In this very special edition of Small Biz Buzz, hosts Crystal Heuft and Scott Martineau are joined by Keap CEO Clate Mask, who talks about overcoming challenges small businesses are encountering right now during the coronavirus pandemic and the different opportunities, processes and systems entrepreneurs can leverage to adapt and keep their startups alive. Tune in for more.
Transcript:
Crystal Heuft (00:10):
I would say it really highlighted the fact that I haven't done too many things, technically, for years. And it reminds me how old I am when it takes Dusey three screen shares and remote control access to get my podcast going here. That was a slap in the face. My first real slap in the face since having to work from home.
Scott Martineau (00:31):
Because we always have guests that are remote frequently, but we're not remote so this is all new.
Crystal Heuft (00:37):
Yeah, it's definitely when you realize you're just the talent, and you're actually not doing anything important, when you're like, "It's so much easier to just stand in front of a mic and keep going."
Scott Martineau (00:49):
Don't say that your lack of technical knowledge means you're not important, Crystal.
Crystal Heuft (00:54):
Well, definitely, all it would be is someone who makes semi funny comments on the regular to a small group, unless Dusey and Derek could put it out. So, what about you, Scott?
Scott Martineau (01:04):
Well, semi-funny people need to be heard.
Crystal Heuft (01:06):
What's been funny working from home?
Scott Martineau (01:07):
Well, I think two things. But one, I just get a kick out of my 16-year-old son Cooper who is... So we're in quarantine right now, because we were in the UK when coronavirus broke out, so we're in 14-day self-isolation quarantine.
Scott Martineau (01:21):
Cooper has decided he's going to try to go the entire 14 days without putting a shirt on. It's so funny. So, yesterday, he's out and they are, my boys are just like, they are dying. So they're out shooting BB guns, trying to find anything they can to shoot. And he's out there, he got burned yesterday because we allowed him to go in the backyard and anyway, fascinating.
Scott Martineau (01:44):
And then my second favorite was our, first time I've ever done it, but an entire family yoga session this morning, which was amazing. And you had on the one side, my wife who looks amazing doing yoga, and then you have me on the other book end, and our kids kind of fill in between. But anyway, I'm loving it. I think there's totally fascinating dynamics that are changing, and it's just a really exciting time.
Crystal Heuft (02:10):
That's funny. So we have Clate here today. Clate Mask, our CEO and co-founder. And Scott to you, he's family. So Clate, what's the funniest thing that's been happening to you since working from home?
Scott Martineau (02:24):
So Clate, what's the most exciting thing going on in the Mask home these days?
Clate Mask (02:30):
I think to me it's just the fact that, for about a decade Charisse and I had been saying we need to slow down our lives. Things need to slow down, and we haven't been able to do that. And this has totally slowed things down. It's beautiful. We've had a ton of fun discovering some new games, and doing puzzles at night with our kids. And the fact that there aren't a million activities and different things we're running to every night is awesome. Love it.
Crystal Heuft (02:58):
Yeah, I to say it has been positive, refocusing on what matters. I've been getting all my workouts in, and it's been so easy to come after the day of work, be able to go ahead and just start cooking a healthy meal. And to be honest, I've had no problems getting any produce at the grocery store. It seems like no one wants vegetables in a time like this. So it's been really healthy for me.
Crystal Heuft (03:21):
And I think, we never want these things to happen, but it has been a good reflection of, okay, maybe you do need to take some things out of your life that aren't necessary. Because you're actually getting a lot of things towards your goals completed, when you just have more time on your hands, which I'm sure small businesses can identify with a hundred thousand percent more than me. But I've even noticed it, just by not having to drive into work, or be at an office. I can take advantage of my lunch break, and it's been a good re-centering for me.
Crystal Heuft (03:51):
So Scott, do you have any positives over there?
Scott Martineau (03:55):
You didn't think, I thought those were positives, come on Crystal.
Crystal Heuft (03:59):
Well, I felt like it was more of a funny situation that your teenage kids are running around shirtless for 14 days.
