Are you struggling to balance your online business with your personal life? Do you dream of running a profitable business in just 20 hours a week? Join us as we talk with Steph Blake, founder of Simple Business School, about how to simplify and streamline your business operations. Discover practical strategies to overcome perfectionism, focus on your core offering, and create a sustainable business model that aligns with your life goals.

Connect with Steph:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theblakecollective
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theblakecollective
• Website: https://www.theblakecollective.com
• Free Gift: Simple Business Show™ - https://simplebizshow.com/

Show Notes: https://laurenglynn.com/31

Mentioned in this episode:

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Realistic Week Planning for Delusional Entrepreneurs

Steph Blake Interview

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Like why are, why are they the same? That drives me. Anyway, my only complaint about SquadCast so far. So, okay. Welcome to the process to profit podcast, where we find out about the key processes and productivity techniques that drive successful service based businesses. Whether you're just starting out or looking to scale, join us as we uncover practical strategies to streamline your operations and help you make more money by boosting your profitability.

Let's get started. My guest today is Steph Blake. Steph is the founder and CEO of Simple Business School and Simple Business Suite. As a business coach and productivity expert, she specializes in helping online business owners streamline their operations for maximum efficiency and profitability. Perfect to have as a guest on this podcast.

Through her customized online Steph's unique approach enables entrepreneurs to run successful businesses in just 20 hours per week or less, allowing them to reclaim their time and freedom. Through her customized all in one software solution and membership program, she equips clients with the tools and strategies needed to simplify their business processes, overcome overwhelm, and achieve sustainable growth.

All things we love on this podcast. Steph's expertise extends to mindset coaching, systems optimization, and work life balance strategies. She's also the host of the Simple Business Show podcast, where she shares insights and strategies for building simple, profitable online businesses. Steph, you're an excellent fit for this podcast.

Thank you so much for being here today.

Um, and we live outside of Chicago, so we're in the Midwest just to give you like an idea of who I am right off the bat I. Started my business about eight years ago after working in the corporate world for about 10 years. So prior to starting my business, I should, I should probably start there. Right.

I was working just like I was on a very traditional trajectory, right? I went to high school. I went to college, got the degree followed in my parents footsteps, which is basically just to work 60 to a hundred hours a week. And then you retire, right? That's, that's what I was on the trajectory

I was doing it. And I, like I said, I started, um, in, uh, after, well, I started with an, um, uh, internship after, or while I was in college at an engineering company doing graphic design work. So I was designing instruction manuals, which is about as boring as you can probably think. But lots of processes in that I came to realize in hindsight. Um, so after I did that for a few years, I was like, you know what? This is just not for me anymore. I want more for my life. I want to design instruction manuals forever. So I moved to the city of Chicago, got a job at a digital marketing agency, worked my way from literally the bottom doing graphic design work to the top in about three years. And at that time, I knew that I wanted something more for myself, but I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't know how to be an entrepreneur. Nobody in my family is entrepreneurial. I just knew I didn't want to work in this job. So I was, on my lunch break at work and there was this ad that popped up teaching you how to use your corporate skills to start your business.

And I was like, Oh yes, me, that's me. That's

I was just constantly on the go working close to a hundred hours a week. And like I said, when I got pregnant with my first son, with my first son, that was the wake up call was like, you cannot keep doing this anymore. This is not sustainable. You, you will end up in the hospital. Like I said, so that was when I really focused on simplifying everything and created accidentally, accidentally created the system that I teach people today of how to simplify your business and run it in 20 hours a week or less, I didn't have another choice. was forced out of that out of necessity. And after doing that, was able to leave that nine to five job two weeks before my son was born. Now, I do not recommend having a full time business and a full time baby, but that's a story for another day. But. That was really what catapulted me into teaching people what I do now, which is to really simplify everything in your business and frankly, your life, because that is going to create that white space that you need to scale your business and be more profitable.

I should say.

They're overwhelmed. They have all of these ideas and they don't know what to do to move forward. Or they've been in business for a little bit longer. And also like I was, they're just doing all of the things constantly working, but still not seeing the results that they want. And those results could be either monetarily focused.

So maybe they're not making as much money as they want, or they're making money, but they're just working constantly and they have no life outside of their business. So those are really the two groups that I attract and the way that I support them. So for that first group. The best way is in my membership to Simple Business School, which you mentioned in my bio.

