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The HaBO Village Podcast

3 Tips for Overcoming 3 Types of Business Challenges During COVID-19 [Podcast]

Episode 107: Michael and Kathryn discuss the 3 types of challenges businesses are experiencing during COVID-19 and share tips for overcoming them. Whether your company is sharply growing or declining during this season, discover practical strategies for building resiliency right now and for the future.

overcoming challenges illustration of 3 people holding a ladder


In This Episode You Will...

  • Discover what marketing techniques your business can leverage right now to stay top of mind with existing and potential customers.
  • Find out why researching other niche markets can help your business right now.
  • Learn how to slow down and reassess your situation if your're experiencing sharp growth right now.
“There are ways to prepare your company to be more resilient. This is part of the Passion & Provision model. So when something like COVID-19 happens, you've already done the hard work to create a back door."
- Michael K. Redman

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References:

FulfilledTheBook.com

 

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Michael:
              Hello everyone. I'm Michael Redman.


Kathryn:
               And I'm Kathryn Redman.


Michael:
              And welcome back to the HaBO Village Podcast. This is a podcast that is about helping leaders like you in business, build companies that are full of profit, purpose and legacy.


Kathryn:
               Nicely done.


Michael:
              Thank you very much. It was the fourth time I tried.


Kathryn:
               He said profit, purpit, perfit a minute ago. It's pretty good.


Michael:
              Sometimes you stumble over these things.


Kathryn:
               Especially this week.


Michael:
              So we're really glad you're all back. Thank you for listening. We are going, kind of continuing themes about dealing with current situations now in our world with COVID-19. But I think this is going to be apropos no matter when you listen to this, no matter how long it is since COVID-19. You might be saying, "Oh, that's so last year," and when you listen to this, maybe you're saying, "Oh, that's so last month."


Michael:
              For a lot of us, it's pretty crazy, and pretty insane, at multiple levels. There's three, really we're going to talk about three different major categories today, of groups of leaders or small, medium sized businesses that we think, based on some really recent research and some surveys that have been done by some large companies around the country and at the same time, conversations we're having with customers across the country, people on LinkedIn, all that kind of stuff.


Michael:
              And those three groups really are companies that are doing fine, you may even be a part of the minority of companies that are actually doing better in this market. Any kind of shipping companies are doing really well in this market. We joke about the toilet paper industry, but some of those things-


Kathryn:
               But even in small business, I'm interacting with a guy who I just need to set up a Zoom call for who is a photographer and does virtual tours for apartment complexes. Oh my gosh, he is going crazy because you can't do physical tours anymore.


Michael:
              Right.


Kathryn:
               So he's creating all these 3D virtual cool tours and he is slammed.


Michael:
              Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.


Kathryn:
               And he's a one man shop.


Michael:
              And in California, the realtor association has said, you are not allowed to show homes anymore.


Kathryn:
               Right.


Michael:
              So the realtors are pulling people in for those, is that what you're talking about?


Kathryn:
               That's what I'm talking about.


Michael:
              Oh, because he does apartments and he's doing homes now.


Kathryn:
               Amazing. He does homes too, yeah.


Michael:
              Yeah. So you've got those kinds of things, those markets, you've got the markets that this season isn't doing anything, it didn't bring any extra business to you at all and it's impacting your company. I'd say that first category is companies that are doing fine and haven't been impacted or are positively impacted.


Michael:
              The second category is the companies that have been negatively impacted, but it's not going to be unto death, where it's not freaking you out. It's just this is one of those unexpected events that happens in business. You got it, you're fine. You're adjusting, whether it's furloughing people or it's cutting back on expenses or whatever, but your bottom line has been impacted.


Michael:
              And then the third group is a growing concern in America right now of small businesses that are in danger of closing. This is catastrophic to your business and you don't know what's going to happen after all this. We have everything from airlines, which I know that's not a small business, but we have this whole travel industry that bleeds all the way down to Airbnbs, that bleeds down to little cottage hotels and stuff like that. Airbnb's, not Airbnb's, but BnBs in general, you've got the whole hospitality market, with restaurants and all of that kind of stuff, and anything that had to do with events.


