3 Things you Need To Do in Order to Pivot your Business Featuring Jasmine Star

“Did I do the things I wanted to do? Did I live my purpose? Was I passionate?”

These are the questions Jasmine Star asked herself when the first sparks of an epiphany hit her. She was 25 years old, and she was having a midlife crisis. She didn't want to live her life as a lawyer. She wanted to do something bigger than the previously defined path for herself. 

Now, Jasmine's built an internationally recognized and award-winning photography business and founded, in my opinion, one of the best social media marketing memberships for business owners called Social Curators. Not only has she built a photography empire, but she is also a business strategist. She's been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, and the coolest podcast shows. So you know she's verified. Suppose you're a creative entrepreneur with family responsibilities, chronic health problems or even trying to figure what is happening next in your life or business. In that case, you'll want to take some notes. 

Jasmine sat down with me to chat not only about her story, but the importance of accepting the challenge to grow and helping the people we want to serve by pivoting. How? Jasmine did it in 3 ways! But first...

The Reckoning

"Jesus, take the wheel"

Just like Jasmine's epiphany, it all starts with a reckoning. A midlife crisis. Or at least that's how it should feel. When you're passionate, hungry, and know what you're doing, the dedication you make to your clients comes back tenfold. But what if you don't feel that way in your business? 

Jasmine had this epiphany before she even started her business. This reckoning hit her in law school; "I'm walking to class, and I just realized I hate it here. I hate myself. I hate where I am, I hate my situation." "Only after I've done a lot of heavy lifting and work to understand what I was doing to my mind, my body and my soul, I was like, I think my mom is going to die. How do I keep my life together?" With so much pressure in her life, she felt like she had zero time to break down. This triggered her epiphany. She made the time to open up to herself and with others in order to connect in a way that made her craft a new path to take that not only relieved the pressure but meant she could pursue a new passion. After you have your reckoning, these three to-dos to start pivoting your business come into play.

Pivots Take Time

"That pivot took about two and a half years."

Creating a pivot in your life takes time. From the moment you have your reckoning, the epiphany in finding what it is you want to do to the time you're ready to initiate takes a moment. Allow yourself to breathe, think and strategize. Just don't wait too long! 

For Jasmine, people saw a pivot that took a year behind closed doors. In reality, that pivot took two and a half years. Nevertheless, she saw the opportunity to grow and took the time she needed to curate her own definition of a creative entrepreneur. "It's somebody who's using or leveraging their creativity, whether or not they consider it to be a classical form of creativity. You might not be a painter, you might not be crocheting, but you are somebody who uses and leverages your ideas, thoughts, and creativity to monetize it."

After building her new mindset, she needed to take the time to get to know this new market of photography- who she was going to serve, understand them, and then find unique ways to showcase her value proposition. This is pivotal. Pun intended. You have to identify your passion, how you'll become an expert, who your target is, and find what will make you stand out from the rest in your industry. That cannot happen overnight! Pivoting takes time.

Start Promoting Your Pivot

"You've built up a personal brand from nothing. And I was like, "yes."

Time to share all your hard work with the world! You can't get your dream clients if you're not promoting yourself. Find ways to connect with your ideal community. Take the time to make sure your captions and photos depict your pivot clearly. You'll be surprised to see how much you can build a following by dedicating the time to show yourself how you started and why you're passionate about what you do. 

It'll only be a matter of time after dedicating time for engagement that your business will start coming up everywhere to your target audience. Not only for the follows, but for booking you! Everyone wants to connect, everyone wants to buy from someone they feel like they know and trust. So don't be afraid to promote it all on social, at networking events, or in any way that you see yourself promoting your business.

Good Vibes Only

"I must attract people into my orbit and I must repel people."

Mindset as a creative entrepreneur balancing your life, business, and recent pivot, you'll find that staying positive and true to yourself attracts like-minded people to you. That's key! Because you know what you don't have time for? Negativity. Some of it is unavoidable, but Jasmine started to notice certain mindsets when promoting her business and started to gain success. "People often project their doubt when somebody else is doing the thing that they want to do." Everybody wanted to serve everybody and be everything to everyone on social media. By doing that, they were not serving anyone specific and throwing posts to the wall, hoping they stick to someone. 

The negativity comes when those pivots and niches come into play for entrepreneurs. When Jasmine pivoted her business, she knew exactly who to throw to and made sure they made the catch. She stayed positive throughout, which engaged more positive like-minded people to her brand, eventually making her a force on social media. So much so that she's considered an expert and thus started another pivot, Social Curators. What goes around definitely comes back around.

At times, staying positive can be challenging. I've been there. After this podcast interview with Jasmine, she gave some strong inspiration with this story about her father. So take this and remember it for the next time you need to shift your mindset.

"I honestly, I think that the blessing of being raised by a fantastic immigrant dad is like, he would always tell his kids, if you don't want anybody to say anything about you, do nothing. Say nothing, be nothing. But if you believe that you've been called to leave an imprint on the world, you better speak up, and you better speak up loud."

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So has epiphany struck you yet? I can say that I've had multiple while chatting with Jasmine during our recording. All it takes is a spark to initiate pivoting your career. Don't sit too long contemplating when to share the pivot with the world though. Instead, harvest the good energy with like-minded people by promoting what your new focus is! There is no wrong way to pivot, just be passionate and know this focus is something you want to keep building on.