Industry sign banking arizona claim secure
good morning it's Andy Lombard executive vice president at the Arizona commerce authority welcome everyone to our second day of small business boot camps we'll get started here a few minutes as people start to bundle in thanks for your patience and welcome good morning [Music] [Music] good morning everybody at Sandy Lombard thank you for joining our small business boot camp this morning we've got a great subject today we're gonna do a lot of the QA as we did yesterday we have a bunch of people joining in so I want to give a couple of minutes we'll try to get started as close to 9 o'clock as possible thanks for your patience and good morning mark would you mind coasting on the chat window the website location at ACA it's within Co vyd business support and then I believe webinars sure thank you good morning everybody you'll notice that we have a couple of options to ask questions we hope that you put your questions in the Q&A section and you can start loading those in now any questions that you might have today we're going to go through quick sources of cash we're also going to a very very brief review of yesterday's information on PPP Thomas Barr is joining us from local first Arizona so we'll kick off with Thomas giving us a brief update also we have Robert theable our director of small business here at the Arizona commerce authority and he'll also be available we hope to have time a lot of time at the end for a lot of questions both of the subject matter that random mic are going to present to us today as well as any other questions on PPP so stand by we'll get started in about a minute or so thanks you okay we just also in the chat window you'll notice that we've just posted the site where you can go and register for these you do need to register for each one of the panels I know that that takes a little effort we will work on that but bottom line is you have to register for each one of the day's panels again we're going to be doing daily panels for the next six weeks and each subject matter will be published in advance also for everyone joining the call we we have a chat window you can actually chat any information that's necessary also the Q&A we hope that you use the Q&A section for questions that would be most efficient for us we'll really use that as the Q&A section and we'll try to answer as many live questions as we can the questions that we can't get to or need to do some research on we'll publish on the site as well as address those outside of this lives in all of these sessions for the boot camps will be recorded we're going to be posting those up on a microsite that is under development right now by the Arizona commerce authority we'll be publishing that site widely in addition the slide decks and the content that resource information for every one of our presentations will be posted up as well okay I know there'll be more people joining but in order to get through all of our topics today we're going to join we're going to continue and kick it off again I'm Amy Lombard executive vice president to the Arizona commerce authority we're really happy and proud to stand up this small business boot camp these are going to be daily touch points daily sessions the way this runs is going to be Monday through Friday let me go ahead and share my screen really quick for you and we'll get to show you some of the details on it in addition to the boot camps we are going to be collecting a bunch of resources and we're referring to this as our resource collective with all of our partners we're really really excited to be partnered with local first Arizona and the rural development group and also all of our SBDCs our universities fantastic and all of the outreach local partner groups many many others are involved and we're really thankful for that support and thank you for all of your leadership on that the small business boot camp is designed to help prepare small businesses of less than twenty employees to emerge from this crisis it's a statewide initiative again supported by our community partners we're going to be running this daily for six weeks we'll look at extending it if necessary and we're also creating a resource collective as part of the Arizona commerce authority site if you have not been there ez commerce comm just click on the top four Cove in response to unbelievable resource that gets updated multiple times a day as part of that we will have this information up on the site as well yesterday we dealt with PPP and idle programming we're going to do a very very quick review of that I know that that is still on the mind of many of you so we will we'll do a quick review of that before we kick off today's session which is sources of cash there are multiple ways that you can go boost your cash flow from an increasing revenue perspective and other sources so we're going to start to tackle that and we'll be talking about that as we move forward in the future as well I want to remind everybody our cadence is Monday Tuesday and Wednesday will be new topics those new topics will be given in advance each week on Wednesday we'll be broadcasting this out to the community for email and our social networks and it will be posted on our website specifically the site that's in the chat window now Thursday and Fridays are open office hours we're going to start this week with general QA and guidance from our advisers as groups we see this evolving into a multitude of office our sessions that can be vertically oriented to each industry and we'll talk about that as we move forward but this week will be the larger group Thursday and Friday and answering any questions and this could be any topics that that come up and again if we have the answers will answer those live we also have a process to codify all the questions from this chat and from our Q&A section and we'll be publishing those as well with that I'd like to introduce Thomas Waller Thomas has been an incredibly great partner from local first Arizona Thomas is an expert on the PPP program as much as we can all be experts on a new program like this I've asked Thomas to give us a quick overview and the current status of the PPP new rounds Thomas go ahead and take it away yeah thanks Andy just wanted to provide a quick update as there's lots of information coming out of news and media and everything and we want to make sure that small businesses received the most up-to-date real-time information that we know that's happening so as of Tuesday 9 a.m. just wanted to give a quick report out so for those of you that have been involved in following you'll know that the PPP opened up its second round of submissions for those loans yesterday at 7:30 in the morning hoping that many of you or all of you were able to get in an application before then the sba reported that they received over a hundred thousand applications submitted through financial institutions across the country by 2 p.m. and they you know it was kind of slow going as it first started just within the first few minutes it kind of froze up the system but they got it moving afterwards and started getting those loans submitted locally here in Arizona we know that there were many applications submitted for