Most midlife entrepreneurs think growth means adding more. More offers. More platforms. More moving parts. But real growth starts by trimming what no longer serves you and refining what still does. In this episode, Lori walks through the first two stages of the TRUE Framework, showing why Trim and Refine are the nonnegotiable foundation for a business that actually works.
You'll hear how trimming the clutter strengthens the Discover, Connect, and Engage stages of the Client Journey, and how thoughtful refinement improves Invite, Convert, Experience, Refer, and Return. With candid stories, sharp insights, and a few well-timed reality checks, this episode helps you see exactly where your business is weighed down and what to do next.
In this episode, you'll learn:
• Why simplification is a strategic advantage, not a step backward
• How trimming strengthens the early stages of the Client Journey
• Why refinement boosts conversions, delivery, and retention
• The hidden reason entrepreneurs resist simplifying
• How “backwards to go forwards” actually accelerates growth
• The 10 percent Trim Challenge and how to put it into practice this week
• How Trim and Refine prepare you for TRUE's next stages: Uplevel and Expand
If you're ready to identify exactly where your Client Journey is breaking down and what to focus on first, schedule your Profitable Path Alignment Call.
00:00:04 – Growth Is About Editing, Not Adding
Everyone says growth is about adding more.
More offers, more platforms, more hustle.
But here's what no one likes to admit.
Growth doesn't come from adding.
It comes from editing.
If your business feels heavy, cluttered, or complicated, it's not a sign you're growing.
It's a sign you've outgrown what used to work.
So before you strengthen your business, you've got to simplify it.
And that starts with two powerful moves.
00:00:44 – Welcome & The TRUE Framework Overview
Welcome to the Midlife Business Academy Podcast.
I'm Lori Lyons, and today we're starting the Client Journey Series by kicking off the TRUE framework, the foundation that makes every part of your business lighter, cleaner, and easier to grow.
Before we go anywhere, though, let's break down what the TRUE framework stands for, because this sets the foundation for everything else we're going to be doing in our upcoming Client Journey Series.
The TRUE framework stands for T, TRIM, R, Refine, U, Uplevel, and E, Expand.
Most business owners try to build their business upside down.
They want to expand before they refine.
They want to uplevel before they trim.
They want to add more when they don't need more.
They just need better.
That's why the true framework starts with trim and refine.
You can't upload chaos.
You can't expand clutter.
You can't scale what is scattered.
Trim and refine, clear the path.
Uplevel and expand happens once the path is solid.
00:02:08 – The TRUE Framework and the 8-Stage Client Journey
So here's where this ties directly into the client journey and why we start this series with the TRUE framework.
The client journey has eight stages, and we'll be exploring those eight stages in the upcoming episodes.
The eight stages are discover, connect, engage, invite, convert, experience, refer, and return.
It's what every small business owner needs to be aware of when they're thinking about and designing their business and where they want their business to go.
Because it's really all about the client.
If we don't have clients and don't provide a good experience, we don't have a business.
So if your business is bloated, confusing, or overcomplicated, it creates cracks at every single stage of that journey.
If you need more discover, you trim the noise so your message becomes findable.
If your connect stage is weak, you refine your message so it resonates.
If your engagement stage falls flat, you trim the unnecessary platforms and refine where and how you show up, which is a direct opposite of what you hear so often.
More, more, more, more is better.
More is not necessarily better.
More can just sometimes be more.
If your engagement stage falls flat, you trim unnecessary platforms and refine where and how you show up.
If your inviting convert stages feel messy, you refine your offers and your process.
If your experience stage feels just heavy, you trim outdated steps and refine the onboarding process.
If refer and return aren't happening,
You refine your delivery and trim anything that dilutes your client's results.
So do you see the pattern here?
Trim and refine are the maintenance and alignment phases that make the entire journey work.
Simple is better.
You can't map your client's pathway if your own business is buried under all the clutter.
You can't guide clients through the journey when your own process is unclear.
If your business is hoarding, you're not going to be able to find your next step because you can't create trust if your business still has old versions of you hanging around.
So trim and refine set the tone.
They're the reset button.
They're the lighten the load so you can actually move forward stage.
Let's throw out all the stuff that we're hoarding and simplify and declutter it.
So today we're going to talk about the TNR, and you'll see all the way through this episode exactly how each piece directly strengthens your client journey.
00:05:13 – Motion vs Momentum & the Jenga Business
So here's why more is the wrong goal.
Let's start with something hard.
Most entrepreneurs and business owners confuse motion with momentum.
They chase new products, new systems, new strategy.
I know I am very guilty of this.
Oh my gosh, I have so new, so many new programs and strategies and things sitting there in my ChatGPT.
I can't even begin to tell you what's there.
Most business owners build layer after layer until their business starts looking like a game of small business Jenga.
I think I said that right.
You know, the thing with all the blocks that you move, you pull something out and you hope that it stays, stays in place.
One wrong move and the whole thing falls down or shakes.
