135- The Power of the Pivot

135- The Power of the Pivot
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[00:00:00] Welcome back to the MaYapinion Podcast. I'm your host, Maya Roffler, and on this podcast I share my opinions on entrepreneurship and leadership for women. So let's get into our episode today. Today I'm talking about the power of the pivot. So what does that mean? Well, on my last episode, I talked about.

Pivoting and pivoting in the sense of leaving your corporate job or leaving your nine to five, or maybe you're a stay at home mom, or maybe you have a side hustle that you're not that into anymore, and you're pivoting into entrepreneurship. You're pivoting into building a business, building something that you're excited about and passionate about, and something that you really wanna grow.

What does that look like? That's what I talked about on the last episode, and in my opinion, that is the most challenging pivot for so many of us. Really taking that leap of faith, leaving that corporate job, [00:01:00] leaving something that's not making us happy anymore. You know, maybe you do love being a stay at home mom, but.

Kids are back in school, or you really wanna have your own thing. You wanna do something for yourself. Maybe you really love your corporate job, but you hit the ceiling, right? There's really nowhere for you to go. That was one of my experiences. So there's many different reasons why we decide to do the corporate leave or the corporate pivot as I call it.

But today I'm now going to talk about another pivot that happens and the power of the pivot, because pivoting, I think it's important to know. Again, in my opinion that pivoting is not something you will do one time. It is something you will do over and over again. As someone who founds a business, as an entrepreneur, you have to be.

Innovative as an entrepreneur and you have to be adaptable and you have to be flexible. And when something isn't working, you have to know [00:02:00] when to pivot. You have to know when to make a change. And I think that it's really important to know that business isn't linear. It's ever changing. And I'm sure you've seen that with so many brands out there.

I'm gonna talk about this starting is like. It's just the step one, right? It's just the step one. So last week when I talked about you taking that leap of faith and leaving, that's your step one, and that's probably the most important pivot you can do. But that's just the step one. The real work happens once you build the business and you're in it, and then you have to be able to evolve, pivot, pivoting is a strategy, it's a strength, and it's also a part of leadership.

So pivoting is strength leadership, and it's just a part of evolving and evolution. So it's something that you're gonna continue to do over and over again on your entrepreneurial journey. So leading corporate is great. You might think you have it all figured out, and you might think you have this great plan, but you have to remember, things evolve.

Things evolve. [00:03:00] Just culturally, economically, your audience will change, your audience will evolve. So I'm gonna use a couple of examples here so you guys can understand what I'm talking about and connect with what I mean by this. So for me, pivoting. I'll pivot again. Many times, I'm sure this podcast in itself, I've pivoted.

When I first started this show, I was coming off doing a dating show. On reality television, which has nothing to do with what I talk about here anymore because that was just a thing I did. It was not really what I wanted to talk about forever. Um, and I was talking about, you know, the loss of my brother.

I was talking about all these things on this show, and while I enjoyed that and I'm glad that we launched with that focus, it's not what I wanted this show to be about. And so I did many seasons. They're not on, they're not on here for you to listen to, which you can go into the deep web and find them, I'm sure.

But I relaunched this show with a focus on leadership for women and [00:04:00] really that corporate leadership. 'cause that was what I was passionate about and I'm still passionate about that. But as I built my businesses and evolved, I then wanted to pivot again in my opinion and talk to you guys about what that was like Leaving corporate finally and really starting my own.

Consulting business, my event business, these podcasts. Also the Surviving Siblings podcast and kind of siloed myself a little more to put, you know, the bereavement part in that part of my business, the professional part into this aspect of the business and connecting with other women. So I am showing you guys my pivots as well, and I'm going through a pivot right now.

Which I'm excited to share more and more about as I continue this, show MaYapinion on my Find a co-host, my Find a co-host business, which is my newest business, even though I thought of it four years [00:05:00] ago. And I'll do a whole episode on it because I know you guys are excited about that. But that's, it's coming down the pike.

I need a little bit longer on that, so hopefully I can give that to you as kind of like a Christmas present. So TBD on that. But stay tuned. But I've pivoted there as well because. When I launched that, I needed to test it. I needed to see if anybody wanted to be matched with co-hosts. Obviously they do. Um, but I didn't know that, so I needed to collect data.

It was a very manual intensive process, and it's just me and someone else working on it manually. Now I have a team building a site out, so find a cohost.com. Check it out. Shameless blog. And what's happening with that is that we're becoming more innovative. We realized that there were things that we weren't gonna be able to scale with us doing so much of the matching.

