Fun Business Fun Money Podcast
EP 007 – The path to a simple easy business

Give yourself permission to do fun things that make you happy EVERY DAY, not just when you’re under the weather, or as a reward for your hard work.

Its easy to prioritise everything else over the fun things, but the small daily fun things are just as important in achieving your overall results.

KEY MENTIONS

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TRANSCRIPT

Hey there! And welcome to the Fun Business Fun Money Podcast!

Today is a slightly longer coaching episode on something that I think is particularly relevant if you’re listening to this in real time. Right now it’s January 2023 and of course the start of the year is when everyone is meant to be full of enthusiasm, pumped up and ready to rock and roll through the year ahead.

If you’re listening to this at a later date it’s still very relevant of course, because we can all do with a sense check for what’s going on, how we’re feeling and what we’re doing.

Today I want to talk about finding the ease and grace in your business. 

This is something that seems to be missing for a lot of people, you’ll know someone like this for sure, maybe it’s even you! They’re showing up everywhere, doing all the things, and achieving their goals. But under the surface, just like a duck’s legs, they’re working LIKE CRAZY to keep things moving, juggling all the things. 

It’s amazing to watch someone smashing their goals, but it’s NOT amazing to realise they’re possibly burning themselves out in the process. So I’m just putting it out there that THERE IS ALWAYS AN EASIER WAY.

It doesn’t have to feel so frantic, and that’s why I want to introduce this idea of ‘grace and ease’ into your thinking.

Even just saying the phrase “grace and ease” feels like such a breath of fresh air, a big sigh of relief knowing it’s a possibility. 

I’d love for everyone to breathe more life, more FUN into themselves, their business, their clients, customers, family, kids, every aspect of their lives. And of course where you have more life, you have more money!

But what does grace and ease even MEAN?? The first image that springs to mind is that you’re sitting back and relaxing, taking the easy road and just waiting for the dough to magically show up.

Not at all! Grace and ease means having a business that feels perfect for you, aligned with your personality, your style, your beliefs and values. Its about doing it the way YOU want, not how someone else tells you it should be done.

That’s not to say other people don’t have valid suggestions that could vastly improve your business, in fact that’s one of the things I help clients with. We brainstorm ideas and identify the things that really matter, particularly the things that make them money, and see how they can implement and streamline things.

It’s about simplifying, taking everything back to what you actually need so you know exactly what you’re doing, how you do it, and how you help people solve their problems.

What grace and ease ISN’T is layering on more and more ‘stuff’, adding complexity and things that might sound like a good idea because you see everyone else doing it, but ultimately these things create more work for very little return. It’s not about hustling ALL THE TIME, or being everything to everyone.

I’ve spoken to so many entrepreneurs over the past few years who are trying to do exactly that, they’re doing ‘all the things’, they’re exhausted, overwhelmed, and they’ve lost the fun in their business as a result. 

Grace and ease isn’t just about automating everything either. You don’t necessarily need a glossy website, you don’t need paid ads, Facebook pages, automations, you don’t need to be on every social media platform just because it’s there.

Those are all nice to haves, but they’re in no way necessary to building your business. In fact, they’re often a major distraction!

If you’re looking to scale your business you may indeed need some of those things, but it’s important to realise that you can also do it without them. It may be that you actually need to raise your prices to generate more money for the same amount of time and effort. That can definitely create a sense of grace and ease.

Maybe you’re not yet marketing your offers to the right people in the right way so that they’re taking action and paying for your services or products. You really don’t have to work harder in order to achieve more money or more success.

The thing is, if you’re already putting in every available hour and minute around your family and other commitments, you CAN’T work harder. We all have 168 hours per week, some of which needs to be for sleep and general wellbeing stuff. And that’s not going to bring that grace and ease we’re talking about here either.

I love the concept of the Hell Yes / Hell No list to help you prioritise things in your life and business, so it becomes an easy and clear NO to the things that don’t feel right, or that simply don’t make you happy.

This is where you take a look at everything you’re doing in your business, your personal life, basically all the demands on your time, energy and expertise.

