Cyberside Chats

COVID-19 forced many businesses to adopt temporary 'work from home' policies. For many managers and employees alike, this has lead to frustration. Whether it's a lack of visibility into employee activity or a case of miscommunication, concerns are voiced time and time again. As businesses transition to the new normal, the reality is work from home will remain, either out of necessity or desire. Today my guest is Patty Crabtree, president of Crabtree Group. Patty will share her own experiences and success in managing a remote workforce for more than 13 years and help us understand how to be successful in making this transition and overcoming these pains.

I'm your host Jess Coburn, CEO of Applied Innovations and Cyberside chats is where we dive into new and emerging technologies to help business owners, CEOs and leaders understand how they could use these technologies on their own business. Today we're going to focus on online marketing, automation, and e-commerce. Let's face it, how we do business has completely changed in 2020 and those changes are here to stay. My guest today is Jeffrey Kostick from Flying Chimp Media. www.flyingchimp.com

Once restricted to just large enterprises, Machine Learning is now accessible to small and medium sized businesses thanks to Kurvv.ai. In this episode of cyberside chat, I sit down with Jeff Croft, Chief Revenue Officer at Kurvv.ai and we talk about the opportunities that Machine Learning as a Service offers small and medium businesses, especially those in hospitality and e-commerce.

Welcome to another episode of cyberside chats. Today businesses across the globe are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, and these first few episodes focus on what business leaders, owners, and CEOs can do to not just survive but thrive amid crisis. In this episode of Cyberside Chat, I sit down with Charlie Janes, Technologist, Entrepreneur, and Business Coach. Charlie helps his clients accelerate profitable growth, plan for a successful exit, and to build processes and infrastructure so that they can spend more time living a great life. We discuss what's to come, what's next, and how we engage with our clients and prospects today. I'm your host Jess Coburn, CEO of Managed Cloud, IT and Cybersecurity Company Applied Innovations.

elcome to another episode of cyberside chats. Today businesses across the globe are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and these first few episodes focus on what business leaders, owners and ceos can do to not just survive but thrive amid crisis . In this episode of Cyberside Chat, I sit down with Diane Geller, Attorney At Law at https://www.foxrothschild.com focused on helping her clients stay compliant with the ever-changing federal and state regulations governing the workplace, assists them in drafting documents for their businesses. We discuss what employers need to consider as they are looking to bring employees back and open again for business I'm your host Jess Coburn, CEO of Managed Cloud, IT and Cybersecurity Company Applied Innovations.

 A Cyberside Chat Live - Making Financial Decisions For Today...SUMMARY KEYWORDSbusinesses, virus, participants, withdrawal, robert, loan, plan, money, remote, parts, year, business owner, 401k, employee, bit, furloughs, pay, matching, act, marketSPEAKERSRobert Young, Jess Coburn Jess Coburn  00:47Morning I'm Jess Coburn CEO replied innovations and this is another episode of fireside chats. Today I have with me Robert Young Robert, could you talk a little bit about Robert Young  00:58money thanks guys for having me on. I'm Robert Young. I'm the principal investment manager and actually compliance officer for ra called young financial services. We're essentially a hedge fund, we have two parts of our practice. We manage money privately for individuals, but we also have a corporate side that we manage corporate pension plans. And that's, I think, what has more bearing on today's conversation than the private money management side. There's some exciting things happening that could help business owners and that I'm sharing with you.  Jess Coburn  01:32So you've been doing this for a while, Robert, Robert Young  01:34over 25 years, had the old practice before then, like most advisors came up through a training program or training system, licensed through 766 and then eventually reached a point in the amount of money that we managed. We go directly and be registered with the SEC and through FINRA, so that's it. Jess Coburn  01:55For a business that has a 401k What is it exactly that you do? Robert Young  02:00So on a 401k side, we manage the investments in the available for participants. We analyze those and make sure that they're operating against their peers in the lowest cost or best performance, then we also act as fiduciaries. we oversee a number of back office parts of the plan. And then we educate participants and we use some of the information for private money management side, and just give that to participants to help them and advise them on the best strategy to reach their goals. So that's really it. And that brings us some things happening today that you might be aware. Jess Coburn  02:38Yes, I'm curious. I know there's been a ton of changes. I'm curious how that impacts, let's say the business owner, let's start there. Robert Young  02:44Alright, so actually, we'll start with the business owner and then business owner slash participants. Perfect. So the first thing is, with course the virus is shutting down and throwing businesses, although we're reopening. I think there's a lot of trepidation on moving forward there, simply furloughs still going on, not every business is rolling out. and business owners are finding we're finding that some are having some challenges on revenue and some concerns about cash flow. So the first and most important thing that was now available to a business owner is if you have a 401k and you are using a match a safe harbor metric 3% match or better, you can suspend that or you can lower that matching rate. Normally, you couldn't do that in a year that could really helping a cash flow or expenses that businesses is being impacted by definitely. So Jess Coburn  03:47probably gonna say and then if you needed to do that, it's fairly straightforward and easy to do it well. Robert Young  03:53Yes, it is easy now normally wouldn't be that their plan amendments have to be done and With your every platform out there from paychecks and ADP to john Hancock empowerment and power and Transamerica, all of them are making it user friendly for a trustee to be able to make those planned amendments, and then be able to engage or initiate a reduced matching program. And again, if you're somebody who's used to paying out 10 1520 $100,000 a month in matching, suddenly you get to eliminate that. There is a caveat though, of course, it's no good deed goes unpunished, right. So, at the end of the year, if you choose to suspend that your plan would now go under testing or top heavy testing and there's a possibility that people who are used to putting in the maximum amount may have had some of that redistributed back to them because the plan doesn't meet certain IRS RQL or labor criteria. So But you need cash flow today, you willing to maybe have some people get some money back in the future? It's an option. Jess Coburn  05:08Yeah, definitely an option. Definitely something to look at. Now, as a participant, what's my options there? Robert Young  05:14Alright, so I'm glad you went. Thank you. So we now have two things for participants. Typically, when a participant, there's a caveat to that, and I'll get to in a second, when a participant wants to take a loan now, their limits have always been 50% of the current value up to $50,000. So rounding numbers, to get the 50, you have to at least have an account value of $100,000. And then when you take that loan out, there's some there's some restrictions on that. That has been eliminated, you can now take 100% of the account value up to 100,000. So basically, everything becomes double. So if you have an account value of $100,000, you can now take that out as long as you pay yourself with the course next five years. So that's one of the most significant parts of loans. And then there's a withdrawal change has been made, it's probably a little bit more exciting. If I touch on that, please. So on the withdrawal side, if somebody has to take money out, the virus is now considered a catastrophic event. Typically, you couldn't take a withdrawal out, unless you're in Florida hurricane came through or you're about to lose your home for economic reasons. You have now mounting, excuse me, get mountain that's mounting as a result of medical expenses. The virus is now considered one of those tragic events. So someone could take him to draw out, draw them out, they can now take up to $100,000 out. But here's the exciting part. The mandatory 20% tax withholding for the federal government has been waiting to not have to withhold 20% of that hundred thousand I use that as a round number also So if you're under 59 and a half, you're no longer currently 10% of the drop, empty. And then finally, what's best is to not incur all the taxes on that withdrawal. And that current tax year, you can spread that out over three years. So using the example of 100,000, you could put 33,000 this year on your tax report next year 33. And then the final year 34,000. It's also important is, let's say take the withdrawal out, and somewhere in the next three years, you come back into 100,000, you can pay yourself back that hundred and walk away without any penalty at all. No taxes paid. Jess Coburn  07:40So you have three years that you could you could withdraw from your fun and pay it back over here.  Robert Young  07:46Withdraw this year, you have three years to pay back the taxes. So let's say you said Okay, you know what, I'm going to take the hundred thousand out this year. But I know by the third year, I'm willing to gamble, I'll have all hundred thousand back I could put it back in so I'm not going to pay taxes for the next two years, I'll wait to the third year 2023 to count that hundred thousand. But in the next 24 to 36 months, you put that hundred back. You're free and clear.  Jess Coburn  08:13That's I mean, that's fantastic. Right, that's a excellent opportunity to get access to funds that you normally wouldn't have access to. And then with the loan, so you could actually do a loan to yourself as well from your funds. Robert Young  08:27That's right, you've always been able to, but the limit is now been increased from 50 to 100,000. Jess Coburn  08:33And is that taxable as well, Robert Young  08:35it's not you're paying yourself back the loan rate since the Fed fed Fed funds rate is around zero. Your loan rate could be anywhere from point four and a half 2% just depends on what your plan platform dictates. And you'd look at those individually. Jess Coburn  08:53Now, is this the right time to be taking money out of your 401k though, Robert Young  08:57if you're furloughed, out of work and you need funds for, I guess that's really up to the individual. Exactly in their MBA tax plan. Now, Jess Coburn  09:10Robert, let's kind of switch gears a little bit. So a lot of people are focused on the stock market right now. Right? It's starting to come back. Is this the time to buy? Is this the time to sell what's going on in the market? Robert Young  09:23So my opinion, not to be confused with facts. Jess Coburn  09:26Fair enough. Fair enough. We'll even give you the the ticker banner there. Thank you.  Robert Young  09:31So we believe in value investing. And we also believe that the idea that the market has priced in the worst case scenario of economic news that you hear in the, I guess, financial stages, we don't believe that that's natural. We think that there may be a possibility of another dip. Definitely the Markets be choppy. So if I were going to enter back into the market if I went to cash a long time ago, do it slowly and pick and choose where you want to go. And I'll give you some free advice. So yeah, stick with the basics. Good, good, solid stuff and check the technology, right stick with healthcare, keeping utilities, secret, the things that make common sense. Maybe, even though some areas are very sexy right now, like financials or energy or biotech, I think I would stick with some of the leaders not only in the recovery, but also the future. Okay, fair enough. Jess Coburn  10:39Let's let's talk a little bit about going remote. I imagine that young financial services you've all gotten remote. Robert Young  10:47Not really, you know, unfortunately, you see behind me, files, Manila files and folders. We're actually exploring now because of this like most businesses, and that is Again, just gives credit to what we're talking about with technology. You know, I think every business is going to be looking to see if they do they need as much office space. Can things I know, for example, Florida Power and Light is rethinking how their HR department is being utilized. Because now they've been into remote for last 30 days. Now they're wondering if they need to bring them back in to the HR department, can they still maintain remote status? So we're not, but that's something we have to explore because our future clients, the ones that don't know that they're gonna be clients yet. We need to be able to access them and they may not be in a position to to meet us in a traditional way. Jess Coburn  11:49You know, I had an interesting conversation the other day with a gentleman that specializes in commercial real estate and he pointed out that a lot of them Businesses now some of them are going to want to go remote. And initially I thought while we're going to see this huge exodus of commercial office space as more and more employees go remote, and businesses look to reduce costs, and he pointed out that they're going to need actually more space for their employees, because in a call center, they're going to need six feet between each employee in order to maintain, you know, safe distances, they're going to need to expand hallways and make hallways wider. And that there's been this consistent decrease in the amount of space per employee that was being leased. And now they're going to expand that out, because each employee is going to need more space. So while there, while there may be fewer employees in the office, they made that occupying the same or even more space, I thought that was really, really interesting. Robert Young  12:50Right, right. You know, that's why like we do, I bring together experts in their field, because you get this this information as input You would not normally consider, I think what you're doing is very important, because it does educate people on what the future could look like. Jess Coburn  13:07Well, I'm not the only one that does it, you do a fair bit of video and commentary yourself. Robert Young  13:12Mind usually related to having to explain why something went down so severely or in those rare occasions, we've actually picked up that goes up very, you know, very well. Jess Coburn  13:23But that's important, though, right? In your business, you're constantly advising your customers on what they should or shouldn't do, or maybe not necessarily telling them what they should or shouldn't do. But giving them more information so that they can make that decision as an informed decision. Robert Young  13:40Right. So, you know, we speak to everybody when we send out a newsletter each month. We speak to everybody each quarter, we see somebody minimum twice a year, but during this virus, our corporate clients, especially, were spent the entire week just from nine o'clock til Oh, dark hundred. Just calling everybody client to make sure that they're aware of which one of the cares act and discussing their options. So absolutely, we want to make sure. I think that's what an advisor does. Jess Coburn  14:09Yeah. Fantastic. Robert. Robert, is there anything you wanted to add or that we didn't touch on? There's thanks important. Robert Young  14:15Just I can't think other than that. Just warn everybody about this part of it. The new levels with the Coronavirus, the limits are some very exciting, but of course, everything comes at a cost. So there is a prerequisite, you know, a participant does have to show that they are being directly affected by the virus or spouse or they have to have homecare for a child that's directly affected as a result of the virus. So there's some prerequisites for that. And if anybody has any questions, I'm more than happy to field any questions. Certainly. I think we're all here to support each other during this time, and any other time and you cannot act as a just an information resource. That's it. Jess Coburn  15:00I appreciate it. I appreciate you coming on. If you don't mind if you could share your contact information for those that are listening certainly Robert Young  15:06suggests you'd like to reach me at 561-427-6767. Again, that's 561-427-6767 that's my phone number does actually go to my cell phone the evenings or weekends, you can always reach me anytime every client notice that or just my website, young fs.com. Jess Coburn  15:26Thank you for Robert, I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me and have our cyber side chat. I know we had scheduled to go live a little bit later and we jumped the gun and went early. But hey, it was a fantastic chat. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I'm gonna throw up your contact information here for anyone that might want it And with that, I'll say thank you again.

