In this episode Danielle and Brandon talk about ways you can recession proof your business.
You’ll leave with actionable steps you can start putting into action to protect your business from the looming, or already happening, recession.
Let us know what you think by sending us an email at Feedback @ OnBusinessPodcast.com
About the On Business Podcast
Every Tuesday Danielle Jenkins, founder of Domestic Divas Cleaning Co, and Brandon White, a repeat entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley, get together to talk about running their companies.
Both have companies that do several million dollars a year in revenue that you can learn from.
It’s an unscripted conversation where they pull back the curtains and talk about what’s working, what’s not, what’s real, and what’s BS.
You’ll walk away with things you can use to run, market, increase your sales and build your business.
AUTO GENERATED TRANSCRIPT | COURTESY OF YOUTUBE
welcome back to the on business podcast with tons of experience in different
Industries in Canada and the United States Danielle and Brandon give you real talk no-nonsense expert advice
about running and owning successful companies here’s your host Danielle Jenkins and Brandon White
hey Danielle what’s happening hey Brandon happy Saturday I know we’re recording today instead of yesterday how
has your week been then well I I think everybody’s used to me
saying never better but but this week this week was a challenging week but we got through it
we got finally after 12 months our
solar and battery backup Tesla solar and battery backup that uh done nothing
nothing wrong with the equipment it’s been excellent the people are very good
humans the system that they’re using to manage their processes is total crap
and wouldn’t wouldn’t override something but we got that done and then for our podcast here well if you’re listening
now we got it working so there’s a few things there food glitches that it’s one
of those things where it just keeps repeating itself you know what I’m talking about when you keep doing it and you keep and the other person on the
other side says oh it shouldn’t be shouldn’t be a problem and you’re like there’s a problem yeah yeah that was my
week so far but I think the weekend will be good we got good weather here so how about your week you’re moving uh yeah so
um now I guess everybody knows um I’ve been sharing with a few close people because it’s just been a lot you
know with the company with the move the build there’s just been so much going on so yeah I’m moving
um closer to you actually I’m three hours closer to you by car so
um I’m moving three hours south uh near Windsor so we’re in a small town outside
of Windsor so we’re close to the border to get into the states which is nice the weather is warmer which will do much
better for my body and my mental health because there won’t be as much snow or cold days
um and so it’s been chaotic here dealing with again finishing the build thank God
Sergo is doing our financing because obviously he’s a mortgage broker and I’ve been packing and just purging
and figuring everything out to do with that on top of running a company so
um yeah it’s been a week but it’s been a good week but I am feeling it mentally you know again like not even having my
pretty things out having boxes everywhere just things are chaotic like
I don’t even have my bed frame anymore and I’m a big like keep your bedroom Zen and calm because that’s a place to sleep
and I need a good sleep and right now our mattress and box spring is on the floor so I’m not really feeling like
Danielle’s bedroom I’m feeling like a college dorm or something so it’s a little chaotic but other than that it’s
been a great week yeah and by the time people are listening to this you’ll probably
either have been moved or almost moved so people will know but yeah when we came on this morning and I saw the back
of your shelf I was like where is everything there’s nothing on the wall there’s nothing on the Shelf but moves
can be chaotic but they can be good because you get to throw out a lot of stuff
yes purging and it’s good it’s like it’s like what we talked about I think last week the changing direction or maybe the
week before when we were changing direction in business and things like that it’s good this is good new start
and other companies other business ventures and obviously our listeners they will be able to follow along when
we tell them some other Ventures that we’re getting into so very exciting
well there you go today we are talking about recession proofing your business and I
was just thinking I hesitated there because you and I were talking before we got on
the air that we’re just sick and tired of here everybody talk about inflation and interest rates and all these things
and the same token you do is as tiring as that may be
you still need to figure out how to recession-proof your business and I was thinking this morning before we jumped
on the air is it too late and I don’t think it’s too late I it’s never too late
there’s some things that you and I are going to talk about that may not be as
easy to do which we’ll discuss but it is possible to recession-proof your
business so I’ll let you go because I know you had some thoughts on how to do that and maybe some tips that you could
offer on how you’re actually current currently doing it yeah so
um when we when we were chatting about our topic for this week and I thought
about recession-proofing or how to have a business that’s Recession Proof or that can make it through recession however you want to spin it I felt it
was a good topic because that is all people are talking about people are scared that we’re going into a recession or that we’re already in one there’s
obvious signs of everything again those mortgage rates um the interest rates the prices of
everything there’s so many things going on and people are scared and I’ve had a lot of business people small business
