Starting a Business? Three Places to Simplify Your Business

It's great to think grand.  After all, as Donald Trump once said: As long as you are going to be thinking anyway, think big.  (This by no means is linked to my political affiliation.)

However, when starting a business, although it's great to think big, and big is needed for long-term goals, starting out simple will get you where you need to go, faster.

There are many moving parts in a business, and even with the best research and mentor in the world, there will be parts you didn't even know were there until you need to deal with them.  The further you stretch yourself, and the more you're trying to juggle, the harder it is going to be for you to gain momentum.  Here are three different perspectives of your business where simplicity is going to be the best decision you can make.

1. Your product or service.  I speak from experience on this one as I tried to get really extravagant with my product offerings.  If someone said they needed it, I created it.  I was then left with a ton of different products with a customer here and there in each one of them.  However, I wasn't doing great with marketing any of them.    I heard it was best to start with one product or service and work hard on marketing it, perfect it, then add another one.   Research shows time and time again, that the more you choices you present to customers, the more confused they get.  They become so afraid of making the wrong choice that they don't make any choices.

Pick one way they can work with you, and start there.  Make it simple and expand as necessary.

2. Your ideal client.  Every customer I work with wants to have lots and lots of ideal clients.  Because if you eliminate the possibility to work with one type of person you could be missing out on a ton of money, right?  It's actually wrong.  You will never appeal to everyone, so it's a waste of time and money to try.  Once you come to this decision in your business, life is going to become much easier (and more cost-effective).  Let's look at Facebook Ads as an example (and here's a link to some info on them if you're just getting started).  It will save you a TON of money to be specific in whom you are targeting.  If you try to appeal to the masses, you may get some clicks at a low cost, but it won't do much for your business because they won't convert to any money.

Pick one to two types of people, tops.  Be as specific as you possibly can on who they are, and how your product or service fills a specific need they have.

3. Where you play on social media - This is another common one because new business owners see the presence companies like Coke, Apple, Starbucks, etc have on social media, and they want some of that.

Stop trying to be like them because you're not them.  You don't have the budget and the manpower that they do, so stop trying to act like you do.  What will end up happening is that you'll have a lot of great accounts with no content and no followers.

Pick one or two of these, and do them well, really well.  Find out what it takes to get noticed on these platforms (for example, on Twitter you should be tweeting at least 11 times a day.)  Once you create a system and get the groove down, then add more.  You'll get much more traction doing one really well, then trying to them all, but not getting any content out.

Which platform should you start on first?  Well, go back to #2, and figure out where your clients hang out.  Then start there.

I would love to know what simplicity tricks you're going to use in your business!  Please tell us about them below.