You get to decide if its a HELL YES I love this and I want to keep doing it, or a HELL NO, I’m so over it and I never want to do this again. I’ll do a separate episode about this as well because its such an important thing to understand, but thats the general gist of it.

For now lets focus on your PASSION – what are the things in your business that you love doing? Why did you get started in the first place?

For most of us it’s because we want to help people solve their challenges or problems, you have a great solution that can really make a difference.

What I’ve noticed over time talking to a wide variety of entrepreneurs across many industries is that there are two paths they tend to take:

1. They get caught up in the tech stuff and setting up their ’shop front’, but they forget about the  money making aspect of it, they’re not putting their focus on bringing in clients. They may be giving massive value on social media, but not asking for the sale.
    
2. They put all their focus on working with clients, and forget about the systems and processes that can make their onboarding and sales processes an easy and smooth experience. They feel overwhelmed because they’re constantly repeating themselves and fixing things that keep breaking.

We need to find a balance between the two, in a way that feels right FOR YOU.

We’re all so different, even if you’re in the same industry or follow the same basic systems as someone else, your business is different and unique because its YOURS.  So trying to follow a system created by someone else, that works for THEIR personality, is always going to be hard – again, not the grace and ease you ultimately want.

What are the things that you’ve tried in your business, based on someone else’s system? Things that you might have tried and didn’t enjoy?

I remember being asked by a coach about the sales and marketing activities I’d done in the previous 6 months. There were 37 things on her list, I’d done 25 of them. And only 8 of them were things I actually enjoy, or that make any money. I was putting so much time and energy into 17 things that sucked the life out of me that I didn’t have much left for the fun stuff that generates an income.

It could be that you’ve been told you need to do webinars, FB lives, offer low ticket or free stuff, run a free challenge, or set up a sales funnel that links to an email sequence. All great things! But the reality is none of that is NECESSARY to grow a successful business, especially if its not fun for you.

But we KEEP DOING THEM! And usually because we think everyone else is doing them, or someone tells us its what we have to do in order to be successful.

It’s actually a sunk cost fallacy. We put so much time, energy and money into something that it’s REALLY hard to let it go, even though we instinctively KNOW that it’s not helping.

I lovingly kick myself when I think about all the hours I put into creating and promoting an ebook that only a few people ever downloaded, probably none of them ever read, and certainly nobody ever booked the free call I offered OR paid for my coaching.

That was time and energy that would have been better spent having conversations with real people, finding out what their challenges were, and offering my solution.

The number one thing you can do to find the ease and grace in your business is to take an honest look at the time, energy and money you’re spending on it, and figure out where you actually EARN the money. Focus your energy on the activities that make the most sense (and dollars!). 

If you feel like you need permission to let go of those things that don’t actually help you, permission granted. That’s where you’ll find the grace and ease. Decide what you’ll no longer tolerate as far as distractions, time wasters and especially things that are costing you money. Simplify your business as much as possible.

If you don’t know where to start or what to do, please reach out and lets have a chat to see where you’re at and how I can help you simplify your business and bring the fun, happiness AND money flowing in for you.

IGNITE is my signature 1-1 coaching program that sets you up for the next level and beyond by creating more value for your clients without you having to DO more. Send me a DM on Facebook or Instagram, I’m @funbusinessfunmoney on both platforms, or send an email to hello@deirdreamies.com – you’ll find the link for that in the description of this episode because its not the easiest thing to spell!

Of course, I can’t tell you what to stop doing or start doing without a proper look at your business, only you know what really resonates for you. But my hope for everyone is that you take a good look at all the activities you’re doing in your business, and decide if it’s something that’s helping or hindering you.

Make a list and get real about whether it helps you in making money, has it helped you bring in clients, does it support and guide your existing clients to continue to buy from you?

That’s what I have for you today. I hope that helps spark some ideas about what you can do to simplify your business, because that’s where the grace and ease exists. You don’t have to do all the things, you don’t have to be everything to everyone, and you don’t have to have all the toys and gadgets.  

Take care, have fun and I’ll catch you in another episode!