How To Keep Your Business Thriving During A Recession | FinTech | B2B Vault: The Payment Technology Podcast | Episode 132

Yo, what's up everybody? It's Justin live from B2B Vault, the payment technology podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems, hosted by Allen Kopelman, the Steve Jobs of payment processing. And in this episode, we'll be providing you educational information about fintech, payment processing, and small businesses. And in today's podcast, we'll be discussing feast or famine during the recession time. What's going on? What can you do to, you know, curtail the recession, I guess you could say? Uh, there's a lot of stuff. Attack, attack the recession head on. So that it doesn't affect you, or if it is, affect you as least as possible. Um, I hope everyone is doing well. Uh, Christmas is coming up.

Yeah, we got all our holiday decorations. If you're watching on YouTube, we got Hanukkah gnomes, we got a little menorah, we've got a little tree with lights. Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Hanukkah, happy holidays, happy everything. No, so it's never— you know, I used to watch the show The Apprentice, you know, all the time. That was like a popular show. And, you know, this all— you know, they used to always say, you know, doesn't matter whether the economy's up, economy's down, you're in a recession, you know, the people that were on— the business people that would be on the show, you know, would always talk about there's never a bad time to start a business. And, you know, you— we, you know, I personally lived through, you know, we had in 2001, we had like a little economic hiccup during 9/11 happened, which caused a huge business slowdown.

I was working so much at that time, I didn't feel that.

Yeah, most people didn't feel it, but people who were trying to open businesses couldn't get business licenses. Oh yeah, no, it was like a complete slowdown in the government. Yeah, they were worried about many other things. 2008, 2009, we saw a huge economic slowdown. People, anyone who had like a side hustle going and wasn't making money, closed their bit, you know. And a lot of people who were just on the edge went out of business. We've seen it during this last couple of years of the pandemic. You know, I think people who made it through the pandemic, you know, the 2008—

I'm still trying to think of two— you're going— you're talking too fast.

Yeah, 2008, 2009 was a bad time.

2008, 2009 was—

yeah, yeah, gas went sky high just like it is now, went sky high. Everybody was squeezed tight.

I remember.

And, um, You know, one of the things that's going on now is we're seeing a massive amount of layoffs. And a lot of it's in the tech sector, customer service sector.

I'll say one thing, it's sad that the, the, the, the tech industry is getting hit hard because me and Allen were talking about this off the air. I was, I was reading because I was interested. So I was doing some research about why or what, what do they mean by the tech industry? Because like, I mean, I've been in the tech industry for over a decade. I have a lot of friends. And I wasn't hearing anything in like chatter about them losing jobs or just the big companies they work at. What I'm trying to say, yeah, whatever. But yeah, man, but I'm saying the big companies, what they're like, from what I was seeing, like, and reading, is like these huge tech companies, they're not laying off like the creators, the people who are building the companies, those people aren't getting laid off. It's the people who are doing the customer support, customer support, they're doing, you know, sales, those people who are, you know, doing support, online calling and stuff like that, those types of people were losing their jobs. I, like I said, I didn't see any of these companies laying off engineers.

Yes, some of them. Yeah, Facebook laid off engineers.

Meta. Yeah, yeah, Meta didn't have a good year. Yeah, Meta thought it was going to grow a lot faster than it was.

And also, I think, you know, Elon Musk cut, cut the fat out at Twitter too.

I don't know what he did out there.

Well, that apparently— that apparently I was reading that a lot of people working at home Yeah, that weren't working. I mean, so they weren't like— and a lot of companies, you know, I talked to a couple of guys that I know in Atlanta, have some, you know, have had a lot of their employees working at home, and they said, you know, over the last year or so they figured out who was being unproductive and they got rid of them.

Makes sense.

So, you know, there's just a lot of that going on in places. And also You know, a lot of time, a lot— there's been a few companies, a few people that I've talked to where they say they lived in New York, they worked for a company in New York, or they worked for a company in California. Then they decided during the pandemic, while I'm working at home, I just want to— I'm just going to move. So they moved out of state. Maybe they told their employer, maybe they didn't tell their employer.

Right.

And then now they're living in Florida or in Texas or wherever they're living. Right. Right. And then the employer is like, well, we want you to come back to the office. And they go, well, sold their house and moved. So, you know, they either keep those people or they don't keep those people.

Yeah.

I mean, there's just a lot of that going on. Oh, yeah, I'm sure. You know, and, and, and, you know, layoffs spur one thing. They spur growth in entrepreneurship.

Absolutely.

And a lot of times people who have— they work for a company they get laid off, and then they start to think, oh well, what can I do to make money? Maybe I can't find a job. Maybe I can't find a job. I mean, one thing that's happening now that I'm not like happy with is there's a lot of companies, you know, hot moving, uh, functionality to, you know, to India, to the Philippines. To different places like that. I mean, we use some, uh, outsourcing of people, but we only— we, when we go on those websites that people go to, we try to find people. We find people in the United States.

