 I'm sure most of you were chasing targets March 31st. It would have been a very different experience chasing targets virtually and celebrating your achievement of targets virtually with your team. Quite a novel experience. And that is where I think we need to look at where is the economic impact and what is the new normal. Obviously the planning for your 2021 next year planning has all gone for a toss. Whatever plans you would have had, whatever thoughts that you would have had the last 45 days, everything has changed. Right? Well, are we looking at the downturn? Most definitely, yes. We are looking at a slowdown. Is there going to be a recession? I still don't know. Nobody knows. In fact, nobody can take a guess where things would be two weeks from now, four weeks from now. But what we can do is all of us can prepare ourselves for how we can run a business in a much better fashion. I can assure you the last economic downturn. And today I will refer a lot to the economic downturn of 2008. I'm sure some of you would have seen that. And the reason why I'm trying to talk about the economic downturn of 2008 is just to prepare you as to what is going to come going forward with this healthcare impact that has hit the world. The last similar impact actually on account of healthcare issues came in 1980 exactly 100 years ago, around 100 years ago. And this impact has come in so quickly as against the global financial crisis of 2008 that it has let people gasping for breath, businesses gasping for breath. So what do we do? And before I get ahead, what I'm going to do is share my screen so that all of you can see the slides and then we'll take it up from there. I hope all of you can see my screen. Yes, sir. Great. So this is a quick slide. Just wanted to give you a sense of this WHO data. Yesterday's data. Yesterday's data mentioned by WHO the report said 823,000 positive cases. In India just morning, I think we crossed 2000. Bloomberg just three hours ago reported a number of 932,000, very close to a million. When it started off, I would say just 45 days back would have thought that there would be a million cases across the world. Of course, the epicenter started in China, moved very quickly to Europe. And right now, US is battling, is facing its biggest healthcare challenge, probably from the time the country was really formed. So quite a challenge. Anyway, let's look at what we're going to do and what I would think you should be doing to keep your business ahead. What's important is not to look behind, but is what you need to do now and what you need to take it forward. Quick sense. Entrepreneurship is about making ideas happen. It's not just about the idea, but also the execution. And today, we are all going to look at what are the possible execution ideas that you could have in this pandemic. Just as a quick one, during the presentation, if you have questions, keep typing them in the question box. Sonali, our moderator and I, we will go over the questions once my conversation is over. And I will attempt to answer as many as I can given the time schedule that we have. So if you, in the question box, if you see a similar question already asked, you can probably just write plus one or something like that, so that we know, we don't need to repeat that question. With that, let's go ahead and look at what are the 11 steps that you should be taking. The fact that you have to communicate is a given. You know, in times of crisis, whatever be a threshold for communication costs that, which means if you think the more communication, the more communication that you can do, the better it is. What kind of communication you need to do? Well, it has to be clear, crisp, transparent and open. Believe me, in times of crisis, in times of situations like these, you really need to really, really need to have a very transparent and open communication. More importantly, your team, you need to connect with your team and explain to them where the business is. What are you trying to do with the business? How are you going to take it forward? What are your plans? Many times, as business owners, entrepreneurs, we do not share all the information. We probably share 50% or 75% of the information that we have, leaving that that should be enough for our employees. It doesn't work like that, friends. Employees as human beings are very sensitive and especially in these times, they are hypersensitive. And by not, you not sharing the entire information, you're actually getting them more fearful. They would try and start rumors within the organization. Keep away from that. Try and be crisp, clear, transparent and open where the business is. With your customers, and I'm sure just as a thought, most of you or some of you would be members of frequent flyer programs, would be members of various hospitality programs of different hotels. And you would have noticed that you would have been seeing in the last 30 days a barrage of emails coming from these aviation CEOs writing to them, telling them till the time, of course, the lockdown did not happen. These CEOs were writing to you, what are they doing to ensure that the planes are safe, that how they're sanitizing the planes, how are they ensuring that the journey that you're taking with them is safe. The hotels were writing to you, how they're sanitizing their rooms on a daily basis to ensure that when you're within their premises, you are safe. So these organizations were already writing to you as because you were their customers. Likewise, you need to write to your customers, what are you going to do? What are your plans? What are your thoughts? Connect with them and believe me, they will appreciate that connection. Your social networks, your LinkedIn, your Facebook, your Instagram, whatever handles that you run, you need to have a similar message getting across to the larger community at a lot. The reason why it is required is because the moment these people connect with you on social networks, they need to understand where your business is, what are you trying to do? Keep your business up. Your customers, your suppliers are equal. Your connection with them and your communication with them has to be clear. And why it is required is to ensure that your supply chains are working, your suppliers are with you. And lastly, your stakeholders. Think of it. As the stakeholders of your business need to understand what are your business, how you're going to do it differently. So having said that, the next step that I'd like to talk about is positive. Interestingly, in every crisis is hidden an opportunity. If you take, look back to the financial crisis of 2008, we saw some companies thrive right off. It was because that these companies saw the opportunities and they took it with both their hands and ran, they ran with the ball. Just as a good example, you look at Netflix. In 2008 and 2009, what was ruling in the US markets was a DVD rental chain called