I Did Less This Year and Had My Highest-Revenue Year Ever

  Sam Vander Wielen: You’re the one who does everything in your business, posting on every platform, running every launch, posting more content every single week, but not necessarily seeing the results you want. And more than anything, you’re tired. You want a business that grows without needing more of you, but everything you’ve heard says more effort equals more money, so doing less feels a little bit like falling behind.

This year I did less, but not necessarily worked less. I’ll explain it later. And then it turned out to be my highest revenue year ever. I’m sharing what I cut, why it worked, and the honest part that I’m kind of still struggling with. So sit back, relax, pop in your headphones, and let’s get cozy.

Welcome to On Your Terms®. This is a podcast for online business owners who wanna be as present in their lives, as profitable in their businesses. And today’s episode is really meant to be a cozy one of talking about what this year has really been like and how, despite actually my best efforts to pull back as much as I could, the business actually grew more than I ever planned for How’s everybody doing?

I can’t believe it’s mid-November. My birthday is this week. My birthday is November 12th. I’ll be honest with you, I am one of those people that likes my birthday. I know some people try to play it cool. I don’t believe these people, just for the record, that say, like, “I don’t care about my birthday,” and like, “I don’t, I don’t care if nobody s-,” yes, you do.

We all care about our birthday. I like it. I’m like, life is hard enough. The other day, ’cause I’m, as I’m recording this it’s, like, right before Halloween, I was in the mall and I saw there were all these, like, Halloween things, and then there was a rack of T-shirts and bags that said, “Life is scary enough” and I was like, that’s exactly how I feel.

I don’t need Halloween because honestly I can just close my eyes and picture my childhood, and that’s terrifying 365 days a year. But honestly, I believe that, like, life is scary enough and we need reasons to celebrate. And so, like, come on, Thanksgiving, my birthday, don’t take these things away from me.

Anyway, very excited about my birthday, not that I would … I’ll be in bed by 9:00, but I’ll be very happy that it’s my birthday. It’s also getting to be that very cozy time in the fall. I’m actually in New York City today, um, recording at Kits Studios, which is so fun, and, like, it just feel- it’s, like, a crisp 60 degrees.

It’s perfect here. Got my Daddy’s Little Meatball shirt on because it’s been my dream for, like, months to come to New York and get a Daddy’s Little Meatball shirt, ’cause I think it’s funny ’cause my dad’s not alive and my dad would love it. He would … Frankly, he would be, like, so happy if I wore anything related to him, so, uh, hey, Dad, hope you like my shirt.

And so yeah, it’s just, like, g- I’m just glad to be, glad to be here, glad to be in New York today and excited to be chatting with you about what this year has really been like kind of behind the scenes and, like, what, e- essentially, like, what my intentions were for this year versus what happened and how it just turned out completely differently than what I anticipated.

So going into this year, you might have heard me talk about this in the past, I had planned to take what I called an entrepreneur gap year, which was really meant to be a year of taking the pressure off myself, which I’m laughing as I’m saying it ’cause I’m like, wow, you are so bad at that. Um, but my intention was really good, like A+ for effort, and my intention was to take the, the pressure off myself, particularly off of having to know, like, what’s next and what I wanted to do and just, like, backing off of myself because I can be so tough on myself.

And I pretty much epically failed at that, but the other thing that I wanted to do this year was just kind of, like, play and just be like, “I don’t really know,” and, like, I’m not trying to launch anything new. I’m not coming out with a book this year ’cause I came out with one last year. So, like, let’s just see how this year goes.

And this year went completely differently than I thought. I traveled more than ever. I think I’m at, like, 30 flights now, um, for the year, and we’re only in October. Which is crazy, and it’s not my, not my preferred amount of travel. And actually, if I went back a full calendar year, if I did back to November, I’m at, like, almost 40 flights, ’cause I did a ton of travel in October, November, December last year.

And it’s just, it’s been too much on the one hand, because I really love being home. I love my routine. I love where we live on Long Island, and more than anything, I love Hudson, my dog, and I hate being away from him. Like, the f- the idea of missing, like, a minute of his life kills me. I hate it. Um, which I think is, like, a side effect of grief.

Honestly, you just start getting panic that everyone’s gonna die, so you just don’t wanna go anywhere. So there’s that, and yes, I have a husband too, but, like, m- let’s be real, I miss Hudson. He knows this. He’s, he’s well aware. He’s… We’re very honest in my household, um, about wh- who’s missed most. Um, Hudson agrees.

I’m his favorite. Anyway, so it was a lot of travel, and also, like, a lot of opportunity, like getting invited to things that I never saw coming, like going to James Clear’s mastermind here in New York, um, even going to things like Crafting Commerce and getting to go to a lot of cool events while I was there.

So it just ended up being a more travel-heavy, busy, social, outward, gathering group, in-person year than I ever anticipated, and I just feel like it kind of came out of nowhere. I also personally had the best trip. I- we’ve been to almost 60 countries, and I think, I think Peru, uh, where I went in March this year, I think it’s gotta be…

I was just talking with Ryan about this yesterday. I think Peru and Thailand are, like, a strong one-two. Jordan as well. I- But Peru was just life-changing. If you’ve been there, I think you probably understand. And so I got to do that this year. So I, I feel like I just had, like, the most epic personal trip, and then have had so many trips for work and had such great, like, in-person opportunities that I didn’t expect.