Yeah, that will do the work, which doesn't mean that they're still in the United States, but we're trying.

Well, I think like the last couple we knew there— that was reading—

it's late. This one, the woman that we just hired for the blog post, I don't know.

You don't know?

You got to read, reread those messages that she's writing. Just really read the message that she's writing.

I'll ask her to—

okay, I almost asked her to like, what's the question that she can ask the robot that'll like really screw him up? I gotta find that out.

Oh, okay. Well, you think it's a robot?

No, I'm not a robot, but like something that like United States citizen would have— would know. Like, what's the question a U.S. citizen would know? Um, what team did Babe Ruth play for?

Yeah, what team did Babe Ruth play for?

It's a good question, right? Yeah. Who was the first president?

Who's the first president?

Abe?

No, the first president is George.

I mean George Washington.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you could say, you know, oh, do you— you could look at the city where she's— the person says they're from and ask them a question about that city. The weather. Oh, how's the weather there today?

And let's see if that's— I'm doing that tomorrow.

See if that matches.

I'm doing that tomorrow. It's probably a good idea, but I mean, I'm just saying, like, the way that she—

and like, you know, but that's scary. Like, but I also read— I don't know, but I read on the website, like, if you submit that you're from the US, you got to provide like a social or a federal tax ID number. I did that. You can't get that from—

I did that, and I was sending all the work to a guy in China.

I know, but I'm just saying you can't do that. So here's a couple of entrepreneurial quotes. One, uh, this one's from Russell Brunson. That's the guy who invented, or whatever, promotes ClickFunnels. The day you become an entrepreneur is the day you take responsibility for a problem that isn't yours. And I like that because I take— we take, you know, our clients have a problem, we take ownership. And that's important thing to do, you know, in business, is to take ownership of A customer has a problem, you take ownership and you deal with it. Here's another one. Please understand this. When you're a true operator, when you have real entrepreneurial DNA, there's never a bad time to open a great business. Of course, there are financial factors to be considered, especially during a recession. If you're in a place where you can afford to take the risk, you have the self-awareness and conviction in yourself and your idea, and you operate from a place of practicality, not delusion. That's really important. It's never a bad idea to start a business. Another thing I want to say about starting a business— this is a really, really important factor, okay, about starting a business. And then I'm going to relate this back to when I was a chef in the hotel business. So I remember, you know, I was a chef and I worked, you know, under other chefs And then I got my first chef job where I was the executive chef of the hotel. I was actually one of the youngest executive chefs in, in Dallas. I was only like 30 years old.

Nice.

That's executive chef for you, man. Executive chef of this hotel, was in charge of 3 kitchens. I had about 45 employees. I didn't know what the heck I was doing. I had no clue. And, um, Couple of things that I learned. I went to a meet— we'd have a weekly managers meeting, and they asked me— everybody went around the table, the managers of the different departments. I go, ah, everything's going well in the kitchen, we're good. And then finally, after like 3 or 4 meetings, my boss says, no, no, you can't do that. You gotta like come in with like, you know, a little list of like 5 or 6 things you're doing so you tell everybody what you're doing. In the kitchen. So I said, okay, well, what do I tell him? So he said, sit me down. And then next thing happened, somebody wanted to have like a, a party at the hotel. So like, oh, you're gonna have to come in the, into the sales office and, you know, do your chef thing, right? I was like, what? You got to put on your salesman hat. So you got to switch, you know, to your switch from the chef hat to the sales.

Allen to Gary Vee.

To Gary Vee. No, you got to go into sales mode. So anytime you want to start a business, if you say I don't like sales, it's not such— you can't be in a business and not be a salesperson. There's no way around it. You got to make business, you got to make sales.

Yeah, I mean, that's one thing that my business, I, you know, I, I didn't care. Like, if there was— so with sales, I was always If I didn't want to work with you, I wasn't going to work with you.

Well, I understand that, right?

But I—

there is—

I wish I would have like went to like some sort of, you know, certification or sales training. Yeah, something like that. No, just to help smoothen out the sales process to the other ones that I did want to work with, right? Like, there's— I'm sure there's a lot of times where they were like, I'm not going to work with this guy because, you know, I don't like his sales pitch.

No, but it's like we talk about all the time about, you know, like, what should they be teaching in school? You know, they need to be teaching people how to use the Microsoft Office package or the Google Office package, you know, one or the other, you know what I mean?

I mean, basic office tools, any kind of like spreadsheet software, right?

They need to teach people how to use those things. Another thing is people need to learn a little bit about some public speaking.

Agreed.

Oh, and people need to learn about sales, you know. And then what we always talk about, financial literacy, which is a big subject. And on this show, we're always educating people about, you know, the financial literacy of merchant services, right? Understanding how merchant services work and the inner workings of it and how it affects your business and things like that.

Well, if you're a small business, Allen, what would you say, uh, they should be doing during this time right now? What's some steps that they can be making to help them?

