I have known her for a few years. She sells clothes–very good fabrics. I patronized her a few times. It was a thriving business. Her IG page was well followed. Then COVID came.
In 2020, there was total lockdown and nobody bought clothes. Where would you wear them to? Her business tanked just like so many other businesses. COVID threw a spanner in the works.
What do you do when your proven source of income is challenged? What do you do when a door is closed against you? Do you fold your hands and pray that the tide will move in your favour? Or do you just give up?
A few weeks after the shutdown was declared, my wife called my attention to a new IG page. I saw videos and pictures of spices uploaded– different types–tomatoes, red pepper, green pepper, onions and others.
The description on the gram states that the owner is a personal shopper. There was a very creative e-mail coined out of the pepper spices. The email caught my attention. It was the lady that sold fabrics. She had pivoted.
Her strategy now was to handle personal shopping–with focus on groceries–for people. Those were the days when many people couldn’t venture to visit markets. She lived in an area where there was ‘old money’–elderly but rich clients who couldn’t go out due to COVID protocols in view of their advanced age. That became her target market. She took orders virtually, got baskets of spices from Mile 12 market and delivered them by Uber.
So how do you create another opportunity when the current one seems to be over?
1. Identify problems around you
Every problem is a business opportunity in waiting. Look around you–every challenge is an opportunity to make money. Your main duty is to find out how. The more problems, the more opportunities.
Another name for problem should actually be ‘opportunity’. Every time you solve a problem, you get rewarded for it.
Every problem is a business opportunity in waiting. Every challenge is an opportunity to make money. Every time you solve a problem, you get rewarded for it. Share on XOne of the success stories of the COVID era and an example of taking advantage of problems to create opportunities is 2Sure hand sanitiser produced by Seven-Up Bottling Company. What exactly is a beverage company doing with hand sanitisers?
I wish we had the statistics to show how many bottles of hand sanitisers were sold during that period compared to beverages! With the pandemic easing, the company has started the production of medicated soaps.
When people complain around you, think of what you can do about those complaints. Your response may be the secret to unlocking a lifetime of opportunity.
2. Look around for businesses that people are doing but you can do better, or faster
Sometimes, you don’t need to re-invent the wheel–you just add an additional wheel. Is there any business around you that you can run better? Any service you can redefine the processes?
Banks were simply very conservative and their staff preferred ‘armchair’ banking until the new generation banks came on the scene in the early 2000s. They added some innovation and we know the end of the story.
You may not have deep pockets like the banks but there are businesses you can do better. I know a ‘puff puff’ seller who decided to have varieties–some were spiced with pepper, some had honey flavour and some were made with ginger flavour. Yes, delicious ‘puff puff’.
Two things will always make a product or service seem new: the innovation you bring to it and the marketing of such products and services.
How you sell a product or service can unlock new opportunities. When Cowbell started putting milk in sachets, it was new then. It was the same product but the marketing was entirely different and it appealed to the mass market.
Add innovation to what you do. Be creative. Work on the product appeal. Think of how you can do it better. Or faster.