Something we don’t talk about enough is that you can be reallyyy good at helping other people grow their businesses while still feeling stuck in your own. And that’s exactly where we found ourselves earlier this year!
Here at Studio Adagio, we’ve spent years helping private practice dietitians, therapists, and clinicians build brands they’re proud of, websites that convert, and SEO strategies that bring in consistent traffic. But when it came to our own growth – specifically our Instagram presence and the way we were communicating our offers – we knew we needed a fresh set of eyes.
So we did what we always tell our clients to do – we called in an expert! That expert was Cierra Robbins, a former dietitian turned sales coach and strategist for nutrition business owners.
She works specifically with nutritionists and dietitians who want to get booked out without relying on pushy tactics or starting from scratch every month. And while we aren’t nutritionists and dietitians ourselves, we primarily work with that niche, so it felt like an aligned fit!
We sat down with her for 90 minutes and let her audit everythinggg from our sales strategy, to our social content, to our offers, and how it all worked (or didn’t work) together.
What came out of that call reshaped how we think about our own marketing and honestly, a lot of what Cierra shared applies directly to the nutrition practitioners and dietitians we work with every day, so it felt worthy of sharing here!
Why We Decided to Invest in a Sales Audit for Our Service Based Business
Before getting into the nitty gritty of what the audit looked like and what we learned from it, it’s important to understand why we decided to invest in this in the first place!
To be totally transparent, for a while we had felt like our Instagram growth had plateaued. We were showing up, creating content, and doing the work, but the needle wasn’t moving the way we wanted it to.
And even though our inquiry pipeline was healthy, deep down we knew that we weren’t maximizing the visibility we’d already built. We also know that getting too close to your own business is a real thing.
When you’re in it every day, it’s hard to see the gaps clearly. What feels obvious to you from the inside often isn’t landing the way you think it is on the outside and that’s where a second set of eyes becomes extremely valuable!
The biggest thing that we had to remind ourselves of before investing in this (and what we want you to know too) is that investing in outside perspective is NOT a sign that something is broken in your business – it’s simply what growth-minded business owners do.
And frankly, it’s the same reason our clients come to us, because having a strategic partner who can see your business clearly is one of the most valuable things you can have.
Cierra was the right person for this because she understands the nutrition and wellness space deeply and that was important to us!
What the Sales Audit Actually Looked Like
When it was time for the audit, our founder – Chloe Thomas – jumped on a Zoom call with Cierra for 90 minutes and what was really cool about this call is that it was truly just conversation based.
There was no screen sharing or training or anything like that. It was simply a focused conversation where she asked the right questions and we talked through the real pain points we were experiencing.
Cierra looked at our overall sales strategy, including which offers we were leading with, how we were positioning them, and whether the way we talked about our services matched what our ideal clients actually needed to hear.
She also reviewed our social content approach and helped us identify where we were leaving visibility (and inquiries) on the table.
Then, she tied it all together! Because as she made very clear, your content and your sales strategy have to work as a system, not separately.
By the end of the call, we had a clear, prioritized action plan. Instead of an overwhelming to-do list, we had true focused direction.
Top 5 Lessons We Learned From Our Sales Audit
There were honestly SO many things that Chloe took away from the sales audit, but we’ve boiled it down to 5 main lessons that you can benefit from too:
Visibility and Confidence Are Connected
One of the things Cierra named early in our conversation was how often business owners hold themselves back from showing up online because something in their business makes them feel embarrassed.
For us, it was Instagram. We’d been stuck at the same follower count for what felt like years and knew our content wasn’t showcasing our work the way it should. We were doing incredible work behind the scenes and almost none of it was translating publicly in a way that reflected that.
This is such a big conversation and it’s something that we see constantly with the clients who come to us.
For example, a dietitian might tell us she’s been avoiding sending people to her website because she knows it doesn’t represent her well. Another might share that she’s been posting inconsistently because she doesn’t have cohesive visuals to work with, so every post feels like starting from scratch.
The embarrassment is real and it directly affects how often they show up for their business!
What we’ve personally learned, however, is that confidence usually doesn’t come from mindset work alone – it comes from actually fixing the underlying issue.
For us, that meant tackling the Instagram issue head on (hence doing the sales audit with Cierra!) and adopting a real strategy to get us moving in the right direction.
For our clients, it often looks like investing in a rebrand or website redesign so they can finally feel confident sending people to a website they’re proud of!
➡️ Takeaway for Private Practice Clinicians
We’d encourage you to ask yourself and be honest: is there something in your business making you reluctant to market yourself? Maybe it’s your website, branding, or messaging?
Oftentimes the most effective confidence strategy is simply fixing the thing that’s been holding you back! And if it is your brand or website that’s the culprit, we’re here to help with that!
Your Content Needs To Show Your Work (Not Just Talk About It)
This was probably the most direct piece of feedback Cierra gave us – we do excellent work, but we weren’t showing enough of it publicly! We were talking about what we do more than we were actually showing it in action.
For example, we’d share a caption describing our process, but wouldn’t show an actual design that we recently created. Or we’d mention that a client was getting results, but not pull it into a post with real numbers and context.
This was a major gap we didn’t fully see until someone pointed it out! Cierra gave us specific examples of what to do instead, including:
- share more client results
- highlight design decisions and the strategy behind them
- pull content directly from case studies
- give behind-the-scenes looks at projects in progress
The idea is that people don’t just need to be told you’re good at what you do – they need to SEE it so they can visualize the transformation before they’re ready to invest! This is just as relevant for private practice clinicians.
For example, your clients don’t want to just hear that you help people improve their relationship with food – they want to see what that actually looks like. They want to hear from someone who was where they are now and got to the other side.
