In This Episode:

* Why storytelling is good for business and how it can help you build your audience* Why you don’t have to squeeze your story into the hero’s journey* How finding a related emotional touchpoint can lead to telling a powerful story even if it isn’t directly related to the information you’re sharing* How to start your own story bank so you’re never at a loss for a good story to tell

Nothing fosters human connection faster than a story.

Stories are the most direct way to tell someone else—or a whole audience of people—an important truth about you. Stories give us shared experiences and emotions to build relationships from.

Stories make even the biggest concepts or most technical information feel real.

Practicing storytelling has been a game changer for me in the way I communicate, market, and teach. And I believe it can do the same for you.

Today’s episode is a sort of conversation-meets-workshop excerpted from a special joint event for The What Works Network and Standout Podcast Club.

I talk with Tell Me A Story founder Hillary Rea about how we can more effectively use stories in the content we create and why stories have such a positive impact on our results as business owners.

This conversation is chock full of ideas, explainers, and ways to experiment with story so you can forge a deeper connection with your audience.

So settle in for this conversation on connecting with story with Hillary Rea!

Check out Hillary’s 30 story prompts.

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In This Episode:

* Why brand strategist Felicia Sullivan doesn’t bother with using social media to find clients* How she uses coffee dates to make long-lasting relationships* Why she prioritizes consuming remarkable content and how it helps her meet the people she wants to meet* How she uses Medium to deliver remarkable content on the platform her clients are most likely to be engaging with

“Do things that don’t scale.”

That’s venture capitalist Paul Graham’s advice to new entrepreneurs.

What he means is that instead of trying to appeal to the masses or market an idea with a million-dollar advertising budget, start by wooing 1 person at a time.

I’ve always loved this advice and found it to be unfailingly effective.

But… it’s possible to take this idea too far.

When I say it’s possible to take the idea of doing things that don’t scale too far, I’m talking about the tendency to assume that you do things that don’t scale until you can do the things that scale.

For Graham’s audience, that is totally the right idea.

But for small business owners, more often than not, the idea is: do things that don’t scale—and then do them some more.

And this absolutely applies to how we build audiences or find customers.

The activities that have brought me the biggest leaps forward in terms of the size of my audience were things that came from 1:1 interactions. The things that have brought in incredible clients? They certainly didn’t scale.

It’s not that scale isn’t possible—it’s just that scale is a potential result not a method.

The best path forward for most small business owners is a marketing strategy that doesn’t scale: referrals, word of mouth, networking, interacting with people online. Even creating highly valuable podcast episodes or newsletters!

Today, I’m talking with Felicia Sullivan, a brand strategist who has built a thriving business on marketing activities that don’t scale. Felicia works with startup founders and small businesses doing $10-20m in annual revenue—folks who aren’t looking for business help on Instagram.

So Felicia spends her business development time on 3 things: coffee dates, writing long-form articles geared directly to her prospective clients, and referrals.

This episode answers some of the questions I’m most frequently asked about when it comes to marketing businesses that aren’t built on online courses (which, you know, is most of them).

Get ready to take some notes.

Let’s find out What Works for Felicia Sullivan!

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In This Episode:

* How social media marketing expert Andréa Jones balances two different marketing strategies for her agency and for her membership community* Why she prioritizes feelings when it comes to positioning and messaging* How she incorporates social media marketing into the larger context of a sales campaign* Why promotional content isn’t all that useful for building an audience or finding customers—and what’s working instead

Some of the most successful business owners I know spend absolutely no time on marketing.

They have social media accounts but they’re for posting images about vacations or family or hobbies.

They have blogs but they largely sit dormant.

They have email lists but never send any email.

They don’t have massive advertising budgets or a marketing team that takes care of it for them. Their businesses are simply designed to work—to thrive—without the playing the games we’ve come to associate with marketing in the 2020s.

The topic we’re covering this month is always a crowd-pleaser.

We’re talking about building an audience.

Except that… we aren’t really going to be talking about building an audience at all.