Blockbuster Video. Customers used to come, come to those stores physically, rent out a DVD, take it back, watch the DVD after a week, come back, give the DVD, pay the rental and stuff like that. Closer home, that is what you were doing. You had a closed by DVD rental company that you were going to, either you were going physically or somebody from that rental company was coming and delivering the DVD to you for 24 hours or 36 hours, what you got as whatever you wanted. What has Netflix done? It actually killed Blockbuster Video because they saw the opportunity. You look at Amazon. Amazon since 2008 global financial crisis has continued to survive and thrive. Interestingly, the global financial crisis saw a lot of banks go down, but there was one bank that stood the test of time and actually came out tops and that global bank was Citibank. In the US, it actually increased significantly in terms of the assets that they were holding. So really, you have to look at what are the opportunities that exist in front of you. Remember, panic every hour and celebrate that with your teams. Do it with passion. Remember, when I say being positive, it is not for the sake of being positive. The positivity comes because you are seeing yourself as at the end of the tunnel, Mr. Rantopani, you are seeing that there is, how would you like to, how would I want you to look for new opportunities? First, look at opportunities that look at new products, look at new customers, look at new markets. If your target audience is impacted, for example, if you are supplying to the hospitality industry, to the aviation industry, you will need to look at new target audience because you know today that the hospitality and the aviation industry will take some time to come out of this crisis. So you will have to reinvent your products, your services, possibly look at new customers, help those customers that are in need. And many times, which it may need to looking at products at the lower price options. So try and create products at lower price options because that is what your customers actually need today. Present an alternative. In recession, people really make hard choices and they look at what they need to cut from their lives. You have to ensure that it is not your product and services that they cut, which means you have to look at possibly cost-efficient ways to offering your products and services to your target audience. Survive for sure and maybe even thrive. Teams need to see that you're leading the people who cannot desperate picture, especially in front of your teams, even in this pandemic and ensuring that your business is to go forward. The next thing that you need to do is a quote that most of you would have seen in your life. The only constant in life is do not procrastination will not help you. If you wait thinking, okay, I'll wait and do something once the lockdown opens, if it opens on April 14th. Or I'll wait for April 14th to come. It's locked down. I don't really need to do anything. And once the lockdown opens, you yourself believe that in the next couple of weeks, business is normal. Friends, it's not going to happen. It is not going to happen. You have to move now. Do your scenario planning now, because if you do not do your scenario planning and move forward, by the time the next change comes, you will be far behind. Businesses typically have two or three kinds of responses, actually three kinds of responses for any slowdown. And I'll again take you back. Today, I'm going to sort of focus a lot on the global financial crisis 2008, because that is where probably some of you saw the slowdown. And you need to see where you want to, where this slowdown will take you. So businesses typically have three or four kinds of responses in a slowdown. The first, which is the most natural response that comes is cost cutting. So this is called prevention focus. Most companies in a slowdown believe, let's cut our costs. And once we have cut our costs, let us see whether we're still profitable. And I'll give you an interesting story of a large company that I'm sure all of you know of, which was Sony. In 2008, Sony was being led by a gentleman called Harvard Stringer. Harvard was a war veteran, Vietnam war veteran, of course, a large experience in CBS and broadcast industry. And of course, he finally reached the level of leading Sony worldwide. 2008, because I think his training as war veteran was to cut your losses, he decided to cut expenses primarily. Sony led course. Employees, they cut R&D expenditure and everything else that they needed to do to cut down their costs. When things started going up, guess what happened? Sony actually found very difficult to regain the sales momentum and lost out on its competition big time. The other companies, so this is prevention focus. The other who I believe are the aggressive, what is called promotion focus companies. And again, a great example, large company that you know of is Heilert Packard HP for short. HP had in 2002 taken over the business of Compact. And their sole objective was that they wanted to be the leader in the laptop market. Guess what? 2002, they had taken over Compact, they were trying to put their businesses together. And then came the slowdown of 2008, HP at that point of time decided that this was a good time to acquire some more new businesses. So they went and acquired EDS, they went and acquired Palm, they went and acquired 3Com. And in the end, they realized that they had written far more than they could chew. And they lost out the laptop race to two other competitions, Dell and Lenovo. So you have to think how you're going to plan. Another approach that companies take, which people have found to be the best approach, is what is called pragmatic approach, where companies have a mix of offensive and defensive strategies. And what that really does is the defensive strategies take care of the shock of the slowdown. And the offensive strategies that really get you ahead is what you're trying to fix now. So very interestingly, and again, I'll talk about two large companies that were battling it out in the US for the stationary market. So the two companies were Office Depot on one side and Staples on the other. What did Office Depot do? Both these companies had a whole bunch of number of stores across US. Office Depot looked at the loss making stores, shut them down and tried to contract their costs. What did Staples do? Staples, on the other hand, cut down some of their loss making stores, but they added as an offensive strategy, 10% to their staff. And what was that staff supposed to do? From their stores, Staples started offering value added services. And this staff was primarily geared up to offer those value added services. Three years down the road post the slowdown in 2012, Staples was far ahead of its rival Office Depot. So think about, and I'm just giving you these ideas so that when you look back at your