How To Navigate The Dip When Your World Keeps Changing

There are some monumental global changes impacting businesses right now.

Here are a few I’ve heard from Soloists just in the last few weeks:

“The whole premise of my business has become a lightning rod for conflict and nobody’s buying right now.” (DEI consultant)

“Every client contract I have has been put on hold.” (consultant to Federal agencies)

“My core clients are distracted—not sure if their budgets (or their jobs) will be slashed if certain tariffs go live.” (manufacturing productivity expert)

I get it—whenever there’s some serious fear, uncertainty and doubt floating around us, it activates our lizard brains.

The trick is what you do with that.

Easy start: remind yourself the last time you experienced a sudden free fall that felt like the end of your business as you knew it.

March 2020 ring a bell?

You figured out how to navigate it then and you’ll figure out how to navigate it now.

If you’re prepared financially—like say banking six months plus of your income—calm your lizard brain with this: “I have a bunch of cash tucked away, I’m gonna be OK while I figure this out.”

But let’s say you don’t have a significant financial cushion—or your lizard brain still needs to see revenue flowing in now.

You’ve got options.

Build a short-term runway with former clients.

Yup, it’s kinda like landing the plane and building the runaway at the same time, but when things look dire, it’s an option.

The trick is to move fast but with purpose.

Say that DEI consultant decides to focus (for now) on leadership training. Every day, they email three former clients, telling them about their new offering and asking if they want to hop on a call to see if it’s right for them.

Three emails a day, five days a week should produce enough calls pretty quickly to test the offering and close a deal or two.

Plus, while waiting for the tide to turn and keeping their ideas warm, they might even discover an alternate way through to their original mission.

Take a short-term assignment that uses a less desirable (to you) skill set, but doesn’t lock you into long-term work or price tags.

Maybe your marketing strategy work isn’t resonating with your middle market clientele just now because they’re focused on tactical, short-term solutions.

Taking on a pure content creation gig from former clients (people who you can easily reach) won’t lock you into continuing that forever, but it will help your lizard brain to take a chill pill.

Pivot right the heck now.

Maybe you’ve been toying with an idea for a while, but haven’t pulled the ripcord yet. Could this in fact be exactly the right time to go for it?

Or, you’ve decided you’re just not attached enough to your client base or the problem you’re solving to wait them out—so you pivot to an adjacent niche where your skills will be valued.

A non-profit consultant might love their clients, but decide that focusing on Federal grants is too much of a long game for now. They could instead pivot to showing clients how to fundraise with new audiences.

Whatever your next direction, set yourself a 30-day challenge.

The cool thing about a time-limited challenge is it gives you an attainable goal while reigning in any tendency toward panic:

Email or call 30/60/90 clients in 30 days with a revised offer.

Design, test and launch a new option with a small number of high-potential buyers.

Publish a piece every day for 30 days focusing on one big expensive problem your ideal client is challenged by right now.

The lizard brain is real. When it senses chaos, it wants to slap you into fear mode.

Moving fast but with purpose tells it to back the heck off.