I am always happy and anxious to talk about local, state, and federal political elections. This is because as Small business or startup company owners, since we were kids we have been made to understand that to our survival as citizens in any country, political elections are consequential. This is because they determine the future of the economic, social, educational, and security stability of our country for years to come.
Small business or startup company owners can feel the impact of political elections in many ways. The impacts can range from positives such as an increase in all customers’ confidence during election time to negative impacts like experiencing a drop off in purchase decisions throughout the election dates.
In a country where political elections might last up to a week, it might likely affect your business negatively. Remember that some customers might prefer to wait until after the election is over before they complete goods and services purchases. This delay will probably cause your business to take a while before you fully recover in profit loss.
How to benefit from Political Elections as a business owner
How then can you as a small business owner who is already under pressure to deal with the uncertainties surrounding political elections benefit from the political elections process on the positive side during election periods? Let us discuss the benefits and how they can be attained.
1. Business Website
There has never been a better time to invest in a website for your business than now when everyone is going online. A business Website can have a positive impact on your business success even during election periods. It is funny that some business owners fail to know that many customers will visit their website before making any purchase. A business website is an added advantage to those who know the importance of an online presence. If you don’t have a business website you can register a website with any of the best hosting companies.
A business website offers a lot of benefits for small businesses or a startup company and increases sales year over year. As a business owner whose small business or startup company has access to their company-owned website with thousands of impressions every month, you have the authority to issue ad spaces to advertisers. You are allowed to place advert banners on behalf of different political parties. The campaign manager is likely to accept your proposal to use your website platform in canvasing on behalf of their chosen political candidates.
2. Advert plans
As your business office accountant wants to hedge your purchase or production costs, the uncertainty during political elections can make it hard for your account department to plan marketing properly. Events that have national significance, such as general elections, often dominate the media for days, weeks, or even months.
According to NPR.org, your business adverts on TV stations or Radio stations during political elections might not have a major impact in terms of profit return. With even less space or airtime available for other news, items already in the pipeline such as your company’s adverts could be rescheduled to a later date or even dropped altogether.
Funny enough we all hope that election results of political elections are not manipulated. The credibility of the results after the election will determine if there will be peace and jubilation on one hand or if there will be social instabilities like looting, protests, social disobedience, declaration of martial war, and even in rare instances civil wars.
So apart from TV stations and Radio station advertisements, you might want to consider other options. This is where the printed press comes back in. If you don’t want to advertise on printed press media such as in the newspapers or magazines, you might want to consider advertising on social media platforms such as placing ads on Facebook, you should also consider running Google ads on Google AdWords among others.
3. Currency instability
CNN when studying the 2022 midterm election results and its impact on the American economy, explained that during general elections there are uncertainties that are bound to arise. These uncertainties during the political election period cause the value of the nation’s currency to fluctuate against the other major currencies around the world. Remember that these countries are not holding elections at the same time as your country, so you can expect economic stability on their end.
Sometimes general political elections put pricing pressures on goods and services sourced from overseas. Your company can go into the Forex field during elections, Small and Medium Enterprises can’t fix their prices as large corporations do through hedging currency without it taking too much of their margin. So make sure you consult an office accountant before engaging in corporate Forex investments.
4. Drop in Producers Price Index
The Producer Price Index is the measure of the average change over time in the selling prices that domestic producers receive for their outputs. The Producer Price Index measures the cost of goods from the producers’ perspective. Higher PPI numbers signify higher inflation, while lower PPI numbers signify a fall in inflation. As PPI becomes lower it also leads to interest rate reduction. This is common during election periods.
If you choose the right business location, when interest rates are lowered, the amount you normally purchase raw materials also drops. A fall in the price of goods needed for production in your business such as flour for your snack business to internet data you use at your company’s WiFi can occur around general election periods.
5. Project bidding
Every political candidate has their electoral propaganda and proposed projects which they have promised in electoral campaigns or rallies during political elections. This is where finding political connections comes into play. As a smart business owner, you should make certain that your business is in line when it comes to benefiting from these projects when they finally kick start.
Though politicians are not like other investors in your company, still they are very useful. The first point of action for politicians after they come into office is to try and give the economy a big lift. If your business is into selling building materials that can be used for construction purposes such as wood, concrete, steel, cement, aggregates, bricks, clay, and metal then you can benefit from projects that might be used in the construction of social amenities by bidding for to partake in the projects around you. Though prices can inevitably suffer with each change in power.
6. New business partners
During political elections, many small businesses find it hard to find buyers for their products, to meet up with less demand sometimes we are forced to find other options. So since the time around a general election can be uncertain with long-fought-for-getting buyers we tend to work harder in finding new business partners and coming up with new business ideas.
The zeal to see our business survive during political chaos means it is time to find new business partners or customer base. It becomes a vicious circle, and it can forge acceptable parts in partnerships, as we have seen previously in entrepreneurs in different countries during elections.
The knock-on effect of all of this is the reduction in the total dependence we have on just a few sets of people, and in most cases, this helps in preventing lower profits, negative results, and then the inability to meet up with expenditure. You can also take election periods to consult freelancers and virtual assistants at very cheap consultation rates or prices. Remember that virtual assistants and freelancers are experts in any field that you might lack expertise in as a business owner.