You know, steps during the recession is make sure you're watching your cash flow. You know, it's always a great time to take advantage of something. So let's say you sell this, you know, you know, like, oh, I can sell— I sell a lot of these water bottles, right? Well, the manufacturer is probably having a hard time. Right? So how much money can you get together so you could possibly make a bigger order than you normally would, right? Because you know you can— I can go out and sell these, right? Or people come to my store to get this. What if I could get it for a really good price? And it might be a good— you know, that's when you can make a bold move like that and, and buy like in bulk some items because you maybe are in better shape than other— another business, right? Or you're able to take some money that maybe you would take out of your business and reinvest it in your business. You know, I think businesses also need to look at technology, right? How can you— how can you get— have technology to get people to pay you faster? You know, instead of like— we're dealing with a company now, every time I have to pay an invoice I just— we have to call them on the phone, give them the credit card over the phone and all that. We're trying to talk to the owner about, hey, you know, you're already emailing me an invoice, why don't you just— we can show you, you can drop a link in there and boom, your customers don't even have to call you on the phone and you can get rid of that person. No, I'm just kidding. No, they don't need to get rid of the person. That person could be doing something else.

I'm reconciling your But that's happening all across the world, right?

But I'm saying that person can be reconciling your— and the invoices and making sure that people that aren't paying, they can send them out a link. Hey, pay this invoice. Because the businesses can be shorthanded, right?

Oh yeah, no one wants to work.

And then when you're shorthanded and then somebody's sending you a bill and you call up on the phone and you have to wait a few minutes and you're like, no time for that. Hang up. Oh, call back again. Then you forget. Then maybe you forget about it to pay the bill, right? So you don't want to— you, you want to make things easy for your, for your customers. And we always talk about, you know, like, here's some, some things that we talk about that we— that I've been reading about, you know, about opening up new businesses. And we— and I saw it during 2008, 2009. There were a lot of companies. One of them was Motorola. Was laying off tons of people in Plantation. They had a huge building there. They hired back some of them like as 1099 employees, which I thought was weird. And I guess they have insurance, right? Exactly. So the cost cutting, right? They're going to pay the guy, uh, the same money or less and then no insurance, no benefits. But I saw a lot of those guys open up companies for sure, you know, because they had— they were making good salaries, so they had money in some cases, and they put together businesses. Yep. And a couple of them I think we still do the credit card processing for.

Nice.

And the other thing is, is, you know, people when they went remote started to learn like, oh, that they got comfortable with working at home. So people say, well, if I'm already working at home, why not start a home business? Home-based business, you know, maybe their spouse doesn't work, you know, and then you, you know, together start a business and one person runs the business, the other person has their job, right, and then they help each other, you know. And then, and then the other thing we see is a lot of people moving out of cities and then moving out to the suburbs or the country, or like my daughter lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, right, The town just been swelling up like the last 3, 4 years.

No kidding.

Yeah, because there's been some big companies moving their employees out of Chicago, out of New York, and they moved to outside— they moved to like the small— the towns outside of Cedar Rapids.

Yes, they were doing that. They've been doing that in the Midwest a lot. Like, yeah, there are a lot of the, you know, the headquarters, right? You know, they don't want to live pay the heavy rent or, you know, to own the land in, in New York or Texas or California. So like places like Wisconsin, uh, not so much Illinois because, well, Southern Illinois maybe, yeah, but like Iowa, Iowa, Indiana, right, uh, Kentucky, Kentucky, those types of, those types of states are— I mean, it's flat and there's nothing there.. So there's lots of room for growth, right? Right. Especially for like those— I'm not a huge fan of like going every, you know, whatever.

But a lot of companies like started moving in there, like insurance companies, and they move their employees and that they're giving their employees—

driving north. When you drive up north to those cities, that's all you see is like giant office buildings of Assurant Healthcare, MetLife, or—

right, but they're moving there.

That's where they're moving, right?

Right, they're moving out there because their employees can get a house with a yard and have a better quality of life, for sure. So it's interesting.

It's happening down here. We're just talking about it in Florida. Everyone— well, a lot of the people are moving for the middle area of Florida. You can't afford the, the rent and, and the housing on the, on the coast of Florida.

So there's a big, uh, you know, yeah, people moving to Ocala up in that above Orlando in those areas. And then in the middle, I'm saying, and then people, when people go, yeah, that's the middle.

Ocala's in the middle? Yeah. I thought it was up north.

It's in the middle of the state.

Really?

Yeah. And when people move in those areas, guess what people need to do? Open up businesses.

All right.

Those people need services. They need plumbers, electricians, handyman. They need computer technician. They need a website for their business. They You need everything, you know. And the Census Bureau— Justin looked this up— in October of 2022, 433,000 new business applications. That, that's— those are businesses getting a federal tax ID number.

It's a lot.

