Three Owners. Two Loans. One Emotional Conversation

[Music] hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm your host Lauren Feldman this week once again our conversation with three of our five regulars focused on how each of the businesses is coping with the crisis this time however the conversation took an emotional turn when we learned that while all three of the week's participants had applied for government rescue loans only two had been funded this week's 21 hats podcast lineup included Karen Clark Cole who is CEO of blink a user experien research and design firm based in Seattle William Vander blumen 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 Dana White who is founder and CEO of paral Boyd a chain of hair salons based in Detroit as we discussed last week William who had already made the decision to reduce his payroll by 40% was one of the very first owners in the country not only to have his loan approved but to have the paycheck Protection Program money land in his bank account Karen whose biggest client is Amazon and who business has held up quite well also got a loan but Dana whose hair salons are completely shut down got nothing in fact she couldn't even get PNC the bank that took her application to respond to her inquiries what's frustrating Dana told us is that I'm the minority businesswoman that they call when they went to talk about how they're helping minority businesses I've done publicity for them and crickets Dana also questioned how it was determined which businesses would get the money she told us I'm talking about the people that if they don't go to work the country stops and I'm seeing that these aren't the people the companies the small businesses that got the money the independent grossers right the hair salons the small restaurants they didn't get the money our hope is that business owners listening to these conversations will maybe pick up a few tips but if nothing else they will surely see that they are not the only ones fighting these battles if you find Value in this conversation please know the 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 difference also this Thursday April 23rd we're doing a very special 21 hats war room this week my guests on the free live webinar will be all five regulars on the 21 hats podcast this is your opportunity to ask questions directly of Karen Jay William Dana and Laura you can get the link to register for the webinar through our daily email newsletter the 21 hats Morning Report or you can always just email me L Feldman 21h hats.com that's L Feldman FLD m n at 21 the number2 the number one hats.com [Music] before we get started I'm here with Adam witty who is the founder and CEO of Advantage Forbes 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 a book is the most powerful marketing tool in the world it's a way for you to share your story and your company 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 Adam 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 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 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 riter 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 4/21 hats to get Adam's book and to sign up for your consultation now back to the [Music] show let's start with our usual uh crisis update uh Karen we haven't spoken with you in a in a couple of weeks I'd love to hear uh what's going on at blink how you guys been doing we're actually doing pretty well uh most people are still working um from home and we've had to lay off a few people who were um they were workers that needed to be in the office um or in a couple of cases um workers who were doing a form of recruiting which we're not doing right now for our research sessions because they were for live sessions so for the most part though everyone's able to do their jobs from home certainly there's an efficiency uh difference that's for sure how so what do you mean by that for me in particular I mean it what used to be a hallway conversation while on my way to get coffee sort of multitasking um decision made or question answered now it has to be set up as an actual meeting um blocked on my calendar you got to log in you got to be on video um it's just you know my days are literally by the minute back to back all day long all week long and so then when I actually have to produce some work some outcomes that's happening in the evening so I've been working like uh till 10: at night most nights even on the weekends so it's been a lot but I'm grateful that I have stuff to do that's for sure so the business is held up yeah we're doing we're doing just fine um and our clients seem to have adjusted as well which is obviously the biggest most important piece is that they're still willing to engage and do work and start projects and continue on with projects that they have going so we've just switched to zoom we're even doing some um sales training right now with uh a third of the company all on Zoom where it would be normally big iners Gathering but it's all happening on zoom and everyone's really adapting can you give us a sense of who your clients are and what kind of work they're hiring you for you know with the economy all but shutting down uh what's keeping you busy digital products so uh companies who whether businesses online and in some cases you know like we do a ton of work for Amazon they're our largest client so they're busy so I've heard yeah and so but a lot of it is working on their systems um new digital products things like that and so another example is you know online project management for example like projects are still going companies are still running and so they still need the tools to run their businesses and that's largely what we're working on is Enterprise level