The Commerce Club Podcast

S210: Is It Time To Pivot Your Business? It Is For Me! When one chapter ends another can begin

• Sophie Biggerstaff • Season 2 • Episode 10

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I’ve been MIA for a little while, here’s a little update as to what’s been going on over the past few months including challenges I’ve had in my personal life, the  impact that’s had on my wellbeing and mental health, and what’s coming next in my business.

When one chapter ends another can begin…

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Sophie (00:01)
Hello and welcome back to the Commerce Club podcast. This is my first episode in a couple of weeks because I have been a little bit MIA from podcasting and from my business because there has been so much happening in my life and I just can't do everything. Simply I have discovered that I am not actually a superhero and I can't do all the things I want to do in the time that I want to do them. So unfortunately...

this had to a step back, like my business and showing up for myself and my business had to take a step back. And I want to kind of explain what's been going on and how I'm going to be managing that going forward and what does the future look like for this podcast and for my businesses. So first thing, I've said it before, I've said it a few times over the past kind of six,

to nine months that this year has been a lot. There has been a lot happening. If you follow me on any social media, you will know that I kind of dip in and out, dip in and out of being able to show up because there has just been so much going on, so much happening in my personal life that I think obviously when you are running your own business, sometimes your personal and your business life kind of intertwine with each other, whether you mean for them to or not. And...

My personal life has just been a bit chaotic probably for the past at least I would say since April, May this year. Basically I owned a property in the UK and if you know me, if you have been listening for a while you will know that for the past three years I have been living nomadically so I haven't been living in that property. I've owned that property since 2019. I owned it with a friend, like me and my friend bought it.

together back in 2019 because at the time neither of us were in relationships and we wanted to live in London. So we found this amazing property, got a really good deal on it actually back then and everything was great like until I decided I didn't want to live there anymore. Now naturally I was able to rent out my room which was perfect, we had a tenant in there and then my housemate who's the co-owner continued to stay there. Now that was fine for like two years of me traveling but in the past year

naturally since the pandemic and the cost of living crisis all of that interest rates on mortgages have gone through the roof so we were on like a one point something percent interest rate and then it went up to like almost seven percent at one point because our mortgage ran out and we didn't want to go back on to a fixed rate mortgage because we knew at some point in the next few years we were going to sell so we went on to a variable rate mortgage and obviously we were paying like extra

extraordinary fees on our mortgage which was ridiculous. So the rent that the tenant was paying me wasn't actually covering all of my bills so I was having to pay extra for that. Plus all of our bills pretty much doubled. I did a tracker and I was looking over a period of time, over the years that we've had the property to see how the bills have evolved and it's crazy, the amount of money that it's gone up by.

So basically it got to a point at the beginning of this year, not to mention the fact that both of our lives are completely different to when we bought it six years ago, that we decided we were going to sell the property. In my head, I was very naive and I was like, it's only going to be as stressful as we make it. Like, it's fine. At the time I was spending most of my time in Latin America. And so my housemate that was here on the ground in the UK was doing all of the negotiations with like the...

estate agents and sorting that all the side out and then my job was going to be later on when it's sold I'll do all the legal stuff. So he was navigating all of that. We were doing viewings. It went on the market in March and it pretty much sold within two weeks. So by the beginning of April we had an offer on the property. Anyway, the property actually had a few offers and we accepted one that was kind of like in the middle and it was almost 20 grand, 15 to 20 grand over.

asking price so it was perfect. We actually had one that was like almost 25 grand over the asking price but we didn't go for that one because her circumstances weren't that great. So we went for the middle offer and we accepted everything was going fine, they'd booked in their survey. The survey, they couldn't do the survey for like a month or two, something like that. So literally it gets to like days before the survey, this is in May, so bearing in mind they put the offer in beginning of April, we accepted it within like a week.

