We have heard the word recession in 2019 more than we have over previous years. A recession is a retraction in the economy, and it is a normal part of the economic cycle. It’s common to worry about recessions because the most recent one was the longest in history lasting 18 months. Recessions typically don’t last as long. In this episode, we are joined by Jody Grunden to discuss the ins and outs of preparing your business for a recession. Listen to learn everything you need to know about getting your business through a recession.
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“You know that it’s going to happen, but it’s not possible to predict exactly when, so the key is to prepare for it.” - Jody Grunden
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Jamie Nau: Hello, everybody, and welcome to a special episode of this podcast. This episode, we're going to talk about a word that's been coming up a lot over the last year, both at speaking events and with our current clients and prospective clients. We've heard the word, recession, a lot more than we have over any previous years. So today we're going to dig in a little bit into how you can get your business ready for a recession, and the types of things you can do to prepare for that recession in case it does come. So I'm joined by Jody Grunden, who is not an economist, but he's going to play one today on today's podcast. So, Jody, you want to give us a little introduction to what a recession means, and if we should be worried about it?
Jody Grunden: Yeah, for sure. So basically a recession, again, it's that buzzword out there. It's the buzzword that everybody is afraid of. In some cases you really should be afraid of it. In most cases, you shouldn't be. So what a recession is, first of all its normal. It's part of the economic cycle, and it's when we start going through a contraction in the economy. So right now, like we're in the longest bear market that we've ever been in since they've been tracking it, and that's leaving the largest recession that we've ever been into. So we're going from the largest recession, to the largest bear market. So really, nobody knows when it's going to happen or how it's going to happen. But it's just simply, when things start going south, you know, when I say south, I mean, unemployment starts creeping up. Profit margins start getting weak in the company’s corporate profits. Inflation starts hitting. You know, all the different buzzwords that you might hear when the recession actually happens. Typically, a recession doesn't last very long. It's about eleven months on average. So it's nothing that is going to be an extended period of time. I think the last recession lasted about 18 months, to give you an idea, and that was the longest ever. So when we talk about recession here, it's one of those things that we've got to really plan for a 11 to 12 month period of time, typically, and how we're going to deal with that 11 to 12 month period of time. You definitely known recession hits, for sure, you know, if you start laying people off, people get laid off, people are looking for jobs, credit's really hard to get, you know. So there's a lot of indicators when it hits. But the key, though, is just be well prepared going into recession, because that's going to really determine how your company really makes it through that short period of time.
Jamie Nau: I think that’s a great point. I think, you know, talking to people about recession, a lot of people think of the most recent one, which, like you said, is the longest in history. I think that’s why a lot of people are really worried about it because, you know, they're expecting the next recession to last just as long. And to your point, normally they don't last that long, and so it's kind of like, the last thing is what really sticks in your mind and I think a lot of people are thinking of that most recent recession and saying, oh, if that happens again how am I going to get through it? I think to your point that that's not necessarily going to be with this next recession looks like.
Jody Gruden: Yeah and keep in mind, you know, when you're kind of preparing for the recession, you know, a lot of times you're going to hear, and it depends on which news station you're on or which newspaper you're reading or magazine you're reading. There is always going to be a variety of forecasting, or predictions. If you look at Bloomberg today, versus Bloomberg yesterday, versus a month ago, you'll see that their chances have increased, or decreased significantly. The same thing goes with every Forbes magazine, you name it. They're all going to be relatively there, but they're still guessing. They really don't know. there is no one indicator that's going to tell, you know, hey, here's when the recession is going to happen for sure. If there were then it'd be very easy to predict recessions, and they are not easy to predict. So it's one of those things that you don't know when it's going to happen. You do know it will happen because it's a normal part of the economic cycle. It's going to happen. You just don't know when it's going to happen. So it’s really important to really take some steps in advance of recession, to prepare yourself so that when it does hit it's not going to hit your business. You know, you may take a setback, but it's not going to be a huge setback.
