Sometimes You Have To Make A Business Strategy Pivot

— April 5, 2018

Nothing is static and nothing will remain consistent. The world is a dynamic place that’s always changing. You will eventually go through a business strategy pivot.


Even if your business is doing well today and you’re getting plenty of referrals, that’s not guaranteed tomorrow.


That means you have to stay on top of the changing world and changing markets. What works today won’t necessarily work tomorrow.


People have to pivot, we have to change. If we choose not to change and not to constantly reinvent then we get left behind.


Business is no different.


There will eventually be a pivot that happens and there will be many more to come.


Pivot Your Business Strategy


There comes a time in every business when you decide something isn’t working. Either that or you find something that will work better for you.


That’s where your strategy must pivot and a new path must be forged.


You’ll have to reassess your strategy to see how everything is working. Improvements can be made in every business. Some improvements are incremental over a long time and others are sudden larger shifts.


My favorite way to think about this is windshield wipers on your car. You don’t really notice how bad they are because they degrade so gradually. When you change your windshield wipers then you notice a huge difference. Suddenly you can see in the rain again!


Same with your business. Compare your business now to just one year ago and you’ll be shocked at how much things have changed. There have been slow incremental improvements.


A business pivot is different. There’s a time when big changes are needed and your strategy needs to change.


This is a good thing. It allows you to reinvent yourself and become a better, stronger business. It’s a time where you can assess where resources go.


It’s all about finding the right balance in time, effort, and strategy to have the most effective business possible.


Balance Time, Effort, And Strategy


Do you want to take resources away from something not working too well and assign them to something more effective? You should do this from time to time.


There’s the gradual shift and then occasionally it’s important to take a step back and make necessary bigger adjustments.


If you find one strategy is working better than another, shift resources. They both may be working well but if one is doing better, focus more energy on it. You have to prioritize and that’s exactly what the business strategy pivot is all about.


There’s always something that works better. It’s a matter of discovering what that is by testing. Once you’ve tested and found something even better, pivot.


It’s not all about taking advice from others either. You have to listen to others but you can’t implement it exactly as they have.


Even if it worked for them doesn’t mean it will work for you. Testing is necessary even with recommendations from others.


It’s all about listening, testing, and finding how things will work best for you. Take advice from others, listen to them, but don’t do exactly as they do. Use what others have done and then test it for your specific business.


Build a strategy for you based on recommendations and testing.


Every business is unique and experience can only dictate your strategy so much.


My Pivot


I make changes in my business every day and assess how things are working. I want to spend more time on things that work and less on things that don’t.


It’s not that simple though. Some things still work but just not as well as others. Things don’t either work or not work. There are varying degrees of working.


To adjust for this I’m making a shift (possibly temporary) to an adjusted blogging and email strategy. I need to build out my email marketing automation a bit more which is why I’m shifting my strategy towards this.


I blog weekly and have been doing so twice a week for almost two years. Monday and Thursday were the blog days. Friday was the automated newsletter day with my two blog posts. I also sent out a bi-weekly newsletter as an email blast.


No more. I’m going to shift from the newsletter in the coming weeks and focus more on automation. I will plan and create a strategy for different automation that make more sense for people. It will be better for recipients and better for me. Everything will be more tailored and I can tweak to improve.


So, you’ll see some changes in the coming weeks. There will no longer be a separate newsletter sign up and blog sign up. There will be only one sign up. I will adjust what happens at the time depending on what I’ve built out for automation.


I already have some automation built out which is the starting point. I will fine tune those and build new ones. It will all feed into my blog posts which I am shifting for now also. I will have a somewhat more random posting schedule which I haven’t decided on 100% yet.


Your Pivot


Do you have a business strategy pivot planned or have you made one? Let me know in the comments what you’ve done to shift and improve your business.

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Author: Nick Leffler


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