Scott Martineau (04:07):
I love the vantage point. I think a lot of times I'll be like, I realized this yesterday, I was coming out of my office, my office attached to my bedroom, and I was thinking to myself, "Okay, I'm wondering which kids are going to be around." That's a common, "Who's friends am I competing with right now?" And I just had this moment, it was like, "Oh, they're all mine." I love it. It's fantastic. They don't love it.
Scott Martineau (04:32):
No, we're all having a good time. But yeah, I love the ability to be present and yeah, it's just, I don't know how to describe it, we're only four days into our quarantine, so I'm sure honeymoon period's going to wear off. We'll have to get more creative, but I love the just being able to be present.
Scott Martineau (04:51):
So today what we're going to do is, we wanted to have this special edition, because we want to focus specifically on, you're a small business owner. Every business owner is being impacted by this in one way or another. Some are experiencing a lot of impact to their businesses. Others maybe not as much. But we wanted to just use this as an opportunity to talk about some lessons that we've seen, both from our past, and Clate and I will talk about some of the storms like this that we've weathered before.
Scott Martineau (05:21):
Currently some of the things, and we'll share the way that we process this, and the way that we're reacting. And then we also want to talk about some pretty cool things that we're seeing other small businesses do. And you know, hopefully in our conversation today, you as a business owner, can learn from any of these lessons, and of course, as always, apply those to your situation. And our overall hope is that this home edition of Small Biz Buzz is going to give you some ideas that you can use to turn lemons into lemonade, so.
Crystal Heuft (05:54):
Yeah, and we called the big guns in today. We've got both founders. I don't know how I lucked out to be in this room, but I'm really excited to talk to both of you. And I actually heard something really interesting today, on our partner Facebook live, that I had never really thought about, because you don't really think about those times once they're passed. But Dave, our partner guru over there, was calling out the fact that Infusionsoft doubled business during the lowest point of the economy around 2008. I'm not sure if I've got those stats completely right, but I mean, you guys have a history of being able to grow a business, at a time most people struggle and can't really identify where there are opportunities.
Crystal Heuft (06:34):
So can we just talk about that for a second? Like this time period right now could be an opportunity for any small business listening right now, right?
Clate Mask (06:44):
Yeah, no doubt. And thanks for calling that out. Nobody likes to be in a recession, certainly nobody wants to have something like this pandemic occurring. But we do know that if we focus on serving, and if we really work hard to be creative and innovative, then you can absolutely continue to grow throughout challenges like this. And I think that's the biggest thing is a lot of times in a recession people say, "Oh you can't grow."
Clate Mask (07:16):
While this is an unprecedented event, there's certainly been events like it in the past in terms of taking down the economy, and causing all kinds of problems. So I think it starts with the state of mind, and then it goes to the innovation and creativity, and the ways that you respond, and recognize opportunities to serve others and create solutions to problems that people are facing.
Scott Martineau (07:44):
Clate I want to go back. I just had this memory flash, and if I'm not mistaken, you and I, in 2008, when everything went the way that it did, you and I were out on the road raising capital, right?
Clate Mask (07:58):
That's right.
Scott Martineau (07:59):
And I remember we were, I don't know if we had just gone to pitch to one of the VCs or we were about to, but I remember we got this email and it wasn't just, "Hey, here's what's happening in the market." It was one of the top VCs just gathered everybody together, and basically spewed out this doom and gloom about how horrible this was going to be, and basically advised everybody to stop, put the brakes on, because this is not a time to be investing.
Scott Martineau (08:28):
And I'm sure I have some of the details off, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. And specifically, and obviously that time was different. It was purely, I think the economy, not the health scare that we have today with the coronavirus, but let's walk through, how do you process something like that, right? I mean, because that could be a crippling experience for a CEO, who's going out to try to raise capital.
Scott Martineau (08:58):
But how do you take something like that, that might cripple one person, but how do you process it? What's the process you go through?