systems um or you know consumer products that are largely digital Dana um you obviously are not in as fortunate as situation with your business uh your hair salons completely shut down what's going on with you so it's been one of the busiest times for me as an owner because um similarly to Karen I'm working from the time I get up to you know 8 9 10:00 at night um the updates on loans and grants change hourly um and the stipulations and everything change so for me between the webinars and and the Facebook lives and we're still just getting a ton of information so I've been applying everywhere I think I'm at my running total of 12 uh like no 13 11 grants and and two loans that I've applied for again I'm still working on what the next iteration of per Boyd is who will per Boyd be as we go forward people like oh are you dealing with the boredom I'm not bored I've been working I have not had time to to sit down and read I have not sit had time to sit down and and cross stitch and do some of the other things I like to do um because I've been in my email uh strangely enough people are applying for jobs interesting yeah so we've had wow that's interesting are you finding people that you're interested in yes so I we get about one or two applicants a day for various positions um and that's somewhat comforting um but yeah that's hopeful I love that yeah it's somewhat comforting um I I don't want to lose any of my staff to this I like I said I have a great team right now um but I understand you know we might um so now it's just thinking about how do we open when we open um because I know if the you know the hold got lifted tomorrow not everybody's running out to the movie theater or a baseball game right um and so I know people are going to come and get their hair done but I still want to do it responsibly considering the fact that they haven't tested a lot of people um um and then just you know making sure I have enough staff to help with the demand of the people coming in um so we might be doing some Zoom interviews um I think when we do open we may not open the day everything is lifted we may take those couple days to you know get the staff together have staff meetings and then decide uh the day that we're going to officially open Dana where do you stand with your uh paycheck Protection Program loan application sorry not the response I was hoping for the PPP okay so you know I I applied the night it came out got booted off the system twice um couldn't sleep so about 3:30 that morning I did it and got through um my bank has contacted me twice saying hey we need information on this we need you to resign this um and that's been it um several business owners here small business owners here in the Metro Detroit area are in the same boat um we're a little disheartened when we see that Ruth Chris got $20 million we're just really wondering where is help for small business and how does the government Define small business so I'm probably in that next round of funding um but then again if they want to open in May you know that's a a month from now right and that stimulus package just going to take more than a month to get to us so how do we get people paid prior to it getting funded so I don't know I'm just like you know like Miss cely in The Color Purple I'm just sitting here waiting to see what color the wall is going to change next and seeing what happens William you uh you stunned us last week when you told us that you were in fact one of the the first businesses in the country I think uh not only to have your application accepted but to have the money in the bank uh what's going on with you now I think we got lucky my CEO wrote an OP was picked up by religious news service about how churches need to hurry because uh even if you get first in line you might not get there and that even if only 80% of just the small businesses applied they're underfunded by a third you know 350 billion or whatever it was so we just feel really fortunate and uh our clients are very grateful because the the more common story is the one that just shared and uh you know it's it's really unfortunate that it's been that much of a snafu for people we've been uh blessed to hear that that some of our churches even really small ones have gotten loans that have carried them through I I I don't think though Lauren you know when we looked at the PPP it's not the lifeline because I mean it is going to be a month and we build things out you know over time and if you don't sell anything in March April then we don't have income in July August September so for us it was a very important and and we're grateful for it bridge but it was not the total solution and and that's what led us to do some restructuring that that some might deem severe but we we felt like it was uh tempered with a lot of uh thought and uh careful projection have you decided how you're going to use the money yeah I'm going to pay people oh right away or are you going to wait until the business uh fully reopens what's your thinking on that no no our salaries continue so so we did a a weird thing I mean we've decided if our if our business were to die we're going to die with our boots on and right now is just not the time to sell at all you appear completely toned deaf particularly if you're working primarily with nonprofits and churches and faith-based businesses which is what we do it just seems like are you kidding me we're out here trying to help the world and you're asking for money so I told our sales and marketing team and the companywide I'm like this is the sentence I want you to memorize for March and April serve don't sell and I will pay you your salary to serve don't sell and that's why we poured I don't even know how many hours into PPP webinars and now we're shifting uh