 Pivoting Retail Commerce to Online with Manish HiraparaSUMMARY KEYWORDSbusiness, customers, e commerce, people, digital, amazon, world, commerce, pivot, online, peak, business owners, ways, activity, tools, opportunity, merchant, thinking, services, cyberSPEAKERSJess Coburn, Manish Hirapara Jess Coburn  00:45Hey welcome to another episode of cyber cyber chat. I'm your host Jess Coburn and with me today I have Manisha her partner. Manish Can you talk a little about yourself and what you do? Manish Hirapara  00:55Sure. Happy to be here Jess and thanks for having me on the My background is primarily in e commerce and digital digital marketing digital technology. We I'm the CEO of a software and marketing firm based in South Florida, called peak activity. And our goal is to help our business partners really use digital techniques, whether it's e commerce, better web experiences, better technology, really changed the game with their business and use those techniques to add skills and technologies to to really advance their business. So they can they can ride the coattails of the Facebook's and the Amazons of the world that are really changing our business models as we speak. And what we're trying to do is bring those learnings that companies like Facebook and Amazon have created and bring those to the masses and bring those to business owners that are looking for a competitive advantage. Jess Coburn  01:55Nice if you've been doing this for a while you've got a pretty strong background. I know you'd mentioned at one point that you'd started at Office Depot and kind of got your start there. 02:05I did. Yeah, I actually started very early in my career as a software developer, and working on their e commerce platform. We helped build what, what still is today, a top 10 online retailer, when when I left Office Depot about five years ago, started this company, they were doing over $7 billion in transactions online. So really, enterprise scale worldwide operations, there's some significant things you can do in e commerce. And what I chose to do was to take a lot of that experience at a large enterprise, great organization and kind of distill it down understand what the best practices for and bring those to our business partners. Jess Coburn  02:46Now, at peak activity, you've got a large workforce and like the rest of the world, you were you were hit pretty quickly and unexpectedly by everything that was going on with COVID-19. How has peak activity adjusted Do it. 03:01Well, the good news for us has been we were already ready for remote work. We have employees worldwide we we already use tools like slack and Google meat is our preferred video conferencing solution. So we already had some of those pieces in place. But just like everybody else, we had to understand digest what was going on and really, make sure from a human resources perspective, we're doing the right things for our employees. You know, being a digital first company we we pride ourselves in already have been ready for that. So we haven't had to adjust to too much. We do have an office that is it for the moment closed and we are kind of working a little bit more remotely. But you know, fortunately for us, we we've already had relationships with our customers over already over email and over slack channels and other digital techniques. So we've already kind of plumbed everything, and now it's really just been helping our customers or business as partners get up to up to speed on on things, working through challenges in communication working through how do you how do you effectively run projects completely remote. So it's been a transition for us to make sure that we can keep up with the pace of which this this change has happened. Jess Coburn  04:20Now, throughout the US, a lot of states are starting to come out of lockdown and businesses are starting to go back to work here in Florida, with the exception of some Florida we're seeing pardon me we're seeing a lot of open up how do you think businesses need to adjust as we're coming out of the lockout lockdown? 04:41it's it's a it's been a really interesting challenge for us with our customers. We've actually created some new techniques and published actually the website on this product that we've created around low touch commerce. And we do work with a number of customers that are in retail for example retail, that means have been non essential and it's been Chuck for a month and a half. And unfortunately, that means revenues are declining and and you're not seeing, you're not seeing any traffic at all. What we've what we've really said to our customers is look, think through ways that ecommerce can help. Think through ways that calendar and appointment setting online can help. Think about using live chat or live streaming tools to engage with your workforce. So don't just think, gotta have everything locked down, but also think through how to advance it as quickly as you can using digital tools. Jess Coburn  05:39So let's dive into a little bit right because a lot of the customers you work with aren't traditional e commerce companies, in the sense of you know, that you would go to Amazon and maybe buy their products. In some cases you do, but generally you don't. So for those businesses, this has been an extremely difficult transition right? And you touched on that concept of low touch commerce. How are these businesses adopted? And can you give some examples? 06:08Sure. So we have a number of furniture retailers now that we work with and furniture traditionally has been the last industry to get into, into buying online and using e commerce. However, there are companies, for example, wayfair, that and Amazon have really taken a lot of share in this market. And it's a complex product to deliver. It's a complex product to sell, you get to think about how do you visualize your room? And how do you how do you want to know that that sofa that you're buying is going to fit? And how do you feel like it's gonna match the surroundings. But if you if you also think about the fact that we all have a smartphone, and we have devices in our pocket that let us take photo videos, have live streaming with with somebody who is an expert. And so the things we've really thought about have been if you're comfortable going Get to a retail store. Go ahead and try to make an appointment, go into sales associate, that's your best expert, right? If you're not comfortable trying to get your expert on a device that most people are already leveraging and happy communication service with and take advantage of live streaming tools take advantage of a lot of SaaS software products that are out there that will enable you to have a new way of communicating and capturing revenue. Think about payments with e commerce, you have the ability with with two simple solutions like stripe or authorize that net to set up credit card processing, PayPal, there's great solutions out there. You don't build all this in ecommerce infrastructure like you might have 10 or 15 years ago. Jess Coburn  07:43So that's a great example. Right? A lot of businesses don't realize in the past, if you wanted to get a merchant accounts online, you had to jump through all kinds of hoops with stripe PayPal and these services. You're set up like that and you're online and you're ready to go. Like and if it It's implemented correctly, it's secure, and absolutely free with that. The only you know, the other thing that you pointed out there that's really important I think a lot of businesses lose track up is you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Yep, you know, you can reuse what's off the shelf software, and move quickly and be agile in this time. A great example as when you shared with me with one of your customers where they work off of that showroom, and they've set up the kind of the appointment thing and you guys came up with that idea for them. 08:34We did and and really, Our idea was to go and just research and we and fortunately for us, we've been researching these for a few months already. We've already been a little bit at the ball there. But our idea was to research. open source tools are openly available tools, you sign up for a license, and you're ready to book appointments, you sign up for a live streaming service, you're ready to have face to face interaction. The the economy in the digital world today is as much Buy and assemble as it is built, right. So you don't have to have a bunch of software developers working nonstop for six months to assemble something, you go a couple clicks, and and sign up and you're in business. And that's a lot of the advice that we're providing to our customers is, let's find the right tools and solutions. They might not be perfect. You don't want to let great get in the way of good but at least you're in business and you're seeing 1020 30% of your revenue come back right away. While we wait for the for the the curve flattens, and we get back into the into the new normal would be, which will take some time. Jess Coburn  09:38Yeah, that concept of just in time execution is really important. And a lot of people lose that you get, you get paralyzed by looking at the little details and trying to get it just right. I want to take a quick break here and just mention that we are live on Facebook and YouTube. And we did it kind of impromptu going live. I appreciate you jumping on with me like that, because we're live it Appreciate anyone that's there. If you're seeing the stream and everything's working good, give us a like and make sure it's there. And I wanted to point out that you can ask questions. So if you have a question a Minish just a leave a comment, and we can respond to that here live. So minesh You know, when I started applied innovations, I started it focused on e commerce. I don't know if we ever had that conversation. But that was kind of my thing is that I saw a real need and a real opportunity around e commerce. Long time ago, I wrote a shopping cart and Pearl of all languages, but at the time on the web, you know, in the early days and early 90s, that was the go to for web development. A lot of e commerce vendors have kind of been at the mercy of Amazon, they've kind of accepted that, hey, that's where the eyeballs are, and I have to go to Amazon. But we've seen a big pivot lately, right. So I know with a lot of our customers, we're seeing a lot of these e commerce customers move to either amazon prime It's fulfilled by the seller. And they're they're capitalizing on that they're seeing an increase in their fulfilled by merchant sales. But more importantly, they're seeing a huge increase in direct sales. What should these merchants be doing today that they're seeing that that pivot net change? 