PIVOTING or REBRANDING?! Should You? + What to Do!

Hey Sis!

Today I am giving you the inside scoop on my own re-branding process! And, I’m here to help YOU navigate PIVOTING or REBRANDING, and figure out which is right for you. If you’ve been wondering if your brand is ready for a re-fresh, or maybe a whole new angle – this chat is for you!

In today’s episode you will learn:

What it’s like to rebrand or pivot.

How to know if it’s time to make a change.

What to expect when you leap on your new brand.

How to share the news with your community.

How to get over your fears about what people will think!

Enjoy! Love and God’s light.

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:

(00:00):

Hey, sweet friends today. We are chatting about, if you are thinking about pivoting in your brand podcast or business, or considering a rebrand, dun dun dun, how to know if it’s time to pivot time to make some changes, time to spruce up all the things. And if yes, what to do, because I know as in, I literally know how overwhelming that decision is and the process. So we’re going to go through it today. I hope you enjoy.

(00:30):

Hey, my name is Lydia, and I just want to say congratulations to you, Stef for your rebrand, for continuing to push yourself and to continue to pay attention to what God’s telling you to do and where to take your business.

I just started my own podcast after listening to yours and finding yours last summer while painting my boy’s bedroom, literally sitting down in the middle of July in Texas, in this sweltering heat with goosebumps all over the Holy ghost, goosebumps, that your message gave me to motivate me and encouraged me to start my own. And I finally did that last month and I keep listening and I’m excited for what you’re doing.

(01:09):

God’s doing through you in other women’s lives. You’ve got girl friends! Real quick, if you’ve been stuck on what you were created to do, and you want to partner your spiritual gifts with your calling, come on, girl, join me in clarify your colleague. That is the number one step into having my exact business model. You must have clarity to do the things you must know who you are meant to serve. You must have those sticky.

(02:38):

Tacticals like a title, a tagline, a description pillars, content, know what you’re going to do in the world so that you can begin to walk in it. Woo. Woo. All right. Clarifyyourcallingcourse.com. Number two, you want to start a podcast? Just like Lydia, just like me and you want to grow an audience authentically evergreen without using ads, fun, paid funnels, fancy stuff, evergreen webinars.

Like any of that that makes you literally cringe. Guess what? You can sit behind a mic and talk and share and inspire and teach and, and make money and grow an audience. It’s crazy. podcastprouniversity.com.

(03:20):

And number three, you’re ready to monetize your show. I want you to go to podcasttoprofitmastermind.com. Get your application in. We have a few spots left for the April 30th class. That is for those of you who have a podcast, but you want to grow the show. You want to scale the show and you want to do it like legit. Do it legit.

(03:43):

You want to go all the way up?

(03:47):

All right, let’s go. Let’s talk about today’s topic. So you’re thinking about pivoting or rebranding, or maybe even totally starting a brand new thing. I want to talk to you about that today because as you know we just, I just went through a rebrand of the podcast. So I want to start by asking you some questions so that you can analyze. Should you pivot, should you make a change in your business? The first question I want to ask you is have you prayed?

(04:17):

Because I know sometimes we’re feeling unsettled as far as what we should do and how we should do it, but it all comes back to, well, where does God want you? Where does he want me? I was feeling like this rebrand was coming probably for six months, roughly, but I hadn’t heard the go. I didn’t have God’s direction. And so I just stayed when I don’t have the go, then I prefer to hang out until I get that go.

(04:43):

Because if I move too soon, it’s me moving on my own authority instead of on God’s authority. So the number one thing is, have you prayed over the pivot, the rebrand, the redirection number two. Yeah. Do you not have clarity?

And that is why you’re feeling so confused and floaty and all over the place. A lot of times I see people come in to clarify your calling or they book a coaching session with me and they’re, they’re right there. It’s like, I think I’m right there. I’m in the right direction. This is what I love.

