How a Slow Business helps with life-work balance

When I started my business, it was always going to be a slow business: I had three young children, a husband that worked away from home and limited hours when I could work (and no desire to give up my free evening TV time!). It wasn’t about making lots of money quickly, but about creating a business that could grow and scale over time, and most importantly fit in with my dream life.

This style of business seems to be gaining popularity – you might see it called a Life First / Lifestyle / Sustainable or Gentle Business – and it’s about building a business in a way that supports you: your energy cycle, values and lifestyle.

It’s not about the hustle culture and making 4/5/6 figures in the shortest time possible at the sacrifice of all the things that are important to you, but about creating things today that you know will still be working for you in the future.

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What is a Slow Business?

Not to be confused with a business that is under-performing/having a low sales month, a Slow Business embraces many of the principles that are often seen within the Slow Living movement.

Slow living is a lifestyle which encourages a slower approach to aspects
of everyday life, involving completing tasks at a slower pace.

Wikipedia

The main difference with having a slow business is being mindful about how you spend your time and how you market your business (for some, this means a focus on growing a business without using social media). It can also mean thoughtfully creating products – physical or digital! – that reflect your values and maybe most importantly of all, it means having a strong sense of what your priorities are.

One of the key elements to being successful is being very intentional about structuring your business in a way that maximises profitability: just because you’re building a slow business doesn’t mean that you don’t make money. It’s about learning what systems give you the freedom and flexibility to live you want, because when you’re building a slow business, automation is your super-weapon!

It’s also being clear on what your boundaries are and being comfortable with saying ‘No!’: Not doing things just because everyone else is doing them and at the same time not being being afraid to experiment and adapt them in a way that feels right to you and the life that you want to live.

So, if you’re reading this and thinking, “Well, that all sounds great, but how do I get started with building a slow business?” then read on…..

Work out what your Dream Business looks like

We are all amazingly different, and from working with creative business owners it’s normal for every single person’s vision of a dream business to be completely different: one might dream of working 3 hours a day in between school runs, want to sell digital products online, rarely showing up on social media and make £1k a month, while someone else may dream of working 3 days a week, travelling part-time, posting daily on social media and making £5k a month.

Often our Dream Business vision will reflect our different priorities, life-stages, experiences and personalities, so taking time to understand what YOUR dream business is, is the first step towards creating it.

It’s so easy to get caught up in someone else’s vision and start to adopt it as your own: there are lots of people telling you to do X,Y,Z to achieve ‘success’ but if you start building a business that needs you to be networking at different events each week when you’re trying to juggle toddlers and deep-down you’re an introvert, you’re likely gong to find it really hard to do.

Then you may find yourself burning out quickly and you won’t see the growth you’re looking for because ultimately you’re not working towards your dream business.

Remember that success looks different to everyone. So, take some time to dream and think about what you would love your ideal day to look like 3-5years from now: how would you fill your days? What types of projects would you be working on? How many days a week would you be working? How much would you need to earn to achieve this lifestyle?

If you want some help to map out what your Dream Business/Life could looks like, I actually have a free workshop here to help you…

Be realistic

There are lots of success stories out there, but the truth is that success takes investment – and that can mean time and/or money. And generally, the more time you can ‘invest’ up front, the quicker you are likely to see growth (and success) because you are creating more content.

Be honest with yourself about how much time you have/are willing to spend on your business: are you ready to sacrifice binge-watching the latest must-watch series on Netflix whilst you get established, or is it more important to you that you spend the evenings relaxing and with friends/family?

Not wanting to give things up to build your dream business is perfectly okay, but if you’re working part-time and setting yourself targets based on full-time hours your chances of reaching them are reduced, and that can knock your motivation or lead to burnout.

Building a Slow Business is about setting realistic goals based on the work that you are willing/able to do right now, making a plan and then sticking to it.

Focus on the tasks that keep on giving

As a small business owner, you most likely have a never-ending list of tasks that need doing (or projects you want to start!). There’s always something……admin, customer service, social media, marketing and creating new products.

If you’re building a slow-business and focusing on long-term growth, it’s really important to work on the tasks that will give you the best Return on Investment (ROI) – again where investment can mean time as well as money – because it’s these that will help you to achieve sustainable business growth.

High ROI tasks are the ones that continue to help your business by growing your audience and driving sales with minimal ongoing effort. Ones that, even if you stop working for a month, will still help to drive footfall to your website/webshop/newsletter list.

In my experience, this means making sure that you do the basics really well, with a focus on Long Form content – things like blog posts and YouTube videos which take longer to create but aren’t subject to an algorithm and stay relevant for months/years and benefit from Search Engine Optimisation.

In my creative business, the priority tasks are blog content, Pinterest, digital products and writing newsletters……if you want to go the Slow Business route, having a newsletter list is so important! It’s the ideal way of connecting with your customers and nurturing a relationship with them on your own terms (I love to use Flodesk for creating beautiful newsletters) without worrying about what the latest algorithm update means.

I put less focus on social media because although it could massively grow my reach in a short amount of time the content generally has a much shorter lifespan and is reliant on me maintaining a consistent level of activity that I know I can’t/won’t always be able to deliver.

If you have a business already, it’s worth going into your analytics and looking at how people are discovering you/purchasing from you and prioritising the channels that are working best.

If you’re just starting out, this can mean surveying your audience, reviewing the analytics as they become available and focusing on the channels where you feel most at home.

Don’t do things because you think you should

As your business grows – and especially as creatives where we always have lots of ideas – it’s easy to add in new products and services.

With a Slow Business, keeping it simple is often the best stratgey and you may even choose to sacrifice profit because the ‘cost’ of adding in a product/service that is not aligned with your vision is too high.

When I started designing quilt patterns, one sales channel that I looked at was paper patterns. I did try it for a little while but my dream business is based on ease – so selling digital products where the transaction is automated and needs very little input from me is ideal. Whereas getting paper patterns printed required sourcing suppliers, storing them, going to the post office when I got an order…..all things I didn’t enjoy and don’t fit in with my idea of what a dream business is, so I soon stopped doing this.

Sometimes we know what does/doesn’t fit into our Dream Business Model, other times we have to experiment!

Regularly review your business

As we journey through life and our business knowledge grows, our priorities and goals can often change.

And if you’ve been in business for a few years, it’s easy to end up with a model that no longer suits you or a range of products (physical or digital) that work individually but may no longer light you up or align with your vision.

So part of running a Slow Business means getting comfortable with revisiting what your dream business looks like, being honest with yourself about how things are going and making any changes that are needed. Sometimes they might be small changes to our routine, how your connect with your customers, other times they might be retiring a product because they no longer fits with your vision.

By following these steps regularly, you can move towards creating an intentional business that brings you joy whilst also helping you achieve a sustainable life-work balance.

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• Work out what your dream business looks like (watch this FREE workshop if you need help)
• Ensure your business goals are realistic for your lifestyle
• Identify your highest ROI (Return on Investment) tasks and prioritise them