241. When You're Called To Serve People Who Can't Pay You

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Hi, I’m Andrea Nordling – Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, business coach, entrepreneur, and host of The Profitable Nutritionist Podcast.

Since age 22, I’ve built 3 highly successful businesses from scratch, including my own online holistic nutrition practice. After deleting all of my social media accounts in early 2021, my business grew faster than ever — and now I teach other health professionals how to do the same.

On this pod, you’ll learn how to:

 ✅ Build a thriving online practice without relying on social media
 ✅ Consistently attract and convert clients
 ✅ Create simple systems that scale without overwhelm

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© 2021 - 2026 Andrea Nordling

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Transcript

[00:00:00] 

Hello, my friend. Welcome to The Profitable Nutritionist podcast. We are talking today about the desire to help underserved people improve their health. It's huge. It's a huge need. There is so much that I see in terms of people that I talk to building businesses as health and wellness practitioners and coaches who have the desire to help people that they feel like are being let down by healthcare or sick care, as the case may be, that have a l- a huge desire to help an underserved population to be healthier and to have access to information and resources to be healthier, which I totally understand.

I absolutely get it. And yet, that is v- the hardest way possible to start your business, and so that's why I wanna do a podcast episode about it. That's why I think that we need to talk about this, and we need to think about it in a different way, and you might be surprised at the angle that I come at this from.

[00:01:00] 

But this is coaching I give to my clients a lot, and I don't think I've ever recorded a podcast on it specifically, so today is the day Something I teach in my program is to get your business up and running, to get it off the ground, to get momentum, to start getting clients that are paying you and be profitable, you have to be selling to a population of people who are ready and willing and able to pay you.

This is just economics, business 101. Basically, people have to be able to pay you for your services for you to stay in business. And this, these are competing desires. You can probably see where I'm going with this. There is this huge calling to help a group of people who are not being helped, and yet by definition, that group of people cannot pay for the help or at the level that you need to charge for the help that you want to deliver to them if this is speaking to you.

And it's a problem. 

[00:02:00] 

So my suggestion and the way that I coach my clients on this is to get their business up and running and profitable first, and then when they have the time and the resources in their business, they can create ways to serve that population that they are called to serve. And I do use the word call very deliberately.

I have had this... This is actually so interesting. I have recently completed a mini certification. And it was actually a Bible study through my church that I did, and then I got certified to facilitate and teach this particular training, and it's called Handcrafted Calling. Handcrafted Calling. What is it?

Well, it is a deep dive exploration on your strengths and your spiritual gifts and how that intersects with your vocation and what you are called to do. Basically, what are you called to do in the world? And so it has been very top of mind for me to be looking at my calling and the calling of my clients.

And I've noticed, since this is relevant to me right 

[00:03:00]

 now, that a lot of people do describe their desire to serve people in their health and wellness business as their calling. And again, this has probably always been the case. People have probably always said that, but it wasn't as top of mind for me or I wasn't noticing it the same way that I am now because that's the vernacular I've been using, calling.

And I have I have a client, you'll know who you are, who recently said, she's like, "You just can't quit a calling." And I said, "We're gonna make T-shirts. We're gonna make mugs. That's it. That's the new tagline. You can't quit a calling." And it's really the basis of this episode. You can't quit a calling. And also, you can't call your calling a business if it's not gonna make you money.

Okay? So I don't... That sounds really bold, it sounds harsh, and it's kinda meant to. I wanna shake up the narrative a little bit because of course I want to support anybody who is called to help anybody else. That is it. That is everything that I feel like my calling, all, you know, all inception here is intended.

[00:04:00]

My calling is to help people to help people, and yet you can't help people, and I just know this, and I hope that you know this, and I hope you hear this if it's speaking to you. You cannot help people at the level that you want to if you do not have a successful, profitable business because you won't have the time, the resources, the bandwidth, and the ability to truly make the difference that you want to make.

And again, this is something I coach my clients on a lot because especially at the beginning of their business or, for some people, not the beginning, but the be- beginning of working with me and of simplifying their business, the first thing we do is we really dive into their niche and their offer. And for a lot of people, that means that they're un-niching and they're actually not defining a niche.

