All the Cool Kids (& Creative Small Businesses) are Going Back to School
We’re entering a fresh season of fall… can you smell it in the air? We kicked off 2022 with an urge to simplify your business. It was our Ellevated Outcomes theme in 2021, and our business + our clients’ businesses had incredible growth outcomes that came precisely from simplification.
Simplifying doesn’t mean you’re not doing the things you want to do, or that you’re cutting corners. To the contrary, it means you’re doing exactly what you want to do. And this is going to give you space and energy to do it exceptionally. As a client said last week,
Simplification is refocus. And I’m sleeping better at night.
But this isn’t the way that most businesses operate (or humans, to be fair). There’s a common misconception that in order to make more, you have to do more. And most businesses are doing too many things. Are you?
You may be, if you feel spread thin. Like you’re doing so many things that you can’t do them all well. Many of our clients have said, it feels like you’re on the hamster wheel, and running full speed, but not moving forward. It’s part of the lifecycle of entrepreneurship – and we all have cycles! (Us too).
But with these cycles come new seasons. Seasons of clarity. Of opportunities, and learning and applying. So we invite you to start fresh this fall by coming back to school with us! We’re opening our fall semester of the Small Business MBA: How to Simplify Your Business (foundation). We’re so excited to supply small business owners with a fresh perspective, an opportunity to zoom out and assess your business, and tools to get really clear on where you want and need to go.
And because we’re such constant learners (my gosh, I feel like I’m always in school, ha), I wanted to share 3 things we learned from students, during our spring semester.
1. This is more about where to focus than how to price.
Among our students and those of you who have taken our surveys (thank you!), we’ve heard people say, “I’m clear as a bell on how I price.” And that’s great. You must feel such clarity and confidence! But across the board, you still say, “I’m stretched thin and don’t know exactly what my priorities are.” This course is even more about knowing what to eliminate, how to use your time and money in the most profitable ways, and how to create clarity.
2. This is where to start if you have a cashflow issue.
We had a client recently tell us, “I knew we had a cashflow problem, but I never would’ve thought that this [pricing] was the solution.” The learnings that happen here are ones that every successful business (including ours) has to repeatedly come back to. Product and pricing strategy is not a check-it-off-the-list thing. Neither is simplifying your business. Just like the seasons and cycles of being an entrepreneur – this work is for everyone, and to be used in regular intervals. So learning and starting the process to refine it now, will pay your dividends for years to come.
3. “We’ve shifted from what we’ve been doing to pay the bills, to what we actually love to do.” back to school
A few months ago, I followed up with one of our spring semester students to see how it was going IRL for them. They have 2 businesses and shared that actioning this course helped them realize that their passion (and money) lay in their secondary business, not the one they thought was their “real” business. They have since been able to do the minimum to keep business A going, only taking better paying work that they enjoy; and meanwhile, having the time, resource, and creative energy to invest into Business B – which is really the business they want to grow. back to school
Please stay tuned this week for more information, as well as a video response to a some Qs I received last week about how to give your data a job. As always, I and the team are so grateful for your support of our work!
