Ep 73 The 5-Figure Brand Deal I Turned Down — And How It Helped Me Grow a More Aligned, Profitable Business

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Episode transcription:

In this episode, I'm sharing the behind the scenes of a five figure brand deal I turned down and why saying no was one of the best decisions I've ever made. If you're a regulated healthcare professional thinking about working with brands, this one's essential. I'll walk you through the red flags to look out for, the boundaries I recommend you put in place and how to say no without sabotaging future opportunities or your confidence.

Imagine being offered a five-figure deal. Great pay, minimal effort and a brand that aligns with your expertise. But there's a catch. They want you to bend the rules.

What would you do? Well, that's exactly the choice that I faced. And today I'm sharing a real life situation where I had to choose between my values and quite a lucrative brand partnership. I'll tell you my story and how I navigated the situation while staying compliant with the legal regulations that protect us as healthcare professionals and maintaining my professional values.

So in this episode, you're going to learn the specific rules that we need to follow as healthcare professionals when working with brands, how to handle pushbacks from brands or agencies that don't fully understand our responsibilities, and some practical steps to protect you and your professional integrity whilst working with brands. It's easy to view dieticians working with brands as purely commercial.

But the reality is that collaborating with reputable brands allows the public access to factual evidence-based health advice from properly qualified professionals. Without our involvement, the conversation is dominated by influencers and wellness bloggers and self-styled nutrition experts with no formal training or regulatory oversight.

We all know that public health messaging doesn't just happen in clinics and in hospitals anymore. It happens on social media, in advertising and through brand partnerships. So if people like us registered dietitians don't engage in these spaces, the vacuum is going to be filled by voices who lack scientific credibility.

Working with brands when done ethically and in compliance with regulations can be a really, really important way to bridge this gap and to ensure that the public is receiving trustworthy nutrition information. So my hope is that by the end of this episode, you will feel empowered to say no when necessary, to advocate for yourself and to ensure that your collaborations align with your ethical

and our legal and professional standards. Have you ever felt pressured to do something that just didn't sit right with you? Maybe it was a professional request that clashed with your ethics or a situation where you knew the rules, but someone insisted that they didn't matter. Today I'm sharing a personal story about when this happened to me, a situation that not only tested my integrity, but made me

deeply concerned for other freelance healthcare professionals. So in 2024, I was approached by a PR agency representing a really well-known nutrition supplement brand. They wanted me to create content for one of their products. At first, it sounded like a great opportunity. It paid exceptionally well. Let's just say it was five figures for not a lot of work and it aligned with my...

professional dietetic expertise of 25 plus years as a paediatric dietitian. And actually to me, it felt like the chance to support families who were navigating really common nutritional challenges. I thought, you know what, this could really help people. But as we got further into the process, things didn't feel quite right. So the brief landed in my inbox. One line jumped out at me and immediately

I got a funny feeling. I knew it just wasn't quite right. They provided a brief that asked me to promote the product and its health claims in a way that directly tied the two together. Now, as a healthcare professional, I know that this is a huge red flag. We have clear regulations in the UK, guidelines that exist to protect the public and to maintain trust in our profession. And these rules make it clear that you can't link a specific product

to a health outcome in promotional content. And yet this is exactly what they wanted me to do. So I knew this wasn't right. So I went off to an official advisory body to double check the rules and armed with their advice, I went back to the agency. Their response, well, I think you're being a bit overcautious. It's actually just all a matter of judgment.

And then they told me to ignore the official advice. So at this point, I felt a bit stuck. I'd already invested a lot of time and energy and effort into the project. It was time that I wasn't going to get back, but more than that, I felt really deeply uncomfortable. If I was being asked to choose between doing what was easy, going along with their requests and doing what was right, standing by my professional integrity.

and the ethical standards that guide our profession. And let me tell you, it was hard, hard to push back, hard to hold my ground and really hard to accept that this might mean walking away from a five-figure deal. What happened? I walked away. I gave back the money and I don't actually regret it for a second. In the end,

I made the only decision I could. I terminated the collaboration. I refunded the fee and I just walked away. And while I knew it was the right thing to do, I was left really frustrated, not just for myself and all the time and energy and effort that I'd wasted, but for others in our profession. What about the less experienced dieticians out there who might not know the rules as well?

