How to Embrace a Business Pivot

And what we can learn from LMNT's 3 week on, 1 week off schedule

Author

Taylor Cromwell
November 01, 2024

In partnership with

Hi there!

In case you missed it last week, I’m relaunching this newsletter with a new focus: tips, tools and lessons to help you run your own solo business. My last post was about how to build a life and a business that you love.

I’ll also be launching some Q&A editions where I break down some of the top reader questions I get — we’ll be covering finances, scaling your biz, building a client roster & more.

📚 This week's lesson: Pivoting doesn’t equal failure.

In the past year, I’ve made two major pivots in my business. I went all in on ghostwriting for leaders on LinkedIn. And in the past few months, I made the decision to reverse course and go back to long-form writing.

I again decided on the lens of what I’m enjoying and what’s not working. I realized that ghostwriting kept me in a cycle of things I didn’t exactly love:

  • The hamster wheel of trying to get new clients

  • Having to go above and beyond convincing someone why they needed this service

  • Several meh encounters with ghostwriting agencies

  • Clients who just wanted to hack the algorithm and go viral

All of this led me to feeling very meh about my work. I missed interviewing and researching. I wanted to get back into the weeds again. So I pivoted again to focus on content writing specifically for SaaS companies, and in particular Marketing and Tech companies.

It felt like both a huge risk to narrow down my scope of work and say this specifically is what I’m working on. (As opposed to saying yes to literally everything!)

But there has been so many amazing things on the other side. I’ve built some momentum writing for a niche, and surprisingly have gotten much more inbound interest as a result. I feel back to my groove getting to do more long form writing. I’ve even got a few new big names on my client list.

Key application: All of this is a great reminder that we have agency at any time to pivot, to change course, to try something new. What matters most is just trying. Of course, don’t put all of your eggs in one basket — but do find room to run little experiments (as I like to think of it!) The most important thing is that you’re learning along the way and that you know when to abandon ship.

🛠️ Tool Spotlight

Readwise

What it does: Think of it as a digital binder to collect snippets of things you like on the internet (plus emails, books, etc.)

Why it's valuable: There are SO many reasons I love this tool. Mainly because it acts as a centralized place for me to keep interesting content. I add emails here, long form articles, Kindle highlights, Youtube videos, and so much more. When I’m looking for inspiration, I go back to my Readwise files and go through my saved links. I’m queen of saving things in my phone then forgetting to ever reference them again, so this helps me stay more organized.

P.S. you can highlight and take notes directly from the tool, too.

🎧 Read/Listen of the Week

One of my strongest business beliefs is that we’re not meant to be on all time. We’re not meant even to do the traditional 9 to 5 either. Granted, not everyone always have the choice as to how their schedules are set up. But the key benefit to freelancing or running your own business is being able to arrange your schedule so you can lean into the times you feel energized and recoup during times you need some down time.

This blog post from LMNT explains their unique take on this idea. The company has built a 3 weeks on, 1 week off schedule for their employees — and they’ve found it incredibly productive and energizing.

Why it matters: In a world where burnout is increasingly common, LMNT’s 3:1 work structure offers a fresh approach on balancing productivity with wellness.

I recommend reading this post and figuring out where you can implement sprint-based work.

“A’s humans performing knowledge-based tasks, we seem designed for pulsing ‘sprint focused’ work. Working well in creative and knowledge-based tasks is more like hunting like a lion than grazing like a cow (to quote Naval Ravikant) – we are more carnivore than herbivore. We seem to thrive on deep and focused work in conjunction with deep and focused rest. Whereas we start to get off-balance when each day is the same, and a little bit of each bucket.”

That's all for this week! Remember to add your q’s here and I’ll do my best to answer them in upcoming issues.

Taylor

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