Nicole: Hey everyone, welcome back to the Lead Better Podcast. I'm so excited about this one because my guest today is somebody I could honestly talk to for hours. And you'll hear that by the end. Laura Schoenfeld started out as a registered dietitian and built her own online nutrition practice from absolutely nothing back in 2011, grew it to multiple six figures, and has spent the last 14 years or so building all of this really cool intersection of expertise and business architecture. She's worked behind the scenes inside of a multi-seven figure health business, generating over 3 million across her own companies, and worked with more than 500 coaches and experts. And she does all of that while running her business on something like 15 to 20 hours a week with two little ones at home, which I find super inspiring and hope you do too. In this conversation, we get really honest about what it actually looks like to rebuild a business you've outgrown. Laura's in the middle of tearing hers down to the foundation, so she's getting very vulnerable and super honest here. And she walks us through closing a program that was her bread and butter for years, moving her work up market and getting clear on who she is now versus who she was when she started. We go deep on human design and know how knowing yourself shapes the way that you sell, her four B's of growing an audience, which is so helpful, and how she's actually using AI behind the scenes to run things. And also, we're gonna like have a little sidebar about whether Substack is worth your time. It's a good one. So let's get into it. Lara, it is so awesome to have you here on Lead Better Podcast. I'm really excited to just gig into your business. And as I love talking about systems, so that's probably something that we'll cover today, too.
Laura: Yeah. Thanks for having me, Nicole.
Nicole: Awesome. So I want to I think one of the things that I love in the Lead Better Podcast is just getting down and dirty about like how people are running their business. I think as entrepreneurs, a lot of us are doing this solo or with small teams. And like outside of the Instagram facade, it's hard to see like how are people actually running their businesses behind the scenes, right? And so I want to open those doors. Like, can you talk us through right now? What does your business look like in terms of like who do you serve? What are your offers look like? You have multiple offers or just one that you're like focused on. I'd love to just know the architecture there.
Laura: Yeah, we, I guess I, it's always the royal we, right? Yeah. Me and myself and I. I I keep wanting to say we I am in this phase of business right now that I've been describing as the hermit crab between shells. Oh, if that makes sense, where I am making really big changes to almost everything for a variety of reasons, but I've been in business since 2014. And I don't think anyone goes through a personal brand business for 10 plus years and doesn't go through some level of like reinvention. Yeah. So I think it was time. And for me, I it was a combination of a few things. One being the fact that I have had two kids in the last four years and my life has changed a lot and going from one to two definitely took things up a level as far as operational complexity outside of business. And so I every time I have a kid, I'm like changing things, right? So I love that. Every time I have a kid, I'm changing. Well, it's yeah, it's I don't know, it's one of these things where it's like everyone sells the oh, set it and forget it kind of business. I have not gotten to that place where I'm like fully set it and forget it. I actually just shut down a program that was roughly six years old that was like my bread and butter. We were doing 30 to 50k months with it. And I got to a place where I just looked ahead to the future and I was like, I just don't see this being the thing that comes with me now, especially given that my level of expertise as a business coach has grown so much since I launched that program in 2020. And the problem that I ran into with that program is I kept adding more to it based on what I was learning. And I was editing, it wasn't like I was just like throwing stuff in there, but it turned into this kitchen sink kind of offer. And I just noticed in the last year or two in the market, big kitchen sink offers are a lot harder to sell than very specific ones. So we would get into these sales conversations with people where they needed a lot of explanation about what the program included. And oh, is this maybe I don't need this or maybe I'm not ready for this? And just the level of complexity that existed from a program that old that was just expanded for six years. I just got to this place where I was like, I don't really know if this is something that I can fix without basically having to just tear it down and starting from scratch. And I was like, if I'm gonna tear it down and start from scratch, why don't I really get clear on who I am now and what my skill sets are now and what I've learned in the last, at this point, seven years of being a business coach and actually using this opportunity to build something for the current version of me rather than trying to MacGyver the thing that was an appropriate fit for me three to six years ago. So I've been through a lot of changes and I know this is way off track as far as the question that you asked. No, this is perfect. I love it. But this year has really been like a I don't want to say burn it all down. It's not totally burning things down, but it's really getting down to the foundation and rebuilding from the real foundation and not just, oh, this is what's working. So let me just kind of try to make it work better. So for me, I've gone through tons of changes. I've kind of pivoted my niche. I still work with coaches and experts. I used to primarily work with health experts. And I realized was through a lot of conversations with the different business owners and networks that I've been in that my skill sets really go beyond just the health business. So working with coaches and experts across different niches and then really elevating to a higher level of business performance. So rather than serving this really wide range of everywhere from newbies to multi-six, seven-figure business owners, I realize that my skill set is much better paired for the person who's already got momentum and needs help sustaining and amplifying that momentum. So really looking at the person who's in the six, multi-six up to seven figures level, which is a totally different set of problems that person has to deal with. So really redesigning my offer so that it works for that level, not to say that it couldn't help somebody in the earlier phases, but I just got into this situation where I was trying to help too many people with too many different things. And I was like, I don't really want to do this anymore. So it basically shut down a variety of programs in the last year and have been rebuilding from scratch. So as of May 2026, we're just in the last final weeks of a beta program that I launched in March called The Foundry, which is essentially walking people through this same process that I've been through where I got really clear on who I am now and what my constraints are now and where I see myself going, and then really rebuilding the structure of the business to match that. So the foundry program is wrapping up in the next few weeks. And I'm moving into selling a mastermind right now. So I used to run a mastermind up until 2021 before I became a mom. Took a few years off to just settle into momhood and be like, all right, how is this working? And I really missed having that smaller, more advanced group that we could meet in person and that kind of thing. So I brought back the mastermind. It's called the decision room. And that offer is meant to support people who they've already got momentum. But as you probably know, and we could talk about the more you grow, the more complex the decisions get that you have to make. And you're balancing a lot of different things. You're also a lot of times balancing business versus life. And that decision fatigue can really slow people down where they're either struggling to finalize decisions or they make a decision and then a month later they are like back relitigating it and they're just going in circles around these decisions because they know too much, there's too many factors, and the people I work with are super smart and they probably see too many potential problems and it slows them down. So right now, between the foundry wrapping up, the mastermind launching, and then I also run a few higher level advisory one-on-one spots for people who are at that multi-six plus level. That's my offer suite right now. And I like I said, I've been really reducing, uh trying to reduce complexity. I have a bad habit of adding more complexity back in. But just really looking at almost every layer of my business from the tech stack to the team to like how does AI come into this? To what am I doing versus what is somebody else doing? And getting to a place where I am really trying to get down to the most valuable things that I should be doing on a week-to-week basis so that I can work less and serve people at a higher level, and that the business can reflect the stage that I'm at as an expert, which has evolved significantly in the last few years. So that was a lot of information for I love it.