So here's what the thing is.
Success doesn't collapse from lack of ideas.
It collapses from lack of editing.
It collapses from being messy.
It collapses from too much.
And this is where the client journey starts falling apart long before your clients enter it.
When there are too many offers, too many links, too many call to actions, too many platforms, your discover stage becomes diluted.
People can't figure out who you are or what you do.
And I see this all the time when new clients come to me.
And I'm in the process of doing this myself, so I get it.
I know how hard it is to trim and refine because it goes totally against.
what all the gurus are out there saying and say, oh, you need this, you need, no, you just need simple, something simple and clear and easy to understand.
And as midlife business owners, it is really important for us to be very clear and to keep it very simple because we want to do other things in our life besides work.
Trust me, my husband and I just had that conversation this morning about what we want to do in the next four or five years.
And
Working 70 hours a week is not what I see for myself.
So I'm going to have to trim and refine so that my customer journey really becomes solid.
Because when everything feels scattered, your connect stage fizzles out.
Clients can't build trust with someone who is unclear.
If you're unclear about your business, how do you think your clients are going to feel?
So before you strengthen your marketing or enhance your offers,
00:07:52 – Trim: Cutting What No Longer Serves
Let's talk about what trim and refine means.
Trim means cutting away what no longer serves your vision.
Even if it once made you money, even if it's comfortable, even if it's just fine, you can't scale fine.
You can only scale focused.
My client came to me with about five different services.
three lead magnets, and a color-coded Asana board that looked like a rainbow exploded.
She wasn't running a business.
She was basically running a circus.
We trimmed about 40% of our offers.
We looked at what was the most profitable, but we also looked at what she enjoyed teaching, what she enjoyed coaching her clients on.
Been through this myself.
As many of you know, I've just gone through redoing that with my business and the focus is no longer on my website design agency.
My focus is now on coaching clients just like you.
So for Janet, we trimmed back two of her platforms and we focused on the one thing that really brought her joy.
Within two months, her connect and engage stages were stronger.
Her content was simpler and clearer, and her clients and future clients stopped playing around in that confusion stage.
Her calendar filled with better clients, not more noise.
Because trimming creates focus, and focus creates resonance, and resonance creates movement along the journey, and forward movement is everything.
00:09:45 – Refine: Fine-Tuning What Already Works
So what does it really mean to refine?
Because once you've trimmed, that's where refinement comes in.
Refinement doesn't mean you're reinventing.
You don't burn your business down and start over.
You polish what's already good.
You fine tune.
And I can't tell you how many times I've heard my clients say this.
I don't want to start over.
You don't need to start over.
You just need to fine tune.
So refine means tightening your message, your systems, and your delivery so that every part of your business points in the same direction.
You're moving in one good, clear direction.
So for example, if your onboarding feels clunky, refine it because onboarding is the front door to your experience stage.
Going through this myself, totally, since I'm totally redoing my business, totally redoing my onboarding system.
So I'm going through the experience stage right now.
How can I fine-tune this?
How can I make this really valuable for my clients coming in?
Because if your content is scatters, you need clear, consistent messaging, and that strengthens the connect and engage stages.
If your marketing feels reactive, refine your system because consistency builds trust and it strengthens the path toward invite.
Refinement is kind of like tuning a guitar.
It's the same instrument.
It just has a sharper sound.
And sometimes it's just the little tiny, teeny tweaks that can give you a better sound, and that gives you better resonance.
So here's something most people miss.
This isn't glamorous.
It's quiet.
Sometimes it feels repetitive.
But refinement strengthens the spine of your entire client journey because we're going to build on simple.
When you refine your message, clients recognize themselves quicker.
The simpler the message and the clearer the message, the better.
Because we've all heard that statement.
We've all heard that saying, a confused mind doesn't buy, and that's really very true.
So when you refine your offers, make them clear.
The invite feels natural instead of forced.
When you refine your follow-through, clients feel cared for, and the referral part becomes effortless, so the whole journey just works together.
Refinement also amplifies what already works, and it removes the part of where your clients get stuck.
If you're seeing your clients get stuck in one certain place,
change it or get rid of it.
Maybe you don't need it.
Maybe getting stuck is what's holding your clients back.
So that's the heart of a smooth client journey.
00:12:53 – Why We Resist Simplification & Expiration Dates
But here's why we resist simplification.
It sounds great until you have to make the hard decisions.
We resist it because we're emotionally attached to what we're doing.
We've put a lot of hard work into this.
We think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it may not move our clients forward as much as we think it does.
We resist it because it forces us to focus and look closely at things that we'd rather ignore.
But everything in your business has an expiration date.
Let me repeat that.
Everything in your business has an expiration date, and the fastest way to get stuck in a client journey is to stay loyal to what no longer fits the clients you're attracting now.
You stay there because it's simple, because you don't want to go through the hard work or refining and trimming and cutting back and doing all that's required.
We say we're afraid of failure.