business, you think of what are offensive and defensive strategies that you can take. So what are we trying to do in change? You have to get ahead. You, as the leader of the organization, have to lead that change. Nobody else is going to come and do it for you. The message has to come from you. These are the changes that we're going to do. Look at, take a hard look at your products, your services, your pricing, delivery, staffing. Take a look at every aspect of your business. If required, change the entire, change the whole business. If required, pivot the business 90 degrees. Look at what different you can, the reason why I'm saying so is things are in hard times you have to look at and constantly be nimble on your feet to look, change the way you deliver your products, especially in lockdown modes, change the way you offer your products to your customers. If you're not selling online, this is the time to go online now. Probably end of this conversation, you just get and start looking at how your products and services can be offered online. Get on with it right now. The next step that you need to take, believe me, eight days would have taught you that virtual is the new normal. Believe me, it's not going anywhere. Now, you look at, if you think that as soon as the lockdown opens, we will be in a position to go and start knocking at customers' doors and suppliers' doors, shaking hands with friends. Believe me, it's not going to happen anytime soon. And that is the new normal. Look at what schools and colleges have done. Those of you who have school-going children, college-going children, what have these institutions done so quickly? They have gone online. The e-learning platforms never had it better, right? So while you're working at home from your house, your children are online in front of their laptops, you know, connected to their school, being taught by their teachers. So look at the shift that has happened and think, why will this not continue, right? Look at what Baidu has done closer home, full-page ads telling you, you know, this class three to four students can log in at this time, class eight to nine students can log in at this time, this is the subject being taught and stuff like that. Or look at what your local gyms have done, right? Gyms actually were the first to be shut down under the new lockdown norms, even before the lockdown was announced. And what did these gyms do? Most of them with their trainers connected with you online so that in the safety of your home, you can continue to exercise and remain fit. So these companies have quickly adapted to the new normal, which is virtual. Knowledge is a pro here and a constraint here. Most of us still do not have the discipline earlier. The only bandwidth issues that you would be facing is towards the evening when everybody was normally at home. But right now, probably in a room at four different corners, you have four people of the family connected doing their piece of work, either connected to their school college or connected to their office. So bandwidth issues come into play, finding a quiet corner in the house so that you can conduct your business also at times becomes a challenge, right? So those are the things that you need to think through and see how you're going to fix it for the future. Managing your team virtually, that is one of the biggest challenges. Depending on the maturity of your staff, there are many ways that you can handle it. But easiest way is to start with the morning huddle, fixed time huddle. Be the platform that you're using, be it Zoom that we are all using today, be it Microsoft Teams, Slack, Skype, whatever platform that you're adopting. But it is great to have a fixed time huddle with your team. What does that do for you and your team members? It gets them to focus what is their ask for the day. Not only that, everybody gets connected, everybody knows where everybody is. If your team is slightly immature, a midday fixed time call right after lunch or right before lunch is a good idea. At that point of time, as the leader of the organization, you can address any problems, offer them solutions so that they get the next half day to quickly work on those and take next steps forward. And then again, towards the end of the day, in a huddle as to what you achieve for the day, what are the likely plans for the next day. Social distancing, needless to say, is the new norm. And again, remember, once the lockdown opens, people would rather have joy. Remember, things are not going to quickly come out of it. As human beings, the fear that we have from the virus, it's not going to come out and let us quickly start mingling with people. Employees start feeling alone when they're working from home. That is where the daily huddles, the end of the day connects, really keeps them rooted and gets them. That's something that is crucial, crucial for your business. Planning. So putting your weekly plans in place, what are you going to do while you're working from home? What are you trying to achieve at the end of the week? Stuff like that is important, just as meetings are. And when you're meetings, when you're running your meetings, not only just as morning huddles or objective specific meetings, ensure that you have 100% participation. Everybody who comes to the meeting participates. That is where you get people to focus on the job. Finally, ensure that there's a program for reporting. What has he or she done through the week, through the day? So that is crucially important. So all these aspects that I talked about relating to now let's move on to what is required for your business. So I'm really sorry for cutting you off. Can we take a very short break? Your voice seems to be fading in between. So we can check that in between. And to all attendees, you can have this five minute break to write down all the questions in the Q&A session for the questions to be answered at the end of the session. Sure. We will take five minutes break. It's 12.35, 12.40 we are back. Yeah. Welcome back, sir. Thank you. Yeah, please continue. So folks, let's carry on. I hope the voice is better and you can hear me much more clearly now. Yes, sir. Okay, great. So sorry, I'll switch back to my, yeah. Can you see all, can all of you see my screen? Not as of now. Yeah. Yes, it's visible now. So quickly, now we are focusing on the next couple of steps that we will talk about is what is it that you can do to get your business ahead. First thing that you need to look at, look at, remember, in times of crisis, cash is king. Nothing stops spending, but look at what you can postpone. So take a real hard look at your expenses and look for a good example. If you're working out of co-working spaces, what you need to do? Quickly invoke the force major. And then when you go back once the lockdown is open, take a quick assess, assess how many of your staff are going to come back to the co-working space or some of them are