So you might've noticed that I have gotten pretty minimalistic over the last year, not
just in my business, but in my life.
And I have basically been on a mission to figure out how to work less, but make more
of an impact and make more money at the same time.
And this all truly stemmed for me from a really bad burnout I had a couple of years ago, where
I basically worked myself into the hospital.
It was really scary and it scared me straight.
And so I have been on a mission to simplify.
And so last year at this time, we had three times the size of my team.
We had three times the amount of products and services that we were offering, and yet
minimizing and not having those team members, and not having those other offers or services,
it sounds weird, but we've actually doubled our revenue in the last year, which is crazy.
So generated multiple millions in the business this year, while working with us and taking
a three week vacation to Europe, where I didn't even touch my computer.
So how the hell did I do this?
That's what I'm going to dive into today because I really would love it if everyone could find
their dream life while running their dream business.
And I think it's really important to visualize what you want in your life and what you want
your life to look like so that your business doesn't rule your world.
So if you're excited about this, give this video like.
It doesn't matter where you are on your journey, this will be applicable.
And these are all things that I wish I knew when I was first starting my business, and
things I wish I knew just a lot earlier than I figured them out on my own.
And hit that subscribe button, hit the bell to get notified every single time we post
a new video.
So let's talk about this.
Let's dive into exactly what I did.
So if I look down at all, it's because I'm just looking at my notes, but I wanted to
make sure that I had everything in here that really would make a big difference for you
and working less and making more, especially as we head into a new year.
So it takes a lot of work.
Just a friendly little warning here.
It takes a lot of work to make your life easy and to your business easy.
This is not going to be an easy process, but once you figure it out, it is amazing how
much time and space you're going to free up and how much happier you'll be.
So the first thing, and I just did a whole video on this this last week, so you check
that out, but it's just passive income.
So figuring out ways that you can, sorry for my handwriting, I am basically in kindergarten,
figuring out ways that you can generate passive income and there are so many ways that you
can do this online and there is so much more wealth at our fingertips.
Thank you internet for that opportunity and the time that we live in.
And so there really is no reason that you can't be generating, even if it's like $100
a month, passive income wise, just to help out in some way, shape or form, and to create
revenue even when you're not working.
So passive income is one, but I know that every other freaking internet guru is talking
about that as well.
And that's not really what you're here for.
So the next thing is removing all complexity.
So I made this graph and I was like, "Okay, I feel like there's just too much going on
in my business right now and in my life.
So I'm going to write down all the things that are taking time and then I'm going to
figure out if they're actually giving me a return on that investment."
Because I truly do believe more than money, time is our greatest currency.
You don't get it back and you can't get back that time that you want to spend with your
family, or you can't get back the time that you want to spend with your kids, and you
don't give back those vacations where you should be spending quality time with your
friends or your spouse or whatever it may be.
So time is the greatest currency.
So I want you to figure out what was costing me the most time and was I actually getting
anything out of it.
So just a prime example of this is you're seeing an action right now, editing.
I have an amazing editor, videographer on my team, but editing was taking so much time,
and when I used to do this myself, it used to take so much time as well.
So I have learned a lot in the last year about how we can make our video process a lot simpler.
So we just decided we're going to edit a lot less and we're going to spend less time on
the post-production because it's not necessary.
So that's the thing, like was fancy editing actually making more revenue in our business?
Nope, not at all.
And no one really cared.
And the sweet, sweet irony is that I made a video, you can check it out here and it's
called Stop Watching YouTube videos.
It's unedited entirely.
I literally shot it by myself and it soared.
And I think that's because people just want value.
People just want to feel like they can relate to you.
They don't give a crap about what your editing looks like.
So it depends on what niche you're in.
Obviously if you're like very super cinematic and that's what you do, you do you boo.
But for me, that was one thing that was costing me a lot of time, costing our team a lot of
time causing a lot of stress and it was giving us zero return.
Plus just on a super technical term, on YouTube, the less editing you do, what I've found is,
the more watch time you get and watch time is super important.
I have a lot of videos on that too.
You check them out here, so that's just one other piece of the puzzle here as well.
And then the other thing is removing complexity is in terms of travel, for me, I was traveling
so much and I was needing to be in a different location every month and for me, I'm not a
great traveler.
I love traveling, but I don't love doing it when it's for work and for specific things
because it's a lot of complexity.
It's a lot of coordination.
So I just minimize to the things that I really wanted to do.
I stopped saying yes to everything, so I took that out of the equation as well.
Also, I found that when I was traveling, I was actually seeing a negative return as far
as my business because I was taking time away from the business and taking myself out of
the business, when it was a little too premature to do that.
So I was seeing no return here.
So that was really, really important.
