Bold Moves: Investing in Business During an Economic Recession

Escape and Empower Podcast with David Greenberg and Peter Gilfillan

David Greenberg and Peter Gilfillan explore whether investing in a business during an economic downturn is a smart move. With personal stories and practical advice, they challenge common fears and show why tough times often create unique opportunities for entrepreneurs.

In this episode, Dave and Pete discuss:

• Investing During Tough Times
  Pete shares his story of starting a franchise during an economic downturn, overcoming fear, and realizing that timing the economy is as unpredictable as timing the stock market.
• Overcoming Fear and Gaining Control
  Both hosts reflect on how entrepreneurship offers control over fear and uncertainty, empowering individuals to take charge of their financial futures.
• Economic Downturns Create Opportunity
  Dave and Pete explore why recessions often lead to reduced competition, better resource access, and improved real estate and marketing opportunities for business owners.
• Recession-Resistant Industries
  Pete highlights need-based businesses like health and wellness, children’s activities, and restoration services as resilient options during economic slowdowns.
• Building Entrepreneurial Skills in Your Family
  Pete shares how he involved his children in his entrepreneurial journey, instilling valuable skills and preparing them for a future where creating their opportunities will be essential.

Key Takeaways:

• Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real: Entrepreneurs learn to manage fear by focusing on what they can control.
• Tough Times Thin the Herd: Reduced competition and better labor availability make recessions a strategic investment time.
• Focus on Recession-Resistant Industries: Choose businesses that provide essential services to maintain economic stability.

"There’s never a perfect time to invest. You just need to trust your skills and take control of your destiny." — Peter Gilfillan

CONNECT WITH PETER GILFILLAN:

Website: https://www.hireyourself.com/
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/petegilfillan/

CONNECT WITH DAVID GREENBERG:

Website: https://empoweredfranchisee.com/
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-greenberg-entrepreneur/

