There Is Always An Opportunity Window

There is always an opportunity window, a time or period when the odds of success are weighted in your favor.

The advertising opportunity window for a company selling roofing shingles is right after a hard rain. Snow shovels sell best after the first big snow and radiator coolant flies off the shelf the day before the first seasonal freeze. People line up to get their anti freeze, having known for weeks that they would need it. Car owners replace their tires most often when the tires have become dangerously tread bare, even bald. Many people will only see their doctor after they have a major health scare. Contrary, it is difficult to create demand for coats—even mink ones—in June or July. Like roofing, snow shovels, anti-freeze and mink coats, there is an economic opportunity window. For opportunistic people, the sinking economy and the rising unemployment situation can offer a window of opportunity.

If you are in sales — and everyone is— you want to be open to opportunity. In economic downturns it is easy to lament about how bad things are and blindly accept as fact, people and companies are just not buying. While at some organizations purchasing budgets seem to have evaporated, other buyers have yet to reach their budget boiling point and are still issuing purchase orders, accepting shipments and writing checks.

For many employees this is the time they spend fantasizing about the past and better times or rationalizing the current bad way their company is treating them: eliminating 401k matching funds, freezing salaries and bonuses, restricting expense budgets, etc. Employers may focus on “denominator” business strategy—cutting expenses rather, than on “numerator” (above the line) strategy and work to increase sales and share of market. “Numerator” employers look for opportunities to take advantage of their competitors who are focused on entrenching or circling the wagons.

There are many opportunities out there, but too few opportunists. You may be right in the middle of a great window of opportunity — an opportunity that offers unparalleled success for you and/or your business. It is time to see the future in the present.

The window opportunity is presented to those people who are willing to turn on the lights and work despite the darkness. While others read and hear bad news, opportunity workers are using their time and talents to find prospects that are buying. They search for needs that are going unfilled within their department or company, and develop and introduce new products or services that people are willing to pay for.

Opportunity workers and innovative companies are on the same playing field as their counterparts, who are not playing the same game. They see, hear and sense things that others don’t.

Opportunistic workers are strange beings — while helping themselves, they help their coworkers, their company and the nation. They think about the situation, see the opportunity and get to work. Opportunistic Workers don’t see bad or good times they look at the day and see the right time.

HOG THOUGHT: Successful people are opportunity-conscious. Once they recognize a window of opportunity they quickly connect their actions to achieving these opportunities. Unsuccessful people don’t even see an opportunity. They pass time and wait for something to change. Someone once said, “Weight is what loads down the donkey.” So, wait and lose.

HOG QUOTE: “Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly in the distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.” — Thomas Caryle

HOG ACTION: Starting today, don’t merely look for windows of opportunity that can be exploited, but also devise such situations that are tailored to your strengths and the strengths of your organization.