Jamie Nau: Yeah, I think the number one predictor people use, and I think this is why you're hearing this word so much is, how long has it been since the last recession? So the further away we get from that recession, the more people are going to talk about it because to your point, it's going to happen. We are not going to go a hundred years without a recession. That's just not how economics works. That's not how money works, and if we did honestly, that wouldn’t be a good thing either because then, what would happen with our currency? And there's a lot of other things that would happen if we were recession free for long periods of time, to Jody's point. It is a market adjustment and it is necessary. So with that said, I think what would happen during a recession, especially with digital agencies, and I think it depends who you work with and it depends on who your clients are, but what you'd probably see, and I think the biggest thing that agencies would feel, is a lot of the clients you would work with would be holding a little bit closer rein to their cash. So some of those companies right now that are spending a lot of money with you as a digital agency would start spending less. That obviously would hurt your revenue. and that would trickle down to you. So any other things that a company would experience during the recession that might lower their revenue? Other than just other companies spending less money because they're concerned.
Jody Grunden: Oh, for sure. I mean, they may spend less money. We also may have default on some of those receivables that you already worked for. You know, you're expecting that payment to come in on the 20th of this month, it may not come in for two months later just because the cash flow is tight, or it may not come in at all. So there's a lot of different scenarios you have to play out when you're looking at a potential recession type thing. But the biggest thing is just access to cash. Then the other thing is that, access to cash, you know, if you go to the bank because you want to expand, or go to the bank for a line of credit during a recession, it's really difficult to get it at that point because banks aren't willing to lend out because of the uncertainty of the market uncertainty, the economy uncertainty. So I'd say banks are a big thing. I would say your clients, you know, you may not have as many clients, you may have more in frequency and then renewing contracts, and you may have a delay in payment. So there's a lot of different things that's going to really, or could affect your cash flow. That's the biggest thing for sure.
Jamie Nau: Yeah, definitely. So we're going to kind of go through some tips here. But I think the key part of this is the tips we're giving are the same things that your clients are thinking. So that's going to obviously affect you as well. So I think that's why these tips are so important to know ahead of time, and again, whenever this recession hits, the more planning you have and the further ahead of it the better you're going to be. One thing I want to throw out there real quick is, this is a preview for a presentation that Jody is doing at an event in February. February 6 – 7, in New Orleans for the, Bureau of Digital, at their owner summit. So if you're a follower of the Bureau of Digital, if you plan to go to the summit, Jody will be expanding upon this more at that event. So this is just a preview for you, but you'll get a lot more details of that presentation if you're going to be there.
Jamie Nau: So Jody, let's dive in a little bit, so what should I do if I think the recession is coming? What are some steps that I can take? What's the thing I should start thinking about?
Jody Grunden: So basically there's a lot of choices that we make, choices we make now, that we make during, and then of course, we make after. So it's how you handle those decisions that is going to determine how your company actually weathers this type of storm. The first thing is, don't panic. You don't want to panic in a recession. Panicking causes bad decision making. So panicking is not even in the realm of discussion here. So don't panic. Know that this is a normal thing. So if you're rehearsed, if you understand what's going to go on, if you're saying it can't happen, then when it does happen, you shouldn't be in a panic mode. So kind of mentally brace yourself for that. The next thing is, you know, you want to start planning now. I would be pretty certain, again, I am not an economist, but I'm pretty confident that the recession is not going to happen in 2020. We're in such a great economic growth that unemployment is at an all-time low, revenue is up, especially in the digital marketing creative agencies. There's not many agencies that I'm seeing that are declining in their in their growth. Most of them are going up, increasing growth. So I see this as being a very solid year for creative agencies, especially heavy emphasis on marketing for all these large enterprise companies. It should be a pretty solid year. So this is the perfect year to start [planning] now. Don't hesitate. Don't wait. So the choice should be, hey, when am I going to make that choice to start thinking about,, or planning for this recession? If you do it when the recession is happening, that's the wrong decision. Do it when the recession is not happening, where you have an ability to actually build cash. Starting now is really, really, really important. When I say starting now it means you really need to get