Transcript

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Welcome to the Escape and Empower podcast. Escape from the corporate rat race to empowered franchise ownership. Are you ready to take control of your destiny, follow your dreams, and live life on your own terms? Join our host, Dave and Pete, for insights on how to break free from the corporate grind. Ditch the 9 to 5, and step into empowered franchise ownership.
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My name is Dave Greenberg, and welcome to the Escape in the Power podcast with my cohost, Pete Gilfillan. Good morning, David.
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How you doing, Pete? Yeah. Good. Again, my name is Pete Gilfilling. I'm a, proud corporate escapee. We'll talk about that today a little bit. And, obviously, the, best selling author of the book, hire yourself. What are we gonna talk about today, David? Pete, you know, it was good football game last night. I'm gonna not say who won or who didn't win,
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but I thought I I thought the right team won last night. But, you know, the real question of the day is investing in a business during economic recession. Not that we're in an economic recession. You can be the judge of whether it's good or bad, but the question I came to, work with this morning is, is an economic downturn, is it the right time to invest? And I know you face this when you were jumping into your franchise
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when you escaped the corporate gig. Certainly. And it's a great question. It's a lot of a question that a lot of candidates ask. Right? It looks like we're gonna go into recession. Should I invest in a franchise? Should I invest in a business right now? And I live that back when I was looking for a franchise business to invest in. I went through about 6 months of due diligence, and I found the perfect franchise. It was a junk removal franchise, believe it or not. And I decided it was called Junk King. I decided that I was gonna buy the rights to 3 states, all the territories, which was a huge investment, 100 of 1,000 of dollars just for the territory. And I'm supposed to get this check for 100 of 1,000 of dollars, sign my franchise agreement, and fly my check and my agreement out to the Bay Area for training. Right? 2 days before I'm supposed to go out there and with my big check, I start freaking out. Like, I'm go you know, this is a lot of money for us. It's a big part of our savings, and and I gotta tell you, I'm a sole provider for a family of 6. Right? So if this thing doesn't work out. So I'm freaking out. I got all kinds of fear, so I call my mentor. I got a great mentor. His name is Wes. And I call Wes, and I said, Wes, I am freaking out. I gotta put in this big investment into this business. If this thing doesn't work out, I am screwed. He goes, Pete, let me ask you a couple questions. He goes, first, were you successful as a corporate executive? I said, oh, absolutely. Ran a $5,000,000,000 sales marketing organization before Terex, ran Americas, ran a global sales production plan. Yeah. I was successful. Because what what would make you think you wouldn't be successful running a small franchise business? And I go, fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. But I said, Wes, the economy. It just you know, I just don't know. It might not be the right time to invest in a business. And he goes, well, Pete, you invest in the stock market? I said, absolutely. He goes, now do you time your investments or you're just getting to go? I said, oh, no. No. I I just get in to go. I you can't time the stock market. He goes, Pete, let me tell you this. You know what? The economy is just like the stock market. It's gonna go up and down, and you can't time when you get in. You just gotta get in business and go. That conversation, that advice gave me the courage to fly out there, hand off my check, and I'll never have to work for anybody again in my life. But I got past that fear.
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Yeah. Fear fear can be crippling. You know, I'm I'm dealing with some candidates right now that think the w two is safer, in in this environment than actually taking their money and investing in their with their skill set that you said. Like, okay. You're gonna hand your fear over to someone else, whatever corporate junkie or HR department's gonna be in charge of you, or you're gonna be in charge of it yourself. Yep. You know? So which is which is which is right and which is wrong. So Yeah. You know, it's totally
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Yeah. Yeah. When we come into tough times, right, you're you're renting your income, and they can take your income away. When you're a business owner, nobody can take away your income from it. It's yours. You know, I wanna get back to the, the economic,
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and time, right, time to invest, but, you know, I was just thinking about fear. And I remember during the pandemic, I thought about this and wrote a blog about it. You know, it's fear that you can control, and and when you when you're an entrepreneur versus fear that you can't control when you're a corporate guy or gal or person, whatever. So, you know, it was that fear and that sense of control that really
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I've learned to appreciate as an entrepreneur. Right? If there's something wrong or something I'm fearful with, well, go fix it. It's not up to anyone else except for the person you see in the mirror. Yeah. Absolutely. It's a 100% accountability. It's your business, and and you're responsible. And I always tell people, you know, when they're worried about stuff that's out of their control, that's really fear is false evidence appearing real. Right? And you you just gotta you have to work through that that fear. And, you know, as we go back to this idea of investing in a time where maybe we're in a economic slow period, you know, there are a lot of big companies that started during economic downturns. I mean, think of, like, Google, IBM, Disney, Microsoft.
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I mean, there are a lot of big companies that started during very tough economic times. Uber. Wasn't Uber one of them? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I was I was speaking to a potential candidate, and they actually exchanged stock for fees when Uber was getting started. And that's that's the best thing I ever did. I didn't need the cash and they they didn't wanna spend the cash and I just got stuck and, wow, it really changed the course of my life and it was a really cool thing. You know, you're right. Airbnb, I think, was another one that started in downtime. So, you know, you know, junk is junk. Right? One one man's junk is another man's treasure. Right? Something like that. So Absolutely. What are the other what are the other reasons you thought about? What makes sense to dive into it? Well, when we think about when we're enduring tough economic times, it for lack of better terms, it thins out the hurt. It thins out the competition. Right? So it's just by the I nature of it, the weak go away and the strong make it. Right? So I think there's a real advantage to going into a market where if you perform, if you work hard and build that business,
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it's a maybe a little bit easier path when you have less competition. Right. What about labor resources? Do you think, did you find when you went into it in the recession that labor was easier to find? Or Yeah. I mean, we've learned that now. Right? When we had the the economy is flying, you couldn't get people. And and during slow times, it's just a little bit easier to get people. Right? People are a little less picky about what they take. They just have to provide for their families. And so you can, for lack of better terms, upgrade your team to, you know, get those a players. So not only can you find employees, but you can get some really good talented ones if you're looking carefully. No. Well, supply and demand. You know, you just roll through all the things that input into
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your the success of your franchise. One that I ran into in my bricks and mortar, and I wasn't necessarily wasn't in a economic, recession, but it was I was in the land of plenty of real estate. So landlords were looking to bring on tenants, you know, because there was some vacancies back in 13 and 14 up to 16. And so we had the opportunity to be able to chase some really good terms and get some, you know, really good tenant improvement dollars. Well, certainly. And you think about coming out of the pandemic. Right? The real estate opportunities
