Where Can I Save Some Cash?

[Music] hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm Lauren Feldman your host once again today and probably for the foreseeable future we're going to talk about how the businesses owned by our 21 hats regulars are holding up during the crisis as you know things continue to move quickly as we tape this episode at noon eastern time on Friday March 20th all three of the businesses owned by my guests were still operating that changed by the end of the day Friday in all likelihood there'll be other changes by the time you listen to this but I'm confident you will still find Value in hearing how these three very smart owners are coping with these extraordinary circumstances at least you'll know you're not the only one facing challenges and you may well pick up a few useful tips much of our conversation focused on having to lay off employees trying to maintain morale managing a remote Workforce and looking for opportunities to position the businesses so that they will emerge stronger on the other side this week's 21 hats podcast lineup includes Karen Clark Cole who is CEO of blink a user experience research and design firm based in Seattle that is now working 100% remotely Jay goz who has several businesses in Chicago including a picture frame shop artist frame service and a home furnishing store Jason home those shops as well as Jay's digital and wholesale businesses were still operating at the time we taped that changed later in the day Friday when the governor of Illinois issued an order that forced Jay to shut down and Laura Xander is co-founder and CE CEO of Jimmy beans wool a digital version of a neighborhood yarn shop that is based in Reno Nevada this is Laura's first appearance on the podcast since the crisis hit here in America but because she owns a company that's based in China she had some sense of what was coming again I think you'll find the conversation really useful you can also find a transcript of the conversation at 21h hats.com all right let's get started um let's go around the room I'd like to get a quick update obviously your health is the first concern uh but we also want to hear assuming your health is okay how your businesses are doing uh Karen how are things with you last week when we spoke it sounded like your business was holding up pretty well is that still the case yeah we uh are in really fortunate place in that we can largely work remotely there's um out of probably 40 Projects we've just had one that's been cancelled uh and that's because it was iners in home research um that couldn't be changed to remote a couple of other studies we've changed to be remote sessions and um and then we've had a lot of um studies just on hold waiting until we can um put a new date out there so that will have a delayed impact on the revenue but we are incredibly fortunate um all of our employees feel that way as well so there's been a obviously a lot of adjustments dealing with working from home and for us it's actually I'm sure most people are feeling the just the personal uh confusion around being confined U that's sort of the harder part I think Karen you guys obviously had experience previously with working remotely uh now that it's enforced across the board uh have you learned anything uh have you figured anything out that's made it easier better yeah for sure and we're actually publishing an article with all kinds of tips and sort of the user experience around being remote so how to not only do it but try to do it in a way that's better for yourself and the people that you're interacting with so um yeah lots of fine tunings and then lots of really creative um ways that our employees are sort of figuring this out and how to have a connection can you give us a couple examples what's uh what's helping with working remotely what's helping your employees well um we set up a we use slack and we use zoom slack is sort of how we communicate off of email um but we have a uh RIT guys set up a channel that's a it's connected with slack but it's a zoom it's a live Zoom basically and it's called the water cooler so anyone can log into this um Zoom address at any time and to see who's there so I I I thought that was brilliant like if you're just feeling like you want to see some of your colleagues you just open up this um this ID number and you might see somebody or you might not just like if you're going out to get a drink and then we're doing if they're what if they're naked well well then they won't join it's it's you have to actually join or maybe they will I mean I'm just thinking out loud here Jay do you have an person no I just think they're at home God knows what they're doing I don't know if I want to see all right they have to they have to decide to join that's the idea um the other thing is we're doing like a lunch competition every day people are posting pictures of their lunches which are really amazing and all of a sudden they're making me feel like I should pay more attention to my lunch and and we're doing things like a happy hour we're doing a company happy hour this afternoon so everyone's going to log on with their drink and then we're going to go around the room and say what room we're in and what we're drinking and uh we'll see how that goes oh God bless technology companies yeah yeah but now I'm concerned because I hear the internet's going down um we are having so much trouble yeah we're worried about that because a lot of companies are employes to turn off their video because they're having bandwidth it a lot of it's related to VPN bandwidth for sure but it's still it's G to be an issue I think yes got it Jay how about you I I spoke to you earlier in the week and at that point I think you were kind of surprised people were still coming in to get pictures framed and business wasn't too bad is that still the case the last week has been a year it's kind of surreal so Monday people are still coming in and there apparently the hierarchy of man is toilet papers one and getting your pictures frame might be up there at number two because people are still coming in not a lot but some people so Monday we