#85 The sea...and Natural Rhythms

It's funny how interacting personally with basic natural forces reminds you of some Business basics for Amazon. Here are a couple of thoughts that have struck me while swimming in the sea off the South-East coast of England:

There is a natural rhythm to everything in business. Just like the ebb and flow of the tide, it's almost like a force of nature. If we learn to recognise hear or see those rhythms, we can work with them not against them.

Examples of natural rhythms include:

* The economy of a country which has an Amazon marketplace: consumer spending ebbs and flows with the economy, which tends to follow the Business Cycle of around 11 years.

* The seasonal ebb and flow of product demand in retail - especially on Amazon! Late November and December are normally epic demand for most products; January is often quite dead. BBQs sell better in the summer, and so on. Plan accordingly

* So you need a marketing calendar: Feb: Valentine's Day; Mother's Day; Independence Day (USA) or Bastille Day (France)

* You need to reverse engineer from this to your procurement (buying/sourcing) calendar: when do you need to place an order for products in order to get a product launched and ranked for Christmas sales?

* Your own business will have natural rhythms to growth process - at what point do you need to outsource prep? (so you don't have a living room or garage full of boxes!) When do you take on a VA?

* Your own personal rhythms are also important: when are you at your most productive? When do you need to build exercise into your day and/or your week?

If you can schedule things in these various levels of business in a way that works with the natural rhythms rather than against them, you'll find you are riding the waves rather than fighting against the tide!

This episode is one of the **Summer Series** of bite-sized chunks of Amazon Strategic Goodness!