When is the Right Time to Pivot?
As a freelance illustrator and small business owner, I find myself wearing many hats. I am a creative but also I work to make sales, deal with customer enquiries, package and send products, attend markets, run my marketing strategy, undertake administrative tasks. The list goes on. Don’t get me wrong, one thing I love about the job is the sheer variety - no one day is ever the same! Yet lately I have been yearning to streamline things a bit more and try and achieve more of a work/life balance. As a mother also, to a feisty 9 year old, I just find sometimes, the cliché rings true - there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Plus, limitations on my time have meant I haven’t been able to explore all the ideas that have been swimming around in my head for many months and which I have been so eager to put into practice.
It got me thinking about pivoting - a bit of a buzz word at the moment, but one which I feel fits with how I am feeling right now and how I want to proceed with my career and small business.
So what does it mean to pivot in business?
A pivot means fundamentally changing the direction of a business - its a shift in its strategy, to refocus and meet any changes within its industry and overhauling its model.
Sounds drastic? However it got me thinking. Especially during a recent bout of illness (a trapped nerve which I’m finally healing from). Being unable to do much other than think (uh oh!), I used the opportunity to really consider where I want to be longer term and ultimately what I enjoy most about my work and what gives me the most pleasure. I soon realised what I’m most passionate about : Drawing, writing and offering advice and support to other makers. This didn’t mean that selling products was no longer working for me - on the contrary, I’d just taken part in my most successful makers market ever. However, I knew if I was to refocus, something in my business would need to change. I decided that one of the most time consuming aspects was producing products and that instead of continuing on this path I could pivot and make some changes that would enable me to work towards achieving my goals. I therefore came up with the following plan:
Stop selling art prints on my website (the most labour intensive aspect of my job) and move towards a third party printing and fulfillment model. Look at different companies who could offer this with global partners who could take some of the pain out of International shipping! I settled on INPRNT (USA) and Goodmood (UK). I’m currently looking at working with a company in France and also have many of my prints available for sale in Denmark via a collaboration with Papirvaerk.
Start selling products on a number of Print on Demand (POD) sites. I am using Society 6 for home decor and tech products, Teepublic for apparel and will soon start a Spoonflower shop for fabric collections.
Sell small items on my online store which I can easily outsource, including postcards and bookmarks.
Seek out commissions and licensing opportunities by contacting brands I would love to work with.
Enhance and expand my portfolio
Start selling digital downloads such as phone wallpapers and Procreate colour palettes.
Write an E book on a subject I am passionate about - Makers Markets!
Start a creative business mentoring service. I will talk more about this in a future post, for now it’s a soft launch but I’m ready to accept clients and it’s such an exciting opportunity.
My future plans include: Offering in-person and online workshops in the area of small business support for creatives, filming and launching an online course via a platform like Skillshare , offer more digital products such as Procreate brushes, more extensive colour palette guides and further E Books. This should keep me pretty busy! The trick is to be methodical and not take on too much at once. With small steps, big changes can happen and I’m so excited for the future. Many exciting things are happening, commissions and licensing collaborations I can’t wait to share. I may give myself some time off over the Summer, but for now I am fulfilled in my professional life and it feels great :)