One of the great many benefits of running your own business (especially as long as I have – 11 years this year in 2023!) is that you can do literally what you want. There is no boss to please. No board to get approval. No one to seek validation from.

And yet….one of the downsides when it’s just you and you’re focusing on doing the work you’re paid for rather than the work you need to be doing to actually put any changes in place means there is no board to help you stay accountable. No one to check in and ask you how that’s going.

Which is why I’ve been hinting at the Great Pivot in my business over on Instagram for quite some time (are we pals there yet? It would be great to say hello). I’m happy to say that people are asking about it and I’ve been making moves, and using my time to consider what this Great Pivot would entail.

Since my most recent conversation with Franky at Love Audrey (a friend who started her business around the same time as me and I booked her for a blog strategy session to help get this sorted out once and for all), then I had a great realisation.

This isn’t actually such a pivot (spoiler alert!)

It’s an evolution.

So why am I changing at all?

I actually knew it was time to pivot just before the pandemic back in 2020, but then of course with the world in chaos, I realised quickly that this wasn’t the time. I launched a new course Blogging for Gold which I have now taught 5 times with great success, helping over 150 amazing people get found on Google with their blogs. However, teaching the same course in quick succession about the same topic is a surefire way to know whether you love it or not!

You see, I never set out to be known as “the SEO Queen”. I know a lot about SEO and I love helping translate boring dull SEO advice out there into interesting motivating advice to help the creative people I enjoying working with. That’s what I’ve always focused on. But for me, this SEO malarkey has always been about so much more.

In fact, if you’ve been to any of my talks whether free or on the podcast or read my blog, you may have noticed I talk a lot about the deeper meaning: making connection. The internet is full of connection, that’s why it’s called the web. We google to find out something we want to be connected to – a new business, the answer to a question, celebrity gossip. And that’s what fascinated me when I was a teenage geek with few friends way back in the 90s and I learned to code. I was delighted to know there was a whole world out there full of connections.

Skip forward to now and I have now spent 10+ years running this business but my whole life trying different ways to connect with others. From teaching English to Tibetans in the Himalayas (yep, I did that), to teaching 1000 women daily online one week in lockdown, I have seen it all and continue to learn a lot about how I want to show up in the world and how I want to help others do the same.

I am not the same person I was when I launched my business 10+ years ago, nor am I the same person who started teaching SEO courses 5+ years ago. In fact, some of my selling practices in that time make me cringe now (I’ll be talking more about this in due course). I was SO high energy all the time, but behind the scenes I felt crumpled. I took EVERYTHING so personally! My brand has always been sassy but back then it was sassy FULL ON and these days it’s much more sassy / soft so I knew something was changing.

The stuff I love to connect with people about in my Visible Vibes membership (and the VIP tier of my membership), my 1:1 clients and indeed on my Instagram, is the building the business stuff, the visibility stuff, so there’s been a disconnect growing between what I share on those platforms and what I am known for.

And this ironically making the connection here was the secret I uncovered with the Pivot I want to make.

It”s all about making connections

Making connections means recognising the opportunities available to you. It flips the concept that we feel uninspired and demotivated and looks outwards. I had to make the connection to realise I help by making connections.

And this is where the Pivot comes in.

I love helping women who run their own businesses:

• make the connection to their potential clients + customers whether it’s through Google, their websites, their social media, their emails, their strategy.
• make the connection with their businesses so they can sell more
• make the connection between all the different aspects of running a business so they can, stress less and have great lives with their families, loved ones and adventures.
• take up space without waiting for permission
• tell their stories, feel validated and lead purposeful lives because they’re doing what they love

So that’s what the Pivot is all about. 

As you can see, instead of a pivot, it is more like an evolution.

My new mission:

I want women to stop playing small when they want more fulfilment and satisfaction from their creative work. I want women to be able to gain knowledge and evolve confidently in their lives and not to get lost in panic, overwhelm and confusion. Many women struggle and believe they have to do this on their own otherwise it makes them weak. Equally they believe they have to do everything perfectly, or not bother and consider themselves a failure. Many believe success is to be strived for but never attained. Many believe they will no longer be loved if they are more visible. But many secretly hope that they can make a difference with their work whether that’s in their own lives or other people’s lives too. 

It was actually a quote from Stephen Spielberg that tipped me over the edge as he recently accepted an award “But nobody knows who we are until we’re courageous enough to tell everyone who we are.”

I’m helping you as women amplify your voices.

I have THREE new key areas of what I’ll be talking about:

Building your business

Showing you how to build a business, what I’d do if I was starting from scratch, teaching you how to sell, showing you how to get clients, how to manage your capacity as an entrepreneur with a busy life, as well as practical tools I recommend. You can start reading the advice here (see, I’ve always talked about it!)

The Visibility Buffet

Because SEO + getting found on Google is not the only way to get visible but it’s a lovely dish to everything else on offer at the buffet table like social media, your website, video and coming up with content ideas. There is so much you can dive into here.

Behind the scenes

Showing you my soft underbelly, the challenges I face and how I got through them, my mistakes and how I got over them, my fears and reflections in my business. By telling my stories, my hope is to inspire you to tell yours, and get your business thriving, not just surviving. I already chat about this on Instagram, it’s time to share more here on my blog!

What about SEO?

The truth is, the women I work with often need more support than ‘what are my keywords’? So whilst that content isn’t going anywhere, I will continue to dive deeper into what’s really going on, because you cannot be on page one of Google if you do not have a clear strategy. And the truth is, many many people do not.

You see, SEO isn’t going anywhere. It’s still a fantastic way to get more visible. I’ll still offer SEO expertise. I’ll still leave a category up called “How to get found on Google” here on my blog.

But. And this is a big but.

There is SO MUCH MORE to running your business than just getting to page one of Google.

There’s knowing how to develop a great product or offer. There’s recognising your worth. There’s copywriting and websites and social media. There’s showing up on camera. There’s video. There’s teaching what you know in a way that people find engaging so that they will pay you to be in their lives. We talk about this so much in my Visible Vibes membership community, it’s time to bring it here on the blog.

That is why what I do is so valuable, because none of what I teach is solely about getting to page one of Google. It’s about clarifying what you want to be visible for, about how you sell what you do so you can sell more of it, and how you can run your business and not go completely insane and burn out. It’s why I love chatting on podcasts about this stuff, it’s why I love showing up on camera to inspire and it’s why people who join me on those platforms love learning from me.

New courses and ways of working together are coming and soon….more on this soon but for now my Work With Me page is gone and will be updated in due course. You can still click my current courses + offers in the menu under “Work with me”.

Thanks for sticking with me folks, I hope you enjoy this new direction. If this is where we part ways, then I genuinely wish you all the best. But for those of you who are keen to know more, I can’t wait to share this next chapter with you.

Maddy x

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