Truth be told, I chose this topic about halfway through 2020 knowing that people love to hear about all the ways people work on attracting followers and building their email lists.

But the more I thought about what I wanted to cover this month, the more I realized this month needed to be about shedding light on some of the most pernicious shoulds & supposed-tos that exist in the small business world online.

So we are going to talk about building your audience, but we’re going to juxtapose that with the reality of how marketing—or more specifically, finding customers & clients—work in businesses that are booming.

And that’s exactly where I’d like to start.

There’s a difference between building an audience and finding customers or clients.

At one point in the recent history of the social web, these 2 actions might have been one and the same. But today, the conversation about building an audience has become detached from finding customers or clients.

Building an audience typically looks like working the algorithms by figuring out when to post to maximize likes, what types of media receive the most engagement, and which hashtags to use to broaden your reach.

Building an audience has mostly been removed from the context of finding customers.

Sure, the conversation might start with identifying your ideal customer… but it quickly devolves into chatter about Reels, and Stories, and stickers, and the best ways to promote your business.

The prevailing narrative assumes that every purchase is the result of a long and drawn-out journey from haphazardly discovering something you post, to hitting the “follow” button, to signing up for your email list, to attending a webinar, to finally considering buying from you.

Here’s the thing: I can’t say that I’ve ever bought an information product or contracted a service that way.

I don’t want to speak for you here—but my guess is that the majority of your purchases don’t follow that pattern, either. Instead, you buy because a friend recommended something or because you h...

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What’s the ROI on mental space?

What would it be worth to you to get some peace of mind?

What would you be willing to do to alleviate a bit of uncertainty from your life or business?

All this month, we’ve been talking about simplifying and the immense benefits you can experience by building a simple business.

We’re going to close things out here by taking a look at how operational improvements can create a profound sense of relief—and open up mental space that you didn’t even know was cluttered!

I can easily remember what it was like to run my business before we built solid systems.

Cluttered is exactly how I would describe it.

It wasn’t just the operational clutter–files all over the place, to-do lists scattered all over my desk, and priorities that could change on a whim.

It was also the mental clutter.

Where did all that mental clutter come from? Well, it was a result of a whole bunch of unhelpful habits and patterns.

It was people-pleasing and scarcity thinking and entrepreneurial optimism. I had mental clutter from my habit of trying to remember all of the things instead of documneting stuff. I had mental clutter from avoiding conflict and never setting firm boundaries.

In order to clear up my operational clutter, I also had to clean up those patterns.

Because a simple system was never going to stick if my habits were just going to lead to me cluttering things up again.

And I think that’s where we so often go wrong when it comes to simplifying and cleaning things up.

We put smart systems on top of unconscious mental patterns. We try to apply countermeasures without addressing the inner game of business at the same time.

If we’re building awareness of how and why things get messy or complicated in the first place, then we can design a cleaner system AND maintain it.

Which is great.

AND… it gets better. As I mentioned, one of the best benefits of cleaning things up and simplifying is mental space.

Once I was less exhausted and emotionally drained from navigating my own cluttered systems, I had way more space for actually helping people!

I had more space for learning more. I had space for thinking more. And I had more space for getting create.

You heard Sophy Dale echo this sentiment in Episodes 330 and 331, too.

So, I’ll ask again: what is it worth to you to get that mental space?

I ask this not because it requires some financial investment.

What it likely requires is the discomfort that comes from doing things a new way.

Maybe you decide that to clean things up, you need to start documenting everything you do. Or track you time. Or wait 3 days before you act on a new idea.

Maybe you realize that you need to actually check items off in your project management software instead of just “checking in” to see what’s overdue.

Maybe you commit to organizing your inbox in another way or following a checklist for tasks that often suffer from overlooked details.

I’m not making light of any of these choices. These seemingly small operational shifts require a lot of effort in terms of addressing those mental habi...

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What Works is all about exploring what’s really working for small business owners.

Because there are a lot of assumptions and misconceptions about what it takes to build a stronger business.