continuing to work from home. Go back and renegotiate those rentals. Those are things that you need to do now. Look at slowing down, postponing your expenses. Work around every expense. Look at the 80-20 rule. Look at what your major expenses are and see how you can cut them. Another good example, if you're looking at upgrading your IT systems, upgrading your servers, this is the time to take a hard look. Can you postpone it by three months, six months and see where you could end up? Things like that, those are the things that you really need to take a hard look at, where you can reduce outlays. If you have a CAPEX capital-oriented project going, see what you can delay there because you need to conserve all the cash. Renegotiate now. If you have offices, if you have retail stores, go back to your landlords and renegotiate your rentals because believe me, the next year also is going to be a very slow year. This is the time to go back and renegotiate those rentals and see if you get some relief. For example, it sort of connects with the progressive companies that I talked about, the pragmatic companies about offensive and defensive strategies. When I was leading an organization way back and the financial crisis had hit, what did I do? First thing I did was I renegotiated every rental contract that I had. And believe me, the mall management really gave and were ready to talk about reducing rentals. Not only did I do that, we were looking for more spaces. And the right spaces for retail stores. And it is during that financial crisis, I actually added 50% more stores at the right locations. And in one year, we actually came out far, far better and way ahead of what our business plans were. So you have to look at and look at how you're going to renegotiate your primary expenses that you would have. What about marketing and selling? My advice, keep those expenses. I talk a little bit more about marketing and selling expenses elsewhere too. So I'm not spending too much. But believe me, you'll have to continue to market. You have to continue to sell. That is something that you cannot. So I talked about the fact that cash flow is cash is king. And this quote really says it all. Revenue is vanity. Cash truly is king. In these hard times, it is your cash flow that really needs to matter. Every entrepreneur knows it. Those of you who have been running your businesses know you need to have cash in hand in these slowdowns. Great example. And again, you will say that, hey, this gentleman is going back to the financial crisis of 2008. Again, a great example. Ford Motor Company, at the time of financial crisis, already had a 20 billion credit line. They were not utilizing it. But because the credit line was available to them, they were able to survive it. Otherwise, God knows today whether Ford existed as a company or not. It was only because they had the cash available then through a credit line from the banks that they were able to survive the crisis. Recover your debts. Many times, that becomes an issue. So if you have to employ somebody on your finance team, just focusing on recovering your debt. Offer your A customers. Cash upfront discounts. Now, when you say A customers, in my thinking, I split my customers as A, B, C, and D. A customers are my top customers who give me large amount of business. Possibly, I repeat customers and don't have payment issues. They pay on time, agree to dates, everything else happens. B are my basic customers. Customers were there and do decent business with me. C are customers what I say can't deal with. And those are customers either you need to move them to B or let go of them. And D are customers that are dead. So you really need to focus in these hard times on A and B customers and get your business going. Offer your A customers cash upfront discounts so that they pay in time and keep your cash flow going. It's keep important suppliers and partners. Pay your important suppliers on time as per agree to terms. And again, you'll say, hey, what is this gentleman saying? But believe me, it is these suppliers who are going to help you in this time of crisis to ensure that your supply chain is absolutely okay on the back end. If you're paying on time, you can actually help reduce your inventory costs by keeping lower amounts of inventory because these suppliers will deliver on time. And therefore, if you keep even smaller amounts of inventory, you'll be able to release a lot of cash programs. The federal government, the government of India, RBI just recently announced a slew of programs. Even if you have the financial muscle to get past the slowdown, my advice is to look at these programs and take them with both the hands. Many times, if you have credit limits, go back to your bank and renegotiate the interest rates. Ensure that the bank is ready to continue to sort of honor the limits that they have given you. Look at, is there a possibility of getting lower interest rates from other banks? So really look at yourself where you can get cash, cash availability at a lower cost. And that is truly extremely important in these times to get your business out of this slowdown. Reduce your capital expense. If you have capital expense programs right now running, see if you can negotiate with the suppliers, delay the payments, or aren't paying them rental for the capital equipment that you've purchased, which sort of a wet lease if I may, which then gets merged once things get on and goes towards the payment of the actual as a capital payment later on. So look at all the options that are available because those are the things that are going to help you. And finally, sell your goods. Sales gets you the maximum care. Folks, just a quick reminder, I hope you're taking time to write the questions that are coming to your mind because we will have time to go over your questions. I end my conversation. So the next thing what you need to do, it's an interesting slide header, right? Sales with compassion. What do I mean by that? We need to change our tone of keeps the business going. Cutting costs will get you some, but it will not get you there. However, in these tough times, we really need to change the tone of our selling. Three months back, months back when everything was hunky-dory, businesses on the app, you could have taken a hard sell approach, take it or leave it in front of your customers, show some arrogance in your selling. But opting for the hard sell approach right now is not befitting in current times. Customers are looking for and they are equally disturbed as you are both emotionally and mentally. Hard sell will not get you. Be empathetic, try and be compassionate and have a serious customer focus because these are the times that the customers need you the most. Despite their compassion, despite the empathy, it is still selling. And believe me, let no one tell you, hey, why are you continuing to sell? Believe me, you're not selling for