The Entrepreneur Experiment #76 - Pivot, Pivot, Pivot

That's better. Okay, we are good to go. Okay, let's rock. Let's just do it. Hello and welcome to a very special episode of the Entrepreneur Experiment podcast. It is 90 Years Lab on a Thursday. I know, breaking tradition. But to be very honest with you, I had three people unable to do the podcast this week because of the new COVID regulations and all the impact that was going to have on their business. So that's the reality of it. Three people have been impacted, and as a result, you've got me. You've got an extra episode of the Ideas Lab. And this was sparked actually by something I saw on Twitter last night. A guy was, I think he was joking, I'm not 100% sure, but he tweeted that instead of an ice cream van, there should be a van that goes around, a coffee and cake van that goes around to all the people working from home and delivers some coffee and cake or sells some coffee and cake, just like an ice cream van would, except for adults who work from home. And I thought it was really good, but it was also pretty funny and it got huge traction on Twitter. And that sparked me thinking about, okay, we have another three weeks of lockdown. We have another three weeks of kind of uncertainty. Well, certainty as in you can't leave your county, but uncertainty is like, okay, it's going to be three weeks. We get towards Christmas. And I think a lot of businesses are reaching, I think people are reaching the end of their tether in general, but I think businesses are really starting to kind of go, oh, look, what are we doing? And it kind of made me think about, at the start of lockdown, I did a couple of episodes where we talked a little bit about pivots and pivot, pivot, if you get that joke, DM me. But we talked a lot about kind of like temporary pivots and temporary changes people had made to like their businesses whereby they were producing masks or there were, you know, producing hand sanitizer or, I'm not, I'm not going to say gimmicky pivots, but temporary pivots, I suppose is a better word whereby they were doing things to help the situation because everyone was kind of like rowing in together going, you know what, we're all in this together. What can I do to play my part? But I think we're kind of past that point now whereby the systems are kind of well able to provide all the essentials. You know, there's very different runs on things now. So I think it's about survival and it's about looking towards the next, I don't think three weeks, I think the next 18 months. So I'm kind of looking at my whiteboard about the notes I met on this today because I speak from a place of not authority. I speak from a place of experience whereby I'm actually going through this myself. So literally today I was emailing all the clients of my current business and saying, look, we're going to have to shut down at the start of November and we'll be relaunching next year, but that's something else. So we won't be able to provide your service anymore. So I'm not sitting here going, oh, you know, in theory, in theory, in theory, this is something I'm going through myself. So reach out to me if you want to chat about it, reach out. And if I can help and if we can help each other, reach out. I'm always here to kind of spitball ideas. I don't know any more than you do, but often two heads are better than one. The old cliche goes. So yeah, look, that's, that's where I'm coming from. I'm coming from this as a person who's going through it right now, I'm pivoting my business. Pivot is such an overused word and I used to hate it. It used to be part of the old startup jargon, but now I think it's very apt in terms of everyone is changing their business. I'm just looking at my notes here and it's like pivot, change, survive. That's kind of what I've written on my whiteboard in front of me. You can't see it obviously, but you know, that's the reality of it. I think, you know, people are now beyond the point where by, oh, you know, two or three weeks we can shut down and we can take the hit. People are now going to have to look at the next 18 months to two years and going right. Let's assume for me in my head, I'm running the numbers that COVID is going to hear for next 18 months to two years. So that brings you up to mid to early 2022. I'm sorry to depress even more if you're already feeling a Debbie downer on the week because social media is just full of negativity at the minute, but that's a reality. I'm not, I'm not saying that as to be depressing because I think there's enough people spreading absolute negativity on social media. I'm the absolute opposite. I'm just looking for the positive in everything. And you also have to be a realistic optimist in terms of, well, take, take the worst case scenario and develop a plan to live through it. Sorry, I'm going off on a wild tangent here. This is not going to be a 10 minute episode. And I think we have to look at that and go, right, well, how can I make my business survive? And thrive in the next 18 months to two years, you know, you can't spend the next two years just eking out just sort of, you know, existing, you know, you can't just spend the