What I do know that I should be doing with my time is creating content for our paid programs
and for our free content as well because that gives us a huge return of building our audience
on autopilot and bringing in new customers every day.
So that's a hard yes for me.
So travel, I cut out, any sort of complexity in the business, we cut out.
And I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second because it really is relevant
to so many things and it's really hard to figure out what to say no to.
But this little graph of like time and are you getting a return out of it is so helpful.
So if you want to just do this exercise with me or after this video, it's going to open
your eyes to a lot.
Because I also found that I kept sort of doing things because I felt like I should without
actually looking at if it was actually going to help the business or actually help me or
if it was actually making things more complicated.
So the other weird thing was that a year ago, we had three times the amount of products
and services that we now have in the business as well, which you would think we were making
like triple the amount of money, but we actually weren't.
And the thing that I realized was that the more that we had all of these different products,
the more problems there were to worry about.
So if you think about one offer without one offer, and the interesting thing is that the
products and services that we cut out were actually our most expensive products and services.
So we minimize down to the things that we knew were the most potent and that worked
the best, that weren't necessarily the most expensive because the more expensive our products
and services got, the more customized the work became.
And I found that if I was customizing my work for every client that came in, it was such
a nightmare because I was basically having to start from scratch with each one.
So with each offer, you have to think about the fact that you need to have marketing,
you need to have sales.
I know you're probably not even able to read this, but let's just go with it.
You need to have operations, you need to have fulfillment, you need to have customer service,
which goes under fulfillment.
You need to have...
Ahhh, customer service.
You need to have teams associated to that offer to make sure it's actually getting done.
You have to update the content, and an actual offer itself.
So there's all of these things that go into one offer.
So if you're trying to build like 50 of these, then you're basically spreading yourself so
thin that nothing's going to get done well and this offer is ultimately going to suffer.
So minimizing down to the two core offers and being able to test what really worked
best with our marketplace allowed us to double down, which I always talk about on the offers
that worked the best and only sell those and only market those because it's a heck of a
lot easier to market one offer and focus just on that then trying to offer 50 million different
things.
So that's really important to understand here.
And then the other piece of this is that with our team, same thing goes.
I found that I was hiring people because I felt like that's what I should do.
And our business had grown so much, we had doubled our revenue the year prior as well.
And our business had grown so much that I was in my head thinking, "Well, if our business
is growing, we definitely need more people on the team."
Wrong.
So the more people I hired because I felt like I should, the more complex the business
got, and the less of a leader I became.
And I wasn't happy with the way I was actually managing my team.
I didn't feel good about it because I wasn't able able to actually speak to everybody and
be a good leader.
So having more people on your team, also is the same thing.
You have to manage.
You have to set targets for them and you have to communicate with them.
And so I'm a big believer, and we say this all the time in our company, is that we are
a tiny, but mighty team.
We are all about efficiency.
We are all about making sure that each person in the team is a ninja who can basically do
multiple different things and that takes time to build up.
But it starts with me.
It starts with you as the leader of the business.
You should know how to do everything that's happening in your business so that you can
properly lead and manage everybody in your business to be the best that they're capable
of being.
So I have found in my business that less is more, especially when it comes to teams, especially
when it comes to offers.
So really important to understand that, just because your business is growing and your
revenue is growing, doesn't necessarily meet mean that you need more people.
So the next thing is goals.
And I've talked about this a lot on our channel, but let's just dive into it further.
So my main goals every single day never change.
And this has stayed consistent for the last year.
So my goals every day are sales, whether that's driving traffic to our webinar or actually
both of our webinars, for our both of our offers, I'm getting traffic there, booking
sales calls.
Making sure that we're getting amazing results and testimonials, and that we're making the
best product on the market.
Minimizing to these three goals has allowed me to stay focused in the last year.
And that's what's helped us to double revenue yet again, because I've actually just minimized
all complexity from what I need to be doing on a daily basis.
So in my opinion, these are the only goals that really should matter for me every single
day.
And everything I do is based on judging if it's actually leading to these three things.
If it's not, then I probably don't need to be doing it or I don't even be doing it right
away or someone else could take it off my plate for me.
So goals and paying a close attention to these, really, really important.
The next thing is I stopped listening to people's shoulds.
For the first three years of my business, I feel like I was getting shoulded all over
the place.
I was getting should on.
Let's say that.
So you just want to be really cautious and this is more something that I've learned that
I would love to pass on to you is that you want to be really cautious of shoulds versus
musts, and unless it's a must and it's totally necessary to your growth as a person or the
growth of your business, and something that is a full body, yes or no, then you don't
need to be doing it.
So if it's a should and it's strictly a should, it's not a must, you don't need to be doing
it.
Really important to understand that concept.
