I still remember the exact moment Victoria and I finally admitted what we’d been avoiding for weeks: our business was in a death spiral.
We were sitting in our conference room, staring at numbers that made us physically sick. For a company used to 50 percent year-over-year growth, watching our pipeline shrink month after month felt like a slow-motion car crash we couldn’t stop.
Our first instinct? Blame the sales team.
We grilled them in meetings. Demanded more calls, more reports. We even tried to eavesdrop on their pitches to figure out what they were doing wrong.
Then we blamed the economy. Until we saw our competitors absolutely crushing it.
At our lowest point, our pipeline was a quarter of its usual size. That’s when we finally stopped pointing fingers and started asking the right questions.
Here’s what we learned about deciding when—and how—to pivot:
The warning signs your business has stalled:
You’re spending the most energy but seeing the least return. When your effort-to-impact ratio feels wildly off, that’s your first red flag. We were working harder than ever, but our numbers kept sliding.
You’ve heard the same feedback more than three times. At that point, it’s not anecdotal. It’s a pattern. The market is trying to tell you something.
Something feels harder to explain, sell, or scale. If you can’t explain it to customers, you won’t sell it. Period.
Your dashboard shows green, but your gut screams red. Victoria has this superpower—she can detect client dissatisfaction from a mile away based solely on the questions they ask on calls she’s not even on. When your gut hesitates, it’s time to zoom out and reassess.
What we did when we finally faced the truth:
First, we stopped blaming. Victoria’s dad used to say, “The second you stop moving is the second you’re dead in the water.” The same goes for a failing strategy. Clinging to it doesn’t make it work better—it just delays the inevitable.
Second, we dug into the actual data. Not the vanity metrics. The real stuff.
Our original dashboard tracked pipeline value, but not the number of new business meetings—the actual fuel for future growth. Once we added an operating dashboard that tracked leading indicators, not just lagging results, the problem became glaringly obvious.
It wasn’t our close rate. It was the lack of new meetings.
Fewer first-time meetings meant fewer leads, a shrinking pipeline, and that death spiral we’d been trying to ignore.
The pivot framework that saved us:
We asked one simple question: “What can we do differently?”
Not “What can we do more of.” Not “How can we work harder.”
What. Can. We. Do. Differently.
We tested ten different thought leadership approaches. Explored more than forty SEO keywords. Launched countless new email campaigns. Restructured key sales team responsibilities.
We accepted that progress would follow a “two steps forward, one step back” pattern. At the end of every week, we doubled down on what showed promise and abandoned the losers.
The secret? We set bite-sized goals. Not “return to 50 percent growth.” Just “stop the freefall.” Then “level out.” Then “show one month of improvement.”
You’re not clawing your way back to the top in a single leap. You’re looking for proof the decline is slowing. Those small sparks of hope become your new fuel.
Here’s what most entrepreneurs get wrong:
They either overcorrect with massive, company-wide overhauls, or they make timid adjustments that change nothing.
We learned the hard way that neither extreme works. Beth wanted big, bold pivots. Victoria wanted slow and steady. The real win came when we found middle ground.
Sometimes you need a wrecking ball. Sometimes you need a tweak. Data tells you which one.
The real test of whether to pivot:
Can you answer yes to any of these?
- The same problem keeps showing up in different forms
- Your current approach requires more resources than results
- You’re avoiding the hard conversations about what’s not working
- Market conditions have shifted, but your strategy hasn’t
If yes, it’s time.
One more thing:
Pivoting isn’t failure. It’s survival.
Thirty-five percent of startups fail because they tackle problems that are interesting to solve rather than pivoting to serve actual market needs.
We’ve pivoted our plans, products, leadership, sales strategies—everything. We did it so often our team insisted we switch from annual to quarterly strategy updates. Apparently, our “real-time” pivots were starting to feel like whiplash.
But you know what? Tiffany’s started as a stationery store. The Gap was a record store that sold jeans in the back. Slack was a near-defunct gaming company.
Static isn’t in your playbook. And that’s exactly what sets you apart.
Your business stalling isn’t the problem. Refusing to admit it is.
PS. The pivot framework from Chapter 8 of Entrepreneur Like A Mother walks through the five-step process we used to turn around our six-month nosedive.