That's a lot. That's up from 313,000 in 2019, 3 years earlier. So there's over 400,000 new businesses, almost 450,000 jobs opened in October, right?

New businesses, I mean. Yeah, in October, right? So there's no excuse.

Yeah, there's a lot of business, a lot, you know, people— that's what's going on. People are getting laid off or opening up businesses, and these businesses are mostly non-retail. E-commerce, some marketplace websites, creator sites. That's another thing, that's a whole new business that popped up in the last few years, is this whole thing, the creator economy, you know, where creators are making money, right? Different types of websites.

I mean, you know, we were, we were hiring for a social media, uh, for, you know, social media expert to come and work for Nationwide Payment Systems and, uh One person that I had reached out to, they said, no, we do $50 a post. A post. I was like, yeah, I get it, you know, that's, that's a thing, you know, just like the, uh, yeah, those guys who fly drones, you know, did this one guy know he's making like $1,500 a weekend, right, just going to fly drones for, uh to— for like, um, you know, for events. No, not even events, for the people selling homes.

Yeah, well, now with the drones, if you— you have to have a special license now. You have to have the FAA license to fly a drone, so— and you have to have—

it's not that big of a deal.

No, but you have to have insurance.

You can't get it yet.

Yeah, so a lot of service businesses are popping up, and the service—

and what's a service business?

You know, a lot, uh, electrician, a plumber, handyman, HVAC, um, you know, a lot of mobile detailers. Yeah, any kind— tons of mobile businesses.

Mobile car washing is so huge down here. I will always wonder how those guys are getting paid. They're getting paid on Cash App, probably.

They're going to get a big fat tax bill from Uncle Sam. Yeah, they're gonna be surprised.

I know, man. We can't—

I don't know, we broke the story on the podcast. Everybody laughed at us.

We can't tell you guys enough, yo, like, it's time to leave the P2P, you know, platforms to people who are actually sending peer-to-peer payments. Like, if you're a business and you're still using those types of platforms, you're losing— you're, you're, you know, your customers aren't getting the right experience that they deserve. You don't look professional. I don't want to go into a business and, you know, and you— I only take Cash App, or—

yeah, it's weird. Oh, I only take Cash App or Zelle.

Yeah, like, I don't— it doesn't make you look professional or official at all. So, I mean, I get it, you gotta start somewhere. I'm not, you know, hating. I'm just saying it's time to step it up a notch. Yeah. Hello everyone. We'd like to take this time to thank our sponsors, Nationwide Payment Systems and NPS Printer. We'd also like to shout out the listeners and everyone that subscribed to our YouTube channel. Thank you for tuning in. If you'd like to reach Allen or myself, head over to B2BVault.info where you'll find two forms, one to contact us and another if you're interested in becoming a sponsor. If you'd like to sign up for a merchant account, Click the Apply Now button located at the top of the page of B2BVault.info, where you'll answer a few questions, and you'll be on your way to processing payments in no time. The podcast is available on Spotify, iTunes, Pandora, and other popular streaming networks. Thanks again for listening.

There's a lot of, a lot of tech companies starting up. You know, all types of websites starting up. SaaS is a growing thing. The SaaS business is just exploding.

Yeah, artificial intelligence is creeping on the come up.

Yeah, I mean, I was reading this whole article the other day about this new AI bot that some person wrote where you can get the code for free, and then you can install this bot onto your website—

excuse me—

and then it'll it uses the— you program it.

Excuse me. Yeah, I've been having some—

I don't know. No, it, it reads your— what the, the bot can like read your website, right? Then when someone answers a question, it takes like the information from your website and is able to answer the question. Some some, some insane program some guy wrote, and then he just released it out for free to everybody.

Yeah, Google was kind of pooping their pants. They're a little worried about AI and how it is disrupting the search engines. Yeah, I don't— I'm not gonna depend on like, I don't know, I'm someone that wants to know and, and trust it, right?

Yeah.

The artificial intelligence thing, we've— I've seen it grow, like, since when it was super expensive to use for creating articles for people. I mean, we've, we've— I've watched it get better, better and better. I mean, I don't see how it's gonna replace Google, though.

I don't see how. Let somebody— I just come up with a new site.

I didn't, I didn't, I didn't But it is—

no, we talked about— we talk about— we used to talk about crypto a lot, but crypto's kind of been like a bad subject because we try to stay positive, right?

We don't want to be negative, uh, right, Nancy's, right?

So we— so all the time. So Justin showed me an article about Starbucks, and here's like a great thing going on. Here's Starbucks taking the basically Web3 blockchain software, NFTs, with NFTs kind of as prizes slash coupons slash rewards, right? Yeah. So they have some game. Now I'm not gonna go play this game, right?

Because I don't go to Starbucks either, right?

But, but I— and I don't think— and I think it's aimed more at like probably the younger generation that's going to say, oh yeah, well, I go to Starbucks, I'll play this Starbucks game, right?

What was it called again?