But most of us as midlife entrepreneurs, we're rarely afraid of failure.
We've been there, done that, wrote the book.
We fear letting go of the versions of ourselves that was built years ago.
If I think of who I was 10, 12, 15 years ago,
I'm a very different person now.
I'm a very different business owner.
My business is very different than what it was 15 years ago.
And sometimes that's hard.
Sometimes that's, that's a hard thing to think of like, got to go do this again, but it's going to serve my clients and it's going to serve me and at this stage of my life better.
So that offer that drains you, yeah, maybe it's not for you anymore.
The funnel that feels outdated,
Maybe that was for a different client that you no longer serve.
That system that was perfect, eh, maybe it's not so perfect anymore because client journeys change.
Your clients change, you change, and your business needs to evolve with you.
00:15:05 – Lori’s Website Company Shift & Slowing Down
Like I said, I recently did this with my website company.
I stepped back from a bigger role and it felt scary.
And yes, it looked like I was going backwards.
But refining our structural actually improved our experience and return stages.
Clients stuck around longer.
I have an amazing team that works on this, and they're so much better than I was.
They're so much better at design and at staying current than I was because I wasn't willing to do that.
I was just kind of rocking along and doing what had to be done.
I was giving my clients good, good design.
I was giving a much better marketing strategy than I was designed.
And now we're offering both, which is really very cool.
My referrals have been increased, my team felt stronger, and the process is able to go much, much smoother because once I hand it over to my design team, now they have everything that they need.
Because sometimes you've heard the saying, sometimes you have to go backwards to go forwards.
And this is something that's rarely talked about as business owners, but it's everything because we're wired to go forward.
We're wired to move in a direction that is where we're supposed to go.
And I have air quotes around supposed.
You can't see them, but I have them.
You know, we built careers.
We raised families.
We've, you know, for many of us, we've survived menopause.
We know how to keep going.
And for you men out there, you've survived the women in your lives that have gone through menopause.
But slowing down feels counterproductive.
It's like, I can't slow down.
I've been told I can't slow down.
You gotta hustle.
You gotta hustle.
You gotta hustle.
No, you don't.
Slowing down is what allows us to see our business through the eyes of our future clients.
The TRIMM framework helps people discover you more clearly.
The refine helps them connect with you more deeply.
Trim is going to reduce the noise in the engage part and remove the friction in the convert part.
It's going to strengthen the experience, the refer, and the return because your message in your business is so much clearer.
When you stop spinning long enough to examine your business stage by stage, you'll start noticing what's bloated,
redundant or simply outdated.
I did a course not too long ago.
I'm not going to name what course it was, but when I went through the course, I was excited because I was excited to learn from this business owner.
But it was outdated material that needed to be redone, that needed to be taken a look at and trimmed.
She needed to go through it and say, what do I need to enhance?
Or do I just need, is this, is this no longer, you know, no longer valid?
Is this an obsolete kind of a, of a business practice that maybe I don't need to spend any more time on this, or my clients don't need to spend time or money because it is outdated.
So the old belief of this is if I stop, I'll fall behind.
Let's reframe that.
and say, if I pause, I can choose where I'm going.
Because trim and refine doesn't shrink your goals.
It sharpens your direction and it strengthens your client journey.
If you deliver more than you profit, then they deliver and they get what they want and they will refer you because you've gotten more.
00:18:58 – Action Steps, Questions, and Closing Invitation
So, having said all that, let's turn this into action.
I want you to pick one area of your business.
It can be the offer, your content, your systems, your outreach, your outboarding, your follow up, and trim it by 10%, just 10.
And then I want you to refine what remains.
And remember, I only said do this to one of your systems, not all of your systems at once.
It's kind of like trying to go through and declutter your house all at once.
All of a sudden you'll end up with a mess.
If you do it a room at a time or a closet at a time or a drawer at a time, you get more done over the long period of time because it's not overwhelming.
So here's what I want you to ask yourself.
How can I make this easier?
How can I make this more me, who I am today?
How can I make this move people through the client journey more naturally?
How can this enhance my client's experience?
Small trims open up big pathways, and small refinements can mean really big conversions.
Your business will start feeling lighter.
Your journey will feel smoother.
It'll be easier to explain when you can talk about the client journey in a simple, refined way.
Your clients will move through it quicker when they don't have to go through a hundred different steps, but maybe two or three.
They'll hesitate less to work with you because this is a very simple process and they'll trust you more.
And that, my friends, is the beauty of the trim and refine part of the true framework.
So simplify first, then strengthen.
Trim what's heavy.
Refine what's working.
Next week, we move into the next phrases of the TRUE Framework: Uplevel and Expand.
And you'll see exactly how they build on the T and the R, and support the client journey even further.
And if you want help identifying when your client journey is breaking down, schedule a profitable path alignment call with me.
I'd be happy to go through the process with you and identify some ways where you might can enhance and put into place the TRIM framework.
I'm Lori Lyons, and remember, it's never too late to build the business of your dreams.