As an agency owner, this is not a time to pull back.
I’ve spoken to a few folks that are so afraid that they are essentially putting their business on hold……mind you they are “holding” in a position they are already not satisfied with.
I don’t mean to make light of the situation, cuz it’s serious…but what’s more serious is how you act during this time.
Pulling back and “hoping” clients don’t cancel with you is guaranteed failure.
Pulling back and hoping you make it through is not a strategy, it’s a prayer.
If you PRODUCE instead of panic you can not only survive this time but thrive.
Many agency retainers will be canceled because you’ve been positioned as LABOR.
You sell your time.
Our clients have positioned themselves as VALUE ADD by selling results and outcomes.
Your prospects need help. Period.
Sometimes, when things are hard you need a new perspective. This is still the greatest time in history to have your own business and even better if you can help people virtually like our clients.
I put together this free video on how you can find massive opportunities for both you and your business.
If you’d like to chat I’d be happy to hop on a 15 min call to see if we can help. altagency.com/clarity
Transcript / MP3
Hey guys, in this video I want to break down how to get through hard times in your marketing agency. And I’m going to cut over to a video, a mini training that I did for our private clients on how they can optimize themselves and adapt their business so that they can survive. Not only survive, but succeed and thrive in whatever type of economy we’re actually in. Whether it’s a recession or the economy is rocking, these are things that we can be doing as agency owners to win. So let’s jump over and hope you enjoy it. We don’t want to be victims. We want to lead, we want to lead ourselves, we want to lead our families, we want to lead the market. Um, and I think there’s a lot of things that could go wrong if you panic, um, and completely flipped a script outside of underneath your business because, um,one of my mentors always says like, when you’re, you only experiment when you’re at the top and you know, when things are going well, if you know things are tight for you or, or whatnot, that’s not the time to go. Start a new business, that’s not the time to go launch something new. It’s the time to double down on the things that you know, that work. And of course there are going to be businesses that are, um, in certain markets that are going to suffer. Um, we just got a notification this morning that all restaurants in Denver and bars are closed, but they’re still open for delivery and pickup. So if that’s your market, then you have the opportunity to help make sure that the rest of the population knows that they can still serve you just in a different way. And there’s a lot of different things you could do as a provider to help them, uh, thrive.That doesn’t mean you should completely abandon them and try to create an entirely new signature service and launch into something that is entirely different than you’ve ever done before. That is not the time to be doing that. Now, if you’re adapting and tweaking things that you already have to serve the market that you currently serve better, or people that have access to better than this is a huge opportunity. So I want to kind of hit this from two angles. One first you, uh, you as a leader and, um, look, look at this as an opportunity. Again, I’m not trying to make light of the situation here. Um, but the world is going to slow down. People are locked up in their houses for the next three weeks if not a little bit longer. We’re probably days away from all travel being shut down. We’re probably days away, weeks tops at, you know, the government completely shutting down like everything down.Um, so use that time, use that time effectively. Use that time to create assets and assets. I mean like have fun with your like experiences, uh, things that you could be doing. We’re going to see a huge, and I was joking with my wife about this. We’re going to see in nine months a lot of babies being born, um, OB GYN are going to be crushing it about nine months from now, nine, 12 months from now. Um, and so of divorce layers, uh, because a lot of people are going to have to be putting the house with each other and have to live with each other and face things that either they didn’t know were there and, or not and, or just be, you know, whatever. You get my point. Um, and so if the world is slowing down, that means you’re going to get some opportunities of quiet, which honestly I think is something that the world needs. And I think something that you guys need to, and so find opportunities, find pockets of time in here. You should have plenty of them where you’re not scrambling around trying to figure out how to, you know, work on your business just a few minutes more and figure out how you can create a memory or an experience for your family during this time as well. So they look back on this experience as being a positive one. Uh, this is an opportunity for you to experiment with your routines. Um, mainly because you’re going to have to, um, I don’t know about you, but I have a three year old that’s going to be home now. Um, and I don’t have a full time babysitter. Daycare is closed. We’re going to get some help from my inlaws but Greg is going to have to be able to be productive at work and also be able to be present at home. So, um, you are going to have constraints in your life and in your business, which I’ll talk about. Use those opportunities, um, where there are constraints to learn new things about yourself, learn new things about your routine, create a better balance, right?We’re going to be spending a lot more time with your spouse or your significant other during this time. So again, like you capitalize on it. I can promise you, you guys probably don’t need to be working more than you’re already working and you should find opportunities to maybe work less and all of these things are going to help you identify other areas of your life that probably need to be improved. Now all of a sudden you’re home all the time. Maybe you have bad behaviors at home. Maybe there’s