Links Mentioned & Helpful Resources from Episode

• Kyle Griffith, CBI, CMAP’s LinkedIn
• The NYBB Group Website
• The Eminae Network Website
• The E-Myth by Michael Gerber Book on Amazon
• Motivational Video of Girl Running Hurdles on Twitter

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Kevin Dieny: Hello and welcome to the Close the Loop podcast. I’m your host, Kevin Dieny and today we’re gonna be talking about Small Business Recession Strategies. We’re gonna be talking a little bit about the recession, a little bit, what that means, helping you understand, I think from, you know, a broader range, what we’re kind of talking about and in general, the strategies that could help a business.

[00:00:21] Kevin Dieny: Who’s thinking, Okay, everyone’s talking about this topic right now. This is a big topic. What do I do about it? What can I do about it? Um, what are some ideas that I should consider? I think all those questions are great to have and can actually help your business. At the minimum try to survive, maybe better, try to grow and find new and improving opportunities to your business.

[00:00:43] Kevin Dieny: So to help us dive into this topic, someone I’ve had on before, his name is Kyle Griffith. He is a managing partner of the N Y B B group where he represents small and mid-size businesses in need of financial expertise, such as merger and acquisition and business advisory services. Kyle is the chair elect of the International Business Brokers Association and is the CEO and founder of The Eminae, an advisory network for business owners seeking to bill to grow or to exit their company.

[00:01:13] Kevin Dieny: So welcome Kyle, thanks again for coming on again with us.

[00:01:15] Kyle Griffith: Hey, Kevin, it’s a pleasure. Um, I that’s, um, appreciate opportunity to connect with you again. I just. You know, be in your show and, and very humble to be invited back for the second time. So, , I was humble the first time, The second time, like in my head, I’m in cloud, not cloud nine right now.

[00:01:30] Kyle Griffith: But, um, with all in all seriousness, um, this is a very serious topic and a lot of businesses are facing challenges in these times as race sessions. So I’m happy to share, uh, my experiences, my clients experiences with your, with your viewership.

[00:01:43] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, I have, you mentioned last time like, Oh, Kevin, that’s another topic for next time.

[00:01:47] Kevin Dieny: And I thought about it and I was. You know, I keep hearing about this other topic I’d like to talk about too, so I’m, I’m glad you were able to jump on. So hardcore economic definition, sort of aside, uh, recession kind of, if you could maybe talk about a little bit of like, what, what, what is that? So that we can be very grounded on what we’re talking about when we say that term.

[00:02:07] Kevin Dieny: Cuz it’s probably gonna be said quite a few times during this episode. So what is that and maybe what does that mean?

[00:02:14] Kyle Griffith: It’s probably different for you, ask one person or give you a different response because some companies been, Hey, we’ve been in recession for like, God knows how long now, and other companies, wait, I’m doing fabulous.

[00:02:25] Kyle Griffith: Right, what recession are you talking about? I don’t see any recession here, but you know, technically, you know, you’re talking about a economic decline or downturn for, for two consecutive quarters. Yeah, I think the economy is starting to stabilize. Um, there may be some increases in interest rates coming. Again, I’m not an economist, I’m just putting that disclaimer out there.

[00:02:47] Kyle Griffith: But I do listen to a couple and get some insights. And it’s funny, you speak to three economists, you’re gonna get three different, um, opinions. But the over consensus of what I’m hearing from these economists is that, um, it’s not going to be any anywhere close to what the pre recessions we have had. It’s gonna be softer.

[00:03:05] Kyle Griffith: However’s gonna, is gonna take, is gonna be longer. It’ll take some more, some more time for, for, for us to get back, get back on track. So with that being said, you can take it for what it’s worth. Um, I would say that we are in one, but most small business owners I know and most of your folks that are viewing this are optimistic. To be a small business owner, you are always looking on the brighter side.

[00:03:27] Kyle Griffith: So you have a challenge here. We are all problem solvers, right? So we are challenged, what can we do to solve it, Whether we wanna pivot or, you know, double down or wherever the case may be. So, um, I dunno if I answered that question to, to do you best, like, but, um, technically you are, but maybe, maybe not let to be seen.

[00:03:45] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, no, I think you, you definitely answered that and we were kind of wondering, right, Like, okay, we’re gonna be talking about recess. Now we have a pretty good idea. Okay. It’s the, the market, the economy, there’s an impact. There’s something, has been an impact on the economy and it’s, it’s not looking necessarily positive, but it could be positive for some industries or some businesses.

[00:04:04] Kevin Dieny: I also want to clarify and ask you, does a recession only impact those massively large businesses, or is a, is, is the threat or the potential of a recession something that could. Even the local, the smaller businesses, like is it something that only tends to affect like maybe banks or large companies, large corporations, other countries?

[00:04:25] Kevin Dieny: Or is it something that, you know, businesses small and large everywhere should be considering? Like if we are, okay, what impact could that have on them?

[00:04:33] Kyle Griffith: See here, here’s the thing I, to my understanding, your audience is made up of smaller, small businesses, right? Is very important to know. Anytime. So like this happens is the smaller businesses that are gonna be impacted the worst, the most larger businesses, they have support.

[00:04:50] Kyle Griffith: Like you’ve seen what happened before over the last recession where a couple large companies got bailed out. So they always have, you know, that same, you know, too big to fail sort of thing. So my, my passions for the small business owners, That’s who’s most at risk right now in any recession? Um, most of the small businesses that I know, some of them are having challenges, meeting payroll, paying their rent.

