The Money’s in the Bank

[Music] hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm your host Lauren Feldman if you've been listening to this podcast you know that I've been having weekly conversations with five business owners tracking their entrepreneurial Journeys especially in light of the pandemic crisis they are all now confronting we recorded this episode at noon eastern time on Friday April 10th with this week's 21 hats podcast lineup including J gos who has several businesses in Chicago a picture frame shop artist frame service and a home furnishing store Jason holes William Vander bluman who is founder and CEO of Vander blumen Search Group a recruiting firm that specializes in working with churches and other faith-based organizations and Laura Xander who is co-founder and CEO of Jimmy Bean wool a digital version of a neighborhood yarn shop that is based in Reno Nevada as usual I started the episode by asking each owner for a quick update all three have been working hard on their applications for the SBA back to paycheck Protection Program loans but it was William who surprised us all by revealing that not only had his application been approved but the money had already been wired into his bank account hence the title of this episode the money's in the bank stunned both Laura and Jay said William's success must have involved divine intervention but William suggested a different Theory after that conversation we moved into a discussion of which businesses are most likely to survive the crisis and Jay offered up something of a five-point crisis stress test five questions they may help you determine how well positioned your own business is to survive this crisis it may even help you start thinking about what we can learn from this crisis to prepare for the next one cuz we all know there will be a next one if you find Value in this conversation please know that 21 hats is struggling with the crisis too if you know a friend who might benefit from this episode please share it please subscribe wherever you get your podcast review us and rate US it makes a big difference we are also doing weekly live webinars now the 21 hats War Room Thursdays at 2 eastern time where you can get your questions answered by experts we've chosen to help you navigate the crisis you can find out who the guest is each week by subscribing to our daily newsletter the 21 hats Morning Report you can do that at 21h hats.com you can also contact me with any questions or suggestions you might have my email address is L Feldman 21h hats.com before we get started I'm here with Adam witty who is the founder and CEO of Advantage forbs books which helps entrepreneurs write and publish their own books Adam I know you think all entrepreneurs should consider writing a book why is that book is the most powerful marketing tool in the world it's a way for you to share your story and your company's story without anyone ever feeling like they are being sold to it builds Authority it builds credibility it builds expertise for you and your business and we're recording this in the middle of this unprecedented crisis is now a good time to write a book uh Believe It or Not Lauren I would argue now is a better time probably than ever before entrepreneurs and business owners have an unprecedented amount ount of time on their calendar that quite frankly they did not think that they would have we are working with entrepreneurs all over the world who are using this unexpected downtime to create an asset for their business that will pay dividends for the rest of their career if someone does write a book how will they know if it's effective as a marketing tool they use a book as a sleuth marketing tool to generate new customers uh to advertise their business and ultimately to help convert uh prospects into customers and for many entrepreneurs a customer can be worth hundreds thousands even tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars and so one new customer into your business can more than pay for the book uh speaking opportunities PR and media opportunities those are some of the other benefits I know a lot of entrepreneurs who've wanted to write a book and have never quite gotten around to it how do you help somebody in that situation we do our best to make it as easy and painless as as possible and we do that by first pairing you with a master book planner who spends some time interviewing you and those interviews turn into a blueprint for your book then we assign a ghost writer to work with you to ask you questions about that Master book plan to interview you it's all done over the phone Lauren so it's super easy those interviews are then ultimately turned by The Ghost Writer into the manuscript of your book if someone wants to learn more where should they go we have a free copy of my best-selling book titled book the business and we're offering a discovery consultation to any 21 hat subscriber that wants to learn more Advantage family.com sl21 hats you heard him go to Advantage family.com sl21 hats to get Adam's book and to sign up for your consultation now back to the [Music] show all right let's get started I'm curious if all of you have gone ahead and applied for cares act uh loans uh let's start with you William uh I don't know of any business owner who's done more to investigate and