example we got numbers back from presto Mo's CDFI who report is reporting out that they were able to submit 5 million dollars in PPP loans for over 140 businesses right here in the state so I wanted to just note that there is some confusion going around right now among businesses being told that they cannot submit more than one application and if they have that it will slow down the process that is just simply not true we have gotten word from the SBA and from the government the federal government stating that the SBA simply doesn't have the technology to really flag applications as they're coming through like that you just simply can't accept more than one PPP loan so if you've put in an application with more than one financial institution you don't need to worry that it's going to hurt your chances or be detected for fraud or slow down the process for you at all you can rest assured that if if your application is approved with bank 1 and bank 2 you'll just only be able to receive one of those so if you have not yet applied for the loan you could reach out to ez commerce authority reach out to local first Arizona we can direct you to digital financial technology companies that are still processing applications even presto most here locally a CDFI is processing applications so if you need assistance with that and have not applied yet or concerned about waiting in the queue where you currently are please reach out let us be a resource let us help you so we'll continue to update you can follow local first or Arizona commerce authority appreciate the partnership on updates as they happen by the hour and by the day as we learn more through the second round of funding thomas thank you again and again thank you to you and Kimber local first Arizona just incredible partnership and leadership through this time and I'd like to transition now if we could and introduce Rand and Mike both from Mountain mojo group incredibly cool marketing strategy website development firm that has done some great work and we're excited to have them talk about quick sources of cash so without further ado I'm going to hand it over to Brandon like thanks guys thanks handy we appreciate you having us thanks Thomas we appreciate the invite longtime supporters of both organizations they had a longtime member of local first for sure yeah today we wanted to try and cover a few different ways that you might be able to get some some quick cash with some different avenues whether it's marketing and or business development or sales but just kind of more of a brainstorm we're going to be going through a few of the items for some specific industries but how it applies to your industry please feel free to reach out in the comment section and ask questions there and we'll try and get back to you as quick as possible otherwise we're gonna kind of run through as much as we can as quickly as we can to try and cover as many of these really cool ideas and really get a brainstorm going for for some creative concepts that you might be able to apply as quickly as possible real quick about us we are marketing agency out of Flagstaff Arizona we specialize in everything from website to social graphic design we do a lot of SEO PPC content PR pretty much a holistic agency so if you have marketing related questions that's going to be right in our wheelhouse but we've also got Mike on on the line here who's going to be helping us with he does a lot of our strategy so you can help with a lot of different industries with a lot of different types of revenue streams Mike did you want to say anything before we get rolling yeah I think you did a great introduction I think we've come up with a bunch of examples of some of the ways that we've seen other businesses handle the situation and we're hoping that that inspires you to have a really creative productive brainstorm when it comes to you and your team perfect thank you so we wanted to start off the presentation by revisiting what what we have and so we working with our clients to really focus on oh yeah table contents so this is these are a few of the things we'll cover today we'll take a brief pause in between to try and get to some of the questions in the chat but like I said before we'll kind of move along from one to the other as as efficiently as possible so the first slide we wanted to try and focus on or just remind everyone that your pre-existing clients those that you've been spending years and a lot of time and energy and resources to be able to to get are probably the first place that we would recommend you starting when it comes to your customer base reaching out to them right now is really important but we're trying to encourage our clients to to make sure that they're focused on treating their customers right now like neighbors and less like customers it's what we mean by that is in any of your social media posts any of your outreach emails whether or not you're sending out you know different marketing messaging through different channels we really want you to think about your customers like neighbors right now and not necessarily like customers because they're not necessarily in buying mode but they're not in that buyer psychology and yet at the same time just a little bit of empathy and a little bit of care for them it was a really long way because that is what they need right now a lot more that they need whatever it is your goods and services are most likely they need a little bit of empathy as well we've seen we've had some examples of people sending out eblasts from ownership or leadership within an organization that really is just checking in on people letting them know you know not necessarily what it is that you're doing internally but really focusing on who that customer is and just making sure that they're doing okay another thing if you are reaching out to to your pre-existing customers is to let them know that your employees are ok and let them know that you're taking care of them and you're doing your best to be able to look after them again way and then treating your store if you have a brick and mortar and or however it is you deliver your services or products like the community so that when you're referring to your business you refer to it as a part of the community not necessarily as something that's separate or typically how we would represent it as a brand or an entity and then reviews Mike added that on there he had some really good perspective there yeah thanks Rand so people are more frustrated than ever I'm sure a lot of us are not being able to get to our regular routines and the stores that we like and the products that we want and so we've seen a large increase in negative reviews across every industry and it's not so much negative reviews but people are just frustrated with the situation and we're taking it out wherever they can and so we've seen it before the most vocal you know detractors are these reviewers and it's important right now to address them with empathy like Rand was saying with appreciation for their continued support with solutions if they're asking for them and overall just to be thoughtful and patient with them and so I've included an example on the right side of this slide that I thought it was just