Ann Connor: Welcome to Connor Business Resources small business triage summit. I’m sitting here with some phenomenal coaches that we’re going to get to know in about 30 seconds. They are going to impart some fantastic wisdom on how to handle this really weird bizarre situation we are all in. I’m so happy that you guys took the time to attend because I know there’s a ton of stuff going on. There are more than a couple of webinars, so thank you for joining ours. I want to start, I’m Anne Connor, part of Connor Businesses Resources. I’m a business coach, that I work on mostly financials and strategy and organizational structure. I have an online learning system that’s Connor Business Online Training, where anybody can go in and take classes and learn all sorts of things about your business that you might not know.
Ann: Hopefully today the biggest thing I would like to impart on you is the fact that strategy, focus and looking towards the future should not stop. I know we’re in this really strange time. Now’s the time, once we settle in, to really figure out where we want to go, what we need to do with our business so we are ready, we are absolutely ready to hit the ground running. With that, let’s turn it over to Carol.
Carol Williams: Yes, hi there. Welcome everybody. I see Michelle. She turned on her camera. We’ve got My New BFF, and I can’t wait to find out who you are, so I’m going to dare you. I’m going to throw out a dare to put your real name in. I swear I won’t tell anybody. Welcome to Terrin. Hey, Terrin. Oh my gosh. Terrin is one of my buddies. Terrin came from me. Yay, hello, hello. See, she’s not shy. We’ve got Caitlyn. Welcome to everybody. For those of you who don’t know me, which is more or less everybody that’s participating except for Terrin, I am a business coach for entrepreneurs with service based businesses. Lots of times they have ADHD, but they don’t always have to have that. Ann asked me what is the one thing that you want somebody to walk away with that you didn’t have before? I can tell you what. It’s all about de-stuckification. It’s how to get yourself out of this propensity to hide, because we’re all in the same situation. We’re all in this lockdown. We’re in makeshift places. This is not my regular office. It’s like, oh my gosh, every time you turn around there’s something different. My whole hope for you all today and then of course I’m going to be at three o’clock Eastern on Wednesday, right Ann, and I’ll throw down the LinkedIn because I’m just finishing this up. It’s the Savvy Business Owner’s Guide to Thinking Strategically During a Crisis. We will unlock that. I’ll give some tips and ask questions about that. It’s all about, as you say Ann, being strategic. With that, we’ll move it onto the next person. Thank you so much for attending. I’m super excited to be here for you.
Ann: Hey, Susan, how about you?
Susan Fennema: Well, hello. I’m Susan Fennema. I am the chaos-eradicating officer, that’s CEO, of Beyond the Chaos. My company helps professional services and small businesses, the same market as Carol. In fact, we even have some of the same clients, but we do different things for them. I help them with project management and developing operational processes. From the idea of how do you even create a project management system to actually doing project management and then also to writing the process surrounding the operations of your business. I’ve been doing this for about four years. I have worked from home for 10 years without an office to go to for 10 years. I’m in a special place of understanding how this works. That’s what I’m going to talk about on my session on Wednesday is how those team communications can work. How do we enhance communications when we can’t see each other. I actually have an employee that’s worked for me for three years, and I have never met her in person. It’s very, very possible. And I love her too. It’s very, very possible to develop those relationships without that in person connection, which we’re all learning how to do right now. Then the other session that I’m going to lead is on Friday. It is about what we can be doing if we’re finding some downtime. Right now, systemizing your business is a place that you can spend some time if you have downtime. Not everybody has downtime, but some people are finding that they don’t know what to do with their time. That is a place that you can really start to be able to come out of the gate flying when you start. I think the big thing I want everyone to take away from this is to not be afraid of technology. I love technology. I know so many people are starting and trying it for the first time, and I hope they’re finding the spectacularness of it and embrace it and don’t be afraid of it. Absolutely admit things like, “I don’t know how it works. Who’s done this before? Help me.” The amount of compassion and empathy you’re going to get right now is so much more than if you had done that three weeks ago. Embrace it.
Ann: Awesome. Hey Jeff, how about you?
Jeff Saari: It’s going to be short and sweet. Jeff Saari, Workplace Culture Solutions based out of Keene, New Hampshire. I have been called the executive whisperer, the business therapist and the team doctor. Basically what I do is I help executives and managers to just get better, to create the kind of culture they really want, which is usually a high functioning and collaborative empowering cultures. I’m lucky, knock on wood, to make my living around the region where I live and support some amazing clients. One thing I’d like to people leave with is realization that there’s power in collective wisdom. As we come together, we’re stronger. All of our voices together create such a strong circle. I know we’re in a lopsided trapezoid, what we’re called looking at the screen, we’re in a trapezoid, but we’re actually in a circle. We’re powerful together. We need to lean on each other especially in lean times like this for some people. There’s power in that. Leaving this call with refocused, re-energizing, and just realizing that we’re all together.
Ann: Awesome.
Carol: Can I just interrupt for one second?