owners and that have come to me or reached out saying like hey should I shut down my company like
or should I shut down my small business because they’re scared of like what’s gonna happen if you know they’re five employees
um next week maybe all of their clients cancel all their services or don’t come and buy things and then they have to lay
off these five employees so people do get scared and I thought it was a good topic because though unfortunately some
businesses very minor maybe won’t make it through a recession really look at
covid like major as much as it was hard even for us majority of businesses did end up
making it through covid yes they could have more debt yes they could be out staff yes they could be down clients but
they did make it through they did survive it so I think it was a good topic to discuss because no matter what
there will always always be a recession it is part of business cycle it is part
of economic sorry I said that wrong economic uh cycle it’s just one of those
things so I wanted to talk about when I said let’s talk about kind of businesses that are
recession-proof or any aspiring entrepreneurs Brandon said well why don’t we talk about proofing your
business to be to beat the recession and I thought about it and I thought yeah perfect perfect topic because
for me um and this is my first point number one always have a service or something that
is um I think they call it elastic to clients
or consumers so something that people will always have and there are industries that are literally
recession-proof like for example the beauty industry is proven to be recession-proof however when we’re
talking about maybe small businesses like for myself for example residential cleaning may not be Recession Proof
because when homeowners are struggling to pay their bills or maybe they’ve got laid off they’re not thinking about
hiring a cleaning company to clean their home however our commercial Division and
post-construction division is reception proof because there will always be corporations and Commercial spaces I.E
um car manufacturing plants and things like that that are going to have to maintain that hygiene and cleanliness in
their workspace so that’s the only way we made it through covid was having a commercial Division and so yes that was
coveted but it’s still recession-proof and you know there’s tons of stats that I pulled up just on certain industries
that we can maybe get into after you share your points um so that was my number one thing is
always have something that is either a product or a service that can be
um the people will not kind of get rid of even when finances get tight
um and then number two for me is always having cash flow and I know that’s
easier said than done but always have that before it’s too late
um and again it is easier said than done but maybe have an available line of credit that you don’t use that you haven’t maxed out or anything but have
it there sitting there to get you through times like covid like a recession
um that’s another big one for me so those two I think are so important and I have a few more that we can get into
maybe after you share but those two are definitely uh number ones and twos for
me I think they’re good advice uh I have
three that actually I think you should do all the time but usually sort of like when
you move is the time when you start cleaning out all the crap and you throw things out and it’s sometimes these
events whether in Life or in business that
would trigger these things but number one you need to know your finances I
can’t tell you how many people that I talk with who ask for help
and I say okay well tell me what what’s Revenue look like what does gross margin
look like and what are your fixed costs or how much are you spending on Advertising how much are you spending on
rent how much are you spending and they they can’t they can’t give me that information off the top there
what’s your net profit what like what’s your burn rate most entrepreneurs will know their burn rate because they know
what that they they know what payroll is that’s usually
a number but that’s not the whole story that’s not the whole story I know it’s
important to pay your people and also to pay your taxes especially in the United
States and I don’t know if it’s true and can I can’t imagine it’s not but sea level people are resp or the CEO and
president is actually responsible for those federal taxes so if you don’t pay them you’re personally liable which
becomes a real problem but you need to know your numbers and you need to understand deep into
your financials and some people will say well I have a CFO for that okay that and if you’re a big enough company
to have a dedicated CFO which generally is probably going to happen after 50
employees maybe towards 75 you might just have you might be able to get away with the controller and accountant until
then you might be able to get away with an accountant up to 20 people and then
maybe you get a controller after that these are General General guidelines at least from my experience in growing
companies but at some point an accountant isn’t the person who’s going
to be your Finance person it’s very different so you need to be you need to have a grip on your finances number two you
need to lean into your existing customers and what happens is is that in general
people are so focused on getting new customers that you forget that your
existing customer base now I understand if you’re just starting out this is a tough one but still applicable
instead of focusing so much on new customer acquisition that may be hard
take care of your existing customers extremely well because they’re your
source of of current revenue and potentially
future Revenue so do something like get your net promoter score
uh NPS if you don’t know what that is you can Google it and then figure out where you are and then
