Yo, what’s up everybody? It’s Justin Live from B2B Vault: The Payment Technology Podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems. Hosted by Allen Kopelman, the Steve Jobs of Payment Processing. And in this episode we’ll be providing you educational information about FinTech payment processing and small businesses.

And in today’s podcast we’ll be discussing Feaster famine during the recession time. What’s going on? What can you do to you? Curtail the recession, I guess you could say. There’s a lot of stuff attack, thees, recession head on so that it doesn’t affect you or if it is affect you as least as possible.

I hope everyone is doing well. Christmas is coming up. Yeah, we got all our holiday decorations. If you’re watching on YouTube, we got Hanukkah Noms, we got a little mano, we’ve got a little tree with lights. Merry. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Happy Hanukkah. Happy holidays, happy everything.

No, so it’s never, I still watch the show, the Apprentice. , yes. All the time. That was like a popular show. And just all, they used to always say, doesn’t matter whether the economy’s up, economy’s down, you’re in a recession. The people that were on the business, people that would be on the show, would always talk about, there’s never a bad time to start a business.

And, you, we, I personally live through, we had in two 2001, we had a little economic hiccup during nine when nine 11 happened, which caused a huge business slow down. I was working so much at that time, I didn’t feel that. Yeah. Most people didn’t feel it, but people who were trying to open businesses couldn’t get business licenses.

Oh yeah. No, they were, it was like a complete slowdown in the government. Yeah. They were worried about mud, many other things. 2008, 2009, we saw a huge economic slowdown. People, anyone who had like a side hustle going, And wasn’t making money, closed their bus, and a lot of people who were just on the edge went outta business.

We’ve seen it during this last couple of years of the pandemic. I think people who made it through the pandemic, the 2008, I’m still trying to think of two. You’re going you’re talking too fast. Yeah. Two thousand eight thousand nine was a bad time in 2008. 2009 was, yeah. . Yeah. Gas went sky high. Yeah. Just like it is now. When sky high, everybody was squeezed tight. I remember that. And one of the things that’s going on now is we’re seeing a massive amount of layoffs and a lot of it’s in the tech sector, customer service sector. I’ll say one thing. It’s, it said that the.

All the tech industry is getting hit hard because me and Alan were talking about this off the air. I was reading cause I was interested, so I was doing some research about why or what do they mean by the tech industry. Because I mean I’ve been in the tech industry for over a decade. I have a lot of friends.

And I wasn’t hearing anything in like chatter about them losing jobs or just the big companies they work at. What I’m trying to Yeah, whatever. , but Yeah, man. But I’m saying the big companies, what they’re like, from what I was seeing and reading is like these huge tech companies. They’re not laying off like the creators the people who are building the companies, those people aren’t getting laid.

It’s the people who are doing the customer support. Yeah, customer support. The chat they’re doing sales, those people who are, doing support online calling and stuff like that. Those types of people were are, were losing their job jobs. I, like I said, I didn’t see any of these c.

laying off engineers. Yeah. Some of them they have Facebook laid off engineers. Meta. Yeah, meta didn’t have a good year. Yeah. Meta. Meta. Meta. Thought it was gonna grow a lot faster than it was. Than it. And also I think, Elon Musk cut the fat out at Twitter too. I don’t know what he did out there.

That apparently they, apparently I was reading that a lot of people working at home Yeah. That weren’t. So they weren’t they weren’t, and a lot of companies, I talked to a couple of guys that I know in Atlanta have some, have had a lot of their employees working at home.

And they said, over the last year or so, they figured out who was being unproductive and they got rid of them. Makes sense. There’s just a lot of that going on in places and also, , a lot of time, a lot. There’s been a few companies, a few people that I’ve talked to where, let’s say they lived in New York.

They worked for a company in New York, or they worked for a company in California. Then they decided during the pandemic, while I’m working at home, I just want to, I’m just gonna move. So they moved that estate. Maybe they told their employer, maybe they didn’t tell their employer. And then now they’re living in Florida or in Texas or wherever they’re living.

Right. and then the employer’s we want you to go back to the office. And they’re like, oh sold their house and moved. . They either keep those people or they don’t keep those people. Yeah. But there’s just a lot of that going on, oh yeah. I’m sure. And layoffs spur one thing.

They spur growth in entrepreneurship, absolutely. And a lot of times people who have, they work for a company, they get laid off and then they start to think, oh, what can I do? To make money. Maybe I can’t find a job, maybe I can’t find a job. And one thing that’s happening now that I’m not like happy with is there’s a lot of companies, hot moving functionality to, to India, to the Philippines, to different places like that.

We use. Outsourcing of people, but we only, we, when we go on those websites that people go to, we try to find people. We find people in the United States Yeah. That will do the work, which doesn’t mean that they’re still in the United States, but we’re trying I think, like the last couple we knew, they, that lady I was reading, it’s li this one woman, the woman that we just hired for the blog post.

