Reviewing and simplifying your business in 2023

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The new year is the perfect time to look ahead and think about what you'd like to achieve in your business over the next 12 months, and for me even more importantly, how I want to feel while I do it. Then we plan out our actions for the year based on that!

It’s no secret I like my businesses to be quite chilled, I like ease & flow, I like to only work a couple of hours each day and for the most part, I tend to follow what feels good intuitively and take action on that, I don’t worry about a long to-do list anymore, I just follow the flow, but the reason I’m able to do that is because I’ve set foundations in my business that allow that to happen.

I have evergreen mini-courses that sell automatically through my email funnels, my VIP Day bookings are automated, and I only take on a limited amount of private client project work personally. The podcast is getting easier and easier to manage now that I have a booking system taking care of the scheduling, and I’m using templates for interview outlines, show notes, and social media promos.

So my goal setting and the actions I’m planning for the year to achieve my growth and income goals need to be quite relaxed as well.

Here's how I like to do it:

First, I look back over the last 12 months and take note of what worked well and felt good, and also what didn’t really give great results or flow very well

I keep what went well, and for the rest, I start to look at ways I can make things easier. Should I ditch it all together? Should I delegate it to someone else who finds it easier and more enjoyable, is there a way to automate or simplify the process?

One example, I struggled a lot with video in 2022 - being consistent on YouTube for Beautifully Organised and making videos for my mini-courses here at The Simpler Business side of things.

When you’re watching videos it looks like hardly any effort at all went into it, but behind the scenes, there’s the scripting, getting ready to film, the actual filming itself, moving the footage from one device to another, editing the footage, adding title slides, music and sound effects, downloading and uploading the videos to the platform you’re hosting on, writing text to go with it like a description and call to action, and then finally hitting publish.

That’s a lot of steps!

About a month ago I found a much simpler solution with a couple of really handy and affordable tools - Loom and Big VU, and it’s made SUCH a difference, I can now create 10 videos in the time used to take to create one. So much better! If you’d like to know more detail on how I use the tools, let me know and I’ll share exactly what I do with each one to save so much time and effort.

So for this year’s review, it was an obvious choice - change my video creation process so that I’m using these two tools to create and publish each video in minutes, not hours.

It seems really simple, right? Keep what’s working well, take what’s not working well, and look into ways to make it easier, more efficient, better in general. 

But we get so caught up in our everyday stuff as business owners that we don’t really take the time to do this kind of review on a regular basis. The start of a new year seems to be the only time we think of it, so this year, I propose we take a couple of minutes right now and book some time into our work calendar every quarter - a half a day, or even just a couple of hours, to do this kind of review again. Then it doesn’t have to be a big thing we do once a year, it becomes a regular part of the running of our businesses. If that sounds good to you, hit pause and go book that time in now! I will wait.

Ok now that’s done, let’s look at another way to make our businesses run and grow smoothly this year. In the simpler business mastermind this month we’re looking at defining your simple business model, and again, this is the perfect time of year to do it. 

If you’re feeling burnt out, or overwhelmed with all of your to-dos, or you’re working too many hours, staying up late every night trying to get everything done, that’s a sign to review your business model and just check how well it aligns with your natural energies, your strengths, and your talents.

Are you working in a way that feels good for you? Or is it a hard slog every day?

Do you start your work day feeling inspired and motivated? Or do you dread turning on your computer or opening your email?

When was the last time you really thought about which parts of your business you truly enjoy, and which parts you’d rather outsource or get rid of altogether? 

There are so many different ways you can run your business and the key to running it the simple way is to tune into what feels good for you.

Maybe you can add a passive product to your business this year and enjoy a new revenue stream with no effort required past the initial set up!

Maybe you can stop working by the hour and start offering premium packages to clients that provide them with an amazing outcome AND give you more freedom.

Maybe you can offer group coaching instead of 1:1 sessions and cut your weekly coaching hours from 40 to 3.

If you’d like to learn more about defining a simple business model that suits you and could do with a little guidance on how to make it happen, I’d love you to join me in the Simpler Business Mastermind!

So here’s to a fresh new year for all of us, a year of ease and flow, doing what we love, helping other people, and getting paid very well for doing so. May this be your most abundant and enjoyable year yet as a business owner, I can’t wait to see what unfolds over the next 12 months!

x Marissa