Your Brand, Your Backyard
Your Brand, Your backyard Podcast was created to help local business owners grow their business locally by identify their ideal clients, connecting with the community and building a long-term sustainably brand. Your small business isn't just a storefront-it's a part of your community. Join hosts Jeremy Roentz and Nick Metheny as they share expert branding tips, real-life success stories and actionable strategies to help you stand out, attract new customers and become a local favorite. Whether you're refining your logo, improving presence or learning how to market to your neighbors, this podcast is your roadmap to local brand success. Because your brand thrives, so does your backyard. Subscribe now and start growing where you're planted!
Your Brand, Your Backyard
Thrive despite economic uncertainties
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Running a business isn’t always smooth. Just when things feel under control, the economy shifts, challenges hit, and plans change. It can feel like you’re doing everything right and still getting pushed off track.
In this episode, we talk about how to stay steady and keep growing no matter what’s happening around you. From mindset and adaptability to smart marketing and managing your money, we share real, practical insights from our own experiences what’s worked for us, and what hasn’t.
We also dive into why consistency matters, why you shouldn’t stop marketing when things slow down, and how being prepared can make all the difference when uncertainty shows up.
This is a real conversation about what works, what doesn’t, and how to keep moving forward even when things get tough.
You can’t control everything but you can control how you respond.
Your Brand, Your Back Yard with Jeremy & Nick
Hello, listeners. Thank you for tuning into Your Brand, Your Backyard Podcast. I'm Jeremy Rentz.
SPEAKER_01And I'm Nick Matheen.
SPEAKER_00This podcast is centered around being a business owner, removing chaos, and replacing it with strategy, vision, and clarity. How to build a business, but more importantly, how to build your brand in your backyard.
SPEAKER_01So if you're just starting a business, rebranding or expanding, or you're a marketing professional, or maybe even a business major, or all of the above, this podcast is created for you. So let's dive in.
SPEAKER_00All right, welcome back, Nick. It is great to see you. I'm really excited to dive into this new episode and the content that we have here today for our listeners. As I think the timing of this episode and what we're going to be discussing today, the topic is so relevant right now because of what is going on in today's world. And so our topic, Nick, and you and I came up with this as you're starting a business and I'm starting a business, but thriving regardless of outside environment. So I know that uh you are what'd you say? You're you're down in Florida right now. You're it's like, where's Waldo?
SPEAKER_01You're always Yeah, still still down in Florida. We uh we surprised and took the kids to Great Wolf Lodge for uh a night, and then we're in Florida down here at the beach and wrapping up our spring break. So getting reheated back. I thought I'd wear a hat like you today. You've always got a different hat on, so I'm like, I'm gonna throw a hat on today as well. So yeah, I'm excited about diving into this because my experience with all these gray hairs, now the gray beard, you know, as soon as you feel like you you know what's going on, things get thrown around. In fact, I was I was watching uh on one of the social medias earlier today, and it was kind of a little meme, and it was a video said as a business owner, just when you think you're gonna have a good day, and then it's like three people right on the back of a tube in the lake, and it hits a wave, and the three people just get ejected and they're just flying through the air. And I think that's really business, you know, when you start feeling like, oh, things are smoother on autopilot, you better be ready to get kicked in the face because something's coming. And so I think it's just a really important topic that we did into a little bit of the technical, but also just the mindset. And I think it really ties in well with the the podcast we had last week with her, with our guest uh MJ.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, that's right. And you know, when we think about this, and we peel peel back this onion a little bit, right? We've got we've got the overall economy, right? We're not economists, we're not gonna get too deep into that. We've got elections and COVID and war and interest rate environments and the stock market, recessions, or housing market, whatever is going on. What I do know to be true, Nick, is it it's out of our control. So we've got to really hone in and make sure that we have um a solid business plan, marketing strategy, financial. So that's all that we're gonna we're gonna cover in a lot of stuff today. Before we dive in, we've got to talk sports because we got the masters going on. Are you watching any of that?
SPEAKER_01You know, I I have not watched it yet. I was working on some other stuff today, and I'm like, hey, it's master's weekend, so I'm sure I'm gonna I'm gonna catch some of it, catch some of the highlights tonight. But uh yeah, I I have not yet, but I'm sure I'm going to yet here this weekend.
