How to Pivot Your Business Without Panicking: A Strategy Guide for Entrepreneurs | EP 31

You've been building something real. You've put in the hours, made the sacrifices, and shown up even when it was hard. But lately, something feels off - the offer isn't landing the way it used to, the calendar isn't as full, or the direction you were so sure about six months ago has started to feel foggy. You know something needs to shift, but every time you get close to making a move, that little voice in the back of your head pipes up: What if I blow everything up trying to fix it and make it worse? That tension - between knowing change is necessary and being terrified of making the wrong move - is exactly where so many creative entrepreneurs get stuck, spinning their wheels and waiting for a sign that never quite comes.

Today, we break down one of the most common and costly experiences in entrepreneurship: the urge to pivot, and the panic that comes with it. We dig into the real difference between thoughtful adaptation and reactive change and why knowing which one you're doing could be the thing that saves your business. We walk through a practical framework for diagnosing what actually needs to shift (spoiler: it's usually not what you think), how to communicate change without creating confusion or chaos, whether you have a team or you're flying solo and how to protect the trust you've worked so hard to build while you're in the middle of a transition.

What to Listen for in This Episode:

Data over feelings — always. Before you change your offer, your pricing, or your whole business direction, we challenge you to separate facts from feelings. We breaks down how to identify the actual bottleneck in your business, whether it's awareness, conversion, delivery, or retention. 

How you communicate change is just as important as the change itself. The case that communicating poorly creates confusion, and confusion creates panic — both in your team and in yourself. 

Give the change time to breathe. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is abandoning a new strategy before it's had a real chance to work. We remind you that change isn't a light switch, it's more like a course of antibiotics. You have to take every dose, for the full amount of time, before you can honestly evaluate the results. Commit to the whole process before you decide it isn't working.

If you're always changing the plan before the plan has had a chance to work, the real question isn't what needs to pivot — it's whether you're wi

Transcript

So you've been running a business for a while now and something just isn't working the way that it used to. Maybe it's your offer, maybe it's your process, it's probably the process, but maybe it's the whole direction you thought you were heading in the first place. And you know, something needs to shift, but every time you think about making a move, there's that tiny little voice in the back of your head that says, what if I blow everything up trying to fix it and make it worse?

Yes. And that's the tension that a lot of creative entrepreneurs sit in. You you want to adapt, you can see the pivot, but you're terrified that moving too fast or in the wrong direction will cost you more than staying still. So before we jump in, and if this is already the kind of conversation you want more of, we have a free gift for you. It's called the 20 minute clarity map. It's a quick.

practical planning tool to set meaningful priorities and the soft skills to make them happen. You'll learn how to pick three goals that will make the biggest impact. We'll pair each goal with a soft skill to boost follow through. You're going to define simple, realistic actions you can actually complete and stay consistent without burning out. The link is going to be in the show notes, so go sign up and we'll see you in our inbox. You can now follow us on

LinkedIn at entrepreneur encounter.

Sara (Rembert) Lowell (01:38.862)
Today is about how to pivot without panicking. We're talking about the difference between thoughtful adaptation and reactive change and how to actually tell which one you're doing.

If you're a business owner who feels the pull to change something, but isn't sure where to start, how fast to move, or even how to bring your team or even just yourself along for the ride, this one is for you. Here's what we're going to cover today. The difference between thoughtful adaptation and reactive change, how to assess what actually needs to shift and what doesn't, how to communicate change without creating panic.

and how to protect trust whether you have a team or you're flying solo. I want to start here because I think this is where a lot of people, entrepreneurs, business owners get overwhelmed. They think that pivoting is difficult. They think that if they pivot, they're going to have to change everything. But it's either you change something or you don't. But there's a difference between changing something that's broken and changing because you're scared.

frustrated or even bored, which is hard to admit, but it's true. I mean, we've, we get bored sometimes we get frustrated, we're scared, but doesn't necessarily mean that you need to pivot. You just need to kind of take a step back and see what's going on. You're either, you can be driven by fear, comparison, or external pressure. Everyone is doing this. You might see that, you know, a business owner that's in the same space as you is doing

a specific thing and you think that's what you should do. Or if you haven't heard from a client in over a week, or you see that a competitor just launched something new. So what you have to do is look at the data and the patterns such as like, I've noticed this, that this is working for three months. This part of my offer isn't landing the way I expected. So when you react, change happens fast, but when you're thoughtful, it can be measured and targeted.

So like how many calls you've had, how many downloads on your podcast you've had or newsletter subscribers. I mean, the list can go on, but you have to be intentional about what you're doing. Okay. So you've identified that something needs to change, but now what? That's usually the hardest part. I think for me is I recognize like, yeah, I need to change that. But there's so many different ways or avenues to go about it. And I want to make sure whatever change I do, I am able to stick with.


no matter if it's a hard or light season. Because one of the biggest mistakes I see and that I've made is changing the wrong thing. You change the offer when the problem is actually the messaging or you change the pricing when the problem is actually who you're talking to. So start again with the data and not your feelings. You have to separate facts from feelings. So what do your numbers actually tell you?

