When there’s a change in your business model, it’s a good idea to allocate for downtime.

This downtime may even feel like “lag time”. You feel like you’re taking 10 steps back to go 11 steps forward.

Slow but purposeful.

Take advantage of the time to research.

Use your downtime wisely.

Learn, research, watch videos.

But keep in mind that eventually you’re going to have to step out and start DOING.

Adding new skill sets: learn or relearn basics.

This is when, in light of the new venture, you’re putting 2 and 2 together.

Sort of like a farmer; your downtime doesn’t necessarily consist of reaping but you’re sowing seed for future harvest.

There’s a bit of a sting or apprehension found in downtime. Income may stagnate, you may have to go off the grid. But your focus is on longterm direction.

Some things I learned during my downtime.

The gist of what I learned and then implemented was getting product onshore to the States.

Feeding it into Amazon FBA.

Moving the product, ie people buying.

I’ve manufactured in China for going on 17 years now.

The new part was that now I’m not selling the goods to a distributor.

We’re not responsible for selling the individual pieces to the masses.

A different risk, at least for us, because we’re holding inventory.

Learning every aspect as much as possible during the downtime

My personality is that I like to learn as much as I can. Even to the point of micromanaging every aspect.

The goal is to be able to pass it off to assistance or partners later on.

Therefore, I want to know what I’m talking about.

Managing Inventory

When to send the goods into Amazon?

Where to keep it in the meanwhile?

How much are you paying for warehousing?

If you send in an entire container to Amazon how much is that going to cost you in light of longterm storage fees?

How to send in goods to Amazon

This involves carton labeling.

What kind of printer?

What kind of labels? What are the requirements? Where to stick them on the carton?

Is any of this critical or arbitrary and not really that important…?

Choosing what product to manufacture

This is a biggie.

I used to have people come to me and say “we want to buy 50,000 units of this”.

I was in the promotional product industry and passively waited for inquiries.

Now I had to figure out what product to bring to market.

The China control side wasn’t a new change. I’ve been doing this.

The big part is putting your confidence into a product line.

Each new glimpse of light feels better and adds more confidence.

Other’s may have done it longer than you, but from your perspective, you’re Indiana Jones going down uncharted waters.

You can watch as many youtube videos as you want and listen to others talk about it. But it doesn’t start dawning until you actually start DOING IT.

The information is out there. It’s a matter of how much time you can invest in learning.

Investing your time in one area is decreasing your time in another area. So prepare for that.

Be sure you’re purposefully learning material that you can APPLY. If something can be figured out later…go with that thought.

If your gut is saying, “stop reading and let’s get started”, then listen.

We still only have 24 hours in a day.