Episode 144: Leading Through Difficult Times

Welcome to Skucast, the podcast for entrepreneurs in the promotional products industry. Skucast shines a light on our industry's best work, features maverick personalities, and discusses what's really involved in running a modern promotional products business. Skucast is the official podcast of Common Skew.

I think what just never ceases to amaze me with this industry is the incredible creativity that people have and the incredible resilience to just pivot and to, you know, try and come up with different solutions.

In today's Skewcast, I sit down with Mark and Catherine to get their thoughts on where we're at right now, what they are seeing in the market and throughout the community. We are in such uncharted waters with more challenges than ever before, which always presents new opportunities. If you're a new listener, Kathryn Graham is the CEO at Commonsku. Mark Graham is the President and Chief Brand Officer. And particularly since the Commonsku community comprises around $800 million in revenue, they have a unique perspective on the industry. Hi friends, I'm Bobby LeHew, the Chief Content Officer at Commonsku. Before we get to our conversation, I want to mention two things. First, I received this note from Sarah Marie Clark who said, "Hey Bobby, thank you for everything you're doing with Commonsku. The podcast is amazing and really giving me motivation through this time. Keep up the great work." Thank you for mentioning it, Sarah. It's an honor for us to be an encouragement to the community at this time. We have so many deep and cherished relationships and want to do everything we can to help. On that note, I want to point listeners to an article we published this week titled "5 Strategies to Focus Your Wartime Battle Plan." highlighting the difference between a peacetime CEO and a wartime CEO. It also includes 30 sales and marketing ideas you can implement now. You can find that article and more resources at community.commsq.com. Also, we have several webinars we're hosting right now to answer the demand of the moment. One of those is our weekly community social hour every Wednesday at 4:00 PM Eastern. We gather together as a community to talk about the current challenges in our business It's not actually a webinar, though. It's a community conversation where we join as one group and then break into smaller groups via video. Discussions have been relevant for the moment, rich in encouragement, and a lot of fun. It's free and open to everyone. You can sign up, join us. We'd love to see your smiling face. You can check out all our webinars at commonsq.com/webinars. That's plural webinars, commonsq.com/webinars. This episode is brought to you by CommonsQ. The work-from-anywhere platform that powers your connected workflow, enabling you to process more orders and dramatically grow your sales. To learn more or to begin your free trial now, visit commonscue.com. Now here's my conversation with Mark and Catherine.

Catherine, I know you analyze a lot of financial data. Can you unpack for us what you've been processing these past few weeks regarding the economy. And we're hearing projections about a V-shaped return where business dramatically spike upward, an L-shaped return. Um, the Great Recession of 2008 was a more gradual long tail. I don't expect you to have a crystal ball, and this is such a fluid situation, but I'd like to hear your thoughts. I'm sure the community would like to hear your thoughts on this because you process a lot of financial data. And then regardless of when you're listening to this episode, every business will face unforeseen setbacks. Maybe it's their own personal business and financial crisis? What can we do in light of the multiple predictions and data being processed? So two-part question. One is, what are your thoughts as you're processing this data now? And second, what can we do in light of all of these multiple predictions?

I think the sheer volume of data over the past couple of weeks has been truly overwhelming. And I feel a sense of whiplash in terms of not just from watching the market volatility, but also just that the information is changing so quickly. So trying to kind of wrap your head around how to interpret it and what decisions to make within your business is just extraordinarily difficult right now. It seems as if this original kind of hope of it being a V-shape with a quick rebound is that that's not viewed as being as likely now as people had hoped kind of in the beginning when Trump had thought we were going to be back to work this weekend at Easter. But I think the more likely scenario now is U, and the question is, you know, how deep and long that U is kind of before you come out the other side. And I think that the only way to prepare for this is to continue to be as strategic as possible within the way that you are looking at your customer portfolios and thinking about the kinds of industries that are going to rebound the fastest and how it is that you can be really well positioned to be able to support those customers kind of as they go through those rebounds and to be able to kind of space out things accordingly. There's going to be, you know, some industries are going to be a lot slower to come back. And the more that you have, you know, great insight into what kind of segmentation there is in your customer base, that the easier it becomes to be prepared for that and to have a lot of, you know, what I call kind of dry powder ready and waiting to go. So, you know, whether it's presentations, spec samples, that you thought about what the kinds of challenges are that your customers are going to face in coming back to work and trying to restart their businesses, you're ready to be a partner with them in those scenarios.

