From changing their business models and marketing strategies to even considering starting over with a completely new venture, small business owners are feeling the need for change. But whether it’s a pivot, rebrand or a total do-over, are these changes even the right move? 

I'll be exploring the motivations behind these decisions and discussing the importance of a more thorough evaluation before taking the leap. We'll also be addressing the unrealistic expectations that can often cloud our judgment and lead us astray.

Join me as we navigate the challenges of entrepreneurship and discover when and why it's time to make a change in our small business. 

This episode will cover a range of topics, including recognizing signs for change, understanding pitfalls, exploring personal reasons for change, avoiding impulsive choices, considering alternatives, reflecting on past decisions, addressing mindset and skillset, overcoming burnout, adapting to external factors, letting go of what weighs you down, examples of business pivots, strategic business exits, questions to consider, seeking help, and finding fulfillment beyond business.

Mic Drop Moment: 

"We may be looking to our business not only to create financial stability but to give us a sense of meaning, a sense of purpose, to be a warehouse for our creativity, a social life, to give us a sense of belonging, community, and family.

Your business should not be expected to do all those things for you and for you not to have to give it anything in return."

If you can’t stop thinking about a pivot, rebrand, reinvention or strategic exit of your business, this might be the right time to work together. My signature program, The Boss Up Breakthrough will help you right size your business.

We work together for 12 weeks to clarify what’s working, what isn’t and where you can create more sustainable systems, so you can get off the burnout bus and start loving your business again.  At this time,  I am only accepting 1:1 clients and the first step is to schedule a free 30-minute consultation right here: https://bit.ly/calendly-free-consultation

Not ready to work together but want to see more of my content? Subscribe to my weekly Linked In newsletter here: https://bit.ly/TDWE-Newsletter

TLDL (time stamps) 

00:01:27 Unrealistic expectations and bad advice plague entrepreneurs.

00:06:38 Business can't fulfill all our needs. 

00:22:37 Establish business foundations for sustainability before scalability. 

00:27:57 Question your desires, seek change and growth.

00:32:15 Strategically exit, rebrand, or pivot your business.

Well hey there and welcome back to the Driven Woman Entrepreneur podcast. This is your host Diann Wingert and today we're going to be talking about making changes in your small business. If you are talking to other small business owners as often as I am, then you are probably hearing a whole lot of people talking about pivoting, rebranding, changing their business model, changing their marketing strategy, changing their niche, their target market, for all kinds of reasons I'm hearing people saying they feel like burning their business down and starting all over. People are talking about starting a 2nd business and if it outperforms the first, letting the other one go. People are talking about just throwing the towel in and looking for a job and so many other things so I know it's not just my little corner of the world. I know there are a lot of small business owners who are struggling and even some who are succeeding and still talking about making a change, so I want to dig into all of that because if you're thinking about making a change and it might be for all the right reasons. Let's make sure you've thought of the things you need to think about before you get that party started.

A whole lot of people start a small business with very unrealist expectations. It's nobody's fault because there's a lot of bad advice out there, including a lot of very popular advice from people who at least appear to know what they're talking about based on their testimonials but having a huge audience does not necessarily mean that what they're selling is going to work for you If you've been someone who's purchased a lot of courses. You've gone through a lot of group programs. You've been in half a dozen memberships and masterminds, and still feel like your business isn't dialed in that's probably not your fault as I said there's an awful lot of unrealistic expectations being propagated. There are a lot of people who are offering solutions that may work for some of us, but far from all of us, many of us fall prey to what I call magic pill thinking or wishful thinking where even though we may have none of the advantages that would help us be successful in a particular marketplace, we think if we want it badly enough it's gotta work right? But even when what you've been doing was working if it's not working now that doesn't necessarily mean you should hang it up and start all over it might mean that you need to downshift a little bit.

You might need to ease up on some of your expenses You might need to make some changes in your marketing, in your business model, in your delivery system to adjust to the changes in the marketplace in hopes of returning to your former strategy when things ease up again but it's really hard to know. One of the things that I ask people to think about is when you started this business whether you're 2 years, 10 years, 20 years into it, how prepared were you to face all the uncertainty of being a small business owner? Were you someone who was able to come into a business first as an employee, take on more responsibility, and then buy in? If so, you're in the minority and you're actually very lucky because you knew what you were getting into before you got into it. For most of us we were passionate about what we were doing, we had a strong sense of purpose, and we just jumped in and figured it out as we went along. It was very much a sink or swim for me and most other business owners I know, but while this can create a lot of resiliency and a fair amount of resourcefulness, it can also after a while lead you to the conclusion that it's too late for you to get help.