[00:05:12] Kyle Griffith: They need access to capital, to, to grow and to expand. Larger companies don’t necessarily have those same problems. They have, they have a lot of assets, they have a lot of reserves, and you know, for them it doesn’t hurt them as much. It does hurt everyone involved, families, businesses alike, but you know, small businesses are definitely feeling the brunt of it.

[00:05:32] Kyle Griffith: And, you know, small business owners who’s a backbone of backbone economy. So we need to keep these businesses going. Uh, we need to, we need robust local communities, right? So that’s where we need to help. Uh, they’re talking about restructuring the SBA and, and making it more, making access to capital. More available to small business owners.

[00:05:49] Kyle Griffith: So, uh, we, we need, that’s what we need to help out these small business owners in, in, in, in, in our economy.

[00:05:55] Kevin Dieny: Wow. So that’s a big deal, right? For the smaller businesses to be considering, Okay, if this is happening, if this is coming, it could be coming from me and coming from me pretty aggressively. So what are maybe, I mean, this is sort of a general question, right?

[00:06:09] Kevin Dieny: But what are some of the general threats. That come with a recession, that kind of pose risk for a small, smaller business. You mentioned hiring possibly, but you know, and maybe capital, you know, generally speaking, what are some of the threats?

[00:06:22] Kyle Griffith: So there’s a couple of them, right? So number one, I think the biggest challenge right now is workforce and labor.

[00:06:28] Kyle Griffith: So if you are, your business is on a downturn. Right, so you’re don’t have enough to pay, um, you know, provide bonuses and hire the best people. You know, you see some businesses, you know, start making some cutbacks. They may, so laying off employees or cutting back in the hours and so on. You know, that’s one of the bigger things, you know, you have instances where, you know, you have to pay your, your, your, your lease, your, your rent, Um, every month you maybe get behind on that.

[00:06:59] Kyle Griffith: Um, landlords of feeling the pressure as, as well. Right. So it, it’s, it’s a multitude of things. You also have the, the cost, uh, I mentioned the cost of labor. You have to also, the cost of supplies. Everything is going up with, with inflation as well. So it unfortunately, what the refresh recession does, it, it creates a, a separation between the haves and the, and the haves nots.

[00:07:25] Kyle Griffith: Right? Uh, what you see happen is that most companies wait till they are in dire need of assistance to go out and get finance. Right. So when you have a recession and your, your, your company, things are not going as expected, right? You’re not bringing enough revenue. Um, you don’t have enough, um, people in your, in your, in your workforce and your team to fulfill the jobs, and you have a lot of challenges.

[00:07:48] Kyle Griffith: And you go to the bank, the bank is gonna look well. Unfortunately, the past three months or past six months, when you look at your statements, you know, they don’t have much confidence in lending. So it, it was always important if you need finance and you want to have it when you don’t need it, , it’s funny how that works, right.

[00:08:04] Kyle Griffith: So, Yeah. You know, when they’re making those office for you for lines of credit and, you know, getting extensions and your, your credit lines and so on, credit limits. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s very tough, you know, being a business owner, especially in, in, in this particular environment.

[00:08:18] Kevin Dieny: So, I mean, this is something we’ve talked about before.

[00:08:21] Kevin Dieny: I mean, Being very, having very clear, I guess, very correct. Financials seems to be very important because if you are seeing, Okay, this is how it’s gonna be impacting me, it’d be better to know that ahead of time. Right? So in terms of a business being like, Okay, you know, like the recession makes me feel like I need to be head down.

[00:08:43] Kevin Dieny: Chugging in my business, working in, you know, in the business and going into my financials seems sort of like, it’s pulling me out of that. So is, it’s how much more of a priority or importance is making sure, like, okay, we, we can see how like maybe for the next year or so we should be looking at our financials a little bit.

[00:09:01] Kevin Dieny: And more of a higher priority? Like is that an important idea or strategy?

[00:09:04] Kyle Griffith: It’s important, Kevin, but the, think about this, right? Um, we all have been there at some point in our, in our life where, um, things are not going as well as planned. And the, you know, the bank statements come in, you know, the credit card statements come in all, all the, the bills come in and you just don’t really pay attention.

[00:09:20] Kyle Griffith: Why am I gonna, why do I need to check my, my bank account? Why do I need to balance books? And I already know that my business is not doing well, but that should not be the mindset. You want to get a full understanding of your numbers that actually would inspire you to go out and hit your goals and, and hit your marks.

[00:09:37] Kyle Griffith: It also helps your projections if you can have your, you know, your books balanced, right. Um, everything’s accounted for. You following, you know, general accounts and principles. You can keep track of the revenues you make, and I make projections in the future. Uh, you could look back historically depending how long you have been in business.

[00:09:53] Kyle Griffith: You can see how you did as far as your historical revenues. In prior downturns in the economy and, and make adjustments, right? Um, no one really has a crystal ball, but history usually tends to repeat itself. So if you have some historian business, you can look back. Okay, the last downturn, um, my revenues went down 20%.

[00:10:15] Kyle Griffith: You can start planning. Planning according. And that same thing as well, you can actually in reverse, we need to order more, more inventory. If the price of lumber, the price materials is going up, you can start ordering more. We, we see that we have more, more and more by clients have increasingly more inventory to make sure that they can, they can meet the demands of their clients, of the customers and lock in lower prices.

[00:10:40] Kyle Griffith: Um, you know, before, before it, it goes up, but, Just going back to the financials, it all starts there. A lot of the buyers you work with, that’s one of the first things they wanna look at, especially if you’re looking to sell your company, is understanding your numbers. And you can bring someone in fractionally.