I want to add to that, Catherine.

I think one of the mistakes that we can make is this broad brush strokes that naturally this crisis has impacted virtually every business, but not in the same way. And so I think that's where the segmentation is vitally important. We don't typically do that kind of drill-down analysis into our books of business. And particularly, we don't have that muscle and that reflex because we just came out of this really strong-ish economy, and we've lost that muscle. We kind of had an atrophy in that, but it's vitally important to segment those client bases, segment those prospect bases, rather than adopting a fatalism across every industry.

Well, I think, you know, up until now, for the past almost decade, it seemed like business could just come from anywhere. And I think that you look at what's going on right now and with particular sectors that have been absolutely decimated, whether it's restaurants, all the businesses that have been forced to close and retail, and versus you look at grocery and anything to do with food production, anything to do with consumer products, that all of those businesses are booming right now. And who would have thought that what has historically been a slow growth, low margin business would suddenly be growing at up 400%. So it's just, it's an interesting time to be kind of watching what's happening in terms of the overall kind of global economic movements. And clearly what's happening with China getting back to work and the economy getting back on track there, that there's gonna be a lot of implication to that. And what, as you see, kind of once Europe starts to come into this, that just paying a bit more attention to what's happening globally, I think is gonna be more important in terms of being able to forecast where demand is going to rebound versus just looking within your own four walls of your country or North America.

Yeah. You both are talking to so many business leaders and entrepreneurs in the community. And even though it's really hard to analyze trends at the moment, other than everybody looking for N95 masks, with everything changing so rapidly and it's such a fluid environment, you've both got a decent pulse on kind of what's happening across the industry, the platform, is now processing, you know, around $800 million in sales. There's a large community within Commonsku, and then of course we're all connected to this industry and have been throughout most of our careers. And so we know a lot of folks. What are you seeing now in terms of positive activity happening in the industry? Mark, let's start with you.

I was going to say first off that it's, it's really heartening to see all of the positive energy that's out there despite what is a completely difficult and challenging set of circumstances. So I must admit that I'm pleasantly surprised to see that. And outside of this special category of PPE, which has really taken off like wildfire, if we just exclude that, because I really see that as something that is very much a moment in time opportunity. And so the comments I'm about to make exclude any of the opportunities in PPE. I'd say there's 3 things that I've observed specifically within the platform that point to very positive activity. Number 1 is the number of projects that are being created, yes, within PPE, but also outside of that. And it's amazing to me that there are distributors that are actively working on projects that suggest to us that end clients have marketing budget that they are prepared to spend. And I think that's really, really encouraging because if you were to read the news, the news would suggest that this industry has dried up by 90%. There are people that are on life support from a business standpoint and sales have completely dried up. To look at our data set across what you just mentioned in terms of this vast platform that represents Commonsku suggests a very different story. It suggests that there are active projects, there's budgets that are being spent, and that's outside of what you'd expect in PPE. So I think that is the first example of a very, very positive sign. Number 2 is within e-commerce and specifically Shops. We have seen an amazing spike in activity on the e-commerce side within Commonsku, within the Shops platform. And to maybe some extent, that's not surprising because now is probably the best time to transact electronically because people I can do it from home. It's convenient, friction-free, all that stuff. But again, to complement the first point that I made, it's clear to me that there are end clients that are buying, and it's clear that distributors are very excited about the ability to show up and be present to their end clients in a different way than they were before, which would be, which would have been in person. So Shops data is incredibly encouraging to see, and it's suggesting that there is economic activity out there. The third thing that I wanted to highlight is just the sheer positivity that we are seeing from within the CommonSkeet community. An example of that is the Skeemunity Social Hour that we've been hosting for the last 3 weeks. We've had a sizable number of people that have shown up throughout the breakout groups, the networking, the general sessions that, Bobby, you've done a great job of hosting. You can see the smiles on people's faces. There's no question there's anxiety there, but you can see that this is a group of people that are coming together with positivity at the forefront, with really constructive ways of thinking and helping one another. And that's just one example. We see it on the community feed, we see it out on social media, we see it in emails that come in, and people recognize this is a really crappy time. It's probably the most difficult time that any of us have ever experienced in our business careers. And to see how people are coming together to help one another is such a great, great positive sign.