I have an addiction I should probably confess to the group I am addicted to buying web domains I might be single-handedly supporting GoDaddy right now and uh will have opened reopening thee church.com and reopening schools and we're going to I I felt like after Easter maybe it's because it's getting warmer here and flowers are blooming in Houston but the the feeling I have is that attention is Shifting away from how do I wash my hands and how do I get you know this done and how do I quarantine to all right when are we going to reopen and what does a responsible reopening look like and so so I am literally paying my staff to do no billable work with the exception of finishing searches that were we're doing right now to serve churches and say Let's Help Foster the conversation about reopening and we're betting big that that will happen before we're completely exhausted of options we lowered sales projections we lowered payroll so that we could make this work but I firmly believe that if we can ride this out on the far side of it people will remember the service a lot longer than they'll remember any sales pitch we do right now William what do you mean by lowering payroll is that reducing salaries or how you mean yeah yeah so we went over a little bit of it on a call I think that maybe um you weren't on but we basically said we looked at our projections what that's going to mean if those are the sales projections and the quick answer was we got to reduce payroll by 40% so I said no more salary for me done for the year uh my lead team said okay we'll take a 25% cut and then we uh the higher paid people in the company all took a 25% cut did you give them a choice that's what they could manage or that's what you no that was that was that's just what it's going to be and if you need to leave we totally understand in fact we had one-on-one conversations with all of them so that if one of them said I really can't make that work then that's fine go go where you need to and then we can readjust the budget and maybe lower that number but it didn't happen nobody turned us down yet right I mean it's been what two weeks since we did this so we were pretty early the people lower on our pay structure we just figured it was the money that we would have cut out of their salaries actually would make a bigger difference in their livelihood than it would in our bottom line like the proportions just didn't work so we said no cuts for you guys by the way we're cutting everything by 40% and we fured some people and we laid some people off and so everybody that stayed actually agreed to take on more work for either less money or their salary which is not what I would call highly compensated so everybody took a hit and I tried to frame it as I'm going to be the lead here and I'm taking the hit and and frankly at the end of the day Adrien and I are taking the hit as an escort if we go under it's us that goes under not the folks working for us Karen uh your business is doing well but did you consider applying for a PPP loan yeah we did and we got one wow yeah so they it's you know I'm I say we're doing well and that we haven't you know we're still working but there are lots of financial impacts for us for sure in terms of we have 30,000 square feet of office space in Seattle alone plus all of our other four locations um and that rent is largely offset by what we call lab rentals so it's renting our research uh Labs which we have six of them in Seattle and they're really big state-of-the-art facilities um and we try to keep those busy every day and those really pay the rent um you know we're in a we're you know believe it or not we're in a pretty low margin business as consultants at the end of the day day so there's not you know we have savings but not a pile so we have to be super careful and so then with that being gone it just starts eating you know right away into our um you know as part of our Revenue so while the project work continues on for the most part we've had some that are um only a couple that are canceled and a lot that are delayed so we're going to have a lot of um deferred revenue um but there's other you know there's other things um most people can't take their vacation and so rather than lose it or you know accumulate it up and then not really be able I mean people can't take months and months off at a time due to the project work um what we're able to do now is buy it from people and so that gives them a little bit more cash um and it gives us you know the the opportunity to to to acknowledge that they have vacation that they can't take and so there's you know in my theory there too is it's not it's not life or death changes but it's allowing them to you know get take out from the restaurants more so we're trying to use that encourage people to support the local businesses who are having a hard time um so there's there's things like that and then you know we've got a lot of um interest payments at the bank and you know matching our 401k and so we're just making sure that all those things are continuing to happen um whereas they we would have had to put a pause on most of that was there any question in your mind as to whether it was appropriate for you to apply or not yeah I mean it's designed for us to keep everyone employed and keep the company running right so that we can not have to lay anybody off and so that's what we're doing um and you know cuz if we if we continue to not have the income from our actual physical office spaces we might have to shut them down and so that's going to cause major problems in our business and have a ripple effect so that you know it's you show them all the fin I mean my CFOs spent a lot of time present you know preparing all the financials so that you have to make a case for