Pivot

by Jenny Blake

  That said, there are times when the grass is greener! I once read a book about entrepreneurship that, at every chapter, seemed meant to deter me from actually leaving my job. This book provided a “realistic” view of how difficult it would be, and spoke at length about how many businesses fail. By the end, it was clear that the author’s advice would have been to ditch my greener grass fantasy and continue trucking along at my dependable corporate job.

  But what the book did not account for is the invigorating feeling of giving it a shot. Of having all day, every day, to apply my best creative energy to my own business and success. I am glad I had a realistic view of the challenges I might experience over the first few years in business, but I am much more thankful that I did not take her advice.

  The grass really is greener for me, based on my values and vision, on the other side. I still work with big technology companies, including Google; I just prefer to set my schedule and strategy for doing that. For me, any brown grass patches are worth it. Sure, I face challenges, but I am sitting on the right plot of land, and will continue improving my grass-growing abilities over time.

  While your day-to-day experiences might vary, it is important to listen when your gut is telling you that there is a greener plot of grass that is a better fit than where you are now. Ultimately, you will not know until you gather more real-world data; don’t just spin out on speculation.

  That is what the next Pivot stage, Pilot, helps you do: step on one patch of grass at a time to determine if, in fact, you like it any better. The more patches you test, the more indicative they will be of the whole.

  However, a Pivot paradox caveat: these patch tests cannot capture the entire experience. To switch metaphors for a moment, it is akin to the difference between a piece of cake and an entire bakery: one piece of cake will give you an accurate assessment of how the whole cake tastes, but trying a piece of cake will not be a complete indicator of how everything else in the bakery tastes. One side hustle earning $200 each week will show you if you enjoy that side hustle, not what it is like to try to earn a living from it full time.

  ______

  Some people become dizzy during the Scan stage of a pivot because they are scanning without a plan, falling prey to too much searching and overthinking: What is out there? Who can I talk to? What is next? WHO AM I?!

  If you find yourself aimless or frustrated while scanning, return to the Plant stage. Reconnect with your vision, values, strengths, and what is working. From there, determine what exploration would be a logical extension from those known variables.

  Channel Sherlock Holmes: every conversation and piece of new information is a clue. How you react to what you are discovering is as important as what you are learning; notice how different options make you feel. It is likely that your Scan phase will be as much about eliminating solutions you do not like as it will be about picking up new ideas that you want to pursue.

  Searching, scanning, and narrowing can only take you so far. How do you take smart action when you do land on several strong idea leads? If you are at a pivot fork in the road, which path should you pursue?

  Scan: Online Resources

  Visit PivotMethod.com/scan for additional tools, templates, and book recommendations for this stage.

  STAGE THREE

  PILOT

  Test What’s Next

  PLANT

  SCAN

  PILOT

  LAUNCH

  LEAD

  PILOT OVERVIEW

  A TELEVISION PILOT IS A TEST EPISODE USED TO SELL A SHOW CONCEPT TO A NETWORK. Before the network purchases the entire series, they watch a sample and sometimes show it to an audience to gauge interest and estimate its financial viability. Television pilots get their name from the pilot light, a small flame that is used as an ignition source for a larger burner, like the central heating unit of a house or a hot-air balloon.

  For our purposes, the primary goal of the Pilot phase is ignition and validation: generating ideas, testing those ideas, then taking small, smart risks to eventually inform bigger decisions about what’s next.

  After identifying potential opportunities and ideas in the Scan stage, you will likely have several hypotheses about what to pursue. Instead of betting big on any one, it is best if you can pilot—reduce risk by conducting small tests—then expand upon what is working to launch in the most promising direction.

  Newton’s first law states that an object in motion tends to stay in motion, while an object at rest remains at rest unless acted upon by an external force. Piloting is critical because it gets your momentum snowball started. Small pilots will help you get unstuck, without the pressure of having to figure out all the answers up front.

  Pivot is a state of mind, and the most agile impacters make a habit of continually learning and piloting. As a general rule, maintain an open, curious mindset, testing one hypothesis at a time, ideally several.

  I can sense what some of you may be thinking: This sounds exhausting! Must I always be looking for the Next Big Thing?

  Not necessarily. Pilots can be as simple as tweaks to your morning routine. They can be personally rewarding, such as spending time living in another country. Or they can be as ambitious as experimenting with a community-wide, nationwide, or global program within your company or business.

