There’s no one holding your hand as an entrepreneur. That’s what makes this job fun, but it can also be scary. Sometimes, you literally have no idea what you’re doing, like deciding what you need to let go of to grow your business.
But the truth is, letting go of things is beneficial for your business, especially for growth, but it can be very hard to let things go. You feel like it’s out of your control, and entrepreneurs can be control freaks about their biz (not speaking from experience or anything đ). You think, âI’m the one who knows how to do this perfectly,â and âNobody else will do it as perfectly as I will.â
We feel that way sometimes, too! It’s hard to trust systems or other people to take over parts of your business, but once you do, it starts to feel good to let things go.
So, in this episode, we talk about the things we let go of that allowed us to grow our business.
12 Things We Let Go Of To Grow Our Business
1. Having a clean and organized inbox
Sometimes, we like to use our email list as our to-do list, but there are plenty of days when we spend our days in email and feel so incredibly unaccomplished. It takes a lot of mental capacity to go through hundreds of emails, and you feel exhausted at the end of the day. Itâs not that we let our inbox get too crazy- but weâve let go of the standard that we need to be on top of it every second of the day. We talk about this more in episode #113 with Jade Boyd!
2. Not being a part of everything
We can’t be a part of everything, unfortunately. So, when discovery calls come in, we prioritize the person and whose area of expertise it is. Lately, there are a lot of times when we just divide and conquer. This piece was heartbreaking in some ways but necessary because we need to stay in our zone of geniuses and make sure we are utilizing our time well to scale Duo.
3. Outsourcing and trusting your team
When it comes to finally outsourcing in your business, it all boils down to finding the right people, whether that’s someone internally to work on your business or hiring contractors. Outsourcing will lift a weight off your shoulders – trust us!
4. Spending more money
Pretty sure that we are spending more money than we ever have beforeâŚand honestly, that gives us a little bit of anxiety đ but also, it’s totally fine because we have the profit-first model set up for our business. We have spreadsheets that tell us if we can afford an expense.
In episode 50, we shared a lot of behind-the-scenes information on our business finances and how we structure profit first. We even shared our allocations, which have changed and should continue to change as your business evolves.
Even though we are spending more money, we still have not taken a pay cut, and we have not stopped giving ourselves bonuses. It’s important to continue to do that. We need to be conscious of this as we outsource and hire more people. It does cost more money, but it will help us in the long run.
5. Do I need to do this?
We talked about this a little bit in our last podcast episode, asking the question: Do I need to do this? And asking that a lot. Does this need to be done by me, or can it be somebody else? We have people already in our business who are helping us, and we want that for you, too!
We had to realize that it’s gonna be messy, but we needed to offload certain things to make running a business and having a family and personal life easier for us. If you are thinking of outsourcing or handing something off to a certain team member, don’t wait for it to be perfect. Just do it!
6. The to-do list
We needed to let go of the to-do list. One of our good friends, Sarah Kleist has adopted something that’s called a to-done list that has actually gone viral on TikTok! Basically, instead of having a to-do list during the day, you just record all the things you’ve done. You can see what you’ve accomplished at the end of the week, month, quarter, and year.
By the end of the year, you can see how many discovery calls you had. You can see how many emails you sent to your list, how many blogs you published, how many clients you booked… You’ll see all the things that you did rather than feeling like you didn’t meet the goals you set. You just don’t realize how much you’re doing without keeping track!
7. Working ALL the time
We’re both pretty bad at this! Messaging, Voxing, and emailing from when we wake up to when we go to bed⌠We always have the excuse of âwe don’t have a choice.â
We both have been super stressed, have high anxiety, and are constantly working. So we adopted this rule: no work before nine. Abbey drops her kids off at wherever they’re supposed to go for the day and then does whatever she wants until nine.
We encourage you to try it! You can garden, read a book, go for a walk, do a workout… whatever you want, but no work before nine o’clock. Nine o’clock is when you can log in and start working.
8. Being too accommodating
We are ‘yes’ girls, and sometimes, we say yes to literally everything. We are extremely accommodating even when it breaks our process or when we lose money and time on a project. Does that sound familiar? Weâre trying to let go of this and stick to our boundaries.
At the end of the day, we’ll end up burned out. It’s not going to be a fun experience for us or our clients. We need to learn not to say yes to every opportunity that comes our way. If we’re saying yes to things that we should be saying no to, then we’re taking away yeses from our personal lives or things that will help grow and scale our business.
9. Old strategies that donât scale
We’ve found a lot of old strategies for us that aren’t helping us scale. There are a lot of rules we set for ourselves that we have to do certain things. It all goes back to the consistency of showing up. We have grown good foundations where we can take breaks in certain places if it’s not serving us anymore.
In the early days, you do need to show up and be present. You need to build that audience. We have started to find certain platforms that help us more than others, so we’re going all in on those platforms. For example, we love our podcast; you will see us here consistently. We also love our email list, and we’ve grown a really good audience there.
Some places have worked for us, and we let go of old strategies that weren’t helping us scale anymore. That will look different for every business. You’ll figure it out as you grow and scale.
10. Letting go of certain packages and services that donât serve us anymore
A perfect example of this is our DIY SEO audit package. We did the audit for the clients, but then our clients jumped in and made the updates themselves. Instead, we’ve relaunched SEO on Tap, a DIY course to do your SEO at your own pace.
We realized that the service didn’t make sense. We were duplicating everything Abbey taught in the course, which is a much better experience than hopping on a 90-minute call, hearing Abbey ramble, and then forgetting everything she said.
We concluded that doing the DIY audit package wasnât serving us anymore. We need to focus on the things that have been running smoothly and where we have all of our efficiencies set in place.
11. Being comfortable
Being comfortable is really hard to let go of. Itâs nice to feel like a well-oiled machine. We have our packages. We feel good. But sometimes, when we feel comfortable for too long, it can feel like something’s wrong. We like to be uncomfortable because of the thrill and knowing we’re doing something that feels scary. You should feel butterflies in your stomach a few times a year in your business. Something should excite you because that means that you’re growing and scaling.
12. Revenue not being the constant driver of success
We had to let go of using revenue as our indicator of success. You should be growing, but at the same time, if you’re growing and you’re miserable, that’s not helpful. We needed to decide what that measure of success is for us. What do we want to get out of it at the end of the year? These are conversations that are ongoing for us because we don’t have all the answers, but there are so many ways to find out if you are growing other than looking at your income.
These are some things that have worked for us. There may be other things you need to let go of to grow your business. Although it might be scary, letting go of these things will benefit your business!
If you liked todayâs episode on The Duo On Air Marketing Podcast, donât forget to leave us a review & subscribe!
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Abbey Oslin and Courtney Petersen are Minnesota-based marketing experts, educators, and co-founders of boutique marketing agency Duo Collective, which specializes in SEO, social media strategy, and branding for small business owners and creative entrepreneurs. To learn more about Duo Collective, or to inquire about working with our team, head over to www.duocollective.com.
To inquire about being a guest on Duo On Air, please fill out this application form.
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