the sake of selling, but right now your sales has a very different purpose. Purpose is to save your business. It's not about meeting your top line. It's saving your business right now. It's single most purpose right now for sales. Of course, the connect that you have with your customers, the relationships that you build really matter, really, really matter. So take care of people now, take care of your customers now. Even they'll take care of you. It's truly critical that you create a perception with your customers. Here is a company, everything that you execute. The next element that I'm going to talk about the next step is probably a very important piece of this conversation. People. I believe, this is my personal belief and I have stood by it in my entire career, that people, your people are your freakiest assets. What are they doing right now? Your employees are scared. They're scared of what lies ahead. They don't know what is going to happen once the lockdown gets lifted. They are fearful of losing their jobs. They're worried about the virus. They're worried about themselves and their families. And they're worried about what is going to happen because they can't see the future. They can't predict the future that they know that their prediction will hold true. In short, they're worried about everything that is happening around them. What is it that you need to do? You need to lead and change daily hurdle and lead. Those are things that your celebration of every small win helps them get out of this mindset of fear and the fact that there is some wins that have happened. And we are moving forward. It's crucial for you to think and get your employees to focus on the goal that you have set for them. If you look at the quote up in the slide, start with good people, lay out the rules, communicate with your employees, motivate them and reward them. And if you do all those things, believe me, your employees will take care of your business. Great man, Lea Ekoka, great leader at Ford and subsequently at Chrysler Auto. Amazing person in terms of his business sense that he had in leading those companies. So the other element that you need to do from your employees is set new standards. Set new standards in terms of delivering on their goals while working from home, while being virtual, while being in an environment which right now is very fearful. People don't know what the business is going to be, economy is sliding. All those things you still need to set new standards and you need to do it with a lot of positive, crucial and important at this thing. Help your employees understand the purpose of your business. That is what would drive your employees forward. All the fear that is surrounding them. It's an interesting comment that I'm making here. So you have employees who are managing costs and you have the sales side which is managing your profits, basically the cost centers and the profit centers. And you have to think how you're going to have these cost center employees move into profit center roles because right now you need all hands on deck to get your sales engine going and continue to grow. A good example, an account assistant probably taking charge of all the debtors and trying to recover them. A supply chain guy probably working with your sales team members to do the back and work for him or her while the sales team actually gets more time in front of the customers. Think of those aspects. Think how these profit center and cost center employees can move into profit center roles and get things moving. Train and retrain. This is the time a lot of people, a lot of people are acquiring new skills and that is what is required. You need to train or retrain any of your employee. This is the time to get him or her to keep as many employees as you can. And I have a very nice story about this. There's a company in the US in San Luis called Barry Wehmiller. Barry Wehmiller is an engineering services, engineering products company and also an IT services company, large company, about 7,000 employees and in the financial crisis because things went spiraling down, Barry is a board met and then they called the chief executive officer saying, Mr. CEO, please come. We need to discuss how we're going to survive this crisis. In the process, the board asked the CEO that we need a cost reduction of 10 million dollars from your employees, which means you need to let go of your employees and save 10 million dollars for us. The CEO was in a quandary because he didn't want to do that. He had a different approach to the whole process. So he told, he promised the board, he said, Mr. Board members, you need a 10 million saving. I assured you that I'll get you the 10 million saving end of the year. He came out of the board meeting, went back to his troops, his employees and talked to them and his message was very simple. Folks, either all of us can suffer a little or some of you can suffer a lot. I believe all of us should suffer a little and get past this crisis and together with his team, they put a program where each employee in the organization took four weeks unpaid holiday. End of the year, the CEO went back to the board with a 20 million dollar saving and a team that was extremely high on morale and extremely gung-ho of being in it together. So the reason why I'm saying and gave this example is, believe me, keep as many employees as you can. Look at ways and means how you can plan it. You're already seeing announcements by various companies in India where the chief executive officers, owners have said, okay, I'm not going to take salary for one year and all that stuff. We are going to cut salaries of higher and high paid employees. A lot of stuff is happening and all that is because in the end, once this crisis gets over, you need these people back. So you need to look at what you need to do best in these circumstances. Having said all that and I'm doing, I gave you a great example. There is a possibility of two things. One, there were underperforming employees that you were already planning to get rid of. This is the time to do it. Or the second possibility is that you believe, as owner of the business Mr. Antwunear, that despite all the changes in the salary cuts, I would still need to let go of employees because my business cannot take it. To that end, I have only one advice. Whatever attrition you're planning, do it only at one go. Which means your scenario planning has to be such that your attrition has to account for the worst case possibility. Do not think that, okay, hey, let me let go of three employees now. And if things don't go as per my plan, then three months or four months down the road, I will let go of five more employees. Because if that happens, when you're letting go of three employees, you will not be truthful to your remaining team whether you have any other plans for attrition. So if you do it at one go, you'll be transparent and open that this