Simplifying My Business: Updates + Changes 2023
I have gotten quite a few emails and questions asking about my pivot with my business at the end of last year so I am going to break down the decisions that led me to where I am right now.
For you to understand the whole picture I need to rewind back to the beginning of 2022.
When it all started…
Last January, I set some pretty big goals for my business with the main one focusing more on working with my students on a deeper level.
Up until that point, my business was heavily focused on online courses and smaller digital products. I felt like I was missing that deeper connection with my students and wanted to restructure my business to allow me the space to have opportunities to work one-on-one or in a smaller group format.
In the years leading up to 2022, I had done a lot of product launches and online events, but it was getting increasingly harder for me to plan these types of activities because of my schedule with my kids and personal life. Not to mention, they felt very stressful to me.
This is one of the reasons why I had originally decided to move forward with a more in-depth service offering because I was hoping it would allow me more time and freedom with my day-to-day business activities (hint: I was wrong).
In the first few months of 2022, I hit the ground running with these new plans. I was excited about the changes and literally put everything else in my business on hold.
When I realized I was wrong…
I invested (a lot!) in a pretty big online course to help me achieve my goals. I hate to say that it was a mistake because it was that program that taught me that I actually DID NOT want to alter my business model the way I thought I did. Unfortunately, a lot of time, energy, and money was wasted to get to that point.
The program was great, it just didn’t feel like the right direction for me.
I’m not sure if you can relate, but I just got to a point where I felt like the entire online space was people just re-marketing courses that they took. All these ‘gurus’ with no credentials seemed to be saying the same things and telling you that you HAD to do it their way or you wouldn’t be successful.
I just needed to break free from all the internet marketing, product launches and just social media in general. It all felt really heavy and I just needed time to think through things without being influenced.
This brings us to about mid-year 2022 when I made some pretty big changes.
When the changes started happening…
First, I put a halt to altering my business model once I realized I didn’t want to work one-on-one or offer a high-priced group coaching program (to be clear, there is nothing wrong with those things, they just weren’t the right fit for me or my business).
I wanted to have more time to just be creative again and I couldn’t do this with the constant pressure of launching online courses, doing live webinars, or the demands of a group coaching program.
For me, this meant clearing my schedule of everything I had planned for the remainder of the year.
I made sure I was still available for my students, but I needed the time and space to work on my business.
If you’ve been around here for a while then you probably know that I started in this online world in 2011 with my blog, Frugal Fanatic. I ran that site solely for about 4 years until I branched out and started this site.
At that time, I had so many people asking me if I could teach them how I was making money from my blog, so I created my first online course. I kind of just fell into the B2B space. From there, I created and launched so many different digital products and courses over the years.
I truly enjoy creating courses and helping other online business owners achieve their goals through them.
When I first started with my frugal site it was a hobby. I had just wanted a creative outlet, but it quickly turned into much more than I had anticipated. One thing that I loved about it was being able to help people through my content and with the printables I created.
This is what led me to the current state of my business. About halfway through the year is when I really started getting clarity about my business boundaries and figuring out what I should do that would make me happy while still allowing my business to thrive.
Changes I made…
One big change that I immediately made was combining my two businesses. At that time, my Frugal Fanatic business was very passive. I was making money through ads, affiliate links, and digital products. I hadn’t really touched the site in years because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it.
Even though it was pretty passive I still felt the constant pull to work on it and was becoming very draining trying to keep up with two online businesses.
This is when I made the decision to combine my two sites. It was really tough for me because I felt like I was abandoning both by putting them all together.
I had built separate audiences from my content and courses on both sites and felt like I was letting them down because I knew going forward that my content and business wouldn’t be as niched as they had been up until that point.
I went back and forth for a few months but then realized that it was MY business and I had to do what I felt was right and what was the best way to service my audience. Not what everyone online was telling me I should be doing.
Honestly, it felt kind of scary at first. I knew I would lose a lot of email subscribers and followers because of this shift, but that’s okay. For me, it just felt better to use my AddiGanley.com website moving forward.
I wanted to make everything as SIMPLE as I could. This meant getting my business to run with a very minimalistic mentality.
Having two businesses led me to accumulate a lot of different moving parts and online programs. I took some time to figure out how to create the easiest path for the necessary day-to-day activities.
Everything else got eliminated or consolidated.
I went through and did an audit on every single monthly subscription, online software and program I was using for both of my sites and narrowed it down to only what I absolutely needed.
Just doing this took a huge weight off of me. Here are some of the things I got rid of and some that I kept.
Eliminated/Consolidated:
Air Table
Vimeo Pro
Zoom
MemberVault
Planoly
Karta (removed my email lists)
Facebook Ads
Samcart
Deadline Funnel
Zapier
Currently Using:
Convertkit - email marketing
Karta - only for courses
Asana - project management
Loom - screen recording course videos
Google Drive - everything!
One of the biggest things was combining the two separate email lists. My Frugal Fanatic business was using Convertkit and my Addi Ganley business was using Kartra.
I made sure to email both lists multiple times so that they would be aware of the upcoming changes and give them the opportunity to unsubscribe if it didn’t seem like something they would be interested in. After doing that I was able to move my lists over to Convertkit and only use that for my email marketing needs moving forward.
I was then able to transfer over a lot of my content from my Frugal Fanatic site. It is still a work in progress. I try to work on it for a little bit each week, but it is a long process that will probably take me till the end of this year.
I don’t anticipate completely getting rid of my Frugal Fanatic domain. The site is still up and has content on it that no longer fits with the direction my business is going. I won’t be giving it any time or energy in the near future.
Once I made the decision to combine the businesses and figured out all the tech stuff and content I decided to focus my time and energy on the things I enjoy doing the most. The main one is going back to how I started.
Going back to my roots…
This meant creating new blog content since that’s always been the heart of my business and focusing on creating new printables like I did when I first started in the online space.
Instead of offering higher-priced in-depth online courses, I like having inexpensive ways to support my audience and help them to solve their problems immediately.
With this new venture, I wanted to start with a clean slate so I decided to open a storefront using Shopify.
This was totally new territory for me but I was up for the challenge because I was excited to have the time and space to just create.
I enrolled in an online course about having a Shopify store (affiliate link). and one that taught me how to better use Illustrator (affiliate link).
If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out the new shop here.
Some of my most popular items:
I can honestly say it has been so much fun the past 4 months that my shop has been open. I haven’t been setting any hard deadlines for myself but find that I am still extremely productive.
I continue to only work about 12-15 hours each week.
I’ve been sheltering myself from social media and try not to look at all the 2023 trends in the online space because I truly like where I am right now. I haven’t used any of my platforms besides Pinterest for my printables. Maybe in the next few months, that will change, but for now, it’s working for me.
If you are a student of mine, you still have access to my online courses. I do not plan on creating any new courses this year but you can still enroll in the ones I do have.
Plans for 2023
I’m not sure what this year will bring and honestly I feel good about that. I do have goals that I’ve set for my business, but they aren’t traditional sales and marketing goals.
They focus more on taking time off, following my gut when I make business decisions, and staying on this slow and steady path that I have created for myself.
This whole back-to-the-basics mentality has been so freeing for me.
I’m excited to continue to add new items to the shop every single week.
I can’t thank you all enough for your continued support. I genuinely love reading all of your kind emails and reviews that you’ve left in my new shop.
