Is It Time for a Mini-Pivot?
We often hear the term ‘pivot’ in business. When things aren’t working out, we figure out how to make it work in a different way, whether that be changing business models or switching businesses. However, what about the mini-pivot? This is where you add a small change that helps the business scale up.
Brandon Bruce is the co-founder and COO of Cirrus Insight, an all-in-one sales productivity platform. Since launching in 2011, Cirrus has been listed as #41 on the Inc. 500 list. Brandon has grown Cirrus as a lightly-funded distributed company via scrappy tactics in the same industry as billion-dollar software companies and competitors. Find out more about his story and how those small pivots were key to his success.
Brandon started his company at a perfect time. When he and his partner created a product that integrated Gmail with Salesforce, both of these platforms were growing exponentially and now he and his team work with over 5,000 different organizations. He credits a big difference for their growth compared to others in the same space is that they got creative with the use of their bootstrapping methods to succeed. They were able to achieve a lot with a lot less and, through that, they were able to scale up more effectively.
A lot of people think pivots have to be a big shift or change but do not discount the mini-pivots at all. Brandon’s business model was simple, do you use Salesforce? Yes. Do you use Gmail? Yes. Well, then you’re our target market.
As their company grew, Brandon kept hearing from others who wanted their service but weren’t using Salesforce just yet or weren’t using Gmail. This caused Brandon and his team to do a mini-pivot to service those customers. With 7 years of feedback, Brandon has a good idea of what his customers want and how much they’re willing to pay for it. You don’t have to do a big pivot to improve your business and to scale up. There are lots of opportunities for mini-pivots and growth within your company.
Listen in to find out more about Brandon’s story and how small pivots were key to his success.
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Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher, host of the Scaling Up Business podcast and a leading business coach with a Gazelles. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).