Clate Mask (09:05):
Yes well you know, I mentioned a minute ago, it's a state of mind. And what we found in running the business during a prior recession, is that where most people get gripped by fear, entrepreneurs recognize opportunities. And the thing I love about entrepreneurs, I love serving entrepreneurs as our customers, and partners that we work with, and we certainly consider ourselves to be entrepreneurs.
Clate Mask (09:38):
But the thing about entrepreneurs is they don't have time to be, it's just not an option to get mired in all of the problems and challenges that people are caught up in. That doesn't mean you don't recognize them, pay attention to them. In fact, you totally do, because you need to adapt to those things. So Scott when we went through this through a recession before, and I don't want to say that this situation is exactly the same as it was a decade ago, because certainly we're dealing with a pandemic, and a really shocking jolt, that not only has the medical and health implications and consequences, but then a pretty significant economic consequence.
Clate Mask (10:30):
But the fact is, if we play, if entrepreneurs were to play into all of the facts and data and news that's being shared, it's paralyzing. It's paralyzing to innovation. It's paralyzing to productivity, and so you just can't do that. As an entrepreneur we couldn't be successful as entrepreneurs, if we allowed that to be the case. So while others will just bury themselves in the calamities that are going on around us, we can't do that as entrepreneurs.
Clate Mask (11:07):
I like to say entrepreneurs are not just early adopters, they're early adapters. And they'll adapt quickly, and they'll make adjustments. And so generally speaking, that's what we do. Now specifically, what does that look like? Well, a decade ago, Scott, we pivoted very quickly on the message that we shared with investors. Two weeks ago in our company we pivoted very quickly on the message we shared with customers and prospects.
Clate Mask (11:35):
When you have sales and marketing software, a common message that you're sharing is, "Hey, come grow with us." Well while we certainly recognize that growth is possible, but we also want to adjust the message a little bit, and land in the conversation that's happening in the minds of our prospect. And what's that conversation? "I got to do more with less. I've got to put systems in place. Now might be a good time for me to actually work on some of the things in my business I wasn't able to do."
Clate Mask (12:09):
So Scott, we pivoted very quickly a couple of weeks ago to share the message around, doing more with less, and working on your business, working on your marketing, working on your systems, and your automation and your followup. And that's just an example of how entrepreneurs need to adapt very quickly.
Crystal Heuft (12:28):
Okay, so one of the things you guys have recently been doing is we really have put an emphasis on making sure we are helping our customers work on their business. You guys recently have been doing a series of webinars and automation hours for our customers, so really expanding to not just help our own customers, but also small businesses, with education topics that they can use to also further their own business and their own efforts.
Crystal Heuft (12:52):
So how have those been going? What kind of topics have you guys been focused on, and what tips are you sharing with all of our customers, and other small business owners out there, to really make sure they're working on their business?
Scott Martineau (13:04):
Well let me actually back up, because I was a few days into my vacation, when I got a text from Clate on my wife's phone, because I bought a SIM card in the UK, so I wasn't getting the text on mine and it was like, "Hey I need to talk to Scott." So we're over in the UK, and the UK was just like, the first several days it was like, "Yeah, we're going to practice herd immunity, no big deal. Let's let everybody get it, whatever." And I didn't want to be disturbed, so I'm kind of annoyed. Anyway, I called Clate up, and he's like, "Dude, have you been watching the news?" I'm like, "No, not really, we're aware of coronavirus obviously, but not aware of everything going on."
Scott Martineau (13:42):
So anyway, he shared with me some of the updates and said, "Look, here's what I want to do." And I want to just call out the point here to take away is, seasons like this are seasons to be decisive. Part of the paralysis that can come into play is like, "Oh, what should we do, and can we do that?" Whatever.
Scott Martineau (14:00):
Anyway, so I was just super impressed. Clate said, "Look, I have five things that I want to do, and I want to get your thoughts on these. Number one, I want to create a keep going fund, where we're going to give away essentially grants to small businesses who are being affected by the coronavirus." Then he went through the other, I won't go through everything, but the others were essentially us focusing on helping businesses who are in this challenging place, and us putting ourselves out there.
