Meet Plan + Pivot Collective.

Plan + Pivot is a consulting agency built by two retail leaders who’ve helped scale brands like Bath & Body Works, RH, J.Crew, and Abercrombie.

We partner with founders and execs to turn big ideas into brilliant execution — across strategy, product, planning, and profitability.

To the moms who pack lunches, lead meetings, build empires, and still remember pajama day at school - this one’s for you.

At Plan + Pivot Collective, we’re proudly mom-powered and fueled by strategy, caffeine, and a refusal to accept systems that weren’t built for us.

We built Plan + Pivot Collective on a simple belief: strategy doesn’t have to be slow or rigid.

We’re kicking things off with a truth we all need to hear:
Let’s be honest—1995 would eat most modern merchants alive.

No dashboards. No flows. No “let’s test into it and circle back.” Just instinct, handwritten POs, and a product point of view sharp enough to cut through pleated khakis.

This weekend, I’m seeing Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Tour in Chicago. Let’s be clear: this is not just a concert. It’s a moment. An entire vibe. A cultural event. And somewhere between planning my fit, consuming as much concert content as possible, and mentally preparing to scream-sing myself hoarse, I had a realization:

Plan + Pivot Collective turns one month old this week, and we’re pausing for just a moment to say THANK YOU.

Thank you for the warm intros, the early clients, the thoughtful messages, and the “I needed this” notes. We are truly grateful. And we’re just getting started.

Had a call today with a potential client we’re really excited about, and mid-conversation, we had this little “aha” moment....

We say this with love:

Your product can be beautiful and strategic.

What Sleepaway Camp Taught Me About Leadership 🏕️✨

It wasn’t about being the loudest or the fastest.
It was about showing up, evolving, and bettering your own best.

That mindset started at Camp Dunmore for Girls, and it's stuck forever.

We’re more than our jobs.

This weekend, as we observe Memorial Day, we’re taking a moment to honor the women, men, and non-binary folks who gave everything -and also to reflect on the lives they lived beyond the uniform.

At Plan + Pivot, we work with brands that move fast, build hard, and hustle daily. But we also believe…

Loud in small rooms. Quiet in big ones. Friendly, but allergic to small talk.

And until recently, “networking” sounded like my personal nightmare — a room full of name tags, forced smiles, awkward intros… and me, stress-sweating through my thoughtfully chosen fit.

Let’s hear it for the work wives: the women who keep us from rage-quitting, reply-all-ing, or burning it down. The women who keep us sane in a corporate structure that wasn’t necessarily built for us.

She knows when you need a Diet Coke, carbs, or a well-timed “you good?” She’s fluent in side-eyes, Teams chat sarcasm, and damage control when you’ve completely had it on a Monday by 9:37AM.

We’re in the thick of building Plan + Pivot. Big ideas, big momentum, and a Slack thread that never sleeps.

It’s nonstop. But it’s not chaotic, because we move with intention.

At the core of our work is one belief:
👉 𝘗𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘴𝘯’𝘵 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢 𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭. 𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘨𝘺.

That’s why one of our favorite rituals, Smart Start, exists in both our personal and professional lives.

It’s a simple weekly check-in that helps us step into Monday with clarity, instead of chaos here

School’s Out for Summer

It’s that magical time of year when your calendar says “Spring Investment Review,” but your child is asking for Door Dash, more screen time, and a trip to the pool… all before 9 a.m.

At Plan + Pivot, we see you: toggling between pivot tables and last-minute camp sign-ups, trying to hit a deadline while your kid urgently updates you on the slime they just made - in your formerly clean kitchen.

As founders (and moms), we built this business with flexibility baked in, not just for ourselves,

Not every SKU is a hero. And that’s okay.

In retail, the Pareto principle hits hard: 20% of your assortment drives 80% of your results.

But too many brands are treating every product like a main character — investing in development, inventory, and marketing for SKUs that barely make a cameo in the sales report.

At Plan + Pivot, we love a good SKU productivity deep-dive. Why?

If you’re not talking to your customer—someone else is.

Surveys are great. Dashboards are helpful.
But nothing beats hearing it straight from the source.

🛒 Why did they ghost your cart?
🖱 What made them click “Buy Now”?
🔁 What keeps them coming back—or not?

Pride isn’t a month. It’s a fight.

For our clients, our friends, our families, and everyone still battling for safety, rights, and dignity.

Pretty Brands Can Still Be Broke.