is the only change we are looking at. And now rest of us, let us get together and get this business ramped back up. So think about those things as we go, as you go forward in your business planning mindset, building a strong mindset, right, is the need of the hour. The positivity has to come through and do whatever it takes to maintain it. Some people exercise to get sanity back, other do yoga or many meditation, do whatever it takes, but we should. Having a daily ritual would help you, is plan ready. This is one of the first half, typically I am addressing these things, second half. This is my most productive time of the day when I'm active, when my mind is fresh. This is the time that I'm going to think forward, come out with plans, what are we going to do. This is the time that I'll strategize with my senior team, see what we're going to do for the next week, week after, two weeks, three weeks, six weeks later. Have that plan. Continue to learn and improve. Part of attending this webinar, webinar, or you've got some ideas, how you're going to take your business forward. And this is part of learning and growing, right. Crisis is presenting and believe me, if you will look at what that is where your win is, only way you can find small wins each day. Believe me, it is not about getting a hundred percent win. It's about getting a one person win. It's an interesting, in today's connected word, sometimes you are buried under the news avalanche. The WhatsApp keeps burying you under. While you're working, keep away from WhatsApp, giving you a whole bunch of negativity. Have a fixed time in the day when you watch and consume real news, not what gets floated around. That will keep your sanity and keep you thinking forward rather than being buried. Oh, this has happened. This is what is this report saying. This is what somebody else is saying. This is what this researcher is saying. Get away from all of that. It's important that you focus on your work and hand rather than getting buried under the WhatsApp avalanche. Thomas, you will talk a little bit about the fact that why we should not see the only thing you need to do in your marketing space. Your sales tone has to be different. Your marketing message has to be different. It cannot be the same. It has to be compassionate and more importantly, has to bring out the purpose of your organization. People today, in the fact that they are confused when they are emotionally and mentally disturbed, they love to connect with the purpose. They do not connect with what benefits your products profit them. They need to understand that the purpose of your business is for the greater community. That is where your marketing message has to come through. Believe me, that is the change that you need to bring. If you think what advertisements, what messages you had which you were running probably three months, four months back, you can just continue with that. Believe me, those are not going to work. Of course, in your messaging, you have to urge your customers to take action. It has to be virtual and the advantage of virtual. The bigger advantage is that most of it with marketing, you can actually measure, negotiate your marketing contracts. The reason why you need to negotiate it, because this is the time to negotiate. Remember, we talked about cutbacks is a cost outlay that you need to renegotiate. Go back and see if you can get more marketing or the same rupee that you were spending earlier. Look at that and the fact that you are measuring your marketing, you will know you are better than before. The last point that I have is really what is it that you need next? Because it is the next 90 days that are crucial. If you are able to survive with a positive mindset, communication, we talked about the positive mindset that we need to bring. We talked about the business side of things, how are we going to look at every cost outlay, how are we going to change, how are we going to drive our sales and marketing? We need to look at then put a plan together and see what you are going to do in the next 90 days to get out of this slowdown, get out of this pandemic. Put together a plan based on what you have thought through, what changes you are going to make to your product. You have taken a motor store and you now are trying to put your products online. What changes do you need to make to your business? So think about all those things. Then of course the main objective being you are going to survive first and find the 90 day program and thinking is all about what are you going to survive. What is your coach? If you have, believe me, having a mentor, having a coach really makes a difference. Step 12, in our 11 step program, this step 12, I just wanted to put across to you because these are all common sense. I'm sure you would have all thought about over delivering customer service. In these tough times, customers are looking at every business is trying to over small wins that you can get. Small thank you email to the customer really becomes such an important thing for you and for your customer. Remember, virtually, if you smile, your customer doesn't know, don't know. So how would you ensure that your customer knows that you're happy with his business and you're thankful to him for the business that he's given you? Think about those. What are your people first? They are your biggest. Think out of the box. It's important to think and no idea is a bad idea. Reach out to your teams. Sometimes they have great ideas and that will help you think and come out of this. Hands as much as you can. Keep clean and finally provide a sanitizer and safe. So as I finish up, I wanted to offer you a small gift for all the time that you've invested today with me. I'm offering you a free business health check. Copy and follow the following link and obviously it'll take you to the action coach India site where you can go through this business health check and we will come back to you. So those of you who want to do now, feel free to do so. Those of you who want to do it later, send us an email and we will send you the link. We'll be happy to send you the link, right? Think about what five ideas that you took out of the and you need to take action. Believe me, that is going to help you. If you think you're going to do it tomorrow or day after research shows that after 10% of what you think about what action you're going to take. As action coach, I talked about that your 2021 plans have gone for a toss with this pandemic coming in and all your growth plans, all your hiring plans, everything is on the shelf right now. So at action coach, we offer a program called growth club where we help businesses put their 12 month program and then break it down to a 90 day quarterly plan to ensure that they're able to put it all together given the new situation. And what I'm offering you today is join me for a growth club at discounted rates. If you're interested, please