Nicole: Hi, and welcome to the Lead Better Podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Harlow. And today I want to talk about something that I see all the time. And honestly, it's one of the biggest reasons why practitioners stay stuck way longer than they need to. So if you're hovering around that five to ten thousand dollar a month mark, and maybe you've hit a few times, but it doesn't really feel consistent, it can start to feel really confusing because on paper, it kind of looks like you're doing everything right. Well, you're probably working hard. I assume at this point you're posting content, you're probably investing in your business, whether that's through coaches or tools or programs, you care really deeply about your clients. I think that's really the bedrock of everything. And yet it still feels like you're pushing this like proverbial rock up the hill every single month, even to hit those numbers.
Nicole: Like in five to ten thousand dollars a month, it's one we want to say stop and congratulate yourself for getting there, but that's probably not where your goals are. If I know you, it's probably something more like 20, 30, 50k a month plus maybe some of us have goals for six figures a month plus. That's really exciting. And what I found is that most people they don't have a more problem, right? They don't even have a knowledge problem. What I found is that what gets you to five to ten thousand dollars a month mark is really not what gets you scaling to 15, 20, 30, 50 plus. And what a lot of practitioners have is a set of beliefs about what it takes to grow. And those beliefs are really shaping the way that you build your business.
Nicole: So today, what I wanted to do is rapid fire, walk through 10 of what I see as the most common myths that keep people stuck under, let's say, $10,000 months. I like the numbers because I feel like they represent anything from five to ten. You can do a lot of manual work and get to that point and be feel successful. You're like, ah, yeah, it's working. As soon as you try to scale that past that amount, that's really where you start to feel pressure and where you start to feel things break, and the breaking might be with you, right? Like with a lot of stress. So as you listen to these, I don't want you to think, do I believe this or not? I really want you to notice whether this might be maybe subtly influencing how you're operating, because that's usually where the shift happens. So let's get after it.
Nicole: So the first one is this idea that you can't scale without one-to-one clients. So this shows up in a lot of different ways, but really the underlying belief is that your income is directly tied to how many hours you can personally show up and deliver. So even if you're fully booked, even if your schedule's packed, it feels like there's this invisible ceiling because your business is still completely dependent on you. But what happens is people try to grow just by doing more of the same. So that will look like when you're practice, like more calls, more clients, more hours, and that's not scale. That is just stretching yourself thinner and thinner. And at some point, that model definitely breaks, either because of your time, your energy, or your capacity.
Nicole: So, right alongside that is the belief that group programs don't work in your niche. I hear this a lot from practitioners who feel like their work is either maybe too personalized or too complex. And I totally get where that comes from because your work is nuance, right? No one's doing it quite like you. But the assumption that it can only be delivered one-to-one is what can keep you stuck in that time for money loop, right? And so that kind of goes back to the first one we were talking about, where at some point the model breaks because of your time, your energy, your capacity. You just hit that ceiling. Once you're at that 5k, 10K months, like very quickly you're gonna hit the ceiling where you just literally can't work with any more people. And that's gonna make you feel like there's no real room for me to grow and to scale this business.
Nicole: And it's not that group programs don't work, it's that they haven't been designed in a way that actually supports both you and the client experience. And this is not me saying that you can't grow and scale to like really awesome monthly revenue on one-to-one. I think one-to-one just needs to be like thought out differently in terms of your packages and your pricing and the level of support that you have as a practitioner, whether that's support through health coaches, whether that's support through your team. I'm an advocate for both one-to-one and group programs. I don't think that there's one model. And then we have do-it-yourself side of it as well. But I do believe that group programs can work even within a specialist niche, but they do have to be designed in a way that actually supports the client experience.
Nicole: So there's a difference between throwing people into a group and hoping it works and intentionally structuring something that creates results at scale. And most practitioners that I see that are crushing it, like they do have a hybrid model where your one-to-one care that is really the icing on top of the cakes, like the cherry on top, right? Whereas the bulk of the revenue is built through some kind of group programs or like a continuity model where people work with you one-on-one and then they become a client for life, right?
Nicole: So another big one is feeling like you need more certifications before you can charge more or grow. This is a huge one, and it's really sneaky because it feels responsible, right? It feels like you're trying to be really good at what you do, but a lot of the times it's actually a form of hiding. It's delaying your visibility. Big one is delaying selling, like especially in the beginning, can be super daunting. And it also is delaying stepping into a bigger version of your business. So there are people out there making significantly more than $10,000 a month with way less training, less experience, and less skill. The difference isn't what it's how they've structured their business.