[00:10:55] Kyle Griffith: You don’t have to have a fulltime CFO or, um, someone to come in on a, have someone to come in a part-time bus basis, help you understand your numbers and see what it looks like. So if you need to make any plans, you know what you have, what you’re working with.

[00:11:09] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, that’s, I think that’s awesome advice. Uh, Kyle, I think that’s really good.

[00:11:13] Kevin Dieny: And the way you put that too, and framed it, gave some examples like with, you know, maybe inventory stock up. Those are really interesting to think about. Um, so on a positive light of it too, right? Are there businesses out there that do really well? Possibly in inflationary times, are there businesses that have the potential to survive really well or to make take advantage of the opportunity that maybe other industries are suffering?

[00:11:39] Kevin Dieny: And with the recession, most of the time, I feel like recession is mostly a negative topic, but is there. The room for an opportunity, or are there industries where there are opportunities for them to, to make something out of this downturn?

[00:11:51] Kyle Griffith: Let me tell you something, As an entrepreneur, it’s always room for opportunity, and I can, I can talk about it in two different angles, but let’s talk about the investment, right?

[00:12:00] Kyle Griffith: You’re looking to grow your business, right? You’re looking to build, you know, you, you have a legacy for your family and your business that you’re looking to build upon. Um, let’s say, I’m speaking to the business owner that has their ducks in a row. They fully understand their business, and now you have this recession that’s coming.

[00:12:17] Kyle Griffith: This can be a great opportunity for you to. At your competition, look at opportunity. That may, that may surface to you that where you can make a potential acquisition. Number one, um, talent is how is hard to find, right? It’s hard to find skilled people. Personal key management. And there are companies that have.

[00:12:37] Kyle Griffith: Awesome people working for them, but they may maybe, maybe in a company that is not in the right direction, that don’t have good core values, good vision, and don’t have loyalty with their customers and so on, you know, there can be, you know, some in some troubled waters. So it could be opportunity if you come in and.

[00:12:53] Kyle Griffith: And actually help that business owner that’s maybe struggling, right? People look at, think about acquisitions as a negative, but it could be a positive. You can come in there and and help turn that company around, merge those to coming together and retain those employees that way they still have a job.

[00:13:09] Kyle Griffith: And quite frankly, if you don’t do it, Someone else, Barry may do it. So if you are looking to, um, create more robust economy and, and local communities, you know, for your family, it might be a great opportunity. Um, the other thing I was mentioned about inventory, usually when you, you know, when you purchase on a company, you get opportunity to remove any redundancies and purchase, uh, supplies at a, at a lower price point, right?

[00:13:34] Kyle Griffith: Um, if you’re not doing so well, Right. And you in a, in a downturn. So a couple things you can do when business gets slow is actually a good time to, to invest in yourself. Right? Invest in your mind. Start doing some research, reading, seeing what in your business can fix cause you know it’s gonna come back, right?

[00:13:58] Kyle Griffith: Businesses operate in cycles, so you ha if you have enough that you could sustain. Right. Start doing some research. Go to your trade association, read white paper, read publication. Just start educating yourself. And when you educate, you can make the right decisions. You’re not gonna make knee jerk reactions, Hey, you know, I’m gonna close down.

[00:14:16] Kyle Griffith: I’m gonna, you know, you’re gonna be making educated decisions, right? And it may open up some doors for form opportunities when you keep an open mind, uh, to opportunities that that can present itself during a recess. When one, Hey, Kevin, when one door closes, another door always opens. And an entrepreneur, you have, you have to be, you have to be agile and willing to be willing to adapt and be open.

[00:14:40] Kyle Griffith: Whenever in doubt you wanna reach out to professionals, people on your board, other business owners, you can have someone in the county next to you that’s maybe going something, something similar. Find what what they’re doing and can help support you in your, in your business growth endeavors.

[00:14:55] Kevin Dieny: Wow, that’s totally awesome.

[00:14:56] Kevin Dieny: And, and I love the, the positivity on that, the, the door opening, uh, in other areas, you know, like for the business owner who, who is feeling like they’re pushed into a corner? And I mean, I, I, this is just almost like a straight quote of something I saw online, which was, you cannot do anything to combat a recession.

[00:15:13] Kevin Dieny: That was like someone’s sentiment, like, sure, maybe recession, but there’s nothing you can do about it. That was like one of the things I was reading, and so it, you’re kind. Suggesting like, Look, you know, you’re an entrepreneur, You got this business, you’ve been working hard in this business. Don’t give up on it yet.

[00:15:28] Kevin Dieny: Like, there are opportunities, and I think that’s really interesting, really good.

[00:15:31] Kyle Griffith: Hey kevin, I wanna build on that. You know, so most, your, your, your business is like your child. You have birthed, you have nurture, you have grown. If your child is having trouble in school, they’re being bullied or things is happening, would you, would you give up?

[00:15:47] Kyle Griffith: No. You would not. So ideally the the first thing I speak to with all of my clients and prospective clients, what’s your why? What motivates you? Right. Why did you start the business in the first place? Right? What it is you’re doing for your local communities that that makes you fulfill your purpose. And sometimes, you know what happens, sometimes you get distracted, you get burnt out, and like things happen, right?

[00:16:09] Kyle Griffith: So you have to really look, look within and figure out what your exit strategies, what your plan is. Because if it gets to the point where your sales are plateaued and you know you’re not able to grow or where the case may be, and you have other opportunities that come your way, like of a. I sold this, this delivery company about two years ago, and the buyer’s really excited.

[00:16:31] Kyle Griffith: He got in, he actually grew the business, and he called me up. I say, Kyle, another opportunity came my way. That’s much better for me. I love this business. I’ve grown the business, but now you did a great job with the past seller. I want you to help me sell this business. Like, you know things, things come up with opportunities.

