Ep 6 - Why You Need to Add Digital Income Streams to Your Health Business

 

Once upon a time, adding digital income streams to your health business might have been a "nice-to-have." 

But let me share a truth with you. 

Right now, adding these additional ways to bring in money to your business is pretty much essential.

Because the healthcare industry is evolving so rapidly, isn’t it?

And as health professionals, we need to embrace these changes if we want to build businesses that are thriving AND that are set to last the journey. 

One of the biggest shifts we’ve seen in recent years is the digitalisation of health services. 

Today, I want to talk about WHY digital income streams are crucial for the future of your health business and HOW they can transform your professional life – in terms of your impact, freedom and income!

 

By the end of this blog, you’ll be clued up on:

• The types of digital income streams you can create
• The advantages they will bring you 
• And why this is something you absolutely must consider!

So grab your costume and let’s swim on in…

 

Why Digital Income Streams Matter

 

Inclusive and Accessible Health

Over the past few years, we’ve seen a seismic shift in how healthcare is delivered. 

The pandemic accelerated changes that were already happening, with more and more services moving online. 

This wasn’t just about convenience; it was about necessity.

Virtual consultations, online content, and digital services became the norm – perhaps for you too.

 

And for many of our clients and patients, this was a revelation. 

 

Suddenly, they could access expert advice and support without the hassle of travelling, taking time off work, or rearranging their lives to fit into a clinic schedule.

 

In my own business, The Children’s Nutritionist, I noticed this shift long before the pandemic. 

Back in 2017, I transitioned my business online because I needed more freedom to be there for my children. 

• I built a blog

• I created online courses

• I developed a membership

• And I offered digital downloads…

 

All to provide flexible, scalable solutions – so I could step off the treadmill and do less ‘trading my time for money.’

The beauty of digital health services is that they allow us to help MORE people, in MORE places, and at MORE times than ever before. 

We’re breaking down barriers and making healthcare truly inclusive.

And that can only be a good thing.

 

What Are Digital Income Streams?

Would you love to make more impact without working (even) harder?

Digital income streams could be your thing!

Digital income streams are products or services that allow you to leverage your expertise online, reaching far more people than you could through traditional 1:1 consultations. 

They’re scalable, flexible, and incredibly rewarding for both you and your clients.

Want some examples, to get you thinking?

Let’s explore…

 

1. Online Courses

When most people think of digital income streams, online courses are the first thing that springs to mind – and for good reason.

Courses allow you to package up your expertise into a structured program that your clients can work through at their own pace. 

Once you’ve created them, you can sell them repeatedly (with minimal ongoing effort) AND you can help hundreds or even thousands of people.

 

For example:

• If you’re a psychologist, you could create a course on managing anxiety
• If you’re a dietitian, you could create a program on meal planning for busy families. 

 

Whatever your area of expertise, it’s likely you can turn it into a course that provides real, tangible value.

If the idea of creating a course feels overwhelming, don’t worry! 

I’ve covered the process step-by-step in Episode 3 of Beyond the Clinic, titled How to Turn Your Expertise Into an Online Course.

 

2. Memberships

Like the idea of predictable, recurring revenue?

Then I encourage you to think about memberships. 

Memberships are like an exclusive club where clients pay a recurring fee to access valuable content, community support, and even direct interaction with you through Q&A sessions or live webinars.

 

I run two memberships in The Children’s Nutritionist:

• The Happy Healthy Eaters Club: A community for parents of toddlers and preschoolers navigating feeding challenges
• Meal Plan Membership: A subscription where families receive weekly meal plans with recipes tailored to their needs

Memberships are fantastic because you can keep growing them (and your income!) each time you launch.

And you’re building a loyal community of people who trust you and value your expertise too.

 

3. E-Books and Digital Guides

Create it once. Sell it on repeat! (Yes, even while you sleep.)

E-books and guides are evergreen products and are another great way to share your knowledge. 

For example, if you’re a nurse specialising in sleep health, you could create a digital guide on how to establish a healthy bedtime routine for adults. 

