214: Jonathan Slain — Rock the Recession

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Well, it's been said that we're all in the same storm, but not in the same boat. And we know from experience with multiple recessions before there are ways, there are moves to make. This is a great conversation today about how to navigate whatever's coming next and be positioned to be in great shape to help contribute to and lead and rock the recession. We also know right now there's a huge increase in demand and interest in coaching. If you need a coach right now, we can help you. Either us or somebody in our world, we have a huge range of flexible options from hybrid approaches online. Well, for now it's all online. Online phone calls, video, zoom, online learning. We have a huge range of flexible things. That's a powerful difference for our clients who are starting to hire and thrive and move and experience growth in this time. If we can help you please, or if you're just curious want to talk about it, send us a note. Info scalingcoach.com say coaching and inquiry and you're curious. Happy to have a conversation with with me or someone on our team about what are some of the options, what you need and what might work for your situation, your budget, whatever. We probably have something that can help you in info scalingcoach.com now listen in as we talk to Jonathan Slain about how to rock the recession. It's a great conversation.

Hello and welcome again to the Scaling Up Business Podcast.

I'm your host and scaling coach Bill Gallagher. On the show with me today, Jonathan Slane. We're talking about how to rock the recession. Jonathan is an entrepreneur and an author and a coach and he's focusing lately on the work of this book, Rock the How Successful Leaders Prepare for, Thrive during and Create Wealth After Downturns. It came out a year ago and I'll bet you're feeling really awesome about that work right now.

Yeah, the timing was pretty good. I mean, my co author and I. Paul.

Paul.

We thought that there would be a recession in 2020. So we're on the record on Fox News talking through that. When we dropped the book in September of last year, but we of course had no idea it was going to be because of a coronavirus. We were just looking at the fundamentals in the economy and thinking that we would have a downturn this year. So that part came true. But obviously we dropped into it a lot more precipitously than we thought.

You know, I have a number of.

Clients over the last couple of years.

In a range of industries that are sensitive to recessions and have paid a lot of attention to stuff. And we've just talked about time and we've talked about fundamentals. And then I was speaking to a business group down in Southern California. There was a guy who was like, ah, there's going to be no recession. Everything's great. Fundamentals are awesome. And recessions and the need. And I'm just like, I don't know. I've been alive a long time. I've been through multiple recessions. I've thrown thrived out of a few. And it just feels prime, right? Like from any, from technical, from time, from feeling. It felt like it was on the way. And yet I got a lot of flack for saying, you should have a plan B, you should have a plan D. Like you should be thinking about it. What are you going to do? Are you prepared for it? They eventually happen. There's no yes.

I mean, Since World War II, every seven to 10 years we've had a recession. And so I think there's that. But Bill, listen, this is what I tell the people in the audiences when I do speaking. Cause there's always that guy that rolls his eyes when he hears my topic is planning for the next recession. So I totally get that. But I would just ask the audience to think through, like, if you lose your biggest client, you're in a recession. Or like if your best five employees go across the street and start a competing business, you're in a recession, right? Or hey, you know, if somebody embezzles a million bucks from you, which I've had, you know, I've heard that story from an audience member, then you're in a recession. Agnostic of what's going on in the economy. So we all know that there are definitely times when the economy's booming and you're in a recession in your business. So all this stuff from the book applies regardless of why you're in a downturn.

Right?

It's, it's, it's disaster planning and response.

That we're talking about, right?

Yeah.

I mean, hardship planning.

Yeah, yeah. If you don't have a plan, then when something goes down in your business, all of a sudden you're reactive and you're, you're often left with making a least bad option that you're trying to go after instead of being able to calmly walk over, break the glass where your, your plan is, take it out and execute. And so that's what, that's what I'm up to with the book is just trying to help people figure out to avoid my story and to have a better plan for the downturn that we're in right now than no plan.

All right, so the title is Rock the Recession, which I assume is in a positive way. And so before we get into the core of that and your story and the book and the examples, would you just kind of give a little bit deeper background, like how you became an entrepreneur, the kind of stuff you did in the past? Because I think it helps folks to understand where you're coming from.