figure out how this whole thing works than than you and your team have you've shared that information uh with a lot of people but but how's it working out for you did you get your application in well we put our application in Lauren and you know austerity is in place in our house there's no wine or beer during the week otherwise I'll gain the covid-19 and uh I don't want that so when Friday rolls around it's like yes okay made it to Friday so I get to 5:00 and I make Adrian a cocktail and I make mine and then I get a voicemail from my banker saying please call me as soon as possible I'm like oh my gosh really really and so I called her and she said I just wanted you to know you guys are the first uh organization in all of our bank Nationwide to be approved for PPP so I'm like okay that's worth it that's fine uh within 48 hours we were funded so the money's in my bank what oh you really are close to God oh my God I'm gonna go I'm gonna start going to church okay this is it I'm converting you've convinced me exactly William how do you explain this why do you think you were successful I don't know they don't want to mess with the guy with God it's obvious I don't know dumb luck uh you know there's this story in the New Testament that Jesus tells where he says there is this Widow who kept coming to court and she just kept bugging the judge over and over and over and finally wore the judge out by coming to him over and over and over and he said just give her what she wants and that might have been a little bit of our coo is so good and and just kind of bulldogged it and called over and over and over and you know we were providing this resource to a whole lot of people our bank knew about it so I I don't know where the the lines fell in Pleasant places for us and uh it worked out and we've actually heard uh I heard of a church with about 25 members uh yesterday that got funded so it's it's happening did you get as much money as you were anticipating yeah every dollar wow yeah now we we created a little calculator on that I think we've overplayed it but church9 there's a little interent your payroll and it'll tell you what and that's what we used so maybe we could have squeezed some more money out but but we didn't and Adrian's dad my father father-in-law was in politics for a long time and he told me as soon as this cares act went through he said be sure you're first in line cuz once it starts it's a Feeding Frenzy and he said I know this is different than anything else but just so we got a little rabbit about it and I I I don't want to take credit our bank gets a lot of credit what bank do you use uh BBVA the so oh okay you know a lot of people even if they've gotten it through their Bank they've then run into a wall at the SBA did you have to do anything with the SBA no no no no no now we apply there's the I forget the name of the other act with the interruption of business stuff that you can do straight through the SBA which I think is a eidl I think yeah that's it that's it where they credit the first 10,000 to you we have applied for that we have not heard anything about that but I'm not Uber concerned about that I understood that would take a while how about you Jay when we spoke last Friday you felt you had all your ducks in a row and the application was ready to go where do you stand well there might be some irony here I was with the the smallish Business Bank in Chicago they got swallowed up by the bigger Bank from Ohio not a Chase size but but much bigger and I thought great here we go again because I've already seen this movie well maybe I'm better off with them because he claims that I'm number three on the list on his list he's trying to hold on to my account because he knows I'm not happy with the whole merger and maybe maybe being at a bigger bank now will help I don't know but but he claims her number three number three on the list to be approved by the bank literally like half the bankers left the bank after the merger and he stayed around and I'm number three on his list supposedly they've been approving these loans for a week why why why would you still be number three why what's keeping you from approval do you know I don't know I mean that's like asking me why the sky blue I mean I I have no idea and frankly my CFO is dealing with it I'm dealing with other stuff but I wish we had video for this cuz while William was talking my mouth was hanging down the whole time that you actually have m in the bank oh my God me too yeah just like like did the Easter Bunny come by too today is he outside I'm just I'm flabbergasted but I I'm hopeful that it's G to go through um I'm hopeful but I'm not counting on it so uh we'll see how about you Laura a lot of the people applying for these loans are are truly desperate from what you've told us you're not as desperate your uh your sales of yarn online I gather has continued to hold up uh but you've gone ahead and applied for the loan yeah absolutely yeah we um U I use US bank and they didn't have the application process ready until Sunday morning so I put everything in Sunday morning and then every day they send an email saying you know it hasn't changed hasn't changed you're still in step two of seven so they've done done a good job of kind of communicating um regularly and have really laid it out uh and I