How to Make Business Easier and Still Make Money (EP#84)
Your business doesn't need to be complicated to make money.
But so many businesses are complicated, and it slows us down. From trying to serve everyone, creating bespoke everything, to working 7 days/week. Fi explores the ways business owners make running their business harder than it needs to be.
In this episode of Money Secrets, Fi shares her live keynote from the inaugural Ripple Festival in Melbourne, exploring how small business owners can make business easier without sacrificing growth, money or impact.
Listen to Episode 84
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
Your vision needs to be stronger than your plan. Get clear on what you want to create before becoming consumed by exactly how you’ll make it happen.
Be more interested in getting it right than being right. Staying flexible and letting go of your ego can help you change course when the original plan stops working.
Money is a tool, not the enemy. Money amplifies who you already are, and getting comfortable with money makes everything easier.
Over-complication is everywhere. Bespoke everything, no boundaries, too many customers and being available 7 days a week makes business unnecessarily hard.
Simple is successful. Focusing on one type of customer can help you become exceptionally good at understanding their problems, desires and language.
You probably don’t need fourteen different offers. Imagine the simplicity of selling one brilliant thing to one type of customer and doing it extraordinarily well.
Choose people who complement you. Skills can be learned, but character matters. What kind of people and strengths do you need beside you?
You don’t have to do everything yourself. Letting someone else help could start with just five hours a week and grow from there.
Picture where you actually want to go. Fi finishes with a visualisation exercise to help you imagine what you’re celebrating, who’s there and why it matters.
How to Make Business Easier and Still Make Money (EP#84)
Introduction
We've made a lot of progress as a society in many areas, but one thing that hasn’t changed enough is our relationship with money. If we want to tip the scales in favour of marginalised people, we need to understand the secrets to making money in small business.
The more we talk about money — especially the secrets that usually stay behind closed doors or on the golf course — the more empowered we become. My mission is to get more money into the hands of good people, specifically business owners like you.
Because I believe small business can change the world. And to do that, we need to be making more money.
Acknowledgement of Country
This episode was recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation. I’d like to acknowledge them as the Traditional Owners and custodians of this land and water that I live, work and play on.
I pay my respects to Elders past and present, and recognise that sovereignty has never been ceded. This always was, and always will be, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land.
How to Make Business Easier and Still Make Money
Small business owners are incredibly good at making things harder than they need to be.
Everything is bespoke.
We work with everyone.
There are no boundaries.
We're available seven days a week.
We have five offers, fourteen different types of clients and a business model that requires us to personally hold every moving part together.
Sound familiar?
In this episode of Money Secrets, Fi Johnston shares a recording of her live keynote from the inaugural Ripple Festival in Melbourne, captured by Stef Hanson Productions.
Her message is simple, even if actually doing it isn't:
Business doesn't have to be this complicated.
From building a strong vision and changing the plan when it isn't working to simplifying your offers, getting clear on who you serve, understanding money and finding the right people to help you, Fi explores how small business owners can make business easier without sacrificing success or income.
Small Business Was Always About Something Bigger
Fi can remember the exact moment she fell in love with small business.
She was eight years old, working in the ice cream van at her school fete.
People would place an order, Fi would take their money, hand over their change and give them an ice cream covered in chocolate and sprinkles.
She loved it so much that eventually a teacher had to tap her on the shoulder and remind her that somebody else wanted a turn.
At eight, business felt beautifully simple.
Someone wanted something, and she could give it to them.
Years later, small business has become something even more important to Fi. She sees it as a tool for economic empowerment and a way for people to create opportunities for themselves.
But somewhere along the way, we became very good at making the whole thing incredibly complicated.
Stop Mopping the Ocean
One of Fi's images from the keynote is a man trying to mop the ocean.
Ridiculous, obviously.
And yet, it's not that far removed from what many of us do in our businesses every day.
We create endless work for ourselves.
We overcomplicate our offers.
We try to serve everybody.
We say yes to things that don't fit.
We hold onto systems that aren't working.
We make ourselves available constantly.
And then we wonder why running a business feels so bloody hard.
Fi's challenge is to start asking:
Where am I mopping the ocean in my business?
Because there might be a much easier way.
You Need to Know Where You're Going
You don't necessarily need a 50 page business plan.
But you do need some idea of where you're trying to go.
If you don't have a vision for what you want to create, how can you make decisions that move you towards it?
The problem is that many business owners immediately jump to:
How am I going to do this?
Before they've properly answered:
What do I actually want?
When Fi and Mia were creating Ripple Festival, they had a strong vision for what they wanted to build.
If they'd known every challenge involved before they started, Fi jokes that they probably wouldn't have done it.
But the vision was strong enough to keep pulling them forward.
Fi's advice is to spend significantly more energy building the picture of what you want than obsessing over exactly how you're going to get there.
Because the how will change.
Your Vision Should Be Stronger Than Your Plan
Plans are useful.
But plans are not predictions.
Sometimes you map out the perfect route and discover there's a brick wall directly in front of you.
You can keep driving towards it because that's what the GPS originally told you to do.
Or you can change direction.
Business requires the same flexibility.
Fi encourages business owners to make the vision stronger than the plan.
Know what you're trying to create, but stay flexible about how you get there.
Because the route you originally imagined probably won't be the route you eventually take.
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Be More Interested in Getting It Right Than Being Right
Changing the plan requires something else:
Humility.
We all have egos, and business has a wonderful way of bringing them out.