So started out, went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, so I'm a proud Tar Heel. And then did investment banking for a couple years in Cleveland at National Citibank doing mergers and acquisitions. And I always say, Look, I worked 80 to 100 hours a week. So in human years, I really think it was like four years of experience doing that. But what I learned there was how, what it looks like for companies to be bought and sold and how you tell that story, how you add value in a company, what drives the multiple for businesses to become more valuable. But after working 80 to 100 hours a week for somebody else, decided if I wanted to work at that hard, it should be for my own business. And so ultimately my brother in law came to me, he's the gym rat in the family. And he said, look, there's this franchise called Fitness together. I want you to check it out with me and just let me know if it's a good business for me to go into. And so I flew with him to Denver and I checked out the franchise. We did their franchise discovery day and on the flight home to Cleveland, I said, hey, why don't I leave the bank and do this with you? And that's what happened.

Nice.

So we grew the business and we grew it and we grew it and we grew. We got to five locations in Five years. We had the most locations of any franchisee. We had the most revenue, we had the most personal training sessions in the system. And then we, we hit the, the Great Recession. So that is getting more into the story, but that's really the background that led me ultimately doing the consulting and coaching work.

So it's great. I've shared our story about the recession. I probably won't repeat too much. Let's hear what happened and how you led, how you got rocked and how you learned to rock back.

So we didn't have a plan. And I gotta be honest, Bill, if probably the worst thing that you can sell in a recession is personal training, and that's what our business was. And we really only had one product was personal training. And so an expensive, highly discretionary item is typically not good in a recession. And we hit it without a plan. So employees were coming to my office asking if and when they would be fired. We didn't have good answers. Clients were asking for refunds. Certainly new clients dried up and I was huddled in the corner in the fetal position. That was my plan. But you know, lucky for me.

Get under a blanket.

Exactly. Lucky for me, my, my mother in law was willing to loan me money and that's, that's the only reason I survived. So when I'm doing the keynote, I always, you know, make the joke that if the audience is listening and they want my top tip for rocking the recession, it's to run a credit check on your mother in law. That's where I would start. But listen, it's embarrassing. I hate telling the story and I know I'm very lucky that my mother in law was able to bail me out, but. And the worst part is it wasn't one phone call asking her for money. It was really every two weeks calling her to ask for help with payroll. And our payroll was about 20,000 and she ended up loaning our business a little over a quarter of a million bucks. And so, you know, you can think through, you know, 12 plus phone calls groveling for money. It sucked. And luckily now I've been able to pay her back and move forward. But that was how I experienced the Great Recession. And so now the mission is that I don't think anybody should have to borrow money from their mother in law. So that's what I'm trying to do is to help other people avoid my mistake and then really follow more in line with what Paul, my co author story was his experience in the Great Recession.

Talk a little bit about what happened to him and yeah.

So Paul. Paul, before the Great Recession, he and his management team invested a million dollars in a company called Rolf Brothers. And it was a little H Vac heating and cooling company in Youngstown, Ohio, of all places. And really, it wasn't that little of a company. I mean, the business, when they invested the million bucks, was around 50 in size. Around 50 million. But they grew it over 63 months through the Great Recession, which we all know was a tough recession, especially for contractors. But they grew it, and then they sold it 63 months later for over 70 million. That's the publicly allowed number in their deal, but it was over 70 million. So a million bucks they turned into over 70 million in 63 months. So not bad. And the book really just tracks how they did that. So Paul let me know his story, and then I really was the scribe that helped to put it down on paper and then gather other research on past recessions and other stories of entrepreneurs that rocked the last recession and then package all that together in our book.

Yeah. Can you say anything more about what they did there?

Oh, for sure, yeah. The plan, though, was that when they bought the business, it was 80% installation and 20% service. So 80% of the time when they bought it, they were putting those big H Vac units on the roof of buildings. And, you know, I think H Vac contractors, if any are listening to us out there, they love that because you get that quick hit of. Of cash. You know, it might be a $10,000 investment to put a new unit on the roof or 20,000 or 30,000. And then the service work, not so much, because, you know, you have a service tech out. Maybe that's an $80 event and maybe a couple hundred by the time they. But certainly a slower burn. Well, Paul and his team saw coming that in a recession, people would want service a lot more than installation. Because in a recession, in a downturn, you just want, you know, the guys to come out and put chewing gum, duct tape, whatever they can use to just patch up your H Vac and keep it working. Nobody wants to make a big capital investment in a recession. And so Paul and his team started to pivot towards service and got the company all the way turned around from 80% installation and 20% service. They turned it around to 80% service and 20% installation going into the recession. And that was just perfect positioning to have a tailwind in the Great Recession for them to grow that company and ultimately to sell it.