I don’t know. You don’t know. You gotta re reread those messages that she’s. Just really read the message that she’s writing. Oh, ask her to, okay. I almost asked her to what’s the question that she can ask a, the robot that’ll like really screw ’em up. I gotta find that out. Oh, okay. What do you think it’s a robot?

No, I’m not a robot, but something that like, they have to have a United States citizen would have, would know what’s the question? A US citizen? What team did Babe Ruth play for? Yeah. What team did Babe Ruth play for? That’s a good question, right? Yeah. Or who’s the first president?

Who’s the first president? I don’t even, Abe. No, the first president’s George Washington. George Washington. Yeah. Yeah. You could say, oh, do, you could look at the city where she’s, the person says they’re from and ask ’em a question about that city, the weather. Oh. How’s the weather there today?

See if that manages, that’s, I’m doing that tomorrow. See if that matches. I’m doing that tomorrow. It’s probably a good idea. But I’m just saying like the way that she an but I’m very like, but I also read, I don’t know, but I read on the website like if you submit that you’re from the us, you gotta provide like a social or a federal tax ID number.

I did that. You can’t get that from that. I did that and I was sending all the work to a guy in China. I know, but I’m just saying you can’t do that . So here’s a couple of entrepreneurial quotes. This one’s from Russell Brunson. That’s the guy who invented or whatever, promotes ClickFunnels. The day you become an entrepreneur is the day you take responsibility for a problem that isn’t yours.

And I like that because. I take, we take, our clients have a problem. We take ownership, and that’s an important thing to do, in business is to take ownership of a customer as a problem. You take ownership and you deal with it. Here’s another one. Please understand this. When you’re a true operator, when you have real entrepreneurial dna, there’s never a bad.

To open a great business. Of course, there are financial factors to be considered, especially during a recession, but if you’re in a place where you can afford to take the risk you have the self-awareness and conviction in yourself and your idea, and you operate from a place of practicality, not delusion, that’s really important.

It’s never a bad idea to start a business. Another thing I want to say about starting a. , this is a really important factor, okay. About starting a business. And then I’m gonna relate this back to when I was a chef. In the hotel business. So I remember, I was a chef and I worked. , under other chefs.

And then I got my first chef job where I was the executive chef of the hotel. I was actually one of the youngest executive chefs in the, in, in Dallas. I was only like 30 years old. So Nice. I was executive chef. Good for you, man. Executive chef of this hotel. I was in charge of three kitchens. I had about 45 employees.

I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. I had no clue. And, A couple of things that I learned. I went to a meet, we have a weekly manager’s meeting, and they asked me, everybody went around the table, the managers of the different departments. They go everything’s going well in the kitchen. We’re good.

And then finally after three or four meetings, my boss says no, you can’t do that. You gotta come in with a little list of five or six things you’re doing, so you tell everybody what you’re doing in the kitchen. So I said, okay, what do I tell him? So he said, sit me down.

And then the next thing happened, somebody wanted to have a w a party at the hotel. . So oh, you’re gonna have to come. Into the sales office and do your chef thing , right? And I was like, what you gotta put on your salesman hats? You gotta switch, to your switch From the chef hat to the sales Alan?

To Gary V. No, you gotta go into sales mode. So anytime you want to start a business, if you say, I don’t like sales, it’s my such a, you can’t be in a business and not be a sales. , there’s no way around it. You got to make business, you gotta make sales. Yeah. That’s one thing that I, my business, I, you know I didn’t care, like if there was, so with sales, I was always, if I didn’t wanna work with you, I wasn’t gonna work with you.

I understand that, but Right. But I, there, there is, I wish I would’ve went to some sort of cert, certification or sales training. Yeah. Something like that. No, just to help. Smoothing out the sales process to the other ones that I did wanna work with. There’s, I’m sure there’s a lot of times where they were like, oh, I’m not gonna work with this guy because, I don’t like his sales pitch.

No, but it’s like we talk about all the time about, what should they be teaching in school? They needed to be teaching people how to use the Microsoft. Office package or the Google office package, one or the other. You know what I mean? Basic office tools, any kind of like spreadsheet software, right?

They need to teach people how to use those things. Another thing is people need to learn a little bit about some public speaking can read all, and people need to learn about sales, and then what we always talk about financial litera. Which is a big subject. And on this show we’re always educating people about, the financial literacy of merchant services, right?

And understanding how merchant services work and the inner workings of it, and how it affects your business and things like that. If you’re a small business, Alan, what would you say they should be doing during this time right now? What’s some steps that they can be making to help? Steps in during the recession is make sure you’re watching your cash flow.

