“You’re making this too hard.”

A popular phrase I often repeat to clients.

As I spend time with entrepreneurs and business owners each week

“You’re making this too hard,” is something that I find myself saying over and over again. It generally comes across as some version of:

“Business is simple: Create something people want, sell it for more than it costs to make it, and repeat.”

“Leadership is simple: Hire great people, ask them to do things, and hold them accountable to doing them.”

“Finance is simple: Price your products and services appropriately, collect money on time, pay bills on time.”

I could obviously go on…and on….and on.

But as simple as this sounds, entrepreneurs always find ways to complicate it. They say things to me like, “But Chad, you don’t really understand my business, it’s not like all of the others,” and, “This is much more complicated than you think.” But after working with over 150 businesses across dozens of industries in the past 18 years, I know that this just isn’t the case. Entrepreneurs simply love to overcomplicate things.

I think this happens for just a few reasons.

Complexity Bias – Complexity bias is a logical fallacy that leads us to give undue credence to complex concepts. Faced with two competing hypotheses, we are likely to choose the most complex one. That’s usually the option with the most assumptions and regressions. As a result, when we need to solve a problem, we may ignore simple solutions — thinking “that will never work” — and instead favor complex ones.

We Are Stimulation Hogs – The human brain is a stimulation hog. It likes being busy. The brain keeps busy by understanding, solving, deciding, debating, arguing, influencing, growing, opine-ing, or whining. It’s always working. This means that even if something is simple, our brain concludes that it can’t be that simple and proceeds to make it much more complicated (more stimulation). It does this so that we can tell ourselves and prove to ourselves that it really was complicated – even though it was really simple.

We Place Undue Value On Multi-Tasking – Multitasking triggers certain reward systems in our brains that makes it feel like we are heroic overachievers. But multitasking, especially constant multitasking, is more likely a burnout symptom and a sign you’re on the road to burnout syndrome at your current job. Killing distractions and single-tasking may take more discipline, but it’s more effective. It’s also simpler. If you’re being “heroic” you are underachieving in other areas of your business.

Most geniuses—especially those who lead others—prosper not by deconstructing intricate complexities but by exploiting unrecognized simplicities.”
— Andy Benoit

So what’s a smart, complexity-loving, multi-tasking-valuing, stimulation-hog to do? The key here isn’t adding things, it’s taking away.

Here are the top FIVE (not top ten…that’s too complicated) things that I encourage my clients to STOP DOING to simplify their businesses.

Here are the top FIVE (not top 10 – that’s too complicated) ways to simplify your business.

Stop Measuring Everything – I once had a client who was running a small business doing property management in a small town in the midwest. He proudly showed me the extensive tracking spreadsheets that he used to track everything from how long it took for a customer to be called back, to the exact amount of toilet paper used during each stay at one of his properties, to the average temperature that guests kept their units’ thermostats set at in each month (using an expensive, integrated software system installed in each home). It sounds awesome, but while he was tracking these items. he was ignoring the things that mattered, like gross profit and cost of goods sold percentages. Measure Only What REALLY Matters.

Stop Just Taking Money – When a business is small and growing, we’ll take money for just about anything. If I’m a one-man painting company operating out of my truck, I’ll say yes to just about any kind of work. It will have me running all over creation, working on low-margin jobs to make a few bucks here or there. But if I get focused on ONLY doing interior and exterior repaints of houses over 3000 square feet, which are typically much higher margin and require less running around, I have both uncomplicated my life AND made more money. Get Focused On Your Key Profit Makers.

Stop Winging It – One of the greatest joys of entrepreneurship and self employment is the fact that, when we own our own business, WE get to decide what to do each day. This freedom is awesome, but unchecked over time it can create big problems. The solution is to purposefully add structure into your business. Having a hard time deciding what to do first? Create a task management system that you look at on Sundays and calendarize the tasks into blocks each week. Staff not getting things done even though you talk with them multiple times each day? Schedule a mandatory daily huddle with a standing agenda to talk about what needs to happen each day. Make Structure Your Friend.

Stop Thinking So Big – While big visions and dreams can be exciting to us, the truth is that if something is too big, or too far away, it’s difficult for us to stay focused on the goal. Part of this is because the goal may be too far away, but part of it is also that when we set large goals, we are requiring ourselves to also have an equally large belief system to support it. It doesn’t matter how much we “want it” or how much we “proclaim it” – all that matters is how much we BELIEVE it. It’s this true belief that affects all of our actions. BIG goals are harder to believe, and thus harder to accomplish. Set a smaller goal, accomplish it, and then do it again. This allows you to gain momentum, so that the big stuff will come easier over time. Think Medium…Or Even Small.

Stop Multitasking – You may have heard that multitasking is bad for you, but new studies show that it kills your performance and may even damage your brain. Every time you multitask you aren’t just harming your performance in the moment; you may very well be damaging an area of your brain that’s critical to your future success at work. On top of that, multitasking is complicated. Our brain has to switch back and forth between tasks, and each time we switch it uses precious brainpower to disengage and engage in the next task. If we complete one task at a time, preferably the most important task, then our brain-power is conserved and we are able to more efficiently engage the next task. Do One Thing At A Time.

So there are the five things that you should stop doing in order to uncomplicate your business model. If you’d like to take the time to think of five more to feed your need to make this more complicated, please go ahead, but leave the rest of us simpletons out of it, please 🙂