You know, this is a fantastic point. That's more even than a Recession, but it points to the pivot of the recession, recurring revenue. Revenue is always more valuable than your one time and project based stuff. And yet so many companies are done that I personally just in H Vac have been through three or four contractors who put systems in my office, my home, in the cottage behind our house, that kind of thing. And they all come out and they want to do that big project. In fact, I had one doing service recently and I needed to do some and they're like, yeah, we're not going to replace it or we're not going to repair that. We'll replace it for $7,500. I'm like, are you kidding me? That's like a thousand dollar unit at best. And it turns out I could buy that unit for 750. I'm not going to pay a 10x multiple to put that unit in there. Right. That's just absurd. And so they love these things. But that also erodes the credibility. It has less return, it's less stable, it, it's recession sensitive. It's crazy. And yet all kinds of companies do this again and again. I helped one company scale in construction stuff because they were selling maintenance and service agreements to take care of stuff. Not just doing the remodel or whatever, but they're profoundly different mindsets. Another one that did large industrial equipment installs into universities and hospitals and research centers and that kind of thing and, and they started to build that service maintenance training side. It's massively helpful and we need that again and again. But in this country, in the US in particular, we have listeners all over the world, there is such a tendency to just like throw it away and just get a new one. It's cheaper, it's not always and it doesn't make sense and it's not good business.

Yeah, I mean I think really, no, it's. The world is going this way, right? I mean we're getting used to, you know, software as a service. Everything is a SaaS model and I think more and more businesses are going to be going that way. So the reason that Paul and his team were able to have that 70x plus exit was because they saw that trend coming and were on the earlier side of it. So as we, as I was prepping for the show today though, I'm like, I'm thinking back to the Great Recession and so many amazing companies were started in the Great Recession.

It's like square every last one they happen.

Apple was started in a recession, right?

Exactly. GM going way back. But then in the last One Facebook really comes at the heel of the last recession. So I think the point, though, for the audience is just it's a great time to be opportunistic and to also, we didn't want to write our book to just regurgitate the conventional wisdom that to get through a recession, you fire everybody and you cut expenses and you turtle up and just try to survive. We called it Rock the Recession because we wanted to figure out, how do entrepreneurs and leaders that have rocked past recessions, what do they do and what do they do differently? And they definitely do act differently on a lot of different fronts than what the conventional wisdom is. So that's what we're after.

So tell the story of Christy Hefner, then, because that's a great example of that, right?

Yeah. So Christy Hefner, CEO of Playboy after her father, Hugh, and what she was telling me about for her story is that they saw the Great Recession coming, and they understood that people would not want to buy. They had the magazine back then. It wasn't all digital, but they knew people wouldn't want to buy the magazine on the corner stand because it was a highly discretionary item and the public wouldn't have a lot of extra funds to buy copies of the magazine. So understanding that, they really looked into how could they pivot to spend more of their time on licensing deals, meaning that the image of the Playboy bunny has a ton of value if you can put it on a Zippo lighter or if you can put it on a T shirt. And so they focused on those partnerships because they understood that in a recession, people would still need a T shirt or may still invest in a lighter, but would not want to buy the magazine. And so they focused on those licensing opportunities and they did more marketing, because counterintuitively, Christie knew that every dollar they spent on marketing in the recession would go further, because everybody spends less on marketing in recessions. For the most part, that's the academic research. So everybody right now is cutting back on their ad spending on Facebook, on Google, on Amazon, cutting back on newspaper, tv, radio ads. And yes, I do still think some people spend money on radio, but everybody's cutting back. So if you are one of the few businesses that's spending there or even increasing your investment, then you're getting a lot more coverage for the same dollars.

Yeah, yeah. More attention, lower volume. I think the other thing is, like, getting the message right you pointed to that people would still want that image, but in a different way. I mean, we see, like, in recessions, things like lipstick Sales will go up. Right? Well, lipstick is something that can make a person feel better and can be, but is not a big purchase. So you might cut back back on a lot of cosmetics, but then you might buy that.

Yeah, yeah, I totally, totally agree. Those affordable luxuries are a great place for people to invest because right now people are not taking the big vacation to Disney because that's many thousands, but in. In to get a lipstick that makes you feel good and that lets you have, you know, a date night, but at home. I think those are very smart things to think through as we figure out how to position for this downturn that we're in.