It’s always a great time to take advantage of something. So let’s say you sell this, oh, I can sell a, I sell a lot of these water bottles, right? The manufacturer is probably having a hard time, right? So how much money can you get together so you could possibly make a bigger order?

than you normally would, right? Because you can, I can go out and sell these, right? Or people come to my store to get this. What if I could get it for a really good price? And it might be a good, that’s when you can make a bold move like that and buy like in bulk. Some items because you maybe are in better shape than other, another business, right?

Or you’re able to take some money that maybe you would take outta your business and reinvest it in your business. I think businesses also need to look at technology, right? How can you get, have technology to get people to pay you faster, instead, , like we’re dealing with the company now.

Every time I have to pay an invoice I just, we have to call them on the phone, give them the credit card over the phone and all that. And we’re trying to talk to the owner about, Hey, you’re already emailing me an invoice. Why don’t you just, we can show you, you can drop a link in there. And boom, your customers don’t even have to call you on the phone and you can get rid of that person.

No, I’m just kidding. No, they don’t need to get rid of the person. That person can be doing something else. I know I’m reconciling your, but that’s happening all across the world. But I’m saying that person can be reconciling your, the invoices and making sure, and that people that aren’t paying, they can send them out a link.

Hey, pay this invoice cuz the bus businesses can be shorthanded. Oh. , no one wants word. And then when you’re shorthanded and then somebody’s sending you a bill and you call up on the phone and you have to wait a few minutes and you’re like, no time for that. Hang up. Oh, call back again.

Then you forget. Then maybe you forget about it to pay the bill. So you don’t want to you want to make things easy for your customers. And we always talk about, here’s some things that we talk about that we, that I’ve been reading about, about opening up new businesses.

And we, and I saw it during 2008, 2009, there was a lot of companies, one of them was motor. , it was laying off tons of people in plantation. They had a huge building there. Yeah. They hired back some of them like as 10 99 employees. Yeah. Which I thought was weird. And I guess damn insurance. Exactly.

So the cost cutting, they’re gonna pay the guy the same money or less, and then no insurance, no benefits. But I saw a lot of those guys open. Companies for sure. Cuz they had, they were making good salaries, so they had money in some cases and they put together businesses. Yep. And a couple of them, I think we still do the credit card processing for ’em.

Nice. . And the other thing is you know, people when they went remote, started to learn oh, that they got comfortable with working at home. . So people say, if I’m already working at home, why not start a home business, home based business, , maybe their spouse doesn’t work, and then. Together start a business and one person runs the business, the other person has their job. And then they help each other, and then the other thing we see is a lot of people moving out of cities and then moving out to the suburbs or the country. Or like in, my daughter lives in Cedar Rapids, I Iowa.

The town just been swelling up like the last three, four years. No kidding. Yeah, because there’s been some big companies. Moving their employees outta Chicago, outta New York. And they moved to outside, they moved to the small, the towns outside of Cedar Rapids. That’s, they were doing that. They’ve been doing that in the Midwest a lot.

Yeah. Burn. They’re a lot of the, the headquarters. They don’t wanna live, pay the heavy rent or, yeah. To own the land in New York or Texas or California. So like places like Wisconsin. Not so much Illinois because Southern Illinois maybe. Yeah. But what’s Iowa?

Iowa, Indiana, kentucky. Kentucky. Those types of states are, there’s, it’s flat and there’s nothing there, so there’s lots of room for growth. Especially for those. I’m not a huge fan of going every whatever. But a lot of companies like started moving in there, like insurance companies and they moved their employees and they’re giving their employees drive a living up north when you drive up north to those cities.

Yeah. That’s all is like giant office buildings of AUR healthcare, MetLife, or Right. But they’re moving their employees. That’s where they’re moving. They’re moving out there cuz their employees can get a house with a yard. and have a better quality of life for sure. So it’s interesting.

That’s what’s happening down here. We’re just talking about it in Florida. Everyone, the a lot of the people are moving to the middle area of Florida now because you can’t, we, you can’t afford the rent in the housing on the coast of Florida. So there’s a big yeah.

People moved to Ocala. Up in the above. Orlando, in those areas. And then in the middle, I’m saying to the middle when people go, yeah, that’s the middle. Ocas in the middle. Yeah. I thought it was up north. It’s in the middle of the state. Really? Yeah. And when people move in those areas, guess what people need to do?

Open up businesses. Oh, those people need services. They need plumbers. Electricians. Electricians, yeah. Handyman. They need computer technician. They need a website for their business. They need everything. , and the Census Bureau, Justin looked this up in TW in October of 20 22, 430 3000 new business applications that’s, those are businesses getting a federal tax ID number.

It’s a lot. That’s a lot. That’s up from 313,000 in 2019, three years earlier. So there’s over 400,000 new businesses opening almost 450,000 jobs opened in October. New businesses, yeah. in October, right? So there’s no excuse. Yeah, there’s a lot of business. There’s a lot, people, that’s what’s going on.

