How To Leverage Negative Situations - The WarPlan Podcast

Summary

The WarPlan Podcast: How To Leverage Negative Situations

Host: Joshua Latimer
Episode Release Date: November 4, 2024

Introduction

In the episode titled "How To Leverage Negative Situations," Joshua Latimer delves into transforming unexpected challenges into opportunities for personal and business growth. Drawing from a personal experience of dealing with a flooded house caused by a squirrel-induced plumbing failure, Joshua offers actionable insights on mindset, marketing strategies, and maximizing profits even in adverse circumstances.

Main Theme: Turning Adversity into Advantage

Joshua emphasizes that business success is a mental war, and the ability to navigate and leverage negative situations is crucial for long-term prosperity. He advocates for a mindset that views challenges not as setbacks but as opportunities to innovate and grow.

Key Lessons and Insights

1. Embracing Unexpected Challenges

Quote:
"Unexpected crap happens. It's how you deal with it that matters."
[00:05]

Joshua shares his recent ordeal of returning to a flooded home, highlighting how unforeseen events are inevitable. The key takeaway is not the occurrence of problems but the response to them. By maintaining a positive outlook, one can extract valuable lessons and stories that contribute to personal and professional development.

2. The Importance of Responsiveness in Business

Quote:
"Your chances of closing a lead drops by 80% if it takes you more than five minutes to get back with them."
[00:15]

While dealing with the aftermath of the flood, Joshua discovered that many local service companies were unresponsive. He underscores the critical importance of speed to lead in business. Prompt responses can significantly increase the likelihood of securing clients and driving revenue.

3. Valuing Quality Service Over Quick Fixes

Quote:
"Sometimes the best, most ethical small business owners are, like, allergic to making money."
[00:35]

Joshua recounts his interactions with a dedicated electrician who went above and beyond without immediately charging for diagnostics. This experience taught him that true professionals prioritize quality and customer satisfaction over quick profits. For business owners, this means building trust and reputation can lead to long-term success.

4. Optimizing Marketing Investments

Quote:
"If you're running Google Ads and not answering your phone, please donate to the Joshua Latimer fund."
[00:50]

Observing that many service companies were investing in Google Ads without effectively managing incoming leads, Joshua advises businesses to ensure their marketing efforts are aligned with their operational capabilities. Investing in marketing is futile if the business cannot capitalize on the generated leads due to lack of responsiveness.

5. Strategic Pricing During High Demand

Quote:
"Raise your price. You can raise your price 20%, but raise your profit 150%. Isn't that weird?"
[01:10]

Joshua discusses a strategy for businesses experiencing high demand: raising prices. By increasing prices during peak demand periods, companies can significantly boost their profits without compromising the volume of work. This approach ensures that the business maximizes earnings while maintaining a manageable workload.

6. Cultivating Resourcefulness and Finding Silver Linings

Quote:
"Find a way to make 1 +1 =3. Find a silver lining in every scenario."
[01:40]

A recurring theme is the importance of being resourceful. Joshua encourages listeners to look beyond immediate setbacks and identify hidden opportunities within challenges. Whether it's a business hiccup or a personal crisis, the ability to find positive aspects can lead to innovative solutions and growth.

Personal Anecdotes and Application

Joshua's personal narrative of dealing with a flooded home serves as a practical example of his principles. Facing significant property damage and family stress, he navigates the chaos by engaging with local service providers, learning valuable lessons about business operations, and refining his own business strategies. This real-life scenario illustrates the transformative power of mindset and strategic action in overcoming adversity.

Conclusions and Takeaways

Mindset is Crucial: Viewing challenges as opportunities rather than obstacles can significantly impact personal and business success.
Speed Matters: Quick responsiveness to leads is essential in converting prospects into customers.
Prioritize Quality Service: Building a reputation for reliability and excellence can differentiate a business in a competitive market.
Align Marketing with Operations: Ensure that marketing efforts are supported by the capacity to handle incoming business effectively.
Leverage High Demand: Strategically increasing prices during peak times can enhance profitability without overextending resources.
Be Resourceful: Continuously seek opportunities within challenges to foster innovation and growth.

Joshua Latimer’s episode serves as a comprehensive guide on navigating unexpected setbacks with resilience and strategic thinking, ultimately turning negative situations into stepping stones for success.

Note: For those who haven't listened to this episode, "How To Leverage Negative Situations" offers a blend of personal experience and practical advice, making it a valuable resource for entrepreneurs and individuals seeking to enhance their mental and business strategies.