I can't remember what it was called. Whatever, it's some— it's— oh, I can— I got it, I got it, I got it.

Go ahead.

So, so you can go in and play this game, and I was reading about it and I was like, man, that's like totally cool. Like, you go in there, play this game, answer questions. You're going to be able to soon order your drink out of there, right?

Order Starbucks Odyssey.

Yeah. And then you're gonna be able to get points and get, get points and then also get pickup coupons and like—

customers will be able to purchase and earn digital collectible stamps in the form of an NFT from Starbucks Odyssey, which will provide benefits and immersive experiencing experiences. Leveraging Web3 technology will allow our members to access experiences and ownership that was not possible before. Starbucks Odyssey will transcend the foundational benefits that our Starbucks Rewards blah blah blah. So yeah, man, it's pretty cool. I think, uh, more companies are—

it's kind of weird—

more companies are going to follow suit in this.

Yeah, well, I think the one thing they got to be careful about—

phone is going hammer time.

I think they got— I think that they're gonna have to— they're gonna have to make sure that people under 18 are not using their parents' credit card in there to buy the rewards and stuff. So it's— yeah, they got— it's, you know, whatever. That's something that they got to figure out. But I think we're going to see more and more of that type of thing where NFT is going to be used as a utility.

Well, I mean, if, if companies step up and, and really take advantage of the, of the Web3 platform that's available, I think that there's a lot of room for growth and, you know, experimentation. There's just ways of utilizing Web3 in, in creative new ways that companies aren't doing. Um, it's just not an NFT. The NFT is just not the end of the Web3 either, ladies and gentlemen. You know, like, just because metaverse isn't doing well doesn't mean that— you know, here's an example. Roblox is an example of what the metaverse is, and that has been thriving for the past— I don't even know couple of years. 20, 10 years at least.

Yeah, it's been around.

Minecraft is another one, right? So like Minecraft has been around for, I don't even know, 20 years at least, probably.

Well, there's all those games, everyone, any game.

I mean, that's just my, my point is this though, sir, is that that's played— that stuff has been doing well for a really long time. And Facebook, or Meta, or whatever it is their name is, you know, they tried to enter this And they really, you know, they made a really big push, right? Right. They spent a lot of money on the name, on the name, on, on the goggles. And, you know, and it's immersive, you know, like, you know, it's, it's still so young, right? You know, so I think people like already just like throwing it to the wolves and it's like, oh, they're done, they shouldn't, you know, no one wants to do this. You're, you're lying to yourself. You're not You maybe you don't want to, but there is lots and lots of people who enjoy it, who are, who are excited about it and think that the potential of it is amazing. Like, I'm super— I'm a fan of it because of the, the educational purpose.

I just hope it doesn't take away from people being actually like social in person.

For sure. No, and I'm— I agree, but like, that's just a small part of what Web3 is, right? Like, because We haven't— people don't educate themselves, right?

I understand.

And so they just think, oh, Web3 is, you know, oh, it's just for the metaverse. And that's just a small part of—

but it's like you were talking about before with the AI, you know, is somebody going to come out with some AI-powered search engine and then overtake Google?

That— I mean, that's what— there's, there's people— Google hasn't put out anything about it because Google is using AI, right? You know, it's It's not like they haven't been using it since whatever. They've probably been building that into the algorithm since it was around, right?

But I'm just saying, like, you know, maybe that's what's gonna— maybe somebody's thinking about that.

There's a lot of search engines out there that still are compared.

Yeah, well, that's— Google bought everything that was like half—

I'm talking about like DuckDuckGo, all these other—

yeah, but it operates on Chrome. It just has some kind of security features in it for disabling tracking, right? So on.

I mean, that's my point, like Firefox. So I don't know. That's my point is, is I don't think Google's going anywhere. I don't, you know, they just released the infinite scrolling so that you don't have to click the next page. It's not necessarily infinite. I guess it shows you like 6 pages.

Oh, that's kind of cool.

Instead of On your phone, right?

I noticed that it works on some websites, not every website.

No, on Chrome, like when you go to Google, right, and you type in merchant account.

Yeah.

And it has all the results, right? Instead of you having to click the next page, right? You don't have to do that anymore.

Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, yeah, that's very cool. I like it, you know. So, you know, now, now's the time to, you know, pay attention to—

well, if you— we didn't talk much about the recession.

Well, let's talk. That's what we're going to get back to, I would say.

So if there's a business that's just starting, right, right. And they're— and they were doing well. And now they're starting to really, you know, maybe like you said, the manufacturing, the manufacturer, it's taken months and months to get their merch, or what can they— what can a new business do?

Well, you definitely need to research manufacturers, make sure that you can get whatever product you're going to sell in your store, that you're able to get that product. And if you can't get that product, then you need to pivot. You can't just sit there and go, well, we can't get this, kind of close up shop. Yeah, time to close up shop. No, get something else. Find a local manufacturer, find somebody who has the product, or comparable.

It might not be comparable.