it with real numbers so um it's not really us deciding honestly it's them do you expect to uh adhere to the guidelines so that the will be forgivable yeah I mean that's why we got it is to adhere to the guidelines so yep we're not you're adhering to some of them but not 100% right William well we ran the numbers like so you know I mean this is rough math it's more complicated and granular than this but basically if your payroll at the end of the program has matched what the payroll was they used to calculate your monthly payroll from last year not headcount just payroll then it's forgivable but if you reduce payroll by a percentage then you you're going to owe that percentage back to the government and we looked at the numbers of what we would save through payroll costs uh through layoff some furlows and what we would owe and it was a no-brainer I mean it we we were like well a good bit of it will be a grant some of it we're going to owe and by the way we won't owe it for a year and at a very low percentage rate and saving the money now cash is King seemed to be a better uh splitting of Solomon's baby for us Dana what are you thinking right now you know I I I have a feeling and I'm listening to the difference in between you know William and Ken Karen's story and Dana's story you know you hear well we prepared there was no we prepare like what is the definition of a small business I prepared I applied right um you know my business is shut down and don't know what the government standard was um I I think everybody who got the PPP needed it in some form but there are also businesses you know I'm I'm fortunate I've gotten in about a couple weeks I've got about $110,000 in Grants right um so it's not like nothing's happen um and then I'm with William the the PPP wasn't on my lifeline I wasn't oh I'm going to get it's going to save my business no it was it was definitely a bridge um but I guess you know you listen and and you you see companies that profited right and then the people in my circle are small business under a million in revenue and they didn't um my the companies that I'm speaking with most of them don't have benefits packages for their staff right um and so you just go what is the plan right what what is the what is the genuine plan for working people not my you know and I'm not talking to people who can you know just now work remotely I'm talking about people who make this country run period talking about the people that if they don't go to work the country stops and I'm seeing that these aren't the people the companies the small business that got the money The Independent Grocers right the hair salons the the the small restaurants the they didn't get the money and that's my it's not that oh I'm mad that you guys got the money no no no your people help they do right um but I I have a staff that are single mothers single black mothers and who who are who are hard who are hardworking and having who didn't have the foundation to to go to college and are doing what they can and and I'm up every night trying to help them and I need help helping them and I'm not getting it I'm getting it from my community like the tech Town stabilization great great um the dec which is a Wayne County Grant fund I'm they're helping they're stepping up and they're turning that money around quick but when it comes to National leadership I think I'm seeing you know we'll we'll get to you we'll we'll we'll will get to you small business and that's it I I don't want to sound like well why not my business but a part of me is saying well when are they going to help the companies that didn't have a a $100,000 profit or a $5 million profit or who didn't have profit at all last year who can offer benefits for their staff whose staff are some of them are the Working Poor and some of them you know to me there's a there's a difference if you can work from home right now that it's different than those of us that well not us because I'm working but for those that can't and that there's a huge disparity in what the definition of a small businesses and in my circle there's a lot more mes than there ours of thems so that's it I please don't make it sound like I please don't hear that I'm oh you got it no but I'm just wondering the people that I'm seeing who who are closed right now and nobody's working um at all the only people who working are the owners I I didn't see many of them getting the PPP so I'm really hoping that they're going to make another stimulus package that's going to filter down to me William I don't think anybody spent more time trying to figure this out than you and your team did and trying to spread that knowledge to others to help others do do you have a sense across the board do do you have a sense of who was getting funded and who wasn't well all I can speak for is the people we've worked with right so um the stories I'm here ing churches are notorious for looking for the cheapest way out and because they're nonprofits and they take up offerings from widows and people who can't afford so let's be careful with the offerings and the stories I heard uh that people that were getting turned down and down down were the people that had switched banks every other year to get a quarter point off here or an eighth of a point better there or whatever the the terms were and then there's just good fortune I mean there were a lot of people lined up uh I was certainly the case for us is having a great relationship with our bank they helped us a lot we had great relationship my banker called me 3 days before the application came out chase the people chase didn't even contact a lot of small businesses they contacted him but then dodged them is that your bank Dana no PP I mean PNC is my bank and my banker called me three days