Transcript

A (0:05)

Wake up. Your competition is asleep. It's you against the world. And if you want to win, we need to get a few things straight. Your business is a mental war. Your success is a mental war. And making money is a game. And the game of money starts in your mind. This podcast exists to help you weaponize your brain through advanced marketing mindset and money concepts. To have what others don't, you need to know what others won't. Your future fortune awaits. Welcome to the War Plan podcast. Hey, my friend. Welcome back to the War Plan Podcast. It's been a minute. I took a little tiny break. And there's good reason, though. I have a valid excuse. I have a hall pass, so you could say. So I travel between Texas and Michigan, and interesting story, we came back to Michigan after being gone for quite a long time, and our house was completely, like, flooded. And so we get on an airplane with five kids and two dogs, and we fly to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Then we have to drive in a car for an hour and 45 minutes, and we're exhausted. And we walk into our house only to hear the sound of a waterfall. I love waterfalls, but not when they're in your house, where they're not supposed to be. And apparently, a squirrel chewed through some Peck's plumbing line, and for, like, a week straight, it was flooding all over our house. There was, like, mold and mildew. It was a disaster zone. And so I made about 50 of these podcasts in a row. I think Maybe it was 40, and then I missed a few, but that's why. But I have a great podcast for you right now that's gonna help you based on this magical squirrel. So the first lesson is, it rains on the just and the unjust alike. Now, as a believer, I used to always hear that verse, and it means, hey, you know, good things happen to bad people sometimes. That's what it means. It rains on the good people and the bad people. And I always viewed rain as a negative, but actually, I got corrected by someone smarter than me, and they said, no, no, no, no, no. Rain isn't bad. That idea, that philosophy isn't that bad things happen to good people. It's that good things happen to everybody because rain was good, especially in a farming culture. Right? So what's the lesson for you? The lesson is unexpected crap happens. It's how you deal with it that matters, right? So we called Serve Pro, called our insurance. They ripped out drywall. They have all these machines in our house. We have to turn our water. The squirrel also chewed through Some electrical lines. So half of our outlets didn't work. We couldn't run air conditioning. It was a disaster. And for one week straight, our house was over 90 degrees. And it was inescapable. My kids were so thirsty all day, right? And so I'm not making podcasts. And I'm thinking, why is this happening right now? This is very inconvenient. I do not like this. But there's opportunity everywhere. And here's, here's where the opportunity was for me. I got to engage with tons of local service companies the last week and a half or so, starting with a ServPro franchise out of the town where we live. And it was so interesting because I call all these companies plumbers and electricians and mitigation and disaster response companies, and lesson number one is people don't answer their phone. Now, we already knew that. And if you listen to this podcast, I bet that you do. But did you know that your chances of closing a lead drops by 80% if it takes you more than five minutes to get back with them? There was some study. I can't remember what it was from, but it's really real. Just trust me, it's real. It's a gigantic thing. Speed to lead. Actually answering the phone, you get money. It's magical. Think of that, right? The other thing that happened was we call a plumber out and he was very hesitant to actually fix the chewed pex wire. And the reason he was hesitant was because he didn't want to, like, get up in the, in the ceiling where the damage was and like, pull down a very small piece of drywall and do it. Because that's like, outside of the scope of what they do, which is. I get that. But here's the thing. The reason they're hesitating is because they were terrified that I wouldn't want to pay, you know, $400 for him to do a 10 minute repair. Right. What they don't know is that I don't give a crap about paying $400 for the 10 minute repair. I just want the problem solved. Same similar thing kind of happened with our electrician. We got a great Referral. After calling 10 companies, no one would come out here. This guy answers, he's super friendly, he schedules, he comes out here. The guy drives almost an hour to get to our house. Friendliest guy ever. He was a veteran of the military and his truck's wrapped. He's professional, he's super awesome. Drives an hour out here, then spends a bunch of time diagnosing everything and then he leaves, and he doesn't charge us anything. And this is because he's amazing and he's this great human, right? And he's like, oh, no, you know, I'll put together an estimate and if you decide to hire me and. And on the. With my left hand, I'm really like, wow, this is great service. And with my right hand, I'm like, oh, good Lord, you need to work with me. You don't know what you're doing. He could have paid me or charged me a thousand dollars just for the diagnostic, and I wouldn't even have thought anything of it. And I'm not suggesting you gouge customers. What I'm saying is that sometimes the best, most ethical small business owners are, like, allergic to making money. So I actually gave