have a meeting we talk about we need to take immediate action so Tuesday I sent out an email to everyone saying we're cutting hours and then we made a list of people that you know I got 115 people I I I got to make a cut so we we cut about eight people and my manager made the announcement and it's turning into Lord of the Flies oh my God can you do that to so and so I would have cut my own salary to save him but the interesting part is by the by Wednesday he went and talked to each manager there's five of them and talked about why the person was let go who was a very nice guy he been with me for 19 years everybody loves him I love him but for the last couple years he hasn't been doing it and slowly but surely every one of them said yeah now that you mentioned it he really didn't do this and yeah that was a good decision so he went from oh my God how could you fire him to good call all within 48 hours the customer side there's still customers coming in my wholesale business from around the country we sell other frame shops they're ordering frames and I kind of feel I kind of I feel like if they're doing business I want to support them so for the moment the Factory's running the showrooms open I'm waiting to see I was disappointed last night everybody kept saying oh the the mayor's going to go on TV she's shutting business down didn't even mention it like at least say we're still review in whether we're going to be asking for businesses to close we're monitoring it that was a little don't you think it's coming though um probably like I'm not sure I just don't know maybe maybe I I just I they just I just just before we got on here I just heard the New York's been shut down it hasn't been that bad here yet I certainly won't be surprised if that happens but I just it makes you feel bad that the mayor doesn't think there's you know 20,000 business owners watching every word she and doesn't think maybe she should mention what's going on with it so yeah I I'm prepared that could happen I I'm getting to the point though am I better up being open or closed because you know if I'm closed all of a sudden the payroll stops because I can't afford to pay everybody I'm going to let them use vacation pay and such it's a it's a balancing act but I'm watching it dayto day and uh this isn't like September 11th this isn't like like you know' 08 it's it's worse in some ways I think in the long run it will P bounce bounce back faster but it's a whole new experience that's for sure Jay you also have a home furnishing store along with uh selling picture frames um are people still coming to buy Home Furnishings not a lot but we did $110,000 yesterday I mean not a lot what yeah there's I got two or three people working in there everybody staying away from each other we're we're cleaning everything but you know it's America people want to go out you know and and my manager this morning said said she got a call on framing from a guy in Rockford which is about 90 mi from Chicago and he's coming in for some framing she says I don't understand I go oh well I got that one figured out he's married there you go see you figured it out she she laughed there's gonna be a lot of there's people that are locked in there with their husbands and wives now for three four five days at some point not only do they want to get their framing done but they want to drive as far away from home to get it done so it takes a little longer so well don't you think they're also just people who have these projects sitting around that they haven't gotten around to and all of a sudden they have the time to do it rightt in their home you know I I'd like to stay open as long as I can without endangering people so everybody who's over 60 except for me is staying home I got lots of people staying home they can but many people can't so I don't know I'm just playing it day by day and uh yeah I absolutely accept we could absolutely be shut down tomorrow I mean who knows so Laura we haven't spoken to you in a in a few weeks you have kind of a a far-flung Empire these days uh you've got your main operation in NADA but you recently bought a company in Texas you made Acquisitions in Vietnam and China even what's going on with you um on one side of things we're in the same boat as Jay and Karen and things are going actually better than we expected so like Jay and his business you know we have a lot of people who are staying home right now and they all want to knit you know and they can't go yeah so you know our numbers online are really good I mean we closed our store earlier this week we have an economic development Authority that uh sends us Recaps of everything and they actually sent a note out two days ago and said look all non-essential businesses um are asked to be closed and the first two businesses that they listed because we're in Nevada um number one strip clubs number two brothel so apparently those are non- essential so the to some people I mean the strip clubs the brothel and the casinos that was number three those all need to be closed but they said if you are doing business online and if you um are in a business like ours that we ask that you stay open and you continue to do fulfillment because we are in a very heavy fulfillment area you know so that's that's the primary business around here what about for both of you you and J the people close proximity in the warehouses you know that's a great question um and so it's optional if you want to come to work of course um so we have everybody that's kind of in the office they're all working from home um with the exception of one or two but everybody has individual offices so there's very little cross-contamination obviously we're cleaning things down we close the retail store to the public and so we're just doing pickups you know where we you know it's like a drug deal we just leave the stuff outside for people and there's no human contact and then for the Fulfillment side everybody has their own computer that's marked um their own Mouse their own keyboard so there's no touching somebody else's computer and then it's you know it's a 20,000 square foot spot with only