Feel the need to simplify your business? We all do! Now is the time. To get started, follow these three simple steps from The RV Entrepreneur podcast host Kimberly Crossland.
Do you ever do that thing where you sit around the campfire in December and talk about everything you’re going to do in the year ahead?
- It’s going to be MY YEAR!
- We’re doing this thing!
- Watch out, world, here I come!
Then, you whip out your notepad and start jotting down three words to guide your next year.
This three-word exercise, where you pick three words you want your year to look like, was one of my favorites. Early in my entrepreneurial journey, choosing three words felt exciting and focused. It felt like the guardrails were up, and I could fist-pump into a new year, fresh on energy, oxygen, and exactly what I needed to do.
Only, those three words were just the beginning of what I really needed. The enthusiasm I’d felt while picking the words waivered about an hour later as I stood in my kitchen making ramen, thinking, “So what does this actually look like?”
Just as much as the human brain needs emotion, it must also be fed tactical approaches to bring those desired feelings into reality.
If the three-word exercise everyone seems to be doing this time of year works for you, great! Keep doing it. But, I encourage you not to let it stop with choosing your guardrails. Instead of landing on what you want to feel, simplify your business by digging deeper to look at how you will reach that end goal.
How to Simply Your Business in 3 Simple Steps
To simplify your business, let’s put some meat on the ol’ business bones this December, shall we? As you start anticipating all the goodness in store for you in 2024 (and I believe there’s lots of goodness coming our way), here are three steps to leaning into a simpler, more abundant 2024.
1. Take Stock of Where You’re At Now
Before moving forward, look at the past year that inspired you to shift how you want to feel in 2024. Simplicity begins when you take a reflective stance to see exactly where you’ve been while determining where you want to go.
Specifically, let’s look at three areas. Instead of simply marinating on these at a high level, I encourage you to take a deep breath of fresh air, whip out a pen and paper, and journal on these areas.
- What’s working? Jot down things that felt good as you implemented them. Jot down the areas of your business and life that had you rushing to Instagram to post a picture with #winning. Jot down the things that you’re not ready to let go of. These are all arrows that will point to what’s working now.
- What isn’t working? Hardship happens to everyone. At some point, you will face adversity, rejection, or failure — and that’s okay. Those downturns are something to reflect upon and embrace because they’re your arrow toward the right path (not someone else’s). Write down what worked and pay homage to it. Those stories might be hard to tell, but they’re important to remember as you forge your next path of simplicity.
- What were your goals, and where do you stand now? I’m unapologetically both a word nerd and a data nerd. I love a good sentence structure that makes you snort laugh while reading. I also love a good spreadsheet filled with telling numbers about what’s actually happening in your business. Jot down your goals at the start of the year for quantitative (the things you can measure numerically) areas of your business, such as revenue, followers, traffic, email subscribers, etc. And then, jot down where you stand now.
2. Find the Gaps
I went through the first steps of this exercise just before summer hit. I wanted to be sure I was on the right track. Specifically, I wanted to be sure I could live out what I’d committed to my family — to take the summer off so my kids didn’t spend all day in summer camp and me all day inside my home office (after all, that’s not why we live the RV lifestyle — we live to travel).
After taking stock of where I’d been, I realized some core aspects of my business needed to shift, so I started the process of reinventing my business with these three questions:
- What do you want? I journaled on this question daily for several weeks. Some days, I just wanted to binge-watch reality TV while I designed products for my boutique, Crusin’ + Campfires. On other days, I wanted to cancel everything on my calendar and hit the road. Ultimately, every day, I wanted to know I was making an impact by showing up to the right people in the right place at the right time, all while honoring my personal energy with the flexibility to stop worrying about cash flow, letting people down, or washing my hair to be camera-ready. What do you REALLY want to do with your one life?
- Where are the gaps? As you hone in on what you really want to do and how you want to feel, it’s time to look for the gaps in your current life versus where you want to go. Does what you’re doing now align with where you want to be? What can you cut? What could you add? I’m a huge fan of having multiple revenue streams as a form of simplicity. If you decide to cut out one revenue stream that isn’t working, choose what a new one could look like for you that honors your answers to the first two questions asked here — what do you really want to do, and how do you want to feel?
- What do you need to do to pursue your big-picture goal? With clarity over what you want and by slashing what you don’t want, you’re now clear on what the New Year will look like for you. Now, it’s time to revisit what’s on your to-do list. What do you have to do to bring those goals to fruition? Specifically:
- What products/services do you want to or need to offer?
- How do you want people to buy those products?
- What do you need to do consistently to build visibility around your brand?
List each task you’ll need to add or continue.
3. Systematize and Commit
With clarity around where you’ve been and where you want to go, it’s time to start putting action steps to the process. This is vital to simplify your business. There are 3 areas you can focus on as you recalibrate what your work and RV life looks like in the New Year.
- What can you automate or delegate? Every business owner will have to roll up their sleeves and do things they don’t love doing at times. Look at what you have to do on your task list to keep moving in the right direction. Can you automate something on that list to take it off your plate? Is there something you can delegate to others? Highlight those tasks and come up with a plan. Maybe it’s setting up a Zap to take over a tedious task you’ve previously been doing manually. Maybe it’s hiring a social media manager. You get to decide.
- Systematize your core tasks. Reviewing your list, it’s time to systematize the repeated tasks you know you need to visit regularly. Bookkeeping. Website management and maintenance. Inventory. Customer support. Social media. Content creation. What are your core tasks that happen every week? Build a system around how you’ll get each of them done in a repeatable fashion so you can move through them quickly.
- Commit to 100. There are a myriad of ways you can show up for your business. With so much opportunity, many people fall into the trap of analysis paralysis, overanalyzing, and never moving. To combat this, pick one content creation style (blog, podcast, or vlog) and one social media platform to promote your business (Instagram, Facebook, X, LinkedIn). Then, commit to doing 100 reps on that platform. For more detail about what that looks like and other areas you can commit to the power of 100, check out my recent blog post where I outline the power of 100 in more detail.
By the time you’re done with this three-step process, you’ll have a clearer guide of where you’re going to start and how to simplify your business. You’ll know what path you want to take and what it’ll look like for your business. You’ll know what needs to get done to reach those goals. And, you’ll have committed to the micro-actions to make that happen, along with the systems and automation to support your RV entrepreneur life.
Let’s keep this conversation going. Share what you’re committing 100 to in the RV Entrepreneur Facebook group, and let’s cheer each other on along the way.
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