Marketing in the Coronavirus Pandemic

 Hey guys, a special edition of the Radical Company podcast. Robbie Fitzwater and I
 talk about marketing amongst the virus and pandemic going on. What should
 businesses and brands be thinking about? How much should they be spinning? What
 are some tactics that they might should be considering? Do you go hard, go heavy
 or do you hide away? Well, I can tell you it's not hiding. That and more on the
 latest episode of the Radical Company podcast. Hey guys, it's Ryan
 Alfred. Welcome to a, I'll call it a special edition of the Radical Company
 podcast. A little bit of a light or a heavier topic, excuse me. You know, with
 things that are going on, I'm joined by my good friend and marketing strategist
 Robbie Fitzwater. It's good to be here. We're in the very sterilized room with
 light salt microphones and trying to get our feet of social distance. Trying to
 keep things safe and consistent. We were thinking about doing this over a phone
 but I sound horrible over a commercial microphone. This is true. When we do have
 a good bit of, we've got social distancing going on here at the office.
 There's a we're in 5,000 square feet with five people and everyone's in a
 different quadrant. So I think we're safer than just about anywhere other than
 maybe like a bathroom at your house alone, you know, but even then that brings
 us on challenges in play. So hold every kind of danger there. Exactly. But you
 know, we wanted to get together. I mean, it's it's an important time. I mean,
 there's a lot of stuff happening and we don't, you know, Robbie, we aren't
 coming from some place of judgment critique or have all the answers. Look,
 this has never happened. We're in a time with the coronavirus that some precedent.
 But I do think as marketing leaders as guys with points of view and working
 with a lot of businesses big, small and indifferent that, you know, they want
 to hear, you know, what, how should we be thinking about things? What are some
 points of view on marketing and messaging? And I think it's important that, you
 know, we give an opinion and we state some recommendations. But, you know,
 I think it's a time for opportunity while also recognizing the sentiment,
 the tone and the reality of what's going on. Yeah. And I couldn't agree more.
 This is, I mean, it's, there really is no, like you said, no
 presence for this in any current state of affairs. Like again, kind of the
 largest pandemic we've seen stateside is like 18, 18 and marketing was
 definitely a very different space at that time. Very different. And right now it's
 kind of that, that kind of like gray area where everybody's trying to kind of
 understand exactly what's going to happen, what it's going to look like and kind
 of trying to look forward to what their life is going to be like in two weeks and
 four weeks and six weeks. And maybe like however long this, this kind of
 piece goes on for. And right now we're just kind of starting into the early phases
 of that. And you see grocery stores just completely wiped out. If you're trying to
 get bread, you're going to be waiting a while. If you're trying to do a lot of
 things, people are still going through that panic phase and having got into
 that kind of like, let's get into a rhythm, let's get into cruising and let's
 get, let's try and understand what our life's going to be like. So I think
 there's a lot of fear and a lot of kind of angst around it. And when those
 things happen, I think some of the things that have kind of come out of this
 already that we've seen, I've been kind of kind of cool. I think some people
 are using the technology around us to do really fascinating things like we'll
 see like on Instagram, people are live streaming yoga classes or live streaming
 workout classes just to be able to help people continue to kind of find some
 normalcy and try and try and get some energy out while they're
 cooped up inside. And you see people kind of taking kind of the platforms we
 have and doing some really cool things with them. And it allows people to kind of
 express themselves in a different way and also kind of reach out to a larger
 community that a people that are all in this together because it's not kind of
 a few people kind of in the in the corner kind of dealing with this. It's
 really everybody from a big small meeting large like and it's
 and it's impacting some people differently than it's impacting
 others but at the end of the day everybody wants to be safe and healthy.