amazing where a customer had reached out they were frustrated that they had visited a store where it didn't seem that they were using face masks and we had a response from the CEO of the organization explaining in detail all of the procedures that they've implemented and that you know it was up to the employees to wear a face mask because some employees had felt that they were touching their face to adjust the mask too much and that for them had become a concern in spreading anything so I I just thought this was a great example and ran did you want to continue yeah just real quick to riff off of that you know addressing people's concerns when they do reach out obviously we know that there's a tremendous amount of fear and frustration like Mike said and so addressing that what they're feeling is real as quickly as possible but then also pushing back a little bit and letting them know that you're doing what it is that you can to be able to address their situation or their concerns within the constraints that you have that this virus has given us all of us so and then circling back on the very bottom of that review you'll notice and we had adjusted the the actual deliverables for this client and so now they do curbside pickup now they do free delivery which they hadn't in the past and so trying to give your customers an alternative is extremely important so that you know they know that you're going that extra step a couple few or a few more things going down that list speaking to essentials you know it's a really bad time and it we've seen a lot of messaging mostly through social but also through other marketing channels where people are a little bit tone-deaf and so there's you know still trying to let people know that they're open that people know that they should come by and buy things when in reality people aren
t very engaged when it comes to people that are trying to sell things right now so if you're in the business of you know if you have anything services and/or products that are essential and you are an essential business really focusing on what those essentials are and your messaging and trying to stay away from what your typical cadence would be focused on you know different products and different services that you want to sell sticking to the bases so a really good way to the ability gets out if you don't have a whole lot of essentials or if you're not essential just letting them know what you do and what you do best but in a really passive really empathetic way you know like something simple like you know here are stored hours or you know we're ready to open and when we do open up you know these are the things this is how we're going to take care of you another easy way to be able to reach out to your customers is you know just sharing community efforts very simple thing there's a tremendous amount of people that have started a lot of these little movements raising money for certain people that are affected if you can find ways to donate gift cards for those efforts you can find ways to volunteer and support them then throw those up on your social it's a good way to let the community know that you are part of their community and that you're not always trying to sell something and then we were working with a realtor up in Flagstaff a realty group and you know it's not necessarily that we recommend you try to predict the future and that you're gonna go out on a limb but definitely I think it's a really good time to put out information that is relevant to your industry and how it's been affected by this virus but also a little bit more about you know what the future is going to hold I think that a lot of people do too tremendous amount of fear are kind of in a reserved mode and yet at the same time they're not necessarily picturing what it's going to be like when we all come out of this and so if you can paint that picture and paint your industry or service your product in that picture it's a really good way to kind of get a little ahead of them when it comes to your branding efforts I think we're ready Mike yeah I had one example on here of pulling an ad and I like this example was KFC had been running this it's finger-licking good ad and that just feels a little bit insensitive so they pulled that ad recently and so this is a little bit what we're talking about we have had to shift a lot of our strategies and just pull ads that we felt we're just a little bit insensitive and replace them with something that just address the appoint the points that Rand had mentioned and so it's important to reflect on what's out there that we're already putting out there and see if it's maybe not prescient at the moment perfect thanks Mike yeah Anna Peters I don't know if you guys caught that but adidas sent out an email saying that they were going to keep their stores open and they were going to social distance and really quickly the backlash got out of control and so then they had to follow up with a statement saying that they their employees you're more important than their bottom line and so just being sensitive about those things okay some of our favorite topics when we come into digital marketing so yes assuming that you know you've now message to your customer base that you have how do you go and get new customers how do you try and find different ways to be able to adjust to the situation and might I let you take over a little bit here so we've obviously had to shift a lot of the strategies of many of our clients and to do that we've had to think creatively about what they can offer especially for many of them that aren't essential and so for retailers that are essential I think it's important to focus on pickup and delivery people are not wanting to leave their homes or I'm seeing a lot of the curbside pickup where they you know pop your trunk and they just throw it in that's great people are really appreciating that you know the low contact shopping office equipment this is when a bunch of retailers that are booming in the office equipment space and that's not just office equipment like furniture it's also accessories webcams desk accessories mouse pads keyboards anything that people need to get set up to work from home and in addition food delivery essential items obviously you know we've seen some restaurants who are including toilet paper rolls and their takeout bags and that has the right flavor to really connect with the community and people are ordering just to get the TP in addition hobby stuff people have been spending a lot more time on their hobbies you know when they've been furloughed or just spending time at home spending time with their family and so we found that people selling hobby kits puzzles coloring books do at DIY kits have all done really well with with many of our clients and that's something that if you can offer it people are looking right now as far as professionals I think this is fairly obvious given that we're on the zoom call right now streaming webinars web training web conferences Havoc's loaded online and I'm seeing a lot of people who I previously thought were very shy are now doing wildly successful web conferences and getting out there and signing up new clients and I'm thinking in particularly a running