Leading Airbnb Expert and multi-business entrepreneur, Aaron Byerlee, shares his views on the global crisis, and lists out some of the most important things you should be considering doing right now to survive and thrive during these interesting and challenging times.
Hey guys, Aaron Byerlee here coming to you through the Zadel Property newsletter… and it’s certainly some interesting times for entrepreneurs out there in the global marketplace at the moment. But as we all know, through these times, the great depression, the GFC, there’s also great opportunity as well…
So, I just wanted to share with you a few of the things that my students are doing, and some of the things that we’re doing, and perhaps some tips… now I want to make sure that you know this is not any financial advice, it is just some of my opinions from what I see out there… and like Stuart likes to do make sure you guys are informed, and make sure you guys are educated to try and make the right decisions no matter what the marketplace is doing.
Now I think one of the first things you want to looking at doing, and something we did through the GFC really quickly, is to make sure you reduce your overheads.
You know, whether you’ve lost your job, or traditional business is suffering, or whether you’re going along ok, I’d be looking to remove any unnecessary overheads anyway…
One of my mentors through the GFC said to me ‘Aaron, we got rid of 100 staff and we reduced our overheads by about $150,000 per month, but what it taught me was that’s how we should have been running our business anyway… we were comfortable, we were doing well, we had 2 receptionists and I only needed 1, I had personal assistants for all these guys that didn’t need them, I had an ideas man and I didn’t need that…’ and so what it taught him was I need to be running my business as if we’re under financial pressure all the time… we need to be running it tighter, for profit, it’s not what you make it’s what you keep… so that was a pretty interesting lesson from him and something that’s stuck with me through these times…
So there’s other things you can do, such as giving your bank a call and suspending your mortgage… they’re pretty open to doing that right now depending on which bank you’re with and depending on which situation you’re in… you know it might be worth the phone call… sure you might be on hold for quite a while, but they can look at doing a suspension of your mortgage for perhaps the next 6 months… now of course the interest will still calculate daily and you’ll still add that on to the end of your mortgage, it’s not like it’s money that you don’t pay, but it could give you a break for 3 months, 6 months, and that’s one of the biggest overheads most of us will have… so that might be worth a call.
Have a look at the grants that are going to come out for small businesses, for renters, home owners, and see where you fit it to that category… you know there could be periods of rent relief, rent reduction, mortgage reduction, business loans, no interest paid, see where you fit into that category before you make some really rash decisions and start shutting things down… we want to support each other during these times.
Understand though that you want to act quickly, and you’ve got to look after yourself and your family, but any unnecessary costs that you have… and look we can all go through our bank account and credit cards and find that unnecessary bit of software that we haven’t logged into for 6 months that you’re paying US$65 a month for right… so have a look through and whatever unnecessary costs and overheads you have, there are ways that you can reduce them, and do that pretty quickly…
And then I would look at adding cashflow… so we’re reducing overheads, we’re adding cashflow… and how can we do that quickly.
You want to find out what’s working in this marketplace and what’s not, cause there’s winners and losers everywhere right… and so if you have a look at some opportunities out there like… you might go out there and partner with a restaurant that’s going to go under because no one is coming to it, and say you know what lets stay open… I’ll grab a group of my friends and we’ll be the delivery guys and we’ll create this home delivery service because that’s obviously in huge demand right now and you can compete with UberEats who are obviously going to be one of the winners… you know can you partner with someone and deliver alcohol, deliver food, deliver essential need…
Can you do an exercise routine from home? And charge people a minimal amount for that through Zoom, or Facebook Live… can you look to monetise that if you’re from the fitness industry?