[00:16:45] Kyle Griffith: So you have to kind of keep an open mind.

[00:16:48] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, no, I think that’s, I think that’s really good. And I think it’s difficult too, cuz you’re like, Okay, well maybe there’s a couple avenues, you know, like, which, which one is best for me? And knowing like why you do what you do and knowing how the business needs to grow or how you see it growing is, has a huge potential there, has a, has a great possibility to, I think, do a lot for the business. So…

[00:17:08] Kyle Griffith: I, I think we have to be centered. We have to know what our. What our purposes are in life? Are we fulfilling our passion? Is this something that we really want to do? And you have to make these decisions. Is, is what I’m doing? Is it helping me help my family? I I, you know, sometimes when, when I speak with clients, there’s two factors that affects the growth of your business.

[00:17:30] Kyle Griffith: There are internal factors and external factors. The internal factors you can adjust. Right. When you talk about internal factors, you’re talking about your books, your records, you know, customer concentration, all things you have to do with running your business. The external factors, you kind do anything about the recession.

[00:17:48] Kyle Griffith: You can’t do anything about a pandemic. Some things you have to trust in your higher power that we, you know, we’ve been through this before. And, you know, we are gonna, we gonna, we are gonna get through this, you know, so Yeah. You have, yeah. As an entrepreneur, we are all optimistic that we are gonna get through this and you wanna get yourself around entrepreneurs that think the same way.

[00:18:07] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, no, that’s really interesting. I, I love the ideas too, of finding your, your industry, your network groups, your, your know, whatever it is in finding some other allies maybe in another area so it’s less, you know, not really competitors. Um, now I did wanna ask you, uh, cuz you had mentioned. And wanna see.

[00:18:22] Kevin Dieny: It was just like something you, you know, no one knows, no one’s got a crystal ball. Right. But you had mentioned it’s possible that the recessionary recession period here that is happening could last a while. So I saw another thing online, which was just write it out for six months or a year. But that may not be long enough.

[00:18:39] Kevin Dieny: Right. So if it is gonna last a while, Then it makes me think, okay, businesses have to be considering their strategy for, you know, the downturn market and for recession. And if it lasts for five years, it’s not just survive for six months. Like this might be a survive for five years scenario. So, For those that are saying, just survive, just ride it out.

[00:19:00] Kevin Dieny: Just cut costs down. Just shrink down enough to survive. Is that really good enough?

[00:19:06] Kyle Griffith: So there are two schools of thought here, right? So when it comes to the profitability of your business, you either increase your revenues or you cut back your expenses, right? That’s the only two ways you can increase your margin and be more profitable.

[00:19:18] Kyle Griffith: In recession, your course cutting, right? You’re looking. Do I need to spend additional five grand in this ad agency? Um, the parties used to have before? Are we still gonna have that? Are we still gonna take our clients out to lunch and to dinner as if that was part of your marketing program? Um, I’m a little bit, I’m a little bit more different.

[00:19:38] Kyle Griffith: I, I feel that you have to even push the gas down a little bit more and double down because. It’s gonna take a while to get that, that steamship, that that plane off the ground again when you wind down your marketing, cuz guess what’s gonna happen? The companies that are resilient that keep going. They’re gonna read the benefit of it.

[00:19:58] Kyle Griffith: And, and I’m, I’m sure some of your, um, listers have, have seen that. Right? You dialed on your marketing, your competitors keep going. Cause there are people that needs your services. They need their lawn cut, they need their, their plumbing service. They need their H V A C fixed, right? They need to get their back aligned.

[00:20:15] Kyle Griffith: You know, they need to get dental work done. Like these services there, there are services that’s gonna be needed. So if you’re gonna cut back your marketing, How are your customers and clients gonna find you? Right? So you do have to work in a budget, right? You have to figure out what’s the, you know, at least the least amount you can contribute, you know, to what’s marketing.

[00:20:36] Kyle Griffith: Maybe you dial it down a little bit, but I, I would not recommend it all. Stop marketing. I, I feel you might have to be even more aggressive. Or you can use social media, other ways, other digital technologies that you could, um, still get the message out, but at a lower cost.

[00:20:52] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, no, I think those are really, really, we’ve, we’ve seen, we’ve seen a lot of things impact, covid, right?

[00:20:58] Kevin Dieny: Pandemics have had a major impact on how businesses have to survive and thrive, and it’s impacted the marketing, it’s impacted the consumer, the customer, the prospect. The end of the day it’s like, man, a lot of stuff has changed just in the last five years even. Now we’re talking about a recession manner.

[00:21:14] Kevin Dieny: They’re like adding more and more to like, what businesses are gonna have to survive right now. So how. How are consumer like since we mentioned marketing, how are customer behaviors, consumer behaviors changed? Impacting them? Are they, like, how is that gonna impact, like, looking in from the customer side, that’s gonna be impacting the business as well.

[00:21:33] Kevin Dieny: So maybe how is that impacting customer, you know, I guess optimism, customer spending during recessions?

[00:21:41] Kyle Griffith: Yeah, I, I think the, on the consumer side, I don’t have the data in front right now. Um, but um, for what I have learned, um, the consumers really believe we’re in a recess. The reports are in the, the consumer confidence is lower.

[00:21:55] Kyle Griffith: I, I don’t have to source at me right now, but, uh, they interviewed business owners and. More than 50% of them were optimistic that we are not in a recession. But when they interview the consumers, most consumers believe, and you know why you go to the grocery store, you know the price of paper towel is up.