Your brand is beautiful.
The packaging? Chef’s kiss.
The vibe? Nailed.
The feed? Curated perfection.

But the margins?
Yikes.

Today is 🪀 National Yo-Yo Day! 🪀
which feels a little too relatable for some merchandising strategies.

If you're launching products faster than you're learning from them…
If your inventory’s always reacting, never ready…
If your promos feel last-minute, not long-term…

As your Work Bestie… I have to tell you the truth. 👇

If everything is a priority,
𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 is a priority.

Fractional leaders aren’t there to replace you.

They’re there to support your growth, then step away so you can fly your own kite.

In short: We help you fix the parts of your business that are keeping you up at night.

If you're a founder, growth-stage, or scaling brand, you know the pain. Inventory is either piling up or running out. Wholesale is getting complicated. Forecasts feel like guesses. You’re playing catch-up instead of scaling up. You know there’s business being left on the table, you just don’t have the bandwidth or expertise to fix it.

Plan + Pivot can ease the pain

Some consultants leave you with a 92-slide deck and good luck wishes.

We show up with a spreadsheet and a shovel.

Let’s dig in.

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗜’𝗹𝗹 𝗔𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗟𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗘𝘅𝗰𝗲𝗹

There are few things in this world that bring me as much joy as a perfectly formatted spreadsheet.

I’m that girl - the one who color-codes her tabs, creates drop-down menus for fun, and gets an oddly emotional thrill from getting that complex new-to-me formula to do exactly what I want it to do. While others might see a spreadsheet as a means to an end, I see it as

Happy Father’s Day to the dads who aren’t just present - they’re partners in progress for the girls and women in their lives.

When daughters grow up seeing their fathers prioritize equality and balance, it shapes their professional lives in profound ways:

Chasing upside without an underlying assortment architecture often starts the same way:

-Product launches strong
-Initial reads outperform
-Chase conversations begin
-The team starts expanding the assortment to "capture demand"
-Assortment complexity grows faster than demand

𝗕𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻 + 𝗣𝗶𝘃𝗼𝘁, 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂’𝘃𝗲 𝗴𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝗿.

👉 Willingness to get real.

We’ve been meeting a lot of exceptional founders lately, who are scrappy, innovative, and full of big goals.

If you’re one of them (👋 hi!), here’s what you should know before we kick things off:

We’re not here to sugarcoat your strategy or rubber-stamp your roadmap.

💸 Are you making money?
🧠 Is your team clear?
📦 Is your inventory moving?

As your Work Bestie… I have to tell you the truth. 👇

You don’t need more inspiration—you need implementation.
Let’s clean up the chaos and turn your to-do list into traction.

✨ Drop a comment with the slide that hit hardest.
👯‍♀️ Tag your work wife, co-founder, or biz bestie who needs this today.
💌 Or shoot us a DM if you’re ready for support.

Two months in, and more lit up than ever.

When we launched Plan + Pivot Collective, it wasn’t just a business move. It was a creative and emotional one. After decades in corporate retail, we both realized something had gone missing - that spark. We wanted to work differently, and with different kinds of people.

We are hitting our 2-month anniversary this week at Plan + Pivot Collective, and something wild has happened:

We’re actually enjoying networking events.

Last week’s Inspiring Women event from Columbus Monthly and Columbus CEO was exactly the kind of energy we needed to celebrate this milestone.

Just over two months ago, Plan+Pivot Collective was just an idea,

A “what if?” A text exchange. A brainstorm over coffee (shoutout to Kittie’s in Worthington, OH, my favorite coffee in town).

Today, we’re two months into building something real, and we’ve already hit some incredible milestones:

Get yourself a friend who sees your potential even in a party city wig.

Way back in the early aughts, Julie McCarter and I met at our dear friend’s wig-themed birthday party in the East Village (Kevin, if you're reading this - what a night). There was an ice luge. Julie was in a blue bob, I was understated in some big ol’ clip in extensions. I didn’t even recognize her the next time we crossed paths.

But fate had plans…

If you’re “just catching up on a few things” this weekend…
You’re not alone.

But maybe it’s time to build a business that doesn’t run on leftovers.

At two months in, we’ve been reflecting on our own “business baby” milestones—and funny enough, they line up surprisingly well:

🧠 𝗖𝗼𝗴𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗠𝗶𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀
𝗕𝗮𝗯𝘆: Follows faces, recognizes caregivers, starts to track movement.
𝗣+𝗣: We’re tracking leads, engagement, and client patterns. We’re starting to recognize which clients are a great fit and which ones are just browsing. And we’re learning to read the “faces” of the market—

“Let me just…”

That phrase has cost me HOURS of deep, thoughtful work.
Now I treat it like a red flag 🚩—because it really means:

𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗦𝗞𝗨

Not every product needs to be the headliner. Some are the glue that holds your margin together.

