The President Trump tariffs saga continues with much posturing and sabre rattling from the numerous countries and stake holders all with skin in the game. We hear from the press and experts everyday how we should feel and how we should react to these tariffs and what we should do. Dependent on the point of view of these “unbiased” commentators it is at best the USA’s new King taking a long overdue strong stance on unfair trade practices and at worse the end of the free market as we know it. As we all should know it is neither of those two extremes but at the same time it leaves us all with the question of what do I do and how should I feel?
Let’s deal with the 2nd question first, how you should feel? You should feel excited, instead of wasting your time and energy worrying about what you don’t control or what others think and feel about what you don’t control, I challenge you to embrace the change, embrace the challenge and embrace the nervous energy that comes from the excitement of change and see it for what it is, Opportunity.
Now let’s go back to the first question: What should I do? First start with your new excited embrace the change attitude and energy. Once you have fully engaged in this new mindset you will see that dynamic market changes create some of the greatest opportunity for prosperity, just ask anyone who is active in Wall Street who specializes in taking short positions, they get really pumped up when drama is circling in the air.
With this new mindset you will clearly see that the tariffs have created opportunity for you and your company to separate yourself from your competition.
As a seller of products effected by the tariffs your competitors and customers are nervous. Take advantage of your competition’s trepidation by implementing a clear and targeted communication and sales strategy, take the lead and be a leader by bringing existing and new customers clarity of thought and new solutions.
As a buyer of the products effected by the tariffs, turn this to your advantage. Your competitors are in the same slow boat from China you are, be quicker, be creative, try something new, separate yourself from the hand ringing and huffing and puffing of your industry colleagues and seek out new sources of supply.
In an earlier post I talked about how change is one of the key fundamental certainties of life along with death and taxes and as with those two how we deal with them is simply a personal decision and is really the only thing we control. Some of you will remember when President Bush implemented tariffs and again people decided to react differently, well what happened after that? It all changed again the tariffs were removed a year later and a new challenge emerged.
