Episode Description:
This episode is all about business planning! With COVID still going strong at the start of the New Year, it’s time to focus on planning. Setting goals, planning, and considering contingencies for COVID lockdown or restrictions that could be looming in the New Year as the Omicron variant sweeps the nation at record numbers. A few hours of thought and consideration can make difficult decisions easy, help keep a financial cushion for unforeseen circumstances, and possibly make for the best year for your business yet!
Action you can take right now:
- Develop a business SAVINGS plan if you don’t have one already. Don’t worry – you can start incredibly small, just to get in the habit of saving.
- Draft a brief contingency plan for 3 scenarios – one being a worst case (i.e. full shutdown, or NO availability of inventory all year, etc). That plan would likely be different than the next contingency plan that would be ‘worse than expected’ but not an epic disaster. Maybe there are occasional lockdowns or serious restrictions that can hamper your ability to perform. Lastly, draft a plan for 2022 as things have been – minimal restrictions, things moving in the right direction, and heading towards a place of normalcy.
Episode After-Thoughts:
Obviously you can’t plan for every scenario. But planning is incredibly important, and many larger companies do create disaster plans and contingency plans for things that likely won’t happen, but wouldn’t be unreasonable if they did happen. A good example would be an oil company that has an oil well leak after Deepwater Horizon or Exxon-Valdez disaster. You better believe these companies have a playbook for the moment something like this happens so there is no confusion, miscommunication, or lack of clarity on the public response and clean-up effort.
After the Deepwater Horizon leak, BP developed a mobile well-cap system that can be transported by ship and assembled onsite to quickly cap a well should that particular scenario ever unfold again. Perhaps they should of conceptualized this preventatively instead of reactively, as the potential for something to go wrong when drilling deep in the ocean is not out of the realm of possibility.
Episode 40 Transcript:
A new year equals new goals, new opportunities, new successes, and a renewed focus. How are you going to kick off 2022? That and more coming up on the marketing and service.com podcast.
Second, Justin Varuzzo here from marketinginservice.com podcast the podcast to help you build your business by creating incredible customer relationships.
If you find value in this episode, please take a moment to follow or subscribe.
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Review it means the.
World to me and it helps keep me motivated especially.
In 2022
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Hit me up on the marketing and service.com Facebook page. What marketing challenges are you having in your business right now? What would you love to learn more about and what do you want to learn in 2020?
This episode is all about tackling the new year. It’s hard for me to believe that the first podcast that I recorded for marketing and service was 21 months ago at the start of the pandemic.
It was an unprecedented global lockdown, and it was only slated to last about two weeks.
Months later, it was unbelievable that the world was still.
Shut down months.
After that it was equally unbelievable that things were just starting to get back to normal and it felt like an entire year was.
Erased and now Fast forward to today January 1st, 2022 and COVID surges are still coming and going now with Omni Crammond.
We had delta and it doesn’t seem to really be getting too much better, but we have gotten back to somewhat of a new normal.
So in today’s episode I want to talk about how you can plan for the contingencies.
Of COVID and we’re going to do this by.
Just that planning planning is the key topic of today’s episode, because in the new year it’s a good idea to take some time and think about a plan for moving forward.
If you go back to episode 28 of this podcast, you’ll find the episode that was all about smart goals. What are smart goals? Smart goals are, of course, a.
Acronym for.
From Robert, and that stands for goals that are specific goals that are measurable goals that are attainable.
It has to be a realistic goal.
Goals that are relevant to the bigger picture is this goal something that’s part of something you really want to achieve?
And of course, the goal must be time bound.
Is the goal to get hit by the end of this year?
Is it the end of the month, the end of the week?
Maybe it’s the end of the day?
Maybe it’s hour by hour, but there must be a specific deadline with goals in mind and with planning.
In mind it can be really difficult to think about how you’re going to move forward when there are so many unknowns with COVID.
Especially if you’re in a business like the restaurant business where your restaurant could be shut down.
Or maybe we’re wearing masks today.
Maybe we have to social distance.
Maybe you can only be at half capacity.
There’s a lot of things that could happen and you don’t know if they will or won’t.
What we do know is that in this new world, any of those things are a very strong possibility.
So like any good.
Planner would do.
We have to hope for the best, but of course plan for the worse.
So I want to go over a few things that you may consider doing, because after all you cannot serve your customers with excellence if you’re not in business any.
COVID has taken a big toll for a lot of businesses.
It’s obviously taken a big toll for a lot of people, both emotionally and financially.
So when we move forward with this from a business perspective, here’s some things that I think would be very helpful in 2022 for any business, and the first would be to save money. Yeah, of course.
