Dear Lovely Simplerista,

I've been cleaning my house this past week after my wife learned about Marie Kondo's book from Christine Eilvig. Phoebe bought the physical book, I browsed through it on the elevator ride up to the 20th floor, and it really caught me, so I went ahead and bought it on iBooks as well and read it over the weekend. It's so absolutely. cool.

It's 90% throwing stuff out, and 10% organizing the stuff that's left. I thought that give that I've moved between continents four times and been through divorce, each time shedding massive amounts of accumulated "stuff", that I was pretty lean. Well, there was still a lot to get rid of. And I learned a ton from it.

I learned that I feel guilt towards my stuff. A shirt I bought that I never liked. I feel guilt, both over having spent the money, and also toward the shirt for not wearing. It's a perfectly fine shirt, just not fo rme. I should wear it more. At least I need to keep it in my closet. What Marie teaches is that all our things are there for us. If they don't bring us joy (or we absolutely need to keep them for other more practical reasons), then get rid of them. So that shirt had to go.

Same with books and course materials. I've always loved non-fiction books, CDs, DVDs, online courses. And I've gotten rid of lots of books and manuals and CDs and DVDs each time I've moved. But I still had quite a few that I bought a long time ago and wanted to "get to" someday, mostly out of guilt. I started asking myself the question: Would I buy that book again today? If not, then just get rid of it. Why would I keep it? Apart from the guilt, it's the fear that there's some valuable information in that book that I'd miss out on if I didn't read it.

But there are tons and tons of resources available to learn everything I could possibly ever need to know. Books, people, blogs, youtube, google, online courses, intuition, you name it. Holding on to these books is rooted in a fear that I may not have what I need in the future. It's scarcity thinking. It's a fear of the future that keeps me holding on to the past, plain and simple. Unless they bring you a palpable feeling of joy, throw them away, and trust that you'll always be able to get what you need and have all your needs fulfilled in the future. Life will keep providing you with opportunities to learn everything you need to learn.

Your things exist to serve you, not the other way around. Let them do their job and serve you. And if they're not serving you, set them free to serve someone else in this or some other form.

Clearing out your piles of stuff really helps you live in the present, without being stuck in the past or afraid of the future. It brings clarity, confidence, lightness, and joy. 

And this goes for your business to. Your business and your customers exist to serve you as well. Of course, you're there to serve them, but ultimately, if the relationship is not serving you, or the way things are structured aren't serving you, it's on you to change it. If you keep doing things that don't serve you, then you're dampening yourself, and ultimately you're preventing the rest of us from receiving the gift that you're really here to share. Because that gift will definitely be about serving yourself as much as serving others.

Why Simplero Is the Best Tool out There to Run Your Information Business

So last week, we talked about how if you're selling coaching or consulting or any type of one-on-one services, you really want to supplement your business with information products so you can make more money without increasing your prices or working more hours. You don't want a limit to how much money you can make, and you want to be able to make money even when you're on vacation.

Today we'll talk about why Simplero is the best option out there to run your information business.

To be sure, there's a ton of systems out there, so let's break it down really simply. They generally fall in two buckets:

• At the high end is big marketing automation software packages like Infusionsoft and Ontraport. They both start at around $300/month and go up from there. Infusionsoft requires you to buy a big "coaching package" up-front.
• At the low end, there's a Wordpress site with a bunch of plugins to do shopping cart, member site, with Mailchimp for your mailing list and a bunch of other tools that you glue together.

What I hear consistently from people after switching to Simplero is that it's such a time and money-saver for them. They're so glad they found Simplero, they only wish they'd found it sooner.

Why?

For people that's switching from Infusionsoft and Ontraport, they save a ton of money and time not only because Simplero is cheaper, but also because they no longer need an army of consultants to manage their business for them. It's not uncommon to hear that people save over $2,000 per month just in consultants to operate these complex software applications. Add to that the fact that now they can figure out how to make changes themselves (and actually enjoy it) where before they had to deal with 2-3 people each time they needed to make a change, and they also save a ton of time and hassle and coordination. And they end up being much more responsive to the market and their customers.

For people switching from the "Wordpress + plugins + single-function tools" scenario, it's that while this may seem cheaper on the surface (many plugins are a one-time fee versus a monthly fee, for example), it ends up taking a lot of time, and often times you end up being the IT person. Each time you upgrade some plugin, something changes. Want to swap a tool out? Now you've got to change that in five different places, and remember what those places are and get it right. Oops, now something broke and I have no idea why. If that's your idea of time well spent, then go ahead, but for most people it's not. If your hourly rate is $300, then if Simplero saves you just 20 minutes per month, the investment is paid off, right there. And that's not even counting any additional sales you might make thanks to Simplero.

Simplero typically replaces 5-7 other systems, and life is so much simpler and smoother. When shit breaks, or you need help, there's one place to turn to.

There's a third category, namely sites like Skillshare, Coursera, and similar. These are marketplaces where you can sell your courses without having to do any marketing or business building. That's great, but the problem is they usually don't pay well for most people, and now you have no control. If they want to change the pricing or the percentage they pay you, they usually can, and there's nothing you can do about it. Need another 10 grand for a nice vacation somewhere? Good luck trying to make that on Skillshare. Use these platforms for lead generation, not as a place to make money. Put out courses there that are teasers for courses they can buy directly from you, and entice people to come to your own website and sign up for your list.

So that's the bottom line.

Simplero sits right in the middle of the market, and does what most people need for their information business in a way that's easy and affordable. And unlike the other tools here, Simplero is specifically designed from the get-go for information marketing - selling courses and workshops. It's got almost everything you need - email marketing, automated billing, content delivery, landing pages, member sites. The only two big pieces we don't yet do are webinars and your main website. We have people who are just starting out, and people who are doing really really well.

Interestingly, just a couple of nights ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing one of my customers who have experience with both ends of the spectrum. Check it out:

Interview with Julia Jones

I interviewed Simplero customer Julia Jones about her work helping mothers in the first 40 days after birth, and it's incredible. I love what she does so much. The interview is also really great if you're on the fence about Simplero and want to hear from someone who recently switched from both of these options to Simplero.

New Features in Simplero

Nothing much to report here this week. Sorry.

Random Links from around the Interwebs

Go watch John Oliver's segment on government surveillance right now. It's one of the most important topics to understand, and it's also pretty hard to understand. June 1st, the Patriot Act is coming up for renewal, and we must make sure it gets rejected this time. It's a sick law that never should've happened in the first place. What's been happening in this country post-911 is wasteful, ignorant, hurtful. We're so good at terrorizing ourselves now that we hardly need the terrorist. Fear has become the way of life. It's a sad situation, and we need to do something to change it. Start by watching the segment above.

Another completely misguided way that the west has been waging for about a century now is the war on drugs. I found this interview with the author of a new book about the war on drugs very very enlightening. I had no idea that the war on drugs started out with a decidedly racist agenda. I've long been a proponent of legalizing drugs, but now I see it even more clearly. Outlawing drugs has absolutely zero benefits (and that's been proven over and over again), legalizing them has almost zero negative consequences, and addiction is not about the drug in question, but about how much a person has to live for.

To lighten the mood, here's a soup ladle that looks like the Loch Ness monster.