SPEAKER_00Yep. I uh I watched a little bit of it yesterday in my downtime, and then last night watched our Colorado Avalanche win again. So for for the hockey fans, it's pretty exciting to be an Avalanche fan right now. And DU, University of Denver, beat Michigan, number one Michigan last night in double overtime. That was exciting. Are you a hockey fan? I'm not really.
SPEAKER_01My son uh just graduated college, he was a lacrosse fan, but I never really got into hockey. So I watched all the traditional sports and I got really into lacrosse. But hockey's the one that I never really uh never got into following.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's more of the recent for my wife and I within I would say probably the last five years, and we really, really like it. It's exciting. So speaking of exciting, you ready to dive in?
SPEAKER_01I am so and I wanted to kick it off. So, okay, just talking a little about the good old-fashioned four-letter word in business, and that is luck. And you know, the reality is as business owners, nobody likes to talk about this, but sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don't. And so one of the things you mentioned, Jeremy, was the economy, right? And we don't know what's gonna happen. I mean, listen, if you if you opened a sit-down restaurant right before COVID hit, that's really bad luck. Sorry, right? That's what it is. But there's also sometimes, like if you're a realtor when the economy takes off and everybody's buying a house left and right, or in the mortgage industry, there's some luck there too. So if you look back over historically the last 30, 40, 50 years, there's been ups and downs economies. There's been political shifts, there's been social shifts, there's been all kinds of things that have happened, but businesses continue to some continue to hold steady, some thrive, some shrivel away and die. Some, you know, they survive, but they're they're a shell of themselves, some adapt well. And so one of the things that we do have to be aware of is that sometimes there's luck is on your side, and you just fall into things, and that's great when that happens. And sometimes luck isn't on your side. So we want to help everyone prepare. What if luck doesn't go your way? What if, you know, the things that you were expecting to happen didn't go the way that you want them to? How do you deal with those things? Not just technically, what do you say and how do you get out of it, but how do you deal with the mental, the feeling of being crushed? We're like, man, I put all this time and energy into starting this business or running this business, and now I get the this thing, this is the last thing I need. How do you deal with that mentally? So you want to kind of kick us off on that? I mean, you've certainly seen this and been through this. So, what are your thoughts on how do you deal with that emotional baggage that comes with running a business?
SPEAKER_00Man, it's it's so hard, and we have to just we have to stay so sturdy and stable personally, right? Mentally, focused is what comes to mind. And as you were just talking, Nick, the one word that I just wrote down that I want to park on this for a second is adapt. A lot of businesses fail to adapt or to be flexible to the environment that again we can't control. So let's uh let's take a look here. What I know to be true, and let's talk about consumer spending and consumer confidence. Because let's get specific to your handyman business and and and my painting company. Because homeowners, are there gonna be things that go wrong with your home?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean it's like anything else, right? It's just like our bodies are gonna break down, our homes are gonna break down, our cars are gonna break down. We know those things are true, and that that's never going to change. Yes, you know, when we when we think about discretionary spending, really where you see a lot of that is, you know, people that are living paycheck to paycheck, right? And if they're barely scraping by, what's the first thing to go? Well, the first thing to go is going out to eat or buying new clothes or a new TV or you know, going on vacation, that traditional discretionary spending that people think about, right? But if you're in a position where I'm not worried about paying the mortgage this month and we can still go out to eat, we can still go on vacation. Well, those people tend to say, you know what, I'm still gonna take care of my home, I'm still going to take care of my health, I'm still gonna take care of my kids. You know, they're not gonna sacrifice their home simply because the timing isn't good, or they're not gonna say, well, I'm not gonna go to the doctor. I get it if somebody goes, I don't have any money and I don't have the option, I can either buy groceries or take my kid to the doctor this week. That's that's a horrible place to be in. But for the majority of people, that's not really where they're at on a day-to-day basis. And and so that that does play in, but when you listen to the media, you know, it can be very slanted one way or the other. The economy's far better than we when it really is, or far worse. Again, depending which channel you're watching, even in which day you're watching it. That's right.
