Part 2 of What to do about the Coronavirus in your business | Ep 9

Speaker A

00:00:00.800 - 00:31:17.920

This is episode nine and I'm going to talk about the first week of impact the Wuhan flu or coronavirus had on businesses in the US What I'm advising my clients of right now and my prediction around all of this based on data I'm seeing. This is the Bottleneck Breakthrough podcast.

I'm Josh Long and this is all about helping you find and fix the biggest challenges in your business to unlock growth and profits that last foreign. Hey. Hey. Well, we're going to continue this coronavirus talk because we can't avoid it.

It's been essentially a week since this hit really, really hard in the US and elsewhere. Friday 13 March was pretty much the beginning of the end of the world in as we know it.

And so it's a week after and a lot has happened in my clients businesses, a lot has happened around the world. There's a whole lot of fear and misinformation going on. And so I don't know how this is going to turn out.

I'll give you my hypotheses and I'm recording this the morning of March 21st.

So this will be my record, my line in the sand, planting my flag of what where this goes and how it turns out to see if any of my predictions are correct or if I'm full of crap and have no idea what I'm talking about when I come to giving recommendations on how to navigate this stuff. So with that, there is a fantastic article written by an armchair quarterback named Aaron Ginn on medium called evidence over hysteria.

COVID19 I don't know exactly. I guess it was published yesterday.

He's used a ton of great data, great data analysis, great change data of how these cases are changing over time, showing the bell curve of acceleration, showing it's decelerating in most countries. Lots of great insight on how it's being passed and not passed around so that you can have more interesting or more insight about how you behave.

The fascinating stuff for me is the data around kids and people under 20, people under 10 especially, that they're not carriers. It doesn't look like in his data they don't pass it on to others.

They actually get it from being in close proximity from older people who have it and having massive viral loads that they have to carry.

It was also interesting that he showed that the airline industry staff have lower rates of infection than other populations, even though they had been exposed to it for months going back as far as possibly November of 2019. So what does this all say? Well, I felt like I had fat confirmation bias while I was reading his article because it says everything.

I've been telling clients that this feels like a flu pattern. It feels like when warm weather comes, when humidity comes, this is going to die off.

That my guess is by the end of April 2020, things are feeling more controlled. But data is one thing. The other side is the hysteria. I mean, there's a lot of hysteria going on right now.

This last week, I've seen so much carnage in business. I heard that Grant Cardone shut his digital agency.

He couldn't 10x his way through this economic bump and shut it down overnight without any notification to his staff. His senior leadership got no notifications, from what I've heard, and it is closed yet.

Digital marketing is going to be more and more valuable now because if we're in quarantine, we can't go anywhere. Radio is going to be listened to less. More streaming is going to be done online. More usage of online apps is going up.

Facebook has felt, I heard, a stat this week that they've had 73% increased usage throughout the days that they weren't used to. So their servers are backlogged. But guess what? Their advertising is down right now.

A lot of companies canceled advertising over this last week, so ad costs are cheapest. Google as well. I heard that Amazon has completely pulled off advertising from Google. Yes, Amazon is not advertising on Google as of this second.

How much media space, how much ad space, how much less competition is there for the audiences and the keywords that you're targeting?

Now, I'm not saying go take out a loan and try to pour all of your savings and every resource into advertising right now if your business doesn't support it.

But there's lots and lots and lots of businesses that you can get a lot of leads right now and nurture and warm them up so that when we come out of the backside of this, you've got a great relationship with them, goodwill. You've got them primed and in a position to take advantage of whatever you're offering.

My buddies at Kajabi, they are flooded with leads this last week. They are growing like crazy already. And now they've gotten more fuel added to the fire.

I know people in the authoring space are getting more interest and they're using the. The historical data that Shakespeare wrote King Lear during quarantine or something like that, or some kind of house arrest or.

I don't know the exact details, but there's lots of things we can do during this downturn that can put us in a position of strength. And it doesn't have to be Chicken Little sky is falling.

Running around telling everybody else to keep their distance and praying that a vaccine comes and saves us. That's not the answer. We are going to adapt. We're going to grow through this.

