Shift or Shut-Down: What's Best for Your Business?

Welcome to the Small Business big mindset Podcast, where we dive into tactical strategies to grow your business. And to make an impact on this world. A huge part of success is keeping your mindset and vision on track. So this is a major part of our process. And this podcast, let's do this. Hey, Erin here, welcome to the mall Business Big Mindset odcast. This week, I want to alk about the question should ou pivot in your business? Oh y gosh, there's so many usinesses have pivoted during OVID. So if you listen to this odcast regularly, or actually, f you just pop in every now and hen you will hear our guests alk about oh, my goodness, all he changes that they have would ave to make to ensure that heir business is thrived hrough such an uncertain time. kay, we've had people on the odcast that had an events usiness. So instead, one person n particular decided she was oing to publish a book. There s a professional speaker, she as giving keynotes around the orld, she decided to create a igital course teaching women to wn their voice and hone their wn public public speaking kills. We've had restaurant wners, and they've turned most f their businesses takeout and elivery, or they've added a ood trucks. That's just a few xamples of how people have had o pivot in their businesses.'ve had my own pivots, right. o I've had a few of my own usinesses, Austin, parents etwork, network marketing, even ur podcast, and we had to pivot uring COVID. You guys, I've poken about it before, when we ere going to launch the odcast, our whole vision was we ould have local entrepreneurs ome in we live in Austin, it's hotbed for entrepreneurs, and e have our own studio. So we'd ave them come in studio and, nd have great discussions and hen COVID head and we're like, h, scratch that. And then we ad batch some episodes, and hey didn't make sense anymore, hey would have been tone deaf, f we would have released that ontent during that time. So we ad to shift as well. So shifts n business can be something ike removing a product or ervice so that you can take on omething new, or it can be ompletely changing industries, ike maybe have to shut it down nd just start over and do omething else. There is no hame in that game. The past ear has shown us that shifting oesn't always have to be a bad hing. So, so many entrepreneurs hat I've spoken to have been urprised by the success they ave seen, even with their nexpected pivots. Okay, there's o many people that have made hanges in what they did, and hey never would have before. ad COVID not appeared, right. nd so so many of the changes hey made have been for the etter. And they can't imagine oing back to what their usiness was before. They're dopting those changes those ivots for the long run. So et's look at a few ways that ight signal to you that it's ime for a change right time for pivot in your business. So hen you think of your current usiness, or an aspect of it, do ou feel a pit in your stomach? t could be dread, it could be nxiety, but it's certainly not assion or excitement or even ope your business has lost its uster in your eyes. I will say hough, that most of us are not ll super excited about omething 100% of the time. So f you're feeling this way, make ure it's not because you're ust exhausted or burned out. Is t just one aspect of your usiness that's needed? Maybe it an be outsourced? Can you time lock your calendar to make sure ou have ample time to refuel? ow do you feel on days that ent well? Are you still nderwhelmed with little to no esire to push forward? That's a ed flag, right? So if you're ind of feeling like dread about our business, make sure you ook at the big picture. And t's not just like a very small ocket of time where you feel his way. Another thing to look t is, is it really a business? r is it more of a hobby, right? o I think so much so many of us re like, Oh, I have my own usiness with me. You look at t, you're putting more money nto it than what you're ctually actually making? Or ou're just picking it up and utting it down every now and hen. Right? And that's more of hobby. So are you putting more oney into it then you're aking? Like, are you not urning a profit. If you've ever taken a close look and one like a profit and loss nalysis, now is the time. So ook at your tax returns and xpenses, track any business emberships fees to host your ebsite, your email service rovider, where you have your PO ox or your business mailbox mployees that you pay, take a ard look at money going out ersus money coming in. There's o many expenses like we have a preadsheet and we list them all ut. I mean, it helps come tax ime to give our accountant but hen it also kind of keeps you n track of budgeting how much ou're spending for your usiness. So if you've done what I do Teach in my online business onramp coarse, and you have validated that the product or service you offer is needed and can be profitable, then take a look at what can be done to shift your business to profitability, right? So before you're just like, Oh, I'm not making any money, forget it, I'm just going to