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mike calling here again with uh
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callahan’s corner on the road i want to
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talk about
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things that you should be focusing on
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for business
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success uh one of the things i just saw
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on a
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facebook group industry somewhat
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specific to lawn care and home cleaning
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was how many people are able to leave
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their business and go on vacation for a
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few days or up to a week
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and the responses really got me thinking
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um and the resounding response was that
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people were not comfortable leaving
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their business
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and their weekends were their vacation
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if they were even taking the weekends
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off because they’re working seven days a
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week
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um and i would be at fault to say that
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in my business experience
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last 25 years running a lawn care
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company in upstate new york that i had
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not
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run into the same problems but where the
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significant
00:54
change in my business and my life
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happened
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is when i started to focus on the right
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things in business
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and i have a feeling um after reading
01:04
that post that a lot of people in our
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industry
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whether it’s lawn care or home cleaning
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are focusing on the wrong
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things to be on facebook and
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complaining about your lowball
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competition or
01:17
government restrictions around covid we
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should be focusing in my opinion on the
01:22
things that can
01:23
move the needle for 2021 with the most
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impact in my opinion what the things
01:29
that we should be focusing on
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is not bitching and complaining on
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facebook about things we can’t control
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but the things that we can control and
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those are going out and creating a
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budget
01:41
for 2021 and creating
01:45
a financial cadence of knowing how much
01:47
you need to charge per man hour
01:50
and what your cost per hour break even
01:52
is and that way we can go in and
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work backwards and set these goals for
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2021
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and set quarterly goals so we know where
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we’re going and we can track those
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those are things that we can control we
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can’t control what our
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competition is charging um and i would
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tell you 98
02:08
of your competitors don’t have a budget
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and they don’t know what they’re doing
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um but you can control and be different
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and
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set yourself up for success and once you
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have that budget for 2021
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the next thing i’m going to suggest is
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you do is you create a marketing
02:22
plan and right along that budgeting
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cadence we want to go in and set a
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cash flow projection for each month
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and that’s just not enough of how much
02:32
money are we going to spend for each
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marketing source we want to dial in how
02:36
many
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pieces of advertisement or how many
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impressions we’re going out on like
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facebook or google ads
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and how many of those on average will
02:45
request an estimate and based on your
02:47
closing percentage based on that
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ad source how many will close now
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what we’ve done is kind of set ourselves
02:53
up for success we’ve said how many
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people
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are going to get a request an estimate
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how many are going to convert into a
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client
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and what’s that cost per client so we’ve
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set up a budget
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for not only the business by our
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marketing and growth and now
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we got to look at the uh the unfortunate
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thing of business we are going to have
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cancellations now whether it is customer
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dissatisfaction or somebody’s moving
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or maybe someone is cutting back with
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covid because maybe they lost their job
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or lost some hours
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those are other things we can’t control
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but what we can control
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to be back in power is projecting out
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as a percentage or number of each client
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how many are actually going to cancel
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due to those reasons
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and we need to back those numbers back
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into that marketing uh
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budget and plan to let’s say if we want
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to net
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50 new clients in february
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um and we’re on average we’re going to
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lose 10 clients we need to actually have
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a total net gain
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of 60 clients to offset the churn or
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cancellation
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and hit our regular growth so these are
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the things that i’m looking at
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right now as a business owner i’m
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looking at the things i can control and
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i’m having a mind shift
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change um don’t focus on the negative
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things right now in 2020 that you can’t
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control but you can control your budget
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and figure out what your hourly goal
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needs to be per man hour what your break
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even is you can set up a marketing plan
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and figure out what your growth goals
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are and how many clients you need to hit
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that growth goal and how many additional
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clients you need to
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cover your cancellation or churn and i
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would suggest adding a few percent on
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top of your average
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because you have covid and you have some
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unpredictables right now
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in your business and in the ecosystem so
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we’ve got budget we’ve got
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marketing and then the third thing that
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i’m going to control in my business
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is people people are is what is going to
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make your business
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successful this year next year and 10
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years from now
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and with that facebook post where people
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said that they wouldn’t be able to leave
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their business for vacation
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or walk away in my business if you
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hadn’t heard the story i had originally
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built
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my seven figure business around me and i
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was the single point of failure because
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nobody in college or none of the other
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business owners around my area
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told me that there was a different way
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but when you start
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focusing on the things that are going to
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make massive
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changes in your business it’s people and
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systems
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and that’s the third thing i’d suggest
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focusing on because you can control that
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so what you need to do is go out and
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start building that virtual bench and
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looking at the positions that we’re
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going to need in q1 and q2
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of 2021 because if we start looking when
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2021 comes it’s going to be too late
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especially those key management
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positions
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and those integral parts that you need
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to be able to leave your business and go
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on vacation
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and still have four walls around your
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business and roof
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um and have it running properly so you
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don’t want to be on your cell phone 24 7
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if you are laying on the beaches of
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cancun hanging out at martha woodward’s
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qds conference in february
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you want to be able to have that
05:56
business to be able to sustain itself
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for seven to ten days at a minimum
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um if you’re looking at mike michalowicz
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clockwork he suggests being i believe
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your business for
06:04
four weeks um and that’s something i’ve
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had the pleasure to be able to do
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now it’s a process but we want to focus
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on
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positive things that we can control
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don’t get sucked in
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to bitching on facebook or instagram or
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private message boards about the things
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in business right now you can’t
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control because there’s a lot of things
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right now you can’t control but the
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things that you can control
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are going to be your budget and
06:27
financial planning for next year
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your marketing spend and projected new
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sales
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and net new clients you need to overcome
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your projected
06:35
churn or cancellation and that’s gonna
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go um up a little bit so let’s let’s
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forecast that up so now we’ve got a
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financial and marketing plan
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and then the third piece is let’s work
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on your people let’s work on your team
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let’s work on your standard optimizing
06:49
procedures and set it up for success
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and whether those are your three things
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that you focus on
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or they’re a little bit different i’m
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gonna recommend you definitely need to
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focus on the first two
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the budget and the marketing plan for
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growth
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um even if you’re not looking to grow
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you still need to get some net new
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customers to cover the people that are
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going to cancel
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due to things you can’t control so let’s
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not about them let’s go out and
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proactively
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market to replace those people because
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we know they’re going to cancel with
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some covert related issues
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um the thing’s not going away anytime
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soon and a lot of states are starting to
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lock back down again
07:23
and if you’re in the cleaning industry
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there may be some pivoting into
07:27
commercial cleaning or disinfecting
07:29
to offset the loss of maybe some of your
07:31
residential people that are tightening
07:32
up
07:33
in the near future so comments questions
07:35
drop below
07:36
callahan’s corner you ask questions we
07:38
answer live right here on facebook
07:40
focus on the positive things that you
07:41
can do in your business to change
07:44
2021 in the years beyond for positive
07:46
growth
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don’t get wrapped up in the negativity
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and the things that do not matter
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in the long and or the long game we want
07:54
to focus on things that are going to
07:55
have a net result or direct result
07:57
to bottom line profits and growth and a
07:59
better lifestyle with your service
08:01
business so
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we’ll see you again callahan’s corner
08:03
tomorrow submit your questions and i’m
08:05
happy to answer them live
08:07
callahan’s corner you ask questions we
08:08
answer them live or right here on
08:09
facebook
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