coach who we've been working with and they told me they've been signing a new client every single week 100 percent remote which is totally inspiring for me and I think that can be repeated not just for personal trainers for lawyers for consultants when it comes to yep you jump in real quick so back to the Hobby stuff we did have a few clients that are in the retail space either ecommerce or you know brick and mortar who they're started to package things and so that's another alternative you know to try and get your average revenue per ticket up is to try and throw together four or five things for somebody to do and so you know if you are in that space where you can offer things for people to cook or things for people to do or things for children to learn you know it's a good idea to try and you know instead of trying to offer four or five normal things to put four or five things together you know put some different prices on there and try and sell as a package we're working with a hardware store up in Flagstaff you can see that picture there you know where it's one thing to sell gardening products it's another thing to sell a raised bed garden package you know and what would typically be a 30 or 40 or 50 dollar delivery you know now they're averaging over $100 for delivery so consider packages - thanks money yeah I thought that's a great addition in a later slide we'll talk a little bit about doing videos since we've done some videos demonstrating the DIY packets and those have done really great on social as well in addition when you're getting on digital promoting your brand right now it's a great time to promote your brand especially if you're really tuned in to what's going on in people's lives and I said and I think especially the empathy part we see a lot of success recently and you know for a long time actually with these selfie videos really low low production value with a lot of personality we're getting the founders and the managers of the business the employees of these businesses holding up that phone and walking through their daily life talking to their fans on Facebook and it has a real high impact in the local community up here in Flagstaff I know people walk into these restaurants and businesses and say oh I saw you on Facebook and that's exactly the type of local community connection that we like to foster that builds a brand and it has people choosing your local business over the national retailer down the down the road like one more time probably a lot more times and so just real quick marketing basics when what we tell our clients is you know half the time you're going to be selling conversion based you know you want somebody to click on something you want them to call and the other half the time we really want a brand you know we want to be able to get your vision and your mission and your logo and your colors and your fonts out there to the world to let them know who you are and why you do what you do and so if you are not happy if you don't have customers right now that are converting because you're not able to convert them now is a fantastic time to be able to brand really push your brand and really push that that message behind the brand itself yeah and so I like to think of branding as being really important as a touch point and longer sales cycle products and services it's obviously important with with shorter sales cycles as well but when we're talking about a six-month cycle where someone has to be you know approached multiple times those branding ads can have a larger effect by creating a touch point in between your emails creating a touch point in between your conferences creating a touch point in between seminars sales calls and all that stuff and it gives you a chance to just be empathetic to get your message out there about what your mission and values are during a pandemic in addition it's a great time to get a deal on ads on Facebook on social media right now a lot of the industries a lot of competitors are pulling back on what they're spending and I understand if they have a short sale cycle if their business is closed that's you know it might make sense to do that well at the same time we are not recommending that at all we're shifting strategies not ad budgets we're shifting messaging not ad budgets and we're getting a lot higher ROI on those ads when it comes to branding when it comes to views and so the $200 that we're spending last month has gone twice as far this month and the engagement that we're seeing online has gone twice as far and so we're seeing a viral effect that we normally don't see because people are spending more time on social media spending more time sharing and so when we look at this graphic to the right we're seeing how people in each age group are spending their time during quarantine and up at the top searching for coronavirus and Cova 19 updates I think that's fairly obvious and then immediately below that we have listening to music watching movies and shows watching funny and videos playing games on mobile looking at memes all of those are captured by social media and so that's where people are spending their time in a big way and so getting on those platforms means meeting them where they are yeah and that's a good point Mike is there in entertainment mode they're not necessarily logging on to learn something new they're not logging on to shop for a product they're logging on to be able to be entertained and so when you I take that back they are logging on to learn new things but they but they're logging on to be entertained and so if you can curate content that's that is a little bit more entertainment based and a little less salesy you're gonna it's gonna go a really long ways so that's a great point Rand it didn't make it into our slides because we can't fit everything in but when we're building content for social really shareable content trying to hit the three e's which are educational emotional and entertaining in what order that's up to you but if it's hitting those three e's then people are gonna like and share it flip in to the next slide so a lot of the businesses that we're working with they're offering new services essentially a revenue pivot something they hadn't done before and we're seeing a lot of creative ways that they're doing this and hopefully some of these ways can inspire you to come up with some ideas for your own business in particular I was I was impressed by LJ steakhouse and so they've had some media written about them they're in Chicago and famous Steakhouse becomes a butcher shop and they're selling sides and they've been promoting on social media like crazy and it's become a hot topic in Chicago them offering these amazing cuts of beef that are usually not available at your deli counter or regular butcher shop in addition drive-in theaters is a popular one we've seen some examples here in Arizona the Verde drive-in setting up and some movie theaters becoming outdoor drive-ins and some ranches becoming outdoor drive-ins I've seen a lot of examples of this one I think it's popular because it gets people out of their home and into a community space and it just feels a little bit normal Shake Shack I you know they've had some good and bad press about them