next two years doing that, but you need to survive and then thrive beyond that. So for me, I'm kind of assuming the worst case scenario of 18 months to two years of living with COVID is that horrible phrase. I'm not even going to mention the new normal. There you go. I just did it, but I'm just joking. You've got to have a bit of brevity. So I think you need to look at a long, medium to long-term plan for your business. Like I'm doing, my business will be in the same area that I'm in now, but it's just not realistic to do Airbnb in cities anymore. It's just, it's gone. Those days are over. As much as I wish they were still here, they're not. So on we go, come up with something new and evolve. So I started looking around, enough about me. I started looking around the internet last night and people started sending me things. So I put up on LinkedIn and Twitter. If you're not following me there, do go over because I asked for a lot of feedback on LinkedIn and Twitter. I'm going to move the mic slightly more in front of my face so I can read off some of these. And I asked people, what did they see that was cool? So a friend of mine, Scott McInnes, his wife launched InnerStrengthPilates.ie. So instead of just being a Pilates teacher in real life, still in real life, she's not a hologram or anything, but she's now doing it online. She applied for a trading online voucher, built a new website, got studio lights, cameras, and now has 100 pre-recorded on-demand classes, as well as teaching five classes a week, live classes a week. And her reach is now global. And last week she got her first corporate gig, win and win. Absolutely. That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about. If you were a teacher in real life, I think you now have to be an online teacher. Sorry to hear me shuffling around. I'm actually looking at the YouTube camera here and trying to decide where I should have my mic, but we'll get through all this. We'll figure out all the things. I think over the next three weeks, months, I'll have a lot of time to do more podcasts on YouTube. So bear with me. We'll get there. So that's an example of someone who's pivoting well. And I think that's what a lot of people have to do. Other people mentioned, Dave Hackett mentioned Flying Elephant, how they pivoted from, I think they were a marketing agency, an events company. So now the design builds sell and ship desks for working from home. That's a perfect example. I think the work from home thing is here to stay. I think when COVID ends, whatever that is, I think there'll be a balance. I think I've talked about this in the pod a lot before. There'll be a balance between people work from home going, I think it'll be like a two and three, two from home, three from the office or three from home, two from the office. I think there'll be a blend. I think the days of going back, I think, and I hope that the day is going back to a big office and sucking everybody into the city is over. So I think if you are targeting the work from home group, I think that's a really smart one to be going after. I don't think that's a gimmick. I don't think that's like face masks or hand sanitizers. While they're not gimmicks, I think they're temporary solutions. If big companies would come up and gobble up your lunch on that one. But I think if you're targeting the work from home market, I think that's one of really good. So if you are in that kind of business, what can you do to serve them? Luke Rincon Cullen, his own example was actually met Luke way back in the real world last year when he was launching this. And he had an idea for helping bands manage their bookings to get more bookings. And he's pivoted from applaud live and tune release. And he's now doing media pitching for bands. So instead of booking their gigs, he's helping them with getting media coverage, which I think is pretty cool. Charlie Sullivan wrote in or put on LinkedIn that a company moved from sandwich wraps to face masks. A company had done to go on, as you look at the screenshot here, it's pretty funny. It's a guy wearing essentially like a sandwich wrap on his face as a face mask. So they pivoted quickly and made those masks. Tom Madeley, movement pivoted from production and events to offering really slick looking garden offices, movement pods. Sorry, you can clearly see that. I mean, I'm not used to doing a pod reading at the same time, multitasking. Tom also talks about the pubs that are doing delivery service. And that was actually something I was going to talk on. So I've made notes myself. I've done my homework and I've made notes on stuff that I think the bars are just getting hammered left, right and center. I was on Facebook before this looking at my local pub was closed again with a heavy heart. They're closed. They just can't sustain. They don't have an outdoor area big enough to just have enough people. So the bars are big, big, big, big, big trouble. Like they've been closed since March now. We're now into October. Some bars have never opened. They're waiting on the magic time to like, allow wet pubs to open, but that's not coming and probably won't. So what can they do? I think delivery is a