four people right now you know so we've got really really Skeleton Crew there like you're going to pull from these two rows you'll pull from these two rows you'll pull from these two rows how did you figure out how to do all that you know it's that's kind of how we've done stuff the whole time you know it's more efficient if you get to and that's how Amazon does it too you know if you get to know the row that you pull from and the brands that you pull from so or you know and we've done that in the past um if we've needed to do kind of high volume and we've had low Staffing so on that side of things you know we have a couple of people who have self-quarantined you know a couple of older people um some of them we've put on leave of absence some of them have asked to be let go so they can file for unemployment and then they'll just come back when they are more comfortable um we're just taking it case-by casee basis uh and just being we're really really lucky and it's taken us years and years to get here but we have a great staff Lucky in what sense Laura um our staff is unbelievable you know we have a there's nobody we want to make sure that every single person is taken care of so um and we have the flexibility right now to be able to take it on a case-by Case basis you know and and kind of cater to each person's needs whether it's to work from home even though they normally don't have a work from home job you know we're trying to find some stuff for them to do I have to interrupt you and say that's not lucky kudos to you for running a good business and having good people there and hiring and keeping the right people and and treating them properly because I got to tell you I've had some it will bring tears to your eyes you have I've had people walk with me Jay we're going to get through this one okay tell me whatever you need me to do I have wonderful wonderful dedicated people around me that are totally with me and then you got just the one off the and I hate to pick on the Millennials I really don't usually but this one kid says they said he's a delivery guy and they said to him listen would you like to learn how to do UPS so you can do some more things here he goes well if I'm properly compensated for it totally 100% oh that went over really big with and it's one of my my guy that's been with me for for 40 years it's his future son-in-law and he says you know what I really want to fire him I mean y so I've had everything from that to most of the people I'm telling you it's it's just a beautiful thing and it's a testimony too when things get bad like this it's a stress test on your business and you find out who you really are on that note I just got have to ask you one thing you describe the person who'd been with you for 19 years who you had to let go and he sounds like exactly like the kind of person you've been telling us on this podcast for weeks that you can't afford to keep around somebody who may have been been really good who people like who's really loyal it's exactly the kind of person you have suggested shouldn't be kept on why was he still there uh first of all you met him you know who it is um this guy was my buddy during 08 he walked up behind me after I bought my big warehouse and I can I remember like yesterday I'm standing in this 85,000 foot building I bought in the middle of the crunch because I knew I had to get my off my overhead down he put his hand on my shoulder and said it's okay it'll be okay so this is a guy I was tight with he was he was he was a nine out of 10 employee for 17 years and for the last two years he's just been not good and and I you know he was making 60 Grand a year and I just can't carry it and um and and like I said after the other employees digested it every single one of them had a story to tell but oh yeah now that you mention it he really didn't get this done last week it was probably getting near the end anyway he actually walked into my manager's office a few weeks ago and says are you firing me today and my manager said well no not yet I mean he knew there was problem right so you know what I will absolutely help him get another job I I gave him severance pay it'll all be okay but I got to tell you when it gets down to the crunch time now I got to worry about the other people and I gotta worry about keeping every single but other person in business and eating and and I can tell you uh the key to this whole thing is we are in the cockpit we're the pilots you got to look at the controls you got to see where you're going and the people that are behind you hear shrieking about oh we're going to die you turn around shut the [ __ ] up that's it there you go I knew this would be like throwing catnip in front of you Laura I knew you'd figure that out let's go back to you Laura uh when we last saw you I think it was when we were in Seattle and this none of us saw where this was going exactly but I think you were already seeing the problems in China uh where do things stand in China for you now um we whether it's luck or premonition or whatever but um we got everything well we knew we knew this was going to happen so we pushed really hard um and got all of our stuff from China in early January before China got shut down so we actually bought like a six to n month supply of everything that we needed so we're super stocked we're doing really well um you know my friend ly Lee and my partner over there you know they're just starting to dig out now they're looking for work um you know orders are not coming into the factories there and you know I've told you that most of the people that we work with there they're all small family run businesses and so they're suffering um and so now we're just starting to try to think through okay you know is there more stuff that we can start to put into production but we're good from a supply standpoint good for you I mean I've I talk to LY Lee very very frequently every other day or so so I've been Ely aware of the fact that her 10-year-old son has been homeschooled and been at home for two months so far um and that everything can you tell us about what like what how does she feel does she