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Pivot is practically the buzzword of 2020/2021. Everyone’s doing it. And some of them for darn good reasons.

But not every pivot is actually beneficial for your business. That’s the myth – when things aren’t going well, it’s time to pivot.

In this episode, we’ll break down exactly what pivoting looks like, when you should and shouldn’t do it… and what to do instead.

If you're not sure how to take your business to the next step – whether you should pivot or keep going (or even how to do either of those)… we can help.

Schedule a call with us and let's get you going in the right direction.

Alyson Lex
On today's episode, we're answering the question, what's the harm in pivoting when things change in my business? thriving in business does not mean you have to lose yourself. It does not mean following cookie cutter advice.

Jennie Wright
What it means is finding what works for you, for your audience and for your business and working process until you get to the level of success that you're looking for.

Alyson Lex
This podcast is designed to give you the tools and inspiration to build your business on your terms.

Jennie Wright
I'm Jennie Wright. I'm Alyson Lex, and welcome to the System to THRIVE.

Alyson Lex
In the last year or so, we have heard the word pivot more times than I'm comfortable counting. Right? I'm tired of hearing the word pivot when it comes to our business. And it's not just because the word itself is getting on my nerves. It's because pivoting is not always the answer. pivoting is not always the solution to the problem that's going on in your business. Look, the pandemic hit business changed, a lot went online that weren't online before that became a huge thing. But even before then business was changing for reasons that were or were not in your control. But that doesn't always mean that pivoting is the right move. A lot of people have pivoted when they shouldn't have, they're going to continue to pivot and struggle as a result. And that is really the pivot myth when something happens, pivot and we're busting that myth today.

Jennie Wright
I'm so happy we're busting that myth,

Alyson Lex
right? This is a myth that just because I really hate the word pivot unless it's that GIF of Ross in the stairwell with Calvin. That's the only time I like that word. When it comes to businesses. It's really not my it's not my jam.

Jennie Wright
No, me neither. And it's always something that seems like the default when stuff gets tough. They pivot, instead of doing what we're going to talk about today, which is digging in finding the real reasons going through the deep part of the matter. And sort of putting a bit of your blinders on. Because and there are instances where you do need to pivot there are there are genuine instances where pivoting is a necessary thing in your business, of course, and we're not discounting that. So we're not but there is a huge swath of people that really had no reason to, but they did out of fear, out of lack of anxiety, and also out of shiny object syndrome, which people talk about. And also what I like to call the grass is greener fallacy. We're going to talk about all of this today.

Alyson Lex
Yes, before we talk about really the steps to that you should be taking, I want to just quickly address when maybe you should pivot. Okay, if there has been an unfixable change in who you serve, for instance, if the main source of your income was fundraisers from door to door sales from elementary school kids, chances are you had to pivot this last year, because there was an unfixable change in who you serve fine,

Jennie Wright
right? Like running an online business for event planners, you know, even wedding planning pivoted to a completely different thing it was now it's it's like an almost like a pop of wedding. Now, instead of having a wedding with 360 people in a huge venue, you're having a pop up wedding on the bluffs overlooking the lake of near Lake Ontario, and it's you and four friends, exactly.

Alyson Lex
Photography, a lot of people begin offering virtual headshots or things like that. So there is a time when pivoting, pivoting, excuse me is necessary. And I don't want to discount when that happens. The other thing is, if there's been a change in what you offer, you may serve the same thing, you may serve the same product and then serve the same people. But you've made a slight change in what you offer. I had a previous client, who was a catering company, and is now moving to selling gourmet ingredients for home cooks, a lot of his list is are buying those ingredients. So it's the same people, it's the same niche, but the what he offers is different. So there is that opportunity. However, a full pivot is not always the right move, what we need to do is avoid shiny object,

Jennie Wright
I'd love to find a different phrase than using the shiny object syndrome thing that people always latch on to. But it mean it's the right. It's the right terminology. It's when you see something and you're like, Oh, this is you know, the thing that I'm doing necessarily isn't working for me or I'm bored with it. And this is this is pre pandemic times two people used to do this a lot where they would start one thing, get bored with it and then switch and get bored and then switch and then get bored and then switch. There's also the Oh my god, those people are killing it in that new thing and I want to be part of it which Is my grass is greener fallacy, you know, and then you jump over and you've already lost out because those people have already created momentum and that thing or it may not be the right thing for you. And then you keep leapfrogging and leapfrogging from one thing to the next. Because you always think there's something better, and you never succeed, not to the level, you should.

