There are some businesses that are well established and do not need to take risks and make drastic changes. However, if you are among the majority, you’ll know that this competitive era forces businesses to be creative, to bring something new and unique to the table, and sometimes to make smart and extreme moves and important changes that you never considered before in order to survive.
Pivoting is an extreme alternative strategy used by some business owners and entrepreneurs needing to change and move on quickly when something is not working well.
So what is Pivoting?
A pivot happens when the business owners need to change the direction and focus of the entire business when the products and services are not meeting the requirements of the market, or the market is no longer interested in your services.
You should consider pivoting your business if:
Your sales are sinking progressively and you can’t understand why.
The market is saturated with several competing options.
After investing a lot of money, time, and effort, it seems that the business is struggling even more than before.
There’s no progress in any way in the business no matter what you do.
You are considering selling your business.
You don’t have passion for your business anymore.
Your competitors are huge and you could hardly compete in any way against the great offers of huge corporations.
Customers or the audience did not respond well to your offers and services as you thought they would.
The customer’s acquisition cost is really high and forces the business to lose a lot of money to gain each customer (negative ROI).
The industry changed and your offer stopped being attractive.
You would use your competitor’s offers instead of yours.
If you see yourself in some of the situations above, consider going back to the basics.
Think about why you decided to start your business in the first place. Ask yourself who was your customer persona and try to think and understand:
Why they didn’t want your services?
What do they need then?
Where is the pain that I’m solving?
Are there any other ways I could solve those problems?
Which new goals can I have from now on that would allow me to keep the business afloat?
Maybe my business offers great services but my target audience is not the correct one?
After answering those questions, you need to consider re-evaluating everything in your business:
The offer: compare it fairly to the competition.
The audience: are they still interested or is it time for us to find another niche?
Is my message correct? Or do I need to evaluate the message?
The product or services: Are there offers in the market much better nowadays?
The revenue goals and methods: Is my price too high? Can a special discount attract more customers?
Brainstorm new different options and evaluate changing everything!
The product, or the service, the audience, the message, the prices and special discounts, the package design, the website design, the logo, the name, the brand, reducing employees, staff hours, restructuring the marketing budget, etc.
All businesses at some point encounter different challenges and difficulties that sometimes are too much to handle, and therefore, it could be the best decision to “step back”, evaluate everything, forget about the assumptions that you have, and pivot or change the direction of your business to a whole new opportunity where new ideas and solutions are going to redefine your business to survive.
Please feel free to share your thoughts or comments, do you agree or disagree with this point of view?
Also, if you have any questions, feel free to ask me anything.
Thanks for reading!