Look at conversions, retention, client feedback, revenue trends. Before you change anything, look at what the data actually says to you. Then you wanna identify the constraint. Where is the bottleneck in this framework, workflow? Is it awareness, conversion, delivery, retention? You can't fix everything at once, and I have tried. You have to start by finding the one thing

that if improved would move the needle the most. Then you want to separate the symptom from the root cause. So slow sales might not mean your offer is wrong. It might mean your visibility is low, your messaging is unclear, or your audience has shifted slightly. And one thing that I have learned in my organic marketing experience is if I don't have a lot of discovery calls or networking calls this month,

That means I did not do enough outreach two months ago. What the efforts and things that you do today, you will reap the benefits of that two to three, four to six weeks from now, because very rarely is someone available tomorrow to talk to. You have to reach out, you might need to follow up and then they get on your calendar. So if you don't have a lot of visibility and like networking and discovery right now,

Take a look at the data and see how many times did you reach out to people two months ago. If it was low, it makes sense that you're going to have low visibility. It has nothing to do with your offers and everything to do with your outreach. It can sometimes just be that simple. So then the last thing with the, you know, framework that I'm talking about is ask about what's working. We talk about this, and it was every episode besides communication. The next thing is asking questions. What's kind of falls under


communication, so just roll with it. But before you change anything, name what is working. Look again at the facts. What is working? This is going to protect you from getting rid of things that are actually fine, and it gives you a foundation to build from that is not starting from scratch. When you were talking about outreach, when I look at the numbers, like my personal experience has been having conversations and networking, and that's how I would fill up my calendar, and that's how I did get clients.

when I was out there looking for clients. So I wanted to keep that part. Like if something is working and the numbers are telling you and keep that part. Yes, I will create content to stay visible, to show face, to say like, I'm still here. But knowing that's not necessarily like where I get clients, I'm not putting pressure on myself. I look at the numbers to see what's going on. if I, know at least for me, the last couple months have been slow because I've had

You step back just a tad bit, just kind of figure out my capacity since starting a part-time job. But now that I understand my capacity, I need to start outreaching more. And I started doing that. I started getting people on my calendar and having more conversations. And I think that's a great way to grow your business as well. Here's a question to sit with. Is the thing you want to change actually the problem or is it a symptom of something else?

I feel like it's safe to say it's usually a symptom of something else and we're just too close to the situation. So taking that step back, I know time and time again, that's usually in my personal experience is what happens. I'm way too close and I need to take a step back. I need to lean in on my community to like brain dump what's happening, what's going on, what am I stressed about? And it's usually they'll ask questions that helps me to

evaluate other areas or things from different points of view and like, maybe I need to work on something else and like, then revisit this to re-track my projectory, if that makes sense. So let's talk about something that doesn't really get covered enough. It's how you actually communicate the pivot because change that's communicated poorly can create confusion and confusion creates


panic and that could be, you can panic yourself because now you're trying to do this pivot and now you may feel overwhelmed or your audience is confused and you don't want to make that confusion. So that can be whether it's with your team or your clients or your audience and how you talk about change matters as much as change in itself. So what happens when you pivot change when you have a team?

You want to lead with why before the what's people can handle change when they understand the reason behind it. You don't want to lead with logistics. You wants to lead with context. So going into avoiding vagueness, you can say we're making changes, but there's no specifics. That's going to create anxiety within, with your team. Be as clear as you can, even if you don't have all the answers yet.

It's given me like smart goal vibes. Like the more specific you are, the more you can have those key performance indicators or KPIs so that you know what you're working towards and or what you're working on as opposed to over making some changes. Well, that could be your changing the snacks out in your mini fridge of your tiny office. Like, as silly as that sounds, what do changes mean? It can cause anxiety, but it also just causes confusion. What changes?

So then if you do have a team, your team needs to know, well, how can I support the changes? Am I the change? Is it getting rid of me? Is it adding more responsibility? Is it shifting my priorities? I mean, the vagueness opens up a surplus of ideas of what could be happening. I, you know, I dislike, I hate vagueness so bad. I want to know, like I want to know. I mean,

I wouldn't say I'm nosy, but I'm nosy in a sense. Like I want to, you know, be able to fly on the wall and see what like, what's really going on. You want to name what's staying the same. So yes, you can say that things are changing and give the context and say like, this is what we're changing. But then you can also state the fact that, okay, well, this is going to stay the same. The SOPs for this task are going to stay the same. There's no reason to change that.


or the values are going to change, our commitment to clients isn't shifting, here's what is. So you have to, depending on what you're talking about, is dependent on what's changing and what's not. You know, you want to also create space for questions. When you're in conversations about change, it shouldn't be one way. You should not just be saying, this is going to change. But if your team can't provide the feedback or ask questions or voice concerns, you're simply just announcing you're not communicating.

I feel like that is a big difference. For celebrators or those that don't really have a team yet, you do still have important people in your professional life, stakeholders, if you will. These are your clients, your audience, collaborators, referral partners. It's like even without a team, it is very important to remember that you have

very important relationships that deserve communication when things shift. Even slightly, it just helps keep the momentum excitement going when you have things that are changing and having that reality check if you're worried about changing something and preventing a negative outcome. So the eternal conversation also matters too. And this is probably one of the more important, but how are you talking to yourself about the change?

