Over the past couple of years, I have more than halved what I offer in my business, with the result being that my revenue doubles each time. Not necessarily instantly, but within the year.

It’s not comfortable to offer less. We resist it and struggle to maintain it. And it logically doesn’t make sense. 

Wouldn’t offering MORE to our audience, mean we would sell more?

And in turn offering less, limit how much we can earn?

Once of the first exercises I now get my students to do when they enroll in The Modern Marketing Collective is an Offer Audit so they can actually simplify and streamline their business and maximise their profitability.

I’ve mentioned before that in the early days of business, I was a “yes” girl. 

If people needed a website – yes I can do that. 

Branding? Sure!

Copywriting? No problem!

But over time, the more we offer, several things happen:

• Our audience don’t know what we stand for

• We no longer know what we stand for ourselves!

• We don’t have a clear positioning in the market

• We become less productive because we are doing a lot of once off tasks

• We can feel stretched because we don’t have repeatable systems in place around what we offer.

And the thing was that when people asked what I did, I didn’t really know what to say! What did I really do?! Could I just list off all those different services?! 

And each time I received an inquiry, it meant custom quoting, and then expanding my knowledge about that service while I was rolling it out to ensure I was at the top of my game. There was no efficiency. 

While I could have kept going like this, over time I started questioning why I started my business in the first place. And I asked “does this feel like I am fulfilling my purpose?” and “Does this feel like my business is really fulfilling its potential?”.

The thing is, when you consider no longer offering particular services or products, people will still probably ask for them. And that’s hard! You’ll question yourself, and ask “should I just keep offering them?”. I mean, why would you leave money on the table?

I’ve learnt that it is ok to leave money on the table.

Because the trade off is focus. And focus in business is one of the ‘secrets” to success (and profit). It’s a discipline. As entrepreneurs, we have so many ideas! And we want to do everything! Many of us really struggle saying no to people too.

We do not need to monetise every idea. Or run our business to serve everyone.

Work out what you want to be known for. Put your tunnel vision on and pursue that. 

Want to or need to take on a couple of non ideal jobs on the side while you build your simplified business? Sure! But remember, it’ll feel safer to stay there so don’t let yourself. 

The more I approach my business with the question: how simple can I make this? The more ease I have, the less I find I need to work, and the more money I make. 

So my question to you is: how simple can you make your business?