Let’s pivot our brands without losing money. Profitable pivots are entirely possible with an intentional rebrand! Something that most business owners don’t think about when they approach their pivot is the fact that the change might solve one problem and introduce another. And one problem I’m seeing amongst clients and friends is that people are still trying to approach brand pivots with the same strategy they would have pre-pandemic. 

Personally, I started my business in 2020 and let me tell you, the energy was totally different than it is now. Think about it – Instagram reels came out in 2021, Tiktok pivoted from Musical.ly shortly before the pandemic, now it’s evolved to a QVC-esque platform. All of these changes to the tools we’re using have a direct effect on the way consumers buy and perceive brands.

Strong Brands Don’t Chase Trends

When Reels came out, Instagram put so much stock in pushing video content over images. But with time, they deprioritized the video content as platforms like TikTok introduced image carousels. Now, we’re looking at a 50/50 split, but the algorithm is still constantly changing. From my experience in 2020, it was a lot easier to grow your audience. It was also a lot easier to get engagement! If you look at anyone’s posts from 2020, 2021, you’ll see hundreds of likes and comments even though they don’t have a huge audience.

So I’m a firm believer that when you have clarity on your brand, you won’t get caught up in chasing trends. You can sink so much time, energy, and money into chasing the platform’s new developments. Or you can lean on a really strong brand to carry you through the tides. When you have clarity on the type of audience that you want to attract, it doesn’t matter what specific feature of a platform you’re using. It doesn’t even matter what platform you’re using. 

If you’re able to portray your brand in a very calculated way, you will see the results of that. Believe it or not, these changes are impacting how you are running your brand today. It’s impacting the thoughts that you have about your revenue. It’s impacting the thoughts that you have about the audience that you want to attract the clients that you want to serve.

With a clear brand, you’ll know how to pivot to make these platform changes work. Because it’s true, we don’t live in a static society that will respond the same way to the same marketing for your whole life. Pivots are inevitable and they can be a great opportunity to reach your next income goal.

How Consumer Behavior Has Changed Since 2020

Beyond the tools we’re using to market, the people buying each offer have changed. In 2020, only high earners were investing in their branding. They were the only ones doing the photo shoots, websites, sales pages, etc. I believe people could grow without investing in solid branding back then because people entering the industry during that time didn’t have to be sold to super hard. People were desperate for solutions. 

They were looking for a specific result. If you promised that result, they were buying. But sometimes some of these people didn’t get the results. There were instances where some of these people that were marketing offers and services left the industry. Some people went back to a corporate job. And where did that leave the people that were left in the industry? It left them confused and skeptical. 

Unfortunately, a good amount of people bought into programs and didn’t see the results they were hoping for. That inevitably leaves them asking, “how do I want to buy moving forward?” and “how do I want to invest moving forward?” With awareness and experience come more questions.

So now, buyers are looking at brands under a microscope and asking “can you get me this result?” But beyond that, they’re also asking  

“What have clients said?”

“What is the container like?”

“What are you like? How is your brand represented?”

New Clients Often Means New Competition

There are many reasons to pivot your brand. You could try to change your messaging just slightly to match the tone you’re growing towards. You could be expanding your offer suite. You could try to reach new audience members, etc. But when you are pivoting, you are not only opening yourself up to new clients, you’re opening yourself up to new competition. 

I’ll use myself as an example. When I added photoshoot creative direction to the rebrand experience, I knew how helpful it was going to be for my clients. It was a huge pain point that I was being proactive about solving for them. Now, did we get results from that? Absolutely. But I realized we could attract more clients. And since we introduced that new service about three years ago, it has also opened us up to a new competition.

Now, I was competing with photographers, production agencies, videographers and other creatives. Before, I was really just competing against other brand and website designers. If you are a brand designer and then you’re starting to do website design, you are now opening yourself up to a new set of competition along with a new audience pool. I think sometimes again, when we are making these pivots, we are thinking about all the positive things that come from the new clients. But we’re not thinking about how our brand currently fits into the new competition we’re walking into.