SPEAKER_00And and think about this. Um, let's let's talk about COVID, because that was a terrible experience, I think, for for everybody or most everybody. But did we stop eating during COVID? I certainly didn't. You can probably tell. I've never had a problem with that. Did we stop going to the dentist or cutting our hair? Right? We could go on and on and on. Now, for some people, sure, they had to pivot a little bit. I get it, I understand. If you're the if you're the restaurant in economic hardship times, who do you target? We all eat, but you're gonna target the people that still have the money, right? Yep. Sure, maybe the lower, lower middle class might be a little, little tighter, right? They're their 401k's not growing as much, or maybe uh, you know, racking up credit card debt to get through. Okay, so you've got to pivot, you've got to adapt your marketing strategy, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, go ahead. I say, well, sometimes that means your product itself might change. Sometimes that mean mean you go with a restaurant example. Maybe, hey, we become a takeout restaurant versus a sit-down restaurant. Sometimes it's, you know, maybe it's the payment options you have available might change. Where maybe in the past you've never had to offer that, but now sudden you need to go partner with a finance company that's going to offer six months, same as cash, or year same as cash, um, that maybe people would need to be able to still afford your product, right? And so you you have to look at other options out there that maybe you wouldn't have done in the past. Just be aware of that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. What I know to be true is when something's up, something's down. And when something's down, something's up, right? You've got high interest rates, so it slows the market the real estate market down a little bit. But the stock market, certainly before um before the the recent war that we're going through, stock market was at an all-time high. And you know, I was meeting with business owners to, you know, help them grow their business and doing some consulting. And I kept hearing uh, and I and I pay pretty close attention now to the market and economic environments and you know, stocks and trades and doing stuff like that. I I love that kind of stuff. So I pay pretty close attention, but a few clients were like, Yeah, I'm just I'm not gonna do a whole lot right now because uh we're in a recession. And I'm like, what do you mean? Yeah, I didn't understand because every say everything that I'm seeing is that the market was at an all-time high, but I and I couldn't wrap my head around the the angle or the information or where they were coming from, it just made no sense to me, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I would see this again, same thing, consulting and talking to business owners every four years when the election was coming up, presidential election, you would have a certain number of businesses away, like we're just gonna hold tight right now to see what happens in the election. And it was funny because I would my conversation with that was always the same. I'm like, oh, okay, cool. So let me ask you a question. If your candidate wins, what are you going to do the next day? And they go, Well, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna be happy, okay. And what's gonna be your business? Well, we're gonna have to do this, this, and this, okay. And if your candidate loses, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna shut down your business? Like, no, I'm like, so you're gonna still come in and run your business, right? So the reality is whether your candidate, the party you want to win, the candidate you want to win, it doesn't really matter. You're still going to run your business. Now, if this candidate wins, it might mean that there's a little more economic, you know, uh fluidity. There might be, they might be a little more pro-business, or this party might be a little more regulation. So you might have to make some little shifts along the way. But the reality is you're going to run your business every day until the election, and you're going to run your business the day after the election. So, what does it really matter what happens in politics? And you would see people's eyes like, huh, I never really thought about it that way. But sometimes people are just told, well, there's uncertainty, so you have to be in a holding pattern. Well, that's fine, but that doesn't really work as a business owner because when you're in a holding pattern for three months or six months, and your competitors are not, you're actually falling behind. So any good business owners will know, like, you cannot just hold serve. You have to be playing aggressively, you have to be trying to win all the time because there are some people out there that are, and you can't be one of those just sitting on the sidelines waiting and watching. Right.
SPEAKER_00And that's when you become that shell, right? And that's a good segue. Let's talk about financial discipline and cash flow, actively monitoring expenses and trim overheads to do not contribute to the core value, ensure more cash is coming in than going out. Like that seems pretty basic, right? Pretty elementary. However, how often do we see businesses get tight, cash flow? Like, um, but I think that is all about making sure that you have a solid foundation financially for your business that you can not just survive but thrive. You've got the capital, you can ramp up your marketing strategy, and we're gonna get more into that too. But I think that's so important, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think you have to just go into it, much like a sports. If you are a coach of a sports team and you go with the the mindset of like, well, as long as we stay healthy, we'll be able to, you know, have a good season, do this, that, and the other. I I think those coaches are doomed to get fired. I think every good coach in America is like, yeah, we're gonna have injuries. Key players are gonna go down, the people we were counting on, some of them are not gonna be here because of whatever, right? There's gonna be a legal issue, there's gonna be an academic issue, there's gonna be uh an injury. We're trying everything we can to reduce that that risk. But the reality is we know that there's gonna be a certain number of injuries, and we're gonna have people that we have to on the fly um adjust to. And that's why the you know, really great coaches are always worried about that second and third tier line, because they know that just because you've got the stars in place doesn't mean it's going to stay that way. And so I think it starts with that mindset of not hope we don't have any snags. You are going to have something blow up. And if you do not have cash put away, you do not have resources, if you don't have that line of credit already set up. You know, it's like trying to get a line of credit when you have no money and you have a debt run up. It's impossible. You've got to get the line of credit when when you're going well, even if you don't use it. And so you have to go on with that expectation of there are going to be challenges and we are going to hit financial difficulties. So we better prepare for it now. I don't know when it's going to come, but it's coming.