Exactly. And that's the same kind of thing that we did that I've talked about before in our last business in the Great Recession is we just looked at what price points were moving and where were people spending and what did they spend on. And we looked way outside our own category for the idea so that we could lead that recovery. And we invested in things that fit where people were going, where the money was. And of course, that made us a lot of money in that time frame.

You know, I think it's interesting with the coronavirus recession because we. And we were talking before the show, but on recession.com, we've got our assessment, and we've had 1500 people fill out the recession readiness assessment so that we can start to capture some data on how are people approaching this recession. And what we've. One of our survey questions is just what affordable luxury will you continue to buy in the recession? And the top answer right now is travel and vacation. So I know that runs counter to the conventional wisdom, but that's number one, and then number two is alcohol. So I always just think that's interesting to think through. So I do think people will still travel, will still take vacations. It'll probably just be doing things that are far less expensive than a big vacation to another country. And I think people probably avoid cruises for a while as well.

I've been avoiding cruises forever because I hate. Yeah, well, I'm cooped up with people.

It'll be interesting to see the data build because I think, again, I can hypothesize however I want because a cruise isn't a fit for me because I get seasick. But there are some smoking deals on cruises right now as the industry tries to rejigger itself. So I think we'll see which wins out. People's desire for a cheap cruise versus.

Well, you know, some people will because they're Predisposed we'll just find anyway. But we're seeing already and seeing hearing reports of bookings up for RVs and campgrounds and cabins and vacation properties and that kind of thing. And I've got a family trip coming up, likely to Hawaii depending on how things change and so on. And I am looking for an appropriate house to rent. Right. So because the idea of being self contained, but people are looking at that, that how do we stay in a way that's close and convenient and not here and not flying on an enclosed tube and then being in a big hotel and standing in lines and even no matter where they fall, there's going to be a lot of people who are going to be uncomfortable with that kind of environment. Right. And I think the thing you're speaking to is this idea of, well, Gretzky said it great. Right. Skate to where the puck is going and that's figuring out what people will do and then even projecting that forward where they're going in the future. So talk about construction business story that you've got because that's forward looking about the next wave and what's happening next as people go back to work and businesses realign.

Yeah. So I know you're obviously scaling coach. And one of the tools that I like people to consider is this blue ocean planning. So in that book where the authors came in, Melbourne, talked through, you know, and I like this better than SWOT analysis even because I think it's more actionable. But for construction or really any company, it's thinking about what can we eliminate that we're currently doing, what can we reduce or do less of, what can we raise or do more of and then what can we create that's never been done before? So as I look at that with a lot of my construction clients and I have to disclose them heavily weighted in construction because it's an industry I know really well.

But go back to questions again, just repeat those one more time.

So people, sorry, it's eliminate, reduce, raise and create.

Okay.

And so what? What would you do for your industry or even for your business? What can you just get rid of? What can you do less of? And then once you answer those two questions, eliminate and reduce, then you're going to have more time and money to invest in other areas. And then you got to figure out what are you going to raise or do more of or what are you going to create. That's never been done before. And I like it better than swot, which is the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, just because in My experience doing it with a lot of companies, it's just more actionable. Just the output from that eliminate, reduce, raise and create session tends to give people more tactical things to move forward. One construction company I did this with, though, they're in the security installation business. And so they're the guys that go in and install security cameras really for Fortune 500 companies, for government or for casinos. You know, really important facilities for having the doors be protected with security cameras and the readers that let you through the doors with badges. But what we discovered is that one thing that we could eliminate was them running their own wire. So the company had started and they always run their own cable, and that's the way they always did things. But we now fast forward the company grown and what people really want from the company and what they value is their intellectual property, you know, their knowledge of how to set up the system, where to position the cameras, how to have them backed up to the clock cloud, what the best software is to do that, what the best camera hardware is and why. And they don't care who runs the cable. The cable is a commodity that they can subcontract to another company to come out and run the miles of cable that they need. The customers want my client to be focused on the big picture of making sure the system works with as little downtime as possible, because it's not good when the security cameras aren't working in a jail or a casino. So you want to make sure, you want to make sure obviously that that functions. But who runs the cable through the conduit adds no value. So they eliminated that.

Every high tech caper movie involves the security cameras failing. Ocean's, you know, 27 is going to be about that same thing.