[00:22:14] Kyle Griffith: I mean, meat is up. I mean, everything is up. I mean, it’s insane. Prices are going up. Um, See, I, I, I think it’s almost like a 180 s like night and day between the business owners and the consumers. I do have to say though, that if you are a consumer, uh, now is actually a good time to maybe look at free enterprise.

[00:22:39] Kyle Griffith: You know, there are a lot of people that retired early, earlier than should have, should have because of the pandemic. There are lots of opportunities to. Make, make money in this particular environment. Um, and there are tons of people out there, right? If you can start figuring out, you know, what you wanna focus on as far as a business opportunity, um, now is a pretty good time.

[00:23:02] Kyle Griffith: Cuz in the downtime, that’s when the ideas come about. And you know, you sitting at home and you’re wondering, Okay, what I’m gonna do next and it’s got laid off, or I left this job, you know, what, what, what’s next for me? Um, There’s a movement going, there’s entrepreneurship movement. Um, there’ve been more companies started.

[00:23:19] Kyle Griffith: True covid than never before. Yeah, I do feel bad. I, I’m very empathetic as far as what’s happening in the marketplace, but as a consumer, like we are seeing people actually starting to grow their own produce and, and being more self resilient and self reliant and not necessarily have to need to go out to the grocery stores.

[00:23:36] Kyle Griffith: Um, And so on. So, yeah. Um, hey, this is America, man. Um, we are the best nation in the world, and, um, but where there’s a will is a way. So, uh, we, we, we are definitely gonna get through this.

[00:23:47] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, no, I think that’s all really interesting and things to point out, like their consumers being, learning behaviors that are helping them be a little more resilient.

[00:23:55] Kevin Dieny: And then some, even people who were working and then are out of work, you know, have been, and now they’re thinking, Oh, maybe I’ll start my own. So, is. I mean, you kind of touched on this, but is entrepreneurship, I mean, that could be, is that like a, an additional threat that could affect other businesses is people who are like, you know, they’ve been laid off, now they’re going to start the business.

[00:24:13] Kevin Dieny: They’ve been waiting to start because they were working somewhere else. Is that a, is that a potential threat? Or, and, and is that or an opportunity?

[00:24:21] Kyle Griffith: There’s never, there’s never a trap. There’s never a trap. There’s more than enough business for everyone. Okay. If you have been running your business, you have a proven process.

[00:24:30] Kyle Griffith: Right. You have been there. There’s a lot that you have seen. Now, you, you can’t just stick in a corner or, uh, and not innovate, right? Uh, however, you know, philosophies don’t change, right? Um, you have a service. You provide a service, you get paid for that service. You get paid for that product. Here’s one thing though, Kevin, and this will, you know, I just have to, I just have to be blunt and say this, right?

[00:24:54] Kyle Griffith: So you have folks that are worked for a company, Help that company grow and there’s no more room for him to, no more, um, equity ownership or, or grow opportunities for him in that business, that comp that company. And they began, you know, they got entrepreneurs like, I wanna go out and do my own thing. I want to build a company or create something that could be an asset, Right?

[00:25:16] Kyle Griffith: As opposed to help make somebody else rich. Uh, it’s a great book by, uh, Michael Gerber. You can look up on Amazon. It’s called e-Myth. And what he talks about is that to run a business, you have essentially, you have three hats. You have the visionary, Okay? Um, you have the management and you have the workers.

[00:25:38] Kyle Griffith: Right? And I’m, I’m saying this because they are very skilled, smart people that work in companies either in management, Right managing people or actually the ones actually doing the work. All three are constantly in conflict, right? The owner is pushing management to meet deadlines, you know, get these guys to work, girls, you know, guys and girls who work harder, get, get, get task done, and so on.

[00:26:04] Kyle Griffith: And the management has stresses from the top and then now the are stresses at the bottom. So, and then the work is like, hey, I’m, you know, I work as much as I can in a short period. I have, you know, you guys are doing things right. I. It should be done a, a better way or a different way. So all three areas are always in conflict.

[00:26:24] Kyle Griffith: So if you are a worker, you leave, You say what? I’m gonna, I can do this better than my employer, right? You leave now, start your own business. You’re working in your business, not on your business. You’re working in your business, providing this product, providing this service. But guess what? You don’t have necessarily have the skill set in management how to manage teams or as an owner, how to be the visionary.

[00:26:47] Kyle Griffith: Start. You’re stuck in a rock your wheels, you’re spinning your wheel center. Figure out how to make this business entrepreneurship thing. And this same thing happens for all three levels, right? It does take time. So for the you entrepreneurs that are listening and your business owners are listening, you know, you just can’t beat wisdom.

[00:27:04] Kyle Griffith: Um, you just can’t beat experience. At the same time, there are opportunities for the young, motivated entrepreneurs to to mentor with season. Semi-retired or business owners and we call could build businesses together in one big family. You know what? I wanna leave with the young entrepreneurs. Find someone who has done it before.

[00:27:25] Kyle Griffith: Um, find mentors that can help you build your business. And you know, those who have been around a while, you know, help out the younger generation because they’re the ones that are gonna take this company to the next level.

[00:27:37] Kevin Dieny: Yeah. Wow, that’s really good. And, and something I, I was hop, I was actually hoping to expand upon what you’re saying There is, you know, a business who is now is, is there, is today, right now running some ideas around maybe what it could do to pivot or what it can do to.

[00:27:54] Kevin Dieny: To change what it’s doing, given that there could be, you know, the threat of inflation coming, the threat of, you know, downturn coming, the impact that has both on the consumers and in the market. Like, I know this is like the grand question for the episode, but it’s like, what, what kind of strategies or ideas are there that ways that for businesses to pivot during a recession to, to still grow?