And based on all of this data this guy put together, I'm confident that by May June, this is blown over and we're back to business as usual with whatever ramifications and thrash and pain and damage was caused by all of this shutdown. Now, I'm not saying that this shutdown isn't helping flatten the curve or that this shutdown isn't saving lives. I'm not saying any of that.

I'm just saying the data shows things are improving, even though it feels like the end of the world was just last week. Now what do you do through this? Well, you have to adapt. That's what us entrepreneurs do. We have adapted since the dawn of time. We've innovated.

We come up with all sorts of great solutions that keep making the world a better place. I've talked with dozens and dozens and dozens of business owners this past week and it's interesting.

It's very polarizing, the amount of business owners and entrepreneurs that are like, we've tried everything. We can't do anything now. We're stuck. Or our clients aren't responding to our messaging, or everybody's overwhelmed and fearful.

But when we get down to it, they just are stuck on doing things the same way they've been used to doing forever because we've gotten fat and happy. It's been easy to serve clients. It's been easy to do the minimum, do the standard, get our fee, move on.

But a big opportunity right now is to do a lot of things on behalf of your clients. So do you sell B2B? Do your clients work with other clients? Other customers? Can you craft messaging for them?

I've got five clients that we've been doing this all week just crafting messaging on behalf of their clients to send stuff out so that their clients feel supported, feel get some of their overwhelm relieved and don't have to come up with all this on their own. So what can you do on behalf of your clients?

Another client has clients that serve clients and has data and he's going to go through their marketing data and lead capture data and start analyzing it proactively without their permission because he already has the data and give them reports and say, here's what I see, here's what I recommend since you have X, Y and Z not happening over the next few months that you've relied on, here's another way to make the most of the existing contacts, the existing prospects you have your past clients. So what can you do to be proactive? Do something without asking for permission that serves your clients.

Now, I'm not saying do something like just go charge them for something, but what can you do proactively that gets them moved forward and unstuck so that they're able to keep doing what they're doing and you're able to keep serving them, doing what you're doing or a different version of it. That's what needs to happen right now. Other things I've been saying is over communicate across the board. Communicate more with your staff.

Communicate more with your clients. So what do you say? Well, say a lot in. Say it more frequently in shorter bursts.

So, for example, a good first, if you haven't sent out an email to your clients, send out this email, say, we're still here. We're taking precautions to keep safe and clean and not pass germs. Here are some ideas we have to help you.

Just reach out and let us know how else we can help. That's email number one. Email number two is something along the lines of, hey, we made this for you.

We wrote this guide, we wrote this series that can help you with your clients. I think it'd be useful to share, send it out to them. So make a resource for them.

Email 3 is, it looks like things are turning or it looks like things have gotten worse. Whichever you think is relevant for your market and for your situation. Here's how we're adapting.

If you need to change your plan, if you need to take advantage of this new plan here, take advantage of it. We're happy to help. And then what do you do when they start calling to cancel? Well, pause. Give them a break, pause something. Give them a month off.

Give them a discount for a period of time. Do not cancel your clients. Do not allow them to cancel. Train your staff to not take cancellation as an option.

There's nothing that says you have to delete their account unless they say, look, I can't pay my bills, my wife's on my back, I've got creditors calling me, and there's no food on the shelves and we're moving into our minivan. If they say that, that's one thing. Otherwise, say, you know what, we understand, we want to take some pressure off.

We're happy to pause your account for the next month. And we'll revisit restarting it then.

Or we're happy to cut your fee in half for this month or whatever you think you can do, but do not let them cancel. It's so costly to re engage customers.

And if this, if I'm right, if I plant my flag in the ground and say by middle of May we're back and everybody's up and running, or most people are back up and running, then that month pause, maybe two month pause is all you needed to keep that client and show some grace and have a fantastic stronger relationship when we get back into things. So work through that scripting for your staff. Let them know, hey, I know you're empathetic. I know you care about our customers.

I know you're worried about their finances, but we're here to help them. And here's some sanity we can give them is to help them not cancel all of the work we've done or all of these projects or whatever your situation is.

We're saving them from their fear.

We're helping them not make rash emotional decisions that are overreacting because overreaction causes all sorts of trauma and causes all sorts of mistakes. And there's a great quote that I've, that I shared. I got it from my buddy Justin Fairman. He used it in the context of an article about change.

