When the World Is Playing Defence; It's Time to Play Offence

Learn the key moments to switch from defense to offense in business, with practical strategies to stay ahead in challenging times.

Hey guys, The time is 5 am. calendar I’m actually switching the way I show you guys images as when I take a picture of my phone it’s via Whatsapp I send it quickly to myself. This leads me onto Whatsapp which leads me to be distracted so I’m going to opt now to show you the clock on my laptop and work from there. This; In combination with the clock, it should help me become even more focused in the mornings. The world - as you may know it depending upon when you’re reading this - has gone into meltdown. I’ve managed to lose 6 clients because of this damn Coronavirus. It’s quite incredible - I’ve never experienced such a dramatic client loss before in my life. So it felt pertinent that today’s topic should be about when the world is playing defence - that’s when it’s time to play offence. Let me, first of all, run you through the 6 clients and why/how they’ve quit. (Interestingly, I started a little later today, as you can see from the ‘5 am bell’ up top. I tried to stay in bed because some part of me was tired. Not a big enough part though because I was wide awake in bed - so decided to get right up). So:
  1. Wholesale Supplier to Events - not getting any more event bookings
  2. Hair Transplant Company - not getting any more hair transplant bookings (clients mainly Italians/English
  3. Property Technology Company - no one is booking in their accommodation
  4. Consultancy Company - can’t do any face-to-face consulting currently
  5. Import/Export Company - in China - everything has been reduced out there
  6. Home-Security Company - card bounced, client gone silent (results are great) - no one wants home security work anytime soon
This is just the beginning, potentially. I am expecting this number to rise to 10+ clients which would equal more than 50% of my revenue. I’ve already let go of one of my salespeople and one from my product launch team. I’m trying to load up Gmail and Quora so I can share some screenshots with you but it feels like even the internet isn’t working properly (now that many, many people are working from home). email chat invoice So, as you can see, clients are dropping like flies. Letting go of people isn’t fun either: chat As you can see, it’s not been fun at all. ___________________ However, here are some takeaways in this time of economic recession that have been in some way positive. It’s making me more ruthless, anyway. The salesperson I got rid of wasn’t particularly strong anyway, and I had question marks about her ability. The product launch specialist was impacting my wider development team: developer So these two people weren’t ultimately adding the value I was hoping for and so this time of economic recession has actually provided me with some clarity in getting rid of the weaker members of the team. _________________ What’s challenging about an environment such as the worldwide spread of a virus is that marketing is the first thing that gets cut. No one is interested in promoting in a world like this - which does in a way open opportunities up. At it’s simplest level - as per the Grant Cardone style of thinking - I’m beginning to play offence. Part of this IS about culling dead-weight all around me. [convertful id="197358"] The other dead weight I keep is in WhatsApp groups - I’ve got groups where people are meant to be in there for accountability. But 80% of people aren’t holding up their end of the bargain. So I’m just removing people now: club blog group All of this is like pulling off a bandaid and removing the unnecessary spokes of my life which I’ve been supporting in good times. The interesting thing about playing offence is that when your revenue gets assaulted you look at all of the non-essential stuff and cut it away - when you should have not had it even in the good times. But moving forward, here are the plans: Furthermore, On the Pearl Lemon Invest side this is opening up more opportunities to focus upon what could fundamentally be the much bigger business. Today I’m going to start developing more of the marketing collateral for PLI beginning with just planning out all of the elements the sales team need to start effectively pitching. Perhaps beginning with a video of me talking about my reason for starting Pearl Lemon Invest. My aim is to turn this into a 7-figure business within 12-months and to do that I’ve got to move pretty aggressively. Today we will begin outreach for the Forex introductory side and early April we’ll start the outreach for the R&D Tax side - right now I still need to build some of the basic materials. But last week was a positive week. Several introductions to the Forex team look solid, and I will be writing a detailed blog about my passive income strategies that the sales team (and I) can use as a sales piece to help generate/close more introductions. _____________________ Furthermore, Sam, whose running the Pearl Lemon Leads side is adjusting some of our outreach campaigns to focus on countries less affected by Covid-19 as well as preparing a Pearl Lemon Invest outreach campaign. I guess in many senses the true changes ultimately are that I’m cutting dead weight - have plans to cut even more deadweight and then keep driving forward. The reality is that I’m playing massive offence anyway with all the plans I have currently So let’s wrap with some final thoughts:
  1. Take recession or external damage as an opportunity to cut dead weight in all aspects of your life - what/who isn’t adding value - if it isn’t clear - cut it.
  2. Keep working aggressively on growth - undoubtedly others will slow down - therefore you should speed up
  3. There are many, many things you can do to grow at zero cost - do those
That’s all for today! calndar