Nicole: I have like so many directions I want to go in. I think I want to stick with the change of your business model. The question that's really coming up for me is so you as we've been business owners for a long time, right? I've been there with you, just having like different offers, different businesses. Some people are OGs and who have been with me from the beginning. But like, how do you, and I know this is a work in progress, but just like, how do you inform? Because we're pivoting publicly. We don't really have like the luxury of like going completely. Some people can go completely underground, raise everything completely to the ground, and start off fresh with a whole new audience. But like I see you, you come up on my feed, you have awesome posts on Instagram. Shout out your Instagram at the end so people can see that. But like, how do you pivot publicly? Are you like talking your audience through like, hey, this is how we're moving? This is the because I'm assuming that your first course was more foundational, and then you're moving to a business owner that's at a different level. So the content and the messaging, like you're saying, they have a whole different new set of problems. So you're like, that's where your content is going. Have you just let that kind of like weave into the narrative, or you've been more upfront around this is who I used to work with, this is who I'm working with now?
Laura: It's a little bit of both. And to be fair, I'm a little bit uh it's funny with the human design stuff and some of the astrology stuff, heavy Aries, manifestors, like do stuff. And I'm just you're yeah, you're just like, it's gonna come. And if they don't, I just and I know I should probably have a better system for like gracefully changing things, but for me, when I get a when I get something in my head that I have to do, I'm just like, I just it's just happening, it's going, and we're doing it. So I will say I've had higher level programs previously. So I did have a higher level program for more of a six multi-six figure business owners that I ended up closing down in 2024 when I was pregnant with my second, because I just was like, I had again overcomplicated things. Both programs had way too much curriculum, way too much stuff that I was supporting with. And being pregnant with a toddler, I was like, I literally just don't feel like I can do this anymore. And so I did shut that offer off and really just go all in on the signature program that I had started in 2020. Um, but I basically just in January, I guess I teased some stuff with the fact that I felt like I was elevating my positioning, that I was going in a different direction, that I had learned some things and healed some things that made me realize that I was playing small. So I was sharing a lot of that stuff on my podcast. And then in January, I just made the executive decision to wrap up the signature program and close enrollment at the end of the month. So I was like, hey, we're gonna serve all the people who join in January through August. But after that, this program is not available anymore. Yeah. And so we had the bump of enrollment in January. But from there, ever since January, everything that I've been doing content-wise, whether it's Instagram, my podcasts, I've jumped on Substack, like all the different places that I'm showing up. I have the new I call it an elevated avatar. So the person who's the best fit for what you do, who values what you do at your best, that kind of thing. If I have that person in mind when I'm creating content, and it's because like I don't want to say it's like ripping the band-aid off, but it is. I didn't really do much of a we're just gonna transition to this thing. It was just like, let's just go. And again, whoever's gonna come with me is gonna come with me. Um, and whoever doesn't, that's okay. There, it's just I have a new audience that I'm speaking to now. So that, yeah, it's not really a strategy as much as it is just knowing. I think more of the strategy was around deciding who I wanted to refocus on and who really was the best fit. And then that from there, everything trickles into that from program design, messaging, all of that. That's what I teach my people. So it's uh just practicing what I preach, but in a very uh just aggressive, let's just go way.
Nicole: I love hearing that because also I think I want these conversations on this podcast to be like permission slips for people as well. I think the older that I get, like the more that I just feel like we are really supposed to be ourselves, right? And you and I, when we first connected, like we talked about human design. And so knowing like it's all that you can believe it or not believe it. It's these little personality metrics where you've got astrology, you've got human design, you've got Myers Briggs. I think when you're like, I have a lot of Aries placements and I'm a manifester, it's like your design is to like take quick action, be decisive about it, and not be apologetic. And so you're like, you're living your design, which is being like, Yeah, I just put it out there, and then I'm just gonna go like full force on it, and that's awesome. And some people might need like a different design. And where I am curious to like have a conversation with you is like we talked about both being four sixes, and four sixes are supposed to the four is like a warm relational network, and then the six is like being on the roof, right? And so when you get to a certain age, like 30s, 40s, 50s, like you're sitting on the roof with you've got like your wisdom. And so I'm curious like, how does knowing that you're a four-six and knowing that the way that you're designed to sell is through warm relational networking? Have you found that cold network, not networking, like cold selling doesn't work or does work? What is how does that inform your sales strategy? Do you find that is that true for you? If you have more people, people are warmed up before they get into the sales process. Do you find that those convert better? Because I I'm like kind of new to learning about that. And I'm like, whoa, that's crazy. Like not everybody is designed to cold sell to people. How does that work for you?