Exactly. So in our case, it's just spending more time figuring out how an Ocean's 27 that the cameras don't go down than it is about them pulling the wire through the conduit. So when they eliminated that, they're allowed now to spend more time on the future. And they're really focused on sensors. So what does it look like to have a sensor on each camera that gives a feedback to a main office where people in that control room can say, we've got a camera down. How are we going to fix it remotely? And I think for a lot of businesses, the world is going to be more technologically focused. So if people are, you know, sitting there and they're shaking their heads and they're like, I don't really know where to start. I always like to talk through technology. How can we use artificial intelligence robots, you know, augmented reality, virtual reality, 3D printers. What are the applications for those and for drones to your business? Because I do think that a lot of our businesses will see massive upgrades in technology over the next five to 10 years. So I don't think you can lose if you start with figuring out what you can raise and create those areas.

Well, I was writing about different approaches to restaurant reopening around the world this morning and I noticed that there were quite a few different approaches being done. A lot of them around barriers, that kind of thing. But then there were also discrete temperature monitors designed to detect and discreetly flag if somebody was walking through a door with a temperature. So without actively somebody coming and taking. And, but very subtle. And so using a temperature sensor at an entryway in a subtle fashion to screen just everyone who walks through for temperature and then use lights that staff can do to identify and then discreetly deal with something without it feeling like an uninviting, uncomfortable place. So appropriate use of subtle technology to increase safety. And then another one quite a bit more overt being done in a few places where you're actually walking through a misting entry point and you're, you're being sprayed. I don't know how well that's going to go, but it's interesting that all of these approaches are being done to, to, to do that. I saw a combination of low tech, high tech stuff in, in Amsterdam where they're putting up these glass kind of glass houses, like you might have to grow plants or whatever. And then each one is like your booth. So you have sight lines and you can be with the people that you're with, but the fellow diners and the larger thing you're, you're being distanced from physically. There's a physical barrier and yet it's, it was charming, right? The way they lit it and set it. It didn't look like weirdly boy in a bubble.

Yeah, I totally hear where you're coming from with all that stuff. And I think we have to continue figuring out how we can do it in a way that like you're saying, leads with charming as opposed to it just feeling awkward and weird. Because I do think that, I know that we have an international audience, but my experience in the US so far has been that people are not used to wearing masks. We have not been on that bandwagon like Asia when I was in Tokyo last year. That's just kind of every other person has a mask on because they've had more experience and society I think is more geared towards if you do have a cold, it's polite to wear a mask so that you don't get other people sick. That just hasn't been part of the culture here yet. And so I do think we're going to see evolution on that front.

You know, we, we haven't had and we still don't have in wide parts of the country the same density. So you look at like I love visiting New York, I live in San Francisco, two of the densest, most pedestrian oriented cities in the country. But there are wide parts that are very oriented around the car and separation and distance and we've got drive through everything in this country and large parking lots and that kind of thing. And even our malls have been on the decline for some time. So pedestrian living that's so common in Asia and in many parts of the world really and that denseness we're not familiar with. So I have often looked at the mass as like a little. But today I appreciate it and I realize compared to some of our listeners in different parts, I'm probably on the more cautious side. But I like somebody coming past me talking loudly or huffing and puffing. I'm like I don't know if you're silent spreading some crap. I like put your damn mask on.

Yeah, I think for me it's easiest to pivot to thinking through that. I don't want to get other people sick.

So yeah, that's considerate. Like yeah, it's politeness and it's pro business. Whatever your personal thoughts are about the seriousness of it or not like thinking about how do we deal with that I think goes to your point in the book is how do you get ahead of it and deal with it thoughtfully Set aside your personal beliefs on it or your politics, that kind of thing, where's it going and what matters to the customer base and in the community that you live in it.