What about those who might feel pressured to comply because they're worried about losing opportunities? It's a really scary thought. So this experience left me with so many questions. Why wasn't this agency willing to follow the rules? Why didn't they value the professional standards that we uphold? And how can we as healthcare professionals protect ourselves and our integrity in situations like this?

And that's what we're exploring in today's episode. So let's dive in. So there I was having walked away from a collaboration that really didn't align with my values. But as I reflected on the experience, the deeper issues started to surface. This wasn't just about me or this one particular agency or one brand. It was about something much bigger, something that could impact our entire profession. It got me thinking.

How often do these PR agencies or marketing teams or even large brands themselves overlook or misunderstand the regulations that we have to follow as health professionals? Because these aren't just guidelines, in part they're legal requirements designed to protect the public from misleading information. And yet in my experience, they're often treated as optional or worse, just ignored entirely.

Now imagine what happens when a less experienced dietitian or any healthcare professional for that matter finds themselves in a similar situation. Maybe they're new to freelancing. Maybe they're really eager to build their portfolio. Maybe they need that amount of money in one go and just simply don't feel confident enough to push back. They could end up agreeing to something that not only breaches regulations, but puts their professional credibility and reputation at risk.

And what we're talking about here isn't just a slap on the wrist from a regulatory body. It's about the trust that we build with the public. The trust that says, hey, I'm here to provide unbiased evidence-based advice to help keep you and your family healthy. And the moment we allow ourselves to be swayed into making claims that aren't compliant or endorsing products, perhaps inappropriately, that trust starts to erode.

Everyone else is doing it. It's just a small adjustment. These are the lines that that brand used with me to try and make me bend the rules. And let's be honest, the pressure can feel really immense. Agencies can be incredibly persuasive. It's what they do. They're into sales and marketing. They can make you feel like you're being difficult or perhaps they make you feel like you're just out of touch if you stand your ground.

They'll use phrases like, look at all of your colleagues, they're all doing it. Or let's just make a tiny tweak over here. And they'll push for shortcuts all while dangling the carrot of payment or future collaboration opportunities. And the problem isn't just limited to one brand or one agency. I feel it's part of a larger issue in the way that healthcare professionals are being approached for partnerships. The commercial world.

and the healthcare world operate on very different principles. I hear my colleagues talking about this all the time. And when they collide, it's often the professional who's left to navigate the fallout. And that's where it can become so dangerous because for many of us, these opportunities, they feel really exciting at first. They give us a platform to reach more people, to share our expertise and to create a lot of additional income, but at what cost?

If we're not careful, we risk not only our own reputation, but the integrity of our entire profession. So what do we do about it? How do we protect ourselves? How do we still educate others? And how do we ensure that we never compromise our values or our professional responsibility? That's what I want to explore next because this situation was incredibly frustrating, but it also got me to think about some...

quite powerful lessons that I know can help you too. So how can we as healthcare professionals protect ourselves whilst ensuring we uphold the highest standards? Actually, the good news is we're not having to do this alone. There's clear regulations out there and best practices to help us stay compliant and confident in what we're doing. So step one is knowing the rules before you start.

The very first step is understanding the regulations. These are there to protect us as well as the public. In the UK, we have the Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation. That's EC1924 slash 2006. I'll pop a link to this in the show notes. And we also have the CAP code, which is enforceable by the ASA, the Advertising Standards Authority.

And these set the standards for what we can and cannot say in advertising. So in addition, there's a downloadable list of approved health claims, government approved health claims and nutrition claims that food manufacturers can make about their products, providing that they have the evidence that their product actually complies. So read these documents, know the rules.

Understand what they mean and refer to them when brands give you a brief on what they want you to deliver. Now, be aware some brands push health claims that don't actually exist on the register. I've personally experienced this firsthand where a very large company asked me to use a claim that wasn't actually legally permitted.

