e168 Simplify, How Less Can Be More in Business
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[00:00:00] Welcome. Welcome to the Heads Together podcast. I'm your host, Gill Moakes. Thank you so much for joining me this week. This is like the second part of a two-parter, so if you haven't listened to episode six seven yet, which is what really building, I would hit pause and go back and listen to that one because this episode.
Simplifying your business about how less can be more and how it's not always about playing bigger, but about playing truer. Okay, let's dive in.
Welcome. Welcome to the Heads Together podcast. I'm Jill Mos, and I am obsessed with cutting through the noise when it comes to growing your business. Each week via intimate coaching conversations and inspirational stories. [00:01:00] I share what it really takes to get the results you want in a way that feels right to you.
I am all about attracting higher ticket opportunities, building authentic relationships, and creating the abundant, full fat version of your dream business. I mean, how many of us have beavered away creating a light version of what we really want? The thing is, I honestly believe when you are outstanding at what you do, there is no limit to what you can achieve.
So are you ready to put our heads together and make it happen? Let's go.
Alright, let's start today's episode with a and deep breath because. This is not going to be a go faster pack, more in kind of conversation. This one is about [00:02:00] simplifying. This is about continuing the theme from last week, building a business that feels good for you. So this episode is about letting your business be easier.
How can you soften the sharp edges of how you're doing business? Because you can't do it. Not 'cause you can't keep up. Well maybe 'cause you can't keep up. Maybe 'cause you don't wanna keep up. Right? Maybe because it's never been about keeping up in the first place. Right. But maybe it's time to just stop trying to do more and start choosing what's enough, what is enough for you, the right amount for you.
And that can apply to a lot of things in our businesses. You know, the right amount of time spent on our business, the right amount of energy, the right amount of brain power, the right amount of money, you know how much is enough. And I wanna talk about [00:03:00] why simplifying. This isn't about shrinking down, simplifying could be a massive power move in your business.
That sounds like a contradiction, but I promise you it's true. The problem we have, as I see it, is that the online business world is just obsessed with more, right? It's obsessed with demanding more from us in terms of more content, more offers, more followers, more launches, more value, more proof, more urgency, all of the mores, more of everything, and it's bloody exhausting.
It's utterly time consuming and utterly soul consuming. And somewhere along the way I think we all start to feel really scattered and stretched. And. Thinking back to what we talked about last week, [00:04:00] sometimes it takes us away from why we started doing any of this in the first place. I hear this all the time from so many women that I work with.
I'm doing all the things. I'm doing everything I'm supposed to be doing, but it still doesn't feel good and it's still not really working. Is that not madness? Right? When I dig deeper with clients, usually. What's underneath all of this is that they are doing too much of what doesn't matter and not enough of what does.
And for me, that is what we get to address by simplifying our businesses. This is not about playing small, right, but it isn't necessarily about playing bigger, and it's definitely not about being lazy. Or not being ambitious or any of those things, but it's really about working with so much more intention around what to keep, what to let go of, what [00:05:00] to really go all in on.
And it's about asking those questions that we were really playing with last week around what do I actually want? What am I only doing because I think I should. And that really important one, what would my business or my life feel like if it had more space in it? Space is bloody sacred. Seriously. It's where everything gets to breathe.
It's where you get the clarity. It's where you can actually come back into focus. And overcomplicating business is such an emotional rollercoaster. When you've got a really complicated business model, you are literally weighed down by every single offer that you feel obligated to deliver on every single platform that you're feeling under pressure to show up on all the time, every bit of content that you're [00:06:00] cranking out relentlessly, you know, maybe without really much sense of connection with it.
All right? None of that is neutral. All of that is draining your energy. And over time, that really bloody adds up. Not just as burnout either. It really adds up as disconnection. And that disconnect is from yourself, from your work, from your audience, the people you you wanna serve, and essentially from the whole reason that you started your business in the first place.
That's what I was talking about last week, when. Really red flag for burnout is that disconnect from what once you loved and now is just depleting you. So simplifying your business is one of the most just, oh my God. Genuinely loving things you could do for yourself, for your business, for your nervous system.