This week, I’m bringing you something a little different. It’s an interview that I did for Andréa Jones’s podcast, The Savvy Social Podcast.

Andréa and I are both on a mission to bust some of the assumptions that people have about what’s good for business when it comes to social media marketing.

For me, it’s a small part of what I do. But for Andréa, this is her whole business. Andréa runs a thriving social media marketing agency called OnlineDrea as well as a training community for small business owners called Savvy Social School.

I’ve featured Andréa here on the pod before and we talked about how she approaches social media pretty differently when it comes to her own business versus how she manages social media for her clients with very different business models.

Good news: next week’s episode is a follow up to that conversation.

I respect the heck out of the way Andréa approaches social media and the way she trains other small business owners to manage their own marketing. And so when she asked if she could interview me about the unconventional approach I’ve taken to social media this year, I was honored.

What follows is that conversation. If you like this conversation, you’re going to love Andréa’s podcast, the Savvy Social Podcast—so check that out wherever you listen to What Works. And tell her I sent you, okay?

I asked Andréa if I could rebroadcast this conversation here at What Works because I think it gives a glimpse into how simplifying can help you focus on quality over quantity.

So without further ado, let’s get into. Listen up for the most concise explanation I’ve ever given for the philosophy behind What Works, why I’m focused on remarkable content this year, and how that focus has simplified the way I produce content for social media.

I also talk about how I view my primary job at What Works as a content creator—which is a job I love but isn’t right for everyone.

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How do you make a big change to your business model without making it harder than it has to be?

How do you navigate sunsetting an old offer (or a few), raising your prices, or shifting your target client?

After spending a whole month talking about simplifying on What Works, I’ve had more than a few people wonder what it was actually going to take to make some big changes to the way they do business.

This question happened to come up during this month’s Insider Hour—a Q&A session I host each month for What Works Network members. And I wanted to share my answer in case it’s helpful to you and the changes you’re considering for your business, too.

You might also find it helpful to check out these resources:

* Free Workbook: How To Create A Plan To Grow Your Business* 7 Simple Business Models For Small Business Owners* Why Reactivity Leads To Complexity* Embracing Simplicity with Brigitte Lyons & Sophy Dale* What I Wish Every Small Business Owner Knew About Making More Money

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I’m convinced that every entrepreneur has a fantasy business that they daydream about.

It’s free from all of the baggage and assumptions that we’ve built up around our existing businesses.

And I’m also convinced that that fantasy business—as pie-in-the-sky as it may be—has something to teach us about our existing businesses.

They can show us how we’d market differently, set policies differently, and protect our time differently. They show us the kinds of relationships we’d prefer to have with clients or the type of work we’d rather be doing.

And, maybe more than anything, they show us just how simple a business can be.

With a few exceptions, I don’t think most of us daydream about convoluted, complicated businesses. We dream up simple businesses—ones that thrive with minimal BS.

Today, I’m sharing 3 ways that I built my fantasy business—the one I’d been dreaming about for years—and how it’s different from What Works.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

* Why making changes to an existing business is less like steering a big ship and more like dragging the anchor behind you* How focusing on process & systems helped us create a simple business model* What we did to create an offer that was an obvious “yes” for the right people and an obvious “no” for the wrong people* And how we’ve gotten away with almost zero marketing since we got started almost 2 years ago

Read the full transcript below:

If you were to start a new business—something that has nothing to do with what you’re doing now…

…what would it be?

Maybe you daydream about starting a copywriting business specializing in beekeepers, or you fantasize about becoming a tarot reader for financial professionals. Perhaps you’ve thought about how you’d do web design differently or create a curated subscription box in a whole new way.

I’m convinced that we all have a business—or several—that we daydream about.

And I believe that there’s a lot we could learn from these fantasy businesses.

This month, we’ve been talking about simplifying.

I don’t think any of us dreams up overly complicated businesses. These businesses strike an elegant balance between your needs and wants as a founder and the market’s needs and wants.

