‘It is always the simple that produces the marvelous.’
AMELIA BARR
The truth is that we make business way more complicated than it needs to be. Myself included. Yep, I don’t always have it together: I often create unnecessary work for myself, resist making things easy, reinvent the wheel, and frequently change my mind midway through a project (driving my team, including Mark, crazy).
I’m not perfect, but I’ve created a pretty chilled million-dollar business without burning myself out (too much) and without massive staff or overheads, and I want to share all the details with you, including how I set up my home life to support my business and vice versa. Most business books ignore the home stuff because, frankly, they are written by men who don’t have to think about it too much. The reality for a lot of women is that our business and home lives are intertwined and impact each other, especially if we work from home or have a family. I call this philosophy ‘the keyless life.’
When I first had kids, the simplest things suddenly felt really hard. Like getting in and out of the car with a diaper bag, handbag, shopping bags, and an actual baby (or two). With kids and a business, life suddenly seemed complicated and overwhelming, and I felt I’d lost my easy-breezy, chilled personality. Instead, I became a frazzled ‘busy mom’!
When I bought a new car, I was excited to see it had keyless entry, which meant that, as long as the car key was somewhere on my person (usually covered in crumbs at the bottom of my bag), I could get into the car without needing a spare hand to fish it out. It was just one tiny thing off my mind, but it made a huge difference to my life.
Then I decided to change all my card PINs to the same number. It’s never been an issue or security concern, and has saved me hours of angst, especially when I’ve got pregnancy or baby brain. I then bought phone chargers for every room in the house, and multiple headsets, so we stopped arguing about who was ‘stealing’ them from whom. I turned off my voicemail because I hated listening to messages. I got a meal delivery service, so I actually ate lunch every day. I got a water filter for my office. I deliberately looked for ways to make my daily life easier. Most of these upgrades were either free or very inexpensive but they made a huge difference.
Then I had another idea! I replaced our front door locks with electronic keypads, which meant I never had to find my keys again and could enter the house easily with a code. Again, a tiny thing that changed my daily experience. Between the keyless entry on the house and car, I haven’t had to use a set of keys in years! Thus, a keyless life.
Now I extend that same philosophy to the rest of my life and business. I ask, ‘How could I make this as easy and stress-free as possible?’ and ‘What little, annoying things can I eliminate from my daily life?’ Creating a ‘keyless life’ is so much fun, and I’m constantly looking for new ways to create simplicity and ease. So please, if you’re inspired by this chapter, tag me on social media @denisedt using the hashtag #keylesslife and let me know how you’re implementing it in your own life.
This philosophy doesn’t have to be literal. You don’t have to throw away your keys or change the PIN for your ATM card (some people will hyperventilate at those suggestions). The idea is to reduce any unnecessary friction in your daily life, so you can use your energy for other things, including making more money or taking a break every now and then. You can apply simplification to any business so you can create more joy, energy, and profit without working so hard. That’s what being a Chillpreneur is all about, and if you need permission, I’m here to help!
‘Be a curator of your life. Slowly cut things out
until you’re left only with what you love, with
what’s necessary, with what makes you happy.’
LEO BABAUTA
In this chapter, we’ll see how you can find the path of least resistance in all areas of your business model. It’s not about being lazy; it’s just maximizing your energy for the things that are important to you. So, what is a business model? It just means how you do things in your business. For example:
You can apply the keyless life philosophy to all these areas, and that’s when life becomes way more relaxed. Of course, you’ll still have your normal ups and downs (this is a practice after all, and we’re not aiming for perfection), but the idea is to craft your business and life in a way that’s perfectly tailored for you – for where you are right now and where you want to go.
So many women start their business journey believing there’s only one right way to do business. You might think that if you just figure out what that model is, you’ll somehow have it made. You’ve probably even invested in various courses or coaching with business gurus to try and figure out the silver-bullet formula. Or maybe you think you have to copy someone else’s business model because it looks so effortless from the outside. I get this a lot. Because I’m pretty chill about business, and my business is financially successful, people often try to emulate my way of doing things.
But it doesn’t work like that. Why? The ‘best’ business model is just the one that works best for you. And that takes self-awareness, self-discovery, and a willingness to experiment and find your version of a Chillpreneur business. What’s easy for me might be hard for you, and vice versa. What feels good and gives me energy might give you stress hives! This is basically why I don’t give specific business advice anymore. My answer is always ‘it depends,’ and then I ask people questions about their personality or their Sacred Money Archetype®. It’s totally okay to create a business that feels good for you, even if you resist the ease at first.
How do you know if your business is in alignment with your keyless life?
And how does it work in your personal life?
This list is obviously aspirational (for me too): so don’t lose heart by trying to live up to it! Progress, not perfection, is the biggest cornerstone of the Chillpreneur philosophy: lots of tiny tweaks make change more achievable. My path to the Chillpreneur keyless life has come from a constant examination of what’s not working. I regularly ask myself these important questions: ‘What’s feeling bad right now?’ ‘What do I want instead?’
I give myself permission to want what I want, and then I take action to eliminate, automate, or delegate the things I don’t want. Nothing is too small! I mean, I didn’t realize it would be life-changing to have electronic keypads on my door, compared to 20 seconds of inconvenience! When you systematically eliminate the things you don’t want, you’ll have more energy to create the pleasurable things you do want. It might take time, but incremental changes will lead you to an amazing and abundant place.
