Simplifying Your Business to Increase Sales KDS: 130

Simplifying your business to increase sales might seem counterintuitive, but it’s far from it.

The funny thing is if someone had told me five years ago that I wanted to simplify my business, I’m pretty sure I would have disagreed with them.

I was reminded of this last weekend while working on my new site.

I’m using KadenceWP (which I absolutely LOVE), and because it’s been a long time since I’ve done a new theme, I forgot about the domino effect that happens when you start touching things.

The domino effect is when you touch one thing; it creates a ripple effect (and multiple dominos start falling that have to be dealt with).

Here’s what I mean:

I started with the homepage of my site and have two areas that highlight what I do and how people can work with me.

The problem with these is that since they’re only highlights, there’s a learn more button that people click on to go deeper.

So everything from the homepage that has a “learn more” button needs an additional page (I know, I’m stating the obvious, but go along with me).

I’ve been working on the site for a while, so it’s been a process. I didn’t create a sitemap first (which would have solved some of this), but I also have a lot of pages and content on my site that I need to go through to delete or update.

I’ve also gotten some much-needed clarity about my business over the last few months, so things have changed slightly.

It wasn’t until listening to a podcast after working on the site (and internal pages that need to be linked to) that I realized I was probably making things more complicated than they needed to be.

I was listening to the podcast episode on the ‘Get Paid Podcast’ with Clair Pelletreau. She was interviewing a woman I hadn’t heard of named Kirsten Roldan.

First, I LOVE discovering new people (anyone else go down the rabbit hole when they listen to podcasts?), and I LOVE this woman. She made $350k in her FIRST year in business!

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Yes, it was her first year.

The two things I love about her:

1. She wants people to find peace in their business and stop complicating things
2. She does that primarily through teaching email marketing and business systems

She had me at email.

When I went to her website to check things out, I realized she only had a few offers.

She has an agency (first offer, DFY) and two primary offers.

That’s it.

Talk about simple, right?

Which made me think about my site and offers.

I do coaching and have courses. Easy enough, right?

Well… I’m not so sure.

All the courses I’ll be listing are already created and are relative to everything I do (email, content, newsletters, AI).

And I’m only selling things that are recent-ish.

But…the bigger question is whether or not this aligns with my bigger goals and where I want to be a year from now.

Because of this, I realized I needed to edit the homepage… again.

This isn’t a big deal because I’m essentially combining two things (Newsletters & Email Marketing) and combining them into one (I know, duh).

So, it will become three columns instead of four in the section “How I Can Help.” I’m using KadenceWP, so creating another block of three columns and dragging the content into the column will be super easy.

Back to simplifying (because I’ve gone a little sideways here).

I started thinking about the different offers and had to get real with myself for a minute.

Here are a few thoughts I had:

• First, just because you’ve already created it doesn’t mean you have to keep selling it. Even if it’s relative to what you’re doing, does it really align with where you’re going? 🤔
• Is this the stuff you WANT to be doing/talking about/selling?
• Are you going to continue creating content around all of this so that what you talk about aligns with your offers?
• What if it were easier?
• What if you only had three offers like Kirsten Roland… and ALL your energy went into promoting those?
• How much easier would your content be? Your marketing?

That last one is the million-dollar question, isn’t it?

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What if it were easier?!?!

All of this was validated when I talked to my friend, Jason Resnick.

Jason and I had a weekly call that started when we had a project we were working on together, and then we decided to keep it up when that ended.

What’s great is that we have similar business goals, which is more ease and more free time while scaling revenue.

It might sound a little obvious, but depending on where you’re at in your life and the stage of your business, your goals might look very different.

Back to the validation.

On our last call, I told Jason that I had three things I wanted to accomplish before our next call:

• Getting my new theme up
• Making the move to beehiiv from ConvertKit
• Launching some Power Content (this is relative to Laurel Portié’s Facebook ads program)

Well… none of those things happened.

Only because swapping out the theme for my website isn’t as straightforward as flipping a switch.

It’s the domino effect in full force.

As I was working on the copy on the homepage, I realized I was WAY overcomplicating things.

What I was setting up wasn’t supporting the business I truly wanted.

This brings me to the next point, which, more often than not, isn’t where people start when they think about starting a business or pivoting a business (although I think this is changing).

Oftentimes, the desire to start a business comes from not wanting to work for someone else, being able to make money with something you enjoy, and providing the income you need for the life you want.

All are completely valid.

When I started my business, freedom was my primary motivator. This supported having the freedom to be around for my kids and control my schedule.

Fast forward 16 years later (what the bucket?), and I want a business that gives me a different level of time freedom.

Meaning, way more white space on my calendar.

I’m clear on what I do and how I help people (finally… this has definitely pivoted throughout the years), but instead of constantly creating and testing new offers, I want a few core products that I can completely focus on.