So it was just a very different year than what I expected. I think because of all that, that led to then this summer me crashing and burning. Me being like, “Uh-oh, I am toast,” right? And of course, I had travel booked, uh, for work, uh, through mid-July. But as, uh, almost essentially as soon as I got back from that trip, I actually hurt my foot, so the universe took care of that.

It literally took me off my feet. I hurt my foot pretty badly playing tennis and couldn’t, couldn’t walk for the first however, like, week or two. And spent the rest of the summer literally off my feet, but also offline, uh, really taking off and not producing any content. Um, I kind of batched things ahead of time, had things scheduled and set.

I experimented in the month of August with my newsletter, with sending out my top five emails of the year, which actually went pretty well. And yeah, I just had… If I’m being honest, I went into that time period being super, super burnt out and realizing I really needed that time, and took that time. And here’s the scary thing, guys.

Here’s what happened. When I took that time off, I was blissful. I was very happy. I was fine not working. I mean, my mind’s, like, always working, and yes, of course, I’m, like, answering questions and, you know, the team can always text me or, like, the people would ask me little things here and there. It was fine.

Things were running kind of in the background though, more or less, ’cause the team was taking care of it. And the business did financially fantastic. Um, so it was kind of this great, like, I don’t know, accident. I, I honestly thought that when I took time off, everything would slow down. Uh, but it didn’t. The thing you have to be careful of is that sometimes if you take time off in your business, you’re like, “Look, nothing’s, nothing’s happening.

Like, everything’s fine.” But actually it can sometimes be a little delayed. And so, uh, I kind of came back to work September 1st a little bit with, like, one eye open because I was nervous that me having taken so much time off was gonna lead to a rough, a rough rest of the year. And I also was nervous about the fact that I was coming back and then basically leaning right into a launch that I just ran in October.

But I take basically the whole month of September and then the beginning of October to run that launch. And I was worried that I didn’t have any leads, that I hadn’t nurtured people enough, that the emails weren’t good enough, or hadn’t had enough fresh content. I had taken a break from the podcast. So I kind of came back to work, like, I remember on September 1st when I started, I was, like, already anxious, not only because I was coming back and worried about whether things were quiet, but also because I hadn’t really enjoyed my time off, and that kind of scared me, to be honest.

It was like, you know, yes, I miss writing and I miss all of that. Like, I miss, like, little pieces. Like, I miss doing the podcast and I miss writing. I miss pieces of it. But in general, I don’t miss, like, the pecking, what I call the pecking of, like, how much I’m needed or demand- like, what’s demanded of me or expected of me from some people.

Uh, and, and just, like, the amount of energy, I guess. So it was a little bit scary, to be honest, as to, like, how much I enjoyed being off and then, like, how hard it was to come back. But here’s the thing. I learned a really valuable lesson in that summer. Since I didn’t see any downturn in leads or in sales that we had, my funnel was great and everything was fine.

Social continued to grow without me even being on it or without posting on the app. And I think at the very least, I came back to work and, and I’m kind of entering the rest of this year and going into 2027 realizing that doing less, doing less this year actually ended up allowing me to grow the business even though that wasn’t my intention.

So let’s be very clear about what I mean when I say doing less, right? ‘Cause sometimes this gets misinterpreted as, like, not working or not having to have tasks in place. First and foremost, you have to understand that I’ve spent 10 years building systems, and foundations, and processes, and funnels, and three fantastic team members that take care of things, right?

And so it’s like the things that I’ve built along the way and then brought in people to then implement those things that I built a long time ago are running like a dream, right? And that’s kind of the point b- for a lot of people of building a successful business is like, it shouldn’t rely on you forever.

You shouldn’t be the bottleneck. You shouldn’t need to be involved in every single thing in order for the business not only to continue to run, but even to grow. It’s like it’s the dream. But then you get to this weird point where, like I am, where it’s like, oh, I guess I kinda accidentally built the dream ’cause I didn’t, I didn’t ever think that the business was capable of this.

But I’ve never acted any differently. Like, I’ve basically kept acting like as if I was in the hustle startup phase. I’ve never allowed myself to realize and appreciate what we have built. I’ve never allow- stepped back enough to allow the team that is extremely capable of implementing all the things that they’re responsible for every day of just, like, keeping things running, and everything goes like normal.

And I’ve just never stepped back and, I don’t know, I guess eaten the fruits of my labor of being like, yeah, I’ve built this thing. It’s super profitable, and why don’t I just enjoy it? This also doesn’t always have to grow. It doesn’t always have to grow to get bigger. It doesn’t have to be bigger to be better, right?

And so there are other ways the business can be better. It can be more efficient. It can be more profitable. It can be more time rich. It can be more flexible rich. You know? There’s, like, all different ways of… I believe in multiple ways of wealth in that, in that sense. And it’s really, honestly comes down to you getting out of the way enough.

I’ll speak to myself, me getting out of the way enough to allow myself to be like, “Oh yeah, you’ve done it. Like, what else are you, what else are you trying to do?” But it taught me this powerful lesson this year of like, I, I guess as you’re building the business, you think you have to do more. You have to post more on social media.

If you have a podcast, now the podcast has gotta be video, so you’ve gotta be on YouTube. And then you’ve gotta start mastering YouTube, and once you’ve mastered YouTube, you should cut it into clips to master TikTok, and once you master TikTok, you should, like, I don’t know, what else, what else will happen?