was bugging our Banker every like probably four times a day I used Williams calculator I've been following everything that William's been doing studying it in fact I've been putting together um you know a selection of resources per William to share with the knitting community and all the different yarn shops um but yeah no I haven't we're still just waiting so I'm with Jay I mean I'm hopeful but I don't know that it's going to make a difference and yeah yarn sales are good um so you know the two businesses that we have one of them is doing well and the other one is you know losing lots of money every week so the one is covering the other one for right now and is is that why you decided to apply for the loan I assume oh absolutely yeah because I don't know when this is going to fall out I mean right now things are going well people are knitting a ton people are buying a lot of toilet paper you know I mean it's the same kind of thing but at what point does that does the bottom fall out so I'm a little worried that we're going to have a delayed reaction um so we are trying to just do what we can push as hard as we can save as much as we can to be prepared for when the bottom falls out for us I mean the interesting question is did you steal from future sales now or are they just going to knit more stuff it is possible that people will just knit more or it's possible they just they just you know loaded up on the supplies and you're going to see a drop later who knows I that's the thing I mean and we we just want to be smart about it you know and be prepared for either for whichever way it goes William do you have any uh advice for uh for Jay or Laura Lauren I'm just a recovering preacher I you know I'm still learning how to do business and I'm sure you guys have used the same bank for a while but like I'm loyal to a fault it was Compass bank which then became BBVA and there was some pain in that but we stayed with them we do our personal with them we've done every penny of every business we've ever done with them and uh you know as a result we have a person that works with us and I I think that the relational Equity that we built over a long time kind of got us to a little farther in the front of the queue and I where I've heard trouble for some Churches is uh if you dig a little deeper and say why are you not getting anywhere they've bounced from bank to bank every year to get a eighth of a point here or whatever the thing is and and it's like you know there's some it's like frequent flyer programs I'm embarrassed how well United treats me but but it's because I only use them so I I don't know if that's a transferable principle but it's it's part of the equation for us I need to step in on that because I've been to 10 Banks over 42 years somebody was with eight years 10 years somebody was with for a year two years I'm sure in your case it was helpful but I don't want anyone listening to believe that if they stick with the same bank for years they're going to take care of them because that is absolutely not always the case if you're at the wrong Bank meaning they're really not a small Business Bank you're you're naive to think that oh I've had my car loan there for years I've had my my checking account there since I was 20 years old if they're the wrong bank and they're not a business bank it doesn't matter so you happen to be at the right bank and you stuck with it at work but there's lots of people that are at banks that really are not small business Banks and at the end of the day I don't care how many years you've been there they're not giving you a business loan because they just don't do that stuff in your case Jay I think your your situation was you you thought you were at the right bank but then it got taken over and it became the wrong Bank yes I was at the small business bank so here's my my advice about banking Banks need two out of three things they either need big business they need retail business or they need small business but you're hard pressed to find a bank that does all three so the the gigantic banks of the world have banks on every corner they doing tons of business with mortgages with car loans blah blah blah they don't really need the small business Community which is why these other Banks exist and the small business Banks usually don't have banks on every corner and don't do and don't do business with the big so it's two out of three so I was at the smaller bank that was designed to take care of small business and they got bought out by a much bigger bank but it still is a business bank so it might be okay and and like I said the guy's paying attention and he's calling us there's a there's a tip the guy called me I'm not calling him he's following with us so I feel like Ren the que I will be disappointed if I don't have the money in a couple of weeks but I I certainly am not expecting it this week and I haven't signed any documents so I know the process is done because I have to DocuSign something and he hasn't sent it over to me yet so I know it's still not officially in we've had US Bank for probably 15 years now um we went there from Wells Fargo and I think the fact that we're in a small town helps even though it's a large National Bank I mean the guy that I work with I mean he comes and visits I can email him anytime it's so person