Yeah. Catherine?

I think what just never ceases to amaze me with this industry is the incredible creativity that people have and the incredible resilience to just pivot and to, you know, try and come up with different solutions. And you think about how quickly, you know, all of this happened, like literally within a matter of, you know, 2 weeks essentially that the bottom fell out of the market and within the industry, within, you know, the economy, within the industry overall. And I look at the resilience of the types of marketing campaigns that people have been creating and sending out and the types of ideas they're coming up with and, you know, trying to be proactive partners to their clients in ways that are still showing absolute empathy and recognizing that a lot of their buyers are probably feeling kind of absolutely paralyzed right now as well. I saw Rightsly put a post up on Instagram today. They shared a post that one of their clients, a client by the name of Axonify, who's an e-learning company, that they showed what a new employee onboarding experience looked like right now, which constituted, you know, a computer being, you know, put out on a porch of the home of this new employee, as well as their welcome swag kit. The new employee kind of unpacked it all and laid it all out and, you know, setting up their computer. And you think about, you know, how people have adapted within these circumstances that And what an incredible feeling of, you know, welcome to the team that that must have been for that employee receiving that. And I just think that, you know, our medium just remains so incredibly powerful from that perspective. And to continue to find, you know, ways to be able to adapt to being able to still kind of get that medium and messaging out there in a time when people can't gather in person, that requires a lot of kind of creativity and resilience. And we're just seeing that. All over the place right now in terms of, you know, how it is, what the ideas that distributors are going to market with. I think that's just amazing.

Yeah. I was talking to Thomas Rector with ScreenBroidery this morning, and he was talking about how this has really energized and galvanized them. Really something about a crisis that gives you clarity of focus that Tom was talking about. Every week they're going to launch a new product or a new initiative of some kind. They had local coverage on the, on the TV and on the news last week for a project they were doing with t-shirts to donate toward frontline folks. It was just a beautiful thing to watch. Watch this industry just kick into action. The one thing that I learned from the last recession was that it was so easy to embrace fatalistic thinking and sort of just pull into your turtle shell, but the industry is so diverse. And so, we have to be careful as an industry that we don't paint these broad brush strokes about decline and the way things are going when the industry itself is so broad, so diverse, so many different types of end clients, so many different types of industries and services. And then the product categories themselves are so broad and so diverse. So in, in many ways, we are in an incredibly fortunate position. You know, we're not like an insurance industry that has 6 different products in their portfolio. There's just so many options. And I think what we're going to see, what we're seeing now, are folks that are exploring that. When I was talking with HHP Lift last week, we, we were talking about one of the problems with the attitude of staying in your lane is it prevents you from exploring. And now with this type of a crisis, we're opening ourselves up to more creativity and more options. And it's going to be exciting to see what unfolds.

And I think that it's even been interesting to watch within our own team. And I look at the absolute torrent of ideas that have come forward over the past couple of weeks, almost to the point where it's overwhelming, but also incredibly energizing just from every area of our company and people thinking about, how do we support our customers going through this? How do we think about what are— What are new things we need to be developing in terms of within the platform that can help people? You know, that was a bunch of development being done on being able to enable, you know, work-from-home kits to be able to be drop-shipped all over the country and just, you know, all of these types of things where it's, you know, everyone just goes into that mode of, you know, how can we be as supportive and helpful as possible? And I mean, Bob, even to you, the amount of content that you've been creating on that front has been extraordinary over the past few weeks. So I think that, you know, the whole, that expression of, constraint breeds creativity, that it's absolutely true. And that sometimes these— obviously, it's a terrible, terrible situation right now, but sometimes the positive things that can come out of this in terms of how it brings together teams, how it fosters this incredible creativity, that those are great things that hopefully will continue beyond.

Yeah. And speaking of, we just published a post today called 5 Strategies to Focus Your Wartime Battle Plan. And in it are 30-plus marketing ideas that you can actually implement right now. And what I would love for folks that are listening to this is to check out that article and send us your ideas about what you and your team are doing now, some of the things that you're kicking around, some of the initiatives you're launching, some of the new ideas that you've come up with. And we'd love to add that to that post and create this sort of monstrous list of wonderful ideas and tactics that you can implement. We'll link to that in the show notes as well. Mark, thoughts?