You know, it’s a great opportunity as well to turn your house into a home gym and say you know what by the time we come out of this lockdown, I’m going to be healthy, I’m going to be fit, I’m going to lose 5kgs… it’s a good opportunity to get your health in order…
Cause it’s very tempting to get depressed and just eat and drink and put on weight, but is it an opportunity to go you know what I’m going back to work and all my colleagues are going to be like ‘whoa, look at you, you’ve lost weight, you’ve been healthy’… look at the positives and make positives out of this…
You know some of you guys love network marketing, some of you don’t, but network marketing booms through these times… if you can find a networking marketing company in the nutrition model, so something where people can improve their immune system, improve their health, and get started relatively cheaply… can you get started from a few hundred dollars? That is going through the roof at the moment!
I’ve spoken to friends in the US and here in Australia that cannot keep up with the phone calls… people have just lost their job, they’re coming home and people literally have no idea what to do, they have literally gone to zero income… they’ve still got mortgages to pay, kids to feed… network marketing is probably the fastest way they can get stuck into a business… put something on their social media and make a direct sale, make a direct income…
So find a network marketing company, join with someone that you trust and respect with a product that can work in this marketplace cause that’s going through the roof right now…
Affiliate marketing… what can you find with a slighter higher price point (don’t go too high cause people are hanging on to their money)… but what’s something where you can get nice 30, 40 , 50, 60% commissions… you know maybe on a $500 product or $2,000 product… that could be really fast money for you… so start Googling the right affiliate programs that you can join.
The share market… I’m not going to tell you to buy any shares whatsoever, but I’m just saying there’s opportunity there… if you look at companies like BHP, Santos, ANZ, Woolworths… you know a lot of these share prices are half of what they were just a few weeks ago… so theoretically, have the fundamentals of these businesses changed, ‘no’… will they bounce back when everything clears, ‘most probably’… so can we put some money in there… you know double our money, triple our money, quadruple our money when it all comes back to normal… theoretically ‘yes’… again who knows, maybe none of those companies are around in 6 months time when the whole world looks differently… to me, in my opinion, that’s highly unlikely…
Again, find a mentor, find someone in that space that knows what they’re doing, that’s perhaps been there before… don’t sell your house to go do it… but if you’ve got some spare cash, there’s opportunity to come out the other side… with the stock market, we’ve seen all that before.
I’ve got a friend in the US that’s got a multi-million dollar order for masks, gloves and testing kits… so is there an opportunity to provide for people as well… he wants to bring that into Australia as well… he’s just got a $69 million dollar order just for the state of New York…
So there’s always opportunity when there’s disasters and when there’s any sort of a catastrophe, you’ve just got to know where to look and stay positive… have a bit of courage… get around the right people… get around the people that are doing these things… people that know where the opportunities are, and look you’ve got to put some things into action at these times.
So there’s opportunity in these times, not easy for sure…
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Take the time to be positive, to re-evaluate, to spend it with family… we’re so busy in today’s world that we kind of have to be careful what we ask for… protesting for climate change and the environment, we’re not having enough time for family, we’re not getting paid enough, I’m stressed out at work… and all of a sudden you haven’t got work and you’re spending every day with your kids whilst the planet is recovering… we got to be careful what we ask for.
You know it’s incredible, it’s almost like the world has just taken a breathe that it needed… we’ve started to see the rivers clearing up, the dolphins starting to come closer, animals walking the street… and pollution, if you have a look at the satellite images of pollution, it’s down about 75% as businesses have shut down and people are at home… it’s quite incredible to see, and I hope that in the future we can learn from that. I’m not saying lets all stay at home and work from home forever… which is basically what everyone is doing right now is what I’ve been doing for 10 years… I don’t move from my house much, I work from home… but it’s quite incredible, can businesses still operate with their staff from home with Zoom, social media and technology, cause gee, it’s really helped the planet out environmentally and we do need to take some lessons from that as well.