Sarah Bushell (12:37)

If you're not sure what to watch out for, here are some of the common red flags I've seen over the years when it comes to brand work. Brands asking you to imply direct health outcomes. Vague briefs with no supporting evidence. Phrases like, well, everybody else is doing it or it's just a minor tweak. Pressure, pressure to remove your professional title or skip disclaimers. Now, if you see any of these,

I'd love you just to take a moment to pause. That discomfort that you feel, that really matters.

Okay, step two is just know how dietitians can work with brands.

So there's often confusion about whether dietitians can work with brands at all. The answer is yes, you can. It's great. The CAP code doesn't prohibit dietitians from appearing in any form of commercial content. This is brilliant. It means that we are positioned to share evidence-based nutrition advice, ultimately serving the public. And you know what? If we don't, somebody else will.

And often that someone is an unqualified influencer with no formal training, no oversight and certainly no accountability. So please don't remain silent while unqualified influences fill the gap. The public is left vulnerable to misinformation, to exaggerated health claims and ultimately commercial bias. And then step three, be proactive in setting boundaries. So some brands

Especially those who are used to working with influencers, they may try and push the boundaries. That was the experience that I had. Don't be afraid to protect yourself by setting clear non-negotiables before working with brands. So the next time you're approached by a brand or a PR agency or a marketing team, be really clear about your professional standards right from the start. Let them know that you follow the CAP code.

the ASA guidelines and the nutrition and health claims regulation. Make sure that they know that you're aware of these things. Having these conversations upfront will save you time and actually it sets the tone for what should be a really nice collaborative partnership. You can also ask for the brand's evidence of the health claim before they want you to use it.

And this is really important to make sure that they truly are justified. Now, the vast majority of large companies will be and will have that evidence. So do ask to see it. You can absolutely consult the official bodies when you're in doubt. So, for example, the ASA have a fantastic service where you can produce, for example, a blog or a social media post and you can ask them to have a look at it and...

Let them tell you whether it's compliant or not. That's a free service. We're quite a quick turnaround, 24, 48 hours or so. So it's absolutely worth checking in with them when there is any doubt. And then be brave enough to say no when something does feel off. Having these boundaries in place makes it so much easier for you to walk away from what might turn out to be unethical partnerships. And then step four.

Finally, my final step for you here is to get yourself a support network. So there's lots and lots of us out there who've done brand work for years and years and years. There's very experienced freelancers. There's people like me, health business coaches. There's people out there who just get the ins and outs of the industry. So find a mentor, someone who can support you and answer your questions when you're taking on this type of work.

So today, I hope that you have, I'm not sure whether enjoyed is the right word, but I hope you appreciated me sharing my personal story there. We've tackled quite an important issue that every healthcare professional in the commercial space could actually face. How to handle a situation when you're asked to breach regulations or compromise upon your values. But don't let this stop you. As dietitians,

or healthcare professionals, we have such an important place when working with brands in front of the public, on social media, in our blogs and publications. And it's also that the public get the right messages from professionals who they can truly trust. But do stand firm in your professional integrity. And if something feels off, it's totally okay to walk away. You're protecting the public, our profession and your own integrity.

So my action step for you today is simply just take 10 minutes or so to consider what your non-negotiables are for working with brands and write down what you will and you won't do. When you have these boundaries in writing, it'll make it easier to say no when a brand tries to push the limits. And if you're not sure where to start, then definitely review the Nutrition and Health Claims Register, the Department of Health Guidelines that I mentioned earlier and the CAP code just to clarify your position. And I'll make sure all those links are available for you in the show notes. 

So that's it for another week. What I'd love to know from you next is what you want more of. Do you like the behind the scenes of how I run my business? Do you want more deep dives into marketing strategy? Do you want me to bring in guest experts, interviews with inspirational healthcare professionals? Just tell me, drop me an email at [email protected] with the word podcast in the subject line because I would love to hear from you. Bye for now.