Why complexity impacts your bottom line

Growing a business in the digital age is complex, to say the least. The options for growth can be overwhelming.

The truth is most online business owners start off solo, wearing the hats across multiple divisions of business… from marketing to finance to everything in between.

Naturally, we are attracted to the shiny objects that might make our businesses grow or the latest and greatest marketing hack.

Here’s the deal… In theory, most of them sound good.

But business isn’t theory. And, unfortunately, not all theories work in the real world.

Now, I don’t mean to step on any toes… but there are plenty of ‘self-proclaimed gurus’ in the online business space ranting and raving about diversification.

Don’t get me wrong about ‘diversification’ in your business. There is nothing more important than having a stable, multi-channel machine of a business. It improves cash flow and improves the acquisition multiple when you go sell your business.

It’s equally important to know when to stack on ‘diversification’ and when to get good at ‘rinse and repeat’.

Let's take a look at my fictional friend Bob. He’s been in the game for some time, and like most online entrepreneurs he's a jack of all trades. Now he might outsource a few things, but for the most part, he’s grinding away following the ‘gurus’ advice and stacking more things on his daily to-do list.

His business action plan might look something like this:

Research and source products
Create amazing listings
Sell products on Amazon
Manage Amazon PPC
Provide stellar customer service
Sell products on Shopify
Create funnels
Run Facebook ads
Post images and create hashtags on Instagram
 Run Google ads to funnels
 Build a mega social media following
 Build an audience with amazing content
 Dominate the web with videos on YouTube (He just posted his first Tik Tok video (AKA shiny object)
 Blogging
 Facebook messenger/ManyChat
 Email Marketing
 Brand proliferation

And the list goes on. Now don’t get me wrong, this is a bad@$$ list. You do this and you will be a 7 figure seller for sure, if not an 8 figure seller.

It sure sounds good. But, it’s also exhausting, especially for solo business owners. You gotta start somewhere.

Now compare it to this to Kate (also a fictional friend):

Her game plan looks something like this:

Source quality products
Sell the products on Amazon
Build amazing conversion-optimized listings
Dominate Amazon PPC
Know which products are profitable
Scale the winners and ditch the losers.
REPEAT

Now I can literally hear you saying... "That’s kinda EASY.”

And, your left brain is saying “gee whiz that seems like you are putting all your eggs in one basket” and your right brain is saying that “sounds kinda good and makes sense”

Here’s the thing. You must learn to crawl before you can walk, and you got to walk before you can run.

Now, if you are reading this and thinking… “Not true.” then you are probably past the early stage of scale and forgotten what starting was like. The point is to get good at one thing, one channel. Master it and then pass it! Then get good at the next step in your ‘diversification’ channel plan.

It’s difficult to get results when you are doing multiple things at once. The thing about business (and... in life) is that to succeed you need to do things really well. That means mastering each ‘diversification’ channel. And to do that you must pick one and go for it…. master it! Make it profitable to fund your next channel.

"Jack of all trades, master of none"

The complexity of juggling many different things at once can have an impact on your bottom line. To significantly increase your profit margins you need to quickly and easily recognize and eliminate unrecognized hidden costs?  Here’s the thing with complexity, it's always added with good intentions, but there is a cost to every decision that undermines profits?

Simplicity does pay off. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

If you are looking to grow your business faster in the most stable way possible… the answer is to do less of more and more of less… don’t spread yourself too thin. Put your time into profitable action steps.

I start my day by writing down all the tasks I need to accomplish in the day. Then I go back and circle everything that has a direct impact on my bottom line and finish those first.

Here’s to profit productivity!