Ann: Absolutely.
Carol: Ann, our fearless leader, I know you’re a little new to Zoom. Is there any way you can mute everybody, like go to participants and say mute all, and then have us unmute one at a time just because some people have things going on in the background, and it’s a little distracting.
Ann: I can.
Carol: Thank you.
Ann: All right, Stacey, while I’m doing this, figuring out new technology, share. Start.
Stacey Nachaiski: I’m Stacey Nachajski. I know you guys can see my spelling of my name. It’s a little tricky there. It’s Nachajski. I have a business called Embrace Social You. Susan just used my word. I help entrepreneurs and small business to embrace social media as an opportunity to leverage it to connect with their people. That is my message today, and that’s my message on Wednesday when I have my session. That is connection isn’t canceled. We have these opportunities with Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and many more platforms to really build connection right now. Whether we’re open, partly open, working from home now or completely closed, now is the time to continue that connection. We can use these tools to do that. I teach people how to do that. I get them excited them to do it because even Ann and Michelle here were not super excited about social media, and they’re doing a great job. I love to see people realize the amount of connection that we can have through our screens. It’s people on the other side of those phones and those computers. We can build that connection, and now is a really good time to do that.
Susan: Stacy, to your point, I’ve noticed Facebook was becoming kind of tiresome, right. You have to keep unfollowing all these political things if you want to keep your head normal. Now, all of a sudden it’s fun again. People are posting pictures of their pets and their yards. It’s so much more fun now.
Stacey: Yeah, I think it went through a period. I had to take a weekend and step back from Facebook and Instagram, which is totally okay to do. We can take breaks if we need to. Then we just have to remember that also we’re in control of what we see. We can unfollow and hide and not participate in the feed. We can do that too, so yeah.
Ann: Yeah, I think that’s a great idea. Participants, if you have questions, just unmute yourself and ask away or we have chat open, and I can read the questions to you. Until we get you some stimulating ideas to bring to the table, we have some questions that we can… Michelle.
Michelle: Folks can raise their hand too, Ann. Watch for that. No, on Zoom, to our earlier point, we’re both learning Zoom. I’m learning it only because our son is on Zoom now almost every day with school. They have to learn. I think as business owners, we have to learn to keep up with this situation. It’s not going away tomorrow, so we need to learn. If folks click on that participants, they can see everyone. There’s a little button that says “raise your hands”. I’ll say high five there. That’s also helpful to the conversation. That too.
Ann: Just to give you a little idea, our boy is seven. He typed something to Michelle the other day online, that I was like, “Really? I didn’t know it was there,”. It was on the remote or something.
Michelle: Oh yeah.
Ann: We have a little seven-year-old that’s getting us up to the technology.
Michelle: I told him we were getting on a call, and he said, “I don’t want to Zoom right now.” Anyway.
Ann: Let me start with some questions if I might. This is open to the group how you want to answer. What do you think business owners should really be focused on right at this moment? I can tell you I have a whole other business that I manage. I’m a property manager as well as doing business coaching, and I am so overwhelmed. Not the fact that I had to lay off half my staff so I’m doing all their work, but I’m in my cellar, I didn’t even have all my stuff. I’m overwhelmed of really how to get back to running my business. I personally need help with that, so help me. Jeff?
Jeff: I’ll take a shot first over the bow. I think one of the biggest things business owners and anyone really needs to work on is making sure that you’re in the strongest position. If you’re overwhelmed and triggered… I call it triggered. I do a lot of stress management in my work. You’ll hear my spiel on Tuesday at noon with Ann. We’re all going to have negative energy show up. We need to figure out strategies to employ to get us out of what I call the energy dip. Here we are, moving and grooving. Then something happens, and we dip into, say, overwhelm. It could be frustration. It could be fear. It could be anger. Whatever it is. That’s certain intensity for a certain amount of time. If I had this whiteboard, I’d show you. It’s the little energy dip. We all get into it. Something might trigger it, we dip down. Then we’ve got to figure out, and that’s what self-awareness is. Okay I’m triggered. What do I need here? Do I need to take a break? Do I need to just get something done? Do I need to call a friend? Do I need to go out for a long walk? Do I need to do 25 pushups right now and slap myself in the face? I don’t know. Whatever it is. Then I’ll pass the baton. Do not underestimate the power of hydration and nutrition. I’m telling you, hydration is a major issue. Not because Tom Brady made it sexy, but there she goes… Carol. See, we all have it. Hydration is really the name of the game. It puts you in a stronger position metabolically. That’s my two cents.
Ann: Awesome. Carol?
