7 ways I simplified my business as a mom of 2

Since becoming a mom of two and coming back to business, I've had to ruthlessly simplify how I do my business.

In this episode I'm sharing the 7 things I'm done to simplify business and how you can too:
01:33 - Number one
03:25 - Number two
05:42 - Number three
09:40 - Number four
12:19 - Number five
14:07 - Number six
16:36 - Number seven

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to Mommy Knows Business. I'm your host, Meg. I'm a mom of two and I am a business coach for busy mom entrepreneurs like you. This is a very special episode because I am actually doing this live on Instagram. I haven't done a live stream on Instagram in Years, I think so. We'll see how this goes, but I'm really excited to record this episode live this episode of mommy knows business We were talking about the seven things I did to simplify My business and some of these are definitely going to surprise you because if you've been following me, you know I love to plan and systems and we're gonna be talking about things. I did differently this time around in my business Since becoming a mom, especially a mom of two, coming back to business, I knew things needed to look different for me. I thought I was running a very simple business before, but it became very clear to me that business could be simpler. And so that was my mission. I would come back to business, but if I did, it had to look even simpler than it did in the past. So there were these seven things I did and they all happened very organically and they made a huge difference and continue to make a huge difference in how I run my business. It's on a day to day basis. It has allowed me to generate the sales and revenue I've generated. It's allowed me to show up more consistently and it has really propelled my business to have so much more momentum really quickly than ever before because of these seven things I did to simplify. So I'm going to jump right in because these seven things I did to simplify my business are pretty juicy. And They're going to be surprising to some of you. The very first thing is the software I chose. I chose to switch up my software to make my life easier, to make work faster. If you are on my email list, you have seen me talk about this before, um, but my mission was really to make sure the software I was using in my business made my life easier, made things faster. I enjoyed. I enjoyed it. It had less potential room for errors, and so a big switch for me that I actually just finished today, finally, was migrating away from ConvertKit and using Kajabi instead. I'm not here to sell you on Kajabi. Happy to talk about this switch in a little bit more detail in the future, but at a foundational level, I was really looking to have less software, less potential errors, and For me, using Kajabi combines email, checkout, courses, website, and landing pages, which were originally five different pieces of software. So by choosing to use one piece of software instead, it's made a huge difference. Another shift I've made in the software category was, um, instead of using Facebook groups for things like my coming soon membership or my group coaching or my mastermind, I'm using a software called school S K O O L. And these are really the two big platforms in my business, the two pieces of software I hang out in, it's Kajabi and school. And that has really simplified things because I'm doing things myself right now. And we'll talk about that a little later this episode too. But by removing software I wasn't using, by consolidating a lot of my software, it has made business so much easier. That one is pretty foundational. That tip is a pretty like straightforward one, but I am really excited about the next six things I did to simplify my business because I think this is where the rubber really hits the road and where things really shifted for me. The second one and the second thing I did to simplify my business was I've been in business for many years and have always hesitated to niche. I'm a multi passionate person. I have lots of interests. Niching always felt like something that would limit me and hold me back and what I actually found by niching. Since coming back to business is that it has actually given me so much clarity and momentum and it's actually made things easier. Whereas I thought it would limit me. It has in a lot of ways freed me, niching has allowed it to be so clear for people when they come across my profile. If I'm for them. Oh, she's a business coach for mom entrepreneurs. And there are people who have been in my world for a long time who have never worked with me that upon niching started DMing me like, Oh, I want to work with you. Oh, this is great. And it's been incredible to see and experience firsthand how niching has actually simplified my business where I used to think it would complicate it and limit it. And the fun part is I still work with plenty of non moms. And so while I It really gear all of my marketing and offers around moms. It is still just as valuable for people who aren't moms and people who aren't moms are still very drawn to work with me and we still work together. So, it's been really cool to witness that the truth of niching is it doesn't have to limit you and it can actually not only make your ideal clients know you're for them and make that easier, but it'll still attract people outside of that scope too. So that has been incredible and it has also made the marketing. Of my business. When it comes