recently and I think this DIY burger kit is probably some of the best press they've gotten they came out with this almost immediately when Quarantine when it went into effect and along with an advertising campaign that you can make the shack burger at home along with instructions and it went viral relatively quick online there's lots of people YouTube stars instagramers tick stalkers who have filmed themselves putting together one of these kits and so that has helped them gain traction with their takeout business during the quarantine Randi want to talk about hound you bet and I don't know if Thomas has a moment but he had shared this that they this hound app has a voucher program you know by now visit later voucher program and so we linked that in here for you to have as a resource Thomas did you want to say anything about them yeah just just really quick hound is a digital platform for small businesses who rely on foot traffic to participate in a program to have their customers purchase vouchers that they could use later so you can get cash and fused into your business now so it's great for restaurants bowling alleys entertainment arts and cultural organizations like museums salons barbers yoga studios fitness studios places that can't have people come to them right now you can participate in the platform and have cash and fuse into your business we've heard from restaurants that have had up to three thousand dollars into their business in just a few days after participating so we'll make sure that this link gets sent out to everybody for sure awesome that's great and I just got a little Cameron good big shout out for you too getting out of your comfort zone and then Patricia had a question about massage hands-on that is definitely an industry that's been crushed and so some of our friends up in Flagstaff we've been working with them to try and get some DIY videos going so that they can go from from healer to teacher as quickly as possible you know encouraging people to you know everybody's kind of sitting around all day and if there's ways that you can show them small tips breathing stretching how to massage one another those types of things you know with short videos we try and tell people to keep the videos as short as possible but there are simple ways to do it you know with just iPhones nowadays and a little microphone that you can buy online so that's a that's a really good question yeah I think rands really got a point it does not have to be high production value people are not looking out for that right now so don't be shy put out what you have with what is personality and I think I'm I used massages so the question asker was asking about their massage business and I was thinking oh man how I could use a hand massage if someone would put a video out how to give myself a hand massage they would be I would be thanking you at the end of the day after I'm done on my keyboard so maybe that's an idea and well it's this whole new business the drive-in at Schnepf farms is this also a drive-in theater yeah Thomas had mentioned them being in Phoenix and transitioning a farm into a dragon and that's just a really great outside-of-the-box concept other new services we've seen in Arizona a lot of the distilleries and breweries seen in Arizona in Arizona have shifted to producing hand sanitizer and that's been great for their PR I've seen Doug Ducey tweeting about all of the distilleries pulling together and changing their production line to produce a hand sanitizers really proud of those businesses for doing that also the changing hands bookstore offering care packages and this is
ot just books it's other tchotchkes and and treats from their store and that's a bit like the care package that you might get if you were at college and mom was sending it to you and people are really appreciating that thoughtful touch and especially the people who go to changing hands and shop the aisles and spend time there reading books are missing it and so this gives them a chance to dive into that experience coming out of a care package box Mike that's a really good point we have had some clients out of Sedona where they're focused on on sending just cards just reading cards out to their customers checking in on them you know a small touch point because they're clients and customers have put them on pause or they're you know they're waiting this thing out to be able to use them and so in such a sensitive time when emotions are heightened just something as simple as a card in the mail to you know some big important customers of yours is it goes a really long ways and those are the people the things that people are going to remember coming out of this and so hopefully sooner than later when you do start back up they're going to be long-term customers of yours thanks grant another great example that is just so inspiring for me on social media are is Joe Wix and other fitness instructors for me them bringing their positive attitude and their energy to social media has been huge for me during quarantine and I think it is for everybody else Joe is just one success story I've seen a lot of these and in six weeks he's gained 35 million views for his online personal training videos on YouTube which just blows everybody out of the water but I've seen some small personal trainers in Texas doing growth as well some running coaches here in Flagstaff like I said before signing new clients every week and just that positive message their energy their consistency helping people and encouraging them to stick with theirs their fitness goals throughout this difficult time has just been a source of strength through the community and so I encourage you if you're in that business to start putting out videos like that and start being that energy for people on those platforms and then in addition another big retailer was really happy to see New Balance had started had changed their production lines to be producing masks and they also had a big boon of PR we've seen a lot of small local businesses doing this as well up here in Flagstaff we have some I think they're called cash bags these armored cash bag companies that's so like metal bags to to preserve their you know food from outdoor critters and they've switched their whole production line got all new sewing facility and so now they're sellers are all producing masks and PPE and so it's just been super cool to see you know businesses doing that and then to gain the attention for that and to you know get recognition from their representatives and the government and from people in the community and you know right now they're not selling but their impact once they start selling their I began is going to be huge because I'm seeing their likes grow on Facebook I'm seeing their attention grow from government from community from the media and they're paying it forward in a way that's gonna pay them back they are not like we're gonna try and run through this next few slides really quick looks like we've got the weeds a little bit too quick so I will do that really quick Andy yeah just we mentioned it before people are changing the way they consume you know videos on social media streaming music ads adding new content to all sorts of things