They've then got about five weeks into the process, so we're now in May, like mid to end of May, and they just randomly decide actually this isn't the property for them, they're not gonna buy it, they're not even gonna go through the survey. So we were like, god, we've got to literally start this whole process again, that's three months that we've just lost with going through, setting everything up with this estate agent and then going through this process and accepting the offer, blah, blah.

we've lost three months basically. Like bearing in mind, we wanted things to go through quite quickly because, you know, we were chain free sellers. So we were accepting chain free buyers so that things would go through. So in theory, if that had all gone through, it should have all completed in like July, Max, August. So I was living in Costa Rica and I actually booked a flight home from Costa Rica because I thought it was all gonna go through. And literally the day after,

I booked my flight home, that's when it fell through and I was like, my god, like, okay, the universe is sending me back to Europe for whatever reason, okay, I'll have to figure it out as I go along. And that's how I ended up being in Barcelona for most of the summer because I don't really like to live in the UK, like it's not the right environment for me, I can spend periods of time here, but I don't enjoy being here full time. So I was kind of flitting between Barcelona and the UK. So I've been a bit...

homeless, if you like, for the past six months whilst we figured this out, because we actually had to change estate agents at that point. And we had to because the older stage agents weren't really that their model wasn't working for us. So we changed the state agents and we had to restart the process then in June. At that moment in time, the market had really declined in the UK, the buying market. So

The offers that we were getting were way below our asking price. People weren't offering, we had hundreds of viewings on it, that's an exaggeration, but I would say at least a hundred viewings on it. And it wasn't getting as many offers as we previously had had, or if we were, they were going in below our asking price because of the instability in the market. And we were getting really positive feedback from all of these rooms as well. So we were like, what the hell is happening?

and it was literally just because of interest rates, like people were too scared to buy at that moment in time because of the interest rate instability. So basically it was just like this period of like two months of just like going back and forth, like stress, worrying about like whether this was going to sell or not because it didn't feel like it was going to sell. And I was at a point where I was just so like transient. I had to like flip between different places because I didn't have a solid home. I couldn't actually move back into the flat because I still had my tenant in there.

which financially I kind of needed him to be in there because of all of these increases in costs. So yeah, it was a bit of a stressful period, a bit of a stressful summer going through that process. We eventually got another offer on the property in August and we accepted that. It was way lower than the original offer that we accepted, but at this point we're just like, we just want this done, we just want this over with. So we went through that process. That has now taken about three months and we completed.

like two weeks ago, got the money in the bank, like super, super happy that that has all gone through. But that, even that, like the past three months, weren't without the ups and downs, moments of like, my God, it's not gonna happen. Like there was a lot of stress, like building up throughout that time. And I will definitely say like that stress has taken a huge, huge toll on me, my personal wellbeing, my mental health. Like everything over the past six months has just built up in addition to not having this like...

stable home, like I can stay with my parents house, but that's no longer my home. Like I haven't lived there. I haven't lived with my parents for six years, seven years, like full time. So, you know, it was quite intense like going back and not really having that like place that is mine and my own space because I'm so used to having my own space, having been on my own for such a long time. So that has been really hard.

to navigate alongside business, launching a new business which is with Tinah. I've just launched a new e-commerce mental wellbeing marketplace which has taken up a lot of my attention. I've spoken about it a few times on the podcast and through social media. That has taken up a lot of my attention over the past year as it should have done because it is my new business baby and I'm absolutely obsessed with what we're doing with it and there's so much more potential in things that I wanna do but.

navigating that alongside the flat sale plus my business was kind of a bit up in the air like I've spoken about it again before where I wasn't feeling fully connected with my business this year maybe to do with all of the other chaos that was happening outside of it but basically it just meant that I felt really disconnected and disassociated from my business I wasn't really sure whether it was something that I wanted to pursue and it's taken me a long time I think

When you naturally go through phases of like ending things, there is that grief period regardless of what it is, it could be a relationship, you could be selling your house, you could be changing your business, going to a new job. There's that grief period of mourning, the old thing that you're letting go of and I feel like I've had to do that with a lot of things this year. I've had to grieve my flat, I've had to grieve all of my belongings in the flat, I've had to grieve a business.

that I didn't know I was grieving and that's my first business which was the commerce consultancy business. I've been running that for nearly five years and it's always done really well. This year is the first year that I've really struggled with it and it's because I've been disconnected from it and I've been trying to figure out like why that is and what I want to do with that business and I've made like some small changes along the way but I've never really accepted that maybe I can need to completely change it.