you borrow do you borrow money from them no uh we just matter no but my we just did for the if you never borrow money from a bank that's like saying I've got a great insurance company but I've never been in an accident if you've never borrowed money from the bank you have no idea that's why I say people are naive they think because they've been at a bank for years it's going to take care of them and when it comes to the business loan some of these Banks just don't do it they really don't okay I mean we had a line of credit for quite a while but I I see what you're saying okay next topic we've heard your stories the the last few weeks we know that uh each of your businesses uh has to to say the least taken a hit I'm wondering have you thought about what it would take to actually put you out of business and and I'm I'm asking this in part because I'm curious about what makes a company well positioned to to make it through a crisis like this and I and I'm wondering what we can learn from this Jay let me start with you have you thought about what it would take to actually end your business yeah and you know remember I've lived through four recessions September 11th the whole thing um this is worse in some degree in the short term and after I got over the I'd say two days of just like just shock I started saying to myself okay let's go through this so number one I've got a strong customer base that loves my businesses my framing business in Chicago is literally 20 times the size of the national average and I probably have 30% of the markets here in Chicago and then my my retail my my furniture are same story in my wholesale so I've got a strong thing and number two um I it's about legal exposure I don't have Partners I don't have investors I I don't really have a landlord so it's not like I get a call tomorrow and go that's it we want you out I want you to sell the inventory that's a huge deal and that was by Design I I never wanted to be in a position that some partner I've got who's living in buar ratan now who's 73 calls up screaming I want my money back close the business down so and then let me stop you there we we'll we'll come back to you but uh you just made a couple of interesting points William how about you have have you thought about what it would take for you to actually go out of business in this situation oh sure I mean not more than 365 times a year but uh probably seeing the entrepreneurs journey and a daily journey is like I'm awesome I suck we're doing great we're going to close I I don't know how as a small business owner you don't go through that I I do think for me um I have found where my checks and balances are to see when I'm out of touch with reality and in touch and you know Adrian and I balance really really well she's usually the realist and I'm an idealist when I start to go through the paranoid Tail Spin of here it is this is it we're closing up shop we're done um I'll I'll gut check with her and and in this instance she's been very clear say no way the business will come back now how we lead through this could end the business what what do you mean by that I mean uh so i' I read a really interesting article it was Harvard Business review and it was a study large quantitative study of businesses that bounced back after the 08 recession and whether they were aggressive or uh aggressive in cutting costs or aggressive in investing in more uh marketing exactly we uh we linked to that story in the 21 hats Morning Report maybe that's I read it article so what I took away if you cut too aggressively you're you're more likely to fail than anybody however if you're too aggressive and bullish about just pushing forward at all costs you're also second likely to fail and and it's in the middle there of walking this tight RPP that that really determined who made it and who didn't and I think that's what we're trying to do that's part of you know last week's podcast was the the day after uh we reduced payroll by 40 % uh we could have reduced it more we didn't and that reduction was a combination of layoffs furlows and uh payroll reduction uh beginning with my salary going away but uh uh that was pretty severe but we could have been more severe so the the market you know unless churches can't gather anymore and unless schools can't have school anymore unless nonprofits go off the market they will need top leadership and and some people might say well in a recession uh when everybody's looking for a job why do I need to search for well actually it's trickier then to figure out who really needs a job and who wants this job so I'm not concerned about the necessity for my type of work uh the market I don't think will go away how I lead through this crisis will determine our viability in the long term and and I'm looking for uh checks and balances where I'm not being irrationally panicked or irrationally aggressive and I've tried to surround myself with a leadership team and and it's a very small team but I'm incessant with them about saying you have to tell me the truth I'm trying Lauren to not be the reason that our business ends uh it won't be because of my team members they're amazing it won't be because the market collapses that'll still be there we're are there other people who do what you do well before covid we had a few people that were