Business Restructuring Progress - Phase 1

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When I was deep into the talking stage with my boyfriend, he asked the very fair question “so what is it that you actually do?”. Earlier on I’d given my usual euphemistic answer, a bunch words that included “work for myself”, “courses”, “online”, “writing”, before quickly moving things along. But now he wanted detail, wanted to understand and buy into the vision, and I had to say “I don’t really know”. Over the last two years of life changes and seeking fulfilment and switching up the different configurations of my business model and trying new things and following my curiosity, the result was that I’d lost my grasp on what it was, exactly, I was doing.

So that really exemplifies why I came into 2023 knowing that if I was to build the business back up to the firm foundation I craved, I had to actually know what I did. Not in general, not sort of, not “it depends” – I had to know, unequivocally, what I was here to do. I had to rethink what I thought I wanted, reconnect with the bigger vision, look at all the different pieces and see what was still usable. This process is a lot of thinking, a lot of Google Docs, a lot of clunking into place on walks, and not a lot of visibility. A lot of furtive backstage organisation as the curtain remains down. But here I am lifting the curtain for the first act, to show you where I’m up to with this thinking, and the changes I’m putting in place.

Separating the writer from the businesswoman

I need to consciously uncouple my writing work from my Simple & Season work. This was one of those things where you have a silly little “what if?” thought and then realise “damnit, that’s what I have to do now”. Early on in my business I was adamant that if you could keep everything under one umbrella then you should – don’t unnecessarily double your work load by having different Instagram accounts and websites and mindsets to manage. I had clung to that opinion ‘til beyond the bitter end when I asked myself “why am I following an opinion from five years ago when I was a different person?”

Something I have been wrestling against, a square I simply cannot circle, is how to be the writer I want to be within a business that needs me to be something else. And the truth is, I can’t. I can’t be the writer I want to be whilst also running the business I want to run all under the same umbrella. I realised that I had reached the point where the two were holding each other back: Simple & Season was making me censor the topics I wanted to write about and the ways I wanted to write, while what I want to do with my writing was preventing this space from being as truly helpful and expansive as it could be. They needed to separate – amicably, positively, as the very best of friends.

So I have started a new Instagram account - @kayteferriswrites – which is where I will be flexing into the more creative non-fiction style and topics I really want to explore; truth, love, knowing, experience. At some point there will also be a Substack for more longer form work (although in this season I am more focused on Simple & Season). The intention here is to explore my craft and who I am as a writer, and also to build a platform and practice to a point where I can be publishing more widely and working towards the book. 

None of this is to say that I won’t be writing here on Simple & Season anymore – definitely not! And of course there will be crossovers between the two as I am still the same person writing for both, but content here will be more focused on creativity, belief, work, and behind the scenes – things that may very well make a return to podcasting make sense at some point… But I won’t get ahead of myself just yet. For now I simply hope that this separation provides a more rounded way of creating for me, as well as a more expansive way for you to connect with my work.

Re-defining Simple & Season

With the decision made that the writing and the business needed to be separated that begged the question “what is Simple & Season now?” I have been in a near constant state of trying to make this whole thing make sense for a long time now, but removing the need to have it also represent the writing side actually helped it make sense of itself. 

Although I started out offering marketing coaching, what quickly became clear to me was what’s actually hard about running a business, or sharing creative work online, is the emotional experience of it. That’s what every problem and worry and block comes back to. I’ve always known this but always skirted around it, trying to make what Simple & Season stood for something more, something that sounded more grandiose perhaps, or offered something above and beyond but never quite hitting it. But in the process, I lost the rallying cry of this business, and didn’t know exactly what it stood for anymore.

Because what it stands for is a work worth living. Navigating the emotional experience of sharing work and making money online whilst also trying to find fulfilment in the middle of it. It stands for creativity, for process, for belief; inspiration, dreams, artistry, plans, self-relationship. Everything I do, actually, has been about this – making a work you love and that supports you towards the life you want to live. Giving the writing a separate place to live really cleared my mind and left the space for me to think “yes, this is it” – this is what I need to do, double down, where I can be of service. This is where the intention can be directed.

How do the products make sense?

The final piece of phase one was looking at the business model and the product offering and hoping to god they made sense with the decisions made so far. Over recent years I have vacillated between wanting to have a very structured and strategic product offering, and wanting to do what I feel like at any given moment. My products reflected that, I think – hanging together somewhat but also appearing very different on the surface. All listed one after the other on a simple web page, though, there were no clear through lines or ways to know what did what.

What felt very relieving was to go through the products and realise that actually, it was indeed their presentation on that web page that was throwing me off. Once I started grouping them differently, by format rather than topic, they emerged as parts of a whole – which is what they had been all along. There were the Deep Dives, the Jump Starts and the entry level Kits & Classes, meaning there was something for you start making a work worth living no matter what amount of commitment you were able to make. You can see this in practice over on the new Offerings page. Reconnecting with what I had made and seeing them through a new lens enabled me to feel more confident and together.

So that is phase one! The nuts and bolts and behind the scenes figuring out. Phase two is, well, doing it. Building back up a content practice here to double down on the focus , selling, launching my group offer, making a start on the writing Instagram. Phase two is taking the stone I’ve just started nudging and getting it rolling with momentum. And then we will see how we are set for phase three to start in the summer. But – one thing at a time, focusing on just the next step.