Yeah, right, exactly.

Maybe you have to increase your prices because it's a better product, or you'll have to lower your prices because it's not as good as a product. There's a time, but, but like I said, sometimes you can buy a bunch.

Maybe a manufacturer needs to sell more product, right, because they have too much inventory. Because that's happening, a lot of inventory is arriving from China or wherever it's being made, stuff that's coming from outside the US. It's arriving now, right, much quicker. Then, you know, the distributor or the people who are distributing the product in the US have too much Yeah, it's just sitting there, right? So it's sitting on the shelf. I mean, I notice when I go into Costco, right, as an example, Justin needed— we needed a new chair in the office, right?

Yes, we did.

I go in there, bam, they got a big pile of killer chairs. It's like half the price of the normal price. Why? And, and, you know, Costco, most of the time when they're selling an item like that, it's like they bought it at a closeout rate, right? And it's on, and it's like a chair that's half the price of the normal price of the chair. So there are deals out there. You just gotta have the capital so that you can go get those deals, you know. Get—

well, what if it's the company that's not in a manner that, you know, it's not selling a physical product, but they're selling a service?

Yeah, yeah. I think that businesses that sell a service need to look at a couple of different things. What a lot of people don't understand is, is you know, try to build— try to come up with a way for your pricing to be where it's a subscription, right? Because let's say you go buy— like today we bought two software products, right? Yes. One of them we just paid a flat price for. It's good for what, a year? Okay. The other one was like a monthly thing, but you could pay for 6 months.

Oh, that way.

Yeah, right, right. And you got a little discount. Yeah, by buying 6 months. So you got to figure out with your product to have a product where there's a recurring event going on. Now I prefer a monthly or quarterly event because a monthly event is good. So let's just say, you know, and I've seen a ton of these graphic design companies do it now. I see them all over Facebook.

Hire me for $89 a month. Yeah, unlimited graphic design.

I don't know if it's unlimited.

I, I get it, but yeah, it's a certain amount of hours.

Yeah, pay for whatever, 2 hours a month of graphic designing. Or, or I saw somebody selling like, oh, I'll make your social media posts for— I'll make you 30 social media posts for the month, right? And it's X amount of price, you know, for the month. So there's a lot. I think that, you know, businesses like that people see value in that and they, and they go for it.

Or like, I've even seen companies who do, especially, I mean, those types of small, those types of, you know, what you just said, for example, like for social media, right?

Right.

Businesses don't necessarily want to jump into that, to that budget. They don't necessarily have the budget, right, for something, or one, to hire someone full-time, right, or part-time for that matter, right? And then two, to actually hire, uh, you know, like a freelance answers. So for those types of situations, it works out well. Like the one company I was telling you does the WordPress managed maintenance, right? It's, you know, it's not cheap, right? But for someone who wouldn't have any idea of what to do, like say they hired a WordPress designer, and now they, you know, they decided not to keep them on for the maintenance plan, and they're trying to do it themselves, you're gonna end up paying somebody, but they're way cheaper than an agency, right? Like, you're gonna pay an agency thousands of dollars to update your website.

Yeah.

So I think it's cool, though.

Or even people like hire, like, people like that are working at home to be their virtual— like, oh, I don't want to have a full-time employee, I need a virtual assistant for 2 hours a day, 3 hours a day. You can go hire somebody to do that, or you can hire somebody to answer your phone for you.

My little cousin is paying her way through college doing it.

Yeah, so there's different businesses that people can get involved in. If you need a job, you can get a job doing that or start the company yourself. I know this— I know this woman that she's in a— she was an accountant, right? She wanted to work at home and, and be home for her kids and all that. So instead of being, you know, a CP— she's a CPA. So instead of being a CPA, she became a small business bookkeeper. So people who have QuickBooks, she goes in every month, you send her your bank statements. Nice. You send her your, um, send her your bank statements and whatever else you want her to look at, right? She goes in the QuickBooks, straightens everything out, you know, and then and then bills you out. And then she can take care of, you know, 20, 30, 40 companies a month doing that, and work at home on her schedule, so, so on and so forth. So you can go out and start a business, and that's monthly income for sure, you know. So you can create monthly income, not just sell like, oh, I'm going to sell you this microphone and then that's it. Now when am I buying another microphone? Right, I'm not gonna buy. So basically what you're saying is like, if you're, if you're a small business and you're in a service industry, or, you know, or develop a service, think about what you could think about, a service you could develop for your industry, right, where you could get paid monthly.

Yeah, you know, there's, there's different ways to get paid. Add a new service, learn a new skill. Uh, I think that's what you're basically trying to say.

Yeah, look at like these clothing companies. There's like a clothing I never did it, but there's a clothing company you can sign up and you pay like $100, $200 a month, right? And then they send you like a few outfits, then whatever you like you keep, whichever you don't like you put it back in the box and send it back to them. There's a lot of companies that come up with these—

this creative—

creative ideas to, to do things. I mean, look at Uber, they have a new thing, Uber One or something. They keep sending me emails about— I don't use Uber that often— that I want an Uber membership. But see, now DoorDash has a membership. Do you like to get food delivered all the time? Or they'll even go get your groceries now.

