 Hi, Tom Stuart here with King Business Today. I'm with my partner, Ruth Trotter, and we are right at a special guest today, Joe Walsh from Green King Main up in Portland, Maine. Hello, Joe. Hi, everybody. Good afternoon. Joe's coming out somewhere in the mountains in his ski chalet. What is that condo? How about that? That's right. We have snow on the ground here. Do you can see? So much snow, too. That's incredible. I don't know. It's probably 80 degrees down here today. We're going to be spending a good part of our time today discussing the developments over the weekend with small business administration and the various loan programs they have and how some things change next Friday. Remember, we keep saying that it feels like a month's worth of stuff changes in a day, and Mondays look very much different than Fridays, and, well, this Monday is no different. So we're going to walk you through the minutes with Joe. I know he's been studying this, and he's got a lot of resources, and he's going to help us sort some of that out. I wanted to jump in and answer the question that Liz wanted us to address today, and I'm going to hear my screen here, and I'm going to do that whole flashback. You're going to tell it like it is, Tom? I'm going to tell it like it is. If I can get my computer to be waved. Yeah, that's good enough. It should be a little bit easier. Okay. The person came up Friday. Can you be in trouble for using the term disinfectant, and can you actually get yourself legally phoned? Liz, you know that some people, there's a rumor flowing around out there that people are actually getting fined for using the term disinfectant? $30,000 was the number that was being floated, too. Wow. I talked to Gerona some of the question, and she got a little refit, of course, and kind of summed it up, so I'm just going to walk you through it. A couple of government entities that are involved in this, or one, really, is the Environmental Protection Agency basically regulates disinfectants. It's an anti-microbial pesticide. The first thing that we need to do is get our mind wrapped around the idea that disinfectants are the famous pesticides that kill living things. Only back in 1947, there was a law passed called the Federal Insecticide Fungicide Enroded Side Act. This law regulates a lot of what we still do today, in terms of how we handle pesticides and disinfectants. According to this act, it is a violation of federal law to use any product in a manner that is inconsistent with its labeling. Let's say any product, any disinfectant. This is a disinfectant wipe. This is your old lice ball disinfectant cleaner. I'm holding these up. You can't see them. Yeah, we can. You can? Yeah. Can you see my screen too? No, but we can see you. Yeah, we can see your screen. Sorry, Tom, and we can see you. Okay. Well, cool. Well, if you read the back of the disinfectant wipe or any disinfectant, it says under directions of view, first thing it says is it is a violation of federal law to use the product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling. I don't know how many times I've ever read that and completely was oblivious to the fact that this law saying if I don't use this according to the label, I might be violating federal law, but you are. It's kind of like maybe ripping a tag off of a pillow. There's laws against that too. But as it pertains to disinfectant, the very things that could be considered as a failure to follow would be the dilution, how you dilute it. If you're not diluting it properly, the contact time, method of application, or any other thing that the label says, you don't do it exactly the way that it says, and you're claiming that you're disinfecting really you aren't and technically you're in violation of federal law. Now, I'm not aware of any example where people have been convicted and fined and gone to jail for that, but we did find in a trade journal, Affection Control, today, that the EPA in conjunction with the Center for Disease Control states that by law any applicable label instructions on EPA registered products must be followed. That's just fine for me that we just talked about. If the user selects exposure conditions that differ from those of the EPA registered label, the user assumes liability for any injuries resulting from off-label use potentially subject to enforcement action under FIFRA. Said another way, you as a business owner are responsible for training your people and making sure these products are being used properly, if not, you know, you could actually be subject to federal fines and maybe worse. You're also leaving yourself open to civil spirits. This hasn't been, to my knowledge, a big issue from a cleaning contractor standpoint today, but this is a new normal, this is a new world and you got a whole lot of people running around out there now buying tie-break suits and misting stuff, making claims that they're disinfecting and if they're doing that in a building and they find out that people got sick because we didn't do it properly or you can actually make it more sick by misting a disinfectant and breathing it in and there's just a lot of things that are happening now that, you know, just because it hasn't