objection or another excuse and don’t ever realize it was because of your energy, it doesn’t really matter, that’s not going to work.
The other problem is though, we start making deals with people that we really shouldn’t have made because we have bills, have a family, and need to put food on the table. It’s never a good idea to approach this work or any work really, that requires working one-on-one with someone, from a scarcity mindset. You’re going to take on clients you shouldn’t have taken on, and you’re going to work with them in a way that they don’t deserve, and you don’t deserve.
So, let’s assume that we can get you to the place where you are taking on clients who are reasonable people, we already know that, and you are not coming from a place of complete scarcity. Maybe you don’t like your job or current career, but it at least pays the bills.
Sell Programs: How Long Does It Take to Make Huge Progress?
You are smart enough and aware enough to only take clients in a way that you know that you can serve them. This is when we get into the programs and packages. Again, I can ask any practitioner if they can help someone in one or two sessions. They might say yes to that to a degree, but they’re never going to get the client to where they want to go. Chances are it’s going to take more.
Well, let’s just use a hypothetical person. Let’s talk about hypothetical Sally. How long would it take Sally to really make some huge progress in her health? What do you think that would take? Two weeks, a day, 90 days? Well, the FDN program is unofficially a 90-day program.
How it started out at 90 days is because back in the day when Reed was doing this with clients almost 15, 20 years ago, even over 20 years ago at this point, he was working one-on-one with clients. I think what he was finding to be the most successful is, we signed people up for a 90-day program, we run them through all these labs, you really get some stuff done, and it makes tremendous progress in their health. That was pretty much his staple thing back then.
Nowadays, the world has gotten more and more toxic and more and more off the trail of health, right? We are completely off that trail. So, what’s interesting is FDN becomes more relevant as time goes on, somewhat, unfortunately.
Sell Programs: The Modern World Has Created a Health Nightmare
Not that I want our FDN to not do well financially, but there is a certain irony in it because the better that we do, the worse it implies the world is doing. Because naturally we shouldn’t really have to have FDN practitioners and all these fancy labs and these protocols and stuff. It comes from our modern world.
The good news for you, even though we wouldn’t wish this on people, is that because the modern world has gotten worse and worse and worse since Reed Davis started this stuff, you’re probably going to need a little more time than the 90 days. What a lot of people do now and what I would recommend doing to be smart is, your bare minimum should be 90 days. And again, there’s going to be a disclaimer on this, which I will explain soon.
There’s a certain thing that can work out here, but the bare minimum should really be 90 days. And then a lot of practitioners now are offering six, nine-month programs. You might be sitting there wondering, well, who the heck would do that? Do people actually work with people that long? The answer is absolutely. It’s actually even better for you because there’s something to be said with online marketing.
I don’t know if it’s a figure of speech, I don’t think it would qualify as that. But it’s something that I’ve heard thrown around a lot with internet marketers. They talk about how it is already pretty hard, it’s not the hardest thing in the world, but it’s tough to sell a $7 product online. Okay? Not impossible, there’s ways to do it. But it’s tough to sell a $7 product on online.
Sell Programs: Consider Dollar for Dollar
It is also tough to sell a $7,000 product online. But it is not a thousand times harder to sell a $7,000 product online than it is to sell a $7 product. Does that make sense? Because if you think about it, a $7,000 product, what this means is of course, a thousand times more expensive than a $7 product.
So, it’s already tough to sell the $7 product. The only way that you would not just shoot for the $7,000 product is if it was more than a thousand times harder. But if it was only 500 times harder, why would you not go for that? You get more money, and it was actually technically easier in the grand scheme of things, when you consider dollar for dollar.
The point being is yes, there are people to pay this out there. And in a certain sense, the more you scale this, the easier it gets. Because it’s a very specific group of people who will pay $5,000, $6,000, $7,000, $8,000, $10,000 for these types of programs.
Do they exist? Oh, yes, they do. There are a lot of FDNs doing this. My mom went through this. My mom paid an FDN practitioner. I was pretty fresh to graduating overall. I don’t necessarily recommend working with family members when they’re in the midst of a pretty serious health thing, and it’s going to take a ton of work. You can help them with the base stuff, and I did do that with my mom. But if you really gotta do some coaching there, it’s probably going to get a little messy even if you have a great family.
