We recently connected with Robyn Spangler and have shared our conversation below.

Robyn, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about how you went about setting up your own practice and if you have any advice for professionals who might be considering starting their own?

I officially started my business in 2017 but I’ll admit it took me 2 years to dive in full time. I had been practicing clinically for 4 years but was always working for someone else. I didn’t know if I wanted to own a business and honestly, I was playing safe by keeping a full time job. I think I was just scared to fail (which I absolutely have over the last 10 years) but initially got in my way. I ended up landing in private practice after abruptly leaving my full time job. It was honestly the best way it could have happened for me because I learn best by diving in head first and taking action and that’s exactly what I had to do. From that day forward, I was all in and I wouldn’t have it any other way now.

My advice for a young professional would be to do it messy. You won’t have all the systems figured out, you’ll have a million questions and you’ll mess something up along the way. That’s just the game of business but as long as you trust your abilities to figure things out, you’ll be just fine and more than that, you’ll have a blast and be rewarded both with the impact you’re making and an uncapped income.

Robyn, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I watched my dad be really into health and fitness as a kid and was always interested in science and math as a kid. I majored in nursing but after 6 months of volunteer work, I decided that wasn’t for me. I took one nutrition class and I was hooked.

Fast forward 3 years and I was diagnosed with psoriasis at age 20. I was full body and affected me emotionally, physically and mentally. After 3 dermatologists, 2 years being on/off prednisone, tanning beds (cringe) and being told my next option was an immunosupprasant drug, I got desperate. At that point, I was in grad school and my university had coursework and mentorship for dietitian interested in functional medicine. I was fortunate to be one of the 2 students to go through this program and it not only helped me heal my own skin but it changed the direction of my career.

I learned how to take a root cause, whole body approach to healing with myself and clients. From there, I continued studying the functional nutrition space and build my business to serve clients wanted to heal chronic skin issues from the inside out. Myself and my team now serve clients in a 1-1 capacity where we help clients heal chronic skin issues like acne, eczema, psoriasis, dermatitis, etc by taking a root cause & personalized approach.

I also help mentor other health practitioners who are looking to expand their functional skills and scale their private practice. This is an intimate program I run 2-3 times a year with a limited number of practitioners. I believe in order to make a serious change in the rates of chronic disease, we need an army of practitioners truly providing root cause care & unfortunately, there’s not a lot of education out there. Swapping supplements and food eliminations for medications is not functional or root cause care but that’s what a lot providers are marketing which only does a disservice to the field and to our clients! Our approach is not to over-do labs, not to put clients on 15+ supplements and not to pull a bunch of food our of clients’ diets. We don’t teach that methodology in our practitioner curriculum either!

After 10 years seeing clients, I knew the value of nutrition and specifically, minerals so I launched a product to help make mineral intake easier for my clients. The product is Rayvi and it continues to be a valuable tool for those healing not only chronic skin issues but busy-bees and go-getters who are burning through minerals faster than they are repleting them. Minerals can change the game for energy, sleep, skin and so much more.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

As a practitioner in private practice, it can often feel like having 2 full time jobs (the clinical part and the entrepreneur part) and you want to keep up in both. With that, I think it’s essential to adopt a solution seeking mindset (over problem seeking). In both functional nutrition and business, the more you learn, the more you realize there is to learn and there are two approaches to take.

1). Get stuck in comparison, overwhelm and fear.
2). Choose to get out of your comfort zone, get inspired by others & take action forward.

I personally want to run a business that fulfills my passion of helping people and also sets me up for a life I love with slow mornings, travel, freedom with my schedule, peace and a full bank account. I’m building something with my desires in mind versus being driven by fear, scarcity and lack. I think a lot of practitioners get to a place of burnout because they have learned to build a business in chaos and they hit a breaking point. Fear can be a great motivator but it comes at a cost and I’d much prefer to build a business WHILE living a life I love.

All that to say… I think adopting a solution oriented mindset will take someone far in this field!

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

When I started learning functional medicine, it was 2012…this field was new and was very much looked at like quackery. Over the past decade that has changed but “functional medicine” wasn’t easily googable or a known term back then. I started seeing clients in 2014 and this field was still new. I was fortuante to have some incredible mentors and I also just dove head first into learning. I soaked up education like a sponge and attended 1-2 conferences a year to build my network & keep learning. There were not many dietitians practicing this way back then which certainly helped me build my reputation in the field.

Starting back in 2014, I was showing up consistently on social media, I shared results my clients were getting, word of mouth was growing, I was getting asked to speak at small events. I spoke at little yoga studios, gyms, grocery stores, chamber of commerce events– back then, if I was offered, I said yes. I just kept showing up and 10 years later I was asked to speak at FNCE (the largest conference for nutrition professionals). I want to emphasize that took 10 years! I’d say the biggest contributors were the dedication to refining my craft and ability to help people see results and then just showing up and being willing to try things (like new offers, new prices, new events, etc) without any guarantee on what it would be or lead to.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.nutritionbyrobyn.com, www.fnpinstitute.com, www.rayvishop.com
• Instagram: @nutritionbyrobyn
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nutritionbyrobyn/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@nutritionbyrobyn
• Other: tik tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nutritionbyrobyn

Image Credits
the professional shots: Kara Marie Collective