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that happened then. Right? You had open facilities, and landlords need to get those sites filled. And so there are opportunities when we have tough times for real estate, certainly getting good terms,
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for your lease. What else? Yeah. You talk you talk about weaker competition. Right? Not everyone's there to weather the storm. And, you know, you gotta be capitalized. Right? If you're not capitalized in life or if you're not capitalizing business, things start falling short and you start, not being as productive and maximizing what you can produce. What about the marketing side? Are there any advantages
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there, do you think? Well, sure. There's less noise. You can probably well, first, there's just probably less advertising out there or marketing. But more importantly is that you can probably get better rates. Right? Just because if there's a it's a down cycle in regards to advertising and promotion. And so you can get some good opportunities to put a little bit more presence in the market place to build a stronger brand,
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quickly when you've got buying advantages when it comes to marketing. You know, we have a wonderful portfolio of 200 or so franchisors that we haven't worked with to find the right fit for our candidates. What are your thoughts on the type of franchise that you would focus on going into recession? When we talk about recessions, I think of need based businesses. I think of things like recession
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resistant, restoration businesses. Right? Irregardless of the economy, bottom line is I have to have, the bad stuff out of my house. Right? So I focus on the needs or health and wellness. Right? The bottom line is during good times, bad times, people want to feel good and they wanna look good. And so you're gonna see that. And and certainly, we think about kids, irregardless of what happens. You know this with your kids. I with my kids. Right? During tough economic times, we're they're still gonna participate in soccer. They're gonna get their skills training. They're gonna get whatever they need, or the daycare or preschool or martial arts classes, whatever it is. Bottom line is those things that people need are great businesses when they go into slow time. Nice, When you, jumped into the junk business, do you remember how old your kids were? I mean, you got a family of 6, so Yeah, I sure do. I, you know, I, I was in the corporate world and they knew me as a corporate dad that was always gone. And I decided to jump off that and spend some time looking for the business. And I finally found the business. My kids were young. They were 5 to 11 years old. And that was a lot of fun because I wanted to expose them to being entrepreneurs and not necessarily work in my business, although I would appreciate it, the free labor. The idea would be is that, you know, teach them about business because they're growing up in a gig economy. Our kids are gonna have to create their own opportunities. And so, I exposed them to being an entrepreneur at a very early age, and that's really reflected as they've grown older. They you can sense that they know kind of the feel for it. And I I believe all my kids will eventually have their own businesses. That's fantastic. And,
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and I love your your Wes, what Wes said to your your mentor. Think about how successful you've been in the w two corporate world. Think about the skill set that you produce, and think about how you can put that to work
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and, and and go drive your success. You know, and as we think about in tough times, right, that separates the the weak from the strong. Right? I mean, just bottom line is the strong come out play to play, and they make it happen. Whatever is going on with the economy, whether it's a recession, it's a war, whatever it may be, bottom line is is that they're gonna do that. They're gonna kinda, for lack of better terms, outperform the weaker competitors. And I'm all about that. Right? It's just put your head down, burn the boats, burn the bridges, go forward. You're gonna be successful
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with whatever you do. How many conversations have we had with undercapitalized
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dealers saying when times get tough, you're not gonna be able to put the money into the trade. You're not gonna be be able to be competitive on your deals. Yeah. We've talked about that a lot, you and I, about this idea that you gotta have enough capital. You you you you can never have too much capital. And there's a phrase somebody said, you know, is when you, want capital, you, you know, you can't get it. When you don't need capital, there's plenty of it available. So we always have enough capital reserves to make sure that we can weather any storm or stay in a position where we can stay aggressive in building and growing our business. Last thing we wanna do is be handcuffed to that. And and we certainly saw that with with car dealers, but you see it with all kinds of businesses. Right? If you go into it undercapitalized,
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you're handcuffing yourself. Well, Pete, I think that's a great, great story that you've had about going into, an economic recession and looking at it through, not rose colored glasses, but just as an opportunity and where the advantages are. So, you know, cheers to you. A great job. And Yeah. And I think about when it there's there's,
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you know, never a perfect time. Right? It just that's just the way it works. And so whether the economy is up or it's down, it doesn't make any difference. What you need to do is to put yourself in a position where you're protected so that you have some stuff going on. You diversify your assets, your income, whatever that may be. You want to put yourself in a position where you're not renting your income.
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You have something that you're in control. We've talked about that earlier. Right? Control the fear where when you're in charge, you can handle that. When somebody else is in control of your life, that that can be fearful. I love renting income. I've often said you're exchanging time for money. It's kind of the same thing in a w two world. But now you get the opportunity to exchange time for building wealth and and doing something for yourself to give them the freedom and independence that comes along with owning your own business and being entrepreneur.
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Well, Pete, I think that was a a great topic to bring to the podcast today. I hope the viewers enjoyed it. Yeah. And I, you know, I hope that if they want to learn more, they can certainly go to your website, you know, the empowered franchisee or my website, hire yourself, and start a chat. We're here to help people, people that are thinking about investing in a business. They don't know how to find that right franchise. Our job is to help people learn about what they're looking for, what they want to accomplish in the business, and connect with them with great franchises, and then coach them all the way through. So we're a great resource. If you're in a position where you want to learn more, I encourage you to contact either David or I. It doesn't make any difference. He's a little bit better looking. You know? I got maybe a better voice. You know? My wife He's got more air beat. That's all. I haven't lost a phone yet. My wife says that I don't have a TV face. She says I have a radio voice. I don't know what that means, but maybe that's the way we should end our conversation today. No. I got a better way to end it. Pete, remember this. They don't put a marble top on a cheap table.
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Right. Great chatting. Alright. Thanks, Pete.
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Thanks for tuning in to the Escape and Empower podcast. We hope today's discussion has inspired you to consider franchise ownership as a path to living life on your own terms. Start your journey towards financial freedom and flexibility. Connect with Dave at empowered franchisee.com or Pete athireyourself.com. Until next time.