Sell Programs: There Are So Many That Need This
So, she ended up working with an FDN practitioner for nine months and it was like a $5,000, $6,000 program. I think it actually might have been more than that. When you count supplements and stuff, it probably was more like $7,000, $8,000, and she paid that.
My mom is the type of person who will do that and who needed it. She had been suffering for years with autoimmune conditions. Her and my dad spent a hundred thousand dollars that they did not have over a decade plus of trying to figure out what on earth was actually wrong with her.
So yes, these people are out there. Is it a high percentage of the population? No, but it’s a large number. Because remember, 1% of the population of the United States, for example, is a small percentage, but that’s 3.3 million people. That’s a lot of people, especially when you compare that to the fact that there’s only like 4,000 FDN graduates out there, which is a good number. I don’t want to discredit that, but that’s not that many when we’re talking about millions and millions and millions of people who actually need this.
Cause I don’t believe it for a second that it’s only 1% that will do programs like this. I don’t know what the exact number is, less than 25% and I believe it’s more than one. Also, I believe it’s less than 15%, but more than one. So, let’s call it seven and a half percent. I mean, we’re talking about well over 30 million people out there who would do something like this, even 40 million people who would do something like this.
Sell Programs: Charge What You’re Worth
You are better off then structuring your stuff in such a way where, yes, maybe you get on 10 phone calls, 10 sales calls, and you don’t close nine of them, but you close one. And that one was a high ticket offer because they’re doing a program. They are committed to their health, they’re serious about this. And they spent $5,000, $6,000, $7,000 with you.
Now, as a new FDN or maybe even a new health coach, if you’re listening to this, if you’re clicking on something like this, regardless of whether or not you’re an FDN, you’re probably new to the industry or you’re just an avid learner and always want to get new information to which I give you props for that. But most likely it’s the former option.
Five, six, seven thousand dollars can be intimidating to people. Fine. Do $3,000, $4,000 for 90 days. If that still sounds intimidating, again, we’ll talk about that in a second. But you need to charge what you’re worth because if you’re going to work with someone for 3, 4, 5, 6 months, that’s a lot of time. Okay?
There are people out there doing FDN businesses right now that only take on 10 to 20 clients a year, but they charge $10,000 a client. So, these people are bringing in six figure income and they get to work very intimately and very closely for long periods of time with these clients. I mean, their clients become their friends. This is awesome.
Their clients become people that when the practitioner’s traveling to the city they live in, they’re going out and grabbing dinner. They’re having fun together. That’s cool. That’s the type of relationships you can have if you choose to work this way.
Sell Programs: The FDN System Works
Technically with the FDN system, there are no rules here, do whatever you like so long as you are being ethical in how you’re using the labs and stuff. You can go run your programs any way that you want.
But there’s a reason that so many graduates have gone through this program. There’s a reason people spend $9,000 to go through the FDN program at the time of recording this, and only going to be more in the future. And there’s a reason that we’re having so much success working with people.
So, my humble advice would be to, especially if you’re listening to something like this because you’re not making the amount of money that you want to make, utilize advice from something that we know already works and has worked for tons of people still to this day, and has for the last 20 years, as opposed to reinventing the wheel.
Do I think someone out there does have a better wheel somewhere? Yes, I do. I think Reed would acknowledge that himself. There’s no way he is the best of the best. There’s always room for improvement with stuff, but this is pretty darn good. It’s good enough for you to make a full-time living if you follow it this way and help a lot of people. So maybe try this first.
When you are working long-term with someone on a program, there’s a lot that gets involved. Like I said, you’re going to develop pretty decent relationships with these people. And if you’re working with them for nine months to a year, that’s a friend at that point, right? You might be talking to this person more than you are talking to certain friends. That’s amazing. You need to charge accordingly for this.