 Yeah and I think that's the biggest thing is safe and healthy fur
 healthiness first but I think it's important and
 the innovation is happening you see that it's
 I don't want to you know shake any will I told you shows at anyone but
 the need for e-commerce the need for online channels of doing business
 the need and opportunity with you know buying a selling a car online like
 there's so many things and you're seeing people now okay see that
 what the opportunities were there for
 innovating the convenience of it and now it's not only convenience and
 necessity and so the yoga stuff is fascinating like next we have a yoga studio
 next door and I walked you know over there we shared
 restaurants and they were doing online you know version of the class in
 there you know they've already kind of pivoted to that and they said how
 it's an expensive and it's been awesome so people are embracing that and you
 know it's definitely bringing a sense of community
 back in some ways I think you realize how fragile certain things are
 but how connected we are it's it's like this all of this to me is like these
 interesting parallels and different things of you know you think everything so
 big but everything is so connected the interconnected interplay of all of
 these things from the technologies to the currencies to the just the day-to-day
 reliance on you know how many times have I heard supply chain this week and
 yeah if you're if you're working with just extra supply chain good on you
 that's it's not a fun place to I'm sure that's not a fun place to be right now
 and yeah like you said we're gonna see we're gonna feel some after after effects
 of this when like supply chains haven't been hit for us as hard as they kind of
 may maybe at some point stuff is still being able to be delivered here
 in some capacity but some of that may slow down and we don't kind of know what
 that's gonna look like and we saw that gray area in front of us but like you
 said the cool things that are happening are people really finding ways to
 connect with each other and and really kind of form community and kind of grow
 that community like um again yoga classes um there's art classes being taught
 by artists at in real-time that kids can kids can view during the day because
 they're out of school and they're they're trying to find ways to keep people
 entertained um musicians are doing live streams and concerts at any given
 time I think like cold play um one of my favorite bands that
 Decemberus was doing a live stream the other night that my wife and I watch
 for like 45 minutes and it's just ways that they can kind of get
 people are using their gifts to kind of give back to the
 society as a whole to try to make people feel a little more calm which is
 I mean at the end of the day they may not be intentionally doing marketing
 but they are doing marketing I mean they're growing a community they're
 building a passionate fan base and they're they're ideally trying to make
 fuels live better without asking for much in return
 but they're building relationships they're building fans and I think
 that's the key and I want to tee up a couple things for you but
 that very point is marketing is communication and right now
 for brands big and small that communication
 is building your brand for the future and so what do I mean by that?
 it's the steps that you're taking for your community it's the steps
 that you're taking for your workforce it's the things that you're doing
 and putting out there that are building a reference point for how you
 handled both the best and the worst of times and that is marketing
 you know for brands right now in a lot of ways and you see the ones that are
 you know and I'm gonna call out some some good players and some bad players
 here but you know you see the ones that are stepping to the forefront
 and then you see the ones that you know call out my boy Richard Branson
 virgin for you know telling everyone to go home for eight weeks
 you know unpaid and he's got twenty billion dollars in the bank you know
 or three billion whatever and look I'm not saying look I'm the capitalist I mean
 I believe in you know just give your money away necessarily but
 I don't know there's a certain things that are kind of like telling
 in moments of crisis and I think there's gonna there's gonna be
 uh commerce happening while this is going on and they're most certainly is on
 the other side of it and so I think you get to remember both the
 both the now and the then and and that's one thing that you make a good point
 of taking a long-term view of this because again this feels like
 dire I complete again I'm sure again people in 18 18 19 or
 19 19 thought this was going to be the end of the world there's gonna be
 nothing at the end of this but we are going to kind of come through this
 at some point in time and kind of what happens now is going to be kind of
 the most transparent version of what life is going to be like for them
 and when you're a brand you like people always say like what's
 act with transparency and this is really time where brands are really
 going to be focused to act with transparency because you kind of see where
 the they've got to put their money where their mouth is I mean
 you see people kind of like groups coming out of the woodwork saying hey we're
 closing our stores we're still going to keep
 funding our employees we're going to make sure they're comfortable and safe
 and from that perspective you if if you're looking for a commodity
 great you're gonna you're gonna buy a commodity it's not going to matter
 but if you're looking for a brand that you're going to do business with and
