Ep. 1: How to pivot your online business

Authentic Online Marketing with Ruthie Gray

If you've grappled with how to pivot your online business, today's show is for you! How many times have you pivoted? I've done it a bunch. In fact, I just did it again. Not really pivoted my business per se, but renamed the podcast, just to give you a broader view of the inner workings and outer workings of Instagram. Click below for show notes https://ruthiegray.mom/how-to-pivot-your-online-business/ Reels Crash Course https://christianbloggerscreentimeboundaries.teachable.com/p/reels-training/ How to Pivot Your Online Business So let me start at the beginning. About a million years ago, I started in blogging. Real talk here. Probably about 12 years ago, I sensed that it was time to write and I felt something inside of me, stirring. I'd been writing my whole life! I used to have a guest column, a parenting book, and in our local newspaper. I've done different things with writing through the years, but my kids were leaving home and I was thrust into the caregiving scene, pretty hot and heavy. You may have heard that. So I had all these feelings inside. I wanted to start putting them on paper-- actually PC. I started a blog on Blogspot. My first blog, actually, even before Blogspot, was on wordpress.com and it was my triathlon adventures, then it was my mountain biking adventures, and then it was about running. I used to be a personal trainer. I'm not that anymore, but I do know the basics. I'm writing now! So the first blog I had was called Live, Laugh, Love. There I’d tell stories about my family, what we did, road trips, things like that. My friends and family, they were amused. It was funny because there was always something going on in our house because I'm married to the guy who does everything. I also have a few kids who do everything. I have four kids, two grandkids, and three in-laws I call my own. Our family has grown a lot since then. Anyway, I realized that probably if anyone else outside of our family was going to read this, I’d need to write something more relatable. So I started a cooking blog which was fun but a lot of work. I decided to start a Wordpress.org blog called Rear Release Regroup because that was the time of life I was in. I wanted to mentor younger moms to prepare them for the future. I've been mentoring moms for years, giving advice on child-rearing and so forth, just from things that I've learned along the way. The Lord has walked me through different parenting seasons, from toddler age to teens and now young adulthood and letting kids go. That is a real passion of mine, still! I wrote on that blog for five or six years really religiously. Then, I started a Facebook group centered around motherhood anger and frustration. I built that up and I wrote a couple of books which you can still get on Amazon. Count to Nine, Nine Liberating Steps for Mom Frustration and Anger. Then, I wrote another book about the eight mindsets for the mom who feels like she's failing. I enjoyed it, but I needed to be paid for the amount of hours that I was spending online. I also got a big nudge from my husband who said, “It's okay if you're paid for your work.” So, I had to do some thinking about this. How could I make this into a business that was still something I enjoyed? I wanted to continue to write and still feel like I was contributing to society in a positive way and more importantly, glorifying Jesus. Reevaluating to pivot your online business As I did that, I started to reevaluate what I do and what I do well. Here's a tip for you: If you're wondering the same thing, listen to your peers. I've mentioned before that my peers were pointing out to me that I was doing a great job on Instagram. All I was doing was experimenting with what I was good at and I was really growing a community there effortlessly. After that, I decided maybe that was my superpower.