This is also a PODCAST episode!
In this post I want to clarify a word that I use a lot: PIVOT. This has become quite a buzz-word, especially since the pandemic started, because a lot of businesses had to change or face closing. In my experience, there are three main ways that you might pivot your business:
1. Taking an existing business online. This can look like you changing the whole way that your business is presented, and what you offer, or it could just look like you finally creating a website, social media accounts and having an online presence for the first time. For example, a lot of brick-and-morter businesses realized during the pandemic how extremely valuable having a good, useful website is as well as social media and other forms of online marketing.
2. Changing your services. For example, you might be a healer who didn’t have much of an online presence, and most of your clients came to you through referrals. Then COVID hit and now you are offering online consultations, and thinking of creating an online course or some other offering to supplement your income now that you’re not seeing as many in-person clients.
3. Niche-ing or targeting a different audience. This is common in a lot of industries, especially the coaching industry. As coaches begin to grow and level-up their business, they will increase their prices and narrow down their niche. That sounds counter-intuitive to a certain extent, but when you have a specific niche, it is easier to know what they need, for you to provide that to them, and to streamline your marketing messaging, your onboarding process, and your workflow because you will know exactly who you’re speaking to. So the “when to niche or change your audience” question often comes up for existing entrepreneurs when you are feeling scattered, out of alignment with your audience, or overwhelmed by doing too many things for too many types of clients.
All of these types of pivots have 1 thing in common: REBRANDING. When you make a big change in your business, you need to get the message out to the world about the change, and strategic as well as visual rebranding is very important.
Strategic rebranding is where you re-define your audience (esp. important if you’re in category #3, niche-ing), clarify your offerings (esp. important for category #2), and get super clear on your messaging.
Visual branding may not be absolutely necessary- especially if you’re in category #1 or #2, though if you’re changing your audience it is absolutely necessary in my opinion. Your visual branding (i.e. your logo, fonts, color scheme, photos, etc.) is the vehicle that tells your story, and if you’re changing the story you should change the vehicle so people pay attention.