Business isn’t linear.  

Certain business types and business models aren’t for everyone.  

It’s ok to change your mind! 

Rebecca has a similar story to mine in that she trained and worked in corporate land as a lawyer.  She worked hard, she fulfilled her dream but she knew that things just weren’t right.  Rebecca found that the impact on her mental health of her role was starting to take it’s toll and felt anxious a lot of time.   Something had to give. 

At this point Rebecca was a hobby baker but she decided to take the leap and set up her own Cake Baking business.  She had various input from people who more or less told her that she wouldn’t make money out of cake and steering her in the direction of it being a bad idea. 

Rebecca honed her craft, developed her cake making skills and set herself up as a cake making, predominantly making wedding & celebration cakes. 

As we all know, being good at the thing you do is seldomly enough for you to build a profitable business around that thing.  You need to learn the craft of business development and marketing too.  She became a student of these things too and tested and developed a marketing strategy that worked in the cake world.       

Rebecca was juggling being mum to a little one, running her cake business and estabishing herself in the local wedding/celebration scence.  

She was also teaching cake making skills locally, with in person classes, in a cake supply store in her local area. 

Rebecca had started to turn her eye to helping other cake making businesses to thrive.  She was being asked lots of questions by other bakers and sought to help them to fast track through all she had learned.  

THEN THE PANDEMIC HIT

Like many business owners, everything changed overnight. 

Weddings – gone ❎

Celebrations and gatherings were no more ❎ 

Rebecca reached out and got in touch. 

She felt really lost.  

The one line I remember her saying to me was “do you think I need to get a proper job?” 

Identifying really early on in our conversation that Rebecca did have elements of her business that she was passionate about and that were “pandemic proof” allowed her to contine to thrive.  So many entrepreneurs were left in a situation where they had to adapt.  The entrepreneurs were actually in a much better place to adapt than the bigger cumbersome businesses. 

I absolutely knew that Rebecca had a BIG & successful business in there.  I knew that she was capable and able.  I knew that with the right steps she could make things happen swiftly, without any hustle. 

I also knew that there were a number of other factors that we needed to work on.  Rebecca was riding the wave of burnout and apathy/disengagement in her business.  The climate at the time had knocked her confidence and the work that we needed to do was bespoke to her business and market place and also bespoke to HER! I’m passionate about the fact that every entrepreneur I work with is individual, there’s not a blanket of advice or standard steps that I walk people through.  It’s matching the right input & action with that business, market and business owner.  As unique as a fingerprint. 

We focused on her work supporting other baking businesses and the advice that they needed in order to adapt during the pandemic.  She had a programme that she’d previously developed to help cake making businesses with their marketing and sales. 

We worked on launching that and her first launch was an absolute success.   

We went on to develop a programme to support people to start their cake making business and an ongoing support membership. 

Nailing her turn over and profits and increasing her income during a very uncertain period. 

Rebecca built a stonking Coaching Business.  

But Rebecca didn’t love it.  

Her oven was pulling at her hair and heart strings.   

It’s stupendously easy to say, if you don’t love it then it needs to go. 

One of my expressions is, if it’s not a hell yeah then by default it’s a no.  It might not be a “no never”,  and it might not even be a “throw it all in the bin.”  BUT something needs to change, something needs to give. 

There’s so much that comes up when you’re faced with a decision to pivot.  It’s a little easier if you need to pivot and you feel like you’re hand is forced a little more but it’s still hard.  

Turning your back on something you’ve created. 

Walking away from something that’s financially successful. 

It feels wrong.  You question yourself.  You wonder if you’re doing the right thing, if you’ll regret it, if it’s going to be an absolute disaster.  

Here’s the thing, if your business is making you miserable then you might as well have a job that pays a regular pay-check and be miserable.  That gives you annual leave and paid sick days.  You set up your business for a reward for the uncertainty and effort that business brings and NOT ALL OF THAT IS FINANCIAL, although we all know that the finances matter too.   

What you don’t need to do is go with an all or nothing approach and cut out your financial stability and income definitely.  You can transition.  You can start to move to spending your time in different ways, incrementally, increasing one side of your work whilst simultaneously decreasing the other whilst that transition period occurs.  Think a little like caterpillar to butterfly.  The middle bit may well a little numb but you know you’re working towards those wings & that beauty. 

AND it all started, for Rebecca, with one product…

I am writing this article on the 6 months anniversary of Rebecca opened a wee Etsy shop to sell “Thank You Teacher” biscuit boxes for the end of the school term.  She wanted to sell 10 boxes, re-fire up her oven and enjoy baking. 

She sold 202 boxes!   

Let’s look at the stats of her 6 months post pivot; 

⬆️   26,847 visits to her shop 

⬆️   612 biscuit boxes sold 

⬆️    84% of traffic obtained through Etsy search & SEO (so marketing tactics with longevity)

⬆️   77 positive reviews 

⬆️  £5k  turnover 

All from a toe dip in the water to sell 10 biscuit boxes to mark the end of the school term. 

The plans are big for what we refer to now as “the biscuit box empire” and as she now transitions to this being her only business due to her bossing it’s incremental growth to this stage!  I’m ridiculously excited, she’s ridiculously excited and more importantly her business is full of joy, profitable, fits with her family and allows her to work in her absolute zone of pleasure. 

TRANSITION PHASE COMPLETE! 

NOW TO HEAD INTO GROWTH MODE!     

I’m so proud of what Rebecca has achieved and it’s an absolute pleasure to see her fly and implement the next layers of strategy to her business.  She doesn’t just bake a biscuit box, she encompasses emotion and experiences through those biscuits that bring pleasure and joy to other people – WIN/WIN!  

Check out Rebecca’s Etsy shop, because ~ who doesn’t love a biscuit, right?! 

If you’d like help & support to create your own pivot then we can absolutely chat.  There’s never any pressure or obligation from me, we can simply explore what’s coming up for you right now and whether or not you’d like to support to evolve from here forth! 

AND Finally, I’ve mentioned the concept of incremental growth in here so you may wanna pop off and read a little article about what that’s all about and it’s impact in your business progression….