Only the essentials
A reminder I needed, and maybe one you needed, too
The Sustainable Solopreneur is a weekly newsletter about seasonal, cyclical, supportive business strategy for solopreneurs and creative souls who want more out of life than the status quo, hosted by business coach and strategist Jenni Gritters. If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while and you receive value from it, I’d encourage you to sign up for a paid subscription.
☀️ I’m hosting my next virtual (and in person for 8 more people!) business planning retreat on June 6th. If you’ve been struggling to figure out what the next version of your business will look like, this one’s for you! (SUSTAIN members — check your email for your discount code.) ☀️
This past week, I did my second guided, therapeutic, psychedelic journey. The first, last October, helped me deeply understand my relationship with my own emotions. It changed my anxiety levels and my understanding of how stress shows up in my body.
This second one was different, though— much longer and more focused on the state of the world and my role in it. (I’ll record a full podcast episode on Trying Stuff soon about the whole experience, because I know you likely have a lot of questions.) I walked away with a clearer sense of where I want to go with my life and my work (spoiler alert: more accessibility, bigger impact, more physical rest, a hell yes for anything that brings full body joy). And I also “woke up” with an even stronger aversion to anything that feels hollow, especially in business.
That’s what I want to talk about today.
The core purpose of a business is to solve a problem with your unique skillset. Any business 101 course will teach you this: find a problem and solve it.
But along the way, we’ve gotten lost in the fancy language, the price hikes, the marketing funnels and the quick fixes. We’ve been distracted by trying to create perfect CTAs and subject lines that will convert our warm leads. (What even is that language!?) While the internet did us a solid by opening up the world— now we can work with people near and far— I believe it also gave us far too much information. The result is a whole lot of shouting into the void on social media, smoke-and-mirror style marketing that aims to coerce, and email inboxes full of unhelpful information.
I think you know you know what I mean when I say it feels hollow, fake, like gasping for breath— both on the receiving end and when you’re trying to use these tactics. They feel wrong physically, in a way that most people identify as a strategy that’s not working. But the truth, in my world, is that the weird feeling is your system reminding you that there’s obligation, B.S. and inauthenticity behind these manipulative business actions. It’s coming from a get-get-get place. You can literally feel the incongruence in your system, even when you can’t name it.
This week I’ve been talking to my clients a lot about getting back to the essentials of business again, which feels like a sigh of relief to most of us. What I mean by essentials is this:
Business is simply your way to serve the world. If you’re not clear on the problems you’re solving, it’s time to really think about that and center it when you talk to folks. And if the problem you solved is now being solved by AI, it’s time to shift your focus toward what you’re here to do— like what you’re really here to do. Is it to help people feel seen? To help us move toward renewable energy sources? To hold authority to account? To dream up new versions of community support? To remind us of the rituals we’ve lost? We’re going to have to ask this question about your purpose in the next few years — each and every one of us.
Marketing is connecting to the people who need help solving that problem. Literally, it gets to be that simple. Find a place where those people are and talk to them— not with coercive language, but with human, connective language, no strings attached. Make it clear that you know what they’re struggling with. Say it out loud. Provide relief.
Branding is a word we used when big organizations needed to sound human. Lucky for us solopreneurs, we’re already humans. It’s just us delivering these solutions! So your branding gets to be you being yourself, loudly, in all the weird humanity that entails. Pick colors that make you cackle with delight. Use words that you’d share with your best friends. Take photos that help people feel your unique vibe. Be yourself, please. Please! The stranger, the better.
Workflows? Just the human rituals and rhythms we’ve been enacting since the beginning of time. Pick one or two that feel like a breath of fresh air. Use nature as inspiration. Shift with the seasons. Keep the humanity laced in. And maybe you try a new tool, too: intuition, which is best accessed in quiet. (This intuitive workflows & systems magic is what we’re focusing on in my coaching community, SUSTAIN, this month.)
Finally, finances. When we get back to the essentials, money represents a trade of value. It’s a symbol. You give me value, I give you value in return. So it gets to be as simple as helping your community in the biggest, bravest, most generous way you know. (And no, this doesn’t not mean working for free!) That’s where the sustainable money journey begins.
Can you feel it? The way you’re so exhausted by everything in your inbox and just can’t sign up for another damn program because the buzzwords and long scroll pages and marketing funnels are making you feel more alone and broken than ever before?
Can you feel how adding humanity back into all of this is a risk worth taking?
Each week, I get an inside look at other people’s businesses and I can tell you with clarity: the smoke and mirrors, the big launches, the cold pitch strategies… The jig is up. The revenue isn’t flowing the way it used to.
Adaptation is the only way, my friends. The essentials are what always mattered. And if my intuition is correct (it always is): Business gets to be that simple again. Business must be that simple again.
Here are the questions I want you to walk with this week:
What is the essential problem I solve?
What solution would feel like a breath of fresh air to people who have this problem?
Where are these people and how can I connect with them in human ways?
What parts of my website and social media feel like a performance, and how can I drop the show to be more me— the real me?
What systems feel good and supportive right now— an ideal match for spring energy?
How can I be more generous and helpful?
I know this is a really tough business moment for many of us. This AI surge, combined with catastrophic politics and genocide, all within a scary economy… it’s tricky. Its heavy. But there’s so much hope, too. Hope for a system that actually benefits all of us. Hope for humanity at the center of how we live and work. Hope for new ways of distributing wealth, caring for each other and raising our children. Hope for the way the energy is changing and the paradigms are shifting, little by little.
Like algorithms and social media platforms, those shiny object ways of doing business weren’t built to last. But being in the messy dance of helping other humans? That will always be the most essential, most sustainable way forward.
Xo,
Jenni
Curious about my background? I’m a writer and business coach living in Central Oregon. My goal is to teach everyone who will listen that it’s possible to build a simple, stable, successful business that supports your human needs first. Join my group coaching program, SUSTAIN, for more conversations like this (and a community of people who are all about the path less taken), and follow me on LinkedIn & Instagram.