preferably relevant content if you've got something you know if you're a realtor how's Kobe 9 teen affecting the real estate market in my area and then zoom and web conferencing which I'm sure that a lot of you have seen the million DIY videos that are coming out with how did how to use zoom Mike next slide will run through these pretty quick cost savings we just wanted to make sure since we started the presentation with retention that we also focused on cost savings so if you are going remote or if you're thinking about going remote you know obviously that's gonna reduce overhead office space utilities and that's gonna save you some money which puts more cash in your pocket incorporating new processes so if you are brick-and-mortar getting that ecommerce site up as quickly as possible do subcontractor work for us so if you are going remote and you have people that can't go can it be remote there are things like upwork which you can visit and that will give you access to subcontractors you know obviously new products and services we've been talking about doing less with more challenging your team to see whether or not they have ways that you can save money if you have weekly check-ins with them that's a really good way to do that renegotiating vendor agreements a lot of people are hurting right now and so people are open to helping one another strategic partnerships obviously always important then the reduce commute time by not going anywhere Mike do we go to the next yeah I just wanted to fanatically you know loop this back you know we've seen some questions in the chat about how this relates to quick cash and I say you are still a business today you are still selling we would like to encourage you to try a pivot if you're not already offering essential services or services online or if you assume the the point of this presentation is to help you come up with a toolkit creative brainstorm session ideas and inspirations so that you can keep selling so that you can increase sales so you can find a new revenue stream so you can promote it so you can come up with messaging to promote it and so you can resonate with your customers right now so that they will come back again when things have returned to normal that's great guys thank you so much yeah let's go to some of the questions I think there's a few in the Q&A left and we can also just really quickly what everyone's attention into the answer questions too you can see the written answers there's some really good links and good information there let's open up for more questions but if you guys want to just tackle some of these real quick and then also encouraging PPP questions we have our PPP experts on too as a follow-up from yesterday's meeting so we can open that up as well thanks thanks andy douglas i don't know if we could focus directly on your industry if you have any specific questions but what we were trying to do is really just get the creative juices flowing and get some brainstorms on ok i sell this I can't sell this because of kovat 19 what else can I sell try and get that quick cash in us or you know any sort of cash you know multiple revenue streams and as quickly as possible yeah the gift cards also I think there's a huge pre-sale process if you can sell your goods in advance that's a that's an awesome strategy as well yeah and I see Laura's question about travel businesses we work with a lot of travel businesses and they have been a hit incredibly hard the Flagstaff community has been hit really hard because so much of the community relying on travel and tourism business and so one thing that we found besides having to deal with the mass cancellations and having to deal with those cancellation calls with empathy and patience is that people are still planning the average the average sales cycle for a longer trip is around 55 days and so people are still sort of thinking that this might be over in about 50 days 45 days and so they are spending time on travel websites looking at what the vacation they might do after this quarantine is over I know I'm one of them I need a vacation once this is over with and so if we can spend this time sorting through the video that we've produced or sourcing video from our previous customers we've seen that be relatively successful asking you know previous customers to send us the video and then string it together into it and you know a nice social media travel montage has kept the interest up in these travel businesses what people can't visit you know like I said we're trying to paint that picture of people and what it would be like if they were on vacation but pick paint that picture now and then the other quick thing is deals everybody's looking for a deal right now whether or not they should buy stocks whether or not they should buy that plane ticket whether or not they should book something so if you have some sort of a deal that lets them know you know booked in the fall you can cancel if you want or you know you can cancel a month out if it doesn't work out kind of a thing you might be able to get some some cash in pretty quick that's a great answer Rand I'm seeing another question about apprenticeships I think I don't know the specifics of your business Lynne I think apprenticeships can be done online a lot of training can be done online of course you can't do a lot of technical machinery related stuff online but we're going to see a lot of businesses increase what they're doing as far as training via video and we've done that as well and those processes will stick around once this quarantine is over we'll see that people who have produced training videos for apprenticeship programs are going to continue to use those training videos in place of in-person training or in in supplement to in-person training that will improve their process and efficiency long term Andy I see a message from you or a question from you about the hospitality industries with third parties I don't know if this is specific to you but if it we know that we've had some issues with folks going through Airbnb and some other things and and we've given them the advice of going to their credit card company and asking them to do chargebacks and that's kind of taking some of the heat off of the smaller businesses that are that are struggling with these big third parties that have just made huge sudden shifts or spots in their business I have another question here from Chaz about lead generation via social media I think Chaz if you're doing any kind of outreach than lead generation or engagement on social media I'm thinking especially LinkedIn or Facebook then it's important to just stay empathetic lead with how are you rather than what do you need how can I help you is probably going to be the way that you're gonna that'll probably be the way you don't put most people off trying to sell hard to them during the pandemic also leading with value us doing this conference call today is an example of that if you can lead with value by pointing people towards the resources that they need then even if they're not a lead today they're gonna engage with you again once this is all over and they're back in the buying mode it's a great point there's a question on how I don't know if you guys