Adapting To Massive Change

When the whole pandemic thing began, you started to see and hear a lot of people in business circles start using the word “pivot”.

And sure enough, many businesses did pivot. They made big changes to how they deliver their product/services in order to adapt to a world on lockdown.

You had some businesses adapt to a “work at home” model when historically they wanted everybody in cubicles. You had restaurants adapting to curbside and delivery. You had live events and conferences adapting to online streaming events. The list goes on.

Now, the lockdowns have ended. I mean, unless you live in a place run by nuts, you’re no longer in lockdown mode. But, the effects of all this stuff means the changes will continue coming fast. They may even speed up.

I don’t think we ever return to the “normal” of 2019. Supply chain issues will accelerate. Inflation is accelerating. There will be economic and political unrest, too. Times of great social change always have some of that in the interim.

There are numerous social cycles all culminating at once. I believe we’re going through the 4th industrial revolution right now and it will involve big monetary changes, industry changes, social changes, tech changes. Heck, even the national borders could end up looking different in this decade.

So, what does all this mean to online business? To blogging? To any of the stuff we usually talk about around here?

Well, first off, this is NOT the time to get lazy or complacent. Anything you can do to increase your cash flow is important.

Learn new skills. Make yourself more valuable.

In fact, learn skills that put yourself into the cash flow that is already happening.

And learn skills that you believe will be valuable in the world as it is changing.

This 4th industrial revolution is digital. More and more things are going digital. Even our money will be going 100% digital. I think it’ll be a battle between surveillance money centrally controlled… and decentralized crypto. But, either way, we’re going full digital.

And the way to make money is to find the flow of cash and put yourself as close to that cash flow as possible. Put yourself into the stream.

Think about it…

If business is going even more online, then skills such as web development, online advertising, content creation (since that’s marketing)… all those things get more valuable than they already are.

If the money is flowing online and businesses are finding themselves needing more and more to be online, then you position yourself closer to the cash flow by learning those skills and setting up shop doing them.

As I talked about last week, I think the monetary value of content is just decreasing (I call it content inflation), but I don’t think “done for you” services will ever go anywhere.

But, how else can you adapt besides just learning applicable skills and offering them to people? Well, there’s also general niches that I think will grow (and already are, really). For instance…

• Wealth preservation

• Cryptocurrency

• Crypto gaming

• VR, metaverses

• “Green” energy, solar, etc.

• Decentralized technology

… just to name a few off the top of my head.

If I were going to spin up new blogs, it would be in niches such as the ones above. That’s just me. And it is mainly because I think those are all massive, growing market segments that will only grow further. They’re all getting ahead of the trend.

As Wayne Gretzky famously said, “Skate to where you think the puck is going to be.”

And if you look at stuff like that and think it is impossible for you to do it, then don’t fret.

As things decentralize, there will be plenty of room for communities springing up centered around all kinds of interests and hobbies. I don’t think any of that is going anywhere.

Plus, as more and more goes digital, somebody will need to know how to fix stuff and do things in the “real world”, so those kinds of hands-on skills will be and remain valuable.

I could go on, but the point is just that this is worth thinking about.

My focus here at BMA is online business and content marketing. And, even within that scope, I think the massive societal changes coming are having and will have a big impact.

And I think it is worth looking at where the puck is going…

… so you can position yourself where it’s going to be.

Tech Talk

Some plugin news from some of my top recommendations...One of the issues with FluentCRM has been waiting for tools to get integrated with it. For instance, Thrivecart. And now that Thrivecart & ConvertBox are the same company, we've got the issue with both.The cool thing is that the Fluent team seems to not be waiting around. They've announced a beta of a new plugin called Fluent Connect. It will be free, but they're waiting for it to get approved into the WP repository. But, the whole point of this plugin is going to be to connect FluentCRM with external, third-party apps.And they're starting with Thrivecart. Which means, you will now have a way to integrate Thrivecart and FluentCRM fully. Pretty slick. It works by way of the webhooks built right into Thrivecart.Other teams are coming up with their own solutions. I think this whole integration space is heating up. For instance, the team of CartFlows is also coming out with their own tool soon to do automations and integrations with external apps. Plus, I talked recently about Thrive Automator and how the Thrive Themes team is beginning to open up a little.This is all good stuff for the WordPress space.Also on the FluentCRM front, we have a new update! Version 2.3.0. Hot off the presses. In this release:- New import options to easily import leads from other major LMS systems and membership plugins. You're no longer just limited to WordPress users or CSV files. That's super convenient.- Persistent contact page. So, if you have filters in place and then navigate to a person's profile, the system will remember your filters and you don't have to set them all over again.- Dynamic segments can owe be used to apply lists and tags, allowing way more automation options (such as re-engagement)- Undo/Redo on email templates- Ability to give people a link in email to view the email in browser- Ability to edit the automation trigger (finally)- Full integration with BuddyBoss, Learndash, Easy Digital DownloadsThey're moving along. And it is nice to see.Be sure to backup. When I upgraded the PRO plugin, there was a conflict with Elementor. The great thing is that when it was reported, it was literally fixed within about 15 minutes as version 2.3.1. That's why I love these guys. They're responsive.