Scott Martineau (14:28):
So we've been doing our Conquer the Chaos webinars, we'll be doing life cycle marketing webinars next week. We started to do automation hours, where we allowed businesses who are maybe they don't have as much going on right now, to take advantage of that time to go automate their business. And we also had office hours, where we were basically taking this opportunity to have a group inside of our company, who doesn't normally do consultative type work with our customers, to get in front of our customers more.
Scott Martineau (14:59):
So basically it was awesome. It was awesome to hear all the things that Clate was recommending that we do. And it was like truly turning lemons into lemonade, because it was both using the time of decisiveness to have us do things that we've been intending to do for a while, but also trying to benefit our customers. And I've felt a huge outpouring from our customers, who have felt that, and it's times like this where you just have to make some decisions that are different than what you'd do in the normal day. But getting to that place of decision is probably the most important thing.
Crystal Heuft (15:33):
So are there questions that small business owners can be asking themselves, to really make sure that at this time they're still serving their audience and their customer base, both ones that already know who they are and further?
Clate Mask (15:48):
Well, I think you know the question Crystal, are they still serving? The answer is "Now's the time to serve more than ever." This is the opportunity to give and serve, and you're going to do it for lower fees, and lower prices than you may have done before. But this is where building relationships with your prospects and customers shines through.
Clate Mask (16:12):
This is where you get an opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to them, and for us, we just focused immediately on our purpose to help small businesses succeed. And our mission to simplify growth for millions. And our values, our number one value is we genuinely care. So what businesses need to do, and what entrepreneurs should be looking at is, "Hey, how can I serve? Let me just be in the posture of serving and giving, and helping."
Clate Mask (16:45):
And by doing that, not only do you get out of a place of fear, because you can't serve and be fearful at the same time, it just doesn't work. You give yourself, you give your company, and your service to others, and it gets you out of that place of fear.
Clate Mask (16:59):
But more importantly, it just creates opportunity. It builds relationship. You will see products and services that you could have offered in the past, that you didn't, I mean this is what we've experienced here in just the last 10 days in our company. Scott's exactly right, within 24 hours of Thursday morning we all came to work and it was like, "Whoa, what just happened last night?"
Clate Mask (17:24):
The NBA sports league shut down, and March madness went away, and the pandemic had been declared, just within a few hours prior, and everything changed on Thursday. So we huddled on Thursday, figured out a few things that we could do, finalized on Friday morning in a meeting where we all got together, and then we just mobilized and went to work, putting in place these five keep going programs that Scott referred to. But all of those were born out of "How can we serve? What can we do? How can we go help our customers to be successful? Our purpose is to help small businesses succeed, so let's go. This is a beautiful opportunity to do it."
Clate Mask (18:03):
And I just think that whatever your purpose is as an entrepreneur, what your mission is, the thing that lights you up, you may not have it written on the walls or whatever. You might be a solopreneur, but there's a fire inside of you that that drives you to serve, and be useful to your customers and prospects. And this is the opportunity to do that, to tap into that, crank it up, and just help and serve. And the beautiful thing about it, like I say, it creates all kinds of innovation. We're seeing that happen in our company, it's a ton of fun.
Crystal Heuft (18:35):
It is fun. I mean for us, we've been having these webinars, I just want to give them some idea of how you identify your purpose, and then how you can serve still in this climate. For us it was, "Okay, we know our purpose is to help small businesses succeed. So what we're going to do is pour a lot into helping both of our customers use the product to help their businesses succeed, and then help all small businesses with topics that we know can enrich their business right now."
Crystal Heuft (19:03):
So that's what we did. The other thing I think we've done, is we've all seen great examples out there, outside of what we're doing, of companies that have, companies or even just personal brands, that have taken it to another level, considering what's been thrown at them.