So I've been thinking about this for like three or four months now of like, what do I do with that business? Like I still love elements of it. There's still parts of it that I want to continue on with, but then there's other bits that I actually just don't like anymore and like it doesn't resonate with me anymore and it doesn't serve me a purpose at this stage of my life that I'm at. So I'm not someone that wants to do things just for the money. I want to do things because they help me grow as a person or they help other people.

or it gives me some kind of other reward. Like I am obviously like business minded and like that comes with like being financially minded as well I'd say and like money driven but equally that's not the be all and end all of what I'm doing. Like I know that money doesn't necessarily buy happiness, buys convenience for sure but it doesn't necessarily buy you happiness so I will never stay and do something.

This goes for my old previous jobs as well. I would never stay in a job just because it paid me well. If I felt like I was no longer learning or if I felt like it no longer aligned with me, I would always move on to the next thing, regardless of what it was paying. I've had this battle for the past few months of like alongside everything else happening. What do I do with my business? Like this isn't where I want it to be. This isn't...

looking in the way that I visualize it, it's not working for my life right now. So I've just gone on this process basically of like deep diving into what it actually is that I want and someone asked me a little while ago of like what do you get complimented the most on, like what's the best feedback that you get and I would say that without me meaning to, I naturally guide people

into their direction of life that they're meant to go in. I get so many people coming to me, maybe years after I met them. And bearing in mind, I meet a lot of people, right? Because I travel, I meet a lot of people all the time. I'm not just staying in one location, I have my same group of friends. I continuously meet people pretty much every single day, through business, through social, through activities that I do, fitness stuff. I'm constantly meeting new people.

I still have people that I've met like twice, once or twice, from like three years ago messaging me being like, something that you said to me completely changed my course of direction in life. And I was like, that's probably the biggest compliment that I could receive because I haven't consciously done that. I haven't consciously said to them, you know, you need to do X, Y, Z because...

I can see that you're struggling with this. That's not something that I've been doing. I've not been consciously mentoring them. They've not asked me for advice. It's just been something that maybe I've given them and expanded them into a new world or a new world of being. And they have taken that on board and on their own terms gone and done something with that. And my person I was speaking to that asked me that question, I was like,

Maybe I need to be doing something that more guides people in a direction that expands them and opens up their scope of what it is possible that they could achieve. And naturally, over the past three years specifically, my life has been very much focused on me first, then my business, but me.

living a life that I feel really fulfilled in, in the right environment, surrounded by the right people. I've been traveling non-stop, I've been building businesses as I go. I don't live a conventional life. I don't live within your 9 to 5 white picket fence box. And I think people are quite, the feedback that I get, people are very inspired by that and find it quite refreshing that I'm very open about speaking about it from a 360 degree perspective of

it's not easy. There are challenges but equally I wouldn't change that because it gives me so much better rewards and a much higher quality of life than I've ever had. So I feel like I've basically been starting to realise that there's an avenue for me to go down that isn't this like square box of I'm an e-commerce business mentor regardless of the fact that that is my skill set. I have been working in e-commerce for such a long time.

I know that industry in and out. I could give you any advice you want on e-commerce and retail and it will probably help you in your business. I know that. I know I'm good at that. But what I didn't realise I was also good at is guiding people in the right direction of where they want to go. Because like I say, I've been kind of like subconsciously doing that. But what it feels like to me at this moment in time in my life is that that's the direction that I should be pursuing.

and I should be speaking more about like my personal experiences, things I've been through to get to where I am and in turn expanding other people to show them that it is possible for them because I think there's a massive part of society that doesn't want to conform to the usual society's expectations or rules that we have been conditioned to live by.

And from a really young age, I didn't ever want to conform. If you told me what to do as a kid, I was like, no, fuck that. I'm often doing the complete opposite of what you told me to do. I hated it. I hated rules. And I've always lived my life like that. And I've always lived true to myself of what I want. And that might sound selfish to some people, but I do consider other people's.

feelings and emotions in that as well, it's not as like one-sided and black and white as it sounds, but equally it comes down to me, my wellbeing and my happiness because ultimately I'm the only person that can advocate for myself and my happiness. So I feel like that is something that more people need to do and a lot of people are really scared to do it because of society's expectations, because of judgment, because it's outside of the norm.