People that are getting laid off or opening up businesses, and these businesses are mostly non-retail, e-commerce, some marketplace websites, creator sites. That’s another thing that’s a whole new business that popped up in the last few years is this whole thing. The creator economy. . , where creators are making money on different types of websites. We were hiring for a social media for, social media expert to come and work for Nationwide Payment Systems. And one person that I had reached out to that they said, no, we do $50 a post a post. I was like, yeah, I get it. That’s a thing, just like the Yeah.

If you want those guys who fly drones, did this one guy, I know he’s making $1,500 a weekend. Just going to fly drones for to, for for events. No, not even events for the people selling homes. Yeah. Now with the drones, if you have to have a special license now you have to have FAA license to fly a drone.

And you have to have insurance. It’s not that big of a deal to get No, but you have to have insurance. You can’t. Yeah, so a lot of service businesses are popping up and the service. And what’s a service business? Ele electrician, a plumber HVAC handyman, hvac a lot of the mobile detailers.

Yeah. Any kind. Tons of mobile businesses. Mobile car washing is, yeah, mobile so huge down here. I will always wonder how those guys are getting paid. They’re getting paid on cash. Probably and they’re gonna get a big fat tax bill from Uncle Sam this year. Yeah. They’re gonna be surprise. I know, man. We can’t, I don’t know how many, we broke the story on the podcast.

We can’t, everybody laughed at us. We can’t tell you guys enough. Yo. Like it’s time to leave the p2p, platforms to people who are actually sending peer-to-peer payments. If you’re a business and you’re still using those types of platforms, you’re losing. Your, your customers aren’t getting the right experience that they deserve.

You don’t look professional. I don’t want to go into a business and, and you, I only take Cash App or, yeah, it’s weird. Oh, I only take Cash App or Zelle. Yeah. I don’t, it doesn’t make you look professional or official at all. I get it. You gotta start somewhere. I’m not, hating.

I’m just saying it’s time to step it up a notch. Yeah. Hello everyone. We’d like to take this time to thank our sponsors Nationwide Payment Systems and NPSs Printer. We’d also like to shout out the listeners and everyone that subscribed to our YouTube channel. Thank you for tuning in. If you’d like to reach Alan or.

Head over to B2B vault.info where you’ll find two forms, one to contact us and another if you’re interested in becoming a sponsor. If you’d like to sign up for a merchant account, click the Apply Now button located at the top of the page of B2B vault.info where you’ll answer a few questions and you’ll be on your way to processing payments in No.

The podcast is available on Spotify, iTunes, Pandora, and other popular streaming networks. Thanks again for listening. There’s a lot of pe, a lot of tech companies starting up. All types of websites starting up. SaaS is a growing things. The SAS business is just exploding. Yeah, artificial intelligence.

Creeping on a come up? Yeah, I was reading this whole article the other day about this new AI bot that some person wrote where you can get the code for free and then you can install this bot onto your website. Excuse me, and then it’ll, it, it use, it’ll an it’ll uses the you program. Excuse me.

Excuse me. Yeah. I’ve been having some, I don’t know, psycho hunt. It’s so tight. No it reads your web. The bot can read your website right then when someone answers a question. It takes the information from your website and is able to answer the question. Some insane program some guy wrote and then he just released it out for free to everybody.

Yeah. Google is pooping their pants. They’re a little worried about AI and how it is disrupting the. And really? Yeah. Yeah. I don’t, I’m not gonna depend on I don’t know. I’m someone that wants to know and I, and trust it, right? Yeah. Like the artificial intelligence thing. We’ve, I’ve seen it grow like since when it was super, I haven’t saw expensive to use for creating articles for people.

, we’ve, I’ve watched it get better and better. I don’t see how it’s gonna replace Google, though. I don’t see how, unless somebody’s come up with few sites. I didn’t under, I didn’t. But in this. No, we talked about, we used to talk about crypto a lot, but crypto’s been like a bad subject cuz we try to stay positive, right?

So we don’t wanna be negative nancy’s right? So we, so you know, all the time, so Justin showed me an article about Starbucks and here’s like a great thing going on. Here’s Starbucks taking the web three, basically web three blockchain software, NFTs with NFTs as. Prizes slash coupons slash rewards, right?

Yeah. So that’s some game. Now I’m not gonna go play this game as I go to, cause I don’t go to Starbucks either. But I, and I don’t think, and I think it’s aimed more at probably the younger generation that’s gonna say, oh yeah, I’m, I go to Starbucks, I’ll play this Starbucks game.

What was it called again? I can’t remember what it was. No, whatever. It’s some, it’s, oh, I can, I got it. I got it. Go ahead. So you can go in and play this game. And I was reading about it and I was like, man, that’s like totally cool. Like you go in there, play this game, answer questions, you’re gonna be able to soon order your drink out of there.

