Like a car without a steering wheel, a business that can’t turn with the curves in the road will crash and burn. To survive, you need to pivot and adjust your business to today’s realities. This transformation may feel awkward or strange, but many of today’s great companies look absolutely nothing like their original versions. When faced with adversity, successful leaders focus on their core talents and assets and find a way to adapt to and navigate around the obstacles.
From Mistake to Success
The company best at this pivoting is perhaps 3M, the $80 billion maker of N95 masks, Post-It notes, Scotch Tape, and 60,000 other innovative products. Its very first venture failed and is memorialized in the firm’s full name, the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company. 3M’s founders had planned to mine corundum, a mineral ideal for making sandpaper. But their mine turned out to be full of another low-grade mineral, anorthosite. Rather than throw in the towel, 3M shifted from mining the raw material to manufacturing the sandpaper. When customers complained that the product lost its grit when moist, 3M came up with a waterproof sandpaper. And with that shift, 3M began a tradition of constant product creation, growing into today’s conglomerate.
Keep to the Core
Even if a company has no aspirations to become 3M, it is still necessary to learn some basic pivot skills to survive. Every successful company deals with technological changes, shifts from completion, new regulations, and the occasional broader economic storm. Without the ability to flex and shift, any company will likely get jammed up sooner or later. The key to a successful pivot is keeping and utilizing the primary strengths, assets, and talents that are core to a founder’s and company’s makeup. Everything else should be on the table to be cut or radically altered.
Foodies on Wheels
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, one NYC restaurant quickly transitioned from offering white glove, sit-down service to gourmet meals to go. Sticking to its foodie roots, it limited the number of portions per day and staggered the pickups/deliveries, so all the food was fresh, perfectly plated, and piping hot when received by the customers. Instead of serving 120 meals nightly at $250 a plate, it put out about 1,000 portions per day for $35 each. Wait staff transitioned to prepping and delivering meals. With energy, creativity, and cooperation, they saved the business and their jobs.
Same Service, New Stage
Also during the coronavirus crisis, simcha singers who make their money by livening up weddings and other events saw their livelihoods disappear overnight. If you boil it down though, their core service is using their musical gifts to uplift and inspire. One well-known singer began offering intimate “kumzitzes by the hour” to homebound families. Another possible service was to send the gift of personalized concert sessions to lonely loved ones. While not every singer may be able to pull this off, and you need to sell a bunch of these packages to replace the revenue from one wedding, this shift is a good example of a pivot. The core service is musical talent, not a specific stage or audience.
Sometimes You Move On
Of course, not every business can be saved. Sometimes the changes required to fix a businesses are so drastic that a fresh start is the better and less costly option. But necessity is the mother of invention. As many real-life examples illustrate, pivoting can work. With lot of thought and energy, it may be possible to navigate toward a solid, or even a more profitable, course of action.
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