Kathryn:
               You got just the average Joe Main Street storefront, restaurants, all sorts of people in that category.


Michael:
              Yep. Yep. A whole lot of different things that go in with those restaurants. And so you've got a lot of... There are people going, "Oh my gosh, what are we going to do?" And we're going to speak a little bit today, what does it look like in passion and provision? What does it look like about building? And what potentially can you do looking forward? Because we can't do anything about going backwards, but we can look forwards. So, I think let's start with that last group.


Kathryn:
               Yeah.


Michael:
              I want to say, if you're listening, we feel you. It is really, really, really hard, and we want to know that our hearts go out to you and that this is just hard. Your dreams and everything else are kind of sitting there in front of you and you're not sure what's going to happen. It's your livelihood, or significant extra revenue stream, for you and your family. We realize that this has a lot of horrible impacts, and we are very, very sorry.


Kathryn:
               Yeah. I mean we have friends who were literally saying things like, "I've spent the last five years building this dream, and now I'm just watching it crumble, and I don't know if it's going to be recoverable." And that is just a terrifying place to be, so we-


Michael:
              We have one company, one set of friends that, we talked about them on the podcast last couple of weeks, who, they immediately lost 95% of their revenue as soon as this whole COVID-19 thing started.


Kathryn:
               Yep.


Michael:
              In the light of, we are so sorry for you right now, and you're in our prayers, and we hope that you will be able to recover your business. And if you can't, and those end up being the situation, we are praying for the opportunity for fresh starts and fresh opportunities that will come out of this for you because of this shift and change in your life.


Kathryn:
               Yeah. I was just interacting with a complete stranger on LinkedIn, which happens a lot as we are launching the book and people are interacting, he's in Vegas and was in the convention business. And so he's applying for jobs and I just was like, "Dude, we will pray for you that you find somewhere to land that finds you passion and provision."


Michael:
              Yeah. And here's what I would say, one of the things I would say, if you're saying, "Well, what about this passion, provision stuff? How does it help me and affect me?" One of the things that's really important behind a passion provision company is really a solid foundational business philosophy. It's competencies and business fundamentals.


Kathryn:
               That mind set.


Michael:
              And some of you, are unfortunately have had phenomenal business fundamentals. You've been doing fine, but you're just in one of those industries that just, no matter how smart or how much business fundamentals you have, it just is attacking it. There's a whole nother group of you that have been in this business where the idea of, if you can come through this or you come through this and you lose your current business and you need to start another company, you see a new niche, you are just an entrepreneur at heart and that's just where you are.


Michael:
              What passion and provision allows you to do is to rebuild from the ground up and retool. It allows you to start thinking, because we don't get into it a lot in the book, but as an advanced strategy that we teach is choosing markets that are more resilient. And also creating opportunities because life events happen and there are ways to prepare your company to be more resilient. That's part of the passion and provision model, behind it all is the fundamentals of building resilience in your company so that when something like this happens, you have done the hard work to create a back door, to create an alternative revenue source or something like that. It doesn't work for everything, especially if you're really feel a calling and everything else to certain industries. It's just, these things are rare, as we know, but they can happen.


Michael:
              Passion and provision doesn't just come overnight. It's not just you walk in and go, how can I even have that? It allows you to go in and go, okay, how do I step in and start to think about those things that I need to grow and prepare for, for the next season? And is there anything in these fundamentals that I can go back? Because I think there's some people out there right now, Kathryn, that think it might be over, but there actually may be something they can do. But they just haven't had the education or the encouragement or the perspective shift that creates those "aha" moments, where we're already seeing people who are coming in, who are very seasoned business people with reading the book and reviews that are saying, "I hadn't quite thought about it like that. Oh, that's an interesting angle," or "This is all based on old wisdom. It's still valid, but it's a new recipe."