I was going to say that when Catherine was commenting that our team has been coming up with more ideas than we've ever come up with in the past, it's It's almost like it's a double-edged sword because on one hand, it's this incredible creative atmosphere. On the other hand, it creates challenges with regard to how you prioritize and how it is that you execute all these ideas. So I think for the first time in a little while, we've actually struggled with how to prioritize this stuff, which also makes it quite stressful is that we'll have these ideas that are amazingly relevant on a Monday and then by Wednesday they're irrelevant. And I even think about this podcast that we're recording right now. I think there were 2 or 3 iterations of this podcast that we were going to record within the last, what, 10 days? And we kept on having to push it off and then come up with new content. So hopefully, the content we're talking about right now will last for a little longer. So I just think it's a very exciting environment to be in, but it's stressful for sure because you just have more than you know what to do with.

Yeah, I've felt that for sure. But when you add that to that stress, how this isn't just our customers and our clients, we've all lived and breathed this industry, and these are dear, dear friends of ours. So you have— I know I have worn this fairly heavy, and everyone on the team has too. We want to help. We're going to do everything we can to help. So it's a little stressful in that sense, but also what a great opportunity we have to encourage others You know, I was talking with Mel who was stuck on the Princess cruise ship, and I talked with her earlier this week. We're going to publish her story about how she was working on her phone through CommonsQ and working back with customers all alone on this ship. And she was like, I think the whole journey took like 9 weeks with 2 different quarantine, 14-day quarantine moments that have happened. And an incredibly positive person. And just things like that are so enriching and encouraging. We're going to start a new series. It's going to start publishing right after this episode on highlighting folks that are doing some amazing things right now in this business. So, Katherine, when you were consulting, you worked with businesses who were going through changes and upheaval, and you had an exercise that you walked them through, and that was to imagine what day one would look like when business returned, when they emerged on the other side of this. Can you expand on that?

So, the concept initially was done around merger planning. So, when two companies merge and, you know, what happens on day one after the deal is closed. As to how it is that the two companies start to be able to function kind of as one. I mean, that was the original concept behind it. But I think that there's a lot of learning that can be taken to this situation in that you need a game plan. And the reason why it's called day one planning is because, you know, similar as with, with, you know, merger deals, timelines can be fluid. And we're exactly in that situation right now that nobody knows exactly when we're going to come out of this. Nobody knows exactly, you know, when life's going to return to normal. Nobody knows when the economy is going to recover. So by having this notion that, you know, that you, you have a plan laid out for whenever that day one is, that these are the things that you're going to do. And whether that is, you know, the reach-outs you're going to do with clients, the industries you're going to go after, the, you know, whatever those things may be that you have basically a strategy for kind of 30, 60, 90 days out from day one. So that when things do start to go on that upturn, that you're ready and you're not just sitting there kind of in a daze going, "Okay, where do I even start?" We have the luxury of this time right now, even though it's a very stressful time, we do have time right now to be doing this planning. And by not getting too hung up on trying to predict the when, by just saying, "As of day one, this will be the plan," that I think that that can help kind of alleviate some of the anxiety. Tremendous amount of anxiety out there, which is obviously completely understandable. And I think in some ways, you know, laying out a game plan when there is so much that's unknown can help alleviate some of that.

Yeah, that day-one attitude. Tom Rector mentioned to me this morning that he's taking that to his customers that are in high-risk categories or that are in industries that sort of seem on pause right now so that he can begin the conversation with them now so that they aren't caught on their back heels. You know, there's a tendency in many sectors of the business world to wait to react to challenges, and they don't want to think about day one on day one. You know, they want to think about that long before. So he's talked about segmenting those at-risk industries and starting the conversation with them about day one, because day one will come. All right, Mark, week one of this, as far as the week one that we were pretty much all embroiled in this, You mentioned to me on the phone that lives would be irrevocably changed through this, and now we know businesses too. What positive changes do you both think will emerge? How will we be different on the other side of this? And the kind of reason why I'm asking this, I'm curious how we can take advantage of this in a very positive way. I'm curious how we can activate this on the other side.