(05:19):

This is what I want to do. However, they don’t have the tacticals behind it. So they think they should start over or rebrand or pivot or add something else in. But in reality, they just need to niche in even further or find the common denominator between what they are doing and what they think they want to add. And it’s actually all one thing. I’m trying to think of an example. So let’s say that you run a detox, healthy home detox brand, but you’ve been getting super into your essential oils, MLM.

(05:53):

And you’re like, I love my oils, my oils, my oils, the business is exploding.

(05:58):

You’re like, I’m just going to totally rebrand the detox, healthy living brand into the oils brand. Well girl, like those things go together. It’s the same woman who wants to use essential oils that wants to detox her home and live non-toxic, she’s a crunchy ish or crunchy want to be mama. She can use the lemon oil as a cleaning oil. Like there are similarities in there. Okay. In contrast, I’ll take one of my students and also team members.

(06:25):

She won’t mind Renuka Cormier, who was doing a podcast for troubled teens and middle school children and helping those kids get organized and intentional. And she was a teacher. So that made perfect sense. And she was doing that and it was like not really working. It was like, Oh, like she felt like she was forcing it. She had the podcast, she had the courses and it wasn’t taking off.

(06:46):

And there was just something not quite right. So she was praying over that. She was really doing some inner work on what it was supposed to be. And then she heard the go from God that she was actually supposed to completely pivot, completely walk away from the first podcast in the first brand and start mama trauma, which is a podcast for daughters with narcissistic moms. And she’s doing the transition coaching, et cetera.

(07:13):

And that one exploded like 15,000 downloads. In a matter of months, the coaching is full. Like, so you as as much opposition as you may feel when you get that go, cause it’s like, ah, there’s so much to do here. Once you’re walking in it. And you’re in that alignment space, you’re like, this is what God wants for me. And I’m finally clear. I have clarity. I know what I’m doing.

(07:36):

I know who I’m serving. I know how I’m serving that person. You will feel the difference. There’s a shift in how things work for you. Okay. So like, if you look at my business prior and I was in the network marketing space that wasn’t operating in the flow for me, like I was really stressed. It wasn’t passive. It wasn’t scalable for me. I was the law of the lid. It wasn’t healthy for me. It was the wrong vessel for me.

(08:03):

Just all the things like, like some of it was right, but most of it was wrong. So then when I, when I moved into this coaching space in this online marketing space and then partnered it with, with God and started the show and all the things like the flood Gates opened, they opened, they blew open, like the lid burst off and it was like, this is it.

(08:21):

Like, you know, this is it. So if you don’t know, you’re like, ah, I’m not sure this is exactly right. How do I make sure that this is the thing? Should I blend something else with it? Should I niche down? You got to start with clarity and I would recommend clarifyyourcallingcourse.com because that’s exactly what it does. It takes your gifts, your calling work, your life experiences, your victories, your experiences.

(08:47):

I think I already said that your strengths, your passions, and I give you my formulas for crafting specific outcomes. There’s journaling, there’s power coaching that you get to watch for when we ran this program live. So you can put it into your own life, into your own practice for you and your homework. And it gets you the clarity of your common denominators, your titles, your taglines, your avatars, your content pillars, your actual content.

(09:12):

You’re going to create and gives you a roadmap. Because I think a lot often, maybe you’re not being called to pivot rebrand, start over. You’re actually just being called to narrow in niche and stop looking at it from a perspective of me, what’s in it for me, what should I create? What should I make? Like, how do I make money here? But a perspective of her, why are you doing it for who are you doing it for?

(09:33):

And why are you doing it for her? Okay. So that’s number two. One is pray. Two is get absolute clarity. Do some inner work on that. Number three is to do some market research because the other problem that I see often with my students and my clients is that you love what you’re doing. You think you’re, you’re totally, totally in the, in the sphere of influence for you.

