The Pivot, The Patience, and the Payoff
Have you ever received well-meaning advice that was anything but helpful? “Just go out and sell something!” tops my list.
Do you ever hear truths that you want to reject? “The universe doesn’t bend to your timeline” might be my favorite.
Have you ever found yourself buying into a story whispered in your ear from a pesky inner critic? I hear on replay, “f this doesn’t work out, you can always go back to corporate.”
As I approach the three year anniversary of conceiving Collective Confidence, I have been encouraged to reflect on and share how advice, truths, and inner critics shaped my entrepreneurial experience. While everyone’s journey is different, I write this with the hope that my story can inspire, encourage or touch someone who might need a confidence boost.
“To elevate the collective confidence of the world’s working women” was the very clear “why” behind the founding of Collective Confidence (which I affectionately refer to as CoCo). Building offerings to fulfill that mission seemed straightforward. Positioning the offerings in a unique, distinctive way, not so much. After a few months of failed proposals to women who wanted my services but were unable or unwilling to secure the funding for them, I started to question my path. “I’m not cut out for this,” I found myself thinking. “I clearly don’t know how to sell,” I’d remark to my husband . Why would a woman pick me over other options? I struggled with this for a while and then realized that, instead of questioning my path, I needed to question my audience and the angle I took to fulfill my “why.”
During this time, I confided in those I thought could help me sort through the noise and confusion. I heard over and over again, “just get out there and sell something.” I also heard, “organizations aren’t ready for what you’re passionate about, so dumb it down.” While perhaps well-meaning, this advice demoralized me. If I just wanted to sell something, well, I could. But that wasn’t my goal. If I wanted to give organizations simply what they wanted, I’d miss the opportunity to empathetically help them see what they needed. I found myself surrounded by advice givers but absent any sponsors or advocates, people who were in the proverbial arena with me. I felt alone and I felt like a failure. I was struggling, doubting myself, and my confidence was in the ditch. Hard work didn’t scare me, but this whole thing was taking too long (based on my own success timetable) and I wasn’t making any traction. Had I made a mistake leaving the corporate world?
The Pivot
Then, out of seemingly nowhere, came the pivot. I got a call from a woman I’d worked with in my most recent corporate job. When I launched CoCo, I thought my most active advocates would be network connections I had been in the trenches with for years doing hard work delivering hard results, not a woman I had touched through a single yet significant act of kindness. I was wrong. This woman saw the potential and was ready to sponsor the value CoCo could bring to her clients. She took a risk and helped me land my first paying gig to help a high growth company rethink their talent strategy and structure. And that led to my next. Instead of telling me to “go sell something,” she helped me reframe how I could help her clients address their pain points through my unique skills, knowledge and experience. I wasn’t selling out for a paycheck. I was holding firm to my WHY, albeit with the HOW reframed.
After making the pivot from serving individual women to serving organizations, a focus better aligned to my passions and strengths, CoCo collected our first paycheck on the weekend of my 50th birthday, exactly one year after choosing to leave corporate. The universe may not care about my timeline, but it sure does know when the timing is right!
The Patience
Our logo is two interlocking magnetic C’s, one pink, one blue, representing the power from women and men coming together, as equals, to overcome challenges and deliver results. Since that first client two years ago, I have continued to refine what Collective Confidence offers and how we deliver value. Our mission is to guide leaders to create healthy cultures that deliver impactful business results. We do that through leadership advisory, team dynamics and culture renovation. Regardless of the project, we intentionally elevate the collective confidence of those with whom we engage, the world’s working women and men. Confidence in what? Their decisions: why and how they make them and the impact they have on others.
We have been blessed to work with outstanding clients, those who value the results and the approach we take to achieve them. These clients have enthusiastically connected us to other great clients. It took patience, but almost three years later, our business is 90% referrals. A very special THANK YOU to our early partners who helped shape our place in the market.
The Payoff
While the pivot and the patience resulted in more revenue, the real payoff has been my growth in three key areas:
SOMETHING vs. THE RIGHT THING
Many of us grew up – or are growing up – in environments where we sell our souls for a paycheck. We trade off our passion for practicality and we sacrifice pursuing our dreams for fitting in. Had I taken the advice to “just go sell something” when the going got tough, I would have sold my soul. Again. Instead, I resisted, faced the very real fear of going months without a paycheck, and remained fierce in my commitment to my “why.”
If you are in a position to stay resolute, do it. The world doesn’t need more copycats. It needs what only you can bring. Figure that out and own it.
2. WHERE TO INVEST TIME AND MONEY
The best investment I made during the first 18 months of my business was in a sales coach. Not a website developer, copywriter or social media expert (I spent money on those things, too). My sales coach is one who takes a strengths-based approach to help clients confidently position their value in alignment with problems facing possible customers. Selling services with the power of a big brand behind you is one thing. Doing so as a solopreneur or small business is another. Although I read a dozen books on how to start a business, how to attract the right clients, and how to have sales conversations, it wasn’t until I was in a 15-person cohort with our coach practicing new skills (and fumbling all over myself!) that I became confident in authentically growing my business.
What one big investment do you need to make in you at this stage of your journey? Is it one that makes you LOOK good or is it one that makes you FEEL good from the inside out? You can guess which investment I’d recommend!
3. REMOVING THE SAFETY NET
“You can always go back to corporate,” was the safety net I put in place for almost two years as I struggled to build this business. While on one hand, it was a risk mitigation strategy, on the other it was a cop out. When I finally made the decision to be all in with CoCo, I experienced another pivot. I started closing bigger contracts. I signed my first year-long culture shaping engagement. I secured two annuity clients. The referrals escalated. I stopped dancing around the sidelines and I jumped into the arena with gusto. As a result, our 2021 revenues grew almost threefold, and we are on pace to double if not triple our top line in 2022.
That safety net wasn’t a risk mitigation strategy, it was a shackle. I never intended to go back to corporate – I chose to leave for many reasons – so I stopped kidding myself and owned my decision to be unemployable. Can you say, “you go girl!”
We titled this blog, “The Pivot, the Patience, and the Payoff.” Where are you in your entrepreneurial journey? What struggles are you facing? What successes do you want to celebrate? I encourage you to comment below. You never know who might need to hear exactly what you have to share.
A special shout out to my small, mighty and dedicated Confidence Community. It took me a while to find out who’s really in the arena with me. You know who you are, and so do I! I love you.