Sell Programs: Include Your Specialties
This is where this all circles in together, because obviously the whole point of this podcast based on the title is, why do we do it this way? Well, one, we do it to serve the client at the highest level. Because all of you know that we cannot get someone with severe chronic health issues to the place that they want to be in two sessions. You can help them, you can give them advice, but it’s not going to work out the way that they want it to work out by just two or three sessions.
So most likely you’re going to have to work with them for a while. We’re going to have to correct a lot of stuff. We’re going to have to educate them on dietary stuff and sleep and supplements, and go over the lab test results, help them through protocols. Depending on what other certifications or qualifications you have, you might be someone that does more mindset work. I don’t do a lot of that, I refer out for that.
Recently, I just had someone come through, she was so freaking cool and mature and understanding. But we were getting to the point where it really wasn’t working, and it was a huge disconnect and it wasn’t something that I was used to in clients that I have taken on in the past. I kind of realized the missing link was something mindset wise. Now this is not one of those people who says, oh, it’s all in your head and you’re making it up. No, I don’t think it’s making it up. But I did believe that her stress was the main thing holding her back, and she agreed with that.
Sell Programs: Taking Care of You is Taking Care of Others
You could be helping someone with that if you have different qualifications or certifications. Maybe you’re coming in as a personal trainer, maybe you’re also an acupuncturist, maybe you have a nursing background or some other type of healthcare thing, right?
Usually, it’s not required by any means, but usually people have some other type of interest or passion outside of just the core FDN thing. Because unfortunately people typically don’t find us first, right? They go through something else or many other things and then find FDN and they’re like, darn, I wish I did this first. But you might have to work on them with all that stuff.
You need to commit to this person for a good period of time. Three months is like the bare minimum in my opinion. Now at the same time, for you to deliver for that person at the level that they need you to deliver at, even if they’re super compliant with the program, you’re going to have to show up.
You gotta show up pretty often. And depending on what you offer in your programs, you might be texting this person back and forth. You might be offering ongoing email support. You’re like their lifeline a lot of the times on these calls. Again, these people can be kind of hopeless and rightfully so, right?
No one’s ever told them that they could get better from the things that they’re dealing with. You’re that person for them, man. And you might have four or five client calls afterwards. So, you need to make sure that you’re taking care of yourself too, because we can’t pour from a cup that’s empty. I’m sure you’ve heard that before. So, you gotta charge the right amount.
Sell Programs: Charge Correctly and Provide Quality
The only way to charge a high-ticket amount, unless you’re a celebrity name, is by doing it in the form of a program. If I tell someone I’m charging $500 an hour, unless I’m a celebrity name, they’re going to be like, what the heck? Get outta here. Unless I’m very well known, not in a celebrity sense, but like just known as someone who is really good at one condition, that’s not going to happen.
A program, a package that’s structured, can still lead to you making a hundred plus dollars an hour fairly easily. But someone might not want to pay that directly. It needs to be done in a program and they see all the value, they get it.
Now you are still worth it. This is not a trick to rip off the clients, that’s not what I’m saying at all. It’s actually the exact opposite. I’m saying for them to get the best results, you are probably going to need to be paid at that level to make you sure your business works, your finances work, and your health is still in order so that you can show up for these people at the highest level.
Because one trap that a lot of people fall into is when they don’t do stuff like this, they start taking on a million clients that they never should have taken on. Then even though they got into this work to get their own health under control, most likely they did that, now their health is in shambles again because they’re going 70 hours a week taken on clients.
Sell Programs: There’s No Price Limit on Our Health
They can’t show up for any of the people properly, and now the clients are upset. They didn’t get what they paid for, you feel underappreciated and underpaid even though you’re working 70 hours a week. That’s not a way to do business. You need to figure out the amount that you need to make in order to work with someone effectively for three months or six months.
Chances are, if you take an honest look at that and break it down hour by hour, yeah, you’re going to need to charge $4,000, $5,000, $6,000, $7,000 to make that work. Do you think the client’s going to care about that when you help them with some serious condition?
Of course, we don’t treat or diagnose anything specifically. But it’s not a false claim, it’s not even a claim at all to just mention and acknowledge the stories that we’ve heard on this podcast. We interview all types of people. We’re talking about autoimmune disease some days, skin issues other days, cancer sometimes comes up, mental health stuff comes up. The fact of the matter is many people, when they use the FDN philosophy and stick to it over a fair period of time, they do see resolution in symptoms.