specifically had used the platform but I think there was a data question and can you see a participating list of businesses for that the hound voucher program I did see that we're not terribly familiar with that I don't know whether or not you have to join but I'm sure you could send them a note Thomas I can I could take that one right okay yeah I'm seeing a question from Andy about guests wanting to check in early yeah so for the head on platform oh I'm sorry please keep going Thomas where you gonna hit that okay oh I think we must have lost Thomas I had seen a question about early check-ins and hotels and this is another one of those where people when people are traveling especially during quarantine they are extra frustrated an extra impatient and so again you know giving extra training to front desk staff to be super empathetic and phone-answering to be super empathetic and patient with those people I think if you can store luggage earlier in the day and wait for a late check-in that is probably one of the most immediate strategies that you can implement rather than switching up the way and how you schedule cleaning but allowing people to drop off their luggage and leave it there and then come back later for a more appropriate check-in time is my immediate job Andy whenever you have a customer that's frustrated always start with acknowledging that it's real what they're feeling is real what's what's going on and that typically puts them in a much better position for you to communicate facts instead of having an emotional conversation and Mike just a ripoff of I can't remember what the other it was a these are these are coming so quickly um oh geez so social media I didn't want to follow up really quick tip if you're sitting down with your friend at dinner you haven't seen them in a while you know what are you gonna talk about what are you gonna bring up and if it's not that interesting and you're not don't put it on social media and so you know when you're trying to get into this mindset if I'm gonna DM some folks on social media again what would you say to your friends if you're just sitting down to dinner with them versus what are you trying to sell them that's great hey guys I want to shift a little bit I know that there happens in questions or at least there's PPP's still on people's mind his current I know that we have a few of our experts on the phone Tom filters are any new information I know that Thomas had provided us a quick update I would like to see if you have any information to share and nothing drastically new I know a hundred thousand loans were pushed through to the SBA yesterday has about 4:00 in the afternoon and banks and at 1 and the lenders are still you're trying to process PPP as rapidly as possible there were some initial SBA site traffic issues and the SBA is working through that okay we have a couple of PPP questions in the Q&A section Tom if you could handle that one for Maria our I'm sorry Marie yeah I see the one from Ellen before that so I can answer that Evelyn you know you say that we've worked most of the contracts but you don't qualify for PPP you actually do you can't claim the contractors as part of your payroll but you as a an owner can claim yourself as part of your payroll and you know I know some you've had some relationships over at the SBDC it encouraged you to call them Evelyn and get their assistance Marie because they asked if employee does not want to come back but you received a Triple P loan can you replace them and the answer is this is about jobs not individual names so yeah it's a bad job so if you get a new job that's fine you can replace that person a tough one from [Music] nonprofits qualify I think that's qualified for PPA we get that a lot yes yeah and so you know not certain nonprofits can qualify there's a few rules to around their charity versus nonprofit you can look it up in the interim final with the SBA contact the SBA and if I mentioned the SBDC before they are helping nonprofits as well as businesses in this process you certainly reach out to them for assistance gail also if you could look at the answers for the QA robert has published a an excellent answer on that and a link for you and Tom I we were talking to our CFO a little bit earlier about you know we had a couple people that left right as we applied for the PPP and we had replaced them with subcontractors for a little while and apparently it was the CFO or our CFO said that that wouldn't qualify so maybe if somebody to lose somebody but they're not unable to hire that quickly do you think that would would work it doesn't subcontractors independent contractors you know basically 1099s do not count and any independent contractor needs to get their own PPP so as a company you know it may be practical that you need to replace them with the contractor and where to keep moving but it won't apply for the loan and it's usage of the loan nor as forgiveness you can use the account can drink disaster loan to pay subcontractors but that's not it forgivable got it thank you Tom few more in there you know as far as reaching out to any specific bank unfortunately you know we don't have specific contacts because you will need to find out who your actual banker assigned to your file is so I can't really help with that one and every lender works a little differently colleague applied day before to you and receive their grant money as them
in context said about the loan that is a typical thing we're hearing the advances and it was always designed that way do go out prior to everything else and we are hearing that some people applied under the early process make an application started with the two but actually received loans before talking to the case manager those whose confirmation number started with a 3r should be awaiting for word from the case manager to complete their loan application to as far as what's the turnaround once a loan application is sent by the banks once you have an SBA loan number which is a 10 digit number eight digits - two more digits so think one two three four five six seven eight - nine zero once you have a loan application number that's been approved check with your bank the indications in the interim final rule from the SBA said that you have to be funded within 10 days in most cases most people I'm hearing you've gotten that loan approval number are getting the funding more rapidly than that friend said that she didn't de bank said she didn't qualify for loan because she and her daughter do draws well actually there is a whole set of rules around a self employed and self-employed is a very varied area you might be a Schedule C you might be some other form of self-employed draws are not what's looked at for the self-employed self-employed it's a combination of actual payroll that you pay yourselves and net earnings and that is still subject to the $100,000 per individual cash salary cap so you do apply I encourage you if you've got a bank telling you that that you maybe checkbox on the application you reach out for assistance and you know you can always go to the SBA and pull their interim final rule down and demonstrate that to them but you do e to qualify hey Tom there's also on the link that I posted that I