The word ‘Pivot’ brings to the mind of many an image of Ross Geller trying to move a couch. For people with small businesses, however, it means something a little different. Sure, there is still some heavy lifting and frustration involved, but it’s more than just moving something around a corner. It’s about embracing the fact that you just might have to make a change in your business.

We aren’t necessarily talking about big changes. They could be big changes, but the don’t have to be. What we’re talking about is looking at what’s stalling in your business and looking for growth opportunities.

We had a fab chat with our favourite queen of productivity, Melanie Knights. She’s a business strategy coach who specializes in supporting women to better manage their time so that they can better manage their business. (Isn’t that something we all need!?!) Melanie Knights has made changes to her business over the past year that have brought her great success. When she kept hitting brick walls with her individual coaching business, she started asking herself why that was.

What she learned spurred her pivot.

LISTEN TO THE MARKET

“There I sat, talking to woman after woman about how they needed to manage their time better so they could be more productive in their business and go full-on with transitioning from their 9-5 job to full time running their own profitable business, but they were all saying how they didn’t have time for a coaching program. They had too much on their plate. Imagine the irony! I was talking to them about how I could help them with that exact thing, but they were too focused on NOT having time to see they could  have more.”

This catalyst moment for Mel made her evaluate her business model. She looked at her offering. She looked at her audience. She looked at her skills. She looked at the tools available to her. And she looked at what SHE wanted out of her business.

GETTING HONEST WITH HERSELF

“I love doing one-on-one coaching. It’s so inspiring. But building up a coaching business that targeted women in different time zones meant that I had to stretch out my schedule beyond the regular work day. I was taking appointments at all hours and it was starting to impact my home time and my schedule with my family. I knew when I started building my business that I wanted to have a schedule that allowed me to spend my evenings with my son and husband.”

Not only was she seeing a disconnect in the business aspect, she was also feeling a disconnect in her work/life balance. Put all together, it was evident she needed to make a change.

From the outside, it might look like Mel made a big pivot. She changed her business model, she changed her schedule, and she adjusted her view of her target audience. But what she did was, in fact, not that huge.

SIMPLE CHANGE FOR BIG SUCCESS

“I looked at the coaching material I had created and realised I had all this great content that I could make courses out of. As I began looking at what I could do with that, I saw the opportunity to create a membership program where women could come and access the much needed training and resources for them to shift from employee to entrepreneur. I saw that I could remove the ‘I-don’t-have-time barrier and make it a do-it-at-your-own-pace program. I didn’t really have to create anything new. I just re-packaged it, made it easily consumable, and marketed it to the masses.”

Melanie’s Wonder Woman Business Lounge has become a thriving private community where female entrepreneurs can access the training they need to better manage time, be more productive, be more organized, and stay focused on their tasks. They interact with each other, and she interacts with them based on a schedule that meets her needs.

“Would I have initially come up with this membership program on my own? I don’t think so. I think I needed to hit those walls. I think I needed to learn. Making this pivot in my business has been one of the best decisions I’ve made, and I don’t think I would have wanted to make it any differently than how it happened.”

Mel is an inspiration to us. She didn’t keep her head in the sand and just hoped that her business would take off. Instead, she took a long hard look at what she was doing, and what wasn’t working. She brushed ego aside and was critical and strategic in her thinking.

Don’t be afraid of the pivot. Business is about growth. Growth can be about change.

Like this article? Check out this one on why you need to set out your own measure of success. Stop worrying what everyone else thinks and focus on what is important to you.