Creative Crossroads: Choosing A New Direction For Your Business
I find that the more I think about something, the more that thing starts to show up in my daily life, and right now it’s changing direction. As part of my goal check in I started to think about how I wanted to be spending my days and how I could create more impact, and all roads started to lead to a slight business model shift. And while I’ve been ruminating on the new ideas for my business, so my clients have been coming to me wanting to make directional shifts of their own. So today I thought I’d talk about this creative crossroads and get us all moving forwards towards our updated goals.
What is causing the crossroads?
Before we can dive into something, we have to investigate where our drive to choose a new direction is coming from? It’s no good starting something new and jumping in head first if a few months down the line you’ll want to move on from it because it didn’t satisfy the real reason behind your craving for change. So get analytical about yourself, journal it all out or talk it through with someone to get to the crux of what you want. Here are some common reasons for wanting a change:
Lifestyle change
Whether you have external factors like a new baby or a house move, or you’re just not happy with your work/life balance, a lifestyle change is a powerful motivator. It’s important though to be really clear and sure about what you want your life to look like, and plan a direction that allows for that. Be rigid with it; it’s easy to think ‘well I could do x and y on top if people want me to’ but if you want a lifestyle change you have to be strict with yourself
Diversify income streams
If you’re over-reliant on one stream of income or expect a market shift to affect one of your dominant sources of income, then changing up your business model makes solid sense. With this one, know your timings – if you need to add a new income stream in a matter of weeks, make sure it’s something that doesn’t need 3 months to perfect. I talk more about diversifying your income on this episode of the What She Said podcast.
Your audience
This is the case for me. I know that probably 90%+ of my audience aren’t in a position to work with me one on one, so I want to create products that can be impactful for them. Perhaps your audience are asking you for something, or just by talking to them you’ve had a new idea – these are some of the best reasons for starting a shift
Dissatisfaction/plateauing with current business model
Perhaps you’ve been plodding along for a while, consistently turning over a modest income but you want something more; more challenge, more money. Be careful with this one that you don’t choose something because it feels exciting but is actually off-brand and not marketable to your audience – think about your customer base and create something that is going to add more value to them
Bringing another part of you into the business
Very often when we start out in a business we box ourselves into being a this or a that, and things that maybe we loved before, or skills we developed at previous jobs, aren’t included in this new version of us. But you can’t keep passions down and over time you may want to bring more of them into your business. This will be easier to do if you have more of a personal brand, if people know you as a person rather than a logo, but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility if that’s not the case. Most important is to make sure the new thing is linked to your why and makes sense to be coming from your business, and, again, that it provides value to your customers.
Planning your new direction
Once you’ve confirmed to yourself whyyou want this change in direction, it’s time to get going on the how: what will this direction be, what do you need to do, how will you make it a success? Depending on your why for changing there will be a few specific things to factor into your planning that will be personal to you – perhaps creating a checklist of things you want this new direction to do for you personally will help you keep track of this. But over and above those, there are some general things to think about.
Who is the customer?
Whenever you’re creating a product and offering, you have to create it with the person you want to buy it in mind – if it’s not valuable to them, they’re not going to exchange money for it. So while you’re making sure that you get what you want out of this new direction, make sure that someone else is too – focus on a problem you can solve, a dream you can make reality.
How does this make sense for you brand?
Some shifts, like mine, won’t be too drastic and will easily make sense as part of your existing brand. However, if your change is a bit more out there, you need to make sure it makes sense in the context of your brand. You’ve taken great care to become known for something online, however this does mean that people get confused if you try to step out of the box they’ve put you in.Here you want to go back to brand purpose, your why, and formulate your new direction from there. The example I always use here is Sas Petherick and her Courage & Spice tshirts – on paper it sounds weird for a coach to start selling clothes, but it works because people have bought into Sas and her why, and the tees are an extension of that why. So think about why people already buy into you, and how you can extend that, not change it completely.
How do you need to communicate the shift?
Ok, so you’ve focused on your why and your customer, and you’ve come up with your ideas for a new offering that will help you change direction. Now you have to communicate that to the world. Depending on how different your direction shift is, this might be easy or it might take a long time but here a few pointers for communicating a change:
Have a crystal clear ‘hook’ – if you’re trying to get people to re-learn what they know about you, you have to make it suuuuper simple. Distil your new offering into a soundbite you can use over and over again and people will start to get it (so repeating “grow with soul” in various guises is working really well for me).
Get your inner circle on board – make sure everyone who works with you gets it. So if you sell products into shops, make sure they understand the change and can communicate it to their customers. Same with your online buddies and biggest fans – anyone who might talk about or recommend you needs to get it
Talk it through – I know not everyone wants to talk on Instagram Stories, but very often showing your face and talking about a change with all your passion and conviction is going to be the very best way to infect people with your enthusiasm and get them on board.
Focus your content – if you’re wanting to transition what you’re known for, or get your audience understanding something new about you, you need it to come through in your content. So in the build up to a new launch make all your blog posts about a certain subject and talk about it in your Instagram captions
Get onto other channels – while it will take a while for your current audiences to start to shift their perception of you, there are new ones for you to meet who have no preconceptions. Guest post, appear on podcasts, get into magazines, do a Follow Friday – do anything you can to get onto someone else’s channel where you can spread your new message to new audiences.
