EntreLeadership - Pick Up the Pieces of Your Business and Get Creative

Episode Date: April 24, 2020

Tune in to hear Daniel Tardy respond to some business owners' fears around Coronavirus.   Give us your feedback on these daily, COVID-19, bonus episodes: Text DAILYBONUS to 33444   Want to bring in Alex Judd and experience an EntreLeadership Workshop with your team? Click the link below: https://www.entreleadership.com/workshops   Get access to the EntreLeadership Weekly Report Tool, FREE, for you and your team for 3 months: Text TEAMHEALTH to 33444 or visit entreleadership.com/weekly-report   Follow us on social media to stay plugged in to everything we’re doing to help the small business owner win: LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Twitter YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, Daniel Tarty here. I've been talking with a lot of you, a lot of business owners in the marketplace over the last few weeks. I'm inspired. I've heard so many stories of people adapting, digging deep in the midst of fear, in the midst of chaos, in the midst of, man, all this disruption that everybody's facing. You guys, business owners, my heroes, you're figuring out how to make it work. You're coming up with solutions. I haven't talked to a single person that's just stuck their head in the sand. had a victim mindset. You know, that's what I love about business people, because to be an entrepreneur is to be someone who takes a problem and starts to figure out how to solve it, something you weren't expecting, all of a sudden's coming up against you,

and you just get busy, you don't make excuses, you don't cry and lay down and suck your thumb, you come up with ideas, and you come up with a plan, and you get after it. And so many of you guys have been doing that, and I just think it's really cool. that that's who you are. And I want to remind you that if that hasn't been your experience, well, maybe it's

time to think about doing that. You know, I don't know how this is all going to work out. The time it's going to take for our economy to come back and a lot of businesses that have had to close up, figuring out how they're going to rebuild and relaunch, that's really hard stuff. And I know it's been really difficult for many businesses. Many business owners are having to make really hard decisions and have made some of the hardest decisions of their life. We didn't see this coming. But we're starting to think about the future.

We're starting to think about where we're going. You know, we've kind of figured out some of the, well, this is the new normal. Here's what we do know now. And we're starting to get more data and science. We're starting to get more reports on where things kind of might be headed. And there's more conversation today in the headlines about things reopening than there is about what is coronavirus and what are we going to do about it and how's it going to affect us. So while it's really hard, But we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and we're starting to see it's not an oncoming train. We're starting to see possibility out there. For some of it, it's sooner than later.

For some of us, it's still going to be a long year to get back to your high watermark. But here's what I know. I know all the pieces, all the things in the equation that made you successful, they're still there. Here's what I mean. I was probably nine or 10 years old and I was working on my Legos and man I I loved Legos. I don't know what your thing was as a kid with the toys in your room, but I loved baseball cards and I love Legos. Those were my things and I had all these towers built in this whole city of Legos that I, you know, constructed. And I mean, this was my pride and joy.

And it's just in my free time, it's what I wanted to do. And I remember this experience where I came into my room one time and I started to go into where all my Legos were at in the closet and somebody had come in and knocked down these towers that I had built. My whole city had been destroyed. Legos are everywhere. And I just panic and I freak out and I start screaming and I cry like a little kid. You know, you get really upset and angry and it's totally irrational. But I was pissed.

And I ran and I found my dad and I said, somebody messed up my Legos. And I've got a couple little brothers. so I had a theory about who it might have been. And I remember, you know, I remember wanting my dad to find my brothers and, you know, kill him, skin them alive, you know, hang them from the rafters. And, you know, my little boy, immature emotions wanted vengeance. But my dad and his wisdom and his leadership said, Daniel, hey, come back in here. And he took my hand. It took me back in my room.

And we looked at the Legos. He said, look, I'll talk to your brothers about being more. careful when they're in here. But all the pieces of your castle, they're still here. All the Lego, it's been knocked down. But look, you have an opportunity to build a new castle. In fact, you can do some fun new things on it that you didn't do last time. You got a reset. But all the Lego pieces are still here. There's nothing that's missing from your room. So start over. Start rebuilding. Build a new dream. Have a new vision. Get creative. I'll go talk to your brothers. You just put your energy into rebuilding your Lego Tower.