Now the biggest thing I want you to get from this whole situation with the Coronavirus is do not ever, ever again, rely on one income source… so if you’ve just lost your job and that’s putting you under pressure… you know Stuart Zadel, many entrepreneurs, myself, have been talking about multiple streams of income for years and years and years, and people get comfortable in your job and in your business, it’s all going along really nicely… there’s someone over here talking about a Plan B… and someone over here is working from home… and that person is doing network marketing (‘ah no that’s not for me I’m above that’)… well gee things can change very quickly… this thing didn’t creep up on us, this just went bang… don’t ever rely on your restaurant just as your income again, don’t ever rely on your job as just your income again, don’t ever rely on your gym as a personal trainer…
Make sure you’ve got a Plan B, and even if that’s just when the kids go to bed at night, stop watching Netflix, build a Plan B, build a part-time business, whether it’s affiliate marketing, network marketing, online marketing, write an ebook, do something on the side so that when things happen like this you go ‘gee I lost my job but I’ve still got $4k a month coming in from that side hustle…’
The biggest fine print with multiple streams of income is don’t try to do 5 things today, because you will not be able to focus on them… you will not be able to become an expert in any of them… and you will not smash through the income with 5 of them all at once… get started with 1, perfect it, make some money, then two going, perfect it and make some money, then get your third going… so you’ve still got to focus and you’ve still got to work at it, still got to be an expert at those multiple streams of income… just never rely on one income source ever again.
Spiritually, you know it’s a great time to reflect and go you know what, if I kicked the bucket tomorrow, am I ok? Do I know where I’m going? Am I comfortable spiritually and in relationships? You know it’s a good time to reflect upon that… I’m not going to go into it now, but all I’m saying is it’s a great time to reflect on ‘my dad did say I might get hit by a bus tomorrow’, or ‘my pastor did say hey come and check out this’… it might just be a good time to see what’s out there and what’s right for you, and find out the truth and get right with God or whatever your definition of that is… so whatever has been knocking on your door, whatever has been on your mind, go out there and get right and get stuck into that one as well.
And the biggest thing is when we do go back to work and we do go back into business and everything goes back to normal… don’t forget these lessons… that’s the biggest mistake… people have such short memories… you know they go back to one income source, they go back to a business with big overheads, and they forget about their spiritual awareness when things went bad… whatever is going to be working for you now, whatever things you are learning now, whatever heartache you’re feeling now… keep that in the memory bank, don’t dwell on it, but learn from it and keep it consistent as you move forward as well.
One of the biggest opportunities you’ll see throughout this is hang in there in your niche, in your business, at least reduce your overheads, make sure you’re ok, is the bounce back is going to be astronomical, it’s going to be absolutely huge… you know whether you’re in Airbnb, or the stock market, or the fitness game, or hospitality, tourism, whatever it is, the bounce back is going to be incredible… the Government is going to spend billions of dollars on Australian tourism, they’re going to be giving so many different grants here and there to boost everything up… people are going to be catching up for lost time with family, with business, with holidays, all sorts of different things… flights, accommodation, stock market rebounds… you got to go get fit again… people are going to be catching up and it’s going to be going through a boom time…
The thing is, three quarters of your competition that was there before is going to be gone… people put up the white flag, people weren’t ready, people couldn’t come out the other side and they can’t recover… so if you can stick at it now, and you can stay in the game, or least to position yourself to bounce back quickly, and have that right attitude ready to go, your bounce back can be bigger than ever cause your competition is going to be gone, and that’s one of the biggest opportunities we see.
So that’s about all from me… a few different ideas there… a few out of the box… a few obvious ones… we’re doing a combination of those… we’re staying positive… and that’s what we want to invite you guys to do, to stay positive, look for opportunities, and come out the other side, bigger and better than ever… stick together, stay safe, stay positive and lets get through this together, and we’ll see you on the other side at a Live event… I’m pretty keen to come and really preach this model about multiple streams of income, new age business, learn from those mistakes, and hey stay working from home forever and go global, bigger and better than before cause the world is going to be a different place, but there’s great opportunities and if we stick together you’ll be able to find them and we’ll have some fun.
Cheers guys, I’m Aaron Byerlee and I’ll see you on the next newsletter.