142: 🍉 Pick the Low-Hanging Watermelon

You’ve heard the term low-hanging fruit: the easiest thing you can do to make the biggest possible impact in your business. But not all fruit is created equal! 

Sometimes, those low-hanging fruits are modest peaches or distracting, underperforming pumpkins (in Mike Michalowicz parlance) that might not be worth pursuing. 

Other times, you’re so close to your own business that you can’t see the enormous, juicy, low-hanging watermelon you’re about to walk right into.

🌟3 Key Takeaways

• Look for low-hanging watermelons in your business: opportunities that won’t take a lot of time or energy but could make a huge impact in your business, hanging so close in front of your face that you don’t see them. 

• The best ones are based on work that you’ve already done: repackaging content or material that has product-market fit and that you know will create great value for your community

• Be discerning about whether the project you’re considering is a juicy low-hanging watermelon or an undersized pumpkin worth cutting off the vine.

📝Permission

Stop investing in small, overripe (or worm-ridden!) fruit. Whether they’re shiny shoulds or clients who drain your time and energy, snip them out of your business so you can focus on higher-value projects that are even more fulfilling.  

✅Do (or Delegate) This Next

Make a list of your products, services, and clients, and identify the best of the best. Identify the ones that are taking more of your time and energy than they are giving back in terms of joy or profit. For the next quarter, focus your energy on the most lucrative and worthwhile ones. What falls at the intersection of revenue, ease, and joy? 

📘Books Mentioned

• Free Time: Lose The Busywork, Love Your Business 

• Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One

• Life After College

• The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field by Mike Michalowicz

• Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life Through the Power of Storytelling by Matthew Dicks

🔗Resources Mentioned

• Leanne Hughes First Time Facilitator Podcast 

• Matthew Dix

• Asynchronous communication: Voxer

• Video: Career in the Age of the App 

🎧Related Episodes

• 129: The $10K Work Framework with Khe Hy

• 017: Serendipity as Business Strategy with Leanne Hughes

• 140: How to License Your IP (Intellectual Property)

• 122: My Top 5 Sources of Recurring Revenue

• 117: Tiny Marketing Actions with Pamela Slim

• 016: IP Licensing with Lee LeFever

• 037: The Ultimate Marketing Engine with John Jantsch

• Pivot 164: Fix This Next (And Stop Keeping Up With The Entrepre-Joneses)

• Jenny on First Time Facilitator #74: Pivoting into public speaking with Jenny Blake

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