“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”

⁣⁣~ Hans Hofmann

I’ve always been a big believer in less is more, but when it comes to business building, it’s so easy to get sucked into a mindset of more, more, more. Combine that with the entrepreneurial tendency to have more ideas than hot meals and it’s no wonder that we sometimes get ourselves and our businesses in to a complicated mess.

In this post, I want to share with you some simple ways that you can simplify your business and as a result, feel more sane and less overwhelmed. But before you read on, I want you to take a moment now to ask yourself the following question:

How can I simplify my business?

Close your eyes, take a few deep breathes and really dedicate some space to lean into the question. What comes up? If you feel inclined to, you might take some time to journal on the following questions:

• Which parts of my business could be simplified?
• What specific actions could I take to simplify my business?
• Considering the various areas of my business that would benefit from being simplified and the actions I have identified, what feel like my top three priorities?

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

~ Leonardo da Vinci

If you are struggling to come up with ideas for how to simplify your business, don’t worry I’ve got you covered. Below you’ll find some of my best ideas:

• Close down social media accounts that you are not active on. Having inactive accounts drains your mental energy and looks unprofessional.
• Close down any Facebook Groups or pages that you are not regularly interacting in or providing content for, for the same reasons as above.
• Simplify your offerings. Are your products and services simple to access or do they feel complicated and convoluted?
• Consider “retiring” any offerings that are not bringing in any or little revenue. (You may choose to look at these again later in the week).
• Do you have a complicated sales process or system for people to buy your products? Consider ways you can simplify.
• How many inboxes are you managing? Do you need that many or can you afford to lose one or two?
• How many duplicate or completely unresponsive subscribers do you have? Is it time to de-dupe and/or unsubscribe a few peeps? Depending on your provider you might be paying for subscribers who stopped opening your emails a year ago! Now is the time to let them go.
• Are there parts of your business message that you could simplify? Does your mission statement roll off the tongue and get greeted with nods of understanding or do you always have to explain it? How can you simplify it?
• Is your niche complicated? Are you trying to be too many things for too many people? Can you narrow it down in the name of simplicity?
• Are your sales pages or service pages on your websites simple to understand or would they benefit from simplification?
• Have you ended up with more than one website like I have? Are they all necessary? Could you simplify?
• Are you paying for domain names you’ll never in all likelihood use? Let them go, believe me, I’ve been there and it’s freeing.
• Is your website navigation a mess? Do you have more menu items than can fit on a screen? I’ll say it again. Simplify.

Hopefully that gives you enough ideas to get started, once you’ve taken some time to journal and make notes, I want to leave you with one question.

What ONE thing will I do this week, or this month, to simplify my business?

It can take time to simplify and when we’re already feeling overwhelmed and busy, it feels easier to just plod on as we are but this is a classic case of short term pain for long term gain. Take some time out of working in your business to work on your business and you’ll feel the benefits, I assure you.

Where in your business could you use some simplification? Are there things you’d like to simplify but it’s a case of easier said than done? Share with us in the comments below, I really would love to hear from you. (This post was adapted from a free 5-day Challenge I ran last year called Spring Clean Your Business. I’ll be running it again in early June so make sure you are subscribed or a member of the Collective (button below) to be sure to get the details of when I run it again).