super option. Again, that's probably not feasible for country pubs, but if you're in a town, I think like a small to medium sized town, I think the market is probably there to have someone doing deliveries for you. Have the pub open. It's like a cloud pub essentially. I think this is a cool idea, cloud pubs. So you've heard of cloud kitchens whereby they're actually not open to the public. They're kitchens that are often in like an industrial unit, but they have like, you know, the restaurants on Deliveroo, their virtual kitchen, their virtual restaurants. You don't go in and sit down. Everything's done through an app. It's done through Deliveroo or they're branding themselves on all the kind of platforms, or they just have a website whereby you go and order. And then you never actually see the premises. It's all done in the cloud. You know, you order on your phone, it turns up to your house 15, 30 minutes later. So I think cloud bars could be a really good idea. I'll coin that phrase right now. I'm sure it's been coined already, but I think that's a really good idea. So you still have your bar and basically two or three barmen, order comes in, bang, open the board. Okay. Three pints Guinness, one pint Heineken. Now, substitute speed here is going to be really important because obviously pints go flat real fast. So I think a blend of that might actually be to have mobile bars. So get a large long wheel based van, kit it out inside as a mobile bar and literally do like routes, like a bus route, do routes of your local town every Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Thursday. And the rate COVID is going Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night as well. I'm sure there'll be demand for it. You know, stuff like that, I think is going to have to be become the norm because I think as much as we all want to go back to a pub and have a pint, it's just not happening. Cinemas, cinemas I think are in deep, deep, deep trouble. You see Cineworld closing down after, after James Bond was pulled, which I'm also gutted about because I was looking forward to that twice now. I was looking forward to it back when it was due to come out, I think in May, April or May, it was keen. And then November as well, it was kind of a risk, come back into the cinema to go see it. But now that's been pushed until next year. I think cinemas are in deep trouble. I think they might be one of the, one of the industries which might, I hate to say never, but might struggle to bounce back. So I think cinemas could be in big, big trouble. I'm not quite sure what you pivot your cinema into because I don't think I'm alone in saying I don't want to be sitting in a dark room with a hundred strangers for two or three hours, breathing the same air, the same recycled air, just doesn't seem like a smart, a smart strategy for your health. I just don't know what you do with a cinema. Obviously it's slightly different because you can't just go, Oh, become a streaming platform because you ain't beating Netflix, you ain't beating Amazon Prime. So I really don't know what cinemas do. I don't know. I think there's a room for them when COVID comes back, but who can wait two years to have an empty cinema, restaurants, cafes, again, on the, on the bar, on the bar blend in terms of, I think they'll, they'll have to pivot to become totally kind of takeaway online or only. And, you know, I think you have to plan that. Okay. We're in a three week lockdown now. I think you'd have to look at it and go, right. Okay. Let's see. That's extended out maybe until Christmas. So you're really, your, your only market is within your County, which is fine. If you have a big County like Dublin or you're, you're online. So, so how can you tap into that online base? And if you aren't developing your online systems net in the last six months, you have to do it. Now, if you're, you're crazy, if you think just because you're a small cafe or a bar or restaurant and you don't need to have an online website. Um, I always think back to when I was in school, we did this like transition, your project, like young entrepreneurs project. And we did like a website. This was way back in the day. I won't reveal my age, but this was back, back when websites were new ish ish. And we did a website, me and my friend Eric, and we put local adverts for businesses on. And I distinctly remember, I think I've told the story already. It might've been in the live pod about how he went into one like prominent local businessman. And he was like, no one's ever going to buy a Mars bar online. And I always think of him. I always think of him, how there's still some local businesses who still have that. Like no one's ever going to buy a Mars bar online mentality. And if you still have that now in COVID times, you're in major trouble because everything's online. I drives me demented when you're trying to look up something about your local shop or restaurant or bar, and you don't even have open times. And you're like, are you, are you open? Are you closed? Um, just simple things. I just, I think there's probably a room for someone, some enterprising person to come in and just, just launch a small