How to Deal With Changes (Sharing How I Live Through Them)

Today, I want to talk about changes you know, it's always so scary whenever talk about changes. Like every time a company changes their logo or when social media platform changes their layout, everyone gets so mad. So I think it's just inside our human body that we are kind of afraid of changes. And in my case, right, I just went through a major rebrand from the Public Lab to Small School. And that also means that I have to reposition myself in terms of what I am offering. I was mostly focusing on teaching Build in Public back then, but now I am focusing on helping creator educators, you know, build and run their businesses.

In this episode, I want to talk through how I am feeling making such big change in my knowledge business because it is scary, but I think it's bound to happen to me, to you, to everyone around us. So the first question I want to ask myself is, was the pivot worth it?

Thinking back, I think when I was planning for it, it was totally worth it because I need a new direction so that I have a new focus. And then I have a new mission, which is a lot bigger, and a lot more inspiring to work on. But then when I was actually working on the rebranding, I wasn't feeling worth it because that was a lot of work. Like I had to redo the website. I had to rewrite all the email sequences. I had to redo all my social media profiles. Everything had to change and it took me like a good six weeks and I still have a lot of leftovers. So it wasn't worth it when I was actually in the process.

But I mean, now that I've launched a new brand and I am, you know, sorting out all the leftover, it felt great. It felt I reclarified my mission and now I have that new energy to keep going. Then here comes the second question. Could I have avoided the pivot? I honestly don't think so because, you know, this is why I want to record this episode. I only got to figure out this new direction after I had that first direction for three to four years. It's sort of like you have to be a newborn before you become a toddler before you become a child and a teenager.

It almost feels like this is the right way to build business because If you're new to sharing and selling your knowledge online, like, me, back in 2020, it's impossible for you to start off building a school covering multiple topics.Well, one, you don't have the edge. Second of all, you haven't niched out enough so that, you know, you're a bit more different from everyone out there. And honestly, I think I did the right thing.

Back then, I don't know if you know the story, but I was starting to write online. I was nobody, I had no audience. So I spotted this trend about building in public. A lot of people were talking about it, but no one was actually creating resources and actually teaching it. So I spotted it. And captured and the rest is history. Like I suddenly became the spokesperson for this topic. I start to have a personal brand. People started listening to me because I am that expert on a topic and everything started to grow and then now after like three to four years, I have this new direction.

All of that becomes like really strong foundation to help me path this new direction. But if you think about it without that base I would not be able to do what I do today because no one would listen to me. But now, like, let's say my email list, I have 3, 700 people on the list. Wow, that's honestly a lot of people paying attention to my new direction. So that's gonna change the whole game. And I almost feel like if you don't have a major pivot three to four years in, after started building this knowledge business, I think that means you have been waiting for too long at the start, or you have been such a professional in some areas that you're slowing yourself down. So when I think about it this way, I think the pivot is necessary. It's inevitable and it's actually a good thing.

I think the key here is don't think about something that is too ahead in the future. When you're starting out, you have to figure out how do they get that traction so then you can at least achieve step one.

It's kind of like my two daughters. They're three years old and one year old, like super young. So if you ask me today what universities they will be going to, I have no idea. And I think it's fair to say I have no idea and it doesn't mean I'm a bad parent it just means that we should be focusing on their kindergarten, and the primary school and the high school all that first. And it doesn't mean we don't even think about that, you know, future in 20 years. Of course, we need to have some kind of vision and maybe a slight idea of the direction. But we won't be putting too much effort and time into just thinking about that because we need to tackle the things in front of us first and if you are listening to this and you are a young parent, you would know that like most your time is spent carrying the kids taking care of the kids tidying up their toys Oh my god, you tidy up and then they make a mess again. It's crazy.

So all in all I wouldn't try to avoid a pivot. It is very important that you have pivots. It means that you are actually reflecting and heading down the right direction. It's almost like when you're driving a car, it's impossible not to change lanes. So we shouldn't be afraid of change. But one note about, making a pivot in the knowledge space is that.

I don't think you should make drastic pivots. Like if you're changing your topic and changing your target audience, it means that you're starting over from ground zero. And I think that's just so sad because you have worked so hard to build this up. You should be compounding your effort, your, output, and your investment. So my recommendation is always small and adjacent pivots. Don't make drastic pivots.

Now, maybe we should talk a little bit about what's happening at Small School. So we actually just released part one of our new product, Momentum Marketing Mastery It's a book to walk you through the steps to engineer a buzzing launch for your info products. So you don't just work hard right before your launch and suddenly put out this message to the people. that's not going to work. You need to have a system when you're launching products and it's really hard when you have limited resources.

So the book will actually walk you through the three stages from pre pre-launch which is when you're actually building the product; how do you kick off momentum? At that point, and then we move into the pre-launch phase where you're gearing up your testimonials, your gang, your community, and your credentials. And then finally moving into stage three, which is the launch and the post-launch where you can still, you know, double down on your momentum. So part two of this program, the book will be released very soon. And the thing is the price will go up each time we release a new part until we release the final part three, then the price will be So if you're listening to this and you feel like, Hey, I need to have better momentum for my next info product launch, then you should go to smallschool.is and you should find momentum marketing mastery and take a look to see if it can help you.

So after being a parent, started to think a lot about how parents are really good at certain things. For example, changes. Because we actually live with changes day and night. Like the kid is growing up so fast literally, they don't know how to do one thing today let's say crawling or walking, and then the next day They suddenly stand up and you're just impressed by the development of a tiny human being. So, if you are a parent listening to this, do you agree with this? So now, I will say goodbye to you for this episode. I'll see you next time my friend.

Broc and roll!