Carol: I love that you’re on at noon Jeff and that I’m on at three tomorrow, because our messages are close. We don’t compete with one another. I feel like we really complement one another. In the ebook that I was telling you about, you can look up and find out whatever it is you want to find out, but I have what I call 10 stages of crisis. When you recognize that things aren’t as they were, then what we’re doing is we’re going, “Okay…” I think the problem, the rub, is when our expectation is that everything should be normal, whatever that is, and the truth is it’s not. Then we try to go from where we are, which is feeling all the feelings which change literally every single second sometimes, to what it quote/unquote should be. Then in the middle, what you call the energy dip, I’m just going to call basically hell. I don’t know. Whatever you want to call it. If you recognize where you are. I’m just to throw down the 10… I came up with this myself. I didn’t get it out of a book. I know there’s plenty of books you can read. This is from my own personal experience and my knowledge and wisdom of the crises that I have personally have experienced. This is all recorded. Don’t worry. You’ll get the ebook if you want it. Just talk to Ann, so you don’t have to write this down. The first one is disbelief. If you think about what happened. Two weeks ago, I know I was in basically disbelief, because not everybody here is from New Hampshire. Now, in New Hampshire this came a little bit slower. In other parts of the country, say California, different places, New York, it was here sooner. I’m just going to speak from my own personal point of view. First point is disbelief. I really and truly was saying things like, “Oh, we’re good here.” Yeah. Huh-uh(negative). That was number one. Number two, and I’m pretty good like this, but I will tell you is panic. What happened for me was on Friday night, two weeks ago, I got to go back. It feels like two years ago, but it was really only two weeks ago. I went to the grocery store on Saturday morning early. 8:30. An hour and a half later, with a full cart, I got out of there. That was panic for me. There’s all different kinds of panic, and panic is still there. The third thing is anger and blame. That’s normal. We get a little angry. Some people get a lot angry. Number four is sadness and grief, in my opinion. Number five is acceptance. Now, let us just say that you want to accept, but you haven’t actually gone through the anger and the sadness and the grief and whatever you’re feeling. It doesn’t matter. Then you try to get to acceptance and happy and readjusting. That’s the problem. After acceptance, my next level is readjustment. When you’re there, now I believe is where you can begin to strategize. If we’re trying to strategize when we’re in panic or anger or blame or we haven’t worked our way through that, it’s not going to work out. Not only for just us, because I believe we are the leaders here. Some of us might have teams. Some of us might not have… Doesn’t matter where the leader… Our families. We’re the leader of ourselves. Whoever, we are leaders. Readjustment and strategizing can then happen. That’s my step six. Now seven, I call it attuning to a new normal. That’s going to be like tuning an instrument. Depending on what song you’re singing or where you’re playing, that’s going to be a little different. Then listening for strategic prosperity meaning… You’ve probably heard pivot, because things change all the time, so we have to be savvy, and we have to pivot. That would be eight. Then nine would be just adjusting as required. Ten, I call that peace because we can be really peaceful when we can be totally cool knowing that we’re doing the best we have with what we’ve got right in that moment. Yeah. I think when we can really find ourselves in that one to ten. You know what? Throw your own words in there. This is just mine. Your words are going to be different. It’s perfect. Like Jeff says, it really does start with us. Until we start with us, the truth is is that we really can’t help anybody else as well at least. That’s what I got.
Susan: Definitely in the moments that you have to recognize that you’re not okay. This morning I screamed at my bank customer service reps because they did not know anything about the small business loans that came out. Then I had to go, “Okay, it’s not their fault. Their managers haven’t told them yet. Calm down. Get yourself back together. This is you. This is not them.” Carol, I like your steps, but I think too you can go back to them after you’ve come out of one. “Well, I thought I was all peaceful but now it turns out, no, I’m still angry.” You might be working back and forth through them. One of the things I found that helped me the most, because I think even though my life is not that different. I’m still at home by myself working, just in the same place as I always have been, but man, the information of the amount of people telling what you to do and how you fix it and how it’s going to be made right if you just do this or if you just work harder or if you just focus more or you just make sure you keep your structure. You just make sure that you eat right. All of those things, it’s too much. That’s where I was finding that I’m trying to do all these things the everybody is telling me to do, and it’s not possible. I think one of the things that’s really important is to start to simplify those messages. Pick who you’re going to listen to. Pick what things you’re not going to do. If you’re going to be on social media and Facebook and do that, make sure you’re doing it socially. Not that you’re just absorbing article after article after article of what’s going on, because that is depressing. You will get yourself down, and that’s a real hard one to get out of. Streamlining and making those, that’s probably the biggest priority to me is to prioritize what information you’re going to receive.
Ann: Awesome, thinks.
Stacey: My feedback on this too, we’re talking about what we can do for ourselves. What I’ve seen a lot is when people are deciding what to post on social media, they’re really leading with how they’re feeling and what they’re going through. I see anger. I see sadness. I see a lot of different things, but it’s oftentimes all about that person or that business and our reaction to COVID. People, they swipe past that. They don’t care. We just have to remember that when we are sharing, it’s not about us. It’s about our people. We have to make sure that what we’re actually putting out there via email, social media or any other marketing channels is helpful to them, because they are getting so many messages coming in. If ours are more gloom and doom or sadness and it’s just negative out there, it’s really not going to resonate with them. It’s not going to create that connection. We have to work on ourselves. We also have to think that these are not platforms just to yell out how we’re feeling or like, “Buy my stuff.” People don’t want a digital flyer either. We have to be sure we’re keeping in mind, putting ourselves in their shoes too.