send an email and we will come back to you in 10 times. Lastly, small appeal to all of you. Donate whatever you can to the PM pairs fund. With that, what I will do is I'll hand you back to Sonali and with Sonali and me, we will go over the questions so much, so so much for patiently listening to me today. Thank you sir. Thank you so much for your wonderful insights. And I'm really sorry to everyone for having some issues with the audio. To everyone asking yes, the recording will be available. We'll be posting it on all our social media platforms for you to have a look. So please make sure you follow us there. And also we will share the notes of the complete webinar in an email afterwards. So thank you so much. And once again, thank you so much. And so yeah, we'll start with the Q&A session now. I'll just take up all the questions one by one. Right. So someone says, are we going to have continuity on this subject and program in future so that we can collaborate our thoughts to work on a feasible model to overcome the crisis? Your thoughts? So the question is brought by Eka Pillai, right? So Mr Pillai, absolutely. We would love to see and look at your thoughts and definitely can work to a feasible model to look at how we can help entrepreneurs. Next question is by Mr Amit Madhav. He says, how we should plan virtually for manufacturing industry where blue collar uneducated staff is there? So manufacturing industry unfortunately cannot work virtually especially for blue collar staff which needs to go and come into manufacturing lines to produce products, right? So absolutely that is where I think the only thing that you can offer to these this staff possibly and that is if they're online and they have access to broadband at home is try and see if you can train and retrain them. That's a good possibility. You can look at offering customer service classes to them. You can look at how you can improve quality and look at how you can improve production qualities and see if you have trainings available for those. That is the stuff that I would say you need to focus on right now while they are hunkered down at home. Right. The next question is by Monica Segel. She says, agree with the strategy of offensiveness with defensiveness. So there's going to be some retrenchment for survival of others. How does one deal with this socially and morally especially when the virus is an act of God? Very good question Ms Segel. Right now even our governments are advising that please do not let go of any jobs because these are tough times and most as I mentioned in my conversation to your employees are your biggest asset and try and keep as many as you can and if at all you have to let go then I would say there are various means and options that the government right now is offering your employees. One is a scheme of PF withdrawal so that basically your employees will be able to get some cash at home by withdrawing the PF rules have just been relaxed by the government of India to ensure that they can get up to three months salary and withdraw it from the problem fund. So look at those options in helping your employees weather this storm. So yes socially absolutely my advice and we should follow the government norm here and the government's advice and guideline that if we can hold on to our employees in these tough times at least for three more months it'll be great. Next question is by Mr. Vagur Khanna. He says usually when working with large teams on virtual platforms some folks don't quite often come forward with their challenges or constraints and even experiences any techniques to help them open up more often? Great question Mr. Khanna. So yes and that's where remember a point that I touched upon when you're having meetings you need to have 100% participation which means that everybody gets time to contribute and as a leader of that meeting if you are leading a team it solely rests on you to draw people out and possibly understand more in what they're trying to say or what they're not trying to say that is one. The other is connecting with the odd employees one on one probably in these tough times at least once a day to understand what are the challenges constraints that they're facing and then bringing it up in a larger gathering. So if an employee is raised that issue one on one with you you can open it up in the next employee meeting that you have so that everybody comes on the same page on those issues. I trust this helps answer your question. Next question is by Ms. Dolly Roy she says as we need to keep sales target low one has to devise some cutting measures I agree one needs to have a pragmatic approach but sometimes it's difficult to make employees understand how to address the same. Yeah and that is where Ms. Roy the issue comes of helping employees your vision helping employees understand the vision of the organization the mission where are you headed why are you headed and what is the larger picture and then working with the employees together you look at the example of the Barry Vemmeler the CEO went back and talked to the employees in a very open transparent fashion where he said look I've been instructed by Vemmeler but ten million dollars out of my salary budget how am I going to do it so if you are transparent open about the business and say hey if we have to survive and all of us are in together these are the cost cutting measures that we are taking now let us all look at it together and see what we can do and many times in these hard times taking ideas from them the employee itself gives you a far greater bind when the ideas are coming from them so look at those possibilities during your employee conversations and I'm sure you'll get back right the next question says I'm a small business finance company that gives out loans for automobiles I'm at a stage now where my EMI's are going to get delayed I cannot reduce my staff's strength as they are long-term employees and I have an obligation to take care of them especially during times like these what are the three main things I should focus on to handle this situation well the EMI is actually Mr. Alagapan the EMI's actually give me the first answer which is go back to your bank the RBI has recently announced that all EMI's that could do for March April and May you can defer so the first thing you need to do is go back to your bank and renegotiate and look at deferring those EMI's as soon as you get that three months breather sure that is going to come at a cost because you are deferring your EMI's but you'll continue to pay higher interest on the deferment but having said that given the fact that you want to save your staff it I believe paying that small interest would be better to save your staff and carry on so if you're able to get a three month breather then you'll be able to continue with your staff and in three months put together a 90 day plan how are you going to go forward the next question by