Clubhouse. Then you go back to Clubhouse. It all… It’s like a game that starts over again. You go back to Clubhouse. It’s a terrible game. So, I think you associate this business, like, your business, having to get better or bigger or to grow, that you have to be doing more. You have to be more present, more available, uh, more visible for sure, right?

One of the things I always wanna be careful of in this conversation is that, like, I can imagine that someone’s listening to this who’s starting out, and you’re like, “Yeah, that’s what you can do because you’ve built it,” right? So just remember as you’re listening to this, like, you’re just on a different phase of the journey, but you’re basically trying to go on the same journey.

So at least you know that this is, like, laying up ahead for you. And I think that you can still take these principles in your business. Like, I wish that when my business was smaller, I, instead of me spreading myself so thin and trying to be, like, everywhere on every platform at once and pumping out an insane amount of content that not only I couldn’t keep up with, but the listener or reader couldn’t keep up with either, that I would’ve slowed down, less content that, on fewer platforms that I just went deeper on to create a deeper connection with maybe even fewer people.

And like, that actually would’ve been, I think, a better, more long-term sustainable approach. I’ve burnt out several times, you know, along the way. My grief journey certainly didn’t help that. But I, I think it’s, uh, very, very, very common in this industry because of the, like, nature and demand of, of content especially, like we’re, we’re like content machines.

It’s, it’s crazy. It’s not, it’s not sustainable. And you will… It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when you will burn out if you’re not aware of the fact that it doesn’t have to be more, more, more, and that you don’t always have to be present and available to the outside world. So all that to say is that, like, I am not saying I didn’t work.

What I’m saying is that I worked on fewer things, fewer things that had bigger impacts. So I think I got better this year at figuring out, like, what are these things that I can drop? Like, what are the things that just don’t matter as much as I think that they matter? Like, one of the things, for example, is always social media for me.

Like, organic social media content is one of those things that, in my mind, I’m like, ‘We have to be so present,” or, “We have to be, like, so, like, constantly on it,” right? We have to have so much content coming out, and if we’re not doing that, then, like, something catastrophic is going to happen. And then I look at the data, and then the data does not support my feelings, right?

So I feel like it’s really important, and I feel like it’ll be catastrophic if I’m not there, but when I look at the organic social media data, it doesn’t bring in the return. When, when you balance it with the amount of time, money, and effort, it doesn’t bring in the return that I think it does, right? So I’ve had to just kinda like reorient my relationship with that but also be like, “Okay, well, what does that look like?”

Like maybe instead of doing so many reels, which can like sometimes cause me a bit of stress of being like, “Ugh, I gotta be like all put together and b- look decent,” and I just wanna wear like a hoodie and be home in my pajamas. Well, I can do carousels like that, and maybe they perform a little bit less, but like the truth is that the other stuff’s not performing that great anyway.

So I think I just got better at noticing those things along the way. I also held so many fewer meetings this year, right? I just didn’t have as many meetings, which is better for the team, for me, for everybody else pretty much. I know there are all kinds of statistics out there about like how much time we waste in meetings and like that they’re not always the most productive.

It can sometimes feel nice, especially when you work alone, to just be like, “Hey, let’s get… Let’s have a meeting,” but it, it’s not always the best use of our time I was also doing so many trainings for people, mostly paid trainings, uh, pretty much only paid trainings at this point. But I had let a lot of free trainings sneak in because I wanted to help people and be nice and, and do favors for friends or a friend of a friend or something that I thought could be a good opportunity.

But those plus, like, podcast interviews, plus my own podcast, plus my own writing, plus my own newsletter, plus my own social media content, it really stacks up. So thanks to all of that and just kind of starting to pick up on the patterns of things that I was realizing I was spending a lot of time on, but that didn’t have a lot of return on investment for me, whether that be money, actual money, return on investment or energy and, and just, like, overall vibe.

Um, I was able to scale back and work on fewer things, but more intensely. For one, I mentioned that I had… You know, I focused a lot more this year on having in-person experiences and in-person connection and community. And I feel like, you know, there’s, there’s kind of a, I don’t know, maybe a hard part of building the business on my own that I don’t talk about a whole lot ’cause I figure no one wants to hear about it.

But here goes nothing. Um, but that, you know, when you build a business like this, l- when I started, I had a lot of friends who were in the same place as me. We were kind of building the businesses together, and then you get to this point where fewer and fewer people can kind of relate to the things that you’re struggling with, maybe in this, in this business or in this way, and other people are struggling with different things that I can’t relate to.

The point is, I feel like I started out having a lot of people who I could relate to and felt very, like, in community. I also used to live in Philly at that time, and there was a huge entrepreneur network. I would work at WeWork. I went to all the meetups. I went to lots of in-person events and conferences, and Philly had so many great, like, little startup and creator conferences.

And now I live in a more rural area that’s not as many young people or not as many people running businesses, and I’m just not in that community every day like I used to be, right? So I sought out a lot more of that, um, through in-person experiences, and that is what led to a lot of the travel. But I think that’s also what gave me a ton of community and connection this year It’s funny because, you know, we all I guess we’re supposed to be on social media to be social, you know, it’s kind of built into the name.

But I find nothing about social media to be very social, to be honest, other than the fact that I have met many friends through it. But it’s funny, like, people will always use that as an example. They’ll be like, “I’ve met some of my best friends through social media.” It’s like, are the people in your DMs your really good friends, or people who you met on Instagram but then took it to in real life, the, you know, the close friends, right?