Laura: It's funny. I've been doing such a deep dive into the different ways you can assess your personality and figure out how to match that to your business model. That's actually literally the foundation of a full third of my updated methodology, is it's called a line, is that phase. So I like to collect data from multiple data points. Yeah. So whether it's something that's a little bit more on the woo side, like the human design or astrology or whatever, even prayer. I look at prayer as a place that you can get insight into yourself and who you are and how you should build your business. Or if it's a little bit more of those scientific validated testing things like strengths finders or Colby, Colby. Yeah. And I've even just been looking which ones are more validated by research and just making sure that, hey, we're looking at it at a few different angles here. And then the really cool thing with AI is you can start to look for patterns using AI. So it's like, all right, across these different assessments, what are we seeing as themes? So the reason I bring that up is because I do think as I've been down the rabbit hole this stuff recently, I think there is a tendency to overvalue that stuff as this is the way I need to do it. And I have had some thoughts about how I think for a lot of people, the value of having the focus. It's like, oh, my network is how I need to sell. So let me focus on networking and let me emphasize my network. And I'm not saying it's wrong. I just to me, I think probably any strategy could work. Yeah. Some might work better, some might not work as well. I don't think I would say no, cold stuff never works for me. But I can also look back on my history in business. And even before I owned a business and I was more just, I guess, preparing to run a business and working in somebody else's business. Looking back naturally, a lot of times the opportunities that really took me to the next level had to do with having a network. And so I used to think I was an introvert. It turns out I'm more of a what's called an inhibited extrovert. So like I am an actual extrovert, but I there's only a few people that I really want to be extroverted. Oh, that sounds so me too. I love that. I love that phrasing. I was like, yes, I totally resonate with that. And so knowing that, and it's okay, so I'm not a little miss social butterfly, but making friends and making genuine connections and choosing to put myself in opportunities that can allow me to meet people is something that I've always done just by just my natural inclination. And then when I see that information in something like human design, it's okay, clearly I need to make that a priority and sure that's not left out of my business model. So for me, I joined a networking group this year and I've made it a point to be part of a local entrepreneur network group. So making sure that doesn't slip out of my activities, because especially as a mom of two under four, it's like it is really easy to isolate. And it would be easy to not be intentionally connecting with people. But the connecting with people is definitely a really strong sales mechanism for me. As far as whether or not the other stuff doesn't work, I'm kind of I it's a bit ironic. Up until I think this morning, I had never cold DM'd somebody about an offer or an opportunity to work together ever. And I just had this moment this year where I was like, listen, if I'm making these changes and I need to change who I'm communicating with and I'm moving in, I'm moving up market and my audience isn't necessarily all there yet. I might have to do some things that are uncomfortable to get me in front of people who are in this new space. And so literally this morning is the first time I've ever sent semi-cold DMs to people about an offer that I want to fill because I say semi-cold because they're in this networking group that I'm in. So it's not just random off the street, but it's people that I've never had a conversation with before. So I'm like, I'm just willing to test it. I don't know if it's gonna work. I literally have never done it before. So it's really just a test. But that said, I'm leading with, hey, here's some things we have in common. And I saw you're a Christian mom, or I saw that you do NLP. I'm trained in that too. So I'm still leading with legitimate connection. It's not just this like warm, cold. Yeah, warmish cold. Yeah, not just straight cold, hey. I saw that you're an entrepreneur and I'm selling this thing. Um TBD on how that works, but I like to be, I like to hold these personality boundaries come somewhat loosely because on one hand, like I said, it can be really helpful to lock in on something that you're like, this is my thing, and I'm focusing on it. And sometimes if you're like, I'm a four-six, so I can't send cold DMs, then it's like, well, you could, you could try it, right? I think I like to be like, I'm willing to be wrong about stuff and I'm willing to like try different things. And with the understanding, like there are certain things that I know are strong needle movers for me. And I'm very intentional about including that as part of my overall strategy. So you didn't know you got someone on your interview here that can just talk for an hour on any question that you ask.
Nicole: I love it. No, it's like we're so similar in a lot of ways. And I think, like, for me, I think the personality side of it, it's like I'm like saying this because I totally geeked out over the last couple of weeks, and I have a clawed project that is like all of my astrology, like all of my birth cart, all of my human design. And it's just like helping me to not only understand myself better, but to make better decisions in the business. Even like running, get a book recommendation for someone. Oh, you gotta read this, it's so great for your business. Be like, what about this one? Like emyth revisited. What do I need to learn from that? What would be good stuff for kind of me to take knowing what you know about me? Because I am it's not the whole ship, I have a small team, but it's just like it's got to, I like what you're saying. Don't let it be so restrictive and prescriptive that you don't try things because I love like I'm always trying new things. And even in the last eight weeks, I've pivoted twice to try something new to be like, okay, that didn't work. I think when I think about personality type things, like I think a lot of it just resonates with you because it's true. It's really just having the words spoken, maybe for the first time, to be like, for example, in human design, I have an open willpower center. So I am not the person to do something the same way every single time. Which is pre-interview when we were talking, I'm like, I was telling Laura, I'm like, I'm a type B girl, I'm not a type A girly. So like systems for me and knowing thyself is really important because like I cannot expect myself to show up the same way every single time, right? So I'm like, build systems so that way there is like an infrastructure that is showing up the same way every single time. But anyway, I could talk about human design like forever, but I want to get into a little bit like because systems are important to me, like I said, whether type A or type B or type C or type D, I think systems really are important for everyone, especially once you get to a certain level. And you got two kids, once you get to a certain point, you're like, I just can't hold all of this in my head anymore. Yeah. What does your back end system look like? Are you like investing in AI and building like kind of what's your are you clawed, girly? Are you building AI employees? Like where what what's what are your systems looking like these days?
Laura: Yeah, it's funny because since we're in this tear down to rebuild phase, I'm trying to be mindful of not just wasting a lot of time in AI because that is I could easily just be in that all day. It's just it's I love my top strength is ideation. Like that's something I did the strength finder assessment recently just to check how has this changed since I took it like 12 years ago. And ideation was. Number one for both 12 years ago and now. So I'm pretty confident that's a slow skill set of mine. So I am like, I just love ideas. It's one of the reasons I love one-on-one coaching and smaller group coaching because I love helping people come up with creative solutions to problems that they're experiencing. So anything that gets me in the ideas that can affect activity or results or implementation is I love it to the point where I will ignore my own business because I'm like, this is so cool. Let me try to build this or whatever. So I have to be really careful.