Many people think the only time it's really appropriate to seek out help or business advice is when they're first getting started, and because they didn't do it then, now here they are 3 years to 30 years down the line and think it's too late. Friends that is stubbornness actually more accurately, stubborn self sufficiency, ego, and pride. There's never a bad time to seek help, and you don't necessarily have to pay for it either. One of my clients came to me to establish her consulting business and then pivoted to working with a local group that takes new entrepreneurs under their wing and helps them continue develop the business over the long haul. So there are all kinds of different help available to you and if pride is not standing in your way, you might even be able to find someone in your area or that you can work with virtually who specializes in helping people pivot. Pivoting can feel like the perfect solution when you're just not feeling it in your business anymore, but I would caution you from thinking that a pivot will solve every problem.

I used to think years ago If I wasn't feeling it anymore in a particular job, all I needed to do was change companies and the love would come back. And of course it did, but it was very temporary because what I wasn't doing was addressing the reason why after a couple of years, I always seem to want to leave no matter how much I may have liked a job from the beginning. And many small business owners have this pattern as well so many of us look to our business to satisfy us on so many levels that it's not our business's job to satisfy. We may be looking to our business not only to create financial stability but to give us a sense of meaning, to give us a sense of purpose, to be a warehouse for our creativity, to be a social life, to give us a sense of belonging, community, and family And your business should not be expected to do all those things for you and you not to have to give it anything in return I always say that a business, our business, our small business is a relationship we're having with an entity. Not just the customers or clients that we serve we actually have a relationship with our business.

So when we get to the point where the business is feeling like it's boring to us, or we're thinking maybe we'd like a little side business, or we're thinking maybe we would break up with our business if something better came along. These are the very same patterns that many of us had in romantic relationships and when we were working in the job market. What it comes down to is sooner or later you may encounter something in your business that is unpleasant uncomfortable and you don't actually know how to solve. But I promise you and I am someone who knows this from real experience burning your business down, pivoting, rebranding, changing your business model, bringing in a partner is not automagically going to change things for you because very likely there is something uncomfortable that you've been avoiding and it will persist once you change your business model or pivot to a new market. Not right away though, and that's what's so tricky about this kind of thing because when we have a persistent pattern of starting a business, at first everything goes great.

Then after a while, it becomes harder and harder to get leads, it becomes more difficult to convert leads to customers, or we are only able to stay at a certain level, and we want to grow beyond that. Maybe all of our expenses are becoming more expensive, but our price point won't budge. What do we do, well maybe all we need to do, and I'm putting all in air quotes, maybe all we need to do is fix our money mindset, isn't that tempting? Isn't it tempting to just think all we need to do is buy somebody's money mindset course, fix our problems with money, double or triple our rates as we hear certain people on the interwebs telling us to do and everything will suddenly be fixed I don't think so. I think the things that we really need to be looking at are Is a pivot enough? And based on what, what makes us think that a pivot or a rebrand is going to be enough, what kind of itch are we trying to scratch, really? If you've had several businesses, and I know many people who have, they always seem to reach the same point at about the same amount of time. Maybe it's after the 1 year mark, which I call the year of disillusionment, or maybe they get 3 to 5 years in, but in truth, they've been struggling the whole time they just didn't want to admit it.

Starting a new business is not going to fix the pattern if we've done this before. If we are approaching it with the same mindset, the same skill set, and all we're doing is shifting our focus from a yoga studio to a dog grooming business, it won't change a thing because wherever we go, there we are, we are the common denominator. Now if it sounds like I'm trying to blame you for wanting to burn your business down. Listen more carefully because I think there's so much bad information out there that it's almost impossible for any of us to make nothing but right decisions in our business. Not to mention, even though there are so many small business owners in this country and frankly, around the world, it's hard work and it can be very lonely. Many people who start a small business tend to have this entrepreneurial spirit and part of that entrepreneurial spirit can be a reluctance or a downright resistance to looking for help, to asking for help, to even identifying that we might need help. And then when we finally do decide to ask for help, we are looking for it in all the wrong places. Why?

