We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ronii Bartles. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ronii below.

Ronii, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

I have a different philosophy about business than most people. I believe that business isn’t hard, we make it hard. I find that entrepreneurs and business owners create a lot of busy work for themselves. My business partner and I work with businesses to develop a Business Management System (BMS) where we map out the Strategic Plan and identify the key processes needed to achieve those goals. It sounds intimidating but once you map it out everything becomes clear and everyone in the organization can see how everything connects from the top down. Simplicity is the key, everything else is just a noisy distraction.

Ronii, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Over the years I have developed my own philosophy and framework for achieving my goals and generally just getting stuff done. I call it being a CEO of Simplicity. My mission is to get people out of overwhelm and get things done by simplifying and prioritizing their mile-long to-do list so they can focus on what’s important to them and move their business and vision forward.

Simplicity feels like it’s the opposite of what we’re told success is. We measure our success by how busy we are. The more you do the more important you are. So to convince ourselves that we’re important and successful, we create a bunch of busy work. I work with business owners in Strategy Intensives where we put everything on the table, figure out the goal, and then prioritize what has to get done and when. I help clients find simple solutions to an overly complicated business structure.

As businesses grow, I get more involved in the business management side of the company. I’ve been a bookkeeper and business manager for 20 years and have experience in a wide range of different industries from online retail to manufacturing to marketing research services. This diverse background has given me a holistic approach to business so I can analyze the health of an organization through P+L analysis and strategic planning.

So many people go into business because they do something really well which is not necessarily running a business. I believe business isn’t hard, we make it hard. And I work with clients to make it less hard.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had to unlearn that being busy doesn’t equal success. We “should” ourselves into a hot mess and having more to do doesn’t necessarily make you more money, it just means you have more to do. In 2016 on my 39th birthday, I found myself in the hospital for 2 weeks with a ruptured appendix. Up to that point, I had done all the things I was supposed to do and was “highly successful” because I was so busy. But with one trip to Urgent Care for “food poisoning” I had to cancel everything in my life. I did nothing but lay in a hospital bed for 2 weeks watching Fixer Upper on HGTV. But I made as much money that month as I did the month before working my butt off. Honestly, all I had really accomplished was creating busy work for myself.

Since then I have become a CEO of Simplicity. It’s my philosophy that I’ve developed over the years that helps me inventory what needs to get done, identify what’s driving my behaviors, get perspective on the reality of what’s happening, prioritize what’s actually important to me, and streamline the process to accomplish what I want.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I’ve pivoted a lot over the past 17 years. I’d figure out how to do any project if it made money because bills needed to be paid. When I started I worked with small businesses doing business/office management and bookkeeping. Over the years, I’ve worked on projects in marketing strategy, social media marketing, marketing research, branding, human resources, software development, website design, e-commerce retail, you name it, I’ve worked on it. I’ve taken on projects I probably shouldn’t have but did anyway.

I even took on a partner I shouldn’t have in hopes that two people would be easier than one. It’s not, it’s a whole different set of complications. Particularly after you spend months working to build up the new partnership only to have your partner tell you they are taking a job and going back to corporate life.

I even got wooed back to a full-time corporate job only to get fired because of the pandemic. There were financial struggles and time struggles and imposter syndrome struggles and just when I thought I figured one out, something else would come up. It’s part of being an entrepreneur.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://roniibartles.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamronii
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ronii.bartles/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roniibartles/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@iamroniibartles

Image Credits

Dana K Davis