SPEAKER_00Yep. Yeah. Um, it's like a squirrel gathering nuts, gearing up for winter, right? That's how we have to look at savings and cash flow, right? Ample amount of money in the bank, zero debt when things are going well, right? Ride the high, be smart about the money, tuck it away, have access to fresh credit cards if things, you know, start slowing down, or that line of credit if you know a machine or a van or whatever breaks, have access to capital. And that way when things pick back up again, cash flow starts coming in, you pay it all down, right? So on and so forth. So I think that's a great strategy. You want to take us into the next point?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think one of the things that and before we dive in, I just as a thigh side of thought here, I think as you talk about this, right? And I'm sure people listening is like, wow, they're not painting a very rosy picture of being a business owner. Well, guess what? Let's talk about the other side. Let's talk about being an employee in corporate America right now. So here's the here's the environment of corporate America. Because there's so many more remote jobs now. I just saw a stat this week that a remote job now gets on average about three times as many applications as a local job. So they're no longer competing with somebody in locally, you're competing with people all over the country. So that's one big challenge. The job market is much harder to get a job. Number two, because of automation, you know, 10, 15 years ago, you applied somewhere, a human being read your application and looked through that. Now, virtually none of the applications are being read by humans. Almost all of it is ATS systems. And and a lot of times now, even if what they're doing is they're going through, they're running it through the AI ATS system, they're assigning a score to you, and then based on the score, then it gets to another scrub before a human ever sees it. So a lot of times it's two layers of scrubbing by AI, if and when a human even gets to it. Sure. And so again, one of the stats I was looking at, they were talking about um, you know, higher paying jobs, corporate America jobs. The average they're getting is over 2,000 applications, and they're averaging doing 10 live interviews out of 2,000 applications. So it's it's incredibly challenging. So people think, well, gosh, this this doesn't necessarily sound Nick and Jeremy are talking about Rosie running business, they're talking about challenging things. The economy out there is is challenging, right? And no, I should say the economy, the the the work economy is what I mean to say by that. Working corporate America is tough, right? Working other places is tough too. And so that's why we're seeing a shift more and more and more away from people wanting to work in corporate America and more and more into I want to run my own business. The problem is they don't know how to do it, they don't have the resources for it. So we're trying to prepare people for those times and those those techniques that you would need. Absolutely. So yeah. So I think one of the things that that we have to look at is, you know, things like, you know, you mentioned before the war, right? So right now, militarily issues, and this can people can be very, very politically divided, right? There's gonna be some people that are no matter what it is, what anytime you have military involved, there's gonna be some people are gonna be very, very for that. You're gonna have some people who are very, very against that, you know, some people that are kind of apathetic to it, um, and they're gonna be kind of in the middle. And and you know, that can really go a direction. So one of the things I would warn every person on here is to be aware of that you can realistically think that half the people out there are gonna be frill for a cause and half people are gonna be against a cause, right? When you make your business platform about what your personal feelings are, yes, you can pick up some tracks with people that maybe agree with you politically, but you also can alienate 50% of your client-based potential. Absolutely. And so I think it's super important that no matter where you feel, whether you feel very strongly in one party or another, certain actions should be taken or not, to put that into your business is a very, very challenging thing. And I know people want to do it because they're like, I'm a business owner, I can do whatever I want to. That's the power of it. The problem is there's a difference between you can do it and you should do it. Right. And so your personal opinion should stay your personal opinions when it comes to the business world, and your business should run independently of how you feel personally. And so I think that's a really important thing that people sometimes forget and it and it comes back to bitum.