little agency that targets all small businesses, but creating them a very simple, easy to use, easy to update online presence, because even on social media, you look at some of them and they just are cat malo about updating their services. So anyway, restaurants, bars, looking at takeaway, you have to have a takeaway model. You have to have a direct consumer model in terms of you look at Mad Egg, how well they've pivoted into having their own delivery people. Now their own online ordering system, you know, look to the leaders, look at people like that who are doing it really, really well. I've also written down like hotels. I have no idea I'm in that business, but I've genuinely no idea. I haven't said that when, when lockdown lifted, it seemed like everyone in Ireland was away on a short break somewhere. Nice. Um, so I think hotels would actually be okay. Um, the ones that aren't up to their eyeballs in debt will be okay. I think people will still want to get away. I think people once lockdown ends again, I think people will still do weekend breaks. I talked, I spoke to a lot of friends of mine. I had really no desire to go to a hotel because it's like, Oh, you kind of go to hotels, like go to the spa, you know, have a sauna, have a swim, go to the gym, have a pint in the bar, have a restaurant, you know, have something in the restaurant. A lot of stuff's closed down. I was like, Oh, could it be bothered? Not really. But a lot of people went away and said it was great. So it was, while it was restrictive, still nice to get away. And I think people are still going to, and this is what I'm banking on for the new business. People are still going to want to get away. Even in the midst of all this, people still need, you still need a break from your norm. You still need a break from your everyday life, just to change the scenery, to mix up just for your mental health, even. So I think that hotels will be fine, but they'll probably have to get a little bit more with this in terms of what they're offering. I think they'll have to offer a little bit more to people and give people a bit more extensive self-confidence as to what happens when you get there. I think that's a big one, the customer journey. I think that is going to be huge. And there's definitely loads of business opportunities here in terms of the customer journey, mapping it out for both the business owner and the customer. So what does the business owner have to do to be COVID compliant and to ensure not just that they're COVID compliant, but that it's a pleasant experience for customers, because we're all going to get used to living with this. So like any business, you're going to find good and bad. People have dealt with it well, and people are dealing with it poorly. And I think if you're setting up a business, I'd look, I'd look maybe doing customer journeys in terms of how does the customer interact with your business? How do they, how did they get there? What's the deal when they get there? How did, what's their journey through, through your premises? What's the experience they have with the staff? How did they do this? How did they do that? What can you automate? What can you add? And the surprise and delight element, and that's something I'm looking at massively for my new business is the surprise and delight, because we're all just a little bit jaded by everything that's going on. So how can you just give people a little, a little bit of magic, that little moment where you're like, oh, that's cool. That little shareable moment, that little moment where you're like, you want to, you want to tell us something about it. That's the bit you'll remember in six months time. So that's for hotels. Homeworkers, sorry, I'm just going to blast through the rest of the comments people sent me over. Uh, one girl, Amy said she talked about it in her college class today. It's interesting to read other people's thoughts. Um, they discussed ideas about hiring kegs. I love it. A lot of the Irish ones are actually about drink. Companies that produced, I love this one. Companies that produced uniforms and clothing for priests are now producing masks for frontline workers. I'm not sure why priests have declined so much in COVID, but there you go. Cocktail and making kits for home. And that kind of brings me on to my main point. Sorry, Stacey Connelly as well from brilliant, um, BHLPR said the events industry in general is changing. UDUXDX is currently underway virtually rather than a packed RDS and they've announced an APAC conference two for next year. It's about seeing the opportunity and through the Yeah, the events industry is one, I know a couple of friends of mine that work in it and they've kind of pivoted to online events and online courses. I think online courses are huge. I've talked about that until I'm blue in the face, but just to touch back on something that Amy said there about at home. So I've just written down in my notes here at home option and I've drawn a big box around it. So, you know, it's serious. I think this is the key, whatever business you have, what's the at-home option? What is the option for people to bring your business home? Like you see, I