feel like they're coming on the other side of it yet oh absolutely yep yep so we know so you know if if this trajectory is anything like what they've experienced in China it's about a two Monon shutdown um is what I'm expecting and so you know I'm assuming that Huck is not going to go back to school this year my son um but she said it's leveling off there uh and there are no new cases so it's all so the virus is dying you know it's it's attacked all the hosts that it can attack and it sounds like it's starting to just kind of Peter out and the weather probably has something to do with that as well uh but Chicago's keeping the schools closed till April 20th at the at the moment she said again just based on what I've experienced through Lin Lee and watching what she's been watching she just sent us masks she's sending us toilet paper now so she's shipping me everything that we need which okay so just tangent sidelight I've wanted to do a Jimmy beans toilet paper line for a really long time that's right we saw it yeah yes I told you I wanted to do a [ __ ] along instead of a knitalong where you know you've got toilet paper that has knitting instructions on it and my team has got their tails between their legs right now because they're just like we should have listened to you then we would have had tons of toilet paper I'm like I told told you guys you know I knew it we were going to need like knitting paper you are a Visionary really I you go right up there with Steve job thank you really whoa so are you working on it now um n it's too late now we missed the boat meanwhile I had an interesting thing my cleaning lady comes today I've she's been my cleaning lady for 25 years speaks broken English she says to me how are you I said I'm okay and she looks at me and just smiles and she goes I'm okay this time and I knew exactly what she was talking about it means that in ' 08 she had bought a condo she lost it she was freaked out where she was going to live and she came to me and she said it's not like I'm close you know I see her once a week for two minutes when I'm walking out the door she said Jay can you loan me $2,000 I'm really in a bad and I said absolutely and I gave her the money and she cried I mean she was so thankful and I understood what she meant is the last nightmare was a nightmare this time she's okay yeah and I I felt good that she's you know she she's this hasn't she's still got jobs and things are okay yeah you know there's a parallel here um Dana and I were talking about this on the phone yesterday uh in terms of how apparently like entrepreneurs do well in chaos you know because I was like I'm not scared and I know I should be and that actually scares me the fact that I'm not freaking out you're freaking out because you're not freaking out yeah exactly exactly like I know I should be a lot more scared but you should you are a super got this and this just brings it out these times and there are people who haven't been in business that long that have never been one of these through one of these crisises and they don't get it I talked to a a a PR person yesterday she said at 9 o'clock in the morning on Monday she had 16 clients and by noon she had two and she spent the whole day crying and you know I said you know dig in and find some more business or and the part that's a little bothersome to me is she in a beautiful house in the suburbs with her lawyer husband and part of me wants to say again shut the you know it's like really like there are people who are worried about whether they're going to have dinner on the table tonight and it's a little hard for me to to feel sorry for someone who's living living really nice and like they'll be okay for a few months really it'll be just fine there are people who truly are in be almost life and death situations with with taking care of themsel and now's not the time there's no there's no pity parties in entrepreneurship sorry Lori you told us about uh your situation in China what's going on in Texas well so Texas is a different story um as you know what I inherited or adopted or purchased whatever word you want to use um this was a big supplier of yours that you bought a few months ago yes a big supplier of ours um it's a manufacturer uh so we hand diee yarn down there and their sales have been going down for about four years very steadily five years um and the business had just not been shephered I suppose so um you know we've been dealing with all kinds of crazy stuff over there just in general so now what we're dealing with and um long story short we missed you know in the knitting industry as I'm sure you all know it's very seasonal so you know the busiest months are really January February March um that's the knitting season could be different this year yeah a light knitting season in October November December but all of our shops all of the wholesale accounts they they do their buying in September and October and the previous owners had cut off all of the supply chain to the shops in September and said we can't Supply you anymore so we didn't have any order you know when we came into the business we didn't have very many orders um and all of these shops ended up going elsewhere and finding other products to fill their shelves which they should have you know it totally it it absolutely makes sense so you know we're getting hit with low sales um as a result of that and then we throw this pandemic in and most of our shops are um you know are having to close so they're canceling their orders most of your shops meaning people who who buy yarn from you your clients yeah they have a retail shop so our wholesale customers um are pausing their orders and and so we have you know a bunch of people and we don't have enough work for everybody so this morning we had to do a layoff you know of about uh you know 25% of the staff um and 25% of the production crew so um lay off fire lay off or fire them I mean are you bringing them back or do you just get rid of the people that were just barely holding on to begin with Jay I'm just asking all right we we'll hold that we did a we did a permanent layoff okay we had