SPEAKER_00I couldn't agree more with that. You know, we you don't want to alienate people. Like, look, you started your business because you have a passion for this or that, or you're really good at this, or you want to help homeowners, or you want to clean their house, or you want to be a dentist. Well, you focus on that. You build your business because you're really good at that, you're really passionate about that. You follow through, you make connections, you build relationships, right? Loyal clients, loyal patients. And that's where we have to stay focused, right? And not get too far into the weeds. So that that's a great, great point, Nick.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and just one quick thing with that. I I've always said I really don't care what actors or politicians or athletes, what party, I don't care what party they vote for, I don't care what their political views are. In fact, I don't really want to know them because I don't want that to influence the work. I want to listen to music and go, I like that music or I dislike that music, regardless of the person and their personal opinions or their movies or their acting or whatever it is. I don't want to be influenced negatively where, like, gosh, I like that how that person thinks personally. So therefore, I don't really like their music, but I'm gonna I'm gonna spend my money on that because I like how they think personally. That's kind of silly. Or vice versa. If I want to spend my money where it's things that I enjoy, right? And and I don't want to even know what their political views are. I don't want to know what their view on the war is, I don't know what their view is on this or that. I just want to I want to enjoy their work. And I think as business owners, we have to take that same mindset. It's it's up to us to be neutral now. Once you get to know a customer and you may see they say something that leads you to like, okay, hey, we happen to have the same perspective on this, that's fine. That can be a natural thing that could flow out of that. Or you might find out, hey, I think we're probably on the different sides of the aisle here. That's fine. That would let you know, hey, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna open that can of worms, right? But that's something you deal on a one-on-one basis, not at the front of the platform.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Yep. Very, very good point. And when we think about, you know, what are we doing here, right? Your brand, your backyard, and economic challenges, right? Environments that we can't control. I think about the relationships we've already touched on this with existing customers. They are our most reliable revenue source. We've already mentioned offer flexibility, value-driven pricing. And then a couple episodes prior to this, we talked about loyalty programs. How do you see that being so important in uh challenging economic times?
SPEAKER_01I think it becomes more and more important in our society in general. If you think about, gosh, I remember when I was when I was growing up, and again, I'm I'm in my mid-50s now. So I remember every once in a while you'd have something that would have some kind of promotion, like Subway, if you got a certain number of subs and and that kind of went away. Now it seems like every restaurant has some kind of promotion, right? Here we get special deals on our app, they're driving you to the app or this discount, or you get points, you know, airlines do that. It seems like everybody now has some type of thing because it's become so competitive in pretty much every environment. And I think there's some businesses now are starting to realize that are outside of the restaurant or retail world, they're starting to realize, wait a minute, I've worked really hard to generate these hundred, two, three, five hundred customers, whatever it is. Why am I not incentivizing them to come back to me? Why am I not incentivizing them to help us spread the word and and you know, help us grow the business? So I think that there's a real opportunity for loss there, and there's a real opportunity for people to explode and grow their business fast. By incentivizing those things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I've always said some customers don't need, you don't need to incentivize them. They're just going to be a walking billboard for you. The problem is that's two or three percent of your customers, right? And and I don't want just two or three percent of my customers being a raving lunatic about my brand. I want all of them. I know it's never gonna happen, but I want I want it to at least be on their mind for 75% of them because collectively that generates way more opportunity for attraction than just counting on those one or two people that are just champions for you.
SPEAKER_00Right. 100%. You know, what comes to mind as you were talking about that is uh the gas station that I love to go to. And you know, you spend a certain amount of money and then you rack up, you know, 10% or uh 10 cents off or 20 or whatever the loyalty program is. So I always go there for gas. Even if I have to drive out of the way, right, I'm gonna spend money there. I'm gonna rack up my loyalty program because especially right now when gas is, you know, what 80 a gallon. I mean, depending on where you are in the country, listening to this. But yeah, I I want to save 10 cents a gallon as much or as often as I can. So very very good point there, Nick. Let's talk about, let's switch gears a little bit and let's talk about as we wrap up here, strategic marketing and the importance of do you market? Do you not? Do you double down? Do you pivot? Like, what should you do with your marketing and advertising and community outreach? So, regardless of the economic times, you are still building your brand, you still exist, you're still in front of your loyal clients, but you're still out there in front of new audience, new customers, new patients. What do you do, Nick?
