With the Christmas break done and dusted I entered 2021 raring to go. Ready to hit the ground running but knowing that coming our way was a third lockdown.

This was not the ideal or opportunistic start to a new year but not shocking news either. After all one lesson from 2020 is to expect the unexpected.

Immediately after the announcement, five meetings pushed in the same week. All with the same reasoning “At the moment, our current priority is survival so we can’t focus on growth just yet, but we are very keen to speak later this year”. Totally understandable.

This Presented two choices; Focus on the existing pipeline and change our industry focus or alternatively chill out and wait for the current turmoil to pass before hitting it hard.

So naturally, this is one to park for a while. However, after successful pondering, Agriculture and Building Supplies - both, ‘business as usual. In fact, building material companies are booming! So much so, three days into week two and we’ve got two new meetings booked within building supplies companies and one within agriculture.

On a positive note, one conversation highlighted “We had our best year in 2020 and predict 50% growth in 2021 we’re fine as we are thanks”. Again, understandable.

We’re not forcing change here. But my immediate thought to this was when life gets back to ‘normal’ again what will you have done differently to continue that growth? To continue to change and how will you continue to evolve to differentiate your offering? Hint: Nothing.

In the current market whether your business is thriving or sinking we should all embrace the change coming our way. Though change can be hard with initial friction. In the long-term change inevitably benefits the business in the future.