And I gotta find this article. Let's see. Yep. So this was from Captain Roger Herbert Hebert. I'm not sure how you pronounce it. He's a former commander of the Navy SEAL training.

And this goes back to making mistakes out of fear. He says, when you look at historic mistakes on the battlefield, they're almost always associated with fear and panic.

So the capacity to control these impulses is extremely important.

So again, back to your staff when you're talking to them and saying, look, we're just helping our clients avoid a historic mistake that's based on their fear and panic. That's it. We're just serving them. We're trying to be the calm one with the level head around us.

I read Rudyard Kipling's if quote poem to a client this week because my grandmother was given this as a high school graduation gift from a relative of hers in a little probably six by eight frame. And I had that sitting by my desk for years.

And it had a really cool inscription on the back of the frame, but it says, I'm just going to read it to you right now because it's so perfect. And it plays off of what Herbert said about the fear and panic. And so Kipling says.

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too.

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting or being lied about, don't deal in lies. Or being hated, don't give way to hating and yet don't look too good nor talk too wise. So that's the chaos paragraph. Then he moves on.

If you can dream and not make dreams your master. If you can think and not make thoughts your aim.

If you can meet triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same, Triumph and disaster, treat them the same.

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools or watch the things you gave your life to broken and stoop and build them up with worn out tools.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss and lose and start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word about your loss. If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve you your turn long after they are gone.

And so hold on when there is nothing in you except the will which says to to them hold on. If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue or walk with kings, nor lose the common touch, if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you.

If all men count with you, but none too much. If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run. Yours is the earth and everything that's in it.

And which is more, you'll be a man, my son, again. Can we keep our heads during all of this chaos? There's no reason for the insanity going on right now. So what do we do next?

Well, I've talked about communication. I've talked about looking at the data. But the data and the pattern of the viral spread and the illnesses that are coming out of it are one thing.

The other side of it is the insanity of humanity that's going on right now. So many people are freaking out that if the.

If the spread cuts down and the weather changes it and by end of April we see that the hysteria of spreading is over, there's still chance that the people in charge may not allow us to go back. There may be enough people in leadership that are so fearful of the spread still being out there, of not trusting that it's really gone.

Or maybe a second wave can overtake the world, what do we do then? We have no control over that. Right. We are not policymakers, we are not government leaders.

I have not seen any talk of martial law keeping people in their house. But here in Hawaii, they shut down all the beaches.

So if the beaches are shut down and the schools are closed and the gyms are closed and we're not able to get out in public space to do the things that we're used to doing, there's not a lot left to do. So hysteria may continue that is possible. I don't know how that will shift over the summer.

So figuring out what to do next, I say just like last episode, you create a contingency plan based on some if this then that behavior.

So if revenue continues to go down, if you're in one of those businesses where revenue is dropped and you give them a break for a month and a month in, they're still not able to restart your services and you're still giving them another month break, then obviously your cash reserves, you have to start letting people go or cutting back hours again. I would cut back hours before I let people go. Because finding employees, if you've got good ones, finding good ones is hard.

It's always a risk and you want to keep them around.

But if they're bad employees and you've been looking for a reason to get rid of them, obviously now is a good time to do it while there's government support, while there's extra aid for people that are losing jobs right now. But make it based off of logic. Don't make it based off of your fear or predictions that the world is going to end.

And this goes into, I think some of the change going on right now that there's a lot of judgment going around being cast at people. I know the mayor of the island of Hawaii is getting a lot of grief right now because he's saying that businesses don't have to close.

And I think schools are going to go back in session in another week, which will be a two week spring break, which is pretty mild. And I agree with him. I think it's fantastic. Looking at the data from that article on medium, kids don't pass it as readily.

They're not the petri dishes like they usually are with the regular flu in this case. So why close the schools and add billions of dollars of cost, or in this case of this island, tens of millions of dollars of unnecessary cost.

So there's lots and lots of judgment being cast about and there's a lot of fear of over communicating Making a statement, feeling like you're taking advantage of this situation. And so my view is come at it from a place of serving and a place of proactive action and never take this stuff personally.

