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IS COVID 19 THE TIME TO FORGE AHEAD?

Visionary96

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This crisis has definitely woken me up in terms of learning and educating myself for sure. I was kinda just coasting along before this, browsing the forum a few times a day and then just plod on with my comfortable life. I now know what genuine risk and what the lack of stability feel like with this pandemic and the idea of just coasting and plodding along with life now just makes my skin crawl. Im going to make the absolute most of this isolation and extremely excited to forge ahead. The time is now.
 
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Walter Hay

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This crisis has definitely woken me up in terms of learning and educating myself for sure. I was kinda just coasting along before this, browsing the forum a few times a day and then just plod on with my comfortable life. I now know what genuine risk and what the lack of stability feel like with this pandemic and the idea of just coasting and plodding along with life now just makes my skin crawl. Im going to make the absolute most of this isolation and extremely excited to forge ahead. The time is now.
That great! I hope it's not too long before we see your progress thread outlining what this enforced isolation did for you.

Walter
 

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I swear I keep getting up each day as positive as I can and I will personally help as many people as I can.

But I just read the " leader" of this epidemic sent the wrong face masks to a city that was critical of him and he sent broken ventilators to California...this is beyond the realm of petty...there is what equates to a terrorist in charge of this epidemic..people are going to die because of it.

Says he will not speak to Govs unless they engage in hiney kissing.

Avoids direct questions about this crisis. Is using briefings as corporate advertising and religion?

This is not opinion just facts. Heaven forbid we bash.

What happened to United States?
 

MoneyDoc

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In my opinion, this thread needs to have daily posts as opposed to the other C0VlD-19 thread that got out hand real quick.

Anyways, @Walter Hay what are your thoughts on domestic manufacturing booming during & after this outbreak tames down? For example, I'm in Canada and I'm sure you heard of the 3M situation with face masks, we're so dependent on the USA for medical supplies. If you were an entrepreneur in Canada, would you look at this industry closely? Is this a one-off situation? Would you start a manufacturing plant in Canada? For example, Becton Dickinson has a head office in Canada, yet they act as importers in Canada for their own medical devices because they're all manufactured in the USA, Mexico, Spain, etc. Wouldn't it make sense to have a facility in Canada now?

Edit: Just registered the domains canadahospitalsupplies.com & canadahospitalsupplies.ca for the heck of it. Thinking of getting all the necessary regulatory approval and start acting as importer and quickly transition into a manufacturer for basic PPE for hospitals.
 
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Walter Hay

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@MoneyDoc Thanks for asking such an important question.

First, let me say that the chickens have come home to roost. The lack of foresight in transferring production overseas has proven to be costly. In the late 1970s I saw first-hand the movement to manufacture overseas.

I was in Taiwan, visiting factories with a distributor selling my Release Agent Chemicals. The company president bemoaned the fact that competition from Mainland China was taking away a lot of their business.

Soon after, I discovered that many of the companies that I was dealing with in HK and Mainland China were owned and managed by Taiwanese. They were chasing the low labor costs.

I visited some of the manufacturers in China who were using my products and the moment I walked into one factory that was producing plywood, I immediately recognized the machinery. I was familiar with the factory in Australia where it had been producing plywood for many years, and it still bore some of the symbols and words written with marking pens in Australia.

The move to China was substantial and it devastated the plywood manufacturing industry in Australia. Only a small number remain, but they are competing successfully against imports from China.

I am also familiar with that industry in North America (NA) where the story is similar, but not so devastating. The remaining industry there is still many times bigger than it ever was in Australia. Companies that remained operating in NA have mostly grown substantially, many with multiple production facilities across both the US and Canada.

One company in Canada beat the low labor cost trend by building the most amazing automated plywood mill I have ever seen. Two or three operators control the entire mill that puts out at least as much as the most productive large mill that I have ever seen.

With the attitude that I have seen in that industry alone, my answer is yes, I think that after the economic panic subsides, there could well be a domestic manufacturing boom.

Walter
 

Walter Hay

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In my opinion, this thread needs to have daily posts as opposed to the other C0VlD-19 thread that got out hand real quick.

Anyways, @Walter Hay what are your thoughts on domestic manufacturing booming during & after this outbreak tames down? For example, I'm in Canada and I'm sure you heard of the 3M situation with face masks, we're so dependent on the USA for medical supplies. If you were an entrepreneur in Canada, would you look at this industry closely? Is this a one-off situation? Would you start a manufacturing plant in Canada? For example, Becton Dickinson has a head office in Canada, yet they act as importers in Canada for their own medical devices because they're all manufactured in the USA, Mexico, Spain, etc. Wouldn't it make sense to have a facility in Canada now?

