How have uncertainties helped bring more opportunities for your business?
To help business owners view a crisis as an opportunity for new possibilities, we asked CEOs and business professionals this question for their insights. From increasing productivity to uncovering hidden skills, there are several ways uncertainty can welcome new possibilities for your business and its continued growth for years to come.
Here are ten ways uncertainty creates new business possibilities:
- Increase Productivity
- Widen Your Perspective
- Allow for More Creative Avenues
- Access New Talent
- Turn to Digital Tools and Trends
- Expand Into eCommerce
- Uncover Hidden Skills
- Pivot Into a New Market
- Reassess Company Values
- Create Customized Solutions
Increase Productivity
Uncertainty has brought new opportunities to our company because it made everyone step up to the plate! During the height of the pandemic, all of our employees gave 110% every day and helped us reach new levels of productivity and efficiency, which was so appreciated. It goes to show that people will always be the greatest asset of every company!
Eli Patashnik, iFax
Widen Your Perspective
We have all gone through times of uncertainty, but I have come to appreciate difficult life experiences. Struggles in times of crisis have given me perspective on the big picture. They provided me with the perspective I needed to move forward and create my eyelash extension supply company’s mission statement, which has carried us to success. Perspective helped me realize the strong community of women I had in my corner, who I call my eyelash sisterhood. In the past year, we have grown our community through our eyelash extension training courses. Taking a class with us adds you to our Brand Ambassador program automatically because we believe in our students’ success.
Vanessa Molica, The Lash Professional
Allow for More Creative Avenues
Sometimes having too much of a plan can create tunnel vision. You’ll end up shutting down opportunities that could’ve really helped you or taken you in an even bigger direction than you originally had planned because it simply wasn’t the plan. Being a little uncertain allows you to explore all options thoroughly and also forces you to get creative in your solutions. Conventional means of doing things are good because they’re proven results-wise. But with a little bit of uncertainty, you can definitely find yourself finding new and creative avenues to achieve your goals. You never know what’s behind a door until you open it.
Randall Smalley, Cruise America
Access New Talent
Crisis helps make top talent more readily available. During the pandemic, we all saw many companies experience layoffs, furloughs, and rescind internship offers from students. These employment shake-ups created tremendous hiring opportunities for companies (ours included). We were able to bring on several talented people we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to attract to our company. As a result, we’ve been able to build and launch software to better support our business.
Brett Farmiloe, Markitors
Turn to Digital Tools and Trends
Over the past year, dealing with business has been difficult as the coronavirus has put many lives on pause. In order for us to combat this, our team had to think outside of the box and figure out how to reach more customers during the pandemic era. Learning more digital tools & communication online with the team has helped a lot and has taught us more than we could have if we were in the office.
Nina Jensen, 8×8
Expand Into eCommerce
Our company operates as a brick-and-mortar dispensary and delivery service. In California, we were lucky enough to be deemed an essential business, and we remained open throughout the pandemic. As a cannabis delivery service in addition to a dispensary, I’ve seen sales both in-store and online skyrocket during the pandemic. Because many of our usual customers are California locals and regular cannabis shoppers, we benefited from our local customer base. We additionally saw an increase of first-time shoppers, likely looking for a way to spice up their lockdown. We’ve implemented new health and safety procedures for both our drivers and customers to ensure contactless sales.
Chris Vaughn, Emjay
Uncover Hidden Skills
During uncertain times you can learn new things about yourself and discover strengths you may not have been aware of. For example, in the early phase of our company, we had to figure out marketing strategies and learn how to run social media campaigns from the ground up with no previous marketing experience. As a new business and with all our funds on the line, we had our share of doubts. Nevertheless, through patience, perseverance, and tons of trial and error, we soon discovered how crafty we could be with our ads and how much growth we made on our own. We are 100% fully bootstrapped, and with that comes a huge amount of uncertainty and risk. However, it has propelled us to be more resourceful and discover hidden abilities that we may have never known existed had we not gone through the slow period early on.
Katie Lyon, Allegiance Flag Supply
Pivot Into a New Market
Our company was initially hit during the initial phases of lockdown, and we needed to adjust by embracing work-from-home and offering several products that became needs of the hour, such as hand sanitizer, diet consultations, and tips for at-home skincare. Our reaction to these uncertainties led to some great remote hires and a new hybrid work model for our company. Throughout the pandemic, people learned to put more trust in online solutions. By persevering and adapting to customer needs, we were able to return to the growth track.
Guna Kakulapati, CureSkin
Reassess Company Values
If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught me anything, it’s that you never know what the next day, month, or year will bring and how to embrace that uncertainty. My personal experience was that the high level of volatility that existed around business activities in 2020 spurred me to try a bunch of things that I would have considered too risky or costly otherwise. To my surprise, those tests allowed me to redefine my business in a way that better supports my customers and aligns with my personal values. For example, I started doing a lot of free introductory advising calls in 2020 that gave me an incredible understanding of the key pain points entrepreneurs encounter when they are starting out and how I could best serve that audience. Additionally, I got a better sense of my core value as a marketing leader and how I could both build my consulting practice and give back to the community at the same time.
Amy Zwagerman, The Launch Box
Create Customized Solutions
Our business products and services are all about uncertainty. The very nature of insurance is to give our clients peace of mind in case of uncertain events such as bodily injuries and property damage. As an independent insurance brokerage we are able to create customized insurance solutions to protect our clients against uncertainties every day. Keep in mind open enrollment for these products, like health insurance, is only open for a short window, like 6 weeks or so.
Brandon K. Berglund, Berglund Insurance
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