157 - Should You Keep Going—or Is It Time to Quit?

[00:00:00] Welcome back to the "MaYapinion" podcast. I'm your host, Maya Roffler, and I share my opinions on entrepreneurship and just the journey in general here on my show, "MaYapinion." And today I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about something that's controversial, I think, for just the culture of entrepreneurship and that kind of keep going, never give up attitude that entrepreneurs have.

And in my opinion, it's really important to have that drive and that grit and the ability to keep going when times are tough. But I want us to explore the idea of quitting And today we're gonna talk about or answer the question more or less, should you keep going or is it time [00:01:00] to quit? Which I know, again, is probably controversial to some people because we're always told, "Never give up.

Never give up. You're, maybe you're just one turn away from your big win," right? Like, , how many entrepreneurs have been rejected a million times? How many entrepreneurs have been turned down 999 times and then the 1,000th time it was a yes? That's not really what I'm talking about today though. I wanna give you my opinion on should you keep going or is it time to quit?

And I wanna be clear about what I'm saying with is it time to quit. I'm not saying quit entrepreneurship. I'm not saying quit your dream. But I think we really have to understand, like when do we really have something and when do we maybe need to really reevaluate what we're doing? And I'm gonna share my opinions on this.

But here's the thing, entrepreneurship, [00:02:00] what you see in social and just the, like the motivational speeches and talk, it loves the whole never give up, keep going attitude. It loves keep showing up, stay consistent, believe harder. But we need to be realistic about things because sometimes it's just not working.

And I want you to keep showing up. I want you to stay consistent. I want you to believe because you have to believe in yourself more than anybody else. You have to. But it's okay to say, "All right. I've been at this thing for a year now. We're not making any traction." Even a couple months, it's okay to evaluate and I want to bring some normalcy to that.

I want to bring some light to that. And I just think it's important to know that continuing indefinitely with something doesn't make you a better entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs know how and when to pivot. Sometimes it [00:03:00] takes us longer, sometimes we do it too early, and that's what we wanna talk about here today.

So here's my opinion. Let's get into it. Quitting is not failure. It's not failure. I should say it this way though. Quitting isn't always failure. So what does that mean? Well, if you're someone who like, you know, spends the weekend building a, a product and let's say you decide to build these amazing new Pilates socks And they're so cool, and you love them, and you use them, and you're like, "I'm gonna sell these."

So you spend some time making a batch of them, and you go to wherever it is. Let's say you go to, like a women's event and you sell them, women's health event, and you sell them. And you sell them. Great. You think, "Okay, I can do this." [00:04:00] And let's say you go to another event where it's not as relevant, and so you're like, "Uh," and you don't sell as many.

You quit. That's not what I'm talking about here. That's not grit. That's not determination, and you were just in front of the wrong audience. That's not what I'm talking about. Quitting isn't always failure when... Like, we're treating quitting all the time like it's the worst possible outcome. Quitting is sometimes essential to get us to the next phase.

It's not the example I used where it's like one thing doesn't work out, so then we quit. No, that's not grit. You're not gonna make it as an entrepreneur. But businesses aren't supposed to be like endurance contests. Like If someone's telling me, "I've been doing this for five years, and, you know, my product is just not selling.

It's not selling," like we really need to evaluate this. Is this really a product someone needs? Is this really a service someone needs? Like, there's questions that need to be asked, in my opinion. Like, you've tried things that worked [00:05:00] and things that didn't. Like, that's, that's great. That's important. That's gonna tell you a lot of things.

But knowing when to stop can be just as important in knowing when to keep going. So I really want you to know that, like, quitting isn't always failure. It, it's a part of evolving. And I, I think sometimes quitting is the smartest business decision that you can make Quitting can be a smart business decision.

And I'll give you an example for me. So when I started my event business, I was catering to different types of businesses, and I really had to hone in on who I was going to be working with. And one service that I added to kind of my coaching and mentoring plate, I was doing very well with this show, with MaYapinion, the podcast, and we've pivoted in a whole other direction since I was doing the show.

We've had quite a few different iterations. [00:06:00] This is our third iteration of the show where we're focusing more , on my opinions on entrepreneurship. But the first two versions of the show, one of them focused more on, like, my reality show experience and just life and my opinions there. The next iteration focused on business because I was in corporate still, and now this iteration, 150-something episodes here, has been more on entrepreneurship.

