“Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.”
~ Fred Rogers

I want to talk to you about recycling in your business. What it is, why it’s important and when it might be time to start recycling in yours.

My word of the year has been EASE for the past two years. One of the overarching goals of my business at all times is:

To make more money, doing less work, without sacrificing impact.

This is something that guides the many business decisions I take and recycling is a huge part of this for me.

What do I mean by recycling?

I basically mean reusing things that you have already created in your business to achieve further growth.

I also refer to this as repurposing. Some examples include:

• Re-sharing content on different platforms or in different formats. For example, turning a long-form blog post like this one into a carousel like this one on Instagram.
• Taking something you’ve created for one purpose and recycling it to use for something else. For example, I’ve taken classes that I’ve taught to my Conscious Business Mastermind and recycled them into paid for workshops to my larger audience or used them for presentations in a colleague’s membership.
• Taking a class that you’ve taught and turning it into an interactive free (or paid) challenge or vice versa — taking a challenge you’ve created and turning it into a paid offering.

Why is it important to recycle?

 As conscious folks, we wouldn’t think twice about recycling our waste for the sake of the planet. Being mindful about resources and recycling where possible is a given for many of my clients, yet when it comes to business and our own precious resources like time and energy, we’re far more laid back.

It takes time to create content and the longer you’ve been in business the more content and resources you will undoubtedly have created. Something I see often is people pouring their heart and soul into creating something wonderful for their audience or customers and then never using that creation again.

Perhaps you’ve written a ton of blog posts, that largely sit there, unread because you barely get any visitors to your website. Perhaps you spent hours and days creating an amazing free challenge for your community but once completed, it is never looked at again.

If you’re anything like me, you might be sat on a goldmine of resources that could be recycled into fresh content, workshops, classes, ebooks and countless other possible products.

Despite this, for some reason, we’d often rather spend twice as long creating something new than taking something that already exists and recycling it to make the most of the time and energy you’ve already invested.

I’m not sure why we do this. Perhaps it’s because we feel we should always be creating something new lest our audience think we’re not working hard enough. Perhaps it’s because we think that we only deserve financial rewards if we’re working really hard. It could also be boredom and our propensity to veer towards new and shiny rather than old and dusty!

Regardless of the reason, I do believe we have a propensity to look ahead and leave behind things from the past, even if they still hold value for us and our audience.

Recycling, however, allows our time and energy to be put to best use. It also allows our audience to go deep with our work rather than hear something once, never to hear of it again. It’s a way to create ease in your business without reducing impact and can often mean a much-needed boost in income.

Time to recycle

If you’re brand new in business then you might not have much to recycle but if you’ve been at this for a few years then you might be surprised by how much you do have that with a little time and effort could be repurposed and used to benefit not only your audience but also your bottom line.

In just four and half years, I created 116 blog posts, ran 4 free challenges and delivered well over 20 workshops and classes. Some of these I’ve repurposed or recycled, many I haven’t. I know that with a little thought and effort, there’s a ton of “new” things I could create with this old content.

I could launch new and improved workshops and generate a welcome boost to my income.

I could collate many of my articles and turn them into a book about conscious business.

I could run many of my smaller classes into longer, more in depth deep dive group programs.

I could turn free content into paid content.

The possibilities are endless. Which is why sometimes it’s easy to get stuck in indecision and overwhelm.

Can you relate?

If you are sat on an archive of content, here’s what I recommend:

Step 1. Create a place (ideally online, ideally a spreadsheet) to pull together in one place a full list of all the content you have created.

Step 2. Review your content. Now you don’t necessarily have to read every single piece of content or rewatch every single video. But review the titles and reacquaint yourself with the body of work you have created.

Step 3. Dive deeper into the pieces that excite you. As you review there will be pieces of content that you had forgotten you even created, that you feel a surge of excitement about or simply a pull to revisit. Go deep with those pieces, read them, if it’s a video of a class, watch it. And as you do think of ways to improve and recycle it for your audience.

Step 4. Can you turn it into a paid product? Could it bring in a boost of income this month or next? If the answer is yes, then go for it. And please let me know how you get on.