 have exchange commerce with for a long period of time those are the brands where
 you want to say hey what did they do in a really tough time because you
 wanted you want to know you're doing business with somebody you can trust
 and if you can build that relationship and build a level of trust
 you're going to have that for a longer period of time so right now I mean
 while it's making it invest while it's making a tough investment
 when I mean when everybody's having to tighten their belt I mean
 if even if even if you really have to do that it's
 in long term if you can afford it it's a smart decision because
 it's going to pay dividends in the long run and if you're executing your
 business in a way that's straightforward and transparent then you have
 nothing to worry about but if you're trying to hide stuff it's
 it's a time where people are going to people are going to start asking what
 asking questions and because so much of the economy is really shutting down at
 this point it's you don't you don't want to be putting people out on the
 street when you don't have to be and if you can take care of your employees
 and take care of your business then that's a much better place
 right now than it would be moving forward. So let's do a little
 I don't know if lightning rounds the right way but we can kind of yin and yang
 on this a bit so for business owners and maybe we'll say small business for
 now small to medium business that might be listening to this and thinking
 all right what should they do like maybe we'll you'll go one
 I'll go one we'll go to for tat here what do you do what from a marketing
 perspective you know what's kind of what's domino one for you
 if you're a brand manager a marketing manager or a business owner you know
 for how to handle this. So first thing I would think about is what
 you have you have your core customer base you have your core community
 how is their behavior changed changed from where it was normally
 to right now what are they thinking what are they feeling and what are they
 really searching for and if it's comfort and stability if it's
 some sense of some sense of dormancy understand how you can work to help
 provide that through the context of your brand. I understand hey I know my
 community is out is out doing other is kind of in-home huddled up how can I add
 value to them that is going to be in line with my business it's going to fit
 in line with what I would normally doing in marketing. Your marketing may
 change from a more promotional focus but you can still add value through
 content I again I'm always going to be the drum of content
 but you can add value in different ways so how can you add perspective of what
 you're what are the best what are the best movies in this certain vertical to
 watch or what are the best horse movies to watch if you're
 if you have a question business how do you how do you find different ways to
 kind of keep people engaged with things that they're already doing you know
 people are indoors they're kind of wishing they had access to the things they
 want to do outside but you don't always have the luxury so how do you kind of
 bring that to them and kind of bring the lifestyle along with it. There's
 also great ways that you could also kind of take this as an opportunity to
 kind of get to know your community better gets to know your customer base
 better and I mean trying again while I say like the the live yoga the live
 streaming I think it's a fascinating example of hey this is a person trying to
 build a relationship and ideally that's going to be a two-way dialogue so you
 can take that time to really focus on understanding and getting to know your
 customer base a lot better than you would in any kind of boom time when
 everybody's just going guns blazing so from that perspective getting to know
 your customers and kind of understanding their behavior but then with from a
 messaging standpoint how do you continue that drum beat of communication
 even though it's even though it's not always as easy because you can't you
 you've got a little a little more creative you can't say hey we're going to do a
 sale here ring do a sale here and if anybody has the coronavirus sale please
 like just if you have that brilliant idea please just stop
 stop right now because it's just it's horrible because they're you're we're
 probably going to see a lot of bad examples of that but like understanding how
 you can kind of like add value to your community hopefully
 brighten their day a little bit yeah and those are the things that
 marketers are going to do now they're going to hopefully kind of
 be a be a reason that people want to get involved in the long term
 and if you can partner a lot of people are hurting right now
 I've seen a lot of cool examples of people kind of partnering with an offer
 profit to help help people get the the things they need and to live a little
 bit better life if you can spend some time doing that right now when you're
 not spending time with other things then that's time well spent and that's
 kind of a good story you can tell about your brand and about kind of the
 mission of the organization yeah and my number one is
 first consider your opportunities for pivoting
 and so you're seeing that with restaurants that's the most obvious one with
 pivoting from in store dining to pick up and delivery you know they
 uh some of them maybe should have been there already
 but they're pivoting quickly to that another example um
 you know a company that I follow we've worked with indirectly a few time
 busy cosmetics they are they do lip balm
 mainly for cosmetic for women they also do some some of their stuff like
 dentists grade like lip balms and different things that are in the medical