Crystal Heuft (19:21):
So I thought maybe we could, as a way to get everyone listening, brainstorming and thinking how they can do this for their business, I thought maybe we could share some of the cool things we've seen from other businesses in the last 10 days, and how quickly they're adapting, just to get everyone going. So do one of you want to go first? Or do you want me to share? Because I have a really exciting one that was so fun yesterday.
Clate Mask (19:44):
Let's go for it. Let's share a bunch rapid fire. I'd say I'm seeing them all over the place. I'm sure we all are.
Crystal Heuft (19:49):
Okay, so yesterday you won't even believe it. I was at a dance party, with Michelle Obama, a bunch of R&B stars from the 90s, and all because this one DJ has been doing these live house parties, and it's like, "Okay, who will be hit during this time?" Anyone who goes to events, who is going to events or clubs or big outings? A DJ. This DJ had over 50,000 people listening to his sets, and dancing on Instagram live, and I just feel like I can't even believe it. And he identified it and linked it to a purpose he has, which is he wanted more registered voters. So DJ D-Nice out there, you wouldn't even believe the celebrities he has, like he's been doing these I think every day, and he's getting thousands of people watching.
Crystal Heuft (20:38):
So just an idea of not only did he identify something he's passionate about, his music and the voting, but he has been able to get all this growth of people knowing who he is. I followed him on Spotify now, because I was like "I love what he's doing." And it was so positive. He went through all the decades. I couldn't even believe it. So there's one I have, I have more, but I'm going to pass it on to Clate, because I know you shared a good one with me the other day too.
Clate Mask (21:05):
I've seen dozens of them, I don't know which one it was that I shared with you, but I'll share a new one I just saw. One of our customers teaches, has curriculum and programs to help young kids learn music theory. And she's got an established curriculum, with hundreds of teachers that teach this stuff. And she quickly created last week, a whole program, or a whole training set around good hygiene, and so she wrote a song about it, did a recording on it, and created the visuals, and all of the stuff to teach these kids this good hygiene.
Clate Mask (21:45):
Well what does that do? It enabled all of the teachers to have a really meaningful and relevant lesson, that they could offer to their students remotely, at a time when it might be easy to say, "Oh well, you know what, we're going to shut down our classes."
Clate Mask (22:05):
So that's just an example. I've got a bunch more I'm happy to rattle through, but Scott, I'll give you, let's just pass the baton around, and give people ideas on how they can adjust their products and services, specifically right now during coronavirus.
Scott Martineau (22:20):
We have a lot of customers of our software that are in the fitness industry, and as you can imagine, getting the message that you got to shut your gym's a big deal. And I saw this thing take part over a few days, over about three days, where I saw an initial response that one of our clients, a gym owner, gave to one of our saying, "Hey, with his coronavirus I'm basically being shut down. I can't do this right now. I've got to stop." We are working on a little project with him. And then I heard yesterday, I was on the phone with that same employee who had reconnected, and he said you'll never guess what happened, but Mike basically in a matter of two days transformed his studio.
Scott Martineau (23:01):
He has an obstacle course training studio in San Diego. He said he completely transformed the fitness studio into a video studio, and he's now broadcasting to everybody at home, right. Obviously exercise is critical for all those people. He was a little nervous at first, because it's a high end solution, and was concerned that people would not appreciate it. But he's been hearing a great outpouring of appreciation from his customers, because of his quick innovation. And I need something like that to keep me from doing yoga, because it's not pretty.
Crystal Heuft (23:36):
I'm not great at yoga either Scott.
Clate Mask (23:38):
By the way, my CrossFit gym did the same thing Scott, it was awesome. They just really quickly began recording. They'd just record the workouts, send them out to everybody. They've got a Facebook group, they've got a GroupMe, they've got a bunch of different ways that people can be accountable, because that's a huge social connection. The accountability is a huge part of it for group fitness, like CrossFit. And it's been really fun to see how they've done it, it's been awesome.