So it's had three iterations. We've done like, oh my God, probab- if you add it all up, over 600 episodes, but, like, this is the iteration that you guys listen to now. I quit the show twice to come back because... So this is example one. I quit the show twice and then brought it back because it fits better now.

It fits for my audience better now, and it fits what I'm doing in my life now. So quitting wasn't me saying, "I'm never doing this again." There just needed to be a pivot, and it needed to be more aligned with what I'm doing. It's one example for me. Another example was years ago when the show really took off in the beginning, and I [00:07:00] learned how to podcast, and I learned how to brand.

I learned how to do all these things, so I started teaching courses in podcasting, and I started coaching one-on-one, and I actually did very well with it. The courses weren't filling up super fast. My one-on-one was filling up super fast. And I just didn't enjoy it. You know that feeling when you're like, "I'm good at this," but I just didn't enjoy it.

And I also just didn't feel like my clients were niche enough. Like, it was, like, I just had different people coming to me, even though I was really trying to focus on women building businesses. And I just remember having an epiphany a few years ago, and I was like, " this is not a part of the plan.

This is not a part of where I wanna go, and it's not bringing me joy, and the income strategy's not aligning." So I quit And instead, I've now built a podcast tech startup that helps a massive amount of podcasters with some of those same issues. So I quit those things, but I didn't, like, abandon [00:08:00] them, and it wasn't like I didn't have successes and failures.

I had a lot of failures with those, and I just-- And they weren't aligning with me. So it was important that I said, "It's time to quit." But then I pivoted into directions that were very different, but have worked very well for me. Very well. So those are my examples. I'd love to hear examples if you have them as well, so feel free to share that with me.

The second thing I would say for this idea of quitting, like, does it need time or does it need to change? So that's something that I just shared in those two examples. I realized, like, with pod- with my podcast coaching one-on-one and even with the group courses, if I had continued down that path, do I think I could have grown that?

Sure. But it wasn't really the niche I wanted to be known for. I'm a serial entrepreneur. I like being known more for that and helping women in that. And so that was what I realized about the podcasting and where I live [00:09:00] with podcasting. That's what needed to change. It didn't need time. It needed to change.

And with my opinion, I've gone through both. Sometimes it needed time to grow. Like right now we're growing the audience where I'm speaking to entrepreneurs, so it needs time right now. It doesn't need to change. I'm speaking to the right people. So that's important. But you need to ask yourself right now, if you're at that moment of like, "I'm just ready to quit."

Okay, hang on a second. Take a pause. In my opinion, you have to look at these two things. Does it need time or does it need to change? So here are some questions that we can go through for you. Is there actual demand for whatever you're doing? Whether you're creating a community, you're selling a service, you're selling a product.

Is there demand? How you can answer that for yourself is maybe you're, maybe you're struggling to find your audience, maybe you're struggling to find your customer, but, like, have you made sales? Have those, have people engaged with it? That's gonna [00:10:00] tell you if there's demand. I don't care how much you sold.

Have you sold? Are people buying or are they just telling me, "Oh my God, this is such a great idea"? That is-- In my opinion, this is the hugest thing. If you take nothing else away from this episode, this is huge Have people bought something from you, or do they just say, "This is great," and never buy? When you're doing market research for a product, service, whatever it is that you're doing, you can't ask people, "What do you think of this?

Would you buy this?" You, you can't, because people are gonna say, "Oh, this is great. This is awesome. That's wonderful. This is such a great idea." You have to get it out there. You have to get a prototype out there. You have to get an MVP out there, whatever minimal viable product, whatever it is, to prove that people wanna buy it.

And you don't have to have millions of people buying it, you just have to see people are buying it, signing up for it, taking the class, taking the course, even if it's just a few. That shows [00:11:00] me there's promise. That shows me that that customer is out there. That problem is there to be solved. If nobody's biting and people are just like, "Oh, that sounds like a great idea," and then they don't, like, engage in it, don't ever ask someone, in my opinion, don't ever ask someone, "Is this a good idea?"

What would you say to me if I came to you and I told you something pretty cool? You're gonna say, "Yeah, it's a great idea." Great idea doesn't equal revenue. Great idea does not equal like, "Yes, I'm going to buy this." Test people with that. Actually put it in front of them and see if they'll buy it. And not everyone's your customer, so don't ask people about it either if they're not your customer.

Doesn't make sense. And then ask yourself, too, have I actually given it enough time? And I tapped into this question ear- or, like, kind of this question earlier when I was talking about the Pilates sock example, right? You make 'em, they're amazing. You go to a women's health event, you sell a bunch of them, great.

