Small Business Savvy | Web Design, Systems, and Marketing

176. What Should You Actually Focus on Right Now in Your Business?

• Kristen Doyle, web design and business strategy

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0:00 | 15:23

In this episode, I break down how to figure out exactly what you should focus on right now in your business and how it supports smarter decisions and sustainable small business growth.

Let’s face it: business advice comes at us from every direction. Build an email list! Post more on social! Create a course! Redesign your website! I know just how overwhelming that can be. In this episode, we walk through a simple, practical framework to cut through the noise so you can confidently identify the next right step for your small business, instead of trying to do everything at once.

We’ll talk about the four phases of small business growth, starting with building solid business systems, to honing your communication and website strategy, and then moving into simplified marketing, and finally expansion. I’ll share real-world examples (like the overworked coach who needs boundaries, not just more clients) and get honest about the mistakes so many of us make when we jump ahead before our foundation is ready. 

You’ll also get practical action steps to help you check in with yourself and focus on what will actually move your business forward right now. When you take time to identify what phase your business is in right now, rather than where you think it should be, you’re able to bring about the growth you want to see.

01:33 – The four phases you must follow for business growth
01:51 – Your core systems and communication
05:39 – Marketing and expansion
08:40 – Why most business owners focus on marketing before their foundation is ready

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Show Notes: https://kristendoyle.co/episode176 

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Kristen Doyle:

You've got advice coming at you from every direction. Build an email list, post more on social media, create a new offer, add services, make a course, redesign your website. Sound familiar? Here's the thing. When we try to chase all of these strategies at once, we end up scattered all over the place. We don't do anything well, and we just feel burnt out at the end of all of it. It's not that any of those are bad ideas for your business. In fact, they are all great ideas at the right time. They're just not all the right idea at the right time for every business, especially not all at once. So today I'm going to share a simple framework you can use to help you kind of figure out exactly where you are in your business right now and what you should actually be focusing on next. This is kind of the follow up to last week's episode about why your solid business suddenly feels a lot like work. So now we're getting into some more practical steps to fix it. I've noticed something about small businesses. Most established business owners have figured out what they're selling. What they haven't figured out is what to focus on to actually grow. That's what we're here for. Welcome to Small Business Savvy. I'm Kristin Doyle, and around here, we talk about business systems, website strategy, simplified marketing, and the strategic decisions that grow your business. If you're ready to stop spinning your wheels and start building smarter, let's go. There really are four phases to business when it comes to this type of thing, when it comes to figuring out what you should be focused on right now. And we'll talk through those phases, because it's important that you do them in the right order, because each one builds on the ones before it. So phase one is kind of the foundation for everything. These are your core systems in your business, things like how your business is operating day to day, your decision making processes, workflows, standard operating procedures, those SOPs you've written, how you manage your time, ways that you might find to automate things or delegate certain tasks, the metrics that you're using to track and to measure how healthy your business is right now. Those are all parts of the foundation of your business. And until those things are solid, all the work you might do on any of these other phases we're about to talk about are kind of wasted time, because it doesn't matter how great your product is or your service is, if you have broken systems underneath it, just like it doesn't matter how beautiful your house is if the foundation under it is falling apart. An example of this would be like the coach who's bringing in lots of clients, but she's stuck tied to her computer answering emails at 10pm because she doesn't have a system in place for how and when clients can get in touch with her, or how long it's going to be before she responds. Those sorts of things. She doesn't need to work right now on getting more clients or creating new offers, she needs to solidify her systems. She needs to put some boundaries in place. She needs to set up auto responders, simple things like that to keep her business from consuming all of her time. So the question for you to really kind of decide is this where you are right now is, can you operate your business as it is right now without it feeling like it ties up all of your time? Or, do you constantly feel like you're spinning your wheels and you're trying to play catch up? If that's you, then you need to take a step back and work on these foundational systems that run your business and keep it running, so that you can work when you want to work and not when you don't, so that you're not constantly feeling behind and trying to play catch up. Phase two is all about communication. We're talking about things like, how clear is your website? Is it functioning the way that it needs to? Do you have all the pieces that you need on there? Things like your email marketing and communication, whether we're talking about email marketing as in your outgoing marketing messages, or even just your regular email communication back and forth with clients or with team members. And then your messaging is a huge piece of this phase, how you talk about what it is that you do and who you help. Your website, your email, your messaging, these things are kind of like a 24/7 sales person for your business, and you can't get really clear on the more public parts of your business, like the website, until you've done that internal work like nailing down your messaging. So the question for you to ask yourself here is, would someone looking at your website understand exactly what it is that you do and whether or not you're the right fit for them? If that is not clear, then before you move into any marketing or thinking about any new offers, you need to take a step back and work on this key communication piece. Start with your messaging, and then move into the more practical parts, like your website and your actual email marketing. This is something we'll talk about in a little more detail in next week's episode, because it's something I am really passionate about when it comes to websites, that we have to start with the strategy and then move into all of the design pieces that support that strategy and that messaging that you're trying to get across. All right, moving on to phase three. Phase three is marketing. This is how you actually market your services or your products. The key with marketing is it can only amplify what you're already doing. So if you have a great product, but broken operation systems, or your offers on your website are just confusing and not clear, marketing cannot fix that. When I talk about marketing, we are talking about things like content strategy, email or ad campaigns, social media, maybe finding partnerships with people. All of those are fantastic things to work on, if you have the basics in place already. See if you're creating fancy ads or email campaigns that are driving traffic to a page that has the wrong messaging on it, or maybe no underlying systems to get people to that next step that you want them to take, then you're wasting your time and energy, and honestly, you're wasting your audience's time and energy too. So the question to ask yourself for this one is, are you using your marketing right now to reach more of the right people, or are you using your marketing to try to make up for weak systems or a weak website? If you're trying to make up for things that are broken, you might need to back up a little bit and get those pieces in place first, but if you've gotten those pieces in place, then it's time to start really focusing in on your marketing. All right, so let's talk about phase four. This is where we start doing some expansion. We're thinking about things like new offers or revenue streams. Maybe you want to offer new services or create a course, or you have new product ideas, those sorts of things. This comes last, because the reality is most established business owners do not need new offers. What they need is more sales of their current offers. What we really need, most of the time, is to make the current offer work better. So one example of this would be that same coach I talked about earlier, who maybe has a good one on one business, but she adds a new group program that she now has to start marketing, when she really hasn't maxed out her one on one clients yet. And so she really would do better to continue building up her one on one clients, than to add something new that she has to pour all of this time and energy into and start marketing and building up a new audience for and all of those things. So the question really for you in this phase is, is your current offer really generating all of the clients, or the revenue, the sales, that it could? If it's not, then it's time to spend some time in this phase, optimizing what you currently have, rather than expanding into new things. Once you get one offer fully optimized, doing as well as it possibly can, then it's time to start thinking about something else. So here's why this is so important and why I wanted to talk about it specifically. What I find is that most established business owners, me included, are trying to work at phase three and four. We're trying to work on the marketing and the expanding and creating new offers, when maybe our foundation, those first two phases are a little shaky. Then we wonder why more marketing doesn't work, or this new offer doesn't land, and the reality is it's not working because our website's not clear, or our operation systems on the back end aren't stable. So when you go through this hierarchy in order, it really changes the whole game, because you're working through things the way that you should. Now, one thing that is really important to remember is that you are not going to go through these phases one time and then just stick at phase four forever after that. It really is like everything else in our lives. It's a cycle that we go through at different times. I've been running my business for 11 years now as a web designer, and I just recently realized that I had kind of gone through all four of these phases, and I had gotten into phase four and added some new offers. And as part of that, it shifted my target audience a little bit, and it shifted my message a little bit. And so I needed to take a step back. I needed to move all the way back to phase one, because I'd added new offers, so now I need to systematize those. I need to get the SOPs in place for those, so that I'm not starting from scratch every time I deliver this new offer. And then I needed to move into phase two and rework my messaging, because my new offers weren't anywhere on my website, so no one even knew I offered them. I had to take a step back and redo that messaging. And that honestly, is part of why I redid the name of this podcast and the direction that it's going, because I took that time to step back into those foundational phases and set a solid foundation for the public side of my business that could finally catch up with the behind the scenes things that have been going on quietly for several months now. So let's talk about your action steps for this week. Step one is to take a step back and honestly assess where you are right now. Go through the phases in order. So start with phase one. Is your foundation solid in your business? Can you operate without burnout? Are you working the hours you want to? Do things feel stable? Do you have good systems and processes in place? If you can't answer yes to all of those questions, then phase one is your focus right now, so stop here and work on that first. If phase one is looking solid, then look at phase two. Do you have solid messaging in place for your business, and is that reflected on your website and the rest of your communication that you're sending out? Is your website clear? Can people immediately tell who you are, what you do, and whether or not they want to work with you or buy your products? Is your communication good? If somebody lands on your website, you know, do they know exactly what you do and if you're right for them? If you can't answer yes to all of those questions, then phase two is your next focus in your business. So take a step back, be honest about where you actually are, not where you think you should be. And remember, this is not something that is one and done. It's something that we work through in a cycle. And there are times when you've been at phase three or four and for a little while you need to move back to phase one or phase two to adjust and adapt to things that have changed in your business. That is perfectly normal. It is part of owning a business. I know a lot of us feel like maybe we've moved past level one and two, and so we're focused on trying to work in three and four, when we need to go back and revisit one and two. The truth is, most of us are trying to solve our own problems by working harder, by trying new marketing strategies, by launching new offers, when what we really need is to go back and really clean up and solidify our foundation. It's not exciting. It doesn't look as fun, but it is what actually makes a difference for your business. So take a few minutes after this episode to honestly assess where you are right now and what you should be doing next. Write it down, and then come back next week, when I will be talking all about phase two, your website and your communication, because that is where I see some of the biggest missed opportunities, and where I can definitely help you. Remember, you do not have to do everything all at once. In fact, it is smarter to not do everything all at once and instead to just do the next right thing for your business. I'll talk to you soon.