Mr. Shah is similar to the one asked by Mr. Amit previously about dealing with the virtual environment in a manufacturing company so I think he skipped that question yeah the next question is by Mr. Mahendra he says how badly and for how long do you think the hospitality industry will be affected especially if your business is focused on V2 well it's it's a very open question and I don't know whether I am I have the expertise enough to tell you that the hospitality industry is impacted by four weeks six weeks six months one year I don't know what is going to happen with the hospitality industry and it all stems from the fact that it is human lives that we are looking at and if any human being feels that his life gets threatened by going and staying in a hotel which the room possibly is not sanitized clean or whatever you may call it the human being will not travel or go to a hotel to stay so you're dealing with human emotions here and human fear so I would say I would not care to attempt how long the hospitality industry would be impacted my my simple thought here would be if you're dealing only with hospitality industry look at how you can pivot your business and look at new target questions the next question is by Mr Rohit he says is this a right time to invest in other businesses maybe I might end up with a good deal Mr warrior it is indeed a good time but you need to look at both as I said and I gave a great example about Hewlett Packard so you have to look at both aggressive and defensive strategies so what you're trying to say of investing in a new business which is available to you possibly at a lower valuation is a very aggressive strategy but at the same time you need to ensure and the defensive strategy would be a value of cutting costs and b value of cash flows covered so those are things that I would urge you to watch out for the next question is by Hiren Patel any suggestions for travel agency and tour operator for the next six months how do we manage this crisis Mr Patel at the outset I would not want to be in your position because obviously travel agency and tour operators for the next six months it's going to be a tough tough call the only thing that I can suggest to you is if you work with large B2B businesses see if you can offer cash discounts on your groups that you are selling six months later or eight months later that is the only option that I can think of immediately as to how you can try and survive the next question is by Mr Tony Fernandez he says being in the logistics industry I want to know how to give discount for payments where the margins are just five to seven percent and payments don't come before 30 45 or 60 days can you put some light on this on whether to give discounts thank you for all your inputs I Mr Fernandez I agree with you logistics of course margins are very very thin and payments obviously agree two terms are 30 45 and 60 days and therefore you are challenged so a good example for a logistics company that comes to my mind is so you also sell on volume right volume weight so what if instead of offering a discount you offer a scale you offer a far wider scale so instead of doing zero to 50 kilos you can say okay zero to 100 kilos this is the rate and looking at those options rather than looking at options where you give a cash discount so what you're offering to your customers is a far more possibly accommodation than the rates in terms of volume weight rather than looking at how you can give clear discounts because your margins are really thin the next question is by Mr Bhura he says I work for a VPO and the management is finding work from home as a new business model however VPO is all about people management and leads management what's your take on work from home as a business model does it help us recruit retired people housewives etc and expand our team what is one major thing to keep in mind with such a business model yes Mr Bhura I definitely understand the VPO business I know somebody very close who works in this business and right now is working out of home so there are issues and there are challenges and what is required specifically in this a is a very strong backend on your software that there are no leaks especially customer information because you're dealing with at most times you're dealing with I would say personal information and you need to ensure that your systems are pretty strong to ensure that you know you have all the security that is available number one work from home at business model I found people from VPO's working from home comfortably so that's not a problem hiring retired people is a brilliant idea hiring housewives is a brilliant idea and a lot of housewives and retired people are ready to do you know work from home so given the virtual the fact that virtual is the new normal I think you're on the right track so we're left with the last five questions now Mr we're out of time also coming out of time yeah right so uh so let's do the let's possibly take one or two more and then we call it off okay sure um Mr Kaushal says how can we ensure that we don't miss on government programs offered is there any consolidated list that is available uh Mr Burr definitely uh there is a consolidated lift list and we will get that list to you absolutely the next question I'll just combine the two questions it's about the effect of on the e-commerce market and also on the real estate industry so I will take the e-commerce one very quickly of course right now if you're in the e-commerce business especially healthcare pharma and e-commerce those are businesses that will fly if you are in the hospitality industry in aviation industry you are in a hard place so the e-commerce industry absolutely is going to to fly now right and what about real estate and advertising because those were the two questions that were remaining so so real estate and advertising I think real estate was picking up slowly I'm hoping that with the new slew of norms that are very recently announced and I'm hoping that the government will come up with more norms with respect to real estate there is industry pressure coming from a lot of sides with on the government to look at possibly looking at further easing of norms for the real estate my sense is real estate should come out better in the next six to eight months permittum advertising if you are in the digital marketing space digital advertising space you have a great business and great feature that's great thank you so much for being so patient sir and for answering all of thank you very much everybody and thank you Sonali for being a wonderful moderator again I'd like to thank the action coach in their team for all the time and putting this together thank you Bisex thank you so much sir we will share a follow-up email with everyone with all the details about the webinar all the notes and also the link to the recording of the webinar thank you so much thanks bye bye everybody