Then you go to another event and you don't really sell any because it's not [00:12:00] the right event. Like, that's not enough time to know if it's working. You will know when it's been enough time. Like, have you been in front of your right customers? Have you really engaged with them? Have you asked them? Have they purchased?

You'll know. For some people, that's six months to a year. Some people, it's a couple years. Some people, it's a couple months. It really just depends on your activity and what you're selling and what you're doing. And also the pricing, right? Like, selling a $25,000 product is very different than selling something for $15.99.

Very different. Also ask yourself, is the problem or idea, is it the idea? Is there a problem with the idea? Look at the offer, the price, the audience, execution, all of those things, which is my super expertise when I speak to you guys one-on-one or work with you guys in our community, and you have a business challenge.

These are things I ask you. "Okay, like, tell me, tell me your offer. Who are you speaking to? What problem are you solving? How are we executing on this? And then how much are you [00:13:00] charging for it?" Because interestingly enough, sometimes I should do an episode on this about pricing your product. If you guys want that, let me know.

And, send me a message, let me know if you want a episode on that. Because sometimes if your price is too low... Everyone always thinks price too high. In my opinion, if your price is too low, you're hitting the wrong people. So that's really important, too. Really important And then you have to look at all of this and say, "What are the behaviors telling me?

What are they telling me?" People are buying it and they might not be using it. People aren't buying it, but they're telling me it's great. Like, we have to analyze all of this. Are we really even in front of the right people? Because if I'm selling a Pilates sock and I'm hanging out, like, at a s- at a street fair, you know, summertime, not everyone's taking Pilates there.

But if I'm going to a women's health event or if I'm getting into Facebook groups where people take Pilates, those are two different things. We are getting in front of the right people. Maybe our messaging isn't right. So it's going through all of that, [00:14:00] and those are things I help women with on a daily basis.

So the key point here is don't keep going because people say they want something. Watch what they actually do. So a- again, I cannot stress this enough. People are always gonna tell you what you wanna hear. Unless they're actually using the product, then they'll get critical. Like, the people that are using my tech platform, oh gosh, they tear me apart every day, and it's totally fine.

It's totally fine. I want the feedback. I wanna know. And it's also, between you and I, a great thing because they're using the product. They wanna trash it, that's fine. They're using it. It's fine. They wanna trash it, great. We'll take the feedback, we'll improve. But if people are saying, "Yes, I want this. Yes, I want this," and they're not buying or they're not using it or they're not even your customer, you need to watch their actual behaviors.

Don't keep doing it just because people think it's wonderful, it's great. No. I [00:15:00] want you to remember too that pivoting is part of building. I love pivoting. I think it's huge. But my pet peeve with pivoting is some people do it too early, and then some people never do it. So we-- it's like a timing thing, in my opinion.

It's very important. So, the thing to remember here is you learn by putting things into the world. Like I was just talking about how my customers are giving me really critical feedback. That's awesome. It's great. Sometimes it's not always easy in the beginning. I'm used to harsh criticism and feedback, so it's not a big deal for me.

But like many, many years ago when I first started, you know, putting products and things out into the world, it was tough 'cause I was like, "Oh God," but it's not personal. It's something they want to work for them. It's great. Take the feedback, and you learn from that. And sometimes the market is gonna tell you no.

You're gonna put something out there, and the market is going to tell you no. But I also like to add the caveat to that, that it might also be telling you [00:16:00] not right now. So maybe your timing is off as well. Not right now. Not for this person. The, the market's telling you no, but why is it telling you no? We need to understand that too.

I love using this as an example. If you've listened to the show for a while, you know I do it, and I talk about the Stanley Cups. You guys, those Stanley Cups have been around for over 100 years and were doing zippo zero business, and people came in, they changed them to colors and fun, fun looking things, and now it's like a status symbol for people to have those and carry those in like middle school and high school.

It's not just the moms, right? It's not just our yoga moms and stuff. It became a status thing. It took over 100 years to evolve and pivot for them. So sometimes it's just saying not right now. I don't want it to take you 100 years to pivot. Let's figure this out Sometimes it's also telling you not like this, which the Stanley thing is a great [00:17:00] example.

Like, the Stanley Cup itself was not gonna be attractive to, you know, tween and teen girls in different colors and, you know, yoga moms and all of us who love carrying... No, not like this. We needed to change it and make it fun and colorful and branded and boom, it fits. So how do we shift that? Changing direction because you learned something is not failure.