Michael:
              When you put those things together in different perspectives, just like a recipe, it's like, wow, it's the same old thing, but it's new and different, all at the same time.


Kathryn:
               So just as a practical tangible, I would love for you to describe the strategy that you spent time talking with Todd about for his business.


Michael:
              That's a great point because we had mentioned a couple of episodes ago that we would talk about this, and I couched it last time we talked about it as an idea for restaurateurs. We started working with one of our clients who's in the manufacturing industry. What we did is, we went to Todd, and in this manufacturing environment they don't have a lot of work. They've actually had to furlough a good chunk of their staff. They have a very skeleton crew on right now. He says some people are just ordering and structuring and cleaning just so they can hold onto them. They're just giving them busy work right now because the work will come back.


Michael:
              So what they're doing is, we said, "Okay, why don't we start actually doing videos, videos of the shop, videos of the manufacturing process." So one of those things we talked about, it was really easy to do, is time lapse. Setting up a time lapse to actually show something that one of his manufacturing, they refurb large vans and vehicles and stuff like that, for everything from wheelchair access to, one of them they were doing was a prison van, and corporate [crosstalk 00:09:51].


Kathryn:
               Transport. They do refrigeration, all sorts of things-


Michael:
              Taking these vans, these new state of the art vans, and converting them into stuff, so that what you have is you have the space to do what big box vans did before or big buses did before, but now they're smaller, more economical, and more nimble. And I said, "Well, this is great. It's going to take months. Why don't we set this up? So that you're going to be able to demonstrate what you could do to a new customer later, because we know that when you tell me about it, it's one thing. But when you show me what you're doing, it turns on light bulbs in us completely differently." And I had told him about time lapse and I went over and we talked about where a couple of his projects were, the manufacturing projects that they could do, that would really give insight because it gives that "aha" moment. Now that I've seen a way, I could imagine a way that I could do it for myself. We talked a lot about people need to see "a" way before they can find "their" way.


Michael:
              It's true in these type of things when they're thinking like, "Okay, I could really gain some advantages in my business by going to a more economical van, but I'd have to have it retrofitted. And even with the retrofitting costs, it's still saves me tons of money." They're even retrofitting electric vans, and refrigeration and everything else. And so I showed him a time lapse that I did, one of the time lapses we did, and he went from, "I know what you're talking about, of course I've seen time lapses," to when I showed it to him in his office, on my phone, he went, "Oh."


Kathryn:
               "Oh."


Michael:
              "Oh." And then he went, "Oh, we could do that."


Kathryn:
               Yeah.


Michael:
              We could totally do that. The idea is, for somebody like him, he's going to do a time lapse or he's going to do an edited version that is only a couple of minutes long, of a walkthrough, a demo, talking to the camera and everything else. And they have probably half a dozen different major models that they work with or things that they do. Then they do all these small little manufacturing things differently.


Michael:
              Well, what if you start going through, and showing and doing a talking piece, and just walk people through the transformation, and do a demo of it online. It's like this guy with the apartments going to houses. What can happen is, all of a sudden he has this opportunity right now to create marketing assets that he's never had before that would have been great to have before COVID-19.


Kathryn:
               Or he's got an opportunity to market in a whole new way, because there are lots of people who have had these things, and all of a sudden people are like, "Oh my gosh, I need that."


Michael:
              Oh yeah.


Kathryn:
               "Oh my gosh, I have to have that" It's kind of like the retail store that wishes they were online, and hasn't been. There's that opportunity to just press further.


Michael:
              A lot of times we will make changes, we only make changes. Like if-


Kathryn:
               If the pain is too great.


Michael:
              If the pain is too great.


Kathryn:
               To stay put.


Michael:
              The hard part is, if you're listening to this podcast, you're trying to learn and grow. If you're in one of those situations where your business is in true danger, one of the things that you know, and this is just like if we were sitting down having a dinner or having a drink or something like that, we would talk. And I'd say, "There are a few things that you know that you should have probably been working on beforehand, but didn't have the time or energy." And so that said, there are times when you're going, if you were to look at it, and you'd say, "What are those things that I needed to do that I didn't do?"


