Reinvention is the Key to Future Business Growth

There are multiple thoughts that people think of when it comes to age and getting older.  I choose to look at age as an opportunity, for I love growing as a person.  One of the ways I accomplish this mindset is through reinvention. Reinvention is the act of changing something based on previously learned knowledge. This is not a rip-and-replace mentality, it is a growth and wisdom mentality.

Rip-and-replace applied leads to New Coke.  Reinvention correctly applied leads to Coke Zero.  The difference is learning from previous mistakes and from others.  It should have never been a surprise that the New Coke was so terrible. If they only did the research.  But they learned, and when Coke Zero was an instant success!  Reinvention leads to success.

For many organizations and businesses, this is the time where reinvention needs to be evaluated.  In one of my companies I have decided to go all in on a reinvention strategy.  This nationwide lockdown has exposed many things the company was doing right; along with who was not able to perform when times go tough.  

I was in Italy about 20 years ago, in July. While walking around Rome any vendor selling water or Gatorade was successful.  It was easy to sell to people who needed it.  I wonder how those vendors did in the winter months?  Surely there were people walking around looking at the Coliseum when it was cold.  I can’t say for sure, but I will bet many of them reinvented themselves into espresso and coffee vendors.

Never in the history of the world have we quarantined a healthy population.  Wars and dictators have shut down businesses and prevented travel, but the government has always wanted people working and commerce flowing in some form.  That changed this year.  In roughly a two-week span, in March, the economy of the world came to a near stop. This most likely threw your business, law firm, medical office, school, not-for-profit, or even a government office into a tailspin.  For many of us we find ourselves in states still partially locked down with no end in sight. For those in the tourism business, they may not recover completely from missing a whole year. 

I challenge you to see how you can recover from this.  I challenge you to not walk away from your dreams and your goals in business.  Just pivot.  Make sure that how you come out of this adds protection against the next quarantine, and there will be another one, now that they know they can do it.  Figure out how and what needs to happen.  Figure out how to optimize and organize around the good things in your business.

Also, create a stop doing list.  Maybe it’s not necessary, going back to exactly what you did before. Maybe it is time to hire an expert that takes over some of your duties so you can focus on the growth.

Take the time to reassess what just happened in your business.  Figure out what was exposed as bad; then identify what was good.  Figure out how you can build off of the good to fix the bad.  Amplify your business through reinvention.