Commit to something any small percentage can have a huge impact. Remember that old thing where if you were to start saving $100 from the time you were 18 to the time you retired, you’d be a millionaire.
Well, let’s get that going for your business.
I don’t know what the amount should be, but take a percentage.
Maybe it’s two percent, 5% something small, something that’s not going to have a dramatic impact, but that’s going to give you a cushion because chances are when things go South, if they go South again, you’re not going to have a fall back plan. You’re probably not going.
To have the bailout.
Opportunities that we had during the pandemic.
So keep in mind that you want to have that little bit of money and you want to have that cushion because if you do have to close for a week or two, you’re going to be able to cover your expenses and you’re going to have the cash flow you need to keep yourself afloat.
Another thing you.
Might consider during these challenging times is is there anything you can rent?
If you need something new?
If you need a new piece of equipment, if you need capital equipment for something, is it something you can rent instead of purchasing?
And is it something you can do without getting locked in this way?
If it’s something where your business scales down?
Because you have to shut down or you have to greatly reduce the business you’re doing.
It gives you the opportunity to get out of this and not have that obligation.
So for example, if you need to get a new.
Computer server, maybe that is something you could just rent.
Or you could use a WS something where if in three months you didn’t need it anymore because your business was reduced, you could just shut it off and stop paying for it.
I don’t think renting is a great solution long term, but in this environment I think it’s a great idea to take this opportunity to.
See if you can pay a little bit more, but have that flexibility to not be stuck with a loan or a credit card bill where you’re going to be paying for this piece of equipment every single month.
Another possibility here is to replace broken equipment with used.
It will likely increase your long term cost again, but it will greatly reduce your short term obligations.
And of course boost cash flow.
And we know that cash flow is king, especially in lean times.
You want to have that cash flow.
Something I’ve been seeing pop up towards the end of the year and now at the start of the year is services for consumers that.
Look for recurring charges because they can creep up right.
You have Netflix, you have HBO Max.
You have all these different subscriptions.
It’s $5 three dollars. I cloud two dollars $10 here. But before you know it, you could be spending a few $100 a month in subscribe.
Fees, so it’s easy to miss these and it’s easy not to feel it, and it’s easy to get sucked into it when there’s such a little upfront cost, right?
Why are we going to lose our cool over spending $3 a month? The problem is a lot of people do have dozens of these services that they don’t even use, but they keep paying the few dollars a month and it really does add up that little.
Money here and there could be what’s going into your savings account and giving.
Do that fall back when you really need it.
Businesses will often overlook recurring charges like this.
I’m not going to name the company name, but a West Coast company recently found that they were paying for hundreds of unused phone lines with a landline phone carrier.
They were spending hundreds of thousands a year on recurring phone fees completely unnecessarily.
Was a complete waste of money.
No one is going to call you and say, hey, we notice you haven’t used our service in a few months do you?
Are you sure you want to keep paying for it?
That just does.
Happen, so take some time at the start of the year and take a look at some of those credit card statements and bank statements and just see who are the recurring agents and are these things that you’re using on a regular basis.
Because maybe this is a way. Again, you can cut one of these recurring services and take that money, whether it be $5 or $50 a month and roll it into that savings program. So you have that.
Little buffer when you need it.
Now, of course, if you’re on the other end of this equation and you sell long term contracts, maybe this is an opportunity to help your customers lock in at a special kovid rate.
Maybe you can offer a rate that’s lower than usual, but you can provide some insurance.
That and this is something that’s been incredibly effective.
We’re seeing with rental units.
In high cost of living areas like San Francisco and New York City, there’s basically what people are referring to as kovid rent.
It’s a much reduced rent and people know that it’s not going to last, but it allowed these landlords to get in some recurring money at a very desperate time.
So if you sell long term contracts or equipment with long term contracts.
Or anything with recurring monthly payments.
Maybe now is a good time to help one of your customers lock in at a better rate, knowing that they’re never going to get that rate again, but it will assure that you secure that customer for the next year or two and maybe see out the other side of this pandemic, and it gives your customer the flexibility of.
Sticking with a service or product that they may need, but at a reduced rate and they’re going to hang around and they’re not going to cancel it because it’s not going to be a significant line on their budget.
Something else I’ve mentioned on the show a few times and I’m going to reiterate it here because I think now more than ever is an excellent opportunity to consider cooperative advertising and piggyback advertising.
Right, so piggyback advertising, for example, would be if you’re sending monthly statements to your customers.
That’s a great opportunity to throw in a flyer.
The increase in costs for that mailing by adding a flyer to an envelope is actually nothing except the price to print the flyer.