Because we waited so long, we reach a point of feeling truly desperate, and then almost any kind of feedback looks like the right idea. So if I could do everything over, if I could start all over from the beginning of my first business, some of the things that I would have been paying attention to then had I known and I'd like you to pay attention to now, especially especially if you have been feeling the urge to pivot, rebrand, change things up. Put 2 businesses in competition with each other and figure out which one's gonna win or look for a job after having been self employed for a few years. I want you to look at these things instead, one, did you start this business with unrealistic expectations. It's okay to admit it, it is okay to not only admit it but to forgive yourself. Even if you had a gut feeling that what you were being promised was way too good to be true. It's okay most of us start a business with somewhat unrealistic expectations just like most of us start. Relationships of all kinds with somewhat unrealistic expectations from romantic partnerships to having a kid to starting a biz bestie relationship, and the list goes on.

But what I want you to look at if you did have unrealistic expectations, were there places where your intuition was telling you something different than what you did? If you can remember those things now and pledge you will not allow yourself to feel shame or regret. There may be some clues about what you can change now so that this decision will work out better than the last one. I also want you to pay attention to the fact that sometimes things work great for a period of time and then they don't. You still love the business, you still love the the market, you still love the niche, you're still satisfied with the type of clients, and you genuinely would love for things to keep on going but they're not going as well as they were. This is not time to burn things down, my friend. This is time to make some modifications, reduce some expenses. See if you can downsize a little bit, see if you can wait some things out or do some outsourcing, delegating, or automating that you haven't and done yet sometimes we just need to hunker down while we figure things out.

What I also want you to pay attention to is how much emotional labor, whether you expected it or not, how much emotional labor does your business model require? This is one of the elements of rightsizing that I help my coaching clients with. Most of us, especially women, we are not as well aware of our actual bandwidth limitations as I would like to think we were. Most of us are so used to doing tons of emotional labor, both in our business and in our personal life, that it really goes unnoticed, but in my opinion, it's one of the number one reasons why we are at risk for burnout. The other reason is boundaries so I think if we want to have a sustainable business regardless of the market conditions, regardless of whether we are rebranding, pivoting, adding a business line, changing our business model, or making no changes at all, being aware and being honest with ourselves about the emotional labor we're doing, our actual bandwidth, our energetic bandwidth, the boundaries that we may need, but we're not being consistent about, and what our burnout risk is.

Because here's the thing If you've been in business since before the pandemic, I think it's pretty fair to say your business circumstances have changed in the last 3 years. Many business owners I know, in addition to having to face changes in the marketplace, are having difficulties they didn't have pre pandemic with labor shortages, labor cost, and not to mention having to learn how to homeschool their own children while they're running a small business. This is no small thing, many people are finding themselves with changed circumstances because they had a business partnership, and their partner decided to move in another direction. So now it's up to them many people who started a business pre pandemic thought they were gonna lose the business during the pandemic and are still fighting to get their financial footing back to a solid place. Every one of these things has an impact If you've had an illness, if you've had an accident, if someone close to you has passed away if you've lost a pet. As much as you'd like to think you are a total badass, and trust me, I love to think of myself as a total badass.

Just having a dog bite a couple of weeks ago really kind of trimmed my sales, and it really depleted my energy, diminished my mood and my motivation for the entire time I was healing. I did have to have stitches and was a little more complicated than a simple dog bite. But suffice to say, I wouldn't consider that major trauma by any means but it was enough of an event, an unexpected incident, that my mood, energy, and motivation were affected, did, which means my bandwidth was affected and it increased my risk of burnout. So every client that I saw during that period of time put more of a demand on me for emotional labor. You are not a superwoman, I'm sorry to tell you. You can still be a baddie. You can still be resilient AF, but you are not unlimited in your energetic bandwidth so if you are looking for permission to pivot, I can't give you that because I don't know if pivoting is going to solve the actual problem.