to the content I create or how I talk about my offers or how I position myself or my, my programs, it's so easy now because I have such a clear picture of who I am trying to work with, who I am trying to attract. It's busy mom entrepreneurs. And that clarity wasn't there for me before because I could work with All types of entrepreneurs and all different life situations with all different problems. And that felt a lot more complicated to speak to in my marketing. Whereas now that I have a very clear niche, all of that is so much easier. And I just have to say that niching was one of the biggest things I've decided to do that has simplified my business in the biggest way possible. So the third thing I did to simplify my business was actually planning less. And this is one of the things I feel like is going to surprise most of you. If you were a long time listener or follower of mine, I'm a big planner. I love to plan. I love to create systems, but that is actually how I procrastinate the most when I am sitting there. And trying to plan really far in the future or develop scalable systems, that's where I start to procrastinate,'cause systemizing and planning is my favorite way to procrastinate. And so I really had to put some boundaries on this for myself. And also as a mom, I found that the old planning systems I had weren't working for me anymore. I used to plan in 90 day chunks and have very clear projects and tasks, and I knew, I knew the whole project plan for the next 90 days really far in advance. As a mom of two in the season of business and life, planning that way just has not worked for me. It has led to replanning because I'd plan out a whole quarter and be like, this isn't actually how this is coming together and this isn't actually working for me. And so instead of trying to. Force myself to plan in this like quarterly planning. That just really wasn't working for me. I have allowed myself to shift and simplify my planning. I don't actually use a project management software right now. I used to have my whole business built around Asana and like how great that project management system is. And I currently don't use any project management systems. And so what's working for me right now is a monthly checklist. I just look at the month ahead and say, what are my to do's and like desired outcomes and things that need to happen this month. And I look at personal in. In addition to this, I'm not just focused on my business. There's a lot of personal stuff going on, you know, your kids in school, there's different fundraisers, there's different activities. There's so much to do personally that I often find the personal part of my monthly plan is, is longer than my business part, but it really helps me see it all in one way or one place. It's super simple. So I, I'm literally planning right now in a Google doc and I know where I want to go big picture for my business. I know where I want to go in the next 90 days. I have the clear vision and direction, but instead of trying to plan out every single step of the way, I've really simplified it and I'm just focused on the next month. Okay. Where do I want to be by the end of October? What are the outcomes that need to happen personally and professionally by the end of October? And then I look at it weekly. And so weekly is where I get a lot more specific. I say, what's going on for me this week? What needs to happen? What day can some of these things happen? And this is where I start to really shift and realize what's possible for me because there's a limited amount of time. That I can do things and it really helps me start to see if I'm being realistic or not and helps me stay focused because if you're like me, if you're like many of my clients, so many of us struggle with focus. There's so many potential things we could do. And so by really saying, this is where I'm trying to go the next 90 days, but this is what has to happen this month. This is what has to happen this week. It's so easy for me to stay focused because I've already made this decision. This is it. I don't have to worry about all the other things I can just zero in on this week and focus there. And so simplifying my planning to this level has been huge. And like I said, right now I just have a Google doc. Sometimes I even do it. Um, I have it right here on paper. On just this journal, and I don't even worry about it. And part of this is that I'm not trying to make every system in my business scalable. I'm not trying to force my business as a solopreneur right now into a structure and a system and a process that will work for 20 team members. There's no need. I don't need to operate that way, and I don't need to overcomplicate things when it's just me. The main thing I'm trying to do is make it easier for me to get the things done that I want to get done. And by simplifying this planning process and planning far less, it has made a huge, huge shift. The fourth thing that I have done to simplify my business is really focusing on just a couple of areas for marketing. You know, there's a lot of places we could be. We could be on Pinterest. We could be on TikTok, Instagram, our email list, our blog. YouTube. I mean like the list is endless and it's really easy to get overwhelmed by all the different places we could be trying to market. And so by focusing on just two platforms, it has really simplified my business. So the two platforms for me are Instagram and my podcast right now in this season of what I do, especially as a business