Edit: Just registered the domains canadahospitalsupplies.com & canadahospitalsupplies.ca for the heck of it. Thinking of getting all the necessary regulatory approval and start acting as importer and quickly transition into a manufacturer for basic PPE for hospitals.
I would expect that assuming the lesson has been learned, there will be a resurgence of manufacturing in most all types of medical and hospital supplies and equipment.

I think that registering those domains was a smart move.

Walter
 

Marc B.

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@Walter Hay Thank you for the insightful, inspiring post.

I absolutely agree that this is the time to forge ahead. My business desperately needed more of my attention in the last few months to grow, but I was crippled by the lack of spare time. The privilege of working from home has been the blessing I asked for. I have gained extra hours each day without a commute, without having to prep for work in the morning, and without having to take a lunch break, so it is critical to do as much as I can to take advantage of the situation knowing that this phase will not last forever.
 
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@Walter Hay Thank you for the insightful, inspiring post.

I absolutely agree that this is the time to forge ahead. My business desperately needed more of my attention in the last few months to grow, but I was crippled by the lack of spare time. The privilege of working from home has been the blessing I asked for. I have gained extra hours each day without a commute, without having to prep for work in the morning, and without having to take a lunch break, so it is critical to do as much as I can to take advantage of the situation knowing that this phase will not last forever.
I’d consider taking that lunch break...
 

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As for money, C0VlD-19 won't kill all of us cash heavy boomers!

I've resurrected one of the businesses I started working on in the Spring and fail to launch by Fall. I have several of these and I hit on the pattern finally this year. Winter Blues apparently roast my keister.

Another thought I had was after the 1918 pandemic we had the bull market 20's until the big crash.
One of the biggest winning sectors during both times was entertainment.
Extravagant, anything goes entertainment of the 20's.
Inexpensive, forget your cares and sit in air conditioning entertainment of the 30's
We got the fancy Grauman's Chinese Theatre style movie palaces in the 20's
The Main street escape theaters in the 30's

My childhood friend's father and uncle built this in 1930:
32069
 

Walter Hay

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Although the majority of business activity by forum members seems to be B2C, I suggest that it could be time to start thinking about B2B for opportunities for when COVID is gone.

As a natural follow on from B2C, most seem to think of B2B as wholesaling consumer products. I am talking about selling goods and services to businesses that need those on a continuing basis.

In effect this makes my view of B2B more like supplying business consumables and services needed by businesses to keep operating and growing.

Every industry needs services from outside in order to function and grow.

Every industry needs many products to keep operating, even things as mundane as pens and paper for those who still write or print. (I am not suggesting stationery as a good business - it's very crowded.)

Like every business that has employees on their premises they even need toilet paper.:hilarious:

See this list of industries published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics List of Industries to help you think of an industry that you could supply with ???????? (The answer could switch you to such a Fastlane as you never dreamed of.)

No doubt you will find all of those industries already have suppliers, but since when has competition scared off Fastlaners?

I think many of those suppliers could have failed due to the economic crisis, so there could be wide open gaps to fill.

With time on your hands, get on and DO IT.

Walter
 
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Andy Black

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Although the majority of business activity by forum members seems to be B2C, I suggest that it could be time to start thinking about B2B for opportunities for when COVID is gone.

As a natural follow on from B2C, most seem to think of B2B as wholesaling consumer products. I am talking about selling goods and services to businesses that need those on a continuing basis.

In effect this makes my view of B2B more like supplying business consumables and services needed by businesses to keep operating and growing.

Every industry needs services from outside in order to function and grow.

Every industry needs many products to keep operating, even things as mundane as pens and paper for those who still write or print. (I am not suggesting stationery as a good business - it's very crowded.)

Like every business that has employees on their premises they even need toilet paper.:hilarious:

See this list of industries published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics List of Industries to help you think of an industry that you could supply with ???????? (The answer could switch you to such a Fastlane as you never dreamed of.)

No doubt you will find all of those industries already have suppliers, but since when has competition scared off Fastlaners?

I think many of those suppliers could have failed due to the economic crisis, so there could be wide open gaps to fill.

With time on your hands, get on and DO IT.

Walter
Interesting you say that Walter. I’m B2B2B and B2B2C. I’ve had a few clients pause their Google Ads campaigns, and a few clients dig deeper. Anecdotally the ones digging deeper are my B2B clients, and the ones pausing are the B2C clients. So I seem to naturally be ending up more a B2B2B service.
 