It's very tempting when we're feeling tired, when we're feeling burned out, when we're feeling like we just can't get that sense of passion back for our business, I got news for you it may not be your business's fault, and it may not be something that a pivot can fix. Other things you might wanna consider instead are, is there something you need to let go? Now most of us hate having to let things go the whole sunk cost fallacy you hear me refer to so often because we've put time, energy, effort, money, opportunity cost, drive, passion, purpose into everything we do, and when we have to let it go either because it isn't working, because it's no longer working, or because even if it is working. It is not serving us to continue doing it, it is hard. I don't know anyone that finds throwing a sandbag over the side to let their hot air balloon get more lift to be easy, especially if it involves other people. I spent some time growing a Facebook group. I never felt like I did a good job running it but I did put time and energy into developing it and I thought about closing it down for at least 6 months before I finally did.

It was really a non event when it happened. No, nobody cried. Nobody grieved. I don't think anybody even missed it, including me, but because I had spent time developing it, I didn't want to let it go. I thought it meant I'd made a mistake and I hated admitting that I had wasted my time wasted my energy wasted my focus on something that I later had to let go. But guess what, I needed to get over that mindset. And if you have had something in your business that you've had to let go of and you're still feeling bad about it. Please create a ritual if you have to write all the reasons why you feel bad about it on a piece of paper, burn it up, and let it go because if you're doing something in your business that is weighing you down, that is eating up your bandwidth, that is consuming your emotional energy. You will not have it for the things that matter most, and the things that matter most are not showing up on social media. They're not creating content, they're not writing emails.

What matters most is revenue generating activities like sales and service serving your clients, seeking referrals from your clients and other referral partners, and selling leads. Those are the things that you need to be energetically aligned with. You cannot be conserving your energy when you do those things, because you spent it all on things that don't really matter one of the other things I want you to consider in addition to what you need to let go of is if you have bought into this battle cry across the internet scale scale scale. First, you have to have business foundations in place so that your business can be sustainable, so that your business can survive through some of the ups and downs, through some market changes, through some instability in your team composition, through needing at times to invest in your business either with coaching or adding to your tech stack or making some capital improvements sustainability first then scalability and guess what? Some people right size their business by deciding not to scale. They know they could, but they choose not to and I'm gonna give an example.

Some friends of ours, invited us to go check out a new restaurant. John, we just went last night. We hadn't even heard of this place, and we didn't know anyone else who had heard of it either. But this particular couple are foodies, so we know we can count on them to be the first kids on the block to know of something cool and new. So they took us to this place, honest to goodness, it was one of the best meals I've had in a while. But it was so fascinating to me to see how this place operated. The plates didn't match, the silverware didn't match. We were in kind of a bonus room because the main room was already full, and we got there at 6 PM. So right after we arrived, they said we have to shut down for the night. We decided to serve 60 people dinner tonight, and you 4 are the last 4. 6 o'clock? So we hadn't been there, we assumed they were brand new, and they were. They've only been there for a couple of months, but it was so good that of course right after dinner.

Both my husband and I went up introduced ourselves to the two co-owners and immediately started telling them all our ideas for how they could move to a better location, they could have full service, and they politely listen to us, and then I started really looking at their faces and I realized, no, they're just politely listening to us. They don't want to do this, so I said or you could just ignore everything that we're saying and just continue doing what you're doing right here. And the man broke into a big smile and said, you know, I've been in the restaurant business for over 15 years. And the reason why we moved to this out of the way location, and we are choosing to serve a small number of people. We're not doing any social media. We're not doing any advertising. As you can see, we just put this place together with what we happen to have from a couple of other restaurants. And if it grows very slowly or not at all, we just needed to be sustainable and we just need to attract the people who most want to eat here.

It was such a good reminder to me that not everybody wants to go big. This man proceeded to tell us that over all the years that he's been working in the restaurant industry in the last couple of years since the pandemic, he has found it nearly impossible to hire and retain staff. So they decided after so many people calling in at the last minute, so many people not working a full shift, so many people wanting to take vacation time that he said, we're just gonna open a small place with just the two of us. We're gonna do the cooking, we're gonna do the serving, and we're going to do the cleaning up. And that's what we're gonna do and you know what, I'm sure they're much more profitable and much less stressed then when they literally didn't know whether they were going to have enough people to serve their customers on any given day Sometimes the thing we need to let go of is the dream for what we thought the business was supposed to be.

