My guiding question when I feel overwhelmed in business: 'How can I make this simple?'
I want to share my guiding principle for business success: keeping things simple.
I discuss how simplicity can make a big difference for small business owners, especially when feeling overwhelmed or unsure of how to proceed. I provide examples of how I apply this principle in my own business, such as using templates, outsourcing tasks, and focusing on what truly moves the needle. By asking ourselves how we can make things simple and fun, we can achieve greater impact and better serve our community.
Transcript below!
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0:00 Hey, welcome back to the Calibrated Concepts YouTube channel. I want to talk to you about something that I really Think it helps a lot of small business owners that I talked to something that can make a really big difference, and it's Simple and I use that word a lot, but when we're looking for more
0:16 space more ease less overwhelm when we're Trying to move the needle in our business, but feel like we're spinning all the plates Simplicity is where it frickin matters, right?
0:28 So I want to tell you a guiding principle in my business and a business principle that I pass on to my clients all the time and the and it's a question you ask yourself when you feel really overwhelmed when you feel Like you don't know how to make it work when you have an idea that you want to put forward
0:44 But it feels too big and the question is how can I make this simple? And I do this a lot in my business I will find myself feeling overwhelmed with how much content I need to create um with a launch or new product idea or with a service that I'm trying to promote, market, scale up And so when I'm asking
1:07 myself how can I make this simple I'm giving myself permission, A, to not be perfect I'm also giving myself permission to not do all the bells and whistles But to do the thing that's going to have the greatest impact And save my energy, my sanity, all those kinds of things So, I want to go through some
1:31 ways and some places that I use this in my business a lot One thing is in launches, like I discussed.
1:38 Launches for me have always been something that feels overwhelming And really frustrating, and I would often come at it from sort of a manic place of So many things I need to do, so many ideas, I can barely sleep, not because I don't have the time, but because my brain won't stop And so having set processes
1:57 for my launches, and also a team behind me, so that I know exactly what needs to happen What content needs to be created, what blog posts need to go out, what social media things need to happen, as well as all the things that need to happen, but I also need to know which parts of those things I don't
2:15 have to do, and that has been really good, so making that simple. I also don't adhere to or subscribe to these multi-week mega launches with so many moving parts.
2:26 I keep it simple for my own business. I create a lot of templates in my business, so that's thing number one.
2:31 Number two, I create templates based on what I do in my business, and that can be for emails, for asana tasks, for my newsletter, so like I said, I guess I said that twice, but I also would create templates for emails that go out to clients, I create templates for my proposals.
2:48 And in Dubsado, for my contract, it's all, you know, templated, for the bits that go at the bottom of every single YouTube video.
2:57 These are all templated, so that I can focus on the part that's gonna move the needle, which is creating the content, creating some strategy around that, but I don't need to think about those teeny tiny pieces all the time.
3:09 Another thing that, I do is for my content creation, I keep a running list in my phone, in my notes app of ideas for content, and I go, and I don't have a he- a whole lot of content strategy, to be honest, but I have some ideas.
3:23 And so going based on the, the ideas that I've got, and the research I've done, like today, I just showed up and said, video feels good to create? Like, what is gonna actually feel like it's gonna light me up, and it's not gonna drain me, and I have the headspace for, and so here we are, recreating a
3:38 video about something that I feel like I know loads about, and I'm really passionate about. already touched on this, but the other, another one is, another way that I make things simple in my business is, what can I outsource?
3:50 What parts of these things do I not have to be doing? And so, if I know that I get kind of overwhelmed with certain parts of my business, or or that it's just not the best use of my time, there's things that I hand off to my two virtual assistants who have very different, very useful skills for me.
4:06 So, if it's really basic admin, if it's, specific types of research, if it's specific types of tech things, I hand those off to my, assistants, and I know that more is going to get done because I'm working more in my zone of genius.
4:20 thing that I do, to help make things easy in my business, like there's loads of little things that, like, should do, or that I, that I want to do, but I would never remember to do if it wasn't something set up for to remind me to do those things.
4:33 And these types of things are things like, setting up for networking events, going and hanging out with online communities, going up and following up with influential business people that I want to build a better relationship with.
4:44 And so I have these set up as recurring tasks in my asana, along with a lot little bit about, like, here's the people I want to follow up with, or, here's something, you know, that you might have, be able to, you have common ground that you should bring up next time you're reaching out, here's the places
4:59 you're going to sign up for those networking events, the links exactly, with the search query and everything embedded so that I just literally click on and I can go sign up for relevant networking events in my area and online.
5:11 So, when you feel overwhelmed with a big, big project or even just a tiny minutiae of tasks, ask yourself, how can I make this simple?
5:22 How can I make this work for me? And then, as a bonus, after you've asked yourself, how can I make this simple, how can I make this less overwhelming, how can I make this feel good for me, then, if you get the time and you can, ask, what would make this fun, both for myself and for my community?
5:44 So I know for me, it making things fun means I show up with a different energy in my business. I know that if I'm doing a launch and I feel really overwhelmed, like I've got some stuff going on in my business that I didn't know how I wanted to proceed with, so I just thought, alright, I'm going to ask
5:58 my email list, going to ask them loads of questions, and I'm going to make that highly valuable to fill out.
6:01 So I have asked my team, like, what do you think we should give for this? Like, do we want to do like a coffee voucher?
6:07 Do we want to, I know, do we want a discount code? Etc. And I just decided, screw it, it's going to be fun for me and fun for them if I just give away one of my toolkits on my website.
6:19 And so instead of getting like, I don't a $5 or $10 gift certificate, I was able to give them $47 of value, I was able to start getting some really nice feedback on those toolkits, and then on top of all of that, it actually wasn't anything out of pocket for me because I'd already created those things
6:35 , so it was really high value for both of us, and I got a lot of really good information. from my community about how I can better serve them.
6:43 So, that's an example of how I made it simple and how I made it fun. All right, so I hope you found this breakdown of my guiding question of business.
6:52 and business to be useful, to be inspiring. I hope you can go away from this video and make your business more simple.
6:59 And if you've enjoyed this, please like, subscribe, hang out here with me. I've got a lot more content coming for you in the future.