SPEAKER_01Well, listen, I think there's there's three paths that people can take. I think most businesses see two paths. They see the path is either I completely shut it off or I just keep doing what I'm doing now. And that's really short-sighted. There's three paths. One, you can accelerate. Okay. That's a viable path. You can accelerate and spend more money. Two is you can adapt how you spend that money. And so you may draw back some, but how you know you may cut some things and say, hey, that's not working as well anyhow. And because of certain circumstances, I'm gonna pull back on this one, but I'm gonna put more over here, so I'm gonna reallocate. But the death kiss for a business is to shut cut it, cut it down. When you start cutting down and you start uh kind of shutting it off, so to speak, that it, you know, it's like people are going, well, the economy's a little tight, so I'm stopping putting money into my retirement. I'm gonna stop, you know, I'm just gonna, you know, just stop contributing to my retirement funds and to my mutual funds. And then they just flatline, they all get back to that. But it's so easy to just never get back to it. And we just have to be disciplined through that. So I think it's okay to look at something, Jeremy, and say, hey, we we got to take a look at every source we're doing. Does this source actually still make sense? We're spending X amount of dollars on this, and it really doesn't seem to be getting as much return as we wanted it to, or doesn't seem to be doing the job we wanted to. I'm 100% okay with people taking that money and saying, where else could we put that to maybe give us a little more bang for the buck right now? But boy, I will tell every business out there, I'm like, you just go, well, I'm just gonna cut that outright, save that money. And like, that's like a wreath historic. Well, I'm just not gonna buy inventory, just not gonna buy inventory. So people come in, they go, Hey, my favorite thing isn't here anymore. Yeah, we just trying to cut back a little bit so we don't, we're not ordering stuff anymore. We're just using the inventory we have now. People are gonna stop coming to you. And and so we have to be aware of you can accelerate, you can reallocate and change some things around, but you cannot cut it off totally and just start eliminating things. That is the worst possible thing to do as a business.
SPEAKER_00So, a couple thoughts that I have here surrounding this topic is and I I just had a business that I was meeting with a couple weeks ago, and they're like, Yeah, Jeremy, you know, it's just it's a little bit slow right now, and so I've really got to cut back or eliminate my marketing. And so that what yeah, that makes no sense to me because it's like you're already slow, so I get that you want to cut back or you need to reallocate or you need to pivot a little bit, but talk about cutting off your right arm to save your left arm, it makes no sense. And when you're thinking about building a brand, being involved in your community, it's very much a here today, gone tomorrow. Like if they don't consistently see you, it's the same reason that that you still see Ford truck commercials and Starbucks and Apple computer, and the list goes on and on and on, regardless of economic times and outside environments. Those companies, those brands, they have built something and they're going to stay in front of you regardless. And so I think about the move here is about pivoting. When times are great, sure, we might have a little bit more to spend, a little bit more to try new things with our marketing strategy, right? Throw more against the wall and just see what sticks. Kind of play and have some fun with your marketing strategies. I think that's great. You should do that if and when you can. But when times are tough and you do want to pull tight on the purse strings, that doesn't mean shut the valve off because your marketing really operates like you know those old school pumps, Nick, where it's like you're out there with the handle and you're why are we pumping for so long, so hard, so fast? Well, we're building pressure. See, we have to get that water to the surface, don't we? But when water comes to the surface, does that mean we stop pumping? No, we might be able to scale scale back a little bit and just more of a steady, consistent flow. That is how you view your marketing. What are the efficient ways? What is your targeted audience? And who do you need to be in front of, regardless?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I think that the reason this is such a challenging topic, and while we've spent a number of hours over the last several months talking about it at different points, I've never once met a business, Jeremy, that wanted to spend money on advertising. Never once. Now that there's business that understand I need to, it's a necessity, but kind of people view it as a necessary evil, right? It's kind of like paying taxes and and you know, buying car insurance and stuff. It's a necessary evil. So the problem is with advertising, when things are going well, most people are like, Well, I don't need to advertise now because things are going so well, I'm just wasting money. I'm already busy. This is a waste of money. Yep. But then when it starts to go, when it's going poorly, like, well, I don't want to spend any money right now because things are tight, I can't spend the money. So no matter where you're at in the equation, it's it's always a bad time to spend money. And it's like if you talk to a financial advisor, they'll tell you like whether you have a lot of excess revenue coming in or income coming in, or you have very little, the time to start investing money is now and do it consistently. And if you don't have a thousand dollars a month to put in, put in ten bucks a month, right? And if you have ten thousand a month, put in ten thousand, but don't wait until some future point, you're killing yourself. And I think that's how businesses have to look at advertising. Yeah, is you have to do it. Doesn't mean you have to like it, like I tell my kids all the time. You don't have to want to get out of the pool, but you have to. You don't have to want to go to bed, but you have to. You don't have to want to do it, but you have to do it. And as a business owner, we will continue to try to beat that theme. Uh is a business owner, you have to advertise, you have to market your business to get your name out and to keep your name out to continue to grow your business. Otherwise, other people are gonna take those customers. It's that simple.