So that's really where we focus on taking a high level overview of your business saying, okay, what's going on? What do we need to change and fix? And frankly, get rid of, cause there's a lot of stuff that we can get rid of that you don't even need to be doing so that you can simplify your business. Right?

So that's really great. Like I said, for the person who's just getting started, maybe they've been in business for a year or two, maybe then I have a higher level, uh, mastermind for people who need that more individualized support in a, like a higher level, uh, container with more experienced people who just get each other.

Right. Because those are two very different stages of business, but the main focus is all about simplification. Right. And then I also have the simple business suite, which I could talk about if you want.

So what's sort of the first thing that you recommend people looking into or figuring out or doing in order to be able to do just that 20 hours a week? And does it work for every single kind of business? Or are there certain businesses that it work, be, works better for, you know, some that doesn't work for?

What does that look like?

However, in terms of tangible steps that you can take, the first thing is figuring out the one problem that you're solving. And that is a big thing that people don't know whether they're just getting started or they've been in business for awhile. They don't know the problem that they're solving. And every single business solves the problem. a problem. Whether you're Amazon, by delivering packages to my house in two hours, right? That's, that's a big problem, right? Or you are, I don't know, Chipotle, right? Where you are delicious burritos for people to eat. to eat, right? It doesn't matter what type of business you have. Every single business solves a problem.

And then on the back end of that, selling one thing to solve that problem. So I wanted to use those two as an example, because Amazon, they first started selling books and that was it. didn't sell anything else. Now you can go on Amazon, you can find anything and it can be in, in your door maximum two days, right Um, Chipotle, like I said, on the other side, they started only selling burritos. Now they have a variety of different things, but those two companies, again, these are big companies, right? But it doesn't matter because they all started small, just like anybody listening to this. We all are starting at the same place.

We are starting with the same goal to create these businesses that give us freedom. And the easiest way to do that right now is to figure out the one problem that you're solving and create one offer to solve that problem. That is it.

How do they, you know, narrow it down to that, that most important thing?

Our experiences are unique. Our stories are unique. if we call ourselves the same thing, like, for example, if we both call ourselves a virtual assistant, we can do different aspects of that role very differently. So the first thing that I would ask, I'm going to split this up into two stages, just kind of based on where people are at, so If you are just getting started and you are trying to figure out a problem that you can solve, I would say look at what you can do right now.

What skills do you already have? And if you're like, I don't have any skills. Yes, you do. Every single person has skills of some sort, whether you are at home mom who, uh, It takes care of your kids that alone is a skill and of itself, or you've been working, um, in a corporate position for the past 15 years. You have learned things in that role that you have done in the past. Even if I was an umpire for a summer, there are things that I used when I was in a softball umpire that I still incorporate into my business today, but we have to take a step back and we have to think about this, uh, more strategically. We all have skills, but how can we monetize those skills that we have? Right? So that would be the first thing. Look at the skills that you already have, because again, everybody has them. If you don't think that you have any, ask people around you what you're good at, and they will be happy to tell you.

Okay. So that that's really the first thing. And then you figure out what those are, you can monetize it. And truly the easiest way to get started in business is to just monetize. Do a service for another person, right? So for example, if you are great at organizing, let's just use that as an example.

You can go into other people's houses and you can organize their closet, right? You are going in, you are providing a service, they are giving you money for it. It's easiest, easiest way to make money because you are just literally using the skills that you already have. Now, if you've been in business for a while and you have a lot of different skills, or you're good at a lot of different things, or you enjoy doing a lot of different things, you consider yourself, quote unquote, multi passionate. I do too. I completely understand this. So in that case, we also want to focus on solving a One main problem, but we want to be strategic with how we are solving that problem and the offer that we are creating to solve that problem. So my one offer that I sell is the simple business school.

That's, that's really my main offer where I want people to come to. And then after that, when they're ready, they can go to the mastermind. So that is my one main offer and I strategically designed it in that way so that I can utilize all of the different skills that I have and all of the different things that I enjoy doing. So that could be anything from coaching, consulting, systems, mindset. Strategy, marketing, all of it, that membership didn't just come out of thin air, right? Like I had to actually do the work and create a process and a framework that worked for me. And then I could teach other people how to do as well. So, like I said, it's completely customized to each individual and the skills that they have. And that's kind of where that, that gray area comes in because there is no. Write a wrong answer and there is no answer that I can give anybody right now and say go do this thing and you will work 20 hours a week because that, it doesn't exist. Truly.