Walter Hay

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I know that a lot of manufacturing industries have been left with no employees because they are not regarded as essential services.

Once there is any semblance of normality, you can bet that manufacturers will be firing up their equipment in order to meet the pent up demand. Supply chains will need to be revived, but the shutdown is likely to have left a number of businesses in the chain beyond resuscitation. You might be able to provide a missing link.

Manufacturing in many sectors will be needed if the entire economy is going to be able to obtain the goods or raw materials they need to get their production lines running. Without those manufacturing industries churning out their products a whole lot of other business sectors will be unable to function. Even industries such as furniture manufacturing, building, many trades, service industries etc., will be needing supplies that are currently almost impossible to obtain.

See this list of industries published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics List of Industries to help you think of an industry that you could supply with ???????? (The answer could switch you to such a Fastlane as you never dreamed of.)

I looked through the list of manufacturing industries in that U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and although a few might not have been shut down, there is plenty of scope in that list to find an industry sector that you could supply with goods or services, BUT............. you will need to be prepared.

Take note of the various business restart dates as they are announced. You will notice that some announcements have been for back to work in a relatively short time period after the announcement. Some of those dates have come and gone, but one of these days they will actually become a reality, and chances are the time lapse between the announcement and the actual return to work will be small.

That seems to be the way government works.

Only wise and astute entrepreneurs will be ready, and they could leave the rest choking in their dust.

Walter
 

Walter Hay

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Let's get rid of the doom and gloom.:happy:

  • Is the US economy really going to collapse? NO.
  • When did it ever collapse? The nearest it ever came to that was the time of the Great Depression, but Democrat Franklin D's New Deal brought it back to life.
  • What about 2008? It was heading towards it but the Fed's guarantees restored hope in the money market and stopped the downward spiral.
Well this little summary might bring criticism, but I offer it to show that the US economy has in the past, and again can be revived from even the brink of catastrophe.

Because so many are comparing the COVID's likely recession with the Great Depression which lasted over a decade, by contrast consider that the average duration of more recent US recessions is measured in months. The Great Recession of 2008-2009 lasted 18 months.

Surely the message of recession history is that governments and the Fed have a track record of being able to bring the economy back up when it's severely down.

I have been contacted by several who are making determined plans to be ready. We have had online discussions and they have asked my opinion. They range from a husband and wife team who are using their confinement to prepare setting up a service industry to handle what they expect to be a great need, through to one who has a lot of capital ready to invest in a large scale B2B business once he finds the right opportunity.

I will admit that although I have no intention of starting another business at my age, I have been thinking of a way to see my first business brought back to life, but by someone else. The forced isolation certainly gets the creative juices flowing. Without all that time on my hands I would probably not have even thought about it.

Walter
 
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Raja

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My Release Agent Chemical business was thriving in 1973 when a huge international crisis struck the world economy.

A coalition of Arab countries led by Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Coincidentally it happened to be during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, so the surprise was complete.

To keep this story short I will fast forward to the OIL CRISIS OF 1973, brought about by a decision by Arab oil exporting nations to impose an oil embargo on Western nations deemed to have supported Israel. The result was a worldwide economic disaster, much of it a result of PANIC.

Manufacturing businesses shut down in many Western countries as though there was no tomorrow. In Australia my business screeched to a halt because the products I supplied to manufacturers were aids to manufacture. I had been basking in the pleasure of having constant repeat orders flowing in for the simple reason that if my customers did not have a supply of my products they had no option but to cease production. Now they suddenly stopped production out of fear.

For months I had no sales - no income. If this sounds eerily similar to the situation brought about by COVID 19, it is! There was no sense in what was happening.

Life went on. People were still buying manufactured stuff, but suddenly there were shortages.

I had sufficient funds on hand to easily weather the storm, but was there anything I could do to get out of this hole? Lo and behold, one of my raw material suppliers, a very large American company decided to close down their Australian business. They approached me, telling me how much they had in stock of the raw material I had been buying.

Not phased by the doom and gloom I bought their entire stock. It was a huge purchase, even at the heavily discounted price I paid, but it paid off handsomely when the world woke up one day and realized that life was still going on. Orders began rolling in and I was was like a dog chasing its tail trying to maintain production and deliveries.

The beginning and end of this worldwide crisis were both incredibly sudden. Madness had afflicted business people everywhere. They had never experienced such a situation and were totally unprepared to handle it, so they panicked. Then the sober reality dawned that the world had not ended.

Will the current epidemic end the same way? I think the panic mode will gradually subside this time, but meanwhile opportunities abound. If you have not wasted your earnings, and have looked to the future there are new and old businesses that await your entrepreneurial spirit to start, build, acquire, and grow.