In other words, create a solid content strategy combined with paid traffic that turns these offers into a well-oiled evergreen machine.

What happens is that when we get bored talking about the same things over and over, we assume our audience feels the same way.

But the likelihood of your audience seeing your content to the degree that you share it is minimal.

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Let’s play a game, shall we?

I’m going to define exactly what I want.

I’ve recommended this ideal “everyday” day exercise before, but I’m going to paint this picture for you so you really get a feel for the process and remind yourself that you get to create exactly what you want.

To set this up:

I’ve shared that I’m moving back to Costa Rica this summer, and some concrete things are in place now.

First, I got my place back, which I am THRILLED about! The landlord had raised the price quite a bit since I left, and because I have good friends in the building, I knew it was available. My friend, who knows the landlord pretty well, called him (he had said if she knew someone personally, he would do a lower rent), and he was thrilled that I wanted to come back.

My rent is only $100 more than when I left (and $400 less than he publicly offered it).

So that takes care of that. I have a lot to haul down again, but that’s ok. The apartment is mine July 1st.

All that being said, I’m doing this exercise as though I’m living in Costa Rica.

My ideal “everyday” day

I wake up without an alarm between 6-7 am.

Get my coffee going and take the dog out.

Once she’s done, we go back upstairs, make my coffee, and meditate.

After meditation, I head to my desk to start my workday.

I work until the next trip down with the dog, which is usually around lunchtime. Visit with a neighbor for a few minutes, and head back upstairs for lunch.

I enjoy a healthy lunch, usually with some green juice I bought from the fruit & veggie stand.

I get back to work for a few more hours and get off the computer between 3-4.

Then I get the dog, and we head to the beach for an afternoon walk along the water and get some fresh air.

Dinner is with friends or on the patio, where I can watch the sunset (those Costa Rican sunsets are something else).

Once the sun goes down, I do some artwork or get on my laptop for a bit and watch some TV.

I never have calls on Monday or Friday and am usually done working by noon on Fridays. I start the weekend by going to lunch with a friend at Las Brisa’s (best margaritas!).

My weekends are spent relaxing in the pool, at the beach, or hanging out with friends.

Can’t you feel the ease in that?

Does living simply mean I don’t have goals and desires?

Of course not.

It just means that the work that I do when I am working supports that lifestyle.

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The Oxymoron of Simplifying to Scale

It really feels counterintuitive that simplifying things is the easiest way to scale because we live in a culture that rewards busyness.

You must be a “hard worker” if you’re always busy.

How often have you asked someone how they’re doing, and they reply with “Good, just super busy” (or some variation of that)?

I’m guilty as charged with that one.

And this isn’t a dig at people who are multi-passionate.

In my opinion, multi-passionate is just a different way of saying diversified income.

Where people who are multi-passionate get into trouble is when they can’t keep up with any of their passions and find themselves always playing catch up, feeling behind, or never quite getting the thing launched or deployed.

I’m all for diversified income, but after years of experience, I’ve learned to ensure my foundation is solid – one thing at a time.

It’s hard to try to launch multiple things concurrently.

Think about it this way (bear with me; this analogy just popped into my head).

Let’s say you want to start growing your own fruits and vegetables.

You wouldn’t go out and start/buy three different farms, would you?

No. You’d start with a handful of things you could plant in your garden and easily manage. You’d ensure your little gardening patch was in the right spot for the sun and the water source was close (or you’d set up a drip system).

Then you’d tend to the garden and WAIT.

We’ve all heard the analogy that you wouldn’t plant corn in the morning and expect to be able to have corn from your garden the same night for dinner, would you?

But we do this in business ALL.THE.TIME.

We create something, share it a few times via email and a few places on social, and then when it doesn’t give us the return we wanted, we immediately decide it doesn’t work (also guilty as charged).

So, how do we change this nutty cycle?

We SIMPLIFY.

I have a few goals, but my primary focus is “Everything Is Content.”

I’ll move on to the next thing as soon as I have that front-end offer running, converting, and making sales on Evergreen (paid traffic).

This doesn’t mean there aren’t other things I’m trying/testing/thinking about in the background.

It just means this is my focus and gets the majority of my attention (this is why I allow myself “play time” to test and try things. Because I allow myself this time, I don’t have FOMO or feel like I “should” be doing something else.

Think about people in your own space or niche that you consider successful.

Are they constantly moving from thing to thing or are they staying focused?

Do they have a few products (a signature offer) or do they have tons and tons of separate projects?

Before you can truly succeed in business, you need to be clear on what you want your life and business to look like.

This isn’t woo-woo; it’s necessary.

To quote the late, great Zig Ziglar:

“If you can’t hit a target you can’t see, you can’t hit one you don’t have.”