East of Portland is a narrow valley that follows the Columbia River and is named the Gorge. If you drive through the Gorge on I-84 for an hour and a half you’ll arrive at Hood River, where you’ll see a river full of kite and wind surfers. In another hour, the terrain will shift from steep coniferous slopes to grassy desert and rocky walls. On both sides of the river these walls are topped by miles and miles of wind mills. The wind surfers and wind mills both harvest the natural energy created by the geography of the Gorge.
Similarly, external growth opportunities in your business concern harvesting environmental energy.
Here is a short list of possible opportunities you might take advantage of:
Imbalances. Change will regularly create imbalances where pressure builds up. As a simple example, over the course of twenty years a city neighborhood becomes gentrified. If there’s no coffee shop there, there will be soon. Unmet demand builds until someone takes advantage of it.
Trends. There are both slow and fast trends moving through the market. Fast trends, or fads, you can’t do much about other than get lucky. Other trends may take years to run their course. Agile project management, the Lean startup, and design thinking are three slow trends in the technological space that have initiated change over the last 10-15 years.
Seasons. Life has a predictable seasonality to it. Markets and industries do to. A simple example from agency work is how some clients have annual budgets. For these clients, there is an opportunity to make easy sales when their year comes to a close. They have a need to maximize the value of their budget before it expires.
Growth. Markets advance. There is nearly always opportunity at the forward edge of the market where change is being tested and new value is being discovered. If you pursue these opportunities, you might take a leadership (communicating) or an innovator stance (discovering.) Even something as commoditized as coffee experiences growth. E.g. espresso was still expanding when I was a teenager and more recently cold brew grew to address hot summer days.
Pulses. Some environmental change is predictable and regular. If you’ve ever driven by a drive-through coffee hut on the side of a four-lane road you’ve seen an example of someone capitalizing on the pulse of rush hour traffic. Windmills function the same way.
Being able to discern opportunity, having eyes to see, is the first step to taking advantage of it.
In your market, there are likely forms of change for all of these categories occurring. Do you know what they are? Can you see the winds of change?
Featured image is the Aldrich windmill patent drawing from 1889. Windmill water pumps are a 9th century invention from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. Used under public domain.