Lead Better - Grow Your Practice. Live Your Purpose.

Nicole Harlow: Brand and Marketing Strategist for Health-Based Businesses
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Monthly

If you're ready to stop chasing leads and start leading your industry, then it's time to Lead Better. Welcome to Lead Better, the podcast for functional medicine and wellness leaders ready to move beyond fragmented efforts and into a realm of predictable growth and undeniable market authority. Join Nicole Harlow, a seasoned expert with over a decade of experience guiding the best health pracitioners and clinics to exponential success, as we dissect the true mechanics of modern practice growth.  We'll explore: The Growth Paradox: Why traditional marketing often leads to "scattered beginnings" instead of sustainable expansion, and how to break free.Magnetic Brand Building: Strategies to clarify your unique message and forge a brand identity that effortlessly attracts your ideal, high-value patients.The Power of Predictable Patient Acquisition: Unpacking AI-driven marketing systems, ethical lead generation, and automated patient pipelines that fill your calendar with consistency.Unleashing Your Authority: How to position yourself as the undisputed expert in your niche, build unwavering trust, and command your market.Time Freedom & Scalability: Implementing smart systems and leveraging cutting-edge AI to reclaim your most precious resource, allowing you to focus on your mission, not the marketing grind. This isn't just theory; it's a deep dive into the actionable strategies, the psychological frameworks, and the integrated systems that empower you to build a thriving, impactful practice on your own terms.  Subscribe now and transform your practice's potential into predictable, powerful reality.

  1. 5d ago

    You can't hand off a business that only lives in your head. (with Dr. Kela Smith)

    If your practice is growing and you can feel the ceiling getting close, this conversation is for you. I sat down with Dr. Kela Smith, a wellness doctor with a PhD in natural medicine who runs two businesses side by side, the Hormone Puzzle Society on the clinical side and Grow Your Wellness Business where she coaches practitioners, and we dug into what actually changed for her between six figures and seven. Almost none of it came down to working harder. It came down to who she lets onto a call in the first place, what she believes about money in the moment a price leaves her mouth, and the fact that she wrote her processes down long before she had a team to hand them to. She also walked me through her Thriving Business Puzzle, the framework she built for that jump, with the CEO seat sitting right in the middle of it. In this episode we get into: The five pieces of her Thriving Business Puzzle, and why she put the CEO in the center instead of the practitionerHow she pre-qualifies every single call, including why she moved to paid deep dive calls and stopped offering free onesWhat to actually say when money comes up on a call, the question she asks first, and why she goes quiet after itWhy she writes SOPs before she hires anyone, and how her first hire started at five hours a weekWhat half a million dollars invested in her own business taught her about deciding when to say yesConnect with Dr. Kela Smith  Website: growyourwellnessbusiness.com  Instagram: @drkelasmith 💬 Let's Connect If you listened to the SOP part and felt a little called out, come tell me about it. Send me a DM at @nicole.leadbetterhq. ABOUT THE SHOW The Lead Better Podcast is where established health practitioners get honest about what it actually takes to run the business behind the practice.  *Some links in this episode are affiliate links, which means Lead Better HQ may earn a commission if you sign up, at no extra cost to you. FREE RESOURCES The Operations Gap (free training): see where your back-end stopped keeping up with your growth → https://live.leadbetterhq.com/operations-gapThe AI-Powered Practice (free training): how the intelligence layer of a practice actually works → https://live.leadbetterhq.com/ai-powered-practiceStack Calculator: find out what your disconnected tools are really costing you → https://leadbetterhq.com/stack-calculatorAI Brand Voice Starter Kit: get your content sounding like you again → https://leadbetterhq.com/ai-ambassadorPATIENT JOURNEY MAPPER Find every place your practice is leaking revenue. An interactive 5-stage diagnostic for established health practices. https://leadbetterhq.com/challenge WORK WITH US Ready to hand the operational side of your practice to a team that...