Order your Starbucks Odyssey. Yeah. And then you’re gonna be able to get points and get points and then also pick up coupons and like customers will be able to purchase and earn digital collectible stamps in the form of an N F T from Starbucks Odyssey, which will provide benefits and immersive experiencing experiences.

Leveraging Web three technology will allow our members to access experiences and ownership that was not possible before. Starbucks Odyssey will transcend the foundational benefits that our Starbucks rewards, blah, blah, blah. So yeah, man, it’s pretty cool. I think more companies are gonna, but it’s weird because more companies are gonna follow suit in this.

Yeah. I think the one thing they gotta be careful about it’s phone is going hammer time. I think they got, I think that they’re gonna have to, they’re gonna have to make sure that people under 18 are not using their parents’ credit card in there to. The rewards and stuff. So it’s, yeah, they got, it’s, whatever, it’s something that they gotta figure out.

But I think we’re gonna see more and more of that type of thing where NFT is gonna be used as utility. If, if if companies step up and really take advantage of the web three platform that’s available, I think that there’s a lot of. for growth and, experimentation.

There’s just ways of utilizing web three in creative new ways that companies aren’t doing. It’s just not an nf. The N F T is just not the end of the web. Three either ladies and gentlemen, just because Metaverse isn’t doing well doesn’t mean. . Here’s an example. Roblox is an example of what the Metaverse is, and that has been thriving for the past.

I don’t even know, a couple of years. 2010 years at least. Yeah, it’s been around. Minecraft is another one, right? So like Minecraft has been around four, I don’t even know. 20 years at least, probably. There’s all those game, everyone. Any game. That’s just my point is this though, sir. Is. That’s play, that stuff has been doing well for a really long time.

And Facebook or Meta or whatever it is, their name is, they tried to enter this and they really, they made a really big push. They spent a lot of money on the name on, on the goggles and, and it is immersive, you know the state right.

It’s still so young. So I think people like already just like throwing it to the wolves and it’s oh, they’re done. They shouldn’t, no one wants to do this. You’re lying to yourself. You’re not. You, maybe you don’t want to, but there is lots and lots of people who enjoy it who are excited about it and think that the potential of it is amazing.

Like I’m super, I’m a fan of it because of the educational purposes. I just hope it doesn’t take away from people being actually like social in person. So For sure. No, and I’m, I agree, but that’s just a small part of what Web three is, right? Because we haven. people don’t educate themselves.

I understand that. And so they just think, oh, web three is, oh, it’s just for the metaverse. And that’s just a small part of, it’s like you were talking about before with the ai, is somebody gonna come out with some AI powered search engine and then overtake Google? They, that’s what Google there’s people, Google hasn’t put out anything about it because Google is using ai.

It’s not like they haven’t been using it. Whatever. They’ve probably been building that into the algorithm since it was around. But I’m just saying maybe that’s what’s gonna, maybe somebody’s go thinking about that. There’s a lot of search engines out there that still aren’t.

Compared to Google. Yeah. That’s, Google bought everything. That was like halfway. I’m talking about goo duck go all these other one. Yeah, but it operates on Chrome. It just has some kind of security features in it for disabling tracking. And so on. That’s my point, like Firefox.

So I don’t know. That’s my point is I don’t think Google’s going anywhere. I don’t, they just released the infinite scrolling so that you don’t have to click the next. It’s not necessarily infinite, I guess it shows you like six pages. Oh, that’s cool. Instead of on your phone.

I noticed that it works on some websites. Not every website. No. On Chrome. Like when you go to Google. And you type in merchant account. Yeah. And it has all the results. Instead of you having to click the next page. You don’t have to do that anymore. No. That’s cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That’s very cool. I like it. Now’s the time to, pay attention to, if you we didn’t talk much about the recession. Let’s talk, but that’s what we’re gonna get back to. I would say. So if there’s a business that’s just starting and there, and they were doing well, and now they’re starting to really, maybe, like you said, the manufac.

the manufacturer, it’s taken months and months to get their merch or what can they, what can a new business do? You definitely need to research manufacturers. Make sure that you can get whatever product you’re gonna sell in your store, that you’re able to get that product. And if you can’t get that product, then you need to pivot.

You can’t just sit there and go we can’t get this kind of close up shop. Yeah. Time. The close up shop. No. Get something. Find a local manufacturer, find somebody who has the product. Or comparable. It might not be, yeah, comparable. Yeah exactly. Maybe you have to increase your prices cuz it’s a better product or you’ll have to lower your prices cuz it’s not as good as a product is the time.