We need to take failure and put it on one side, and we need to take, you know, winning obviously, and it's on this side, but then we need to understand all the things that happen in between and how important that is. But also, failure is not the end of the world. Quitting is not the end of the world. The only time I have a problem with failure and quitting is when something doesn't work one time and you quit and, and then you're like, "I failed."

No. Like, that's when I have a problem with it. Failure is a part of the process. Quitting certain things is a part of the process. Quitting overall and forever is not. I don't want you to quit forever. I want you to quit [00:18:00] certain things. I want you to pivot. I want you to be nimble. Entrepreneurs are nimble.

So here's the key takeaway from this part. Changing your mind after getting new information, it's not failure. It's literally running a business. It's becoming an entrepreneur. That's what it is. And you're not changing your mind, I wanna be very clear about this, you're not changing your mind because you are indecisive or you're deciding, "Oh, I don't like this, so I'm just gonna go in this direction."

No. You're changing your mind because you're a good entrepreneur and you're a good business owner, and you're understanding your product, service, and you're understanding your customer more. You're understanding the problem that you're solving more and how to make it attractive to the right person, how to get in front of the person who needs your solution That's it.

But let's talk about what we're really talking [00:19:00] about in this episode, quitting. When is it time to quit? Like, when do you-- You're probably thinking, "Maya," like, "Okay, I'm doing a lot of these things, but, like, there's a part of this I think I need to quit," or, "Maybe I quit this and I pivot to this." Okay. Let's ask ourself these questions.

So, am I seeing any evidence that this can work? So I'll use my podcast example here, my podcast coaching, I'll be specific, right? So when I was teaching one-on-one and then also doing courses, I did have e-evidence it was working. People are signing up for the courses, not as many as I wanted to, but definitely the one-on-one was working.

And I launched some big shows. I had some great clients, big shows, who have monetized their shows and are off to the races and are doing amazing to this day. And this was-- I haven't taken a one-on-one client for podcasting in quite a few years, so it's amazing. So I had evidence that this was working, but it wasn't something that I was...

I could just see the [00:20:00] vision long term for and scalability, and also where I wanted to go, because I wanted to help more people simultaneously, hence where Find a Co-Host came from, and now we're building that. So it could work, but I didn't want it to work in that way. So if you feel like you're on that precipice of quitting, ask yourself, are you seeing evidence that this is working?

And if you can't answer yes, then on that first question, we need to start looking at, you know, how could this work or how could you pivot this into something that you wanna do and it's going to help people. That's all you're doing in entrepreneurship, is you're solving a problem for people. Whether it's big or small, you're solving a problem.

That's business. That's it. That's it. We can all go home. That's it. In my opinion, we just overcomplicate that. We really do. Another question you can ask yourself is, do the numbers make sense? Like, if you're spending a ton of money on, you know, things like [00:21:00] your website and building things, maybe you're running ads and maybe, oh my God, which I have such a pet peeve with running ads.

You gotta be at a certain point before you start running ads, yeah, or you're just flushing money down the drain. You gotta prove that your business is working and the concept is working and that you're solving a problem first. Whole other episode. But is it making sense? If you are profitable, then, like, we need to look at it and really pull back and see, you know, what's going on, 'cause if you're making money and you're solving a problem, we got something here.

But if you're not Might be a pivot. And you gotta ask yourself, this is where I go back to my podcast coaching question, do I want to keep doing this? You've gotta ask yourself that because you have to be in love with what you're doing. Entrepreneurship is like a marriage. There are gonna be really amazing days, and there are gonna be really, really hard days, and you have to be committed to it.

It's a commitment. Just like marriage, it's a commitment, and [00:22:00] are you in this? So you've gotta really ask yourself that. And then also ask yourself, like, am I continuing because I believe in it? Or are you continuing because you just don't wanna be, like, a failure? And the reality is, you're not a failure if you keep going and you just m- pivot to the next thing.

It's not a f- a failure is just one step to the next win. It's one step closer to the thing that you're supposed to be doing and how you can win Like, are you really, like, are you doing this because you believe in it, or are you just embarrassed that you, you want-- like, you're not willing to say it didn't work?

I've been there. I didn't wanna admit that I didn't scale this, like, huge podcasting coaching business, but there was something inside me, and you may be feeling this too, it didn't feel right. It didn't feel like the right direction. I couldn't see past, like, the end of the year or... And that's when I knew.