  2. Aug 27

    Your niche isn't where your business starts. (with Elyse Wagner)

    If you have ever sat down to build the next thing in your business and started with the niche, the website, or the offer, this episode is going to reorder a few things for you. Elyse Wagner has spent more than a decade working with thousands of health coaches, and she does not start any of them there. She starts with values, and she has a model for how values sit underneath every single result you are trying to create, for your clients and for yourself. The behaviors nobody can seem to stick with usually trace back to roots nobody looked at. In this episode, we get into where to actually begin, and why so much of the standard advice starts at the wrong end. The flower model: how results, behaviors, feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and values all sit on the same stem, and where most of us cut it offWhy working on beliefs with a client is not automatically out of scopeWhat changes when a client gets reconnected to their own values, told through a real client storyEmbodiment: why the work you have not done yourself tends to show up in the room anywayThe human design and gene keys conversation at the end, and how we both use it to make business decisionsConnect with Elyse Wagner  Website: https://www.elysewagner.com/ Free training: https://bonus.elysewagner.com/health-coach-leadership-summit-2026 Instagram: [still needed] 💬 Let's Connect If this one has you rethinking how you build, I want to hear about it. Send me a DM at @nicole.leadbetterhq. ABOUT THE SHOW The Lead Better Podcast is where established health practitioners get honest about what it actually takes to run the business behind the practice.  *Some links in this episode are affiliate links, which means Lead Better HQ may earn a commission if you sign up, at no extra cost to you. FREE RESOURCES The Operations Gap (free training): see where your back-end stopped keeping up with your growth → https://live.leadbetterhq.com/operations-gapThe AI-Powered Practice (free training): how the intelligence layer of a practice actually works → https://live.leadbetterhq.com/ai-powered-practiceStack Calculator: find out what your disconnected tools are really costing you → https://leadbetterhq.com/stack-calculatorAI Brand Voice Starter Kit: get your content sounding like you again → https://leadbetterhq.com/ai-ambassadorPATIENT JOURNEY MAPPER Find every place your practice is leaking revenue. An interactive 5-stage diagnostic for established health practices. https://leadbetterhq.com/challenge WORK WITH US Ready to hand the operational side of your practice to a team that...

  3. Jul 30

    Delegation is my favorite form of self-care. (with Michelle Rogers)

    Michelle Rogers has taken a full week off every single month since 2018, and when I asked her how she pulled that off, the answer was so much simpler than I expected. She cut a 60 hour work week in half, and then in half again. What we kept circling back to is everything you are carrying that never shows up on a task list. Every client detail, every decision, every question somebody else handed you to hold. Michelle and I both got to the same place, which is that the real unlock is not another tool. It is getting all of that out of your head so you can be fully present with the person in front of you. In this episode we get into her flex week and how she actually protects it, the four box system she uses to decide what to hand off first, and the AI setup running behind her business. How Michelle set up a full week off every month, and the exact thing she said to her clients to make it workThe four box exercise for deciding what to delegate first, and why the fourth box goes firstWhy tracking what you actually do all week is the most useful data you will ever collect on yourselfBatching your week by energy instead of by task, and what we both ended up calling radiant daysWhat AI is actually useful for inside a practice, and the part of your work it will never touchConnect with Michelle Rogers  Website: wellthywoman.co  Instagram:  @wellthywoman  💬 Let's Connect If any of this landed, I want to hear which part. Come tell me what you are handing off first, and send me a DM at @nicole.leadbetterhq. ABOUT THE SHOW The Lead Better Podcast is where established health practitioners get honest about what it actually takes to run the business behind the practice.  *Some links in this episode are affiliate links, which means Lead Better HQ may earn a commission if you sign up, at no extra cost to you. FREE RESOURCES The Operations Gap (free training): see where your back-end stopped keeping up with your growth → https://live.leadbetterhq.com/operations-gapThe AI-Powered Practice (free training): how the intelligence layer of a practice actually works → https://live.leadbetterhq.com/ai-powered-practiceStack Calculator: find out what your disconnected tools are really costing you → https://leadbetterhq.com/stack-calculatorAI Brand Voice Starter Kit: get your content sounding like you again → https://leadbetterhq.com/ai-ambassadorPATIENT JOURNEY MAPPER Find every place your practice is leaking revenue. An interactive 5-stage diagnostic for established health practices. https://leadbetterhq.com/challenge WORK WITH US Ready to hand the operational side of your practice to a team that...

  4. Jul 23

    Teaching too much is what's costing you the sale. (with Kendra Perry)

