Playing Offence in a Downturn
What you still control (and should start auditing now)
The truth downturns expose
Slow markets don’t destroy good businesses. They expose unfocused ones. When growth feels uncertain, the market stops rewarding noise and starts rewarding clarity. It’s when the loudest brands fall quiet and the sharpest start winning ground.
Two patterns always emerge. Some teams slow down – cutting budgets, trimming scopes, waiting for “confidence to return.” Others create it. Sometimes a pause isn’t a stop; it’s a cautious slowdown or a trimmed initiative that feels safer. But the effect is the same. By the time the market rebounds, one company is found seeking administrators, and another is leading the pack.
Playing offence in a downturn isn’t bravado. It’s measured clarity – the choice to keep moving, smaller and smarter, while others stall.
The false comfort of waiting
Caution feels responsible. “Let’s pause until things stabilise” looks rational on paper – but it kills learning.
Every test deferred is one fewer lesson earned. Every content lull erodes visibility. Every delayed decision hands ground to a competitor who kept moving.
Momentum compounds faster than optimism. A team that keeps experimenting – even at reduced scale – builds evidence, rhythm, and confidence that outlast fear. When confidence does return, they’re already several cycles ahead.
The irony is that playing safe often becomes the bigger risk.
What playing offence really means
Offence isn’t about spending more. It’s about spending better. It’s about clarity, rhythm, and visible motion when others fade.
It can also mean advancing part of a larger project rather than holding everything back for one big launch. Keep what matters moving; prove value in smaller steps.
Four practical moves make the difference:
- Customer depth over reach. Use quiet months to talk to real customers, not just dashboards. New insight is cheap when everyone’s listening.
- Simplify products. Cut the long tail. Back the 20% of SKUs or campaigns driving 80% of profit.
- Fix foundations. Tidy the operational clutter that always felt “too risky” mid-chaos – analytics, retention flows, content hygiene.
- Stay seen. Keep publishing when others go silent. Thought leadership and consistency cost less than regaining attention later.
These are not reckless plays. They’re leverage-building habits disguised as calm action.
Rhythm beats reaction
Teams that thrive in tough conditions share one advantage: rhythm. They can point, every Friday, to something that moved forward – a test launched, a friction fixed, a decision closed. That momentum builds trust faster than any roadmap or report.
JH calls it progress without chaos – deliberate forward motion without the panic. We’ve seen it repeatedly: teams with rhythm create their own stability. They don’t react to confidence; they generate it.
The Downturn Operating System rests on three disciplines:
- Ruthless focus. Simplify to what genuinely moves margin, retention, or differentiation. Pause the rest intentionally, not fearfully.
- Weekly clarity. Swap annual planning for seven-day visibility – what was decided, delivered, and learned. Confidence grows through evidence, not optimism.
- Visible wins. Share progress publicly. Internal updates, small releases, visible change. Visibility builds belief.
These rhythms are simple. But they protect teams from paralysis when uncertainty hits.
Leadership through motion
Downturns reward simplifiers. Strong leaders don’t flinch – they ask sharper questions. What will matter more in six months, not less? Where can we earn trust while others retreat? Which decisions are we avoiding, and what’s the real cost of waiting?
At JH, when budgets tighten, we don’t go quiet. We re-prioritise, re-sequence, and build confidence through motion.
Example: One retail client paused a major project that much of the year had been pinned towards. Instead of spending six months building it, we redirected that energy into a rolling cycle of research, experimentation, and incremental improvements. Each release created small marginal gains. Combined, those gains outperformed what the big project could have delivered by itself.
Monday exercise: three levels of motion
Next Monday, don’t start with what’s stuck – start with what can move.
- 20% effort: A low-scope win you can ship in a day or two. Something visible, reversible, fast.
- 50% effort: A mid-scope project you can simplify to half its original plan and still deliver value.
- 80% effort: The big one that must continue, even at slower pace – the move that compounds long-term advantage.
Ship one of each.
Share the wins internally.
Tell the story of what’s moving, not what’s waiting.
Momentum breeds confidence. Confidence fuels motion. And motion compounds.
Markets always reset
The question is: will you be restarting, or still moving when they do?
The teams that keep playing offence aren’t reckless.
They’re the ones ready when everyone else wakes up.
Because progress doesn’t wait for confidence to return – it creates it.
JH – The Breakthrough Agency.
For teams that lead what’s next – not wait for it. We help ambitious ecommerce brands stay deliberate, focused, and ahead when others slow down