Never Waste a Crisis

 

“Never waste a crisis”, is a quote from during the DotCom bubble I heard attributed to John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco Systems. But I’ve also heard something similar attributed to Warren Buffet and Winston Churchill.

While I have invested like this for about half of my forty plus years of investing, I never heard it put so succinctly. Buying when there is blood in the streets usually pays off very handsomely.

After an abysmal investment year last year, we will see a ton of change in 2023.

Want to leave your crummy job? Want to build a runway to retire? Need some more retirement income like me?

This is your year! And I’m absolutely giddy to take advantage of this:)

The point is that 2023 may be the best year this generation to buy a business of any kind!

 

Quick recap of 2022: Crisis looming or just radical change?

Over the holidays we were bombarded by pundits slinging doomsday facts and forecasts at us. Strategic plans are being shelved.  Estimates of the economy for 2023 are as uncertain as we have seen since 2008/2009.

• Inflation remains high. It’s not getting back to 2% any time soon. Expect something much more ‘normal’- like the 80’s and 90’s. Hopefully 4% to 5%.
• The Fed is committed to keeping rates way above what we had for the last decade. Mortgages over 6%? This makes sense because they have to kill inflation expectations.

Factoid: 18 months ago, the globe had $18T of debt with negative(!) yields.  Last week the last Japanese bond flipped from a negative to a positive yield!

• Worst yet is the layoffs have just started and will accelerate. Some big numbers like 18,000 layoffs at Amazon have already hit the news. Expect more big numbers.

“Remember a recession is when others lose jobs.  A depression is when you lose your job…”

• The public equity and fixed income markets last year also had their combined worst years since the late 1880’s. That’s a huge wipeout of wealth.
• What you don’t read much about is that private business transactions have almost all dried up. Sellers are shell-shocked. Buyers have their hands firmly in their pockets, waiting to see how bad things will get.

Finally, I heard a strategist who was sometimes homeless as a child say the worst feeling she experienced was “the uncertainty”. And that’s where the economy is today- frozen with uncertainty.

 

How to think about 2023:

If you’re looking to make serious money–both cash flow and appreciation– you need to get organized, become educated, and prepare to take action.

Market opportunities like we are about to see just don’t happen very often. The last time was the Great Financial Crisis of 2008/ 2009.

Spend a minute and really think back about that era. People who were prepared minted money.

I mean they made the kind of money that raises your expected lifestyle and provides for future generations.

Here’s how they did it:

• They got into an information flow that fed them opportunities
• They had unique sources for deals because
• They understood different business models and how good deals could be made
• They dedicated and prioritized their time proportionate to their vision of their future
• They were prepared to act and take advantage of a generational opportunity

Please re-read those last four bullet points, especially #4.

 

What to do:

If you want to quit your crummy job or create more income, you may be given a golden opportunity.   You just need to be prepared to recognize and act on it.

It boils down to shifting priorities for most folks from doing what they do every day, to making it a priority to look at lots of different new ideas.

You own your schedule and you must architect it to your new priorities.

 This was the path I started down in 2013.  I listened to podcasts.  I enrolled in courses.  I read blogs like this one.  I hired mentors.

Basically, I prioritized activities that would create my dream lifestyle for when I retired.

Please note I only acted on what I learned in 2015 after moving overseas and freeing up time in my day job.  That’s when we bought our first two dropshipping stores.  We’ve now purchased over 20 stores.

At that time, I had the financial resources, time, and knowledge  to become comfortable with taking action.

In our second full year of dropshipping we achieved over seven figures of revenue. Less than 10% of private businesses get to this level.  And we have now done this five consecutive years.

But I honestly think the opportunities will be much more obvious in the next two years—2023 and 2024.

 

How I can help

On June 30, 2022, I retired after 42 years building businesses in wealth management and private banking on four continents.  We moved from Abu Dhabi UAE to Paphos, Cyprus in July.

While working my time was constrained and I mentored about a dozen people one-on-one.  I got a lot of perspective and heard lots of questions.  I helped several find already profitable dropshipping stores to purchase or scale their existing ones.

I enjoy this process immensely but now I want to grow a community of folks who believe what I’ve written above.

I will be launching a program for folks to learn about buying existing dropshipping businesses very soon. There will be a community for people to interact.

I’ll share private and public deals I see and analyze them too.  You may even want to buy one.

Look for it coming soon!

 

Ian Bond

Paphos, Cyprus

January 15, 2023