Ann: What I have been thinking up through this entire thing and working with my business owners on it’s the panic. The panic is in so many places, but it is in cash flow. Panic is in the money. Their income is stopped. I have restaurants that have absolutely closed. They’re not even doing takeout. They’re just closed, but they still have those bills, and some of those bills are going to be deferred and all this stuff. I am meticulously having them go through every line on their PNL, every expense, to find out what is necessary and what is not and just get rid of everything so we can protect. Lower that liability, protect that cash flow. Figure out how much that new expense load is going to be. Then we’re going to go back to figure out how innovative we have to be in terms of getting more income in because I might do different things now. I coach a sugar house up in Lancaster, New Hampshire. They can’t stop work. It’s sugaring season. If you stop, you’ve just lost tons upon tons of viable maple syrup. They still have to have a crew even though they’re wholesale because they sell to restaurants. Gone. Their mail order is okay. Now it’s just let’s go after that mail order. Let’s really go after things and just look at it from a different light. It’s that mind change of hey, but wait a minute. I’m a restaurant. Well no, but you can be a mail order person too if you figure out how to do that. It’s a huge shift. What I’m asking people do normal things because when it comes to the cash you don’t have a lot of time and reaction. You can’t go, “I’ll think about it a couple of weeks and decide.” No, we need to do something now because cash is go. How fast does cash go in a business? Fast. That’s really what I’ve been working on with my business owners is to really, really dig down deep to those numbers to see if we can protect ourselves.
Carol: That’s a good idea. It’s thinking about how you do business differently. It’s being agile. Number eight, listening for strategic prosperity, I guess, in my words. I just want to remind you, Ann, that sometimes when people call in, they don’t know how to mute themselves, which is star six, that you can do that too.
Ann: I think I just muted you, sorry. You’re unmuted now.
Michelle: That’s okay. I’d like to go back just for a second because we do have a few folks on the line. I want to address any questions they may have before we do run out of time.
Carol: Why did everybody come on this call? What is a burning question no matter how dumb it sounds?
Michelle: Everything that was said is spot on because I work from home like you, Susan. I work from home every day, but everything has changed no matter what. Quite frankly, I was concerned. Stacy, you made this point. Everything is coming in. I had my chimney guy send me something about COVID-19. Everyone is talking about it, rightfully so. However, how do business owners pick and choose where do I get my information? I want to be sure we’re getting our folks that are on the line and tuned in any questions they may have. I want to get those answered.
Ann: I think I have unmuted everybody.
Michelle: No, but that’s okay. They can unmute themselves perhaps?
Carol: Caitlyn’s currently unmuted.
Michelle: We’ve got Michelle King. We’ve got several folks. Caitlyn.
Susan: We could give a quick little explanation of where to find these things for those who are new to Zoom. At the bottom of the window where you see our faces, there is a participants icon. It’s people. If you click on that, you can get a list, and your name will be on there. You’re able to mute yourself or unmute yourself from there if you want to speak up. Also there’s a chat icon. If you would like to just add a note there, as opposed to unmuting or speaking, we’re happy to answer those notes there as well. We’re watching the chat.
Michelle: That’s a good idea.
Carol: If you’re on the phone, it’s star six to mute it.
Susan: Star six unmutes you on the phone.
Ann: I got my control panel. I’m trying to follow everybody. Yeah. We’d love to hear from everybody to see what’s going on in your world. Let me ask a different question. It’s so weird out there. We have businesses that are totally closed. We have businesses that are partially closed. Their income stream just went. They’re still making a little bit of something like the restaurants with takeout. Then we have people that are still going strong, I guess. Let’s just talk about the ones that are closed because if we want to go through the panic stages, I know for my restaurant people, that’s the biggest panic place. What would you advise of business owners that are closed on how to deal with this time in their lives in terms of whether it be professionally, whether it be personally. Two questions. One is how do they get through this in keeping their business intact? How do they get through this in keeping their family intact? Those are two huge questions, I know. I talked to enough people that their business are closed, and they just can’t get out of their own way. Carol, can I start with you?
Carol: You want to start with me?
Ann: Wait a minute.
Michelle: Well, no. I’m in customer service. I didn’t do my intro at the beginning. 25 years of sales and customer service experience. Right off the bat, I’m thinking about customers and staying connected. I think that’s pretty of Stacey’s point on social media, things like that. I think a step beyond that, you have your A, B, C customers. The really important ones that are critical to your business, pick up the phone and give them a call. Just touch base. How are you doing? How can I help? Maybe I can’t, but at least you’re keeping that relationship. I guess quick bottom is keep the relationships with the customers during this time.
Ann: How about you, Carol?