how can you make customer service better and in general you do better customer service your customers love you more and
then they’re going to refer you so take take a lot of the effort of new
customers which could be a headwind I think you should double down in a recession I know that’s super hard to do
and it’s counter-intuitive and if you don’t have cash flow it makes it harder but take care of your current customers
and lean into that because they’ll refer you and your best source for anything
the third one is make sure you have a line of credit which that’s the one that
when I said it could be possibly too late because it becomes harder with higher interest rates and things but
if you’re caught you’re listening and and you didn’t do this then like when we come out of this make sure
you do it get a line of credit and borrow money when you don’t need it because that’s when the and when your
business is doing well businesses won’t necessarily go out and get a line of credit because they say well we don’t
need it and my advice is exactly they want to give you money because you’ve just lowered the risk for them
enormous enormous amount it doesn’t mean that they’re gonna come back and tighten the belt possibly when they get deep if
the recession gets deep but you got to have a lot of credit so that you can pull off of that when you do need it and
I I don’t know my take is I don’t know about the
recession this time I the United States clearly if the definition is two two
quarters of decreased economic output GDP that it happens so I think we qualify
without a doubt in the United States my question is is it
as bad as people think there was a lot of demand pull forward demand that’s causing this inventories now are getting
larger certainly putting whatever trillion dollars into the cash flow didn’t help any country do giving away
money but by the same token my indicator being a tech person is the tech stocks
and it appears that it is not as bad as we may have
thought it doesn’t mean that the recession is not that’s more of a commentary and I could be completely wrong and we could go deeper into the
recession next quarter and figure that out but at least in the United States some of it seems to be getting worked
out as an indication that people in the tech stocks usually take a
deep hit when people believe that there’s going to be increased interest rates because
it affects them and it just doesn’t appear that the interest rates are going
to be bad I actually read two analysts this week that said that they thought in the United States that interest rates
would actually get decreased next year and I guess we’ll just just have to see but unemployment’s low and you start to
see these businesses coming back covid type restrictions in the United States
actually just got lessened I mean there’s if you even are exposed to covid
you don’t have to quarantine I think I read there’s a bunch of things changing I don’t want to say things are back to
normal because I don’t think they’re back to normal people are still affected but anyway that’s a two-minute
commentary on what Brandon thinks today today based on what he read it could be completely wrong and you know there’d be
some number that comes out that says that you know I don’t know something you know we have another war and that in in the
world and that you know it China invades Taiwan that’s going to negatively affect all of us so
um anyway those are my three tips they sort of build on yours but yeah and I also have another one
um and I know everybody who listens knows that I’m like the queen of of systems and processes in business and
I’ve been hounding Brandon about the systems and processes for this podcast so I know because apparently I’m a freak
like that but I just wanted to mention in regards to um the recession
um really and before you hit a recession or maybe do it like today look at your organization’s risk tolerance
um you know again some businesses didn’t make it through covid because of certain things you know some businesses did with
a little bit of a hit some businesses flourished um so I think you really need to look at
and I actually pulled up my notes here but like when I say about the systems
and processes and dealing with your organizational or your organization’s risk tolerance like how adaptable are
your systems and processes and some people may not have ever had to do that
but covert was a good test to see if you can do that and I think now should be
the time that you focus on creating those systems and processes and maybe we’ll do another show on creating them
the importance of them or maybe we’ll have one of our live um uh mentors or sorry mentees on here to
discuss that and how we’re doing that with their organization but if you can adapt them to different economic issues
different environmental issues whatever the issue may be then I think that you’re strong and
you’re going to get through a recession yes maybe a little bit less money more interest whatever maybe but at least
your business survived and you’re flourishing after the covid issue the recession issue whatever it may be
um so think about that definitely have your systems and processes in place and then make sure that they’re adaptable as
well I think one thing that struck me when you were talking that we should mention
is when you’re in a recession what happens also is
what comes out is your actual value that you deliver
and I will say this that you’re not entitled just because you have an idea and you think it’s a good one
of a product or service you’re not entitled to have customers you have to earn those customers and your problem
has to be that you’re solving has to be painful enough in your case with domestic Divas it’s got to be painful
enough that I don’t want to clean the house I mean that that’s that’s the threshold right I’m willing to to trade to pay you