11:17I think the first thing I would say for that would be to get the game, right. It's not a matter of thinking about it from a physical retail standpoint anymore, where you're just going to set up location or shop and that's the only place you're gonna sell. There's lots of places to sell. Most companies aren't even thinking about international buyers. They're not thinking about new audiences that you can reach. So if you want to really expand your reach, get in the game, figure out if you're comfortable with Amazon. Amazon is a formidable competitor to a lot of people. And they do leverage their data and they do try to cut people out. So you got to be careful, but get in the game. If there's variable Very simple ways to start selling on Amazon there's very simple ways to start selling on Walmart. There's also ways to open up your own storefront and drive your own consumer traffic. And a lot of that has to do with knowing your consumer and your products. Specifically in e commerce and knowing how you're going to deliver the products. It's not just a physical good world anymore either. ebooks, audio, there's there's, there's there's a lot of new ways to monetize revenue and do business that is not your traditional selling a physical product but services and and things of that nature that are really just once you educate yourself on what can be done and how to do it, you have to try it's a test and learn strategy. It's not a one size fits all the the online world is vast. There's no end to it. And there's always new constant innovations that are coming out. So the idea that you do it, you build it once and then it's there for five or 10 years isn't how it is it should be Do it. Do it. For a week, get the data. And the beautiful, the beautiful thing is you get data back very, very quickly see what the data say. And then move on to the next one. Keep keep pivoting, keep adjusting. So it's a it's a it's a new world from from that perspective, but you've got to start somewhere. And you may be Sarah staring out to the mountains, and I need to be online and it feels like it's, it's all the way at the top there. Just start walking, just start hiking the trail, and all of a sudden, you'll find that there's a clear pathway for your business and every business opportunity in the digital world in the online world. Jess Coburn  13:31Yeah, I think a lot of businesses because they were taken by surprise, they didn't realize that they did have that opportunity and they were able to execute on it. You know, we've seen a pivot with Well, let's look at restaurants, for example, you know, almost every restaurant now is available for delivery by using either their own delivery team or one of these services. They've got curbside pickup like crazy. And I know Friday we went and had we ordered curbside Pick up, we were probably there was probably 15 people coming and going that time that we were there. So those businesses are starting to pivot and change. Now granted, it's not the same business that it was, but it's changing. How have you seen other businesses pivot or change that you can think? 14:17Yeah, I think this is this is an interesting time because it really tests the mettle of every everybody's entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial abilities. And we've watched it very closely, because the ones that are the most entrepreneurial are the ones that are are making out really well in this in this unfortunate time. And what we've seen is, you've got to think through that the old ways of doing business are just not present at the moment. And you've got to find new ways of getting your means of production, whether it's a restaurant or if you're a b2b manufacturer of cosmetics, and skincare products. You Gotta you've got a pivot to hand sanitizers and get those out on the internet, right? No longer are you? Are you just waiting for a boutique mall base operator to reopen so that you can move your goods, right? So you've got to think through how can you How can you be entrepreneurial in these times, and we all know, but it's a time that we're all trying to get through together not, not every dollar is going to come back. But if you can get 25 or 50 cents on the dollar back to your business, that extend your lifeline so long as as long as you can to get business back to what the new normal be and then keep in mind, the new normal it's not an instant return and consumer behaviors that are being reinforced now, your example of the restaurant the curbside pickup, they're here to stay. We worked on creating a we work with a the largest alcohol and beverage provider in the country and we worked on creating an opportunity for them to you know, have mobile solutions to do things like pick up, and, and even delivery. And those are those are trends that have been coming for a long, long time. And they're here to stay. What this has done is accelerated the adoption of those trends. And, and if you're entrepreneurial if you view we're not talking about millions of dollars in investments, you can get in for as little as 100 $200 a month, and you can be in the game and you start learning as quickly as possible. Jess Coburn  16:26It's amazing, right? That for such a low entry point, you really just have to be willing to hustle to make it happen. Right? So it's a beautiful thing. A lot of businesses are Oh my god, you know, business has changed. I don't have to do I'm gonna go to sleep and maybe when I wake up tomorrow, it's it's it's better. And those are the businesses that aren't going to be here when this is all said and done. It's the ones that will move and pivot quickly. One of the things I've noticed and I'm curious if if you've seen it too, with with your own experience, this concept of video chat, and you know, using zoom in teams and Google meet these services. Early on, it was something that a lot of people, especially business owners, leaders, CEOs were against, they didn't want to do that they wanted to meet face to face. But I'm finding over the last two months, that they're more comfortable with it, you know, when you would jump on a zoom meeting, it would take 15 minutes to get everybody to figure out how to turn on their camera and turn off their microphone. Everybody's in like this now. I think that's a change that we're gonna see for the future. 17:33It's definitely gonna stick. My I have a first grader, and he's on with his classroom every day on google classroom or Google Hangouts. And they're all muting appropriately and so we're teaching our next generation exactly how to do this. And look, there's still a great value to face to face business. We believe in it. We we actually miss it quite a bit. But you're right it what this has done is it feels like For us, at least, it's brought the humanity back to the equation. No longer are we getting dressed up and going to formal meetings, but we're really talking about the content and the subject matter of what needs to be discussed. And we're going straight to it. And definitely would agree with you just there that this is this has been this has been as much of a learning experience and we relish in it because we see new things happening and creative. It's creating new creative processes and juices that are quite frankly a little bit overdue, right. So it's great to see people who may have been against it. People may have been worried about the security and the risks to their business. Now say, Look, I've got to get into this business and embrace it. And change is hard for a lot of people. But this is one of those things where changes sometimes forced and prescribed and I'm glad to see it for one Jess Coburn  18:53moment. I should it's been exciting. You know, there's always the saying that there's opportunity in disaster and you need to look for it. I'm excited to see how people are grasping that opportunity, how companies like peak activity are doing it and how they're empowering their customers to also do it. And that's a big part of what we're about here at applied innovations to right is we want to look at technology and how these businesses can leverage technology to move their business forward. And a peak activity, it's the same. I know we're running quick on running out of time here, and I get into the top of the hour, but I wanted to see if there was anything you thought we missed or that you'd like to discuss. 19:36You know, I think I love the I love the the cyber cyber cyber side chat concept, just because there's there's no one and this is an unprecedented time for business leaders. There's no manual for CEOs or business owners on how to lead through a pandemic or really a market that's clear as quickly as as it has And, you know, I feel like we are all learning and adapting every day. And I think that's one of the biggest strengths that we have as humans is we adapt to change, we embrace new things as much as we can. And, you know, I would just say, technology, digital marketing, they're all just components of a classic org chart. They're all things that you should have been working through and thinking about, and you've got people probably in your organization, or you've got businesses like yours in mind that are here to to, to help guide and Shepherd the new world into into where it's going. And I think it's one of those things where, as a business owner, don't, don't hesitate to reach out for help. And, you know, for me, I've embraced that we're trying to find new new partners and new ways of inventing things like we have with low touch commerce to say look, we just need to find a tool. Let's go find it. And I think that's the the The entrepreneur as you said, hustle, what we're all trying to do, but don't try to do it in an educated or unguided way. So I really appreciate you putting the cyber sec side chat series together. I know for me from the finance standpoint, these are the things that we're looking for experts on on how do we navigate the finances of what's going on? It's a deal. Jess Coburn  21:19Absolutely. So we've got another one coming on, I believe Monday, where we're going to talk on that actual topic of finance and what you can do around your 401k and seizing the opportunity within the market. So I like that you had pointed out that it's important to partner to look for help right now. That's really key, I think, and a lot of businesses think that they're in it alone, especially business leaders and CEOs. I'm in it alone. It's me by myself. And that's not the case. Now's the time to reach out to the tribe, to you know, even your competitors, your friends, people in other industries and look for that help. That's one of the reasons why we started the Facebook group, you know, Florida businesses helping each other was for that reason Reason so and I'll include a link in that niche before we end you want to share your contact information? 22:06Sure, if you just want to go to peak activity p ak activity.com, you can fill out any of the contact forms there or you can email me directly ma ni sh, at peak activity calm and happy to be found on social LinkedIn or anywhere that that makes sense. Jess Coburn  22:24Yep. And to answer Linda's question, absolutely. This will be recorded. It's recorded and it will be available online on the software businesses helping each other website as well as the cyber side chat forward. appreciate the feedback. Natalie can't wait to get you that far. Okay, information. You even know the guy that's going to be doing it for us. It's going to be Robert McNish, thanks again for taking the time. We're going to end it here. But I've got your contact information on the closing slide. And we'll leave that up for a couple of minutes. Yes.

