How Can We Profit From Changes In The Global Economy?

finnegan

finnegan

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It has occurred to me that the campaigns I'm building in what are supposed to be evergreen verticals might not stand up to the impending financial meltdown that is supposed to occur.

Therefore I've been asking myself, "What industry will be able to survive another recession or how can someone benefit off of these changes to various economies?"

You might of heard that Venezuela right now is not a good place to be. The average worker who used to pull in $360/month now only brings in $31/month. There is also a food shortage and people are not getting basic necessities.

Even 1st world economies like the US might get hit in the upcoming months or year. I want to know how to protect myself against this and instead of being a victim of circumstances, be the person who profits when the times are bad.

So...how can one take advantage of these circumstances?
 
Well, I don't necessarily believe any crisis situation is inbound, but usually in a recession there are certain basic needs people require. Think about getting into those markets and profiting. Off the top of my head:

Consumers

New Parents: Regardless of recession or not, baby's will need diapers. Unless it's Soup Line scenarios here, Diapers are still needed.

Regular Parents: Food for their children. Somehow someway the parents will need to feed their children period.

Human: Food and Water (think water filters, and things that go into the water making process when money is tight and people aren't buying water bottles). Think bulk food as well. Shelter - again barring any soup lines, people are still going to need shelter.

Pets: Still need to feed them and keep them healthy.

Alcohol (And Drugs): When recessions and depressions happen alcohol sales go up (cheap liquor mostly). As well when the good times roll in alcohol sales go up (champagne and vodka).

Sex: During recessions people spend less money outside, so they spend more time inside, meaning sexual activity goes up and babies are formed at an increased rate. (Think birth control, or baby making equipment - whatever that consists of).

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What usually gets hit the hardest are restaurants, malls, and shopping that requires people to go out and get it. But since people still need stuff there is more online shopping and couponers are going to be always looking harder for a better deal. Basically coupon sites are going to see an increase in traffic.

Entertainment is one thing that will get hit hard - depending on the medium. Example, Movie sales may go up cause people want to escape their current reality and go into fantasy world even if it's for a couple of hours. We saw the same scenario in the Great Depression. Movie theaters started offering sweepstakes and drawing to patrons to get prizes for coming - that's the creativity I talk about further on. (Sauce: Historical Context: Movies in the Great Depression). I can see video game sales going up since adults and kids will be at home more, but I see things like music concert tickets going down for the less popular artists, but mega artists might see an increase cause of that 'escape from reality' scenario.

Remember money still has to flow to get by in this society unless you are out in the woods fighting off bears. So if you can think about the basic needs and figure out a way to get great deals to people, profit!

Business

Business still has to go on, so when there is a recession, in order to cut costs employees will be the first ones out the door, usually the most useless ones first - RIP social media department, you can take those tweets to the soup line... j/k (No but seriously, you'll be the first ones gone).

This is where it gets really crazy, cause some business, in some weird thought-process think somehow cutting marketing budgets will help "stop the bleeding", which is complete nonsense since in the recession that's when you have to market even harder. Maybe you can do more guerilla tactics, but at the end of the day the only way to get new revenue in is by being in front of your potential customers.

So I see tightening of the belts from marketing channels which are not directly profitable.

Business will however spend less on new equipment (computers, desks, chairs, etc), and this hurts other small businesses which supply these needs. Again there is an opportunity in getting business great deals when they still need stuff but are "pinching pennies".

I hate to say it but during a recession is when some of the greatest minds come forward and think of creative ways for their business/idea/projects. So you'll see some crazy guerilla marketing but also crazy new ideas that create revenue and profits where there were none before.

IF a major recession does occur, you can bet a lot of those monthly subscription delivering goods will be cancelled altogether. And I guarantee you there will be an increase in automation/robots of processes. So it'll be a good time for programmers, coders, and hardware hackers. When you get rid of employees "something" still needs to get the job done, so getting into robots and automation at some level hardware or even software is going to be a must.

I've weathered enough storms to know the most creative will survive and that's going to require using your brain to get ahead of the competition. A recession is when hustlers are born - i.e. Stormborn.

Education is also going to see an increase due to employees needing to be re-trained for new skills. You can possibly profit by online courses at some level - maybe create a platform, I dunno. Also think re-used books as well. The whole education system is so "For-Profit" now it's ridiculous.

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It comes down to demand. If someone need something you have to be the supplier. Now if they don't need anything, you just have to convince them they'll need it in the future. With that breath, I would like to announce my new book "Marketing In A Recession And Profiting" - only $47.97, get in on this low introductory price cause when the recession hits we'll be raising the price!
 
Anything to do with borrowing money short term, looking out for opportunities on markets - in this case even Flippa could be worth watching it, any "preppers" shit, anything to do with barter. Hell, when it's really bad you could even cash in on providing internet connection :smile: Pawnshops? :wink: Guns? Security? (depending on how bad it is...)

If shit hits the fun for real, most likely it's a great opportunity to acquire some "nice things" really cheap. So once bad times are over and value of things is coming back, you have made some nice profit in the process.
 
Geo arbitrage (every sense of the phrase) is the real deal.

There is a very proven model for taking things that are popular overseas and bringing them to the US market (shit from the UK / Japan sells well over here) and then of course, cloning startups from the US and localizing them. The most interesting plays I've seen in this focus around a good understanding of the countries banking system - many countries utilize one bank, or at least have very few dominant banking channels and porting known platforms / models to that open up opportunities for disgusting market dominance.

Obviously, you can get into managing contractors, or doing forex or something... but even specific to SEO, my biggest wins have been slicing 90% of the competition in competitive verticals by going after puny code domains and non-english queries. It's ridiculous how easy some of them are... and the algo seems to often be really far behind / less complex than the en-us, en-gb, en-au geos. Even a country with <10,000,000 people with reasonable internet usage will be enough to mint you some dough if you can figure out how to get a product / offer in front of them.

If any of you dudes have interest (and some expertise) in a non-english locale, hit me up. I wouldn't mind adding another set of 6 zeroes to the end of this year :smile:
 
Some colleagues of mine are enjoying a nice bussiness growing... just by playing on the recent Persian affairs. One of 'em happens to be an Iranian expat, so he just sells their online marketing services focused on Iranian markets, investors and audience...
 
The idea that any web based project any of us are working on can provide "steady long term income" is just not true. Unless "long term" to you means 3 years. Past that unless you are adapting and moving with the market nothing on the internet has long term potential on it's own.

If you want a future where you don't have to keep learning/adapting to keep the money flowing in the only option is to save money from internet activities and build up a huge nest egg.

Because you can try to guess what business will be doing great in 5-10 years if X Y Z happens. But the best way to take advantage of a recession is being the one with all the cash/resources because you weren't blowing your money on pointless crap when times were good. Do you have any idea how much the people that had cash ready to go and the balls to use it in 07-08 made?
 
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