    If you have ever poured weeks into a launch and ended up on the bathroom floor wondering what you did wrong, this one is for you. I sat down with Kendra Perry, business strategist and founder of the Wealthy Coach podcast, to talk about what actually makes a launch work for a health practitioner, and how to read your numbers so you know the difference between a real flop and a completely normal result. Here is the part that surprised me. Sometimes a launch that made zero sales converted right within the range of normal, and the problem was never you. It was the math, the messaging, or a niche too broad to land. Kendra walks through how she diagnoses a launch from the top of the funnel down, and why teaching too much on a webinar is one of the surest ways to lose the sale. In this episode, we get into launching from start to finish, plus a hot take on perimenopause as a niche that stuck with me for days. Whether you should be launching at all, and the email list size Kendra wants you to hit before you tryThe real conversion math behind launches, and why "normal" is sometimes zeroHow to diagnose a launch that flopped, starting at the top of the funnel: open rates, registration, show-up ratesWhy treating your webinar as a decision-making environment beats giving away everything you knowKendra's hot take on why perimenopause is a category, not a niche, and how to niche inside itConnect with Kendra Perry Instagram: @kendraperryinc 💬 Let's Connect If patients are coming in fine but things keep slipping through the cracks behind the scenes, that is exactly the layer we run at Lead Better HQ. Come say hi and tell me what you're working on, send me a DM at @nicole.leadbetterhq. ABOUT THE SHOW The Lead Better Podcast is where established health practitioners get honest about what it actually takes to run the business behind the practice.  *Some links in this episode are affiliate links, which means Lead Better HQ may earn a commission if you sign up, at no extra cost to you. FREE RESOURCES The Operations Gap (free training): see where your back-end stopped keeping up with your growth → https://live.leadbetterhq.com/operations-gapThe AI-Powered Practice (free training): how the intelligence layer of a practice actually works → https://live.leadbetterhq.com/ai-powered-practiceStack Calculator: find out what your disconnected tools are really costing you → https://leadbetterhq.com/stack-calculatorAI Brand Voice Starter Kit: get your content sounding like you again → https://leadbetterhq.com/ai-ambassadorPATIENT JOURNEY MAPPER Find every place your practice is leaking revenue. An interactive 5-stage diagnostic for established health practices. https://leadbetterhq.com/challenge WORK WITH US Ready to hand the operational side of your practice to a team that...

  5. Jul 16

    Stop posting tips nobody acts on. (with Hailey Rowe)

    If you know you should be showing up more but freeze every time you sit down to post, this episode is going to feel like a relief. I sat down with business coach Hailey Rowe, who helps health coaches and practitioners simplify their marketing, to talk through which platforms actually matter and what to post so people do more than scroll past. Here's what most of us get wrong. We post the helpful, surface-level stuff (five tips to drink more water) and then wonder why nobody books. The content that actually moves people speaks to the hesitation or the belief that's keeping them stuck, and it always points somewhere next. Hailey walks through exactly how to do that without sounding like a salesperson. In this episode, Hailey and I get into the posts that start real conversations, how to handle the DMs after someone raises their hand, and the one platform most practitioners are completely overlooking. The kind of post that gets someone to actually raise their hand, and why "five tips" content usually falls flatHailey's simple way to move from a DM into a discovery call without the pushy feelingWhy LinkedIn might be the most underrated platform for practitioners, especially for finding referral partnersHow to write an Instagram bio that makes the right person stop in three secondsHow to choose your platforms on purpose instead of trying to be everywhere at onceConnect with Hailey Rowe  Free gift, The 5 Posts to Book Your Next 10 Discovery Calls: https://aslvcalgonwzyy.krtra.com/t/oiOkT7MEmjYf Free client attraction consult: https://aslvcalgonwzyy.krtra.com/t/f8Ze69oa7FZa Free networking community (The Marketing Hub): https://www.facebook.com/groups/themarketinghubgroup Instagram: @hailey_rowe LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/haileyr 💬 Let's Connect If this got you thinking about the systems running underneath all that content, come find me. Send me a DM at @nicole.leadbetterhq and tell me what you're working on. ABOUT THE SHOW The Lead Better Podcast is where established health practitioners get honest about what it actually takes to run the business behind the practice.  *Some links in this episode are affiliate links, which means Lead Better HQ may earn a commission if you sign up, at no extra cost to you. FREE RESOURCES The Operations Gap (free training): see where your back-end stopped keeping up with your growth → https://live.leadbetterhq.com/operations-gapThe AI-Powered Practice (free training): how the intelligence layer of a practice actually works → https://live.leadbetterhq.com/ai-powered-practiceStack Calculator: find out what your disconnected tools are really costing you → https://leadbetterhq.com/stack-calculatorAI Brand Voice Starter Kit: get your content sounding like you again → https://leadbetterhq.com/ai-ambassadorPATIENT JOURNEY MAPPER Find every place your practice is leaking revenue. An interactive 5-stage diagnostic for established health practices. https://leadbetterhq.com/challenge WORK WITH US Ready to hand the operational side of your practice to a team that...