coach, every sale I make is because of Instagram. And that's where I'm having my sales conversations in the DMs. That's where I'm engaging with my community. That's where it's all happening. So Instagram is, is my main social platform I focus on. And then my podcast is where I do a little bit more in depth education. It's where I build a lot of know, like, and trust with people in my community, because I'm having an intimate conversation with you while you're doing things in your day and while you're multitasking. And so these are my two major platforms. Do I want to be doing other things? Of course, I know if I showed up on Tiktok, if I put more effort into YouTube right now, I just drop the video there and basically don't touch it. Um, if I did Pinterest, if I did all of these things, I know they would lead to increased results, but in this season of life. Um, we've got to stay focused and by staying super focused on just Instagram and the podcast, it has really removed a lot of decision making that I kind of found myself constantly in. Oh, should I be on Instagram or Tik Tok or should I be doing this or should I be doing that? Should I repurpose this as a blog? It's just all removed because I just have. Ultra clear intentions with Instagram and my podcast. I don't know how loud my dog is over here, but you can't see her. She's like scratching on the couch and just making all the noises in the world naturally. Um, but by focusing on these two platforms, it's really made my marketing. So much easier because these are my needle movers. All of the other ideas and shiny objects just fade away and they get put mentally for me in a list of like, yeah, one day I'll do that one day I can circle back and start doing these other things. Either when that's, I have a virtual assistant to help me. The business is bigger. I have more resources. Sure. Right now. It's not worth it where we're focusing our efforts on these two platforms, and this is really what I recommend for my clients, too, is that we have kind of a social platform, a little bit more short term content, um, conversational where you can have sales conversations and then a little bit more of a longer term pillar platform. For me, that's the podcast. The fifth thing I did to simplify my business was make it easier for people to pay me. So instead of having multi step processes for people to try to work with me, It's just all so easy. So I don't do any discovery calls. I don't like force people to get on my calendar in order to find out if it's a good fit. I don't force them to go through like a multi step process, fill out a form, and then we book a call and then we do this. No, that was just adding complications for me. It was adding complications for my ideal clients and it just like didn't make a lot of sense. And so I really simplified my. Process for sales and how people can decide to work with me. It's just all happening on Instagram right now. I have people DM me or I send them straight to the link to check out. And up until last week, I haven't even had a single sales page. I just haven't worried about it. We're just going to do. What we can, we're going to show up and give and serve on Instagram and on the podcast. And we are going to give all we can and trust that that's enough for people to know if I'm the right fit for them. And yes, do things like sales pages and discovery calls work. Of course. I'm not saying you shouldn't do them, but for me in this season of life and business, I had to simplify. So what I did was made the sales process so much easier, directly to checkout or send me a DM. And that's it. We're going to talk in DMs. If we're having a conversation, I'm not going to send you from Instagram DMs to a form, to a discovery call, to then on the call send you a proposal and then from there send you a link. That's like too many steps for me to manage, let alone to expect my ideal clients to go through and to have like a successful conversion through each of those steps. So we've just kept it super, super simple and made the sales process like as. Um, the sixth thing I did to simplify my business was a bit more of a mindset shift of detaching my worth and success from vanity metrics, really having to choose to not care about the likes or the views or the followers or the downloads has made such a difference in this season of life and business because it's allowing me to not make things a big deal that aren't. If I didn't get a lot of likes or comments on something, it doesn't mean anything about me, my potential success, if this can work or not, it doesn't mean something's broken. I just learn from it and move on and that's it. And that has really freed me and allowed me to show up in more experimental, fun ways. Doing this live, for example, is like uncomfortable for me, right? This is something I'm having to get comfortable with again. But because I don't care about how many people make it live or if I sound good live and by detaching my worth from those metrics, it allows me to do this and do it from a place of fun, hand excitement and connection and overflow and not from a place of like it has to be perfect and this has to go well or I failed or it means something, right? If something flops. It just flops and it doesn't matter. We just move on to the next piece of content. We just move on to the next thing in business. We just keep doing it and it's really about allowing me and allowing you to practice and not put so much weight and pressure on every single