trying after Co I'll be interested to see how many are still standing I'm curious um William real quick with you keep saying your leadership is it because are you not treating your team well are you not like what are you worried that you're going to do wrong cut too deep too fast okay or fail to jump on opportunity so you're worried that you're going to either be too impulsive or not exactly impulsive enough okay it's the tight RPP of when do I expand and when do I be cost it's the bosu ball I'm like this is why I'm so glad I've been doing yoga because it is literally just it's surfing yes you know if you lean too far on one side you fall feeling too far on the other you fall the other external circumstances am I going to get is somebody going to write an algorithm that suddenly causes companies to find staff without having to look is there a Pandora for Staffing I don't I'm not real concerned about that yet uh am I concern that that churches won't be able to meet for a year and a half and all of a sudden the economics change yeah that would change things severely but would that end the business or would it put it into sort of an Ice Age hibernation that we would come out of later I think probably the and not the former Laura how about you have you thought about the possibility that the business might not survive this no I haven't a ton but here's why and I finally realized why I'm not freaking out um we have been struggling for three years ever since the flood that hit us and made us move in 2017 so it's been three years of struggle and being scared that the business was going to go away thinking that we might close you know and just so I've been in battle for a really really long time so there's part of me that I think emotionally is either just beat down or numb or callous or I used to it you become a warrior this is what happens you become a warrior but let me just point out Laura for people who've been listening to the podcast they'll recall that uh a couple of months ago you were telling us that you and your husband Doug were were on the edge oh my god I've been on the edge for forever with the acquisition uh of the company in Texas that was before any any of this happen yeah exactly exactly and it's been years I mean really since the spring of 2016 when we um we let our general manager at the time go and everything has just Fallen apart so it's been four yeah I mean really it's been four years of doubling my Prozac you know trying to just figure it all out so you know I'm comfortable right now I mean we will figure it out we're in a good spot right now made the the changes that we've needed to make um and so I'm not really worried about going away we're just we've been dealing with it for a long time is there any particular thing that does concern you most um I think it kind of it's what Lauren or what William was just talking about and it is the emotional stress that is being put on our team and so um it's whether I'm going to be able to help lead I guess um and have the empathy that I need to have and just because I'm not freaking out doesn't mean other people aren't freaking out and I'm trying to be very aware of that and conscious of that and everybody you know that's the biggest struggle for us right now is that everybody's on edge um which I'm sure is very normal um but that's my biggest concern is can we lead this team um and can we do it in a way that doesn't end up with people being horribly upset or bitter miserable or what ever it is Jay I interrupted you before you were kind of giving us uh what sounded a little bit like the beginnings of a stress test for a business entering uh a crisis what else is on your list what else do you look at and thinking about I've never been in this situ I've you know like I said I've lived through T through slowdowns but I've never been to where the business was literally shut off for six weeks or even more so I I went through this in my head and here's what I came up with number three is do you have the will to go on um I have enough real estate frankly I could probably retire and be fine I have absolutely no interests in going down to Florida no offense to Florida and playing peanuckle and talking about my prostate with my friends I have absolutely no desire to go do that because I've seen because we have no desire to do that with you yeah I so so like I'm as enthused today as I was 20 years ago and so I plan on working for a long time so the fourth one which I don't think I have exposure to and I I don't think either of you two do either are your people going to be there when the dust settles and I believe that my people are 100% with me and are committed and we'll see us through this whole thing and then lastly this is the trickier one what kind of resources do you have um do you have cash I don't have a whole lot of cash because I've always reinvested but I do have buildings that you know I have a building doesn't have a morgage on it and I which gives me some credit and I think that that is going to be a def thing for some businesses have you do you have any cash do you have any credit do you have any do you have any inventory I mean I'm sitting on enough inventory that you know I could bleed off inventory for six months and and be okay so I'm not going anywhere and you know everything you need to know