Yeah, I mean earlier you were talking about what companies can do here to, to use this and to rock the recession. And a thought I had was that really I want my clients to be thinking about how they can market a top line recession offering. So you had asked about construction and so for in construction there's this whole like a lead building, you know, a building that has all the top qualification specifications to be environmentally friendly, that it has glass that reduces the amount of energy lost, that take the rates of the sun and make sure and all these things to make sure it's efficient. And so in the same way, I think we can all develop offerings that will give people that top of the line edge with COVID So when it comes to restaurants, that you could put together a package for a restaurant saying, we're going to install misters, we're going to install barriers, we're going to install the warning lights and the, the surreptitious temperature taking stations, and then you are going to have a top of the line experience for your customers to make sure that they don't get coronavirus at your restaurant. I think most business owners who own restaurants are going to look at the price tag on that and be like, you know what, this isn't for us. But maybe they take one or two of those suggestions from your Cadillac plan, from your Rolls Royce plan, and then they implement that. And so I think a lot of business owners that are still patiently listening to us and business leaders can think through what does that Cadillac offering look like, like as a starting point. And then you can work with your clients to work backwards to what exactly is the right fit for them from that buffet of ideas that you might offer up.

Yeah, I think this thing that you like, where are things going? What's happening is a really great fundamental idea here. I remember in the early days of our hard lockdown in the San Francisco Bay Area, like nothing was pretty much open and restaurants and. But. And we were driving down the street from. I forget what we were doing, but anyway, driving down the street and we saw like an outdoor tent out and people in masks outside of this restaurant. And then they had some banners up and that kind of thing. And, and they were like, we're open for takeout. And it was a Mexican restaurant that we like and that kind of thing. So we're like, oh my God, pull over. So we pull over and we ordered. I forget it was online or by phone or whatever, but we ordered lunch and we hadn't eaten out in several weeks at all. And it seemed so novel and so fun. And we pulled up and they, they had all this distance and careful stuff and they took your credit card and they, in between each and every one, they wiped it down in front of you. So, you know, like, you're touching stuff. We were more concerned about touch at that point than we are today. And as our knowledge has increased and. But they were thinking about and addressing the particular concerns and they were, of course, there was a whole line now of people who were anxious to get some takeout and that kind of thing. And I'm like, that is just brilliant that they're Being innovative and thinking about what people need and adapting to it. And I'm sure they will do well in this transition. We have now restaurants opening up outdoors. Right. So reconfiguring for outdoor seating, changing a place that's inside to more outside, opening up windows and walls. Right. There's opportunity there as well. You.

Yeah, I think. I think what you're really alluding to, Bill, is like, the theater of it. Like, they've thought through the experience of patrons to their. To their takeout tent and thought through that, even though it may not be completely necessary to wipe down the credit card reader between every use, since everybody's probably going to hand sanitize that. The optics of it just going through that motion is something that will add value and hopefully get people to come back to the tent because they like that they're going the extra mile when it comes to safety and health precautions. So for all businesses, though, it's thinking through that experience that I think, like, as we think through, like, I'm reading about Zoom fatigue, and, you know, it's tiring to be on Zoom meetings because unlike when you're in person with somebody and you're allowed to look away from. From the other person for a moment on Zoom, it's like if you're not staring into the camera the whole time, then, you know, the other person has to. To think about whether or not you're ignoring them or you're maybe just looking out the window for a moment so you don't have to stare into the dead eye of the camera. But I bring it up because right now I'm spending a lot of time thinking about how do I make that experience on. On Zoom better? Like, what can I bring to the table? You know, is it a better. And you brought this up before we started recording today. Like, what, do you have a good microphone? Is the door closed in the room that you're. You're calling me from? Have you made sure that the dog's fed? So just taking into account all those considerations, I think will help us get to a place with sales where we're more comfortable and confident doing sales over Zoom. And what I'm experiencing is it's actually easier to get a lot of the meetings set up because when I ask somebody for 20 minutes on Zoom, it's not a huge commitment. Whereas before, I'm like, hey, let me take you out to lunch or breakfast and pitch you on becoming one of my clients for coaching or consulting. And then people have to make a decision on whether or not they Want to drive to breakfast, spend an hour with me. But if it's a 20 minute Zoom call, everybody can, can, can fit that in. So I do think there are some benefits to be had. There are some ways to rock this recession if you're creative with the experience like you're talking about.