Scott Martineau (24:04):
We've also, Clate and I have been doing these Conquer the Chaos webinars, and we're hearing every morning if people who are basically saying, "Look I am taking this opportunity to put in place, do all the things that I couldn't normally do, right. So I'm getting automation in place that I was just too busy to do before, and I'm just checking off the boxes on my list." So it's awesome to see that too.
Crystal Heuft (24:28):
Okay. So I've got another one. Cider Corps, I've talked about them before, they're my favorite local cidery in Mesa, Arizona, so some local love here. But Cider Corp, they do most of their business on tap typically. And they can every once in a while, if they make a big batch of something, but they had all these things already ready to go on tap.
Crystal Heuft (24:51):
What did they decide to do? They're canning individual orders, so you pre-order and they'll can it for you, and then you pick it up, call them when you're there and they bring it to your car. So they're really dependent on local people showing up and ready to drink, and they basically have adjusted that, to be able to make a to-go service through canning, and I just thought that was brilliant, and it's a good way to keep everyone thinking about you, while they can't necessarily go and consume.
Crystal Heuft (25:18):
So I thought that was a great way, as well as other restaurants serving to-go liquor. Not that I'm saying you should drink away your troubles at this time, but...
Scott Martineau (25:27):
But you got to have something to balance out all those veggies that are now available in the stores.
Crystal Heuft (25:32):
That's true. I would say you don't need it, but you just enjoy the taste of it. It's cool to see businesses reflecting, and seeing how they can quickly get back to you, even though their business was really a tap business. So I thought that was really cool.
Clate Mask (25:47):
I'll rattle off a few others Crystal. As Scott mentioned, we've got customers who are joining our webinars in the morning on Conquer the Chaos. We've got customers that'll call up and need services, and need help and assistance. We've got all kinds of partners stories as well.
Clate Mask (26:09):
We were talking today on the partner Facebook live about it, but you know, one that I loved was just what do you do when the governor of your state says you've got to be closed if you're a restaurant. You can deliver, that's one thing, and you can do a take out, and you can do drive through. And that works great if you're fast food. But what if you're casual dining, and a lot of what you offer is the casual dining experience. That's what you bank on.
Clate Mask (26:39):
Well one of my favorite restaurants that we go to occasionally, it's a little bit more of a casual dining. They just set up a makeshift drive through. They had cones in the parking lot, because the parking lot wasn't very full, and they had a little tent, and they had a little whiteboard that they had written on, and there was an attendee out there, and I just loved seeing that. It was just as just a scrappy, really quick way to keep business going, when you might think, "Oh shoot, we're up the creek."
Clate Mask (27:09):
Another one, we've got a partner who is in Italy, and they've been hit by this virus as much as anybody. But what he did is he adjusted really quickly his messaging, similar to what we did, and helped customers recognize, now's the time to work on your business, and put systems in place, and he is selling software and servicing that software, and finding opportunity to help customers at a time when it helps them to get their mind off of different things, and really put things in place in their business.
Clate Mask (27:44):
One more that I'll share with you. We've got a customer that has a karate dojo. He teaches karate, and obviously not being able to put groups together, and he felt like he was shut down. He called us to say, "Look, I'm done. I can't continue with Keap, I've got to cancel the software." And we had a conversation with him, and just said, "Look, there are things you can do. You can send out broadcast to your customers, this is a time you can build relationship, you can create virtual classes, you can do Zoom classes," and by the end of an hour-long call, he had a bunch of ideas of what he could do. He had a couple of specific things he was putting into action immediately. He was so grateful that he had hope, and he had a plan, and things that he could do to continue his business.
Clate Mask (28:36):
And we're seeing those kinds of situations all across our business, and entrepreneurs adapt.
Crystal Heuft (28:41):
It's amazing, I love it.
Clate Mask (28:41):
Once we get out of the fear, we adapt. We recognize ways we can solve problems for customers, because there you have customers who are sitting at home. They need the exercise, they want to have their mind. They want to take their mind off of the challenges that surround us. And he was able to reach out and communicate with them, in a way that would bring them into activity and exercise, even though they couldn't come into his dojo.
