Good morning, friends!
I’m very excited and proud to announce to you today the launch of my new business website and nutrition counseling private practice: AnneTheRD.com!
As you all know, it’s been a long road to get those 5 little letters – MPH, RD – after my name. I started my back to school journey in the summer of 2009 when I returned home from teaching English in Prague. After years of science and medical classes and dietetic internships, I graduated with my Masters of Public Health in Nutrition from UNC Chapel Hill in December, and then took and passed the RD exam 2 weeks ago. It’s been nearly 4 years of hard work to get to where I am now, and I couldn’t be more proud and excited to finally be launching my new business and putting those skills to good use.
I’ve spent the past two months (when not studying) gearing up to be a small business owner. I started an LLC (fANNEtastic food LLC, for simplicity), after much debate and some talks with a business lawyer and accountant.
Logo created by Bailey!
I researched and read a lot about starting my own private practice to figure out how to manage the logistics of it all. If I was doing this, I wanted to do it right. I also spoke with a lot of other RDs who were very kind about giving me advice related to insurance, intake forms, best practices for keeping track of clients and billing, etc.
About a month ago, I also started making my new website. Coming up with the website address was one of the hardest parts of this whole process! I was considering fANNEtastic Nutrition for branding purposes, but I was worried that if in the future I start doing some media appearances, I would need something that I could say and have people easily be able to spell just by hearing it. Eventually, I thought of Anne the RD. Simple and short. Perfect!
I created the website myself using the visual editor offered through a site called Wix, which meant I could do everything on my own without needing HTML skills. What a lifesaver! The site was sometimes a bit quirky and there were definitely some limitations to what it could do, but overall I’d really recommend it. It was kind of fun to play around with it and get it just how I liked it! I also purchased the domain name and the web hosting through Wix, for simplicity purposes.
As for my plans for the practice itself, for now I’m planning to work with clients remotely, either via phone or Skype, with the option to meet in person at a coffee shop or something for those local to DC. The plan is that hopefully once I’m more financially stable and have started to pay off my student loans I can open my own office here in the DC area so I can see more clients in person. My ultimate far out dream goal would be to eventually open a whole wellness center with other RDs and health-related professionals like a holistic doctor, massage therapist, yoga teacher, etc. But that’s the far out dream. 🙂 Someday!
For now, I’m also going to do some RD-related as-needed in-person work with some of the corporate wellness companies in the area – things like working as the nutrition expert at a company health fair, as the nutrition health educator at screenings, etc., so that will be fun and good to mix it up! I’m keeping my eyes open for other occasional in-person opportunities as well.
Anyway! If you’re interested, please head on over to my new website to check out the nutrition counseling services I’ll be offering. I’m looking forward to working with some of you to reach your goals!
Have a great day, everyone! I’ll be back to regular blogging tomorrow. 🙂
