With the hot weather in Boston, we’ve been drinking a lot of iced tea.   We make it in a gallon jug.  Boil the water, throw in the tea bags and then, “Bingo,” you have tea.  Refrigerate or serve over ice. Not difficult. In fact, simplicity itself.

I’ve made iced tea in this fashion for years.  In fact, many years ago, a friend asked me for my “recipe” for iced tea.  I explained that iced tea is just like regular tea, only cold!  I used 5 tea bags to make tea in a certain pitcher I owned.

Not long afterward, I was visiting this friend, who proceeded to complain about the bother to make the iced tea but it was so good that she was willing to suffer through the hassle

Huh? Hassle?

Puzzled, I stuck my head into her kitchen.  On the white Formica counter was a red jug.  Across the top was a wooden spoon with 5 identical strings neatly tied to it.   The tea bags hung from pretty bows into the jug.  She had tied the  tea bags to the spoon.

“Um,why wouldn’t you just throw the tea bags into the water?”

It turned out she had never thought of just tossing the tea bags in and fishing them out later with a spoon.  She always made sure that her tea bag never slipped in when making hot tea.  So, went her thought process, neither should the tea bags when you are making iced tea.  (I always strip off the paper tag.)

I keep running into people who are making their marketing harder than it needs to be.

Simplify, simplify.

Take advantage of the great technology tools out there to make your life easier.  For example:

• Unless you have a good reason to do so, why build your own e-commerce website when so many good ones already exist?
• Why build an RSVP system when Eventbrite is out there?
• Why make your prospects jump through hoops to get to the offer?
• Will your program still work with fewer steps?
• Do you really need to tie the teabags to a spoon or can you just toss them in the water to steep?

Think about it.