Nicole: And so this is not me saying be completely unqualified, but I'm speaking from the lens of most practitioners that I work with who are either they're not a refresh out of the box with no credentials. Everybody that I work with has credentials already. You could be a licensed practitioner, some are chiropractors, health coaches. What got you here was some kind of training. I never work with anybody who is, I have no training, but I just I want to start doing group programs and this. And there are people out there, there's a lot of influencers out there. There's a lot of people making so much more money with less training. And so, my only point here around the myth is really ask yourself if you feel like you can't launch until you get that next certification that's like a yellow flag to come back and say, What do I really need to have that certification to get started? And look around for the examples of people who are crushing it without having that certification.
Nicole: So we're gonna shift into marketing a little bit and some marketing myths. And this is where a lot of people spend most of their energy. So there's but this belief that if you just keep posting consistent and consistently, eventually clients will come. If you build it, they will come kind of thing. And consistency does matter, but content by itself is not a gross strategy. So content without a system behind it is just noise. So if someone finds you today, really my question is what happens next? If you're posting content like every day or a couple times a day, I want to know is there a clear path for them to move forward?
Nicole: Or are you just hoping they reach out? And if they reach out, is there like a system in place for when they reach out? Because most people don't have this and they post and people even raise their hand and they're like, I don't know what to do or where to put them or what to say to them because you haven't built a system for your content. And the content is just throwing spaghetti at a wall, like it's not, it's missing like the system, right? So I think my point here is like marketing and creating content isn't necessarily about like more is more, but about having a structure for the content itself, a structure for the content that brings in a buyer, someone who is like not a freebie seeker, someone who is not a budget seeker.
Nicole: We want to like have content that calls out to our perfect people that we have a problem that we can help them solve. And then when they do raise their hand, that we have a system ideally automated, whether that's automated DMs that go into a chat bot, that go into a funnel, we want to make sure that we're connecting our posting to actually capturing information and then having an awesome follow-up sequence. I could talk about this for a long time, so maybe that's a new, another podcast episode right there.
Nicole: So a variation of this thinking is that you need more followers before you can make more money. And it's really easy to look at other accounts and assume that audience size equals revenue, but it really does not. What actually matters is whether you have a system that turns all of that intent attention into action, which is related to the last point there. So you can have a relatively small audience and a very strong system and be consistently booked out. You can have 500 people following you, 800 people, even 200 people, and create a community there and be consistently booked out. Or you can have a large audience, no system, and feel like you're still chasing leads, right?
Nicole: So it's like we need to be less hung up on the vanity metrics of like how many followers we have or how many likes we have on a post and keep asking ourselves like, is what I'm posting actually inspiring people to action? Whether that's downloading a freebie or coming to a webinar or booking on a call with you. Every piece of content should be inspiring people to take that next action, right?
Nicole: So another one I see a lot is the idea that you just need better content, right? So people double down on trying to say things differently to look better, be more creative, be more educational. Again, none of this is bad. I realized even recently that I was creating a lot of content that was around people liking me, Libra rising here. So it's like the desire to be liked is very strong. But that doesn't necessarily inspire people to take action. It inspires people to be like, oh, she seems awesome. I like to hang out with her. And so I'm like, that I feel like was my vibe for a really long time until I realized where I was like, wait, when I buy things from people online, okay, so think about think about getting into somebody's funnel.
Nicole: So you see an ad, it's oh yeah, that's me, that's what I need. And you go and you like buy the low ticket, the $17, the $27, you go to the webinar. I realized that more and more I'm like, they aren't necessarily people that I like. When I follow them on Instagram, it's not because I think, oh yeah, I'd love to go have a cup of tea with this person or go to a yoga class or something like that. And so why am I creating content that's just around people liking the vibe? And the vibe is important again. This could be like a whole other episode, like around personal branding and how you show up. But I need to, every practitioner is different. You might just be creating educational content all the time, and it's not content that's really getting people to like the inspired to work with you or feel like, okay, that is definitely my person, like I need this problem solved now.
Nicole: And sometimes it's a doubling down on content, but it's all really generic, right? It feels like just AI slop, as they say. But yeah, people think that they need to like just create better content, and that's not bad. But if the back end of your business isn't set up to capture and convert that interest, better content just creates more missed opportunities, right? So it's like pouring water in a bucket with holes in it. You don't need more water, you actually need to fix the bucket. And part of that is fixing system for what happens next after you create all of this great content.
Nicole: And this one is a controversial one for me because I've spent 10 years as a branding and design type of person, but there's a belief that you need a full website and a brand before you can really grow. And I'm here to say, and I will say this to anybody that hopped on hops on a call with me, this is not something that you absolutely need before you get started. This is something that you're gonna want to have at some point and have it be professional. But this one slows people down so much. They spent months, they spent years trying to get everything perfect before they fully step into visibility and selling.