Nicole: That's so me. God, I gotta remember have the business. This isn't my business, it's not just making shit all the time.
Laura: I know it's not just brainstorming and clawed all day. I wish I could get paid for that. It's I get paid somewhat for that, but like not the only thing I get paid for. So, but I am the things that are stable. I'm looking for ways to support it with most. I'm pretty much mostly in Claude now. So I build different projects for different parts of the business. I also built something called a, I called a chief alignment officer in Claude. It's a project where I do have all of that personality data stored and I can run decisions through it. And I even built a decision skill based on research that supports decision making as uh here's ways that you can make decisions better and faster and easier. And so I trained a skill on that that I can run within that project to help me make decisions. So it is more of like the advisor type of projects. But then I also have just the functional projects where, for example, with my podcast, I have a whole skill that I built that takes my podcast transcript and turns it into the notes for the podcast, a blog, an SEO optimized blog post to go with it. And then I think a collection of different quotes and stuff that I can pull for social media, Instagram, whatever. And then I can also turn that stuff into outlines or inspiration for Substack articles, which Substack articles you approach differently than blogs. So I set all this up and then I also created it in a way that now I can take the output and just give it to my team members who then go and put it on Libsyn where we have the hosted audio and then go do the WordPress thing and set up the SEO optimization. And then, oh, it also comes up with the email that goes out and I look at all this stuff before I give it to them. So I'm like, I don't want it to like go rogue and say something I didn't say. But I've trained it to really pull from exactly what I said in the podcast. So it's not really there, there shouldn't be a reason it would say something that I didn't actually say in my own words. But then they go and schedule the email and active campaign. So that's really cool for me because a lot of that stuff used to be even with AI, it was very much like, okay, I'm gonna do this step and then I'm gonna do this step, and then I'm gonna do this step. And once I discovered how to make a skill in Claude, I just made a skill that does all of those at once. Yep. And then I can pass off the output to my team and they go and actually like execute everything, which definitely saves like at least a few hours a week for podcast distribution, and then gives us stuff to put up on social media. So even if I'm a little bit not on Instagram that week, we still have content going out. So that's just one example of something that I've used to really get stuff done in a more productive way without totally outsourcing. I try not to outsource my high-level thinking AI because honestly, that's my zone of genius and that's what I get paid for. But anything where I can like take what I already came up with and just distribute it more effectively, that's what I tend to use AI for primarily.
Nicole: I feel like my thinking has gotten significantly better since I started using Claude, which is the opposite of what you see online, which is like it's degrading our thinking. I'm like, I and I'm just talking to another entrepreneur friend about this yesterday. I have dumped so much content that was sitting in my brain. I feel as female entrepreneurs and family members, parents, etc., we have so much. I didn't even realize how much was in my head until I just spent days just like dumping it out, having a whole full roster of clients, passwords, Instagram handles, how they do this thing. There was so much that I was just holding on to, and then all of the processes of like how we do things in the business, how do we even how to make decisions? What are like I just had so much in there and like being able to just have a repository that's not in a million different Google Docs, right? The claw to notion connection there where I'm just like, I'm gonna tell you a bunch of things and you just store them. And when I ask you, you just bring them back to me. They're like sitting there, it's like it's opened up a freshness in my brain that I feel like I haven't had in a really long time. And I know that's not everyone's experience, but it's good for me to share that publicly because I'm like, man, it was hard to see through even a few months ago, just like where I wanted to go in the business talking with my husband and being like, I don't know. It's just so murky in there because my brain was just holding so much information for and I've got two open head centers, so that makes sense in the human design because I'm like holding everybody else's questions and everybody else's input is just in my brain, right? And so having these resources is so cool. And I'm loving hearing how people are working with these tools too. Like you said, like your podcast thing. What does social media content creation look like for you? Do you do like batch content for a month? Are you doing it every week? Or like or is it like it just however it flows, right?
Laura: Like yeah, so we have our standard output, which is based on the podcast. Um we have a I think it's Tuesday where there's a very long carousel that's kind of like a summary of what's on the podcast. And then Friday is a quotes carousel where we pull the top quotes from the episode. That's pretty much the only thing that's scheduled. I, assuming the again, I loosely hold the human design stuff because who knows? Sometimes I look into this stuff, I'm like, okay, so science basically says none of this is true, but it seems really helpful. So, like, where are we at with this? So I, if it's true, am a splenic manifester. So I, and this is that very much reflects my experience where I just get this hit of inspiration and I kind of just need to do something with it, which honestly, that's one of the reasons I love having Claude, kind of like what you were saying, I'll just like tell it stuff I'm thinking. And it's not, I'm not gonna necessarily do anything with it right away, but I'm like, let's bank that because I get so many ideas and I'm I can't do it all, and I don't even know if I should do it all, right? And so even if I can just bank the ideas, then I can come back to them and be like, all right, let's see if any of these are things I actually am gonna move forward with. Um, but with social media, I have a weird, I don't know, it's not a weird relationship. It's not the biggest source of my lead generation. So I haven't necessarily put tons and tons of effort into it. But for me, my best performing stuff is when it just hits me in the middle of the morning and I'm like, I should say something about this. Or I have a c conversation with a client and I'm like, oh, I should say something about that. And then I just do it and it's not planned out in advance. And again, I'm not saying that is the best way to do it, but for me, I have noticed the stuff that does perform well is that I just thought of this 10 minutes ago. Let me say it. Yeah. So I like having that mix of we always have something going out on social media because we do have the podcast and I do send people back to that long form content. Um I think for me to schedule everything out in advance would really lose some of the magic that I have around just get that instant download and I need to say it kind of thing. So I it's a mix. I think it would stress me out if I was only ever putting stuff out when I thought of something interesting this week. Yeah. Because what if you don't? What if it's just like I had nothing interesting this week? I guess I'll just disappear. But I just I really do not want to have a content strategy that strips out any sort of spontaneity or oh, I just feel like I need to say this today because that is really the thing that I feel works best for my business.
