Scott Duffy, Episode 17: Entrepreneur's Guide To Manage Coronavirus, Recession & Uncertainty

Good morning and welcome, everybody. Welcome to what now an entrepreneur's guide to Managing through Coronavirus Recession in Uncertain times. And I want to thank you for joining from wherever you're tuning in. And while we start this live stream, we're going to give it a few minutes for things to propagate across the Internet. You can watch or listen in right now from Facebook, YouTube, Periscope, LinkedIn and all across social media. And I have, we have so much to talk about today. It is the end of the month. Tomorrow is the first. I have gotten a lot of calls and emails from folks that are anxious. They're anxious about their mortgage, their lease, their rent. They're anxious about how to plan for April. Is April. Like, is this thing going to be over in April at the end of the month? There's just so much to discuss on today's show. But again, I want to thank all of you guys for joining. And if this is your first time to be a part of this program, what I love to ask you to do is this. Please go into the stream and write down your name, the industry that you're in, and the biggest challenge, the biggest that you're having today. So your name, the industry that you're in, the biggest challenge that you're having today. So I can spend the next hour customizing this show based on what it is that you need. And I want to say good morning to everybody. I see you guys jumping in, it looks like. That's Chris. Chris Naugle. So good to see you, Sita. Good to see you this morning, Sita. I know you got a good jump rope in. Good job. You're taking care of yourself. And let me see, I'm going to pop in right here.

There we go. There we go. Mike Schultz, good morning, Jerry, Always great to see you. Brandon Kirk, good morning. Thanks for joining. Al Manfrey. So good to see you again this morning. I want to thank all of you guys for joining. And we're just going to give this about a minute more, let this stream propagate again. We are coming to you live on YouTube, Facebook. We're on Periscope, Instagram and LinkedIn. And you can also catch us live each day on DASH Radio and we'll be playing throughout the day on DASH Radio or download the podcast. So again, as you drop into this stream, please share what your name is and what it is that you're working on and the biggest challenge that you're having today so we can customize this show for you. We got a big morning and we got a big day ahead. So I want to start off the show by saying good morning. And again, my name is Scott Duffy and this is what now an entrepreneur's guide to to managing through Coronavirus, Recession and uncertain times. And I want to welcome you from wherever you're listening today. You can tune in each day at 10am Pacific time to watch live broadcast on YouTube and Facebook, listen nationwide on Dash radio throughout the day or download the podcast. Now, this show is for entrepreneurs, small businesses and those who are now thinking about starting a company for everyone that's affected by this economy. Maybe they lost their business, maybe they lost their job, they were furloughed or they saw all their consulting agreements go away and maybe it happened in a heartbeat. And these are people that are asking the same question that all of us are asking. What does all of this mean to me? What do I do now? And how do I come out of this situation even stronger? And so for all of you, I want to welcome you if you're just joining the live stream across anywhere on social media, if you could drop in your name and the industry that you're in and the biggest challenge that you're having today, I want to make sure to address your what's going on in your business and your questions today. And today we're going to focus on how to stand out and really stay relevant to help protect your business and protect your job during these completely crazy, unusual times. So now that our workforce has gone from the workplace to like to home, now everyone, now that everyone is working virtual, I want to share with you some tips and tricks that people are using to really position themselves and put themselves out front. Now these are not only people that have an existing business and their business is doing okay right now. These are people that have businesses that are struggling or they're out of work or they've lost their consulting contracts and they're trying to figure out what to do. They're trying to figure out how to stay relevant. I want to talk to all of you today. I have some really great, great information to share. Now. Three things you need to know today. This is how we always start the show. The first is this morning we passed 3,000 people that have died in the United States as a result of catching coronavirus, which for the first time tops the death toll of 9, 11 and negative GDP. So GDP is expected to fall from it was originally stated at 24%. Now GDP is expected to fall 34% and unemployment, depending on what study you look at, is expected to drop from somewhere between 14 to 30%. All right, bad news out of our system. We don't want to talk about that anymore. Look, here's the thing. We all watch the news, we all log in online, and we all know what we're up against. We also all know that what we're dealing with isn't something that's going to go away tomorrow. And in fact, it's not going to go away for the next several weeks. If you take a look from the first day that we broadcast here, that I broadcast, I had said that I need all of you to prepare for life to feel a lot like this through August. And I still hold to that. So as you're planning and you're preparing, I don't want you to wake up every morning and be disappointed or hope that the news changed or hope that there was some magic cure, or hope that the cavalry is coming and be disappointed. Instead, I just want you to go, okay, end of August, I'm going to plan from now until then. I'm going to take a deep breath and instead of focusing on all this bad news and all the things I'm going to see talked about or written about in the media, I'm going to focus on the things that I can control. Because for people that come out of the other side strong, that's what they're going to do. They're going to focus on what they can control today.

And a lot of us are tired. When I've been talking to people over the past 24 hours, there's a new thing I'm hearing in their voice, a new tone in their voice quality. People are tired, people are frustrated, people are anxious, people are stir crazy. And we're all going through it. So here's what I want you to do. What I'd like you to do is have empathy. Be a little extra careful, a little extra cautious when you're talking to people. Be a little bit more sensitive and give out like a bag full of mulligans. And what I mean by that is this. I talked to a couple people yesterday. These are people I'm really close to. And they were so short and they jumped on me for things that really had nothing to do with anything. And what I realized in that moment was, you know, I had to give them a break. I need people to give me a break. We're all in this together. If you're outside, if you're at the supermarket, if you're at the drugstore, if you know you're doing whatever it is that you can do in your area and you're around other people. I also recommend that you be particularly cautious and forgiving because people's tempers are short right now and so you don't want anything to escalate for no reason, no good reason at all. So again, we're going to stop thinking and talking about the negative stuff. We know that that's happening, and we're going to focus on the things that we can control. Now, before I get into kind of the core today's show, there's a couple things I do want to hit on. The first is this. Zoom Bombs. So a lot of you are new to using Zoom or at least using Zoom as a marketing tool for you to do your own livestream, for you to do your own meetings from home, for you to, like, stay connected to your customers, to do virtual happy hours. Here's the thing, a lot of people don't know how to use Zoom into and to protect the integrity of your meeting. This is really important.

The way Zoom works. If you take a look at the URL that you're given.

To launch a meeting or the code somebody types in, it's really easy for another person to go in and basically randomize and just start typing in codes. For example, taking one digit off of a code and, and then adding a different one. So if it ends 1, 2, 3, making it 1, 2, 4, and then jumping into somebody else else's meeting. So what we've seen over the past week is this big rise in the number of what they're calling Zoom bombs. Zoom bombs. So here's what I want you to do if you're running a Zoom meeting, again, just to protect yourself, the integrity of your broadcast, and make yourself look like a pro. Number one is don't make your classes public. When you go into Zoom and you use the setting, there's two options, public or private. Don't make your classes public, make them private. Number two, provide a link directly to the people who are participating in your Zoom call. And don't put that link out on social media. This is a big mistake. So a lot of people right now, they're trying to get traction for whatever it is that they're doing over Zoom. And so they copy and paste the link to the Zoom live stream. And what happens is that enables people to come in who are malicious and to drop in and take over that meeting. So just send that link directly to the people that that are invited to the meeting. The third is manage screen sharing options. When you're on your Zoom call, so you can go into the options and you can choose to have the host only control the Zoom call. So again, host only control. Don't let anybody else or give them the power unknowingly to take over the screen and take over your meeting. And also make sure that you and ask the people who are going to be in the meeting make sure that they have the latest Zoom software. And this is important because in January of this year, in January 2020, Zoom deleted the ability for people outside of a meeting to scan all of the open meetings, which makes them very vulnerable, those meetings to people. Zoom bombing. So, again, just some tips for running your Zoom meetings and really, again, looking like a pro and staying in control. And by the way, when you're running your Zoom meetings, it could be a Zoom meeting, it could be a live cast, it could be a Google hangout, it could be a Cisco, a Cisco WebEx, it could be something on Skype, anything that's visual. I want to recommend a couple of things. One is have good lighting. If you can have good lighting. So let me share with you what I do, what I have set up, and tomorrow I'll try and turn this around. But what I have set up is I have three lights. I have a ring light, so you can see these on Amazon. N E E W E R neewer is who makes this ring light. I have a bright ring light in front of me, and it enables me to go up and down and control the brightness to the left and the right of me. I have a stand. The ring light is pointed on me, and the stand is pointed at my background. And then underneath me, on the other side of the desk near the floor, I have another light. It could be a lamp. It doesn't really matter what it is. I turn that on and what it does is it brightens the bottom of what you see behind me. And so, again, this is really simple. This whole setup probably costs $150. This, this ring light alone, I think it's like 40 bucks. So you don't have to spend a lot of money. You do not have to spend a lot of money. And by not spending a lot of money, you can look absolutely fantastic. Now, as we're talking about all of this, one of the things that I just realized, and I'm in this meeting now, is I'm using a default speaker. What I typically do every day, and I was so busy today preparing, I didn't do this before, is I kick over to a USB microphone, and the USB microphone is right here. You can See it right here. So this USB microphone that I use, it's a Marantz M A R A N T Z. I also today at this, at this set, I have this Marantz, um, at my other location in Newport Beach, I have a professional, a different. It's a. Sure 7 MB. It's what Joe Rogan uses. It's, it's probably the best microphone that you can use if you're, you're doing something out of your home or your business. But this Marantz microphone comes with an arm that you screw onto the edge of your desk. And it probably. I think it costs, if I remember correctly, I think it was like 50 bucks. So you can have studio quality sound. Studio quality sound. You can have studio quality lighting. You can have a. I use an hd, it's a Logitech camera. I put it on top of my computer, I plug it in with a USB device and it's 1080. So it's really super high definition. And what will happen is the social media channels will, they'll. They'll reduce the size of the video to meet their channel best. But the original recording that I'm doing is, is here. Now if, with this camera. Now if you're using Zoom or you're using some of this other software, this, you know, this live streaming or this, this, this recording software, what most of it will do, what most of it will do is it will enable you to record the meeting or while you're doing it, to record the meeting while you're doing it. Now this is really important. It's important because I prefer to have the recording of the video be in high definition. And that's why I prefer to use an HD camera, Logitech HD camera that I just sit here on the top of my thing as opposed to, for example, my Apple Mac computer. It's so much better. Okay, so again, what you're seeing through social media in the streaming, again, it's compressed, but the original is, is 1080. So again, just to summarize, and I hope that some of this helps you guys. I hope some of this helps you. So in terms of my setup, I have lights, I have a newer ring light, I have newer standing lights. Here they come in a three pack set. These two go to the wall. This one is right at me. I have a Logitech 1080 HD camera that's sitting on top of my, my desktop. I have a Marantz microphone that's sitting here right now that I'm using. Again, it's USB. Super simple. This whole thing takes me about 10 minutes to set up and that is it. So again, if you really want to stand out as you're doing your meetings and you want to save the meetings and you want to be able to use them in the, in the future and record them, I would highly recommend that these are things that you use. Just don't make the mistake that I made today for the first time in the last three weeks of not pulling the microphone down before you start. So you might want to have your little checklist of things that you do before you get started. Number one, you make sure you have your privacy settings set correctly. Number two, you make sure that whatever software you're using, you choose the right camera and the right microphone. Number three, you have all of your lights on and you're ready to go. So again, I hope that some of that helps. And again, I wanted to share that information because it seems like everybody is live streaming today. The whole world has gone to live stream.

There's some really cool things happening out there that I wanted to share. The first is this. Yesterday, my friend Maddie, Maddie Montfort, she and her husband Tony Novia, who is a really close friend, a dear friend and a business partner of mine, they raised money over the weekend. It was a GoFundMe campaign and they raised money to go and feed people at St. John's Hospital to go feed the doctors and the nurses and any healthcare support staff, three meals a day. And they raised money to help feed these people and show support. And what's cool is they raised the money on GoFundMe through their family and through their friends and their friends networks. And then what they did is they went to all the local restaurants, particularly the ones they focused on that had to shut down and they tried to generate business for those people. And what they did is they pre negotiated a menu and a discounted rate. So it worked for everybody. And yesterday they fed their first 200 meals and they're going to continue to do this and the goal would be to do this every single day. So it was a great example of what people are doing out there to help, to help others.

If you are, if you have to shop, if you have to go. And by the way, I know we're talking about a lot of things before getting to the meat today, but there are a lot of questions that have come up either through the stream, over the last 24 hours, through our Facebook group, questions have been sent to me, texts and emails and I want to get to all these up front. If you and by the way, if you, if you're finding any value in this program today, please, I invite you to share it. Please share this program with others. If you have to go shop, if you have to go shop, you have to go to the market or the pharmacy. There's three things that you may want to do in order to protect yourself and others from coronavirus. The first is this. The first is, if you're not using it already, download and sign up for Apple Pay or, or Google Pay or any of those types of products. The reason is you simply connect those to your bank accounts and when it's time to pay at the register, instead of having to use the keypad and potentially infect yourself or others by typing in your password or code for your credit card, what will happen is you just hold that thing up and wirelessly it's going to make that payment for you. So a great way to avoid what has become the most infectious part of the store is to simply download Google, Apple Pay or Google Pay or any of those types of products. The next thing that you could do is this. Go on to Instacart. So if you don't know about Instacart or you don't use it, go on to Instacart and you can order your groceries and have them delivered from there. Now instead of having the delivery person bring the groceries in, have that person leave them at the door for you. Have them, they can go away. Leave the groceries at the door and you've paid online. You haven't had to get in front of anybody and your groceries are at the door. The third thing, if you want to go to the market, take a look at open table. OpenTable has adapted their business and now with Open Table you can go onto their app and from Open Table now they're rolling this out. So there isn't a lot of inventory yet, but it's coming online. You can go into Open Table and you can make a reservation to do your shopping at the grocery store. So grocery stores in many areas are going to reservation based shopping. And the reason is I drove by Trader Joe's today in the Trader Joe's near me in Los Angeles. Must have had 300 people in line and this create before they were open. And this creates a huge problem not just from the people standing close to each other because there's a further risk of infecting each other. It also creates a problem for the store because they get such a surge of people coming in. They have no time to restock. They have plenty of Merchandise in the back. Now they can't restock. So you can go to.

Open table and now you can make a reservation at many stores which helps to. It really helps on both sides. So again, three things to three tips to shopping today to stay healthy. Number one, use a service like Apple Pay or Google Pay so you don't have to touch a keypad to enter your passcode for your credit card or debit card at the market. That's number one. Number two is use a service like Instacart Deliver that you can order online, pay online, deliver, have them drop on your at your door. And number three, go to an app like OpenTable and make a reservation to go and to shop. Let me tell you something crazy. I heard this yesterday. People in US submarines right now that are underwater have no idea any of this is going on. Can you imagine that these guys and gals are underwater for months and they have no idea what is going on in the world. And it reminds me of one of my favorite quotes during this time from somebody that I just looked up to so much when I got my start in the kind of the motivational and business training space 30 year, over 30 years ago, Zig Ziglar. So Zig Ziglar was, in my opinion, one of the top two motivational speakers on the planet of all time. Number one to me is Les Brown. Number two, Zig Ziglar. And Zig said, I have lived through five recessions, but I've chosen not to participate in any of them. And so again, just wise words from a sage and a reminder that there is so much going on outside of you and me today. There's so much going on outside of us that we can't control. There's two things we can control. What we focus on and how we move. So real quick with regard to how we move. Get up and walk every day. Get up and walk every day. Motion creates emotion. You change the way you feel. How you feel determines how you behave. How you behave determines the results that you'll get. So number one, focus on your body. Number two is to focus on what you focus on, on your mindset. And this has never been so important. It's never been so important because all of us are living in isolation right now. And what Being an entrepreneur is probably the loneliest job on the planet. Because as an entrepreneur, even with a thriving business, the question is, who do you talk to when times are tough? Do you talk to your investors? Maybe not. Do you talk to your employees? You can't do that in all cases do you go and you bring everything home? Well, that probably doesn't work either. And so it tends to happen is we hold a lot in. And what's happening now is entrepreneurs are holding things in, but they're also doing it in isolation. And they're doing it in a way where they're stuck at their desk all day, every day, and they're not moving. And so they get trapped in these negative feelings and emotions. And so it's never been more important for us to control our focus. And this isn't just about a business owner. You may be listening. You may be a person who had a business and has lost their business or had a job and has lost their job or been furloughed, or you had some awesome consulting contracts and they went away overnight, or you were in the training business and your business was built around live events. And all of those events have canceled now. Those events have canceled those contracts and everything. There's never been a more important time for all of us to control what we focus on. And there's two ways to control what we focus on. The first is we have to get really good right now at controlling the questions that we ask ourselves. And number two, you got to shut off the fricking news. Just shut off the news. Three years ago, I cut the cord on cable. I cut the cord on cable almost four years ago. It was during the presidential election. And if any of you remember when Donald Trump ran against Hillary Clinton, it was so negative in this country. And my favorite thing to do, my favorite release, is to go to the gym. And every day when I went to the gym, what I did is I looked around me and all the TVs in front of the treadmills and the exercise bikes in front of where I lifted and the benches, all the TVs were turned onto CNN and to Fox, and it was just everyone yelling and the screen said breaking news, and it was all red. And I always felt terrible during that time when I left the gym, and then I just decided not to look. Actually, the truth is I stopped going to the gym at that time because it stopped making me feel good at that time. I cut the cord on satellite and I just stopped watching. That's what I did. And I really controlled what I focused on during the day and what I took in. And it really changed the way it felt, changed my life. We know what the news is going to look like for the next few weeks. So stop watching, stop reading, and spend your time focused on this. One question.

What do my Customers need now. What do my customers need now? Every time you watch the news, you're taking money out of your own pocket because you're not asking yourself what. What do my customers need now? And then ask, what has to happen? How do they know they're getting what they want? What has to happen? How do they know they're getting what they want?

Yesterday, I got a text and I got an email. Not from one, but from two people that have been selling what they have, their product, their service, super hard. And I reached out to both people. I actually picked up the phone and I called one on the phone. The other, I didn't have their number. And so I hit the thing on Facebook and we talked on Facebook and I said to them, I don't think that your message today, the message and how you're selling, how you were selling four weeks ago, is connecting with the market today. And what both of them said to me is this, well, my product was designed for something different. I said to them, if I were you, if I were in your shoes here, how I would position things differently today. Here's how I would adapt your product today based on what's happening in the market. And both people said to me, both people, that's not how this was built. I'm going to try and figure out how to sell it this way. And I just want to share. That's not going to work. What worked for you four weeks ago likely does not work for you today. What your customers want in the way that they want it likely is different than the way it was four weeks ago. So the number one thing that you can do right now to stand out and position yourself as a leader is to reach out to your customers. Whether you have a business, an existing business, whether you're a contractor, you're a solopreneur, you're a micropreneur. Reach out to your customers, reach out to your prospects, and just have a conversation. And I recommend having that conversation with a video chat, if possible, because that way you can be emotive. The emotion of where you're coming from will come through. And where do I want you to come from emotionally? Not a place of trying to get something. Come from a place of being of service. If you were truly of service in every cell of your body and you truly loved and you truly wanted to help that client or that prospect, if that's really what you wanted, you wanted to help them, how would you approach this? Two questions. The first is, what do you need? How has this market affected your business? What are the biggest challenges that you're having now? What new problems have arisen that you didn't anticipate before that you need help solving now? What's most important to you? And the second question, what has to happen? How do you know that you're getting what you want? Again, the quick example. I ask you what's most important to you about the new tech product I want to launch, and you say that it's easy to use. Say it's a fitness app. You say it's easy to use. Well, easy to use means a million different things to a million different people. But that's where most entrepreneurs stop, is easy to use. And then what they do is they go and they architect a product or solution. And the product or solution they architect is easy to use in their mind. And then they go try and sell what they think is most important. So the first question is, what's most important to you about blank? This. This, this fitness app that it's easy to use? This second question that most people today will not ask, but you will, is this what has to happen? How do you know that it's blank, that it's easy to use?

And what's going to happen is the person is going to give you their rules. They're going to give you their rules. We call this. Thirty years ago, when I started working for Tony Robbins, I was promoting the power to influence. It was a sales training program. Most people don't remember or know that Tony Rob really made his mark when he kicked his life. Like in the business community, not in personal development, is building one of the biggest sales training companies in North America. And in the Power to Influence that. Second question, what has to happen? How do you know? And so what the person does is gives you their rules. They say, well, look, if I were to get an easy to use fitness thing and buy it from you, number one, it would have to be on a mobile device. Okay, great. Now I know that. Number two, I use an iPhone. I don't use an Android, okay? So I know I have to make this for iPhone. Number three, I want to be able to pay one time because I don't know what my money, my bank account's going to look like during coronavirus time next month. And so I want to be able to pay one time versus a monthly subscription fee. Number four, I think that I can afford to pay this. Number five, and what's going to happen is a person is going to give you their rules. Now what you do is this. When they finish talking, you Say, okay, so if I were to do, or somebody were to build this, this, this and this, is that something that you would buy? And they'll say yes. They'll say. Then you ask, well, what else? What else would it have to be? And they'll give you a couple more. Eventually, what will happen is you'll say, if I give you this, this, this and this, will you buy? They'll say, yes. You say, is that all? And they say, yes. Is there anything else? No. Here's what you say. I know you don't know, but if you did, what would it be? And boom, that's when the magic happens. That's the gold dust, that's the pixie dust. That's what starts to come out. And you write those down. And now you have the buyer blueprint. So what you're going to build today, what you're going to build today is what your buyers are telling you they want and the way that they want it. I've given you several examples of how companies have adapted, how big companies have adapted over the past, over the past three and a half weeks, and they've been incredible. And the reason is they ask those questions when nobody else will.

And by the way, that's going to help you to stay relevant. That's going to help you to stay relevant. If you have a business and you're still open and you're still generating sales, maybe you're doing awesome, but you're going to stay relevant by being in touch with clients and solving problems the way they need them solved. If you've gone out of business or you've paused your business or you're a consultant, and maybe it feels like you're on pause. The quickest way to get yourself back in the game is to do what I just talked about is to do what I just talked about. That's it right there. And relevancy is so important because.

When we don't feel good, the last thing we want to do is get in front of other people. It just happens. If I don't feel good, the last thing I want to do is get in front of other people. But this is the most important time for, for you to get up and to get out and to lead. And the way that you lead is through service. And you lead through service by asking the right questions and by staying relevant and adding to your network. So here's the thing. Everyone today seems like they're live streaming or they're doing zoom things. Somebody said to me, said a joke the other day. They said, I don't think it was China that started coronavirus. I think it was Zoom, because they're the ones that are winning the most. You know, I think that when we look back in five years, in the same way that years ago when Google first started to take off, people started to say, hey, just Google that. Before it was just go do a search or it was go to Yahoo. And then all of a sudden became just Google it. Well, I think that in a few years, it's going to be just do a Zoom. And that will universally be like the word Kleenex. That will mean do a video conference online. So good for those guys. I saw their CEO on CNBC a couple days ago, and he was one of a number of executives in kind of this parade on air. And the first person who came out looked and sounded so bummed out. And the second person looked and sounded so bummed out, trying to be optimistic. And the third person was. Was the CEO of Zoom. And you have never seen anybody look so happy in your life. He was having an awesome day. So, yeah. So Zoom is becoming so much more important.

But what's really important isn't that you live stream. It's not that you do a video conference in Zoom. It's not that you do any of those things, because most of those people, by the way, are just talking at people. Most of those people are trying to figure out how to build their brand. They're more focused on themselves. Where you will stand out is by asking your customers what they need. And I know I am hammering this point over and over and over again today because it is that important. The winners will be defined by the way that they serve right now, not how many times they do a live stream. And I just want to make that really clear. The winners will be defined by how much they serve, not by how many times they do. They do a live stream. And.

Service is a really interesting thing, because what I learned in my career is.

When I was younger, I'd had a couple. I'd been involved in a couple of really big exits. I made a lot of money, millions of dollars. And I remember at one point I decided that I wanted to take a year off and I wanted to travel around the world. I was really good at what I did, and I thought if I came back as soon as I came back, because of my track record, that I'd be able to plug right back in. And maybe at that time, it was a little bit easier. Maybe at that time it was a little easier.

But now there's so many different ways that people can add value. That what I've learned is this what I've. And by. And I also see this, by the way, I see this in my friends that are in their 40s to 50s, 50s to 60s that may have had an exit. They sold their company, they may have been their company got sold, they got laid off, there was consolidation, they lost their job, or they got a great severance. And what they said is, they said, you know what? I'm going to take time off, I'm going to take the next six months, I'm going to take the next year, I'm going to think about it, take care of myself, whatever. Newsflash, write this down. The moment you stop adding value to your network, you get replaced. The moment that you stop adding value to your network, you get replaced. And so today, right now, is the time for you to contribute more to your network than you ever have. And it doesn't have to be through a live stream or, or a zoom call. It doesn't even have to be through social media. The number one way to contribute value to your network is to be in touch. It's to reach out, it's to talk, it's to one on one conference with them, it's to text them, be in touch with those questions that I was asking. So again, I know I'm hammering this point home because it's that important. And by the way, if you're getting any value out of today, any value out of today, I want to ask you this. Please share, please share this live stream so that it can help other people. This is all about being of service. And if you are not a member of this group, please join our group. It's a public group. What now? What now? How to manage through coronavirus recession in uncertain times. And what I do every day is I put in our, in our group, I go out and I spend the day and I curate the news and I curate the links and I curate the video and I curate the training and the resources so that you don't have to spend a time, a bunch of time doing this. And I dropped those things. I dropped those things into our group. For example, I'm going to drop a link as soon as we're done with this call. On Saturday night, I got a call from Kedma O, who we've had on the show before, sharing a new program that was offered by the SBA. I was given the link. I applied for an SBA low and an SBA grant. The whole thing took me about 20 minutes to do. It was a paper form. They were all paper forms. It was three things. I had to print them out, sign them with ink. I had to upload, scan them. I had to upload them. Whole process, though, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, tops. Well, yesterday, by the way, I submitted everything. The applications were like two pages each. That was it. There was no place to put information like how they could get money into my account. It was just questions, but there was no supporting documentation. People who are applying for these big SBA loans right now, they have to provide their taxes, profit and loss balance sheets. This asked for nothing. It's crazy. So I submitted it the next morning. By the way, I heard that the site was down and you. The link, you couldn't even do it. So yesterday I was. I, like, hadn't seen anything from the SBA that said I even applied until about 4 o'. Clock. It was 3. 4 o' clock in the afternoon. I received an email from the SBA and it said, we know that you applied for those other things, but we're going to have to ask you to do something else. We need you to click on this new link and we need you to reapply. And it said, it's not gonna. You're not gonna lose your place in line with those other things that you did. Those other things, you. But we need you to do this. So I clicked on the link. It took me 10 minutes, 10 minutes to do the whole thing. It was primarily point and click, no supporting documentation. I couldn't believe it. And it asked for my bank's routing number and account number. And this was for a $10,000 loan and. Or a $10,000 grant. As soon as we're done today, I'm going to drop that link into our group. So, again, a reason to join this group and to contribute is I'm trying to curate everything I want to share. We had a lot of people, and I appreciate it and I thank you that we're dropping in resources and comments and things like resources and tools and. And links. And last night I closed. I shut down the ability for people to post resources. And the reason was I really want to make sure I'm holding myself accountable, and I want to make sure that I look at something that I look through something that I do something that I vet something before I share it with other people. Because my goal is to be a resource for you guys and you gals so that you don't have to go and do that work. It takes me all day. It takes me all Night. So, again, I love you and I appreciate you doing that. But again, just to hold our group and me more accountable, you'll just be seeing new links and posts from me in that group. So I will share that link from the sba. All right, Sarah Lakin Dutchess. Sarah Lakin, amazing to see you again. Thank you so much for joining us. Sita Dea, so good to see you. Chris Noggin. Chris Nagle. Ain't that the truth.

It is so easy to be so frustrated right now and so exhausted. Last night.

I, like.

I hit that point last night, I hit that point where I was so tired I just could not do another thing. Working my butt off, working my tail off, and I just couldn't do it. And you know, like many of you, I pride myself on my work ethic and my ability to put my head down as an entrepreneur and drive forward. And last night I just couldn't do it anymore. And I felt like I was starting to get sick. I felt like I was coming down with something. I was a little under the weather. And, you know, I have a ritual. I have a routine and of what I take in the morning, the supplements, how much water I drink. I'll go through four of these today, about a gallon of water. I do it every day. And I realized that I can't give anything to anybody else unless I give more to myself. And so I decided to shut it down.

I super supplemented, I drank more fluids, I took a bath. I never do this. I took an Epsom salt bath. I even poured this may sound crazy apple cider vinegar in it in order to help draw infection or impurity out of my system. And I went to sleep early and I feel so good this morning. I feel so much better. It is so easy, so easy to get caught up in the news and feel terrible. So let me do it for you. Like serious, let me do it for you every morning. Let me share with you some things that you need to know, some resources and some links and just spend your time knowing that we're in this for the next few weeks and knowing that you're going to be of service to other people. Let everybody else do their livestream and do their zoom things and why don't you make a list and reach out to your customers and you will be the person that. That they remember. I promise you, you'll be the person that they remember. Jerry, always amazing to see you. Jerry, you wrote your challenge is how to help clients maintain as much momentum in their marketing campaigns as possible, even if they drastically reduce or eliminate the marketing budget.

It's tough. It's really tough. Hopefully some of this stimulus money will help with that from the government. Hopefully Google Ad credits will help with that. There's a link in our group to a story Google has offered a ton of money, millions, I think it's a couple of $300 million of Google Ad credits. So, hey, this is a time another way to stand out. While other people are going inside, while other people are slowing down, while other people are paralyzed, while other people have pulled all of their social media spend, all of their marketing spend have stopped contributing to their networks. You can leverage free Internet advertising dollars from Google if you click on the link in our group. And Jerry, as an SEO expert, is the kind of person that can help you figure out how to, how to maximize that spend. So, Jerry, what, what I would say is this. I would probably consider focusing the project around.

Making the project less ambitious. Meaning, as opposed to maybe trying to do a bunch of things, focus on one thing being a true resource for your clients, reaching out to all of them, helping them understand what is available out there that is free and there's a resource, and then getting paid to manage that. Because I know a lot of the time what shuts people down and stops people from doing SEO campaigns is that they're not as concerned about paying the person who's going to run that campaign. They feel like they don't have the money or should cut the money in the budget from the marketing spend. And so that's the way reach out to everybody, make it personable, be the biggest expert you possibly can in your world. Find every resource, every this, every that. You may even want to go a step further and help them to find local grants and resources. Like really be a resource where if they got this, it could help them with their spend, with their marketing. As an example, I mentioned this yesterday. If you are just applying for small business relief or you're just waiting for that check to come from the government, that help that the government is giving individuals to assist, you're missing most of the opportunity. Most of the opportunity out there is local in its niche, because this is what people aren't paying attention to. What do I mean by that? What I mean by that is this. What I mean by that is.

You can go and Google SBA disaster relief loans and you can apply. You can Google SBA disaster relief grants and you can apply, but outsmart the competition. What I need you to apply for or I need you to Google is I'm in LA today. Los Angeles County Disaster Relief Covid Relief Grants and loans Los Angeles City Covid Relief Entertainment industry Covid Relief county city and niche it down Woman Entrepreneur Covid Relief Micro business Covid Relief. Every single day there are more and more grants becoming available, more and more loans becoming available. It's incredible the way businesses are investing, individuals high net worth individuals are investing in relief. The challenge is most of us, most people, I'm going to say, aren't savvy enough to go and find it. They don't take the time to go and find it and to apply for it right now. Right now. As Jack Welch said, the number one piece of advice that he would give entrepreneurs is this. Panic faster. And the reason that we want to panic faster isn't because we're living in fear. It's because we're living in action. Panic equals action. Taking the right actions today to put yourself in the best position to protect your cash, stabilize your business and come out stronger on the other side of this thing, that's what you're going to do. And so the way to do that right now, a way to do that is, is to look for all the things that other people aren't looking for and apply for all the other things that other people aren't applying for. And you have to do it quickly because almost as soon as these things come up, they become unavailable. And they become unavailable because then somebody gets it, then somebody hears it, then somebody watches it advertised, then somebody sends it out through their Facebook group and as a result, the number of loans goes up so quickly that are granted that that money goes away. So when you see it, when you see it, you got to apply for it. That is so, so, so important. So I'm looking here at my comments and I'm looking through my feed and I've got multiple feeds. We got Facebook and we've got YouTube. And I'm just going to share with you this. Today is a bad day, at least this morning, a tough day to be broadcasting online. There is so much traffic today with people live casting that streams are going down everywhere. And I can see the video quality on Facebook isn't really that good on YouTube. It's a lot better on Instagram. It's a lot better today. But this is something that we're just going to go through. So, Mackenzie, thank you so much for dropping in. It is great to see you here. And Jerry, like, this is the point of this group. Jerry Chen, by the way, Jerry, exceptional when it comes to SEO and help you to find money for Your business. Jerry just dropped in a link into this thread. $340 million of credit and grants for SMBs by Google. Google is offering $340 million. That's your money. They want to give it to you. Go and get it. That's all I can say. Go and get it.

If you had a comment earlier in this thread, the tool that I'm using, it's not allowing me to see anything past, like 6 comments. It's just too busy out there. So if you could just rewrite it. If you'd like me to answer it, just post it back. We got just a few minutes. Also, if you're getting any value out of today's program, any value out of this broadcast, would you please share it? I ask one thing, to share it. I have absolutely committed myself to all of you. I have stopped doing all of the other things that I typically do in a day. And I spend the day going through the news, going through resources, testing things myself, and dropping them in this channel so you don't have to do the work so that you can stay focused on your business. And again, the number one thing you can control today, you can't control what's going on out there. You can control what's going on in here, what you focus on. And the number one thing to focus on today is serving your customer. And the number one way to serve your customer is to be in touch with them one on one. Ask them what they're experiencing, what they need, and how they know they're getting what they want. And instead of trying to figure the rest out, don't overthink it, don't over smart it, don't do anything like that. Give them what they want in the way that they want them, the way they want it. And I want you to approach this and every day the same way, like it's your first day in business, like it's your first day here on Earth. I want you to approach every day with what we call in Buddhism, they say it every day, beginner's mind. Look what you did four weeks ago, that killed it. That was awesome. May not work, may be the last thing on people's minds today. So stop trying to adapt it, iterate it, change it, reinvent it, and do it from your perspective, what you think is most important. Instead, go talk to your customers and just give them what they want, the way that they want, the way that they want it. And again, I know I keep hammering on this point today, but that is the point of today, is to stay focused Turn off the news, close your web browser and focus on what you can do today.

And let me take one final look here at people's questions as we wrap things up.

Yes, Sita, it is all about narrowing down our focus. Narrowing our focus. Mark, amazing to see you. Let's definitely be of touch. Let's be in touch today. I'd love to reconnect with you. And for all of you who are listening to this program for the first time, I do this every day, 10:00am to 11:00am Pacific Time. And you can watch here on Facebook or YouTube, on Instagram, Periscope or LinkedIn. You can also listen live or to rebroadcast throughout the day on Dash Nation, Dash Radio across the country or you can download the podcast. Please feel free to when this is over, drop any comments or questions or feedback or things that you'd like to learn, you'd like me to talk about tomorrow into this feed, into whatever feed that you're on so that I can build a show around what you want, the way you want it. Last thing I want to talk about today is this. What the hell are you going to do about your mortgage, your lease or your rent tomorrow? Tomorrow's February 1st.

So in the last week.

I'm sure you can imagine, and I talked about this today, I talked about this yesterday that I talked to a lot of people that are having a really hard time, a really hard time. And if you are, you're not alone. And when I ask them about what's at the top of their mind, even if it's people that have lost a business or they're in fear of losing their business, the first thing that comes up typically is their mortgage or their lease or their rent. And that could be for their home or it could be for their office. What I encourage you to do is this. Don't worry about it. That's the last thing you should be worried about right now. Don't worry about that. What I want you to do is I want you to reach out, and I've said this every day for the last 17 days, I want you to reach out to the people that you pay that money to. If it's a mortgage business, if it's a bank, the odds are by now that that bank, when you log into the website, has an automated way when you log in of selecting your properties and being able, without a representative, to push back and defer your mortgage payment. I talk to entrepreneurs who, on average people are getting anywhere from four to six month deferrals on their next Payment without any negative effect on their credit. These are incredible programs because these mortgage companies can't deal with a call volume. They've tried to automate this process into their websites with leases. With big leasing companies, particularly commercial leases, I've seen the same thing. So again, your mortgage, your lease, you're going to be able to push these things back. If it's your rent, it will be the same thing. You'll be able to push back. There are states around the country where you can't evict. I'm in California, can't be evicted. So, you know, you can't be evicted. Don't worry about that. Worry about serving your customers. Turn off the news. The other thing is, you know, I, I live in. I live back and forth between. My kids are in Newport and I do most of my broadcast, my media work that I do in Los Angeles. I'm in Los Angeles today, so I have a home in both places and in Newport. I live in a community across. Right, right. This beautiful community. And it's managed by, you know, the largest property owner in the whole. In all of, I believe, Orange County. And really tough, can be really tough on rents. And what I did is I just was proactive in leases. I was proactive and said, hey, about my lease, you know, down there, here's what's going on. And it's all about being proactive. Right now is all about operating from your toes and not your heels. It's about just taking some simple actions. And if you've been putting off, you've been getting weighed down, you've been waiting on taking these actions. What you're going to find is you may have to wait on hold for a while. But what you find is when you get through, you're just going to be like, oh my gosh, I wish I did that earlier. This is so easy. You know, your mortgage, your lease, your rent, they can all be pushed back. Your credit card bills, utility bills, all be pushed back. It will not hurt you at all. It will not hurt your credit. If you need to buy a car, your car payments. Push back if you want to buy a car. If you have the cash to buy a car, probably never a better time to do it. There are some auto manufacturers right now, like gm. I believe that gm, I may get this wrong. So I'm just. Disclaimer. I believe that GM is offering like 82 or 84 months on a new car purchase. And they defer your first payment for like the next four to six months. So you don't pay for like four to six months. If you buy a car today and this is like it used to be a 60 month, 5 year term, now it's like additional years. There are some manufacturers now where you go and you order online, they push back that first payment six months, they're doing, they're doing six and seven year purchases, 0% financing, and they drop the car off at your house and they leave the keys outside. So it's like there is opportunity everywhere. But last thing I'm going to say is, I have, I have some entrepreneur friends that are going in and they're talking to their mortgage companies, they're talking to the businesses that they lease from and what they're doing is they're getting those deferments pushed out and they're taking the cash that they would put towards those, those payments and instead they're paying off their highest interest, credit lines, credit cards and debts. So again, you can be scrappy right now. There are ways to make all of this work for you. So I just want to say I love all of you. I love you and I want to do everything I can to help you. I want to thank you so much for joining me here today. Please, if you got value out of the day, please share this across whatever stream you're watching from. If you're listening from DASH Radio across the country, please just put the word out to your friends and to your family and to your colleagues. And please, after this broadcast, make sure if you have any questions or things you'd like me to talk about tomorrow, you drop them into any one of our social media feeds. And until we speak tomorrow, I want you guys to have a great day and know that this will pass. And together, and only together, we're all going to come out on top. You guys have a wonderful day.