[00:28:15] Kyle Griffith: This is what you have to do, Kevin. You get to cut out the fat. Um, a lot of companies are spending money that they shouldn’t be spend. They need to do a complete evaluation of their business. Um, see what the leakages are. Um, you have to, you know, start really tighten up the ship. Okay? You may be overpay for certain things in certain areas.

[00:28:38] Kyle Griffith: You may have some subscription. Everyone has like subscriptions that they don’t need. Okay? So you have to do a complete, and what we do at our firm, we do something called a, um, a financial SWAT analysis. Okay? To look at the company. And benchmark certain areas. So you may be paying more for labor than your competitors are paying, right?

[00:29:00] Kyle Griffith: So why are you paying? Paying more is cuz you have better employees. You have to bring better value. That may be the case, right? But you ly wanna benchmark. You know, you know, what’s your turn on your receivables, how long you’re taking to collect, right? So the first thing you wanna do a. Analysis of your business to see where the redundancies are and so on.

[00:29:21] Kyle Griffith: That’s the first thing, right? Look at the numbers where you can save. The next thing is that you need to assess your team because we all know, you know, there is 80 20 principle that, you know how, you know the 80 20 principle, right? Uh, you have. A hundred people in your workforce, 20 of them is probably doing the most smarter work and bringing the most revenue for your company.

[00:29:47] Kyle Griffith: So you wanna first evaluate what the baseline is for your company, whatever your company morals are, right? As far as what you look for in someone, there are people that have certain ethics and if there’s certain, uh, revision for your company, you want everyone in your company to, to be aligned with that.

[00:30:05] Kyle Griffith: Right. Um, Once you establish that baseline, every employee that’s below that baseline, either they need to get trained so they can meet that baseline or seed, or you may need to decide, you know, what you have to do with the bottom half, so to speak. So essentially you start working away from the employees that are not really committed to the process.

[00:30:28] Kyle Griffith: And then hiring folks that are even more so committed. So over a period of time, even more efficient and, and, and productive workforce. So those are the two places I would start. And then you always wanna make yourself, put yourself in a position where you can get finance in whether you need it or not.

[00:30:43] Kyle Griffith: Have those lines ready cuz you never know what you might need to make payroll or you need to make a, make a big order for a product cuz um, you have, you have a shipment that you wanna, um, fulfill and so on. So I would, I would, I would start there, Start with the books. Assess your books. Assess your, assess your team.

[00:30:58] Kyle Griffith: Actually I only have one more tip, Kevin, if you don’t mind. You wanna make your business more reliant on technology. And I say this because once you have a more tech enabled business, it’s easier to scale. So some companies to scale, right? If they wanna go from, let’s say 1 million to 2 million, right? You may have to hire five people.

[00:31:20] Kyle Griffith: I’m just give an example, right? You’re doing 1 million, you’re gonna get 2 million. You may need to add five people in your team if your business is more tech focused. Instead of hiring five more people every year, you may need just maybe hire one or two more and then have the other part covered by a techno technology solution, right?

[00:31:40] Kyle Griffith: So see how you can utilize technology to, to scale and um, you know, build your business that way.

[00:31:47] Kevin Dieny: Wow, those are all really, really fascinating. You, you brought up the sort of interesting template and model for evaluating both like the, the recession and the threat side was external and internal things.

[00:31:58] Kevin Dieny: And so you, when you just covered, okay, you gotta look at your financials, make sure you, you prepared there, you have a great understanding of what’s going on in your business. That seems to me a lot of like, Okay, here’s internal stuff you can look at. And then, you know, amidst like, External stuff, Not really having a lot of control on, but making sure your business, and it’s something I’ve heard before too, is…

[00:32:18] Kyle Griffith: Well, you can vote.

[00:32:20] Kevin Dieny: Yeah hah hah.

[00:32:20] Kyle Griffith: That’s one way to have some control of external factors. You can go out and vote, but go ahead.

[00:32:24] Kevin Dieny: Yeah, no, the, yeah, the internal, the external, political, economic, like there’s a lot there that, and it kind of moves a little slower than the stuff that’s happening internally. So like focusing on the internal side.

[00:32:36] Kevin Dieny: You did, and you mentioned the technology thing. So automation, operational efficiency, seems to be the, the solution and the answer I was finding online most often was them saying, you know, this is something that you can push your business further with the same amount of money. You’re already, you’ve, you’ve spent maybe, you know, it’s taking what you’re doing and making it go further.

[00:33:00] Kevin Dieny: And that is something that seems to be reflected across a lot of research online is thriving in a recession is going to come from that piece of making sure you’re running efficiently, right? That your business is doing the most it can with what it has. And then at the end of the day, it’s like, look, if you’re, if it’s still.

[00:33:18] Kevin Dieny: It’s still driving you down. Like it’s probably a strong external force that’s happening. If you’re doing everything you can internally, the external force is really strong. So then…

[00:33:26] Kyle Griffith: But remember that that external force is affecting everyone. So we all in the same, you understand? So even though get external factors is not just affecting you, is affecting everyone.

[00:33:37] Kyle Griffith: So, um, if you are looking for an exit or acquisition or valuation, you, you’re still at the same level with your peers. So, yeah.

[00:33:46] Kevin Dieny: And, and the other thing I, I, I came across a lot was making sure that the relationships with partnerships or anything like that is also still a strong, cuz again, you just mentioned we’re all in this sort of, in, in this essence, all in this together, right?