a good grip on your finances. You know, cash is the biggest tool you've got. You know, leveraging cash, you've got many different situations with cash. We always tell everybody, you want to at least have 10 percent of you annual revenue in cash at all times. Meaning that if you're a six million dollar firm, you to have at least six hundred thousand dollars sitting the bank, in cash outside of what you've got set aside for taxes. So what that means is, if you're thinking that a recession is going to happen, that it's going to happen in your future, maybe instead of, 6, or 10 percent, maybe we start building cash up to 15 percent. You know, if you think it through, 10 percent of your annualized revenue equates to about two months’ worth of expenses. So 30 percent is going to be about six months, somewhere in between there. If you're looking at 20 percent, you're going to probably look at three months. So you can kind of get an idea of how much you're planning for. Keep in mind we are only planning for an eleven month setback. So you're looking for, hey, how can I protect myself? So the biggest thing is having cash. The more that you have in the bank, that's sitting aside for you to make decisions with, that's going to really help in that panic stage—because it’s real easy to panic when you have no money in the bank and your biggest client leaves. Understand completely. Wouldn't hold that grudge against them at all. But if your biggest client leaves, and you've got six months of cash in the bank, it's not as big of a deal. Yeah, it's a big deal, but it's not as big of a deal. You're not going to go out of business tomorrow based on that. So I'd say cash is probably the biggest thing, the biggest first step to take there.
Jamie Nau: I think the big thing with this is that it helps you buy time, especially when that big client does go away, and you don't have cash in the bank, you have to start replacing that client right away, or replacing people. Whereas if you're at 20 percent of cash reserves, you could wait a month or two to find that second big client to come in and replace that revenue and not really have to let people go. I think that's really what it does. It buys you that time to react to these bad things that might happen, and you can really be ahead of them instead of trailing on them and having to make rash decisions.
Jody Grunden: Yeah, for sure. A perfect example was, and I kind of like to relate a lot of things back to what we've actually seen happen. So going back to where we brought a company, a creative agency a long time ago, because the recession could happen really any time and you don't know. But with this company, they weren't going through a recession, but they're going through recession like instincts or symptoms, I guess. And with that, you know, they had a lot of debt. You know, they had no cash reserve at all if they’ve got a on line of credit and with that, really vision going forward. So when you're looking into that scenario, you're looking into a company where one small mistake, is a huge mistake. And it could be an internal mistake, it could be internal issue happening that could really put a company out of business, or it could be an external thing like a recession hits that type of a company. You know, they're going to be in really bad shape. So the idea is that everybody's been in the position before. They're on a line of credit, or they've really made some bad choices. Maybe they're bad choices are instead of building cash, or taking the money out of the company and buying a building, or doing something outside of the company that, you know, maybe is that cash is not going to be available. You can always pull the money out of your company if you're willing to put it back in. So you take it out and put it in some investments, liquid investments, or you can get it back in. Cool with that, for sure, but when they take it out, you know, they're at the day spa seems like every day, or every week or whatever, and you just kind of are not really being a big steward of their own company, that’s really a bad decision. So that's again, that choice that this company is making, and this is a true situation. This company is completely, day by day, potentially out of business. You don't want to be that company. So the biggest thing that we're going to tell a company is, hey, build cash. Maybe it's the profit margin that’s not the best. Profit margins are a key to building cash. So if looking at it, it's really easy for me to say, Bill cash, and then a company look at it and say, I've been trying to build cash for the last 10 years and can't do it. Well, there's something wrong there in your business model. So you've got to kind of look inward and see, hey, is my profit margin, you know, 15, 20, 25 percent like everybody else's profit margins? Or is it 5 percent here. Maybe it's negative the next year. Maybe it doesn't even get close to 10 percent. If you're that company, well, then it's really difficult for you to build cash, you know, plain and simple. So that company is going to have to really dig deep in, and they're going to have to figure out how to how to fix the ship. How to get it going in the right direction. Whereas if you're the company, like we've got several companies that have got a lot of cash in the bank, their profit margins, 20 -25 percent when they're going into recession, they're not worrying as much. You know, they're worrying that it's there. But the funny thing about it is they're going to