So as I just mentioned, the full body, yes or no, this is also something that I've practiced
in the last year to figure out what I need to be doing and what I don't need to be doing,
and what feels right, and what is a definite no for me because I think saying no is a really
hard thing for a lot of people.
But saying no has made me so much more money than saying yes to everything.
So for me, I just started practicing by basically getting people to ask me super obvious questions
like, "Do I like green peppers?"
I hate green peppers.
So I whole body would be like, "Nope."
And so I literally physically would feel what it felt like for a no.
Or, "Do I love chocolate?"
"Yes I do."
And that's a full body yes.
So when you're having a struggle between saying yes or no, really tap into that.
And the other thing that I tapped into when I was figuring out how to say no to things
and how to remove complexity, and how to just minimize the business, while still growing
the business revenue wise, is when opportunity opportunities come your way, which they will,
someone asks you to do something and you don't want to do it tomorrow, and I learned this
from Marie Forleo.
You can check out that interview with her on my channel right here, but if someone asks
you to do something and you wouldn't say yes to it for tomorrow, you're not going to want
to do it in like six months from now.
It's just not a thing.
So putting something off, does it make it a yes all of a sudden?
So don't say yes to things if you don't want to do it tomorrow.
If it were to come up for you tomorrow, would you want to do it?
No.
Then you probably won't want to do it in the future either.
And that's going to help you say no to a lot more.
So just going back to the whole minimal business model, it's really important to understand
that there's really six pillars to every successful business.
And these six pillars, one of my mentors taught me this, and to help me stay on track with
the business over the last year, I review these every single week.
Every Friday morning, I go through the six pillars of my business, sales, marketing,
finance, operations, fulfillment, and team.
How are all these things doing?
Is there anything that's unnecessary that we're doing that we don't need to be doing?
Is there anything that we can cut out?
Is there anything that we need or we're missing?
And I just basically write a few notes.
It takes me no more than half an hour to do it.
And it keeps me in tune with the business in what we need to do moving forward and what
we can also get rid of moving forward to make us a lean mean machine.
And I think also, it's really important to understand that we're in a really interesting
time right now with online business because obviously, it's booming and everybody wants
to be an entrepreneur, which I love, but we've gone through this period of everyone's sort
of like having the Ferrari and being so perfect looking and having like the perfect brand
photos, and I fell victim to that too.
I was like, "Oh, I have to be perfect in order for me to actually have a successful business."
And then this last year I've been the most imperfect, the most raw and the most real,
and it's been really hard.
It's been a process for me because I'm so used to like having a certain aesthetic.
But in doing that, everything has grown.
I post less on social media.
I posted like once a month maybe on Instagram and my account has almost tripled at this
point in the last year.
Whereas before that it was super slow growth because I'm super intentional with what I
post now.
And I'm not necessarily editing every single YouTube video perfectly because I don't know,
you tell me.
Do you actually care if it's edited perfectly or you really just want to get the information
in the knowledge?
And truthfully, if you're watching this and you're thinking, "This is boring because it's
not perfectly edited," then maybe you're not meant to be here.
And I think that's the thing too is like you have to be a full body yes or no, but you
also want people who are tuning into your content or working with you or hiring you
to be a full body yes or no too, because that leads to much better results for everybody.
And if you look at a platform like TikTok, which has exploded this year and no, I'm not
using it, but I do have a username there, but I'm not using it.
But there is a really good indication from that platform as to what's working everywhere
else, which is raw, real, in the moment.
That's part of the charm of that app because people are sick of seeing perfection.
So minimizing means showing up as who you are.
And there's nothing more liberating that than that.
And it's scary, but for me, I can just tell you in my own experience by doing less, by
working less, by not driving myself into the ground, I've been able to make more money
for all the reasons that I've just explained to you.
So let me know how this...
Hello.
Landed for you.
Let me know how this way landed for you.
Play to your strengths and make sure that if you're doing something, you're not doing
it because you've been told you should, but you're doing it from a place of, "I want to
do this and I know this is going to be helpful to me, and to my business."
Because we all have enough information out there, but you're the only person that truly
has the answers and truly knows.
So again, I really hope this was helpful for you because I really wished that I had seen
a video like this when I was building my business, when I was thinking about becoming an entrepreneur.
This just would have been so helpful to me.
So maybe you're thinking, "Well, this is way beyond where I am right now," but I can guarantee
you there's going to be things that I just talked about, that five years from now, you're
probably going to come back to you and be like, "Oh, I get it now."
So again, let me know how this landed in the comments.
Give it a like if you enjoyed it, and subscribe.
Hit the bell to get notified every single time we post new videos and you can check
out these videos right here because they're going to help you build an amazing business
as we head into the new year and make even more money.
I'll see in the next video.
Thanks for watching.
Bye.