an hourly I know you have a fixed rate but I’m willing to pay you the fixed rate to
clean my house in exchange for getting those three hours back where I can make more money
or there is some better return on that time but in recession
what struck me when you said most businesses made it out and the truth is maybe most did but some of them didn’t
and you know what that’s sort of like the junk that you’re throwing out in the dumpster possibly that you have is it
didn’t deserve to make it out and what happens is in a recession it’s not a bad thing it’s that
that it cleans out companies that may have been
Getting By by riding the wave they they could have venture capital and the
Venture Capital was just getting dumped in there because their current business wasn’t working and they were hoping that
the company could change direction to salvage that investment the recession comes and the money the private Equity
The Venture capitalists basically say you know what we’re weeding out our portfolio we’re going to double down on
the businesses that know the value that they are delivering and we know they’re delivering value as evidence but they’re
increasing revenue and or or Revenue that it would be generally increasing or
their cash flow positive you know maybe their business stalls but they’re still cash flow positive and profitable
they’re going to double down on those so sometimes and if you’re in this
situation where you start to feel it tightening
there’s plenty of things that you can do by surveying your customers and things like that but a simple thing that you
can do today right after you hear this show is really deep down
take it’s hard you got to strip away your ego and all of these things and ask
yourself what value do we deliver to our
customers instead another way is what problem are we solving and if you can’t
say that in 15 seconds then there’s a problem if and in fact if
you can’t even articulate that in 15 seconds then you’re not then you’re you’ve got a
lot of work to do because yeah your value proposition is hey you don’t have to clean your house
we do it for you and you get to live a better life because you don’t just spend
three hours cleaning the house I I don’t know what your elevator pitch specifically is but this basically it’s a little better than that Brandon but
yeah well what is it what is it well well for us yeah it is that however we
also do it better than any other company out there because of the systems and processes we have in place I know but
that’s not but that’s not your 15 seconds but that’s not your real pitch I’m going to push back your real pitch is that’s great you do it better but if
we take one step above that it’s hey Brandon you have three hours
to do something else that’s going to generate a higher Roi we’re basically
okay yeah yeah I mean that at the at the top of it’s like with file finder for us we help you find files that you know you
have in your email but can’t find faster that’s a very that’s it like it if you
don’t understand you know you either have that problem or not it allows us to weed out and a lot of people can’t
articulate their elevator pitch quickly and that that’s when it becomes
a problem and it’s an opportunity in a recession or a down economy to actually spend the time on that and refine it
because no one no one’s going to listen to you explain yourself for three minutes I’m
sorry like it’s too complicated and someone who’s listening says well that’s
harsh Brandon my company’s complicated I don’t know challenge me because I’m
pretty good when when I teach that class and I go around the room I’m you know
I’m not tuning my own horn I’m just saying I’m good because I practice it is you got you can make things simple
and you have to humans need to understand very quickly what the value proposition is I mean cleaning your
house is like just a no-brainer it’s like mowing your the lawn service hey we mow your yard so
you don’t have to waste your time on Saturday spending three hours doing it or if you however big your yard is our
yard smart but you know it’s still getting out the lawnmower or cleaning up the grass trimming the stuff like paying
the guys a few hundred dollars a month to do that Jesus it’s like no brainer yeah it’s worth it where you and there’s
other complic I guess more complicated like hey we serve you a elegant dinner
so that you can eat good food and you don’t have to do the dishes I mean a lot of times Yvette and I eat
out I don’t know about you and Sergo yeah we do so that you don’t have to do the dishes I mean I know that sounds
crazy but you know it adds time so I don’t know
I’m trying to pull things out what other businesses are there there’s a hundred million businesses but whatever your business is whether it’s a
product or service you’ve got to be able to articulate that and I think you have to be able to articulate that quickly
especially in a recession because people are thinking twice about how to spend
their money yeah it’s true and to answer your point about taking care of your customers
Brandon like we much before obviously a recession stuff like we have a loyalty
program um and during a time like right now people we have had a few clients on the
residential side say you know what as of right now you know our mortgage rates
are going up and this and that so we’re going to cut back on Services until next year or until you know things get a
little bit easier the price of gas has caused us to not be able to do this whatever it may be cool but then the ones that have that
have thought about it maybe they can’t necessarily afford it but our loyalty program for example like
every service they get points every single thing if they pay their invoice on time like it’s a whole system again a
system and a process that we have in place to be able to have that and even when people are stressing about money I
saw the email this morning I quickly logged into the company email and one lovely lady she redeemed or she got her
