My Views on Corona Virus for Recruitment Agencies

Hello, everybody. In today's episode. I'm currently walking a little dog out in the sun and it's been a really interesting crazy couple of weeks. I would say with everything that's going on with the coronavirus, it's had a big impact on the economy. A lot of businesses are either going bust, making a lot of redundancies and actually like having to streamline the business a lot more. So it has been quite unfortunate for us, a lot of companies, but also for the smaller business owners, the boutique owners. I think this time is a really crucial time where you can, you can really thrive because when chaos comes, new order arrives as well. So that means that the competition is either falling or the competition is either falling or it is changing and pivoting. So it means that you've got a great opportunity. If you're a recruiter that's just started out or you do have quite a nimble boutique agency, you can really compete with the big boys now because a lot of them have made a lot of recruiters redundant. Things are going to change. So my prediction in terms of the market, I think in the next three or four weeks it will start picking up again. Obviously the government's pumping in over £330 billion, so that needs to go somewhere. Yes, it doesn't always get distributed evenly, but there's definitely going to be a spike and a curve back in terms of hiring and companies growing again. And if you are making sure that you're out on social media now, you're piecing together great content pieces across social media, this is a time to take advantage of that. Because I was really fortunate in our agency, Ronald James, where we haven't had to let anyone go. We have I think 12 full time employees in the business and then a few remote because we had retained business, we had exclusive clients that are in a, not a bulletproof sector, but in a tech sector where they can still hire when on board remotely, which has been, we have been very fortunate with that. So we've actually had like brilliant month this month, pretty much near a record month for March 2020 when I'm recording this video. But I do know that's probably going to take a little bit of a dive in April. But what it's made me realize is to be even more nimble in terms of operationally. So are we paying for things that we probably don't need in terms of products, technologies? A lot of businesses are doing this. So what's gonna happen in like three, six months time once this all blows over? People are gonna be very, very wise with the money. I think people aren't gonna buy as much luxury goods anymore. They're gonna be really thinking about do they actually need this either in the business or in their personal life as well. But it also makes me appreciate family more. And I think everyone, like it's been a big transition and a big shock to the full society. But I am quite excited as an entrepreneur. This is like either a recession or a mini recession as such. But it is really exciting because this can be a real opportunity where as a, as a business owner or someone just starting up, you can really, you could really thrive in these conditions because if you build your business, it's lean, agile, nimble, which is something I've always went on about in terms of. I've never been one to have multiple employees in a business and work on small margins. Like I said in a previous video, profit first. So if our business isn't making profit, then for me, what is the point? A lot of companies grow too quickly and too much. So every piece of profit that they make, they invest in more employees, more growth. And, and the problem is now a lot of those companies have got caught out because they haven't got what I would call like a financial war chest. And something that I would advise everyone to do, and especially everyone to do now is you need to be saving not for a rainy day, but also having a war chest for when these things happen. And luckily for the last 12 months we've been in a position where we could actually keep a lot of the profits into the business. So financially we're very, very secure. And that probably wasn't the case like year one, year two, year three. But also we didn't have a lot of overheads either. So I think a lot of businesses are readjusting now. And I don't think business will ever be the same again in terms of, not necessarily the size of the economy, but just in terms of how businesses operate. So I think I read an article yesterday, I cannot remember the company, but they were a billion pound company but they had a lot of leveraged debt and they just went, went overnight. And I've seen a lot of businesses crumble within a week, which is crazy. Like, because my rule of thumb was always cash is king, as I've always been taught. So you always want to have at least three to six months cash flow in the business, which means when the business doesn't generate any revenue, all of your overheads and staffing costs can be covered for at least three to six months with money in the bank and a lot of these businesses haven't done that. So obviously it got wiped out when the revenues went to zero within a week with obviously this crisis going on. And it's a lesson learned. Some have been unfortunate and that's the game unfortunately. But you do need to be really careful in terms of not having too many fat overheads. So even ourselves, what I would say is quite a nimble agency. I've still found a way to probably cut costs by 30% and that's in a case where we actually don't need to really do that yet. But I think it's wise to do that because we still don't know what's going to happen in the next two or three months. But, but for us like it's been an interesting transition working from home as well. So we had everyone move over working from home about 10 days ago and we're into, we use Slack and Zoom, really two simple tools to use as well as everything shared on Google Drive. So pretty much most of the our jobs can be done remotely. But yeah, so what I see in the next 18 months, I think there's gonna be the biggest surge of entrepreneurs and startups that's ever been seen before because people will realize that when you're an employee, no matter what size company you are, your job's always at risk and there's no guarantees in life. And what you've seen here with the shake ups to health and unfortunately people are going to lose family members which is, which is devastating. It'll give people a different outlook on life that they want to follow. Either follow the passion, do something they love and not just be stuck in a 9 to 5 job. So I think there's going to be a big surge of entrepreneurs which is going to be a great boost for the economy. And it's going to, like I said, it's going to bring in an even playing field with a lot of the bigger companies that had a lot of financial investment or a lot of money or a lot of staff employees. Like that's all changed now. A lot of these companies are going to be very, very nimble and they are going to be thinking profit first and building a war chest, which is something I've always preached on my videos, making sure you have a war chest and making sure you focus on profit first because it's pointless having revenue when all of your revenue is going back on to your operational costs and your stopping costs in the hope that one day the business might sell. Yes, economies of scale, but not in this climate. It's a lot more riskier and I would say 95. Well, I think the stats are 95, 96% of businesses don't sell. So for me, like if, if you grow a business that's making profit first, you're having a great lifestyle, you're letting the employees grow both personally and professionally, you're building a great brand and a business within a micro niche market so that it does withstand recession proof, as it were, or times like this. Then for me that that is a great business model and it's not always about having who's got the most employees and the most turnover because a lot of these companies now have fallen by the wayside. And this is the time to build, this is the time to work on your personal development, work on your inner self. So when I say inner self, whether it's meditations, spirituality, yoga, really defining who you want to be, who's the next person that you want to be with in your life? Because who you are now might not get you where you want to be in five years time. You need to learn to adapt and grow internally as well. So what's been your experience so far with everything that's going on within your agency, what you're struggling with at the moment? So again, like the most important thing is having a client need funnel where you're constantly engaging with your dream 100. You've got different strategies at different touch points, productising your services, like pitching these professionally, getting retained, business, exclusive business, those little things are the little things that really differentiated our agency withstanding this recession or this dip, as it were. So have a think about that. Drop a comment below, obviously like and share please. And make sure you subscribe to my channel. Obviously I want to keep growing it and keep adding as much value as I can. Everyone stay safe, stay healthy, keep building your immune system. So take tons of vitamins, vitamin Cs when you're having 3,000 milligrams a day, magnesium, lemon and ginger shots. You want to be eating healthy now because your immune system needs to stay strong. So again, that's important to because health, you might have wealth, but without health you've got nothing. So health is the most important key thing in your life, as you probably all realize now. Thanks for watching and I'll catch you soon.