 community but they've pivoted because they saw the shortage of
 hand sanitizer and so they're making hand sanitizer other factories now
 and so they made that pivot because they have the resources they have the
 facility that they can make anything cosmetic uh semi medical
 and they pivoted and you know I don't know what their sales are going to be
 but I saw their um some of their posts today and I was like this is brilliant
 this is the perfect pivot it's it's a it's a it's a segment that's selling out
 unnaturally because of the demand uh I think that'll change but they're
 filling a need in the market and they had products that kind of fit in there
 because they're doing it they're doing some of the more
 I think it's going to be more of a you know a cosmetic stuff but they're also
 doing a a a medical brand that can be used in hospitals and things like that
 they've reached out and said that's there they have the capacity obviously I
 don't they can't serve the entire country but they've made that pivot
 and so I think first if you're a business no matter what you are
 and what you do you need to be thinking and whiteboarding pivot opportunity
 natural opportunities for things that you already do but maybe a different
 way that you can serve it up yeah like like the the Henry Ford like I would
 build a like the you don't want to be the buggy what company when cars
 are becoming more more popular yeah you don't want to you don't want to be that
 guy that's in the it's things they're in the train industry when they're
 really in the transportation industry there those again kind of a really
 good example of that and during times of crisis in the
 United States like there's a presence for that like um what was it back in the
 day they made they hey maytag could you build tanks
 and maytag maytag suddenly goes and it builds tanks for all four two
 I mean those are things that ways to make a pivot to add a value to society
 and again the healthy the beauty industry especially too
 if people are spending more time inside you're not going out you're not getting dressed up
 so the value of cosmetics at that point is kind of kind of plummeting in some
 ways because maybe you you might get dressed up for a Skype call but you're not
 going to be it's getting dressed up like you would be on a on a daily basis
 yeah so I think like if you're a lounge product go for it like you have
 you have you have free reign to free reign to do well for yourself
 if you were sitting around all day like sweats and snuggies you're going to do
 hopefully maybe do maybe do well but um it's a good pivot and it's a good way to
 look at a business a little bit differently exactly
 next one Robbie what do you think as far as okay the natural
 inclination on budgeting and so there's obviously
 efficiency and budgeting properly is definitely needed
 so you know as an agency owner as marketers no one is saying that it's
 everything's the same nothing stays the same with what's going on right now
 but what's your perspective on you know growth versus hold on versus
 just the overall budgeting of marketing considerations
 so my normal perspective on budgeting because I always say let's take it
 like a 70 70 2010 approach 70% is your core business
 20% is kind of what you're doing that's that's on the what you're doing that's
 kind of moving towards a more innovative side of things but not completely
 and the 10% is kind of that experimental kind of moonshot it's going to be
 high risk high reward um where you're going to find kind of the big bang
 or really not much else businesses are going to kind of have to keep that that
 70% running as much as possible but that that innovative side you're
 making have to find that through different means
 so that that budget that you've been setting aside for innovation you're
 not going to be able to kind of experiment with that the same way you would
 be normally so you're going to be pushed pushed to run a little bit more
 on that on that aspect but from that perspective it kind of forces you to
 to try new things and experiment it from a different perspective in your
 business where you may be investing a lot of a lot in certain
 certain capacities you you may be forced to kind of
 try different things that maybe you kind of
 hacks for part of your business but you're probably going to find
 different innovative ways to use them and kind of that's where I think
 some of this innovation is going to happen it's like nobody writes great
 songs on a full stomach I mean all I mean everybody does
 you're going to hear better songs on an empty stomach when somebody's going
 when somebody has like has like things just things to sing about so
 I'm I'm of that perspective of like your budgets are going to be probably to
 cut back around like 25% I mean across the board that's probably
 going to be the the place that people kind of end on because a lot of the
 business a lot of their business depending on what it is is going to be cut
 so marketers are going to have to get more scrappy and get more lean
 it's going to be a place where they're not going to be able to kind of
 do the same things they've always done because that's the way they've done it
 they're going to have to really be assessed like what are we doing what's
 effective what's not and and where are we where we invest your time and resources
 because time is also part of your budget because
 people are wasting time and they're not doing anything yeah and my
 answer on the budget part is a lot of it has to do with
 your risk risk how risk averted are you versus those there's definitely
 risk involved as much as anything now I will say that