  Assumptions Versus Hypotheses

  In his book The Voice of Knowledge, don Miguel Ruiz says, “Making assumptions and then taking them personally is the beginning of hell in this world.” We are likely to hit roadblocks when making assumptions about what should happen, rather than approaching our ideas with unattached curiosity. Piloting helps form open-ended hypotheses so we can test assumptions and make informed decisions about next steps.

  Prepare to be wrong during the Pilot process. At times it may feel like you have taken two steps forward, immediately followed by two steps back. One reaction to this process might be, “I am an idiot and my ideas suck.” It is up to you to shift that to, “Awesome. There’s another one I can throw back into the refinery of my brain.”

  Oftentimes that failure or missed mark provides the next important clue. Recall Thomas Edison’s famous quote, “If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is often a step forward.”

  CHAPTER 8: GET SCRAPPY

  What Small Experiments Can You Run? What Real-World Data Can You Collect?

  If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

  —Henry David Thoreau, Walden

  IN THE LEAN STARTUP, ERIC RIES POPULARIZED THE CONCEPT OF THE MVP, OR MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT. By his definition, the MVP “helps entrepreneurs start the process of learning as quickly as possible. It is not necessarily the smallest product imaginable, though; it is simply the fastest way to get through the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop with the minimum amount of effort.” When it comes to product development, the message is not to delay a launch by months or years so you can craft every last immaculate detail behind the scenes. Instead, form an educated guess and test it sooner rather than later with your target audience.

  During my time at Google we referred to this as “being scrappy.” We knew the conditions or output of our work would not be perfect, but it was important to release anyway, to “launch and iterate.” Just get something out, then test it, get feedback, revise, and do it over again. Holding a mindset of launch and iterate encouraged us to get minimum viable products out to the company, then have our peers test the programs, letting their feedback guide future versions. Getting a program out, even a scrappy, imperfect, 70 percent version, was better than waiting for 100 percent perfection. That ideal state may never happen, and by that point users’ needs would likely have shifted.

  For many of my clients who are starting their own businesses, a minimum viable p
roduct might mean launching a website with a free, prepackaged theme long before hiring a website designer to design something fancier and fully customized. The latter is not the biggest priority for a new business whose primary goal is generating income. They can get new clients without a website at all; the original MVP is spreading the word via existing networks, and for that, e-mail and phone calls can do the trick.

  Pamela Slim, author of Escape from Cubicle Nation and Body of Work, is a longtime mentor of mine and universal “auntie” to thousands of people in her community who benefit from her extensive career and business advice. Pam ran an experiment with her audience when she created a workshop called Indispensable Community, a program that would teach community-building skills for entrepreneurs. She set clear parameters for what her pilot would entail, and tested the idea by asking her readers what places they would like her to deliver the live course.

  Over a hundred people responded. Pam narrowed the recommendations down to twenty-three cities, and put together a four-month, cross-country tour across the United States and Canada. She partnered with sponsors that served the small-business market, ultimately reaching over a thousand entrepreneurs. Based on the success of this pilot, she doubled down by making it a core part of her business strategy moving forward. Pam’s tour pilot indicated support for her desire to shift from over ten years of online platform building based on career and business content toward programs related to her skill and experience with community building and leadership.

  After her tour, Pam displayed her philosophy proudly and prominently on her website’s landing page: “Community feeds personal, professional and economic growth.” This experience spurred her next pilot: creating a scalable community-building program that would help others “realize their deepest mission and solve big problems in the world.”

  AIM FIRST FOR QUANTITY, NOT QUALITY

  There are many ways to pilot your hypotheses about what’s next, ranging from low risk to high risk; from observer to hands on; and from short execution time and investment to longer and more involved in terms of time, energy, and resources.

  Below are common pilots I have observed. I encourage you to think about at least one way that you could apply each of them to your current situation:

  Taking on advisory board positions with other companies.

  Hosting friends for a meal around interesting topics, or for conducting grounded theory–type research.

  Conducting informal client or employee focus groups, then creating a prototype solution based on their needs.

  Trying out 10 or 20 percent projects at work in addition to core responsibilities.

  Volunteering for a team or interest group related to your one-year vision.

  Creating an informal pop-up group or program, such as a book club.

  Experimenting with a new service offering by taking on one new client in that area.

  Tweaking the cost or format (or both) of your existing services.

  Sharing a sampling of new ideas on social media to see what topics resonate; providing more in-depth exploration on the ones that do.

  Seeking out an internship or apprenticeship with a company or individual you might like to work with. (Writer Melani Dizon calls these “returnships” for mid-career professionals.)

  Enrolling in experiential work-study programs, such as those offered by Vocation Vacations and PivotPlanet.