Like I liked it, but it wasn't something that I was passionate about and wanted to talk about 24 7. And I was talking to my business coach and she was like, well, what do you enjoy doing? And I was like, well, I really enjoy technology and systems. And she was like, well then do that. Like people need help with that.

Why wouldn't you just do that? So it just, it's funny how obvious it is when you talk to someone else. About like, well, that's what you're good at, so that's what you should do, as opposed to like really overthinking it in your own head. So if, like you said, if you're not sure what you're good at, just ask someone and they'll tell you.

for sure. They'll tell you

And I enjoy, but again, that is something that came with time. That is not something that you can rush.

I was doing, um, I tried to do Pinterest management for a while, but never really got any traction with it. I was doing a, um, like a hiking blog on WordPress and still get traction on that. Like it's still up there out in the ether and people still visit it. But like, none of those things. Were my passion, but they were things that helped teach me how I run an online business.

What are the technologies and the systems behind it? And it helped inform. My now business that I have today. So you kind of have to go through, like you were saying, those growing pains, those experiences, those sort of trying things and seeing what works and what doesn't and what you enjoy and what you can maybe pick and choose from to build something that you do enjoy and something that you do want to talk about.

24, because when you own a business, you talk about it 24, seven, that was the thing with the leadership coaching is that I found that I could not talk about leadership topics 24, seven. So like you have to really want to do it, want to talk about it, want to educate people with it. So it's important that you kind of try all of the different things and piece them together to get to the thing.

That will then take you to the next step. And again, that may not be your forever thing. Like you may find in your simple business, you know, in your, in your membership that like, this isn't really what I want anymore and I'm going to pivot. And you can like, that's the joy of being a business owner. So I think people need to really understand that it's a journey.

It's not just something that you start off with and it's going to be perfect. And you're going to know everything from the beginning and it'll be all great from the start.

I just, I loved the tech. I just really nerd out on the tech, which now guess what? Makes sense that I have a

And you would So it's very likely, highly likely, highly probable, but not have seen the results that you wanted because you didn't enjoy what you were doing. And that is such an important piece of being an entrepreneur. You have to enjoy it.

How do you know that? Okay, it's really time for me to move on to something else. Cause this is not working.

And then they're like, okay, this business doesn't work. I have to go start something new. Okay. So if that's the space that you're in right now, first of all, we need to ask yourself, okay, if you were making money, would this be something that you enjoyed? Yes or no? The vast majority of people say yes. Okay.

So that just means there are some more strategic things that we need to do on the back end of your business. And there's likely some mindset work that we need to do so that you can start making money. And really enjoy your business again, right now, if, so that's kind of the first way to look at it. Now, if you've been in business for a while, you've been running, everything's running well, you're making money, yada, yada.

And you are getting to the point where you're like, I really don't want to do this anymore. The, there are a couple of things that I would look at first, ask yourself, do you have support? So do you have other people helping you in your business? Because typically at that point, it's like, I'm doing a lot of things that I don't want to be doing.

I really want to focus on doing this one thing, right? So first look at that. Do you have the team members to support you? And if you don't have those team members to support you, ask yourself, if I had other people doing this work for me, or if I automated these things, would I enjoy this more? Usually again, the answer is yes. So that's where we, again, we just have to revisit whatever's happening in the back end of your business. and make some tweaks to it. Right. And always mindset work. Always, always, always. Because that's just an ongoing thing. And there was another piece that I was gonna add to this that I, oh, and then the third piece was, if you have gotten to that point where you just know that you're done, you're like, I, I'm really done. Give yourself some breathing room. So give yourself, I would say it, it depends on the situation, 30 to 90 days. 39, because you don't want to just burn a business to the ground. There are a lot of factors to consider if you're working with clients, if you have, um, launches coming up, right. There's so many different factors to consider that you can't just burn your business to the ground one day.

I mean, you could, but there's going to be a lot, a lot of stuff to clean up if you do that. So. So give yourself some space. You may just need to take a break from your business for a week or two. And I have noticed even for myself, when I can step away fully a week and I come back, I'm like, Oh yes, I love this.

