A Challenging Economy is an Opportunity for Future Growth
When did money stop falling out of the sky?
Many of our clients were primed to take advantage of the pandemic “boom” - pent-up demand, freely flowing capital, basement-level interest rates.
While every business is unique, for many companies, growing your business has become more challenging (though we are starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel…).
Sales cycles are longer. Budgets have tightened. Demand has slowed.
You’ve got to stay focused on what matters most. That’s what you do to make it through the challenging periods.
But you can also use lean times as an opportunity to prepare for better ones.
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I talked about this concept during the early COVID days, and it’s come back around again.
Let’s start with the basics. The economy is cyclical. If you’ve got a few gray hairs, you’ve seen things go up, down, and back up again.
Focusing on what matters most is how you affect the micro: what you can control in your business.
You can’t do much to control the macro.
What you CAN do is plan so that when the outlook improves, you’re first out of the gate among your competitors.
You’re familiar with this concept already. Think about the people who buy stocks when they’re down or buy real estate during a recession.
They’re investing in the future. When the economy goes into an upswing, they win. Big.
What should your team work on today to help set you up for success tomorrow?
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Here are some ideas:
- If you have plenty of cash, do something intelligent with it. Invest in people, infrastructure, technology, research, or another initiative that can separate you from the competition.
- If business has slowed down, use the extra bandwidth to build up your infrastructure. What improvements do you need to make to deliver a better product or a stellar customer experience?
- If you have team members on the bench, set them loose on innovation. Provided you can afford to keep them, let them explore, research, and develop for the future of your company.
These initiatives won’t necessarily yield short-term ROI. But they will get you to a better place when the economy picks back up.
You can’t single-handedly overcome timing challenges in the market. For now, modest growth may be the right path.
But don’t spend all that extra time stressing.
Shore up the business to be financially stable today. Use the extra energy to build for tomorrow. Today’s investments will lead to tomorrow’s big wins.
