Recommend Better Supplements in Just Three Steps

These 3 steps to better supplement recommendations will help your clients get and stay healthy and help you meet your profit goals, too.

In this article, you’ll … 

• Learn how to develop a personalized, ongoing supplement strategy for all of your clients
• Understand why evaluating your clients’ needs (and continuously re-evaluating those needs) is crucial for their better health outcomes and your business
• Harness your competitive advantage to boost your clients’ satisfaction and your bottom line
• Find out how to create winning personalized supplement strategies for your clients and your business

Telling your patients everything they need to do to get healthy in one session isn’t better for them—and one-and-done sessions aren’t exactly ideal when it comes to your business model either. Which is why when it comes to supplements, I always remind healthcare practitioners to remember the following: You don’t sell supplements; you sell a proven process that helps each one of your client’s enjoy better health.

The best part is that doing this is easier than you might think. In fact, follow these three simple steps and you’ll engage your clients in committing to better health (and as a result, they’ll commit to working with you).

Step No. 1: Show them why they need You for better supplement recommendations

Your clients are guilty. At some point, they’ve skipped consulting you or another health care provider and turned to Dr. Google for supplement advice instead. They probably bought the first supplement that seemed like it could help them. If they did any research, it might’ve been reading a few product reviews or comparing a couple of prices. Then, they purchased over-the-counter pills and tablets, powders off the pharmacy’s shelves, you name it. Anything that promised a simple, quick fix.

As we all know, these supplements may or may not work because they may or may not be what that client’s body actually needs, today, or what is doable for them. 

These days, you’re not only competing against the stores selling supplements, but also the companies who circumvent practitioners, claiming to personalize supplement recommendations. Showing your prospects and clients that your process is truly personalized will help you stand out. (And if supplement recommendations are outside of your scope of practice, no problem—simply make a referral to a practitioner who can help your client. In the long run, this will be way better for your client and for your business, as it opens the door to reciprocal referrals.)

To do top-notch assessments that show off your value, you have to assess their total current nutrition, health, and lifestyle.

For example, let’s say someone complains of constipation. Their Google search may have told them about fiber, magnesium, and herbal laxatives—and because being constipated is the worst, they likely bought or tried them all! Maybe these products got the bowels moving, but you and I both know they are a band-aid fix at best, which isn’t likely to lead to a long-term solution. Worse, maybe those products didn’t work, or they contained ingredients that interacted with medications that client was taking at the time or competed with other nutrients.

Imagine how much better it is for this client to connect with you. And imagine if you had one toolkit that could help you do this personalized assessment more easily!

Enter BNP. I created The Better Nutrition Program evaluations to help me personalize supplement recommendations more efficiently while showing my clients what true personalization really is! They complement lab and biomarker tests your clients may have had, or they can be used without these results. If it’s not within your scope to order labs, reach out to your client’s healthcare provider(s) and ask them to order lab work or testing on your behalf. Bonus: When you start a conversation with these practitioners, it’s a great way to form relationships with people who may send you clients. What’s more, your clients will always appreciate you going the extra mile and working with their doctors. It shows how deeply you care about helping them feel better. 

Pro Tip: When reaching out to practitioners, share their patient’s BNP evaluation results to show them how you assess a patient’s total nutrition. This will help them immensely, and is likely to generate more referrals from trusted sources in the medical field.

Step No. 2: Deliver truly personalized recommendations…from your supplement store

Following assessment, it’s time to move on to personalizing your recommendations. To do this, begin by sharing the three key roles that supplements can play:

1. Prevent nutrient gaps
2. Address existing nutrient gaps
3. Help treat conditions therapeutically

Their evaluation (along with labs, biomarkers etc.) gave you a complete picture of where they are today. You can now show them how their choices are and are not meeting their body’s needs. Once you reveal nutrient needs, you can then give them options.

Options empower clients to make their better choices, more often. When they understand what they need and have different options for meeting those needs, they engage in their nutrition choices.

For example, their magnesium evaluation reveals to you both insufficient intake of this key mineral. You explain that is contributing to their constipation. Using the BNP magnesium menu, you show them food choices and discuss combinations to meet their goals. Are these doable? Yes? Great, let’s try it for two weeks and reassess. No? Then let me recommend a better quality supplement (and offer, since they are your client, to give them a discount on the supplement from your store). Perhaps they also struggle with falling asleep. In this case, regardless of improving food intake, you will want them to get in some magnesium before bed. This is where a supplement would be a better choice, so show them those options in your store.

See how easy it is to truly personalize supplement recommendations and introduce your supplement store? And how it’s so much better than a button on your website saying “get supplements here”?!

Also key: Don’t forget to build in regular communication with your clients as part of their personalized plan. These can be automated emails with videos, or quick check-ins to help people navigate the supplement purchase process or to see how they’re doing a week(s) into following a protocol. 

And finally, make sure to continue to educate yourself on all of the supplement options out there. Our BNP evaluations, guides, protocols and programs—not to mention the video library containing cutting-edge education, master classes, and workshops with nutrition leaders—can help you easily up-level your supplement knowledge. And, our email sequence templates make it easy to implement better follow-up.

Step No. 3: Reassess repeatedly to optimize client health (and your business profits!)

Just like medication prescriptions, supplement recommendations are not static. You’d never tell someone to take a medication for life without reassessing that patient’s need for the Rx, right? Well, the same is true for supplements—which is why your process must include reassessment. 

I make my supplement recommendations for 90 days typically and note an expiration date in my patient notes, so my clients know not to re-order supplements until I’ve had a chance to reassess their needs.

These are 3 ways I optimize results and make it easier for me too. I use an automated email sequence. Attached or digitally from my practice management system, I resend one or two evaluations for them to fill out. And I request at least three days of the BNP Journal. This is how I get all the data I need easily to determine their better next step. Maybe they can continue and I authorize the re-order. Or, perhaps I remove, reduce or add a different supplement to the protocol. Instead, I may send them a note that we need to meet again to further personalize their plan. You bet I use this opportunity to check-in with their practitioners. I send their updated evaluation results as an easy method to share their current total nutrition and my plan.

The major upside of this business model? It will turn a client from a once-a-year connection or a one-package purchase to into a lifelong patient. That is better for both of patient and practitioner! Are you ready to be in a better position to optimize each client’s nutrition needs as their life happens?

Check out this FREE webinar from Ashley Koff, RD, on The Integrative Practitioner that covers engaging your patients more effectively through personalizing supplement strategies!

The Better Nutrition Program can help you provide better patient outcomes AND increase your profits with supplement sales. Click here to get the tools and how-to guidance you need to create winning personalized strategies for your clients and your business.

When you sign up for a FREE Fullscript store under The Better Nutrition Program, your library is instantly stocked with our expert’s top picks and categories. Having a pro vet your supplements is a huge advantage.

Want even more tips to personalize supplement recommendations? Keep reading here.