Nicole: Yeah. Are you on stories as well, or are you just posting content in the feed? It's a mix.
Laura: Honestly, I Instagram's been this weird. I I like it, but I also don't like, I don't like the way that Instagram kind of has to work to really be the main source of lead generation. I'm just very aware that there's a certain way to play the Instagram game. And I'm not saying you have to do it exactly the way everyone's doing it, but the way I look at most platforms is if it's gonna be your primary platform, you gotta learn how it works. And I know how Instagram works. And I'm like, in this season of life, I'm like, do I really want to be doing it that way? Is that the way I want to create content? And so I've kind of landed on this it's good to have Instagram as a place for people to binge my content or if they see me somewhere else, they can go look and look at uh 5,000 posts that I've done in the last 15 years or whatever if they want to get to know me. Um, but it's not a primary new audience driver, at least not from an organic perspective. And so I don't really use it the way that you would need to use it if you wanted to be your main audience driver.
Nicole: To be your main, yeah.
Laura: Yeah. So we run ads. So of course, ads will show up on Instagram and that can lead people to following me just because they saw an ad. And like I said, it's if I do something like this, I'll, I'm sure you'll post about it and I'll be tagged or whatever. So I use it enough that I have a presence, but I'm not optimizing it, if that makes sense.
Nicole: Is ads like your top acquisition channel, or is there another thing that email what's what do you see working for you?
Laura: I try to mix things up. I there's basically four different audience growth techniques that anyone can use to grow their business. I call it the four B's. So you have build, which is build your own audience organically. You have borrow, which is something like this, where I'm on your podcast and in front of your audience. We have buy, which is paid ads, whether that's Facebook or Google or whatever. And then I call it broker. So broker is when you're actually getting other people to sell for you, like an affiliate or joint venture type of thing. Um, and so those are the four core ways to build an audience. For me, I've done all four of those. I always have a build function in the business. For me, the podcast is probably the most effective form of audience, really the sales side of things. I don't know if I'm getting discovered super like a ton on the podcast, but when somebody listens to the podcast, it's a really strong sales mechanism for me. And then borrow getting on other people's platforms is probably the main secondary one for me. I'm very intentional about making things like this part of my routine on a month-to-month basis. And then the ads kind of come and go. There's certain seasons where we're spending, there's been months where we spent 10 grand on ads in a month, and then it kind of took a break the last few months because I was rediscovering my messaging and who I want to attract. And then just recently I've started adding some ads back in because I'm like, okay, now I know who we're talking to and what I can be putting out in the world to grow that audience. So, and I do some affiliate marketing, but it's not the level that I know some other people do to grow their business. So it's I try to use at least three out of those four, but for most people, they need just two that they're gonna focus on and they can grow pretty effectively. Um my website is 15 years old at this point. So we're like fixing the SEO. It's like most of my blog visitors are looking for liver recipes because I used to do functional nutrition, so we're trying to turn that ship. But yeah, I would say the combination of my podcast, being on other people's podcasts, and then running ads is I would argue is the primary audience growth strategy that I use.
Nicole: I love that. And thank you for talking us through the four B's because that was super helpful too. It's like I think that being in business for a really long time, I feel like it took me a really long time to realize that there's only a couple ways of selling things because it just feels like there's so much. You're just like, oh, there's 25 different ways. And it's like, no, when you actually like break it down, like you so beautifully did, you're just like, okay, there's these four ways. Pick your combination. Yeah. Yeah. And that's something where you could even let's double up, let's throw your astrology and human design and all of the different things through Claude and have those four B's, and just be like, What do you think would be the easiest way for me to approach one of these? Is like and then just try it. Whether you've been in business for years or whether you just getting started, it's just part part of entrepreneurship, the part that I love and hate probably at the same time, is it's just it's one huge experiment. It's about learning about ourselves and being like, Okay, there are certain things where I'm just like that does not work. I'm learning about myself. I don't really like selling, I like the human relationship side of it. I would love somebody to come to my sales calls knowing a lot about me and what we do. I'm not the person who wants to just have a hard sell on a call, wants you to like get out your credit card right now, the urgency or the shame or any of that stuff. It's that warm relationship is like where I want to be. And so I resonate with a lot of what you're talking about around having a podcast, having a place, and we produce podcasts for our clients. And I'm always just like I'm such a big fan. I'm like our doctors and health coaches, it's like they look at social media and they're just like, this is all surface. I hate it. These 30-second blips, they want to be in depth, in-depth conversation. And like podcasting is one of the best places where people can sit down and just vibe you out, right? And so by the time they actually get on that call, they're like, Oh, I've spent a couple hours with Nicole or Laura. And so I'm glad to hear you saying that's a channel that's working for you as well, because it's like it's part of my cornerstone of selling, and also what I share with our clients around like getting people into their one-on-one programs and their group programs. Is like, let them like, let them see experience your expertise, let them experience your personality, like let them get to the end of listening to a few episodes with you, being like, This is the only person for me. Even though there's that's the 10,000 other perimenopause functional medicine specialists, like why would they come to work with you? So it's super cool to hear that's like one of the top things of your strategy.
