Joe
Today, we have the pleasure of doing something a little bit different. In having my business partner here, Rob Warner from invisible PPC to really give us a different point of view on what's happening right now with COVID-19. And to really be able to share what we're seeing happening, right with lots and lots of agencies and local businesses through invisible PPC in the reach that we have at invisible PPC.
Rob
Hey, Joe, how are you doing?
Joe
Good, doing good? What time is it in the UK?
Rob
It's seven o'clock and it's just getting dark now. It's been a good day today.
Joe
Gotcha. Gotcha. All right. Fantastic. Good stuff. So guys, we're excited to be here. Today really talking about the corona virus outbreak and really wanted to give kind of an official agency State of the Union address. So lots of people talking about COVID-19 obviously and the outbreak but I see a lot of our customers coming into support. And we're chatting with a lot of them needing help needing a little guiding hand needing a vision for the future and where they're going. And so that's what today is all about. When it comes to what type of prospects people should be thinking about right now, I'm curious for you What comes to mind.
Rob
So for me, the kind of things that comes to mind are the people who have their lights turned on. So the people who are still providing services, those services that can be provided, either there are more in demand because of COVID-19. A great example, we had a discussion internally today that we've seen a huge surge in search volume for business interruption insurance, funnily enough, that's kind of hot topic right now. So that's a good place to be. But anybody who has their lights on and I would say particularly Anybody who has their lights on and can provide remote services, and things that have time sensitivity to them. You'll have seen us talking a lot recently about dental. Now, dental is a strange one because lots of dentists are shut, but they're still doing emergency treatment. Because if you break a tooth and your mouth hurts, you want it fixing. And you don't want to wait until sometime in the future when this thing's over. So things like emergencies, things that can be done remotely and things that are likely to be a fallout from COVID-19. There are some positives and some negatives that are going to come out of this in a few weeks time when this all comes over, but there will be financial distress, there will be financial advisors opportunities. I'm seeing people like accountants or CPAs doing really well for things like SBA loans, you know, accountants CPAs, are doing great business right now facilitating SBA loans. So you know, my simple answer is to look around you look at what you see and apply a little bit of common sense and your list will naturally form itself.
Joe
Definitely, I wholeheartedly agree with everything that you said. So I was out on a walk. So every day I've been going for a walk twice a day just to get out of the house. And, and and man, I saw all kinds of service based businesses still out and about here in South Florida, on HVAC companies, Plumbing Companies, pool cleaning companies, pest control, lawn maintenance companies. There's still lots and lots of commerce happening. I know that a bunch of our attorney clients have not stopped advertising and are still doing business. However, they've just kind of moved remote. So I mean, there's still plenty of opportunity.
My father's roofing company, they have a backlog of roofs that they need to get done right like sales is ahead of fulfillment and and also Currently right now, it's allowing their their fulfillment team and the actual roofers to actually catch up because Corona hasn't really slowed them down at all, they're still doing roofs and some other verticals people are very hesitant to have phone calls. But understand like, you know for a restoration company a water restoration company, you know if you have water damage you have a flood like we had at our house or now five months ago, six months ago, you gotta call somebody right i mean there's no other option. Were you gonna say something Rob?
Rob
I just said September was when it happened I remember it well.
Joe
So um, I think that Water Restoration companies definitely still a great opportunity. And you know, dental we just obviously sold the the dental smart pages with all of the landing page sets and that asset pack and obviously the dental Just PPC profits bundle. There's still a lot of dentists, advertising. And a lot of dentists that have had a knee jerk reaction and just stopping their advertising, I think are thinking twice as well. Rob, any thoughts on that point specifically? I know we got some good news today.
Rob
Yeah, so dentists are going through. And let me just describe this more generally, I'll circle back to the dentist, if I may Joe.