points and she was so happy she said this is such a nice surprise um on a crappy Saturday morning whatever
her crappy Saturday morning looks like but she saw it and she was so happy and she’s a loyal client and it just makes
people feel that much better um especially during times as such when
they may be thinking about cutting services I mean unless that they are completely like strapped for cash but
when people are like do I really need to spend three four hundred dollars a month on this if they feel like you guys are bringing
value to them they have that customer service they can call and talk to somebody at any time they have a loyalty
program um rewards things like that it’ll definitely help and that just goes with your customer service uh pitch there I
agree I think the loyalty programs are good I think it can be tough to implement that it could be too late when
you’re in the recession it’s never too late but one thing you can do and I was reading a scientific study and I don’t
know if it was in the Journal of retailing forget which one Danielle but
or maybe it was just in general psychology journal A I forget anyway academic
Journal real study and it shows that unexpected gifts
have exponentially more uh positive response
than an expected gift so what that means is
is if you took invested some sales and marketing money into sending your
customers some thank you and I think a mistake that people make is
what they do is they send a chotsky with their freaking logo on it yeah seriously right like and and then
the only thing that I think I don’t know about listeners out there you’re laughing Danielle because you know it’s
true right is I throw that out so fast there you go like like that that
didn’t that didn’t help me what you and what happens is there’s this mindset of I need to Market I want to keep people
like giving me a magnet for my refrigerator that I don’t put on my refrigerator anymore any magnets
with your address on it unless you’re a plumber literally or an electrician
maybe but probably not probably Plumbing is the only one that I literally would even think about putting on there
I’m using that as an example I don’t know why but the like if you’re gonna so
send someone an unexpected gift send them chocolate
and I know there’s a risk maybe they don’t like dark chocolate maybe they don’t eat chocolate maybe you know they’re they
don’t that’s fine chocolate is going to be well better received than a magnet or some chotsky I
don’t know what else do they send it uh that was some they always sending with their with their logo on it that
just doesn’t do me anything do me any good so reset your mindset
how would this benefit them one thing that my brother and I did when we were running our
clothing company which is still exists but I wouldn’t say it’s not a life
support it’s just been put aside because it takes a long time to build a brand but we would include in every order
a packet of M MS and that’s cute everybody
I mean everybody loves that when there’s uh this mic flag which people
who aren’t watching on YouTube can’t see but Mike flag is one of those Square things that you see on the news that has
the news station on it and you can get a made they send high-end chocolates with every
single order and I mean truly high-end you know expensive chocolate I don’t know if it sees candy or something like
that I don’t know if you have seeds but seeds is a California big candy company but good chocolate and
so send your people and send your people say they are your people send your customers an unexpected and unexpected
gift that benefits them not that of course they’re here the irony is is that
people think they need to put their logo on all this stuff I think you and I have used like four times the word but
true though because it is crap and like I’ve been clenching here because it’s
like we do a lot of golf tournaments right for example fundraising golf tournaments and they’ll say okay you
sponsored it so you can put your swag the bag at the end of the day for me goes right in the effing dumpster and
I’m sorry to any of my colleagues or partners that I’ve done golf tournaments with before that could potentially be
listening to this but like my notebooks like for example my notebooks are plain black leather
bound nice notebooks I don’t want a notebook from somebody that has Joe’s
Plumbing on the front of it great it’s a notebook that I will write in but it will stay probably in my
Dungeon Because I’m not going to use it so I throw it same with coffee mugs I
don’t want a coffee mug with you know McDonald’s logo on it granted it’s a coffee mug but I’m not gonna walk around
with a coffee I’m gonna push back on the coffee mug I actually think the coffee mug can be cooled so I’m gonna if you’re
watching on YouTube you’re gonna see this if you’re listening to the podcast you’re not and you should go to our
YouTube channel And subscribe but this is a mug Tommy tsunami I’m gonna put it
up there so you can see Tommy tsunami is a surf school and a they’re building I’m working with these guys they’re a
Lifestyle brand here in Half Moon Bay really cool guys they’re big Peter and Thomas are big wave Surfers and they run
a surf school with a surf camp for kids in the summer he gave me a mug because I actually
wanted the freaking mug but it’s a cool mug and it’s not I’m going to use this mug as an example
you can tell me if I’m crazy Danielle you might throw it out but um if it’s not Gucci
Gucci if it’s not Louis Vuitton or some but um you know I don’t like Gucci
or Louie so you throw that okay well then what what is your brand
are you I usually like YSL okay if it’s not YSL you’re gonna throw it out but
here’s my here’s my point here’s my point my point is is that this mug does have
Tommy Tsunami Surf school on the mug but it’s on a VW bus and it’s a cool effing