Laura: And it's funny because uh, this is all like the foundry program that I'm running right now. I literally just this week taught on choosing your platform and looking at okay, ideally, you want to have a long form and a short form platform. It can technically be the same platform. Like you use Substack, you can do the longer articles, you can publish a podcast there, you can do notes there. So you don't have to have multiple different apps necessarily, but I think everybody should have some form of long form thought leadership available for people to consume to actually understand why they should work with them versus anyone else. And then the short form is much more discoverable. It's just the thing that helps people actually even find you in the first place. But all of that you said about having some details and clawed about yourself and your personality and all of the things that make your business unique. That's literally exactly what we're doing in this foundry program is I'm helping them build out from starting with them through each core piece of their business to the point where we're in the last phase right now. And they have everything written up from their personality to their needs as a human, like yeah, just their basic self-care needs, their offer details, their niche details, their sales mechanism, like all of that has been created. And then now it's gonna be in their Claude. Like when they're having a brainstorming session inside of Claude and they're trying to make a decision about which platform would suit me best. Claude has all of that information for them to help with the decision making, right? Whether Instagram is good or bad for your business, it's very much dependent on you and what your goals are and who your people are and what your best form of communication is. And so I was having a conversation with one of our clients in the foundry program literally yesterday, and she was saying, I just hear from all these business coaches that I have to use Instagram. Like, nobody has to use Instagram. That's literally you don't have to. I think it's a powerful tool. And I think if you're going to use it, you should use it effectively. But this belief that you have to use a particular platform is just not accurate. And so being able to support people in understanding what factors go into their decisions and then actually deciding to do something, because the thing I also find is that people will be like one foot in, one foot out. I feel like I should do Instagram, but I don't really want to, and I don't really like it, but I'm like gonna force myself to do it. It doesn't work. You will not get good results on Instagram if you're just like, I'm not really into this, and then you're wondering why you're not getting the growth you could be getting because oh, I'm showing up on Instagram. You're not showing up effectively because you literally are so ambivalent about it or you hate it. So let's be in or out, but don't be like, because I'm gonna do Instagram, but I hate it. Just choose something else and do something else with your full chest, right? And so that's something that I've really gotten into with my overall niche and all the movement that I've done in this last year is really understanding that any, like you said, any method can technically work. Like there's no proven this is the way to do things. It needs to match you and it needs to match your audience, and it needs to match what you're trying to sell, and it needs to be something that you're willing to commit to because we're in a time in the online business space, you can't be half in. You will get eaten alive if you are just half in your business. There are way too many competitors who are all in and they're doing what they need to do to be successful in the platform that they're doing it in. And you're gonna like literally get nowhere if you come in and you're like ambivalent about what you're doing. So that's why making these really intentional, thought out, but like final. I don't want to say final, because anything can change, right? I'm not saying you're not tattooing the word Instagram on your forehead, but it's like just decide and then go for it and just do it and just do it full tilt and don't keep questioning whether or not you should be doing the thing that you decided to do.
Nicole: Yeah. No, I see that with with the clients that I work with as well, too. I love what you're saying. And just before we wrap up, I kind of want to just ask you a few questions about Substack because this comes up from my clients a lot in the health space around like, should I, because they hear about Substack, they're like, should I be on a Substack? And so I wonder if you have any just kind of quick tips for moving into Substack, what type of person is that for? Is that somebody? I guess I have two parts of this question. What type of person do you think that's best suited for? And then also, is there any space for AI created content there? Or do you feel like personally, because we use AI to create some of our content and my email newsletters and blog posts? But I think my own curiosity too is if someone was to commit to Substack, would you be like, okay, you really need to be like sitting down and writing this whole thing yourself? Or that's kind of my curiosity. Like, what are you seeing in that platform and who do you think it's best suited for?
Laura: So Substack's pretty new for me in the grand scheme of my I've been blogging and podcasting for 15 years almost now for both of those. And so I have a lot more experience with those platforms. But I am exploring Substack a lot. I'm participating there and experimenting with it, and I'm talking to people who are very like all in on Substack. And so one thing that I've learned that I was a little surprised to learn is that people think Substack is a long-form platform, and it is, but it also has a ton of other things you can do on it. You can do live video, you can write short form little, they're called notes, but they're kind of like tweets or threads or whatever where you just do little quick commentary. You can post photos, you can host a podcast. Like I think with Substack, any type of person, any form of communication can work there. I don't think it's, oh, you have to be a long form writer to do well on Substack. But I think first of all, you want to ask yourself, do your people hang out on Substack? Because if you're like you work with busy stay-at-home moms who are like mostly on something like Instagram, it may not be the place you're gonna find clients. Versus if you work with corporate perimetapausal women who are like very involved in some of these more thought leadership type of things, it could be a great platform for you, right? So excuse me, all of that to say you can definitely use AI for content on Substack, just the same way you can use it anywhere else. I look at AI as it's great for organizing your thoughts into written form, or like I'm somebody who, if you couldn't tell, can talk and talk. So if I have a ton of stuff that I've said and I want to condense it into something more user-friendly, that's what AI is great for. I think the problem people run into is when they're using AI to generate the ideas or generate the content from its own, you know, its own sources or whatever. Because ultimately what I'm finding works really well in Substack is sharing perspective and sharing your thoughts about something. So my best performing Substack post right now is I read this article about the osempification of the economy, looking at like how the selling a shot to lose weight and getting instant results and not having to work at anything is kind of like showing up across our entire economy about what people are expecting when they pay for something. And I basically saw that. Be in my space, and you're just gonna magically make more money. And it's like so, like I wrote an opinion piece about how I see that as empathication showing up in the online industry, and that one is the one that's performing the best, and it gets me the most number of subscribers, the most number of restacks, all of that. So I think for a lot of people, if you are willing to take a stance on something, if you have strong opinions, if you're like, I don't like this about the industry that I'm in, or this is harming the people that I want to work with, that's what does well. And you can totally use AI to get something like that started. I always, if ever I use AI to create a longer form piece of content, I still go in there and edit and make it feel like that's what I wanted to say. And it's always pulling from my original source content, whether that's a podcast episode or sometimes I'll be at the gym and just walk the track and voice memo of Claude and like ask it to capture that and turn it into written format. So it's always starting from me and then ending with me.
Nicole: Yeah.
