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Rebellious Thoughts #74 - 🤘 Market’s Changing. Are You?

Rebellious Thoughts #74 - 🤘 Market’s Changing. Are You?

May 16, 2025

By Gus Balbontin
Edition #74

Hey Rebels!

So many new people over the last couple of weeks! I think over 300 new subscribers!

Yew!!! Thank you!

Hopefully these notes and previous ones challenge and inspire you in equal measure :-)

Lessgooo!

Last year I was trying to find a way to highlight the discrepancy between business and market speed.

A way to measure the rate of change in a business compared to the rate of change in the market.

The ever existing tension between business agility and market zigzagging.

As I often do, I dreamt a solution and woke up in the morning trying to write it all down before it escaped my brain hahaha!

This was my very first rudimentary attempt, one that I shared with a friend who runs marketing for a billion-dollar public company. So the results you’ll see here are his assessment of this company.

Let me share, and I’ll give you the challenge after.

A note ahead, when I say “change” you can think also of “adaptability” - the tasks and initiatives we do to keep us on top of an ever-moving market.

Business
Let’s look at the business first. We need to provide a number to rank each of the following categories:

Optimisation
how aligned and centred is the business when it comes to change effort and customer? As in - are there change projects all over the place some coordinated some not, some further ahead than others or are they all a coordinated effort?
How centred are these in solving the customer problem rather than the business problem?
5 = epic - we are so aligned and so centred on the customer is not funny.
1 = literally a mess, who? The customer?

Effort
how much budget and exec sponsorship does change/adaptability have?
Are execs heavily involved in change across the business?
Is there obvious work being done?
5 = lots of intentional effort well supported.
1 = none, we are too busy just doing the same we’ve always done.

Response
how aware, willing and active are the people in the business when it comes to change?
Is everyone just too busy doing business as usual or there are plenty of conversations and actions taken to adapt and keep improving?
5 = barely aware we need to change anything, “we are fine the way we are”
1 = super proactive everyone gets it.

Choice
how much choice do you have to change or not change?
Can you just sit back and wait?
5 = we are totally chill and can relax, our market is not moving fast and it makes no difference either way.
1 = we have no choice, the maket and competition are hot and we are going backwards!

Comms
how good are the comms in your business generally?
5 = we have epic comms, lots of channels and formats, everyone is engaged.
1 = we are super shit at it.

Market
Now let’s figure what the market is doing.
Same deal just rank each category.

Tech
is there lots of tech pushing the boundaries of our service and product?
Or things continue to be done the way they have always been done?
5 = it’s insane I can’t keep up!
1 = we are still running word95 and we are fine.

Social
lots of social change and expectations shifting about what we do and how we do it?
Are people looking at us demanding more or is the market chill?
5 = Amazon can do it why can’t you do it.
1 = I’m cool I love my experience as is.

Economy
Is the economy in which you primarily operate growing or shrinking lots?
Or pretty stable?
5 = It’s crazy at either end, full retraction or steaming ahead.
1 = It’s steady.

Demand
Is the demand for your product growing or shrinking lots?
Or super stable?
5 = We are declining or growing super fast
1 = Not a lot of movement

Government
Is the gov super involved in your sector demanding change and pouring regulation?
Or ignoring you and letting you be?
5 = The gov is driving me crazy
1 = do we even have a government?

Here are the numbers he gave me across all the categories

So then I added up the numbers and put them side by side:

As you can see, the market is moving faster than the business, which is exactly what this exercise is meant to highlight - is the market getting away from you? Are you getting away from the market? Or are things moving along nicely?

I think you never want to be caught behind the market - perhaps the market being a little behind you it’s ok - but by too much for too long, not ok.

Another observation is that the market in which this company exists is not moving at crazy speed - it’s in between “stable” and “on your horse” so - you don’t need to panic, but, def get on your horse.

Interestingly, as well, imagine your market was “back to hunter gathering” the business result should categorically be “changing” because you need reinvention or you’ll go down with the market.

I then took a punt and guessed a bit this:

If your score as a business is 17-18 and up, it’s healthy and the safest - irrespective of your market
If you are between 10 and 16, you are putting effort, but you are not getting the returns you should be getting - you are wasting a lot of this probably due to coordination and optimisation
Anything below 10 be careful.

This picture also shows that if you can measure it every quarter, you can start seeing a pattern.

Anyway you get the little model - it probably needs a bunch of iterations and some more work, but it could be a cool little tool I can get businesses to do to see where they are at and then figure out a plan to improve the metrics.

I had a go at coding it in www.replit.com - took me 20min, super basic, but - hint hint - you can start coding and creating apps and software yourself… the tools of production are becoming available to you… think that at some point the tools of production and publishing channels belonged to TV stations and now anyone can film and publish a show.

Ok, to wrap up:

CHALLENGE OF THE WEEK:
Apply this model to your business and tell me what insights you may have gained?
Apply it to yourself and see if you are at odds with your market?
Don’t over think it - the numbers you write down should be fairly instinctive.

Go play with it and Give me ideas to improve it!
Maybe it becomes a free report I can do for biz and people wanting to understand how well equipped they are to survive or grow!

Enough.

Love

Gus

Recommendations:

Life ShakeUp!– Take Control of Your Future

Let’s be real. Most people stay stuck.
They think “someday” they’ll figure it out.
Someday they’ll make a move.
Someday they’ll take control.
But someday never happens.
This isn’t another self-improvement course.
Life Shake Up! is a movement. A mindset shift.
A no-BS community that will help you break free, reinvent yourself, and start making bold moves.

gusbalbontin.com/lifeshakeup

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YEW!!!

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If you’re curious about how to actually use AI in real life—not just read about it—check out HumanAI, a newsletter by my good friend Lucas.

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