Uber's suing the New York Taxi and Limousine Union.

Really?

Again?

What? Oh, that's a mess.

It is such a mess.

It's like whenever I go to a city, it's very interesting.

Uber should be able to run in cities like that.

No, let me just explain to you, like, like my experience traveling lately. So I used to travel, you know, I travel, you know, not often but quite a bit, you know.

So every other month you're leaving?

I would sometimes. And so you go to the airport, like I used to, sometimes I would drive my car to the airport, park it at the park and ride, get on the bus, go over to the, go over to the thing. So I said, you know what, I'm gonna take— I'm gonna do Uber. So I'm going to the airport. I called the Uber to come to my house, take me to the airport. So when the first Uber like said they were coming, but they opted out because I guess they didn't want to drive someone to the airport. And then the next guy came. I was talking to him, I go, yeah. He's like, well, some guys don't like going to the airport. So I was like, okay, so whatever. He was a very nice guy. Now I was going to Las Vegas. And you get to Las Vegas, if you— and, uh, get to Las Vegas, when you walk out of the airport, there's a massive taxi stand thing, right? And then they have zones based by the hotel, you know, which hotels you're going to. It's a set price.

Okay.

There's no meter, there's no nothing. It's $20. You're going here, it says it's $20, whatever the price is, right? I like that. So it's pretty cool. You just pop out, boom, there's taxis pulling up left and right.

No clicking in apps.

But if you wanted to go to the Uber, you had to like go out another— you had to go down another left, you had to go to a different area, go out, walk across the whole parking lot, go in the app, call the Uber. And so I was like, man, that's just crazy. I'll just take a cab. It was easy, right? Then on the way back from Vegas, you call the Uber at the Fort Lauderdale Airport, you had to walk in like in between the way the terminals are set up, there's an area in between the terminals. You had to go over there and get the Uber. You had to wait over there. Yeah, there's a rideshare area where those guys pick you up.

No kidding.

Used to be able to pick—

oh yeah, no, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, but, but then when leaving Vegas, when I was going to the— when I was leaving the hotel to go to the airport, there was no cabs. I had to call an Uber and get a ride to the airport.

Forward from Vegas.

Yeah, from— yeah, from Vegas at the hotel. There were no cabs around at that time. At that time. So it was earlier, right? It was early in the morning, but I called the Uber. The Uber came right away. So it was pretty crazy. It was pretty— I've been saying, like, it's very really weird.

Old school, man. I'm like—

like in Atlanta, yo, I need a cab.

No.

So Atlanta, you get to Atlanta, there's no cabs anywhere. You got to go to some cab area. Which is a far, far thing. And then if you want the Uber, you got to go downstairs, out of thing, walk across the parking lot to the other side of that, you know, to out. And they have a whole area set up for Uber and Lyft and all that, right? It's every place you go is different with the, with the Uber and the taxi.

I don't know, I can— I, I, I mean, I know some people that are like, put their support of their entire families as cabbies. And now they're not doing so hot, right? Because they— because of Uber and Lyft.

So, but like, out by me, if I wanted to call a cab to come to my house, where do they have— do they have like the, the private limousine thing down here? Yeah, yeah, you can get like a, uh, you can order like a car driver, car service, and they come make an arrangement, they come pick you up.

I mean, in New York, you get off the plane in LaGuardia And the guy's got—

used to have—

he's got the blacked-out Lincoln Continental.

Yeah, well, they have like a desk when you go to some airports and they go, oh, you want a car service to your hotel? Boom, boom, boom. And they—

that's how I like that, right? I don't like—

they used to have it in Fort Lauderdale too.

Do not like the Uber thing.

No, they used to have it in Fort Lauderdale. It's hard to get a cab. You don't see any cabs. The cab business in Fort Lauderdale Airport, that's out. Done.

Yeah, I don't know.

But you know, as an entrepreneur, like, we had a guy before the pandemic, he developed a business in Las Vegas because everybody's taking Ubers there, right? Split between the Uber and the taxi. And he developed the business to put ads inside the Uber car, Uber drivers. So as an Uber driver, you signed up with him for free, and then he put stuff in your car depending on what kind of car you— what kind of setup you had. Either a tablet that mounted on the back of the headrest, or he put like a brochure thing in there with some brochures of different places. And he developed the whole business around that. He went out of business during the pandemic because Uber was—

there was no—

nobody going to Las Vegas for months.

Oh, I'm like, so I mean, but that makes sense.

But I'm just saying, like, people can develop anything.

I would have switched that. That was— seems like a loss because people were still going to the casinos.

Not really, they were closed for a couple of months. It was a big— it was a big hit.

That's right, Vegas was closed.