before and she said these this is everything you need to get ready um Huntington bank has been phenomenal with uh the smaller businesses I think hunting tank Bank was very committed to getting Main Street businesses through the program there are some that did get funded there are some um there are some that uh got loan numbers but no money right and so I think a lot of it is good fortune I have an excellent relationship with several layers at PNC all the way from senior vice presidents down to my my local B Branch breaker and I heard from all of them do you have an existing loan with them I do not but I've been banking I literally walked my seat money into their Bank uh8 years ago and started my business and they've known me ever since it's also kind of personal with Maria um with her husband and her daughter and she's she's a new grandmother so I have a relationship and then and then what's frustrating is that I'm the the minority businesswoman that they call when they want to talk about how we're helping minority businesses I've done pro publicity for them I've they've done pictures with me and invited me to things and that's how I've met some of the people in the corporate office at PNC is because hey here's Dana and crickets I have thought about switching to Huntington because my bank just wasn't working for me but I had a great relationship with people there um and so now that this has happened it's made me kind of rethink it at least Huntington communicated with their people they could pick up a phone I emailed my bank people and she's like Dana we're everybody's just out of the loop even in the email could just resign the document and whatever you do just reply and don't ask any questions that's like literally what email set it was like okay so yeah I think it's I think you're right guys it's relationship but I don't think the people that didn't get it it's because of lack of relationship no no I I don't think so at all and that's horrible to hear I I unfortunately there're just way too many of those stories I I I I hope that people here that this is there were way too many people and not enough and maybe maybe more funding will come through but uh I will say if some more funding comes through the credit that uh like everything in my life the credit for getting it done goes to my wife mainly because her father who's been in politics for a number of years as soon as Congress passed it he texted us and said get in line now because they are notorious for not getting it done right and if you're first in line and you knock on the door every day that's your single best chance to control your destiny and even then you might not in the time we have left I'd like to talk a little bit about uh what you see changing here and whether you begun to think about how life might be different once we uh do emerge from this Karen I'm curious with you you referred to the fact that you know your offices are not being used right now uh it's your life is less efficient uh doing everything on Zoom but are you also learning a different way to operate do you think maybe going forward you'll think you don't need all that commercial space uh I hope not I hope we don't get to that where people don't want to be together um having everyone in the office in a beautiful space for for us to work in and clients to come to is um is it has been really important so far so um I hope not have you learned from anything else have you seen other things that um you want to take with you on the other side of this well I can tell you that some of the zoom meetings that we've had with groups of people you would think they wouldn't work but it's it almost works better because everybody is so focused on the screen in front of them that you really get a different level of interaction so I think I don't know maybe there's more to that certainly but you know we've we've got five offices and clients all over the world and so we're used to being remote but I think this is giving us more tools and more skills at doing that well and not um you know jumping on the plane so often so you know maybe we'll save some you know create a better carbon footprint by flying less and um save a lot of money in doing that as well but yeah we're checking in with our employees regularly there's a lot of them um who are in you know who are not enjoying this you know they're in an apartment with a roommate and they're trying to work all day long and it's noisy and it's it's really stressful and then there's people who have kids at home and um they can't get any child care um and so they're trying to work and juggle all that so it's it's really stressful for lot of people and not any fun so I think I think you know L large majority of our employees are excited to get back to work and to get their usual support and certainly they want to get their haircut I can tell you that I I think Dana's going to be busy the minute this is over and you better stay you better stay open yes Dana I wanted to ask you about that um you know I think most of us assume that when we do come back it's not going to be like flipping a switch it's going to be a gradual thing and they're going to you know they're going to be some changes and initially we may all be wearing masks and uh social distancing May remain an effect what are you thinking in terms of the early days you you obviously can't cut somebody's hair from 6 feet away do you see changes you're going to have to make absolutely so I was on a call recently um with someone that I didn't know had been a customer of perly boy and she said when it's finally time for us to reopen I'm going to go to perly boy she goes the reason why I'm telling you this is because you are going be jammed with people you're the only walk-in only hair salon