about business you can learn from watching the Rocky movies Rocky to having his head in he sits in the corner he looks up at Mickey after a bad round he just says I ain't going down no more so that's where I'm at how's your prostate good good good I I swear I went out to lunch with someone and I was telling them this as we were leaving the guys next to me I swear to God one guy said oh I got to get an Amar and my Pro go see what I'm talking about I mean that's what guys do when they sit around those big tables and you wonder what they're talking about that's what they're talking about mystery solved in one way or another each of you kind of brought up the question of how long this lasts and how long you have to make it through I mean none of us knows obviously um but are you thinking about that at all William do you do you have are you planning for something uh are you thinking uh in terms of you know June July August next year Well I you know I spend my day trying to connect with our clients uh you know we're creating a lot of content but uh connection Trump's content right now and and I think that's a customer care lesson that I'm learning and maybe it helps somebody out there today that you know there's a there's inate there is an innate desire among people to be with other people it's just not good that we're alone uh CS Lewis had a definition of Hell said hell is God's granting of our final wish to be left alone and uh so I I'm trying to connect with clients and as I connect with them invariably the question comes up so when do you guys think you're going to be able to get together and it varies by region obviously uh but it also varies by Church size you know I've got guys with a 5,000 seat Auditorium that's an entirely different situation than 200 on a Sunday I think I read something uh on the internet William that indicated you you actually did help a church hire a pastor without meeting them in person is that correct yeah yeah well that's not quite 100% they they'd done some interviewing before this but the congregation had not met just the search committee uh it was actually the oldest mega church in the country Moody Bible Church which has been around a long time very historic lots of process it's not a Nimble startup it's it's got you know some uh good calcification you know it moves slowly and uh they got down to their final guy and Co set in and uh the search committee said well rather than wait let's get this done so he he met the deacons and the deaconesses uh via uh Zoom he did a virtual Town Hall he preached virtually live on a Sunday uh to an empty room but to the whole congregation so they could decide and vote whether he's a guy or not uh did that on a zoom meeting and I attended and then did a Q&A and then they used Survey Monkey to vote and uh it was pretty awesome so the oldest mega church in the country hired their newest Pastor over Zoom uh this pretty good pretty good headline but uh I I to answer your question Lauren a friend of mine uh wrote an article and uh really Andy Crouch it's a great article that talks about is this a blizzard is this a long winter or is this a mini Ice Age and and you got to figure that out and then adjust your business accordingly so like cash reserves we're built for a blizzard no problem uh we actually can withstand a Long Winter with cutting some costs and get through it if it's a long Ice Age it's a different proposition and so polling people what what I'm hearing and it changes every day but but the most recent things that uh I've heard is there are parts of the country uh that this may not be true but church- wise uh most everybody's hoping Father's Day can happen and uh it may happen sooner in some parts later in others and so we're we're planning to have a really rough Q2 for sales and we're planning for about a half load in Q3 and hopefully 3/4 load in Q4 of of year-over-year so um if it's if it's worse than that and for some reason we decide to stay at home for a year and a half then I think everybody's got to redesign their plans Laura how are you thinking about how long this might last uh kind of around the same you know we actually had some in-person events scheduled um some Retreats late June um we just decided to move that to late August so we're hoping and these are smaller you know 50 60 people kind of thing but um people are the customers are moving you know they're they're switching the dates and they seem to be okay with it you know our biggest trade show is in early June and that just got cancelled um so I think we're kind of thinking augus is you know and that things will pick up and be relatively back to normal um in the fall Jay I have a different answer um I feel like we're in the cockpit we're going through a horrendous storm and I'm paying attention to the gauges and what's in front of me I'm not thinking about two months from now because there's just nothing I can do about it and if I watch the news they've got all these pontificators that are making up stuff and whoever says the most outrageous thing gets on oh this is going to be worse than World War II combin it's like it's just it doesn't mean anything so like I'm focused on what do I do today what should I be doing for cash reserves and I'm just just seeing it the way it goes because I don't know if this is going on for