(09:55):

Everything is perfectly aligned, but it’s not growing or you’re not making profit on that course. And I think the third thing is you’re looking at it from your lens instead of from your avatar’s lens. So you’ve got to do market research to ask people, what do you actually want? What do you need? Where are you stuck? You have to get inside of your person’s brain, literally climb in their brain.

(10:21):

Okay. It’d be like, Hey, can we grab five minutes on the phone? Hey, market research in this group and this group and this group start asking the questions because your brand may be right on point, but your messaging might be off. Okay. And if your messaging is off, you’re going to feel like it’s not working. But the problem is not that it’s not working. It’s that it’s not landing. It’s not triggering people’s hearts to take action.

(10:45):

You’re not using the right verbiage. That’s connecting with your Lola. So that’s number three is to get your messaging revamped. So once you have the yes from God, you’ve got the clarity on what you want to do. And then you’ve got this market research, you know, am I staying, am I going to stay here where I’ve been at and just go hard?

(11:06):

Cause another thing y’all bonus situation, we’re gonna talk about real quick is that you’re not going to have the breakthrough right away. There is grit, tears, effort, work, hustle, consistency, discipline, dedication. You’ve got to work. No, but nobody gets to skip chapter one. Nobody gets to skip the hard part, the gritty part, the awkward beginning.

Nobody gets to skip that. So if that’s the problem, well girl, you’re going to have to get over that. You’re going to have to do this work in order to see the fruit fruit is created in the Valley.

(11:37):

Fruit is created in the Valley, not on the mountain tops. Okay? So you got to do the work. However, however, so if that’s you, you just put your head down, stay focused, stay consistent, use the messaging of your person and you give value. Like you have never given value in your entire life. And if you don’t have a long form content, that is why you’re not growing an audience. Huge spoiler, huge spoiler.

(12:01):

So you got to have a podcast or a YouTube or a blog. You have to have some way to bless people for free too many voices online. Nobody’s just going to buy with you when they don’t know you. It’s just not that way anymore. Sorry. Add specialists. Like it’s just not the way it works. Sure. If you’ve got a Millie to drop on ads, however, most of us over here, we’re like you girl don’t even got a nanny.

(12:28):

So I’m going to have to figure out how to do this without dropping thousands or whatever amounts of money every month. And that is podcasting. It’s long form content, just like this free, totally free. This free stuff is what makes you money. All right. So the other problem is maybe not the pivot. It’s that? Do you have the right things in place to bring an audience in? And obviously my favorite is podcasting. Do you want to drop?

(12:57):

You want to start a podcast? You know, what’s up? Okay. Wink, wink. Now let’s say all of those three things though are a go. And you’re like, I am pivoting. Woo I’m rebranding. I’m pivoting. I’m going to start over. Which is exactly what happened for me in the show. You guys have already heard that story on the episode that I dropped welcome and Stefanie Gass show, which is two 65.

(13:21):

But just to recap, I mean, I heard the go from God. I was praying deeply over this. I was really in the scripture trying to hear what I should do. Wait. Pray. Trust. If any of you know me, you know, that waiting is not my favorite thing. I am not a waiter. I’m a doer. So it was very awkward to wait. But I did.

(13:45):

I finally got that go from God. I got the colors. Like I told you, like it was all extraordinarily clear. So once I had that, I definitely knew what my Lola wanted and needed. I know you guys extraordinarily well. And then I also knew that I could blend the content from the mompreneur mastermind show was not going to change. It was literally just a name change.

(14:05):

Yeah. Haha. But the rebrand was far wide and ever-growing Allie jokes with me. We have a running list in a shared Apple iPhone notes. She’s like, what should we check off of our never ending ever-growing list today? And I’m like, God, sorry girl. Cause like I have a massive brand. I’m like, oops, we have a teachable store. Oops. I need a new banner for this. I have this little course I forgot about,

(14:32):

I have a YouTube channel loops. So we’re going to need banners for that. We have to build an entirely new website. Oh I have opt-ins I need new graphics. Like there is so much, so much to do. But instead of focusing on that, so now we’re, we’re moving into what I want to say to you about when the answer’s yes. What to do. Okay. Because you’re going to feel really overwhelmed.