drawing if if you live at the beach which we do here in Half Moon Bay this is a mug that’s cool and my point is it
delivers more value so I actually am using it and and you can make the mug functional but
if they just put Tommy Tsunami Surf school on here yes it’s probably effing getting tossed
so don’t waste your marketing money on these things I had a I just the mug
thing I don’t disagree with you about all the other like the bags I do use if
the bag can be used as a res um a grocery store bag
the whale the whale man Wellman Foundation which is this really cool guy who runs we give money to save the
whales and he worked on the Dolphins that were being slaughtered in Japan and he’s got like Pierce Bronson and
a bunch of stars who helped support it he’s a one-man show I love him
he gave us bags for something I was like Jesus effing bags and but but the bags
are the best grocery store bags because they’re not stapled
bags like they’re all one piece of material so they can carry heavy my
point is like I know there’s a what are those companies Danielle that you can buy all this stuff from I don’t know
what it’s called but you they’re like printing companies and logo for you and whatever it is right pick a product that
actually is going to help or prick a product that’s not even related sending a bag of M M’s in a fishing clothing
company’s bag makes no sense other than just to make you happy so when a customer gets out they’re like
oh these guys are just happy people your immediate reaction when I said it was oh that’s cute
right I mean that’s the reaction you’re looking for I had a I’m not gonna
I’ll mention it I’m not going to mention their names back back when we were doing news when we got into doing an uh the
print newsletter that I write we had a service that would help write it and I
did that just to get started and they sent us which I was really grateful for this
welcome bag and I know we’re a little off topic but I don’t think we are because sending
people unexpected gifts in a recession can be the difference between retention and not
yep so they send us this box of stuff uh let’s go I’m gonna do this out of my
memory Danielle because it was that striking to me about this point of is it valuable notebook with their logo on it
well on my own FN logo if I have any logo on my notebook right you like a plane and
your logo is I want plain thing I used to use moleskin notebooks before I
switched to good notes on my iPad and I would put our logo as a sticker on the
front of a black notebook right like why am I advertising for this company then they send us like pencils and pens which
is the sort of the standard and I’d have gotten to the point where they get thrown out because they’re cheap pens or
something and then the they sent socks
and I was like well this is interesting but here’s the problem the freaking socks have their logo on it
like why wouldn’t you send me like some cool socks with a lightning bolt or I make you got the lightning bolt I’m just
I’m just staying I don’t have to be a lightning bolt but put something cool on
there that that I look at that and then remember their brand because it was cool
everybody who got a lateral line shirt back then remembered it wasn’t the M Ms
that’s even someone else’s brand it was they remembered the brand because it was something fun and cool I remember this
mic flag that they just got free promotion although I didn’t say their name because I can’t remember but they
got free promotion because of the high-end chocolate so
send people an unexpected gift I want to say one more thing and I’ll before I forget because I told you before we got
on here I’m coming off caffeine I feel like again but um I had a relapse when I was on that
trip to Dallas but he I was thinking to myself about that
Danielle like so here you know people say about price manipulation do you know that at McDonald’s here in the United
States a small medium and large Diet Coke or iced tea is all a dollar
we have that too dollar drink days every day here so I was thinking I told Yvette
like it wouldn’t have been bad if I got the diet coke because I didn’t have my tea which has about 35 grams of caffeine
which I’m fine with in the morning you know I don’t go home for that anyway the I don’t want to lose my train of
thought the other thing that you can do I had a I have a friend
and I don’t want to say the name of his company because I want to say how much revenue he has and
just to give an idea because people here’s what people are going to say Danielle when I say this there’s no way
we can do that Brandon I have too many customers you’re gonna probably say that too
and I and I would say it until I talk to him and his company does
probably 12 to 15 million in Revenue okay technology company fine
price point lower so has a lot of customers has some Enterprise customers but definitely a lower price point so
when I say lower price point under thirty dollars a sub to give you an idea how many Subs it
takes to get to 12 to 15 million in Revenue
the entire one month ninety percent of his time he dedicated
to reaching out to customers like literally calling them on the phone because you you take their credit card
you have their phone number yeah and having a five or ten minute
a 10-minute discussion and if you’re listening to this and saying well that’s not possible Brandon no it’s possible
and if it’s not possible it may be your own fault if you have a company that’s doing
5 million plus and you can’t take a month to talk to your customers then you
have not built your organization to scale I would argue that maybe four or three I don’t
I I think that’s important regardless um I don’t disagree I’m just trying to
say it like now is a time where you could just spend time even if you allocated three hours a day
or two hours a day during this recession thing and that might for you it might
turn someone from wanting to churn to not