Clate Mask (29:06):
So those are just a few examples. I literally have dozens more we could go through. We have a Slack channel that we've called Conquer the Chaos. That's examples of the way customers have adapted and adjusted. It's so fun to see those come rolling in. And I know we all see them, but sharing those ideas and those adaptations, I think are just great fuel for the entrepreneur, in figuring out how to adjust their business.
Crystal Heuft (29:35):
So with that being said, are you two experts over here? How can we really bottle this all up for everyone who's listening? What would be the best way small businesses can stay afloat right now during this time? Go experts.
Scott Martineau (29:54):
Well, I think Clate, the repeating theme that Clate's been hitting on I think is the one, it's find the opportunity. And I'd say one of things I'm excited about is both the situational opportunities that people will find themselves during coronavirus, and the response that we have to make to that. But also that it strengthens the muscle of being able to find the opportunity on an everyday basis.
Scott Martineau (30:18):
And so I think it's about our whole focus this week, our Conquer the Chaos webinars has been on the mindset strategy. And we've taught people about the importance of essentially taking the stream of thoughts that are going to through your brain, which scientists say that there are somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 thoughts a day. And we taught a process of doing a daily thought download, where you just, in as raw as you can, write down every thought that you have, and this is a good time to be really judgmental, whatever's going on inside there, right. And just put it out there, it's a guilt free zone.
Scott Martineau (31:02):
And then to essentially use that opportunity to see what's going on. You know, the beautiful thing about us being humans, is we have the opportunity to actually intercept those thoughts, and evaluate them. Pull them out, look at them, shine a light on them and say, "Okay, how is that thought serving me?"
Scott Martineau (31:18):
And a lot of times a situation comes up, and we convince ourselves that that situation is creating this emotion that we have of fear or something. But in every single case there's a thought that we're choosing to have about the situation, that is what produces the emotion.
Scott Martineau (31:35):
And so being able to just slow down enough to inspect that, that's where the opportunity identification actually happens. You have to first find the thoughts that are not serving you, turn them off, and put your brain to work on seeking out the opportunities that are sitting there. And so I think there needs to be some proactive work that everybody's going to have to do, and maybe there's a little more of that work we do today, but it's the exact same process that will, when that muscle is built up, will benefit you tremendously after the specifics of coronavirus have died down.
Clate Mask (32:09):
Scott or Crystal, I think what Scott's sharing in terms of the positive mindset is critical. We can't be very effective in our business when we're in a place of fear, and we're not dealing effectively with the situations around us.
Clate Mask (32:22):
What we teach on the Conquer the Chaos webinars is about that. Now, once you get into a place of a positive mindset, what do you do? Let me give you a few just concrete things. If you've got a positive mindset and a servant heart, you are going to do amazing, because you're going to find different things that come up. How are you going to find them? Here's some concrete ways. Send out a message to your customers, whether that's by Facebook, whether it's by email, whether it's texting them. You can do it in broadcast. You can do it individually.
Clate Mask (32:53):
Find out how they're doing, and how you can serve them. How can you help them? You can create an automated way to have communication continue out to your customers, but build the communication. You can not only send out a communication, but you can also look at the offerings that you have right now, and say, "Okay, how might I adjust my offerings based on what people are going through?" You can simply ask them, just ask "What can I do for you? How can I help you?"
Clate Mask (33:27):
What you want to do is get into relationship building, because as you do that, you find the problems, and if you bring a servant heart to those problems, you're going to find opportunities. The challenge, and the reason why so many small businesses get stuck, is that they're thinking about "How do I make money? How do I make money? How do I make money?"
Clate Mask (33:47):
Totally understandable. We're all going to think that way at times, but the fear will drive us to say, "How do we make money?" And the positive mindset and a servant heart will cause us to say, "How can I help people? How can I serve?" And the solutions come out of that. By the way, the money comes out of that too, because you create solutions for people. They're willing to pay for them. You get paid, and you just have to be willing to not be compensated in the same way that you might've been two or three weeks ago.