[00:34:00] Kevin Dieny: So if there are channels or partnership, partnerships or networks or anything that can help you either get education, networking or drive more revenue, bring you more employees or. Like maybe help you establish a good relationship with a supplier. Like those relationships are was mentioned are also extremely valuable during recession.

[00:34:23] Kyle Griffith: A thousand percent. I mean, we, we all wanna help each other out. There are opportunities to connect folks and, and, and be a resource, I think. Yeah, when it comes down to it, when you’re in businesses all about who you know and who’s willing to help you, right? So if you keep yourself in good circles, in down times, you never know who can, who can come to your.

[00:34:43] Kyle Griffith: So, yeah, your, your network is, uh, directly important to your net worth, right? That’s what the that’s where the saying goes.

[00:34:51] Kevin Dieny: Yeah. Now, one of the last questions I want to touch on is a little bit more of the emotional side. So how, how are businesses surviving? The anxiety, the stress, the pressure that, you know, a downturn or recession can bring, like from the experience of maybe clients you’ve worked with.

[00:35:11] Kevin Dieny: Stressful just to be a business leader. , So like the recession is just like another thing. There’s pushing up. So like the anxiety of the recession, like some people are reading everything and it’s making them more anxious, so… hah.

[00:35:24] Kyle Griffith: Yeah, don’t read, don’t read that stuff.

[00:35:26] Kevin Dieny: So how? How business are like…

[00:35:28] Kyle Griffith: Oh, my TV doesn’t come on.

[00:35:29] Kyle Griffith: My TV’s off, my kids watch. Stuff in their rooms. But, um, no, that, that negative news and the TV can put you in a downward spiral. So, no, you wanna stay empowered. So my, my clients, what? I’ll tell you, Kevin, so I have one client, he got, you know, hit, you know, I wouldn’t say pretty hard cause he’s doing okay. He just likes playing volleyball and basketball.

[00:35:49] Kyle Griffith: That’s his time off. That’s his recreation. You know, he goes out, you know, he plays with his friends. Um, he goes out to music festivals, you know, um, spends great time with his, um, family. You know, remember mentioning before you wanna take time to do some research. There’s a good time, you know, You know, pick up a book, you know, read a great book.

[00:36:08] Kyle Griffith: Take that trip. Have another client that loves golf. And he built, uh, a virtual golf thing in his office. , when he can’t go out, he’s there. But then he’s, he was in Pennsylvania now last week is in Pennsylvania, um, for an out in with the family. So, hey, when, when it comes down to it, I think your helped and your wellbeing is most important, right?

[00:36:29] Kyle Griffith: Was this, what’s, what’s worth to having all the money in the world if you can’t enjoy it with your family? Right? So, um, you know, that comes first. I highly recommend that you, you work with a coach or a, um, I don’t wanna say therapist, but. I mean, quite frankly, it’s stressful and you could actually bring in, you know, if you work with someone that you, that you like, you could actually bring that in.

[00:36:52] Kyle Griffith: You know, you can make it part of your company culture where you can have, you know, have a wellbeing. You have some folks come in and this is like a spa day, right? Uh, I have one of my clients that does that. They have a spa, comes in and gives all the, um, You know, all the staff there, they, manny pennies and, and get their facials and all that, all that cool stuff.

[00:37:13] Kyle Griffith: Um, you know, just think of ways that, um, you could treat, you know, treat your staff, make them know that you’re thinking about them, right? Uh, even the smallest things. Smallest things help. Um, yeah, I, I’ll, I’ll do that. Just think about things. What, what drives you? What makes you passionate? If you have to spend a weekend by your grandkids, you know, hold, hold the babies and, and, um, You might reconnect with why you’re really doing this.

[00:37:39] Kevin Dieny: You know? Yeah, no, I think that’s, I think in this topic there’s a lot. There’s, Okay, here’s the threat. Here’s the opportunity, here’s why you would want, where you should go, why you could do what you would wanna do, and then why are you doing this? Like, there’s a lot wrapped up in this topic of, okay, this is something like, there’s a hurdle coming ahead, how you’re gonna meet it.

[00:38:03] Kevin Dieny: There’s a lot of questions to be to consider. I think.

[00:38:05] Kyle Griffith: Hey Kevin, I watch this video lately. Yeah. Um, I don’t spend much time on social media. When I do get on for some reason, I get some really fascinating stuff. Um, there was a race, um, this child, she maybe nine years old. You mentioned hurdles, so I dunno if you saw it.

[00:38:20] Kyle Griffith: So she was running and she fell on either the first or second hurdle and you know, hurdles are right. Yeah. Every second counts. Yeah. So I’ve seen, you’ve seen these types of videos before, but this particular one, when I saw her, it’s like, it’s no way. Like you gotta know it’s gonna end, but it’s like there’s no way this girl’s gonna catch up with the other girls in this race.

[00:38:43] Kyle Griffith: And I was like, Wow. I was like, She fell down. I’m getting chill to been talking about this man. She fell down and I, she was like so far behind and she pushed and she pushed. But guess what? Remember we was talking about the marketing taking in front of the gas? Yeah. In, in a downtime, the lead of that pack.

[00:39:01] Kyle Griffith: Hey, um, you know, I’m just gonna take my foot off the gas because I’m doing fine. I’m, I’m cool. Here, let me, let me cut back a little bit. And it’s always that one business, it’s always that one entrepreneur that don’t have to quit in them, right? That has that fight in them. And that’s what this girl has.

[00:39:15] Kyle Griffith: She had to fight. She jumped all of the hurdles and she came back all around and she won. Gosh, crazy.

