I’m going to talk about what’s the standardized common thread that I’ve been hearing and what are some tips- I have three simple tips on what to do
about it. So, let’s just talk about the state of the industry to start the first thing is, we’re in a downturn. It just is what it is. We were on one of the best
trajectories for the last ten years that we’ve ever seen in history. You know, it’s time. In cycles of life, it is time for a recession. So, if that happens we got to own it. But, this week alone, I just found out that over three million people filed for unemployment. I think that’s only the beginning. I think a lot of these companies are going to be seeing mass and mass layoffs. Therefore, most people can’t pay their rent, they can’t pay their mortgages, and they can’t pay their bills. And therefore, we’re going to see a lot of bankruptcies. We’re going to see a lot of bad credits. We’re gonna see a lot of situations that just suck. That’s part of the journey in life. You know, we’ve had the hay days, we have the bad days, and you know what’s interesting though? Historically speaking, door-to-door sales and direct sales, you know network marketing that kind of stuff, has grown astronomically. In a recession. This industry is recession-proof. Historically, I got in this industry in 2008 professionally and that eight, nine, ten, eleven you look at the biggest billion-dollar door-to-door sales companies and direct sales companies- those were their biggest growth years. You want to know why?
Hustle
One, the talent pool is getting much bigger when you have a lot of people that were forced to exit their company, but have extreme talents, hustle drive, have a track record of success, and now finally humble themselves to say I’m going to go taste this awesome fruit called sales. And all of a sudden they get hooked on this and they say- oh my gosh I can make more money in a shorter amount of time doing less work and dictate my income where I was working at $80,000 job thinking I was on top of the world, but in retrospect, I wasn’t. And all of a sudden they taste this and the best leadership and some of my best friends and colleagues came from the era of the recession and are still doing this job. Had they taken the comfort zone of just normal job after college type position, they probably wouldn’t have been the thought leaders of this industry. I look at it as an opportunity. If I’m a business owner, right now, the talent pool just opened up and I better be on a feeding frenzy to go find the sharpest tools in the shed to actually go grow my company with me. Personally, I just hired five new people at D2D and one of the guys I interviewed, you could tell he was like, dude I’ve been trying to get a job for the last like three weeks, four weeks and he’s hungry. I’m like, you’re way overqualified for what I’m willing to pay for this job. He is like, I don’t care what you’re willing to pay; I need anything; I need to provide for my family and I’m willing to grow with the company and take the pay cut. And I go, okay, come onboard. If that’s the case, let’s go and it literally happened. That was today and I think about this and I go how many times are we going to run into a situation where a year ago the guys are like, door-to-door sales, direct selling, I wouldn’t be caught dead. I’m a director of marketing. I’m like, well I hate to break it to you, but you now don’t have a job. Therefore are you willing to pound pavement now? Will you be able to say, I’ll do what it takes to provide for my family, because we are survivors and we will do what it takes. It’s human existence to do what to survive. With that being said, this is a gritty job and people will be willing to do it and the hustlers of the world are the ones that survive the recession. I made tons of money during the last recession. I didn’t lose everything in my shorts because of my age, but at the end of the day, I made tons of money in the recession. If you’re not looking at this as a business opportunity, what a recession does is, it forces innovation, it forces disruption, it forces change, and in moments like that. This is what America was built on. Remember that.
Take Action
Okay, so here’s kind of my here’s my two cents. Here are my three tips on how to capitalize, and how to make the most out of this. The first one is don’t go into business fetal position. So often people get stuck in this business fetal position where they think I better retract, I better fire everybody, I better hide, or like shut the doors and pause. That’s the last thing you should be doing. And for business coaching and consultants, our whole company has been like, now is to put gas on the fire, Warren Buffett didn’t become a multi billionaire off of putting money into the stocks when it was high. He became a multi billionaire from having cash to put in the stocks when it was low. He made all of his money from recessions. If I look at my business, I go, how do I now double down and how do I make sure I put my systems in place? Which, is number two.
Smart Systems
I need a smart system and place to train my people better. Because guess what? Sales aren’t going to just come as easy. People aren’t going to have expendable cash sitting around just to buy whatever product in today’s world. I have to actually be a good salesperson and, I think, in a good economy, you get people that are fake salespeople. They just happen to be with a decent product and people are willing to buy whatever. Now, people aren’t going to be willing to buy whatever. They’re going to be a lot more stingy with their cash. You actually have to sharpen your tools and you have to be good at sales. I need to know what my strategy is. I need to know what my processes and my SOPs are. I need to know what my business is and grab the business by the horn, because you’re not gonna just make money off a happenstance in this business society in a recession. You have to be a strategic business owner, not just like throwing everything at the wall and being like, wow, that all just happened to work.
Capitalize On The Talent Pool
The third one is you have got to capitalize on the talent pool. You have got to capitalize on your sales. Meaning, people are home people, people are out of jobs, and people are looking for opportunities. And so, capitalizing on the time and energy that you get and free time that you’re going to have to go spend on your systems, and the talent pools, and the sales opportunities because people are home ready to buy.
Anyway, these are my three simple tips. But, in today’s society, things are going to be changing you’ve got to be willing to adapt. I promise, I promise the hungry hustlers will survive. My motto has always been- look for people with PhDs. And PhD isn’t what you think. PhD is the poor, hungry, and driven. I will hire anybody poor, hungry, and driven. This economy is going to force people to be poor hungry and driven. So, now is the time to make hay while the sun shines.
