Pivot and survival of the business.
Welcome to BizBaby, i am your guide, Sergey Patrikeev. In this chapter we will discuss business survival through a PIVOT!
Pivot, is a shift in a business direction, usually dictated by a need to survive, perhaps the usual way of doing business is no longer possible or not financially feasible. Let’s get into this and learn a few things!
There are few different pivots that matter.
- Business wasn’t well planned out and it didn’t go as well from the beginning.
Either you didn’t do market research, or there was something missing.
To be honest, there aren’t many things you can do to pivot a brand new business to something else quickly. It basically means you need to change the entire business direction and offer something else to new customers. Often the best thing to do is to cut it loose, use a good guy guarantee option and get out of the lease. But it all depends on the situation.
Reach out to us and we will look into your situation to see what can be done to pull this off and make your business work.
- It’s an existing business that has been working well, until something changed.
Either the market has changed, more competition than before or rising costs force you to adopt.
There are many things you can do to get back to profitability and steer the ship towards new highs.
Raising Prices
Many business owners are afraid of raising prices like a plague. Reality is very different. If your business isn’t built on 1 time customers or tourists and you have repeat clientele, raising prices (reasonable amount) has the opposite effect than you expect.
In 4 out of 5 times we raised our prices, we had an increase of orders and new customers (word of mouth). In 12 months period we raised prices twice, with a total increase close to 39% compared to original price.
If you provide a quality service, have repeat customers and you provide a valid reason why you need to raise the price, for example the cost of doing business has gone up, you want to give wage increase to your loyal workers, you decided to implement better, higher quality service or product, customers react very positively and would want to support such a business.
Vertically Integrate
If your cost of doing business has gone up due to your supply chain, try looking for alternatives or potentially consider doing it yourself and keeping the margin high within your business.
Family Help
In some cases this could be a bad idea, but many small businesses survive and thrive because they keep money within the family. Consider hiring your family members instead of outside work.
VIP service/product
Consider launching a premium product or a service complement to your existing offering. People who can afford it and are your loyal customers will surely give it a try.
For example, if you provide a regular and deep home cleaning. Consider offering special, high touch, “all taken care of” service for 30% more cost.
Try Different offering
For example, if you have a dog sitting business. Offer dog walking and hair grooming services. It might require some planning and a little investment, but it can be worth it. You might find it more profitable to do dog grooming and completely stop dog sitting.
The old proverb, if business is not growing, it’s dying. If you are not focusing on constantly improving it, it will slowly decay, slow down and eventually die. Remove focus on quality of your offering even for a month and you will notice an increase of complaints and negative reviews.
Business is a baby, it constantly grows and evolves. If you don’t direct it’s growth, you will not like where it might end up.
Best business owners constantly experiment and evolve and their business evolves with them. Ability to reinvent yourself every few years is not a talent, it’s a skill that requires time and repetition. It’s a muscle that needs a constant workout.
Congratulations! You have learned that Pivot is not just a weird cool little word, that sounds like rivet… But it’s also a life saving business technique.