It was a big— Vegas was close, and then it opened up, but it was very slow.

That's right, I forgot. But, uh, they did not stay open like Florida.

No, not many places California?

No.

New York? No. I'm just saying, Florida was the only place that stayed open, pretty much. Florida opened up after a few weeks. They just said, whatever, open. About 2 months, a little less than 2 months, it started to open slowly. They eased it up. Okay, we're opening this up now.

I get what you're saying. Yeah, you're right. But like 2 months, it was— for me, I felt like we were inside for for a good 2 months though.

Yeah, but what I'm trying to say is they started easing it, easing it up, and then—

oh yeah, probably 2 months. I mean, after a month of it, they were like, you don't need to wear your mask all the time. And then like about that, he's— 2 weeks later, only if you're 6 feet from someone, blah blah blah.

No, but like businesses made their own rules. Like in public, I always wear one way.

Yeah, yo. There was a—

it was—

well, it was pretty entertaining.

The aisles were only going one way. Someone would be going up the aisle the wrong way. What are you doing? And then they'd be yelling at the person, oh, what are you doing?

Walmart, Walmart had like these lanes. Yeah, they had everybody going all the way to the back of the store. And yeah, like single file line. It was craziness.

Yeah, so whatever, it's all over now. Now No, but if you have a bit— if you have to come up with an idea, you know, you come up with the idea and you go, oh, I have an idea, and you start a business. So you can start—

the best advertising thing is a really freaking good idea.

Yeah, someone should do it. Someone should do an Uber advertising idea because, you know, the days are over, like, especially like for nightclubs and restaurants. Like, you would get in a cab, like, you would be in, uh, and they'd have stickers all over. No, you get in a cab, let's say you're in New Orleans You get in the cab, man, what's the best local place to go?

They would know right away.

The guy would tell you, oh, this place, that place, boom, let me take you there. Now you ask the Uber guy, they don't know.

Uber guy's 19, can't even go to a damn place after 12 o'clock. Well, they know where the food is, right?

Come on, man.

I don't— that's what I'm saying.

I don't like the Uber thing. Well, no, I'm just saying, I'm just saying, like, it depends on the age of the person driving the Uber, communication level, and all that.

One time I caught an Uberist.

Yeah.

It was a Rasta guy, Rastafarian brother. He pulled up and he— there was a giant snake in the front.

Uh-oh.

Of his windshield.

I don't know if I'm getting in that car.

I was looking at the thing. He's like, it's not real, brother. I was like, yo, because I was not getting in your car. He was like, yeah, no, no, that's not real.

I got in an Uber in Vegas and the guy had disco balls spinning around in there and cool.

I've been in a couple cool Ubers. Like, that was the cool— like, but you know, whatever.

Anyway, no, but you got to think up a business or think up a service to add to your business. You know, everybody, this recession time, this is a time to make a bold move, make a big move, change up your marketing, change up your business, change up products, see what products you can buy What companies can sell you stuff maybe they want to— maybe they're having a hard time selling, right?

Right.

Expanding, get a bigger— you could get a bigger order, right, and pay less. You know, this is the time to do all that kind of stuff. Like, I was talking to somebody that I know, and they're— they bought— they're, they're a man— they met— they bought— they wholesale, um, the vape these— I don't even know, these like vape pen things, right? They're like the wholesaler of this vape pen things. So the guy was telling me, he's like, oh yeah, we went out, we had this— found this manufacturer that's trying to like— they need— they're overstocked, right? So they were able to buy this stuff because I was like, man, why are you guys selling so much? Your sales are like— they're selling stuff like crazy, right? Oh, we were able to buy like a bunch of this product They invested and they were able to buy it at like 60% off the price that they normally pay. So let's say they were paying—

so everybody's on sale.

Yeah, they were paying $10, they paid like $5-something. The guy told me, he goes, so instead of selling it to our customers for more money, no, we just lowered the price to make our same profit margin, right? And we're selling double, triple. We're buying, you know, then we bought more from the place, you know. So you're able to take advantage of things like that during time of the recession. So you have to pay attention to what's going on around you and figure out like, oh, how can I expand my business? How can I buy inventory cheaper? Who's going to sell me inventory cheaper? Somebody going out of business, I could buy their inventory, right? You know, whatever it is, you know, it's— this is the time when you got to take a chance, make a move, make an adjustment. You know, Who Moved My Cheese? I always talk about that book.

Read that book.

Read the book, Who Moved My Cheese? It's a great business book. You can read it in one night, you know, it's fantastic. So we wish everybody luck. Today's our entrepreneurship podcast of feast or famine, recession times. What can you do? Maybe you have some ideas, leave a comment.

Or if you have an interesting story that in a way that you pivoted you know, your business during, uh, a downtime, let us know.

Yeah, exactly. Let us know. Maybe we'll interview you on the podcast. Would love to. Yeah.

Peace out.

Carpe diem. Seize the day.