But like I said, sometimes you can buy a bun, maybe a manufacturer needs to sell. More product. Because they have too much inventory cuz that’s happening. A lot of inventories arriving from China. Or wherever it’s being made. Stuff that’s coming from outside the us It’s arriving now, right?

Yeah. Much quicker. Then you know, the distributor or the people who are distributing the product in the US has too much product. Yeah. It’s just sitting there. So it’s sitting on the shelf. I notice when I go into Costco, as an example. Justin needed, we needed a new chair in the office, right?

Yes, we did. I go in there, bam. They got a big pile of killer chairs. It’s like half the price of the normal price. Why? And it, and Costco, most of the time when they’re selling an item like that, it’s like they bought it at a closeout rate, right? and it’s on, and it’s like a chair that’s half the price of the normal price of the chair.

So there are deals out there. You just gotta have the capital so that you can go get those deals, get well what if it’s the company that’s not in a man that’s, that’s not selling a physical product. What they’re selling a service. Yeah. Yeah. I think that businesses that sell a service need to look at a couple of different things.

What a lot of people don’t understand is, try to build, try to come up with a way for your pricing to be where it’s a subscription, right? Because let’s say you go buy, like today we bought two software products, right? Yes. One of them we just paid a flat price for. It’s good for what a year.

Okay. The other one was like a monthly thing, but you could pay for six months. Oh, that way. Yeah. And you got a little discount. Yeah. By buying six months. So you gotta figure out with your product to have a product where there’s a recurring event going on. Now I prefer a monthly or quarterly event because a monthly event is good.

So let’s just say, And I’ve seen a ton of these graphic design companies do it. Now I see ’em all over Facebook. Hire me for $89 a month. You get unlimited graphic design. . I don’t know if it’s unlimited. No I get it. But yeah it’s a certain amount of hours. Yeah. You pay for whatever, two hours a month.

Yeah. Graphic designing or where I saw somebody selling oh, I’ll make your social media posts for, I’ll make you 30 social media posts for the month, right? . And it’s X amount of price, for the month. So there’s a lot, I think that, businesses like. People see value in that and they go for it.

Or I’ve even seen companies who do especially, those types of small, those types of, what you just said, for example, like for social media, right? Businesses don’t necessarily want to jump into that. to that budget. They don’t necessarily have the budget. For something, one, to hire someone full-time.

Or part-time for that matter. And then two, to actually hire like a freelancer. So for those types of situations, it works out well. Like the one company I was telling you that does the WordPress managed the maintenance, right? It’s it’s not cheap. But for someone who wouldn’t have any idea, of what to do.

Say they hired a web WordPress designer and now they, they decided not to keep them on for the maintenance plan and they’re trying to do it themselves. , you are gonna end up paying somebody, but they’re way cheaper than an agency. Like you’re gonna pay an agency thousands of dollars to update your website.

Yeah. So I think it’s cool, or even people like hire, like people like that are working at home to be their vir. Oh, I don’t wanna have a full-time assistant employee. I need a virtual assistant for two hours a day, three hours a day. , you can go hire somebody to do that, or you can hire somebody to answer your phone for you.

My little cousin is paying her way to college doing that. Yeah, so there’s different businesses that people can get involved in. If you need a job, you can get a job doing that, or start the company yourself. I know this woman that she’s in a, she was an accountant, right? , she wanted to work at home and be home for her kids and all that.

So instead of being, a ccp, she’s a c. . So instead of being a cpa, she became a small business bookkeeper. So people who have QuickBooks, she goes in every month, you send her your bank statements. Nice. You send her your send her your bank statements and whatever else you want her to look at.

She goes in the QuickBook, straightens everything out, , and then Bill bills you out, and then she can take care of, 20, 30, 40 c. A month than that and work at home on her schedule so on and so forth. So you can go out and start a business. And that’s monthly income for sure.

So you can create monthly income, not just sell oh, I’m gonna sell you this microphone, and then that’s it. Now when am I buying another microphone? I’m not gonna buy one. So basically what you’re saying is if you’re a small business and you’re in a service, Industry or or develop a service.

Think about what you could think about a service you could develop for your industry. Where you could get paid monthly. Yeah. There’s different ways to get paid. Add a new service, learn a new skill. I think that’s what you’re basically trying to say. Yeah. Look at like these clothing companies, there’s like a cloth.

I never did it, but there’s a clothing company you can sign up and you. A hundred, 200 a month, right? And then they send you like a few outfits. Then whatever you like, you keep, whichever you don’t like, you put it back in the box and send it back to them. There’s a lot of companies that come up with these, this creative ideas to, to do things.

Look at Uber. They have a new thing, Uber one or something. They keep sending me emails about it. I don’t use Uber that often. That. An Uber membership. But see now DoorDash has a membership. Do you like to get food delivered all the time? Or they’ll even go get your groceries name? Uber’s just suing the New York taxi in Limousine Union.