None of my fantasy business ideas are complicated.

A few years ago, I wanted to launch a brand of bralettes for bigger busts. Just one or two styles sized appropriately for people with a D-cup larger. And mind you, this was before everyone started selling bralettes for bigger busts.

I’ve dreamed up a personal training business for high-performing women—part coaching, part fitness, all monthly retainer.

I’ve talked about how I’d love to open a simple, high-quality coffee shop in my town. And I’ve dreamed of opening a yoga studio on Main Street, too. While coffee shops & yoga studios might not be high-margin businesses, they’re undoubtedly simple models.

I’ve also joked that one of these days, I’m just going to quit everything and set myself up as a professional Canva designer. I also imagine this business to be pretty straightforward.

Our fantasy businesses can teach us what we’d do differently if we were starting from...

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In This Episode:

* How Sophy Dale decided to let go of 2 of her 3 businesses and just focus on one and why figuring out a novel distribution strategy was a key part of the decision* Why Brigitte Lyons paid attention to what would break if her business grew to figure out how things needed to become simpler* Why Brigitte chose to focus on long-term client engagements* How Sophy is actually able to get more support now that her business is simpler* The tools and software that they use to run their streamlined businesses* And, of course, the incredible results of all of this simplification!

So… things have gotten complicated.

Your business is a mess of competing priorities. Mismatched marketing messages. Dusty old brand positioning. Stale offers. And the clutter from all the times you’ve tried to solve problems by doing more.

It’s easy to think that all of this unproductive complexity is a sign that you screwed up—that you’re not very good at this whole building a business thing.

But that ignores the fact that all of us have been programmed from birth to equate more work with good work, checking more things off the list with checking the right things off the list.

Today, I’ve got part 2 of my conversation with Brigitte Lyons & Sophy Dale about simplifying their businesses. But first, I want to explore a key aspect of how we let things get so complicated in the first place.

Last month, I read a book that I just can’t stop quoting or recommending—and I’m not gonna start today.

The book is Can’t Even: How Millennials Because The Burnout Generation. Yes, I’m a millennial—an elder millennial to be specific. And I deeply and profoundly relate to everything in this book. But as the author, Anne Helen Petersen, points out the systemic causes of our burnout culture are felt by every generation—just with slightly different results.

Petersen writes:

Barring a significant, psychology-altering intervention, once someone equates “good” work with overwork, that conception will stay with them—and anyone under their power—for the rest of their lives.

She goes on to say:

We’ve conditioned ourselves to ignore every signal from the body saying This is too much, and we call that conditioning “grit” or “hustle.”

If that’s feeling a little too real to you right now, you’re certainly not alone.

I’m quite certain that there are many listeners out there releasing a collective OOF.

Here’s the thing, we can say we started our own businesses to gain more flexibility in our lives, more control over our schedules, more time to spend with family or on our art or in our communities…

…but we haven’t had the psychology-altering intervention that would allow us to actually make that happen.

We’ve been taught that unless we pay our dues through overworking and overproducing and overdelivering, we can’t be successful.

And the way that plays out in our businesses? Complexity.

More offers. More clients. More emails. More marketing tactics. More social media posts. More lead magnets. More Zoom calls. More deliverables.

When all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail, right?

Doing more and inevitably making things more complex is the main tool we’ve been trained to use.

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In This Episode:

* How Sophy Dale ended up running 3 separate businesses—and what made her realize it was all too complicated* How Brigitte Lyons realized that her PR agency was letting scope creep make it feel like she was still throwing spaghetti at a wall* What both Sophy & Brigitte did to approach simplifying their businesses* And the personal reasons why simplifying was the ticket to creating businesses that worked both for their bank accounts and for their lives

What I wish every small business owner knew about making more money is…

…it doesn’t have to be so complicated.

I mean that literally.

Creating a more complicated business doesn’t guarantee you a bigger paycheck, a bigger audience, or a bigger impact in the world.

