Scott Duffy: Cash Protection, New Income Streams And "At-home" Workforce, Episode. 11

Good morning, everybody.

Good morning. This is Scott Duffy and I want to welcome you to another episode of what now an entrepreneur's guide to managing through coronavirus, recession, uncertain times, and all this craziness that's going on around us. I'm going to wait just a few minutes before we get started to kick things off so people can join the stream. We're streaming live today across Facebook and YouTube, Instagram, Periscope, LinkedIn. So if you are on any of those social channels, we welcome you today. I want to welcome you and thank you so much for being here. I hope you guys had a good weekend. I hope you had a safe weekend, you and your families and.

Are getting ready for a big week ahead. We have a big show today. I have so much to share with you, so many tips, really, on how you can not only manage through this crisis personally, but also how you manage through it professionally before again we get started, I'm going to wait for some more people to hop on as this stream propagates against social media. I want to welcome all of you who, who are joining us, who are joining me from all around the world on Facebook, on YouTube, on Periscope, on LinkedIn, on Instagram and all these amazing social networks. As you hop into this stream, I just want to ask one thing from you. If you could write down your name and what industry you're in and what is the biggest thing that you're working on right now, like what is the most challenging issue that you're working on today so that we can be sure to address that during the next hour. And as I see people hopping on, I want to welcome you, Brian. Hey there, Sita. Want to welcome you. And I'm just going to hop around and make sure that we're up everywhere that we're supposed to be and we're going to get started here in just a couple minutes. But again, if just joining us, I would love to ask, please write down your name, the industry that you're in, and the biggest challenges that you're facing right now as we go into the week so that we can make sure you address them today because this is going to be a big week. It's a big week ahead. And.

You know, I've spent my whole life as an entrepreneur, as an intrapreneur, starting scrappy small companies on a shoestring budget. If, no, you know, if I even had a budget at all, all the way up to building new businesses inside big companies like CBS and NBC and Fox Sports and. And so I've always been around entrepreneurs.

And innovators. And what I have to say is this, I just love this community and I love this community. I love all of you because we are the people that are going to identify what the biggest challenges are that we have on this planet, that are going to figure out the ways to solve them, figure out the ways to finance them and help all of us to move forward. And it's been so inspiring to see over the past week the way entrepreneurs have, have responded to what has happened with Coronavirus, to this economy. And you see this innovation taking place everywhere. And so again, I want to share again, I've got some notes with me today because I had so many emails over the weekend. I want to make sure that I address everything that you guys were asking me. Again, I received about 6,000 emails over the weekend, primarily entrepreneurs, a lot of solopreneurs. And what I started to notice was, was patterns, that there are the same issues, the same three or four issues that keep coming up over and over and over again. And I want to make sure that we address those things today. Tony Rodriguez, good morning. Thank you for joining us. Brian Astral, I see Sita, Eric, Michael, thank you for joining us again. If you're just hopping onto the stream, if you can write down your name, the industry that you're in, so I can help to. That will help me to tailor the content and what is the biggest challenge that you're facing as we go into this week. I know there are a lot of things that all of us are experiencing, but like I said from the messages that I'm getting in today and I got in over the weekend, there's three or four issues that we'll address today that keep coming up over and over again. My goal for the show is this, to really help guide all of you and as a community, guide each other through this experience, through coronavirus, through recession, and through uncertain times. Ahead. And over the next hour, what I want you to know I'm going to deliver is this. I'm going to deliver a show that is raw and real. It's going to be based on facts and experience. Because, look, at the end of the day, there's two ways that all of us can learn. We can take advice from people or we can take counsel. Advice comes from people who may love us to death, want the best for us, have the best intentions. The problem is they don't have any direct experience. Direct experience going through what it is that we're going through today. And as a result, anything they share with Us is nothing more than a best guess versus counsel. And counsel comes from people who have literally walked in your shoes. They have been in this experience or something like it. They've achieved what it is that you want to achieve. And so what they're speaking from is truth. They're speaking from their own personal experience. And that's what I want to share with you today. I've been really fortunate as an entrepreneur and intrapreneur. It's a tough word to say to experience some of the highest highs as an entrepreneur also through down market, some of those lows, the lowest lows. I've gone in this emotional roller coaster just like you. And if there's one thing I've learned, it's this. I have had the opportunity to work with some of the most amazing people. You know, I started my career working for bestselling author and speaker Tony Robbins and promoting Jim Rohn and Les Brown and some of the other icons in the training industry. And then in my my mid-20s, I moved to the Bay Area and I was on these startup teams, these early stage stage companies that became big brands. And today are CBS sports.com and NBC Internet foxsports.com and then I started a company that was like Expedia, but it was for private jets. And I was in business with a person that, oh my gosh, that I thought was like my hero entrepreneur. And everything changed for me. And it happened in a heartbeat. In 2008 when the market crash and it corrected. I went from a guy that felt like I had everything to losing everything like this. You know, I went from having money to being nearly $400,000 in debt. I had first kid pregnant with the second. I lost my job, we lost our company. And that entire time, all I hoped for, all I wished is that I had a guide, that I had a mentor, that I had somebody that would help me to understand really what was going on, not just in the economy, but with my business. Somebody that I could talk to and somebody who I could share my experience with to help me to navigate through the process. And the problem was I made so many mistakes. And these mistakes probably cost me the business, they probably cost me the job. They probably cost me so much money. And so what I want to do is not only share my experience navigating 2001, 2008, but also I'm going to be drawing from my network. I'm going to be drawing from the kind of people that I've talked to you about earlier on today's show in order to get their experience. We'll be bringing them in as guests to not only serve as experts on how to navigate this through, like a general business perspective, but also we're going to go industry specific. So I've heard from a lot of people in the training business. I've heard from a lot of people in the real estate industry. I've heard from people in the technology business. So what I worked on over the weekend was assembling an amazing group of guests that we could bring in each and every day to help provide their feedback and their perspective on their markets. And as you guys are jumping in.

Again, I'm going to ask all of you as you come in, if you could please write down your name, say hello to us in the comments. The industry that you're in and what is the biggest challenge that you're facing today so that I can be sure to address it. Who's this program for? It's for entrepreneurs. It's for solopreneurs. It's for small business owners. This is for people that may have become unemployed in the last week or maybe folks that had been put on furloughs. And Kimberly, I see what you're talking about. I'm going to talk to you about furloughs in just a minute. And you're trying to figure out what to do next. This is a great place to start because what in this, in this community is we'll share what entrepreneurs are doing and what people who are new in the marketplace need to do, identify the products and services that they can take to the market to start, to generate, generate cash quickly. Now, some of the latest facts and figures, things that I saw over the weekend and in the news this morning. First, I cannot believe that it's been two weeks. Today we start the third week and it feels like a lifetime since the market crashed, which was everyone is pointing to as March 9th. So that is three weeks ago or two weeks ago today. The market crashed, of course, because of the fear of coronavirus, the oil price drops. And what is a looming recession? Just to give you guys some perspective of how what we've experienced in the last two weeks stack up against drops in the past during the great, during the recession. I'm sorry, during the Great Depression when the market dropped, it fell just over 90% over a short period of time. 90% in 2008, 2009, during the Great Recession, we fell just over 50%. And in the past two weeks, the market has fallen over 20%. So we're not quite where we were in 2008, 9. But I think that most of us are feeling the impact of what's happening in the economy faster. And so we're going to talk about how to protect yourself and really how to protect your cash today. Because cash is like oxygen for all of us, especially for entrepreneurs and especially for business owners. So we want to talk about how you can protect your cash and how to hold on with it and how to hold onto it through this process. The number of new cases were up in New York almost 40% overnight. Now as an entrepreneur, I just. This is something that we know is going to happen. We know the number of new cases is going to increase. We know that it's going to look really crazy when we see this on the news. But I want to encourage you to keep your mindset focused on your business and keep your mindset focused on how you prepare yourself to move forward. And the reason is there's so much that we can't control out there. We can't control how many people can't get are getting affected. We can't control so many things that are happening in the marketplace. But what we can control is we can our focus. And now more than ever, it is important that you stay focused on the actions that you need to take in order to protect yourself and to protect your business. I saw yesterday news that Governor Cuomo was telling us to prepare for what we're feeling today for nine months. And our Treasury Secretary said something that was fairly consistent. And so if you have a business, what I'd like you to do now is start to remodel that business with, with a one month plan, a three month plan and a six month plan. And the reason it's important not to go beyond six months is we really don't know what's going to happen beyond that. But the question is, you can build these plans and where do you start before you start executing? You have got to shore yourself up. You have got to protect your cash. And so how do you do it? I keep harping on these same things. The first thing is you've got to print out all of your bank statements from the last two months. Print out all of your bank statements, go through those statements and take a look at all of your auto pays. Anything that you have that's an auto pay that is not an absolute necessity. Make sure to wipe that out and to kill that auto pay today for your bigger bills, for your rent, for your, for your cars, for your utilities, for your credit card bills. Make sure to get on the phone with those folks and begin to renegotiate today. So what I'm finding from. From everyone that I speak to, including my own personal experience, is every single one of those categories. When I reach out to those billers, the response that they've had has been amazing. So I have been able to push payments back a month, two months, three months without any of that being pushed back, affecting my credit in a negative way. And by the way, if you're really concerned about your credit right now that you don't necessarily make a payment on something right now, I would say I would let that go. The world is different today than it was yesterday. And today, the most important job that you have is to protect your cash. So again, reach out to all of these billers if you have a credit line. This is really important. I have a lot of people that are reaching out to me, asking, what should I do with my credit line? Well, here's what we know. You may have a credit line that has a lot of cash available, and you may think that you're always going to have access to that cash. But in 2008, what happened was banks decided like that to not only shut those credit lines down, but also to call that money immediately. So if you have a credit line and you think that you should be taking cash out, or you may want to take cash out, this could be a great opportunity for you to take as much cash out as you can and put it on the sidelines. And you may also want to protect where you keep that cash. Now, I'm not suggesting you do this, but it's something that I hear lots of people doing today. What lots of people are doing is they're drawing down their credit lines. They're. They're taking out that cash and they're putting that cash into a new bank account or a bank account with another bank. And they're doing this in the event that that bank who held the credit line decides to shut it down and call it so that bank can't go into their other accounts and pull it out and leave them with no cash. So again, I've seen several people doing this. Also. What I saw over the weekend is I saw there were many people who last week sat on the phone trying to work with their banks or trying to get a hold of companies that were auto billing them and they were in a position where they were losing so much cash, or they had become recently unemployed, or they were furloughed, or they had received. They had a lot of canceled contracts in their business. And so what was happening is they couldn't get to these billers fast enough. They couldn't cancel accounts fast enough. They couldn't stay on hold any longer to stop that bleeding. And so what they started to do was just cancel the accounts. They would cancel their debit cards or, and, or they would cancel their, their accounts or checking accounts so that nobody could get go in. And then they would move their money and they would open new accounts again just to stop the bleeding. So these may sound to some people like extraordinary measures, but these are extraordinary times. And as I've said before, the biggest mistake that entrepreneurs make or people that are recently unemployed and new to this entrepreneur space, is they wait. They wait because they hope that things will change. They wait because they're optimistic and they just, they want things. They want to believe things will change. But while they're doing that, those auto pays continue to pull money out of your account. So the number one thing that I want to recommend that you do again today, and it's so important is to, is to stop all that stuff and reach out to your creditors. The second thing that we want to do is we want to manage our communication with our teams, if we have teams of employees or contracts. It is so important because particularly the. This week, based on all of the research I've done and the friends I have that run big technology companies, big medical, big, really big companies out there, I expect this week to be a really big week as it relates to layoffs. And I'm not the only one saying this, and this isn't the first time that you've heard it. And so what's happening is if you have employees, they're sitting there refreshing their web browser, checking their texts and their websites, and they're asking themselves, well, what does all this mean and what should I do? Just before we started this broadcast today, I heard that Boeing had shut down operations. They ceased all operations in Seattle. That is a big deal. So one of your employees sees that and they're like, gosh, what does that mean to me? And what should I do? So if you have employees, let's talk about this. Number one, if you need to make cuts, if you need to make cuts, make them once and make them deep. And I've said this before, make them once and make them deep. You see, one of the mistakes that I made in 2008 is I tried to be hopeful and I tried to make incremental layoffs in my company. But what would happen when I was making these incremental layoffs is that everyone Else that was kept around, they could see what else was going on in the market. They could see the effect that was taking place. And so again, when I cut a small piece of the team, they would not believe that they weren't going to be next. And so instead of working on my business, what they would work on is their resumes. They worked on updating their LinkedIn profiles and things like that. So the best thing that you can do for you for your business is to cut fast and cut deep. And here's the thing, the people that stay with you will be so incredibly loyal. They'll work so incredibly hard and they won't be as concerned. They'll be able to stay more focused on your business because they won't be concerned that they're next. And by the way, this is the best thing that you can do for your employees also, because if you don't think you're going to be able to pay them, if you don't think there's a shot, you're not going to be able to pay their next paycheck, the best thing that you can do is allow them to get unemployment. That is so important. The government has systems. You've been paying into the system, they've been paying into the system. And if you do let them go, then they have the opportunity to go find cash that could help them, that could help them, you know, quickly. And one of the most difficult, difficult positions to be in as an employee or a contractor is to work for an entrepreneur or to work for an intrapreneur and be in a position where they try and keep you longer than they should. And so what happens is by the time payroll comes, they don't have any money to pay anybody. And now you're stuck. You've lost a couple of weeks of being able to take in money. So again, if you're an employer, cut once and cut deep and do it today. If you're an employee, be sure if you've been let go to file for unemployment. I also have friends that over the weekend began making furloughs. And Kimberly, I know that this is related to you as well and kind of what you're experiencing. So a lot of furloughing going on this week. And one of the advantages of a furlough, and for those of you who don't know the difference between letting somebody go, laying them off and putting them on furlough, is this a furlough? Well, a layoff is permanent and a furlough is intended to be a short term Thing. The intention that the company has is to bring you back. The intention that the company has is to keep you close. Now, when you furlough someone, my understanding is that you're able to keep their health insurance open. And so this could be a really big benefit to your teams. If you want to lay people, if you believe you're not going to be able to, you're going to have to reduce your staff or you're going to have to cut their hours, communicate with them what's going to happen and that you're going to have to take this action. And a furlough may be a great way to keep them engaged with the business, reduce their hours, be able to continue to pay their health insurance. And furloughs enable those employees to go and get unemployment insurance. So that is a big deal. So again, a layoff, the employee is gone. You don't pay them anymore. You don't pay for their insurance anymore. A furlough is a temporary thing. You can pay them a reduced number of hours. You can make the promise that you'll bring them back, and you can continue to pay for their. For their. For their benefits. Now, just because a company puts you on furlough does not mean it is not a guarantee that they're going to be able to bring you back. Now they want to bring you back. They're trying to do the right thing by enabling you to get unemployment while paying your benefits, but it doesn't mean they're going to be able to bring you back. And so what I highly recommend is, if you are, if you've been furloughed, to start thinking about what you can do on the side right now to build your own business and start to generate income from different. From different sources in the event that the furlough goes away and you end up getting laid off. I think that's so important.

Do you guys have any more questions? Kimberly, I'm coming back to your question here. I'm looking for it. On furloughs, Kimberly, you're saying you're in the hotel and hospitality industry and you were furloughed but just got terminated. Okay, there you go. On Saturday the 21st, the challenge is you're searching for open careers in a new industry and also preparing to launch online rapidly to start being of service and bringing an income quickly to support your family. Totally get it. So here's the thing.

What we tend to do when we're let go and what we tend to do if our businesses are forced to shut down is we tend to focus on restarting or finding new employment in the same area. But that area may really be struggling. It may really be suffering. So it could be really difficult to start up in that area. So what I would recommend is to start asking people and just pay attention to what they need the most right now. Like if you need to bring in fast cash, what do people need the most around you? I can tell you, I'll give you some examples. So this may not be for you, but hopefully this will help to maybe ignite some ideas inside of you.

Over the weekend I was reading about, I believe the company is Borla. They're one of the largest suppliers of food, food supplies to restaurants in the United States. Their business fell 80% over the last two weeks because all of the restaurants were closed. But what they did is they adapted their restaurant so they could actually be doing home delivery for, for different groups. And two business in the business delivery of food services. So they basically flipped it and they've been able to recover 60% of their business. Tesla and the other auto manufacturers, they're in a position right now where nobody's going to buy a new car and the government needs respirators. So all the auto manufacturers have jumped on board to.

Create respirators. Alcohol distilleries, guys like Jack Daniels and people who make vodka and stuff like that, they're not selling vodka. What they're doing is they're pivoting their business to respond to a real need today, hand sanitizer. And so these guys have all gotten into the hand sanitizer business and they're going to be delivering millions and millions and millions of gallons of hand sanitizer. More practically speaking, over the weekend I was getting a bunch of texts from other parents about basically being stir crazy. The kids had been in for a week or the kids had been in for two weeks. And the parents were so frustrated because the kids were going wild and they didn't. The parents not only didn't know what to do with the kids, but they also had to get back to work on their own business of making money and generating cash. So over the weekend I saw a whole new kind of like second batch of businesses form to help respond to this problem. So whether it's online tutoring through Skype, whether it's providing exercise classes, I saw dance classes, I think it may have said online tutoring, painting classes that were taken online. So a painting studio that can't bring people in for painting class now, now they run their classes through a Facebook, a Private Facebook group. And here's the thing. In your effort to go out and define fast cash, you don't have to build anything elaborate. All you have to do is solve an existing need that people have right now. And there's so many inexpensive ways to do it. You know, you don't have to build a sales page. You can put it out through your Facebook community. You don't have to have like an automated way that people can pay you just sign up for PayPal, they'll give you a link. You can do invoicing. The idea is to keep this stuff as simple as possible. Nothing has to be perfect. Today, launch your business in channels that already have lots of viewers. Launch your business on Facebook as a Facebook page. You know, launch your business on Instagram, you know, do things. Launch your business on LinkedIn. Launch your business in places where you already have eyeballs and you already have customers. There are, you already have people that are looking for solutions. I would recommend if you don't know what to do, go onto whatever social channel you have the most engagement and just ask people, what do you need today? What do you need most? How can I help you most? What's going on at your house? How can I help with your kids? How can I help with your business? Just ask. Because here's what happens.

When times are tough. What most people do is what they know the way they know it, but they do it more and harder. So they do the same thing. Even if it doesn't work, or even if those jobs aren't available in that space, or even if the industry is suffering, or even if the product isn't working anymore, they do the same thing more and harder, more and harder, more and harder. And what they fail to do is get in front of people and ask what they need. So in the hotel business, in the hotel industry, I know one of the biggest innovations I've heard is they're taking the janitorial staffs in the hospitality industry and they're repurposing these staffs and they're teaching them how to disinfect and how to basically clean workplaces businesses so people can go into work warehouses like Amazon workhouses. So I wouldn't be surprised if Hilton had an army or was creating an army of people to go and clean and disinfect Walmart facilities and like Walmart warehouses. So again, it's just, it's more innovation. If you need fast cash, here's a place that you can find it.

Over the weekend, I read that employees of the restaurant industry in Washington. There's now a 600% unemployment rate in the last week, a 600% increase in unemployment in the last week in the restaurant industry in Seattle. So let's say you're in the restaurant industry as an employee, as a worker, what do you do? How do you find cash quickly? Well, one of my buddies, I've mentioned him before, his name is Aaron, he owns the biggest delivery driver service in America for like Amazon and Walmart and grubhub. And so the odds are if you've ordered from one of these big companies.

It'S Aaron's drivers that are delivering to you. These guys need drivers. DDI if you are looking for work and you're willing to drive, and here's the funny thing, is that he is advertising more, but applications are going down. If you're looking for work and you need to make fast cash, delivery driver jobs are open everywhere. Amazon is hiring 100,000 people. Walmart is hiring 100,000 people. PepsiCo is hiring right now like crazy. And what I recommend is this. If you do need to go and pick up cash and you do need a job, okay, don't let, number one, don't let your pride get in the way. I'll tell you a quick story. In 2008, market crash, I share how I lost a bunch of money and all that kind of stuff. And, and I was trying to figure out what to do. I really needed to find fast cash. I mean, I really needed fast cash. And I was having so much trouble positioning myself.

And I couldn't get a job anywhere that I applied. And then one day the phone rang. This is a true story. One day the phone rang and it was a friend of mine. And he said, hey, Scott. He said, I heard you're looking for work. I said, I am. He goes, you're hired. He said, you're going to run my company. And I said, I am. I said, what am I going to do? And he said, what does it matter? You're looking for work, you need cash, Come and work for me. You see, I tend to overthink everything. And I'm going to ask all of you, as entrepreneurs, as you know, as innovators, as anyone that may be recently unemployed, on furlough, and anyone whose company you're afraid that you may have to shut down, don't overthink it. When it comes to generating cash, don't let your ego get in the way. So what he said to me is, he said, come and have lunch with me today and what I'll do is I'll walk you through it. So here's what I did. I went to my buddy's place, I sat down with them for lunch, and I said, what is it that you want me to do? And he said, this cell p. And I was like, what? He said, yeah. He said, look. He said, I just bought a new research laboratory, and we specialize in processing urine. And what that means is you go to a doctor's office, you get a physical, you pee in a cup. They send it to us, we put it through this machine. And what do they do? They send a report back to the doctor to tell you how you're doing. He said, I want you, by the way, you're not going to run this company more. You're going to be a salesman, and your job is you're going to go to all the doctor's offices in Southern California, and you're going to win their pee business. He said, in fact, in one year, I have a vision for you. In one year, you are going to be the king of pee. That's a true story. And I was like, you got to be kidding me. I was like, I just worked, sold a company to Virgin. I had just, you know, been on CNBC alongside Richard Branson, and you're offering me a job selling pee? And so what did I do? I didn't take it. And I should have. I should have because I needed fast cash. And so my point to all of you today is this. My point is, if you are looking for money quickly to get out there, and number one, if you're in business, you're running a company, talk to your customer and have your teams spend as much time as they possibly can talking to your customers. Ask them, what are you feeling in the marketplace? What new needs have emerged for you? What about my product? Can I adapt to better serve those needs? Or is there something completely different that you'd like me to build? So the number one is get really clear on what your customer's needs are, and then adapt. Don't wait, adapt. Life doesn't wait, adapt. The economy doesn't wait, adapt. The message here is to get started. And if you don't have a company and you're recently unemployed, go ask questions. Ask everybody that you know and you know what you may want to do. Sometimes people, they struggle understanding what value they bring, they bring as individuals to the marketplace. And I remember a couple years ago, I was installing DirecTV at my house, and the DirecTV guy, the installer, he walked in and we started to talk, and we Walked around the house, and we were looking for a place to put the dishes.

And I asked him, I said, how long have you been working with DirecTV? And he said to me, I've been doing this for 20 years. I said, you must love it. He said, I absolutely hate what I do. And I said, well, why do you do it? He said, you know, my dream has always been to be an entrepreneur, but I don't know where I fit. I don't know how to get started. And so here's what I told him. I said this. I said, what I'd like you to do is go home tonight and reach out to the five people that you spend the most time with. The five people you spend the most time with, and ask them this one question. You see, every single day, we refer somebody to somebody else. Somebody needs to, you know, teach you how to set up a podcast. Somebody needs to teach you how to set up a website. Somebody needs to teach you how to do whatever it is. And we refer our friends, our family, people that we worked with in the past for that job. And so the question I said, I would like you to ask the five people that you spend the most time with. If you were to refer me to somebody, if they said, I need this done and you were to refer me, what would you refer me for? What do you think I'm really great at and an expert at? And ask the five people that you spend the most time with. And the odds are they have a better perspective on you and your value than you do. And so that's. I did is I asked this gentleman, I said, go home and do that. I actually gave him my cell phone number. I said, text me and let me know the answer. Turns out all five people said the same thing. All five people said, I would hire you and refer you to set up a home theater system. I would hire you to set up a home theater system, and I would refer you to others to do the same. And one friends was holding a Super bowl party that weekend, and he said, in fact, I will hire you. I will pay you to set up a theater in my house for the super bowl, because I'm gonna have a big party. So the guy's like, I guess that's it. He went to his friend's party, but he had. There was an issue. What he told me is, I can't ask him for money. I can't charge him for this. And I said, why not? And he said, well, first of all, he's a friend. I said, well, he's gonna pay somebody else. Why not pay you? And second, what's common sense to you isn't common sense to everyone else. What's common sense to you is not common sense to everyone else. And so I said, you should do it. Charge him and take the job. His friend happily paid him. He booked four more jobs at that party by his friend promoting him and what he had done to set up this party. And check it out, he ended up leaving DirecTV six months later and he started his own business. And I remember we stayed in touch, and the following year he made $75,000 in his own company. And so the thing I encourage you to do is, you know, I've always said that the number one key to hiring. So let's think about this as it relates to you. The number one key to hiring a great team is self awareness. The number one key to bringing in a really good team to work with you is to understand who you are and to understand your strengths and weaknesses. And if that's something that you may have trouble with, then what I recommend, you're going through a process. I recommend that you reach out to those people around you. So, number one, we talked about really protecting your cash, and we talked about some real quick ideas. Printing out your bank statements and canceling auto pays, calling the biggest billers that you have and renegotiating your terms. If you have cash available in a credit line or in other areas, this may be a great time to draw down. If.

Those lenders have the ability to close your line at any time, which they probably all do, and they have the ability to go into your other accounts with the same bank and to pull the money out of those, you, you may want to set up separate accounts. Those are things that we talked about. That was number one. Number two, we talked about your business and how you're going to go into this week. And we talked about some difficult choices that entrepreneurs are going to have to make. As we get close to payroll, we talked about making layoffs, we talked about cutting back. We talked about the difference between layoffs and furloughs and how one may or may not makes sense for you and for your team. And again, I just want to reiterate, if you're an employer and you're keeping your people on because you don't think you're going to be able to maybe meet the next payroll, the best thing that you can do for you and for them is to eliminate that expense, to lay them off and to enable them to go and to get unemployment and finally, we talked about if you are a person that is searching right now, you're an entrepreneur, a solopreneur, you're recently unemployed, cash has stopped coming in, and you need to generate fast cash. What are some ways to do it and what are some areas out there of inspiration, things that you see other people doing out there that could not only not only inspire the group, but also to inspire us. And Kimberly, thanks for the heads up that the audio keeps going in and out.

So as it relates to all of us that are live streaming, I have got this crazy good Internet connection. Really great up speeds and down speeds, but the Internet is slow everywhere right now because so many people are on it. I think that I learned that Verizon had a 40% increase in their traffic last week alone. And so it's a challenge that all of us are kind of trying to work through right now. Also, what I've done, Kimberly, because of this problem is I've actually ordered a whole new system to install into the house, a whole new ethernet setup to hopefully help alleviate this problem as much as possible.

Next thing I wanted to talk about today was our changing workplace and work at home. I would love it if you guys could share with me what you're doing today. Any tips that you have to manage your household today while you're trying to work. So again, I started to receive like it was a crazy weekend. I started to receive messages over the weekend from people who were telling me that it was as if they'd reached a tipping point at home. The kids, the families, the workers have been home for two weeks now and they've been inside. I'm curious, what is it that you're doing right now at your house in order to break things up, to break up the routine, to break things up so that we don't all go stir crazy, so that we're in a position where we can continue to get through the day and not kill each other. Is there anything that you guys are doing? I would tell you, I would say. And by the way, before I answer that question, I see, let's see, someone just posted that they would wait on. They would wait for the government's new bill because the government may pay for your employees. Totally get you. My perspective on this is if your market has dried up and income is not coming in to your business at the rate that you need it to in order to not only pay your employees, but also pay yourself and keep the business in place, it may be something to consider. So I know, and I'm really looking forward to hearing today, just like you, what the government's willing to do for employees. I know that the rumor over the weekend, the Rubio bill and some of the things that are being discussed would include enabling companies to receive loans and the loans, it would be required that you give 90% of the loan that you receive to your employees to continue to keep them on your team. And if you do that for a certain period of time, that those loans would be forgiven, they'd be waived. I know that was actually in the draft of the legislation yesterday, which didn't pass, but we'll see what happens today. And just like you, I'm really looking forward to hearing what comes out of that, of that bill. So we were talking about work at home, so I can tell you that the most important thing that I think that all of us need to do is we need to take care of ourselves as best as we possibly can during this period. So we can get up and we can show up. We can be strong for our teams. And if we don't have teams, we can be strong. We can be really strong.

And really present ourselves as the type of people that others should hire. And this is so important. So what I recommend is, number one, set a routine. We have all got to have a routine to help us to stay focused, put our best self forward, and kick butt during these uncertain times. And what it starts with is get up at the same time every day, the same time you normally would when you'd go to work or you'd start work. This is so important. I know a lot of people. It's really easy to want to sleep in right now. It's really easy to not want to open our eyes and see what's going on out there. But you got to get up and you got to show up. So get up, do what you do, exercise, meditate, whatever it is, get your breakfast, take a shower, and dress as if you were coming to play. And this is really important for your teams. Also, you have got to require that you get your teams on a call like this every day and that they've dressed up, they've shown up, and they've come ready to play. So, again, create your routine, your. Your morning routine for getting up, dressing up, showing up. That's number one. Number two, create regular break times during the day to get up and move around. What I found last week is I was on the computer and I was on this thing, and so much that it was almost like I was glued to my chair. And so the pressure of what was going on outside of me, combined with the fact that I wasn't getting my blood flow and I wasn't moving at all, really weighed on me. And I felt on it. I felt. I felt it over the weekend. I mean, I really felt like crud on Saturday when I got up. And maybe some of you have felt like. Or you're experiencing the same thing. And so it's not just a matter of getting up and showing up. It's a matter of also making sure that you're moving and that you're eating well. I know pastry sales in the United states went up 68% last week. 68%. And I understand how good comfort food may seem in the moment, but what you really need to do is you need to nourish yourself. You got to put good things in your body, whether it's continuing to hit your water or continuing to hit good food. And if you go to most markets, what you'll find is it's the produce section, at least where I live, that tends to be the one that's always full. It's always filled up. If you want to eat healthy, make sure to always stay on the outside of the market. That's where you're going to find the freshest food and the freshest and all of the freshest and all the freshest products. With regard to your team.

Again, I recommend that you, You. You talk to them four times a day. So it is your job as a leader right now to make sure that your team is focused and that your team stays engaged. And what that means to me is in the morning, have a call, a video call, and make sure that everybody checks in. Make that call. A daily huddle. In just a few minutes, go through what the priorities are for the team and each member of the team during that day. And then what I would do is I would check in. And this may sound like overkill, but again, drastic times sometimes call for drastic measures. What I would do is I would have three more video calls set before the end of the workday, and I would make sure to bring everybody on the teams on those work calls. And it's really important that you do that in order to keep people focused, to control the narrative in your business and continue controlling the narrative in your business and make sure that people are focused on what it is that they need to do for you. It's so important.

What I'm going to do now is I just want to take a couple minutes to say hi to some folks and answer your questions. Sarah, it is so good to see you. Okay, here's your routine. First I clean, then I go for a walk, then work a bit, then walk again, toggle that all day. You know, that is such a great idea. And if you have. For people out there that have kids again, this weekend seemed to be a tipping point for a lot of people with like, cabin fever. This is a great routine that Sarah's laid out where you start the day. You clean up, you have your breakfast, you get everybody ready to go and ready to rock you maybe do some work, do the things that you need to do, and then go for a walk and then rinse and repeat and do that over and over and over again throughout the day. The odds are by the end of this week in California and in New York and in Seattle, we won't be able to walk very far. I know in San Diego they closed the beaches yesterday. I hear they may be doing that in Orange county today in Los Angeles because people were congregating. But go on your own walk and make it a fun walk. And so that's a great tip.

Sita, you love the notes. Hey, Sita, you love the notes on innovation. Let's make sure to note the difference between now and the Great Depression. Our country is flushed with cash now, unlike when the Great Depression hit. So it's truly a matter of innovation. The fact in itself should keep us inspired. That is so true. When the market crashed during the Great Depression, it was a structural problem in the market. And the banks, everyone, the big companies ran out of cash. And in 2008, 2009, when the market crashed, it was a structural problem. What we have right now is an event driven problem. It is an event driven problem. We have a medical issue out there. The markets themselves, the banks have never been, were never more flush and cash, Big companies were never more flush and cash, the value in companies was never higher than a month before this happened. There is so much money out there. I have friends, I have family that have been putting money on the sidelines for the past year in anticipation of a recession to be sure that they could buy and buy into things when that happened at a discount. There is so much money out there right now. So the problem isn't that there's money out there, is there's not money. The problem, and this is really important, the problem is that we are not solving people's needs the way they need to be solved today. The market has shifted. And so what that means is we need to be adaptable. The number one most important quality or trait of anyone today is adaptability. And, you know, when I wrote. When I wrote my last book, my last book is called Breakthrough. If you want to pick it up, it's on Barnes and Noble and Amazon, and you can't go in now, but you can get it online. But when I wrote my last book, I spent two years traveling all over the country and interviewing people in my network and outside my network that were the best of the best at what they do. So whether it was a Gary Vee or it was, you know, a Sarah Blakely or Daymond John, people like this. And I was looking for, you know, what it is like, what is the difference that makes the difference between the people that were the very best, the best of the best at what they did. And number two, and what I found since the days when I worked with Tony Robbins is the answer to that question is always changing. It's always evolving. But over the past two, three years, the answer was simple. The answer was people who were the best always felt that the number one thing, the most common characteristic that they had was this passion, this obsession with learning. And the reason is that they saw how fast markets could shift, they saw how fast a consumer could go somewhere else, and they felt they always needed to be on the cutting edge. And you think about it this way. Last year, last year, in 2019, the graduating college class in this country, the top 10 jobs that they applied for, the top 10 jobs that they applied for last year did not exist 10 years ago. That's crazy. And so for all of us who are out of college, we have got to learn to maybe re, listen and to readapt to what's going on in the marketplace. The best way you can do it is by getting in front of your customers and then asking your prospects and the rest of the world what it is they need today and listen and adapt. And sometimes that's hard, and sometimes that can be a really difficult thing to do because we've been out there selling a product, we've been selling a service. We've been go, go, go for a heck of a long time. And what we've been doing has worked. And so we want to stick with what worked. But the world has changed. And just because something worked yesterday does not mean it's going to work today. You know.

Again, a hundred Years ago, in 1919, 1920, the average man, the average male in the United States lived to be 49 years old. I'm 49 years old. That freaks me out. Now, maybe back then, being good at one thing was good enough because of life expectancy, it was so short. But today, that's not the case. And I've said this before, whatever it is that made you, you, your superhero and power in business, that thing today, that thing starting on March 9th, was your baggage. It is time to open up. It is time to relearn. It is time to approach each day with a beginner's mind as if it's the first day that you've approached everything that you do and ask yourself, what is it that. That people need today and how do they want it? Like, how do they want to receive it? So again, just. I want to give you this, this, this metaphor one more time. If I ask you.

You know, what do you want? What's most important to you today? Well, I gotta. I gotta solve stir craziness in my house. I gotta solve. I get to solve that problem. Stir craziness.

Okay, cool. So what has to happen? How do you know that we've solved stir craziness? What's going to happen is that person that you talk to is going to give you their rules. You see, there's lots of different ways that I may think that I can become unstir crazy or make the people in my house unstir crazy. But when you ask a prospect, ask them what's most important, how do you know that you're getting what you want, that the product is working, that people are getting lester crazy, it's better to be working in that house. And what's going to happen is they're going to start to give you their rules. They're going to start to say, you know what, if I had a program that I could do every day, or if I had a program my kids could do every day if I could receive it through social media, or if I could receive it on. If I could receive it through a mobile app. And you know, I don't use Android phones. I use an iPhone. If I could receive it on the iPhone and if it only cost me a few dollars and maybe I paid at one time and I didn't have to worry about it for a month because I don't know where my cash is coming from for the next couple of weeks, or maybe it's a certain subscription fee and I'd be willing to pay that. The thing we need to do is ask people what they want. And then that second question, what has to happen? How do you know you're getting what you want? They'll give you their rules. And when they give you their rules, what I Recommend you do when they stop, when it feels like they've gone through all of them, is to repeat, you're writing this down, repeat what they've said. So if I were to do this, this, this and this, you'd be willing to pay a one time fee of whatever for it if I do this, is there anything else that you need? Is there anything else? And the person will probably say after the first time they've stopped, when they think they've extinguished everything, all their answers, they'll say, you know what, that's it. Is there anything else you need? I don't know. Here's a trick. You say, well look, I know you don't know, but if you did, what else would it be? What else would this look like? What would it feel like, what would it sound like? What can I do? And it's amazing. What will happen is they will open up and they'll have a couple more things that come out. And by the way, those last couple things tend to to be a couple of the most important things that you need to deliver to your customer in order for them to really buy off on this thing. You just got their buyer blueprint and that is a recipe for identity, for finding problems out there today and identifying not only, you know, how to maybe solve them, but how to deliver them to your customers in the way that they want them and how to price them in the way that they're actually willing to pay. I will say this, if you're considering starting a SaaS type of business, so a software as a service, something that is a monthly subscription based service, what I would recommend is consider a one time upfront payment. And the reason is people are going through their expenses right now and I've asked all of you to do the same thing. And they're taking a look at what is hitting their account every single month. And if that thing is not absolutely vital, it's not absolutely critical, they're canceling the service. And so if you are a must have, a must have versus a nice to have, I think new subscription products work today. But if you're not a have to have an absolute at the end of the day, must have, you may want to strongly consider a one time upfront upfront fee for whatever it is that's new that you'd be taking to the marketplace if you're thinking about that type, that type of service.

All right, I'm going to go back to the comments here. Thank you, Sarah. Duchess Lakin, Kate Johnson, thank you so much for joining us. Mike Schultz, good to see you again. Aaron I'm glad to see that you guys are sticking to your routine.

Patrick Carney, always. It was great to talk to you this weekend. Jonte Hall, Harlem Globetrotter it is great to have you in here today.

Luz, it's so good to see you. Thank you for joining us. I'm going to be wrapping up here in just a second. We have about one more minute. Are there any other questions? Is there anything that's, that's really important that you guys need answered today that we should get on right now before I hop off of. We hop off of today's, Today's show.

I'll give you just a minute to type those in.

Okay. I got a question about schools and what's happening? I can tell you the school system that my kids are in is the Newport Mesa School District in Orange County. And starting this week they're going to be doing distance learning. I don't believe it's for all grades. I think it starts with the higher grades and then it drops down. Every single, it drops down to I think the third or the fourth grade. And they're still trying to figure out what to do with K through 2. I would expect this week a lot more school districts to be announcing learn at home programs. These learn at home programs could help us to keep our kids occupied for an entire school day. That's what they're being designed to do. I know that some of the things that the districts are trying to work out right now are things like where will the teachers be teaching from and do they have Internet access? What devices will the kids be using? Where will they be able to access WI fi from if they don't have it at their home? So there's some, some very serious issues that there's a lot of issues that need to be resolved.

In order to roll this out throughout the country. But I think what's really cool, again, it's all about innovation. What is really cool is schools are being forced to adapt and figure out new ways to help kids learn. Now the question I have for you is where's the opportunity for you in that? Where is the opportunity? What would happen if you could procure from Google Chromebooks to go meet the needs of schools and districts all over the country? What if you created some kind of service like in our school, our kids school, they're giving out Chromebooks. But one of the challenges is how do we get the Chromebooks into the kids hands? So there are people that are now they've set up like A little business and when the they set times alphabetically by last name and you can come up and you can actually drive up in the car, the parent and be given a Chromebook with a lesson plan attached to it. So I don't know, maybe there's an idea there for entrepreneurs. Another great idea for entrepreneurs. The entire workforce in the United States or most of it has gone home. And the entire workforce last week wasn't working from home or two weeks ago wasn't working from home. So people don't have their computers, their WI fi, their printers, they don't have their scanners, they don't have their email and access behind firewalls. They don't have all of this type of stuff set up today. And because they don't have it set up today, there's a ton of disruption in business. This is a really difficult challenge for all of us to get through. And so is there an opportunity for entrepreneurs out there to go to businesses and offer a package where you will go into a home and you'll get somebody set up or you'll deliver to a person's front door their entire office kit that could include everything from a computer to a printer to a step by step manual that you create for them and maybe that includes a zoom call or something like this so that they're able to get instruction from you without you going into the home. You know, I guess, you know, the question is how do we think, how do we think different? Later this week we're going to have Mitch Thrower who is the founder and CEO of Events.com Events. Mitch started Active.com, which was the largest business in the world where people could go online and sign up to do athletic events. That company was sold for a billion and a half, bought back, resold and now he started events.com that's all he does is deal with events. And we have so many people, there are so many people in my network that are in the events business. We will bring Mitch on later this week and he's going to share with you, with each of us how to manage through this period if we are in the events business, how to leverage different services in order to protect yourself in order to.

Put your events on pause and message to people that would be attending how to start to replan events for next year and position those events for next year, how to get to new markets. So we'll be bringing Mitch on later this week. So with that, I want to thank all of you for joining today. If you found any value in today's session, I ask you to please share it with your communities. Please. If there's one thing you could do for me, it would be to share it with your communities, with your social media followings and take care of you today. Take care of your personal finances, take care of your health, okay? You cannot give what you don't have. So take care of you first and then we'll worry about everyone else. Okay? You guys have a great day. Thank you. Bye. Bye.