Clate Mask (34:21):
But if you get out and serve, and you just give and you help, you will be fine as an entrepreneur, because you're going to see opportunities that will turn into very lucrative opportunities for your business. Opportunities to serve turn into opportunities, as far as generating revenue and cash. I guess, my desire as people go through this as entrepreneurs, as we all deal with this pandemic, is to say, "How can I serve?" And when we do that, good things happen.
Crystal Heuft (34:52):
Okay, so I'm going to make the tweetable. This is something Clate, you probably haven't heard yet, but this is what I like to do for anyone who's short of attention span. So hopefully I don't miss anything. You guys can correct me if I do.
Crystal Heuft (35:04):
But one, come at it with a positive mindset. Check your mindset at the door. Number two, you're going to want to make sure you're coming at it with a servant's heart, that you're serving the audience built around your purpose. Number three, you're going to adapt quickly. Number four, get creative. Number five, help your audience, just by nature of doing these things. And number six, make money, right? Number seven is that number six, number seven? So I think that's the tweetable version there, and I would definitely say number seven or eight, whichever number I was on, is going to be check these guys out on the webinars. They're really great. Follow us on Facebook at Keap. If you want to see any of the replays, we have them posted there, and we have all the current and upcoming ones on our events page of our Facebook. So whether you're a customer or not, come get involved with your community, and make sure you're getting the lessons to work on your business.
Crystal Heuft (36:02):
I did a plug for you guys, because these webinars have been so great, and we're looking at ways to make them evergreen, because I think it's such important content, no matter what time it is in anyone's business, whether we're going through this pandemic or not. So Scott did I wrap it up?
Scott Martineau (36:19):
I'll make it tweetable, so you don't have to retweet.
Crystal Heuft (36:22):
We'll see about that Scott.
Scott Martineau (36:24):
I think this is a great time to ask the question every morning. "How can I make this more fun?"
Crystal Heuft (36:29):
I love that, that was tweetable.
Scott Martineau (36:32):
It may or may not lead you to deciding to take your... No, no I'm not going to go there, never mind. How can I make this more fun? Because there's always an opportunity for that.
Crystal Heuft (36:44):
Agreed. Well it's been fun, even though we're working from home, this home edition has been pretty fun. So thank you guys for making it fun.
Clate Mask (36:52):
Yeah. Thank you guys, appreciate it.
Scott Martineau (36:55):
I have to say though, Dusey I really miss your red cards. Normally in the studio we've got flashes, yellow cards, red cards.
Crystal Heuft (37:05):
He just says red, stop.
Clate Mask (37:07):
Yes, I also have to say that the colors work for me. Who I think Dusey, you were typing as I was speaking. One thing you should know about me is, I can't speak and read and process at the same time, so I think you were saying like, you were asking me to adjust something on my computer, I don't know what it was, but whatever it was, I really suck at multitasking.
Crystal Heuft (37:29):
Clate you basically ignore the same thing Scott and I do every week, so I guess you chose the same one.
Scott Martineau (37:37):
We're just adapting.
Crystal Heuft (37:38):
That's true. We're adapters. Just kidding. I miss Dusey too. I miss the yellow and red cards. There's some kind of comfort and knowing we're not going off the rails. It was the first time I think I struggled with that a bit.
Scott Martineau (37:51):
Yes. Awesome. All right, well thanks everybody. We're going to call this a wrap for this episode, and go out and do amazing stuff. We look forward to hearing the stories and thanks for being with us today. Bye bye.
Crystal Heuft (38:01):
Thank you.
Clate Mask (38:01):
Thanks everybody.
Derek Harju (38:04):
Thanks for listening to Small Biz Buzz. Please take a second to subscribe to the show and leave a five-star rating. It helps keep the show going, and if you need a hand with growing your small business, head over to Keap.com that's K-E-A-P.com and get started. More business. Less work. That's Keap.