Keepin' it simple
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication," said Leonardo da Vinci.
Great leaders and thinkers, including Einstein, Bruce Lee, Steve Jobs, and many others, have shared their thoughts on simplicity.
Confucius said, "Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated."
And we do.
However, being creative, having a clear goal, and understanding the task to be done can simplify things.
Scale the simple
After working with someone a few years back, for a little over 2 months, they said to me, "That's it? I expected there to be more."
When I asked why, he responded, "I feel like it's pretty simple."
People get stressed out, overwhelmed, and frustrated with automation and email because they've overcomplicated it.
Or worse, have been told by the gurus they need all these tools and layers for their “funnels.”
Which doesn't have to be the case.
Automation boils down to doing a specific job with a particular outcome on a repeatable basis.
Scale the simple.
Think about those face palm moments when you see life hack videos of peeling a hard boiled egg or keeping the Tupperwear lids in order. They are usually very obvious or simple solutions, right?
When something you do works every time, it's often simple.
One task, One function
The art of simplicity comes from breaking processes into the smallest functions.
One example is your autoresponder, or lead magnet.
When someone signs up to your email list, you send an email in response.
The objective is for the subscriber to receive the email based on their action of signing up…and nothing else.
Say you then want to send a series of emails to welcome someone to your list. That's another objective.
Does it happen after the autoresponder? Sometimes.
Should every subscriber get the welcome emails? Yes.
Can subscribers get on the list without that lead magnet? Yes.
The two may be related, but only sometimes.
If you have a different objective for a subscriber along their path, that's a new function, which should be a new automation.
Sure, you'll have more automations and sequences. But each will be:
Smaller and manageable
Give you flexibility
Won't frustrate or overwhelm you
Each automation and sequence stands on its own and is ready when you need it to help your subscribers and provide value.
But the two functions don't have the same objective.
Another (big) example of this is deliverability.
This overwhelms people because there are technical layers on top of the human factor.
Here’s the simple solution that helps to solve both in one go.
One that I’ve done myself and with clients to get out of the junk folders.
Start asking questions and getting replies.
When you engage your subscribers and get them to reply to open ended questions, fun secret words, and clicking on attention grabbing choices, that sends good signals to the servers that your emails are important and want to be read by people.
The Email Connection Kit makes all this even more simple by giving you the templates to customize and send off within 15 minutes.
When you get right down to the objective and task at hand, simplicity wins.
Keep it simple!