Does Your Business Need to Take a New Path in 2022?
Business models have challenges. A changing marketplace, outside forces, innovative technologies, fads, style, and obsolescence all play a role in forcing businesses to change or fail. Whether manufacturing, wholesaling, or retailing a product or providing a service to businesses or consumers, a constant assessment of the marketplace should be a regular exercise.
Not every business can stop and pivot to a new model, which leads to doors shutting forever. In 2022 everyone from business owners to consumers are fully aware of the changing economy. Restaurants are closing by the hundreds, others are serving delivery apps through ghost kitchens, and online direct sales are soaring.
Businesses have had to stop and assess where they have been, where can they go and how will they get there. Others will have to stop dead in their tracks, pivot and begin anew.
An Honest Assessment
The first thing that any business owner needs to ask when sitting in the office in the middle of the night wondering, “where do we go from here?” is what went wrong. As the founder, owner, or managing partner this question must be answered with all honesty. Once the question is answered there are more before deciding if a new direction will change the result or merely prolong a slow demise.
It is not easy for any small business, innovative product, or service to break through and succeed in the best of times. Certainly with worldwide lockdowns, quarantines, and political upheaval, this decade is NOT the best of times.
Yet even if we are to call the 2020s the worst of times (which they are not) there are businesses that successfully launched and built a brand during this time. Others had the foundations of success, assessed what they had, pivoted, and adapted for a successful future. Certainly, home delivery of prepared food has discovered and taken advantage of the situation to grow beyond expectations.
Retail, product sales and services were already undergoing a reassessment on how to conduct business in the light of new tech social media and fragmented advertising opportunities. Even the largest corporations with ad budgets in the 100’s of millions have to reassess how they brand, how they reach people and how they conduct business in the 21st century.
Key Questions and Solutions to Assess Change for Businesses in 2022
When doing your business assessment (which every business should plan annually, not just because it’s 2022), these are the key questions to answer. If you can’t answer them succinctly and honestly, it’s time for a new set of eyes and ideas to assess your business. The questions that need to be asked, and answered are:
§ Did changing times change the success story, or was the brand, product, or service on life support from the beginning?
§ Is your business, service, or product branded for today?
§ Is your business branding consistent across all advertising and social media channels?
§ Are you using a multi-pronged promotional attack?
§ Are you ready for the new wave of high tech-social media in the metaverse of the future?
A holistic direct approach to making a business succeed is great. Every business needs professional help to make it flourish or change direction. For an honest assessment about, “where do we go from here?” attorneys, accountants and marketing specialist can be an essential part in guiding and advising on change in 2022 and every year.