If you think of the opposite of the keyless life, it would probably be the locked-in life – one in which you feel trapped, annoyed, inconvenienced, restricted, and irritated. You might not even realize how much energy things take up in your life until you release them. It’s like an old computer that doesn’t have enough memory and is running too many programs at once – you don’t realize how slow it’s become until you get a new computer.
Establishing a keyless life for your business begins with choosing the business model that’s right for you.
A few years ago, I won a business award and one of the runners-up (a guy) apparently said, ‘I can’t believe I lost to a blog!’ Ha, ha! Yeah, you did.
The ‘traditional’ world of business can seem a lot more tangible than the entrepreneurial world does, and some of your friends and family might not quite understand what you do. You might even struggle to articulate it yourself. I used to try and explain, but now I just say I’m a writer (even though I barely consider myself one) and people seem to be happy with that explanation.
Seriously, just self-publish a book, so at Christmas you can tell Uncle Bob you’re a writer, and your grandma can tell the same thing to her bingo friends instead of making it seem like you’re involved in some dodgy online scam. There’s no point trying to explain it! Of course, I’m not ‘just’ a writer either, but the point is that your business model doesn’t have to be perfectly defined to be successful. There’s going to be a lot of trial and error and experimentation (and failure), and it will shift and change over time as your desires and lifestyle change. That’s the beauty of Chillpreneurship!
There are many traditional types of business model, but I’ll simplify them into four main categories. There are pros and cons to each, but which one you choose will come down to your personality and what you like to do.
This entails making physical things – for example, clothing, toys, art, jewelry, and candles. You might consider yourself an artist, an artisan, a creative or designer. You might sell your wares to a distributor, wholesale to a larger company, or sell it yourself – either in person or online, on a site like Etsy. You generally have one-off sales or commissions, but many makers are branching out into subscription models, along the lines of the old Book of the Month club, but with new products like crystals, makeup, and crafts.
Lots of makers struggle to earn money, either because they underestimate their profit margins, don’t charge enough, or buy into the ‘starving artist’ mentality. But that doesn’t have to be your story! I often suggest that makers add other models into their business, and I’ll show you how later in this chapter.
This entails serving clients and solving problems for them, including ‘done-for-you’ work that delivers a tangible result. Examples include event planning, graphic design, editing, videography, photography, software development, being a virtual assistant, bookkeeping, etc. Your payment options might consist of one-off sales, packages that deliver a particular outcome, a retainer model, or an ongoing subscription.
A lot of entrepreneurs start out with one-to-one service models because they don’t need a lot of set-up. You can literally just start helping people with nothing more than a computer (you definitely don’t need a fancy website). Sure, it’s an hours-for-dollars model and not very leveraged, but as long as you charge well, you can create a great living fast with very little lead time.
Consultants help individuals, groups, or organizations through a transformation in a high- to medium-touch way. You don’t necessarily do the work – the client is generally responsible for the outcome – but you use your processes, expertise, and tools to support the client. You might give specific advice or take people through a process using your expertise.
Examples include life or business coaches, health professionals, healers, advisors, astrologers, fashion consultants, interior designers, and mastermind leaders. You’re paid for your personal time and expertise, either as one-off consultations, packages, or on a retainer.
Teachers instruct groups of people in a low- to medium-touch way. Examples include authors, speakers, podcasters, online course providers, and bloggers. You’re selling your expertise, advice, opinions, or entertainment value, and not necessarily your personal time one-on-one, so it’s less hands-on than the consultant model. You can do this in person (at conferences or retreats) or online. Sources of revenue could include royalties, speaker fees, advertising revenue, and course fees.
Your business might mix and match between models or have overlaps, which is totally okay. You might even change it over time as your lifestyle evolves (for example, if you grow your family, or decide to go traveling).
There’s a fine line between the consultant and teacher models, but it mostly comes down to the depth of relationships. For example, I’m a teacher because I’m low-touch and very hands-off, and less of a consultant, who would develop deeper one-on-one relationships with clients. A lot of entrepreneurs adopt both models.
There’s obviously an overlap between some of the models, and most entrepreneurs I meet work in more than one (or would like to). Here are some good examples of adding in other models to your business:
Why would someone teach a DIY version of their services, like Jade does? People are often worried about cannibalizing their own clients if they teach what they know, but it usually doesn’t work out that way. They are two different target markets! Some people like to do it themselves, and others (like me) prefer to hire it out.
Either way, you’re helping people with your expertise. Plus, adding a DIY course can serve two purposes: it sets up some passive income for you, so you don’t have to take on every client (more on that later) and it actually gets you more clients because some wannabe DIYers realize it would be much easier to just hire you!
Again: you just have to find the right business model to suit your personality. As a major introvert, I love the teacher model because I can do it mostly online, and I don’t have the patience to work with people one-on-one long-term in the consultant model. Even though I’ve dabbled in the service and maker models, I’ve found what works for me and my personality.
‘If I’d observed all the rules, I’d never have got anywhere.’
MARILYN MONROE
The Chillpreneur solution to finding the perfect business model for you is: Know thyself. You might be saying, ‘Wait, Denise, shouldn’t I research the market, analyze my target customer, and design my business for what other people want? Isn’t the customer always right?’
No, because you can offer only what you can offer. When you become clear on who you are, it will naturally help you be honest about who you can and cannot help. You don’t have to serve everyone, and that’s okay! It’s not sustainable, and I know this contradicts most business books, but service doesn’t have to be servile either. For example, if you love…
In your journal or in a conversation with an entrepreneurial friend, answer the following questions: