Scott Duffy Talking About An Entrepreneurs Guide To Manage Through Covid-19, Episode 23

Good morning, everybody and welcome.

Good morning. And welcome to what Now, A guide to managing through coronavirus and uncertain times. And I want to thank all of you who are jumping on the stream and joining today from all across social media, Facebook and YouTube and LinkedIn and where else? Instagram. I want to thank you all for joining and if this is your first time here at the show, what I'd love you to do is please drop your name inside of the comments, the industry you're in and the biggest challenge that you're having today.

Either personally or professionally so that we can help design. I can design this program around you and what it is that you need. We have so much to talk about today. There is a lot in the news today. This is probably the biggest news day, news morning in a week. And so I have a whole bunch of things to share, including tips on how to get or put yourself in the best position to get stimulus money, what you need to know about getting those individual checks that the government is planning to issue and so much more. So much more. Today we're going to focus on how you keep your business, how you keep yourself moving and how you continue to generate momentum when everyone's at home and business is shut down in so many different places. How do you be the person that really stands out and have a ton of ideas here for you today? And so again, I want to welcome you so much to talk about and thank you so much for joining. And if you're just dropping into the stream, if you wouldn't mind, please drop in your name, the industry you're in and the biggest challenge that you're having today so that we can address that on this show. And Patrick Carney, good morning. Good to see you my friend. Great going back and forth you this morning and sharing information. Terry and Carrie Simpson are in the house. It's so good to see you guys. And Al Manfrey, great to connect again this morning and thanks for all of your help. Sarah, good morning to you. It is so good to see you again. And for all of you that are joining us on Facebook and LinkedIn, YouTube, Periscope and Dash Radio, I want to say welcome and thank you so much. We're going to let this stream propagate for just a couple of minutes and then and we're going to get started with today's show again if you're just joining us, be sure to drop in your name and your industry and what you're working on and challenges that you may be having. Also, if you've applied for either an EIDL loan, the Emergency Income Disaster loan, or the ppp. And you have heard back from the government or you've been funded. Would you mind dropping that in here? Because I'd love to talk to you and I'd love to share that information. Right now, what we know is we have a lot of information that's coming from the government to us about what we're supposed to do, but most of us aren't getting any response back once we've done those things. And so this is really a great opportunity to share with the group and community and to learn from each other about what's really going on out there and how we can apply that to our effort to, to get these, to get these government funds. So with that, it is 10:05 and let's get started.

Good morning. My name is Scott Duffy and this is what Now? A guide to Managing Through Coronavirus and Uncertain times. I want to welcome you from wherever you're listening. You can tune in each day at 10am to watch the live broadcast on YouTube and Facebook, listen nationwide on Dash Radio or download the podcast. This show is for entrepreneurs, small businesses and those thinking about starting their own company. It's for people affected by this economy. Maybe they lost their business, their job, they were furloughed or saw their consulting contracts disappear in a heartbeat. It's for people asking, what do I do now and how do I come out of this period even stronger now, our focus today is not only going to be on stimulus, but it's also going to be on this idea of how you stay scrappy and keep your business moving forward during this crisis. And before we kick off, Bobby Joe, I want to say hello. Thanks again for joining this morning. Sita, good morning and thank you for joining.

Like I said before, we got a lot of news today. This is probably the biggest news day, the biggest morning of kind of new announcements and things to share in the last week. And I want to start with this. Today the government's announcing, announcing another $2 trillion in programs to help support business. Now these are larger businesses that will be impacted by this program. And why is this so important? What we're typically talking about on this show is programs that are designed for small and medium sized businesses. Programs are designed for micropreneurs, solopreneurs, momopreneurs, datapreneurs. But this program today is really important and here's why. When you talk about big business in the airlines, we're going to hear a lot about airlines today and how stimulus is going to help those guys out. And that's important because if you take a company like Boeing, Boeing has over 1700 companies that report into it. 1700 companies have contracts running through, through Boeing. So Boeing, being a healthy company that can keep those contracts in place, enables that company, that vendor, to run their entire business, their entire operation. And for, for most of these vendors, Boeing is the biggest company that they're contracted with. And so the more that we can protect big companies like Boeing and the airlines, the better it is because of the trickle down effect that that has has on the economy.

With regard to all of us, with regard to small business and the stimulus that was announced last week, the applications for PPP that started to be filed on Friday. Here's what you need to know. Community banks are doing a great job. Community banks are doing an awesome job in terms of taking in new loan requests, processing, getting back to entrepreneurs, processing those loan requests, and getting you in line to get money. Big banks, most of them are doing an awful job. So if you have an opportunity, if you have an opportunity to go to a community bank, if you know somebody at a community bank, you have an account at a community bank, you have a friend, a contact who can connect you to a lender at a community bank. What I want to share is the process of applying for these loans has proven to be so much easier through community banks that you do want to reach out, you do want to reach out. It's really interesting. When you look at the bigger banks, there's a couple of things that are happening. The first is most of the bigger banks are requiring a lot more paperwork than the SBA said they needed in order to back a loan. So again, let's talk about this process. The process of getting an SBA loan looks like this. The money doesn't come from the sba. The money, the loan actually comes from a bank. It comes from a big bank, it comes from a local bank, it comes from a community bank, it comes from a credit union. There's 3,000 SBA certified lenders in the United States. And these are the people that will take in your loan application. These are the people that will review it. They'll pull together all the paperwork that you need that's required. They'll verify everything. And they're the ones that will approve or not approve a loan. If they approve a loan, the sba, they back it. Meaning if that loan doesn't work out, they will come in and they will back up the bank and they'll supply the money and the funding needed. In order to make it happen or to protect the bank on the downside. And this is so important because what's happening right now is the SBA affiliate lenders at community banks are being really responsive. They have clear direction, they have a clear process in place, and they're being super responsive. On the big bank side, here's what's happening on the big bank side. Places like Wells Fargo and B of A and Chase, first and foremost, most of them are requiring a lot more documentation than we were told by the government we would need to get an SBA back loan. So the government made it really easy. They made it easy to apply, and they also made it really easy in terms of just like the level of effort, the amount of information you had to provide, provide to a lender. But the problem is the banks are requiring so much more that it's requiring businesses to spend more money and time with their accountants, with their bookkeepers, to go back to previous years of taxes, to do things that we were told we weren't going to have to do. So again, just know that if you're going to apply through a big bank, you will probably be asked to provide a lot more documentation than you would have been if you had gone to a community bank. That's number one. Number two, number one, the big banks are taking care of their existing customers first. The odds are the bigger the payroll that you run through that bigger bank, the further you're going to be in line, the further to the front of the line they're going to place you in terms of helping and supporting you. Again, the PPP is the Paycheck Protection Program. That is the $350 billion stimulus that was provided through the SBA to businesses. And because it's all around payroll, big banks are looking at this as a great opportunity to help their companies, their existing clients, to shore up their payroll so they can keep processing it through their bank. If you don't have payroll running through a big bank, it's highly likely that that bank is going to ask you to move your payroll over to that bank or to make a big deposit. I have people that I work with, some of my clients that have been asked to make deposits starting at $250,000 in order to have their applications pushed higher in line, pushed up in line with these bigger banks. So it's really important that you understand if you're applying, look for a community bank first. And second, go to a big bank. Ideally, that's the big bank where you're running your payroll. And if Not. You may want to consider moving your payroll over to one of those banks if they make a commitment to help serve you first. This is so doggone important. Third thing I want you to know today.

If you're waiting for payment from the government, if you're waiting for a stimulus check to hit your mailbox, here's what I want to share. Starting next week, the IRS believes that it will begin to be able to make those $1,200 and up payments to people like you and me, to people like all of us here on Main Street.

But here's the challenge. We were told that we'd be getting this money quickly, but what we now know is that the money that will be provided by the IRS first will go to people that have banking information filed with the IRS through their 2018 and 2019 tax returns and tax filings.

The people who do have tax information, I'm sorry, banking information filed with the IRS will receive their payment as an electronic payment. So they won't actually be getting this money in the form of a paper check. Don't expect that the money would just be hitting your bank is a direct deposit. Now, here's where it gets tricky. For the 90 million people who are eligible that don't have their banking information with the IRS for 2018 and 19, this could literally take months. It could take months. And if you lost a job this year as a result of coronavirus of COVID 19 and you made more than $99,000, but you're out of work now, then you are probably eligible to receive this money. But here's the problem. You will likely have to file your taxes in 2020. I'm sorry, 2021. To report that in 2020 you lost your job and provide your banking information. So if you lost your job this year and you've been making over $99,000 and you want to get access to that stimulus money, the odds are you're not going to be able to get access to that until next year, until 2021. Now, why is this such a big problem? Well, first of all, nothing like this has ever been done. We've never had stimulus like this in the country. That's number one. And I think that what the government has tried to do, what it's tried to do by providing money to, to, to. To all of us taxpayers. I think that that's amazing. I think that it is amazing how they have done what they could do to provide small business loans and grants and get them out to as many businesses as possible as fast as possible. Here's the problem. The problem isn't set up for. The system isn't set up for this. The system is not set up to be able to process this crazy volume of column orders and distribute the cash. In addition, if you take a look at what's actually happening at the irs, here's what's going on. As a result of staff cuts, As a result of staff cuts over the last 10 years, there's been a 20% reduction in the number of IRS employees, but the number of tax filings has gone up 10%. So the IRS has more tax filings every year over the past 10 years, but it's cutting staff by 20% now. If you look at what's happening today as a result of COVID 1945, so nearly 45,000 of the 85,000 employees of the IRS are now trying to work from home. So 45,000 of the 85,001 are now trying to work from home. If you're working from home right now, you understand all of the challenges that go with that. You could be working from home and not in an office, your kids aren't in school, and you're juggling all of that. So the people that are responsible for getting this money to us now are juggling an entirely different set of complexities.

And also the technology that they use is so out of date, it's crazy. I remember a few years ago, I was up in. Where was I? I was in la. I was in downtown la, and I had a chance to meet with Meg Whitman. And Meg Whitman is the former CEO of eBay. She's really the person that helped to grow and scale that company. And at one point she was running for the governor, she was running for the governor's office of California. And we were talking and I was really intrigued about technology and what the government used to help. I don't know how efficient was it, how good was the tech that they used? And I remember Meg telling me that it was so incredibly, the tech they used out of date. And she shared with me the costs of going out and improving or installing new tech and how crazy they were because the size of the government. But as an example, because we're talking about taxes, the budgeting system that the state of California used and that everything ran on top of was like a 20, 25 year old Oracle system that she said, I don't think that there's support for this outside of the government system in California. Like nobody's used this stuff for 15 years. And so we're dealing with the situation right now with the IRS where we have.

A government department that is incredibly understaffed, working from home, using outdated technology. And get this, over 20,000 IRS employees are now home on temporary leave. 20,000 employees are on home on temporary leave. So here's my point. My point is, if you need to get ahold of the irs, don't call. In fact, they are telling people not to call them right now because they don't see any way that they'll be able to pick up your phone call. So it's a really interesting time. So again, just to reiterate these three things I want you to know today. Number one, there's a $2 trillion new stimulus package that was released by the government this morning to help big business that's good for all of us because of the trickle down effect that will have. Number two, if you're looking for stimulus for your small business, start with community banks. If you go to bigger banks, make sure they're the ones that you run your payroll through. If you don't run payroll through them, you consider moving your payroll over or making a deposit so they pay attention to you. And number three, as it relates to those personal checks that we're going to get from the government, what I'd say is this. If you have banking information filed with the IRS in 2018 and 19, you can expect to receive payment over the next couple of weeks. If you don't, it will probably be the next few months. And if you're recently unemployed and made more than $99,000, what you want to do is you want to get access to that money. But you'll likely have to do it by filing a return next year to show that you were out of work this year.

Now, with all of that, with all that financial stuff, there's also some really good news. There's some good news and there's some really inspiring stories out there. And I think that this is the first time and I'm actually seen light. I shared with you three and a half, almost four weeks ago when I did my first show here around, around coronavirus.

What I shared with you is within a week and through my connections in Washington, at that time in the state of Seattle, in New York, with the cdc, with, with government that I believed that we would not get back to a sense of normal until August. So I was sharing with all of you that I wanted you to prepare for that period of time. Okay? And when I say prepare for a new sense of normal, what I mean is the country isn't open again for business, not just open again for business. People aren't just starting to go back outside. We're not safe at home and quarantined. But how long is it going to be before you really feel comfortable sending your kids back to school or going out to eat in a restaurant or going to a sporting event? And what I was sharing is I felt that we wouldn't be able to do any of those things or really feel normal again until August. Well, here's what I want you to know this morning. It's being reported that the number of deaths that are projected by the government may drop from 100 to 240,000, range down to 60,000 people. Now, obviously, that's a big number. That's a terrible number, but it's so much smaller. It's so much better than we thought two weeks ago. So something that we're doing is working, staying at home is working. And so again, that is a bright spot this morning. We're down to 60,000 projected deaths. The second thing is antibody tests. So important. Antibody tests could be developed or are being developed, but could be approved in the next two to three weeks. And this is super important. And this is super important because before people are able to go back to work or you have a lot of people in the same environment that work close to each other, it's highly likely that employers will take steps like check your temperature, like have you do an antibody test. And an antibody test will tell the employer whether or not you have had the virus or whether you have antibodies in you that will protect you from getting and then spreading the virus. And so again, it's highly likely that you'll be doing these temperature and antibody things and maybe even bringing a mask to work. So the idea that we could be getting these antibody tests and start to get those things produced and distributed over the next two to three weeks is really important. And yesterday when I shared with you what I thought needed to happen for us to go back to work and feel safe, antibody testing was. Was a key part of that. Now for all of us entrepreneurs, for all of us entrepreneurs, all of these things I'm talking about create opportunities for innovation, opportunities to adapt and think about it as it relates to medtech. Yesterday, I focused the show, and if you haven't seen it, go back and watch it. I focused the show on what the most common jobs were in the United States today, what jobs would be eliminated, the ones that would be eliminated, number one through 10 over the next 10 years. And the elimination comes through recession. It comes through robotics, it comes through advanced use of AI that replaces people. And then I shared the top 10 jobs that will pay the most over the next 10 years and the biggest new emerging things, things that we don't even know about today, things that we haven't started to do today but will emerge over the next 10 years. I shared with you that last year in 2019, the college graduating class in the United states, the top 10 jobs that they applied for, did not exist 10 years ago. And so what I shared with you are the top 10 things that will exist in 10 years. And so when I take a look at, you know, the notes that I have for this morning and what we're seeing with regard to some of the bright spots about healthcare and potentially getting back to work, and by the way, that is a big part of the narrative in today's news is this idea of when are we going to reopen the country? How soon will it be? Personally, I think that the government is very hopeful, the federal government, that we open for business in May. That we open for business in May. And that doesn't mean that the whole country opens. And that doesn't mean that there aren't still some places that are lagging behind, like Louisiana, as an example, that will be closed for a longer period of time. People will be sheltered at home because they will not have even hit the peak of their infection and deaths. But I think that the government's getting concerned. I think that they're starting to see that they're not going to be able to get these personal stimulus checks in people's bank accounts as soon as they promised. And they're not going to be able by working through the banks to get small businesses the money they need as fast as they promised. And so I think that what they're seeing is they've got to figure out a way, a process of getting people back to work and getting businesses open again as fast as possible. And I believe that they're shooting for May. But again, I don't expect there to be any kind of new sense of normalcy until we get to August. So what does this mean for innovation? What this means is think about medtech companies, like, if you're Apple and you have I have an Apple Watch, what are the odds that I'd be able to download an app onto my Apple Watch that took my temperature from my wrist? And maybe what happens is when I go into work and I check in at work, I can just open up the watch, click on the app, and there's My temp. Now that would be an incredible innovation and a great way to be able to leverage medical technology to help, you know, adapt to what's going on today.

Think about antibody testing and delivering this is going to be so important. What can you come up with? How can you help? What can your business do or what kind of business could you create in order to make antibody testing simpler, easier, faster? Can you incorporate some kind of med tech? What could you do in order to innovate in a way that helps all of us to get back to work? And what would that mean for quick diagnosis of other things in your body? If we figure out how to do this, what other kinds of things can we learn about our bodies and use to diagnose or self diagnose? And how could you apply that to your business? I shared with you yesterday, if you take a look at the top hottest jobs in 10 years and you took a look at 5 of the 10 highest paying projected jobs in the next 10 years, half of them, half of them are in medical, they're in healthcare, they're in med tech. So if you're thinking about what to do next, these could be great opportunities to explore.

So let's talk about cash. Let's talk about cash and stimuli in stimulating your business. Before you, though, I just want to say hi to a few people. First of all, Tim Owens, I want to thank you so much for dropping in. Craig Collins, always good to see you. Helen, good to see you this morning. Let me see what you have to say here. Helen, you're sharing that your local bank was amazing. They really made it easy and that you were so happy with. Is that Umpqua bank right now? Umqua. I hope I spelled that or pronounced that right. Where is Umqua Bank? Where, where can we find that? And is, is there somebody that you worked with over there who that really made it easy for you, really helped you out? Terry Simpson, you had a question about Kabbage. So I did reach out to Kabbage yesterday to learn more about how they're working with the SBA for their clients. And the problem I had was I couldn't get through. And so I'm going to try today and I have somebody on my team that's actually going to be calling as well to see what we can learn, because my understanding is that Kabbage has done a really interesting thing. They have a, they're a company that provides, traditionally has provided lines of credit and small business loans for people like you and me. And when the market crashed on March 9, it had a terrible impact on their business. And one of the things that happened was they pulled open credit lines from their clients. So if you had money that was available, I spoke to several people where that money disappeared. They also disconnected. So, for example, with my account with Kabbage, they disconnected my connection to all of my banks. And what we read in the media, what I read in the media and through Silicon Valley trades was that the company was on the brink of shutting down and it had furloughed all or most of its employees. Well, Kabbage is open again for business. And by the way, I reached out because I wanted to know firsthand what was going on. And when I reached out, what I got was a general. I got a general voicemail, and it sounded like it was on a machine, like from the 80s where it was like, please leave a message. So I thought they were under. But what happened was they've innovated and now they're working with the sba. And the claim is they will work with you. They will work with small businesses to help get their applications filed and leverage the cash that they have access to in order to help. Maybe they become an SBA approved lender. I don't know. I will do my best to follow up today and have the answer for you tomorrow. And if you're checking out Kabbage, by the way, Kabbage is K A B Bage. K A B B A G E. Ron Siegel, good morning to you. So good to see you. I was listening to your show. Ron Siegel, by the way, has an amazing radio show. It's broadcast all across the country. If you don't know Ron, make sure to tune in. And Doc V.

Doc V, you are sharing that. You're going to follow.

You're going to help following your following with weight gain during COVID All right, so let me share with you a little bit about Doc V, if you don't know him. So Doc Vong is the number one bariatric surgeon in the United States. Duck has got this incredible program. He's world renowned, and he's got not only the highest or one of the highest number of surgeries that he'd perform in a year when he was practicing, but also the lowest, among the lowest kind of resurgery rates, meaning people, they put the weight back on and they need to come back in. And one of the reasons is that in order to work with Dr. V, you have to go through personal development courses. So Doc V put you on mental training courses. He puts you through personal development Courses, he puts you on a really healthy diet. And so six months leading up to the surgery, people come in, by the time they hit that table and they've lost £100. And they have a new set of habits and patterns that helps them to sustain a healthy lifestyle going forward. Well, Doc V has been on YouTube talking about this Covid crisis. And his patients, because many of them are overweight, are some of the most at risk people, obese people, some of the most at risk people for not only catching COVID 19, but also, you know, getting hospitalization and potentially dying from this disease. And so what Doc has done is he's been sharing information on YouTube about COVID It is phenomenal. Doc, if you would, would you mind posting a link to that video that you did last weekend? Three and a half million views in two days. Doc has gone from however many followers, I think 60,000 to about 400,000 followers in the last week, last 10 days. And his last video, or the one last weekend, got three and a half million views. The information is so good. If you're wondering what Covid is, how it works, how it can affect you, your biggest risk factors, everything that you need to know, go watch Duck. So Duck, please post that link. Keenan.

Keenan Hopkins. Keenan is a member of our community, our mastermind community, and an incredible entrepreneur. He is based on the east coast, had a big exit a couple of years ago with his last company. And Keenan is sharing that he thinks after we get through this challenging time, it'll be important to focus on risk management. Amen. Very few people saw this one coming, and very, very few businesses are fully prepared. What can we do to help with future economic downturns? When times are good, people don't think about this stuff. You know, Keenan, I mean, this is so true. And you know, I always say that.

The most important job for every entrepreneur. Look, I used to think that the most important job had something to do with business. The most important job was maybe to lay out a clear vision. It was to hire a great team, write a great plan. It was to execute flawlessly. But what I've learned in this, the most important job for every entrepreneur has nothing to do with business. The most important job is learning to protect yourself. Because if things don't work out as planned, they take longer than planned, they go sideways, something comes out of nowhere and boom, it knocks you off course. And everything you did up to that point, every phone call that you were on, every business plan that you wrote, every email that you wrote, every presentation you made, you literally had to throw out and you had to start over, Right? That's what's happened to so many people today. So we have to learn how to understand and protect our downside risk. And by the way, the way that you do it isn't just spending more money on insurance. It's not spending more money on insurance. What I have learned, not only through this, but through another crisis is this, is that insurance companies, the ones that insure your business, have gotten really smart, and they are really good at making sure you can't get money to protect you for the things that you need protection from the most. So as an example, as it relates to this global pandemic, this virus, I have not talked to one business owner whose insurance company was going to pay out on what's happened. And the reason is after sars, after the SARS virus outbreak, insurance companies wrote into their policies a disclaimer that said, if there's a virus, if there's a virus or a pandemic, that doesn't count for insurance. And so all of these people out there expecting to get big insurance claims paid are disappointed. So the way that we protect ourselves is not to buy more insurance. The way we protect ourselves is to learn to manage our downside risk. It's to mitigate our downside. And by the way, one of the ways that we do this in the business is to focus on less stuff. You know, I used to think that in business, doing more was better. You know, if I had a bigger product, if I had more services, I had more products that I offered, I did more, I offered more, I shared more, all that stuff. What I've learned is this more means more risk, more time, more complexity, more things that go wrong, more reasons that this won't succeed. And so I think that as it relates to mitigating risk, it's really important for us to focus on that one thing, one thing that works really well, and continue to nail that one thing, and then maybe we can move on to a next. There's two reasons that's important. Number one is, you know, I have a friend, really good friend, really good friend. I worked with him in the training business. I worked with him 30 years ago when I worked for Tony Robbins. And this guy, I ran into him probably two, three years ago down in San Diego, a great guy. And I asked him how he was doing, and you couldn't have seen a more giddy face. He was so happy. And I said, what's going on? And he said, scott, I just closed $2 million for a new business I'm starting. And I'm like, wow. I said, how far along is this? He said, well, it's still at the idea phase, but we know what it is that we're going to do. We're really clear. He said, we've identified a problem. We have a very specific target customer, and that's what we're going to do. That's the problem. We're going to solve one problem for one person.

So I was just like, wow. And I high fived him. And I'm like, that is amazing. Who starts with $2 million to start their business today? A year later, I ran into him in Del Mar. And I remember I was going to get a coffee, and I ran into him, and my guy looked so depressed. He looks so depressed. And I asked him, I said, I got a question. I said, what. What's going on, man? What. What's. What's happening? How's the company? And he said, scott, the crazy thing is, a year ago, when I saw you, that was the day I closed my round. He said, today, I just came from filing bankruptcy. And I'm like, what? I said, how is that even possible? And here's what he shared. He said, when we got started, like I told you, a year ago, he said, we were solving one problem for one person, right? That's all we were building. We were going to go really deep in this niche. And he said, but as soon as the money came in the door, here's what happened. Every single person, every single day came in with another great idea, another shiny object. And so instead of solving one problem for one person, we kept building, building and building. And before you know it, we were trying to solve everything for everybody. And guess what? By the time we actually got the product to market, we were out of cash. And when people jumped in, they started to use the product. Here's what we found. 95% of the customers used 5% of the site. Now, if you reverse engineer it, what that means is 95% of our business, 95% of our time, our money or effort was completely wasted. Here's the best part. The 5% that they used was the original thing that we were going to build. And so what I say is this. Don't build everything. Build one thing, really nail that one thing, and then move on to the. To the next. That's the number one way that you mitigate your risk in business. And it's such a simple rule. I remember, you know, people say. The other thing people say is, you know, Scott, doing one Thing for one person isn't enough. I need to do more. I need to be able. For me to be successful, I'm convinced that I need to cast the widest possible net, the widest possible net and see how many fish I can bring in. And maybe one day, long ago, that worked. But, you know, here's the thing. The problem with that is that when you try and connect with everybody today, you connect with nobody today. You try to connect with everybody today, you connect with nobody today. And so again, the one thing that you want to do is you want to focus. I'll tell you one more story. One more story.

So years ago, I was. I was on Necker island with Richard Branson, and we were sitting down, having lunch and totally surreal, sitting at this long table, he and I, and we're looking out at the water and. And I remember I asked him, I said, richard, I said, it's so interesting. If you look at my career, I have been in companies that were first to market, define the market leading brand. So much potential upside and so hard. I said, it was kind of like we were trying to fly the plane while we were building it. Now, fortunately, those companies worked. CBS SportsLine became CBS Sports.com, zoom.com became the 8th largest site in the world, Sold to NBC in a $4.4 billion deal, became NBC Internet, zoom.com we partnered with Lycos, a $300 million deal. Boom. It worked. I said, but you, Richard. And by the way, there's so much risk. You, Richard, I said, you have completely taken 100% the completely opposite approach. You go in to the biggest businesses with the most entrenched customers and the most, the biggest marketing budgets to spend against you. And I said, and that's where you go. I said, why do you. It's completely everything. Why do you do it? And here's what he said. He said, scott, I have a really simple formula. What I do is I look for really, really, really big markets. And he said, and then what I do is I find one person in that market and I ask them for a problem they have. And I know if I solve one problem for one person in a big market, it's a billion dollar business. And then he looked at me and he started to laugh. And he said, maybe you should try that next time. And so again, if it's. By the way, he had $4 billion companies at that time and 400 companies that he was involved with. And so again, do one thing for one person, go deep. The richest today are in the niches. That's where all of the money is. It's in the niches. And so as we talk today about how to mitigate your risk, Keenan, how to protect your downside, it starts by doing that. And then the second thing that we have to do to mitigate or to protect our risk is constantly staying in front of our clients and asking two questions.

And the two questions, I've shared them with you before, are what's most important to you and what has to happen? How do you know you're getting what you want? This is so important and so many of us fail to do this. I'll tell you a story. So.