another three weeks another three month I don't know and I it doesn't help any to be trying to guess because there's nothing I can do about it at this well same page but I mean I'm looking every day at like our cash flow and I'm looking at our forecasts and adjusting and so right now today trying to predict you know how much cash we're going to need over the next next six to eight months that's where I'm at ask me again next what are you GNA do with that information though that's my question what are you GNA do with that information it's changing how we're spending things it's changing um I'm giving budgets out to the different teams um I'm just I'm watching it in case I need to cut budgets even more in case we're going to need to cut payroll in case we need to you know cut down our ordering Jay it's different because Laura's she's got a business is working right exactly she's operating thanks for reminding me that Laura thanks you're welcome uh for reminding me you own your building yeah buildings yes oh yes I'm sorry sorry yeah so it just shows you that everyone has assets and liabilities when this stuff happens and I'm down I'm literally 90% of my people or more 95% of my people are are are fured and I'm not spending any money so and I have to tell you in some weird way I'm like on a manic High I'm like I'm I'm in the battle mode here I'm I've got good plans and I my people are coming up with stuff we're going to do as soon as we open open and and and I'm planning on sending a letter to a woman that I talked to 9 years ago who wanted to work for me but she couldn't because she had a a a employment contract and now I'm thinking wonder if she's on Furlow now talk about a game changer and I don't so so I just sent her a note because I couldn't find her phone number like I might be able to snag a million-dollar a year salesperson that I could have never hired before so I'm just looking for opportunities to make something make lemonade out of lemons cuz well that's a good point opportunities Jay and I have actually been talking offline about us looking into now buying a building and you're going to get a really good deal and an incredibly cheap interest rate yep so I've been researching finding some buildings looking at you know when do we think the commercial real estate market is going to hit bottom um so kind of studying the 2008 2009 thing Laur do you even know how uh difficult it is to to buy a building right now are commercial Realtors operating absolutely oh yeah oh there are the guy that lives across the street from us actually he runs an escro company and he just said everything has dropped out like nothing's going through because of all the uncertainty and I'm not looking to buy some we don't want to buy something today but again this goes back to I'm trying to think about six months from now um you know so starting to put my feet in the water starting to kind of look around starting to track rates starting to track prices I can give you a real real story 2008 the real estate market was completely decimated nobody was doing anything I looked at an 85,000 foot building to move my warehouse and factory too and the price kept dropping deal of the century would have never happened without the crash of 2008 I ended up with a 85,000 foot building with 27 foot high ceilings and three loading dock doors that is it was a GameChanger and I wouldn't have bought that building if I didn't live through the crash of 2008 what's your real estate situation William I assume you have a landlord we do have a landlord uh we were actually at the beginning of the year starting to talk about downsizing our space here in Houston so that we could have Regional Offices probably in like a Wei works or that sort of thing in about five other markets and that's still going to happen it's just been put on pause uh but it's been really cool because we've been working remote policies for the last year to say how would we work if we didn't have an office uh so in the middle of shrinking that up back in January we were like if we if we we found a subtenant for half of our space we have about 15,000 fet not not a lot we're we're not uh we don't have manufacturing or anything and uh We Shrunk it down where we have five they have five and we share five and we had put in their uh buyout Clauses they're growing very fast oil and gas company that actually will grow through this and uh we had hoped that they would actually buy us out so we could go buy a building kind of take a note from Jay and just own my property rather than pay for someone else's mortgage um and so so that's still in play and if we get in fact I just told our lead team if we get out of our lease now which may happen since uh we have a cash strong subtenant that may want to make their own move uh that'd be fine and we can just stay virtual tell everybody goes back to work and then figure out what to buy so so we're kind of in this weird no man's land and we're figuring it out one day at a time you have to realize my percentage of occupancy costs are five times what Williams would be I have a factory got showrooms it's the rent is a major is a major expense of mine and it isn't in his case so for me it's a game changer for him it would be nice and worth doing but it wouldn't be the thing that you know in 20 years says oh