You’d still come in under first class rates, so you’re going to pay it the same for each envelope regardless if you have.
One sheet of paper, 2 sheets of paper or three sheets of paper, usually beyond three sheets of paper.
You’re going to pay an increased fee, but most statements are only one page or two pages, so again, you could even print on the back if you have a three page statement on the back of each page, you could print some marketing.
Materials cooperative advertising is again working with different businesses in your space or different spaces that may have synergy with your business.
If you look back at past episodes, we’ve discussed this a few times about the importance of partnering with different businesses for greater impact and lowering costs, don’t.
Be afraid those other businesses are in the same boat, so you might think that the other business won’t go for it, but you’ll never know if you don’t reach out and ask.
It makes a lot of sense if you offer, for example, a hairdressing service and next door, there is a nail salon.
These are two things that go hand in hand and you are not competing for the same dollar, so maybe you can reach out to that business and you can do some cooperative advertising and cut some of your costs, possibly in half and still reach the same number of customers.
And because you’re both in the same segment, you’re both going to be targeting the same audience.
So something like that makes a lot of sense, and it’s a great way to save money.
And actually, in my last episode of December of 20.
21 I spoke about how insane I thought it was that when I looked at marketing news, almost every single headline had two brand names in it.
Corporations are already doing this.
Every article I read now is always.
This company has paired with this company or this company is cross promoting a product with this company or this company is leveraging this company.
For whatever but it’s happening more and more and more often, and as a small business, you can jump in on this real easy and take advantage of it.
So take advantage of it. Make that a goal for 2022. Where can you maximize your advertising dollars so it’s the new year?
You feel refreshed. Now is the time to put the pedal to the metal and give it 110%.
You probably already feel a little burned out, but that’s OK. Now is the time because things are still open. Things are still operating as normal as they will be in the short term. So if you can put the pedal to the metal, give yourself 100.
10% right now right up front at the start of the year. This way if everything remains perfect and I’m wrong, you’ll have the opportunity to have an incredibly busy, stressful year with little break, but you’ll end up with a huge reward at.
The end, if I’m right and COVID causes things to start to shut down again, you’ll have much less stress but still have a business on the other side, so keep that in mind if you give it 110% now.
While you can make the first quarter the most impactful, don’t take it easy now with the hopes that you can push the pedal to the metal later.
Like in quarter three or four?
Because that strategy might backfire if things actually get.
Down next Christmas season, I hope they don’t.
We all hope they don’t, but again, we’re going to plan for the worst and we’re going to hope for the best.
Another huge challenge that I believe is going to continue on through 2022 is this inventory and supply chain. If you sell a product, if you sell a service that requires products to provide that service.
Then a very difficult consideration you have to make is what to order and what to have on hand.
’cause the bottom line is a lack of confidence during the pandemic meant that there was a huge delay in ordering things when things were shut down.
You weren’t sure how long it was going to be.
Could it be 3 weeks, four weeks, five weeks?
You certainly weren’t going to start plunging and buying a ton of inventory when you didn’t even know if you’d be in business in two or three months.
But now you do.
You kind of see what that landscape.
Looks like and you have to consider what’s the timeline for placing an order today and getting the product that you need to be in business.
I recently spoke to a plumber who also does furnace installs.
And a business of over 100 years went out of business because they simply could not get the inventory to do any of the work that they needed to do.
It was a really, really sad situation where it didn’t have anything to do with the service.
It didn’t have to do with the quality of the product, they simply couldn’t get the furnaces they needed to do these.
Repairs for homeowners.
And sadly after a few months of not being able to get inventory or just getting one boiler here and there, they had to shut.
Down again, this was during the peak of COVID in the peak of uncertainty.
I think we’re all a little more confident that regardless of what happens with COVID, we’re probably going to be a little stronger and push forward a little more aggressively than we did before.
But you still have to consider are you going to have the things that you need.
If you do have a great year and how much do you want to?
Risk to make sure if you do have a great year, you can get through to the other side and keep fulfilling all your obligations.
That’s not something I can answer.
For you, it’s probably nothing that any podcast can answer for you.
It’s a decision you have to make, but it is a decision that you have to make, and it’s something that you should plan right now for, because I can tell you you’re going to still have supply chain issues.
There’s not a doubt in my mind that you are going to have supply chain issues in the 1st 6 to 8 months of this year and God forbid.
Anything does shut down or we start seeing these closures in certain areas that could get exponentially worse.
One thing that’s really common during difficult times is the first thing that gets cut is usually the marketing expenses.
But consider spending more on marketing right now.
Good marketing plans aren’t silver bullets or Hail Marys, and even the best marketing initiatives take time to produce positive results.