stop. validate your business. If you haven't done that already, I devote a lesson in online business on ramp, all about it, like making sure before that you launch your product or service that it's actually a, it's good for long term success, it's actually needed. And not just a passion project, right? So, so look, what you can do to shift your business to profitability. Part of this can be cutting costs on certain expenses for your business. So maybe you're a part of memberships that you haven't touched in months, that you can cancel or pause, those auto pay fees can add up if you don't monitor them closely, and only keep what you're really using. So for example, I had a I think it was the was the Washington was it Washington Post, there was a newspaper that I had a subscription to I had done it primarily to access some articles for some research for a client that I had. And I you know, I think I signed up for it. And it was like one of those cheapo, you know, entry offers. And then of course, they start billing you every month. And I just kept forgetting to cancel it. And then when I went to cancel it, it was like I had to call them and getting me to make a phone call is like getting me to go to the post office, it just doesn't happen. takes forever. So finally, I took the time and I called them and it took five seconds, you know, and they cancelled it. But you know, that's just some stuff that like money is just being thrown away, like I wasn't using it as a source anymore. And I think it was the Wall Street Journal, that's what it was, I wasn't using it as a regular source anymore. Yeah, I was paying for every single month. So look at those things to make sure that everything's pretty tightened up there. And also, take note that it can take one to three years for a business to become profitable or longer, I don't want to put a timetable on it. So don't be too hard on yourself, if you're just starting out, right, because I know you're investing in your business making maybe you're taking some digital courses to learn aspects of it, you know, better you know, maybe you're not great with finances, you're like I I'm going to take a course to learn more about how to manage my finances and my business, what have you, and maybe there's some hardware or software that you need for your business to be successful. So at the beginning, you're going to be you are going to be spending more than you're taking in most likely. So give yourself some grace there. On the flip side, maybe you need to raise your rates. So many business owners tend to undervalue their expertise in products, I'm guilty of it as well. Like when I'm validating a new product or service, I typically will also validate it with a price points. And most of the time I am told from my peers, you are charging way too low, you know, why are you only charging that amount, you're giving them so much more. So a lot of entrepreneurs, that's we what we do we undervalue what we do, we just want to make sure it's accessible to everybody. But you got to be careful about that. So there's a good chance that that's what you're doing. So increasing your rates can obviously bring in more income. But it also gives you the option to take on let's say, like less clients if you're a service based business, or maybe it requires you to sell less products, and you can use the time elsewhere. So another thing to consider when trying to figure out if you should make a shift in your business is the fact that life changes. If you've been in business for a few years, chances are things have changed. Maybe your goals have shifted. Maybe you want a completely different lifestyle, your pride priorities may have changed and that's okay. Or maybe you've had big changes in your life like maybe you got married, maybe you got divorced, maybe you graduated from school, you had a baby, you moved out of the country, there's so many things that can impact the direction of our life and what we prioritize or desire. These all could prompt a well thought out intentional shift to what feels good to you and your future. At this point in time. Ask yourself that reevaluate what success looks like for you is what you're doing today in line with that vision. For many of us, change is not pleasant. We'd rather not do it. We assume that it's just gonna be bad and hard. But a shift might be exactly what we need. Life changes, you change, your circumstances change. So why wouldn't your business send me a note at Hello at Muscle Creative, calm and let me know what changes you're thinking of making or that you have made to your business. I hope this was helpful and I hope you tune in next week. And definitely send me a note to let me know what you're up to. Thanks for tuning in to the Small Business big mindset podcast. To keep the fun going. Check out our Facebook group start and scaling online business For even more free trainings and resources from fellow entrepreneurs. If you haven't already, head on over to Muscle Creative calm and click Apply. scribe to join our email list or weekly updates. 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