get the clients that my first client I'm telling you about is going to give up, because they're going to go out of business. So they're going to get all these other clients because they are taking the clients that, you know, the people that couldn’t weather that storm. And they're going to get them at a premium because they're going to come in with needing last second fixes that that their clients would be willing to pay more money for and so forth. So be that second client that you're looking at, the second one that's well prepared, you know, that has the cash in the bank and that decided, you know what? Economy's great. I'm going to go get a line of credit, and I'm going to increase that line of credit as much as I can. Not that I'm going to use it, but it's there. So if you think about it, if you have a line of credit equaling your cash reserve, meaning 10 to 15 percent, or 20 percent of your sales, if you have the exact same amount available in your line of credit well, jeez. You just simply took two, to maybe six months’ worth of safety, and made it 4 to a year’s worth of safety. And guess what? You know, the recession typically lasts only eleven months, like I mentioned before. And so you've just basically created a safety net for your entire team within that period of time just by building cash. Like I said, now's the perfect time when the economy is going as well as it is. Fix the net income issues. If you're net income is low, fix it is there's a problem there. Don't just get by. We see that way too often. You know, there's no pain, no change. Well, create pain because the pain's coming up. It's going to come for sure, whether it's a year from now, year and a half, two years. It's going to come. It's important for you to be ready when it does come, because, again, those are the choices you're making. Do I start now making that choice? Or do I wait until later when it may be too late.
Jamie Nau: And I think that the steps you can take right now. So this podcast ends. You turn it off. You're excitedly waiting for a new podcast to come out, but in the meantime, what you can do, is you can go in first like Jody said, the first thing you could do is you can call your banker today and say, hey, let's increase my line of credit. That's a really easy step you could do. But that second step, and we have a whole podcast on forecasting, but it's that forecast. So right now I have twenty five thousand dollars in the bank. What do I need to do to turn that twenty five thousand dollars into, four hundred thousand dollars, six months from now? What does my profit need to look like? How quick do I need to collect my AR? that all goes through the forecast. So to Jody's point, that's the actions you're taking as you're thinking through it, and playing with the forecast to get to those numbers. And again, if you miss one month, and you have to go back and say, oh, we didn't hit the revenue we thought this month, so you play the forecast out again, because the only way to achieve the cash balance you want is to plan for it, to write it down and then take actions to do that. So I think that's the action steps there. Again, why not call your banker, and to make sure you put that forecast in place that shows you getting cash at the point you want to. So I think that's the two action steps.
Jody Grunden: Yeah, for sure. And when you do create that forecast, make sure it's dynamic. Make sure it's something that you can do scenario planning with. Don't make it so static that it's just there and it's like a budget again. You know, back when we talked about a budget a few episodes back, don't make a budget. Make it dynamic. Make sure that you can actually see your cash balance going up and down based on that. So you can say, hey, based on my month by month forecast I know I would hit that cash reserve in June, or in July, or whenever, based on what I've got in the pipeline, based when I go out on my team or I'm billed for. That's really important. But then, you know, go and look at it and say, okay, now that I've got this thing put in place, you know, where are my inefficiencies? You know, where can I fix issues? Because a lot of times it's so obvious when you plan it out. Like why didn't I think of this? Or why didn’t I do this before. I could have saved a lot money before had I done this. And one thing is just simply tightening your AR timeline. What I mean by that is, you know, you might look at it, the industry itself is around 40 - 41 days. That’s what we are see in industry right now. That means once you invoice the client, it takes about 40 - 41 days for them to actually pay. So that's the typical AR that we're seeing. So maybe you're AR is 50. It's amazing what nine days will do to your cash position without even creating a sale. Or if it's, you know, 35. Maybe you're the person that I don't want to be the norm. I want this to be closer to 30. You know, figure out how can I make it even tighter. Maybe it's negotiation, you know, making sure that your terms are all set. Or maybe it's just simply doing everything that you could possibly do. Like we mentioned in the cash flow podcast, get that tighter, get that closer to where it needs to be so that you're not the bank. Because, again, the more that you're the bank for the client, the harder it is for you to actually be profitable, and actually to utilize that cash that you need. And so I would say tightening AR is probably, I think, the first place I would go. Would you not agree on that, Jamie?