So let's you know, I love my little lists. Let's go through some [00:07:00] things. To start thinking about how you can really start simplifying your business, the first one, number one, your offers. Do you actually need that extra tier, that one off session, you know, the under price workshop? You know, could you actually create more impact and more income, you know, realistically by simplifying your offer suite?
And going deeper with fewer things. Think about that offer pyramid that I always talk about, where you've got that one-to-one time with you at the top. What if you just had two layers under that? You've got one-to-one time with you, you've got some kind of leveraged offer. Maybe it's a program, maybe it's a group offer, whatever that is.
And then you've got your free offers at the bottom of the pyramid. What if it was as simple as that? What if it was literally two? What if just your free offers at the bottom of the pyramid and your [00:08:00] one-to-one work at the top? You're allowed to make your business that simple if you wanna, right? It doesn't have to be so complicated, so going deeper with fewer offers, big place to start simplifying.
Second place your content. So thinking about your original thought leadership content that I urge everyone to get clear on, are you just creating because you feel under pressure to create it or do you really have something to say? Often when it gets over complicated is that we are creating so much content because we're trying to feed too many mouths.
So it could be that what used to be a very simple podcast has suddenly become a podcast and a blog repurposed as a substack, repurposed as a LinkedIn article, and is now with video, and therefore on [00:09:00] YouTube as well. Right. Now. Now there are gonna be lots of strategists out there that will be giving you a round of applause for that because they're gonna be saying, yes, you are absolutely leveraging that one piece of content.
You're getting your money's worth outta that one piece of content, but at what cost? You don't have to make it as complicated as that. Your one simple podcast can be a simple podcast. Don't be pressurized into feeding so many mouths with your content. So many channels. Could you focus on one core content channel and just let the rest go?
Or maybe you do repurpose, but you do it a little bit more intentionally, more streamlined. Third thing, marketing. Do you actually know what's working in your business or are you just doing all the things you see other people doing? Do you know in terms of your visibility, your lead generation and your sales, do you really know what's moving the needle on each of those columns?
Because if you did, [00:10:00] you would know. Doing everything. You don't have to do every single strategy and be everywhere. What you might do instead, if it made sense for you, is you might say, you know what? Content marketing is going on. Pause, because it's a lot, I've really over complicated this, and actually I'm gonna spend the next few months really focused on building relationships and maybe just sharing your thought leadership in one place that you really enjoy.
How simple would that feel? How spacious would that feel? Could you let yourself do that? Fourth thing, systems and tools. Oh my God. The digital clutter. Oh, I've been here, trust me. But I'm much better than I used to be. I don't have so much shiny object syndrome now when it comes to, um, new pieces of tech.
When I first started my business, honestly, I had so many different platforms and [00:11:00] tools. Spreadsheets. It was unreal. But the truth is how many platforms, planners, apps, project management tools, automations, how many of those are actually serving your business? Sometimes doing a bit of an audit and simplifying all of the tools you use can really deuter your mind.
It can really make a little bit of space and join up the dots a bit easier around what really moves the needle inside your business. So that's my fourth recommendation. Systems and tools. And then the fifth one is your schedule, your calendar. Are you giving yourself space to think. Or is your calendar literally back to back client calls, meetings, barter arrangements, saying yes to every single networking event, every single free workshop you've signed up for, you know.[00:12:00]
Could you rewild your calendar a little bit? Can you carve out some space on your calendar to really breathe, to reflect on what you wanna come next in your business, rather than just doing the next thing? Could you do that? I think there's something in business, you know, that's not. Enough that is that when we simplify, we allow space to soften things.
This really is meaning a lot to me at the moment. This idea of softening how we relate to ourselves, how we speak to our clients, how we look at our timelines, our expectations of ourselves, our processes. Because honestly, when you are not. In this state of urgency all the time, you get to really be more aligned with your values.