right like yeah so it all goes back to lean into your customers give them something that’s
unexpected and you imagine that they get a call from you they’re like oh man they
you know then they’re going to tell five friends Danielle actually called me
and and it’s true I can totally validate that um if we have an issue in the company
I deal with it does it suck that I have to deal with all the crap yes but people
have said to me many times wow I didn’t expect you to like the CEO to actually reach out and deal with this shitty
little issue um whether that’s an employee or whether that is a client even on the residential
division like I typically don’t deal with that anymore um we have other people too but if there’s an issue even if it is something
so minor as like a discrepancy on an invoice for sixty dollars an hour I will
call them I will smooth it out and I will deal with it and people will like
even we’ve had people that have tried to cancel Services over one shitty little stupid thing because they have so much
more going on and we just kind of tipped it over the ice over the edge for them they after speaking with me and I’ve
smoothed it out and they are so happy that the CEO of this company that they’ve worked with for years have
reached out to deal with it by the end of it we’re laughing and they think that we’re the best thing in the world and their services have actually just went
up to like weekly Services instead of bi-weekly so it helps for sure to have
that and I’ll give you an example of even anybody listening if you’re listening to a company this big thank
you for listening the my mom was talking about something with cars
and I think she has a Chevy I think the CEO of Chevy Chevrolet is a woman I can’t remember
it’s a woman CEO of one of those I think it’s Chevrolet or Ford or was and she wrote to the woman about a
problem that she had had in her previous car now this is a multi-billion dollar
company and the lit I just remember it was a lady CEO she wrote back to my mom with a
personal letter and gave my mom a discount to get a new car and said that
if there was any problems to contact her now and I’m telling you my mom did not
have some con somebody who knew this woman CEO of a multi-billion dollar
there’s only a few car manufacturers in the world right I mean so
and this woman I don’t know how many times she does that I don’t know let’s is it Chevrolet is the woman’s you know
see you Chevy I don’t know that I can’t yeah it
is it’s Mary Barra and she sent my mom a freaking letter um and game and that’s amazing discount
and on if she purchased a new car which she did and now my mom tells everybody
about it and I don’t know if Mary does this for a hundred customers a month or no you know that was a one-off I’d have
to be hard for me to believe it was a one-off maybe yeah I don’t know long
long story short is this is a woman who runs a you know a multi-billion dollar car
manufacturing company and and does that and see the impact so if
you’re listening and your initial reaction was I don’t have time Brandon I can’t do that my my response to you is
you can’t afford not to do this not to
yep agreed 100 and you know that all of those points that we just gave I know we
were talking about branding and marketing and customer service but it still ties into recession-proofing your
business if you have a strong business that is known for customer service
you’re gonna be much better off um dealing with covid recession whatever it may be
um so I think those are all valid points and we can definitely extend those into another episode even um again even back to the golf course
and like just down to your logos and The Branding there um and actually I’ll put to that about
what we do because we sponsored that golf course as well or that golf tournament sorry I didn’t do something
stupid for every freaking bag that was people were gonna throw out
I’m gonna be honest we did cupcakes so a little backstory about this and then we
can end our show Britain but it’s good for people to know and what their clients are going to like it’s an
emotional thing so we were doing this golf tournament for um a small community here they were
raising money for a splash pad for the kids so we had donated uh funds and
sponsored it and everybody that sponsored it did something for this stupid bag that again majority of people
throw out or they just leave in their garage or in the back of their car until they clean up their car so because of
this was being done through covid we couldn’t do a meal like we would normally do after the tournament in the
clubhouse because of the covid regulations so everybody was getting their meal on their golf course on their
golf cart out and it was like a box that they could snack out of well nobody was getting dessert because of this right
like the the whole tournament couldn’t do a dessert so we did cupcakes so we
did a couple cake just a plain old chocolate cupcake and again maybe people don’t like chocolate cupcakes but the
amount of social media presents we got just advertising from that because we
put one on every seat of the golf cart as a chocolate cupcake it had green fondant on it and a golf ball and on the
front it just said um cupcakes or dessert sponsored was domestic Divas cleaning Co right there so if people
were taking a picture of this cupcake our logo was right there on the box and we got so much social media attraction
from that and it cost us the same as if we would have put a stupid pen in the
bag with our logo on it the people we’re gonna throw out so it really did to make
a difference you’re gonna get I didn’t even dawn me but it is true how many pictures are you gonna get posted on
social media from hey domestic Divas cleaning company just gave us cupcakes versus a pen or some other
thing in the bag and you know maybe there’s some value to that but how many you know I’m not
going to post like this is the coolest pen unless if you’re gonna put a pen in there make it the coolest make it the