Alyson Lex
Yeah, you don't, I think the shiny object thing happens. Because if you've ever been walking, like in a park or on a beach or outside, and it's sunny out, and then a glint of something catches your eye, and you might be on a sidewalk, and the glint is off in the bushes. But because it's shiny, it's taking you off of the path you're on and into a new direction. That's really where it comes from. And that's why it's really appropriate for here, because it's taking you off of the path, you're on the sidewalk, it's already laid out for you. And all you have to do is just one foot in front of the other on it. And now you're digging through the underbrush, to try and find this shiny thing that by the way, is very likely to end up just a beat up Miller Lite can

Jennie Wright
is really, really true,

Alyson Lex
if you just want to roll with the metaphor with me for a second, but it's gonna it wastes your time and your resources and it kills the momentum you have doing the thing you were already doing, can put a strain on your business, which, as you know, leads to strain on relationships, your own mental health, all the things,

Jennie Wright
everything. And then where do you end up worse off than you were, I mean, I've done a real pivot in my life, I've done a massive pivot, actually twice from working at a big box retail store, to working in a corporate environment in a completely different industry, one that I didn't even know about, but promised, you know, a better future for myself. But it was a very measured move, very measured. And it was, you know, something that I thought about and actually probably thought about for a long time before happened. And then when I left corporate, this was a big pivot coming into the online world. And that was probably a decision that I just I still kept looking for jobs. But it ended up that the lawn, the online thing was just really too alluring for me to go back to being in a regular job. And I think by then my personality had changed enough that going back into a regular day job wasn't going to work.

Alyson Lex
I always say I'm very hireable hireable. I'm not very employable. I can get hired like that. But staying there would not be the thing.

Jennie Wright
Yeah, that's and that's a real thing. And that means and when you look at your business, and something that you know, when you look at your business, this particular way that we're talking about, we want you to look at the dig deep factor, we want you to look at how deep Do you need to go to find your way through, versus getting off the path and finding a different way or method. And if you have a real and true pivot in your life that needs to be taken, we understand. And we're not trying to get you from making those real changes that you may need to make. What we're trying to do is we're trying to get the people that are prone to the Miller Lite can in the grass option thing,

Unknown Speaker
right like that.

Jennie Wright
I actually really, really liked that I know I'm back in love with shiny object syndrome simply for that metaphor.

Unknown Speaker
You're welcome. Thank you.

Jennie Wright
I appreciate that your your verbiage has helped, or the the grass is greener fallacy. If you fall for those things easily. If you're easily taken off track, then we're really talking to you today. And we really want to help you because this is a thing that actually happens. So we're going to talk about digging deep, we're gonna talk about exactly where to figure out the real problem is in your business. I know Allison has some really good points on how to figure out that real problem. And the one thing that I'm going to lead her off with is that it's it's figuring out if you're talking to the right audience right off the get go yet one

Alyson Lex
thing I want to mention before we dive into the dig deep of it all is you know, Jenny mentioned that she pivoted a couple of times in her life in her career. And when she first mentioned leaving the big box store and going into a corporate a new corporate industry. She said something that I thought was really important. This was a measured decision. This was not something that she woke up one day and was like, I'm gonna leave career a and go to career be Woohoo, it was does this have potential is what I'm doing now working? Will this new thing be but like she asked herself all of those questions and then also said Is this going to give me the lifestyle, the kind of life that I'm looking to have at this juncture, you're going to notice a lot. I'm going to tell you to ask a lot of these same questions of yourself. When considering a pivot in your business. What I don't want you to do is just decide things on a whim because you see someone else's success. Something that I say a lot is do not measure your bloopers against someone else's highlight reel. It's very easy to watch these videos names who are saying, Oh, I made $500,000 on this launch, blah, blah, blah. And what you don't know, and I'm not speaking about anyone in particular, but what you don't know is that they haven't seen their family in three months. And they're $100,000 in debt because they had to pay a 16 person team and their hairs felt like you don't know.

Jennie Wright
No. And there's all the years of work that led up to that successful launch.