to burn the forest down so we burn the forest down and then we are the sturdy trees are still there and then we are hoping as we grow the business again to bring in some new Talent as it grows um how's that for cryptic that's that's how the sausage is made it's it's just that is reality sorry that the people who are the best employees are the ones that are held on and it's sorry but um it's just that's the way it goes and yeah so we kept the eights the nines and the tens um and we felt like it was the right thing to do for a couple reasons one this right sizes the business to what we have right now so that everybody can work full-time um and gets a full-time paycheck two we wanted to kind of get out in front of the unemployment line so before things are too bad and before you know cuz I see in the next month or two I'm assuming things are going to get a little worse in terms of layoffs and unemployment so I wanted these people to be able to go out and get something get ahead of the curve um you know get unemployment as quickly as they possibly can and or find something else because there are some people hiring right now it's not fun it it gives you the stomach it's horrible but like welcome to running a business it's not always pretty and that's what our job is and those to think that they can run it like you know uh a non-for-profit you know I said that at Jimmy beans you know we're in a great spot or a lucky spot or whatever but it took 17 years of running it like a nonprofit and not making these hard decisions to get to the point you know I had to make these hard decisions over and over and over to get comfortable with them um and you know after avoiding them for the first few years so now we're in a better spot and so now it's a little bit easier like your housekeeper said this time it's not as bad you know because I know that I can walk out I'm going to come out of this okay and I know that we're doing intellectually I know we're doing the right thing for the other people for all the eights nines and tens that really give their heart and soul and are on the bus um this is what needs to happen and I want to take care of the people that really really give it their all I'm curious are you still uh are you still doing much marketing uh right now to sell uh online yeah we're about to really Pump It Up in fact um everybody that's at Jimmy beans that is working from home um like Jay said like it's amazing to see what they're doing they're working 12 14 hours a day right now just pushing and pushing and pushing Karen Jay are you guys marketing right now yeah absolutely we need to stay in business and keep going as best we can and any change from what you normally do Karen doing more doing less different um no probably the same but we we are it it's not marketing but but something that we're promoting is trying to help our clients figure out the remote working thing because we've been doing it for a long time we've got great tools we've got great process we've got you know great methods and so we're really trying to help our clients so that that they can continue to work and that we can work with them you know just sort of offer ways to help them figure all this out so that's something that we are sort of promoting but so that our clients can keep going and you know when we're leading the way with a a big meeting you know we'll we'll get it all set up we'll we'll tell them here's how we're going to do it here's how it's going to go and they've been really uh appreciative it's been great Jay I think I heard you sigh after I asked the marketing question no I have absolutely shut off I if this was an airplane cockpit I'm looking at the control cash drain that's all I'm focusing on right now so I cut off all marketing efforts at the moment I did not I have a I have an outsourced marketing woman I've been using for a few years I haven't cut her off I know she's in every all her other clients are hotels so she's literally been completely shut down they've all they've all suspended paying her so I'm her only source of Revenue and she's been very good for me and I like her and I'm not cutting her off I'm going to keep her on but as far as everything else I'm not going to make Google any richer this week because I cut that stuff off the payperclick and I'm I'm watching cash I can shut it off for a month it'll be fine I um and then I gotta tell you I'm this just sounds odd but they're still lending money I've got a building that has no mortgage on it and I'm out I'm I'm getting a mortgage on the building and I think I'm GNA pull this off and if I pull this off I'm good to go so that's all I'm spending my time on now I'm working on all cash flow items and uh I suspended the marketing until you know I don't know till things till I have the cash back I know that you're not as much retail as we are but to me I feel like I'm in a race car right now and I need to switch gears and I'm about to press on the gas because there's this lull um and I can feel it so from a cash standpoint we've been having a meeting for the last two or three days about okay this you know we have X number of dollars in inventory can we pull you know a couple hundred, out of inventory in case we end up being cash flow negative for the next two months and I'm talking about my Reno the Nevada business um you know the the e-commerce and the retail store so we have money it's in inventory can we pull that money out of inventory and then we need to put our foot on the gas in terms of marketing um and you know a lot of our marketing is actually salaried marketing you know it's more creative marketing and less just spending but the last thing in the world I want to do is cut our advertising and marketing budget right now in fact I think that it's this is the time to press on the gas um and unfortunately and this is going to sound really cold-hearted but the opportunities that are about to open up like holy [ __ ] you know it's unreal what are you referring to Laura she's going people out of business that's what she's talking about no oh hey easy no no no no no no no no no I'm thinking about not no let her answer