Don't Be Afraid to Reinvent Your Business, says Faith Seekings

You might need to change your business if you're unhappy with it, says agency owner Faith Seekings.

When do you stick with your business model and when do you change it completely?

That’s the question Faith Seekings had to wrestle with not once, but twice over the course of her 25+ year entrepreneurial career.

Faith is the founder of Rapport Communications Inc., a boutique firm originally focused on branding and graphic design. Over the years, her company grew to 10 employees, acquired another firm, and delivered great work to a roster of loyal clients.

On the surface, things were working. But inside, she wasn’t happy.

“I wasn’t happy being responsible for everything and running the show,” she said on a recent episode of The Unsure Entrepreneur Podcast. “I remember a point where I felt like I had peaked, but I didn’t change anything — and I just kept getting more unhappy.”

That unhappiness led to her first pivot: downsizing. Faith chose to let go of her office, her staff, and the full-service model that had brought her success.

Years later, after a personal family crisis took her away from work, she faced another turning point. “I couldn’t get motivated to return,” she recalls. “I realized I didn’t want to do graphic design anymore. I just didn’t enjoy it.” So, she pivoted again — this time to focus exclusively on strategic content and writing.

It wasn’t an overnight decision. It was a conversation on a patio that helped crystallize things. Faith told a colleague she was thinking about shifting to writing — and the colleague responded: “Please do it for me.”

That colleague became her first writing client.

You don’t have to have it all figured out up front. Pivoting is allowed.

Here are a few insights from Faith’s story that may help you if you’re considering a pivot:

• Success isn’t always measured in dollars. “Years later, when I talked about what mattered most to me, it was the people — the team I built, the fun we had, the work we created.”

• You don’t have to be miserable doing what you’re bad at. “Even hiring a part-time admin person felt like a weight off my shoulders. You don’t have to do it all.”

• You don’t have to figure it all out up front. “Even when I started freelancing, I had no intention of building it into an agency. Things change. We change.”

  
  

Faith emphasizes that pivoting isn’t always a response to a market trend. Sometimes, it’s a response to how you feel. A shift in your creative energy. A realization that you’re no longer excited by your own work.

Today, Faith’s business is focused on strategic content — web copy, blog posts, email campaigns, and thought leadership — for B2B clients. She’s also collaborating with other creative professionals, which brings her back to the part of entrepreneurship she missed most: people.

In business, you may end up in a place much different from where you began.

“Entrepreneurship is an opportunity to do the thing you love your way,” she says. “But you need to understand there’s a lot more to it than just doing your thing — you also need to handle the business part.”

One of her best lessons? Pivot with purpose.

If you’re unhappy, out of alignment, or pulled toward something new — it may be time to evolve. But as Faith reminds us, don’t chase change for its own sake. “Be happy. But also make sure it’s working.”

You can listen to the full conversation on The Unsure Entrepreneur Podcast.

[Photo: Faith Seekings]