I've never had as many replies to an email as I did to yesterday's one about feeling overwhelmed.

So if you find yourself feeling that there's just so much to learn and do when it comes to marketing and running a business and you're just not sure if you can cope with it all… please know you're not alone.

I get that feeling. And hundreds upon hundreds of other successful people do too.

And it's not just confined to us small businesses either.

Yesterday I grabbed a coffee with Brent Adamson of the CEB (and author of the Challenger Sale, Challenger Customer and a bunch of other very insightful works).

We were running through the keynote Brent is going to present today at the CEB's big Sales & Marketing conference in London. 

One of the things the CEB has found from their recent research is the paradox that the more organisations try to help their front-line staff cope with the increasing complexity of their client base, the worse they actually make things.

Just like happens with us small businesses, in their attempts to improve things they add a fix here, a “hack” there, a new system here, a new process there…and pretty soon their front-line staff are bogged down in the complexity.

Each individual improvement is good in its own right and would be great if it was the only thing they did. But add them all together and all the new systems, processes, approval hoops, people to call to get help, new documents, new guidelines…it adds so much complexity that the sum is much, much less than the parts.

And as I said to Brent yesterday – people like him and me aren't helping things.

We're constantly telling you to try this new thing, look at this great new tool, add more and more to what you're doing to get results.

Multiple that by the dozen or so experts you're listening to and it's no wonder everyone is feeling so overwhelmed.

In all honesty, I don't have a great answer for you on this one yet. This isn't a clever tease of a new product I'm about to launch. It's a problem I'm fighting every day myself too.

But as I said yesterday, simplification helps.

Really understanding your 80:20 and the critical few things you do that make the difference to your success and your clients helps too. 

Having the bravery to stick with your second-best solution because you know that adding on more bells and whistles will actually make things worse…that helps a lot.

Clearing your inbox of emails from people constantly suggesting you buy shiny new objects from them and their “friends” (or rather, people they've just met who have promised to pay them a commission on any referrals) – that definitely helps.

There's beauty in simplicity.