shared at home Jersey gov there's a great tool they have under there under the borrower section for independent contractors and sole proprietors on how to figure out how much you can apply for based on those things just share on what you pay yourself and what your your income is so if you're an independent contractor or simplify your take a look at the borrower section under the home doctors you got going today shared Robert would ensure that only the chat for all participants as well thanks yep good time for a couple more Tom if you want to there's a national unlimited to just know a desk there are three types of loans there's in a Express bridge loan that is a twenty-five thousand dollar loan the idle loans are to two million dollars and the Triple P loans are to ten million dollars so there are various types of loans that's not an issue then you clarify the SBA gives you 60 days to hire back your employees so the way that we're told it works is that the day everything starts is the day you get dispersal of your funds and so over eight weeks if you don't hire your employees back for four weeks then you potentially lose four weeks worth of that forgiveness so you know just keep that in mind Andy someone asked if companies today in PPP loans are going to be made public I know I done that one so we can put that on the list oh yeah let's put that on our research list there's one also from James Bates if you can answer that one on the chat is for forgiveness if you reach 75% the salaries you still need to document perfect yes James you need to document everything and one of the requirements is that at least 75% is paid toward payroll and you'll want to look carefully at what defines payroll because it's not just salary but it's other forms of compensation fact question was out to the SBA recently about people give housing allowances and that's cash compensation that counts the other 25% is utilities mortgage interest and rent paid by the company and that can make up the other five percent can exceed that but you do need to track all of it and if you're self-employed general advice I've heard is you know make sure you're paying yourself a salary during that eight week period so you have track ability line hey Tom while we're breaking for a second here I wanted to good and thank Rand and Mike that was really awesome information and I want to put it in context of the concept that we have of this boot camp its daily we're going to refresh these topics as we move along we know that a lot of people are thinking about PPP and the idle programs those will continue as we start to discuss that over the next week or so but we want to transfer people into that very very important recovery and planning phase of their business and I love the comments that have been made about we are still in business and we want to make sure that people are focusing in those activities again we're looking at respond plan and restart and that's a super-important activity as we start to move these boot camp subjects and topics along there's going to be a lot of information on planning and restart this is a great pre-session on the marketing side as well as those areas of quick cash we'll continue to focus on that so Randy Mike thank you so much you've got a great organization ERA mojo group and hope you continue to work with us as we move forward - we have time for a few more questions I just want to just briefly remind everybody go to our website there's such great resources as well as the as you go through the SBDCs which we're partnering with Arizona work for workforce and of course our manufacturing andp programs - Arizona commerce as e-commerce comm you go to the code that code 19 site we have a bunch of resources there we'll continue to post up these informations and as well I want to remind everybody tomorrow if you've not registered for the next session this is going to be a great session engaging with your banks and could alternative funding sources we will again recap and have experts available on the PPP program and other questions that's kind of the theme that we're going to continue to move forward with at least for this week and some into next week but engaging with your banks has been so critical we want to make sure people are planning on that as well and looking at alternative funding sources not just the PPP programs as well that is tomorrow those links are on our site which have been posted we'll post those up one more time and then Tom Tom Thomas Robert if you could go ahead and continue it if there's any other quick questions that we can answer the next couple of minutes yeah I see a couple real quick and yell Nance or no I'll say that else to see we have some folks from the Arizona's SPDC have joined us on this workshop definitely reach out to them there you know statewide know can help Carolyn asked about health insurance so if you have group health insurance that is part of the compensation that's part of your 75% so that does qualify Suzanne posted that you know SBA is unable accept new applications yes they had initially announced that they'd be accepting Idol applications yesterday but that is not open yet a friend attended a workshop with one of the local SBA officials and they did not have a projection of exactly when that would be open but it is expected to be open soon then we had someone asked about two criteria for Triple P approval and hasn't heard back well criteria and we kind of covered that yesterday encourage you to look at the ACA website and edenal in yesterday's the webinar will be published it already is published it's posted up there so go ahead and take a look at that there's valuable information regarding all the criteria the entire tier program that's been announced to with a piece so valuable information and we can also cover more Q&A on Thursday and Friday on our open office hours too so please stop planning on joining us on Thursday Friday for those across our communities we thought we're going to wrap up we will be logging these questions in we are creating a microsite on the EZ commerce site right now we've given links to where the these will be posted up these sessions will be posted up but we'll have a separate site probably by the end of this week so we look forward to that again I want to thank Mike and Rand great job really fantastic information really starts getting us thinking about what that next transition and how we start to think about creating our momentum going forward we want to make sure everyone has that information as we started to you know move from that recovery to plan things is where we're at and then hopefully would be quickly into the restart uh so we can all get to back to where we were and thriving so again thank you everybody thanks for local first Arizona for sponsoring today and Tom Robert for your expertise on the PPP and our small business programs with that we will close out thank you everyone appreciate your your time today we'll leave the chat open provide us feedback if you can also on topics of interest that you might have coming up what areas that you need help with will start to confer the resources to help you with that so thank you again we'll keep this open for a little bit thanks guys you
