What if the reason your messaging stopped converting isn't that your strategy is off, but that you've slowly diluted yourself into something so safe and palatable that no one can tell why they should pick you?

Today I'm joined by messaging expert Megan Yelaney, a business strategist who has worked with over a thousand coaches to help them find what she calls their distinctive edge.

We talk about the slow drift into vanilla messaging that happens to most experienced business owners after big growth or big life changes, why courses and evergreen funnels stopped feeling right for both of us after becoming moms, and how Megan rebuilt her entire business around the one thing she always loved doing.

We also get into the difference between a niche and an edge, why your pre-business life is one of the most underused parts of your story, and how to translate something complex about who you are into a marketable phrase that people actually understand. Megan even runs a mini coaching session on me in real time to show how this works, which was both clarifying and slightly humbling.

If you've been feeling like your content sounds like everyone else's, or like you've lost the thread of what made people choose you in the first place, this conversation will give you a way back to it.

• [00:00] – Why polished messaging often signals that something deeper is off

• [03:43] – Megan's journey from network marketing to health coaching to building a multi-million dollar business

• [07:11] – What happened when business success and a struggling marriage collided

• [08:22] – The trap of "vanilla messaging" and how disclaimer culture diluted her brand

• [09:27] – The identity shift after becoming a mom of twins, and why the prepared business model didn't fit anymore

• [14:30] – Why the course-and-funnel model felt off even when it theoretically should have worked

• [19:08] – The exact framework Megan uses to find a distinctive edge: story, framework, and ideal client

• [22:25] – The simple client audit exercise that surfaces the through line in your work

• [28:58] – Why personality and approach often matter more than uniqueness of method

• [38:30] – Megan coaches me live on identifying my own domino belief

• [44:00] – Why you need to give yourself permission to experiment with messaging language

1. "Your message gets so diluted and so vanilla because you're trying not to offend anyone, and the result is you stop sounding like yourself entirely."

2. "I had built a business around the person I used to be when I was coaching, and the second I came back from maternity leave I realized I didn't want to talk about any of it anymore."

3. "If someone landed on your page right now, would they be able to say what you do differently or why they would choose you over anyone else? If the answer is no, that's the work."

4. "Your distinctive edge is the trifecta of your story, your framework, and your ideal client. There's never going to be a copy of all three at once."

5. "You don't have to reinvent the wheel for your method to be unique. The personality you bring, the approach you take, and the lived experience behind it are doing more of the work than the framework itself."

6. "Most people try to leave their pre-business life out of their story, when that's actually the part that makes them the obvious choice over someone without that background."

7. "If you're not excited at the thought of making twenty or thirty thousand a month from this offer, then it's not just a money problem. The offer itself isn't right."

• Megan's Main Character Energy private podcast series

• Follow Megan on Instagram

• Megan's podcast, Business Not As Usual (where Laura was a recent guest)

• CEO Type Quiz: https://www.lauraschoenfeld.com/quiz

If this conversation gave you something to work with, follow the podcast, leave a review if it lands, and send it to someone whose messaging has been feeling a little too safe lately.