 you can't stop investing in your brand and so whether that's content development
 but or and the the way branded you know he's not I'm not talking about tv ads
 but the brand your communication strategy your PR strategies your
 your blog content back to some of the things that you said you I think you've
 got to stay true to that but I think now is the time for innovation and
 testing I am you know more than anything I've sent out
 emails to some of our clients and again I'm talking and I think we're both
 talking look if if you're going to restaurant you went from you know
 100 to zero overnight obviously there's some other considerations
 but when you still have demand for your products and there's still
 a natural buying cycle there for what you're selling I think that's what we're
 talking about here now is the time to consider innovative
 new approaches and what might that be well maybe you've
 you've fought the change to digital you know like you I mean you've you've
 forever run in print magazines but you know you've needed a better website all
 maybe you've relied on great imagery but now's the time to test some video
 strategies that you know use more of what gets engagement you know again all
 through the lens of the right message so it's the combination of testing new
 channels new things with whatever that redefined budget might be
 but now's the chance to to push it out maybe in a different way than you
 would have all through the lens of respect and understanding the mindset of
 the consumer so it's not well now we should just instead of doing a sale on TV
 we should do a sale through a display ad no you need to think about well how
 about we give 20% of all proceeds of this goes back to the travel and tourism
 industry you know sale or you know like how can we
 this needs to be about if you can break even for these next two to three months
 and be feeding back into the broader economy that's probably the way and I'm
 not I'm a catalyst I believe in all that but like you need to be thinking of ways
 with which you can deliver and keep your people working but deliver those
 messages those products and the services through the lens of the proper
 context yeah you don't want to be you don't want to be and even if you are
 doing really well if you're thriving during this time if you're the hand sanitizer
 business it's just doing toilet paper yeah yeah yeah toilet paper going through
 the roof but nobody's heard of a bidet come on but even them I'm going to jump in
 even the ones that are crushing it right now if you don't if you can look at
 this as an opportunity to be a peak or you can look at it as a way to
 increase the overall forever because think about it if I was
 Charmin right now like you know Charmin
 toilet paper I would be saying that we're giving back 80% like whatever it is
 think about the goodwill that they could build that then increases their sales
 forever over time instead of just being this one-time peak
 or how do you partner with different groups to try and give back and I think
 that's one of the things you ended on is like the partnership opportunities here
 really unique too is like how do you how to business this part to partner
 together to to make the pie bigger for everybody else right now it's not
 necessarily competition as much as it is kind of let's work together to all get
 through this if we can break even hey you can you can pick you back off off what
 we're doing here we can pick you back off what you're doing there and hopefully
 kind of keep keep the boat is stable for everyone else is possible the high tide
 or just if we can keep the low tide as low as possible for everyone all ships
 can rot can stay there because if you if all of your customers or all your
 beat-a-beat you know competition goes under guess what it's going to be a
 problem for you down the line and and so so from that from that logical
 perspective if we can do that how do we how do we think of what are some ways
 you think of that that businesses could achieve that right now with their messaging
 I yeah I think primarily it's again like you said listening to your
 customers and knowing what they're needing and feeling and then
 building your messages accordingly and thinking about what matters to them
 and so like in a green in a community like Greenville you know we know how bad
 you know travel and tourism and restaurant industries being hit
 I'll give an example I'll practice what I preach we you know we run a club called
 Greenville you know are entrepreneurs
 a group in community called Greenville Hustle GVL Hustle and we've been
 working this week on limited edition t-shirts and with all the proceeds we're
 going to do a big promo behind it we're going to be working with the the city
 and do it being bigger personally normally have with all proceeds going to that
 industry and so again that's because we're we're you know being an agency we're
 tied to the community and and tied to that industry and we're seeing the
 impact and so we're trying to again pivot an entity that we already had in a
 way that can impact the community in some way and I don't know whether that is
 when we did the math like we sell 50,000 t-shirts and they ten dollars a day that's
 fifty five hundred thousand dollars you know like that's nothing to sneeze
 at and so you know again through the lens of practice what you preach you
 know that's the way I think brands and companies need to be thinking you
 know is what's what's something we're already doing
 that could be have that kind of impact in a different way based on what's
 happening in the community yeah partnering and partnering and supporting
