5 Ways To Simplify Your Business Right Now
If you’re feeling overwhelmed in business right now, chances are you and your business could benefit from a little simplification. In this episode I share 5 ways to simplify your business right now.
Simplicity truly is the soul of efficiency. By actioning one or more of my ideas to de-clutter and simplify your business, you’ll be better placed to work less, yet make a bigger impact.
If you’re ready to grow your conscious business so you can make a bigger impact, apply to coach with Laura at lauratrotta.com
Podcast: Play In New Window
As entrepreneurs, educators and business builders we’re typically good at creating.
We’re good at adding on and building to our business and we often prioritize these tasks over the less exciting cleaning up, decluttering and culling actions that are also needed for our businesses to thrive.
Whether it’s removing affiliate programs, culling e-courses, or selling an entire brand (and I’ve done all three!), simplifying your business has endless benefits for your cashflow, health and happiness.
As I’ve added onto my business over the years as the ideas have flowed in, I’ve found that my business has become more complicated, overwhelming at times, and harder to get traction. On the contrary, those times when I have simplified and deliberately let go of aspects of my business I’ve been better positioned for growth.
To help you experience some of the benefits that come from simplifying your business, here’s five ways to simplify your business right now!
1. Simplify Your Social Media Presence
You can’t be everywhere at once and the only worse thing about not being on a particular social media platform, is being on there in name alone. Social media is intended to be just that… social… and if you’re not social on a platform you could actually be doing your brand a disservice. If you feel uncomfortable about deleting your presence on a platform entirely, just insert in to the descriptor that you’re best found on “insert platform”.
If you’re not sure about which platform to drop do some market research into where your ideal client hangs out. Also take into account what platform you enjoy being on. It will be hard for you to build a strong presence on Youtube for example if you can’t stand video!
I’ve actually removed the icons and links to my neglected Youtube and Pinterest channel off my homepage this week and I feel like I do after a good declutter – like a weight is off my shoulders. For my Sustainahome brand, I only set up a presence on Instagram and Facebook from the start.
2. Simplify Your Offerings
If you’ve been packaging up your experience and expertise for a while now chances are you’ve created a few e-courses. Are there some that are no longer viable for you to offer? Has the market shifted and some are a harder sell than they used to be? Or have you just changed and want to offer something different going forward?
If that’s you, perhaps it’s time to retire some offerings or re-package them under a single membership model instead. Every single offering you cull or consolidate frees up space for you to better serve your tribe.
If you’re a products-based business, the same goes. You’re likely stocking lines that just aren’t moving. Put them out on sale and move them on. There’s just taking up space and cash you could better divert to stock that will sell.
3. Simplify Your Promotion Schedule
Are you running back to back promotions all year round? Administering a large affiliate program where most of the affiliates have gone missing in action? Constantly launching your e-courses to keep the cashflow flowing, when you’d love nothing more than to go down a gear or two and show up for your customers more, or take some time out for yourself?
These are all signs that there’s opportunity for you to simplify your promotion schedule.
Could you launch less frequently but with more intention?
Could you pop your e-courses on evergreen so people have the ability to join them all year round?
Could you work with a small number of aligned and dedicated affiliates rather than administering a large number who are too busy promoting their own offerings?
Could you partner with an organisation instead of chasing individual sales instead?
Simplifying your promotion schedule will simplify your life and if done right, will increase your sales.
Simplify Your Workload
If you have the subconscious belief that you need to do everything in your business, or that no-one can do tasks as good as you, you’re not only inhibiting your business growth, you’re on the road to burnout.
Reducing the number of tasks you do through building a team or outsourcing will take a load off if managed well. And by managed well I’m referring to providing training and adequate support for your team members to shine.
If you’re a products based business bogged down in inventory and packing orders, you might find that outsourcing your warehousing to a 3rd Party Logistics (3PL) provider makes the world of difference.
My first online eco business Sustainababy saw me (or my retail assistants) packing and shipping orders every day, which was time consuming and not at all cost effective. My time in the business would have much better been spent marketing the business. But we live and learn! So when I launched Sustainahome I decided to invest in a 3PL warehouse from the start.
They’re much better at inventory management than I’ll ever be and due to the sheer number of orders they ship each day, they’re able to access and pass on bulk shipping discounts that are out of range for a single distributor. This frees me up to just do what I’m good at in that brand… creating quality content and marketing.
5. Simplify Your Brands
Do you need to build an entire new brand for that new idea you have, or is there an opportunity to leverage off an existing brand you’ve developed? Every single brand you build typically requires a website and social media channels as a minimum. And website and social media channels need to be fed continually with content, which takes time and money to create, and time and money to promote.
The risk when you create multiple brands is that you spread yourself too thin and impact your ability to build and maintain momentum. If you have the resources to support the building of multiple brands, that’s all well and good, but if you don’t you’re making business building so much harder for yourself than it needs to be.
In fact, just this week I made the decision to stop building Conscious Business Builders as a separate brand (and website, and social media channels which luckily I hadn’t set up yet) and instead move it under my established, personal brand.
Could Conscious Business Builders stand alone as it’s own brand? Sure!
Do I want to have a third core website and social media channel suite in the mix of my business right now? No.
Would running Conscious Business Builders as a separate brand contribute to it being more successful? Maybe, but not given all the extra work that’s involved to get it to stand on its own two feet. In fact it’s likely to be more successful fun under my personal brand where I can better capitalise from the strong traffic to my website, existing customers and an established reputation.
Final Thoughts
Simplicity truly is the soul of efficiency. By actioning one or more of the ideas above to de-clutter and simplify your business, you’ll be better placed to work less, yet make a bigger impact.
Over To You!
What areas of your business do you need to simplify right now?
- Can you simplify your social media presence?
- Can you simplify your offerings?
- Can you simplify your promotion schedule?
- Can you simplify your workload?
- Can you simplify your brands?
Share where you intend to simplify your business below!
If you’d like some fresh eyes on your business to identify areas where you can simplify so you can better position for growth, book your Conscious Coaching Taster with me today!
For more strategies and support to help you grow your impact-driven business online, join my FREE Conscious Biz Creators Facebook Community.
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Laura Trotta is one of Australia’s leading home sustainability experts. She has a Bachelor of Environmental Engineering, a Masters of Science (in Environmental Chemistry) and spent 11 years working as an environmental professional before creating her first online eco business, Sustainababy, in 2009. She has won numerous regional and national awards for her fresh and inspiring take on living an ‘ecoceptional’ life (including most recently winning the Brand South Australia Flinders University Education Award (2015) for the north-west region in SA and silver in the Eco-friendly category of the 2015 Ausmumpreneur Awards). With a regular segment on ABC Radio and with her work featured in publications like Nurture Parenting and My Child Magazine, Laura is an eco thought leader who’s not afraid to challenge the status quo. A passionate believer in addressing the small things to achieve big change, and protecting the planet in practical ways, Laura lives with her husband and two sons in outback South Australia. 