things you can improve on. Maybe there’s relationships in ways you communicate with your, your family inside the household that can be improved. But again, look at how you can create assets and have fun experiences. Um, play games. You know, we got cold, we made cold paint. We’re having cold paint in the bathroom with watercolors and stuff.We don’t get to do that all the time. It was super fun. We made a Fort yesterday and made breakfast and ate inside of a Fort. Like, I mean, there’s things we can be doing to capitalize on these times when we’re at home. I’m also take care of your health. That’s obviously, I would like to think that’s an obvious one at this point. Um, but the being locked up, I can already tell you myself being locked up in the house, I’m not inspired to go work out. In fact, it’s like I’m inspired to be even lazier. Right? And that’s dangerous. So make sure you’re dialed in on your health. What are you going to do to do your fitness? Are you gonna get out and run? Get some fresh air. I know that I ran on Sunday and it was, it was so nice. I was like one of like, I felt like I was the only person in the world running around.Um, and I needed that. So what are you going to do to stay healthy? I’m also, this is a massive opportunity to think. Um, I just got an email from a buddy of mine who, uh, he said, I’ll kind of read it to you. Um, we’ve also been granted this massive opportunity to sink. What would I do if I lost it all? Because the reality is some people will travel and hospitality are going to be hit hard. People are going to lose their jobs. People are going to file for bankruptcy. Suddenly a simple thought experiment has become real for a lot of people. So think what would you do? Um, for me, I’m doubling down because I know that Mike, my cost of ads are going to, are already starting to go down and they’re going to continue to go down. And we’re seeing that because businesses are pulling out of a lot of things. Your competition is going to pull out a lot of things.I’m going to personally, and I’m not giving you financial advice, I’m getting like I’m increasing my lines of credit. I’m doubling down on that because they’re basically giving money away. The stimulus package that are talking about is almost like negative percent interest. I’m going to look for ways to take that money and put it in cash producing vehicles, possibly like real estate or a whole life insurance plan that will give me five to 6% back in a year. I’m all for essentially zero, not with my own money. Again, leaning into the lines of credit intelligently to double down on my ads, which can generate business and awareness for me. Uh, I’m going to use this time to get even more clear on my offer. All right. Um, obviously all the things we teach in foundations, packaging up your intellectual property and the thing is that we focus on an Academy are all around priming you guys for being able to thrive in a marketplace where you’re not just getting compensated for your labor, but also your expertise.Um, and, uh, you know, I’m using this as a time to work on my messaging, a lot of different things. I’m happy to share more things that I’m doing, but I just kinda want to give you an idea of what are you going to do with this time? Because you can think about how is my, what’s my business going to look like? You know, a year from now, what do I want to be doing? What do I want? What do I want my message to be? Um, again, this is an opportunity for you to step up as a leader, leader in your family, a leader in your community. Maybe your neighbors need a positive voice. Maybe your, uh, clients need a positive voice. Um, if you’re in a market where they’re getting hit hard, don’t, I wouldn’t just abandon them. I would show them how you can help. Andthen in all of this, you’re probably going to be taking massive amounts of action to either capitalize on this opportunity prevention, et cetera. Like make that normal. You’re probably gonna see some interesting increases in your production as well. Maybe out of fear, maybe out of the constraints. Either way, you’re going to notice that at least if you play your cards right that you have a huge opportunity to make this level of action normal for you. And I would be focused on that. Now let’s look atbusiness from a business. This is a time where I think you want to focus on creation, not consumption. So, so, uh, there’s a lot of weird things being set out there, a lot of negativity. I would find ways to create content, create opportunities and not focus on just consuming and reading every new article, the latest update on the virus or what have you, and focus on production and you’re going to see your business. Thank you for that. Also from a business point, business perspective, something that I just mentioned earlier is your marketing’s going to have to change. If you’re saying the same thing that you were saying last week or 30 days ago, uh, you are going to need to adapt, right? We’re going to do, adapt our messaging, stay, uh, stay relevant, stay contextual, and also again, spread that message of positivity and opportunity to your, your market, which is gonna help you stand out, right?If you just be quiet and kind of hide in the shadows, guess what? You’re going to be one of those businesses that probably doesn’t survive. So by adapting your messaging, by constantly creating and by fine tuning the things that you currently have going by doubling down, you will stand up by doing that. You’re also gonna probably show up differently. Ask yourself, how can I show up differently than the way that I have been? How can my marketing adapt? How can I make this, this change? Again, look at the opportunity of these constraints. You have to work from home. Some of you are working from home. Some of your teams are working from home. Maybe you’ve never done that before. Maybe there’s other new constraints like having to operate with a three year old in the background. If you’re working from home, which means you’re going to have different, you might have to have different working hours. You might find you’re productive in different ways. So capitalize on the constraints. I can tell you