Carol: Sure. Everybody is going to come at this from their own point of view, which is beautiful. I’ll just answer from my point of view and my own business. I am in research mode big time. I just got off the phone just an hour ago with somebody who said they wanted to join my group coaching program. It’s a three month group coaching to become your productive best. I was actually asking her what are her concerns now, what would she love to see in three months and one month. I was basically, just like you were saying Michelle, collecting that research and that data. Again, I’ll go back to me. The first thing I noticed when this happened, the first thing I went to was okay, cool, how long until I run out of cash? That’s the first thing. Now Ann, I know cash is your deal, so I’m not taking that away. What I’m saying is that’s the first thing to know because when you run out of cash, you run out of business. You don’t have money. You don’t have business. Period. You want to just be, I think, you want to be real with yourself. It’s not all about panic and doom and gloom. It’s not all about running yourself ragged until you do run out of cash. It’s about getting yourself, like Jeff and I talked about, clear enough and solid enough in yourself so that you can begin to make those strategic decisions. Because a sugar house is going to make an entirely different strategic decision than a restaurant in Nashua, New Hampshire, which for anybody who is not in New Hampshire, is a big city in New Hampshire. Those are two different industries versus somebody like, say for example, Stacey who’s all about social media and marketing. You can’t really give a blanket answer, at least not in my opinion. Also, are you in your 30s with three little kids and you’re the only breadwinner or are you 58, and you’re thinking, “I’ll probably do this for another five years,” but you have a little nest egg, and you’re saying, “Huh, looks like the universe says this is time.” There’s so many variables that there’s certain… That’s why it would be awesome if somebody would unmute themselves and we could talk to you. In my opinion, that’s what you got to do.
Susan: I think, Ann, I think there’s a question here that’s probably for you, because you’re the financial guru here. Michelle King is writing, “I joined in hopes of learning more about the resources coming forth for assisting small businesses with much needed funding.”
Ann: Yeah, there are some really interesting ones. Ones called the CARE Act. They’re so new. I talked to a banker the other day. They’re so new, and this is why you probably didn’t get any information, is they don’t even have all the details to talk about. CARE Act is very interesting. You need to talk to your banker about this. I’m just going to give you the highlight of what I read. It’s where you’ll be able to get 250% times what you spend on payroll in this time of year last year, so it’s a comparable, that will help you with keeping people paid or helping you pay rent. It’s something that you won’t have to pay back. It will turn into a grant. There’s a few. I think there are three huge things that came out of that stimulus package, but again it’s so soon. The thing, Michelle, I would tell you is to go to your local bank and talk to these guys, because it’s all through the SBA. Find a bank that does SBA loans. Go talk to them, and get as much information as possible. I’ve seen it online. I talked to a banker, and he was unwilling to come on the call with us to talk about it. That’s how new this is. It’s part of that two trillion dollar stimulus package that we just signed, so the ink is still wet on it. Definitely go talk to your banker about it. Susan, thank you. See, I can’t multitask when I’m on Zoom. I can only do one thing at than time.
Susan: It’s experience. After 10 years, you got it down. These are a couple of PDFs that I’ve uploaded to the chat area the that might help. It’s a top line overview. They were shared with me this morning from one of my clients actually sent them to me. It is helpful. It’s very top line, but yes, talk to your accountant. Talk to your banker. More than likely you can get some money.
Ann: Yeah, there’s definitely money available. The scary part of it is you won’t get it tomorrow. It’s not like you sign an application and you get it tomorrow. I believe, and again fact check me on this, but I believe it’s a six week process. When you talk about your cash flow, we need to be looking at it weekly. We need to have at least eight weeks of cash flow. Also be looking at lines of credit. Lines of credit are a beautiful thing. You use it when you need it. Once you get it, it’s part of your business forever, and you only need to use it when you absolutely need it, but get the details on those things because some banks say you only have to partially pay it back. Other banks do a balloon payment at the end of the year. There’s other ways of getting money to do business. Please, please, please do not do credit cards. Do not start putting everything on credit cards, because they’re not as forgiving as the banks are, as the SBA. Also great organizations in your area, like in New Hampshire we have community loan funds. We have in Vermont, NCIC. They are fantastic organizations that get you grant. They can even get you grants to get coached, to get business coaches. There’s grants out there that you are made available to you. I would get on the computer and start researching then just start talking with as many people as you possible can. You will see the quickest work that you can get. Michelle.
Michelle: Well, New Hampshire is also offering unemployment to self-employed folks, which I have applied for. I have been approved for a very small amount, but it’s a small amount that I didn’t have without applying. I don’t know what other states are doing, but New Hampshire is doing. They made it easy. It was easy. Just another thing to think about.
Jeff: Are all these on your website, Ann, that people can go check out all these ideas?
Ann: They will be after this call.
Jeff: That’s how real time it is.
Michelle: That’s a good suggestion.
Ann: It’s real-time information. You’ll get it on my Facebook group as well. I know Andrew, who’s my banker friend, has already put a lot of information on our Facebook group, so feel free to join Small Business Triage Facebook group.