So, then the question is for $5,000, $6,000, $7,000, for someone who’s suffering chronically with an issue, and that might have been you. You can put yourself in those shoes, what would you pay for that? Because to me, I got to a point with my mental health and especially the cystic acne, there is no limit on the amount of money that I would’ve paid. I just wanted something that would work.
You Have to Really Earn an FDN Certification
That is true almost a hundred percent of the time with these clients. They don’t care, they just want to get better. So, if I know that there is an amount that allows me to show up as my best self and gets them the best results possible because I’m able to show up for them every time, and they could hopefully see 90 plus percent resolution in the symptoms that they are dealing with, and they’re going to be happy as crap because of it, why would I not do that? That’s just common sense at that point.
But people allow limiting beliefs to hold them back from this stuff. They don’t always believe that people will commit to six months, or that they have the money. They don’t always believe that they can fulfill on the program.
Even though we do not graduate people if they’re not ready to go out and do this work, we only graduate people who are ready to go out and do this work. This isn’t just a program that you come in, click a few buttons and you finish your module for the week and then all of a sudden you get a certificate. You gotta earn this one. The reason that we do that is, so you are prepared to go out there and charge the prices that we recommend. That’s why we focus on the program style of coaching.
Now, one disclaimer I will put on this cause I mentioned this in the beginning. Does one-off coaching sessions ever have a place?
Do One-Off Sessions Have a Place?
Well, one way that it has a place is if you’ve already done the main coaching with someone and now, they want to work with you for like one session again. Maybe it’s been like a month break since they finished a three- or four-month program, and they need some course correction. Sure, give them a one-off session.
Do it at a discounted rate, like at least discounted compared to what your normal package is. Cause you probably like this person now, they’re more educated, they should be less effort, so they should have to pay less. That’s fair.
But should we ever do a one-off session when the person is new? Again, yes and no, but we have to have context.
I do this sometimes. There are a few factors that go into me doing this. One, I highly qualify the person. I make sure this is a person that is willing to do the work. I make sure that the only reason that they have not committed to me on a higher level is because they genuinely cannot afford this right now.
There are many people out there that can afford high level programs, I promise you that. But it is also a factual statement to say that in America, which is a quite prosperous country, it’s like 48% of people don’t even have $500 in their bank account for an emergency. Many people are doing this on credit, and some people don’t want to do that. They might be telling the truth when they say, I genuinely don’t have the money right now.
Make Sure You’re Gonna Get Results
If I have someone that’s super motivated and doesn’t have the money, what can I do for them? I know this exists because that was me. It was me. I was 20, 21 years old. I had never gotten into a career yet, not a real one at least. Cause I couldn’t maintain half of these jobs and the workload that they had with the health stuff. I was willing to do whatever, I just didn’t have the money.
So, there are times and places, there are people that this could benefit. If you hyper qualify the person and you know that they are good to go and they really are willing to do whatever it takes, okay. Now this could be a time for a one-off session. What would that look like? Well, it could be a little different depending on what you feel most comfortable with lab wise. But I would recommend one that you are darn near positive is going to get some results.
Some people will do one-off sessions for gut testing. I do admit gut testing can be phenomenal to do for a one-off session because you can find a lot of useful things. The one issue is, first of all, gut tests are almost always the most expensive test out there, generally speaking, that you’re going to use regularly, at least. But the other issue is it’s going to lead to supplement protocols, right? Because if bugs come up, parasites, whatever, you’re going to have to address that in some way.
Go For the Easy Win Ones
Now they spend a decent amount on the lab, they had to pay for your consultation, and now they’re using the supplements. It’s weird when you go a just gut testing route. I mean, you could easily have a client that’s spending $900 plus dollars a first one simple session, and they’re not getting any additional guidance through the program.
So, with the exclusion of that one, I probably wouldn’t do that. You gotta find the easy win ones. Some of the other easy win ones, in my opinion, hormones, especially for women, can be very useful. Women really like the hormones thing, that’s what I found. Food sensitivity testing, a good food sensitivity test like the MRT or a Wheat Zoomer could be phenomenal because you’re going to find something.
