The Importance Of Pivoting When It Comes To Building Your Empire

Today Jesse and I are going to talk about the importance of pivoting when you find yourself stuck in your business.

 

I also want to talk about why I think our company has succeeded over the last few years. 

 

This episode is about the term “Pivot” and the first time I ever heard it was in the show Friends.

 

Who do you think is funnier, Chandler or Ross? 

 

Jesse thinks Ross is naturally funny, if you check out his podcast he talks about this more.

 

The topic and the term pivoting is essentially when there is a situation in your business where your profit goes down, and you don’t know what to do, pivoting is shifting to a new strategy.

 

Some people think pivoting is a very permanent thing, but it isn’t necessarily like that every time.

 

It could also be like during christmas, if your competition is doing something to get your customers, you need to change something to survive christmas.

 

I think if a 3rd party was looking in at our business, they would see we are successful because we have pivoted a lot.

 

I am not saying you need to change your whole business, you don’t need to change the whole industry.

 

If you have a competitor who is copying you and undercutting you, and you can either copy them back so they don’t have anything to copy, or you can make something they can not copy.

 

Jesse mentions that you can either pivot because things are going bad, or you can pivot to take up more market space.

 

For example Amazon started with selling books, and that was unsuccessful, but they saw the opportunity to add X,Y,and Z to their business, and pivoted to where they are now.

 

It is perfectly fine to start small, and pivot into different bigger things later.

 

I think 2020 is the perfect time to see in businesses, who pivots, and who fails.

 

I knew when the pandemic started and everything dropped, I knew I needed to get into stocks, and it made me start to pay attention.

 

At the time I invested a lot of my money into MGM because I believed as soon as they could open, everyone was going to want to go to Vegas and relax. I didn’t realize how big Coronavirus is going to be.

 

I had read an article that MGM said even if they didn’t make any more money, they could survive through the end of 2021.

 

That taught me how important it was to have a business savings account.

 

Another example of businesses needing to pivot is AMC, and they have since opened and they have started renting out entire theaters for $99. 

 

The industry that’s been hit the hardest is the food industry and they have pivoted and come up with so many solutions. 

 

In San Diego, a lot of restaurants opened up patios and built fences, and that is pivoting.

 

For our business we got rid of like 50-60% of our custom options, even though that was our topline product. The problem is that it takes a lot of time, and it costs me more.

 

I am not a graphic designer, I will never say I am a graphic designer, I would say I am more of a capitalist.

 

I have taken up a lot of skills, and at the time I didn’t really know what to expect

 

If I see money that can be made, I think about it hard and see if I have time to do that too.

 

I have always been creative, and I think you have to be a little artsy or you wouldn’t even get involved.

 

If I would have looked in the beginning at where I’m at now I would have never expected to be here.

 

When I was younger I would dream and think about starting all of these things, and as you get older you get kind of more realistic expectations.

 

I have always had really high expectations of myself, and it’s a little bit of an issue because I am really hard on myself. 

 

When I first started Etsy, I wasn’t expecting much to come from it.

 

Every month we had different problems, and I remember sitting with Jesse and figuring out solutions every time.

 

You have to find a thing that you’re not super interested in, that can make you money, and after you are established you can start going after the things you are really passionate about.

 

I am not doing customs any more, because I pivoted and that’s why I say I am not a graphic designer, that’s not my career.

 

We have pivoted a lot, we have changed how our products are presented to people, and shifted  how we do things.

 

I don’t mean little changes every day, I mean big business changes.

 

I also don’t mean improvements, we aren’t doing better pictures and upgrading what we have, I mean shifting so we can survive as a business, this is about surviving versus dying.

 

Covid has made a lot of businesses make big shifts. For example, Spotify just started doing podcasts this year!

 

They had to to survive because businesses when they lose money, the first thing they cut is advertising.

 

Something so hard like coronavirus could have totally wiped out spotify, but they have good leadership that pivoted.

 

A lot of businesses that closed down, like pier one which was sold, or boomers, you can tell they had nothing in their bank accounts.

 

They had poor financial decisions, so even big businesses can have poor money management.

 

Why didn’t pier one focus on online? They had to be bought by somebody who is now focusing on online.

 

Pivoting is such an important piece of business, you have to be able to adapt to problems and changes.

 

You can’t just sit and be overwhelmed and stressed, you can take your five minutes, have a glass of wine, and then start problem solving.

 

That is real success in business, is making a whole bunch of pivots.

 

Jesse started a new business on the side, and cast his net too wide, he has started focusing on one area of it, and that is pivoting, that is what needs to happen to succeed.

 

You have to look at the problem and figure out what needs to change to survive.

 

I whine about everything, I would whine about working out, and that’s okay.

 

Have your five minutes, or scream the whole way through, but just keep going, keep working on it and never give up.

 

Even if you are miserable, if you get it done, you will have the results you want.

 

You might be thinking, “How many times am I going to have to pivot?” A hundred times, forever, you will always need to pivot.

 

If the sun stopped coming out for 100 days, it doesn’t mean you need to hide in your house, you need to come and figure out how you are going to live.

 

In my opinion, if you cannot pivot in business you will not make it. 

 

There will always be bigger fish trying to eat you.

 

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