367. The Closing gameplan and cadence for business pages, channels, email, and notifying everyone

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Speaker 1 0:32

All right , well , happy evening . So papers are filed yeah , they're filed , wow . And now the next step of how do we figure it out ? So , talking with advisors and colleagues , there's two ways that we can either tell people that the business is shutting down . There's two ways that we can either tell people that the business is shutting down . The first one is basically a blindsiding and people

Decision to close the business

Speaker 1 1:03

find out and it's like a shocker and it's over before people even realize it happened . The second one is to give people lead time , just a heads up time to do last goodbyes , last classes and all that stuff .

Speaker 1 1:13

The pros of blindsiding is we get to do all the prep work , we get to control everything , and everything is turned off and unplugged before they hear the news . It reduces the toxic communications , decreases the likelihood that people just start spamming us or harassing us because

Two closure approaches compared

Speaker 1 1:31

they're mad that the gym closed down . And the con is that it doesn't really give people the closure or the peace of mind that they may want , especially if they've been there a while For the slow wind-up . There's pros and cons . The pro is that people can say their goodbyes , final hugs , they can close things up smoothly and easily and it's not a shock to everyone's system and it's not a shock to everyone's system . The con , though , is that people can now murmur , gossip , spread slander , libel , tag each other on toxic social media , and we're having an election a few days . People are already anxious and on edge and just allow things to fester and spiral out of our control . I say our , I mean my family's control . So I talked with a few advisors , got their input Across the board . It was unanimous .

Speaker 1 2:21

Unfortunately , this is a business . This is not a personal life decision . This is a business . No one's livelihood is at stake . No one relies on the gym , for Our most highest paid instructor makes or works maybe like six classes a week , so a hundred bucks a week , so it's not gonna pay their mortgage , it's it's beer money , um . Then there's managers and stuff

Business closure implementation plan

Speaker 1 2:48

, but they do this all this part-time , um , so no one's reliant on us for that . We're in an area where there's tons of gyms , both group fitness as well as big box and small box , so there's not going to be like a desertion of fitness activities in the area , and there's nothing proprietary that we offer people can't get elsewhere Supplements , shirts , workout classes . People can find a replacement experience within three miles , so that's where that's at .

Speaker 1 3:17

This may sour things with corporate because I'm blindsiding them , but it's probably cleanest too when there's the least amount of brand embarrassment on everything . So it sounds terrible because it's not how I would . I never would have seen myself doing this . But the plan right now is to what day is it ? Today's Wednesday ? So , um , I'm playing phone tag with the lender and landlord .

Speaker 1 3:43

Um , the goal is Saturday is going to be the last day of classes . Nobody knows it . But then on Sunday , when we get back from our trip to Nebraska to see family , I'll go to the studio , put a sign up that says the business is closed permanently and then I'll go home . On Sunday I'll turn off the social media channels , I'll delete the business page , I'll delete the members only group , I'll change the usernames and passwords to all of our platforms , like gloves or supplements or whatever , because that stuff , I don't want staff to start making purchases if they were tempted to , and then I'll tell the landlord . And then I'll send a couple emails . One I'll send an email blast to all the members . That'll be like Sunday late afternoon .

Speaker 1 4:34

Right before that or after that , I'll send an email to everyone who has a key to the building so managers , cleaners , saying like , hey , please return your key if you visit the property , it will be considered trespassing by the landlord . So , for your benefit , I advise to not do that . Then have an email between all of the vendors so mainly landlord , bank , corporate Telling everyone hey , we've shut down the business , done personal bankruptcy and if you have any further questions , here's my attorney and here's how to reach him . That way , people don't even reach out to me because I have no answers for how to get pennies on the dollar , anything else , anything else . I don't think so Right now .

Speaker 1 5:23

I was thinking it sounds like a weird question to ask , but I was thinking about what are we trying to pursue ? What's the goal ? What are we going to deem like a success from shutting the business down ? It's going to be people not barraging us with questions , emails and calls and texts when we don't have those answers . It's going to be reducing toxic gossip , deceit and lies amongst each other . Um , it's going to be giving people a time to go find their next place to work out without confusion or ambiguity or hope that the business can be saved because it can't ,

Defining success in closing down

Speaker 1 6:01

and not having this be a social media distraction . So that's why we're going to cut off all the channels and all of the vendor passwords beforehand so that once people get the update , if they want to cause gossip or anxiety or whatever , they can do that calling each other . They can do that . Having tea with each other . They can do that . Having brunch on Tuesdays . Whatever the members want to do on their personal time on their own platforms , it's all up to them , but they don't need to do that on my business page or in my social media channels . That's the game plan .

Speaker 1 6:44

As you can tell , it's been a long day . Tomorrow's going to be a great day . We're going to have time with family . We're going to do some drafting over the next few days of content PR releases for members . I also don't want to end up on the local news , because that's not the intention by this at all . So hopefully another thing like that happens . But this is , it's a strategy we're going to do and I'll let you know . I'll let everyone here listening know how it went , if that was the right decision or if I have remorse down the road , if I wanted people a place to vent about my business closing and for them to complain about it . We'll see how that goes . So let's go get some sleep . We'll see how that goes . Let's go get some sleep . We're going to go prep for tomorrow and enjoy life . That's where we're at , that's where we're going . That's rock and roll .