Those tests are highly correlated with symptoms that the people deal with, and you can show them something that they can change in their life. Are they going to get a hundred percent better from either of those tests? I’d be shocked. Those tests aren’t even intended to do that. No one pretends that’s what the intention is, but you can get them a lot better and that’s kind of amazing.
Now they know that it works. They know that you helped them, you certainly helped them for a fair price. The tests aren’t super complicated. Food sensitivity tests are one of the only tests that I could take right now, and I don’t have any prep for the client. You could just say, here, Sally, in front of you and at the same time you’re going to get our lab results and have to analyze it. That would hurt me in no way to do that for a food sensitivity test.
Make Sure Clients Know They’ll Need More
It’s nothing versus a gut test. There are some weird things that can come up or other parts that need to be considered. You gotta address that, work on that, and review that prior to getting on the call with the client.
But find something relatively easy, something that’s not taking a bunch of your time because then you can charge less, still an amount that’s worth it for you, but you can charge less. This might be particularly good in the beginning of your business. So those are my little disclaimers on it.
On one end, I hate when newbies do this because then I feel like you’re kind of selling yourself on those limiting beliefs that, I can only do this. But it’s undeniable that it’s a great way to get more people in the door. Because yes, there are only so many people, despite how many people might want to do it, that can spend $5,000 on a program. That is actually true that there’s only so many people that can do that. We know that from statistics.
So, if you start out with something simple that you know you can get the person results on and you sell it to them, honestly, be like, listen, there’s no way that this is going to get you to where you want to go, but it’s much more affordable. It can show you that I’m valid in what I’m doing, that I actually have something to do here. Then once you know that it’s working for you, maybe we can consider something else.
That’s my final part. Make sure that you are planting the seed that this is not the only thing that they are going to need to get the full help that they want.
Don’t Work Harder, Work Smarter
Really what you are trying to do is give them a break here so that they can eventually commit to something higher. But this is what you can do now. That is my one little disclaimer for one-off packages. I would not recommend it, normally. It can get into a whole mess with it.
A lot of the times if you keep pushing this long term, you are going to attract clients that can only afford a $500 package. So great, you made like $125 from a one-off session, but now you need to work with 20, 25 people a week to make an income. Versus remember those practitioners, there’s plenty of FDNs out there that are only working with 10 to 20 clients a year but charging $10,000. They’re making the same amount as the person who would’ve had to work with 10 to 20 clients a week.
When you put it that way, I know it’s a stretch and it seems like a lot of money but think about what you actually believe would be harder. Do you really think it’s more realistic and easier to get 20 clients a week, that’s a thousand clients a year, to pay $500, or 10 to 20 clients a year to pay $10,000? I mean, I think when you put it that way, it’s kind of a little more obvious. I know it could still be something that triggers limiting beliefs for people, but I think you can kind of get on board with that.
Conclusion
I hope that makes sense. This is why we structure things the way we do and why, whether or not you’re a health coach, health practitioner, FDN practitioner, or someone who’s never going to become an FDN but does something similar to us, you really should consider the program stuff. It helps people get to a higher level of health.
You know this in your heart that they need more than one or two sessions. It allows you to get the money that you need so that you can be mentally and financially stable enough to show up for these people and everyone wins. You’re going to get more referrals, charging more money because you’re doing a better job.
If you have any questions about this, you can always reach out to us on our Instagram. We do not use chatbots. We have real people answering you. It is fdntraining on Instagram, that is at fdntraining on Instagram.
Alternatively, you can comment to me on our Podbean, that is where we host our podcast. So even though it’s not the most listened to platform, Apple is by far, Podbean is still a great place to comment there. And I’m the only one who gets to see that stuff. I can check it out for you.
You could search for the Health Detective Podcast on Podbean or go to us on Instagram, shoot us a DM and I will make sure to get your questions answered for you on this show or directly there.
I’m looking forward to talking to you guys again soon. But until then, please take care.
You can always visit us at functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com.