There's going to be people that lash out at you that say you're a mercenary or some kind of capitalist that's taking advantage of people in trouble. I know none of you listening to this are like that. I don't attract those people into my world. I'm not wired like that.

So you can banish that fear that you're going to be judged for that. Again, people are overwhelmed. People are freaked out. They're just going to lash out and call you names in the midst of their fear.

So don't take it personally. Just take action.

The other thing that I think is interesting is I've seen a lot of behavior, mostly from owners to their staff, but I'm curious to see if it comes out between business owners or larger companies dealing with smaller companies. And that is around the behavior that Robert Ringer talks about in his book Winning Through Intimidation.

And this is something that I'm really interested to keep an eye on because there's lots and lots and lots of opportunities for growth, for strategic partnership, for taking over market share. But in Winning Through Intimidation, and that's a misnomer on the title, a lot of people thought it meant winning by intimidating others.

He meant, Ringer meant. And when you read the book, you see it instantly. Winning while being intimidated or being others attempt to intimidate you.

And I don't have all of the personalities memorized in it, but I remember a couple that I've already seen come out this week, and one is the deal maker or the person trying to intimidate you that tries to buddy you up and say how all the ways they're never going to screw you. And then those are exactly the ways they're going to screw you.

And so as you look at partnerships or strategic alliances or other things, just some red flags.

If people are leading with overly empathetic language saying, oh, I totally understand, and that will never happen, and they go out of their way to communicate how great they are and humanizing they are in their dealings, that usually means that that's the number one way they're going to fail is by taking advantage of you in an inhumane way, in a way that plays off of your emotions, in a way that leverages your goodwill and your trust. So keep an eye on that. The others.

I think Winning Through Intimidation is a great book to read right now, as you prepare for more uncertain times, more shady, I guess, unscrupulous people that are trying to take advantage during these times, the other that I think I prefer working or dealing with, I don't like working with them, but I prefer dealing with them over.

The others in the book are the ones that are very cutthroat and very blunt and just in your face about how they're gonna try to take your lunch and you'll thank them for it later. I mean, that's the personality I've dealt with a lot over the years.

And I find those guys are fun for me because they think I really care, which I don't most of the time. And so I can get into the ring and kind of bash heads with them.

All the while I'm moving my hands off to the side, distracting them with the head bashing while I'm getting what I want around the other side. So I get them distracted on what they think matters, and then I'm really getting something else on the other side.

And I can't think of an example, but I'll see if I can make one up on the fly where I might be negotiating over a major part of a deal that I really don't care about. Let's say that it's the monthly fee, and I really don't care about that monthly fee.

But I'm just like stuck digging my heels in and making it seem like a really big deal. But what I really want is the client data.

And so I put the client data as a third line item later in the contract, and they never see it, but they get so stuck on the monthly fee that I focus like a pit bull on it. And I'm like, no, no, you're being greedy. I don't work with greedy people. This is worth 10 grand a month. And they're like, 10 grand? No way.

I'm giving you five. And I'm like, screw you, this is not how we're going to do this. And again, using strong language, interrupting their pattern, punching back.

And again, this is goes back to my friend Steve Siebert that always said years ago, never take a deal that you can't walk away from. Because the instant you can't walk away from it is the minute they get all that, the other party gets all the control.

So as I'm negotiating over fee, and I'm like, fine, I'll do it for seven grand a month, but you can't tell anybody. And we're revisiting this after three months because I'm going to crush it and you're going to thank me for it.

And again, I don't come across that blunt, but occasionally I do. I've said that recently to more clients. And so then they feel like they got one over on me.

They got me for seven grand a month on this project when I really wanted 10. But in reality I just wanted the client data.

And again, this is all make believe, but I think this is a good example that the client data is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to me in this situation. And so they don't even realize that that's what I cared about.

But because they got fixated on the price, I just went there with them and got in and distracted them. So as you go through opportunities, be aware of telltale signs when they overemphasize.

Oh yeah, I'm so honest, I'm so trustworthy, I'll never screw you. I've never screwed anybody. Like, those are classic markers that they have a bad habit of screwing people.