SUMMARY KEYWORDSbusiness, customers, cloud, people, home, teams, moving, calling, technology, company, point, cybersecurity, manage, computers, ways, malecon, helping, talk, vpn, addSPEAKERSJess Coburn, Malik Khan Jess Coburn  00:17Welcome to another episode of cyber side chats. Today businesses across the globe are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. In these first few episodes focus on what business leaders owners and CEOs can do to not just survive but thrive amid crisis. In this episode of cyber side chat I sit down on Malecon CEO point click analogy. So one of my closest friends, we discussed the importance of giving back during difficult times and how competitors can come together for mutual benefit through competition. I'm your host Jess Coburn, CEO of manage cloud it and cybersecurity company applied innovations Hi, welcome to another episode of cyber side chats today I have my very good friend Malecon with Bhima leak CEO point click technologies. Blake, can you tell us a little about point click and yourself. Malik Khan  01:19So point click is a managed services provider focused on cloud services. So, you know, everything we do is all managed cloud, whether we managing infrastructure in our data centers in Raleigh, or in our primary choice with cloud hyperscale, which is Azure. So you know, we provide cybersecurity making sure customers have backup and disaster recovery 24 seven support of the applications making sure that performing so this is our primary business model today. And not only that, helping customers move infrastructure from on premises to the cloud, and then making sure that they're not compromising any of their, you know, security to customer service. And just feeling like you know, they own the data that's sitting in the cloud. So we try to bridge that gap of making sure that the customer is in a very stable environment in the cloud. But then they also working with a very stable partner that knows how to manage the information and keep them up and running. Jess Coburn  02:16Thanks, Millie. I appreciate the introduction. So one thing some people know they know me and you is they'll know that we're good friends, and we have been the best of friends for almost a decade now, if not more than, and a lot of people say gee, Jess, you run a managed cloud it cybersecurity company and Moloch runs a managed cloud it and cybersecurity company. Aren't you guys cooperate? Aren't you guys? competition? And we like to refer to it as Co Op petition. Correct? Malik Khan  02:44Absolutely. Jess Coburn  02:46Because we find we find we find that we, I mean, we've helped each other tremendously over the last number of years. Malik Khan  02:54Yeah, I think it's been, you know, I was telling my wife like, and I wonder where my business was. With the headliner meet, Jess, just because at the time, you are much bigger company I was, you know, tiny, I'm still tiny. But I learned so much from from you the way you operate your business. Older approaches were a little bit different. So I was able to learn how to take some of the things you were doing and adapted into mine. And then you also learn some of the ways that we were using certain tool sets and certain practices that you were also able to incorporate in your business. So, you know, it kind of at a point became where we're not competing with each other. But we're trying to actually help accelerate and grow our businesses as much as we can by sharing the information and the knowledge base that we have within the industry. Jess Coburn  03:43Really, I don't think you give yourself enough credit. I've learned just as much if not more from you, as you've taken from me, I assure you that So, but I appreciate that. Um, which is an interesting topic on kind of why I wanted to start with it right now a lot of businesses are flipped upside down. They don't know which way To go. And, you know, traditionally in business when you have when you have competition, it's you or them and only one man can win. Right? It's that that fight. Going to be number one, I'm going to be number one, there's only room for me. Do you think this concept of competition would be useful for these businesses? And based on what's going on in the industry today? Or not in the economy today? Malik Khan  04:24Yeah, absolutely. I think every business is unique. I don't think there's typically businesses that are 1% a, like, um, there are some that are like that. But in many cases, you know, everybody does something differently. Everybody brings their own ingenuity and they know how into their own businesses. So I think, you know, as this this world is going on, especially with social with the rise of social media, you see a lot of businesses that are, you know, posting white papers on how they do certain things or best practices. So we all kind of learning from those, you know, those channels of how we can see what somebody else is doing. And we can adapt into the ways that we do our businesses. So I think that's already happening. Maybe not in an intentional manner. But it I think it is the way to go for all of us to kind of see how we can leverage each other and Co Op cooperate, you know, Co Op, co op petition, and be able to kind of help all of us grow, Jess Coburn  05:21as well. So that's interesting, too, right? Is because you're talking about giving back, and that's something that you do a lot of with, with your company. Can you talk about that? Malik Khan  05:33Sure. You know, so point click technologies was started back in 2007. Prior to that, I worked a regular job just like everybody else. So I believe the company was started on the notion of giving. You know, my wife at the time worked for the Red Cross, they have some issues at the office. I went there help them out. They say, Hey, can you help with all this other things? So looking at helping them and then keeping a job just didn't mesh so I decided to quit my job. helped a an organization that needed it. So giving my knowledge, I know how and my skills, I was able to start pointing technologies. And that never changed. So we still continue to do that with a lot of our customers. And as of late, you know, I'm originally from Gambia, which is in West Africa, I've decided that, you know, because technology is moving a lot slower in that region. What can I do, to kind of give back to my community. So we recently, you know, started our business there, opened an office there. And to kind of help boost the ecosystem for technology, we made our office much bigger, and splintered off into a co working space or an innovation hub. So we've been doing a lot of work in that region to kind of just help educate on modern ways of doing work, you know, through Microsoft partnership. And also, you know, just just cloud in general, whether it's public cloud or private cloud, so bringing all that no How and sharing it with the local ecosystem has been really invaluable for us. So those are one of the things that we're doing in Africa today. And it's, it's, it's a challenge, but it's moving forward and I think is very much appreciated. And, you know, we continue to give back in that way. But you know, it doesn't give away from all the stuff that we do in the US. We also open an office in Spain, and have a lot of our staff in India. So we operate in four countries, where we're doing a lot of giving, and, you know, just learning from each environment, especially in this time is very difficult. You know, seeing now the US is taking over with this Coronavirus how rapidly is spreading. You know, prior to it getting there, you know, I was I'm here in Spain, you know, we heard Italy was really getting really bad. And then now here in Spain is getting, you know, just as bad as Italy and now the US is taken over. So Africa is also you know, doing that so just two days ago. I thought what can we do to help in that nature. to kind of help prevent this, because the biggest challenge in those markets is they don't have it like us. You can't take your laptop home, and then VPN or just open a web browser access your applications. Because everything is in files, you know, you can you rarely see a person working with a computer on their desk. So you're like, wow, you know, what exactly are you going to do if you are forced in a divorce you to work from home. So right now I'm helping them with a strategy on how to effectively make people safe. That way they can work effectively from home. It's difficult because if you don't have the platform or the environment to do it, it just suggests a challenge. But again, it's all part of our DNA of giving, where we're always looking at ways of improving other people's environments or lives. And I think eventually it comes back. We're able to benefit and reap some of that from us to help us grow our company as well. Jess Coburn  08:54So you touched on what's going on in the Gambia and I appreciate you guys for that. But I really, you know, I found that when you first told me about building the operation in the Gambia and started explaining to me how technology is there, it was difficult for me to grasp. Because, you know, you look at I've been using computers since I was 12 years old, you know, we always had TVs and all this stuff in our house. My kids have had iPads and tablets, practically they came out of the womb with it, right? So for us, we're used to being connected like that, but in the Gambia, so they're still doing business, the old school way with files and pen and paper and then it's not so much on computers. Malik Khan  09:39Yeah, it's, it's, it's not. But, you know, with the help of somebody, organizations, you know, the World Bank's the UN UNDP you know, they accelerating that so it's moving really fast. Sometimes it's not entirely on on the people that actually happen to do this work is the willpower or the public. political will, of the country to actually buy in to this modern ways of doing things. As you know, you know, in Africa and some of these other nations, the biggest challenge is corruption. So they're looking at it as digital technology leaves a digital footprint. So if we implement anything that's going to automate or transform the way that we're doing some of these things and be able to, you know, and it's not always about a correction, you know, what does, the person that comes to mind is, they may be able to see that we're not doing things the right way, when that's not really true. I mean, US Europe have some of the biggest corruptions as well that nobody sees. So it's not that the technology is going to reveal it. But the notion and that mindset of if we invest in tech, it may reveal certain things that we don't want to be seen. So educating the community and ecosystem they aren't, that is the wrong way of thinking about this thing. Using technologists really to make efficient so you can operate you know do more with less and all these things so these are some of the things that we we try to communicate by doing advanced webinars seminars and all these things and I think it's working and that process is going very well so far Jess Coburn  11:17group house a house COVID-19 been four point click Malik Khan  11:23um so you know when it when it first started, you know, as we all knew, it started in China, we all kind of just thought, Okay, this is this is nothing then it started, you know, hitting, you know, up until three weeks ago we were in nice France with my family. We didn't think nothing of it. So, you know, people were just going on about their business or like, but so now we really start to see this impact everybody. So you know, Spain went on lockdown, so I'm like, wow, okay. And then some parts of the US started to go on lockdown. So these are we operate out of four countries. So I mean, as of right now, every country we operate in we all having to work from home. But luckily, we've been working from remote for a very long time many years. So it's not a big deal. But for companies that we support, that are not set up for that type of access, it's been a challenge for them. For us, luckily, about 90% of our customers were already in the cloud because when we go into a customer, that's the first thing we look at work from anywhere from anytime, anytime from any device. So a lot of them were already on all 365 we've already migrated your on premises servers onto the cloud, you know, PBX on local systems, moving that from that to a to a local data center, or, you know, recently we've been doing a lot of Microsoft Teams calling migration. Prior to that we were doing a lot of ring Central's so it hasn't really hit us hard yet, because we kind of felt like we were prepared. We prepared our customers well for that. But for those that still have file servers on to kind of, you know, seeing the pain a little bit, and, you know, to access files or VPN, And the connection is a little bit, you know, but it's not that many that we have that are like that. Aside from that, it's it's, I think it hasn't been that impactful yet. But I think starting next month, it will, we'll start to see the pain because if our customers suffer, we will begin to, to suffer as well. Jess Coburn  13:22Absolutely, it's time to start preparing for that and for helping them with that. You know, it's interestingly and I was smiling as you were talking about that, because it shows that you and I, we communicate all the time. I mean, we talk daily, practically, and sometimes multiple times a day. And what's interesting is that we have the same approach with our customers. When we go into a new customer, if it's a, whether it's a customer that wants to move to the cloud, or it's a customer that says hey, we want you to come in and take over it and help us beef up our cybersecurity. The first thing we do is looking at what you have on prim that we can move off krim in Florida, it makes a lot of sense. Because