So when I, When I zillion years ago, when I was working for Tony Robbins and back then I was promoting Jim Rohn kind of at that time also, one of the things that I did was I promoted. Most people today who know of Tony Robbins or follow his work don't realize that when he really took off in the business space, he had a sales training company. And his company became like the biggest sales training company in North America. And so my primary job was to promote his sales training programs. And his core program was called pti. It was called the Power to Influence. And it was a one day program and it was a live event. And so me and the guys and the gals that I worked with, we would go to a city. And so we would go to a city, we'd typically be there for, you know, two or three months and two or three months before Tony got there and did his big event. And our job was to fill the room. And the way that we would fill the room is we would, we would go and we would do these workshops. And so we would share a piece of Tony's content. We would teach the sales training content to the company and then hopefully try to upsell them on going to see him live or bringing him in. And it was so long ago, he said his name recognition was still so small that we used to bring these 13 inch TVs that had a spot for like a VCR tape and we would put it in and if it was a small group, we would have this little tv. We put the VCR tape in and we would play the first five minutes of Tony's infomercial, his first infomercial, so that people could see who he was and to make the connection. And so that's how I used to teach. And we used to teach that. And what Tony taught me is that there's only two things that matter when you're in Business knowing what your customer wants and how they want to get it. And the problem is that most of us, what we do is we sell what we think is most important. We sell an idea that we have. Horrible idea. We sell an idea that we have, and then we deliver it in the way that we think our customer wants it the most because it's the way we would want it the most. So the example I like to give is this. If I were to ask you, if I were to say, you know what I wanted to make a new health product, I want to make, because, you know, we're all at home, a new fitness product. And I wanted to sell it to people, and I went to people and I started to ask, what would be what's most important to you right now about kind of health or health and fitness. And somebody said to me, I'm home. That it's easy to use. Great. Now, what most entrepreneurs do is they take that information, okay, home, easy to use, and they go back and they come up with this idea and they start to build something. They spend a bunch of money, and then they put it out and they see if anybody wants it. Horrible idea. What you have to do is you have to ask the second question, which is, what has to happen? Or how do you know that you're getting what you want? Here's what I mean. So what's most important to you that it's easy to use? Well, what has to happen? How do you know that it's easy to use? And what's going to happen is the person is going to give you their buying blueprint. They're going to give you their rules. You see, that's the question nobody asks. So what has to happen? How do you know it's important to you? Well, to me, what's important is that I can get it on my mobile phone, that it's not a website, it's a web app. It's important to me that, you know, I use an iPhone so I can download it through the itunes store. I don't care about an Android. What's important to me is that I can not only get it on my iPhone, but I want to use it on my iPad too, because I can put it up and it bounced up and I could probably see it better. What's important to me is I don't know what cash is going to look like next month. And so what I want to do is I want to pay you once and I have to pay you a monthly subscription. What's important to me and you're going to be writing all of this stuff down. I mean, this is the gold right here. It's not the gold. Oh, yeah, it's the gold. So you're going to start writing this stuff down. Then when they're done, you're going to say, okay, so if I were to do this, this, this, this, and this, this is something that you would want. This is what you'd want to buy. And they'll say yes. And then you ask, is there anything else? What else? What else could this thing be? How else. What else do you want to see? And they'll give you a couple more, and then you're going to say, okay, so if I did these things. And then finally they're going to be out of stuff. And by the way, this is the secret sauce. Because when they're out of stuff, you say, you say, is there anything else? And you say, I don't know. And you say, I know you don't know, but if you did, what would it be? And boom. That is the pixie dust. That is Cinderella. That is like, that's where the real gold comes out. And then what happens? They give you a couple more. You go through the list. Okay, now you know what it is that they want and what has to happen, how you know or how they know they're getting what they want. You have their buyer blueprint build that, solve that one problem in that one way for that one person. And there you go. There you have a big business. I'm going to drop back in, say hello to a few people. Kim Marshall. It is so good to see you. We have so much to talk to you, to talk about, everyone. Kim Marshall, is she. She, among other things, she is a PR goddess here in the city of Los Angeles. And if you don't know Kim, and you need PR done Kim, and you want, like, this is the big stuff. You want to reach out to Kim and Kim. I have so much more on the event. So let's talk today. By the way, all of you, I cannot wait to share with you the event that we're going to be announcing next week. It is going to be so cool. All I can tell you is this. We have got literally the top celebrity entrepreneurs, top entertainers, top musicians, top actors, top people coming out, sharing everything that they know to help provide motivation, encouragement, and the tools that you need to help you to get through this period and come out stronger on the other side. And it is coming together amazing. We have big sponsors behind this, and they are providing incredible resources. Free products and services for all of you guys to use to help you through this period. And I just, I can't wait to announce that we got an incredible team and it's going to be really exciting. Daya, like always, it's so good to see you. I hear that the women's group is going amazing. Lane, thanks so much for tuning in today. Patrick Carney, like always, it's great to see you and, and to all of you that are listening, to all of you that are listening today, on Facebook or YouTube, you're watching this live. Periscope, Instagram or LinkedIn or if you're listening on Dash Radio throughout the day across the country. By the way, if you don't have Dash Radio, if you don't know what it is, let me just share with you really quick. So if you take a look at the satellite radio space satellite radio, everyone knows in their car, Sirius xm, they're the only game in town. Here's the problem with SiriusXM, it's subscription based and most people out there don't want to pay a subscription. But what they have is they have amazing content, incredible content, incredible channels, but it's behind a paywall. So four years ago, DJ Ski, top 10 EDM artists in the world, owns one of the biggest sneaker collections in the country. Check him out on YouTube. T DJ Ski Ski, a brilliant mind, created Dash Radio with the idea of going to head to head. But instead of providing subscription based content, it's all free, it's ad supported just like regular radio. And they've spent the last four years building up this incredible station, group of stations, people like Snoop Dogg and Ice Cube and Kylie Jenner, all these people. And so what we're doing together is we're building out business, the business channel. And what's really neat is when you take a look at distribution, they're in over 50 platforms today. So this gets pushed out. But also what's really cool about Dash is they're coming in cars. So last year was the first year they had in car distribution in the country. They were in GM cars and they ended up without any marketing or advertising. The number one used app in GM cars in the United States. Starting next year, you'll see the rollout and all the rest of the domestic and foreign cars. And so that's what we do. We come to you through Dash in car and over 50 platforms throughout the day, as long as social media. So tune in and check out Dash.