Nicole: But the thing is, growth doesn't come from having the most beautiful website. In fact, in the beginning, people will rarely even come to your website. Like I'd rather see people just run and gun with something like a landing page. You want a place where people can buy things from you, you want a place where they can hop on your calendar, you want to have some kind of like social media presence, whether that's on Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn or TikTok or YouTube. There's lots of places to pick out there, but you want to have just a clear pathway for someone to say, I'm interested, and now I'm booked, and now I'm working with you. You can build that much faster and much simpler than people think.
Nicole: But that's something that can be done in a weekend, or if you want like a full system, that's actually something that I'm launching here in a couple weeks is our growth system intensive, where we're gonna create these back-end systems with you. I'm gonna create them with you over 30 days. So I feel like 30 days in a container is like a good timeline to have a lot of these systems, including a website if you wanted to put one of those together too. But I just think I think the myth here is that you need like the full website brand treatment before you can even step a toe into the waters or before you can really grow. And I'm here to say it as somebody on that side, on the branding side, that's not essential. But I would like you to start and as you grow, come back and make sure that you've really dialed on the brand because that will at some point it will hamper your growth if you don't have what people see as a professional brand. But I don't think that's what you need when you're first getting started, or you're trying to like go from 5k months, 10k months, and make that leap up into the next level.
Nicole: This is where we start getting into what I think the real root of all of this is, which is systems. A lot of people believe that they don't need systems yet because they're just not big enough. If it feels like something you do later, once you have more clients or more revenue, once the business gets more complex. But in reality, systems are the things that create growth. So without them, everything depends on you or somebody on your team remembering, following up, manually responding, manually tracking. And this is where things start to slip through the cracks. And this is one of the biggest like hindrances to growth is the manual everything and everything depending on you. It's something I say a lot, but really it is that lack of system is the core reason why the business can't scale past, say, 10k months.
Nicole: And another version of this belief is that you just need more tools, right? I see a lot of people like getting to a certain level, 5k months, 10k months, and then are like, okay, I got a scheduling tool over here, I got an email platform over there, I need something for forms, I need something for texting, I need something for content, and none of them actually talk to each other. This was the problem that we solved, like with Lead Better HQ. I was just like, because practitioners get to this level where they just start like pulling in so many different tools, and then the tools just add more like complexity and more stress and more chaos, and so you're paying for all this stuff that you don't even use. But what it does, the myth behind it is it makes you feel like you're building this like sophisticated business, right? But you're actually just building more complexity, and complexity is the enemy of scalability. Scaling needs simple, scaling needs less is more, not more is more.
Nicole: And then the last one here, which kind of ties all of this together, is the idea that you'll automate things later once things pick up. And I would say that this is probably one of the biggest reasons that people stay stuck, because the way you're operating right now is the exact thing that's preventing things from picking up. So if every lead requires your manual effort, like if every follow-up depends on you, remember, even if every booking is something you have to actively manage, there's really no room for growth without overwhelm because we haven't even talked about patient care at this point. This is just like keeping things organized and getting people through the door, right?
Nicole: Automation isn't something that you earn later, it's actually the thing that creates the capacity for growth right now. So if you hear one thing in this whole podcast, I want you to dispel the myth that you will automate things once they get busy. It's the automation that helps things get busy, but feel simple and not stressed out. I'm really passionate about that. Automation isn't something you earn, it's something that you build from the start. And there's never too late to start. So if you're at those 5k to 10k months and you're like, yeah, it's just like a ceiling, I can't seem to get past. That's when you really need to start thinking seriously about systems and about automation.
Nicole: Because when you zoom out and you look at all these together, what you start to see is that most people, they're not stuck because they need more effort. They don't need more. They're stuck because they're missing the infrastructure that actually supports that growth. They're trying to grow a business, but it's still built like a solo practice. And that's gonna what I'm gonna be teaching tomorrow. I've got a live training. I'm recording this on April 13th. So April 4th, I've got a training at 2 p.m. at Eastern Standard Time. It's called the 5 to 50k shift. We're gonna walk through what has what actually needs to change when you move from that under 10,000 a month phase into consistent growth. So not just more clients, but a different way of structuring your business so it doesn't depend on you for everything.
Nicole: I'm gonna break down what your growth system actually needs to look like, where most people are leaking opportunities without realizing it, and how to start putting the right pieces in place so that your business can support the next level truly. If this episode resonated with you, I would absolutely invite you to come and join the training. It's gonna be really real, practical, and you'll be able to look at your own business and see exactly what's missing. And if you're listening to this and that date is already past, check down in the show notes because this is gonna be a training that I offer regularly. So you'll probably be able to just hop on to the next one. You can grab the spot through the link in the show notes, and I will see you there either at the webinar and the training or in the next episode. All right, have a great day. Bye.