(14:54):

Like, Oh man, there’s so much to do. I don’t even know where to start and I guess I’ll just stay where I’m at. Well, let me tell you a little secret. It’s better to rip off the band-aid and do it now. Do it early. Do it right from the beginning or at least I’m not saying wait until things are perfect. But I’m saying, if you go, go ahead and go with what you got. Okay. Go, go with what you got. But when it’s time you’ve got the goal.

(15:23):

You got the resources, you have the support. You’re ready. Just do it. It’s not, there’s never a good time to go through a rebrand. There’s never a good time to pivot. You’re going to go, Oh no, I already have a podcast. I already have 50 reviews. Well girl, you know, get it. Okay. God’s going to bless you with the people who are gonna be, you meant to listen to you, work with you, hire you.

(15:42):

He is not going to push into a new direction without making it sure that the, the way is paved for you. You have to step out in faith. I totally freaked out like, Oh man, I’m going to throw away this brand. I built this over three years. This is going to be bad. Nobody’s going to recognize me. Cause the colors will be different. And I’m like, but you know what? This is from God.

(16:07):

So he’s going to make sure that it is works. Whatever that means. I don’t even know what that means, but whatever that is, it means to God like this is his business. This is his podcast. This is his rebrand. These are his, his colors. He’s going to make sure that it’s going to be great. And so went ahead and did it ripped off the band-aid no gray day to do that.

(16:25):

Those things, ladies, any meeny, miny, Moe let’s go. And what happened largest download day ever of all time, past 400 reviews on the pod, past 400,000 downloads on the show all the glory to God be the glory and all of it came from just going, doing the thing is everything perfect. Absolutely not. We haven’t even stopped the website.

(16:51):

I’m going to have to rerecord so much of all of my courses because my new branding is way too beautiful to not have in my courses. So y’all get ready. You probably have 2.0, come in at some point this year. Cause I want my beautiful branding in all of my products, X. So it’s going to be a lot of work, but I’m here for that. Not afraid of work, of staying stuck. I’m afraid of some looking at something and it not lighting me up.

(17:16):

I’m afraid of I’m afraid of fear or like staying in fear that that’s not for me. That’s not a game I’m going to play. I’m going big. I’m going to stretch myself, push myself, get uncomfortable, stay hungry. And I’m here for God to use me. And that is never comfortable. It’s just not going to be comfy. Okay. Loves. So when you’re at this point, what I want you to do is make a list. Even though I am not super detail oriented, I forced myself to make a list.

(17:48):

You build this list in mindmeister.com. Use the free version. You can just use a piece of paper or you can use Excel for this one. I just actually created a piece of paper. I don’t know why. And I just started with every single thing I could think of that needed to happen. And it started with this podcast because that was the first thing.

(18:06):

That was the only thing I’m like, let’s just rebrand the show. Haha. So we started here and I wrote down, okay, podcasts, art description, the title of the show, the intro, the intro music, the exit, the exit music, the exit recording. I put every single thing on my list for step one. So that was like, if I was to rebrand this show from a to Z, what is every step that would need to happen, wrote it all down.

(18:37):

Then next to that, I put an a for stuff that my graphic designer was going to do and an S for stuff that I was going to do. Great. Phase two, gotta move over here. I have a rebranding of all logos. So that was step two, rebranding logos. Actually the first step was picking colors and that was a whole thing in and of itself.

(18:56):

Right guys. So we picked the colors. So you get what I’m saying though. You go pro mini project by mini project, and then you break that mini project down into tactical step by step. It wasn’t an order and it was ugly. My list was ugly, but I could just keep jotting it down, keep writing stuff. And then as we would do something, I check it off the list later. Allie moved us to a shared Apple note because we’re working together.

