Don't be afraid to pivot (and don't believe you can't)

With the economy in free-fall, it's easy to feel flat and start wondering if you'll ever get going again after Coronavirus, or if you might have to change what you do. If you have to do something different and adapt, embrace that!

[Fair warning: this is a long post]

OK, I'm going to let you into a secret - but you must promise not to tell anyone: I started out as an apprentice electrician, eventually qualifying after four years.

Why's that a secret? Certainly not because I'm in any way embarrassed by it, far from it - I think apprenticeships are great. It's just that as soon as people learn you have this skill, they start asking you if you can 'pop round at the weekend and fit a new light in the loft' 😂

Half way through my apprenticeship, I knew it wasn't for me, so I put myself through two years of night school and earned a HNC in Business and Finance. I began to pivot away from my original career path to something else...

I'd always had an entrepreneurial spark, and knew from an early age that I would one day like to have my own business.

Just as I finished my apprenticeship, I was selected to undertake a fast-track management development programme with my employer instead of staying 'on the tools'. The pivot continued. I also went back to night school and studied for my Advanced Certificate and Diploma in marketing with the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Marketing and (to a slightly lesser extent) PR became a real passion, and I put it to good use as I moved around various parts of my employer's business on my management training.

I finished that 6 months early aged just twenty-one-and-a-half and was appointed to run a small business unit with a turnover of around £1m year and one member of staff plus myself.

Now, at this point, I had an opportunity to go and work with a very well known PR and marketing agency in Cheshire, which I was really interested in, but I chose to stay put and develop my career in industry instead.

I grew that small business unit to a turnover of £1.5m turnover within a year by expanding the range of products it sold, by entering new markets and by creating a sales force of self-employed associates. Classic marketing stuff.

Then my employer was bought-out and became part of a massive combined business. Opportunities where I was for the sort of progression I was hungry for had declined before that, and so I was delighted by the merger because it opened a new and much larger internal jobs market.

Not long after, I saw a job advertised elsewhere in the wider group for a sales and marketing manager in a business unit I knew nothing about. I applied anyway and got the job, providing maternity cover.

It was another pivot because this business unit was involved in waste management, specifically the provision of a service for treating food wastes and other organic materials using biological methods as an alternative to landfill and chemical treatment.

It was utterly fascinating and I disappeared down a waste, environmental and sustainability rabbit hole that saw me work for a variety of businesses in the sector before setting up my own in 2002 offering a version of waste management that was hitherto largely unheard of: prevention-led outsourced waste management (less time spent focusing on maximising recycling and more time spent helping businesses avoid waste in the first place).

We enjoyed a reasonable degree of success. In this context, I found myself drawn inexorably back to my roots in communicating, this time engaging stakeholders in change (imagine you're implementing a waste minimisation project in a manufacturing business with over 400 employees - it doesn't work if you don't get their buy-in, and that kind of stakeholder engagement became a big part of my focus).

I twice had the opportunity to sell to a US firm that entered the UK market (once in 2004 and again in 2005) both of which I passed-up on. Had I accepted the second time, I'd have walked away with several million in the bank, but I stupidly turned it down thinking that I could get more by waiting a few more years because I'd seen peers the same age and in the same sector do it - but it never happened 😐

Anyway, we grew and grew, but hit a plateau soon after the 2008 financial crash. Then the market for what we did started to change in around 2011/12, after which our sales cycle lengthened to about a year (for a decent project), margins dwindled and yet the amount of effort required to deliver what we did seemed to increase.

So we pivoted and started to offer more of a consultancy service, and with greater focus on sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Then we met Cuadrilla, the shale gas explorer. We approached it with a plan to source industrial wastewater as more sustainable alternative to tap water for use in the fluid it injected into the shale rock during the 'fracking' process. It passed on the opportunity, preferring to use mains water because it wanted complete control over the composition of the fracking fluid and was concerned that wastewaters might be too variable and risk introducing substances to its wells that it would rather weren't there.

But it birthed a very close relationship that existed up until November 2019 when the Government slapped a moratorium on fracking.

Along the way, we helped Cuadrilla figure out how to safely treat its fracking waste and applied for some of the environmental permits it needed. But at some point, we segued into communicating about the true (manageable) risks and tremendous advantages it heralded in terms of energy security, the economy and local jobs.

It re-ignited my earlier passion for marketing and PR, and gave me a unique opportunity to practice and develop my skills in a wholly different world: communicating in a controversy.

We grasped it as a business and pivoted again, moving away from our waste, environmental and sustainability background to focus entirely on stakeholder engagement and related communications services to businesses bringing forward plans for critical-yet-controversial infrastructure developments.

For me personally, it felt like I'd gone full circle, back to where I started out.

That was 2017, and saw us rebrand from Remsol to 52M Consulting in perhaps our biggest pivot yet.

At the end of 2019, we pivoted slightly again - broadening our horizons and offering our communications, PR and marketing solutions to a wider audience than just those businesses in controversial sectors. Why? For several reasons, but amongst them was the fact we'd all become fed-up with how emotionally draining it is engaging with people that are implacably opposed to what your clients are doing. Maintaining a healthy work:life balance is hard enough as it is, but add-in the fact that you're mostly getting shouted at or attacked on social media for a living and, eventually, you find it gets too much.

Just as our efforts at branching-out were starting to bear fruit, along came Coronavirus and wiped-out a significant chunk of our revenues. The timing couldn't have been worse!

But you know what? I'm pretty sanguine about it all.

And the reason is because, as you can see, I have pivoted several times over the years. My motto has become 'et movere ad aptet' - adapt and move on. If you find that what you're doing isn't working for you anymore, or conditions have changed and become intolerable, or you're not enjoying what you do, don't be afraid to change direction. It is possible. Yes, it takes effort and commitment, but don't let a fear of failure or a lack of self belief stop you trying.

Examine your skills and think about how and where you can apply them differently. My natural skills lie in problem solving, strategy, looking at processes (and instantly being able to see where they're broken and could be improved) and in communicating. Take a look at my LinkedIn recommendations to get a feel for what other people see in me.

I'm not overly worried about the Coronavirus slowdown because I'm adaptable and I know that my skills can be used in a range of settings and that I can always find a creative way to make the most of them and engineer opportunities for myself.

If I can do it for this long (I left school and started work 30 years ago this year!) and pivot / change direction as many times as I have, anyone can do it.

Trust me. But more importantly, trust yourself.

And if you've got stories of your own pivots, please share them in the comments - you might inspire or reassure someone that anything is possible!

Thanks for reading.

PS - no, I can't come and put some new 13 amp sockets in the garage for you this weekend 😂