We're about to wrap up for today. So does anyone have Any other questions? Because I would love before we get off, to answer any other questions that you have. The show, by the way, completely went sideways. This is like nothing that I had planned. But since Keenan brought up protecting yourself, I think that's a really important topic and I think it's something that, that all of us really need to take to heart.

Craig, I think that is, that is an awesome way to, to end this show today.

So if you take a look at the data.

And this is serious, guys, you take a look at the data.

There are a lot of people right now that are really, really hurting out there. There are, again, when you look at the data, the number of suicides in this country has gone up astronomically in the last three weeks. There's a lot of people that are really hurting.

And so, number one, I want you to do one thing for me and that's this to pay attention. Pay attention to your family, pay attention to your friends, pay attention to your co workers and colleagues. And if something seems off, if it seems like they need somebody to talk to, I just ask you to be there for them. You know, Craig Collins, who, whose number is up on the screen, has always offered when people have a tough time to be a place they can go for a confidential shoulder to talk to. And I just want to ask all of you to please share and, and I also think that, and to please help, help each other. And I can tell you personally, you know, there was a time in my life where, you know, things got really bad and they got really dark and I felt like I was in a really dark spot. And what was really tough about it is, you know, when you're there, when you're. People who haven't been there can't relate, but people who have been. And by the way, that is so many of us. If you feel this way right now, I just want you to know that you are not alone. You are not alone. I can tell you that since the market crashed on March 9, I've had at least 40, 50 people reach out to me that were that dark, that were in that place. It's been completely overwhelming. And if you're having trouble, please feel free to reach out to me. Shoot me a dm, shoot me an email, call, text, I don't care, and I'll be there. But here's the thing. When you are in that place, it is so hard to be rational and it is so hard to, to see the sunshine outside. And so.

If you're not, use that power that you have to identify somebody that may be struggling and just reach out to them, just touch, base them and lend a hand and be there and let them, let them do whatever that they, they, they need to do. I can tell you that when, in my experience, when you're in a difficult spot, you know, all it takes is a couple of seconds to make a couple really bad decisions and go down a really bad path. And so there's never been a more important time for us to be there together. I want to tell you we are going to come out of this crisis and we are going to come out of this stronger, stronger together. And I want you to know, even if you don't feel it right now, there is greatness inside of you. There is greatness inside you. There is something inside you that wants to get you up early in the morning, keep you up late at night, that thing that just wants to get out. And you may not see it right now, but we do. And so I just want to share my love with you. I just want to share my empathy with you. And I want you to know that you are not alone. So again, if you need help, reach out to me. And we're going to start to provide, start providing resources of places that you can call as well. Please stay tuned. If you haven't joined our group, by the way, we're on Facebook. We have a group on Facebook called what Now? An Entrepreneur's Guide to Coronavirus and Uncertain Times. You can also go to Facebook groups, Scott Duffy Livestream. And if you drop in there and you join the group, what you're going to find is this. You're going to find a ton of resources. So every day I'm putting new resources inside to help you find assistance, government assistance, SBA loans, grants, grants that nobody else can find out there. Information on things like how to work at home, how to juggle being a great worker and a great parent, how to do all those things. So if you need resources, please drop in. And finally, if you have found any value out of this program today, please share it. Please just hit share right now. Share it with your friends, share with your families, share it with your co workers, share it with your colleagues. Share it with other entrepreneurs and business owners, because I tell you, I am. If you haven't gotten it yet, like, I'm all in. I AM Absolutely, totally, 1000% committed to seeing all of you win. I have dedicated my life to you. I have dedicated my life to entrepreneurs. And here's why. I take a look at what the government's doing right now and that's awesome. But at the end of the day, it's people like you and me. At the end of the day, it's people that are entrepreneurs, that are going to be the ones that identify the biggest problems, that figure out how to solve them, that figure out how to finance them, and at the end of the day, make this world a better place through entrepreneurship. I want to thank all of you guys for joining. From wherever you're listening, tune in each day at 10am Pacific, Monday through Friday. And again, please share. If you haven't already, please share this broadcast with others. Have a wonderful day. I'll see you tomorrow. Until then, keep breaking through. Take.