Adding more and more moving parts to how your business runs doesn’t get you more happy customers or more personal satisfaction, either.

Of course, this doesn’t put a stop to the anxiety of feeling like, if only you could do more, things would be better.

I am certainly not immune from overcomplicating things and feeling despair that there aren’t more hours in the day.

I’ve created intricate marketing plans, business models, and schedules all with the hope that I could pass a threshold of doing enough to make it big.

But looking back over the last 12 years…

I can easily see that my greatest successes have come from keeping it simple.

So what does this mean for you?

Whether you want to make more money or you’re looking to make a bigger impact or you’re looking for more time, we’ve got to get down to the fundamental challenges that exist in your business.

What I mean by that is that “not making more money” isn’t actually a problem to solve. It’s a symptom, an indicator that there’s something else going on.

Making more money is the result of solving a more specific problem or set of challenges.

It might be a positioning problem. Or a pricing problem. It could be a customer challenge or a capacity issue. It might be a marketing problem—although, I wouldn’t bet on it.

It might be a business model challenge or an operational issue.

Or, it could be any combination of those things.

By addressing those root challenges, we can create simple, sustainable businesses that make a lot more money.

Or we can build simple, sustainable businesses that afford us more time, flexibility, or a greater impact in our communities.

Today, we’re kicking off both a series on simplifying and a set of two episodes with businesses owners who have direct experience with dramatically simplifying their businesses—and in turn, creating immense growth.

Brigitte Lyons is the founder of Podcast Ally, a PR agency specializing in getting experts and idea people booked on podcasts.

Sophy Dale is a copywriting mentor, messaging coach, and brand storyteller who helps coaches, designers, and course-creators write compelling copy.

Both Brigitte and Sophy know what it’s like to run complicated, bloated businesses.

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Sometimes it can feel like you don’t find opportunity, opportunity finds you.

But even then, it’s the fact that you were paying attention—listening, watching, taking it all in—that allows you to act on it.

It can make me sick to my stomach to think of all of the opportunities I let slide because I wasn’t paying attention!

All this month, we’ve been looking at identifying opportunity and making exciting things happen. To kick off the series, I shared a framework for examining your business through the lens of sustainability to discover your next opportunity.

Then, I talked with Anna Wolf from Superscript Marketing about how she realized that the building sustainable structures & systems for her business was her big opportunity.

Next, we turned our attention to financial sustainability and I shared my 2019 conversation with Systems Saved Me Founder, Jordan Gill.

Finally, I shared my conversation with business coach Justine Clay and we looked at how identifying choice is a big part of realizing you have an opportunity–and how to navigate the crossroads when it is time to make a choice.

As we close out the month, I have 3 more inspiring stories for you—all on the exact same theme: paying attention.

Zoe Linda Pollard shares how she went from working in a digital marketing agency to starting a social media strategy business to finally discovering that her big opportunity was to focus on helping business owners build & run affiliate marketing programs.

Erin Detka shares how she went from running a massage studio to starting a web design business in mid-2020 and how it helped her to get back to the kind of lifestyle she really values.

And finally Corinna vanGerwen shares how she started her business doing something that–at most–only a few people had done before. And how paying attention to her past experience and the current market helped her find the perfect niche opportunity!

Before we get to those stories, though, I thought I’d add my own in.

In the last 12 years, I’ve certainly spotted and acted on plenty of opportunities. I wrote & sold one of the first ebooks in the craft & maker business world. I created a group business coaching program before that was a thing. I took the leap to appear on CreativeLive in front of 10s of thousands of live viewers and teach 12 classes over 4 years.

But I’m incredibly proud of the story behind YellowHouse.Media and how paying attention helped us spot the right opportunity and build a fast-growing business.

I can remember back in 2015 when I started jonesing to host a podcast… I had no idea how podcasting-as-marketing worked. I knew that I had an opportunity to connect with my existing audience and connect with new people to grow my audience.

But it was early enough—which wasn’t very early at all—in podcasting that “if you build it,

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