So I want to go in just a minute and talk about the investment acquisition opportunity. But before we go on that, let's finish this up a little bit because I think it's useful to think both in the big broad stroke. We've talked about a couple different categories and industries, but let's continue with this just personal kind of thing. So I've been reorganizing and redesigning my home office now that I'm spending more time in that. And we're essentially moving out of our regular traditional office. I've had a traditional office for 23 years and we're moving out of that and moving into a distributed work thing which will now be forever. And we're upgrading the home office. My home office now can be. It was where I worked in between trips and where I did the recordings because it was quieter than the commercial office, but now it's become a whole little TV studio. Our zoom settings can be real, can be high impact, can be razzle dazzle. We've innovated ways to engage our teams using online tools. Instead of face to face meetings, we've added slide background techniques that are cool. You know, the, like all these kinds of things. We're upgrading both. I, I just bought like a new, I'm looking across my office. I bought like a new chair because I'm like, oh, I need to be more comfortable when I sit here for longer periods. So I've got a range of like, different, like little things like that and thinking about your teams. I had a CEO talking to me the other day about like, he was tired of zoom meetings and he was trying to figure out what to do about it. I'm like, well, your people probably are too, so why don't you tell them, hey, I'm feeling this way and invite everyone together to innovate and play with it. So they started to introduce like what we're doing with our teams where we're like, okay, everybody go get a personal item and bring it back and share a little something. Because they're not getting those casual times around the coffee machine or water cooler or whatever where they can connect a little bit. So bring some of that into the zoom environment. Like invite a little bit of personal color in, add in like in our workshops and team sessions, sometimes we have dance breaks, right? Everybody gets up and dances. You know, some people are self conscious, but they're actually less self conscious than they are in person. So we've added like all these like funny little things like that. Add cowbell into your thing just like you would in an offline meeting. How do we make them more fun and so that you aren't going crazy or what times matter, like, you know, how long can you go or not go without a break or that kind of thing. I think we're getting really smart about this kind of thing right now and thinking about it, both in the broad things and in all the little ways I think is how you rock the recession, how your team deals with it as well, right?

Yeah. So for me, I'm looking around my studio because in January, my wife was gracious enough to let me. She helped me carry the guest bed out of our guest bedroom. And we've taken all of the equipment that I used for public speaking when I'm on the road and set it up in here so that I have a sound mixer, a visual switcher for different camera feeds, lights, professional microphones, all that stuff. All in an effort to give my clients a better virtual experience. Since we're now doing our, you know, the full day strategic planning stuff is now that four to six hours zoom, which most people cringe at the thought of that. So how can I bring them joy? What are the different pieces that I can bring to it? And there's a lot of great equipment. Like there's the stream deck, I think is one thing I would look at. For people to be able to do sound drops and quickly just bring a smile to people's faces so that when they say something positive, you can do some applause in the background or. I love your idea of dance breaks, where if you're quick with Spotify, you can start playing some songs during a zoom meeting. Just have some fun with it again, though, just brainstorming with your team and thinking about how you can provide a more immersive experience that's more fun. I think all of that is important because if people aren't paying attention, which is easy to do on a zoom meeting, to kind of tune out, then you know, it doesn't matter what you're saying in any case. So I totally appreciate everything that you're talking through with that.

It's really like there's such opportunity to innovate and adapt in a recession, but you have to not be pining for a return to Normal or. Or waiting or biding your time. You have to be leaning into the change, right?

Yeah. Look, I want to disclose, Bill, I probably screwed up one thing in this whole process and that's really that. Well, more than one. But I should have called the book dodge the depression. It really. Depression. The thing is, is that this, this one is going to be deep. It's not going to be a quick recovery. And I think the difference between a recession and depression is that a depression alters our social fabric. So when you talk about, you know, the new normal and getting back to. Is going to take a long time and be vastly different. So I say that not as Chicken Little. It's just because I want people to work through the stages of grief. Right. I think I still. I think a lot of people are still in shock and denial about this downturn and they haven't made it yet. Through getting to anger and bargaining and ultimately acceptance.

Yes.

That life has just changed from here forward for this generation forever. And the quicker that you can accept that, then I think you can get to rocking it. But until you get there, I think it's hard to rock it because you haven't become aware of what's really happening.

That's such a useful kind of. I don't know if it's exactly psychological, but it's in that realm right where we are. There's acceptance when we embrace what's real, what's so, and accept it, and then we can move on to what's next. But until you're there, it's really hard to do some of the things that would really help you take advantage of it. But it's a good segue, I think, to the last piece, which is where do you invest and what are the opportunities? Because there are huge opportunities heading our way. And I think the only thing that in my mind, like, I don't know, you should maybe talk about it, is that there are secondary effects. Right. Just because we've gotten comfortable with like this level, then what happens when there are. When the evictions and foreclosures and things like that start? What happens when we realize people don't have jobs to go back to even when things open, open up? Right. So talk a little bit about the opportunistic things that. That folks could do and.

