When starting a business, it's kind of hard to wrap your brain around Return on Investment. 

Your passion is high in the beginning.  You have so many ideas. You want to do it all.  Then when the sales start rolling in, the excitement fuels you to sell even more.

Overwhelm was present the whole time.  But now the intensity is off the charts.

That's were LEAN comes in. LEAN businesses focus on doing the smallest effort for the biggest payoff.  All of the large, successful companies do it.  It's how they can be in business for life.

As a certified LEAN Six Sigma coach, I helped companies with thousands of employees streamline their businesses. I can help you too.

This episode is geared toward solopreneurs and small business owners in the first few years of their business.

Using easy to understand scenarios, you'll experience some mindset shifts on why you would want to do less.

Then I'll share 5 of the first places to start.

You and your business are important.  Stop shooting yourself in the foot with your heart of gold.

 Just because you know how to do everything, doesn't mean it is good for your mental health.  You are allowed to do less and have a big payoff.  You're worth it!

In this episode, we talk about:

• Figuring out your Minimum Viable Product.
• Defining your bare-bones process aka your Minimum Viable Process?
• How much does it actually cost you to acquire a client?
• Getting clear your expenses so that you can keep your profit margin high.
• Overcoming perfectionism and finding the minimum quality of your products and services that will keep your clients happy.
• The Lean Six Sigma and the Lean Value Canvas.

Time Stamps:

[06:02] Minimum Viable Product - At the beginning of starting your business, it's important to narrow in on your minimum viable product, just so that you can get people interested. Here's how!

[08:29] Minimum Viable Process - What's the bare bones process in your business that will keep your lights on? 

[10:27] Minimum Cost to Acquire a Client - Get this, when I started, I had 54 different ways that I was trying to acquire a client! I had to look at all of those ways and determine how much it was costing me to acquire a client, then experiment, adjust and find a better way!

[13:31] Minimum Expenses & Highest Profit Margins - How can you minimize your expenses so that you can keep your profit margin high and eventually see your bank account rising every month.

[15:33] Minimum Quality - I know what you're thinking, highest quality work always. I'm with you, I find myself being quite the perfectionist sometimes, but experiment with decreasing quality by 5% and see how it impacts your customer satisfaction. Or if that doesn't feel quite right, give these other ideas a try.

Links from this episode

• Business 1:1 coaching - Get a private coaching experience with longer session times. 
• Episode 72 Design & Plan Your Business - using the Lean Value Canvas
• Lean Six Sigma Training & Free Templates  - goLeanSixSigma.com is a great resource