they think hurricanes Yeah, we need to do that. But it just makes sense when this happens and people always think that you know, hurricanes are a southeast problem and snow storms or or a Northwest problem. Factor matter is it could be anything it's going to affect anyone we saw that with her with Hurricane Sandy when it took out you know, the New England these guys were just crushed because they weren't prepared to they weren't accustomed to that and it really hurt them. Hopefully, the education they had from that will help them with this as they address for this although I was in public yesterday the shopping the grocery store, there's no paper products to be found man. So I think people are still kind of overreacting in some ways. Right? They also they also need to stop throwing their their used gloves in the in the parking lot and littering those all over the place. It's disgusting. They just need to take them and put them in a garbage bag and throw them away when they get home. It amazes me Though, I need to keep my hand safe, but let me just drop this here for somebody else I don't care about them only care about me. But I digress. So, because we've moved our customers to the cloud, and we've adopt these technologies, it's been great. The other thing you mentioned was Microsoft Teams and teams calling. So today's April 1, do you know what that means? Malik Khan  15:23It's a bad day. It is April Jess Coburn  15:24Fool's Day. You're right. This is an April Fool's. This is actually good news. Today's the first day that Microsoft's calling plans available in the United States before it used to be only available with the three or above accounts for a lot of businesses that were buying a 12 $50 a month Microsoft Office account, moving to a $35 Office account, and then adding another $20 on top of that, so you get Kali was cost prohibitive, but now, they can add this at $20 a month to any of their accounts regardless of which office 365 so for a lot of businesses, think about the business That's stuck with a classic PBX on premise right? Now he could actually forward his main phone number back to his team's calling plan. And use the Cloud PBX there and get all his business done. Uses computers like we're using in headsets, because phone calls just like normal use of cell phone to make phone calls, and turn the company phone off after hours. So he has that separation. So you have to worry about people call him on his personal cell all the time. Right? Yeah, I'm going down a bit of a sales pitch. But it's exciting for me, because it's it is a revolution in my opinion for telephone. Voice. Voice over IP has been something I've loved for the last, jeez 25 years ever since I was at Motorola. And to see where we've come and where we're going with this. It's phenomenal. Tell me about managing the team remotely. You know, you've got teams from four different countries. How do you manage your teams remotely? What could other business owners take or learn from you? What's been you know, that thing that's really helped you do that? Malik Khan  17:07Yeah, you know, having a good collaboration tool is very key. Prior to teams, we were all using Skype. So all our team members would just be on Skype. I've kind of grown my business through managing remote people. So we've kind of, you know, I've learned a lot through the process of maintaining your schedule. So for those that are looking to adapt, the scheduling would be something you would want to look at. Also, over the years, we've kind of implemented certain tools to make sure that, you know, people are actually following those schedules. So like one particular tool we use now is called hub staff, which is installed through on your computers and be able to you know, so they can sign in and sign out and you can actually monitor that you know, all the work that they're doing. So that is key. But once you build that trust with your team, it's not necessary. But I would just say I think good communication having a good communication platform. And now is the best time because you have even if you don't like Microsoft Teams, you have slack you have, you know, you can still use Skype, you can use, you know, tools like zoom in a plug for meeting doing this face to face meetings. But I particularly like teams because everything is in one place. You can chat, you can call, you can do your face to face meeting like we're doing now you can share all your files. You know, you have access to SharePoint, if you're doing a project, you have plan eyes. So it's a fantastic tool set, which is why I think Microsoft is doing is doing really well with it. So having that today versus You know, when we started doing this 510 years ago, it was a lot harder, but it's a lot easier today. And I'll tell you a story like just a week before North Carolina announced that they were going to go on lockdown. This customer calls us thanking us, like what are they talking about? Because they were under traditional PBX. So just before that week, we had just migrated all of They're calling you know, the receptionist calls to teams get them to Polycom phones, since they still wanted to hold a handset. So if you want to still use the asset you can with Microsoft Teams calling, but they have it on their cell phones, they have it on the desk with the phone, you have it on your computer, you can do find me Follow me. So, you know, they were like really happy because now they are working 100% remote, remote over 50 people, 50 employees, and it's as if they end the office, Jess Coburn  19:28etc. So you know, I've, I've talked to sorry to cut you off. I've talked to a lot of msps that don't take the same approach that we take up, hey, we need to go cloud as cloud first cloud first, for a lot of msps it's no that takes away my margin. If I can keep it in my closet or keep it in my cloud. I make better margin and they don't necessarily do what's in the best interest of the customer. They do what's in the best interest of their profitability, the IT company. I've talked to a lot of these guys locally. They're also super busy right now because their customers are scrambling to move remove. Malik Khan  20:04Yeah, yeah, I think that is still happening in the MSP space. You know, if a customer has an on prem server, you know, the ability to buy the number of servers that you have, you know, per month. So they're looking at it as if those servers go away, then what am I gonna do? No, because the cloud has so many other tools. So for example, if you moved into office 365, and they need security, you can add on Cloud App Security. So that's an additional cost that you will make a little bit off of, but new you now you have a toolset that you can actually also add on to to do the actual security monitoring. One, it's so automated and so easy to use and give you so much visibility, that the customer will pay just to know that, you know, all the information in the cloud is much more secure than what they had before. And you as an MSP can add on to that increasing your margins. You don't have to manage any devices. You don't have to software upgrades or anything like that. So I think the mindset of the traditional MSP needs to change a little bit for them to adapt to these new ways of doing things. And this is the reason why companies like us are taking business away from them. Because they're not thinking like that, you know, so we we try to think for the customer 510 years ahead, not what is today. And when you can show a customer that roadmap, you know, you will win the business any day of the week. Jess Coburn  21:27Now, a lot of businesses are probably paralyzed right now. They're looking at their business going, Oh, my God, my sales funnels dead. I can't make any phone calls. I can't send my sales guys out. My entire teams dispersed working from home, my company's paralyzed until this blows over. But that's not necessarily the case. They could be doing other things. What's some of the things that point clicks doing right now? That's that keeps them from being paralyzed, and that other businesses could do? Malik Khan  21:55Yeah. You know, I think just thinking about just like they just search businesses, let's say you're a restaurant. And the only way you make money is by serving food. If people are not coming to the door, you know, I'm sorry, can you can't really do too much. But some approach that other companies are doing is okay, we know we're not going to shut down the restaurant forever. You know, the government came out with this package that maybe potentially give you some funds, start looking at ways of leveraging some of the platforms out there, where there's your marketing, adapting which some of these tools, tools like HubSpot, create your mailing list. So there's a lot that they can do. Maybe it's not financially transactional, for you For you to receive income. But it's, it's, you know, for example, an example I use is the stock market is down. So stocks are really cheap. So this is the time that you invest in yourself. So look at yourself as a stock that's really cheap, that's beaten down, and then you reap those benefits later on. So I think this is the message that we all know this morning, I posted on Twitter, that when God wants to send you in gift, he wraps it up in a problem. So we should all look at this Coronavirus as a gift and try to uncover the opportunities within it. And I think you know, if you go into it with that type of mindset, you would come out as a winner at the end. You know, and you know, the unique thing with this is this, everybody is affected. It's not just us, every single country, every single continent. So it's not like you isolated and saying, Oh, this is only happening in the US or in Europe. It's a common thing that we all kind of going through. So your mindset and the way you really approach it is going to be what really, you know, sets you apart and keeps you going. But yeah, it is tough. Some businesses, there's not really much they can do, other than maybe enhance the business see where the loopholes are. talk to somebody at people Hey, how can I How can I leverage technology to you know, make my business go global, or whatever it is. So there's there are things that they could do. But unfortunately for some people, if you're thinking about ways to bring money in That may or may not be possible until you can actually, you know, reopen your business back up. Jess Coburn  24:06But now's a great time to look at your business and work on your business as opposed to in your business. 24:11And Jess Coburn  24:12I think that's great advice. I think the fact that you, as you pointed out that sometimes gifts are wrapped in a problem, that's a fantastic analogy for this, we need to look at where the opportunity is. And that's where we need to spend our time. We can't sit back and cry and go, Whoa, is the most me. It's gonna pass and when it passes, you got to be prepared for Well, I think that's a fantastic spot to stop. I really appreciate you sharing that with me. Is there anything that we didn't touch on that you'd like to talk about or that feels important to business owners and leaders out there? Malik Khan  24:45Um, you know, if this is an issue that's affecting everybody, so I think, let's just write it out. And hopefully we'll come out of it in terms of people that are in technology that I would like me to talk about, as you know, Customers are our lifeblood. So I'm also using this opportunity. Because I know a lot of my customers will have a lot of our customers or prospects had issues that maybe they didn't have the budget to do. So us having the capacity today to be able to help them. This is a way that we can get back to those customers, especially those that pay us. If they didn't do that cybersecurity audit, if they didn't buy that software application they needed or get the training that they need it. This is the time to say, hey, because you were down. Let me go ahead and do this for you pro bono. Again, it's like that stock analogy, it stops the low. Invest in your customers today. Maybe they won't pay you for them, but give it back to them and it'll pay dividends later. So I think we should all come together as it providers and look at what are some of the weak things that maybe our customers were wanting to do. They couldn't do that I could provide to them and say hey, you know, as a way of appreciating you as a customer for so many years, you know, let's go ahead and get that audit going. My team is working from home. We have executed extra time, we'll get auto policies, like some of the things we're doing VPN policies that they need. Maybe they didn't have a remote access policy. So we have a slew of stuff out that we've done to other customers in the past. scrub them up, clean it up, you know, and, you know, so we've been handling that some of our customers, you know, acceptable use policies for your users. You know, Cybersecurity Awareness, but not that when you're home, you're going to get a lot of attacks. So maybe do f cybersecurity email campaign for them, to educate the users, you know, best practices for working from home. So, you know, I think this is the time that we all kind of look at, you know, our portfolio and see how can we give back or invest in something that'll pay us dividends later? Jess Coburn  26:46That's fantastic advice. But like, I appreciate that and you just gave me a great idea. I'm gonna work on that. With that in mind, I want to thank you for your time. If anyone wants to reach out to you and get in touch with you, how can they get in touch with you Malik Khan  26:59info at Point click dotnet i n fo at point click dotnet Jess Coburn  27:06There you go. It couldn't be easier than that Emily, I appreciate you taking the time to chat with me. It's good see you buddy. I missed your Malik Khan  27:12guess they keep saying