Laura: And that way it's basically like I wrote it. It's just a lot of the actual filling in the blanks of the outline is done with AI and it's a train of my voice. So it's let's just get the 80% done. And then I'll go in and put the last 20% finishing touches on and make sure it's like coming at the opinion at the level of strength that I want to come at. And so that's how I'm using AI with things like Substack or pretty much anywhere that I have AI as part of the content output process. So yeah, as long as it starts with you and ends with you, that's the most important thing. And then like I said, you can have pretty much a large variety of different types of content output on that particular platform.
Nicole: I love learning that there's some because I have it's not a space where I've played a lot in learning that there's other types of content that you can do in there. Cause I'm like, I've kind of shied away from it personally, just being like, okay, I one thing I know that I don't want to spend my time on is writing long form content. I enjoy using my voice a lot more. Like if you said sit down and just talk for 30 minutes about this topic, I'm like, cool, got it. Where it's just like sit down for 30 minutes and write about this topic, suddenly I'm like, I don't mind writing, but it just hits me differently, right? Knowing that on Substack we can create other pieces of content. But what about for those of us who are like, I'm not super comfortable being an opinionated person? I'm a Libra rising. It's not for me at all to be just like, yeah, this is my strong opinion about this. I think I'm kind of more designed to help people feel known and seen and enveloped in warmth. Do you feel like there's still a space for that type on Substack? Or do you feel like it is what you're seeing trends that's more a strong opinion in reference to I don't know, a trending topic or something like that?
Laura: I I think when I say strong opinion, I don't necessarily just mean hot takes. Oh, okay. That's how I was reading that.
Nicole: Yeah, no, it's good because I was like, I wanted to clarify that. I'm like, I don't that's one content piece that I don't really do is a hot takes.
Laura: So it doesn't have to be this like aggressive, like, I'm gonna criticize this person or blow up this part of the industry or whatever. But I do think you still have opinions. You still have opinions about effective ways to do things, about mistakes people are making, about beliefs people have that are heading them in the wrong direction. And like even just the things you've been talking about, stuff you've discovered about how human design affects your approach to business. That's an opinion. Yeah, that's not like scientific paper about like here's the you know, 18 different ways that it's I think that's we have to broadly define the word opinion because perspectives, personal insights, personal experiences, that all is what I would call an opinion. Yeah, and not just like regurgitating like here's the five best. And some of those, okay, I will say some of the like here's how to do XYZ posts can do really well. I found somebody had written, here's exactly how to make sure your Substack is getting indexed by Google so it shows up in search. I was like, Oh, that was really helpful. Yeah. So some really technical stuff can be valuable, but it has to be very much like a tutorial. If you're just gonna kind of do this, like, here are the five benefits of vitamin C kind of post on Substack, I don't think it's gonna do as well. But if you were gonna say something like, here's why overtraining is the worst way for women over 40 to get stronger and grow muscle, yeah, that's an opinion and you could share about that. And that's even with SEO, that's the direction SEO and GEO, so generative engine optimization, that's where the all of that is moving anyway, where that dry informational content is not being prioritized. And even Google AI and ChatGPT want to see that you have an opinion and a perspective that is unique. So I don't honestly think it matters what platform you're on. I think everybody needs to be able to develop their unique perspective and ability to share opinions and insights and personal experiences and all the things that are not as cut and dry as here's the best way to do XYZ. Um, because honestly, any platform you use is gonna need that. And for a Substack, I just I see that people do better when they're sharing something that is clearly coming from a personal insight and they're expressing that in an authentic way.
Nicole: Thank you for that distinction because that was really helpful too. Cause I was like, oh no, I gotta do hot takes. I was like, oh God, I'm like so not designed for hot takes. But also, yes, everything you're saying is true. And for the people listening as well, they have their opinions, they have their way that they practice, they have their way that they see health and how they work with their clients. So all of that is great content for Substack.
Laura: And I'll even mention, sorry, just to add one quick thing, it could also be useful, like what I did with the Ozempification article. You see somebody writing about something in a different field, and you're like, here's how I see this applying to my field. That's still like an opinion, but you're not making anybody wrong, you're just expressing something unique. That's like, here's how I see this particular topic.
Nicole: Yeah. Van, I love this conversation. This has been so many helpful things. And you guys listening, like when Laura and I sat down, I was just like, okay, type B, we're just gonna go where we go. It's what I love about having these conversations. I didn't know we were gonna talk about Substack, but my job is just like hear what you're saying. I'm like, okay, this is people listening. This is the question they're gonna have. Because I get that a lot. Should I be on Substacks? Knowing that you're in there playing around and like figuring out your own strategy in there. That's super helpful for myself and also for the people listening, as well as everything else you've shared with us today, which has been like so helpful. Thank you for opening up your business to us and being like transparent and vulnerable. I hope when people are listening that they can learn different ways of doing things and also feel like you know it's important for us to know ourselves, but also I feel like it's important to experiment and step out of that comfort zone. And like you said, with the cold DMs, where you're like, okay, I'm a four-six, I'm probably designed to have these warm relational podcasting, uh, speaking on other people's podcasts, things like that. But also, like, why don't I experiment? Even though this is a little bit out of like the norm, let's see how this lands. And you might find you're like, okay, that didn't feel good. It's just super cool to see even after all these years, you're still out there experimenting too. So, yeah, this has been a great conversation. I'm gonna put the links down below where people can find you. But if someone's brand new to your world, like, where would you send them to? Do you have a webinar, a freebie, uh come join me on Substack? Like, where's the best place for them to kind of get started when they're like feeling you out?