Jamie Nau: I definitely agree. I would look at my AR collections and make sure that I'm getting that cash as quickly as possible. Because to Jody's point earlier, like, if you do go through a recession, you know, you've already established those procedures. You already established those processes that are already in place in times of people wanting to pay you slower. They're like, oh, I'm not going to pay agency X, Y, Z slow because I know that they're going to be reaching out to me and asking for this and they're going to stop work, and I can't afford to do that. So that's a number one efficiency I'd look at. But in addition to that, I think the other area to look is in your processes and your operations. Look at those inefficiencies. I know if you're experiencing 10 to 15 percent write downs, then you have to look at your processes and say, why are we doing that? Because 10 to 15 percent write downs might equal a whole person. It might mean that you have one whole person working that you don't need. If you're in the middle of a recession, if you already have those efficiencies cleaned up, then you're a little leaner than you might be. I know here at Summit that's been our emphasis for the last six, seven, eight months. Every inefficiency we have, we've been working on cleaning it up just because we want to get those cleaned up and ready in case there is a recession. And, you know, a great example for us is we're automating our financial statements. We have a full person every month working on financial statements. If we get those automated, and have those be where the point is just a click of a button, that means we're a lot leaner than we were in the past. So we're ready in case the recession does come, that we've already cleaned up a lot of efficiencies that we're there. It's really hard to clean those during a recession when there's so much pressure on people. People are already stressed out about their jobs and the work they're doing, it's really a hard time to start cleaning up those inefficient processes.
Jody Grunden: And the other thing I would say is that, you know, outside of processes, which Jamie hit right on the nose, that's the really one of the number one things you want to do outside of cash. Once you get the cash figured out, processes are more than likely why your net income is not where you want it to be. It's one of those things that, you know, you're leaking something out that shouldn't be leaking. You've got one or two people that you really don't need. You think you need it because you're busier than heck and everybody's really busy, but maybe you should have a tool doing something that somebody else is doing, or maybe three people are doing. Or maybe the processes are so stale where there's a lot of redundancy there that you don't need. So just kind of sitting back and really diving in to your processes, I think like Jamie is saying, you know, it can increase your net income significantly. Not even by creating an additional client, or having an additional sale. And guess what? Your net income is going to go to pay debt off. It's going to go to build cash. That's kind of the key there. Pay your debt down, pay that off when you're going into recession. No debt, build cash, get that cash reserve huge. And I would say outside of the processes and getting the work done, I would say another thing would be, is to really look at your sales cycle and see how you can actually fine tune that. And Jamie, you're big on this. Can you give us some examples of what I mean by that?