Within the appropriate boundaries of your practice and client confidentiality, there are always ways to show the work, whether it’s through anonymized wins, process breakdowns, client testimonials with permission, before-and-after snapshots of a meal planning approach, etc.
➡️ Takeaway for Private Practice Clinicians
Ask yourself: is your content simply telling people what you do, or is it SHOWING them?
Think about how you can incorporate client wins, your process, transformations, and behind-the-scenes moments into what you share, in a way that’s both compelling and ethically sound for your practice.
Your Offers and Your Content Should Work Together
This one hit superrr close to home for us because we have great offers, great freebies, and great content… but they weren’t always talking to each other. Meaning, someone could find us on Instagram, enjoy our content, and have no clear path to becoming a client because the dots weren’t connected.
Cierra helped us see that every piece of content – whether it’s a blog post, an Instagram reel, a freebie, or an email – should have a purpose within a larger system. Not in a manipulative way, but in a purposeful, intentional way!
For us, that looked like making sure our freebies (like our SEO Checklist for example!) were being promoted consistently, that our blog content was feeding into our service pages, and that we had a clear pathway for someone who found us on Instagram to eventually become a client.
➡️ Takeaway for Private Practice Clinicians
For a private practice clinician, with an online business, the same principle applies. If you have a lead magnet, are you promoting it consistently? If you write content about a topic you specialize in, does it lead somewhere? The content you’re already creating can work a lot harder, it just needs to be connected!
We’d encourage you to map out the journey from “someone discovers you” to “someone books with you.” and take note of where the gaps are and work on fixing those first!
Visibility Comes From Consistency More Than Creativity
If we’re being veryyy honest, we’re super guilty of this one! It’s common for us to create a strong piece of content, share it once, and move on to the next thing. Because well, as creatives it’s very natural to chase the next new idea instead of really leveraging all of the good ones we already have!
What Cierra made clear is that most of the time, the problem isn’t that your content strategy needs to be completely overhauled – the problem is that you’re not repeating your key messages enough.
As a business owner, it’s incredibly common to grow bored of what you’re saying, but the truth is that your audience needs to hear things over and over and over again before it clicks for them.
For us, that meant committing to promoting our freebies more frequently, talking about our core services more consistently, and reusing strong content (like client case studies) from different angles rather than always starting from scratch.
It might feel repetitive at first, but repetition is exactly what builds recognition!
➡️ Takeaway for Private Practice Clinicians
For private practice clinicians, the same thing applies – you don’t always need a new content strategy every month. You likely just need a clear message that people hear repeatedly.
If you’ve shared a client win, a specialty, or a service once, SHARE. IT. AGAIN. And then again after that. Your audience is bigger than the people who saw it the first time and the ones who did see it probably need the reminder anyway!
Sometimes Small Shifts Create the Biggest Results
Going into the audit, part of us expected to walk away with a massive to-do list that required rebuilding half of what we’d already built, but to our surprise, that’s NOT what happened! And that was probably the most reassuring part of the entire 90 minutes.
For us, the action items were focused and very doable: update the messaging on our branding sales page to better highlight how quickly we turn projects around, promote our lead magnets more consistently in stories, and delegate two content posts per month to our design team so that showcasing client work actually gets done rather than staying on the to-do list.
Literally none of that required reinventing the wheel. It simply required strategic attention!
And what’s funny is that’s a message we repeat to our own clients constantly, especially in our emails: growth often comes from refinement, not reinvention. The foundation is usually already there, it just needs to be sharpened.
➡️ Takeaway for Private Practice Clinicians
Before you decide you need to start over, ask whether what you have just needs to be tightened up. A stronger headline, a clearer CTA, a more consistent posting cadence are all examples of small shifts that often move the needle more than a complete overhaul ever could!
What This Means for Your Private Practice
If you’re a private practice clinician of any kind – whether it’s a therapist, dietitian, nutrition practitioner, or something else – running an online business, we’d be willing to bet that at least one of these lessons landed for you.
The through line in everything Cierra shared is that the businesses that grow sustainably aren’t necessarily doing more – they’re doing what they already do, but more intentionally, more consistently, and with a clearer connection between their content and their offers!
That’s also the philosophy behind everything we do at Studio Adagio!
A brand you’re proud of gives you the confidence to show up. A website that’s built for conversion turns your traffic into inquiries. An SEO strategy that’s targeted and consistent makes sure the right people are finding you in the first place.
When those three things are working together, the sales strategy that Cierra teaches has an even stronger foundation to build on.
So if you know that your brand, website, or SEO is the thing holding you back from showing up the way you want to, that’s exactly what we’re here to help with and would love to connect with you!
Why We Recommend Cierra for Private Practice Clinicians
And of course if you’re a dietitian or nutritionist with an online business and you’ve been feeling stuck in terms of inquiries, a sales process that feels awkward, or content that isn’t converting the way you hoped, Cierra is 10/10 the person we’d send you to!
What makes her approach different is that she comes from inside the world you’re operating in. She was a dietitian and built her own practice, which means she knows the specific hesitations, the pricing fears, and the “I don’t want to feel salesy” resistance that so many people feel because she’s lived it.
She now helps 400+ nutrition business owners get booked out using a sales approach that feels natural, not pushy. Her program, Booked Out, is built specifically for nutrition practitioners who want a repeatable system for attracting and converting ideal clients.
You can CLICK HERE to learn more about working with her and explore her resources. Would also highly recommend following along with her practical sales content on Instagram!
We don’t make recommendations lightly around here, but this one we mean. 🫶🏼