Jay yeah yeah I'm getting ahead of this one capitalism 101 if there was no shutdown I'd be on a flight right now to kick your ass yeah um uh uh the opportunities in terms of the our suppliers you know have a are going to have a lot of excess inventory because nobody's buying so there are going to be opportunities to buy things at a great price um and get some extra margin that could last us for a little while um and yes there are going to be opportunities and that the bottom 10% of our competition if you will are going to drop out whether it's because they're not running a great business or if they're it's just too stressful you know is is part of what I think so I think that you know we're just going to outg grid them H so you just said in a nice way yeah it's capitalism and those of us that run good companies and have wonderful employees and give great service we're going to get a little payback for the years and years and years we've been investing in that and the companies that have people that work for them that don't like them that they don't want a good business it's going to call the HT out a little it's you're being to insensitive there's a whole lot of companies that can't they just can't keep people staffed right now the restaurants sure I mean it goes on and on and on it's awful the amount of people that are great who don't have jobs I'm not talking about the restaurant I'm talking about knitting and picture framing the restaurant thing is horrendous Laura I also have millions of dollars with of inventory but you got to sell it to get cash out of it so I don't have any advertising that I do that is that effective at all that I can know that if I spend X it's going to it's going to make a a difference enough to got it and we do I mean we've got you know kind of the digital advertising and the digital marketing um I feel like we do a relatively good job and so if we can amp that up we can pull some cash out of the inventory I have another question uh Laura and Jay you're both continuing operations at a time when you know a lot of the country is starting to go into complete lockdown um we we talked a little bit about spacing and warehouses and being careful and all that but one thing you've never really had to think about before that maybe you do now is what your employees do when they're not at work and I'm I'm curious if you've given any thought to you know do is it possible you have anybody who's being irresponsible I mean we've all seen these pictures of of kids who are you know on the beaches in Florida or whatever are you guys paying attention to that thinking about that we had a management meeting on Monday talking about what you know how we can control that and I said so somebody saidwell we have no right to tell anybody what to do on their personal time I said you know what that might have been true a month ago but I gotta tell you you know that one of your employees is out at the bars at the same P the big thing in Chicago was the St Patrick's Day there everybody the mayor was pissed everybody was pissed the Bars were loaded loaded St Patrick's Day and I make the argument I think I have a right to do whatever I want they're endangering the rest of my employees so they have a right to go out there that doesn't mean I have to employ him though if someone goes out to a bar and is completely irresponsible and then comes to work the next day and might infect my employees I think I have every right to say you know what go home maybe permanently so like we're getting this has gone beyond business we're getting into like I said Lord of the Flies we're getting into life and death issues here I don't need to expose the rest of my employees to that Laura how you thinking about it similar uh but different we're taking so in Nevada well and both of them we're talking about 24-hour shifts I mean we're just working on minimizing and making sure that there's incredible distance between each person so even today is paycheck day so they we had the whole staff off this week um so that in down in Texas so for paycheck day we had everybody come down and they scheduled a time so that no two people are in there getting their paycheck at the same time um and the woman who's given the paychecks out she's got you know we've got gloves on it's across the desk it's You Know da d da so we're trying to be very very deliberate uh Even in our Factory you know where it's going to be Skeleton Crew going forward where there's only one person per kitchen there's no cross contamination they have their own bathroom um so because I'm very very aware that you know here's we have a group of people that we don't know what they're doing at home um and they don't we don't know if they're carrying things or crossing things so all we can do is try to maintain a very very lean Skeleton Crew um that again reduces or eliminates contact with other people this is where it gets tricky though so the non-b business owner or the government official can sit on their Thrones and look at us and say you are irresponsible no one needs knitting and no one needs picture framing and you people are irresponsible everybody should be hunkered down and that's great when you don't own the business and you've got your paycheck check from the government every month or you you work for a university or wherever little Ivory Tower they're in but when you have to make payroll every week and and give people money there's a little balancing of like shutting down is a pretty drastic thing and is going to affect people and like we're doing everything possible to keep people away from each other and do the same things but it's just not black and white that oh everybody should just shut down and sit home for a couple months I mean there'd be lot there is another side to that Jay but isn't Amazon I mean I Amazon's hiring a 100,000 people so what about all those people right you know and they're not doing the social distancing that we're doing and both of our facilities I mean if you would if you walked into our spot right now it's a ghost town like you wouldn't even know there so separated it's like yeah it's like