Unknown Speaker
Exactly. Seeing you

Jennie Wright
know, seeing those people on Instagram and Facebook, saying that they made X amount of money in such amount of time, and how easy it is. And now if you just joined their $10,000 coaching package will show you exactly what they did. That could be very, very real. Yay. But it could also be the fact that you're seeing exactly what Allison told you, and that you're not seeing the background. So don't measure your bloopers. As Alison said against their highlight reel.

Alyson Lex
I think it's also important to note that and I really like what you said, there, you're not seeing the years that they have behind them, you're not seeing the years that they've spent on the same sidewalk, building the same audience getting the same notoriety until finally something they did hit one of the problems with pivoting too often, especially if you change the core of what you do is now you have to start over from scratch, new audience, new credibility, new assets, and free thing. Yeah, if you pivot too much, or your audience will get confused. The last thing you want when you sign up to get business tips is not to get life coaching tips six months later from the same person, it's gonna cause a disengagement. So the first thing that I want you to do is to figure out what and where the problem really is, really. And I don't just mean with your business with you, because there's a reason that you're thinking of doing something different. Is it purely financial? Is it purely data driven? Okay, that tells us where we need to go next. Chances are, it's not? Are you bored? Are you unhappy? Are you stressed out? Are you working too much? Okay, where's that problem coming from? Because then what we can do is discover whether this is a solvable problem,

Jennie Wright
maybe you just need a VA to help take some of the strain off of you. And then you might fall right back in love with your niche, or a coach to give you some strategy, right? So

Alyson Lex
is this solvable? 99.9% of the time it is solvable, it's not going to be solvable for free. And it may not be easy, but it's solvable. Yeah. But what happens, I find a lot of times is we come up against a wall in our business, while we're building it, while we're growing it, we hit a wall in our business, and it kind of stops being fun. And then, and I mean, I may or may not be speaking for a friend here. We're just kind of over it. We're disillusioned, we're mad at it, we're salty, we are over it. And so that's some mental work that has to be done. Because just like in a relationship, my husband and I, for about nine years, married, okay. And I can tell you, there are times where I am like, I'm really going to have to work at being in love with him today. And you work at it, you push for it, you work toward it, your business is the same way. And so I don't want to get this into like this huge life coaching thing, because that's not my pivot. But this is what I've discovered is sometimes you're just disillusioned. There's a problem that kicks off that disillusionment. So you got to get over yourself a little bit.

Jennie Wright
You also got to work through, right. So you got to work through it, and you got to get over yourself. And we've seen this in our own businesses. We've also seen in our clients business, we've had clients try and pivot mid work with us. And we're like new, you know, that was always fun. That one's always fun. I was

Alyson Lex
gonna say once you determine that it is in fact, a solvable problem. Now it's time to really figure out how what resources education, accountability, what do you need to solve this problem? Figure out how you can get those things. Okay, so sometimes it may be that mindset problem. Okay, so maybe I need to do some work on myself, where can I get that work? Where can I go to get someone to help me with that? I want to be clear, there are absolutely times when pivoting is necessary, when there's literally no chance when outside forces have forced you to make a sink or swim decision, like the pandemic or you know, a fire or some other disaster II type thing. I'm not trying to really list all of them here. And sometimes you are so burned out. You're so disillusioned that no matter how much work you do, you can't get back and that's okay. It's okay to get to that point. We had an interview with someone who burned out on her business and shut it down and changed what she was doing because it was best for her. And so I do want you to really take a look a good hard look at where you are. I have an associate who loves to pivot into different things. And when I've talked to him about it, it's because he gets bored. That's not a good reason to pivot. That's when you dive in deep and hot. To see how you can prevent yourself from getting bored. There's a

Jennie Wright
lot of reasons why that makes a lot of sense. why people are needing to create a change, I totally get it. There's justifiable reasons. But there's also a whole bunch of reasons why it's completely not justifiable, we've talked about a few, we're just going to repeat them, some of them here to make sure that we've really put a fine point on this, really. And that's, you know, if you're giving up too quickly, and it's just because you're bored, like Alison was saying, but you're giving up too quickly. If if you have a track record of trying things, but only to a certain point, and then when things get difficult, you back right? The heck off? Yes, then you're not doing what it takes. Because the funny thing is, is that wall that perceived wall,

Alyson Lex
once you get through it, there's actually benefit on the other side, if you're in the right niche, and you're doing the right thing to begin with, right? I've worked with someone who we got all the way up to launching her product, and I don't think she ever did. She was just like, I'm not going to do this anymore. And she pivoted Yeah, all that work, all that effort, all those assets are useless. Mm hmm.