OVERVIEWIn this episode of Cyberside Chat, I sit down with Georganne Goldblum, Vistage Chair and CEO Coach and we discuss lessons learned from economic crisis in 2007 and the hard decisions ahead for CEOS as we prepare for a potential economic downturn. SUMMARY KEYWORDSbusiness, ceos, vistage, members, employees, decisions, people, hear, recession, georgia, webinars, helping, florida, plans, business owners, group, company, key, speakers, coachSPEAKERSGeorganne Goldblum, Jess Coburn Jess Coburn  00:00Welcome to another episode of cyber side chats. I'm your host, Jess Coburn, CEO of managed cloud it in cybersecurity company applied innovations, where we help businesses identify risk and address it before it becomes a problem. Today, businesses across the globe are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. In these first few episodes, focus on what business leaders owners and CEOs can do to not just survive but thrive amid crisis. In this episode of cyber side chat, I sit down with George Henkel VISTAs shared CEO coach. We discuss lessons learned from the economic crisis in 2007. And the hard decisions ahead for CEOs as we prepare for a potential economic downturn. So sit back, relax, and let's chat. Welcome back to cyber side chat and I'm just covering it today. I have with me George angle Blum Georgia, can you talk a little bit about yourself and what you do?  Georganne Goldblum  01:03Sure. Morning, Jess. So, um, I'm Georgia and goldblum. I've been a Vistage chair for over 18 years. And I also have my own firm coach for exempts, which works inside companies, with the leadership team. And they're developing leaders to make sure they have the skills, the alignment, and to meet or exceed their goals. And then I also coach business individuals. So that must be important to help businesses and leadership teams really understand what they're doing. It is especially in times like this, but 18 years ago, I didn't quite have an understanding of a business background. But when I started with Vistage it's an incredible asset for CEOs for key executives. They have a platform that is over 60 years old, over 22,000 members worldwide, and they help their members. They help them with three things, helping them be better leaders make better decisions and getting better results. Jess Coburn  02:17Okay, so Vistage is really there to help any business or Can anyone try and how does that work? What give me a little more about Vistage. For those that don't know?  Georganne Goldblum  02:26Well, there are size parameters, and it's primarily for businesses that have at least 20 employees. Well, this ditch has, has really three elements. The first is a pure advisory group, which allows CEOs and the key executives to have their peers who can hear their challenges can hear their opportunities, and ask the right questions and can approach it from different perspectives. So that there are multiple solutions, not just one and allows that CEO to work on their business, not just in their business. It also we have one of the most amazing reset of exceptional resources. We bring in speakers. We obviously during times like this, we can stream in speakers. And through Vistage International. We have webinars and podcasts and white papers and the ability to really Select and Refine that information so we don't overwhelm the members but give them what they need in whenever they're looking for it to be able to make those better decisions. And finally, the last piece of it is coaching. And we do that one on one. once a quarter. We do it as a triad three members and myself meet and allows the members to get to know each other better, deeper, and to help each other in managing making decisions for their business. Yeah, this has been fantastic for me, Georgia, as you mentioned, I've been in it for well over 10 years now. And I joined right after the first recession. So the businesses that I got to interact with her really coming out of having to make those hard decisions and everything, what lessons could we learn from what the businesses did during that recession? And what we're faced today realizing that I realized this is a crisis now or pentatonic, but a lot of people feel that it's going to lead to a downturn in the economy, what what can we learn from that? So it was interesting, back in 2007, we got when that a recession would be coming. And we started planning them and I had all of my members Look at their business and say if we go down 20%, what am I going to do? What do I have to do for expenses? What do I have to do for labor? What do I have to do for vendors, they had a detailed plan laid out, they looked at key indicators that rolling 12 trends to realize when they may need to make decisions. They did it for 20%. They did it for 40%. Maybe some did it beyond that. And they use them. Almost every one of them had to use those plans during the recession. And that during the recession is when I started your group, because I looked around and I said the economy is going to be continue to be volatile and the world is going to be volatile, and that CEOs need a place to go with their peers more than ever, and so that's why I started That second group I we started in six weeks, we had 12 members and now we're up to 21. So it's been a valuable place. And we've had a used we call them def DEF CON plans, I come up with the name that the members dead from the military, and they have updated them and continually have them at the beginning of last year. You'll remember I asked everybody to do these DEF CON plans in case we had another recession and to be ready, and most of the members have done that. And there they have them. And the key to it is you're making tough decisions before you're emotionally involved in have to do that or you're emotionally stable. And then when you have to make these you're ready, you just execute. And it doesn't make it easy, but it makes it easier. Jess Coburn  07:01And that would be the advice for anyone today that doesn't have her DEF CON plan is to start planning now. Absolutely. I mean, I would start with the very first premise and I was speaking to one of my members yesterday who's been with me for all 18 years, Dred Scott would say, he was the owner of a switch Florida and he passed away. But his saying is cash is king cash is cash. You need to know what your cash position is going to be for 90 days from now. And you run various scenarios with different accounts receivable wells, different accounts payable levels, you rate you run different templates, and make sure where you're going to be because we can't count on whether we're going to get that government money in time. And you want to make sure you're in this for the long term that your business is going to stand up.  That's great feedback. Great advice. You know, one of the things I really enjoyed About this session that you touched on was that we get to meet as a group, you meet a group of CEOs from different industries that have varied backgrounds, and it's really enjoyable. Now, the pandemic has put a hold on that. But you were quick to act on that and make changes for us. Can you talk a little about that and what we're doing there? Georganne Goldblum  08:20Sure I become a digital star. Every day, I get ready for the my photo shoot. And we've been using zoom and we also some of my members uses US team because they're Microsoft. But we began early. The most important thing for my members and for my groups is communication. And to be able to talk with each other to be able to talk with their people, and it's constant and it's educational, informative and up the booklet Because you guys are the leaders. And so I and I always hope that I'm a role model for my members. And so I jumped on zoom we started to do instead of, because we only have a once a month meeting, we started having weekly meetings with everybody on board at a regular time so that we could talk through a day It seems like a month because things are changing so quickly here. And I'm also there, they're communicating through emails and sending information to people so that everybody is up to speed. I cross pollinate information across the groups so everybody hears this, which Florida has provided some webinars. We had one with Markham so that again, you're getting the best and most relevant information without overload because you don't want to overload it. everybody's busy, everybody's trying to execute. So it's a balance of those things, the one to ones we also do with zoom and teams, and also the triads. So we've been able to go virtual and we're living in a virtual world now. Jess Coburn  10:19So that was a great pivot that you made, though, where you took the group to those weekly meetings. Initially, I thought, oh my god, here we go. We're gonna have a weekly Vistage meeting. Come on, it's hard enough to find time for once once a month, right? How am I gonna find time for this? It's the same crybaby stuff everybody tips at every meeting. They come in, they go, Oh, my God, I can't believe I'm here. I'm so busy. I got so much going on. At the end, that's Oh my God, I wouldn't miss this for anything. I got so much probably. I really know how I'm gonna handle that issue that I was struggling with. But what's nice about the weekly meetings and what you're doing there is that the situation's changing so quickly. It's so fluid that to have that group there and to build you know, It's assist has been invaluable to me. And I'm sure it's a lot of them. Georganne Goldblum  11:05And I hear I hear