Ep 38: How to Pivot and Grow Your Business During Uncertain Times with Charles Gaudet

Problem: We’re stuck in our day-to-day business

What we’re going through right now (with the Coronavirus pandemic) is an inflection point. A lot of entrepreneurs are acting like deer in the headlights because they’ve never experienced an inflection point before. They’re not realizing that their past tactics, techniques, and systems are no longer working.

And because they’re not sure “what should I be doing right now,” they’ve either scaled back so that they’re reduced their momentum to not really doing much […], or they’re just doing the same that they’ve always done, hoping things will be different.

The Steps of Getting Unstuck

Some people might be looking for tips and tricks, and easy techniques to implement in order to get unstuck. However, just changing your mindset is more important than a couple of fancy gimmicks and tricks. These tips are universal ways to help your business.

Step 1: Make sure you have the right mindset

If you have the right mindset, you’ll be able to see opportunities when they’re in front of you. The most strategic organizations and companies are going to survive because they recognize opportunities when they see them. They are able to see the bigger picture of what is happening around them in trends, with their competitors, and with the situation at hand.

[Tactics and strategies] are important but none of that matters if you don’t have the right mindset.  

Step 2: Ask yourself these two questions

1. What’s working in your business right now?
2. What’s not working right now?

What can we see within the data, to make better decisions.

Step 3: Get out of your own way

Part of mindset is making problems out of things that shouldn’t be problems. Charles uses the example of a conversation he once had with Tom Robbins, in which they talked about Charles’ professional role models, Richard Branson. In this conversation, Robbins talks about how Branson would view Charles’ problems as little. In the meantime, Branson is tackling huge endeavors, effectively creating big problems (space travel, ending hunger, etc.) instead of running away from them. 

Little people have little problems, big people create big problems.

Step 4: Analyze your four options in an inflection point

There are four options during inflection points. Analyze the previous steps, and choose one of these four options when you move forward.

Anytime we’re in an inflection point, we have four choices: we have to change the message to meet the market, or we have to keep the message the same but change the market; we have to change the message and the market, or do nothing and expect the same results.

Step 5: Look at your customer service

Obsess over how you can help your customer succeed. Think about how you can make an amazing experience for your customers. Customer loyalty and word of mouth are still some of the best ways to keep your customers coming back and to bring in new customers.

Charles’ book:

The Predictable Profits Playbook: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Dominating Any Market – And Staying On Top – by Charles Gaudet