(19:24):

If you’re doing all of this on your own, do whatever. If you have a team working with you on this or you’ve hired help, you guys could do a sauna to share tasks. You could do a shared iPhone note. We also added Voxer so that we could communicate really easily using voice texting instead of through email or something crazy. So the list breaking it down into mini sections, delegation, if necessary, checking that list off.

(19:52):

And then here is the biggest takeaway I have for you. It does not need to be perfect. You just have to get started. So we didn’t wait to relaunch the podcast until the website’s done because that’s going to be like forever, not forever, probably 30 days or something, but I didn’t want to wait. The courses. All of the branding is not updated inside the courses.

(20:15):

That’s going to be an evolution of probably a year to be honest, because I have to rerecord everything. That’s going to be a lot. I’m here for it. So it’s like one thing at a time, one day at a time. And when you take on a big rebrand or a big pivot or, or whatever, like that’s going to be a long term project. And instead of stressing out about it all being done in perfect, I’m like, let’s just launch each thing as it’s finished.

(20:46):

Plus how fun for you all to come on the journey with me and see as we launch stuff as we update stuff and it’s just super fun and encouraging, I think for you to know what it really takes to do something of that magnitude. So there you go. Those are my tips, tricks and questions for you on how to know if you should pivot niche down, expand and rebrand or all of the above.

(21:13):

It is definitely a lot of work, but it is super work. Especially if you get that confirmation that Holy spirit spur, because then you know, you’re really starting to do what you’re called to do. And I think that clarity is an evolution loves like you don’t just wake up and say, this is exactly it. I’m in exactly the right place. I’m going to, I’m operating in exactly the perfect sphere.

(21:37):

Like it’s taken me nine years to, to really know what I’m doing. Let me sit on that for a minute. And that wasn’t the let’s full-time entrepreneurship nine years guys, nine years. So whatever I’m here for it, like that’s the whole point of life on earth is exploring your purpose. Partnering with God in deeper ways. Seeking Him. Hearing from Him. Pulling Him into your business, your motherhood, marriages. It is walking out the faith.

(22:08):

When you don’t know the outcome, it’s obedience over fear. It’s faith. Over fear. It’s discipline over fear to joy over fear. It’s making intentional choices every day to just do it a little better, go a little bigger, try a little harder, do it right the next time. But just try the first time. Even if you fail, even if you mess up, staying stuck is never an option.

(22:32):

Staying scared is never an option. The only thing way to conquer fear is to hand it to God armor up in the armor of God and take audacious action. Because when you take action, you smash the fear because you’ll, I see that you can, that you are are equipped. You are qualified, you are ready, you are here and that you can always fix and spruce things up later ground that y’all need to go look at. My first podcast are, I’ve had four.

(22:59):

I’ve had four channel arts now and they’ve progressively gotten better and better. I’m two years in almost two and a half years into PI casting. So grace, babe, like you’re not going to have this all figured out. I pray every analysis. I just pray that wherever you sit thinking about a pivot, thinking about a rebrand or a niche or whatever that thing is that God would give you that clarity, that direction, that he would intercede into your thoughts and replace them with his, that he would give you divine direction on what you’re supposed to do.

(23:31):

I pray for your patients. You’re waiting and your I trust in him that he will show you that you don’t have to worry that the answer is coming sweet friend. And we are full of things, patients and excited anticipation of what God is going do over our brands, our lives, the pivot, the podcast, the things, and that he will make sure that when you wait for that answer, you are prepared. You are ready for the harvest. And that right now he is planting.

(23:58):

He is planting and weeding. He is tilling the seeds in your garden so that you can blossom when the time is right. Sweet friend. I pray that God is with you, that you are full of purpose, excitement, and God-sized confidence as you step out in faith on whatever it is that he is calling you to do in Jesus name. Amen. Love and God’s light.