And you know, the truth is in our businesses, the people that worked for us, we still, well, if we had to let them go or furlough them or whatever, we still have a relationship with them. I hope you still have their phone number. Because in a few weeks, when the economy comes back, I hope you call them and reach out and say, hey, let's get back to work. I can rehire you now. Same thing with your customers. I hope you have their phone numbers and their email list. you know, the marketing assets and your website. I mean, not everything is gone. See, that's, that's the fallacy. That's the myth that we've been thrown around. Everything is gone. We're starting all the way over, you know, from scratch. We're not starting from scratch. All the Legos are still in the

room. All the pieces that we need are still right there at arm's length. And we got work to do, and it's frustrating to rebuild and relaunch, but for most of us, the pieces that we need to do that are still here. That's what's true. So what can you do about it right now? If you're on the beach, if the economy shut you down, if you can't actually work, what can you do about it? Well, you may not have the team and you may not have the money and you may not have the customers, but here's what we all have that hasn't gone away. We have time. You have 24 hours in your day just like you did six months ago, just like I do, just like your competition does, just like everyone.

each hour of your day is an investment into something. And the leaders who are anticipating coming back right now, who have a vision, who see that at some point we're going to rebuild, we're going to relaunch, we're going to get back to it, what they're doing with each of those hours right now is they're investing them. Not in Netflix, not in Fox News and CNN, not in scrolling through social media and just seeing how terrible it is for everybody else. leaders who are going to relaunch and rebuild and come out better than they've ever been

are taking each discretionary hour of the day to plan, to prepare, and to learn. If right now you realize I've got time, I can plan, I can prepare, I can learn, how am I going to put the tower back together? Maybe there's things keeping me from fully executing the plan right now, but I can have a plan. I can prepare. I can call my team and check in on them, even if they don't work for me anymore. I can keep my relationships up. I can send things out to my customers as a value ad where I'm encouraging them and letting them know I'm thinking about them, even if I don't have a transaction that's going to take place right now because they, whatever, they can't do business with us. You can plan. You can prepare and you can learn. What do you need to learn? What's an online course that you've always wanted

to take and you hadn't had time to take it? What's something you want to study and get really good at? Think about your leadership. Where do you need to grow in your leadership right now and you have time to actually learn and develop yourself so that when you come back, you're a better leader than when all this happened. There's six key areas in your business that you need to focus on in peacetime and wartime and growth and prosperity and in famine. And that is your personal leadership, knowing what your purpose is, your relationships with people, having a business plan, knowing what personal. product and service you're going to deliver and how to deliver that with excellence and then creating a profit. Some of those areas may be really weak right now because of a market condition, because of the disruption that's happened out there. But if you have a plan for each of those six areas and you're

thinking about them and you're thinking about where can I improve in each of these areas personally as a leader, knowing what my purpose is, the right people, the right places, having a plan to put it all together, knowing what my product and service is going to do to go to the next level and how that's going and create profit, if you're thinking about those six things all the time and planning and preparing and then learning. Think about where are your deficits. I have deficits in all those areas right now in my leadership. If I want to do something about it, I can identify the problem and I can figure out what I need to learn so that Daniel can be a better leader. So when we all come back, the team gets to benefit from the growth I did. So if you plan and prepare and learn, you're going to be ready to launch.

Are you getting ready? Or is your head in the same? Are you leading? Are you a victim? You know the answer. You're a leader. You have what it takes. This situation is not going to keep you down forever. You might feel like you're on the ropes. You might feel stuck. You might feel like you're on the beach. But you're not going to stay there. Because you have 24 hours in a day and each of those hours is an investment that you can make. So figure out what you need to do, to plan, to prepare, to learn. And together, we're all going to relaunch. We're going to get back to work. We're going to make it happen. all the Lego pieces are still there.

The leaders right now are starting to stack them up and put them back together. The consumers, the people watching all this happen, well, they forgot that they even like Legos to begin with. They've lost their purpose. They've gotten consumed in social media and the news headlines and the drama and sensationalism of this entire thing. And, hey, it's bad. There's real issues.

But just consuming all the media, and all the garbage out there, that's not going to get you anywhere. It's going to get you where you want to go is taking advantage of this time right now and investing your time wisely. So, where are you investing your time? Where are you putting it? Gut check. Hey, you know what? I've wasted some time in the season.

But going forward, let's hold each other accountable on this. Let's not waste our time. Let's invest our time. If we do that, we're going to come out together stronger and better than we've ever been. Hey, at Entree Leadership, we exist to help business owners win. You have what it takes. So until next time, keep learning. Keep leading.