Michael:
              One of the phone calls we got was a woman who has been in retail. She's done nothing to move online. She's always said, "Yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to do it. That'd probably be a good idea. Oh, but we're fine. We're doing okay. We're getting by." And now the situation is now she can't get by anymore, and now it's like, "Okay, how do I go from paper receipts to having a whole lot of other stuff?" It's a huge jump, it's a costly jump, but there could have been things you could have done in between. Now's the time to do that.


Michael:
              In restaurants, I didn't come up with this idea, I heard about it, I went, "This is fantastic." The first thing to do is get into your kitchen in your restaurant. You don't have any customers right now or anything else. Get the food, set up a camera, even if it's your iPhone or Android on a tripod, turn some lights on, and get yourself a microphone. If you don't have a microphone, just use what you have, but it would be good if you had like a wireless microphone or something like that. You can order that online and they're still coming. Then what I want you to do is I want you to prepare a recipe. I want you to prepare your best recipe on your menu, and do it and walk people through it, and tell them about the process and what goes into it, and some of the key things. Just do it in your kitchen, and then throw it up on the stainless steel counter, and say, "This is beautiful, and this is one of the things we love preparing for people. This is our most successful dish."


Michael:
              Then go through your top three or four. Then, if you still need to, and you have time, I would encourage you to do that for every single item on your menu. If you do that for everything on your menu, what you're doing is every time you make one of these videos, I want you to put it up on your social media. Then I want you to email everybody you know, in your email database, and tell them, just say, "Hey, in the middle of this time, we're doing videos on recipes and we're starting with our most popular recipes on our menu. I wanted something to do, and I wanted to just show you how it could be done and what it's like."


Michael:
              You will get so much stuff because when it comes to the point where if you're going to open again, you will have this opportunity that you're in front of people, because the key is you're not in front of people right now. They're not walking by your storefront. They're not walking by your restaurant.


Kathryn:
               So how do you stay top of mind?


Michael:
              This is great for top of mind. We're talking about it in the manufacturing industry, the original idea we heard came from the restaurant industry, small clothing shop, anything like that. You could be working and walking through all these little things and doing it. It may seem silly or stupid, you may say, "I hate being in front of the camera" or whatever, but I'm telling you, this is low cost, you already have the time on your hands, you could really be jumping on top of it.


Michael:
              Now this shifts us over to our medium group of companies that are in that place where this really is helpful for them. They are pretty sure they're going to be okay, but this is hurting, but they're not really worried yet about disappearing as a company.


Kathryn:
               Right. This strategy, one of the things that's super important about it is that you're like, "Okay, well I'll do that right now, but then what good is it going to do me in the future?" Well, the fact is you will have banked hours and hours and hours of footage that you can use all over the place, that you can repurpose on social media, that you can use on your website, that you can add in, forever. So you're not-


Michael:
              This is really good because not everybody's going to see it, so you just keep using it and reusing it and reusing it.


Kathryn:
               So you're creating stuff that you know, that in the core of who you are, you've probably thought, "I really should create a video about this, but I don't have time." Well, you know what? You need to go back to all those ideas that you don't have time for, and do them now.


Michael:
              Do at least one of them, right now.


Kathryn:
               At least.


Michael:
              Most businesses do not invest what they need to invest in marketing. They don't invest in making strangers aware of who they are, and reminding people that know who you are, enough, so that when they're thinking, like with a restaurant, let's go out tonight. I don't know about you, but our family will regularly say, "I don't want to cook. Where are we going to go?" And then we go into this weird, long conversation about trying to choose a place. It's like, our minds are blank and all we can remember,


Kathryn:
               Is like the four places that we go all the time, right?


Michael:
              And none of them sound good.


Kathryn:
               And then afterwards you're like, after you've eaten one of those four places that you go the time, you have the thought like, "Oh my gosh, I totally forgot about..." Crazy.


