Bunny Young (Better Place Consulting) addresses fellow business owners about immediate, practical steps to respond to COVID-19 (recorded March 13, 2020). She emphasizes avoiding panic, protecting health, and adapting operations: evaluate travel and shift meetings to remote/phone, increase hygiene and self-care, clean/disinfect clothing and surfaces, and limit outings. She urges business owners to communicate with clients, offer resources, and monitor cash flow (e.g., arranging lines of credit). She references company actions (a blog post on betterplaceconsulting.com, the Starfish Stories newsletter) and provides examples of disruptions (canceled speaking engagements, a postponed Europe service-animal conference for Pawsible, a rescheduled wedding). The overall tone is supportive and pragmatic, focusing on adaptation and community support.
Questions this video answers
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betterplaceconsulting.com (Blog)
Chapters
Hey, difference makers. So I know that it's not our typical day that we do this, if you're watching this live, but with everything going on regarding the coronavirus, thought that we would. I just wanted to reach out and tell you my thoughts and let you know that as a fellow business owner, you're not alone in kind of the things that are happening. That in a matter of minutes there's going to be a blog that we publish on a better place consulting site. So that's bunny young.com or betterplaceconsulting.com that has some ideas on how we as a company are responding to what's going on in the changes in the economy and in how we're delivering services and in our cash flow and how we're preparing for this. And it's actually not even preparation now. It's reaction because I am in Virginia right now and we have 17 confirmed cases. So that's gonna affect business and it's gonna affect business for a couple weeks. And so how we are looking at that is not trying to overreact and not trying to panic. And it brings me back to one of my mentors asked me if, and I told my mastermind group this yesterday. But who's paying you to panic and beat yourself up? Because I had been looking at increasing our line of credit for a couple months and just it was kind of on the back burner of the whole application thing. And now I'm. I've got to get it done. And I'm not getting paid to beat myself up. I'm not getting paid to panic. I'm not getting paid to be anxious. You're doing a great job at what you're doing and so figure out what it is that you can serve your clients with. A couple of things that I would strongly encourage you to do is to evaluate your travel schedule and consider if you can do meetings remotely or online, which is the definition of remote, or telephonically, be able to not travel as much. And that's for your safety and for the safety of others, obviously, if there's needs in hospitals and all those kinds of things. The fewer people that we have on the road, the fewer motor vehicle accidents, just kind of all of that. I'm not saying go into mass panic mode. I'm just saying, you know, make smarter decisions and adapt your lifestyle. If you don't have to go out, don't go out. If you can, make sure that you're taking care of yourself. We always advocate self care at a better place consulting, but we want to make sure that you're doing things that are decreasing your stress, because stress and immunity is totally related. There's a couple other things. Taking precautions, making sure, you know, I kind of grabbed this real quick about washing your hands often, keeping your hands away from your mouth, your nose, your eyes, clean and disinfect. Cover coughs and sneezes. If you feel stiff, sick, stay home. Okay, here's my thoughts on all of this. Is, yes, this is great, but shouldn't we already be doing all of these things? I just feel like these are common courtesy. If you're sick, you don't go out into public. And are there actual people who don't wash their hands for 20 seconds? Because that's gross. Wash your hands. P.S. your mom called and said, wash your hands. So. And cleaning and disinfecting. You know, hopefully you have these things at your disposal. If not, a trip to the grocery store or Amazon might be in order for you. Just to make sure that if you come home from the grocery store, if you come home from. If you have to go out in public, that you're cleaning and disinfecting, you're washing the clothes that you're wearing, all of those kinds of things. So again, don't panic, but just making sure that you are taking precautions. And another thing is to talk to your clients. I had several conversations over the past couple days with clients who my are my clients who were calling me and asking me on what they should or shouldn't do or how this is going to impact them. And meetings being canceled and people panicking, and it's impacting me, too. Conferences that I was scheduled to speak at have been canceled. Contracts that we had lined up have been canceled. You know, we were supposed to go over to Europe for a service animal conference for Pawsible, the nonprofit that I'm a part of. Everything is kind of in a weird state of limbo right now. Not really sure what's gonna go on. I mean, you guys all know Victoria, who helps with all of our social media, and she's joined on Facebook Live a ton and joined us on video. And she happens to be kind of behind me. She just scheduled. Had to reschedule her wedding because of the travel and has to head back, you know, over to Europe. And so there's a lot of things that are happening, but just. I'm not saying you have to provide solutions to your clients, but just let your clients know that you're there, that you hear them, and that you can continue to provide them resources as you know, and as you have ideas and again, like I said, that's what we've done. I put together a bunch of things that we're doing as a company and I put it up on our blog. So in a couple of minutes that will be live. If you're not watching this live, I assure you that it's already up there. So just go to betterplaceconsulting.com and click on Blog. While you're there, you can look at my obituary that I also posted last week, as well as some other things. And you can also join our Starfish stories because on a weekly basis that's on normally Tuesday mornings, that's when I'm sending out all of the updates that have to do with my clients, with our company, any kind of advice, resources that we have. So that's the best way to stay up to date. As always, you can comment on the video, you can send me an email, you can chat live right through the website and schedule time on my calendar. If there's something I can do to help you or your company, even if it's just, just listen, I'm happy to do that. But please know that you are not alone. That as a fellow business owner, I am way in this with you and we're going to get through it together. And that I appreciate you taking all of the precautions and steps that you can, not only doing what you're doing to make the world a better place, but also to take care of yourself. And that is the best thing that you can do right now. And please don't stress and please don't over concern yourself because that's not going to lead to you having any more immunity. So that's what I have for you today. Thank you guys so much for being here, for watching the video and thank you mostly for making the world a better place. Stay safe.
