#145: why playing it safe might be the most dangerous move //recession prediction // next level pros podcast

Recession is in the air. The stock market has tanked over 4,500 points in the last four days.
Donald Trump has initiated reciprocal tariffs across the board. We've got business owners that are calling me up and saying, what do we do? Do we keep our business open? Do we wind it down? Do we keep things rocking and rolling? Do we go all in? All these questions are going through people's minds right now.
JP Morgan just recently said a 60% chance of a complete recession in 2025. What are you doing right now to make sure that your business is recession-proof? All this and more on this episode of Next Level Pros.
Yeah, so, I mean, dude, 2025 is crazy. Donald Trump is coming in hot this guy is freaking throwing just haymakers from the left corner and you just have no idea what's going on it's been wild whether you agree with trump or not agree with trump regardless there is change happening there is change.
And we could talk a little bit

deeper about that, but I think it's more important, like what is happening right now in business? A lot of people are scared. A lot of people got things going on.
I mean, me and you just got off the phone yesterday with a couple of business owners. They said, hey, Chris and Daryl, we want, these are guys in our community.
They've ran this business for quite a few years, and they are doing everything which they feel is in their power

to keep this thing rocking,

but the overall macro economy is hurting them.

Yeah, I think it's a really interesting aspect

because people are really concerned with what to do,

and the concern comes from what used to work isn't working anymore.

And really that's the point that we're at is like everything's got to change which actually is a good reference to one of my favorite books who moved my cheese yep right uh have you read that book before it's fantastic book real small easy read basically the premise of the book is you got two uh you got two mice and then two little people going every single day, and they go through this maze, and they find their cheese, right? And they go, and whatever your cheese is, money, relationships, whatever, they're going and they're getting it, and it's always there. They show up, they do the same thing, and it's there.
Then one day, it's gone, right? And they're like, whoa, dude, who moved my cheese, right? And all of a sudden. So what happened was these two little guys that keep showing up and like the cheese still isn't there.
And one guy finally realizes like, man, I got to change it up. I got to do something different in order to find cheese.
And so then he started like wandering out and going through the maze and looking for the other cheese where the other guy literally kept showing up every single day. They'd be like, dude, what the freak? Where's my cheese? And so same thing, right, going on in business right now is like guys are doing the same thing that worked back in 2020, 21, 22, and it no longer works in 23, 24, 25.
And they're like, who moved my cheese? But one of my favorite things that comes from that book, not only is the little guy that he's out looking in the maze, but the little motto that he preached to himself as he's out looking for new cheese. And the thing that he kept repeating to himself was, what would I do if I had no fear? Yeah.
Right. Because it's really easy in a time like this to be overtaken with fear.
Right. Like, dude, I'm looking at my stock portfolio right now and i'm like holy crap like there's there's a little fear creeping into chris lee's dumpski you know i'm like uh is should i what should i do and so a lot of times like when things like this are happening we get we get paralyzed and we're paralyzed by fear.
And so we do dumb things. We just keep showing up to the same spot versus asking ourselves, okay, if I wasn't fearful, if there was no fear, what is the action that I would take today? And I've made some of the best decisions in my career when I've been able to like repeat that self over and over to myself.
I think what we see is there's a, there's always these times in, uh, these moments in time where you have to change the way you think. And so, you know, we're talking about recession proofing your business, but truthfully it's recession proofing your mind.
Right. Right.
How do you think, because a lot of times you just get comfortable. It's like, Hey, it's working.
Why change? Um, this is the time where it's like, okay, things are going to change. And I mean, I even love what president trump's doing like everyone's like this isn't going to work this is going to crash our market and he's like and i think all he's doing is negotiating well and at the same time it's like something's got to change correct right some has to change we got ai coming down the the pipeline robots are going to be taking over the world right they're going to start manufacturing.
The things that are valuable are going to be land and natural resources and energy and who owns the manufacturing, right? So all those things in place, you have two choices. One, kick the can and have some other future president take care of it.
Or you bite that freaking bullet right now and you start negotiating a new economy. I've got a quote here.
It says, your experiences are a reflection of your inner state thoughts, beliefs, and emotions, not your external circumstances. Hey guys, it's Chris.
Hey, a lot of you leave comments asking for help. Do me a real quick favor.
Shoot me a text at 509-374-7554. That's 509-374-7554.
Shoot me a text. I'll answer and help you with whatever you need.
Don't worry. I got you back.
Let's go back to the show, baby. So we actually talked about this in our last workshop, how people, a lot of times we are in our own constrained jail cells that aren't even locked, right think we can't change.
This is my lifestyle. I have to keep doing the same work.
It's really easy when you're running a successful business to think, I'm above that work. I'm not willing to get back in the field.
I'm not willing to get back into the grind. I'm not willing to cut out my lifestyle or anything.
And so then we sit there and we show up to where the, where there's no cheese wondering like, man, why can't I keep sustaining this lifestyle? I think, uh, I don't know what book it was, but this book talked about the concept of boxes that we create. And then we always think, think through those boxes and the strong, um, where this drew a strong point for me was a marriage, right? You always think like, we have to be married together.
And so you limit the way you think based off of, we have to be married. And it's like, just remove the box of like, no, we don't have to be married, but what would it be like if we had created the happiest marriage, right? Same thing with business.
Like, you don't have to be a business owner, but what if being a business owner was the greatest thing you could do in your life? What should that look like? And so you remove the box of like, I have to run this business or I have to survive this. It's like remove those things that constrain your thinking.
And along with that would be like, I have to keep these certain employees or I have to keep running out of this certain office or whatnot. Right.
You can sell the office. You can fire employees, you can make changes, you can get back out on the doors, you could do these things that are the grind.
But yeah, like I said, we create those boxes that are just so constricting. But they're very subtle too.
They're subtle and they're very constricting. And what was interesting, so I'll just share like with me and my wife, we talked about it.
Like, okay, like if we were dating again, what would we do differently? How would we act differently towards each other? And it really did change a lot in our relationship of like, hey, we don't have to fit in this box. Like let's, let's treat each other like we would if we were dating each other or whatnot.
And I think the same thing with business is like you get stuck in this fear loop of like,