We needed the consumer, you, the clients, the, to be able to have a more autonomy over matching. So [00:06:00] we've evolved and our new site is evolving into that. So again, we, to use the pivoting example, we knew we needed to pivot 'cause we couldn't scale anymore. Based on the model that we were using, we knew that the consumer was asking for more autonomy to see their matches and to connect with them, and we wanted something more innovative so that we can have more people on the platform.

So that was my moment. I knew I needed to pivot because I tested it. I knew it worked. I knew people wanted it. But how do I grow? I needed to pivot to grow, and I also needed to pivot to. Attract more people to the platform. So it's more user-friendly, but also giving you guys what you want it. So that's my pivot, pivot story in and itself.

Uh, two there for you on the MaYapinion Podcast and then also with Find a Co-host. But you have to pivot and you have to listen because for me, I know people listening to the show wanna hear my experience and what I've gone through, and also other people's experiences as we bring incredible women back on the show to share their [00:07:00] stories.

Coming very soon, but I know that it's important to hear my use cases. Another really good example of pivoting, I've used it on episodes before, but I just think this is such a good example, is the Stanley Cups. So if you guys have been listening to my show for a while, I've talked about this. Few years back, and I'm gonna talk about it again, just really briefly.

So this was a major pivot for the company because you guys probably know the history of the Stanley Cups. Well, maybe you don't. So this was something that, I mean, it's been around for so many years, decades and decades and decades, and they had marketed towards. Like the, the, the worker, right? The blue collar worker that needed to keep their, their drinks cold or their drinks warm and take it to work, and we're gone for like 12 hours a day.

And that worked decades and decades ago. But we don't work the same way that we used to. We have accessibility to things and we're able to go [00:08:00] refresh our water and our drinks and things like that. It's a very different world. So sales tanked and they plummeted. But as we all know, the Stanley Cup is now like a sign.

No, I'm not talking about hockey, I'm talking about the Stanley's. Right. It's a sign of kind of, you know, I'm cool and I'm hip, if you've got it right, especially past couple years. I guess it's kind of slowed down a little bit, but it's a great example. So what happened with that? Like how did this happen?

They started to appeal to a totally different demographic. Not men, not males. Women. Women. Women. Women. So girls in middle school, girls in high school and moms. And guess what? We turned those Stanley's pink, mint green, baby blue, fun colors. We did collaborations and they exploded. People are paying 50, 60, 70 plus dollars for a mug that was originally marketed.

To men who [00:09:00] were, you know, more blue collar and were gone for 12 hours a day and needed to keep their, their drinks colder, hot. Wild, right? So they pivoted and it worked. And that's like if they had just kept doing the same thing, they never would've had this mass appeal. That's a major pivot in their business, and it was a major success, and I'm sure they'll need to continue to pivot in the future.

I mean, they've done cool like minis for kids and things like that, and those are little pivots, but this was a massive pivot for them, and it's really, really important. So pivoting equals growth. If you're pivoting in the right direction, it will equal additional growth. It, it has for me, it has for a major brand like Stanley and so many other companies, there's so many examples we could used, but I just like using that one because I think most of us can relate to that one.

So when do you know it's time to pivot? Well, your vision feels too small, so you have outgrown it. Right? That's, I can relate to that. I'm sure a lot of you can [00:10:00] relate to that. You're like, I actually wanna do something bigger and something more. Your audience wants something new. Like Stanley's a really good example of that.

My Find a co-host is a really good example of that. They were telling me what they want. Listen, 'cause they're showing you if your results plateau or even decrease. For me it was a plateau with Find a co-host. I knew I couldn't grow anymore. With Stanley, it was, I'm just gonna use those two for this episode.

Tanked, tanked and like, look at their sales now. It's incredible what they've done. So you are evolving as a person too. That's another thing. You're evolving as a person and we're evolving as a culture. So you'll feel that. And you need to trust when you feel that because not only does your business evolve, the culture evolves around you and how people buy and how people invest in things, or how people need services, depending on what your business does.

But you need to trust your evolution with that too, because you're evolving and growing so you'll know. So how do you actually. [00:11:00] Pivot without scrapping the whole business. So something that you should think about, A couple different things. Things that work for me and things for you to think about. So look at what's working and what's not working.

That's what I did. I looked at what is working and what's not working. We know, for example, we know our clients want this, but we know we need to do X, Y, and Z to service them better and to give them what they want. And then you have to experiment with it too. Test people and see, it's what I did in the very beginning of find a co-host.