happened in the past doesn't mean that it might not happen in the future. So my advice would be to, I guess, be careful that we're using them carefully and don't overreach. Don't tell the job and do what you're not trained and qualified to do is, I guess, my general advice on all of us. So Robin is saying it's probably better to say that they're using an EPA disinfectant to sanitize in this effect. I might even take off that and disinfect it with me. You know, using an EPA disinfectant to sanitize, I think you could probably say that pretty honestly. Tom, to get just a hair more clarity, I think that what you were saying is the chances of being fined $30,000 for using the word disinfect all on its own are probably not something that's happening. But there could potentially be fines for saying that you're disinfecting something and when in reality, maybe not so much. Yes? I think that's possible. I think maybe even the bigger risk, though, is civil action, getting sued for damages. Either your own employees, including themselves by breathing these, again, disinfectants are, you know, it's poison. It's a pesticide. And, you know, I see people with fungus and I mean, you got to have all the right PPE in terms of the right respirators and all of that stuff. And I've just got concerned that just people out there who are, you know, looking for an opportunity to make some money in a market where a lot of our traditional revenues going away, but they're maybe taking risks that they should. That would be my concern. I just want to check in real quick. Susan, is the feedback better with us muting with Joe and with me muting? And I'm not muting. I'm just sitting here talking, but... There is a lag on that, Tom, but I think it's fair to assume, okay, good. Okay, so we're good with the whole disinfectant thing and I guess just, you know, be careful and make sure that we have all the proper training, all the proper equipment, and all the, you know, we, you know, there's a lot that goes into doing disinfection, especially in hot sites where, you know, I see more and more where companies and individuals want us to come in in clean space where there was a known COVID-19 case. And, you know, I could see us getting to the point with the proper training and equipment and chemicals where we could do that, but at the moment, I don't think many of us are prepared to do that. So let's shift gears a little bit and talk about what we were talking about Friday and talk about the Small Business Administration and some of the programs that are out there and how things have changed in the last couple of days in that regard. And, Joe, I guess if you could kind of get us started, I mean, I know that you've been doing a ton of research on this and you've got a lot of resources that you've kind of put together in a network. Could you just kind of give us an overview of what the Small Business Administration is doing and what we as small businesses should be thinking about doing in terms of taking advantage of some of the help that's out there for us? Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me on the call, Tom, and it's nice to be here. And I actually just spent my afternoon looking through all the resources, reputable resources I could get my hands on and think that I've got some good answers in terms of what the SBA is offering, making a little bit more sense of it. So I'll just preface everything I say by the fact that I am not a CPA and I'm not even a bookkeeper, really. So you'll definitely want to consult with your own professionals and advisors on this. But I do think that I can give an overview of what I've discovered today, just kind of sharing business owner and a business owner. This is what I see as the opportunities. So, you know, I would start, I'm going to pull up some notes I have on my screen here. Is it possible for me to share my screen or can I, it might be helpful, I think, for folks if I did that. Yeah, Joe, down in the tray there, where like you mean it, if you go a couple over at all so that you can share your screen. Okay, now I have to try and do this without causing the feedback, video feedback effect here. So let's see what I can do. Okay, so I've pulled this up. Is it showing up? No, it is. It is? Great. So, I've got an emergency response plan. I'm happy to share a template of this with everyone when the call is over, would love to share it. Hopefully it could be of use to anyone out there. But basically, you know, the financial piece of our emergency response plan at Green Clean Main has us bolstering our cash position and making sure that we're optimizing all these local, state and federal relief programs. There's a lot going on out there. I think everyone's a little confused or a lot confused as to how everything fits together. And the idea here is just to support a return to full operations as soon as is safe or feasible and to keep our team members financially secure in the interim. So I'll share some of the update sources I've been looking at. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has an awesome update site where you can download some really good resources. So I highly recommend that you check that out. When you go to it, it's really well laid out and easy to follow. Definitely a reputable source there. The SBA disaster site is another good one. And then this would only apply to me, but you might think of similar resources. So we use Paylocity as our payroll provider. Paylocity is an online payroll platform. And they have been providing email updates. And their email updates are excellent because their payroll platform has to automate all of these new regulations and all these new reimbursements and stuff. So they've been a really good source. And then a local law firm. So the law firm where our labor attorney works has also been sending some really good updates. So again, use your own professionals in that. But I definitely trust my labor attorney to give me good information. So what you basically have is there's a few SBA pieces that kind of fit together. So I'll share with you what I know right now. So the biggest one seems to be that people have questions about is the Paycheck Protection Program. So I'll skip to that. So this is an SBA loan. It's partially forgivable that you're not going to be able to get registered through your bank, okay? So I think everyone on this call is going to be eligible. You just have to have under 500 employees and be affected by COVID. So it's pretty easy. And by the way, I wasn't on the call on Friday. So please stop me if I'm reviewing things that don't need to be reviewed right now. This is good, y'all. This is good. So, you know, in terms of the loan amount, the average monthly payroll costs in the one year prior to the loan origination date. So if you, you know, if the loan drops for you on May 1st, then it's going to be the, the maximum loan amount was two and a half the average, two and a half times the average monthly payroll costs for the previous 12 months. So it's the average over the previous 12 months. So it's one month times 2.5. And then any of that amount that isn't forgiven under the terms that I'll review in a minute, then gets termed out for 10 years at 4% maximum interest. So let's say you get a loan for $100,000. You spend 50,000 of it on allowed expenses through the program. That 50,000 is forgiven. You then owe 50,000 back. That gets termed out up to 10 years at 4% interest. And of course, if you didn't actually use those funds, you can just return them to the SBA. There's no prepayment penalty or any fees associated with this at all from anything that I can see. And also, those payments for the amount that's not forgiven is deferred up to six months, which is also really great for you. And these loans are available through June 30th. So you don't need to, for the purpose of making sure you get your loan, apply right away. You have time to apply for the Paycheck Protection Program loan. So the forgiveness. So this is the part I know I needed a lot of clarity on. So basically forgiveness means you don't have to pay back whatever portion of the loan is forgiven. So what will be forgiven is eight weeks of payroll costs from the origination date of the loan. Payroll costs, by the way, includes salaries, wages, vacation, any severance pay you paid, group health care benefits, including insurance premiums, any retirement benefits, and any state or local payroll taxes. So it's all covered. Also covered is mortgage loan interest. Interest on any other debt that you had prior to this loan is also covered and will be basically paid for by the federal government. Any lease payments you have and any utility payments you have. So it's pretty compelling. That's a pretty awesome amount that you can just get given to you. However... I've got a question, Joe. Can I interrupt you real quick? Yeah. Did you say anything about sick pay being forgiven? Sick pay is not forgiven because, as I understand it, that is covered under a separate credit. So the sick pay is covered under the previous... I actually don't have information about it on the screen here, but it's covered under that previous act where you'll get reimbursed for the sick pay through payroll tax credits. And just a little update on that. That's the first part of the CARES Act. The first part of the CARES Act, or I think there was an act before that. I don't remember off the top of my head, but it was a week ago. It seems like a year ago. But under that act, basically any of us in this business are going to have 100% of the sick leave that we are responsible for paid for because there are caps on how much the federal government will reimburse you for with sick leave. But those caps are well above what anybody in this business makes in terms of employees. So it's not something we really have to worry about for my reading of it. So I know there's been a lot of concern of, oh my God, I'm going to have to pay all these people sick leave. And my answer to that is the only thing you have to do is front the money until your quarterly payroll taxes. But you're going to get reimbursed for that from the federal government. Does that answer the question? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So where were we? Oh yeah. Basically, you see I highlighted here. If I'm not 100% clear, I've highlighted it in yellow. This is just for myself. It's my own little system I have going. But in the document I have from the US Chamber of Commerce, it seems that no matter how many people you've laid off, like so my business is completely closed right now. I've laid off everybody except for my HR and administrative person. So if you return to pre-disaster employment levels by June 30, all of these forgiveness amounts are 100% forgiven. So as long as you're back to full employment by June 30, they'll forgive all of your expenses from eight weeks from the time you got the loan. So that's pretty cool. And you say full employment. So that's not even necessarily the same people. It does not have to be the same people, not from my reading of it. That's from three different sources. I wanted to make sure it doesn't have to be the same people. It's the same average number of employees. That's what they're looking for. Now this is not talking about your revenue though. I know there's some concern there if I'm not making enough money. Tom, can you mute while I'm talking? Yes. Oh yeah, I'll mute too. Sorry. I think it can handle two people at a time, just not three. Okay. So I know that there's been some talk that you have to have to be paying the same month payroll, but they're not talking about your revenue. So you might have your people doing other things. And just to check in real quick, are you able to see the live comments Joe over here? Right. You know, My screen, I have choice private chat and live comments. Sorry guys. I see it. If you hit the left thumbs, then you'll be able to respond like Charlotte. The answer for Charlotte is yes, that's correct. And then I haven't read Susan. So maybe you could read hers and respond to that as well. And I'm going to go ahead and mute now. Yes. Okay. So that SBA alone have to cover payroll. Can we get it to pay mortgage utilities, et cetera? If your employees are on unemployment. So Susan to answer your question. Yes. You can get it to cover mortgage utilities, et cetera. I don't know if I have that information here, but you're allowed to use it for that stuff. But they'll only forgive the, the stuff that I've put here. So they'll only forgive payroll costs, mortgage loan interest. So not the principal payments, but they'll forgive the interest and interest on other debt, lease payments and utility payments. You'll see if that. And so, um, yeah. And, you know, I think. So this is where it gets kind of tricky and where you really need a good, um, business advisor or a good CPA or someone to help you work through what's going to work best for your business. I know I have a lot of work to do on this, but, um, you know, just being realistic about where I think the, the country is going to be in by June 30th and where our business, my business might be by June 30th. I'm not sure that I can return to our full level of employment by June 30th. So I'm looking at this loan thinking, Hmm, well, I'm probably not going to be able to get all of it forgiven. And so until today, I couldn't get any good information on how that was prorated. So if you don't return to your full employment levels by June 30th, the amount they forgive of your expenses is prorated. And I finally got the formula for that today. So, um, it, I've got a couple of examples here. So I'm going to go with what I think is kind of a likely scenario for our business by June 30th. Um, so we had, um, an average of 30 employees in the, in the period we're using to measure. Um, and previously, let's say by June 30th, I have 15 employees. So my estimated actual payroll cost would be $39,000 for that eight week period with an average of 15 employees. I have to divide that by the 30 employees from the previous period. And I, I know this is getting kind of technical, but that's what it does. It gets technical. But basically you get to choose what you want to use for your previous period. Do you want to use the average number of employees you had between February 15th and June 30th of 2019? Or do you want to use the average number of employees you had from January 1st to February 29th, 2020? And so that's going to be up to you. But the point is use whatever numbers lower. So for me, I had fewer employees last year at this time. So I'm using that number. They're allowing you to choose what number you want to use to make it advantageous to you, the business owner. Okay. So I'm using 30 employees for the previous year average. And so that means they're going to reimburse 50% of, of these above costs for me because I've essentially brought back 50% of my employees. So I know that might be a little confusing, but they're basically reimbursing on a percentage based on how many, the percentage of the employees you bring back. And again, where it can be any employees, it doesn't have to be the employees you had before, but they're just looking at the number of employees that you have. And so you'll have to work through these numbers and figure out if it's going to make sense for you or not to get this loan. But that's the, that's kind of the overview of the PPP as I understand it right now. So, you know, my summary would be, if you think you can be at pre-crisis staffing levels by June 30th, this is a no brainer. The federal government