When something like COVID-19 happens, the reaction is very much like a bereavement. There is a sense of grief, a sense of loss, that turns into anxiety and stress and then often sort of a hit with a bit of depression. And you know, just that sense we know how we feel when this starts happening. It's really uncertain difficult time and the mood and motivation naturally goes down. But then there comes a point in that cycle when when everybody kind of goes Hang on a minute, we can't just sit around watching daytime TV and feeling miserable. We've got to get on and do some business. And so once that point kicks in, and it's different for everybody, and it's different for different types of businesses, and then
then we get back on and do it. And we start finding the ways when we thougt on one on day one that we couldn't do anything by day 10, you're going okay, actually, I've been thinking about this, I might not be able to do everything I normally do. But there are things that I can do. And you kind of have that sense of what happens with it. And so today, we've got a phone call. We had a phone call from one of our biggest dental clients on Friday and he's got multi locations, and they closed everything down on Friday.
So all their practices today, there are big corporate, their grief cycle and their decision making cycles pretty fast. They went okay, but now equipped, we're ready to open for emergencies only get the ads running as fast as you can. Can you get them all up by lunchtime, please. And so we had to get 13 campaigns live by lunchtime today. And it just goes to show that people once they've gone through that mental process can come around to the commercial reality and the need for business to go on in a safe, smart, sensible way. But business still goes on. And they're now looking for us to what they're doing is they're taking the calls at home when they get an emergency call, but then just an assistant or going into the practice doing all the sanitation or providing the service. So it's great. And yeah, we've seen that a few today we've seen increased budgets and a few other clients as well.
Joe
Perfect, good stuff. Rob, you want to get started here with with COVID-19 and your choice
Rob
the way so I don't even heard the expression. I can't remember who to attribute it to so I apologize if I'm stealing somebody well I am stealing somebody else. expression without their permission or without name checking them. If somebody knows who said this, first, please call me out. This simple quote, the problem is not the problem. The problem is the way you think about the problem. And that's kind of what we're seeing with COVID-19. And I don't, I don't want to downplay the medical real life, life changing impact is having on people from a medical perspective. Today, we're going to keep this talk primarily business. So I want your permission to do that up front. I don't want anybody to think that by moving on from the human side of this and the suffering and the distress and sort of, you know, the faith part is causing, we're not ignoring that we know that's real. We know it's terrible for many people and lots of people's lives have been turned upside down by this, but I'm not an expert in those things.
I can't help with any of those things, but we can talk about those business impact and business outcomes from this. I said a few minutes ago, when you get a shock to situation, as we're seeing with the world going right now with with this particular situation, we go through essentially a grief cycle. And if you can document it, it's documented how this works. Where you go through grief, you go through anxiety, you go through stress through depression. But most people come out of that on the other side, and they come out the side a bit with a position to be able to become positive again, some people don't and those things become long term depressions and a lot of mental illnesses and problems. And that's dreadful.
But we in our business need to understand that we get to choose how we react to this situation. Where are we spending our time? are we spending our time watching news media, watching the drama, watching the crises unfold and treating it like some kind of real life soap opera? Or are we on calls like this? Listening to experts, taking guidance, seeking advice, looking for ideas, opportunities, inspiration.You choose your path.
And how you come out of the current situation will depend almost entirely on the choices that you make right now. And so I would urge everybody to make choices consciously we use the word in Invisible PPC intentional a lot, be intentional about what you do.
If you choose to fill your head with with news media, that not the way to focus your mind Personally, my belief is don't sit there doing nothing. Don't accept that some clients have canceled their for the world attended, figure out an alternative and get positive get into action and you'll feel a ton better. So it's your call guys. My advice. And certainly I think Joe it's fair to say you and I and our team have lived and breathed this for the last couple of weeks is we get on and we create opportunities.
Joe
100% um, me personally, I'm just weighing in a little bit here. If I'm not occupying my brain and my headspace, right, it's going to get occupied by something else. Right? I'd much rather take Rob's advice here, right. And I'd love to focus on doubling down and building a business versus focusing on the media, right and, and being glued to my phone and what's happening, because that's where my head would live that. So I know for me personally, that I have to kind of block it out and I have, I have to control where my mind lives, right and what I'm thinking about. And for me, I just know that about myself, and I'm sure a lot of you guys would agree that you're probably similar in that type of situation.
