simplify to multiply

I’m a chronic overcomplicater.

It’s what caused one of my first whopping failures in business.

Here’s the embarrassing true story:

Back in 2016, I’d just read Ryan Levesque’s book on the ASK Method…

Which is all about using quiz funnels to segment people and present them with different offers based on their answers.

It sounded genius to me at the time.

So I spent the next 3 months…

- Researching quiz software platforms
- Coming up with a clever hook & angle
- Mapping out an insanely elaborate funnel
- Creating 3 separate courses for each “bucket” of leads
- Setting up a bunch of complicated automations

In other words, I was drunk on quiz funnel Kool-Aid.

Now, as if my plan wasn’t complicated enough…

My traffic strategy was to run paid ads and validate this funnel on cold traffic.

YIKES!

I spent maybe $3,500 on traffic… only to find out my funnel did not convert at all lol

Looking back, I can’t help but laugh.

Complexity can be so alluring sometimes.

And this was one of the first (but not the last) times I learned this lesson.

However, I am getting better at simplifying.

For instance:

I’ve been planning to re-record my 15-Minute Emails That Sell product and add new material for a while now…

Yet I was frustrated because I felt I couldn’t promote it until I did.

Then I had a thought…

“Why don’t I run a sale to it before I re-record the whole thing and see if anyone buys?”

Spoiler alert:

A bunch of people did.

Which was great.

Another example:

A friend of mine had been running a free live workshop that he wasn’t sure how to monetize.

His original plan was to trim it down and turn into a sales webinar for a beefier paid version.

My suggestion:

“If you know the content is good, why not just charge for the next one and see what happens?”

I checked in with him last week to see how this went…

He’s run it twice now.

Both times were successful.

He was even able to double the number of registrants on the second one just by changing the hook.

Simplicity strikes again.

Anyway, the deeper lesson here is:

Simplifying often means making peace with imperfection.

There’s always a way to make it prettier, fancier, or more elaborate.

But that doesn’t always lead to more profit.

In fact, the tendency to overcomplicate will often take you in the opposite direction.

And as an entrepreneur…

Profit should always come first.

Jim Hamilton