anywhere and everybody's stylist is going to be booked and there's going to be no place they can go but you so I have to keep my staff safe um and I we will probably have mask um probably definitely have mask um got to be careful using gloves on doing hair because depending on the condition of somebody's hair that could break their hair the rubber you know so we're probably going to take appointments or do what we call check-ins where people can we do about maybe two to four check-ins every 30 minutes that's where the lean manufacturing of my business has to really kick it up a notch where where will these people be in the process that allows them to keep them at a a distance from where the other people are going to be and then moving them throughout this process to get them in and out under a certain time so that that's what I'm working on right now do you think you'll have to reconfigure your shops at all no it's just because it's already designed to be lean it's just uh managing the stagnation just say okay these two are here they've moved here it's going to take them 30 minutes to get to this point this is the point in the salon where we can get two more people in at this station and moving people so they are not in cloaks proximity all the time and in order to do that we can't let every body come at once we have to have people check in and do check-ins at you know uh every 30 to 45 minutes is what I'm thinking but if I just did walk in we'd have around a line around the block at both locations day one and I'm not going to do that right William you had an interesting uh back and forth with Laura a week or two ago uh where she was suggesting that she imagined that churches may go a little bit more digital after this and you said you didn't really see that happening uh CU people have a need to be together is is that still how you're thinking yes but I think that uh first of all I think our work will become more necessary than ever uh what what I'm noticing and this is part of why we're building out the opening church.com and opening school.com is how do we Foster a conversation realize what's really out there what what churches are doing right now and I think this is true of nonprofits and schools as well is making as much connection with people as possible so the soft skills relational intelligence emotional intelligence all of that is going to jump really high in the profile of the successful leader of a faith-based group in the next decade and that's not something you can see on LinkedIn you can't just do a resume search to see if that works so I think that there will be uh a combination I don't think it'll be an either or do we go back to the old way or do we do all online I think the interminable committee meetings that are during the night time where people have to leave their families and go up to the church those might become Zoom things uh I think some of the Ministries that can happen digitally can happen I think giving will be more digital I do think the need to be together will still be there I think what that looks like is going to be very very different for the last 50 years it's been come to the church and learn something well the idea of learning something at a location is over I mean it was over a long time ago but now every body know I mean you can Netflix the best preachers in the world right now and so to speak so it it will we will come together it will require a different kind of leader and on the school side oh my goodness a different kind of leader so I think what we're trying to figure out is out what is our value to clients and right now it's helping identify what's the profile of the new kind of leader in the new norm and then how do you become the the group that can help identify that Talent uh quicker and better than anybody else we've talked a little bit about Zoom I'm curious have any of you had any security problems with zoom anybody been Zoom bombed yes I have what happened yeah we have as it was bad so the when they were getting all the uh people together to announce the grant they did it with zoom and it was full you know it was a minority call um and so we got hacked full of um Nazi propaganda um racist conf Federate stuff a lot of you know racial slurs being spit out a lot of pornography um and people just wouldn't get off the call and I kept you know posting you guys we've been hacked get off moderator needs to shut this call down and so then I just got off um and then they moved it uh they moved it to um a call what happened to you Karen uh it wasn't me personally but I know that are some Russians showed up in one of our meetings and so it was quite a while ago um and so did they tell you who to vote for yeah I'm not sure actually what happened but it was quite a while ago and so we uh we just switched having a password and that solved the problem yeah I we had a lot of clients Lauren that are on free Zoom accounts again churches look for the cheapest option uh that unfortunately had uh really really bad bombings of their Easter services like illegal graphic photographs uh that were thrown up in front of kids that were trying to do Easter and and I'm yet to hear and I'm sure it happens but I'm yet to hear of anybody who's using a paid account and using passwords that's had the issues all right so here's a question that's of particular personal importance to me have any of you figured out how to get your haircut yes what' you do William I uh so I get my haircut every couple of weeks I'm a little OCD about it and uh I I I called Caroline who cuts my hair and she works for a little Salon that's three blocks from the house and of course they're closed and she said she said find some clippers I went to Walgreens to pick up a prescription and they were putting out a set