Catherine?

For one thing, I look at how, you know, like just you look, you think about the working relationship that you and I have, Bobby, where we are on video calls all the time because we have worked remote for our entire time working together. And I think that, you know, one of the changes for sure that will come from this, you know, on the other side is that video calls will just become the norm. And, you know, I had moved to that a long time ago in terms of any calls that I had with customers or with prospects that I just found it so much more personal to be able to try and see, you know, to have to see people as you were speaking speaking with them. So I think that that is for sure going to be a lasting kind of outcome of this, that business will become personal in a different way. Before, you know, that personal interaction was dependent on being able to go and, you know, have lunch with someone or meet with them in their office. And I think that finding alternative ways of being able to still have that personal interaction, that video will be a huge part of that. I think that, you know, one comment I just wanted to say overall in terms of just, you know, this trying to take this positive attitude of what we can we can take from this and how we can learn is that I think that people also need to have patience with themselves during this time period that I don't want us to sound like totally Pollyanna in terms of just like, oh, sit back and think about how lucky you are and how wonderful all this is to have this time. It's like, it's not, it's a shitty situation and it's incredibly stressful. And I don't want to minimize that for one second. So I think that the acknowledging that we're going to have a lot of ups and downs during this time period. And it's okay to have a really bad day sometimes where you just think, man, how are we going to get through this? And when's the other side going to come? Am I going to kill my kids? Like, we go there, right? Just trying to juggle all of this stuff and what has been completely upended lives, that it's okay to kind of feel that way. And then I think having the patience with yourself and with your team and with your family and everyone that there's— they're going to have days like that. And then take advantage of the days when you are feeling super positive, charged up to take on the world and to be thinking through where the opportunities are from there. Because there are wonderful opportunities that will come out of this. And I think that there's also— we're going to have an incredible sense of gratitude for things that we took took totally for granted before. I mean, something as simple as my parents came by today to pick up the groceries that I'd bought for them, and I will be so grateful for the time that will come when I'll be able to hug them again. Like, just things that were so everyday before that you never even thought about, that all of a sudden has just so been taken away, um, that I think that there'll be a new appreciation for just those basic things.

Yeah, I agree. By the way, just so listeners will know, um, you guys live in this world for sure. We had to cancel the first recording of this podcast episode because there was so much going on with the kids at the house while you're both trying to run the business, take care of the kids.

And it's just—

it's got real for everybody. I think it's one of the interesting aspects about what's happening right now is, is with this change, the human world kind of came crashing in an almost violent way. Like, the walls were obliterated. Children are walking in on Zoom calls. People are more honest about their day. Leaders are more honest about not knowing what the hell is going to happen. We're sort of being liberated from pretenses to some degree. I mean, the notion that we have to fake it till we make it has always been bullshit. I've always hated that. It's so far from our current reality. And you guys know I love to quote ancient sages, but there's no better quote now than, than shit just got real.

And is that Odysseus, Bobby?

Or it was, yeah, he was, it was Odysseus. Um, it was on his journey back and he said, he said, shit just got real. But the world is sort of sobered into this new reality that's just far more human than I think it ever has been, which is ironic because we're separated from each other physically.

Well, I think it also, to me, it creates an incredible sense of gratitude for our team in that I think about, you know, even though we've been operating in the cloud for, you know, a decade and it was as simple as people taking their laptops and their headsets on a Friday afternoon and setting up at home on a Monday morning. That the technology enablement of that made that really straightforward. But in some cases, people are setting up at home and they've moved back into their parents' house or they're, they're upstaying with their in-laws that they can get childcare help. Like there's just this, all of these incredible adaptations that have had to happen. And our team has just been so amazing and just rolling with it. And showing up every day and continuing to do great work. And I think that that appreciation for that, what I'm hoping that's going to translate to when we come out of this on the other side is that companies are going to acknowledge that for their employees when everyone gets back to work of just how grateful they were for what they were willing to do during an absolutely crazy time. And I think that that's, you know, as far as the industry is concerned, that's an incredible opportunity to just help companies kind of show that appreciation in a way that's tangible.

Yeah, great point.

Mark?

Catherine, I was surprised that when you said you wanted to kill your kids that you didn't include you wanted to kill your husband in that as well.

