16. The Weekly - New Math

On ditching your calendar, getting comfortable with change and the cost of doing business.

Welcome to the Happy Medium newsletter, where I share inspiration and bite-sized musings on creative business each week. Enjoy!

Inspiration

Things that have inspired me this week.

Cost of Doing Business

Short, sharp, practical and most importantly, up to date business resources for creatives.

https://thecostofdoingbusiness.co/

Stabilise, Systemise and Scale Your Portfolio Career

When I talk about a smooth operation, this is exactly what I mean. This 60min course is masterclass in systemising the tasks within your business to create an engine that runs smoothly. A consistent approach to sales, a diverse offering and templates that take the thinking out of common tasks - brilliant.

You can access the training here. I highly recommend it (plus it’s free) and if you’re curious about what a portfolio career is, read more at Anna Mack’s Stack:

Saying goodbye to "traditional" work, and why I'm building a portfolio career instead.

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Quick thoughts

Musings on business, creativity, psychology and more.

Ignore the month

This might be my most controversial business opinion but I’m going to say it; the calendar month is arbitrary.

Yep! I said it.

Public holidays, staff leave and client availability don’t respect the boundaries of a month, so you don’t have to either.

Now don’t get me wrong, I still very much believe in reporting periods, but I’ve often observed that the ‘month’s end’ can cause a lot of stress and people cramming deliverables into the last week or days. While a deadline is always good, this can impact the quality of your work. Plus substandard deliverables will inevitably result in tech debt or client revisions, impacting the next month’s flow.

If this happens in your business, consider switching to generic 4 or 5 week periods. This way you’re not letting deliverables run away from you but you’re also not cramming or stressing to get things done by the 31st.

Getting people on board

A common question that comes up in my courses is “How can I get my team on board?”. You might have come up with a brilliant solution, but if your team won’t adopt the new process/system/tool, it’s not going to be valuable.

I don’t have a silver bullet for this one, but here are a few things that I’ve learned over the years.

Value - First and foremost, make sure it’s actually a good solution. Do your research, test it out, make sure that adopting this change will be worth the learning time. Furthermore what is the greater purpose behind the change? Will it make life easier? Will it empower you to scale? Communicate the benefits to your team (but first, make sure there are benefits). If you’re struggling to rationalise the value, maybe it’s not a good change.

Clarity- Be very clear about what’s required. Hold training sessions, create reference materials and be available when people are doing it for the first time. Communicate clearly and often about the timing, what’s expected and who can assist. If people are sick of hearing about it, great job, you’ve communicated enough.

Persistence - Change is hard and doing things the old way will always feel like the easier option. Acknowledging that on the other side of the learning curve is a faster, smarter, easier process can help. Take feedback but stay strong. If you’ve done the first step correctly, you can feel confident that this change will eventually make everyone’s life better. Give people time and patience to adjust, but don’t back down.

Need a little help implementing a change? My Automate your Admin course takes you through all the steps; from working out what you need, to implementing it smoothly.

Need a bit more help? I have two one more spots left for 1:1 consulting before the end of June. If you’d like to launch into the new financial year with:

• Clear, strategic direction for your business

• Smooth processes and efficient operations

• More headspace and clarity for big picture thinking

If that sounds you, get in touch! We will set up a 30 min call to chat through where you’re business is at and I can let you know how I can help get you where you want to be - 100% complementary and obligation free.

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That’s it for this week! As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments, or DM me if you’re shy.

Otherwise, if you aren’t already, subscribe to get these in your inbox every week or catch up on previous weeks below!

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