Jeff: I know Susan just put some files up on the chat. Just making sure that all those going to there too, however that works behind the scenes.
Michelle: I did download each of those.
Ann: Okay, awesome.
Michelle: Thank you, Jeff.
Stacey: Had a note about businesses that were closed. I don’t know if we’re moving on or going back to that.
Ann: Go ahead. I lost my train of thought, so go ahead. Thank you.
Stacey: Yeah. I just wanted to share some examples. I’m going to throw some into the Facebook group because I’ve been seeing some really good examples of businesses that are closed. In particular one in Keene is a coffee shop called Prime Roast. I don’t know if you guys know about that. They’re always really good about sharing the stories of their employees and also their customers. Right now, they’re sharing just really nice stories about what their people are doing right now. They all travel a lot, but they can’t travel right now. They’re sharing lots of really nice stories. In this time that you are closed is the time to maintain that connection and continue to talk about why you’re in business in the first place. Maybe how you got started. What you’re doing in the meantime. A great thing to do right now of course is to learn. If you are closed, you have time to dig into some online trainings. I teach social media, and I have online trainings for that reason, but I’ve had new people hop in because they have time right now. This is a time not to spend scrolling Facebook and Instagram to see what your cousin wrote about whatever. It’s to take that time and watch stuff like this and dig into the rest of the summit because there’s so much good stuff. I heard this by somebody else, and I can’t remember who said it. We want to look back on this time and say we used that time to learn a new skill or try something we had been meaning to try or finish something we had been meaning to do. We want to be able to look back and say, “That’s when I accomplished that,” not “That’s when I sat and binge watched that Tiger show on Netflix.” This is a really, really valuable time. We need to take a break too. If we’ve been given the gift of a break, we can do that too. Yeah.
Susan: I would chime in. I am, of course, going to go to process. That’s my world. As Carol said, we come from our own perspectives. If you are not working, this is a perfect time to sit and start to figure out where all those bottlenecks are in your business and how can you work them out through a system. Write it down. Don’t just have it in your head. Actually write it down. Make sure that you have the steps to work through. Then when you’re ready to start again, you streamline the business that had a challenge in it. You’ll be able to jump in. I see Stacey saying she loves Asana. I use Teamwork.com. I like Teamwork.com the best. Asana is great. Asana is free. Basecamp also, I think, has free for one project. Then Teamwork.com also has free for up to five people, I think. Any of those tools are a great place to systemize things to make checklists, to start to write up documents that say, “Hey, this is how we check out a customer after they’ve finished their meal.” Go through those steps. How many times have you guys been to a restaurant? You can’t seem to get out. You’ve done everything else great, but where is my check? I’m sure many restaurants have a challenge there. Now is a great time. Let’s figure out how to move our table. How to turn it. Those are the types of things that you could look at. For a catering company, maybe it’s building a checklist of what has to go on the truck every time you go out that are the standard items as opposed to the specific things that were ordered just for that event. There’s a lot of opportunity to develop that over time as well. I think, did Caitlyn have a question here?
Michelle: I replied.
Susan: Oh you did, okay, great.
Ann: Oh you did, thank you. Jeff, your thoughts?
Jeff: Yeah, thanks. Awesome everybody. I was going to say you guys, but say you fabulous women that I’m collaborating with here. I used to be Melissa, but now I’m Jeff. Yeah.
Michelle: This is why I love you, Jeff.
Jeff: Inside joke, there. I think just another idea is don’t suffer in silence. Make a list of everybody you know. People want to help you, honestly. Just coming on here, I’m learning something. This is all real-time for all of us. You’re a restauranteur, who else do you know in the restaurant business? Lean on other CEOs, COOs. Get in with these, even start a group. Start a Facebook group like this for other CEOs. Who do you know in finance? Ann, we’re lucky to have you. You were on my list to contact until you contacted me, which is perfect synchronicity. We need to lean on each other in this trying time and collaborate. People might have tips and strategies like Asana and Trello and these other things that you might not have thought of. If you’re left in your basement office trying to figure this out yourself, trying to pull your hair out, I’m the only one with no hair on the call, by the way. That’s my two cents.
Carol: Terrin had a question too. Just wanted to point that out to you whenever you’re ready.
Terrin Laakso: I’ve had lots of people chime in privately.
Carol: Oh, okay.