Walter
@Walter Hay you also tell one more message in the story you mentioned.

Save up for uncertain times
 

Walter Hay

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@Walter Hay you also tell one more message in the story you mentioned.

Save up for uncertain times
Yes, but that message was there in different words:
"Will the current epidemic end the same way? I think the panic mode will gradually subside this time, but meanwhile opportunities abound. If you have not wasted your earnings, and have looked to the future there are new and old businesses that await your entrepreneurial spirit to start, build, acquire, and grow."

Walter
 

marklov

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Although the majority of business activity by forum members seems to be B2C, I suggest that it could be time to start thinking about B2B for opportunities for when COVID is gone.

As a natural follow on from B2C, most seem to think of B2B as wholesaling consumer products. I am talking about selling goods and services to businesses that need those on a continuing basis.

In effect this makes my view of B2B more like supplying business consumables and services needed by businesses to keep operating and growing.

Every industry needs services from outside in order to function and grow.

Every industry needs many products to keep operating, even things as mundane as pens and paper for those who still write or print. (I am not suggesting stationery as a good business - it's very crowded.)

Like every business that has employees on their premises they even need toilet paper.:hilarious:

See this list of industries published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics List of Industries to help you think of an industry that you could supply with ???????? (The answer could switch you to such a Fastlane as you never dreamed of.)

No doubt you will find all of those industries already have suppliers, but since when has competition scared off Fastlaners?

I think many of those suppliers could have failed due to the economic crisis, so there could be wide open gaps to fill.

With time on your hands, get on and DO IT.

Walter

Hi Walter, your posts across the forums specifically on B2B Commerce are quite interesting.

If you were to ballpark it.... in your experience where do B2B companies have issues with "consumables" suppliers, is it poor service or under performing product?

Because I am looking at some of the products used by businesses in their manufacturing processes and it's hard to imagine products in that area under-performing, i'm thinking offering better service and support may be where the field is open the most.

How open do you think the chemical market is for disruption?

Would appreciate your thoughts.
 
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Walter Hay

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Hi Walter, your posts across the forums specifically on B2B Commerce are quite interesting.

If you were to ballpark it.... in your experience where do B2B companies have issues with "consumables" suppliers, is it poor service or under performing product?

Because I am looking at some of the products used by businesses in their manufacturing processes and it's hard to imagine products in that area under-performing, i'm thinking offering better service and support may be where the field is open the most.

How open do you think the chemical market is for disruption?

Would appreciate your thoughts.
Generally speaking you are right in thinking that products used in manufacturing processes would not under-perform, because that would slow production or result in poor quality production.

I know of two product areas in the industrial chemical field that are still using obsolete formulas. The products were obsolete when I began competing with them back in the 1970s and they have not changed.

One industry in which suppliers still sell that old technology is in manufacturing building products, including the plywood industry that I refer to in post #35, and the other is a consumer product for which I invented a formula that not only remedied the deficiency, but also gave a bonus result. Since the consortium that bought my chemical business trashed it, the products that I formulated are no longer on the market.

The only way to find areas in which chemicals under-perform is to canvas manufacturers using chemicals as aids to manufacture. Before starting my own business I acquired my knowledge in that regard by working as a salesman in the chemical industry.

Walter
 

marklov

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Generally speaking you are right in thinking that products used in manufacturing processes would not under-perform, because that would slow production or result in poor quality production.

I know of two product areas in the industrial chemical field that are still using obsolete formulas. The products were obsolete when I began competing with them back in the 1970s and they have not changed.

One industry in which suppliers still sell that old technology is in manufacturing building products, including the plywood industry that I refer to in post #35, and the other is a consumer product for which I invented a formula that not only remedied the deficiency, but also gave a bonus result. Since the consortium that bought my chemical business trashed it, the products that I formulated are no longer on the market.

The only way to find areas in which chemicals under-perform is to canvas manufacturers using chemicals as aids to manufacture. Before starting my own business I acquired my knowledge in that regard by working as a salesman in the chemical industry.

Walter

Are formulations done in-house by companies or "private-labled"?

I missed an opportunity to buy a small boring lubrication supplier company 2 years back, I've seen some opportunities in the technical gasses and in oil & Gas from a purely just selling product stand point but my interest in chemistry has come back full circle and my longing to invent/innovate something.

Walking around the industrial parts of town were how I discovered how behind the times companies were in sales tactics, graphic design and marketing, also maybe it was just that area but a lot of the business's were family owned & passed down.

How deep does your books go on B2B product sourcing?
 

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