So it’s those people who, like, made that jump, but now they’re people who, like, I would never talk to on Instagram and only talk to them in real life, right? So sure, it was like a gate, like a gateway, I guess, to meeting them. But the moment I took it offline is when I actually became friends with them. I also did a lot less or said no or kind of, I don’t know, just, like, restructured my life in a lot of ways this year that I think are key to actually helping me to grow the business this year.

The first was that I removed all social media apps from my phone, and I even removed email from my phone. You know, it’s so funny because I feel, like, very plugged in. Like, I am like, oh, I answer, like, boop, boop, boop. Like, as people are writing to me, I’m, like, already writing back. I’m very plugged in, but it’s…

I really thought it was gonna be a problem when I took these things off my phone, and then it’s just so funny. It’s like, well, I’m working all day, so I’m on my computer. I have email on my computer. So it’s like I don’t need to… Like, if I go take a walk, I mean, what I used to do was, like, go take a walk, and then I would check my email, which would then stress me out ’cause I would see an email from Judy complaining about whatever, and then it would bother me, and then I would text Lindsey and be like, “This lady is saying this thing, and this is really pissing me off.”

And now my whole walk has become about Judy, and I’m angry, right? So I never was actually unplugging. And what the heck? Like, how was it helpful that I knew about Judy’s complaint on my walk? It’s not helpful. Don’t need to help Judy right now. Judy can wait 45 minutes until my walk is over, when I get back to my desk, sit at my computer, and check my email.

‘Cause I check it all the time ’cause I’m obsessed with my business, right? So it’s like I’m not a negligent business owner. Like, it’s, it’s kind of just like unpacking this mindset of like, yeah, why do I have to have that on there? Like, I’m not a brain surgeon. Nobody’s calling me. So taking that off, taking Instagram off, oof.

I mean, first of all, my screen time has plummeted. Uh, it’s really wild. I’m down to, like, two hours, which is, uh, super low for me. I was at, like, eight when I started this, which was crazy. Um, and sometimes it would say, like, five hours a day was on Instagram. And I mean, what a slap in the face when you see that statistic.

You’re like, “No, not on my watch. I’m not spending the rest of my life looking at a stupid app and watching everybody else live their lives.” Like, no offense, so glad you guys are all making sourdough and running Hyrox and, like, have cute puppies, but I don’t want to waste my life watching everybody create their own.

Not having that on there, you know, oddly enough, made me very productive in my business And I wanna be careful that, like, I feel like sometimes when we talk about things, especially in, like, kind of the digital detox space, people will talk about, like, not being on your phone so that, like, look at all the other stuff you can get done.

And I don’t think that that’s the point of not having it. But Since we all own businesses here, I think it’s worth a conversation. Like, not having Instagram on my phone allowed me to spend my work time, like so time I should be working, doing something product- I should be doing something productive with my business, you know, to move it forward or take care of things or whatever, um, it allowed me to spend that time in a way that actually did move the business forward, which scrolling on Instagram did not.

And I know at least, I’ll speak for myself, that it tricked me into thinking I was working, right? It was like kind of an easy, cheap way to be like, “Ugh, I’m so tired. It’s, like I did so much work today.” And meanwhile, I was consuming so much content about puppies and, oh my gosh, Theodore the Bunny. He lives in LA.

I could do a whole thing on him. Remember that Theodore the Bunny? He was the best. Oh, Theodore the Bunny, you gotta check him out. We’ll link to it below. Uh, you’ll go down a whole rab- literally, a whole rabbit hole because he is, he is the cutest dang bunny you’ve ever seen. But see, watching Theodore the Bunny is not getting my work done.

And so this is what I would do. And then, you know, right after Theodore the Bunny and, like, hearing her narrate Theodore the Bunny’s life, which was unbelievable, like cinema, then would be a reel about somebody in some business thing that would piss me off or annoy me or intimidate me or whatever other insert negative emotion here, right?

And it would not only trick me into working, but then would derail my work. And so yeah, not spending that time, in this case, is letting me be more productive, or at the very least, it’s just, like, actually letting me be productive because I’m actually leaving Instagram to go do work that is meaningful and that impacts the business in a greater way.

The thing is too, like you could spend an hour scrolling on Instagram, or you can spend an hour, like, building out your funnel, right? And it’s kind of the difference between, like, putting $5 in a regular bank account b- and putting, like, $5 in a money market fund that’s gonna grow over time. So it’s like that one hour is still one hour, 60 minutes is 60 minutes.

It doesn’t change. But if you put 60 minutes towards building out a funnel, for example, that could bring in clients and customers for years, like that inve- Do you see how that over time can stack up like compounding interest? So, like, your time can actually compound, like, interest. And so you look back on a year, like I am right now, and I’m like, “Wow, all those hours that weren’t spent on Instagram, I did a whole bunch of stuff that got things done that actually helped the business to move forward.”

I think my launches were better. I think my emails were better. Like, I think the content we did create was better ’cause I’m not on there consuming. I’m just creating and then, like, uploading it from my phone, and that’s it. So I think the stuff’s more original or just at least not impacted with all the gunk, you know, the, of, of intimidation and impostor syndrome and all of that.

And so yeah, it’s just like, to me, it’s been nothing but upside.