I do. I shouldn't keep saying [00:13:00] we all the time or you, this is me. I'm telling you, I really value a softness that's coming into my business because I'm simplifying things and allows me to. One of my core values, it lets me be more thoughtful. It lets me be more present with my clients. That's bloody huge.
Right? And we've gotta put down this idea that, you know, the patriarchal idea that soft is ineffective. Soft means you know that it's just not as good or not as energetic, right? Soft is a different kind of energy. So if that appeals. Softening the way you do business and the way your business feels to experience simplifying things will really bring that to you.
You know, if you were to simplify your business, what [00:14:00] could open up for you? I know that when I carve out more space in my business, I find myself with the time to write about the things I care about. That's big for me. So in other words, it's not for me just about recording the podcast or writing social media captions When I've built in some space and I've really cut away some of the things that don't belong in my business anymore, suddenly I've got time and space to think and write about the stuff I care about.
That's something that I'm so passionate about doing, and yet it's something I allow to fall by the wayside when life and work gets too frantic. I think simplifying allows us to go deeper. It lets us build something deeper with our business. That rest that I was talking about, you know, last week I was talking about having rest as a strategy, right?
When we rest, when we make time, when we simplify our business and make time for rest, we get to come [00:15:00] back with more clarity. This has just come to me, but when you simplify your business, you actually get to finally enjoy what you've built. Does anyone else sometimes feel like they're on a treadmill? It's almost like as entrepreneurs, I think we have this really bad habit of goalposts moving.
So in other words, we set ourselves a goal or a target, but as soon as we achieve it, we shove that goalpost further away again, so that we have to start revving up to work towards that next thing. What if we didn't do that? What if we simplified and allowed ourselves to actually enjoy what we've built?
What we've created? Simplifying is not about doing less just for the sake of it. It's actually about doing what matters most and about doing what matters most with more depth, more integrity, more of what actually brings the joy into your business. So just like last week, I have. [00:16:00] Some prompts for you, some journaling prompts, because I quite like this idea of giving you these journaling prompts because when I listen to whether it's like a meditation or a podcast or anything, I always feel like I wanna make a bit of time afterwards to process it and to really understand what it means for me, for my business, my life.
I don't podcast to just be like bubble, throw it away. Content mean something. These are some questions that I've got that I think might be useful for you to journal around. The first one, what feels cluttered in my business right now, and I don't necessarily just mean practically, it could be energetically, what is feeling cluttered?
Take that to mean whatever you want it to mean for your business. The second one is, where am I overextending? And what would I love to let go of if I [00:17:00] gave myself permission? And the third one is, what would my business look and feel like if. It were 20% simpler, and what would it look and feel like if it were 50% simpler?
There's a method to my madness in making that so specific, and it's because I want you to actually start. Almost quantifying and understanding the implications of complexity in your business. So think about what would it look like to just simplify by 20%. Think about what is 20% of your time, what does that represent in your business?
And same with 50%. That could be radical, right? How could you make your business 50% simpler? So again, coming back to those five things that. I suggested you start on when you are simplifying your offers, your [00:18:00] content, your marketing, your systems and tools, and your calendar, under each of those headings, what would 20% simpler look like?
What would 50% simpler look like? You don't need to overhaul absolutely everything, but you do need to start noticing what is cluttered, what's too complex, right?
Simple, spacious, and do it your way. Next week I have a really special episode of Heads Together and a big announcement to make, so I'm just gonna leave you hanging with that. Isn't that my God, I've enjoyed these last two episodes. They've been a bit deeper and I'm not gonna apologize for that. I think it's really important.
Everything that I've touched on in the last couple of weeks around really coming back to the why of why you started your business, and then thinking about practically [00:19:00] how you can simplify your business to get back to that really important work. Deep work. Important work. Like I say, next week, big announcement and I hope you join me for it.
I'll see you back here. Same time, same place next week. Bye for now.
I hope you enjoyed this episode and that getting our heads together this week has filled your mind with what's possible. If you love the show, would you do me a massive favor? Please? Would you leave a five star rating on Apple Podcasts? It would really help you put more heads together, reach more ears, and expand more minds.
Until next week. Bye for now.
