As a dietitian specializing in Chronic Kidney Disease, Lindsey’s renal nutrition freebies have led to successful upsells of her content – more than $5,000 since becoming an Well Resourced Dietitian vendor! Learn about her approach.
Welcome to the Well Resourced Dietitian InnovatoRD Series! We invite you to meet Lindsey Zirker, fellow RD specializing in renal nutrition. Her Well Resourced store consists of counseling tools and resources to improve your nutrition counseling sessions focused on kidney health.
Kidney resources are wildly popular on Well Resourced Dietitian – and Lindsey understands this need firsthand. Her freebies and premium content equip you with macro and micronutrient information that you need to wisely counsel your own clients and patients. And they are bought up like hotcakes! With nearly 2,500 product sales to date amounting to more than $5,000 in income for Lindsey, she shares more below about filling a need and how to market smartly to drive sales.
But first…
Get to Know Lindsey: the CKD Dietitian
Hello! I’m Lindsey. I was introduced to nutrition when I was really young. My mom was always teaching me about food labels, whole foods, and food as medicine when I was growing up, so becoming a dietitian always seemed natural to me.
I stumbled on renal nutrition in my first job at a dialysis clinic. I grew to love it and the challenges it presents in trying to figure out why a patient’s labs are trending a certain way or why an intervention did or didn’t work. Plus, I incorporate a functional medicine perspective in my work – both because of my upbringing and also as a result of my post-grad studies. The more I learned, the more a root cause approach is the only thing that made sense.
My focus now in renal health is on prevention and preserving kidney function. As a consultant RD with the Kidney Nutrition Institute and private practice RD, I’ve had the opportunity to explore how genetics, micronutrient and gut health testing play a key role in kidney health, and have been able to see some really incredible results with patients by using these additional tools.
"I stumbled on renal nutrition in my first job at a dialysis clinic. I grew to love it and the challenges it presents."
Really interesting, Lindsey, to learn about your career path from dialysis to prevention. How does your expertise show up in the content that you create for RD2RD?
Lindsey’s Resources on WellResourced.com
Most of what I create is CKD-related because that is what I live and breathe. I make and share my learnings and knowledge with others who may not be as close to this content so that it saves everyone time and spares our sanity! I’m sure many of you can relate!
We’re thankful that you create the content that you do. You have a large audience of buyers – dietitians working in dialysis centers, dietitians in outpatient settings, and RDs who have their own private practice.
Yes – and with an aging population comes more need for kidney care resources. It’s such a specialized practice area, too – you really have to understand labs and nutrient needs when caring for this patient population. When I first started in dialysis, I was certain that I was going to accidentally teach someone the wrong thing about potassium and it would be my fault when they had a heart attack. I wish I had my own handouts when I was starting out!
"With an aging population comes more need for kidney care resources. It’s such a specialized practice area, too – you really have to understand labs and nutrient needs when caring for this patient population."
I use my Tips for Using Herbs and Supplements in Kidney Disease all the time; this freebie has been widely downloaded by many – upwards of 500 times! It includes questions to consider when evaluating a supplement, lists of herbs to use caution with or avoid due to kidney disease. I also include a list of websites, courses and other tools that can help you safely use herbs in patients with kidney disease.
Pause your reading, reader! Download the herbs and supplements freebie now. We’ll wait!
The other one that I keep by my side is my Micronutrient Clinical Guide. It saves me so much time from having to look up dosages, contraindications and all those important little details you need when making recommendations.
Those are two valuable pieces of content, Lindsey. Here are others that we love in your store:
- Freebie: Nutrition Focused Physical Exam Cheat Sheet – downloaded nearly 700 times! This free tool provides basic physical assessment guidance so you can use your eyes to observe your client and see if there are any red flags for micronutrient deficiency.
- Premium product: CKD Food List Bundle ($34.99) – Are you new to dialysis and still trying to figure out what food has what nutrient? This reference helps you identify appropriate food substitutions, sources of nutrients if levels are too high, or just become more familiar with foods containing a certain nutrient.
- Premium product: Eat to Energize Your Workday: presentation and handout ($11.99) – A great piece for workplace presentations, this one establishes how food impacts our workday. Includes a brief summary of how food impacts stress, depression, anxiety, cognitive function, energy levels and more at work.
Lindsey’s Tips for Creating Content that Sells
Tell us how your 20+ products have resulted in more than $5,000 in sales, Lindsey. What’s your secret?
Sure! I always create something I’m actually going to use myself. And, I make sure that it is visually appealing – with all of the easy-to-use tools out there, there is no excuse for ugly handouts any more, right?
I try to limit the word count and keep it simple, so that patients have clear action items that they can implement to make positive changes. I also make sure that these action items are reasonable and supported by the most current evidence. I include references so dietitians have additional resources handy. I also think clinical tools need to be practical. Put things in tables or charts so that you don’t have to read paragraphs to find the dosage or contraindications or symptoms. Make the content easy to understand!
With all of the easy-to-use tools out there, there is no excuse for ugly handouts any more, right?
No one has figured out the perfect way to treat any type of chronic disease or condition. But when I read about new guidelines or research and implement it within my resources and it helps my own patients, then I can provide resources to help other RDs do the same. Each time we do this we learn a little more and get a little better at helping people live fuller lives.
Well said. Another thing that you do really well is listing your freebies with options to upsell – meaning, you link a paid product within the listing for your freebie.
Yes, this strategy behind marketing my products has worked really well for me. My freebies draw in my intended RD audience, and then, they may see the link at the bottom of the freebie that invites them to check out a for-pay item. It’s smart to catch your audience while you have their attention. And while I love providing freebies to RDs, we’re all here to monetize our time and expertise! That’s just one thing that I love about the Well Resourced Dietitian marketplace.
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Lindsey, to close out this section, we also have to share that we admire your strong focus on offering detailed resource tip – “sell what you use!”
As an example, I was asked to give a presentation during a corporate wellness week at work. I really had to get creative to think of what to share, and I ended up creating a presentation on energizing your workday. I included a handout. Given the positive feedback that I received, I decided to list both on Well Resourced.
I spent another two hours putting in more speaker notes and suggestions for RDs, plus created the product listing. Since 2019, I’ve made nearly $1,000 on the presentation – a much better return on my time investment than just getting paid one time for the presentation. Hopefully it’s made other RDs’ jobs easier, too!
Final Thoughts
We love that Well Resourced Dietitian is allowing you to share your expertise with other dietitians – and ultimately, patients in need of renal nutrition information. Thank you for sharing your success story with us.
My pleasure! RD2RD is a great way for us to share, collaborate and support each other as RDs.
Has Lindsey’s success story inspired you? If so, take the next step – become an wellresourced.com vendor today.