For others, it means that we're really changing their offer. Sometimes it's both of those things. But within the offer, the pricing and the deliverables of the offer and the way that they are serving this very specific group of people can be quite problematic if the group of people in question inherently does not have the money to 

[00:05:00] 

pay, and they cannot have a successful business by charging what they need to for their offer to be able to stay in business.

So this is a situation, as you can probably imagine, where you gotta put the oxygen mask on yourself and your business first to be able to get to the point where you can serve an underserved population. And I don't, gosh, I don't... I see this, okay? I'll give an example. Um, I see someone who's working really hard right now to build an app for a...

that is a very low-priced app that can help a lot of people who don't have a lot of money to pay for one-on-one support and instead would have an app. Do you know how much money it, and time it takes to build an app? I mean, I haven't done it personally, but I am closely watching this and hearing about the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours, and many, many, many tens of thousands of dollars that it costs to do this project, which ultimately is not going to make that much money.

And if it does, it's certainly not gonna happen quickly. 

[00:06:00]

So is that the best approach? If the goal really is to help people who are not being helped right now, how can you do that or how can anyone do that if they don't have time and resources in their business? If all of the time and attention is spent trying to squeeze blood from a turnip or, you know, whatever the phrase is there, is that the best way to go?

My answer to that is no, it's not. How about charging the people who can and want to pay you for your support, your services, your expertise, and your offer, and then- Building a profitable business, building a thriving, successful business, helping people who want to be helped, who are no less important than the people who are underserved, but letting that fund the mission of the calling to the underserved people.

This seems obvious to me, but I know that for a lot of people, it 

[00:07:00] really isn't obvious, and it feels like they're going in the wrong direction. If they're offering to help people that aren't struggling financially, they feel like they are not truly in service to those who are. Some, some version of that.

Maybe I'm paraphrasing there, but that's what it sounds like to me in the conversations that I have about this. And on some level, the business owners that are struggling with this, they know that the math doesn't math. They know that it's going to be very hard to make enough money to be able to stay in business and reach their goals and also to serve people who just inherently cannot pay them what they need to make.

And so in that, they kind of silently quit, or they have little quits, or they back off, or they don't try as hard, or they don't do the things because they just, unconsciously or consciously, I'm not sure, but they know that it's not gonna work. And so there's a real lack of urgency in those situations.

People are very nonchalant on their goals. They're [00:08:00] non-committal on their goals. They say things like, "I don't have a monetary goal. For me, the money's not as important as helping people." Like, well, how are you gonna help people if you're not making money in your business, if you can't pay your own bills, if you can't afford to not have another full-time job?

How, how can that work? For a lot of people, it can't, and some people it can. I wanna be clear, some people do not need to make a penny from their business, and they're fine with that, and that's a different conversation. But I'm talking about people who tell me two very competing priorities, which is, "I need to make money in my business, and I'm committed to helping people that can't pay me," 'cause those are competing priorities.

So this podcast episode is my, hopefully my case to be made that it is not selfish, it is not wrong, and it is not bad for you to want to have a profitable business. And you probably have a little bit of work to be done on the fact that that's okay, and actually it is good. For you to serve people who currently are 

[00:09:00] 

not getting the service that you think they could be or should be and that you feel called to provide, you have to be able to allocate your time and your energy and your resources into solving that problem, which is considerable.

It is. But if that's your calling to do so, I fully support it. I just am going to tell you that money can solve a lot of problems, and having resources in your business to allow you to have more freedom of time and freedom of energy, ultimately, is the recipe that actually makes that possible. So all that to say Question of the day: are you trying to sell your offer to people who can't afford your offer?

It's a big question. Hopefully the answer is no, but if this is kind of feeling like a zing to you, like I'm calling you out a little bit, we need to work on this, okay? We absolutely need to figure out what is the plan for growing your business to the point where it is sustainable and profitable so you can also be making the impact and 

[00:10:00] serving the community you feel called to serve without sacrificing your own goals along the way.

Because I believe, whether you are a person of faith or not, I happen to believe that God has us in our calling for a reason. We're not here on accident. You're not listening to this podcast on accident, and also you don't need to be suffering for you to be ending the suffering of others. I don't think that that's necessarily the recipe either.

So my friend, go make some offers to some people who want to pay you right now. They're willing, they're able, they're capable, they are dying for your help literally. They would love to pay you, and let's make some money in your business so that you can help other people who can't.