oh no, this is going to be tough.

This is going to be challenging.

So now everything you approach, you approach with like it's got to be tough, hard. It's tough times.
Things are getting harder and harder versus like this is the best opportunity in my lifetime. Everything's changing and I got to figure out the niche.
And the reality is if you look at businesses, like most businesses are ran by older people, right? And it's a great time to be older people, but like there's a lot of opportunity for younger people who have like a lot of ambition too. So there's just, no matter where you're at in life, like there's so much opportunity.
You just need to change your lens and realize what's going on and take advantage of it. There's a cool stat you were talking about as far as like the Fortune 500 companies.
What was that? Yeah, 52% of Fortune 500 companies were started in a

recession. That's pretty wild.
Why do you think that is? I love the idea of just an industry shift. I mean, and we experienced many versions of recessions every day in our lives and experiencing the real world.
And one of the coolest things I've learned from both of you guys is when we studied outwitting the devil by Napoleon Hill and how the devil, if it was like an entity, how it would control you. And one of the best tools it would use is complacency, being stagnant, just kind of on cruise control.

And so when you have these recessions, it's all cyclical. And after the recession, there's always a boom right after that.
And that boom is caused by the companies directly in this example or the people that are able to figure it out and see this recession as an opportunity rather than a threat. and we were able to figure that out in the solar industry during

the the the sickness we might not say on on the podcast but we made a huge pivot from going from door-to-door sales to to remote sales you know the greatest story of all time that i think about like this aspect of like something hard coming and then you have to fix it is George Foreman.

His story is incredible.

He like quickly rose in boxing, became world champion, went to the Olympics, made a ton of money. And then his manager lost all his money.
And then he found himself in the 40, I think he was 40 something years old, 48, I think, or something. He was really old.
It seemed impossible for him to get back into boxing. Um boxing um but he knew like that's how he could make his money went back into it and like became world champion again but I just think of that as like there's always this this take two or step or like the second act that can be so much bigger than where you're currently at and so instead of like um you know worrying about how it's going to out, like just know it's going to play out for your benefit.
Yeah, I think I think the hardest mental shift for that is like overcoming the ego of like, I am too good for this. Because right, George Foreman at age 48, dude, I've already done it.
I've done like, why would I get back in the ring and box? And you know, the same thing from my life has happened a couple different times. So like after my first business failed, I started up a couple other businesses and we were, Daryl and I were running just a couple little small businesses.
And ultimately the opportunity was presented for me to go and work for somebody else. Dude, that was one of the hardest ego, like it seems so little now, but in the moment

