111: Why simplicity is the secret to online business success
I’m taking a much needed detour on this episode to address a common issue many of us entrepreneurs face: feeling overwhelmed by the multitude of tasks and systems needed to run a successful business.
Through two real-life examples from my recent coaching calls where this exact topic came up, I illustrate how both new and experienced business owners can become paralyzed by trying to implement too many strategies at once.
In this episode of Ill Communication, I’m covering the importance of focusing on core priorities and giving you permission to keep things simple, especially when starting out or pivoting your business.
By the end of this episode, you’ll feel encouraged to take a step back, assess your immediate needs, and focus on the "bare minimum" required to move your business forward.
Topics We Cover in This Episode:
Why a simple, focused approach could be the key to attracting more clients and growing your business
Practical advice on how to identify and prioritize the most critical elements for business growth
The "bare minimum" needed to get started or pivot your business, and how can you identify it
How simplifying your approach will lead to more clarity and success in your business
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, book a complimentary sales strategy call with me, where I promise to help you find clarity and create a simple path to attracting more clients without unnecessary complexity.
I'd love to know what your biggest copywriting or marketing questions are. What have you been struggling with? Or do you want to pick my brain about a copywriting strategy or a tactic? I'm starting a new Ask Me Anything segment here on the pod. If you have a burning question about business, copywriting, or marketing, or if you want to make an episode suggestion, I'm all ears. Here are two ways you can pick my brain:
Visit https://www.speakpipe.com/kimkiel to record a voice note with your question or suggestion. Include your name, email, and background info for context.
Send me a text. When you click this link, it’ll open up your text messenger, where you can text your question directly to me. Leave all the weird numbers that pop up and add your name and email or mobile number so I can keep in touch.
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Kim Kiel [00:00:03]:
Welcome to Ill Communication, Copywriting Tips and Sales Strategies for Small Business. I'm your host, Kim Kiel. I'm a copy coach, sales strategist, and direct response copywriter. It's my mission to help women leaders and change makers amplify their voices through copy. It's why I'm dishing out all the juicy tips, writing prompts, and sales formulas to help you generate more leads, book more calls, and get more high value clients on repeat. Sounds pretty good. It's time to ditch the overwhelm you might be feeling and find confidence in your copywriting so you can get your message out there and attract more soulmate clients. Let's get started.
Kim Kiel [00:00:52]:
Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the ill communication podcast. This is episode 111. And I gotta tell you, I had a totally different episode planned for today. But something came up on our Joy of CopyClip coaching call this morning that I wanna address here on the podcast because it's something that comes up again and again with the clients I work with and with women in business generally. And it's an important message we all need to hear and be reminded of, myself included. So earlier today on one of our Joy of Coffee coaching calls, one of our members, let's call her Joan, raised her hand for a little support.
Kim Kiel [00:01:32]:
She's in the midst of launching a new business, or rather she's refocusing on her core services, narrowing down what she wants to do, which is helping new moms get through the very difficult season of breast feeding because she is a lactation consultant. Now Joan is very gifted and experienced. She's in her fifties, and she knows she needs a website to sell her services. But she's kind of overwhelmed by all the steps she needs to take to have that online presence. Joan joined the Joy of Copy Club to work specifically on her website to tighten it up, refresh in the messaging, and call in her ideal customers. But after joining the Joy of Copy Club, she discovered all these things she never knew she needed, like a lead magnet, an email service provider, a calendar booking link, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And, yes, in a perfect world, after you've been in business a while, you should aim to have some of these best practices in place. So I often talk about these different strategies and tools as a best case scenario.
Kim Kiel [00:02:42]:
And the copy club members are at different points in their businesses, and some have more sophisticated or advanced systems. So we'll talk about those advanced level techniques occasionally. But in Joan's case, it caused her to get overwhelmed. She had the impression that she absolutely needed these pieces in her business to be legit, to be a success, to launch her website. So rather than updating her website, which is her primary source of advertising for her referral based business, she started worrying about all the other pieces she didn't have. Like, she didn't have an email service provider. How would she choose and set that up? She doesn't have a lead magnet in place. So what should she create for that? And on today's call, Joan finally admitted she hasn't focused on her website because she was feeling really confused about what to do next.
Kim Kiel [00:03:34]:
So I released the pressure. I gave her permission to not have all the things done at the same time. I encouraged her to focus on the core thing that her business needs right now, which is her website, and to update it to speak to her ideal customer and reflect her new niche and services. And that's what I wanna do for you today too. I wanna give you permission to not have everything in place in your business, but instead to focus on just that one thing that's gonna move the needle. So Joan is newer to entrepreneurship and consulting and new to having an online presence. She knows she needs a website because if new moms are referred to her, they'll wanna check her out. If agencies wanna book Joan for a breastfeeding workshop, they'll wanna check out her website.
Kim Kiel [00:04:26]:
So it makes sense that she should have a solid website to support her business. Does she need to start capturing emails and starting an email list of subscribers? Maybe. Maybe, yes, down the road. Should she have some kind of free resource to help new potential clients check her and her expertise out? Sure. But that's not an immediate need. Those pieces are all secondary. Besides, Joan runs a very high touch, very intimate service. She's not dealing with high traffic.
Kim Kiel [00:04:59]:
She's managing a small handful of clients at a time. Her primary call to action is to book a call with her to get potential clients to book a call and see if Joan can help them. So when I told her that she doesn't have to worry about email and lead magnets and funnels, I could see the relief on her face. I gave her permission to keep things super simple, to focus just on the necessaries of a clear focused website. The other elements can be added over time if she wants to. And then on our call today, we walked through her draft website, and I helped identify easy changes to make that would speak more to her ideal client. If she committed the time, I know she could get that updated within a day or 2 by focusing on what's most important and keeping it simple. And I had a similar conversation with another copy club member, Wendy, who runs a very different kind of business.