And with all the businesses I have now, with my event business, I [00:23:00] can see five, 10 years down the road. I have such vision. I don't know which clients will still be with me and which clients will come on board, but that's exciting to me. I feel good about it. I know I'm in that direction. It checks all these boxes.

I feel that way with my tech startup, and I very much feel that way with my podcast and growing this incredible women community of entrepreneurs that you are a part of or will be a part of after you listen to this episode. I feel good about all of that. I can see the vision down the road. It doesn't mean that there's not gonna be failures and pivots, but I don't wanna quit any of those things.

I'm here. If I might quit an aspect of it. Like, I was hosting many years ago, like, networking events all the time. This is another great example. Networking events all the time for women. It was doing great during the pandemic. I had tons of women that were in this, and I did it for free, and a lot of them ended up working with me for podcast coaching, you know, business coaching, things like that.

Now, we're just not... It's just not as prevalent. [00:24:00] So, in our community, it's more structure about, like, helping each other in the business. And we do some networking, but it's not just, like, cranking through networking all the time. I quit, I came back, and I pivoted. So, quitting isn't always the end of the world.

And don't be embarrassed. Like, I'm so open to say, like, "Hey, my networking, it doesn't do what it used to do." 'Cause we're all burnt out online. We're all burnt out, so we wanna do things that are more intentional. Don't be embarrassed about it, but really ask yourself, "Am I doing this because I truly believe in it and I know I'm gonna get there, or do I just not wanna say, 'It didn't work.

I need to move.'" So sometimes you just have to say, "This offer isn't working." I've had so many offers out there. Some have killed it, some have not. If it's not working, I kill it. I move on. If a platform's not working for you, I've used many different platforms, many different things. Not working? Kill it. Move on You're working with a [00:25:00] client and it's just not a fit?

I think you're both gonna feel that. Time to move on. A service, it's not getting clients, you're not really solving as big of a problem as you thought? Move on. We have millions and millions of ideas going in our head all the time, especially as entrepreneurs. You'll have another idea. You'll have another thing.

Or you can iterate from your idea now into something bigger that can help you grow. You got this. You don't necessarily need to quit the business. That's my opinion on this. You don't need to quit the business, but you need to be nimble, and you need to be agile, and you need to be real with yourself about what's working, what's not working, and then decide, "Do I quit this?

Do I move this? Do I pivot this?" And you can do that by looking through all these steps that we just talked about here in this episode. In my opinion, that's what truly helps Look, entrepreneurship isn't about never quitting. [00:26:00] There's things that we're gonna quit, and there's really big entrepreneurs out there that talk about this all the time.

Quitting is not failure. Quitting completely is failure. It's not what I'm saying. It's knowing about what deserves your persistence and then what doesn't. Like, if something's working, you roll with it. You're persistent, you're determined through the failures, through, through the highs, through the lows, all of that.

But it's also being real about what's not working and cutting that off, 'cause that's gonna take so much more time. When something isn't working, it's gonna rob your time and energy away from something that is working and flowing, and you could move so much faster with that. So I want you to tell me about you and where you are right now, okay?

So reach out to me @mayaroffler on Instagram, on TikTok, or @mayapinionpodcast on, Instagram. We're all over the place. Reach out to me, or you can email me, hello@mayapinion.com. Wanna hear from you. Tell me, what are you thinking about quitting in your business right now? Are you [00:27:00] thinking about anything?

Send it to me and I'll share my opinion with you, and you might just get featured right here on the show or on my social channel, TikTok and Instagram, and I'll address you directly and get a shout-out from me. I wanna know, is there something that has been bogging you down and you're like, "I really wanna quit this"?

Even if you're ready to quit the whole thing, tell me. I wanna know, and I'll talk you off the ledge, and we'll find a way to pivot and move. And in the meantime, I hope you also join our free community of women entrepreneurs that is growing very quickly on Skool. You can find it linked in the show notes or simply visit mayapinion.com.

That's M-A-Y-A-P-I-N-I-O-N.com, and you'll find all of my resources there as well. Business audit. You guys can have a full business audit from me. You can get a free question, about what you're stuck in in your business. I'll help you with that, and I'll see you in our Skool community where we're meeting, networking, and I'm helping you get unstuck [00:28:00] from your business challenges.

So we'll see you back next time right here on the "MaYapinion" podcast, where I give My opinions on entrepreneurship.