that for us in our business, like every time there’s been issues or like, Oh, someone steps away or something, you know, market driven happens, you’re exposed to issues in your business and that points you to what you can fix to make your business thrive the next time this happens. So pay attention to how you’re operating, where do you feel it in your business and how can you put plans in place.Again, with everyone pulling out of certain markets, certain businesses closing down, you’re going to notice ad costs going down. And I’m going to definitely be doubling down on ads for sure, to people, to us during this time. And I highly recommend some of you guys do as well if you have the budgets, um, if not, um, you know, and you already have a proven funnel. This is, I know many people will kind of move to Academy once they get a proven funnel to a situation where you’re leveraging, um, you know, leveraging a credit card to drive leads that can then get you into new business. Um, the last thing we want to be doing is spending our cash right now, which is why you’re going to see a lot of people getting in, increasing their lines of credit, making sure they have extra credit cards, making sure they have loans.Because right now the stimulus package is going to put more money into the marketplace. Um, and that can be to your advantage. Again, I’m not saying go buy TVs or anything, but put your money in places that can help you grow. Um, and ads is one of them. So think about how your, you can tweak your business, and obviously I didn’t mention this one at all yet, but like your offer, which most of you guys already focused on here is you know, many of you are launching that done with you offer that can be done virtually, can be delivered remotely. That’s going to be a huge benefit to certain types of businesses depending upon who you’re serving. If, if your clients are now all working from home, their organizations are working home, working from, maybe you can show them how to be effective virtually right now.I don’t mean teach them a whole new business. How, how can they be successful in their existing business? Virtually. I will caution any of you that are trying to launch a completely new business during this, especially if it’s unknown to you or uncertainty, something you haven’t necessarily done, there’s tremendous opportunity, but there’s even more opportunity staying the course and slightly adapting your offering, um, and your messaging to the current circumstances. So funding is at an all time low. Uh, and you know, the ability to get funds is, is there. So make sure you have access to that stuff. Again, talk to your financial advisors on that one. Um, but I’m trying to prepare, uh, I know us to have access to capital in case we need it and all of that stuff. But look, the whole message here is to be a person who is going to lead your market, your family, your business, your team forward during this time.So many businesses can come out of this thriving. You have no idea. Uh, and yes, there’s going to be some people panicking, but you shouldn’t let that be you, cause that’s not going to serve you. It’s not going to serve your business. It’s going to put you into a downward spiral. And, uh, now I’m not saying avoid the facts, right? If your kid comes into your house and says, Hey, there no food, um, your mindset’s not going to fix that. If there’s actually no food, you got to go get food, right? So, um, it’s not mindset over common sense. It’s obviously have common sense, but if you are the one that’s going to let fear drive your actions and your beliefs, that will impact the results you have. Because as we’ve always talked about, your thoughts impact your beliefs, your beliefs impact your actions. Those actually might be reversed, and your actions are lead to what leads to results.So if you’re super negative over here, you’re probably going to act either out of sequence or irrationally, um, in a way that doesn’t align with the true plan and your results are going to suffer for it. So again, we need to be the leaders, leaders to our own business, to our own homes and to our own market. Uh, and attack with positivity, uh, attack with love. That was the new a hashtag that we had but at the event. But look, I think it’s going to get, it’s only going to get more interesting. And again, this is not a short game. This is going to be a long game. Uh, we can make decisions right now that are for the next three weeks, but this whole Corona thing is really just the beginning, likely the beginning of what will likely be a recession, um, which will probably last 12, 18, possibly 24 months. Um, and we’re pre, we need to be preparing for that. So I wouldn’t be trying to, you know, do irrational things that are just short term solutions. We need to be, you know, weaponizing our businesses and our minds for how do we grow through times like this, um, and serve our clients, uh, and also serve ourselves. So hopefully you find this message. Well let us know if you have any questions and I will chat with you guys soon.Hey guys, Greg here. I hope you enjoyed that kind of behind the scenes look into a training call with some of our clients. If you found that useful and you want to make sure that your agency is prepared for really just about anything in a way where you’re going to continue to grow, whether the market is bad or whether the market is great, then we’d like to help. And I put together a free training for you really breaking down the three steps that we took to radically transform our agency, almost quadruple our client capacity and more than double our revenue while working less hours in hiring less staff and needing less staff. So I’m going to put the link below in the comment section so that you can register for it. It’s about 27 minutes. And if that jives with you and make sense, then I highly encourage you to schedule a call with my team, which will be offered to you at the end of that video and we can chat to see if we can help you apply those three steps to your agency to accelerate your growth right now. Again, thanks for tuning in to the channel and talk soon.
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