Kim Kiel [00:06:00]:
Wendy's been an online business owner for many years, has her offers and audience dialed in, and knows all of the best practices for scaling from a one to one to a one to many type of business. When I met with Wendy on a private coaching call, she had a list of all the things she wanted to focus on and build in her business. She mentioned needing to optimize or rewrite her home and about pages. She gets lots of traffic, but not as many as conversions, so she knows something needs to be dialed in there. She's wanting to optimize the sales page for her signature offer, which will be undergoing a slight change in pricing and structure. She knows she wants to start a funnel in the fall, so she's gonna need Facebook ads and promo copy. She's wanting to boost more collaborations and affiliate commissions to sell her signature offer. And she knows she wants to refine her messaging to attract a more mid level client as opposed to some of the beginners she's been working with in the past.
Kim Kiel [00:06:59]:
Now like Joan, Wendy was getting overwhelmed and didn't know where to focus. But I could immediately see where we'd get the most return on investment for our time, which was optimizing and rewriting her sales page for her signature offer. See, she wants to boost sales. She wants to attract a higher level of client, so it makes sense to focus on the sales page first. Once that's dialed in, then she can look at running and writing the ad funnel copy and ramping up an affiliate program. Besides the work that we do on her sales page and messaging and ideal avatar, we'll give her guidance for some of the smaller tweaks and improvements that she can make to her home page and about page. And just like with Joan, when I gave Wendy permission to not focus or worry about all the things, instead to focus on one core asset, her money maker, if you will, that clarity created a lot more ease and calm and focus, which is a far better place to work from than overwhelm, stress, and confusion. Look.
Kim Kiel [00:08:04]:
I totally understand how easy it is to get overwhelmed by all the things we must do and have in our businesses. Every marketing and business coach is selling a new system, a framework, or a service to help you grow your business. And it overcomplicates and confuses and distracts us from focusing on what's most important for us in our businesses at this moment in time. And, look, I am guilty of this too. On this podcast, I talk a lot about best practices and what you should and shouldn't have in your marketing and business and copywriting. So if I've unintentionally distracted you from where you should focus, I really apologize. And by way of this episode, I wanna remind you, you can only do one thing really well at a time. And before you need a sophisticated lead magnet and email service provider, you need to have a website or even a simple one page website.
Kim Kiel [00:08:59]:
Before you can run ads and get affiliates for your core offer, you need to have a dialed in sales page. If you're feeling overwhelmed by all the things you could or should be doing in your business, then I invite you to pause and really think about what your priority is. What is your goal for the next 6 months? What is the first step you can take to accomplish that priority? What's the bare ass minimum you need to do to move the needle in the right direction? Focus on that. Clear away all the rest of the clutter. If you need a permission slip to say forget the funnels and bells and whistles and just keep things super simple, then here it is. This is your permission slip to keep it simple, to do the bare ass minimum. And, you know, this is really how I've grown my own business, one slow step at a time. It's not the fastest.
Kim Kiel [00:09:53]:
It's not the most money in the shortest amount of time, but it's mine. And my simple business and simple approach to marketing and copywriting is supporting a beautiful life, and it is still having impact on my audiences. If you're feeling overwhelmed by all the things you should focus on in your business, I'd love to invite you to a complimentary sales strategy call. On this call, you can share your goals, all the things you think you should be doing, and I'll help you find the clarity you need to find your next step. I'll drop the link to my calendar in the show notes so you can claim one of these 30 minute complimentary sales strategy calls. And, seriously, if you're feeling overwhelmed and stressed, take me up on one of these calls so we can create more focus and ease for you in your business and unlock a simple path to getting more clients and more sales in your business without all the bells and whistles. I'm all about keeping things simpler and less overwhelming. Because if you get too overwhelmed and suffer analysis paralysis, then you probably won't get your message out there, which means you won't be able to help the clients who need you and your services.
Kim Kiel [00:11:01]:
And next week, I'm going to share one of the most simple strategies I've used to build my authority, grow my email list, and find clients without ads, complex funnels, or crazy tech setups. So you won't wanna miss that one. I'll see you then. Hey, my sweet friend. I wanna thank you for joining me today. I just love creating and sharing content to make your business, and especially writing for your business, a little bit easier. So I'd love to know what your biggest copywriting or marketing questions are. What have you been struggling with? Or do you wanna pick my brain about a copywriting strategy or a tactic? I'm starting a new ask me anything segment here on the pod.
Kim Kiel [00:11:47]:
If you have a burning question about business, copywriting, or marketing, or if you want to make an episode suggestion, I'm all ears. You can participate in 2 ways. Number 1, visit speakpipe.com/kimkeel. There, you'll be able to record a voice note with your question or suggestion. Make sure you include your name and your email and maybe a little background info or context. Number 2, you can send me a text. In the show notes of this episode, you'll see a link to text me a question or comment. When you click that link, it'll open up your text messenger where you can text me your question directly.
Kim Kiel [00:12:29]:
Make sure you leave all the weird numbers that pop up, and please add your name and email address or mobile number so I can keep in touch. I can't wait to create these ask me anything or pick my brain episodes, so please play along. I can't wait to help you solve whatever's blocking you from getting your message out there. Find the links to ask me your questions in the show notes.
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