Jody Grunden: Yeah. So, you know, we talked about sales cycle in our pipeline podcast, and we've talked a lot about, you know, the faster you can close deals, the better you're going to be. So I think the couple of things there is, is, you know, we talk about response time, and that's what the number one things is. You know, when someone's reaching out to you for a potential sale, that's the time where you really need to impress the organization. So if they give you that initial email, it takes you a week to respond and then takes over two weeks to set up the meeting, and then it takes you know, by the time you actually know what you're doing, it takes you a month to build a presentation of what you're going to do, by that time, you've already shown them that you're an inefficient organization, and you showed that, you're not that interested in their work because it's six weeks later and you're still working on getting something in front of the. So I think having a process there where how quickly you're going to respond, you know who's going to respond, you know what they're going to respond with, and you have a very efficient process to get those meetings set up and keep the ball rolling. So I think that's one of the number one things I see for close times. What is your process around incoming calls? Because that's really where you can be key. In addition to that is, who you work with. You know, if you're always trying to find new clients and new big fish, that's always going to have a very slow sales time. If I’m reaching out blindly to IBM being like, hey, do you have any projects we can do? First off, you're not going have a very high win percentage, and IBM is just meeting you. So I think that makes it pretty difficult. So the other thing is, is reach out to your current clients, figure out what their processes is, and if there are things that they're missing. Is there a project out there that you're completely capable of doing, that they're planning on doing next, and get in front of them. They already have experience working with you. They know that you do a good job. And those processes usually close about half as quickly as going out and finding blind leads. So Those are really two tips I can give around the pipeline.
Jody Grunden: I'd say once you kind of identified things, you have built up that forecast. You know, really a dynamic forecast, where you can see your cash going up and down based on maybe different levers you're pushing there. I would play out scenario after scenario. I would say hey, you know, one of the big scenarios is if we lose our biggest client. So kind of getting your leadership team together and playing that out. What would we do if we lost our biggest client that maybe is a third of our business or, hopefully not that high. Maybe it's twenty five percent, 10 percent. Our biggest client leaves us today. You know, what are we going to do? You know, is there going to be an immediate thing of letting people go. You know, some knee jerk reaction, because obviously if we lose our biggest client we are going to have all of these people out there with nothing to do. Are we going to gradually look at things, kind of test the waters out, dip into our cash reserve, and how much of that cash reserve are we will to eat up? You know like Jamie was saying, it’s that safety net. So if we have six months of cash reserve, and we are willing to get it down to really have maybe, four months before we pull the trigger? Or three month? what are we going to do? Plan that out right now so you know hey, when that does happen, we were there. We made that decision at another time. Losing a big client is more likely going to happen during a recession. You know, you're going to lose somebody you're not really expecting. So I'd say that's probably one of your biggest things. Decreasing sales would be the other thing. You know, hey, the biggest thing I see here, and lifetime thing, you know, we had I'd say a 70 million dollar client. You know, they lost one of their big clients and all of a sudden they've got these four real gigantic clients that want to come aboard. And so they're keeping their people on. They've got this small window. They get six months of cash actually sitting in the bank. They're eating away at it. And reason after reason, these gigantic clients, one of them falls away, one decides hey, we're going to put it on pause. The other two are still there. Now, what's our decision making going to be? And then when they're supposed to start in let's say it's November 1st, this is October so we are a month away from starting, and then they get the pause button again. We're not going to be ready until December. And so, like, OK. December comes around they are not going to be ready until January. And you've heard that scenario before, I'm sure. And it continues to happen. So at what point you say, hey, will I have enough people to actually run that new job if we ever get it? Or do I use my cash? So it's important to kind of think through that scenario before it even happens. It's going to happen at some point. And maybe you've already had it happen to you at some point, too. So it's kind of like bring that back in the mind and think hey, if this happens, here's how far we're going to extend out before we have to start making those tough decisions. We talked about increasing sales cycle. One thing we didn’t talk about that really stinks. You're heavy into a project. I mean, it's a big project, you know, a quarter of your business, whatever, and they pause it. Now what? Do we keep going on? What does the contract say? If a project is on pause what do we do with those people? Do we roll them off to another project? Is that going to work? What do we do? And so that's a huge scenario that we have got to figure out.