it was so hard for me to mentally get over this barrier that like, I work for myself. There's no way I'm going to go work for somebody else.
There's no way I'm going to go start knocking doors again for somebody else. Until like when I made that shift and was finally able to just overcome the ego, like things, magic happened for me over the next four and a half years, working for other people, winning Range Rovers, making four to $500,000 a year, learning strategy that we were able to go and parlay up into SoulGen.
Like that was one huge moment for me and just overcoming that. The other one was what you talked about in 2020, right? Like we go from the shift, right? We're selling 30 to 40 accounts a week going into the sickness.
And March 2020 hits. And literally the week that they shut everything down, they canceled the national championship and everything else for basketball, we sold one account that week.
I don't know if you guys remember that. And that was scary, right? Like it was just like, oh.
And so again, I had to go to myself like, what do I think I'm above and what am I willing to do? And so right again, got back. I was on the phones.
I was making calls. I was doing sales just to prove to other guys that like, hey, look, I'm not above this.
And I think we all have to go through moments like that in our lives. And maybe right now, that's it for your business, right? Like you're going through some struggle.
You've been above doing the sales, you've been above doing the work, you've been managing, you've been doing what all these different things, like ask yourself, am I truly above this

or am I willing to roll up my sleeves, get back to work and do the hard things that my ego is keeping me from doing in order to keep this thing rolling? Because ultimately there's a few levers in business that you can pull. It's not, there's not a lot of levers.
One, you can raise your price. Two, you can sell more product.

And three, you can cut out expense. And so the first two, those are really just mental levers, right? Like changing your price, you can probably charge more and you don't even realize it.
And so you just got to go out and get over your own ego of like, this is going to be too expensive. The other thing is driving more sales.
Chances are as a business owner, you can influence more sales. If you roll up your sleeves, you get to work, whether it's knocking doors, making cold calls, posting on social media, doing different things to be known and seeing that your product exists and doing efforts that you just haven't done in a long time.
Right. Like those are the two.
And then the third is cutting out expenses. Like sometimes you've got to let people go.
Sometimes you've got to like who forget what everybody else thinks about you, like giving up the car or giving up the whatever else. And you just got to cut the expenses out.
And so like all three of those are really just very ego driven. Hey guys, it's Chris.
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Now let's dive back in the show. I think what'd be really good is, is let's, let's kind of recap our, our phone call for, from yesterday for people who are like in a situation or get in a situation where it's like, man, we've got three months of cashflow.
We've got six months of cashflow. You just mentioned a few things you could change, but I think there were some really important things we talked about on that call that I think could really benefit people.
One of them is just having the honest conversation, the hard thing about hard things. And I think what that looks like for you, and we've had that before, where it's like you sit down with your people, and you say, hey, here's our situation.
Here's what we got to accomplish. Otherwise, we're out of business.
Yeah. So really, that's what I like to call the battle cry, right? Like the battle cry, like people want to be a part of something.
They want to be fighting against a common enemy, whether that's survival or a competitor or whatever else, right? Like everybody wants to be on the team fighting. And to your point, the word is transparency, creating transparency in your organization, right? If your company, if your employees don't know that you are struggling and you can't barely pay the bills, then you are missing out on an incredible opportunity to sound a battle cry and get people behind.
Because ultimately, even if you think your people don't know you're struggling, they know. They know.
If they've seen good times and now it's bad times, chances are it's not going to be some huge surprise when you come to them and be like, yo, we are losing money every single month. And that's what it was with this guy, right? We were talking to him and we're like, hey, what's your longest tenured sales guy? He's like seven years.
I'm like, you think that guy doesn't know that you're struggling right now? Like he saw the good days when the incentives were flowing and like, I mean, cash was literally just falling off the pickup trucks. He saw those times, and now you're pinching pennies and not even leading sales meetings and everything else.
You think he doesn't know? I think what this gives you, you have two outcomes. You have buy-in, and you have people that leave.
And I think the people that leave, you need gone. You need those people out of your business because they're hurting your business if they're not there fighting for the business.
Absolutely. Yeah, so it's a win-win scenario.
You get rid of the non-players or you get that freaking buy-in because chances are if guys don't know that for this particular example, they're doing 25 to 30 accounts a week and they needed 35 to 38 accounts to break even. If guys don't know that, they are going to give up early, right? Hey, I've already done enough for me.
But if they know that the team needs more, the team needs that extra effort, that extra hour a day, that extra two hours a day, the Saturday, they are going to give it because they know that it is needed. As an employee that went through this from you guys being the owners and I was an employee, like what I always commended and spoke about to other people that worked at other places like friends and family was they were always looking at, oh my gosh, what are you guys going to do? And I was like, we're going to figure it out.
And I thought it was so cool to experience it from an employee perspective. The way I perceived it was, if we can get through this, when we get through this, this is going to provide an opportunity for myself to be like, hey, I was a part of that champion team that was able to get through, and these were the other people that were able to get through with me.
And that's going to leverage myself as a better opportunity as an employee later on down the road. Which the psychology is like, everybody loves an underdog.
For sure. I mean, when you're looking at a championship game, nine times out of 10, you're going to cheer for the underdog.
So if you can help people realize that they're a part of that underdog story