him bill, at least that I had in my pocket. I'm like, here, take this as a tip. And then he sent me this estimate. After two days of, like, buildup, he's going to replace this outlet and rewire this other thing and do this other diagnostic. And it was like 300 bucks worth of stuff, right? And so he had to drive here and then go back and then prepare an estimate two days later. And the guy could have just charged me a thousand bucks one time right up front and made triple the money. And I would have been happier and he would have been happier, right? And it just reminds me that small business owners are not their customer. And sometimes we do work for a variety of different types of customers. And not everybody is like I am right now with this problem I'm trying to solve. But in general, you're not your customer, right? Another thing my wife noticed was how many of these companies that were not answering their phone were running Google Ads. And then when we would call them, or if they would at least call us back, they were booked out weeks, but they were still running Google Ads. And I thought that was really fascinating. So if you going into the fall right now, are booked out two or three or four weeks and you have a service company and you're running Google Ads and not answering your phone, please donate to the Joshua Latimer fund, because if you love giving away money for free, I'll be happy to take some of it from you. Because you're just giving Google money for no reason, number one. Number two, start taking deposits just for scheduling estimates when you're booked out that much. Raise your prices up when you're booked out that much. One of my buddies, Angelo, who I'm going to be talking to today, he's like a private consulting client. But he told me, josh, we're booked three weeks out. What do I do? I said, raise your price. Now, his company does about $25,000 a week in service. Now imagine if over the course of a month, that's 100,000amonth, right? Imagine he had charged 20% higher prices during that month. Now demand was really high, so they're getting booked two, three, four weeks out. If he would have went back in time and charged 20% higher, he still could have filled up his month. He just wouldn't have been booked out as far because some people would have declined his higher estimate. However, imagine he does the same amount of work, the same amount of hours, the same amount of labor, the same amount of materials, but Instead of making 100,000, he makes 120,000 in revenue. You see, price increases are disproportionately in the favor of the owner, which is you. Like, you get to keep like all of it or almost all of it. You can raise your prices 20%, but raise your profit 150%. Isn't that weird? Right? You can, you can raise your price a dollar, which might represent a 20% price increase, but you could double or triple your profit, right? So it's these types of things I'm thinking about. So number one, if something unexpected happens to you, there's always a silver lining. There's no such thing as a one sided PA pancake or a one sided coin. There's always two sides to everything. There's this duality to nature and life and the way that we choose to respond to it is the gold. Truly. You hear people say, stop trying to look for more resources and instead try to be more resourceful. One of the reasons people aren't resourceful is because they can't see the opportunity. They can't see the resources that are laying around them. And I want to encourage you to find a way to make 1 +1 =3. Find a silver lining. In every scenario. If an employee quit, if a customer is crazy, if a check bounce, whatever the case is, there's a story embedded in it. There's a lesson in it, there's a principle in it. There's an opportunity. Even as weird as the economy is right now, there's opportunities everywhere. So don't put your head in the sand, don't be doom and gloom, even if a squirrel chews through half of your ceiling and floods your house, because it's going to be okay. And you know, I tell my wife all the time that stories are the most valuable thing we have. So even though this will cost us time and money and frustration and effort and energy, I'll probably be able to use this story to teach and to give lessons and to speak on stages and maybe it will go in a book that I write. And the value that I get back from this thing happening to me dwarfs the time and energy and effort and frustration that it was temporarily. So that's my encouragement for you. I'll get back on the podcast guest horse here and have some really cool things happening. Have some interviews coming up. I'm curious if you have a few minutes, could you leave a five star review on itunes? It helps me a lot. We're just now getting the word out still about this. It's small and it's scrappy and we have a heart to help you go faster. We have a heart to get you more time with your family, more money in your pocket without feeling dirty and icky about it. So that's it. Take care. God bless Foreign do you want to weaponize your brain and turn it into a money making machine? Consider joining Warplan Coaching. You'll get thousands of dollars in exclusive courses and training, a private community, a chance to come to in person meetups at Warplan Studios, and access to myself for Q and A every single month. Want to know the best part? It's free. Plus we'll send you a private weekly newsletter full of money making tips and cutting edge ideas. Just go to warplan.com to sign up. Hey, I'm your biggest fan. I'm rooting for you. We'll see you next time.