The Functional Nurse Podcast - Nursing in Functional Medicine · Brigitte Sager, DNP

10 Truths Every Aspiring Holistic Nurse Entrepreneur Should Know

·34 min·2 clips

"If you build it, they're going to find you" is not true, Bridget says.

1. The Functional Nurse Podcast episode focuses on “10 truths” for aspiring holistic nurse entrepreneurs, with Bridget Sager speaking from her role as founder of the Institute for Functional Nursing. 2. Bridget Sager is the host and program builder, and she matters because she created the Holistic Nursing Entrepreneur Program and teaches nurse practitioners and nurses how to start practices. 3. The episode asks what nurse entrepreneurs need to know before launching, especially when they are leaving conventional healthcare for holistic or functional work. 4. Bridget says the program moved to IFN, that founding nurses and new students now meet monthly, and that those meetings cover what is working and what feels hard in practice. 5. She describes her own path through nursing, motherhood, a 2005 attempt to sell organic baby clothes and cloth diapers, and later an MBA program taken alongside her younger son. 6. Bridget says corporate healthcare added time constraints to her practice, and that this pressure pushed her toward opening her own practice. 7. She argues that nursing school rarely tells students they can own a business, even though she has spoken with faculty at her associate-degree nursing school about sharing that idea with students. 8. Bridget compares nursing to massage therapy, chiropractic, naturopathy, and physicians, saying those fields often treat private practice as a normal option. 9. She says the first major truth is that nurse entrepreneurs usually do not get startup loans, so they trade time or money for every needed task. 10. Bridget gives the website as a concrete example, saying students procrastinate on it and that she recently hired someone to move landing pages and optimize her own sites. 11. She extends that same time-or-money rule to social media, content creation, slides for courses and presentations, intake forms, and electronic health record templates. 12. Bridget says marketing is where many nurses hesitate, but she insists that organic posts alone are not enough and that paid ads can drive business. 13. She says some students can move faster because they already know code or similar skills, while others need to learn those skills or pay for help. 14. The second truth is that “If you build it, they’re going to find you” is not true, because a practice still needs a strategy for how the right people will know it exists. 15. Bridget uses a gut health nurse example to show that visibility is an art, not just a social media habit, and says constant posting all day is not the answer. 16. She says the third truth is that nurse entrepreneurs do not know enough yet, and that new systems, new forms, and new workflows have to be learned one layer at a time. 17. Bridget says the technical side can involve many platforms, subscriptions, upgrades, and integrations, plus HIPAA compliance, scheduling, payment collection, and electronic charting. 18. She adds that she has cried over Excel in an MBA class and also felt goosebumps and tears while building IFN with aligned faculty and students. 19. Bridget’s tone is direct, practical, and informal, with repeated examples, self-disclosure, and a teaching style shaped by her monthly student meetings. 20. Nurses or nurse practitioners who want concrete business advice for holistic practice will likely benefit most, while listeners who want clinical content without entrepreneurship talk may skip it.

As heard by us

A steady look at the work behind building a nurse-led practice.

Bridget Sager presents nurse entrepreneurship as a learned discipline, not a straight line. The conversation keeps returning to two plain realities: either money goes toward help, or time goes toward learning the skill set in-house, and a practice still needs real effort before…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Hear the reality check before you launch a holistic nursing practice.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Functional Nurse Podcast - Nursing in Functional Medicine