But some people just have to go on their own path and carve their own path to figure out what it is that they want to do. That's not always going to be the easy route. So I really want to switch my business up in the next few months to, there is still going to be an element of the e-commerce, but more so it's going to focus primarily on helping people live the life that they want to live through freedom and the freedom of starting an online business basically.

I have now started an e-commerce business, a service business and online course membership digital product businesses. So I have got a very 360 degree view on what it takes to build an online business. I have made all of the mistakes I could possibly make. I have gone around all of the different houses to get to the end location. I have tried and tested so many different things. I now know what works in all three of those aspects. I've worked with e-commerce brands.

the years. know exactly how to launch an e-commerce business and make it successful if you have the right resources. I've worked in my own service business. I've gone through agency formats. I have gone through freelancing. I have gone through mentoring. I've gone through coaching. I know how to set those businesses up from a service perspective to help you live a life and fulfill the passions and the purpose that you feel like you want to pursue. I've also set up memberships, online courses, created digital products and

created systems that allow them to semi passively because let's remember nothing is passive fully semi passively to be able some to somebody to build a business again with the right resources to help them live a life more on their own terms and I think more and more people want to do that but they don't know how and they're scared they don't see that it's possible for them

They haven't got the experience, they haven't got the knowledge, they haven't got the expertise. So that's basically how my business is going to be pivoting. And you will start to see that through my content, through the services that I'm offering, through the courses that I'm putting out over the next few months. And I will explain more as we go along. But essentially, I want to help you if you are a freedom seeker and you might not be. That's OK. My content, my services are no longer going to be for you. That's fine. Check out now. Not a problem.

But if you are a freedom seeker and you want to learn how to find that freedom, whatever that looks like for you, that doesn't necessarily mean it has to look like to the extremes that I've taken it where I travel the world and start two businesses. That is not what I'm saying here. Your freedom might look like I want weekdays off and be able to work on my own time. I want a little bit extra more money so that I can go and do this amazing holiday that I've got coming up. I might want to start a new hobby, which requires me to do

xyz days a week, I might want to start a new course and then have my business funding that course, like whatever that level of freedom looks like for you, it doesn't need to look like go and travel the world, it can be whatever it what whatever you want it to be, it might even be like you just want to spend more time with your children, spend more time with your partner, spend more time with your mum and dad, like whatever that looks like maybe you just want to go and sit and read for a few days a week, meditate, I don't know, I don't care what it looks like for you but ultimately...

if you've got an idea, a vision of what you want your life to look like and it allows you that flexibility and that freedom to pursue all of the things and live your life in the way that you want to live your life, nobody can do that for you unless you take the leap to do it. So what I really want to do is basically create a toolbox, a kit for people that want to live in that way and want to build a long-term sustainable business model that supports them live their life with that level of freedom because

There are a lot of products out there at the moment that are claiming that you can make all of this money online, like overnight and have all of this success and like thousands of pounds coming into your bank account every single day. And I think that that is really misleading of like the realities of business. And it is not a long-term sustainable business model. And again, I will do another episode talking about some of the things that I'm talking about when I refer to that, like digital products, UGC, all of that.

I'm not hating on that by the way, I think there's some amazing ways that you can utilise those. However, in my experiences and the conversations that I've had with different peers, the sustainability of it and the foundations are not going to be there to sustain you on a really long term basis. And ultimately, if you're setting something up, if you're putting all your hard work, energy, attention onto something, you want it to last a long period of time, right?

It's taken me five years to pivot my business. Like I come into my fifth year of business next year and I haven't pivoted really. Like I've added new things in, but the core of my business, the e-commerce part has been the same for four or five years. Like because I set it up that way, I wanted it to last that long. And that's a natural after a five year point in your business, it's a natural route to then pivot it and change directions and switch out what you're doing. I see that all the time.

