ERIN MARCUS LIVE: BUSINESS PROBLEMS REQUIRE SIMPLE SOLUTIONS

Erin Marcus Live: Business Problems Require Simple Solutions

Transcript by Descript

All right, all right, here we, what I want to share with you today should actually be really good news. This should actually be really, really good news. And it’s the fact that business problems, pretty much any business problem you’re coming across, require simple solutions. I’m going to say that again, because it’s, it’s, it sounds really simple, but yeah, it doesn’t happen as often as it needs to.

Business problems require simple solutions. Have you ever noticed that things tend to get more and more and more and more complicated, right? Maybe this is what people are referring to when they talk about how things were in the good old days, right? Things were simpler and all the amazing advancement in technology.

They brought us. unbelievable opportunities. Let’s face it. I wouldn’t be getting to talk to hundreds, if not thousands of business owners literally every week and month and year if it weren’t for these technologies, right? But with all that advancement also comes the potential for more complications and things tend to get really, really complicated all by themselves.

Have you ever noticed that they get more and more complicated practically by accident? Or at least without intention, right? We see a problem in our business, so we figure out a solution. And then we see another problem, so we add another solution. And then a different problem seems to pop up, so we add yet another solution.

And so many times these solutions get piled on top of each other. Until our so called solution is 15 steps long. And now it’s a problem in and of itself, right? The complications they show up in every department of our business. Every department of our business, our client acquisition strategy gets more complicated.

Our product and service offerings get more complicated. Our client fulfillment process gets more complicated. And the problem with all these complicated situations is they create barriers. They create friction. between our businesses and the people we want to serve. These complications make everything we do harder to do.

They make everything that we try to explain to people harder for them to understand. And ultimately, it makes everything we do and say a little less believable. The complications create barriers and friction between us and the marketplace. That not just make everything harder, but they make us less believable.

I’ll give you a non small business, non entrepreneur example. I use a lot of non small business examples like to make the point a little more obvious, right? So here’s the deal. As much as I try, you know, transparent moment with you guys, as much as I try to not let my thinking get this way. I’m finding that as I get older, or the world changes, or whatever the cause, I’ve become a bit more of a conspiracy theorist.

Maybe it’s an up leveling of my awareness, right? Or maybe it’s a downward spiral of my patience, but here we are, right? Here we are. I find myself becoming a bit more of a conspiracy theorist in general. So, with that background in mind. And an example of What I’m talking about with these complications and why this matters to your business in a way that you might not be realizing it might not be so obvious.

So stick with me here. Storytime. I have a new prescription that I’m taking. It’s nothing earth shattering. Everything’s fine. Better than it’s been in a long time, really. So yay, modern medicine, and I’ve been on this prescription for 3 months, 3 months. The first month, it cost me 12. The second month, it cost me 35.

And the pharmacist, without even really looking at anything, and I just kind of took him at his word, said, well, it’s a new year. So the prices went up and that made total sense, right? I get it. That’s what happens. The new plan goes into effect. The new prices go into effect. So December was 12 in January was 35.

I was told and I just bought into it that, well, that’s what happened. New year, the third month, the third month, I get a million different communications from the insurance company. That I now have to purchase three months of my prescription at a time in order to receive the benefits and savings my insurance program allows for me.

Okay, fine. We can do that. This is not a big deal. When I went to pick up the three month prescription, it was 208. Okay, it was 208. After all the notices that that’s how I needed to, what I needed to do to save money, It was 208. Now, I have a journalism degree, never claimed to be fantastic at math, but I absolutely know that 3 times 35 is way less than 208.

So aside from the fact that I am absolutely grateful that I can easily afford to get the prescription, yes. Yes, we’re there. But I called the insurance company to find out what is going on. What am I supposed to do? Because I thought I followed the instructions, and clearly it didn’t work, right? Ready?

This is what happened. I spent an entire hour on the phone with two women. A care coordinator from my insurance company and a specialist from the prescription plan. Very nice women, very smart women, very articulate women. This was not a customer service problem. Like these were good people doing a good job trying to help me.

They knew, they know what they’re talking about, and they couldn’t figure it out. They could not figure out what was going on. Evidently, partially, there were two more hoops for me to jump through that I didn’t previously know about. But, as they went through their process of clicking away on their typeboard, keyboards, trying to get me my information, even if I would have jumped through those extra hoops, It wouldn’t have mattered.

And they couldn’t tell me why. They also couldn’t tell me what I was supposed to do instead. At the end of the conversation, the best we could come up with is if I follow the insurance company’s instructions that were all headline telling me this was how to save me money it would actually end up costing me significantly more money like more than twice the money.

than if I only used part of their program. So, I can handle it. Grateful, I can afford it. That’s not what I’m telling you this for. Back to what complications are costing your business besides your energy. And a new dive into the world of conspiracy theory. Here’s the problem. I now don’t believe anything this insurance company is telling me.

I don’t believe anything they say. Not because these two women, they did their job. They were great. This was not the first time that the insurance company’s directions have cost me money and jumping through their hoops took up hours of my time, my most valuable resource. It has left me more confused and now actually angry.

On a good day, on a good day, I’m completely grateful for the fact that I can still afford the care that I need. Absolutely grateful for that, but on a bad day, on a bad day, I am now convinced that health insurance, on a bad day, I’m convinced that health insurance is the biggest scam we have going on in this country as a way to keep people sick, make corporations wealthy.

Right? That’s a different rabbit hole. I’m sure you can tell how I feel about it. I try to stay out of that rabbit hole. So, if your complications are bad enough, if your complications are complicated enough, It will go so far as people just flat out not believing you. Complications create a lack of transparency because it becomes too hard to explain things.

And the lack of transparency, on top of the lack of clarity, just exacerbates the entire problem. Now here’s the deal, I have no choice on this insurance company. It is a job provided, and I can’t say that actually, but it’s a job provided benefit that my boyfriend has. So, in this case, it’s still an easier solution to stick with them.

But for most small businesses, that’s not the case. For most small businesses, there’s a ton of competition out there that your prospect could just walk right into instead of working with you. Because they don’t believe what you’re telling them. Because things have gotten too complicated. When you hear less is more, this is a perfect example of how beneficial less is more.

However, before we get, before we end this conversation, do not confuse the amount of activity that needs to happen with how complicated that activity is. You can do an absolute ton Tons and tons of very straightforward in nature activity. So I invite you, look through your business. Where are you trying to solve business problems by adding yet another step to a process that just might need to be torn down to its studs in order to work for you?

We did this at conquer your business in the, at the end of last year, we took away everything that was complicated. We literally took away everything that was complicated in simplified, simplified got like 75, if not 90 percent of what we were doing, the results have been amazing. The results have been quick and absolutely amazing.

So I invite you to do that in your business. Where can you remove complications that are actually, they look like they’re solving problems, but they’re preventing you from everything that you want to have happen in your business.