Refinement: Earn More & Work Less
If this title sounds gimmicky or clickbait-y, I promise to try to deliver on it. Stick with me.
I know a lot of people trying to start a small business. I love it. I live for it! It keeps me up at night in the best possible way.
But I see a lot of people also make a lot of silly mistakes and bypass rudimentary principles in running a business and marketing it.
That’s what today’s conversation is all about. I’ve already named what it is! Were you paying attention?
It’s refinement.
Let me paint you a quick picture:
A lot of the small businesses I know start out by offering a ton of services or products because they see a lot of different opportunities to get paid.
That’s great! There is a time and place to offer new services and dip your toes in a new pool of possibilities.
But quite often what happens is those tiny experiments become permanent fixtures.
These businesses spiral out of control because they have so much to do and, before you know it, they’re offering a plethora of options for you to give them your money, without really succeeding at any one of them. What’s worse?
They’re often charging next to nothing for each of these products.
These businesses are trying to be a lot of things to a lot of different people. They sometimes run multiple social media accounts (operating under completely separate names) and, believe it or not, I’ve even seen them offer completely contradictory services just to try to land another client!
Here’s the very simple formula they’ve forgotten to employ:
Take what’s already working, and keep doing that. Throw away the rest.
No no no no no not everything else! Variety is important.
Stop offering products or services with razor thin profit margins.
If it doesn’t give you a handsome paycheque for the amount of hours it costs you, you either need to:
Raise the price on that product or service, or
Stop offering it altogether.
But Aidan! I’m going to lose business by doing that!
Yep. You’re going to lose the wrong business doing that. You’re welcome!
See: you don’t want customers who can’t afford you. I’ve talked at great length about how you can’t afford cheap clients. But by offering a million different services, you haven’t taken my advice yet.
Stop not taking my advice 😂 JUST TRY IT. What’s the worst that happens? You turn away a couple of bucks?
But what’s the best that happens?
You get a business you love? You actually make more money doing it? You get to work less because you’re profiting more?
Once again: you’re welcome!
An illustration:
I follow a person on Instagram (I’ll attempt to be vague on the details) who provides a highly specialized dessert delicacy to customers. In fairness, this person has been explicit about this being more hobby than business, but my point remains. They attempt to earn money doing it, so on some level it is a business.
Anyways, this person did a breakdown on how many hours it takes to put these desserts together, and what the average going-rate is for the dessert per order. Doing the math, the amount of money made per hour of work was not even 1/3 of minimum wage in Ontario, Canada. Yowsa.
Do you want to work for less than minimum wage? I don’t.
While that business owner was sharing the details of their business as an argument for “Here’s why my desserts are worth more than what you’re paying,” I thought it brought up a really interesting counter-argument:
Something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.
And, make no mistake, there are plenty of someones out there who won’t pay you what you’re worth.
But there are plenty that will.
Going back to the dessert example, here are that person’s two options:
Raise the prices on the dessert to be able to profit properly
Stop doing it because it’s not a profitable business.
Which option they go with depends on a number of factors, but I’d argue this: If you can’t keep attracting any clients after you’ve raised your prices, you either:
Don’t have the right connections with the people that want your services for what you want to charge, or
Your services just aren’t that valuable to the general public.
It’s one of life’s many cruel realities: your passion may not align with your ability to earn an income.
Welcome to the real world, kid. It’s rough. But I’m trying to help you make it better through this blog. And I believe that, if you’re smart about it, you absolutely can make your life/business better.
Prioritize what’s working, shed the dead weight, move on.
It’s honestly really that simple.
If you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, you haven’t had the joy of making a lot of money doing it.
That’s where you’ll get your creative satisfaction. It’s also why you need a hobby (#5).
What happens if I don’t get rid of the things that don’t earn me profit?
You’re going to be juggling a lot of balls in the air, working well over 40 hours a week, miserable, all because you haven’t been ruthless enough about what you’re willing to do for a couple bucks.
Sounds terrible. Count me out.
If you’re looking for your way out, refining what you offer is it.
Questions to reflect on:
What products or services is my small business offering that take the most time to execute?
Is that product / service also my most expensive?
What product / service is the quickest to execute for the amount of money I get paid for it?
Am I currently charging too little for what I do?
Have I recently done the math on hours spent working VS profit after expenses?
What product or service should I get rid of before launching a new one?