Really? Again? What? Oh, that’s a mess. It is such a mess. It’s like whenever I go to a city, it’s very interesting. I don’t think Uber should be able to run in cities like that. No. Let me just explain to you. My my experience traveling lately. So I used to travel, I travel, not often, but quite a bit.

, so every other month you’re leaving, I would say sometimes. And so you go to the airport like I used to sometimes I would drive my car to the airport, park it at the park, and ride, get on the bus, go over to the, go over to the thing. So I said, you know what I’m gonna take, I’m gonna do Uber.

So I’m going to the airport. I called the Uber to come to my house, take me to the airport. So when the first Uber, like OPT said they were coming, but they opted out cuz I guess they didn’t want to drive someone to the airport. And then the next guy came. I was talking to Emma go, yeah. He’s some guys don’t going to the airport.

So I was like, okay, so whatever. He was a very nice guy. Now I was going to Las Vegas and you get to Las Vegas. And get to Las Vegas. When you walk out of the airport, there’s a massive taxi stand thing, right? And then they have zones based by the ho which hotels you’re going to. It’s a set price, okay?

There’s no meter. . There’s no nothing. It’s 20 bucks. You’re going here, it says it’s 20 bucks. Nice. Whatever. It prices, right? I like that. So it’s pretty cool. You just pop out, boom. There’s taxis pulling up left and right. No clicking in apps waiting for your, the line wifi. But if you wanted to go to the Uber, you had to go at another, you had to go down another le.

You had to go to a different area, go out, walk across the whole parking lot, go in the app, call the Uber. . So I was like, man, that’s just cra. I’ll just take a cab. It was easy, right? Yes. Then on the way back from Vegas, you called the Uber at the Fort Lauderdale airport. You had to walk in, like in the way the terminals are set up, there’s a area in between the terminals.

You had to go over there and get the Uber. You had to Oh, really? Over there? Yeah. There’s a ride share area where those guys pick you up. No kidding. We used to be able to pick you up. Oh yeah. No, I know what you’re talking about. Yeah. Yeah. But it, then when leaving Vegas, when I was going to the, when I was leaving the hotel to go to the airport, there was no cabs.

I had to call a Uber and get a ride to the airport. From Vegas? Yeah. From, yeah, from Vegas at the hotel. There were no cabs around. At that time. At that time. So it was easier. It was earlier, easier. It was early in the morning, but I called the Uber. The Uber came right away. So it was pretty cra. It was pretty, but I’ve been saying like it’s very really weird.

I’m old school man. I’m like, like in Atlanta, yo, I need a cab. No. So Atlanta, you get to Atlanta, there’s no cabs anywhere. Want a cab. Yeah. You gotta go to some cab area, which is a far, far thing. And then if you want the Uber, you gotta go downstairs out of thing, walk across the parking lot to the other side of that, to the out.

And then have a whole area set up for Uber and Lyft and all that. It’s, every place you go is different with the Uber and the taxi. I don’t know. I can. . We know some people that are like put their support of their entire families as Cavies, and now they’re not doing so hot. Because they. Because of Uber and Lyft. But out by me, if I wanted to call a cab to come to my house where I do they have the private limousine thing down here? Like that? Yeah. Yeah. You can get like a, you can order like a car, a driver car service. A car service. And they come make an arrangement.

They come pick you up. In New York you get off the plane in LaGuardia and the guy’s got, he used to have, he’s got the blacked out Lincoln Continental. Yeah. They have a desk. When you go to some airports and they go, oh, you want a car service to your hotel? Boom boom. And they have, that’s, I like that.

I don’t like the Uber. They used to have it in Fort Lauderdale too. Do not like the Uber thing. No. They used to have it in Fort Lauderdale. It’s hard to get a cab. You don’t see any cabs. The cab business in Fort Lauderdale airport, that’s out done. Yeah. I don’t never, as an entre. Like we had a guy before the pandemic, he developed a business in Las Vegas because everybody’s taken Ubers there, right?

Split between the Uber and the taxi. And he developed the business to put ads inside the Uber car, Uber drivers. So as an Uber driver, you signed up with him for free and then he put stuff in your car depending on what kind of car you, what kind of setup you had. Either a tablet. that mounted on the back of the headrest.

, or he put a brochure thing in there with some brochures of different places, and he developed a whole business around that. That’s, he went out, he went outta business during the pandemic as Uber was. . Why there was no, nobody going to Las Vegas for months. Oh. I’m like, so that makes sense.

But it, but I’m just saying like people can develop any kind. I would’ve switched that. That was seems like a loss because people were still going to the casinos and still not really, they were closed for a couple of months. . It was a big, it was a big hit. That’s right. Vegas was close. It was a big, Vegas was close and then it opened up, but it was very slow.