This year I also stopped saying yes to everything and taking on everything, which I know is kind of funny considering you just heard me say, like, I traveled a lot and I did all these things. But I did start turning down a lot more things than at least I used to. So we’re just looking for improvement here.

I’m not… It’s progress over perfection. Um, this year I did get a little smidge better at people who, you know, contact me and ask me to do this or the other thing, or, um, I can’t say yes to every single podcast interview, for example, at this point, or every single training at this point. I just turned down an invite to go to, uh, speak in DC a couple of weeks ago.

Like, so I’m, I’m trying here and there to say, not say yes to everything and turn certain things down. And it’s, it really is about looking at it through this lens of, like, does this really help me to essentially do less but have a bigger impact in the long run? And if it doesn’t serve that higher goal, then I just don’t do it.

I’m also doing a lot less, or at least trying to feel responsible to help everyone. So, you know, I kind of built my business off of the idea of being, like, the lawyer next door, right? Like, the everyday lawyer. Like, purposefully don’t wear suits. I’m literally wearing a Daddy’s Little Meatball shirt right now as I’m recording this episode.

I, I just, like, I’ve, I’ve… I mean, I did it intentionally in the beginning, and then now it’s just, like, who I am. But I, I, I really try to make myself as accessible as possible in order to, like, break down the barrier and the intimidation of what people typically associated dealing with, like, a lawyer like.

And I didn’t want to be like that, right? Because it doesn’t feel consistent with my personality, but I also knew it meant no one would ever want to talk to me or work with me. And part of what that leads to is, you know, I get the comment constantly of, like, “You’re so down to earth,” and, like, “You’re so helpful, you’re so real.”

And I think a little bit of that comes from being very accessible as well. So, like, I’m still answering emails and answering messages and, like, doing these things, right? And that’s great, and that’s such a important part of my business and, like, part of my, I guess, like, my culture, business culture and values.

Like, I want to be that, and I’m not above helping anyone or answering anything, of course. But I, at the same time, because of my personality, feel very responsible to help everyone. I feel very worried about someone being disappointed in me. I feel worried about not being enough, like, if someone thinks I haven’t given them enough for free.

Or someone who already has the ultimate bundle who wants even more for free, I worry about them. Like, I want everybody to be tucked in and taken care of, right? I don’t want anyone to be mad at me. So I will jump through hoops to no avail to help people, to go above and beyond, and in the process stretch myself thin, um, helping people in the pursuit of them not being mad at me, which is a little bit okay when you have like 10 people, maybe 50 people, 100, 500, 1,000 people.

When you get to this many people, not so doable anymore. Not only because of the volume, but because like literally there are going to be people who are disappointed in you. Like, I could build them a castle with a moat in it, and they would still be mad at me. Like, I still haven’t done enough for them.

There are just people who are insatiable, I have learned. Um, or there are people who are disappointed in you. Um, there are people who are disappointed in me of like, I don’t talk enough about AI. I’m not keeping them enough updated, and I’m like, “I’m not CNN. I can’t do that,” and it’s like not reasonable to expect me to be like the end-all, be-all, for example.

Um, or for, to expect me to be like ahead of a news cycle that’s like endlessly, constantly changing. Uh, I’m kind of in the same shit show world that you are right now with, with all of this stuff, and I’m trying to figure it out too. It’s like, it’s like humanizing yourself in the process, right? Of being like, “Guys, I’m in this with you too.”

And so I’ve had to learn to like cut myself a little bit of a break, and I’m working on not feeling responsible to help everyone and not And I guess just being more okay with people maybe being disappointed or like they wish I was doing more, because there will always be people who wish you were doing more.

Another thing I got I think a little bit better at this year was, like, taking on this attitude of like, “I could do that, but I won’t be doing that.” That was essentially, like, the ethos of things. Like, I could go to that other event, don’t want to. I could be on that person’s podcast. I am technically free on Thursday at 2:00.

I don’t want to. So, um, really having to be okay with that and, or at least working on being okay with that, and working on my end of like… Kind of my main, my main issue, to give you a little peek behind the curtain, my main issue when it comes to that stuff is, like, feeling like a jerk and feeling like a diva when I turn things down.

So, like, I don’t want, ever want anybody to be disappointed in me, there it comes again, that I said no to something, ’cause I don’t want them to think that I think I’m too good for it, I didn’t have time for it, I don’t wanna help them, or, you know, s- sometimes it’s some people I knew or, like, know or used to be friends with or something like this.

And so, yeah, just having to kind of figure out my, I guess my own mental drama as it relates to that. Okay, we went through all the things that I, like, maybe did less of this year or how I started changing maybe my mindset around things, but at the same time, I just got done telling you all these things I said no to or stopped doing or whatever, but I also said I had my highest revenue year ever, right?

And we’re only, as I’m recording this, in October, and we’re well past what we made last year. So why? Why am I doing less and having my best revenue year ever and also a lot of people in the industry are struggling? I’m not really sure on the one hand, but I put together a list of things that I think that, uh, I am doing and we are doing as a team that are helping this business to grow.

I think in a nutshell, it’s this business is working really well because of the boring foundation that I’ve built. And so I was thinking about this as like, as I was putting this list together and being like, man, I’m so glad that I stuck to my guns about being like, it’s cool to just have, like, one main product, one main funnel, kind of the same message repeating the same thing over and over again.