 and that that's what I mean during times like this people are looking for ways
 to do that and and not always necessarily right available for you
 and finding ways hey how can we how can we support a business it's kind of
 in line with what we do but not necessarily who we view as a direct
 competitor how do we like I think I think there's going to be some cool
 collaborations happening with brands partnering with each other say hey I've
 got an audience you've got an audience let's work together to find ways that
 we can kind of maybe maybe people like Jack Russell Terriers and
 something else and we we're going to combine combine efforts to try and
 engage that audience or hopefully add some value to their
 lives we're going to support this different group and this different capacity
 any any gift card bought from bought from this organization we're going to
 match half of it for ours so those are those are opportunities to kind of
 keep keep the wheels spinning for some of those businesses but it's a
 cool story you go to tell about your brand and your business and some
 capacity yeah I think the biggest thing you know if I'm giving council
 is for the leadership out there for the other it's time
 to step up and to it's not time to bury your heads look it is our job
 as leaders as owners of business to keep this economy moving
 and running and so I consider my job not you know to keep our agency moving
 and running and working the clients we have helping them innovate but I I
 don't look at it as well running a sale or taking advantage or how can you
 promote something that someone might go by look this is about consumers this is
 about business this is about needs that people have you know we're driven by
 an economy and it's our job to keep this economy moving
 and you keep that moving with the right messaging and the right marketing
 and the right principles but it's not time to just go up worlds over
 you know or like you know go bury our heads I mean and that's and that's one of
 things is like maintaining your consistent understanding what's going on
 how things are happening and how things are affecting you this is probably one
 of the times you can least afford to kind of set it forget it marketing like
 hey we got all of our campaign scheduled let's just let it go and let it fly
 because you're going to something bad is going to happen at the wrong time and
 you're going to become a crop as completely toned up which is you never
 want to be in that position but yeah you've got to keep keep abreast of
 what's happening but then try and really go out there and live it and try and
 create as much consistency as possible and if it is supporting the local
 businesses around you doing as much as that as you can like we all have
 great ways to support businesses that that we love and care about as individuals
 like share more share more celebrate more more people on Instagram stories on
 your own personal accounts and find ways to do that to kind of
 celebrate them in a little bit different way and hopefully drive some
 business in their direction and I mean hopefully everybody's making a
 little bit of a little bit of room if they if they have the capacity to go
 support local businesses is much as possible I mean make an effort to eat to
 take out food more than you normally would because you know those
 businesses are are on the razor's edge and hurting in a lot of
 capacities maybe maybe go buy gift cards from a store that you may not necessarily
 need something right now but give them a little bit of cash flow to get to
 keep things going and gift cards may not be the best example but
 doing something where you're trying to reinvest back in your community those
 dollars are going to be more those dollars are going to stay here
 yeah that shop local mindset is the there's never more opportune time for that
 exactly so maybe one last thought here Robby
 if is there a tactic you know we've talked
 pretty high level that I always like to try to boil it back down to the ground
 a little bit is there a tactic that you think maybe when I say
 tactic I mean a marketing channel marketing vehicle
 is there one tactic or another that you think
 now's the time to be hammering or appropriate you know we've talked about
 the filter of the message which is more important than probably any of it
 but is there a specific tactic that you would say hey try this or do this or
 this is something that you should be if you're not already rocking a roll
 and you should start I mean that's again look thinking about the behavior of
 everyone right now if everyone's cooped in right now there's spending time a
 lot of time on the couch there's spending a lot of time watching Netflix yeah
 that's that's what's going to be going on there's also going to be having
 it having their phone with them at any given time so they're looking for
 information they're looking for entertainment they're kind of looking for
 an escape so kind of all of those again unfortunately like spending more
 time I want to say there's a lot of information going on on social there's
 a lot of information about our email those are the two places I would
 actually my head naturally goes to first
 Instagram's gonna be the channel people are going to be spending a
 majority of their time on and focusing on right now
 and email something that's going to be consistently available and accessible
 finding a way to keep both those running right now and Instagram stories is
 probably the best and most most effective way to do that right now is because
 people are spending a lot of time there or
 Instagram live has actually been come a really viable channel right now
 I think that's been kind of where a lot of the
