What do you do when you're making good money, you've hired the coaches, you've done the work, and something still feels completely off? My guest today, Laura Schoenfeld, was pulling in close to half a million dollars a year and still wasn't keeping enough of it to make it worth it. So she shut down her entire multi-six-figure program and rebuilt her business from scratch. Now she runs a successful business in under 25 hours a week with two young daughters and a life she designed on purpose.

About Laura Schoenfeld

Laura Schoenfeld is a business strategist and former registered dietitian who helps coaches and practitioners build businesses around how they actually work, not a borrowed playbook. She has worked with more than 500 coaches, consultants, and practitioners to diagnose what is structurally broken in their business and rebuild it around their real strengths and constraints. She created the CEO Types framework, a quiz that sorts business owners by decision-making style and focus so they can build a business around their actual wiring instead of copying what worked for someone else. She hosts The Nourished CEO podcast and now teaches business owners how to build something that supports the life they actually want, not just the one that looks good on paper.

How to diagnose what's actually broken in your business

Laura was pulling in close to half a million dollars a year and still wasn't keeping enough of it to make the work worth it. She had built her signature program as an evergreen model because it looked right on paper: recurring monthly revenue, no big launches, less to manage while she had young kids. But she never got to know the people coming through the program, and that disconnect quietly drained her. This year she shut it down and rebuilt her business around cohorts and one-on-one work instead, and now runs the whole thing in under 25 hours a week with a 14-month-old and an almost 4-year-old at home.

Laura walks Holly through the exact order she uses to diagnose what's broken in a business, and it moves from the most internal layer out to the most external: who you are and what you need to function at your best, then your offer and how you serve clients, then your sales process, then your marketing and traffic strategy, and finally industry leadership if that's even a goal. She explains why copying what worked for someone else rarely works for you, and how she now has her clients pull data from multiple sources, personality tests, natal charts, and AI pattern analysis, to find what actually fits before they change anything.

She also shares a 30-minute exercise anyone can do this week: fold a piece of paper in half, one side for what you love about your business, one side for what you'd happily let go of, and let the list surface what actually needs to shift. It's not about burning the whole thing down. It's about finding the first real structural change that gets the business back in alignment.

Key takeaways from this episode

• Laura was earning close to half a million dollars a year running an evergreen group program, and still wasn't keeping enough of it to make the work worth it.
• She shut the evergreen program down and rebuilt her business around cohorts and one-on-one work, and now runs it in under 25 hours a week.
• Laura's diagnostic order moves from most internal to most external: who you are, your offer, your sales process, your marketing, then industry leadership.
• She built the CEO Types framework, a quiz that sorts business owners by decision-making style so they build around their actual wiring instead of a borrowed model.
• A 30-minute paper exercise, listing what you love about your business on one side and what you'd let go of on the other, can surface what actually needs to change.
• Many of Laura's highest-paying clients have never interacted with her on social media.

You're never really gonna have a business that takes off if it's not a match for you.

Laura Schoenfeld

This episode is for you if

• You're making good money but something still feels off and you can't quite name why.
• You built your business model around what worked for someone else instead of what fits you.
• You're trying to figure out what to actually change instead of tearing the whole thing down.

Tune in to hear:

• Why Laura shut down her multi-six-figure evergreen program even though it looked right on paper
• The real difference between what fits your schedule and what fits how you're actually wired
• Laura's diagnostic order for finding what's structurally broken in a business, from most internal to most external
• Why copying what worked for someone else usually backfires, and how to filter outside advice
• How Laura uses personality tests, natal charts, and AI together to find the patterns that actually fit
• The 30-minute paper exercise that surfaces what needs to change in your business
• Why "make everything about your customer" is the business rule Laura has completely unlearned
• What Laura no longer tracks or measures, and why she stopped caring about it
• The advice Laura would give her former self about who she let influence her business decisions
• Where to find Laura's free CEO Type quiz

So many of my clients that spend a lot of money with me, I've literally never interacted with on social media.

Laura Schoenfeld

Episode chapters

• 00:00 Welcome and Laura's story
• 01:30 What life-first business means to Laura right now
• 04:30 Why she built her program as evergreen, and what it cost her
• 09:00 How to filter outside advice before you copy someone else's model
• 12:00 The personality tests and tools Laura uses to find real patterns
• 16:30 The diagnostic order: from internal alignment to external strategy
• 24:00 Why revenue can grow while profit and energy shrink
• 30:00 The 30-minute exercise to find what needs to change
• 31:30 Rapid-fire: the business rule Laura has unlearned
• 36:00 Where to find Laura and her free CEO Type quiz

CONNECT WITH LAURA:

Website: lauraschoenfeldrd.com
Instagram: @laura.schoenfeld
Podcast: The Nourished CEO
The CEO Type Quiz — lauraschoenfeld.com/quiz

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Frequently asked questions

Who is Laura Schoenfeld?

Laura Schoenfeld is a business strategist and former registered dietitian who helps coaches rebuild business models that fit how they actually work. In this episode she walks through how she diagnosed what was broken in her own multi-six-figure business and shut it down to rebuild from scratch. She is the creator of the CEO Types framework and hosts The Nourished CEO podcast.

What is Laura Schoenfeld's CEO Types framework?

The CEO Types framework is a quiz Laura created that sorts business owners by their decision-making strategy and their focus, whether that leans toward results or toward relationships. It's not meant to box anyone in. It gives you a starting point for understanding which business model and marketing approach will actually work with how you operate, instead of one built for someone else's wiring. Laura layers it with personality tests, natal chart data, and AI pattern analysis to build a fuller picture before her clients change anything.

Is your business misaligned or actually broken?

According to Laura, the two look different and need different fixes. If you're newer to business and progress feels slow, that's usually an expectations problem, not a broken business, because real traction takes longer than social media makes it look. If a business that used to work is suddenly making more money while keeping less of it, or you no longer like what you're doing, that's a more immediate signal that something structural needs to change, not just more patience.

How do you diagnose what's actually broken in your business?

Laura works from the most internal layer out to the most external. She starts with who you are and what you need to function at your best, then moves to your offer and how you serve clients, then your sales process, then your marketing and traffic strategy, and finally industry leadership if that's even a goal. Fixing marketing before you fix an offer built around the wrong audience doesn't work, because every layer depends on the one before it.

What is Laura Schoenfeld's 30-minute business clarity exercise?

Fold a piece of paper in half. On one side, write everything you love about your business. On the other, write everything you'd be happy to let go of, without worrying about how strong the feeling is. Laura recommends doing this alone and undistracted, because the goal is to sort what's actually working from what isn't before you decide what to change.

Should you copy a business model that worked for someone else?

Not without filtering it first, Laura says. Being inspired by another business owner's model is fine, but a model has to fit your lifestyle, your personality, and what actually energizes you or it won't hold up. Laura shut down her own evergreen program after realizing it looked good on paper but left her disconnected from her clients and drained, even though it technically worked.

Curious what's actually standing between you and consistent income in your business? Take the free 2-minute quiz and find out where the gap is. hollymariehaynes.com/quiz 💛