piece of content we make on every single thing we do in our business and just detaching our worth from those metrics. It's also teaching me patience. Um, and that's part of this, right? Because we can't just expect this instant surge of clients when we post one thing. We have to allow things to marinate. We have to allow our community to get to know us. We have to allow ourselves the opportunity to get to know our community and figure out how we want to talk about what we do and how we can help people. And so by detaching my worth and success and value from vanity metrics. It's allowing me to be consistent and to show up more consistently, more regularly and different ways and really approach it from a place of like fun, creativity and experimentation and learning rather than a place of like passing or failing. Right. And that's such a huge shift. And that mindset shift has simplified everything for me because I'm not overthinking it. I'm not getting all worked up and anxious. And so that has like made such a huge difference for me. And the last thing, the seventh thing that I did to simplify my business. Is doing it solo, and that might sound kind of backwards, right? You would think doing things alone in your business would make things harder or more complicated. But instead, not having a team in this season of life as I come back to business for the first couple of months has really simplified it. It helps me be in it. I, I'm seeing every email. I'm interacting with my community, with my clients at every step of the process, and I get to learn more, but also it helps me see what's necessary and what's not. I'm not just delegating a million things to an assistant because I think we need to be doing all of these things. It's really challenging me to get super clear on my strategy, super clear on my priorities, allowing my strategy to be simpler, to be lean. Because if I had a team right now, all of the things I've just talked about that have taught me so much and made me a better, Mom, maybe a better mentor, maybe a better business owner, I wouldn't have learned because I would have just been delegating them to a team so that we could just be doing all of the things. Instead, I have really learned a lot myself on what works, what doesn't work right now. I've learned what I enjoy, what I don't enjoy, what my community responds to, what they like and don't like. And I wouldn't have learned any of those things if I was just throwing spaghetti at the wall using a virtual assistant. Now, do I want to have a virtual assistant? Yes. I hope to hire one in the next couple of months. I think they're incredibly valuable and I think having a team is incredibly valuable and helpful and important as you grow your business. But in this season of life as a mom of two, coming back to business in the building phase of business, in the ramping up phase of business, again, for the first time in years, it is essential that I've been doing it myself and it has really allowed my entire business to be simpler overall. So those are the seven things I've done to simplify my business in the season of life as a mom of two. Let me do a quick recap of what those seven things were. So number one was using software that makes my life easier, makes doing the work faster. Number two was niching. Number three was planning less. Number four was focusing on two platforms for marketing. Number five was making it easier for people to pay me. Number six was detaching my worth or success from vanity metrics. And number seven was doing this solo. And I really want to say, you don't have to do all of these things to simplify your business. But if any of this resonated with you and felt like, Oh, that would, that would be a game changer for me. I really want to encourage you to do it. I want to encourage you to simplify your business, to make your life easier and to really distill down what is important for you in this season of life and business. Don't get overwhelmed by the thought of having to do it all or think you need to be doing it all and showing up everywhere. We really don't. And by going through a season of intentional simplicity and scaling down and leaning out, you're going to learn so much. And I really think, uh, I think this is a phrase, right? Like if you slow down, you end up speeding up. I really believe that to be true by taking a couple of steps intentionally to slow down your business. I shouldn't even say slow down really, but to simplify your business, it's going to allow you to speed up and gain momentum and gain clarity at a faster rate than you would otherwise. And I just hope that you've enjoyed this episode. I hope that you have taken something from here and it's resonated with you, that you're going to implement in your business to simplify your business in this season of life, whatever season of life that is for you right now. And I would love to hear what your thoughts are on this episode. So if you're here live, drop a comment or leave a heart. If you're watching the replay either here on Instagram or on YouTube or listening to the podcast, you know, leave a comment, send me a DM on Instagram at HeyMegKing. I'd love getting feedback from you. I really hope that you can be inspired by this to simplify your business, to not feel like you need to be doing everything and be everywhere. And I can't wait to hear what that shift will do for you and your business. Thanks so much for listening, and I will see you in the next episode of Mommy Knows Business. Bye!