 a lot of the unique things have come from so far from what we've seen
 personally I probably don't spend as much time as TikTok as I should but
 that's where I've seen that's where I've seen a lot of the great things
 happening linked in while I want to always be the
 linked in drum I don't think this for people are going to be spending as much
 time right now just because they're focusing on kind of
 keeping their personal lives together and keeping that
 that focused I think of like that Maslow's hierarchy of needs like need for
 safe insecurity and safety like those are like you need for need for a new
 job or career opportunities like those are going to be those are a little bit
 higher up but farther down where you want to feel safe and secure so
 that's where I think people are going to be spending a little bit more time
 and again I'm always a fan of email I'm an absolutely
 love email and it's a it's like social channels you just don't have to fight
 and algorithm as much Google's still a little bit of beast but
 in finding ways you can entertain and engage through email and finding ways you
 could probably make those two play together well
 is my my suggestion yeah I knew you're going to nail email and that's why I
 love you and that's why I uh I had a different one
 here's my sorry mine was broad usually I grabbed I grabbed like all the good
 ones yeah it's all good I've got I've got diversity here in in my thinking
 here's number one digital is important right now
 it's it's been more important but it's more important than ever if you sell
 products and you don't have a proper e-commerce store like in place to
 deliver product that people need you need to be refining that
 strategy building a better e-commerce removing friction in that
 process you know look hey here's now it's the time to take advantage
 Amazon because Amazon's not going to be uh they're so overwhelmed with
 toilet paper and in hand sanitizer you're not going to be able to get that
 pair of jeans you needed or you've been putting off so direct a consumer
 if you can provide that frictionless experience it's it's there and I mean
 there's there's never a better time and it it goes into that like shopping
 local people want a human connection really bad right now
 and they're going to get that from Amazon but they can get that from you
 yep and there's that's an opportunity yeah so double down on your website
 and for all those businesses too thinking about people
 that that people are bored like all those things that have been on to do
 list that they've never they've wanted to get around to doing
 there's probably going to be things that they people have always wanted to
 learn how to do something people have always wanted to kind of
 learn how to tie a shirt I don't know um but those things people are
 going to have more time for those kind of activities during the day um so
 understand how your business can kind of if your business falls in line
 with that how can you help provide an escape for people yeah and I think so
 doubling down website experience improving that you're going to have more website
 traffic you're going to have let look the halo effect of this is going to be
 great like even when things go back to and i'm air quoting for anyone
 listening right now normal there's a new normal
 and that's going to be more digital interactions
 Robbie talked about it with the live streaming live capabilities but I'm
 thinking whether it's lawyers insurance other the the
 in whether you throw a conference every year the in-person
 interactivity is going to be less in-person for the
 neck for the foreseeable future if not ever and so
 everything anything that you need to be building as far as a strategy for if
 what you do relies on traditionally some level of person to person
 you need to be building out your strategies and your capabilities
 for
 digital connection and i mean no you couldn't be you couldn't be more
 spot on there too and you see like the life's the conference the
 conferencing programs are the what the collaborative web programs
 like just skyrocketing right now zoom web x zoom web x everybody's just
 going to town right now but those those kind of in-person physical
 physical relationships you're going to learn have to learn how to expand
 those into a digital space like again teaching i love teaching but
 hey my class is suddenly all online like i used to have in-person
 section and online section and you've got to learn how to do you've got to
 learn how to do the online section just as well as the in-person
 section and it pushes people towards that in that scale of
 innovation but right now suddenly you can scale this to
 everyone in the world and it gives those businesses that are
 willing to try it and willing to take a different approach a lot of power
 and doing that and i mean that's all that digital is is just
 expanding a physical in-person relationship to a digital space and
 connecting that in a long-term way yeah so i think that's where we're
 going to see some of the long-term impacts on the economy if like hey
 like people can work remotely it's not going to hurt your business and
 there probably going to be a lot more effective doing that because like
 Joe from accounting's not going to come be bugging somebody every 20 minutes
 or kind of trying to chat by the water cooler you don't have a lot of that
 time wasted but you have people who can be really focused
 doing things in a digital anywhere in the world
 so those are going to be some of the cool things that really you come from
 this like wait people can't really work remotely and it's going to be okay
 and those things that people have been wanting to try for a while but never