Once it’s written and designed, it can generate income for years to come with very little maintenance.

I dive deeper into the details of creating and selling digital goods in Episode 2, How to Make Money from E-Books and Digital Products. Have a listen!

 

4. Affiliate Marketing

Do you often recommend products or services that you trust?

Well, you can make additional income from doing exactly that.

Affiliate marketing involves recommending products or services that you genuinely trust and earning a commission when someone purchases them through your link.

For example, in The Children’s Nutritionist, I recommend specific baby weaning spoons and bowls that I’ve personally vetted and believe in. 

Parents appreciate the convenience of having trusted recommendations, and I earn a small commission for sharing what I know works.

If you’re unsure about the ethics of affiliate marketing, stay tuned for Episode 8, where I’ll discuss how to do this without compromising your integrity.

 

The Benefits of Adding Digital Income Streams

Digital income streams aren’t just about making more money (although that’s certainly a nice bonus!) 

They’re about transforming your business into something that’s more sustainable, impactful, and rewarding.

Here’s why they’re a game-changer:

 

1. Stability

Sometimes, life happens – right?

If your business relies solely on 1:1 consultations, your income can be thrown off if you suffer with illness, take a holiday, or when unexpected events are hurled at you. 

Digital income streams provide you with a consistent, stable revenue model. 

Products like online courses, memberships, or e-books generate income around the clock. 

Even when you’re taking a well-deserved break, your business keeps working for you. (Yes please!)

 

2. Scalability

Are you hitting that income ceiling?

With traditional client work, there’s a ceiling on your earnings because there are only so many hours in a day. 

Though with digital products, there are no such limits! 

You can help hundreds or even thousands of people with the same course or membership, all without adding to your workload.

This scalability means your income and impact can grow exponentially while freeing up your time to focus on other (more exciting) things.

Imagine more time for family, personal development, building new aspects of your business…

Or whatever you decide!

 

3. Cost-Effectiveness

Say hello to less overheads!

Running a clinic or office comes with significant costs, from rent to utilities and equipment. 

The great news is that digital products wipe out many of these expenses.

Once you’ve created your course or e-book, your only ongoing costs might be for hosting or marketing (which are minimal compared to traditional clinic costs!) 

This means higher profit margins AND more flexibility for you.

 

4. Diversification

We don’t want to put all our precious eggs in one basket!

Relying on a single source of income – like client consultations – is risky. 

What happens if your referral sources dry up or your clients’ needs change?

Adding digital income streams diversifies your business, making it more resilient. 

You’ll have multiple revenue streams to rely on, which protects you against industry changes, economic shifts, and unforeseen challenges.

(Honestly – what a relief.)

 

5. Flexibility

One of the biggest advantages of digital income streams is the FREEDOM they give you. 

By automating parts of your business, you’re no longer tied (kicking and screaming) to a strict schedule.

With this new flexibility, you can create a business that works around you and your life – not the other way around. 

Whether you want to spend more time with your family, travel, or simply work fewer hours, digital products make it possible.

Doesn’t that sound dreamy?

 

Addressing the Tech Worries

There’s great news – you don’t have to be a tech wizard to make this happen!

I know that for many of you, the idea of diving into the digital world feels intimidating. 

But most platforms today are incredibly user-friendly, and there are countless tutorials, courses, and communities to help you get started. 

My best advice? 

Start small, ask for recommendations from colleagues, and focus on learning ONE tool at a time. 

You’ll be amazed at how quickly you can build confidence!

 

Action Step: Plan Your Digital Future

Let’s think about how we can make this happen!

If you’re ready to create a business with more freedom, I encourage you to take time this week to think about the digital income streams that might work for your business. 

(And it WILL be time well spent!)

 

Ask yourself:

• What knowledge or expertise do I have that people would pay for?
• What format would work best for my audience (e.g. a course, membership, e-book)?
• What steps can I take this month to begin creating my first digital product?

 

What’s Next?

Don’t miss my blog called How to attract more clients, perfect so you can enjoy a steady flow of people ready to snap up your digital offers!

