Episode Summary:
Do you ever feel like you are drowning in "all the things" necessary to build a successful business. Tools, resources, software hardware... the list goes on and one and can get quite overwhelming really fast!
Today, I am sharing how I broke up the the “must have business tools” and started building a business that feels really good for me. Like a warm cozy sweater on the first cool day in fall! I'm sharing
- What I thought I needed to do or have to be a "real grown up business owner"
- The “must have business tools” our world tells we have to have
- The software app I deemed the “Software-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named”
- What I no longer use
- And the short list of what I kept.
I am also sharing how you can take an up close and personal look at what you have so you can decide what to release with clarity and confidence.
What I hope you take away from today's episode...
- You don't have all the things just be successful
- A lot of the "success proof" we see online is fluff, empty promises, and dodgy marketing.
- Making our dreams come true is a process with ups, downs, wins, losses, triumphs and setbacks.
- Having all the things "necessary" for success is often just more to do and more to manage
- You probably have success already –– hidden under the noise and clutter
- There is A LOT OF OVERLAP in the must have tools and resources
- You have my permission to keep things simple!
Links to the cool stuff mentioned in this episode...
How I declutter and keep things simple (below in the show notes!)
Links to connect with me...
Book a Consult HERE! (https://caffeinecreative.io/consult/)
Email me HERE! theperfectblendcaffeinecreative.io
Find me on Substack!
Detailed Show Notes
I have been doing a lot of reminiscing lately. Thinking back to the good ol’ days when I started this business. The days when I had 5 tools and a few software apps to make it all work.
I had a 13” macbook, a notebook, sketchpad for brain storming, my handy dandy pentel click 0.7 pencil, and a cell phone. Everything I had fit into a bag that I could and did carry everywhere.
I remember sitting on the softball fields brainstorming blog post ideas while waiting for my daughter's game to start. And the time I was fixing a client’s crashed website from my iPhone while out to dinner with my hubby. I love those days because I was making things happen with minimal tools and I could not wait until the day when I became a “grown up business owner” and could have all the fancy things “real” business owners had.
These “real” business owners were the success story I strived to become.
They had…
A proper office away from home.
A robust computer set up with multiple monitors
A designated area in their office to create fabulous video content
And the magical software that did it all!
They had software to take care of all of their day to day mundane tasks.
A CRM that was automated and took good care of their clients
Social media management software that made posting easy and effortless
Collaboration tools that made managing a team easy peasy
I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea. They had all the things that made business easy, and that is why they were the successful business owners –––– and I was just a wannabe!
This stage in my business honestly reminds me of being a kid. I was one of those kids who couldn’t wait to grow up. By age 4 I had my life planned out. I was going to be a nurse, live in a brown house next to my mom, and have a daughter named Kathy Bernice. I launched my first business at age 8. I had my first real job by age 11. All of these things I did with the intent on becoming a grown up as fast as possible.
Same with my business. I wanted to be a “real grown up business owner as fast as possible.” So I began layering in all the things I thought I had to have.
I got the fancy office in downtown Sioux Falls.
I had a fabulous computer setup
And the designated area for video creation.
And I began implementing all the magical software and tools that made running a business so simple and easy. I was checking all the boxes and doing all the things "real business owners” are supposed to do, and things felt… off to say the least.
I remember as a kid that moment when I learned that we don’t hit some magical age and discover that now all of our dreams have come true. Just like we don’t hit some magical business milestone and see our dreams laid out before us.
What does happen, at least for me, is one day I woke up and realized, “That’s not how this works!”
Making our dreams come true is a process, a journey we set out on where we have
ups and downs
wins and losses
triumphs and setbacks.
And so many of the things that promise to make it easy to achieve success are little more than a lot of fluff, empty promises, and dodgy marketing.
I did achieve what I thought was “grown up business owner status” and it was not all it’s cracked up to be.
that fancy office was more cost taking away from my profits and a commute
the video studio in my office didn’t make it any easier to record videos (and wasn’t necessary)
the “magical tools and software” gave me more to do and more to manage
Most of it was just a lot more noise without the success I had been promised.
In fairness, the success was there underneath it all, but I couldn’t see it through the clutter and the noise.
Before I share the Tools I don’t use anymore, I thought I would share a list of the “must have business tools” we are told to have.
While I was planning this episode out of curiosity I did a google search for the “must have business tools” and it gave me quite the list… Let me just read through this real quick…
Project management tools like asana, trello or Click-Up
Collaboration tools like slack
Book keeping software like quickbooks
Invoice software like wave
Payment processor like Stripe or PayPal
CRM to manage customer relations and service
Email marketing to build a audience and list like Mailchimp
Social media marketing scheduler like Hootsuite or CloudCampaign
Graphic design tools like Canva or Adobe
Writing tools like Grammarly or Quillbot
Analyitic tools for website social media, and email marketing.
Automation tools like Zapier to connect everything and do things for you.
Video meeting software like Zoom or Google Meets
Professional Email services like Zoho, Google or Microsoft
Document sharing tools like Dropbox
Scheduling tools like Acuity or Calendly
Cloud storage like Google or ICloud
At the bottom of this list was Excellent customer service “a crucial tool for retaining customers and building a good reputation.”