Laura: Yeah. So I do have what I call the CEO types quiz. So it's a quiz that really assesses how you make decisions in your business and how that can inform the different decisions you make and the communication style and lots of different parts of your business. The results go through the core functions of your business and how your CEO type can potentially operate best. So that quiz is laurashounfall.com slash quiz. And then my podcast, the nourished CEO, is really my main place where I do my leap dives content and all of that. And then as far as more day-to-day content, I am on Instagram. I know I said that I'm not prioritizing it, but I do hang out there and I do post there. And then I am on Substack as well, which I'll send you the link. I don't Substack's funny. It's like you gotta have like the correct link to send people to. But that one, I post long form stuff. I have a little private podcast series that I'm adding to the channel there. I'm trying, I'm experimenting with going live on it on two days. So the replay will be up if you want to check it out. So it's a lot of different ways that I'm I'm really just playing around with everything right now because I am in such a I'm in such a season of like I just want to see how things feel and then I can double down on stuff if something really lands. And I also from a meta level, I like to be able to help my clients make the decisions. And if I've never tried a platform, it's like, how would I even explain like if it would be helpful for them or not? I guess that's the line six is like you try a bunch of stuff and you see what works and what doesn't, and then you can like use your wisdom to support people. So yeah. So that's part of my method is just like being willing to try stuff and being willing to share what I've learned from trying it so that other people can kind of learn from my trial and error and skip some of the line when it comes to learning from learning from mistakes or learning, even just I've been exposed to so many different methods, even just in the masterminds that I've been in and like just the number of different ways you can grow a business. I have this like roll it X in my head. So it's oh, you're trying to do this? Have you thought about it that way? So it's one of the reasons I like to experiment with different content strategies because it's like I have so many different things I could share in different formats, and let's just see what see which ones are the ones that end up being the right one for me.
Nicole: And we've both been in business for a long time. And so, like when you've been in business for a long time, like you talk about Instagram, it's like I got started and there was no Instagram.
Laura: Oh, yeah, no.
Nicole: So people are like, Can I sell without Instagram? It's just like, yeah, my first web design clients back in the day were on Craigslist when I first got started. It was like blogging was a new thing. So, like part of the resilience of looking at this for a long time is knowing that platforms will come and go, strategies will come and go. So be willing to like experiment and try new things and know that like in a couple years, like I remember Periscope. Remember, everybody was jumping on Periscope, Clubhouse, right? So know that if you're just getting started or if you're like a few years in where you're just like, oh my God, I gotta be on this platform. There's all this pressure. It's just like we don't even know Substack, for example. Like in a year, that might be a place where nobody goes to, right? And so I think just be willing to be open and know that things will change and be resilient and adaptable and have your core knowledge of self and knowledge of who you want to serve, but also don't be so tied to a platform because like all this stuff changes. I know, and it hasn't been like Harley. Yes, I know. And so at the core, I think we can still go back to, and I know I'm opening a whole nother conversation, so I'm gonna wrap it up. But as I go back and look at the core marketing principles, a lot of them haven't changed. So there are these kind of core things where like if someone's the point still, oh, what's how do you learn copywriting? You're gonna go back to the book from 1920, right? Or some, I don't know, how to write headlines, and that's what you can use to make hooks on Instagram. And so platforms change, but there's some core messaging, I think, that stays the same. And part of that core is knowing yourself and what makes you feel empowered. What rather than just chasing trends or getting really anxious about platforms or where should I be, it's just like take a breath. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. things will change.
Laura: And human psychology doesn't really change very much. So basically, people want to feel seen and heard and understood. Yeah. And the more you can do that with your communication in any platform, the more you're gonna be able to sell your stuff.
Nicole: So and they only buy for a few reasons, right? And that hasn't changed either. So whether it's Substack or Instagram or webinars or Clubhouse back in the day, there's only a few core reasons why people are motivated to buy. So spend some time learning the basics. Uh find a platform that feels like it fits with your design. And if you don't re vibe with the word design, just what feels like it's less resistance, right? It's just I don't see myself talking, but I can write. Great. Yeah.
Laura: Yeah, your natural wiring.
Nicole: We all have it. We all have you know it because it resonates, right? It hits you in the gut where you're like, yeah, that's I don't really like talking to people, so I should be introvertedly creating things that are really helpful for people. Or oh God, I can never sit down for an hour and write a blog post, but I could like talk to a room of people, right? You kind of know your natural inclination.
Laura: Yeah, and then if you're like, I don't create any content, then we have a different conversation.
Nicole: And that's still doable for people too, but that's a whole nother conversation. So we'll leave you on that dot. But Laura, thank you so much for being here with you. To what was the word that you said about introverts?
Laura: That was like a phrase that was like oh, inhibited extrovert, or you could so it's introvert, extrovert, and then inhibited or uninhibited. Your traditional extrovert is an uninhibited extrovert, and your traditional introvert is an inhibited introvert. But there can be uninhibited introverts and inhibited extroverts. My husband's an uninhibited introvert, so he's like very internal, not very expressive, but he'll go talk to anyone. Yeah. And then I'm an inhibited extrovert, so I'm very expressive and verbal and outwardly just present. But I'm kind of like, I don't want to talk to strangers.
Nicole: Yes, whatever that is, I am that too. So I get the feeling like we could probably talk for like three more hours. Oh, yeah. Totally awesome. Thank you so much for being here with us and hope you guys enjoy this uh interview with Laura. Yeah, thanks, Nicole. Bye. Okay, that's it for this episode. If you're sitting there realizing that patients are coming in just fine, but things are slipping through the cracks behind the scenes, the follow-up, the systems, the back end that's all held together by you and some sticky notes and a prayer. I've got a few free resources that'll help you see exactly where those gaps are. They're all linked in the show notes, so just go grab whatever fits you where you're at right now. Also, come follow me on Instagram too and hang out over there. I share a lot of uh good resources at Nicole.leadbetterHQ. And if you're past the figure it out myself stage and you just want a team to run the operational side of your practice for you, yay! That's exactly what we do at LeadBetterHQ. We run the operations and intelligence layer behind the practice so that patience you already have don't fall through the cracks, right? We we like to make sure that we're working with um what's actually coming in. So if that's a thing that you've been looking for, book a call with us. I'd love to chat with you. The links in the show notes, and um thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I'll see you in the next one. Bye now.