Earlier this year I ran a community project sharing stories of business pivots. You can access the full set of stories here. As part of that project I shared my story of pivoting from Facebooks ads management to business strategist and coach for introverts. Other participants in the project had shared their story as an audio and inspired me to try that out to. You can listen to my story here.
The transcript of the audio is below (and can I just say listening back to my recording to do the transcript was not fun – how weird is hearing yourself talk!):
Hi, it’s Caroline here from Quietly Extraordinary and I wanted to first off just start by saying thank you for signing up for the Pivot Narratives. And for reading and listening and watching everyone’s stories. I hope you’ve got great nuggets of gold to help you with making changes in your business.
Mine is the final story in this series and I’m sharing how I went from doing Facebook ads management to becoming a business strategist for introverts.
And in terms of why I made this pivot, I mean, for me, it was, I had to do it. So I was running Facebook ads, you know, it was easy to get clients, but I absolutely hated the work. You know, I was crying, I was working seven days a week. And I think very importantly for me, I felt like I had so little control over the results that clients wanted to see.
And now that I’m looking back, I can see that part of the issue was that I didn’t have proper processes in place to vet clients. So I was taking on clients who weren’t ready for ads and then they were expecting more than I was able to deliver. But yeah, so that’s why I made my pivot.
And the process that I went to, went through, I think, you know, a lot of people in the, the pivot narratives have talked about an adjustment. And for me, it was just, I just wanted to quit doing Facebook ads. I couldn’t see a way, a way forward. I talked to quite a few people. I had a couple of coaches at the time, or a coach and a marketing person. And they talked about transitioning, but I just couldn’t face it.
So what I did, and you know, I think it’s, we don’t talk about this enough, is that I went back and got a job. So that I could pay my bills and just have the space to sit and decide what I really wanted to do next.
And I know that getting a job is really unpopular or often gets talked down about, talked down in the online business space. But if you want to make a change, I think, you know, for me personally, when I’m worrying about money and stressed about money, then it’s really hard for me to make good, well considered decisions.
So I was so glad that part of my process was going back, getting a job and getting that money piece, feeling stable again. And then what I did next was looked at what skills I had. What I’d picked up from corporate, particularly around planning, problem solving, systems, and numbers, and started to think about how I could use those in a business.
But I also took a lot of time to journal and work out what I cared about. And I realized that when I’d been in corporate, I’d become quite evangelical about supporting introverts after reading Susan Cain’s book, Quiet. I started to think, well, I’d really like to see introverts thriving in business as well.
And so I added in that extra piece that also starts niching down and I’m still working on that, to start looking at how I could help introverts to be better in business. Or to help them thrive in business. I guess it’s a better way of putting it.
So then I started experimenting, trying out different services, and I finally feel like I’m just about there with where I want to be in terms of what I’m offering.
But it’s taken a number of years to really get here, and I’ve tried a lot of different things along the way, such as being a tech VA, helping people set up their systems, and just doing systems work, which I don’t mind systems work, but I don’t love it. And then really leaning into that planning side of things, which I do adore doing.
In terms of whether this pivot has been a success, I think as a lot of other people, people have said, I’m still in that messy middle and maybe you never get out of that messy middle. Now I’m not making enough money and I did burn myself out again in 2022 by trying to do too many different things. And that was a really great lesson to learn that I need to, to focus on one thing at a time.
What I would say is that I’m happier now and that I can say, see a way forward in my business that feels like it will create a business that is good for me and that will allow me to be happy and healthy.
And there’s a few things I’ve learned along the way or lots of things I’ve learned along the way.
I think some of the key ones are that getting your messaging right is really important. I don’t think I’ve nailed that piece yet. And that’s, that’s one of the things I’m still working on to make, make sure I’m attracting the right clients.
I’ve also, I think one of the other things I didn’t realize when I was doing the pivot is that how difficult it would be to go from something trendy like Facebook ads management. Yeah, this was back when Facebook ads was having a moment. It was so easy to sell my services. to going to what I’m doing now, which, you know, doesn’t have the same defined outcomes. You know, it’s easy to say, well, I’ll run your Facebook ads for you and hopefully you’ll get this many conversions.
With the business strategy and consulting I’m doing now that things are different depending on which client I’m helping. Everyone has different outcomes that they want to achieve. Yes, there’s a big overarching outcome of having a business in which they thrive, but what that actually looks like varies so much from person to person.
And the other thing I’ve learned is you really just need to try things out to see what you like doing. So I’ve tried, you know, thought about setting up courses. I’ve started writing courses. And, you know, I might go back to it, but I think it’s not something I really love. And it’s taken me a long time to realise that actually I really like one to one work.
And I think that’s one of the big things that I would do differently again if I was pivoting or, you know, starting to do another pivot, is that I would listen more to my inner voice. I felt like I needed to offer all these, passive income services, although I hate the term passive income because they’re not really passive. When really I love the one on one work.
And I know that I can make enough money from it for the lifestyle that I want. I’m not looking to make seven figures. What I’m looking to do is pay my bills, have some money to go on holiday and do work that I really enjoy. Working with clients I love working with. So, listening, if I’d listened to my inner voice, I wouldn’t have wasted so much time on other services.
But I also had ideas along the way that I allowed people to talk me out of trying. And then someone else created, you know, I saw other people creating exactly that business. So that inner voice piece, I think is really important to me. And that’s not that I would never get advice from other people. I still have coaches. I still seek input from others, but it’s not allowing those voices to completely override my own. So that’s my pivot story. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.
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