“Should I make a pivot in my virtual business?”
Have you ever asked yourself that question? Have you ever asked your business coach or mentor that question?
Maybe you have.
Maybe you’ve thought about it in different terms like “proving your business model”, “testing revenue streams”, or “testing out a new market.”
Oftentimes, we associate pivoting most while we are in the startup phase in our virtual businesses which can easily last around 5 years. Even though we have a great idea that we’re passionate about, it can take some time to find and develop sustainable and repeatable revenue streams.
But startup mode isn’t the only time pivots are made in business. In fact, pivoting is a normal part of doing business no matter what phase we’re in.
How we think about and implement a pivot depends on where we are in our business cycle.
There are at least 5 unofficial “official” phases of the business life cycle: development, startup, growth, maturity, recession, and exit. Since I’m not an economics guru, I can say that there may be even more. If you’d like to learn a bit more about some of these phases, click here.
While in startup mode, unless we’re way ahead of the competition in some way or just plain lucky, we may have to pivot often and in many areas of our virtual businesses until we find the sweet spot, the niche that’s just right for us that starts bringing in sustainable, repeatable revenue.
Here’s an example of what this might look like. Say you want to be a six-figure sales coach. There may be a lot, I mean a lot, of competition in that product/service area. You’ll spend quite a bit of time testing out your audience, your market, researching the competition, product differentiation, messaging, your systems, and more.
You and your virtual business and service have to different yourself enough to stand out in a saturated market, and have enough of an audience to create a sustainable revenue stream plus have potential for expansion, unless you just plan to keep you initial clients and resign them once a year, and that’s okay. But if you want to grow, expect to make many pivots, big and small.
What if you sell oranges, and you’re getting some sales, but you realize that the market for “oranges” is extremely glutted with other orange sellers and can’t really sustain many more, if any more, “orange sellers”? Then what?
You may have to decide to make a major pivot.
Say in the process of testing and researching you discovered, maybe even by accident, that no one is selling “apples”?
Then what? You’re passion is growing and selling oranges not apples.
Will you decide to pivot away from your passion and reason that growing is your real passion and grow and sell apples instead, tapping into that market?
Or will you just say, “My passion is selling oranges, it’s meant to be, and if I stick with it until sustainable revenue is established no matter how long it takes?
Economics 101 teaches us this: We might not decide to sell “apples” but we will make some sort of change to your product. We may see an opening in orange brandy or partner with an ag university to develop a new variety of orange or tap into the fine dining restaurant market in a food city like Charleston.
The idea that there is unlimited room to sustain unlimited entrants into any market is just false.
Maybe we’re past the startup phase and we’re in growth mode or expansion.
Yay! It’s time to celebrate; we made it! We have broken through that six-figure ceiling or we’re so close we can just about taste it! Revenue streams are established, all systems are in place and running smoothly, a small team is in place or we’re ready to hire a business operations manager or a one or two virtual assistants, and plans are being laid out and implemented to expand our client base. Why on earth would we need to pivot anything?
Well, because. Being in growth mode means changes need to be made, whether we like it or want to or not. A startup isn’t the same as a biz that’s growing. It doesn’t function the same. It requires some different or additional systems. It requires more delegation, which means the solopreneurs workload changes. Processes will change. There may be a need for more automation. With change comes, again, testing out what works and what doesn’t. When something doesn’t work, we may need to pivot a little (or a lot) hear or there, and move ahead until we find what does in this new stage of business. .
Growth mode also may mean expanding into new markets and developing and introducing new products and services to the market. Everything single thing new thing we do may or may not be as successful as what we have done to this point.
I remember an example of this (and it’s a massive corporation so it’s a bit different but the principles are the same), a number of years ago, an uber-successful makeup, skincare, shampoo giant decided to enter a new market with shampoo, China.
Even though the company was aware of the risks and competition and had a good measure of success to that point, and I’m confident they were beyond well-prepared, did all their research, and so on, the move proved difficult in the beginning. They had to make some strategy shifts. In fact, they had to pull that major product out of the Chinese market to stem losses. And they also had to implement some strategies in the US to make up for losses, too.
Point is, pivoting happens in growth mode as well as start up.
For a revenue-established company, growth options are always on the radar. But so are business trends. Do we see a trend that is developing that will affect our products, services, clients, or revenue? Then we do well to act before the trend is fully developed. Pivoting in this case can mean any of the things mentioned above, but it can also include looking to an underserved market, upleveling our branding, changing our message, or creating partnerships.
This also applies to any business whatever stage we’re in.
Examples of when online entrepreneurs may need to pivot.
Here are just 4 reasons that an online entrepreneur may need (or want) to pivot:
- We’ve launched a brand new product that we just knew your audience would surely love, and we only sold one. There were hundreds of clicks to the opt-in page but just one person went the extra step of making a purchase. Of course, we’ll need to test messaging, delivery, and audience but it could be that our product needs some changes.
- We’ve been after running an ad to a freebie that we just knew our brand, spanking new, thoughtfully-developed audience would opt in to because when we first launched the paid version, we had almost a thousand link clicks and likes on the ad. However, the ad rate was hovering around 2% and the opt ins the same. We wanted it would do much better. Again, as above, there is testing and tweaking to do and pivots will need to happen.
- We’ve embarked in a direction in our coaching business that we just knew there was a need for because old training methods weren’t delivering the results those in the industry wanted, but any related marketing materials didn’t do well at all. No interest. In this case, it’s time to turn to clients and potential clients and ask them if this is a product they want. Don’t be surprised if you find in your research that they don’t. In fact, it may never even come up in your current trainings so do we really want to go there?
- Chatter is beginning to pick up that a once-lucrative market may be heading toward collapse. Perhaps we have build a thriving business in this market. But we have noticed a drop in business and some of our colleagues have had to return to the workforce or take out significant loans. What should you do?
Just to be clear, pivoting doesn’t have to be a throw-in-the-towel, apples-to-oranges, all-or-nothing change in your business. It is very often a small tweak here or there.
Even when you are beyond growth mode, the need to pivot doesn’t go away.
So, no matter where we are in our businesses, the need to make pivots, large or small, is necessary at times, which leads to the question…
How do I know it’s time to make a pivot in my business?
It seems like the answer would be easy, right? Obvious?
Sometimes, it’s glaring, yes. But not always, for quite a number of reasons.
It could be that making changes in our businesses can often be tied up with all kinds of emotions and mindset issues rooted in things we may be unaware of. It may be that we are so busy with the day-to-day of our businesses and lives that clarity escapes us because our minds are too full, always focused on something.
But there are simple things you can do to help gain clarity around what needs to happen in our businesses. Here is a really good article for starters by a colleague of mine, Lauri Rubinstein, called Stillness and the Path Less Taken. Hope you enjoy it!
I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences around pivoting in business. Please share in the comments below.
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