Jennie Wright
Absolutely. I get it, I get the mentality of it actually understand it at a deep level, because I've actually gotten to that point. And I've been tickled by the prospect. But it's, it's whether or not you actually go for it. You know, the other thing is, is that when someone who doesn't know your business, gives you either unsolicited or solicited advice and tells you that it's time for you to pivot, they don't know you, they don't know your business, you could be actually falling into a trap where benefice beneficially benefits of them. If you pivot and end up in their coaching program, product or service, right? They don't know, you and what you're doing, or your ideal client, be very wary of people who tell you without knowing you very well that you need to pivot your business that I think is very dangerous. And if you're easily distracted into different things, if you're crying, I'm still gonna pull up that metaphor with the Miller, Miller Lite can Oh, snap

Alyson Lex
up Miller Lite cam and the underbrush.

Jennie Wright
That's, you know, if you're, if you're that person that gets easily distracted by stuff, and that's your reasoning, then you need coping and mechanical like mentally mechanical things, they're going to prevent you from getting distracted, right? So you need to like, take a second and get the right kind of assistance that you need to either learn coping mechanisms, so you don't get super distracted, and continue on a path that's going to create some success for you. And I also want you to talk about this last one that we have here, because I think this is really, really good.

Alyson Lex
Yeah, so a lot of people just keep using pivoting as a business strategy, because they don't want to dive deep into what they're doing. They don't. And this can be for any reason, right? self confidence, or getting bored or being distracted or what have you. But they don't want to dive deep and really get to be that deep expert. What what we're really saying is that if you consistently pivot if you consistently go off track, and this is, you know, something that Jenny has taught me is you're going to continue branching and then when you finally end up somewhere, it's nowhere where you meant to be and that if you don't know where you're going, you don't know where you're going to end up. So I'm a sidewalk Walker, I'm not an underbrush, grower, goer, and underbrush go well, that's hard to say, yeah, Danny's making fun of me right now. But it's okay to stick to the sidewalk, you can still have adventure, you can still do exciting things. And it's still very rewarding. Again, if there's outside forces that are forcing you to pivot, we get that there's sometimes no choice, but 99% of the time. It's a solvable problem.

Jennie Wright
Yeah, it is. And it's something that you can get some support on, you can get some marketing strategy with somebody who does strategy on a regular basis. An example Allison and I, we help people overcome some of these bumps, and lumps, and deviated paths that can lead you out of what you're supposed to be doing. Sometimes it just takes having a conversation with somebody who can tell you honestly, no, stick to what you're doing. Stay with the system that you should be, you know, following stay on your path and get there. If this makes sense. Or if you're feeling like this is a struggle for you. If you're one of these people that is wondering whether or not you should be on the path that you're on, or you just want some information that you should or you want some strategy around it, come and connect with us tonight, we would be happy to have a call with you. And you can check that out at System to thrive.com forward slash thrive plan. That is where you can get a call with Allison and I and we will either say Heck yes, it's time to move in a different direction or we don't think so now, we're going to give you the advice based on our own ideas and our own understanding. We'll ask you a ton of questions. We'll get to an informed decision and we'll present you with an opportunity to either move forward in your business and figure things out or how it makes sense for you to actually change direction maybe but I'm going to tell you We're probably not going to tell you to change direction. If at all, we're probably going to tell you, the path that you're on needs a tweak. And if we can tweak it, then you're probably going to be a lot happier. So go and check that out. If you're already listening to this podcast, and you enjoyed it, we're glad you're here. And we're so glad that you enjoyed it. Please don't miss another episode, make sure you're subscribed. we're dropping episodes on Tuesdays with our guests. We have these types of episodes with just Allison and I on Thursdays. And then we alternate on Mondays between Allison and I, for Monday, quick tips. They're really cute. And they're good bite sized information that can help your business. So go and check those out. And if you would like to, we'd love to hear from you. Please leave us an honest review and share your thoughts on the podcast. We'd love to hear your thoughts as to how you feel about what we say as well as your ideas for future podcast episodes. All right, and we just want to take a moment and say thank you, we appreciate you being here. We have lots of different ways for you to get more out of this podcast. There's tons of resources on the website System to thrive.com as well as this System to thrive.com forward slash thrive plan if you want to connect without some time. Thanks so much for being here and we'll be back again soon answering another big question.