They have a bad habit of manipulating people emotionally and they think they're a good person through it. It's the craziest thing to watch. They, I mean, every person, even Hitler, thought he was a good guy.

Like, that's the funny thing about human psychology is these guys don't realize just what little place in hell is it is set aside for them and their absolutely crazy behavior.

But they still think they're good and they still think that they are integris and all these things that you and I would look at and just shake our head in disbelief. So I think Winning Through Intimidation would be a great book to pick up right now.

Another one that I love that has come up this week is the War of Art by Steve Pressfield. For those of you that haven't heard it, it's a play on the words from the Art of War by Sun Tzu.

But the War of Art by Steve Pressfield is really great about pushing through resistance, finding your sweet spot. I think that that's great for us to all toughen up a bit right now.

I know I said to somebody earlier in the week last weekend, I was in a pretty dark spot. I was frustrated, I was cynical. I was feeling a bit on the hopeless end of the spectrum. Nowhere near, anywhere near hopeless.

But it was towards that spectrum, which is unusual for me, and I realized I needed to delete Facebook and Instagram for a while and just get out of the trough of vomit that people were spewing of fear and hopelessness and got much better. It was a Tough week. There were some tough days I had, I'll be honest, Tuesday, Wednesday of this week.

There were fires and decisions I watched clients make that I 100% disagree with, that I did not want any part of. And I felt like shit Thursday.

And I had an interaction with a buddy of mine from college and I apologized with him yesterday because I realized, wow, I was in a really cynical, frustrated short space. And so I realized, like, we're not all perfect through this. So I'm just sharing that.

Even I, who a lot of people think is always optimistic or encouraging or finding the positive side of things, I had a hard time this week, but there's still a path through. I think the data says we're going to be on the backside of this in relatively short order.

Again, it's just the unknown of the chaos of the mass of humanity and how, how things unfold on the political side. Excuse me. And what happens with all the banks and all the. Excuse me. All the banks and all of the financial systems that are being stressed right now.

I hope there's no other part of the house of cards that causes it to go tumble. Because this virus should not be putting us into a massive recession. There's no reason for it. The markets have been strong and hot.

Everything that I've seen that people think we've all been holding.

A bunch of my friends and I have been holding our breath that a recession could come, but this virus is clearly not one that should, should trigger it long term. Again, we'll have to wait and see.

But from my view, I put my flag in the ground stating that by the end of April, early May, the virus stuff will be a thing of the past. Everybody will be healthy and moving on, and we should be able to get back to life as usual this summer unless some other big related chaos happens.

I mean, personally, I'm surprised there aren't any countries trying to start a war right now. This would be the perfect time if you want to start a war.

If you're listening to this, but I don't know, I don't know what else is going on behind the scenes. I'm not privy to that level of stuff and I know I've got friends that are hypothesizing what other stuff is going on that's distracting us from it.

But I think April will be rough for most businesses unless you're like Kajabi or Zoom or these other great services that are kind of counter to the market. Recession proof. I know my friend Casey Graham at Gravy, their payment plan. Payment recovery services are going up and he knew that when he built it.

So and anyway, I hope this is useful for you. I think again, action items over Communicate. Communicate short and frequently. Build a relationship if you can afford it. Put money in ads.

Get leads now they're cheaper than ever. And have your contingency plans based on behavior changes with your clients and your market.

And shoot questions in if you have any to podcast@bottleneckbreakthrough.com and there's the Facebook group. If you haven't joined it, you can go to BBG LI for bottleneckbreakthroughgroup link FB for Facebook.

So BBG LI FB and I hope you find this Medium article again. That's evidence over hysteria. COVID19 it was great read, great insight.

And yeah, I hope that you keep your head about you while everybody else is losing theirs. Have a great day and we'll update you next week after everything keeps going.

And it'll be interesting to see if this COVID 19 or Wuhan flu is a continued topic as we keep moving.

I'm sure it will be for the next four to six weeks and I'll keep bringing relevant stuff that I see going on with my clients and people I'm advising so that you're able to get get the same knowledge and insights that I'm sharing and my friends are sharing with everybody else. Take care. This podcast theme music is an excerpt from Triptych of snippets by Septah Helix. It's used under Creative Commons.