Like, thank God I’ve been okay with boring for the last 10 years because I understand, like, if my mom had an online business, like, every day she would have, like, a new website, a new branding, and a new offer, and she’d be, like, a different kind of coach. She was that person who, like, needed that variety and, like, shakeup.

She could never do what I’m doing now, right? I also couldn’t have been a, a really brilliant physician like she was. But, like, it’s just that I, I understand, like, the desire or impulse to want to shake things up But I was telling Nathan Barry, uh, the founder of Kit, this the other day when we- I was at his, uh, mastermind.

Like, he was telling the group that he thinks, like, my dedication to being boring has just been, like, the key to business success. And I was like, “Yeah, I never really thought about it like that,” but I guess, I guess it’s true, right? And, like, everybody wants to go chase the shiny thing, but I think it’s the zigzagging, you know?

It’s like, you know how people tell you if you ever have to run away from an alligator, you should zigzag? And, like, the reason you zigzag is, first of all, they have little, little arms, so they can’t do it. But two is, like, it… You don’t go forward. You’re not going forward. You’re, you’re going side to side.

You’re not making forward progress. I feel like I’ve been the person that… It’s like I’ve, like, walked just, but I’ve walked consistently and, like, never stopped walking while other people have sprinted and tried to outrun me, but then they’ve passed out somewhere, and I’m just still walking. Like, still walking the same path for, like, 10 years.

So what does that boring foundation look like? What are these things that I have been doing, that I am doing? What is it… If I had to boil it all down to a nutshell of, like, the things I think you should focus on in order to grow a successful business that doesn’t require as much of you, what would they be?

I mean, first and foremost, having a signature product cannot– we cannot skip that. But I talk about this so much in my book. If you haven’t read my book, it’s called When I Start My Business, I’ll Be Happy. It’s all about my marketing strategies and how to build, uh, a funnel and an email list and how to run live launches.

But in it, I talk so much about creating your signature product, your first $1 million product, right? And so much of it is about creating something that people really want, that’s actually really good, that actually provides results, that gets people to fully use it or implement it so that they tell other people about it, and that’s kind of what makes the world go round, right?

Think about the last time you probably texted a friend about something that you really loved. Uh, like I just told my friend Michelle about this peanut butter I’m obsessed with called One Trick Pony, right? So I’m obsessed with… You know how I found about it? My friend Erin. So my friend Erin, who’s also a foodie like me, was like, “You gotta try this peanut butter.”

I tried the peanut butter. I’m obsessed with the peanut butter. So I told her about it and how they sell it at Target now, and I went and cleared the shelf and so- bought so much peanut butter. And so now she went and bought it, right? And I’m sure she will tell someone about it if she likes it. So this is how good products get passed down the line.

So you cannot skip this part. Again, it’s boring, just like everything else we’re about to talk about. It’s not sexy. It’s not fun. It’s not on social media. You won’t go viral for it. But you can make a shit ton of money off of it, so it helps Now, based on that one good product that you build, you can have one evergreen funnel.

Essentially, funnel is just fancy language for having a little system, a little series of steps, probably through email, where somebody takes an action, and that action triggers a series of email that gets them to buy something, right? It’s really all a funnel is. It’s like a methodical step-by-step process to getting people to buy something.

So for me, this is like a webinar, that they watch the webinar, they get a series of emails, and it tells them to buy the ultimate bundle. Having this one funnel that you just continue to tinker and, like, futz with and just make sure you just dial it in and dial it in and dial it in, right? I have been relentless.

Like, I am obsessed with the funnel, about knowing every single little detail, down to s- testing subject lines and tracking that, um, to A/B testing certain emails, to testing new preview text, to testing using buttons instead of links in my emails and the way I present something on a webinar. I have just become a student of it, and I think not enough people just are, I don’t know, maybe honest or upfront about the fact that, like, it just takes a lot of work, right?

I was in a Peloton class the other day, uh, with Kirsten Ferguson. It’s a, um, intention-setting walk, and one… In her intention-setting walk, she said that, “People don’t quit because it’s hard or because they can’t do it. They quit because they thought it was supposed to be easier. Difficult is normal, and you have to grow through the things you must go through.”

I thought that was so smart because I was thinking, like, how so many people quit along the path of, like, so many people are trying to do what I do or have done it in the p- tried to do it in the past, right, tried to have a funnel or tried to build an email list. And they’ve quit, I don’t think because they’re not capable, but it is funny how, like, people assume it’s not supposed to be hard.

And it’s like, no, it’s supposed to be hard. And I don’t know where we got the idea that this was supposed to be easy. It’s also not… I would go beyond w- what Kirsten said for our industry to say not only is it, you know, supposed to be difficult or take a lot of work or not supposed to be easy, I would also say it’s not supposed to be constant.

And so this industry doesn’t owe me anything. It has changed every four and a half minutes seemingly of, like, what has worked for email, what used to work for subject lines, and what used to be popular with webinars, what I can do and not do on social media these days. It’s constantly changing. Thank God, right?

Thank God, because I always say it’s, like, such a blessing to me that what I was doing in 2018 is not exactly what I’m doing now in the same exact way. ‘Cause, like, it’s already boring enough to, like, I repeat the same kinda, like, teaching things, right? Like, I’m talking about the same topic, talking about the same content.

Like, that can get boring enough, but at least, like, my job is dynamic. Like, I’ve had to learn. SEO things have changed. AI’s come on the g- on the scene, right? Like, Instagram wasn’t even… It was nothing more than a picture platform. So, like, it has given me so many opportunities to learn things So point being, stick with this one evergreen funnel and become a nerd about it, really study it, try to improve it, right?

