It sounds backwards doesn’t it. Do less and earn more. The world around all of us in business tells us to add more - more content, more channels, more funnel steps, more offers, more emails… more, more, more!

But, I’ve seen that subtracting and stripping back does bring home the bacon every time. I’ve actually stopped being surprised by it.

I see it like pruning. If you owned a vineyard, you would prune and cut back so that new growth and new fruit can be born from the vine.

The pattern in business is the same. A business owner is working 60-hour weeks, they’ve got multiple offers, multiple funnels, multiple platforms, and multiple headaches. Revenue may be decent but they are stuck. They feel like they’re running on a hamster wheel and can’t get off.

Then they cut half of the mess out, strip back the complexity and prune the offers and funnels, resulting in one thing - revenue going up.

The Subtraction Principle

Most business advice is about addition. Add a new funnel. Add a new platform. Add a new offer. Add more content. Add more ads. It’s always more, more, more.

But adding creates complexity. Complexity has costs that don’t show up on your P&L. Decision fatigue for your customers, management overhead, context switching and customer confusion. Your energy ends up being spread so thin that nothing gets your full attention or your best work.

The subtraction principle says this…before you add anything, ask what you can remove. 

What’s not directly connected to revenue? What takes time but doesn’t produce results? What exists because you started it once and never stopped to ask if it was still worth doing?

Those are the things to remove.

Real Example for Pruning

I worked with someone who had four different online courses, three lead magnets, two webinar funnels, and a membership site. Total monthly revenue was around $22,000. They were working every evening and most weekends. Their family was seeing the back of their head while they stared at a laptop.

We cut it to one flagship course, one lead magnet, and one simple sales process. Revenue dropped to $18,000 in month one. That was scary for them. But by month three it was $31,000. By month six it was consistently over $40,000 every month.

There was far less to manage, less to market, less to support and they had more energy for the things that actually drove growth - connecting with their audience. Plus they got their evenings and weekends back.

Where to Start Subtracting in Your Business

Look at your offers. How many do you have? Could you consolidate? Is your audience confused about which one is right for them?

Look at your tools. How many are you paying for? Could you simplify your tech stack?

Look at your content. How many platforms are you posting on? Could you focus on the one or two that actually generate revenue?

If you can start to prune things and strip back, the result will be more revenue, not less. It feels counterintuitive, that’s why most people don’t do it. The ones who do are the ones I see breaking through.

Going Deeper at Simplify Summit

This is the core philosophy behind everything I teach. And it’s what Simplify Summit is built around. You can get tickets over at www.simplifysummits.com