think it was Bujo burgers and pit bros. I think all the restaurants jumped on it there for a little bit. It seems to die down a little bit now, but the pit bros at home box, I think stuff like that is genius in terms of you get the whole box. It is Bujo, Bujo burgers in Sandymount. They're unbelievable, unsponsored plug there, but they're absolutely class. And they get, I used to go there a lot when I lived in that area and the burgers and stuff were unreal, but what they're doing now is the box. So you get your whole kit and you can, you make all your burgers, you get all the dressings and everything. It's just like in the restaurant. But I think an at-home option. So whatever business you have, just brainstorm for 20, 30 minutes over a coffee tomorrow morning going, how can I give people my business at home? So whatever I'm doing, how can I, like, it's like Scott's talking there or here about his wife launching an online Pilates business. Six months ago, you would have said, oh, how do you be a Pilates teacher in someone's house? You were like, well, you can't, but there's no business probably out there that you can't now distribute to someone's house, either physically through a box or through an e-commerce package or through whatever, or via the medium you're watching and you're listening to this right now through YouTube. I follow a lot of like PTs and stuff. And during lockdown, I was doing a lot of like online fitness classes and they used to just send me a link through YouTube. I'd log on and they'd be like doing a class as if they were in their gym. And they'd be like, you know, five or 10 people doing the class. And they'd be like, oh, hey, Gary, hey, Susan, hey, Fiona, whatever. And it was a feeling of interactivity there. I think that's important. So I think, how do you create that customer experience for people? How do you make them still feel part of your business? Because otherwise, like fitness classes are interchangeable. Like a lot of, it's all about the teacher. That's all the connection you have with the teacher. So how do you give your business to people at home? So that's definitely probably my whole message for today. We're 21 minutes in now and probably I finally got to the crux of the thing. The crux of today's ideas lab is how do you bring your business to someone's house? Physically or digitally. And then the home workers, just to finally finish up on kind of one thing, the home workers, how do you target them? So it's kind of two sides of the same coin in terms of the at-home option. I'm thinking more in terms of people's leisure time. But how do you target the home workers? And this goes back to the very first thing that I saw on Twitter. Actually, Pamela Laird tagged me in it as well. Is how do you target people who are now stuck at home all day? Like I'm in my home office slash studio if you want to be fancy here. I've been here all day except I went for a run on the beach at like lunchtime. I'll be here all day tomorrow unless I go for like a crazy trip to Aldi or something. So like there's a captive audience there. It's just that they're captive in another way. They're captive at home. So how do you reach them? When you reach them digitally, you reach out to them digitally and you target them. You can do lots of really cool geotargeting with Facebook ads and Instagram ads and things like that. You can target your local area and you can run like specialized campaigns just targeted to your local area. I did that with my current, I don't know, current ex-business. I said that's how I started it. I used targeted ads. I just dropped, I was trying to target people around the RDS in Dublin and I targeted just that 5k circle. You can literally draw a circle around and it's probably got way more advanced since then. That was like five and a half years ago. So there is a lot of options to target people locally. Run like just run very clever social media campaigns targeting people in their local area. There's a lot of, I think this is a big little hack as well. There's every town and village has a Facebook group, you know, so it's like, you know, Luke and Facebook group. They're all, they're always private. So if you are a local business, you should definitely be on there and not be spamming it, but at least be providing people with an awareness of the village where I live in. They now have a list of all the businesses that are open and their opening hours and someone is locally just creating all that. So target the local workers, target people who are at home. If I look up and down my road, I see people every single day at home all day, every day working in their office. So how do you target those people? That would be my kind of summary for today. The at home option and the home worker. How do you target those people? So as I was finishing up that pod, I could just literally see the clock going and it ran out of memory. Of course it did. You didn't miss anything else. I was just literally summarizing going, look, target people who are at home working and then target people in the evenings for the at home option for your business. That is it. I'll see you next Monday for the next ideas lab.