It's what Stanley did. I'm gonna use this for the rest of the episode. You know, they've put out a few fun colors and it worked. It worked. They didn't do all these brand, you know, collaboration. They didn't do Barbie and all these other brand collaborations right away. But in the beginning they're like, let's put on a few fun colors and see how it lands.

It landed, it worked. So now you know what's gonna work. So you can keep evolving from there. And then I [00:12:00] think you also have to be really open with your audience too, and share with them why are you doing this, and why are you evolving? And ask them for the feedback. But the numbers don't lie. I will tell you that too.

And then anchor your mission in this too. Why are you doing this? Why? How does this still align with your mission? Because you have to still want to do the same thing. Like Stanley's a great example of this. They still wanna provide a high quality. That insulates your cold drink, your ice cubes, your warm drink.

They still wanna provide that. So they're still providing their why and how they do it, but they had to pivot and change who they're servicing. That's okay. It doesn't mean that these folks that they serviced in the past can't use our cup. Of course, we're still buying them for them as well, but now we have this whole new audience opened up.

Just know that all great founders. Entrepreneurs all pivot. So don't forget audit. [00:13:00] Look at what's working, what's not working. Think about that experiment a little bit before you shift. Don't completely change your whole business model before you kind of test a little bit, just like Stanley did, did a few fun colors, pinks, mints, things like that.

Be really open with your audience about your evolution and where you're going and what you're doing, because people. Really connect with founders who are open and honest and share. They wanna feel, people wanna feel a part of something. So this brings them in and makes them feel like they're a part of something.

And then make sure that your why and your how you're doing it are still aligning to, just to recap that. But again, just remember all founders pivot. We have to keep going. Or your company wouldn't like think about Apple. That's a real big pivot. They're always pivoting. They're coming with new products.

They're evolving. They're growing. So innovation is a big part of this 'cause you have to keep evolving and you have to keep growing. And something I like to [00:14:00] brag about because we talk about women and entrepreneurship here and leadership, we are very adaptable as women. We are extremely adaptable. It's not to say that men, there's not men out there that are adaptable.

Of course, there are men out there that are adaptable, but as women, we are, we're adaptable. We're used to having to go through changes mentally, emotionally, physically, right? I mean, we give birth to children, okay? Like we're used to being adaptable. So use that as a superpower, as a female founder. Use that.

Because we are really good at being adaptable and being adaptable is a big superpower, and it's super, super powerful when you're going through pivots because you're gonna have new growing payment, you're gonna have new challenges. But remember, it's inevitable. You have to pivot if you wanna continue your business.

If you don't wanna be a one hit wonder where you have one thing hit one thing land, you have to be adaptable. Just like my episode two episodes ago where I talked about failure. It's okay to fail, test it, fail, come back again, test it again. [00:15:00] But the pivoting is a part of that failure process too, because you have to be willing to test new things.

You have to be willing to try new things. And pivoting is not starting over. Pivoting is testing new things, becoming more innovative. It's not. It's creating a path forward. So even if you pivot and you fail a little bit, that's okay because it's gonna push you further along. You're not, you're not failing all, all the way, right?

Because you've come far enough where you can pivot. You could change, but you're gonna have failures, onry, and you're gonna have wins. Learn from the failures. Learn from the wins, like we talked about in our failures.

The strongest. Entrepreneurs are not afraid to change the plan. They're not afraid to make those changes and make that pivot. Just like I shared with you, I'm making a few pivots and just did in this podcast I just did with Find a co-host. I'm pivoting constantly and I know there's gonna be wins.

And even more importantly, I know there's going to [00:16:00] be failures and what am I gonna learn from that? And I'm gonna become better and my businesses will become stronger through the failures and really analyzing that. So don't be afraid to pivot. Pivoting means that you are growing. The power of the pivot means that you have opportunity to grow your business even further, serve more individuals, more folks, more businesses, whatever it is that you're doing, whether you're service based or product based, whether you're B2C or B2B whatever your business model is, it means that you have the opportunity to serve more people when you're willing to pivot, because you're looking at different ways to access different audiences and different clientele and businesses. So don't be afraid of that. All right. Thank you for listening to this episode of the MaYapinion Podcast.

And don't forget to like, subscribe, and share and follow me at Maya LER and at MaYapinion Podcast on all major platforms. [00:17:00] We'll see you next time.