Michael:
              "Oh, we could've gone there, that would've been nice. We got to remember that. Oh yeah, that would have been fun. Oh yeah. Oh." Right?


Michael:
              So, and the reason is, one of them is, those restaurateurs, those people, they're not doing anything to stay "top of mind" in our world. They're hoping we just come back.


Kathryn:
               Right back and see them.


Michael:
              And that's great, but it's not helpful for you. So those are some ideas, that idea alone will help a bunch of you. I want you to think about, no matter what category you're in, because if you're in this place where you're in that medium business. I mean, maybe you're not sure if you're coming back, these are some things you could do, like you got to do something. If you're in that medium level, there's those places where it's like, you need to be doing something like this. You need to be looking for opportunities to work on marketing pieces, top of mind, staying out in front of people, and being sensitive to what's going on, but being top of mind.


Michael:
              Then you also need to be looking for, what are new niches and markets that you could be in? And start to experiment with one or two. Some businesses it's easier to do than others, I understand that, but start experimenting with that and looking for that, if you're not already doing that. If you're already doing that, good on you, that you're doing awesome, and that's super important. We had prepared, at Half a Bubble Out, for the book launch and moving into and adding more into our education stuff, it just so happened that it timed strangely with this whole piece of people wanting to be a home, online learning going through the ceiling. And also as one of the other reviewers of our books said, "For crying out loud, in this whole environment, with all the things we've gone through, who wouldn't want to be fulfilled in their business?"


Michael:
              Now's a great time to continue to rebuild, wherever you are, from wherever you are, with better principles and better strategies to work towards being fulfilled in work. And it's important, it's critical. So I loved it when he said that, that person was texting me. I was like, "That's awesome."


Michael:
              Then for those of you that are really growing your business, right now you may be saying, and some of them are, they're really stressed out, "Here's our opportunity to gain all this new business." Some of you are very stressed, you're working over and above, and you need to breathe. It can get very exciting to grow. We grew 400%. Our other company has grown multiple factors, year over year over year, for several years. It's very exciting. It's very stressful. You're wondering if it slows down, will you be able to survive or, or whatever, or you won't reach your goals. Maybe this is that time to reach your goals, and you're thinking I'm never going to have this opportunity again.


Michael:
              But what we want to do is, you want to make sure you're breathing, and not violating some of the core business principles for longevity and success and everything else that you need, be thinking about that. At least stop a moment, every day, once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and I want you to do a couple of different things. I want you to, three different things.


Michael:
              I want you to breathe deep. Remember, you're holding a lot of stress when you're trying to get a lot of things done, and you're not sure if they're all going to get done.


Kathryn:
               I find myself breathing deep when you say that. I'm like...


Michael:
              The second thing is, I want you to take a moment to just appreciate, to reflect and just be grateful. And it's even more critical for you to tell somebody what you're thankful for, and show some gratitude, and speak it out loud so that somebody else can hear, and that your ears can hear you say it. There's another part of your mind and another part of your soul that's going to listen when you say it out loud, there's something powerful about that. Being grateful.


Michael:
              This week has been kind of crazy because we are one of those companies that's growing and we're getting more business. We have lots of opportunities, and we have lots of challenges, problems that we're helping solve with our clients. We have our book launch, and it's amazing how tiring, and how exciting, a book launch is. We are doing phenomenally well in this book launch, it is going over and above our expectations. And I find myself easily falling into, "Well, if we got to a hundred, we could get to 200. And when we get to 200, well, if we got to 200, we could get to three hundred." And we're almost at 300 books, are we at 300 books?


Kathryn:
               No, we're at 296. And literally, I was like, "We're going to celebrate at 300." And Michael's like, "I just have my sights on 400." I'm all, "Hey-"


Michael:
              I said that before we hit record-


Kathryn:
               "Can we celebrate 300, please."


