John Rowady had readiness in mind as he built his sports marketing firm, rEvolution.
"For the 20 years that I've been building the company, you play out a lot of scenarios on readiness so readiness becomes situational," Rowady says. "But there was no rule book as it related to readiness for a global pandemic and a complete global shutdown. And on top of that, being in the sports business, I never looked at scenario where sport across the globe would be stopped completely."
Heading into it, he says he was calling audibles, steadying the organization and honing in on what needed to be done to conduct business at a high level. It meant shifting to work from home and refining technologies to help the firm come together because communication was going to be key.
That action was the building block for where it is today. And that's important because Rowady says the biggest growth periods of rEvolution have come during recessionary periods. So it's important that his firm is able to stay active as it looks to springboard out of recessionary periods.
"This is a great time to have conversations, and maybe even a better time than in high markets, with companies and individuals that you think would be a structural change advantage to your organization coming through this," Rowady says.
There are many businesses, he says, that could be great targets to add to rEvolution that are having difficulty but have valuable assets. The strategy is to talk with the owners of those firms and ask how rEvolution might help. That builds up goodwill and could lead to more significant partnerships, or an acquisition.
It's important, he says, to stay active because the economic disruption will continue to create opportunity, and that's kept rEvolution looking for ways to continue to develop the business and come out of this even stronger.
Rowady, the company’s founder and president, spoke on the Smart Business Dealmakers Podcast about how he coached his team up to deal with the unprecedented disruption, and how now is the ideal time for meaningful acquisitions that could set a business up for wins well into the future.
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