But I think when you go down the route of wanting to earn money fast and quickly and overnight success and all of that, you're not setting yourself up for long term success, you're thinking of the short term. And I'm all about thinking about the long term vision. I am not gonna teach you how to make money overnight because honestly I don't believe that that's gonna be true. So I want to support people that wanna live that life of freedom through service, e-commerce, online course or products.

but create them so that you have solid foundations that they can last you for years to come. And all you then need to do is pivot in new directions as and when it doesn't no longer work for you. So that's essentially where my business is going in the near future. As I say, you will start to see more content, more services, more updates come out about that very soon. But I just wanted to give a little bit more context. And as we know, I like talking. So my podcast is the perfect outlet for me to give that.

insight into what's been happening and why things are changing. Essentially, my life is changing constantly. I feel like I go for a new chapter, a new season every two to three months. And my business just hasn't kept up with that, essentially. And this feels like a really aligned move. This feels like exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. Do I know 100 % what that looks like yet? No, I'm still figuring it out. But I know that that's my mission. And now I'm about to set up

the foundations of what that looks like to be able to bring it to life basically. So stay tuned, that is all gonna happen. With regards to if you're following me or following this podcast because you've got an e-commerce business, don't worry, there is still gonna be e-commerce content out there because one of my pillars within that is that you can set up an e-commerce business or retail business to give you flexibility and freedom, you just have to set it up in a certain way, right? So there is still gonna be the pillar of e-comm, you're still gonna get value from listening to me to following me.

It is still my area of expertise. I am going to be still talking about that very heavily. And actually I've recorded some really cool episodes of the podcast about different e-commerce subjects with different experts. So you will definitely still hear about e-com, but there is also going to be that element of service and digital products on there as well incorporated into this. And the focus is more going to shift to how do you set these up to give you the freedom to live your life in whatever way you want to live it.

The podcast is staying, it's still gonna be called the Commerce Club because essentially commerce means selling. That is the whole purpose. We are setting you up an online business to be able to sell things in order to fund your dream lifestyle, right? And your freedom. So ultimately freedom looks different for everyone. It could look like financial time, travel, independence, freedom, like whatever it looks like for you, as I said. This online business structure that I am gonna be talking about.

is going to allow for that freedom, it's going to help you create that freedom. Is it going to happen overnight? Absolutely not. I will never promise to make you do something overnight because it's not going to happen for you. I'm never going to say to you, you're going to hit X amount of revenue in X amount of time because ultimately that's not down to me, that's down to the work that you put in. I can give you all of the resources, but then if you don't implement them, that's not, that's out of my control. So I can't tell you, you're going to hit those revenue goals. I can tell you a guideline of what could be possible for you. I can expand you to what's possible.

But can't tell you you're going to do that. That is down to you. So my goal here is to basically motivate you, inspire you, educate you, expand you into what is possible to achieve and then help you implement it and get to the goals that you want to achieve. Now that will primarily be through online courses and coaching. There'll be a mix between the two. Again, I don't know what that's going to look like, but ultimately all of the content that I put out for the podcast is going to fall within that bucket.

So yeah, the Commerce Club podcast is staying. All of my social media is staying. You are still gonna be able to get free advice and resources from me. The podcast is definitely the best way for me to give that to you. So I hope that clears up why I'm the MAA at the moment and where things are going. You will start to see me as I say, make some new announcements about these things. So stay tuned. I'm very excited about this next chapter of business. It feels like a very aligned chapter.

that I'm moving into. Life is pivoting and changing around me as well. Like I said, I've just given up my home, essentially, my home base, my stability that I've had for the past six years. And now I've got to figure out what does that new home base look like. So I'll keep you posted as when I know that. I don't have all of the answers, unfortunately. In fact, I don't even want all of the answers. like the mystery of life. I like to live quite presently and then see what happens and unfolds.

Obviously there's an element of planning you have to do in life, but ultimately if you can live in the present moment, that's all we've really got. So I am looking forward to guiding you through what that looks like on this new journey. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to reach out on Instagram, it's at itssophiebigastaff. And you can always email me at hello at [itssophiebigastaff.com](http://itssophiebigastaff.com/). Thanks for listening and I will see you next time.