 been able to kind of give it a shot are going to
 are going to actually happen yeah caps your customers emails grow your email
 email database get sms slash text messaging capability
 that's going to be huge another one and look the group thing is going to
 explode it's already huge you got linked in groups got Facebook groups i'm
 going to give you a name it's called mighty networks
 it's an amazing platform for building community that's a freebie
 but that's a good one look them up they they have a really robust system
 one of the original starters of the technology
 of Facebook started this it's a great platform for building community
 and online networks they have a lot of integrations already in it so i'd
 encourage you to look at that if your business relies on that community or
 your coach or you're doing things give them a look those things probably can't
 be overlooked more than this too because i mean that's the time you can really
 focus on building and building and fostering that community and that's
 something that's a tent that's an asset you can bring with you and if you can
 build your own community i mean like i always say like content community content
 drives community and that generally drives commerce so both you get those
 three lined up and in parallel then you've got something really powerful
 and some of the most innovative things that probably are happening in
 marketing are on the community space right now like
 glossier has like a thousand person superfan group of people they basically
 do all their marketing research for them and say hey we want to try this new
 we think this is going to be a new a new cool um a new cool lipstick shape
 let's run this by the community and get and get validated it actually would sell
 so those are all things that people can do and leverage those communities in
 different ways absolutely any um
 closing words of wisdom here Robbie i know you know
 we don't pretend to sit on a perch and have all the answers um
 you know but we've been close to this we've done this a long time so
 you know we've got perspective on the the things that can work it's really
 has to be to the lens of the right message depending on your brand your
 company and what you do and it's hard to generalize you can't really
 generalize that uh when having this kind of discussion uh but any kind of
 closing thoughts
 this is a really tough times really beautiful things come out of it like when
 humans are faced with some really tough circumstances
 generally that's when humanity kind of shines a brightest and
 looking looking forward i'm kind of excited to see what
 happened what comes out of this from that perspective because i think things
 are going to happen that are really tough but i think people will come
 together and find ways to make make it better for everybody
 and the economy will change people will of things will evolve
 marketing industry will continue to move forward and
 business will continue forward but i think the things that people
 maintaining true to their business true to their
 true to themselves and hopefully true to their employees
 and and being good stewards of their brands
 and again that's and shop local that's other
 and and and support do the things you can to support the
 businesses and the groups that you're in touch with because those things
 will go a long ways and even if it's not even if you don't see direct
 benefit from it today it's a long-term investment
 yeah and i mean the golden rule in karma have never been more truth than they
 are today um i couldn't agree more i think i'm
 hyper positive about what's going to come out of this you know call me crazy
 but i you know i have an optimism that you know um
 and not to be looked it's a we live in a in a big connected world but
 i think as americans in that entrepreneurial spirit and
 you know i think we we're at our best when we're faced with our worst
 and i think uh you're gonna see that and you know what i will say this um
 you know i'm not is more of a of an outreach than normal
 if if i can be of service robby can be of service you know look us up online
 we're both on linkedin Ryan offered and robby fits water on linkedin
 i think we're both available yeah that's that's one thing too is like
 finding ways that like i want to like we're doing this we want to give back to
 people like find ways to give back and and share your gifts with people
 i mean this is this is never a time there's never been a better time to do it
 because those are like if people want to find information reach out to us
 like ask us questions ask people and because everybody wants to give in some
 ways and they're looking for reasons and ways to do that so
 like we don't always think about it in a straightforward way but if you have
 a question if somebody has a question reach out to them reach out to us and
 like that's one thing that people are just looking for ways to help and get
 and give you you're probably going to get a response from
 from somebody pretty quickly because this is time where people want to lean in
 and kind of help each other yeah so especially from the business perspective
 reach out to us yeah absolutely it's not creeping
 DM anytime you can find us on LinkedIn you can find radical at radical.com
 reach out love to help in any way that we can you find me on instagram at ryan
 allford and i think that's all we've got for today Robbie i
 appreciate you being here and you know let's keep fighting the good fight
 and hey man let's everybody be good to each other yeah that's again keep
 doing good stuff that's it for today on the radical company podcast
 we'll see you next time thank you guys