Support SKUs are the behind-the-scenes MVPs of a smart assortment. They’re the coordinating mitt that completes the skincare ritual. The lip gloss that rides alongside your best-selling balm. The candle that turns a $30 order into a $45 cart.

At Plan + Pivot Collective, we help product-based brands stop guessing and start scaling—with smart, data-backed strategies that actually work.

1️⃣ Too many SKUs, not enough heroes
More isn’t always more. A bloated assortment makes it harder to buy smart, forecast demand, and tell a clear story to your customer. Edit ruthlessly. Invest in what’s working.

It doesn’t sell. It doesn’t die. It just… lingers.

The Zombie SKU is the slow mover you keep hoping will come back to life. It’s eating up space in your DC, haunting your inventory reports, and quietly draining your OTB...and no one remembers why it’s still there.

“Let me just…”

It shows up every season.

🤯 “It sold well last year, why reinvent the wheel?”

😬 “Let’s just place the same order again and not overthink it.”

🙀 “That SKU always does okay, might as well bring it back.”


It feels efficient. Familiar. Low-risk. But here’s the thing: what worked last year might be completely wrong this year, and you could be robbing yourself of the opportunity to grow your business.

Tariffs, SKU discipline, and smart holiday planning- our co-founder Carolyn MacBain-Waldo just spoke with Arriana McLymore at Reuters about what brands need to know.

One of us starts with the product.
The other starts with the math.
But we both want the same thing: profitability.

We don’t always agree.
One of us will fight for the assortment strategy.
The other will question every single turn and burn.

Sometimes the smartest move isn’t launching something new, it's investing more in what’s already working.

🧠 The SKU with a 70% sell-through in 3 weeks?
Let’s chase it. Feature it. Forecast it like it matters.

🛒 The channel that’s quietly driving the highest margin?
Let’s give it more inventory, better creative, and clear targets.

Client Wins: The Magic Is in the Small Stuff

Big wins feel good.
But the little things? That’s where the magic is. 🪄 💫 🎩

In the last month, we’ve helped three incredible founders move the needle in ways that actually matter:

✨ For Client #1:
We created a custom GTM line sheet that’s already opened doors, including a conversation with a major U.S. retailer.
Behind the scenes, we’ve been refining her sourcing and kitting strategy to reduce bulk costs, speed up production, and protect her most valuable resources.

It’s flashy. It’s risky. It might be brilliant, or a total bust.

Wildcard SKUs are your seasonal stunts, buzzy bets, and experimental launches. Maybe it’s a fun collab. A limited drop. A wild new format that might go viral.

And sometimes? They work. They drive PR. They spike sales. They give your brand cultural energy.

But without clear strategy, they can spiral fast, turning into slow movers, margin killers, or operational headaches.

44.1% Left. Let's not waste a minute of it.

We ran the numbers (of course we did).
It’s July 21, and 55.9% of the year is gone.
That means you’ve still got 44.1% to work with.

Translation:
You have time — but only if you use it with intention.

At Plan + Pivot, we work in 12-week sprints, not annual “maybes.”
Because drifting through Q3 hoping for a strong Q4?
That’s a growth strategy in name only.

Here’s the mid-year pulse check…

“Let me just…”

It sounds harmless.
But when it becomes a habit?
It quietly derails your strategy.

Now, I treat it like a red flag 🚩 because it usually means:

A good gut instinct will take you far.
A great data set will take you further.
But when you’ve got both? That’s when things start scaling.

It’s a good idea. It just never found its place.
Orphan SKUs usually start with excitement. A product you believed in. A format you were excited to test. But somewhere along the way, it got disconnected -no clear collection, no cohesive messaging, no real path to scale.
It’s just… floating.

At Plan +Pivot, Julie and I come at Problems from completely different angles-but we’re always aining at the same goal.

One of us starts with the product. The other starts with the plan. And together, we help founders scale smarter.

Let us introduce ourselves…

💡 Julie: The Merchant Brain
I start with the product.

I’m thinking about the customer’s next obsession, the story we’re telling through the assortment, and how the whole thing will feel—on the site, on the shelf, in someone’s hands.

This week’s win: We cut ✂️ 14 SKUs.