That’s right. I forgot. But they did not stay open like Florida. No, not many places. Stay California. No. New York. No, I’m just saying Florida was the only place they’d stayed open. Pretty much. Florida opened up after a few weeks, they just said whatever. Open. What about two months? A little less than two months.

It started to open. Slowly they eased it up. Okay. We’re opening this up now. We’re I get what? Mad up. Yeah, you’re right. But two months it was for me. I felt like we were inside for a good two months though. Yeah, but what I’m trying to say is they started easing it up, and then so Oh yeah, within the two months, after a month of it, they were like, you don’t need to wear your mask.

All the. and then like about, yeah, at ease two weeks later, only if you’re six feet from someone, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, but like businesses made their own rules, like in public miles were one way. Yeah. Yeah. That was a, it was pretty entertaining. The aisles. Were only going one way. Someone be going up the aisle the wrong way.

Yeah. Whatcha are doing? And then they’d be yelling at the person. Oh, whatcha are you doing there? Walmart. Walmart had these lanes. Yeah, that’s right. It had everybody going all the way to the back of the store. And so Single file line. It was craziness. Yeah. So whatever. It’s all over now. Now. No, but if you have a bi, if you have to come up with an idea, you come up with an idea and then you go, Ooh, I have an idea.

And you start a business so you can start Best time. The Uber advertising thing is a really freaking good idea. . Yeah. Someone should do it. Someone should do an Uber advertising id because you. , the days are over. Like especially like for nightclubs and restaurants. Like you would get in a cab, like you would be in and they’d have stickers all over the place.

No, you’d get in a cab. Let’s say you’re in New Orleans, you’d get in the cab. Man, what’s the best local place to go for? They would know right away. The guy would tell you, oh, this place, that place, boom. Let me take you there. They would take Uber. Now you ask the Uber guy, they don’t know the Uber guy’s. 19 can’t even go to a damn place after 12 o’clock.

They don’t know. Know where the food is, right? Come on, man. I don’t, that’s what I’m saying. I don’t like the Uber thing. Now I’m just. I’m just saying like it depends on the age of the person driving, Uber communication level and all that. Just one time I caught an Uber in Chicago. Yeah, . It was a Rasta guy, Rastafari brother.

He pulled up. and he, there was a giant snake in the front uhoh of his windshield. I don’t know if I’m getting in that car. I was looking at the thing he is like, it’s not real brother . I was like, yo, cause I was not getting in your car. He is yeah no, it’s not real. I got in a, in an Uber in Vegas and the guy had a disco ball spinning around in there’s fair and cool things.

I’ve been in a couple cool Ubers like that was the cool. , whatever. Anyway, man. No, but you gotta think up a business or think up a service to add to your business. You know everybody, this recession time, this is the time to make a bold move. Make a big move, change up your marketing, change up your business, change up products.

See what products you can buy, what companies can sell you stuff. Maybe they. , maybe they’re having a hard time selling. Expand. You can get a bigger, you can get a bigger order. And pay less. This is the time to do all that kind of stuff. , like I was talking to somebody that I know and they’re, they bought they’re a manuf.

They, man, they buy, they wholesale. The vape is, I don’t even know, these like vape pen things, right? , they’re like the wholesaler of this vape pen things. So the guy was telling me, he’s oh yeah, we went out, we had this, found this manufacturer that’s trying to they need, they have, they’re overstocked, right?

So they were able to buy this stuff out. Cuz I was like, man, why you guys selling so much? Their sales are right. They’re selling stuff like crazy, right? Oh, we were able to buy, A bunch of this product they invested and they were able to buy it at 60%. off the price that they normally pay. Wow. So let’s say they were paying 10 on sale.

Yeah. They were paying 10 bucks. They paid five something the guy told me. He goes, so instead of selling it to our customers for more money, no. We just lowered the price to make our same profit margin. , right? And we’re selling double, triple, we’re buy, then we bought more from the place, so you’re able to take advantage of things like that.

Very nice. During this time of the recession. So you have to pay attention to what’s going on around you and figure out like, oh, how can I expand my business? How can I buy inventory cheaper? Who’s gonna sell me inventory cheaper? Somebody going outta business, I could buy their inventory. Whatever it.

This is the time when you gotta take a chance, make a move, make an adjustment. You know Who Moved My Cheese? I always talk about that book. Read that book. Read the book. Who Moved My Cheese? It’s a great business book. You can read it in one night. It’s fantastic. So we wish everybody luck.

Today’s our entrepreneurship podcast of Feaster Famine Recession Times. What can you do? Maybe you have some ideas, leave a comment, or if you have an interesting story that in a way that you pivoted, your business during a downtime, let us know. Yeah, exactly. Let us know. Maybe we’ll interview you on the podcast.

Would love to. Yeah. Peace out Carpe dm. Seize the day