Joe
Alright, so next up guys is uh, we need to talk about the reality. At the end of the day, the reality is we are going through a worldwide pandemic right? There is right now happening a market wide drop, whether you want to think about it as an irregularity or an abnormality But at the end of the day irregularities and abnormalities are always temporary. Right in time, they'll fix themselves. What we don't know is how long that time is going to be right? How long is COVID-19 and the Coronavirus going to affect us like they've been affecting us right now, right? We don't know what that timeline is gonna look like but the thing is, is that the agencies and the marketers who last, I believe the ones that who lead as well really stand to gain all of the market share of those who fail and throw in the towel during again this temporary irregularity or abnormality.
So in every recession, huge companies have have made it have been invented have boomed and have or have reinvented and boomed. You look at the companies like Amazon and apple and Uber And recessions have made literally made their businesses. And at the end of the day, folks, I think the most important thing, if you could take away one thing from this call, is that clients still need you still need your services, right? clients still need your services. And when it all ends, when all of this ends when all of this is over, whenever this pandemic is over, do you guys really believe that business owners appointments right and their schedules just going to magically fill up from before? Right, all the appointments that they had before now going to magically come back to them? Probably not right. Again, I really believe that clients still need your services, marketing isn't going away. They need us now more than ever. So Rob, you want to talk about what you need to do.
Rob
I do. So I think there's a few things to do. And the thing is, you probably notice a recurring theme. And every time I open my mouth was called tonight. The first thing is, don't make dumb decisions. Don't make decisions based on panic based on emotion based on anxiety. And that can be a really hard thing to do when you're feeling stressed and anxious. But you need to find the way to step back. One way that I find really effective to do that is to have a conversation with somebody else, walk it through. I often find that just articulating my decisions that are my back dilemma, even with somebody who doesn't understand it actually makes it easier to come to the right decision. But ideally, look for somebody you trust with a different perspective to you.
Because collectively, we all we've all as individuals got blind spots. We make decisions. So, a great thing to do before you do anything drastic before you let employees go before you, you know, kill off a VA who has been working for you for successfully for three years. Or, you know, you make a harsh decision with a client and if client asked for a discount, you say no. Think about it. Talk with somebody you respect someone you know, like and trust them, preferably somebody who has a different brain mode.
You know, if you're an optimist, find a pessimist. If you're aggressive, find somebody who's more conservative. Together, you will see the more blind spots than if you just made that decision by yourself because often these things can't be reversed. Also, not easy. I mean, it's really if you if you lose a really good member of staff, how long is it going to take you to get that person, another person retrained, we can (inaudible) short term pain now. It might be worth pain taking in the short term so you don't affect your long term future.
I would always say, make your decision I mean look for for a 12 month time horizon. So think about what your ultimate goal is. And think about the short term steps that you need to take to get to that goal, even if it means, but it just gives you a metric that you're going for now, if you want a 10 x, then so that might look a really difficult thing to do.
But if you can say, Okay, what are the things that I want? Well, how does my decision today affect my next goal tomorrow? Am I going to be setting myself back? Is there a different way I can achieve my short term objective? than the path I'm thinking about going down, I'll give you an example. Let's say you're thinking about losing an employee, and they're costing you 5000 a month I'm just making numbers up.
But you know that to get to your long term goal, that person's a key player, they've got skills that you need, they've been loyal, trained. Well, maybe you can't afford to keep that 5000, but to be quite honest, job market Ain't that great right now, people are not, you know, rushing off getting headhunted other than by grocery stores, it seems right now and health services. So say okay, maybe you could do a deal. Maybe one of the government schemes would support you in the short term with your cash flow.
Maybe they take a pay cut. But understand that if you take a pay cut now get some government support that allows you to continue on your path. Maybe they take a different way of working and go to commission or I don't know, but think through your options. And never just never, ever make a decision when you've only evaluated one option. Evaluate at least three to five options brainstorm. If you only focus on one, you don't see the alternatives. Push yourself to success. That's kind of where I've justbeen talking about. It's about making decisions today that position you for future as well. Don't stop.
I hear lots of places saying our workflow thing, were going off grid. And if you're a restaurant, then your only option is to do takeout. If you're a hotel, you're, you're in a mess. There's nothing you can do about it if your a hotel none of us have that problem.
We can work remotely, which what we do most of the time when this first broke out, and my friends from other businesses were say, oh, my goodness, anybody got a checklist? We're going to work remote? What's all the things that we think about when we do it every day? We don't even think about it. It's just how we live our life. And I suspect for many of you The same goes, so use that and go hard.
A great question, which ties in with the last point on that slide, which was, you know, position yourself for 10 X. The question in the chat that said, Whatdoes doubling down actually means does it mean doing twice as much as you would do normally? No, it doesn't. means doing the right things that have impact today and towards your goal in the future, be intentional, be deliberate, and maximize the ROI on your time and effort. That's what doubling down means. And that's how your 10 X
Joe
great stuff. Alright, so next billing buffers, just some things to think about, right? We want to we want to be careful during these times right? To build up buffers, right? We want to cut monthly recurring outgoing expenses, where we can write we want to stay on top of what we're what we're getting billed for what we're getting charged for, right? We want to stay on top of collections as we're billing clients and we want to embrace that these are hard times but don't ignore that. Right. If a client doesn't pay or their their credit card fails, don't just ignore it and say, oh yeah Coronavirus. I'm not gonna get paid right.
Follow up with them work on a payment plan. Do a two pay for the month, instead of just a one pay, write breaking into two payments, make it easier for them and you'll still be able to get paid. Right? And then think about cutting deals with clients that are cash rich, right to pay early. Okay, get them to pay, you know, for for the year and give them a discount. And some of you may laugh and go like Yeah, but who's gonna pay me early and pay me for a year and we have clients that do it all the time. Right? We have clients that put it on their, their invoices, right? Pay for, you know, 10 or pay for 10 months, get two months free or something like that and have cash rich clients pay up front for an entire year.
Next up is use government support if it's available to you. So right now, obviously, you know, we in the United States have, you know, stimulus packages being just signed and new ones being worked on. And no matter where you're at, there's most likely some type of stimulus opportunity. So Rob, I know you were talking about one from the UK just a couple days ago, I think, yeah. When somebody gets fired, right, or you don't have enough work for them.
Rob
Yeah. So in the UK, so the UK Government, like the US government, and many around the world, realizes that if they don't do something, whole industries are gonna collapse around them. And so our government, Monday, I think it was a Friday night, Friday night, announced that they would cover 80% of employee wages. If you didn't lay off that person, but instead retained them. They have to not do work for you. So you have to genuinely been going to lay them off, but if they don't do work for you, then they will pay 80% of their wages on your behalf. That goodness knows how the detail is going to play out like lots of these things. The headline comes out first. The detail comes out second sometime later. But right now we've got some 80% is great our loans been put in place. And you know, those people say buy umbrellas in the sunshine. Well, it might not be sunny right now, but still go out and buy umbrellas if you possibly can.
Joe
That could be definitely a way to continue supporting an employee right? as well, right instead of just completely, not being able to pay them. You know, it's it's just a short term thing. You pay 20%. And right, as this thing goes away and unfolds, right, you can bring them back on full time and you don't leave you lose that on ramp and that time investment that you spent getting that person up to speed. So get lines of credit or other facilities in place. But ultimately, guys, at the end of the day, I think the biggest thing is just not to bury your head in the sand right. Take action, before you need to right, and think be thinking about the future is the big message especially in all of this, but especially in building buffers, right?
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
