Looking For Opportunity – Adversity Often Brings Innovation.

In the current climate, we have seen a significant drop in confidence about where the economy is heading. I sense we are currently running on half capacity or less (in some sectors), waiting for direction about whether we ramp things up, or see this as the new normal.

Majority of standard business that we commonly process is now on hold or dropped off, with people sitting on the fence. Automotive is one of the sectors we have seen largely affected.

This tells you quickly your sales pipeline is drying up, and that’s when it is time to hit the phones and help yourself by helping others create activity in the market. We are all feeling the same way.

Through existing relationships, founded over previous years, each supplier or client you work with almost always has something they are working on that maybe you could identify as an opportunity to help with, sooner than the client or supplier can identify themselves.

Jumping on the phone, you can identify straight up that you may be able to help push something through as part of your service proposition, a possible win-win for all parties. This means turning something into a deal, which would have otherwise never existed in your pipeline.

You need to be innovative and make your product as flexible as possible.

For us, this means structuring the repayments to suit cashflow for the particular business you are working with (Seasonal repayments, or even an initial 6 months deferred plan) This will then help the business get the equipment they need, and help the business grow or strengthen revenue streams. This also helps the supplier sell the equipment.

Opportunity is in every sector if you look closely. Hospitality, although a difficult sector to navigate (from a finance brokers prospective) has a lot of potential. Although on face value most doors look closed (whilst, yes some are – We see a shift away from dine-in service, to takeaway only.)

This means we might start to see increase volumes of food and beverage sales, so the business may need to invest in production equipment, delivery vehicles or scooters, and possibly even food trucks to keep up with demand or stay innovative and to keep money coming in the door.

When you look at the above, the food container manufacturer will be flat out, and scooters sales, probably too. Another two opportunities.

The Agriculture sector is another example. Due to increased demand from AU consumers, poultry farm production volumes will be higher than ever before, with large electrical overheads, an investment into solar panels or PV systems for each shed may help reduce costs, improving bottom line profits.

Just because the economy has slowed, it does not mean that each industry or sector has followed.