Michael:
              Right. It's so easy. I'm telling you, sometimes on these podcasts, I'm telling you stuff that I need to remind myself to do because they're smart things to do. Look, we all need to do these things. We all need to pay attention, making sure things are happening inside the business. We all need to be working on the business. We all need to be working on our marketing and our sales. And because it's the system, this holistic, and to step back from the "it's all in my face" at least to where you can see the forest, and not just one or two trees, and realize it's a bigger thing, a bigger picture, and there are things to be thankful for. So you're going to breathe deep, and rest, and breathe in and breathe out, and let some of that stress go. You're going to do that by hopefully also pulling back your perspective. You're going to be grateful and really take a moment to appreciate what's going on and to appreciate your team for what is going on and what they're accomplishing with you.


Michael:
              And then the third is to go, "Okay, what is it that I need to do? Am I reassessing my goals? Or do I need to assess them? What is the smart thing to work on right now?", as opposed to the thing that is calling you from just an urgency perspective. You want to make sure, in those four quadrants that we talked about sometimes, that you're not in the urgent quadrant, you're in the important, but not urgent quadrant. That's where you need to be settling into, as often as possible.


Kathryn:
               Yes. What you said.


Michael:
              What's your biggest challenge when it comes to breathing deep and stopping and relaxing?


Kathryn:
               Well, during this particular season, my biggest challenge is there's no one to stop me from working. Right? My social life doesn't stop me from working.


Michael:
              I'm not really good at it, am I?


Kathryn:
               No. So, I mean, we've been putting in 10, 11 hour days, sometimes 12, on a pretty regular basis since COVID-19 hit, and that's not sustainable, it goes against passion and provision.


Michael:
              I want you to know I'm trying. I'm trying, but it's not always helping. We had set up, before this whole thing, this COVID-19, we'd set up systems and patterns in our life that helped guard against us doing those things.


Kathryn:
               And they've been disrupted.


Michael:
              And they have been disrupted. So, the question is, do we build in whole new patterns and everything else that are going to be disrupted again in four weeks? We've kind of been in that mindset, but we're starting to adjust a little bit, getting a little better and everything else, but still not easy. What's the biggest thing of being thankful? The biggest challenge for you to stopping and being, and expressing gratitude? Or is that a problem?


Kathryn:
               No, actually it's not a problem.


Michael:
              Yeah, you do it really well.


Kathryn:
               I really enjoy stopping and just going, "Oh my gosh. Look where we are." I remember when I thought this was impossible. "Look where we are. Look what that person said, oh my gosh, they think it's good book, people think it's a good book." Like I'm celebrating. I am. I mean, I'm fricking tired, but I feel super excited about it. And every time we get to talk to somebody new on a podcast, or whatever else, I'm just having so much fun talking about it. So I feel super grateful.


Michael:
              Yeah, I am too. It's really neat. I'll tell you what though, the challenge I have is, I love to celebrate. I'm trying to intentionally do it with our staff every day, and thank them and be grateful to them and be grateful for what we're doing. But inside I am being pulled towards thinking about, "Okay, I was thinking we were trying to get to 150 books sales for the whole week, and now we've blown past that."


Michael:
              And I'm thinking, "Okay, there are certain goals that are more advanced goals or advanced places you can go, in any kind of situation where you go." You don't tell first-timers that because odds are that they're only going to make that first level, they're not going to make the second level. I'm thinking, "Okay, we blew past the first level. I have three more days left, or four more days left on this launch, what should we be looking at? Because now we're pulling our foot off the gas, and I'm like, okay, is there another level? Is there something that is actually would be worthwhile that you only think about when you're in this neighborhood of success? And then how do you get to that?"


Michael:
              I think about that. I'm always thinking future tense and that gets in my way, often, of being present.


Kathryn:
               Yeah. And being grateful for what is, because you're just thinking about, "Okay, but if we could do this, then what about that?" Which isn't a bad thing.


Michael:
              Well, and I'm grateful, but one of the things that's dangerous for me, that I know, is that everybody around me doesn't hear me being grateful. They hear me thinking about the next big thing. Can you ever be just happy with where you are? I was. I was, inside my little head for-


Kathryn:
               For like five minutes, and now I want to do the next big thing.