There are always moments of that too, you know.

Yeah, but that's kind of so ubiquitous that, you know, that's just an omnipresent thought.

This is why we have offices set up two floors apart, to be clear.

That is true. But, in the spirit of transparency, I think most of my days are filled with positivity, but I can tell you that today was not quite one of my better days. So, I'm surprised Catherine literally did not murder me this morning. But anyways, we seem to have moved on. There's a little tidbit there for the community. You can talk to us about it in Austin.

Yeah.

But I'm glad that she's laughing about it. I'm laughing. I know it's better days now.

This wasn't real.

Wow, it's still raw. That's true. Maybe I just had a bad sleep last night. But anyways, I think my observation, while agreeing with everything that Kathryn said in terms of how businesses are being completely fundamentally changed here, is maybe two comments. Number one is this notion that I think the best businesses in our world, not just in our industry, but just our world in general, are usually businesses that have been through some kind of battle, some sort of war where they've really been tested. And if you think about this industry, and if you started in this industry, say, a couple years ago, you set up a distributorship in 2014, and you were half decent at sales and you went out there, chances are you built a pretty good business. And I'm not saying you didn't work your butt off for it, but what I'm saying is that you were able to ride a very favorable economic environment where if you, as I say, had half decent sales skills, you had some good supplier partners, you were halfway efficient, boom, you could make a really, really nice living. Whereas now you're standing here in 2020 and maybe 90% of your business has evaporated and you're now either going to be completely out of business or you're going to have to figure out how it is that you're going to get over the other side. And in a couple of months or maybe a year or 18 months or whatever the case may be when we get out of this mess, you will, without a doubt, emerge as a much smarter, much more successful and stronger business. Absolute guarantee. Just because of all these things that you've been tested. And I think that that is Well, I don't wish hardship upon any of our colleagues in this industry. The reality is that it will be a challenging time, and I hope that most of us will get through this. But those that do are going to carry the torch for this industry and going to bring this industry to new heights. Absolutely, 100%. So that's point number 1. And I think point number 2, and Bobby, this is a concept that you and I have talked a lot about in recent years, this concept of engagement commerce, this idea of marrying the online technology-driven sales and marketing experience with the offline, with that in-person meeting, that in-person lunch, that in-person show where you're able to develop a relationship with someone. And the hybridization and the fusion of the online and offline is this concept that we've been really passionate about in terms of this being a new selling reality. And I think what this is doing, what this will do more than anything that we've experienced in the last decade or so, will bring that concept of engagement commerce to new heights when we come back. I'll give you one quick example. Catherine's a total pro when it comes to video chats. For me, literally up until 3 weeks ago, I was really uncomfortable with video chats. I hated it. I felt it was weird. I felt that I had to have the right lighting. I had to have the right backdrop. And it just wasn't natural for me.

Right?

I wasn't as cool as Kathryn was. And so, I would never want to do a video call. But the point is that even someone like me who has always seen himself as someone very, very comfortable with technology and certainly very comfortable with this concept of selling in an engagement commerce kind of way, there are some things that I'm going to emerge out of this mess so much stronger from a technology standpoint. And that's someone who comes from this world. And so I think about how it is that we'll be able to engage with prospects and customers and just colleagues within the industry using these technology tools now. It's going to make us so much stronger. So that is an absolute, absolute positive.

Yeah, I agree. I hopped onto an Instagram Live moment with Jay Acunzo this afternoon, and, you know, The first thing he said was, "Hey, Bobby," and it's just like this, the walls have just sort of come down and the fact that we are connecting in ways that we've never connected before is astounding.

One of the things that I was kind of reflecting on is how utterly we take it for granted of the fact that we've been operating in the cloud for almost 10 years now and how easy it was to just kind of pick up and where we left off and move from home. And I think that being so grateful for what it is that technology can enable us to do. I mean, can you imagine going through this experience right now without technology and without the internet? Just in terms of how it is that all of us have been able to support each other and communicate. And I look at what we, the experiences that we've had on this community social hours on Wednesday afternoons and just the incredible power that that has had and creating this sense of, you know, you're not in this alone and seeing, you know, these friendly smiling faces and being able to have those kinds of conversations and something that would not have been possible, you know, a number of years ago. And so I think that this, you know, obviously there's kind of pros and cons with, you know, with the ready access to all the, you know, to the internet and all this information and all of us have become, you know, horribly amateur statisticians trying to forecast, you know, the case rates and all this kind of stuff and too much CNN and real-time data following. But at the same time, I think that huge benefits of what it has brought in terms of this ability to stay close in time when we can't be together in person, I think is something I'm just very, very cognizant of and grateful for.