from because we have a weekly meeting with all of the chairs in Florida and sharing what's happening in all their groups. And everybody is said having the community and having that infant curated information during this time has been priceless. Jess Coburn  11:26Yeah. And that's where I was going is that you're bringing that only what you're hearing from the two different groups but from all Florida through Vistage, and you're bringing it back and then Vistage was really fast to use their their community and their message boards and they stood up the Coronavirus network like that. I mean, it was so quick in the amount of information health that I've gotten from there, and then I've shared has been fantastic. So that's been really useful. The one thing I did want to talk about, it's something new. I don't think I even mentioned that to you is that, you know, we've been real busy. I've been real busy doing stuff like this right now. Most of my clients are in Cloud already things are good for them. It's gonna change eventually. And, you know, we're trying to keep them aware of that. But in the meantime, I want to share the knowledge. And so that's why I'm doing the cyber side chats and bringing you in, and a bunch of the trusted leaders and advisors that I use. But I realized that a lot of CEOs and business owners, they don't have that network. So that's I created a Facebook group called Florida or South Florida businesses helping each other. And it just thank you, in just a week, it's grown to over 100 plus members, and the amount of information it's going to share. There's been fantastic and I've been trying to filter some of that Vistage information off to these guys, too. Because it's important. We all need to help out right now, especially as business owners and business leaders, because we're what we have to lean on. Georganne Goldblum  12:51Right? It helps because we've been able to have a place not just for information, but what does somebody need what Somebody have where Can someone, some people were looking for manufacturing. And we were able to refer manufacturers who still have capacity to take on whatever work that that people are looking for, or where employees are laid off from hospitality where they can be used in a whole nother area that they're trying to hire. So yeah, they we've made all that available so people can connect and do that. So you're doing a great thing, Jess, Jess Coburn  13:29I appreciate it. Thank you. Where do you think CEOs and business owners in general are really struggling today or maybe not struggling? Because they've solved it? Where's the pain point that you're hearing right now? Georganne Goldblum 13:40Well, the greatest pain point is letting people go. I mean, no matter how you do it on paper, it's painful. What most of the companies have done first, I mean, other than if they know that they're going to be down they have to they've made that decision. But what they've done is they take salary cuts, and they took them big on the top and then progressively down. And, and there people have been thanking them. They're thanking them because they still have a job, but they thanking them because they, they're doing what's right for the business. As a CEO, your job is to increase and improve the value of the business no matter what you're faced with. And these CEOs are doing that. And it's tough. Those are tough choices are tough decisions. And the toughest that we all face is we don't know how long this is going to go on. If we knew how long it was going to go on, you'd make one set of decisions. You know, is this a sprint? Is this a marathon? Is it a month? Is it three months? Is it the rest of the year? Nobody knows. So that's what's challenging. And that's what's new. Nice to have other people who are in the same boat to talk to, to, to commiserate with and to pick their brains. And we're all smarter together. Jess Coburn  15:13Absolutely, absolutely. That collective brain is much smarter especially when it feeds off of each other. You know, I remember one of my very first party one of my very first speakers that we had what he said and it has resonated with me every single time and it's cut once cut deep because if you have to cut employees, you want to do it one time. If you sit through and you're chopping away at it constantly, you're going to lose your best employees because they're going to go Oh my God, my next my next and that's a really tough thing for any business owner is to cut an employee much less look at and go Okay, well I need to cut this percentage of my employees is the minimum I should cut but really to be healthy and keep the the tree alive and grown. I should trim back even further. And, you know, it's difficult But to do that, right and then to message to the rest of the team about that, Georganne Goldblum  16:08I found is really key. And that is key is to message humane lay humanly, with whatever you're you're talking about. You we need positivity, we need leadership. And these are some of the webinars. We're running right now for the CEOs, because messaging is everything. And we all you know, we've had some speakers on in telling stories and all time to be using all that because we have to connect, we're using video instead of real live face to face. So we have to you have better skills than we've ever had. Jess Coburn  16:50Yeah, that's important. You know that the CEO really sets the pulse of the company right and how he feels and shows up and comes into the office. The rest of the team season if you had a rough day and you come in open, sad or angry, the rest of the team sees that. And right now, if you're frantic and scared and worried, they're frantic conspirator ordered, Georganne Goldblum  17:11right? You owe your people to be calm in this in and also that you care from a genuine and authentic place. Jess Coburn  17:24So that's really important. So I think it's key you know, one of the things that I just greenlight it for my team and I hope that it's a good example for other CEOs is the hand sanitizer little bottles of hand sanitizer, some promotional product companies are still able to take orders, they're gonna be delayed by weeks, but I just had Natalie order a bunch of those just for our employees to give her employees so they can give them to whoever because we don't know how long it's going to be. I think the order is probably going to take a month to get here. I suspect it's still gonna be needed. And it's not so much about promoting the company. It's about helping the employees. Georganne Goldblum  18:07Right, and it'll probably never go away that we won't need peace coming forward. So that's a timeless? Jess Coburn  18:15I think so. Um, so, I know a lot of CEOs would see something like, I mean, a lot of America saw this talk going on and said, Oh, it's gonna pass, right? It's not really a big deal. This thing is, it's a hoax. It's not going to be here. It's just a fluke. That's not really the case. For those of us that are not taking action, you know, what should they be doing? I know we talked about we talked about what they're doing with their planning board about their business, they still need to grow their business. Georganne Goldblum  18:49Okay, I would say three things and and then I'll summit with one, which is conserve cash, no matter what they need to conserve. Serve cash to they need to look at the programs, the government programs and if they have not filed file for the PPP and the IP out or idea. And so they need to be aware of the programs and take advantage of them again, because they're going to need cash to continue through this. Now, there are some businesses that are flourishing, okay. So they should keep growing and take advantage of the opportunity to grow. I mean, it and telecom and attorneys, they're all doing well right now. I just heard of a yacht maintenance business, because these yacht owners are going on their boats, but they they want maintenance, so it's odd, but there's all there's different. There are businesses that are going to flourish in this. The other ones You're shut down, and you're not an essential business. You've got to be, you know, ready for the long haul and really know your numbers and be prepared for it. The other thing I would say is, you know, in terms of helping them, if you want to send anybody to meet Yes, I'd be glad to talk with them and ask the questions to understand where they are and see if I can't be of some help to them. During this, you know, I am, I've made myself available to my members, but to anybody, I'm available to talk and work through this. Jess Coburn  20:42Georgia for the last 10 years I've known you, you've always been that person you've always been willing to give to somebody like that and help anybody. So for all the people who help thank you for that, for anyone that needs help, or would want to get in touch with you, how would you contact you? Georganne Goldblum  20:55So my cell is 56135 07440 my email, I say I'll say but just unless you can put this up on it, they'll spell it wrong and it never works. I'll put partners LLC calm, but just just put the contact information on the on this and they get in touch with me, Jess Coburn  21:22Georgia this has been fantastic. Thank you for taking the time to contribute to the cyber side chats and for being a part of software businesses helping each other as well. Thank you so much. Thank you for everything you do for your Vistage members and for businesses in general. Georganne Goldblum  21:35Thank you. Appreciate it.

