5 Amazing Ways to Profitably Pivot your Business
Dynamism is one of the most potent weapons in the armory of any business. Flexibility and the capacity to adapt will save you bucket loads of disaster, helping you more conveniently navigate your way to the winning system.
The volatility or spontaneity of the corporate world ensures that every business has to perpetually evolve to maintain their relevance and retain their market share – or better still reach for fresh heights. Simply put, stay rigid at your own risk.
If your sales are drastically dropping, it could be more than you being unlucky. It could be more than your customers being in a bad mood. Take an introspective step back and analyze things. Something may be wrong in the process; the system may have lost its fertility – necessitating a pivot.
Pivoting your business in terms of moving to a fresh strategy can largely transform results – even more dramatically than how a hug from your crush can change a bad mood.
Of course, just any CEO can pull that u-turn and pivot his system. The bigger question is how you successfully pivot for profits.
In this insight, we are going to explore some cool fresh ways to pivot for profits.
Tell me, don't you like it fresh?
Make sure you are leveraging data
The most successful pivots are less instinctive and more data informed. You just can't wake up in the morning and FEEL like overhauling your system. Sorry, it doesn't work that way, buddy.
Before you embark on any pivot, ensure you extensively dig into data. This data must not necessarily be internal. You can dig through data from external sources extracted from your rivals and the market trend.
That said, internal data are incredibly valuable sources to know when and how to pivot your business. You could focus on information like your traffic, profit margins, and even your sales.
We also recommend that you integrate customer surveys in building out projections. This, along with customer input data and historical data, are valuable recipes for fathoming your best pivot direction.
Want a sweet example? We will give you one!
The famed Yelp didn't outrightly start as a full-stack business review website. They had a more humble beginning as a platform that requested friends to make direct recommendations.
But one day, the guys at Yelp decided to dig deeper into their data.
Guess what they saw.
They discovered that people were enjoying writing business reviews. Boom! There Yelp reinvented itself and was born as now you know it.
Make the best of the assets and resources already in your closet
For many businesses, you don't necessarily need to start from scratch when pivoting. For those that already have resources and assets, you could simply repurpose them.
Doesn't that sound brilliant?
Truth is customers don't typically have beef with your company. It is likelier they fell out with your product which is pretty normal.
Indeed, this could be because your product no longer attends to their prevailing needs, doesn't fit the trend, or they simply can't afford it anymore in their current situation.
What a smart CEO would do is ask himself what his customers are desperately in need of at the moment, flip the switch masterfully like Drake, and pivot to that need or prevailing trend.
Aha, a nice example would help here!
With the coronavirus raging on, I would have to be extravagantly rich to be able to spend my hard-earned money on luxury clothing items for now.
Most significantly, where am I wearing such luxury items to with the current lockdown? You don't expect me to buy a $10k jacket and keep it indoors all through, do you?
My priority now is staying safe and surviving this pandemic. I would more readily spend on face masks and scrubs. So if you were a luxury apparel manufacturer, it serves you best to repurpose your resources and produce masks and hand gloves.
Go digital NOW
Believe me, the internet is more than just for exchanging cat pictures and your hottest beach shot. Businesses are increasingly going online, with the world squeezing tighter into an interconnected village.
Retail e-commerce sales are projected to hit $4.5 trillion by 2021.
Man, that is an incredible 13 figures!!!
If you think you are just fine as a dedicated brick-and-mortar store, think again, pal. There is always an avenue for more growth for your business online.
People are even ordering barbing services online! What better time to digitally pivot your brand than now when the pandemic has forced many stores into physically shutting down?
If you are a retail store owner, there are lots of fantastic ecommerce platforms like Shopify ready to host your digital shop. Good news is most of these platforms give you free trials for you to ascertain how compatible they are for your business and ambition.
If you are a real estate agent, you could digitally pivot as well and make use of Facebook Live and other emerging platforms like TikTok – especially exploiting viral vehicles like via social media challenges.
Oh, that reminds me, I have a TikTok cooking challenge to do immediately after this piece…not like I can even prepare salad, though. Lol.
You can conquer more via collaborating
I agree, there is an inherent tendency to things on your own as a CEO. Yeah, I have been there. You want to kick everyone through the window taekwondo style (which is my favorite style by the way) and go solo. But believe me, there is a lot of pivot success you can enjoy via building strategic partnerships.
Does your competitor have a resource you could repurpose and achieve dramatic gains? Does your competitor have an attractive customer base you think you could pivot and sell to?
If yes, sheath your ugly sword and propose joining forces together. You and your competitor may have resources that could excel better in use when combined.
Take note that a successful partnership must be a fair win-win between both teams. If I don't have anything to gain from you, why would I agree to partner with you? Oh, unless you are a ripped Dwayne Johnson, though!
Lastly, always try and feel free to fail
If I was going to contest for the lie of the decade, what would be my entry? Er, I think saying "everything I have tried in life worked!".
Truth is, failure is a core component of any entrepreneurial journey. If you are going to pivot for profits, not all would be successful. Nonetheless, the threat of failure doesn't mean you shouldn't try at all!
Every pivot expedition is an experiment – it can end up a blasting success or a ludicrous failure. But more importantly, focus more on the process and the insights gained across the road.
You know what? Persistence is the spice of the game.
My business pivot failed, and so what??? I am damn trying again!
Do you even know that your beloved Twitter was once a laughable podcasting network called Odeo?