Okay, guys, final thoughts.

Katherine? I think one last thing I would say, just going back to the point that I made earlier in terms of being patient with yourself is that we're going to have weeks to come still on this and possibly longer than that. I think being sure that you're taking care of yourself, that you're taking care of your team, that you're taking care of your family, and that you're looking around you at others in your orbit and making sure that they're okay. I think this is going to be a difficult time from a mental health perspective as people start to reach the end of their ropes with dealing with extraordinary circumstances and just the incredible uncertainty that's out there. So I think the more that everyone can kind of be supportive of one another and supportive of the community as a whole, that's really critical. And then just ensuring kind of, you know, on that positivity side of it, that there absolutely is an end to this and it is going to come and we don't know, you know, when that day one will be, but it will come. And I think just knowing kind of that as an incredibly resilient and creative industry, that we will get out of this and we'll be stronger than ever. And that's something that we can all kind of hold up and look forward to and just know that it is going to come.

Yeah, I echo that. I think despite the challenges around this, I mean, I think that people will sometimes, people may view Commonsku and the team at Commonsku as being always positive and sharing good messages. And while I think that is very much the truth, the reality is that it's stressful for us here too. I mean, it's stressful on a few levels. One level is that we're really close with the people that we do business with, the distributors and suppliers that are on our platform, and many of which have become close friends of ours. I mean, it's such— been such a wonderful privilege. And you don't like to see or witness people suffering. When their businesses are having to shut down, as has been the case with businesses in, say, California. And so that really sucks and has contributed to some pretty low moments here. And I think on the other hand, you know, in the spirit of transparency, we've got a business to run as well. Mind you, it's a bit of a different business model than our business model was when we ran Right Sleeve, but it's a business that is absolutely reliant upon having steady stream of revenue that comes in. And if your customers are hurting, then that can have a ripple effect on you as well. So we've spent more time in our business, just like we advocate for our customers, we've spent more time in our business than in recent memory in looking at all the different financial scenarios, the disaster financial planning, what happens if such and such a scenario were to happen. And as much as it's difficult to do it, I must admit it's been a rather thrilling process to go through because it shows parts of your business that are extremely strong. It shows other parts where you're like, "Oh, maybe we could shore that up." And it's brought the team together in a really great way. So even though that started off as a bit of a bad comment, I think that we've seen it come through on the other side. I think the message that I would convey to people is that Commonsku is absolutely right along on this journey with our distributor customers just the same. And we have our moments too.

Yeah, yeah. I want to add just that being, being a leader in any capacity, being a leader of your, your department, being a leader of your company is so incredibly difficult right now. But being a leader is about managing uncertainty. And there's a great quote from an article by McKinsey and Company about this, but during a crisis which is ruled by unfamiliarity and uncertainty, effective responses are largely improvised. None of us have a playbook for this. Even if those of us that have been through the recession before, we didn't have the supply chain practically dismantled in that process. So I think I love your advice, Catherine, about being generous and kind to yourself. I want to just add not to get swept up in the malaise nor in the fatalistic herd thinking. I think that was a mistake in the last recession where it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. And then I loved what Mindy Grossman, the Weight Watchers CEO, said about this time, you know, to have a purposeful intuition and move quickly. And then there was another person on that same webinar that talked about this is a time for both head and heart. Like, that's what you were mentioning, Katherine. It's time for both head and heart and to always ask yourself, am I in a head moment or heart moment? And utilize both of those as we forge ahead. I think that's what's going to be beautiful as we get through this crisis, is to understand that business became more human and far more personal through this process. Well guys, thanks for hopping on SkuCast.

Thank you, Bobby.

Thanks, Bobby.

Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of SkuCast. Be sure to keep up with our latest content by subscribing to SkuCast on iTunes or to our blog at community.commsku.com. Until next time, friends, thanks so much for listening.