[00:39:22] Kevin Dieny: Yeah. I love things like that. I love that. Cuz it’s, it’s something that’s applicable to, to you. You could be like, Okay, that’s me in this situation right now. How, how am I gonna overcome, How am I gonna figure this out?

[00:39:33] Kevin Dieny: Can I figure this out? You know?

[00:39:35] Kyle Griffith: Yeah, sometimes you have to be in that position and our natural instincts can get kicking. Yeah, go in survival mode and that it just, just, it just kicks in. So I, I don’t, From what time you have, I, I wanna leave everyone with this, right? I had a, a coach that, that I was working with a couple years ago, and I’ll never forget what he said.

[00:39:53] Kyle Griffith: You must always have low highs and high lows. And here’s what that means. When you’re doing good, right? You’re on high, you’re on cloud nine, you know the registers is coming in, your business is coming, you’re doing great, right? You wanna get excited, but you don’t wanna get too excited. Because you don’t ever forget where you came from, right?

[00:40:12] Kyle Griffith: So you don’t want to get so excited you go take these trips, blow all that cash, and you know, forget what got you there, and you start slipping. You always have to forget, remember where you came from. So you keep pushing and pushing and pushing to keep going up that hill. And, you know, life is a journey, right?

[00:40:28] Kyle Griffith: It’s a process. It’s never gonna end. It’s gonna end some point. But while we hear, we’ve taken one step again to, to that future, right? So you wanna keep going, then you wanna have high lows. When you’re at the bottom of that hill, when you’re in a recession, when times is really bad, guess what? You kicked ass before and you’re gonna kick ass again Like you’ve been here, like we are entrepreneurs, we have business people.

[00:40:52] Kyle Griffith: We have been through this, this, you know, we have that muscle memory kick in and you start going back up the hill. So, hey, we, we always had recessions and we’ve always bounced back. So if it’s one thing can leave your listeners with, you know, keep on pushing. Never stop, keep going this night. Just, just do it.

[00:41:11] Kevin Dieny: I think if anything, we’ve talked all the most about like figuring out where you are so you can, so you can feel a little bit more confident, like figure out what is going on in the business or what’s going on in an opportunity so you can. So much of this seems like it’s a motivational pitch, but honestly, the optimism of, of the business, uh, definitely has an impact on how it’s gonna survive the, the downturn of recession.

[00:41:35] Kevin Dieny: So, um, we’ve talked about what the recession is, what it could mean, the threats, the opportunities. Um, we’ve talked about some of the things that are happening to businesses right now, and also we’ve also talked a, you know, again, we’ve, we’ve been focusing a lot on. That there is opportunity, that there is, there’s hope that, there’s the vision, there is the strategy out there, and everyone is, everyone’s going through ups and downs in ears.

[00:42:01] Kevin Dieny: So it might be your turn to struggle right now, or your turn to be on top, but you know, , like there’s, there’s a good path forward. So that’s sort of like a brief summary, but, uh, I really appreciate you coming on Kyle. And again, if there’s anyone who’s. Interested in reaching out to you, finding you, connecting with you, what are the best ways that you would have them, uh, connect with you?

[00:42:22] Kyle Griffith: So well, Kevin, first of all, I appreciate you. I was joy. I, I feel like we having like a conversation. We at the bar, we had a coffee table just having a conversation about this because, um, I, I love this stuff man. I appreciate it. I’m very passionate about this, so yeah, everyone get gets a hold of me. Uh, so my website is the thenybbgroup.com, the, N Y B, B as in New York Business Brokerage.

[00:42:45] Kyle Griffith: thenybbgroup.com. that’s my main website. My entire team is there. We’ve been doing this for almost 20 years. Um, so we can help you. Any of your business acquisition or business sale needs. Evaluation needs. Um, I love LinkedIn, man. LinkedIn’s come a long way.

[00:43:01] Kyle Griffith: Yeah, and I’ve been spending a lot more time there having fun. So, um, I’ve been doing some more pods. Launched my podcast exclusively on LinkedIn. It’s called Kyle Sells Biz Off The Record. Awesome. Um, so you can find me there if you want to hear some more of my banter. And it’s off the record is not recorded, so you know, you join in, you, you get my stuff and you can’t hold me to it, you know, So , so yeah, LinkedIn, there’s Kyle at LinkedIn, or there’s Google my name.

[00:43:27] Kyle Griffith: You’re gonna find me in a couple different places, but, um, my website or on, on LinkedIn.

[00:43:32] Kevin Dieny: Awesome, great, thank, thank you so much for coming on call. It’s always a pleasure and I, I love the, just the open candor we, we have and the te and the jokes and the, the serious topic we can take on and, and explore and, and ultimately to help businesses and, and other leaders out there through, or, you know, finding themselves in an interesting position.

[00:43:51] Kevin Dieny: And yes, they can grow their business, I think is a very encouraging message that we both have.

[00:43:56] Kyle Griffith: Yeah, man, we can do it, man. Let’s, It’s a podcast like this. This gives you inspiration. There are people like you all across the world that are going through the same thing and, you know, get some mentorship, get some people in your corner, can support you.

[00:44:06] Kyle Griffith: So thank you Kevin. I appreciate the opportunity and, um, looking forward to, It’s gonna be a third time. I don’t know. They might not want me back after this, right? So we’ll see. Oh, I love it, but it might get tired of me right now. But thank you so much for the opportunity to come back and, and, you know, share and connect with you and your audience.

[00:44:23] Kevin Dieny: Yeah. Thanks everyone for listening to this episode, and I hope, uh, you feel encouraged about what, what you can do in your business and, uh, look forward to the next topic, the next episode, next, uh, coming up. So…