Michael:
              Yeah. Five minutes would be nice sometimes, if it wasn't for... So, some of you are going, yeah, I get that, I understand that.


Kathryn:
               Entrepreneurs, you.


Michael:
              It's crazy. So, some people are just competitive like that, and that just is the way it is. These three groups, whether, if you're in pain and you're just don't know what it's going to be, and some research has said already that we were looking at roughly 50% of businesses that were surveyed are not sure they're going to survive.


Kathryn:
               Small businesses.


Michael:
              Small businesses. And then you've got a whole bunch of people in that middle group who are, this is really hard and hurting, it's been a hit. And one of the things to speak to is, take inventory, because we're going to come out of this. And it's going to be like the Great Recession, some companies that came out of the Great Recession went, "It was so painful." I've heard stories recently, "It was so painful that we made an issue of actually storing cash. We made sure that our stock, our savings accounts, everything else, we were prepped and ready. So what has happened is we've been fully prepared to weather this storm, and we're not having to lay anybody off, and we're not even worried about it, because we could go for six months."


Kathryn:
               Because we learned the last time through.


Michael:
              Yeah. And it was so painful that they didn't want to suffer it again. And then there's other companies that came out of the last one said, "I don't want to do this again. Things got better and they never changed. We're experiencing it." So take an inventory. What do you need to do? What would be important? And then make it a priority, make it a habit in your company.


Michael:
              Those of you that are thriving. It's great. Take advantages now because some of the markets will die down when everything comes back and it'll level out, and you'll have a whole new level of customers. You may be like who we were in the very beginning where we grew 400% in a very short period of time. It was very hard and very difficult, and it showed us many of our weak spots, where we had in the company. When we came out of it, the new level was twice what we had done before that. So we doubled our company in two years, but we had to go through one of these explosion bubbles to really experience that. And it was painful. It was hard and it exposed a lot of our weaknesses.


Michael:
              But it was a great opportunity for us to make some changes, and we did, and out of all that really came a lot more of the inspiration that eventually was passion and provision, this podcast and the book. So there's some great opportunities there for you in that, through great opportunities that are also challenges, but they're the right kind of challenges, the challenges you hope for that are going to show you some stuff and take that as an opportunity to learn.


Michael:
              We just want to encourage all of you. We're going to be okay, we're going to make it through this. Even if you're worried that your company isn't going to survive, you will, you and your family will. You were resourceful enough to get into a business and to become a leader, to be an entrepreneur, you're resourceful enough to go around, the future will be bright again, the sun will come out. We want to just encourage you. You can do this, you have done it before. You have weathered challenges before, or you wouldn't be where you are today. And whether it's keeping the company you have and reinventing it, or stabilizing it, or going onto a new venture, whatever that is, we believe that you have an opportunity to grow, and you will grow because you've demonstrated to yourself and your loved ones around you.


Michael:
              Hey, I hope that today has been somewhat encouraging, giving you some ideas and some tips and just taking the day to talk about the challenges we're in, and opportunities. I believe we have bright days ahead of us. Sometimes those bright days come through really hard times, and sometimes the clouds came in, they go out and you get to take what you have and move forward. But either way, we really appreciate you listening today. We want the best for you. If there's any questions or anything else, please don't hesitate to email the company at halfabubbleout.com.


Kathryn:
               Or info@habovillage.com.


Michael:
              Info@habovillage.com. Or go to our website and leave a note or something like that. Questions, comments, anything else. We love to hear from you, we really, it's really fun when we get to hear from all of you who are listening.


Kathryn:
               And if at all want to buy a book and haven't yet, go to fulfilledthebook.com, fulfilledthebook.com.


Michael:
              And you'll find out multiple opportunities, including on Amazon. All right. Have a great day. Thank you so much. I'm Michael Redman.


Kathryn:
               And I'm Kathryn Redman.


Michael:
              And this is the HaBO Village Podcast.