a hospital it's very clinical it's so people are driving to work they've got their one little area that they're doing I'd be surprised if they weren't doing some sort of social distancing I mean they're taking that really seriously they were one of the first companies that we work with to have everyone start working from home and to cancel everything yeah but I mean in a fulfillment center you have you been in one of their warehouses no but I'm guessing they have to be different now well yeah but how are you gonna how are you g to flip that overnight I mean even if they knew two months ago so yes I'm sure that they're doing everything that they can do but the sheer volume and the sheer number of people that they have um I I really doubt that they're doing a better job than we are you you know just from a volume standpoint I mean we're talking about two people you know I've got two people or four people in 20,000 square feet like that's more space than people have at their house the other piece of this conversation is when you look at what's happened in Italy what happened in China I mean the the you talked about how your subsidiary in China is starting to come back come out on the other side well that happened because they took drastic measures to shut everything down and you know I would like to think that there are authorities here who are looking at this and assessing the risks um especially considering that we got a late start and we didn't have the testing ready when we should have uh so at some point when hospitals start to F fill up or or preferably before that happens somebody should probably be looking at the question do we do it across the board and maybe even Amazon should have to shut down I think the part I think the part we missed is her suppliers coming out there's another four that are not coming out that will never come out so it's just not black and white of in theory yeah it sounds great everyone should shut down lock themselves in their house and not go outside sound that great Jay no but that that that's that's a good theory but for people who who are trying to keep their businesses alive and don't have the luxury of if we're talking about uh an a pandemic that is filling up hospitals across the country then you need the government to step in and yes there absolutely should be protection for businesses like yours and there should be something done to to help all kinds of businesses in including those restaurants we were talking about so that they can come out on on the other side but we also have to do what we can do to keep those hospitals from filling up clearly clearly but I am curious what you guys think the government should be doing there's a lot of talk right now about bailouts um there there's talk about injecting cash into the economy through various systems um there's talk about you know the first thing that were talked about were bailing out the airlines bailing out the cruise industry both of which kind of amazed me um I'm curious what you guys think people need cash to pay rent and buy Ries yeah that's I don't really understand I mean yeah I'm I'm with Karen 100% and we're not supposed to be the ones to front the cash Jay how would you feel if the government bails out the cruise industry let's talk about the airline industry that when they bailed them out they've made billions of dollars they did stock BuyBacks and the and the airline industry is in what made billions and billions of dollars and now all of a sudden no they're not on the top of my list for oh those poor CEOs that made $800 million last year uh we need to help them out our landlords at both of our locations just cut I just got an email just cut our rent by half for the next couple months um so I've been talking yeah so I've been talking with our employees as well about okay reach out to waste management reach out to these guys reach out to these guys talk to your landlord you know there are either publicly funded companies or there are people who are have done really well and are willing to um you know to cut expenses if they can you know so if we can kind of I you know ideologically yes there's the government side of it but then there's also the responsible side of the people who have done well and who aren't going to be quite as affected you know and as ja said from a business owner standpoint you know I feel like my job is even you know to lose money over the next couple months to make sure that our employees get paid and that you know they still have a full-time job um but maybe the responsibility of some of the landlords is to cut rent to you know I've heard that they were going to delay evictions and delay all of this kind of stuff Laura that's a great point that a lot of employees may not realize that they have you know more room to maneuver there um and yeah Karen I'm curious uh is that something you're addressing with your employees um reaching out to them to encourage them to think about things that they can do not specifically around rent but that's that's a good idea but we have I just sent a big long um email out yesterday uh talking about health and well-being and making sure that people are taking care of themselves and their mental health um when it can be really challenging I mean for some people you think about working from home all of a sudden your kids are at home all of a sudden everybody's here and you know for some people that that might be good but for others it might be over stimulation because they've all of a sudden there's kids all around them and they trying to work and still got to get your job done and then for other people the social isolation is really really difficult um and so and and then it goes on and on and on and so we've been really sort of guiding and helping people and my head of HR is an expert in this kind of s brain development and how you know how people react differently to different stresses and what they do Under Pressure um so we're trying to help them on that side but we haven't talked about in part for us it's less of a concern about paying rent because our employees are all getting paid so uh it's less of