  6. Jul 9

    Your patients already asked ChatGPT. (with Sarah Cook)

    If your patients are showing up to appointments having already run their symptoms through ChatGPT at 3am, this one is for you. I sat down with my friend Sarah Cook, a former naturopathic doctor turned AI copywriting mentor, to talk about what that shift actually means for how you talk about your work. Here's the part that surprised me. A lot of the messaging practitioners have leaned on for years, "I'll connect the dots," "I'll give you a comprehensive plan," "you'll finally feel heard," is exactly what AI now does in seconds. That doesn't make you less valuable. It means the mastery only you have is what people are really paying for, and Sarah breaks down how to bring that forward instead of competing with a tool on the things the tool already won. In this episode, Sarah and I get into: The three messaging points that lost their edge the moment AI health tools showed up, and what to say insteadWhy meeting patients where they already are beats pretending they haven't been Googling with AI all weekHow to use AI as a second brain and a real collaborator, not a hands-off replacement for your own thinkingThe "two ICAs" shift: you're now writing for humans and for the AI agents deciding whether to recommend youThe drunk-grandma test for messaging clear enough that both a patient and an AI actually get what you doConnect with Sarah Cook Learn more about Sarah at Wellness Writer: https://www.wellnesswriter.com/a/2147519979/gsVmndjM AI Masterclass: https://www.wellnesswriter.com/a/2148226879/gsVmndjM Aligned Program: https://www.wellnesswriter.com/a/2148261929/gsVmndjM This Prompt Audits Your Practice Website for AI-Proof Messaging (on Substack): https://signalwithsarah.substack.com/p/prompt-to-audit-your-wellness-website-messaging Follow along on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahcook.wellnesswriter/ 💬 Let's Connect If this one gets you thinking about where your own messaging has gone stale, I'd love to hear about it. Send me a DM at @nicole.leadbetterhq. ABOUT THE SHOW The Lead Better Podcast is where established health practitioners get honest about what it actually takes to run the business behind the practice.  *Some links in this episode are affiliate links, which means Lead Better HQ may earn a commission if you sign up, at no extra cost to you. FREE RESOURCES The Operations Gap (free training): see where your back-end stopped keeping up with your growth → https://live.leadbetterhq.com/operations-gapThe AI-Powered Practice (free training): how the intelligence layer of a practice actually works → https://live.leadbetterhq.com/ai-powered-practiceStack Calculator: find out what your disconnected tools are really costing you → https://leadbetterhq.com/stack-calculatorAI Brand Voice Starter Kit: get your content sounding like you again → https://leadbetterhq.com/ai-ambassadorPATIENT JOURNEY MAPPER Find every place your practice is leaking revenue. An interactive 5-stage diagnostic for established health practices. https://leadbetterhq.com/challenge WORK WITH US Ready to hand the operational side of your practice to a team that...

  7. Jun 24

    More patients won't fix this.

    If you've been in practice a few years and every new patient somehow lands as more weight on your plate, this episode is for you. When growing your practice starts to feel heavier instead of lighter, that heaviness is almost always pointing at something specific, and it's rarely a shortage of patients. There's a second ceiling established practitioners hit, and it shows up after you've already built something real. The clinical work is excellent, the patients are happy, and you're still worn out, because every part of the business that isn't the actual care still routes through you. The brand grew. The operational layer underneath it never caught up. In this episode I'm breaking down how to tell the difference between a visibility gap and an operations gap, the invisible leaks draining established practices, and why hiring before you have a system tends to make things heavier instead of lighter. How to tell a visibility gap from an operations gap, so you stop solving the wrong problemThe four invisible leaks I find in nearly every established practice, and why not one of them feels like an emergencyThe "finished care cliff," the gap almost nobody has handled, and the warm past patients it lets slip awayWhy hiring a VA before you have a system relocates the chaos instead of removing itWhat a real operational layer actually looks like, and why scalable just means the thing runs even when you step away💬 Let's Connect If you want to see your own patient journey from end to end, where people come in and where they slip, I built a simple tool for exactly that. Come find me on Instagram and send me the word mapper, or send me a DM at @nicole.leadbetterhq ABOUT THE SHOW The Lead Better Podcast is where established health practitioners get honest about what it actually takes to run the business behind the practice.  *Some links in this episode are affiliate links, which means Lead Better HQ may earn a commission if you sign up, at no extra cost to you. FREE RESOURCES The Operations Gap (free training): see where your back-end stopped keeping up with your growth → https://live.leadbetterhq.com/operations-gapThe AI-Powered Practice (free training): how the intelligence layer of a practice actually works → https://live.leadbetterhq.com/ai-powered-practiceStack Calculator: find out what your disconnected tools are really costing you → https://leadbetterhq.com/stack-calculatorAI Brand Voice Starter Kit: get your content sounding like you again → https://leadbetterhq.com/ai-ambassadorPATIENT JOURNEY MAPPER Find every place your practice is leaking revenue. An interactive 5-stage diagnostic for established health practices. https://leadbetterhq.com/challenge WORK WITH US Ready to hand the operational side of your practice to a team that...

