Keep It Simple, Stupid!

So today I want to talk to you about KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid.  

Now, it might sound a bit rude if you say it to somebody else, but you know what? There’s a lot of good ideas behind this phrase and it’s one I often say to myself.  If not out loud, then certainly in my head.

Let me explain it a bit more. Businesses can be really complicated – cash flow, recruitment, marketing, training, customer loyalty – there are hundreds of things that will need your attention when you start and hopefully grow your business and it’s really easy to feel swamped by them. So, thinking KISS on a regular basis is a brilliant way to keep you focused and on track.  

In simple terms, business is about creating something. It could be a product or a service  and then selling it for more than it costs. Buy an apple for 10p, sell it for 20p and  you’re off to a good start, right? Buy an apple for 10p and sell it for 5p and you’re almost certainly gonna fail.

Of course, it’s not quite that simple, and I’ve talked before about how you have to factor in other costs that you incur trying to sell the apple.  That might be staff costs, the cost of renting a shop or a store, and also any costs for stock that goes rotten and doesn’t sell, for example.  

But hang on a minute – Keep It Simple, Stupid!

You don’t have to be a genius to work out the other costs and then divide them by the number of apples that you sell, which will give you the actual cost of sale per apple, right? So here we go, if we started with five pence an apple, then we added in the other costs and it ended up with another two pence an apple. Now that means each apple’s actually costing seven p. Remember, we were selling them at 10 p. So we still make a profit, okay? 

Now, I don’t want anyone to feel that I’m talking down to them about any of this. I’m really not, that’s not my intention. What I’m trying to do is to make it super clear that the key to business is to stay focused on what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and then most importantly, whether you’re making money. 

There will be times when you make good margins  and others where you might be making very little or even a loss.  But the important thing is to be aware of what’s going on, otherwise you can get easily distracted and lose sight of the things that really matter. 

Let me give you an example of how I use KISS. 

Let’s imagine I’m in a meeting with a supplier who’s pitching us marketing services. Chances are they’ll have a glossy presentation with some nice images, a bunch of facts and figures that suggest that they’re the best thing since sliced bread. And they might be, but I need to find out for sure because I don’t want to waste my time or my money. 

I want to KISS the presentation, so I’ll ask the dumb question. I’ll even say that I’m going to do it. It goes something along these lines.  Thank you very much for the presentation. You’ve clearly put a lot of effort into it and I really appreciate your hard work.

“Can I just ask a few dumb questions so that I’m clear on a few points?”

Now what I’m doing is I’m kind of preparing them for some pretty direct questions.  All too often people tiptoe around a subject and then wonder why they come away from the meeting still feeling unsure about the decision they need to make. That’s not great for anyone. So ask those direct, dumb, simple questions to uncover the information that you really need. It might be, how much does it cost? What happens if it doesn’t work? Or even just sharing your feelings by saying,  I’m not convinced, can I speak to one of your existing customers to find out what they say? 

What KISS does is it forces me to boil things down to the very basics. It keeps me driving forwards towards the facts that are really important. And KISS is also brilliant for your own internal meetings.

Look at the meeting agenda and KISS it. 

Ask yourself whether the agenda points are clear, whether there’s too many of them, whether they lead you to the discussions and outcomes that you really need to have. A weak meeting agenda is a recipe for an ineffective meeting and ineffective meetings can strangle a business. 

So, strip out the stuff that bogs you down and focus on the bits that are going to move you forward. 

Right, hopefully now you’re now all on side with the idea of KISS. But, if you still need some convincing, here are five reasons you should really look to apply it.

So number one, use it to design a better customer experience. 

Simple processes, easy navigation, clear choices,  all of this improves the customer experience.  

Two, KISS your internal processes and strip out all your unnecessary complexity. That’ll not only speed things up in the company, but make it more nimble and build staff trust. 

Then KISS your internal communication, reduce the length of meetings, take the waffle out of emails, things like that. No more than five words on a PowerPoint slide, right?  

Number four, KISS your product designs. 

Simplify your packaging and your products. Make it easy for customers to understand what they’re buying, how to use it and make it accessible. 

Then number five, KISS your challenges. In business, when you face problems, KISS helps you turn a complex problem into a challenge. It allows you to focus on the essentials and trust me, it works. 

So this week, I want you to be nice and KISS-y.

In fact, I want you to be much more KISS-y in your everyday world every week! So keep it simple, stupid, because in businesses, genius is simply spelt  S-I-M-P-L-E. Yes, they both have six letters.  

Hope that was helpful. Thank you for watching and I’ll see you next week!

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