MBA1886 Post-Pandemic Business Opportunities

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Visit Dell.com deals foreign. Welcome to the $100 MBA Show Business Strategies. You can't afford to miss every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my partner back in 2014 and in today's episode you will learn what are some amazing post pandemic business opportunities available to you. Whether you're looking to buy a business and run it yourself or improve your current business, there are a lot of opportunities for entrepreneurs right now. Anytime the world goes through a challenge, a world shifting moment like a war or a pandemic, when we start to get on the other side of it, there are opportunities for people that see them. And today I want to share with you what are some of these opportunities you should look out for. For many businesses this pandemic has been an incredible struggle and in this process of you seeking out these opportunities, you can actually help some of these businesses while helping yours. These strategies will help you save money, plan for the future and allow you to be more competitive in your marketplace. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

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SIPC the pandemic hit many businesses hard. Let's take a look at some of the businesses that really struggled. Some even went out of business. Businesses in the travel industry, businesses in the live event space, retail shops, cafes, many of them, depending on where they are, just couldn't take an extended lockdown. And now they need to reshuffle. They need to reconsider or even just sell their business altogether. This is a great opportunity for somebody who might be looking to buy a business or shift gears in your entrepreneurial career. For example, in Australia we had one of the worst winter seasons for skiing. Not because the snow was bad, it was actually amazing. It was because over two thirds of the country was in lockdown throughout the winter, almost to the date of the exact season. All of the customers that would normally go to these ski resorts in Australia or New Zealand were locked in their homes. This caused a lot of problems for a lot of businesses in these ski towns, and therefore you can buy some incredible businesses right now for pennies on the dollar. Small hotels, restaurants, ski shops. If you ever wanted to open these types of businesses, now is the time to buy because they are very cheap, the cheapest they've ever been because the business owners have to liquidate. They don't have enough money to keep the business going and have to sell to a new buyer. So you are in the driver's seat. And by buying these businesses you help these people move on with their lives and maybe even retire. But it's only physical businesses. Travel industry, for example, took a major blow. Online travel, search engines, traveling blogs, many of them just weren't able to produce any content or get enough traffic to keep the lights on, these types of businesses are going for sale. And guess what? This is not going to be the normal situation forever. People will go back to traveling again. It may take some time, but when you do have that normalcy, these businesses will thrive again. So investing in a business while it's down is actually a smart move for the future. Now, what if you have an existing business and you're like, hey, I don't want to switch markets or businesses. How can I capitalize on this post pandemic situation? Well, many businesses right now are desperate for cash flow because they do not have customers. As a business, you might need them as a supplier, as a actual vendor. For example, I'm planning an event for 2022, and I got an incredible rate on the hotel accommodation that I got for the event and the space that we're going to use. Because right now, they'll take any money you'll give them, okay? They'll give you the best rate possible because they can't even think that far. I can control the terms. I can even stipulate a refund policy or whatever I want to do, because right now they have very little business. So if you're going to cut a deal with them, they're happy to negotiate. Think about the things your business does. Do you do conferences? Do you do meetups? Who are your vendors? Who are your suppliers? What are you relying on? Where do your customers frequent and how can you you meet them there? Or create an event to build your rapport and relationship with them? Here's a classic example of big business doing this. When the pandemic hit, many big companies partnered with other companies. And these are some ideas that you can use for your business. For example, many credit card companies had the problem where during the pandemic, no one was using reward points or travel points. So these points were racking up very high because people were still using their credit cards to buy whatever they wanted to buy from home. But they're not using up their travel points. I mean, this was going on for six months, 12 months, 18 months. And this is a problem for these credit card companies because they're going to have to honor these points at some point. And what were they worried about when people started to travel freely after the pandemic? That they're going to have an influx of people want to cash in their points and they're going to have to spend a lot of money to pay for these flights and accommodations all at once. This is a nightmare for any big business because cash flow is King. So early on they started to see if they can partner with other companies to get their customers to spend their points in other ways. Many partnered with Amazon because they realized people are shopping online during the pandemic. So they said, hey, can we partner with you, Amazon and allow our customers to spend their points using Amazon instead of booking flights? That way our customers would spend their points on goods. On Amazon. You benefit because obviously we are going to pay you for those goods. And we benefit because we don't have to worry about people having too many points and spending it all at once and messing with our cash flow. People's calendars right now are wide open for the future in many places in the world. So wherever you are, if you've been trying to maybe book a speech or give a workshop at a local meetup or co working space, a couple years ago their calendar was fully booked. Now they're looking for people. This is your opportunity to say, hey, I'm ready to speak. When's the next available thing on their calendar? They could be closed now, but when they open up, they're going to want their members to come to the space. And an attractive, great lunch and learn or speech or event that you're a part of is going to be on the top of their list. So these are opportunities you need to seize. Now. Speaking of co working spaces, many of these coworking spaces went bust. They actually went out of business and had to vacate those offices. These office spaces, along with many other office spaces are vacant wherever you are in the world. If you're in lockdown, it's not going to last forever. Soon you will get out of lockdown. And if you have a physical office for your business, this is a great opportunity for you to get an office at a lease price that is pretty competitive when there's a lot of availability, this means it's a buyer's market or a renter's market. In this case, what many entrepreneurs do is they actually team up with their other entrepreneurial buddies. Like, hey, you have a company, I have a company. I have a team of five, you have a team of eight. Let's buy a bigger office and kind of cowork together. Share the office and share the rent and in this climate, you can get a stellar deal. Guys, I got more on today's topic. But before that, let me give love to today's sponsor.

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To wrap up today's lesson, the pandemic was tough on many of us. Many businesses really struggled. Maybe your business struggled, you may have hanged on and you now are ready to thrive. But when things change, the rules change. When things before were firm and non negotiable, you could bet that things are going to have a little bit more wiggle room now. People need the cash flow. People are willing to negotiate, so keep that in mind when you are buying anything for your business, even services. Okay? Many service providers lost work because other businesses went out of business and they lost clients. So you can negotiate retainer rates or project rates. When you're in this climate, you are in control. The buyer has control. Because you are in demand, your dollars are worth more thanks so much for listening to the $100 NBA show. If you love what you hear, hit subscribe so you never miss an episode. By hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically on whatever podcast app you love to use. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. For many of us, this is not going to be the only time the economy is going to take a turn for the worse. Many of us will continue to run our businesses for years to come and experience something similar. So just like watching a old TV show rerun, you know what's going to happen. So plan accordingly, prepare accordingly. Know that you're going to see this episode again. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care. Gas, snacks, tolls this trip is draining my wallet.

Yeah, but we'll be with family.

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