Let's do this again. So give yourself some breathing room before you just jump off the cliff and just burn everything to the ground, because that's going to have lot of negative repercussions that you don't want to deal with. And you may not be able to see it right now, but. In the future there, there's so many different things that could, that could happen.

So just give yourself some space. And if you have, um, um, a mentor, a coach or somebody that you can talk through it with, please, please talk it through with them so that they can give you an outside perspective as well.

When you start facing these kinds of questions, even if you can't afford, you know, a coach, having other people that are in the similar situation will help kind of move you forward, I think. And then you, you mentioned mindset. So what are some of the biggest mindset blocks you see in new business owners specifically of, you know, preventing them from building the business that they want and building the life that they want around their business?

So I, especially in the beginning. For the first three years, I didn't post any videos. I didn't go live. I wouldn't show any photos of my face because I thought that if somebody from high school. When I graduated 10 years prior, saw something and said something negative about me, it would be the end of my world.

And I wouldn't, I wasn't able to handle it. That, that negative feedback, that negative, um, criticism. And even if it wasn't negative, even if it was just somebody seeing me, like I, I was not ready for somebody to see me doing this because I didn't believe in myself, I didn't trust myself. So that's really the second thing is one, people are just afraid.

And then two, it's lack of confidence. And the confidence comes over time, truthfully, but that confidence will come when you get more clarity and you start to make more money. Right? So those are really the two main things. And then after that is the nervous system work, which again, that, that's a whole other conversation that we don't necessarily need to get into right now, but that was really the thing that changed my life.

My life and changed my business for the better when I started to like literally go inside to my body and um, create calm in my nervous system. Um, because I realized for my entire life, I had been in a state of fight or flight, which is why I was just going, going, going right? Which most people do for a variety of reasons, whether it's through trauma, they experienced when they were younger programming from our society, right?

There's a variety of reasons why that happens. But that was really the third thing that, um, set me, I don't want to say sent me over the edge, but like really. helped to give me the confidence that I needed to scale to the levels that I want to scale to.

Like I used to do presentations at work and like in person and online. And, you know, I never really had a problem, like. Getting my picture taken and, you know, presenting in front of a crowd. And like, that never bothered me. And then I became a business owner and I was like, well, this was kind of a whole new level.

And like, I don't know that I'm comfortable even just posting something on LinkedIn was really intimidating because you, that fear of someone You know, saying something negative or arguing with you, or, you know, challenging what it is that you're saying is really intimidating and it's really challenging to get over.

And as someone who thought I was pretty confident, it was a really big surprise that like, no, actually as a business owner, like there's a whole lot more involved and there's a whole lot more at stake, it feels like. So. So yes, totally that fear and like not having confidence was really a big eye opener for me when I started my business, not realizing that I was having these things going on internally and that being a business owner brought out of me to kind of like show me like, Oh, actually you do have some things happening inside and you have some things you're going to have to work through to, to make this really, really happen.

Really feel good and feel like something you want to do. And now I get on camera and I don't care. And like, people can say whatever they want about me, you know, and we say that, but it's partially true and partially not, but it's just, it's just, like you said, it comes with time, it comes with making money, it comes with, um, you know, learning more about yourself.

So it's, it's just so interesting. What you start your business thinking about yourself and what you end up learning about yourself as part of the journey. So

That's like literally nobody like at that point, it's like, you've done, you've done it. Right. And That was really what kind of catapulted me into, one, not caring, again, like, there's levels, like, if somebody says something really mean about me, like, that's going to affect me a

Are they, I don't really like this word, but like, are they projecting like, is something going on in their life right now? And I'm just the punching bag. Because that's okay. If that, if that's the case, I know that it has nothing to do with me, but again, this comes with time and this comes with a lot of nervous system work to rewire. And really understand that at every single stage of your business, every single day, every single minute of your life, we are truly doing the best that we can in that moment. And giving ourselves the space to not only understand that, but also forgive ourselves for anything that we've done. Previously that we didn't feel great about too.

So that's why I said like, this could be a whole other conversation because

I'm going to be perfect. How do you find. How do you help people overcome that perfectionism of like, Oh, well, I can't post this until I really get it perfect. Or I can't, you know, launch this thing until it's really perfect. How do you help people kind of overcome that mindset block of that need for perfectionism?