Maybe you've invested months into an idea.
Maybe you've been offering something the same way for years.
Maybe you're completely convinced your strategy should work.
So you keep going.
Even when the evidence is telling you otherwise.
Fi's distinction is brilliant:
Be more interested in getting it right than being right.
Successful business owners aren't necessarily the people whose original ideas are always correct.
They're the people willing to pay attention, learn and change direction when something isn't working.
Money Isn't the Villain
During the keynote, Fi asks the audience what comes to mind when they think about a shovel.
Digging.
Dirt.
Hard work.
Holes.
Then she asks what comes to mind when they think about money.
The point?
You can do all sorts of things with a shovel.
You can dig a hole.
You can plant a tree.
You could use it to hurt someone.
But we don't blame the shovel.
Money is a tool too.
Fi describes money as an amplifier of who you already are.
For purpose led business owners, making more money can mean having more resources to create the impact you care about.
And whether you love talking about money or would rather avoid the whole thing, there's one inconvenient truth:
Money is part of business.
Learning how to understand and work with it makes running a successful business easier.
Welcome to Over-Complicators Anonymous
Now for the uncomfortable bit.
Fi gives a few examples of what overcomplicating business can look like:
Everything is bespoke.
You work with everybody.
You have no boundaries.
You work seven days a week.
People can book calls whenever they want.
You don't really know who your target market is.
You'll basically do anything a client asks.
If you felt personally attacked reading that, you're probably not alone.
Because complexity often sneaks into a business gradually.
One extra service.
One exception for a client.
One new offer.
One additional target market.
One more way people can work with you.
Until eventually, you're running a business that requires an enormous amount of energy just to keep functioning.
What If You Served One Type of Client?
Fi's first challenge for simplifying your business is a big one:
What if you focused on one type of client?
Especially in your first five years of business, getting incredibly clear about who you serve can make everything easier.
You learn how they think.
You understand their problems.
You know what they want.
Your marketing becomes clearer.
Your sales conversations become easier.
And you become incredibly good at solving a specific type of problem for a specific type of person.
That doesn't mean you're never allowed to expand.
Fi points out that the longer you've been in business, the more target markets you may be able to successfully serve.
But early on, focus can be incredibly powerful.
Hire for the Person Who Complements You
Fi also encourages business owners to think beyond a list of technical skills when bringing people into their business.
Skills can be learned.
Character matters too.
Think about the type of person who complements the way you naturally operate.
Fi describes herself as an ideas person who can be disorganised and chaotic.
So what does she need beside her?
Someone calm.
Grounded.
An executor.
Rather than hiring another version of yourself, think about the qualities that help balance your strengths and weaknesses.
Ask:
What kind of person will help me execute the vision I'm trying to create?
Picture Your Business Three Years From Now
Fi ends her Ripple Festival keynote with an exercise.
Imagine it's exactly three years from today.
Something absolutely wild has happened in your business.
You're celebrating.
Where are you?
Who's with you?
What are you eating or drinking?
Are you dancing?
Are you travelling?
Are you standing on a stage?
What happened that you're celebrating?
And most importantly:
Why does it matter to you?
Rather than starting with a spreadsheet, strategy or list of tasks, start by building the picture.
Then work backwards.
Because when you understand what you're actually trying to create, it becomes much easier to decide what deserves your time, money and attention today.
Final Thoughts
Small business can be complicated.
But we don't have to make it more complicated than it needs to be.
You don't need to serve everybody.
You don't need endless offers.
You don't need to personally do every task.
You don't need to keep following a plan that's clearly taking you towards a brick wall.
And you don't need to have every step mapped out before allowing yourself to imagine something bigger.
Start with the vision.
Understand the money.
Simplify who you serve.
Simplify what you sell.
Find people who complement you.
Stay flexible about the route.
And be more interested in getting it right than being right.
Because the goal isn't to build the most complicated business possible.
It's to build a business that lets you execute your mission, make enough money to do the things that matter to you, and maybe make the whole thing a little easier along the way.
Outro
Thank you for listening to Money Secrets. If you loved this episode, please subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a review. Your support helps us get these conversations into the hands of more good people who deserve to thrive in business.
We’ve come so far as a society in many ways, but money is one of the areas where progress hasn’t been enough. If we want to tip the scales in favour of marginalised people, it starts with understanding the secret: money in small business.
In this podcast, Money Secrets, host Fiona (Fi) Johnston—Chartered Accountant, small business advocate, and impact enthusiast—dives into the conversations we need to have about money. The secrets that once stayed behind closed doors (or on the golf course) are finally out in the open.
Fi’s mission? To get more money into the hands of good people, like you. She believes small businesses have the power to change the world, and the key to making a bigger impact is to make—and manage—more money.
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Thank you to everyone involved for bringing this podcast together. We are excited to hear from you with any questions, feedback or suggestions for future episodes that you might have. Send a Direct Message to @peach.business
If you are excited for what’s to come, please like this episode, follow the podcast and share it with your friends. We are thrilled you're here.
Want to find out more about Good Money Club? It's for female and non-binary business owners ready to make more money and impact. Join us?
Check out my FREE Pricing Training you need to set your prices for profitability.
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This podcast episode was recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation and I'd like to acknowledge them as the Traditional Owners and custodians of this land and water that I live, work and play on. I'd like to pay respect to elders both past and present, and note that sovereignty has never been ceded. This always was and always will be Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land. Productivity and automation aren’t the answer
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