By embracing digital income streams, you’re not just creating a more stable and profitable business – you’re creating a legacy. 

You’re reaching more people, working smarter (not harder), and designing a career that works for you and your family. 

And I know you can do this.

 

 

Grab The Master Plan!

Ready to build the business you’ve always dreamed of?

This step-by-step workbook will walk you through exactly what you need to focus on and when. You'll get my expert knowledge as a health business strategist.

This guide really is your master plan to business success! Grab your free copy, right here…https://www.sarahalmondbushell.com/master-plan

 

Connect with me here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dietitiansinbusiness/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dietitiansinbusiness

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BeyondTheClinicPodcast

 

Episode transcription:

 

[00:00:00] Sarah Almond Bushell: Today, I want to talk about something that I believe is crucial for the future of all health businesses, whether you're a dietician like me, a medical doctor, a psychologist, a nurse, or in fact, work in any profession that helps people improve their health. And that is the digitalization of health services.

[00:00:22] Sarah Almond Bushell: In this episode, I want to give you some food for thought or what In this episode, I want to give you some food for thought around why you need to add digital income streams into your health business if you want it to thrive over the coming years.

[00:00:36] Sarah Almond Bushell: Over the last few years, we have seen a significant shift towards more online services. Digital content, and of course, virtual consultations. Now, this isn't just about convenience and working smarter rather than harder, although these do have huge advantages to us as business owners.

[00:00:56] Sarah Almond Bushell: It's also about making health inclusive and accessible to everyone, anywhere they happen to be in the world. The pandemic. Accelerated changes that were actually well underway in terms of moving towards more online or digital healthcare solutions. In fact, I took my business, The Children's Nutritionist, online back in 2017 when I no longer wanted to trade my time for money because I needed the freedom to be there for my children.

[00:01:25] Sarah Almond Bushell: I built it with a blog and some online courses and a membership and some digital downloads well before the pandemic hit. But of course, COVID introduced us to delivering our services from home and introduced our patients and clients to having access to healthcare via online platforms. And actually, What this did was it led to a huge surge in digital health. Now, what I think is really interesting is that many of our patients and clients prefer the convenience of not having to travel to clinic appointments, particularly in my speciality in pediatrics, where an appointment often involved missing school, parents cutting their workday short,

[00:02:06] Sarah Almond Bushell: and as a result, there's been a continuation of digital health services to meet the new expectations and preferences of our clients. And this actually extends far wider than the local community that we previously may have just served.

[00:02:21] Sarah Almond Bushell: And so what it means is that anyone with an internet connection can tap into a wealth of knowledge and resources to help them with their health condition. And this level of accessibility is an absolute game changer for those of us who have digital offers in our business. So in a nutshell, we can help more people and we can have a greater impact.

[00:02:46] Sarah Almond Bushell: However, the absolute heart of today's topic is about the different digital income streams that you can add to your business. Now I have to say that this is an area that I am super passionate about because it's all about working smarter and not working harder, which is, was exactly what it was all about for me back in 2017, when I decided to take the children's nutritionist online. It's all about being able to reach more people, but in that same amount of time.

[00:03:16] Sarah Almond Bushell: And I think there's a huge pleasure that comes with having this knowledge, that you're enriching people's lives, that you're having a far greater impact than you could do if you were just working one to one with clients. So with that said, let's go through a bit of an overview of the different digital income streams that you can add to your business and make more money in less time.

[00:03:41] Sarah Almond Bushell: Okay, first of all, let's chat through online courses. Because I think this is what most people think of when they start to consider digital income streams. A course allows you to package up your knowledge and expertise into a format where people can either work through it in their own time, at their own pace, or work through it at a cadence that you set by dripping your content, following it, a set pattern.

[00:04:08] Sarah Almond Bushell: And of course, courses are a scalable product because after you create it once, you can sell it. And help hundreds or even thousands of clients for as long as you decide to run it. Unlike one on one sessions, a course requires only your initial time investment at the start to create it. And then after that, it can be sold repeatedly, enabling you to help more people in just a fraction of the time.