The story you tell yourself about a pivot shapes how confidently you're going to show up to execute. Something that I was just listening to prior to recording this, when talking about sharing your message, you are, they framed it as you are generally doing a disservice when you do not share your message. And I'm going to challenge that to ourselves. We are doing ourselves a disservice if we constantly have negative self-talk or saying,

that this idea is too crazy, it's never gonna work. It is, it will, it can. You just need to find the right tools, avenues and community to help you make it a thing. And the best part is you don't have to announce everything right away. You can internally just work on it slowly behind the scenes, test it out with a few small people. Not every shift have to be shared publicly. And that is also an amazing thing that we can, you know.


Most of these shifts are probably going to be internal and they don't have to be shared. Exactly. I don't share everything. like, I'm working on this. I'm just going to keep this to myself. No, I don't want to share everything. It's so funny when people talk about, I mean, it's cool to share your wins on online and say like, I'm doing this or I'm working on this. But you know, sometimes you want to keep things to yourself. It's mine. It's all mine. I don't want to have to share it. Here's the thing about about change. Even when it's the right move, it can erode trust.

if it's handled poorly and trust is one of the hardest things to rebuild. So what does this actually look like to protect trust while you're in the middle of a transition? Your consistency and your behavior, you your words can announce a change, but your actions have to be consistent with it. So if you're leading a team and you say, this is going to change, we have to change this.

then be that leader that is in it with your team and take action on that. If you say you're committed to a new direction, but your behavior doesn't match, people will notice. Follow through on small things during transitions, small commitments, matter more than ever, being responsive, showing up on time, doing what you said you do. These little moments will either build or break the trust.

There's going to be some discomfort in the change. It's okay to say, know this transition feels uncertain. Naming it doesn't, naming it doesn't create more panic. It actually reduces it because it validates what people are feeling. You don't really want to over pivot. mean, obviously change is going to happen all the time, but constant change signals instability. If you pivoted three times in six months, the message

to your team, to your audience, to your clients might not receive it as well. They might see it as they don't know what you're doing. Give the change time to breathe. I think something like that on a personal level. So I just tweaked our afterschool schedule of when you can get on screen and what things need to happen before dinner type thing. And my son, it was day two. And my son was like, this is boring. This doesn't work.


I like, you haven't even tried it long enough to see if it works. So any change, and this applies professionally, any change, whether it's a service, a workflow, outreach, anything, anything that you change, you have to give it ample time to really work out the kinks and you have to do it completely. You can't just do three of the five steps of this new process and say, well, it doesn't work. Well, you've only done three fifths of it.

You know, you have to do the whole thing for a specific, not vague amount of time. The implement of these changes, it's a, are going to test this new workflow in its entirety for the next 60 days and then revise as needed. But you have to do every single step every day or whatever it's due for us a long enough time to really get data to know if it needs to be revised or not.

Exactly. I mean, if you think about it this way too, if you're sick and you go to the doctor and get medication and you take the medication the second day and realize you don't feel better, but it takes time. Just a few weeks ago, I had an ear infection and I had to take antibiotics for it. And day three, I'm like, it's not working. But obviously you have to have your body like give it time to set in and all of that. So yes, if you look at everything that you do, it's going to take time. Things take time. It's not overnight.

If you are willing to put in the work and this is something that you want to do, if you're in it for a long run, keep doing it. So here's what, if you've it this far, we want you to walk away with from today's episode. Adapting isn't impulsive. It is intentional. Before you change something, audit what's actually broken, not just what feels uncomfortable. Change is always uncomfortable.

We have to actually go through the motions to see if it's actually broken. When you communicate change, lead with why and then anchor to what's staying the same and create space for questions and keep an open mind. Don't get frustrated when people have questions. Trust with your team, your clients and yourself is built in the small consistent moments during a transition. Another thing that I...


am learning personally that kind of aligns with that trust being built is I am learning that discipline is better than chasing perfectionism. Those small daily habits, those small tiny daily tasks are what build these big amazing, wow, I made it moments. So those are takeaways and here's your challenge for the week.

Take a few moments to identify one thing in your business that you've been wanting to change. And before you mess with it, touch it, tweak it, ask yourself, is this a reactive move or a thoughtful one? And really think about or look at what the data is actually trying to tell you.

Thank you all for being here with us today. If this episode resonated with you, just go ahead and share it with another entrepreneur or friend. And as always, all of our information is in our show notes. Until next time. You can now follow us on LinkedIn at entrepreneur and.


Thanks for spending time with us today. If something in this episode gave you a fresh perspective, share it with a friend or send us a DM. We love hearing how these conversations land with you. And if you're curious about how Soft Skills can support your next season of growth, we each have more resources to share. You can find Dana on Instagram at danas.desk.nc for Pinch's Strategy and Intentional Marketing. And Sara at You Are Rembert for Team Development Business Leadership.

and podcast support. Until next time, keep leading with purpose and growing with intention.