  Advertising a few different services on a contractor marketplace to see what areas have most demand.

  WHAT MAKES A STRONG PILOT?

  When considering a pilot, aim to hit the following criteria:

  Tie experiments to the Plant stage: How many touch points does it have to your strengths, career portfolio, and one-year vision?

  Start small: How can you pilot in a low-cost way in terms of money, energy, and time?

  Tip the risk scales in your favor: What small experiments would have the most potential upside with limited downside?

  Let’s take a closer look at each of these.

  Tie Experiments to Your Strengths

  If you are at a career fork in the road, you need to strategically determine which of several paths is most likely to lead in a successful direction. What would be the best investment of your time and energy?

  Recall what you discovered in the Plant stage. The best pilots are connected to your:

  Values: What is most important to you.

  Vision: What you are most excited about.

  Career portfolio: Your marketable skills, past experiences, results, and reputation; what is already working best.

  Finances: What fits with your budget and runway, and has future income potential and long-term viability.

  Existing network: The mentors, friends, mastermind groups, professional groups, clients, and current or former colleagues who can offer insight and support.

  A good pilot is connected to one of the above; a great pilot ties directly into all five.

  Choosing an experiment that is not anchored in your strengths, past experiences, or desired future state is likely to send you on a wild-goose chase. Some people trick themselves into thinking these types of experiments are a good idea—either because they should attempt them to adhere to social norms or because they have seen something work for others. Neither gives you a hook unless you actually have innate talent or interest in the same skills required to be successful on that path.

  Christian Roberts and Bill Connolly are improv comedians who formed a monthly comedy showcase in New York City called Angry Landlord. On their third show, they hit a major dip: only eight people showed up. They were embarrassed about having to pay the theater money to make up for the losses, and disappointed that they let down the other comedians they invited to perform with them that night.

  Christian and Bill went back to the drawing board and revisited what had been working for them: networking with other comedians who had also developed followings, and reinvesting in their own brand building and social media channels. They set up a Facebook page to expand their platform and become discoverable, and started experimenting with social media advertising when they had open seats to fill.

  Beyond piloting within Angry Landlord—trying new formats to attract an audience—the showcase itself is a pilot anchored in their strengths and interests. Angry Landlord is a side project, as both of the founders have other full-time jobs. Bill works at a visual marketing company, where he also teaches improv workshops to business audiences, based on his first book, Funny Business. Christian is pursuing a career in acting while working as a server. Both are applying and developing their strengths—their love of people, writing, and making others laugh—even when not working on Angry Landlord.

  The next Angry Landlord pilots will focus on expanding to a bigger venue, posting short sketch videos on YouTube, and continuing to network, collaborate with, and invite other comedians to perform with them. It is a constant evolution. After the empty audience experience, by returning to the anchors of what excites them most and what works best with their audiences, Christian and Bill have sold out almost every show since.

  Start Small with Lean Pilots

  In keeping with Eric Ries’s MVP (minimum viable product) concept, I recommend taking a lean approach to piloting bigger career changes. A lean pilot is one that does not cost a tremendous amount of time, money, or energy. They are small tests to help you determine if you enjoy this area, have the skills to succeed and differentiate yourself within it, and have the potential to earn income (or any other top priority value). How can you experiment with 10 to 20 percent of your free time, without having to bet the farm on your next direction?

  Lean Versus High-Risk Pilots

  Here are a few examples:

  Visit bit.ly/2aZBnBL for a larger version of this image.

  My friend Ryan White—not his real name (you will see why in a moment)—
is an agile business consultant for Fortune 100 companies. Ryan had an interest in creating a Beginner’s Bondage course for couples interested in safe “knot play.” The book and movie Fifty Shades of Grey propagated myths that he wanted to clear up after years of teaching private workshops.

  Rather than quit his job and bank everything on this course—including his reputation—he set up a series of pilots. He created a free guide under the pseudonym Ryan White, and a landing page that would allow him to advertise the program with Google AdWords to see if there was genuine interest in this topic. He did not sink tens of thousands of dollars into creating a complex website, a full brand identity, and an entire book or video series. Instead, he piloted by creating a simple guide in a few months, one that he could build from if time and consumer interest allowed.

  In an e-mail to friends, Ryan laid out his process: first he would set up a landing page that collected e-mail addresses in exchange for a free PDF of “Tips and Tools for Beginner’s Bondage.” The PDF included a call to action that would drive traffic to a Facebook group. If things went well with the free PDF and Facebook group, he would write a longer e-book to self-publish and offer on Amazon. If that succeeded, he would create an online course expanding on the e-book.