Ann: I do want Caitlyn’s. We talked a little bit about Caitlyn’s. She put in that note about working for a software. How can a B2B company like yours best support or SMB clients and vendors during all this uncertainty? We talked about really keeping in touch with your clients as well and your vendors. You know what? I’ve always taught my business owners to do is what’s called trickle marketing. I really love trickle marketing. It’s where you just slowly keep in touch with them. Not necessarily business stuff. It can be just checking in. Just knowing something about them that they like to do, like fly fishing or something and sending them an article. Keeping in touch just as people, as opposed to as businesses. That’s a couple things. One, it keeps you in front of them. Two, it takes that business relationship and turns it into a personal one. When you have a personal relationship with your vendors and your customers and your clients, you treat each other a little bit differently. The more you can focus on the personal as well as being a great business person in terms of being fair and honest and doing all the right things as a business person, it puts your working relationship in a whole different point of view. What I would suggest is really thinking about… Now, if you have gobs and gobs of them, it would be a different conversation, which I would love to have with you. You can easily figure out a way, whether it be weekly or every other day or how many times you want to get in touch with them. It could be email. It could be Constant Contact. It could be a phone call. It could be something small that’s not going to be like, “Oh my god, them again” kind of situation. It’s really important now to keep those initiatives going and keep in front of them. Not aggressively so they feel like they’re being stalked. I’m not sure if that was a full fledged answer for you, but I think that’s a bigger conversation because I’d have to get to really know what kind of customers you’re talking about. There’s definitely ways of doing it so it feels good and it feels true. Hopefully I answered that question. Just a little message down here on the bottom.
Jeff: Yeah, just one other thing. Like Susan and Stacey said, I think. Doing research for your clients is a good way to do it too. Sending them positive articles that are business sector related, because the restaurant business for instance, what are they doing? What kind of financing? Look at all the tools that y’all have posted already on this call. It’s amazing what’s out there. If you take a little time to research for your customers and then share that, whether they use it or not, they’ll remember that you took the time to take that time.
Ann: Yeah, that’s a great point. One of the best… I used to be a buyer for Sam’s Club 100 years ago. The way my vendors would integrate me into my good favor is to take projects off my desk because we’re busy. We’ve got 100 million things going on, and we’re trying to juggle a million balls. If I have a vendor saying, “Hey, let me take this off your desk, and I’ll do whatever I need to do with it and get it back to you finished so all you have to do is say yes or no.” When it came down to time, whether I was putting stuff on the shelf, I thought, “Hmm, that’s a really good partner.” When you start changing your relationships into vendor-buyer or vendor-customer and become collaborative partnership, all of a sudden you have a whole different dynamic. Now you’re working together for the good of all as opposed to against, adversarial against each other. That’s great, Jeff. Great point. All these things are flying in here. Any questions on here that I haven’t answered because it seems like you guys are having these background conversations.
Carol: We are.
Susan: That’s Zoom. That’s how Zoom works, Ann.
Ann: Okay. That’s good.
Carol: I definitely heard a lot lately that businesses are built on relationships and visibility. I think probably part of the reason people are coming out of the woodwork offering things is because they just feel called to. I mean, this is an exact example of it. Ann’s like, “Oh my gosh,” because we’ve been a consortium for a while. Let’s get on a Zoom call and see what we can do. I’m part of a lot of these kind of things. Yeah. Because we want to give. We know that we’re putting money in the bank, so to speak, and we’re being visible. It’s kind of a three way win. Our hearts’ happier. We’re out there more, and we’re relating with people. We’re not just this cute little icon with a nice logo.
Ann: We’re coaches. Our DNA is putting out fires and helping people succeed. When this whole thing happened, Stacey, I have to blame Stacey for this really. She’s the one that really pushed us to do it, which thank you for that. It was really how we value the troops and help as many people as possible. Everyone is rallying at the same time, so now we’re just overwhelming people. Hopefully the people who are participating are getting some good stuff out of this and feel supported that we’re here to really help as a community to get through this new normal, I guess you could call some things.
Stacey: I just want to say too that we’ve been talking about how people connect with people, but I could say something and then there’s three other social media people who talk about the same thing. You may connect with me more than them or them more than me. There’s room for all of us. I think that’s one thing that this whole thing has taught us is we’re all connected. We’re all in this together. I love that. That’s my vibe, so I’m all about it. Community over competition and collaborating and coming together because all of us may not have known any of the others, but now we’re familiar. Now I’m thinking, “I got to reach out to this person and that person.” Maybe we could collaborate on something and borrow each other’s audiences the more eyeballs are open to us. It’s just exciting. I just see it all as a huge opportunity to look at the bright side versus wallowing in the really tough parts, which they’re there, but we’ll all feel better if we can focus on the more positive part of coming together.
Ann: That’s exactly why Michelle and I came up with Connor Business Resources, honestly, is I’ve been coaching for over 10 years. My forte is finances, strategy, organizational structure. It’s the crux of your business, the core of the business. I am horrible, I shouldn’t say this out loud, but I’m not very good at marketing. Social media is totally not my thing. As I was going into clients, I didn’t want to lose that client for one thing. Plus, I wanted to make sure that they worked on all parts of their business because you need all that on a business. Not just one or two things. I would bring people with me, other coaches. Sometimes it worked out well. Sometimes not so much. That’s how I came up with Connor Business, because I wanted a workplace where they could go and they could get all the information they needed and they had awesome people to rely on, and they weren’t sitting there Googling every night, “Well, now I got marketing. Okay, now I’m going to go over here.” We could get collaborations, because that’s the only way we succeed is collaborating. That one business can’t do everything. Most corporations have departments. Now we have business owners that are all departments. You need support on that. That’s where Connor Business Resources came as a once stop shop for collaboration and success. That’s why I got you guys, because you’re my Connor Business Resource. Hopefully everyone is getting to know you a lot better and tie into that on our site and on our Facebook. Any more questions out there?
