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When Kate Doubler got into nursing way back in high school, it was because she had a real passion for helping others. But over the years, she grew disillusioned with the healthcare system, so much so that she decided to pivot and start a health coaching business.
Every health coach needs a website, so Real Food RN was born. Over the years she’s been able to grow it, and after peaking at $100k in one month, it’s currently bringing in up to $40k per month.
Keep reading to find out:
- How she truly felt about nursing
- How she created her blog
- Where her blog income comes from
- Her top marketing strategies
- Her content creation process
- The tools and resources she uses most often
- Her greatest challenge
- Her main accomplishment
- The biggest mistake she’s made
- Her plans for the future
- The advice she would give other entrepreneurs
Meet Kate Doubler
I’m a wife, mom of five, Christian, and a nurse. I have worked in the medical field my entire working life. Istarted out as a nursing assistant in high school, and then I was a health unit coordinator while I was in nursing school. Then I worked as a nurse in the ICU float pool for 15 years.
I cross-trained to every unit in the hospital—it was a very large inner city hospital in Minneapolis—so I saw a lot of stuff! After a while, I started getting really burned out from the sheer workload and from the “band-aid medicine” that we practiced.
I felt that we were not getting to the root causes of the illnesses people came in with. We gave them medications to make the symptoms go away. So I went back to school for nutrition and became a health coach on the side.
This eventually led to starting a blog to go along with my coaching business. Over time I started to work with different affiliates and generate income!
I was able to scale back in hours at the hospital, and after my third child was born, I just didn’t go back to work after my maternity leave.
I now make way more than I did as a nurse, and I get to work from home with my five kids!
How She Created Real Food RN
I came up with the idea for my Real Food RN as a place to put my recipes for my clients that I was health coaching. I created my blog in 2013. I would write blog posts while on break at the hospital, determined to find ways to help people while I felt so helpless at work as a nurse.
Then after I joined a blogger network, I learned from other bloggers that you can actually monetize a blog by working with different affiliates.
I always test out and use everything that I recommend, and over time I have accumulated many, many different affiliate partners. I have now been able to hire a team to keep my blog running. I have a tech team, a recipe creator, a technical writer, and an assistant.
How Much Money She’s Making
The pandemic has definitely affected my business in a positive way. It was positive for my blog because people started questioning our current medical system and started taking health into their own hands.
There is a lot of distrust in our medical system now, as there should be. It’s a for-profit institution, patients are “sick care” individuals most of the time.
As for my earnings, when it was at its best, I peaked at $100,000 in one month. In general, I average $20-40k per month typically, and up to $80k per month during some months, like in November and December.
I have several big affiliates that pay really well and a ton of smaller affiliates that pay small amounts here and there, but they add up.
From when I started my blog to when I quit my nursing job was about 2 years. That’s how long it took me to build up enough income to cover my full-time income as a nurse.
Kate’s Top Marketing Strategy
My marketing strategy is to provide value in the form of health information and to show up consistently on social media, on my blog, and in a weekly newsletter that I write.
I am on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube. My social strategy is to consistently show up and provide valuable free information.
People then begin to know, like, and trust you. Then when you promote an affiliate you are much more likely to get a sale from people. I do not lead with buy buy buy, I don’t like selling.
I lead with “Here’s how you can improve your health, here are the things that I personally use.” It’s like a conversation I would have with a friend when I’m excited about something that has helped me and I want to share it. Social media lets me reach a much broader audience.
Her Thoughts on SEO
I don’t even remember what I was doing for SEO way back in 2013, probably very little. Now, everything—SEO, link building, etc.—is done by my tech team, so I am not really sure about all the behind-the-scenes stuff.
Kate’s Content Creation Process
I decide on the topics and add them to a list for my writers and recipe creators. They create them and send them to my assistant to put together. I do the final edit and publish new content every Monday.
I pick topics based on questions from my followers. My writing team also does market research and suggests topics. I publish one blog post on Mondays: recipes, health posts, etc.
Her Email List
I have about 23,000 people on my email list. I grow it through opt-ins on my website and through social media mentions.
My business is about teaching people to be empowered about their health instead of just managing symptoms as they come up. I take a no-medication approach to health.
How Often She Works on Her Blog
How often I work on the blog depends on the season. Right now I spend a lot of time on Instagram answering questions and comments and putting out content. I probably work 2-3 hours per day.
Tuesday is the day I write my weekly newsletter, so I work more on that day.
Kate’s Favorite Resources
There are a ton of blogger how-to videos on YouTube. It’s very helpful as to how to get it started.
The way I did it might not be the same reason others want to start a blog. It really is a passion project.
I subscribed to blogger newsletters and watched videos to learn to get it going. Then I let my own passion for health guide me.
Her Top 3 Tools
Social media, website opt-ins, and affiliates are my go-to tools.
Social media allows me to connect with people and share information in real-time.
Website opt-ins allow me to add people to newsletter lists so I can directly email them information, especially for people who aren’t on social media.
Affiliates are how I make money, they are things that I personally use and love and want to share with others.
Her Biggest Challenge
The pandemic really made things challenging. Also, the censoring of alternative health information really is hard to navigate.
This might open up a whole can of worms, and some might not like to hear it, but there is massive censorship of alternative health information.
I have been shadowbanned so many times on social media for sharing stuff that actually provides healing for people. An example of a hot one: ivermectin.
The pharmaceutical industry is a huge money maker and if people stop being sick they stop making money. The holistic wellness industry includes many healing modalities that cannot be patented and sold at a high markup. These are things like raw honey, herbal medicine, and breathwork. They don’t want you to know about these powerful healing tools.
I get so frustrated that I talk about them more and louder, then my reach on social tanks way down. There is no way around it. If I just go back to “following the algorithm” (obeying them) and only sharing stuff like recipes and funny memes, then my engagement slowly goes back up.
Kate’s Most Important Accomplishment
Leaving my full-time job so I could work from home and be with my kids was definitely my greatest accomplishment.
I was always very passionate about health, and I thought nursing was going to be so fulfilling for me as a career. It was and it wasn’t. Then I got really burned out. Then I had kids and truly discovered what my life purpose was.
I did not want to give up helping people, but I wanted to find a way to be a full-time mom with my kids all the time while also helping people find the path to better health. Blogging from home accomplished that. Plus, my kids got to help me with recipes and videos and learn about what I do.
What She Wishes She Knew When She Started
I wish I had hired help a lot sooner instead of trying to do it all myself. I worked way too many hours when I first started.
I hired my tech people about 1.5 years after starting my blog. I found them through word of mouth from other blogger friends. Ask people in your niche who they hired.
Her Biggest Mistake
Waiting to hire help was my biggest mistake.
I would have been able to grow faster if I had hired people to help me do the stuff I didn’t want to do and wasn’t qualified to do.
I knew nothing about building a website, and I spent hours and hours figuring it all out. I could have spent that time being creative and working on content.
Her Plans for the Future
We are also moving across the country and starting a homestead. We have pet chickens and ducks, and we plan to do a lot of homestead blogging and videos when we move. I’m building up my YouTube channel.
I will also be starting a new website to go along with the homestead. It’s already in the works. I hope to integrate the two blogs but the brand and message will be different.
My YouTube channel has been put on the back burner. I will probably start a new one with the homestead.
Her Advice for Other Entrepreneurs
Show up every single day, even when the ROI is low. Consistency is key!
If you want to succeed, you need to do the work. It’s not a “whenever-you-feel-like-it” kind of thing. Show up every day, consistently and with value.
That’s how you show people you’re here for it and that you truly are passionate about what you do. That’s how you build a tribe of people who want to learn from you.