Most brands are carrying too much.
Too many styles, bundles, or one-offs that feel exciting at first, but add noise instead of value.

This week, one of our clients made a bold (and smart) move:
✂️ 14 SKUs, gone.

Here’s why:

You love it. You want it to win. But the numbers don’t lie.

Clinger SKUs are the emotional ones. Maybe it was your first product. Maybe you love the story. Maybe your team keeps saying, “It just needs more time.”
But time won’t change the data. And affection won’t change the margin.

We’ve been lucky to work with a lot of incredible founders, but Cricket Azima is something special. She’s the powerhouse behind Cricket’s Candy Creations, a wildly creative event space in Manhattan where candy, culinary play, creativity, and pure joy collide. Think DIY treats, edible slime, sprinkle explosions… and a whole lot of laughter.

You might’ve seen her on Shark Tank, but behind the colorful storefront and TV moment is a founder with serious heart, vision, and hustle.

Cricket has built a brand that’s deeply loved. She knows her customer. She delivers magic. She’s ready for more.

I took my daughter to see the Indiana Fever take on the Las Vegas Aces last Thursday night - huge thanks to Abby Gardner for passing us her insanely good tickets (and use of her apartment).

Caitlin Clark was out, but it didn’t matter. Kelsey Mitchell led with 21 points. Natasha Howard and Aliyah Boston pulled down double-doubles. And the Fever handed the Aces an 80-70 loss. Even the incredible A’ja Wilson couldn’t stop the Fever's momentum.

Julie and I are wired differently - on paper, we might not look like the obvious match.

She’s bold vision and big picture. I’m structure, flow, and financial clarity.

She runs toward the new. I build the plan to make it scalable.

She’ll suggest something game-changing. I’ll ask, “Does it make sense at this stage?”

And honestly? That’s our magic.

Once upon a merch table, a baker had a tight, killer lineup:

Chocolate Chip (hero SKU)
Peanut Butter Sea Salt (cult fave)
Triple Fudge Blackout (low volume, high drama)

Sales were booming. Reorders were clean. Ops team? Thriving.

But then she got spooked. “What if we need keto? Paleo? Mushroom adaptogens??”

Suddenly, there were 17 cookies. Birthday cake. Oatmeal raisin. Protein-packed. Gluten-free. Joy-free. She added “seasonal exclusives,” and even a Q4-only peppermint crumble.

The truth? We’re proud of our corporate experience.

It shaped our thinking, sharpened our instincts, and gave us the kind of reps you only get from big, complex, high-stakes environments.

We learned how to lead.
How to simplify the messy stuff.
How to make decisions under pressure.

And....we learned what we’d do differently.

Let’s redefine sexy, shall we?

Hot take: A well-built forecast is sexier than any brand shoot.
This month, we’re celebrating the unsung turn-ons of retail growth: clean data, clear plans, margin magic.

Wise words from my Plan + Pivot Collective co-founder, Julie McCarter 🏕️✨

Some consultants leave you with a 92-slide deck and good luck wishes.
We show up with a spreadsheet and a shovel.

Let’s dig in.

As your Work Bestie… I have to tell you the truth. 👇

You don’t need more inspiration—you need implementation.
Let’s clean up the chaos and turn your to-do list into traction.

I never thought I’d be a coworking space person.

The whole point of remote work was staying home, right?

Wrong.

Working from my house looks like:

Founders, we need to talk.

You’ve been told to hustle harder.
To launch fast.
To throw it all at the wall and see what sticks.

But here’s the truth:

Multichannel is magic. Until your margins disappear.

Selling on multiple platforms - your site, Amazon, TikTok Shop, wholesale-sounds like a no-brainer for growth.

But if your pricing strategy doesn’t flex by channel?

Sexy is…


a clean Google Sheet that tells you what to buy, when, and for how much.

Don’t talk to us about vibes if your buy plan is a mess.

Corporate taught us how to plan. Startups taught us how to pivot.

We learned discipline in corporate:
How to forecast.
How to build an assortment.
How to hit a number and defend the plan.

We learned creativity in startup life:
How to move fast.
How to test, adapt, and make smart calls with limited resources and zero cushion.

You deserve better than a launch held together with a Post-it and a prayer.

A “just get it live” launch? 🚨 Not cute.

Here’s what actually works:
✨ Timed drops.
🛍️ Intentional SKUs.
🧾 Clean copy and smart pricing.
📦 Inventory that backs the plan, not breaks it.