Michelle: I will say, I’ve got to step off, but I want one takeaway that I have really embraced more is setting up those processes for myself. I’ve got the little guy. I know I’m not the only one with kiddos. Now I have to balance work and kiddo. If he was gone to school. I had from nine to two. I could get all my stuff done. I think Susan was saying that putting those projects together and priorities together and actually write them down. What I need to do in my scheduling. Otherwise, I make myself crazy, and then I feel like I get nothing done. I appreciate everyone joining the call and the attendees that came on to listen. Reach out anytime on the Facebook page with questions. I want to be sure they know this isn’t just one one and done. We’re here always, and we have a whole week of everyone talking on their specific topics. Thank you all. I do have to go take care of the kiddo. Thank you.
Carol: Thanks, Michelle.
Susan: I think that it’s interesting too, as someone who’s done this and knows that if the cat walks across the desk or the dog barks or the UPS guy comes, because they still even when you work from home, they only come during your phone calls. Getting all that stuff to become more of a just hey, it’s life, and we’re all living life now. It’s one life. Our work and our personal are now combined. The separating it has become much more of a challenge. Maybe that’s a good thing.
Carol: Yeah. I think we’re all going to be better people, better employers, better employees because we’re not going to take it so much for granted. Well, we’re running out of time. I’d love to be able to go around and just get one thing from each of us to say how it’s to end the call of something that you’d like to say. Jeff.
Jeff: Can I go? I’m going to have to jump off. I love this. This is really fun. Really great. As someone getting to know the technology myself, I just had a Zoom call with my kin staters, and they’re already adept at Zoom already. They have it all down. I just want to say don’t lose hope. Take action. Even if it’s one thing. Just keep… It’s like dollar cost averaging. Keep putting it in the bank. Take action. That’s what I’m taking away today. That’s what I’m committed to. That’s what I try to help my clients right now, just keep going forward. Try to focus on the end result. Let’s get it done.
Ann: Awesome. Thank you, Jeff. I appreciate it.
Jeff: Thanks so much.
Ann: Stacey.
Stacey: Yeah. I’m just going to reiterate, it’s about connecting. Connection isn’t canceled. That’s what I’m talking about on Wednesday. If you’re stuck on what to say on social media, I’m here to get you excited about it because it truly is an opportunity, that and email marketing. It’s a way to stay in touch with your people. You, as a business owner, have a stage in these online platforms. You have the ability to communicate. You can do Facebook live. It’s like having an infomercial. We have all these things at our disposal. If we are keeping our message to ourselves because we’re too afraid because yes, it’s scary to hit that live button or to put stuff out there sometimes, but if we’re keeping that in, that’s not really fair to people either. We have something that’s worth putting out there, and we can utilize these platforms. Just think about it as connecting with people more so than I have to do social media. It’s “I get to do social media,” and it’s a way to connect with people so that when we do open again, we have that connection, and there will be people there for us when we open.
Ann: Yeah, awesome. Carol.
Carol: Yeah, I want to say that’s true. Because we are preparing for some time in the future where we’re not all going to be shut down. It will look different. We don’t know what it’s going to look like, but there will be a time. To just constantly be saying, “Okay, based on what I know now, what’s my next best step?” I love… My favorite takeaway. Well, there were lots of them, but one of them was when Susan talked about what not to do. It’s okay to have these things not to do. I love the not to do list. I’m really curious as to what specifically our guests loved. Michelle King said it was inspiring. I want to know what their best takeaway is.
Ann: Yeah. Feel free to share.
Terrin: The one little tidbit from, was it Stacey. She said create before consuming. I get out of what I wanted to create as soon as I start looking at everybody else’s, because Comparison Connie comes in and all sorts of junk. I will embrace the create before I start consuming.
Ann: Very good.
Susan: The comparison is a big one. I think that we’re all in very different situations. Every individual is in a very different situation. Not saying, “Well, such-and-such is doing this, and they’re doing great during this time.” No. You take care of yourself. I would say put that structure in place. Get your structure, and then simplify. Simplify and just go down to the basics.
Carol: I love simplify.
Ann: Sorry, I’m all about the money. All about money, which I am going to be doing a class a three o’clock on how to keep cash in your business, so check that off on your calendar. I think the biggest thing a business owner could do right now is take a breath and then think to yourself, “Why am I doing what I’m doing?” Get back to basics in your own head about living the passion of why you’re doing it. I don’t know about you, but you’re passionate at one point, and then years later you’re going, “Oh my lord. Am I still doing this?” You forget. You forget why you’re doing it. Now’s the time to really spark that passion again because when you do, you bring so much to the table, and just incredible.