But in a time where everyone starts to pull back also usually gives you the greatest opportunity to maximize advertising dollars.
There have been many books written about the companies that really doubled down on marketing during tough times, and because no one else had a message because they cut theirs.
Those messages were amplified far louder, so consider it if you have the opportunity, spend a little more on marketing this year and see if you can get some good results.
Another thing in terms of marketing is businesses tend to do events right?
You might do tradeshows.
You might do live masterclasses.
You might have seminar series, depending on what your industry.
Is there’s a ton of things that you will often provide to customers or clients as a bone.
So one thing you should sit down is consider digital substitutions.
For some of these things.
I know you’ve already probably done it in the past two years, but is there more you can do?
For example, you could do employee training via zoom.
You could do seminars, masterclasses, or education series as a webinar or a zoom event, right?
You could even do fun events.
Let’s say you have a retail store and you want to do wine when.
Days, that’s something you could do online.
Invite your customers to come in this way you still get that engagement.
You still get that interaction with your best customers who really value what you do and you still get to provide this additional level of service.
But you get to do it regardless.
If COVID is.
Spreading rapidly or if it’s starting to become contained either way.
You can bring your people together in your community together and have a great impact and you’re just going to do it in a digital landscape.
So just think about if you do physical events.
How can you take those events and replicate them in a digital space? And as I said, you’ve probably already done this, and you’ve probably already given it some thought, but how can you take it to the next level in 2022?
Think about that and that leads me to the next thing is, how can you engage your analog business in a digital world?
Now if you already have a digital business, this doesn’t really count, however.
You can look at the inverse.
If you do have a digital business, how do you bring that into the analog world or the real world, right?
Again, consider cross.
Oceans partnerships, if you’re digital, is there a way you can partner with a brick and mortar?
A great example of this is Amazon partnering with Kohl’s right now.
I don’t know how fruitful this relationship has been, but the bottom line is Kohl’s know that having Amazon package return service in their store drives a ton of traffic to their store that might otherwise not be there.
And of course.
They’re confident if you walk into a Kohl’s, you’re probably going to walk out having bought something somewhere between that and the return if you notice.
The returns are usually way in the back corner of the store, so you’re forced to walk through the entire store and see everything available to you to make that return, but that’s a great example of a digital only business.
Amazon partnering with a brick and mortar store like Kohl’s to really have that synergy and maximize each other partnerships.
Amazon wanted that ability.
To make it easy for a customer, just walk in and hand something to someone as a return instead of having to box it up, bring it to the post office or bring it to UPS.
It makes it really easy so each business benefits with this, even though one is entirely digital and one is primarily brick and mortar.
Another small example of this would be the gift cards at a drugstore.
If you look at that gift card kiosk that every drugstore has right, you’re going to see iTunes gift cards, Amazon Gift cards, Xbox Live.
And PlayStation gift cards.
You see all these gift cards for digital services, but yet they realize and value the importance that even though they’re a digital Sir.
They want to be where people are shopping in retail brick and mortar stores.
So now you physically walk into a Walgreens or a CVS and you see these gift cards and have the opportunity to buy an Apple gift card, right?
Or to buy an Amazon gift card at Digital only company having a physical retail presence?
It’s just another small example of that cross promotion between digital and the real world.
And another thing I’ve mentioned, since we’re talking about digital and the real world, and I’ve said it before the largest digital marketing firms in the world, right?
That would be Google.
Amazon, etc.
They use snail mail and brick and mortar marketing strategies to grow their business, right?
I just said Amazon with Kohl’s as a return center.
Amazons were lying.
They’re the biggest digital company in the world.
But they’re still relying on a brick and mortar store so customers can return something, right?
The gift cards in the drugstore.
That’s another great example.
Direct mail offers with advertising specials.
I get an Amazon catalog in the mail.
They’re probably the second behind Google largest marketing platform on the Internet right now, and they still send a physical catalog to their customers home during the holidays.
Google the number one without question.
The number one digital advertising platform on the planet uses direct mail offers to entice businesses to advertise on their platform.
I get mail almost once a week from Google with a $50 or $100 coupon offer to run digital AD.
They are the masters of digital advertising.
Why are they sending direct mail?
Because it works.
It’s effective and it’s a good way to get in front of people and get past the clutter.
Think about that.
Why would these companies do that if it didn’t work?
What it means is that things like email and things like snail mail are still very impactful.
Forms of marketing and advertising. Despite all the opportunities there are online to do that advertising since we’re on the topic of planning, I thought I would share some of the plans that I’m making for this podcast in 2022.
