How I'm simplifying my online business strategy again...to avoid burnout.

Hey Pod Pals!

This newsletter was lovingly curated (without the use of any AI) in real time on Thursday morning at 8:41am CST. 

It's been an exciting week in the Schaeuble household. It's homecoming week at my son's high school and he's got a DATE!

Needless to say we've had several man to man conversations about topics like:

Sweet dance moves.

How to have a conversation during a date.

The dangers of crystal meth.

How I DON'T want to be a grandpa until I'm at least in my 50's.

....that escalated quickly....LOL! 

Real quick before we dive into this week's topic.... ⤵️  

I'm focused on helping podcasters and online business owners SOLVE these four specific problems:

1. How to optimize your podcast launch.

2. How to grow your podcast past 1,000 downloads per episode.

3. How to convert more podcast listeners into paying clients.

4. How to simplify your online business so it feels easy, lucrative, and fun.

If you need some help with ANY of these four problems check out this four minute video on my homepage to explore how we can work together.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 

 

This week we are going to talk about online business simplification!

I'm supposed to be in "offer launch mode" right now for my 21 Day Podcast Growth Bootcamp but one week into the campaign I pulled the plug...here's the story.

I've been on a simplification journey this year as I got rid of things like my lead magnets and email funnels, but I've been wanting to take it to the next level. 

I'm a minimalist at heart.

Fun fact: I own 80 TOTAL items of clothing (socks count as two items).......go ahead.....try to count up how many items of clothing you have.

I've got friends that have more shoes than I have total items of clothing!

I was one week into my bootcamp launch and I already felt sick of being in "sales mode"......I really don't like it and it doesn't come naturally for me. 

Then one night I saw the classic movie Office Space on TV....and it hit me.......I was done with doing all of the traditional marketing BS that is the entrepreneurial equivalent of filling out TPS reports!

The next day I pulled the bootcamp sales page off the website and went in and re-recorded future podcast episodes that mentioned it, etc. 

 

The next level of online business simplification looks like this for me:

❌ No more email funnels

❌ No more lead magnets

❌ No more sales campaigns

❌ No more launching

Once I was fully committed to this idea my creativity started to ramp up and I decided to create some foundational principles to guide me towards building what I'm now calling a Minimum Effective Dose Business. 

 

So...here you go:

The 5 Foundational Principles of Building a Minimum Effective Dose Business

🏆 1. Focus on what you love doing with your online business.

I had to ask myself the question: What do I actually LOVE doing when it comes to running an online business?

For me the list looks like this:

1x weekly podcast

1x weekly newsletter

1-3x daily posts on ONE social platform that I enjoy being on. (Threads)

Coaching clients with the Voxer app.

Doing Friday Office Hours with clients.

Doing group & one on one coaching sessions.

 

🏆 2. Create things that can be used for more than one purpose.

I discovered that I can eliminate the annoying things that I DON'T like doing, like email funnels/lead magnets, when I can create something that takes their place. 

This weekly newsletter IS my only lead magnet. I use it to build my email list and I can make sales from it.

I don't know about you, but I certainly don't enjoy being a part of someone's 37 email nurturing funnel.......so I'm not doing that to anyone else anymore either!

Another example is my use of Office Hours.

I have open blocks of time on my Friday calendar where clients can pop in and get quick help. I can use this with ANY of my coaching programs (group, 1:1, hybrid, certification, etc). 

Another example would be tools like my Offer Creator or my Online Business Dashboard. I can leverage these within ANY coaching program I have. 

 

🏆 3. Ask filtering questions to combat FOMO (fear of missing out).

When we start to simplify, the other side of the coin is FOMO. We start to worry that we will miss out by not doing (insert any annoying marketing/business strategy HERE). 

Here are the three questions I ask myself to combat FOMO:

❓What is the SIMPLEST possible version of this?

❓Would I actually like doing this?

❓Do I need to do this at all?

So when I commit to just being active on ONE social media platform, but everyone says I need to be on LinkedIn because of XYZ reason....I just look at my questions and make the call. 

 

🏆 4. Set Income + Time based goals.

I think one of the reasons why online business owners feel pressure to do "all the things" is that we get stuck on the hamster wheel of chasing an infinite amount of income.

I think having a goal of "Let's see how much money we can make!" is going to put us on the fast track to continuous disappointment and burnout.

I like this template a LOT better:

➡️ I will earn (income goal) while working (time goal).

Example: I will earn $10k/month while working 3 days per week.

📌 We cannot forget that our time, lifestyle, and schedule are just as important as our income when we consider forms of compensation for our entrepreneurial efforts!

 

🏆 5. Focus on becoming a well known problem solver.

If I'm going to ditch all of these traditional marketing and sales techniques, I still have to find a way to pay the bills!

I believe that we live in a world where we are all overly marketed and sold to. 

Everyone is trying to convince us that they have a solution that we need to purchase.

I'm committing to meet you (my audience) where YOU are currently at by focusing on the PROBLEMS that you have.

I'm going to remind you over and over again about the FOUR problems I can help you solve with my free content (and solve faster with my coaching programs). 

I truly believe that we can stand out if we throttle back on trying to SELL so much, and ramp up our efforts to show off the problems we solve and how we can help our audience solve them. 

I CAN tell you that since I've flipped this switch my discovery call calendar has never been so full!

 

I fully realize that for some of you this minimum effective dose business strategy sounds CRAZY......but I also know that for some of you this sounds like EXACTLY what you want to do.

All I can say is this: I've never felt so FREE as an entrepreneur.

I've reconstructed my business around only doing the things I love which happen to be the same things I'm really great at doing!

If you want to explore this rabbit hole a bit, I'm going to put together a little Minimum Effective Dose Business cohort within my group coaching program. 

The first group training session is next week and we will be focusing in on what problems YOU solve and how to promote these within your content. 

You can join my group coaching cohort HERE or you can schedule a discovery call to see if it's a good fit (I've added more time slots!). 

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 

 

🤩 Client Testimonial of the week: My client Lisa Garces has a show called Amplified Female Entrepreneur.

Check out what she has to say about working with me: 

"I decided to hire Adam because I knew I was being guided to create a podcast, but I had zero clue where to start. The best part about working with Adam is he made everything so simple and guided me through every step of the way. Thanks to Adam I launched my podcast so much faster than I ever expected with a sustainable game plan moving forward. I can't believe how easy he made it!"

➡️ Ready to get some help with your podcast launch, growth, or monetization strategy?

Hop on my Podcast Profit Potential Discovery Call Calendar.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 

 

New Content for this week:

🎙️ Podcasting Business School EP 588: Six questions for content creators who want to attract ideal fit clients.

In this episode I dive into the problem of: How to use your podcast to get more clients. 

The first step in that process is being able to really dial into WHO these ideal fit clients actually are. Then we can focus on HOW to attract them with our content.

 

✍🏻 SuperThread Of The Week: Many podcasters also have a newsletter for their brand BUT they aren't harnessing the full power of this amazing combo! Here's how to fix the BIG mistake most podcasters are making with their newsletter....

 

📝 Substack BONUS article of the week: 10 podcasting lessons that I wish I knew when I started back in 2015.

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❤️ If you have been enjoying my newsletter I'd really appreciate it if you would share it with one of your Pod Pals that might get value out of this content!

Just hit that FORWARD button and share it out! 😎

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Talk to you next week!

Your Pod Pal,

Adam

 

⭐️ P.S. Ready for some help with your podcast launch, growth, or with getting more clients from your podcast?⭐️ 

I've got three ways that we can work together with group coaching, one on one coaching, or hybrid (group + 1:1).