thank God I bought the building I just love the fact that Williams uh recruiting service for churches is sharing office space with an oil and gas company if if anybody was wondering yes you are based in Houston oh Lauren Lauren it's it's uh it's even better than that it's an oil and gas company it they do uh software for midstream like the the shipping of the product after it's out of the ground and they're based out of Israel and so they're all strong practicing Jewish people wonderful I knew that was coming I said I saw that com I saw it's just an amazing coexistence that people would think that can't happen you guys need to merge there you go yeah do recruiting for him all right we're we're almost out of time real quickly you all sound like you're doing pretty well but I'd like to go around to to each of you and ask you maybe you have a tip I mean just dealing with the isolation uh with the Sheltering at home aspect William how about you how how are you coping so we have seven children two of whom are out of the house five here and one's in C my wife is now a university professor and a high school instructor and a middle school instructor and an elementary instructor and running a house and and she is she could run the military she can build a routine that works and scales and she has built a routine and a schedule for us and I am amazed at how much routine actually liberates you rather than enslaves you it's made sense out of the days where we've got good friends that own solid businesses that are kind of streaming Netflix and wondering what to do next and waiting on what's to happen and the one thing that I've had all the children do every night before bed make your list of six I stretch it to seven uh accomplishments you want to finish tomorrow for your work for me it's seven items that have to get done and it just even if we don't get a contract in or nothing good happens I go to bed at night knowing I follow the routine and I got seven things done let me piggy back on that real quick what I have done and what has changed for me and has helped a lot um is a little is a Twist on what William's talking about and that is all of us working from home are writing up a daily status report and it's like 20 items of everything that we did so you know today I will I'll have my punch list of the stuff I want to get done but then on the opposite page of my journal I'm keeping notes of everything every conversation that I have everything that I do so that at the end of the day even if I feel like I got nothing done I can look back and have a record of everything that I did get done and that's helped a lot Jay even through Skype I can hear you climbing the walls how how are you dealing with that manic energy um it's it's actually not I I woke up in the middle of the night not worrying because my brain's going I got some ideas I want to work out and I I can only tell you my sister my older sister sent me a text the other day and she goes I'm really losing it I'm depressed I went out to the grocery store at depressing and I texted her back and I said our father at 19 years old went off to go through 20 bombing missions over Germany for three years and every time he went up he wasn't sure he was going to live through it we can handle this and she goes you're right everybody needs some perspective here you know you know what everyone's going back to their homes they're in the house they're not in a foxhole they're not getting shot at really let's get some perspective here this isn't the worst thing in the world it's stressful the thing you were just talking about William I do it at night that's exactly what I did I happen to have seven things last night and and it feels good to go to sleep I wrote them all down cleared my brain until I woke up with my new idea but but yeah it's a good thing like get in the battle I learned it years ago Jay from a banker that was in my church and his bank used to hand out if you can go this far back in time the little day planners you remember the I Ed one what do you mean than who you're talking to will yeah I've got a daytimer he said I make my list of seven things every day and he had like 25 years archived so he could go back and look and see what was my list back this is before the cloud or whatever and I was like now that's impressive I want to try and mimic that seven instead of three I just always hear three seven sounds like so many I don't know maybe it's a Biblical thing Laura oh or an obsessive thing if I started listing the things I have to do tomorrow right before I went to bed I would never fall asleep yeah we're going to have to stop it here my thanks to Jay goz William Vander blumen and Laura Xander be careful out there everybody thanks for listening everybody this episode was produced by Jess thubron founder of blank word Productions remember we started the 21 hats podcast to help business owners feel a little less isolated to let them know they aren't the only ones fighting these battles if you got something out of this conversation please help us reach more people tell a friend subscribe and review us wherever you get your podcasts follow us on Twitter at 21h hats and let me know if you have a question or a comment or a topic you'd like us to cover my email address is L Feldman 21h hats.com see you next time [Music]