[00:04:34] Sarah Almond Bushell: Now, if you love the idea of an online course, but you're not exactly sure how to package up your knowledge and expertise into a Course format, I'd love for you to take a listen to episode three, which is called how to turn your expertise into an online course, where the whole process is laid out for you. Next up, let's talk about subscription based membership sites. Now, think of these as a club where members join and can access exclusive content, community support, and even get direct advice from you, because once a month, or more often, you might have a group Q& A session. All of this is for a fee that's taken on a reoccurring monthly or annual basis.

[00:05:21] Sarah Almond Bushell: Now this model provides a really nice steady stream of income and it allows you to impact more lives simultaneously. You're not trading your hours for money, you're leveraging your time to create a community with added value of your exclusive content. I've got two memberships actually in the Children's Nutritionist.

[00:05:42] Sarah Almond Bushell: One is our Happy Healthy Eaters Club and that's aimed at parents of toddlers and preschool children and it helps them navigate the typical toddler feeding stage. And then the other one I have is a Meal Planning Membership where each week subscribers receive a nutritionally balanced meal plan with recipes that's actually suitable for the whole family.

[00:06:04] Sarah Almond Bushell: So what I love about running a membership is that you get monthly reoccurring revenue coming in, and that's revenue that increases each time you run a campaign to bring in more members. Next up, let's talk about eBooks and digital guides. Now, these are another fantastic way to share your knowledge and expertise and help people achieve the results that they're striving for.

[00:06:30] Sarah Almond Bushell: When you write and sell a comprehensive guide on a very specific topic, it will provide you with an evergreen source of income. Once created, your digital product can be sold over and over and over, there really is no limit. Now, I'd love for you to listen to episode two, where I go into how to make money from selling digital goods and eBooks in a lot more detail.

[00:06:53] Sarah Almond Bushell: And lastly, let's not overlook the potential of affiliate marketing. So what do I mean by this? Essentially this is recommending other people's products or services. And if someone decides to purchase after your recommendation, you get a kickback, which is usually an amount of money. So lots of us worry whether this is actually legal and ethical with us being in a position of trust as a healthcare professional.

[00:07:18] Sarah Almond Bushell: So if this is a worry for you, I'd love for you to tune in in a couple of weeks time and listen to episode eight, which is all about how to make money from affiliate marketing without compromising your integrity, where I'm going to go through this in a lot of detail. But when you find yourself always recommending a particular author's cookbook, or a piece of sports equipment, or like me, very specific baby weaning spoons and pots and bowls, so things that you trust and you would use yourself, then you can earn commissions on sales made through your referral link or your code.

[00:07:57] Sarah Almond Bushell: So this not only adds another income stream, but it also really enhances your client's experience because You are doing the research for them and providing them with vetted resources. So I think you'll probably notice that the common thread among all of these digital income streams is efficiency. By embracing digital health services, you're not just opening up new revenue streams, you're actually maximizing your time and your energy, which is something that I am.

[00:08:28] Sarah Almond Bushell: All for, after all, I went into working for myself so that I could have more time and more freedom to be there for my family. But you're also reaching more people with the same amount of effort. If not less effort, in fact, this doesn't just benefit you, it really benefits your clients as well, because they'll get more access to your expertise, but at different price points and in different formats, and they actually may prefer those because it fits their lives or their learning styles better.

[00:08:59] Sarah Almond Bushell: I want to stress that moving into digital income streams doesn't mean losing the personal touch or the quality of your services. In fact, I think it's the opposite. It's about enhancing what you already offer by making it more accessible and meeting your clients where they are. It's about building health businesses, not just a clinic, which not only is Financially rewarding for you, but it's also scalable and it has a greater impact.

[00:09:31] Sarah Almond Bushell: Okay. Now I hope you're starting to feel inspired by the idea of digital opportunities that are available to us. So here's just a few of what I think are the biggest advantages for you and your business. So the first, of course, is stability. In the traditional model of health services, income often fluctuates depending on the number of clients you see in a day or a week or a month.