is going to be paying for your payroll for eight weeks. And in our business payroll is 50% of our costs. So that is an absolute no brainer. If you don't think you can be at the full employment levels by June 30th, then you need to do some number crunching and figure out if it's going to make sense for you or not. So that's kind of the summary that I came at today with that. I'm looking at Linda. Yes, we can get a copy of the notes out. Absolutely. And let's see. Cassiere says we provide part-time legal daily or monthly basis. No agency. Oh, okay. That looks like an ad. Okay. Robin Stevenson, can the employee select a better payment versus payroll protection? Can the employee select a better option? So to answer your question, Robin, that's a very good question. So Robin's asking if there's any clarity on employees being on unemployment versus us bringing them back and getting their payroll reimbursed. And can the employee select the better option for them? I think that that's a really hard question. I think that one of the issues that I'm having right now today is figuring out how to navigate this because in my state with the new federal unemployment supplement that they're doing, the $600 a week, with the way unemployment benefits are working in my state, it means that all of my employees are going to be making more money staying home than they will be coming back to work right now. And so it kind of, and we pay our employees really well. I mean, they make an average of $17 an hour, I think, somewhere around there. But it puts us in a tough position because you want to bring people back, but you're kind of asking them to take a pay cut to come back unless you can figure out a way to pay them more right now. And I don't have a good answer for that. And that's going to be something that we as business owners are going to have to get more clarity on in the coming days I think as more guidance comes out. Yeah, but, you know, there's so much confusion on this and we do need more clarity because theoretically if you offer somebody their job back and they refuse it, then you can go back to the state agency that manages unemployment and they would lose that benefit. That's right. And then, but then, you know, as a business owner, you have to, like for me, it becomes a moral question, right? Because I don't want to. So, you know, right now our plan is we're going to bring back our highest performing employees first and we have a way that we define that. It's right in our employee handbook. So it's dependability to date the skill level that they have, that they have, et cetera. So, you know, I would look at my highest level employees with the best dependability and bring those back first, right? But what we're actually asking them to do if I do that is I'm asking them to come back to work for a pay cut and that just doesn't, to me, and come and work in a riskier environment. So, you know, come and work in a riskier COVID-infested environment, potentially COVID-infested environment and take a pay cut to do it. Like to me, that just doesn't seem right. So I'm waiting for more guidance to come out in terms of that piece because I don't feel comfortable with that. And I think a lot of people would agree that doesn't seem right to me. And I'm not going to, I don't want to be put in the position of having to like kind of force my highest performing employees to like lose their unemployment benefits if they're that generous right now. So there's been some conversation about since there is going to be the PPP, is there any way to maybe bring back your highest performing people at, you know, a premium COVID pay during this time, you know, for maybe a total of eight weeks or 16 weeks or whatever it is, or, you know, maybe an extra five dollars an hour or something like that. Have you thought of that or what are your thoughts there, Joe? I think that's a very good idea. I think it's a great question. So something I've batted around is the idea of like, like hazard pay, which I think a lot of employees across the country are getting right now. And I think that it's, I think that it's warranted in, you know, certain circumstances. So I think it's a good idea, but the first thing I need to do before I make any decisions on that is run the numbers and just, it has to make sense, you know, and what I don't want to do is bring all my employees back just to meet the full employment standard, but then have to lay them all off again. Like, so, you know what I mean, you know, June 30th is an eternity from now. So how am I supposed to project if I think business is going to be back? So, you know, there's just a lot, a lot that's unanswered. So I'm just trying to focus on what I do know right now, which is, hey, I have a formula for this so I can start running models and see what makes sense. You would have to think, and I guess time will tell, but I believe that when the dust settles, the rules will be modified in a way where it's more rational for somebody to go back to work than for them to take unemployment. I don't know what that looks like, but it would just seem like they're undercutting one of their main initiatives in terms of getting everybody back to work if they've