Grow Your Market Share In A Zombie Apocalypse: Your Business Survival Guide When The Unimaginable Happens

By Lisa Apolinski

We live in unpredictable and unstable times. We have lived through recessions, scandals, pandemics, and natural disasters. It starts to make you think "What's next?" Maybe we will finally see the zombie apocalypse of our nightmares.

How then as business leaders do you continue to operate and grow a successful company, surrounded by so much uncertainty? This book identifies the four essential habits in surviving a zombie apocalypse (or other unimaginable events) so you focus your habit-forming skills on the actions that will have an immediate impact on your business, no matter what is happening. By practicing these habits over and over now, you will be able to switch yourself and your organization into taking appropriate action when the next situation approaches.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781957651156

Book preview

I remember when the news came on, talking about the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and the number of deaths overtaking several European countries, such as Italy. The newscasters spoke about having to choose who to put on a ventilator, and how that decision could condemn the other patient to death. A wave of disbelief and fear washed over me. This cannot be happening, I thought. Talk on the news then moved to lockdowns and what the potential impact on businesses could be. The theoretical exercise was short-lived.

Within twenty-four hours, all of my work had come to a complete stop, and any lectures booked were canceled. Again, the thought, This cannot be happening. spread through my mind. Just as quickly, however, the next thought came into my mind: Time to get to work because you’ve got this.

I am guessing that thought We’ve got this did not immediately hit your conscience when the pandemic knocked your organization sideways. However, what if I were to tell you that when the next unimaginable event happens—and it will—that thought will occur to you? What if I were to tell you that there are habits you can create and develop right now that will help you rise above the next crazy-ass thing that tries to run over your company and your life?

I have successfully marketed after 9/11 (an attack on US soil—unthinkable), after the housing market collapsed (unthinkable), after the US went into a recession, and now, during a global pandemic and lockdown (unthinkable). Let me be clear: when I say successfully marketed, I mean I was able to grow revenue and take market share during each of those events. This is much more than hanging on and surviving; this is actually thriving when the unimaginable happens.

Now, you may ask yourself if you need to worry about another situation transpiring. I would tell you that, even with all the sideways stuff that has happened in the last two decades, I can guarantee there is something new and evil coming over the horizon. I have no idea when this next evil situation is going to hit, nor do I know how bad it will be for your particular business. However, you best believe something is coming.

This book is meant to help you choose which habits will serve you when the unimaginable happens, and to learn how to practice those habits over and over so that when the next situation approaches, you will be able to switch yourself and your organization into taking appropriate action. Fear and denial are good-decision destroyers. When something terrifying is around the corner, you may only be allowed one bad decision over a very short period of time, and you will be making thousands of decisions during that time frame.

When habits are formed, they allow action to take place without the mind slowing down or screwing up the process. If you have ever been on a military base, you will see cadets going through an exercise with their weapons. They are required to move forward to a barricade or something that allows them to take cover, bring up their weapons, ready their weapons, and aim and fire at a target. The cadets will do this exercise thousands of times. This creates a clear step-by-step habit of getting to a place with cover from returning fire, moving their weapons into position, and aiming and firing. Each step is done in sequence, so they are linked together.

I was touring Camp Pendleton with friends, and I asked my friend who had been stationed there why they had to go through that exercise so many times. He responded, When they are in combat, with bullets whizzing past their heads, the last thing you want them to have to do is think. The repetition of the steps and actions creates more than muscle memory. Those cadets, when they are in combat, will trust their training and move immediately into the proper action.

As I am writing this book, we have hit the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, global shutdown, and economic stall in the US. Things are slowly opening again, with vaccines and federal economic stimulus packages. Many of us are starting to feel like we can take a deep breath. The catastrophe almost feels like it is over.

I talk about zombie apocalypses in a tongue-in-cheek way, but I hope the term paints a picture for you, that even when things seem doomed, market share still exists. You may need to pivot from what services you offer today, and I would hazard a guess that if it keeps your business going and growing, you will accept that pivot. Whatever the next thing is on the horizon, your business can survive and even thrive. That next thing may not be a zombie apocalypse, but then again, anything can happen. Believe me, some of the shit I have seen has been unreal.

But you know what? You’ve got this.

Lisa Apolinski

Phoenix, Arizona

The year is 2021. States have been opening up, and the COVID-19 vaccine is quickly being rolled out to eligible people who want one. Things seem to be rolling back to normal, right? Wrong.

The cargo ship Ever Given¹ had been blocking the Suez Canal for nearly a week and causing delays to a global trade access route. Already, there was chatter of shortages of goods globally, higher prices on the horizon, and nearly 10 percent of the global trade having to take up to ten days more to reach destinations. I was not expecting massive cargo ship gets blown sideways and blocks global shortcut trade route to add a wrinkle in the already-precarious global market, but here we were.

In other news, people in the US have a disease I like to call Never seen them before, as in people are purchasing new cars as if they have never seen them before, driving the price as much as $4,000 over the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) because the dealerships can ask for more money. Home prices in many states, including my state of Arizona, are seeing incredible demand due to record-low mortgage rates.² Many homebuyers are being told to expect to bid on at least a dozen homes, and to be prepared to offer at least $50,000 over the asking price.

New homes, because of the