As long as it’s working, of course you can quit on something once it’s not working. But like, if it’s, if it’s something that you think like people are buying, it is happening, you just- there’s like something that’s getting stuck, we can, we can improve it and keep tinkering. Just don’t quit on it to go start something else because it’s like every time you do, it’s like you’re just sending yourself back to the starting line Another very, very, very pivotal part of my boring foundation is my mighty little team of three people.

So we’ve got Michelle, Lindsey, and Leanne, who all have very distinct roles and are very good at what they do. They, like, own their stuff. They know what they’re to do. But I only have three people, right? And they’re not all full-time. So I think that sometimes people think that it’s like, has to be this, like, huge team, lots of full-time help, like, carrying a big, big payroll or something like this, and we are able to get it done because of this doing less strategy, right?

So, like, we, uh, we can each kinda own our little houses, like, our little part of the puzzle, and we can get our work done. If I was constantly adding in a bunch of new things, that would cause me to have to bring in a lot of new people. And when you bring in new people, you bring in new management, right?

You have new people to manage, new tasks. Somebody has to monitor those tasks getting done. Like, there are more projects. There’s more questions, and, and just kinda keeps piling up. So I actually think that, like, keeping my team very mighty, but also having… I mean, I’ve gotten really lucky that I have, like, three fantastic people who are also really good at what they do, and we all, like, get along so well, and all of that.

Like, I am, I am truly very lucky in that sense, that I, but I think, like, keeping it tight like that has been a key to the success. Okay, well, it’s also a shameless plug to say, like, I think having all my legal stuff set up and, like, my contracts done and my back end and my finances and, like, having all the boring stuff that, like, nobody wants to take care of, the things that I help people learn how to do inside the Ultimate Bundle.

It’s my signature program that gives you my 10 legal templates, plus access to my on-demand video training library that teaches you how to start an online business the right way. But I think, like, having all of that stuff take place gives me the peace of mind and the confidence to just go out and do whatever I need to do to build my business.

If you wanna learn more about the Ultimate Bundle, the best way to get it, by the way, is to watch my free legal workshop, Five Steps to Legally Protect and Grow Your Online Business. So I’ll leave a link to that in the show notes below. But that’s the biggest discount you can get, and there’s a special offer for the bundle, but it’ll also help you kinda get the front-end stuff of what you need to get your business started, um, done in that free class.

And last but not least, I would say another huge pillar of my boring foundation is my email list and really prioritizing email over social media. My email list, as we talked about in last week’s episode, is much bigger than my, even my social following. And having my email list has given me this backbone, right?

This way, this consistent, reliable way of actually reaching people because God knows we cannot rely on social media. If you think, by the way, that you need to build a bigger social following so that you can finally reach people on social media, I have bad news for you. Um, I have a decent social media following, and we can hardly get it in front of anybody, right?

So everybody is saying this. My friends who have hundreds of thousands, my friends who have millions of followers on social media, they can’t get anybody to see their stuff. Story views are in the toilet. Everything is down across the board. Because the attention is so fractured, right? And the algorithm is designed to, to show them whoever, not necessarily who people have elected to follow.

So with that being said, we can’t rely on that. The thing we can rely on is that we do know if you send an email, it’s gonna land in someone’s inbox. Now, of course, on the flip side, you might be thinking like, “Sure, okay, it could land in their inbox,” but then like what if they don’t read it? What if they don’t open it?

What if they don’t click on it? What if they don’t like it, right? Well, I can help with that luckily. Actually, tomorrow, November 10th, Tuesday at 3:00 PM, I am hosting a live workshop with Kit, with the team at Kit, um, the company I’ve used for over 10 years to manage and host my email list and build out all my funnels, my landing pages, and my forms, to show you guys all the backend of what’s inside my Kit, all my forms, my landing pages, my sequences, how my funnel works, the whole backend system.

I’m blowing the doors off, and it’ll all be tomorrow. If you can’t make it live, just sign up anyway. The link is in the show notes. If you can come live, it’s tomorrow, Tuesday, November 10th at 3:00 PM Eastern. I’ll be live with a Kit member, um, showing you all the behind-the-scenes of my Kit dashboard. But yeah, every single thing that’s in there is essentially what allows me to take time off, to not post as much on social media.

It’s like that investment account that we talked about that I know is gaining interest even when I’m on the beach So my hot take here today is that, you know, y- it’s, I know it’s not the popular opinion, it’s certainly not the sexy one, but your business is allowed to be boring. Like, it’s okay to just let it be boring, ’cause boring might be the very thing that allows you to have less of you in the business that does better, right?

So it, it might be okay to just let it be a little boring for a while. It also can be your job. I talk about this a lot in the book, in that, like, when I was a corporate lawyer, I looked to my job a lot to provide me with happiness, and I was a little confused at, like, why I wasn’t happy and that my job wasn’t making me happy.

But when I started this business, I was pretty, you know, adamant that it was like, this is not where my happiness is gonna come from. It’s why when we have really big launches, I’m kind of just like, “Cool. That’s great. I’m so proud of us. I’m happy.” And, like, it is shocking sometimes or very exciting, but, like, I’m not over in the moon ’cause it’s just like, meh, it’s, it is what it is, and, like, it comes, it goes, and I don’t know, it could all run out tomorrow.