SPEAKER_00Be consistent, be persistent, be recognizable. Because no matter the environment, people are gonna eat, people are gonna keep their lights on, people that have excess money. There's always people with money. There's a reason that they say the the rich just get richer. Okay, so maybe that's your targeted strategy during down times. Right? You're the furniture store. Okay, you might not be marketing to anybody and everybody. That's okay. Not everybody's gonna buy a five or ten dollar new couch or refrigerator or new giant giant TV, but there are people who are, and that will never stop. So, this is more about being very strategic, very methodical about how you're operating your business. Think through things, have a plan. If you're a new business, do you have kind of that emergency plan that you're like, okay, let's let's get ready, let's bear down, let's look at this plan, let's start pivoting or let's start the prep work because we might need to.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think you have to just go under the option of sales are gonna come in slower than I thought they were, expenses are gonna be higher than I thought they were gonna be. I'm gonna face more challenges, whether my business is brand new or it's established. And I think the businesses that approach it that way, and again, even if you're not a brand new business, to be able to say, Yeah, I gotta prepare, I gotta be ready, um, you know, to um, you know, to deal with the challenges and to deal with things that are outside of my control and deal with it. Yeah, right. And that means this is the point I wanted to finish with on my end today, Jeremy. You have to be willing to swallow your pride. You gotta be willing to say, hey, this was your idea, but that idea doesn't mean anything right now because things have changed. Yeah, or it was a great idea, but the local clientele didn't eat it up the way you thought they would, and so those it's spoken. So whether it's an outside thing or a miscalculation on your part, when you are ready to willing to pivot, adjust, make those changes, you can then take those opportunities and explode in that area, right? So there are some businesses that did really well during COVID, they they exploded in success during COVID. There's some businesses that will explode during economic downturns where other people are struggling, they're excelling. So it's the mental side being willing to do those, do those stuff.
SPEAKER_00And as we wrap up here, Nick, I think there are always things that we can't control. And on the flip side, there are always things we can. So as we wrap up here, really good information. Hopefully, we're getting our listeners, you know, a little different perspective or maybe a little bit different angle to how they see their business or the economic environments and things they can or can't control, right? Have a plan in place, execute your plan, be willing to adapt. And as we close out, Nick, any final thoughts?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I think just understand, guys, running a business is hard. Being in corporate America is hard, right? So no matter how you slice it, working for somebody else, working yourself, it's all hard. So it's pick your heart. But I will say it is incredibly rewarding when you're running your own business. And so, yes, the headaches are different, the rewards are different, but it's worthwhile. And if you really are inclined to, hey, I want to run a business, then let's get get really good at it and let's run it well, and so um we have success. And that's why we're we're doing this podcast. We're just trying to help people be a little more successful in some of the mistakes we've made along the way. So I I you know I would just encourage everyone to uh to pick your hard.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love that. Pick your hard. Well, Nick, this has been fun. We appreciate all of our listeners and all of the support out there. We are gonna keep coming with some new topics and new information, and we're having a great time with this. Again, our goal is not to monetize this, but simply to educate, to almost give back. Like we've got successes and failures that we've experienced. And if we can help one business owner, one marketing professional, or one student who listens and takes some nuggets away from this and can implement or share with their parents that run a business, right? Or their brother that runs a business, or maybe their favorite business that they like to support. That's all we want to do. So, Nick, great to see you. Good to see you again.
SPEAKER_01Tell your assistant she's doing a great job, and uh, and uh, we'll talk to you guys soon.
SPEAKER_00Sounds great. Thanks for tuning in. We'll talk to you later.