Now I am the last person to tell any dreamer not to go after what they want, but I will be the 1st person to tell them, are you sure it's what you actually wanted? Because sometimes we just give in to what everyone around us seems to be doing what everyone around us seems to be thinking and wanting and striving for. Human beings are social creatures, even the most antisocial among us, and we often look to others for what we should think, what we should feel, what we should do, and even what we should want. But I say if you've reached a point where you are looking at your business with a side eye and thinking man, you are not making me happy, and I'd really like to make some changes around here. This is your opportunity, sure you could burn it down if you want to. I've burned a few things down in my life not literally I'm not an arsonist, but you get me. Sometimes you need to take a break, sometimes you need to hit the pause button, Sometimes you need to get honest with yourself and say, you know what?

I really didn't use my intuition when I had decided to jump into this with both hands, both feet, and my whole brain, I've set myself up for something that is not sustainable, and I hate it. And I'm just idealistic enough to think but maybe if I pivot, maybe if I rebrand, maybe if I just raise my prices and serve a different clientele maybe if I get a partner? Hey, I know, maybe I'll get another certification or take another course. Hey, if you've listened to this podcast more than an episode or two, you already know that I will tell you that's a hard no that is not your solution, but you know what's also possible and I don't think enough business strategist and coaches are talking about this. A lot of entrepreneurial people simply outgrow things. Yeah, it's not that they have unrealistic expectations. It's not that they bought into the hype and are looking for a magic pill It's not that they expected overnight success and it actually takes frickin work It's that they've mastered it and now they've outgrown it, and they're ready to move on to their next challenge. If you are the kind of person who has a tendency to outgrow things, and if you think about it and you look back over your shoulder or in your rearview mirror.

This has probably been a pattern throughout your life. You identify a challenge, you take a leap of faith. You go all in on it, you go through the trials and tribulations, the ups and downs, the successes and the failures, and you learn and master everything you can about that venture but it has nothing more to teach you, just more of the same. If that's you, you're more of the serial entrepreneur type, then it's perfectly okay to think about. What would I like to do next, it doesn't mean you did anything wrong to begin with. But you don't want to impulsively make a choice about what to do now that isn't really going to do what you need it to. You might want to talk to somebody about a strategic exit you could certainly talk to me about it I've helped a number of people strategically outgrow their business without burning it to the ground because I'm also one of those people who has a tendency to outgrow things. So as we wrap up these are the things I want you to ask yourself.

If you're thinking about pivoting, rebranding, starting over, burning it down, or any other option than staying the course I want you to pay attention to these things and ask yourself these questions Did this feeling that you want to make a change come on slow or sudden? If it was slow, it's either because there's something uncomfortable that you've been avoiding. It may be someone that you need to let go of. It may be that you're continuing to work with a certain type of client that you really, they strain you, drain you, deplete you, and you really should not be working with this type of client anymore but you haven't done anything about finding a different type of client? If it came on suddenly instead of slowly, it's probably because something circumstantial has drastically altered your energetic bandwidth, and you're just beyond your capacity right now. There are other ways to address that that don't require you to change anything other than the way you're showing up and maybe letting some things sit for a while instead of trying to do everything right now.

Take a look at your expectations, let the unrealistic ones go. Take a look at your wishful thinking, forgive yourself for indulging in it. Forgive yourself for listening to any and all bad advice, and pay attention to what your instincts and your intuition is telling you now. It should be kind of a quiet voice. It's not a raging one. It's not a bullying one. It's not an accusatory one. It's a little bit quieter, and you might need to get yourself out in nature to hear it? And if that doesn't get you there, then have a conversation with someone you trust, who has your best interests in mind and is objective enough to tell you the things that is too hard for you to tell yourself.

So is a pivot in your immediate future? I don't know. I have been thinking about a pivot for a while to be Quite honest, and this is one of the reasons I'm talking about it with you. But I've learned enough about myself to know that if it feels like it came on all of a sudden, changing my business is not gonna fix it. And if it's a slow awareness I still need to look more closely to make sure that there isn't another way to fix it besides starting over. If this resonates with you and you would like to have a conversation with me about what it would look to have my help to address this problem. There's a link to schedule a consultation with me in the show notes and I would be delighted to see if we're a good fit and whether I can help. That's all for now and I'll see you next week with another amazing guest interview. Stay driven.