So I just kinda take it all in stride, or at least I try to. I think sort of like a, a romantic relationship, your business will not always be exciting, and to me, that’s, like, a sign that it’s working. It’s stable. You don’t have to go in there and, like, mess it up just to make it more exciting. Now, one of the things, though, that no one ever really talks about is, like, when you have a business that runs like such a well-oiled machine, at least in my experience so far, in my 10 years of doing this, it’s not like that’s the end of the story.

So what I would have thought when I was building my business was, like, if my business ever got to this point, I would just sit back and be happy about it and chill, right? But unfortunately, that’s not what it’s necessarily felt like for me, and I talked about this a little bit earlier. But right now, I feel like, if I’m being honest, I feel like I’m in kind of in a deep period of reflection about, like, what is next and, like, how do I want to be in the business?

Like, what do I want the business to feel like for me as the owner, as the per- the marketing person, you know, whose face appears and everything? So I’m, I’m kind of sitting with that, and I’m trying to figure out, like, okay, I got everything I thought I wanted or said I wanted. Why does it feel uneasy, right?

Like, I technically have the dream situation. Why do I have a situation where I can take so much freedom and flexibility and I don’t take it, right? So, like, what does that mean? Why am I trying to stay so busy? Uh, like, what am I still trying to prove to myself or others? That, like, why can’t I just, I don’t know, revel in it, I guess.

And I also spend a lot of time these days thinking about, like- what else I really want in the business or in my professional career and why. So, like, for example, I’ll say, like, I just wanna go be a writer. Like, I just wanna write full time. And then this week I was journaling about, like, well, what does it mean to be a writer?

Like, what do I think that that means that’s different than what I’m doing now? Well, to me, writing means being by yourself, not having people relying on you, uh, really just being able to be, like, a little selfish and being like, “I don’t owe you anything. I’m just, like, writing my experience.” It also feels more creative, like creatively free to me.

You know, I feel like since I’ve gotten really into writing, it feels very expressive and, like, cathartic to me that I feel like there are things I can write that I can’t necessarily say or process in another way, right? And, and at times when I’m writing my best, I’m not writing for other people or for consumption or, um, based on just, like, how people will consume it, like how they’ll enjoy it or not, even if I do write it for, for public consumption.

I feel like my best work, like on my Substack, for example, has come from me just being like, you know what? I wanna talk about this thing. Like, I don’t really care how it goes. And you know what? Then that does end up being the piece that the most people comment on, but, like, that’s not why I’m doing it, which is very different than what I create in the business, which is like, I’m doing this thing and it’s like, has to work and this has to bring leads and has to have strategy and, like, has to grow the business in this way and, like, it’s just a very different mindset And last but not least, I, I’m spending a lot of time these days sitting with, you know, what I can do with everything that I’ve built so far, like just kind of reveling in it more, like I said, and not feeling like I have to keep it going or make it bigger, right?

Like, it doesn’t always have to be like bigger, bigger, bigger. Every launch has to get bigger or something like that. Like, it can also be an enough number. My business is very, very profitable, and so at some point it can also be like, oh, I don’t actually have to do all of these things. Or like, I don’t have to spend as much on ads in order to then have to make it up for my expenses.

Like, there, there are just things I could do to just ratchet down the amount of pressure or like … I don’t know. There just comes to be a point where it’s like you’re actually creating more work for yourself by making it bigger, ’cause now it’s just more and more reliant on you. Like it’s a, a big engine and a beast that needs feeding, right?

So just taking a hard look at like how big do I really want this beast to be? How much do I really wanna feed it? What does feeding it look like to me? Um, and like, yeah, what else, what else do I want to do with this? And like I’ve, I’ve, um, reached the point where I’m very lucky to be able to do that.

Before we go, I’d love to pose a question to you, and of course, as always, I’d love to hear your answer if you wanna hit reply on any of my emails or send me a DM @samvanderwielen on Instagram. But I wanna know from you, what would you stop doing if you knew your business would hold up without it? Is there some task maybe at this point?

Is there a platform you wish you didn’t h- quote, unquote, “have to be on” ’cause you probably don’t have to be on it? Um, is it, is it that you would drop to once a month in your YouTube channel or your podcast or whatever? So I’m curious, what would you stop doing if you knew your business would hold up without it?

I’d love to hear your answer or just hope that you save some time for you to reflect this week. And before you go, just remember to save your seat for my What’s in Sam Vander Wielen’s Kit live workshop that I’m hosting with Kit tomorrow, Tuesday, November 10th at 3:00 PM Eastern. The link is in the show notes.

The replay will be available. It’s completely free, and yes, I am a Kit affiliate, but I have used them for 10 years. My entire business, my funnel, my email list, my forms, my landing pages are all built through Kit. I’m recording this podcast episode in Kit Studios, so I’m a, a Kit girl at heart. I’m so excited, and I hope to see you there.

Thanks so much for listening. I’ll chat with you next week.

Thanks so much for listening to the On Your Terms® podcast. Make sure to follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. You can also check out all of our podcast episodes, show notes, links, and more at samvanderwielen.com/podcast. You can learn more about legally protecting your business and take my free legal workshop, 5 Steps to Legally Protect and Grow Your Online Business at samvanderwielen.com.

And to stay connected and follow along, follow me on Instagram @samvanderwielen and send me a DM to say hi