and there is a way to get out dude buy-in where most of the time our fear is like oh if they know that we're an underdog they're gonna want to leave they're not gonna want to fight they're not gonna like no dude we're we are wired to be freaking fighters we are wired to survive not to die to go and make So like freaking get that. Yeah, we had so many company-wide meetings that you guys were bringing this stuff up.
And you guys were like, look, we don't even know what we're going to fully do in the next month or two months. But we need you guys.
Like if you guys aren't here, we need to figure this out. I thought that was like really cool to experience.
And then in hindsight, you know, you fast forward one or two years down the road, you start remembering those times and it becomes like what you were talking about. Everybody loves a common enemy.
When you go through a tough experience like that, it creates a bond like no other. And like employees that went through that, you're tied to each other.
I recently learned this. When you experience the same emotion, strong emotion with someone, like it bonds you.
Whether that's a good or a bad emotion, when you experience the same emotion together in the same situation, it bonds you. So fear.
Anything. Yeah, like all the different.
As long as it's the same, right? If you go to a haunted house and one person thinks it's funny and the other person thinks it's scared, no bonding. But if you guys both go and you're both scared or both excited.
That makes complete sense. It bonds, yeah.
The other thing we talked about, another strategy was finding strategic partners. If things get really, really tough, it is not just you.
There's a lot of people out there that are also struggling. And if you can figure out strategically, how do I piece things together to create a better opportunity for all of us? Like everybody wants to be a part of an opportunity yeah one of the things that we suggested is like hey look is there potentially a sales dealer out there that is tired of the sales dealer grind really doesn't have any equity built up in their business that you could offer a piece of equity of your business to these guys and just them alone will get you over that break even hump get you to profitability like wouldn't it be worth it wouldn't it be worth it to offer these guys a 10 stake in a business that is essentially worthless right now you know and so it's like yeah getting creative there's so many ways that you can get creative from a marketing standpoint strategic partner standpoint a grind standpoint that was the That was the other thing that we talked about.
It's like, dude, get back on the doors. Like, let these guys see you going out and making sales.
Stop worrying. Stop strategizing and start doing more revenue generating activities.
And Vivint had one of the greatest stories to get through that. You know, being able to come to their own employees and ask for money.
It's one of my favorites. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, one of my favorite stories ever during the 0910 recession, Vivint had to go and get money from Wall Street to be able to fund their accounts coming up.
And Wall Street said, no, we don't have the faucets off. We have no more money.
And so the only way that they were going to survive was they had to go. So Todd goes to his employees and says, yo, we are not getting the money.
He was very transparent. We're not getting money.
The only way we're going to survive is if we go and find investors. We want to open the investment to you guys.
We owe you this big back end check coming up in January. How many of you guys would be interested in putting that money towards equity in the business? Dude, it was something like 90% of back-end checks were plowed into equity.
And all these guys went, just this classic underdog story. Yeah, dude, we're going to fight with you to the end, Todd.
And dude, those guys made so much money on that equity getting through that recession. What I want to highlight with that, too, is you can't wait until the recession hits to try to bring morale and culture together.
Yes. Like, that was fostered of years of good culture.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
So, at the end of the day, guys, we understand during times like this, it's hard to maintain good morale, good culture. The way you do it, you got to sound the rally cry.
Really dig into the fact that people want to be a part of a good underdog story. They believe in you in good times.
They're going to believe in you in bad times as well if you're willing to be transparent and really get that buy-in. And then ultimately, focus on revenue generating activities.
Like this is, that's the thing that's going to move the needle. Stop the strategy, stop all these different things, refocus, put in longer hours.
One of the things that we talked with these guys about is like, okay, look, instead of seven, six, seven, eight hour days, you need to do now 12-hour days, do eight hours towards

revenue-generating activities, and then three to four hours to maintain and make sure that

everything's being managed correctly. That's the level of commitment that you have to have

when it gets rough and tough, and ultimately, it's what's going to push you through,

make you one of these Fortune 500 companies that was able to survive, because ultimately,

he who survives is

ultimately going to thrive when the economy comes out on the back end until next time let's go