As a business owner, you constantly have to pivot. Just as you have to breathe to stay alive, you will have to pivot to keep your business alive.
In addition to my marketing agency, I own and operate an online women’s boutique, e.Laniese, and I recently had to pivot with e.Laniese, and it was this pivot that was the catalyst for this article.
Far too often in business, something comes up that makes us change course. Pivoting is not industry agnostic, and every business owner will have to pivot throughout the trajectory of their business. If you don’t pivot then, your business will ultimately not survive. Some historic, yet “recent-esque” examples include Blockbuster, Circuit City, etc. These businesses failed to adjust with the times, and they eventually went bankrupt.
When circumstances arise, we should do the following things:
Assess the situation.
We must ask ourselves, what is going on in the industry?
How will it impact my business today? In 5 years? In 10 years?
Based upon that assessment, we need to develop a course of action.
What do we need to do to adapt to this situation? Is it something that is contained within our company? Do we need to hire outside resources? Do we need to update our processes?
Implement a course of action, and adjust as necessary.
Once you figure out what is needed to adapt to this pivot, you have to implement that solution. If part of the solution isn’t working, you have to try something else.
Here’s an example from Dumas83:
Dumas83 is starting to grow, so one of the biggest pivots I’ve had to do was go from being a soloprenuer to hiring, which required me:
Create a job description.
Post it.
Reach out to my network about the opening.
Reach out to potential candidates that might be interested.
Invest in a payroll platform, among other things.
All of these things had to occur in order for Dumas83 to grow. If I didn’t assess the situation, develop a course of action and implement it, Dumas83 would consist of a stagnant marketing agency that falls behind on client deliverables because the owner is overworked and has too many responsibilities, and eventually closes because it’s losing clients because of missed deadlines and it can’t expand to accommodate new clients.
Pivoting from a soloprenuer to a company with employees was scary, but it was necessary to keep Dumas83 alive.
Here’s a different example from e.Laniese, the catalyst for this article.
As I prepared for the 2023 holiday season, I wanted to include “ugly” Christmas sweaters as part of my holiday offering as they’re a holiday staple.
I visited a wholesaler website, found several items to offer, screenshotted the options and posted them on Instagram for my customers to vote on the items they wanted to see featured.
Once the vote concluded I ordered three different style items, including an “ugly” Christmas sweater. I took the sweater along with the other merchandise to pop up events where I was exhibiting, promoted them via email marketing and social media, and nothing. These sweaters didn’t get any traction in a month, and time was starting to run out. We were heading into December and soon the holiday items would no longer be of interest to customers.
Not one customer bought a single sweater.
Fast forward to early December. As I walk into Wal-Mart, what do I see in front of me? The exact same “ugly” Christmas sweaters that I’m offering and instead of being priced at $50, which I was selling them for, they were priced at $18.88. I was flabbergasted.
The vendor I purchased them from purported these sweaters as their own, but when I did some research, I found them on a popular vendor website from China, and there I was looking at countless manufacturers that were offering these same sweaters.
At that moment, I had to pivot. I now knew a reason as to why these sweaters likely did not sell. I also knew that I would have to take the financial loss with these sweaters as I could not compete with the low prices of Wal-Mart. I had paid the amount for the sweaters, and marked them up appropriately.
I removed the sweaters from my website and from social media where I had been actively promoting them.
I contacted the supplier, and worked out a partial refund, but I was stuck with these sweaters.
In online retail business, the pivot occurs at lighting speed, but in both cases, I had to pivot in order to keep my businesses moving forward.
As a small business owner, make sure you pivot in your business when necessary. Quickly assess the situation, develop a course of action and implement it, so your business(es) can continue to progress and remain viable.
If you’re at a pivot point in your business and need to hire a marketing agency, then contact us today! https://www.dumas83.com/about
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