of Clippers so I facetimed her and I said how are these and she said they're great they'll work they'll get you through however long this is buy them take them home and then FaceTime me with your daughters so to my two teenage daughters one of them was the camera person and the other one was running the Clippers and it took an hour to cut my hair you let a teen AG daughter cut your hair it can all grow back right so it can go wrong but uh I I am doing quite a bit of video whether it's media interviews or Zoom stuff or webinars so it was getting pretty bad and uh she the haircut Caroline we call her because we know lots of Carolines walked me walked them through every step and and in exchange we let her uh put it on her Instagram so they're there all these pictures of my head on Instagram with lines drawn about used Clipper number one so we could all go find that if we want to yeah you sure can uh but uh I I think it turned out to be a win-win and then we sent uh Caroline and her husband a nice gift certificate for a dinner so um yeah we we actually have another uh followup FaceTime tomorrow afternoon to learn how to do the the very top of my head which is a little trickier apparently so we we'll see how see how I look next week Dana what do you think is there something in this for you not at all because perly boy doesn't cut hair right um so for me I've just sent to wait for uh you know the samples that I want to use for some of the products I want to start selling and I've used them here on the house on myself um and and I've done the best I can do with my hair because you know I'm not a hair stylist I just own a couple of hair salons so I just um do uh my hair um at the house I did it actually right before I got on this call um and try out new things um is there an option though for you to be sending and selling products to your customers yes but I have to find the right products and you know I did send away for some products and I like some of them and I don't like other ones so it's a matter of which ones to go to and I wish we had an end date right I wish they said okay June 12th is when everything was going to go so you know at first it was April 13th so now we know that's not it now it's in Michigan it's April 30th so now you know and and now we don't know so with everybody pushing two weeks out it just I I keep moving the line forward um so I'm hoping that I'm just going to get started and well I've gotten started once I get my product in I will start doing how-to videos and I also want to send an email to my guest when this time to be open about how to prepare to come to per boy because we just don't want people walking in and say this is I haven't touched my hair in a month and you go okay um but I do want to say this like kind of to Circle back if you don't mind Lauren to what we were talking about before with a PPP and I'm thinking you know I have to say that I just think that there are a lot of people out there who are not on The Cutting Edge of anything right they don't have a family member who can call up but say and get in line they haven't built uh you know a multi-million dollar business and and although they're smart their access is limited I.E me right um and I think we're just all just trying to do a good job and just to stay in business and I just really hope that there is you know somebody in on on a national level that is that recognizes that and is willing to help I want to challenge you know either one of you or both of you to say okay listen how do I send the elevator back down for example William what small business do you know I'm not saying you didn't do it but just my challenge is when you got that call what small business owner do you know that you could have called and said hey this might be a good time to get in line you know or you know just send that because that is what we have to start acting like our Governors our Governors are not waiting to be told what to do small business owners can't wait to be told what to do and I'm challenging the people that do have the access the people that can get the PPP the people who do have a CFO on staff right right now to go to people and say Hey listen I just got this call this is that and the other um hey uh make sure you include this send the elevator back down that's what I'm doing right I have businesses that are smaller than mine that don't know what a profit and loss is right and you go okay let me talk to you about this and I think that's how it's going to get through so that's all I'm saying is just try to send the elevator back down and whether they get on it or not that's not your issue but at least you hit the button and and it Clos CL the doors and it went down that is something for us to all think about uh we are out of time unfortunately I do have a very special programming note I just want to mention that on Thursday this coming week April 23rd at 3 eastern time we're going to have a special edition of the 21 hats War Room webinar that will feature all five of the regular guests on this podcast uh this will be our listeners chance to see uh which of us is in most desperate need of a haircut we now know it's not William uh I feel like I I may be the winner on that one uh we all we'll also get to see Jay gz's new quarantine beard uh which I think you'll find interesting and everybody gets a chance to ask their own questions directly of Karen Jay William Dana and Laura but for now my thanks to Karen Clark Co William Vander blumen and Dana White as always I appreciate your transparency your thoughtful approach to all of this in this really difficult time uh thank you 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 21 _ 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 at21 hats.com see you next time [Music]