Today businesses across the globe are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and these first few episodes focus on what business leaders, owners, and CEOs can do to not just survive but thrive amid crisis. In this episode of Cyberside Chat, I sit down with Jamie Delsing, Managing Partner of Consultis IT and we discuss the importance of culture in business and how to continue to build your culture when going remote as well as how the staffing industry is preparing for our recovery. So sit back, relax and let's chat.

In this episode of cyberside chats, Jess is joined by Michelle Issing, CEO of designingevents.com. Today businesses across the globe are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, and these first few episodes focus on what business leaders, owners, and CEOs can do not just to survive but thrive amid crisis. In this episode of Cyberside Chat, we sit down with Michelle Issing, and we discuss how conferences and events are going virtual. Technology has come a long way from the early days of streaming talking heads and max headroom and it's a very exciting and viable alternative. So sit back, relax, and let's chat.

In this episode of cyberside chats, Michael Jacobson from mjacobson.com discusses the impact COVID-19 has had on the Life, Disability, and Long-term Care Insurance industry and how carriers and businesses are pivoting to adjust. Tune in to learn what impact COVID-19 may have on your coverage and if you're covered.

Robert Rounsavall from Trapezoid Security (trapezoid.com) joins Jess to talk about his experience of running a distributed cybersecurity company, managing a team and staying productive.

Shelby's Social Media Marketing Plan can be found at https://covid19.collab.social/optin1584473949028

Devin Burke from https://sleepscienceacademy.com joins Jess to discuss how to remain physically and mentally fit while working from home. Tune in to learn how to identify stress and what you can do to stay healthy when working from home.

Nathalie joins Jess to discuss the transition to being remote, managing a remote team as well as tips on staying secure and productive.

Carlos Garrido from https://www.absolute.sandler.com/ joins Jess to talk about what sales organizations should be doing today to continue to close opportunities, keep their funnel strong, and weather the storm.

Orin Rosenfeld from rosenfeldrealtyadvisors.com joins Jess for a #cybersidechat to discuss the impact COVID-19 is having on the commercial real estate market. Tune in to learn what's happening in the market and what options you may have with your own landlord. #commercialrealestate

Steven Breitbart, VP of Cypress Insurance Group, had a Cyber-side chat with Jess Coburn of Applied Innovations to discuss the impact COVID-19 is going to have related to business insurance. Tune in to learn what coverages you may have that will help protect your business.

Michael WIlls from toplinesolutions.org joins Jess Coburn of Applied Innovations to have a chat about B2B Sales Leadership and what business leaders, owners, and CEOs need to keep in mind as we navigate these troubling times.

Marc Waldeck of Brave New Markets joins Jess for a cyberside chat to discuss how B2B businesses can respond to COVID-19 and the Coronavirus by leveraging Digital Transformation.

Ed Lakos joins Jess Coburn of Applied Innovations to discuss how Applied Innovations made their transition from a classic office-based company to a work from home company