  8. Jun 4

    Stop patching the practice you've outgrown. (with Laura Schoenfeld)

    If you've looked at your practice lately and realized the version you built a few years ago doesn't quite fit the one you're running today, this episode is going to feel like a permission slip. I sat down with Laura Schoenfeld, who is in the middle of tearing her own business down to the foundation and rebuilding it for who she is now. Laura built and ran a multiple six-figure business for over a decade, and this year she did something brave. She closed the program that had been her bread and butter for years so she could rebuild from the real foundation. We get honest about what it actually looks like to outgrow your own offers, move upmarket, and stop trying to fix something that needs to be rebuilt. In this episode, we get into how knowing yourself changes the way you sell, her four Bs of growing an audience, how she runs everything in about 15 to 20 hours a week with AI behind the scenes, and a real conversation about whether Substack is worth your time. Why kitchen-sink offers are so much harder to sell than specific ones, and how Laura knew it was time to rebuild instead of patchHer four Bs of growing an audience (build, borrow, buy, broker) and how to pick the two or three that actually fit youHow human design and personality data can shape the way you sell, without becoming an excuse to skip the uncomfortable stuffWhy being half in on a platform will get you eaten alive, and how to choose where you show up with your whole chestWhat's actually working on Substack right now, and who it's genuinely a fit forConnect with Laura Schoenfeld Website: https://www.lauraschoenfeld.com/ Instagram: @laura.schoenfeld 💬 Let's Connect If this one had you thinking about where your own practice has outgrown its systems, I'd love to hear about it. Come find me and send me a DM at @nicole.leadbetterhq. ABOUT THE SHOW The Lead Better Podcast is where established health practitioners get honest about what it actually takes to run the business behind the practice.  *Some links in this episode are affiliate links, which means Lead Better HQ may earn a commission if you sign up, at no extra cost to you. FREE RESOURCES The Operations Gap (free training): see where your back-end stopped keeping up with your growth → https://live.leadbetterhq.com/operations-gapThe AI-Powered Practice (free training): how the intelligence layer of a practice actually works → https://live.leadbetterhq.com/ai-powered-practiceStack Calculator: find out what your disconnected tools are really costing you → https://leadbetterhq.com/stack-calculatorAI Brand Voice Starter Kit: get your content sounding like you again → https://leadbetterhq.com/ai-ambassadorPATIENT JOURNEY MAPPER Find every place your practice is leaking revenue. An interactive 5-stage diagnostic for established health practices. https://leadbetterhq.com/challenge WORK WITH US Ready to hand the operational side of your practice to a team that...

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

If you're ready to stop chasing leads and start leading your industry, then it's time to Lead Better. Welcome to Lead Better, the podcast for functional medicine and wellness leaders ready to move beyond fragmented efforts and into a realm of predictable growth and undeniable market authority. Join Nicole Harlow, a seasoned expert with over a decade of experience guiding the best health pracitioners and clinics to exponential success, as we dissect the true mechanics of modern practice growth.  We'll explore: The Growth Paradox: Why traditional marketing often leads to "scattered beginnings" instead of sustainable expansion, and how to break free.Magnetic Brand Building: Strategies to clarify your unique message and forge a brand identity that effortlessly attracts your ideal, high-value patients.The Power of Predictable Patient Acquisition: Unpacking AI-driven marketing systems, ethical lead generation, and automated patient pipelines that fill your calendar with consistency.Unleashing Your Authority: How to position yourself as the undisputed expert in your niche, build unwavering trust, and command your market.Time Freedom & Scalability: Implementing smart systems and leveraging cutting-edge AI to reclaim your most precious resource, allowing you to focus on your mission, not the marketing grind. This isn't just theory; it's a deep dive into the actionable strategies, the psychological frameworks, and the integrated systems that empower you to build a thriving, impactful practice on your own terms.  Subscribe now and transform your practice's potential into predictable, powerful reality.

Information

  • Creator
    Nicole Harlow: Brand and Marketing Strategist for Health-Based Businesses
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    103
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Lead Better - Grow Your Practice. Live Your Purpose.
  • Show Website
    Lead Better - Grow Your Practice. Live Your Purpose.