Blog Post

Why 'giving up' could be the best thing for your business

Janet Doran - Strategic Business Coach • Jan 10, 2019

I recently wrote a post on LinkedIn saying that 'Never give up' was bad business advice. It was a bit of a reaction to the barrage of relentlessly cheerful yet somewhat unhelpful social media messages telling us to 'Never give up no matter what'.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that persistence and resilience are critical for any Solopreneur or small business owner. Yet, carrying on regardless, in the face of continuing poor returns or failure to gain traction, is not useful advice.

So am I really saying give up – not necessarily, but maybe it’s time to pivot.

What do I mean by pivot?

A Pivot is a significant change to one or more parts of your business model

Changing the product or service you offer

Changing channels to market

Changing target customer groups

A pivot isn’t a tweak yet it isn’t throwing everything away and starting again.

It's driven by something significant; recognising that one part of your business is outperforming the rest, one area which continues to grow or that customers tell you is far better than your competitors offer.

The pivot is more common than you think.

Well-known brands such Starbucks started out selling coffee machines rather than coffee. When William Wrigley Jr, a door to door soap salesman who gave away free gum with every sale – found the gum more popular than the soap – Wrigley’s gum was born!

A perfect example from a small business is Cheryl Eisen . A real estate broker in the fiercely competitive New York City area, Cheryl discovered when she staged the property interiors they sold faster and for a better price. This part of her business was so effective she pivoted to work full time as a property Stager and went on to create the now multi-million dollar Interior Marketing Group.

How do you know when it's time to pivot?

Don’t mistake a ‘dip’ for a hole . Consider any seasonal impacts or short term factors that have affected sales and will recover, such as

But, some things that pin point the need to pivot are

The business has stopped growing or the expected growth is not materialising

You are no longer seeing results from the things that worked in the past.

The needs or expectations of your market are changing.

Customers are leaving.

What are your customers and your numbers telling you?

Is there one aspect of the business which is succeeding far beyond expectations?

Review your customer feedback and analyse your revenue by individual product or service. Which ones are the stars? and which ones are the boulders (you know the ones that you have trouble moving).

If your support offer is more popular than your product or your set-up and training offer is unique, is there an opportunity to change from product supply to product support, to shift from training end users to train the trainer?

How to Pivot your business

Avoid any knee jerk reactions – take a logical approach, as if you were planning a new business.

You need to create a new hypothesis (the customer has problem x and our solution is y)

Test this out with existing and/or potential customers

Check the current competitors in this market; how big and how accessible is this specific market for your business.

Design your new business model, the Business Model Canvas is ideal for this. Sketch out on one page your value proposition, customer segments, customer relationships, channels, costs and revenue streams. This will also ensure you identify key internal aspects such as resources and activities and external partnerships.

Could this new business deliver the returns you want?

Don’t make rash decisions on a bad quarter Yet, if it’s time to change then don’t procrastinate – get on with it. (Let's face it as the business owner you will know when it’s really time to do something different). If you would like to explore this for your business please get in touch to find out how I can help.

Janet Doran , works as a Strategic Business Coach across North Yorkshire, UK. enabling small business owners to win in competitive markets.

Find out more at www.thepositivepen.co.uk or call 07505 120051 and Follow her on twitter https://twitter.com/thepositivepen

One of the key benefits business owners get from working with a business coach is that ‘protected’ time to work on the business instead of it in. If you are thinking about working with a business coach in 2019 please give me a call.

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