coolest pen like not yeah and I think what it lights up yeah I think what happens is that the marketing department
in companies get incentivized by saying they did X to get
the name out and they didn’t they don’t get incentivized to
give things to customers that add value to their already existing lives and and
in many ways that sort of our fault as CEOs and presidents and leaders and
managers to incentivize them the wrong way but the I think you just have to switch your
mindset but it it all goes back to the discussion that we are having here about how to Recession Proof and we sort of
went down this rabbit hole but I I think it was worth it mainly because while you do need to understand your
finances while you do need to really think about the value that you are
adding while you do need to get some sort of line of credit or get money when you don’t need it
didn’t yours and mine overlap what were your two and I said to make sure that you have a
service that’s um like an Alaska an inelastic debate well that’s hard if you if you have
another business I don’t disagree with that but the other thing you said is multiple lines of income multiple lines of business not one line with you you
have residential and Commercial and Commercial got you through the recession uh or covid whatever you want to call it
the the so have have that but the one like
magical thing is right now is just Delight your customers
in with something unexpected which they will not expect generally with all this
recession talk and just say thank you and don’t put your logo all over it don’t give me a sticker with your logo
like that that’s all about you it’s it’s sort of like when people give
their elevator pitch Danielle I can’t tell you how many people the first thing I hear out of their mouth is
hi I’m Brandon and I’m I have 50 degrees and this is I don’t care all I care
about is one problem are you solving for me and if you articulate that well
enough then I’ll ask you what your credential is or I just won’t care
and I think that’s the mindset I used as an example to give a pack of M M’s
chocolate I don’t know what else can you give give listeners an idea a coffee mug if it’s a cool coffee mug instead of you
know it would be cool is like win the day or uh something that motivational
and then don’t put your logo huge on one side like actually make it small
so that the so that the value is that with a mug oh or I don’t know what else
you could give I think food is a great thing send everybody a cupcake I mean I don’t care if they like chocolate or
not man like it’s just they’ll take a picture of it and they’ll post it on
media even if you don’t like the chocolate cupcake I I would do that
we also do a um a lot of e-gift cards um so part of our loyalty program once
they hit a certain amount of points they can get um a Starbucks gift card and an Amazon
or an Amazon gift card so Starbucks make it where you can put your logo on it so
90 of people I know they all use the Starbucks app so once you get an e-gift
card you can just attach it to your app so now when people get this in their email and it was worth the money again
it’s another Instagram thing uh or social media thing when people get it in their email you know thanks so much for
being a loyal client of domestic Divas cleaning code this one’s on us it’s a 25 Starbucks gift card and on it is a
Starbucks gift card but then you can actually put your logo on it so then when they pull up their Starbucks app
like I’ll show you for anybody again who’s watching um when they pull it up
mine’s a little different but when you can see you may not be able to see it but the gift card is at the top here and
so every time they pull it up to go and scan at Starbucks our logo is going to be there so it’s not something lame or
physical that they have to carry around that they may go oh why is this logo here but they’re going to see it every time they order their coffee
I think that’s good get gift cards are always fun to get I think if you
actually sent them the gift card in the mail it might have more of an impact believe it or not
like I agree that it’s just something that we have to do right but these um
anything like that that are just unexpected you send somebody a cup of coffee I actually somebody gave me one of those
speaking of that and I was like you know I don’t go to Starbucks but you know what still it was just it wasn’t related
to their business and and it was just thought right like
it just thought yeah so I think that’s what um leaning into your existing customers
is really what this is all about because that’s what you’re really scared of
you’re really scared of losing your existing customers that will even put you more in a hole and they’re the
easiest low-hanging fruit to take care of versus getting a lead turning the lead
over to sales getting sales to convert the lead I mean that’s a lot of time
money and effort versus you already got these customers and it may not even work out yeah right so
I think this was uh really helpful if you enjoyed this episode please leave a comment or write us our emails are in
the show notes and anything else that we might have left out that we want to
leave anybody with uh I just think that people need to really think about it
um and if you haven’t thought about it before if covet wasn’t enough of a wake-up call um recessions are
going to happen they are a cycle of business uh cycles and economics
um so just make sure your company is prepared to take those things on that’s all I have to say well I think that’s
great advice if you’re listening to our podcast please hit subscribe if you’re watching on our YouTube Channel please
hit subscribe so that you don’t miss any of our upcoming shows Danielle have a
good move I know we’re talking this week but in the meantime have a good move and thanks everyone
thanks everyone have a good weekend