[00:09:59] Sarah Almond Bushell: Often people will describe this as feast or famine, where holidays, Personal time off, unforeseen sickness, these can all negatively impact your bottom line. Furthermore, if you run a private practice and you rely on consultant or GP referrals and that person retires or goes off sick, you don't have a business anymore because your referral sources have dried up.

[00:10:23] Sarah Almond Bushell: But when you have digital income streams, you will have more stable and more predictable revenue in your business. Subscription services, online courses and eBooks generate income around the clock. You can even automate your marketing and selling so that you'll make money regardless of whether you're working or taking some well deserved time off.

[00:10:44] Sarah Almond Bushell: Secondly, it's scalability. So by this I mean the potential to grow your business and Make more money. And this is important because there's an actual limit to how many clients you can see in a day and how many hours you can work in any given week or month. So eventually, even if you really fill up your clinics, you're going to hit a maximum capacity and alongside it, your maximum income. But digital products and services there's no maximum capacity. You can help an unlimited number of people without the additional time investment from you. This scalability factor means that your business can grow exponentially, reaching clients across the globe.

[00:11:29] Sarah Almond Bushell: You can make a Bigger impact without actually increasing your workload. So I would say that this is a win win for you and for your clients. Another advantage of digital income streams is their cost effectiveness. Traditionally, when you deliver health services, you will have overhead costs like renting a clinic space, utilities, any equipment you might need.

[00:11:54] Sarah Almond Bushell: But with digital products, you've got significantly lower ongoing costs. So once you've created your digital content, it can be sold repeatedly on your website or via social media, which incidentally is free. And that can lead to higher profit margins. If you've created a course or a membership, you'll have to pay to host this somewhere, but the costs of hosting a minimal in comparison to the costs of repeatedly renting a clinic room. Diversification is another important aspect. So what I mean by this is the reassurance that you're protecting your business's future when you have multiple different income streams. I touched on this earlier, but if you have just one single offer, like your one to one consultations, you're relying on a single income source to keep your business afloat.

[00:12:47] Sarah Almond Bushell: Now, this can be risky. But by integrating digital income streams into your business model, you're not only opening up new revenue channels, but you're also protecting your business against potential risks, such as that consultant taking early retirement, or here's a big one, changes in consumer behavior, just like we saw after the pandemic.

[00:13:10] Sarah Almond Bushell: It's really about having multiple pillars supporting your business to ensure its ongoing success. And then finally, I want to round off this episode by addressing the elephant in the room, and that is technology. I know that for many of us, the thought of diving into the digital world can be really daunting because of the tech that you've got to learn.

[00:13:35] Sarah Almond Bushell: But here's the thing, you don't honestly have to be a tech wizard to succeed. These days, a lot of the tech solutions are easy, and I think this has become more so since the pandemic and the explosion into the digital space. There are tons of tools and platforms that are actually really intuitive to use.

[00:13:55] Sarah Almond Bushell: My advice would be to go on recommendation, ask a colleague or a friend to show you what they use, Yes, there are some complex tech platforms out there, but there's also a lot of very easy ones as well. So there we have it. That was a monster of an episode, but I think you'll agree that this is something that everybody needs to have in their business, and it's something I'm super passionate about.

[00:14:20] Sarah Almond Bushell: I hope I've sold you on the idea. Of embracing digital income streams in your business. And you can see the potential that they have, whether that's a course or a subscription membership or an ebook or affiliate income, it's really just about working smarter and not harder. It's about leveraging your expertise and passion to help more people more efficiently, more effectively, more inclusively, and in a more accessible way.

[00:14:49] Sarah Almond Bushell: And of course, for you, it's about building a business that's not only financially rewarding, but also flexible, scalable, impactful, and stable. As we wrap up this episode, I want you to be thinking about the potential income streams you could have to transform your business.

[00:15:09] Sarah Almond Bushell: And I'd love for you to drop me a line and let me know. You can find out all my contact details in the show notes below. Join me same time, same place next week for episode seven, where quite simply, I'm going to teach you how to attract more clients. See you then.