Imagine if one question could transform how you approach creating your goals and developing the action plans to achieve them.
Asking yourself “What if it were easy?” can shape our mindset, client acquisition, client fulfillment, team building, and overall business growth.
Ease as a Perspective
As we near the end of December, most business owners are doing a review of the last year and preparing for the following year. While I recommend this activity all year long, the truth is that it has a different feeling at the end of the year. There is a feeling of a fresh start and a willingness to go bigger and to plan for something greater in the upcoming year. You can build upon all of the experiences of the year that is ending and remove the things that did not work and focus on what did.
While doing this year-end review and planning for next year, ask yourself, “What if it were easy?” And by “easy,” I don’t mean something as flippant as winning the lottery, or that you can visualize something and have it happen by magic. That is hope, not action.
You have to be intentional when it comes to keeping things easy. Otherwise, seemingly by accident, plans tend to get horribly complicated. You add a piece of the plan, then another, and another, and before you know it, your strategy is seventeen levels deep.
So many business owners create their businesses around themselves. They start as solopreneurs and are at the center of everything as they add each piece of their business puzzle. This way of scaling means that everything in the business has to bump up against the business owner before it can happen. The bigger the business grows, the more things bump up against the business owner, and it becomes overwhelming very quickly to be involved in every aspect of running a growing business.
This level of involvement becomes a bottleneck to business growth. Scaling a business means removing yourself as the bottleneck to that growth.
So, if you combine these two things, the idea that complexity happens without intentionally preventing it and the challenges of getting yourself out of the way for the growth you want as a business owner, this question of “What if it were easy?” can become a helpful planning tool, not just a moment of reflection.
Reviewing Plans through the Lens of Ease
As you go through the business plans you’re making for 2024, review everything you are doing through the lens of the question, “what if this were easy?”
Using client acquisition as an example, review the steps it takes for someone to become your client and make sure it is as straightforward as possible. So often, we create funnels and events and free downloads and webinars, and while those activities can have a place in your lead generation system, it is essential to make sure that at least half of what you are doing includes non-complicated, more direct, easy-to-put-into-play strategies that make it easy for someone to become your client.
These easy and non-complicated strategies need to be the foundation of your client acquisition system.
Once someone becomes your client, it is equally important to make it easy for someone to be successful as your client. What do they need to do? What do they need to know? How can you make it easy for someone to be successful when working with you?
One of the complaints I had about the coaching programs I was a member of was that they felt like I was drinking from a fire hose. The information the coaches provided was terrific, but they shared so much so quickly that I was never able actually to implement anything I was learning. The knowledge was excellent, but I could not implement it because of how overwhelming it was.
Maybe I was just in the wrong program at the time, but I share this example so you can review what you do for clients, how you can help them win, and how you can help them move forward. Keeping things simple and asking yourself what if it were easy for them to be successful as your client is much more valuable than overwhelming a client with how much you know about a topic.
Team Building with Ease
The third area to review your plans through the lens of what if this were easy is team building. So many business owners believe that building a team will be challenging, so they do not do it. They think hiring someone is all or nothing, that they have to hire a 40-hour-a-week employee or expensive people. So they do nothing. But when you look at team building as easy, you can see the ease of hiring someone for five hours a week to get started and how that five hours a week could expand to five hours a day.
The second thing that trips people up is not hiring for horsepower, and instead just adding a task rabbit. When you hire someone to check a box off your to-do list, you end up replacing the work that needs to be done with managing that person. That’s not easier. It’s just different work. Instead, hire people who can move your business forward.
Making It Easy on Yourself
Finally, make it easy on yourself. If something isn’t your sweet spot, you probably won’t be the best person to do it. Of course, there are some things that only you can do, and sometimes growth requires facing your fears, but as a general rule, maximize your potential by focusing on what you love and excel at. Ask yourself, “how can we streamline this?” and then build a team that complements your strengths, freeing you to do what you do best.
Scaling a business is not about doing more work but it is about doing different work. By embracing the question “What if it were easy?” and viewing challenges from an ease perspective, you can shift your mindset, streamline your plans, and create strategies that lead to growth and success. Remember to review your plans, focus on what you love, and be brave in taking the necessary steps. Empower yourself to be in charge of your business and easily achieve your goals.