You Can Still Make Sales While Pivoting Your Brand

During this past rebrand, I had to make intentional decisions along how made it possible for my potential clients to make buying decisions, even as we were pivoting. Small things like changing the copy on the website, changing the messaging in my content, etc. can make a huge difference for those lurkers who are thinking of buying from you. Because of these subtle, intentional actions, I’ve been able to make sales during my rebrand.

It’s a misconception that when you’re rebranding and pivoting, everything needs to stop. The clients that I’ve been speaking to that are pivoting during our rebrand feel a lot more confident about the profit that they will make after because everything is now in alignment. 

For example, one of my clients originally had a bubbly, cheerleader-esque brand. And when I’ve been speaking to her during the rebrand process, we’ve realized she’s outgrown that identity. Now, she sees herself as a straightforward, direct coach who’s not going to just give her clients what they want to hear, that she doesn’t sugarcoat things, and that her clients appreciate that sense of honesty and authenticity. 

Right now, she’s in that in-between spot where her brand is still bubbly and colorful. Visually, she’s not on the other side of the rebrand yet. But she’s been able to switch up her messaging and update her copy to reflect the new changes in the meantime. Of course, this might mean that the more cautious buyers hold off on making a buying decision until your brand is fully aligned. And that’s fine! But the buying decision will ultimately be faster if you don’t give them total whiplash. 

What Kind of Leadership is Your Pivot Asking You to Step Into?

Anticipating every question your buyer might ask is a huge part of pivoting your brand. New sets of questions and objections will come up with a pivot. One issue I see is that people want to wait until a rebrand is 100% complete to pivot. The problem with doing that is that you’re halting your sales during a critical time period. 

Another client that we’re currently working with came to me saying, “I think I want to eliminate most my services and focus on this one service. I want to write a book. I want to get into speaking. I want to really pivot. Outside of just like group coaching style, like I want to pivot myself as more of, you know, a public figure.” 

So we then had to ask, what is this new type of leadership? Getting clear on questions like this can be a huge unlock. How often are you sitting in between a pivot because you’re thinking about it in between Zoom calls or in the shower? If you’re thinking about it late at night, you’re not taking intentional time to parse through the pivot. 

You need to ask yourself the right questions and hold yourself accountable to a specific deadline. Of course, if you’re working with an agency like Highflier Powerhouse, we do that for you. But if we think that we have all the time in the world to decide and all the time in the world to pivot, what’s going to happen is we’re going to take all of that time to make that decision.

And what happens when you’re taking all of that time to decide is you are deciding to hold back from doing a lot of things because you’re like, I’m not really clear on this pivot. So I don’t know if we should take this marketing approach. I’m not clear about this pivot. So I don’t know if I want to put this type of content out.

I’m not clear about this pivot. And so I don’t want to sell this offer way too hard, or I don’t want to accept this many clients in right without knowing. You are also decreasing your own revenue without realizing simply because you’re not sold on your pivot. 

Your Brand Should Not Be Creating Imposter Syndrome

 I spoke to a client who didn’t realize how resistant she was to accept new clients because her website wasn’t great. She knew that her current presence would introduce a lot of objections on sales calls. You could be the biggest expert in the world. But if it feels like that’s not what you’re putting off with your brand, you won’t move accordingly. 

Your brand is only as good as how clearly other people will see it. Even people outside of your niche that know nothing about what you do should feel impressed by your brand. Think back to the last time you saw a campaign or an ad and you knew you weren’t the ideal client, but you were still impressed. Maybe you were even swayed to buy from them! That’s the type of pull you want your brand to have. 

Once you take other people’s buying decisions seriously, it becomes glaringly obvious anytime a brand decision feels unaligned and confusing. So rebranding is the only way for you to pivot profitably. With a comprehensive rebrand, you can make sure all the changes are communicated to current and new audiences.