So it has been since April 1st is when I launched this podcast of 2021, I recorded the first episodes in April of 2020 and because of my own inhibitions and insecurities, I delayed almost a year before I released those episodes. But I did eventually release it and now of course I have released an episode almost every single.
Make sense.
Another thing I did was a few months after I started the marketing and Service Podcast, I partnered up with a good friend of mine to do a podcast called Behind that in Behind that in came from the movement of this humanizing, the badge, police and fire departments were quickly doing different things to show their community.
The men and women who were wearing the badge.
Just like them, you saw the music videos, the different challenges community meet and greets Tik T.O.K, Facebook, Instagram, all of this stuff going viral.
But they didn’t really show a human side of any of the.
These heroes, the thing that many law enforcement officers and other first responders were doing without much recognition and little fanfare were already amazing examples of humanizing the badge.
So this was born.
The idea of highlighting the men and women who are doing exceptional things when their badge is in the locker.
That is behind that in.
Behind that in is a podcast.
That is out.
It started in July and if you are interested in hearing the stories of these incredible men and women and the things that they do when they are not.
Working on the job, this is a podcast you want to check out.
It is hosted by my friend, Lieutenant Stephen Jay and I co-host it as the civilian producer, Justin the civilian producer.
So definitely check that out, but in the planning, something happened that I didn’t expect.
If you told me two years ago that I would have had.
Two podcasts, and nearly I think, about 80 episodes of content, which is probably roughly 40 hours of content in that first 7 to 8.
Eight months I would never believe it, but now here we are starting 2022. Two podcasts a week is the goal and I want to be able to do that the entire year and maybe I will take a two weeks off at the end of Christmas like I did this year and maybe one week at Thanksgiving time to reset myself.
What I plan to do this year is continue to bring on incredible guests and I want to provide a little more entertainment value in the episode, so I’m going to start playing around with the format a little bit.
I might do some little sketches for lack of a better word, but something that more recreates a scene. It might be a little more work for me, but I think it’ll be more enjoyable for you, so that’s my personal plan for 2022 in regards to this podcast.
I also would like to do some events online, maybe some line we just talked about.
How do we take?
The digital to the analog and podcasts is really a digital medium, right?
You’re listening to this on your phone.
You’re listening to it on a computer, but I would like to come up with some ways to be able to take this digital medium and bring it to people.
I like to see people I like to interact with.
So one of my plans for this year and I don’t know exactly how that’s going to unfold just yet, but is to be able to do some type of.
Maybe it’s an online event or a digital event, or maybe it is a physical real life event.
We will see what happens, but that is something that I am working on in the beginning of this year and that I am planning so we can have a.
Successful year this year.
And what does success mean for this podcast?
It means that I help.
Means that I helped you do one thing.
If I can provide one little ounce of value to you and you are able to take that and do something that helps you in your business or your life, then I feel like I have succeeded because my goal is to talk about marketing.
I know it’s kind of cheesy, but that’s my goal.
I’m here.
I’m staring at my computer screen, staring at a wall in the.
Face of a microphone and scary enough.
I’ve actually gotten used to it now and it feels very natural, even though it is a very, very bizarre situation.
When you really think about it to have a conversation with yourself.
Like this, but honestly it helps me work through some of my own marketing challenges.
Just talking about it, discussing it, and thinking.
About how do I?
Water this concept down to explain it to someone else.
And by doing that, it makes me understand the concept a little bit better.
And yeah, there’s a little bit of selfishness there.
I am.
I’m using the resources.
That I’m pulling in in my own life.
And I enjoy doing.
It’s the best of both worlds.
I get to talk marketing which I love to do and I get to maybe tally a few more wins in my column for my own marketing strategies.
There’s a lot of exciting stuff coming up already in the start of the year. I’m giving it 110%, just like I said the first few months. I’m really going to put the pedal to the metal.
And try to produce as much great content as I possibly can.
I have some amazing guests lined up.
I have some great topics to kick off the new year.
One is going to be all about goal setting because I think that’s super important both in marketing and in business and just in life, it’s made a huge impact with me in the past two years and I think it’s really going to help everyone.
So I have some exciting guests come on to help with that and I look forward to just rocking and rolling the rest of 20.
22 Listen again, thanks so much for listening. I really appreciate it. If you enjoyed this episode, please like subscribe hit me up on Facebook marketing and service.com. Check out the website. I always have some extra content on the website for each episode.
Have a question? Have a marketing concern? Is there just something small that I can do for you? Then reach out, shoot me an email. Thank you so much for listening and I hope you have the best year that you’ve ever had.
And that’s what I want from you in 2022. I’ll catch you on the next one.