Jamie Nau: One more scenario I think about, too, is what about your average bill? So if you're used to getting 175 dollars an hour, and you've built your forecast, 175 dollars an hour is bringing you a 25 percent net income. Awesome. What happens if I just change that one number for 11 months down to 125? I'm still getting work. I'm still able to find clients. I'm just having to give them a cheaper price. What does that do to my net income? Am I still going to get by? Is it still worth having the same type of team? Do I need to be a little thinner or is it enough to give me 10 percent profit, which isn't ideal, but at least I'll still be bringing in money. And so I think that's the other scenario I think you really should play out. Just change that one number and see what happens.
Jody Grunden: I would add to keep in mind, that a recession typically only lasts 11 months. So if your client is a client that's not going to be here for more than a year, that discounts not a big deal. But if you're going to give that client, that's going to be with you for year, after year ,after year, then it's going be hard giving that discount. Right? Because when you get out of a recession you’re going to be like, okay, now what do I do? Do I increase their prices? They're not going to want the price increase. They're not going to say, well, just because we are out of a recession now, let's bump prices back up. That will not be in their game plan for sure.
Jamie Nau: There’s no recession coupon, right?
Both: Laughing [in audible]
Jody Grunden: Just be real careful because you don't want to lower your price necessarily on long term clients, because that could be a long term effect to your bottom line, not just the short term effect, which is what hopefully a recession has. But for those clients that, you know, are going to be short term, maybe you do offer them a little bit of a discount to get your team utilized more. Again, you looking at that effective rate anyways, right? So you want them highly utilized, which you can afford a lower rate, if they're low utilized than you have to go the higher rate. So it's one of those things you've got to kind of play with a little bit. But heck yeah, if you've got a little place to fill, and you can give that away, and can do it at lower costs for a short period time, all for it. 100 percent. Great strategy.
Jamie Nau: I think the key you mentioned there Jody, is you're really doing two different types of scenarios. One, you're building scenarios to make sure you have enough cash in the bank and then you're building scenarios where you have enough cash in the bank, what are you going to do if a recession happens? And I think that planning part of it just adds a ton of comfort. I've been in conversations where, you know, you've had A, B and C planned out in the future and then C happens. It's a much easier conversation because you've already talked about it. The leadership team's all on board. And you know, the next steps are taken. It's just easier to take those steps when you plan for it. So I think that's great. Real quick, we're getting close on time here, but I want to throw an email address out there. So we love suggestions from our listeners. We want to get the topics that you guys want to hear. So. Always feel free to email us at the vcfo@summitcpa.net. Again, if you have any questions that you want us to talk about, or if you want to be a guest, we're looking to get some guests outside of the Summit network here. Feel free to email us: vcfo@summitcpa.net. So feel free to reach out to that.
Jamie Nau: So, Jody, we're running close on time here. Any final thoughts on the recession that we want our listeners to be aware of?
Jody Grunden: Yeah, I've said it many times, recessions are short term, it's going to happen. It's part of the economic cycle. It's nothing to be afraid of, but it's something that you should plan for. So, again, a well-run company, you know, should not be impacted, or should be impacted very slightly by a recession. You know, build enough cash, build enough line of credit, pay that debt off, get yourself into that thing. And it all comes down to attitude, right? You got to have the right attitude to do all of this. You've got to say, hey, it's time for me to, you know, maybe take less distributions, or less salary or less whatever, cut back on some expenses so that you can build up that cash. Really important. You have to have a strong passion for it, and be completely focused before, and then during. Your teams will be looking up to you as a leader during a recession. It is important for them to have a clear vision on what your vision is, first of all, and know that you're focused on making sure what’s going. A recession can really kill culture. You know, decisions you make inside your company during this time really tell you the type of leader that you are, and the culture is really, really important. So if you have a strong culture going into a recession there's no reason you should not have a strong culture leaving a recession, because it all comes down to you and the choices that you make. So I would say to not be afraid of it. Go out and expect that's going to happen, plan for it to happen. And then when it's here, we'll see what kind of leader you actually are.
Jamie Nau: Awesome. I definitely appreciate the time today. Jody and I will be down in New Orleans with in February and hopefully some of our listeners are as well. And if you are, mention this podcast. Thanks.