Well, so for me, I do think it's thinking through the fact that for the past couple months the bankruptcy courts have been closed. And so even if people wanted. Needed to file bankruptcy, they haven't physically been able to. So we're probably going to see a wave of bankruptcies the likes of which we've never seen before. For thinking through that, you know, as I. We're recording this in the middle of all the rioting and the protests and agnostic of your feelings on that. It's thinking through that. There's a lot of people gathering in dense areas, not always with masks. So we're likely to have a second wave of coronavirus. And even if it doesn't happen right now, you know, when everybody's forced back inside in the fall and winter, we know that it's likely then because of how viruses work. So thinking through that, all the things that we wish we had invested in in the first wave, that's where I want to be positioned for the second or third wave. So the things that people buy more of during a shutdown, you know, really looking at consumer staples like toothpaste, groceries, etc. Toilet paper that they need, I think will be good positioning.

And then the run on toilet paper was pretty funny.

Yeah, it's, it's funny and at the same time it's just painful. Like it's, it's wild. But yeah, I mean, I personally just stocked up on paper towels because I figured if worse came to worse.

That's why you said it's painful. Yeah.

But the other place to invest, Bill, is really, you know, this, this, this recession, depression couldn't have happened a worse time for baby boomers. I mean, so many baby boomers were looking, the economy was rocking and they wanted to eke out one more year, right. It's like, you know, things are so good, let me do one more year, let me get through one more year and then I'll retire and, and if things start to, to turn down, then I'll be able to get out because I'll have a little time. And then boom, this recession hits. We drop right into it. And I don't think a lot of baby boomers are going to want to go through the three to seven year cycle to get up and out of this recession. Which means that for entrepreneurs, I think there's a good opportunity to buy those businesses or to partner, take those businesses over. So if you don't have a lot of cash, maybe you can come alongside a boomer who just wants you to start to take over their client list, their client base, and then ultimately earn the business from them. I think there's going to be a lot of that kind of creative solutions coming up. But the trick is that you need to be having those conversations now so that Ultimately, when they are ready to sell in a couple months, in a year, then you're going to be their first phone call. That's how you rock the recession. It's not by waiting until somebody's desperate and then calling them because by that point they're not going to trust you and it's going to be too late to do a deal.

So it's good to remember. So I'm a boomer. I'm the tail end of the boomers turned 56 this year, but the older boomers are 76 and people in their 70s start to really get interested in exiting and changing their pace. And at this point I'm definitely planning and hoping to work for another 20, maybe even 30 years. I do see and imagine that that work changing. But I work more now from passion than and purpose than from financial need. And although I might like my retirement to be better, you know, this is kind of a different stage kind of work that I do today. But, but that's the thing to look for is there are people who, who just, who no longer have the, the emotional energy to drive a business through the change. And, and you could come in as an entrepreneur with an existing business or would just drive to, to run or start or acquire your next business and you could come alongside somebody in their later 60s and so on who's highly motivated to get to drive that thing. There's huge opportunities in that right now.

Right, agreed. I think that's going to be great opportunities for this recession.

Just don't come calling to me.

Exactly.

Not ready yet. Well, we've talked about some really great things with folks. If you want to know more and want to take the online assessment or use the workbook. They've got a workbook, they've got a report, they've got a planning kit, all kinds of things like that. Too late. Even now that we're in something that's still evolving. Recession.com and you can use the coupon code there scaling to get 30% off all the stuff they've got there. Recession.com I'm so grateful. Jonathan Slain. Thanks for coming on and talking. This is a really timely conversation for people to think about dealing with, embracing and moving through the recession. We've been talking about leading the recovery. Thanks again so much for joining us today. Well, please like it, subscribe to it, share it with somebody else right now so that we expand the reach and the impact of the show and help out the people in your network that could use a show like this. If you subscribe, you'll get them every week and you can email us if you've got a comment, thought, feedback, or if you'd like to talk about what some of the options are for coaching and scale up that might be helpful to you. Email us info scalingcoach.com Special thanks to Vern Harnish, author and creator of the Scaling Up Framework. Our show is produced by Lucy Summers and the audio is edited by Albert Burge at Podfly Productions. Our show notes are written by Ein Kadina and proofread by Tim McGowan. Thanks again for listening. Keep Scaling Up.

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