In times of uncertainty with COVID-19, bushfires, floods, panic buying and climate crisis, you’d be forgiven for asking ‘Is it all over?’ The brutal fact is we are running out of time. The house is on fire. We’ve done enough talking about what to do. It’s time to take purposeful and decisive action and make positive changes in the way we do business, the way we sell, and the way we measure success.

Governments, industry bodies and the global business community who have been talking for decades about making changes and taking action to address climate change, reduce the impact of industry on our environment, reduce waste and CO2 emissions, create ethical supply chains, deliver viable innovations, and alternative strategies and triple bottom lines that create more and better sustainable businesses and communities; however, only a few have really put their money where their mouth is. 

First, we must acknowledge that traditional business paradigms of the last 50-60 years are past their use-by-dates. The mantra of sell and consume ‘more, more, more’ no longer has a place and people don’t always make decisions in their best interest.  Research shows the best businesses are profitable when they sell and do business in a way that is ethical and sustainable, while protecting the world’s finite resources. They understand that trustworthiness and intention are everything. 

The clever investors, business leaders and salespeople look at downturns in markets as opportunities to get further ahead. They look at the evidence at hand, the trends that are emerging and see opportunity, when many others see disaster. These people aren’t idealistic or oblivious to the challenges facing communities, markets and economies. 

The truth is they are far more aware of all the challenges and issues at hand because they keep themselves fully informed of what’s happening, and then look for patterns and commercially viable opportunities. They don’t sit still, instead they ramp up their market research, market presence and sales efforts by getting in front of the right people, prospecting and investigating where people and markets are at and how they can help them. They understand that selling is the vehicle that allows opportunity to flourish and people, businesses, economies and societies to prosper. 

As a result, they’re calmer, better able to make rational decisions and they don’t buy into the panic that can spread like wildfire amongst those who lose their heads.

Sadly, humans -being what they are- tend to default to panic when ‘bad news’ starts to spread. Rather than stop and look at the evidence at hand, they react and often stop doing what they should be doing. For example, getting out there and engaging with their customers, staff and suppliers to look for ways to tackle these issues together. Instead of reassuring each other they have each other’s back through these times of crisis, they let their fear-based responses lead to more doom and gloom, which further perpetuates a downward spiral that leads to more bad results.

Fear is the biggest killer of consumer and business confidence, yet what many people fail to see is that we’ve everything we need now to create sustainable businesses that are good for people, economies and societies now and in the long term. It’s all in how we sell it and play the short and long game.

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