I ran it through, I think Grammarly was around then. I was like running it through Grammarly multiple times. I would hold onto one email for days before I would hit send on it because everything had to be buttoned up and perfect. But. What that told me was one, I'm spending a lot of time, lot of time and energy, most importantly. Doing all of these different things and pushing myself to the brink of burnout to be perfect. When what I realized was nobody cares, cares. And people resonate with you more when you are real versus, versus a buttoned up picture of what you think they want. And was one of the things from my story is I'll just share this very quickly is when I was younger, I always felt like I had to be.

Um, and so I realized when I stepped into entrepreneurship, again, all of your stuff's going to come up you become an entrepreneur. I was on this mask again of being, okay, who do I? People want Stephanie to be not who does Stephanie want to be? So then that's where the perfectionism came in of like, okay, imaginary people on the internet that I don't even know, think that I should have all of my words spelled correctly in my email.

They think that I should be wearing this color shirt. They think that I should be saying these words, my branding should be this color. But it wasn't anything that I wanted, So that's really the big thing is figuring out where is this perfectionism coming from? Like, did something happen when you were younger that kind of forced you into this perfectionism?

99. 9 percent of the time, something happened where you felt like you had to be perfect because there was happening in your life where that was like your survival mechanism. So you just carried that through. Right? And then the second thing that I want people to consider is by spending all of this time and energy being perfect, what are you saying no to?

Right? So if you're saying yes to fixing an email for three hours, what are you saying no to? Are you saying no to time with your family? Are you saying no to taking a shower? There were times where I didn't take a shower some days because I had to make everything, everything perfect. Right? Right? And then the third piece of that is, What is happening by. You trying to be perfect. So what I mean by that is, who are you not serving right now? Because you are stuck in this level of perfectionism, because I know a lot of people, I'm sure a lot of people in your audience, a lot of people who are in my world, they want to serve people. They want to help people.

That is the whole, not the whole reason, but that's a big reason behind why they have their businesses. So by hiding behind a screen, not sharing. Your story, not sending that email, not creating that social media posts. You are actually doing a disservice to those people that you could be helping. So if nothing else sticks with you, just think about that.

Think about how you are not helping other people by trying to be perfect all of the time.

So what would you say to someone who. You know, is struggling with that idea of, I don't want to feel like I'm pushing sales. I don't want to feel like I'm slimy. I don't want to feel like I'm bothering people with trying to ask for sales. You know, how does that tie in with the perfectionism and how did someone overcome that mindset block of, I don't want to feel, I don't want people to be annoyed by me or feel like I'm really a pushy used car salesperson.

So stay out of their wallets, price your service, price your offer, whatever you need to price it at. And then next step is selling that thing, right? So to truly get over that, I want you to consider a real life example of when you are thinking about going to dinner, right? And you ask your friends and family for a restaurant recommendation.

Do they have any trouble giving you a recommendation for a restaurant? No, but what they're actually doing is selling you on that restaurant right now. All right. Same thing with. a, a journal. If you go to a friend's house and you see like this beautiful journal sitting on, on their table and you're like, Oh my gosh, that's beautiful.

Where'd you get? And she's going to tell you about this beautiful journal, right? Or the newest phone that comes out, right? People have no problem things to you, but that's the thing you don't think. that they are selling them. So that's where we need to shift that mindset from selling into serving.

So when you can truly understand that the value that you are bringing to the table with this service, only serving other people doesn't feel like selling because you are, again, solving a problem with that offer. That you're selling. So it goes back to what we were talking about before, figure out the problem that you're solving, create an offer to solve that problem. But again, a lot of people don't know that problem that they're solving. So it makes selling so much more difficult because they don't, they don't know the problem they're solving, right? They're just saying, Hey, my thing. But nobody's just going to buy your thing. They need to know. What they're going to get out of it too,

Whereas people really want to know, okay, but is it going to work for me? Like, I, I don't care if you have five modules. I want to know if it actually works for me in my situation. And is it going to solve this problem that I specifically have?

And that comes with a lot of work to understand who this person is. And that's another piece that people just really. Slide over. Cause they don't want to think about it. They don't want to do the work to understand who they're selling this thing to. But if you don't understand who you're selling this to and how you solve that problem, you will have a very, very, very hard time making sales because like, people don't want the modules they want.

What's going to happen after module one, right? What,

I handle, there is the Blake collective as well.

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