If you’re someone who has ever thought about pivoting your business but you don’t want to confuse your audience – this post is for you. 

If this is your first time on the blog, my name is Meghan Lamle. I teach entrepreneurs how to start and scale businesses online. I’ve been in the online space for 5 years and taught over 350 entrepreneurs. I’ve taken people from their last $500 to making $15k months (and so much more). 

Maybe you feel a tug that it’s time to change what you’re doing, shift your focus onto something a little bit different. 

The biggest pivot I made in business

I’m sitting in the back of a car in Vegas and ruminating on my business. 

To give you context, this is March of 2020 before the pandemic hits. It’d been 7 months since I started my business in the online space. 

I was teaching entrepreneurs but focusing more on virtual assistants, social media managers and pinterest managers. So a lot of online service providers. 

I had this thought that I could do more because my clients were growing rapidly in this capacity. They knew they could make more money while working less AND they were doing incredible things. 

So I decided to shift into specializing in sales coaching and stop being the go to girl for service providers. 

The fear took over when I wanted to pivot my business 

Fear is created in the brain as a way to keep you safe. So while I’m having these ruminating thoughts, my body is preparing for what feels like danger. 

You might be sitting in this place where your business has grown and you want to do things differently. You might not be the same person anymore as the person who started your business. 

And that was the exact experience I had. I was sitting in that car with 2 people who knew me well, who were supporting me and telling me to do it, but I still felt scared. 

As entrepreneurs we have a lot of real estate in our identity because that’s how we build personal brands. It’s how we become the go to person. It’s a lot of what we do. 

There’s fear around shifting your identity. But we forget that identity is fluid. It can change. 

Shifting your Identity (even when there’s fear)

As you experience things, learn things and try new things, your identity will change. That’s the hardest part of being an entrepreneur is not attaching yourself to your current identity. 

Instead it’s attaching yourself to the things that matter most to you and growing around that. 

Knowing your values to help keep you grounded and understanding that as you grow as a business owner, you’re going to pivot and change. 

I’ve gone from being this online coach in the last five years to being more active with in person communities. 

But I’m also moving from being a business owner to a published author. I say “published author” because there’s a lot of people who write books but never publish them. 

Shifting into this new identity is going to give me a lot of opportunities to continue to grow personally and professionally. 

Being okay with change when you pivot in business

Even though I know my book is going to be able to help so many people who can’t afford thousands of dollars of coaching, there’s also fear around publishing my book. 

What if I like writing books more than the business I built? What if the business continues to grow and it’s not my main passion? 

I think about Richard Brandson who started Virgin Airlines and a whole bunch of Virgin companies. He’s constantly redeveloping and changing himself to continue to support this multi-brand corporation. His identity is more rooted in being a leader, an entrepreneur instead of being rooted in one of his brands. 

So thinking about your identity in the online space of what you do, who you help and how you do it, it’s not permanent. 

Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean that you have to keep doing it over and over and over.

That’s where I think a lot of business owners struggle because they are good at what they do, they love what they do, they make money, but they also want to try on different identities. 

But also knowing that trying something new doesn’t mean it’s permanent. You could change your mind, change your business. If you’re going to be an entrepreneur for the rest of your life, it’s easier when you understand that change is constantly happening. 

Your hair changes, fashion changes, there’s always change. And while change feels hard, you can do hard things. 
If you’re working through a pivot and need support with long term planning and how to try on your new identity, check out Mission Income.

Photo by: Alexa Vossler