Rob
Yeah, I find Joe just while again, pulling up. My personal the way my brain is wired. And the one thing that feeds me more than anything is progress, it doesn't even matter that much what the progress is on, I have to see forward momentum, I have to see forward motion. And so for me personally, I try and find wins wherever I can find them, finding an action that I can take that move me forward. Even as we have seen an invisible PPC, over the last few weeks,
we've seen a whole bunch of clients cancel, and that we knew was coming. We've expected it to happen.But not just sat back and waited for it. We've already put things in place, and we're taking steps every day. And so, you know, that's your call. And I strongly recommend you do the thing that allows your head to function in a positive way, wherever that may be.
Joe
100% agree, definitely on the same page, they're fantastic. I just wanted to share with you guys thatI really want to share some recent wins from us just internally, because I know that there's so much doom and gloom happening, it's hard, to some degree to stay positive or to have a positive outlook. So I just wanted to share some wins that have happened like quite literally guys just over the last couple of days since COVID-19 has started that I think if you need it, you need a little positive push, or you need a little push in the right direction or in a positive direction. Hopefully this will help you guys. Alright, so our biggest dental client who cancelled last Friday just reactivated a dozen locations. And so guys, I mean, just think about that. I mean, we're not going to talk about the exact revenue of that client, but guys a dozen locations. I mean, you can imagine what that revenue looks like that was a big loss. That was a big win, then coming back. Then one of our agency partners said none of their attorney clients are pausing for COVID all of them are moving to phone and video consultations.
So hey, there's an opportunity for a market for some of you guys to go after right attorneys or maybe you already are. plumbers are on frickin fire. It seems like a lot of people are throwing a Lysol wipes down the drain, which has resulted in some pretty crazy things. Right? So I want to say this with detail and with caution. We have an agency. What I mean by that is Rob and I own an agency and no, not Invisible PPC. And what I mean by that is we own and run an agency just like you guys, where we go out and we sell marketing services to the local market, but we don't do it as invisible PPC, right?
We do it just like you guys do it. We throw deals over the line for invisible to do PPC fulfillment, so that we can test our own services, right, we can see how things are going and we can play in our own little sandbox if you will, and eat our own dog food. So one person over the last three working business days set 13 appointments with local business owners. So understand again, folks that there is plenty of opportunity and businesses need our help more now than ever. What I will say is we had to make some slight adjustments to our scripting.
We had to make some slight adjustments to our scripts in order for this to work as well as it is. And the The key difference I'll share with you guys the key key key difference is we're just not ignoring COVID-19. Right, if you ignore it, you're scripting that you've been using to get appointments probably isn't going to work anymore. Don't ignore the situation that's happening.
So again, folks, we are in some crazy unprecedented times. But that doesn't mean that all is doom and gloom and all is negative on the business front. There are still opportunities to to help clients or prospects. There's still opportunities to help them get more clients. And at a better cost. Okay, and and all the opportunity hasn't quite just dried up like so many people are talking about. I wanted to share just a real quick share that I saw from Mike Michalowicz who's a best selling author. So Mike's an author. I just had the pleasure of interviewing him on my podcast, Show Me The Nuggets. And I've read, what is it now I read three of Mike's books. So I read Profit First Clockwork and The Pumpkin Plan. They are phenomenal books. If you're looking for great business recommendations on books, I would highly recommend you check them out. But to be honest, little pitch for the podcast here.
I would really go listen to this episode with Mike and I. And you can get it at digitaltriggers.io/podcast so little pitch for the podcast. And the reason why is Mike did a really really, really good job of on the podcast with me walking through each book and really giving a high level takeaways, right the high level nuggets of each book and really turn them into here's what you should be thinking about. Here's why. And then here's like one tactic or one strategy, you can go start implementing right away that'll help you see a result. And so it was just an absolutely fantastic fantastic podcast episode. But I saw him share this this little graph talking about really breaking down how you how you handle the recession that's coming or the recession that people are thinking are coming and the response and I really loved how he broke it down into cash flow strategic planning, debt management, accounting and tax and I just thought was thought it was super well done. Super timely and worth a share.
So and again, the content is is great, right? I'm in cash flow right canceled No, we're low benefit expenses. Right? business owners cancel no or low benefit personal expenses, right renegotiate terms. I don't know about you guys, but I spent 15 minutes over the last week renegotiating some terms because of Coronavirus and it's been nuts. I've dropped my monthly billing, my monthly expenses a couple hundred bucks a month and probably about again 15 maybe 20 minutes of time investment.
