Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic grew to an international level, almost every industry has been hit with a period of downturn.
Even today, we’re still feeling the economic effects of a global pandemic and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. Even if there was, the damage has already been done and industries have been changed forever.
Unfortunately, this is something that we just have to get used to. Becoming an entrepreneur is about more than just starting up a business and hoping the stars align. You need to focus on recognising and taking advantage of opportunities in order to grow both your business and your expertise. That’s why we’re going to talk about turning into a downturn and how you can profit from uncertain conditions.
Inaction is the worst action
Perhaps the worst thing you could do during a downturn is to pretend that everything will return to normal. Market conditions are liquid–they’re constantly in motion and while you can predict them to some extent, there’s always the possibility of a wrench getting in your way. Don’t just accept that the blockade is there and wait for someone else to remove it. Instead, learn to navigate around these issues and take advantage of the downturn.
However, you shouldn’t just do something for the sake of doing something. Instead, it’s important to create a coordinated and organised response to a period of downturn. A lack of planning can lead to poor user experience or panic within your company. Both of these can have a serious negative impact on your business. As such, think carefully about how you can navigate around a downturn and take advantage of it.
Establishing yourself as a new market leader
When you’ve identified a gap in the market as a result of a downturn, it’s important to remember that it won’t stay like that forever because you’re not the only business that is looking for new opportunities. While it’s never too late to latch onto a trend that a competitor has identified, you ideally want to be the company setting the pace.
When a business’s initial response to a downturn is mild or hesitant, there’s a high chance that they’ll overreact in the future in order to compete with other companies. With an aggressive strategy, you place yourself ahead of the curve. Your company leads the pack and can often dictate how the industry responds. As you can imagine, this has a number of unique benefits that can steer your brand towards success.
- Reputation increases thanks to your status as an industry leader or innovator
- Ability to set premium prices due to your reputation
- Lowered costs of production due to economies of scale
- Favourability with other businesses and influences
- More publicity and exposure
- Shorter sales cycles
- Less perceived risk from customers
Creating new opportunities for partners
Market ecosystems are sustained by many different entities. During a period of downturn, all of these entities suffer because there are fewer customers to serve. A supermarket may have reduced sales for a specific product, leading the producer to pile up stock that isn’t needed which negatively affects the acquisition and sale of the resources required to make it. This also directly affects marketing efforts, influencers and even content creators.
During a period of downturn, identifying unfilled market gaps can reinvigorate the ecosystem and provide opportunities for past and potential future partners. For instance, we recently launched a new online electric vehicle magazine called EV Powered. After identifying a niche that wasn’t being filled, we increased our staffing levels which allowed us to rapidly deploy the EV Powered website and fill it with unique content that covered the electric vehicle industry. In doing so, we’ve created opportunities for content creators to work with us to report on electric vehicle news and produce opinion pieces.
Our contribution to the industry generates exposure and gets people talking about electric vehicles again. This is a small step to help reinvigorate the electric vehicle market and establishes us as a leader in producing content relevant to the industry. In the future, we could work with manufacturers, content creators and even influencers to generate more content and create new opportunities for everyone involved.