For me that belongs at the top of the list, because without excellent customer service, I don’t think you can build a sustainable business. I also don’t know how a solo business owner could provide excellent customer service while managing all of the other tools that came first.
And these were just the solo small business owner suggestions. If you are looking to build an agency or a team you’ll need a whole lot more than that.
As a small business owner doing it solo, I cannot even imagine how I would manage all of that. Although once upon a time I tried. Yes some of these tools will handle multiple options, but when you focus on doing what “you're supposed to do” you may not even realize this, and I know quite a few business owners who have many of these tools and don’t realize they overlap… a lot.
And your life doesn’t get magically better once you purchase these tools…
Each one of these tools comes with logins, passwords and subscriptions to keep track of… which could lead to having to get another tool.
They also take time to set up (a lot more than you realize). Before these tools can make your life and business better you will need
to plan how you will use these tools
implement your plan
test your plan
tweak your plan
test your plan, again
and maybe tweak again... And that could go on for many, many cycles.
launch these tools.
And after launching if this is a customer facing tool or one you share with your part time team and collaborators, you then have to convince them to use it with you.
And not all of these are actually going to make your life easier.
For example, early on I was told I had to have Quickbooks. This software was going to make my accounting “so easy!” It was going to simplify everything from invoicing to accounting to doing my taxes, and when I did build my agency, it was going to make that easy too.
Quickbooks… that is way more than I need, and it did not work with my brain. I spent months trying to figure out how to use it in my business, I paid for extra guidance and support, I paid a VA who claimed to "know it all” to help me not to mention the subscription because they just moved to a cloud based model so you didn’t have the option to “pay one time.”
In the end I trashed it. Deleted from my computer and deemed it the “Software-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named”
I went back to my handy-dandy Google spreadsheet, which takes care of all of my needs in regards to tracking income and expenses, and which I still use for my taxes both state sales tax and federal filing.
So what have I stopped using?
Asana, trello and click up.
Slack – this was brief as a client insisted I have it.
Quickbooks
Wave
Hootsuite
All things Adobe
Writing tools like Grammarly or Quillbot
Zapier
Zoom because I have video conferencing built into my Google workspace
Dropbox - costly and again I have Google Workspace
Acuity - my CRM takes care of this
I have kept a few things… like
Dubsado my CRM (customer relationship management) which handles
Contracts
Scheduling
Invoicing
Project management
Simple automations like on boarding new clients seamlessly
And while this does help me deliver the excellent customer experience, that is still 100% all me as I had to set up Dubsado with all my check points in place
I do use Stripe for payment processing but connects with dubsado so it is not a tool I really do anything with.
Google Workspace that takes care of
Professional email
Cloud storage
Video conferencing
Document sharing
Those are the two big ones, but I have a few more…
Canva for graphic design
Email marketing tool (which is moving soon)
AI tools for researching
Analytics which I almost never look at
And still most often my notebook, sketchbook and click 0.7 pencil
These are what work for me… but that doesn’t mean they will work for you.
Let’s say you don’t have an email list or you do, but never email from it. Get rid of it. Letting that goes will free up money, stress or not using it, and clutter in your brain.
Now let’s take a look at the rest of your tools!
Here is how I declutter, and I do this at least once a year…
First I list out everything I am paying for right now. Then I list out any free tools that I know I have signed up for.
I then separate them all into one of these four categories…
Imporartant but NOT in use
Really Cool and NOT in use
Important and IN USE
Really Cool and IN USE
This gives me a lot of clarity as to what I need and use, and what I can let go of. But me being me, I go even deeper and analyze each category.
Important and Not In Use
The first question I have to ask myself is, if it is so important why aren’t I using it? To spend money on something of great value and importance and not use it is a huge disservice to you, your business and your success!
Thankfully having done this exercise for the past few years, not much if anything shows up in the category, but early on… it was a biggie!
If you have anything in this category, make a plan, make it a priority and implement it! Or let it go until you are ready!
Really cool and Not In Use
Tell me if this sounds familiar… you stumbled upon an incredible deal on a tool you’ve been planning to start using.
You didn't have time to implement it when you bought it, but the deal is just too good to pass up!
So you bought it and decided that the “renewal deadline” would be your motivation to implement it.
But here we are, the renewal deadline has come and gone (maybe a few times) and it is still waiting for you to use it.
My friend, if you haven't started using it by now, you probably won’t use it at all. And there will be another incredible deal in the future. Stop paying for a digital paperweight and… Let it go!
Important and In Use
This is a no brainer. You keep it. As long as it still…
Makes your life easier
Makes business operations more efficient
And/or makes business operations more secure?
Really Cool and In Use
This is a little trickier, as not everything that is really cool and in use is actually a smart investment. So take a look at the resources you have and ask yourself these questions...
Is it affordable?
Is there an obvious return on investment?
Does it support my overall business goals and operations?
Is it overlapping with some other tech I subscribe to?
If it's not affordable, or you don’t see the ROI or if it overlaps, you may want to let it go.
You have my permission to keep things simple!
I know you don’t need my permission but sometimes we just need to hear someone say… “let it go” to feel like it’s a smart choice. So I am here to say it for you.