a concern there here's a small thing people can do some people pay their charge bill every single month off with automatic pay Now's the Time to maybe go on there I just did it myself flick it off like maybe don't pay your charge bill this month just pay the minimum and just just leave yourself a little wiggle room there so that you got some cash left just in case you know things don't come back fast enough you get laid off whatever like that's a great point and that's so you know where could the government step in can we defer interest charges for a little while you know can you call your credit card company and say look it's a little tough can you defer my interest and or can you wipe my interest out can you give me 90 days terms basically on my credit card here's a tip this is real life I just did it yesterday I have a a Bank of America credit card I haven't used I barely use it it's got a very high limit on it if I take a cash advance check this out they will give you for a three % transaction fee you get money like like tens of thousands of dollars 3% transaction fee and you don't have to pay it back until September of 21 which means that the effective interest rate if you count the the the fee is an interest rate is like 2.25% so I could cover my living expenses by just using the One credit card and I sto pulling salary out of the company and gives me a little more breathing room like I said I'm spending all of my time now looking at where can I save some cash so there's some money poof 2.25% interest that's a good tip we need to wrap this up I think we we hit on some really useful information here um going back to the beginning one of the things I'd want to highlight is you know what you said Karen about the zoom channel that you can turn on that it's just there if employees want to just stop by and see who's there and and connect with someone um anything else come to mind any takeaways for for each of you from this conversation you know what I'm going to do when I hang up here I'm going to call my guy that runs the wh sale part and tell them to give me 20 names of frame store owners who are still ordering and I'm just going to call them I've never talked to them and just say hey how you doing thanks for the order I just want you to know we're going to be here and give them a little encouragement because I understand that these frame store owners might in fact be one person businesses or two people businesses and I think they'd appreciate getting a phone call so that's what I'm goingon to do it's a nice idea Jay I got that from I got that from from Laura a little bit talking about the knitting stores I thought about you know they're in a similar situation well you know Jay one thing that we're going to do so over the years you know we'll we'll diey it in our Texas facility where we do have the retail stores as customers um we would Dy a color create a color and then we would donate a percentage back to you know a fund for malaria or when the austral you know when Australia had the fires we would donate 25% so what we've decided to do is we're going to donate to our customers um instead of donating to something else so we've created a special set of products we're giving them a big discount on it we're going to give them terms if they need it basically we're going to send you a bunch of yarn and then if you can sell we'll help you sell it online we're going to try to raise money for our shops um and we so you know doing stuff like that you know and we want to send care packages out to the shops that are struggling and just let them know that we're thinking about them great that's a great note to end on that's going to have to do it we are out of time wait give me five seconds five seconds all the business owners out there your employees are looking to you for strength and for you cannot afford the luxury of going out there looking like your dog just died you need to go out there and tell people we're okay we're forging on here because they're not true yeah absolutely yeah I mean it's you don't know what's true and you don't know what's true to go out there well we might be out there's just no point in saying I don't know if we're going to make it or not just there's no point in saying that I'm not saying lie to anybody say look at we're digging in here we're going to get through the yeah it's called being a fearless leader sorry there's no room for they they they don't need any more grief they need to at least look at their boss and feel like someone's someone's on the helm and that's what they need that's what the boss does Am I Wrong Laura Am I Wrong Karen am I wrong I don't know I'm I think it's okay to be human and you know but yeah you we've got a yeah got to hold up for sure yeah I'm not saying look oblivious I'm saying just you know give them some some hope we need to keep yeah that's the point hope vers despair yeah I mean the reality is we are going to be okay and it is going to be great so see what I'm talking about I would just give you a no I wouldn't give you a hug I would give you a big virtual hug if you're I give you a high five from across the room there you go well I think it's interesting right we are going to get through it and and how is it going to be different on the other side that's what I'm really fascinated with particularly as everyone gets comfortable or not comfortable working remotely and how do we like is it all of a sudden one day we start going back to restaurants or is it going to be gradual for the brave I can't wait till we can start talking about what it's like on the other side but I I have a feeling that's a little ways away for now let's not assume the worst that's the point I want to thank all of you Karen Clark Cole Jay goz and Laura Xander uh we will be doing this again and again we will follow you guys as we uh we all try uh to uh to do our best to uh to get through this in one piece thank you and be careful out there everybody thank you thanks 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 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 2or 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]