created a financial incentive for people not to go back to work. So somehow, I mean, we haven't talked about the SBA website yet. How many times has changed over the last week? I mean, they're so far behind the curve in getting this thing figured out that when they get to it, there's got to be some modifications to where it's more economically rational for people to be working than for them to just say, no, I'm making more money not working. And you know, I'm with you on that, Tom, and again, that's why I just think give this two or three more days and I think, you know, I think Robin has a really good point, you know, and I've actually heard this from a couple of other people that the logic Robin says a logic from Congress is that the employee will have to weigh having a full-time job for four months rather than taking the extra $600 per week for four months. You know, I need to understand more about that and how the benefit can be distributed over the next time period between now and the end of the year. So I just need to understand that better because, you know, I agree with the commenters that are saying that, you know, if we bring them back and pay them more for the time being that they're going to stay with us, I totally agree with that. It just needs to work financially and need to make sure that we're doing the best. We need to make sure we're threading this needle, right, as business owners where it's we're doing the best thing for our business and for our employees and for our customers. So we have to keep all the stakeholders in mind when it comes to that. I did want to point out something here, Joe. Going up to Charlotte's question she says if they choose to resign to make more money then will they still be eligible for unemployment? And I think that this is where people keep getting confused. It's not the employee's choice. It's right now it's on us. If we have work and we want to keep people employed or we decide not to, right now this decision is on us. They can't choose to not work to be able to make that extra money and that they just won't be eligible. And along the same lines, if we've laid them off and we hold them back, they can't say no. You know, I prefer to stand on employment and continue making this money. So there's two sides here to look at and I think it just keeps turning into like a, you know, the Eshers. You know, all those twisty things, right? You sort of get hooked in on yourself there. So maybe you could speak a little bit to that, Joe. Well, I mean I think some of that is, depends on your state. So I can just speak to so I operate in Maine the emergency unemployment legislation that was passed last week means that all of my employees that I laid off are all getting the emergency unemployment benefit, which is the same amount as the regular unemployment benefit, but just there was no one week waiting period. And now they're eligible for the federal benefit on top of that. Neither of those in my state it doesn't impact my unemployment insurance rating at all. So it's not costing me anything to have them on unemployment. So as far as I'm concerned my message to my employees at the moment, pending different guidance, is do what's best for you. And we're in a state of emergency, we're operating in a pandemic. And look, I think it's important to keep in mind that when you are a housekeeper, well, let me phrase that differently. When you're an EMT or a nurse or a doctor or you know, working in a hospital, you're signing up to deal with public health crises when they arise. And this is your moment and this is like your chance to be a hero and I don't say that, I say that in all seriousness and have so much adoration for everything those people are doing right now. But that's not our people. Housekeepers didn't sign up to be on the front lines of a pandemic. And they don't have the training typically and the sort of they didn't sign up for this. So I don't think it's fair. And again, this is a judgment call and I'm not trying to put this on anyone but this is just my own moral compass telling me that I don't believe it's fair to force them to come back to work. So at least until the state of emergency is over. So like, you know at the moment, I'm not going to be the guy that's going to say you have to come back or I'm going to report you as denying you know, my offer of a job to you. I'm just not going to do that because this isn't what anybody signed up for. And so for me the calculus of well unemployment benefits affecting my own, you know, personal financial situation goes out the window because I just I'm not going to be putting that position. But you have to make decision that's right for you. Thanks Joe. Super helpful. I think it's really good for people to see that this is multifaceted decision and everybody's going to have to make that decision based on what they believe. I got a couple of Sorry, go ahead. No, I just also want to say that, you know, that there's a self serving part to that as well that I'm not you know, I'm not being totally this isn't just altruism here. I'm being realistic. And I know that so far, all of my employees have given incredible feedback to how we've responded to this and the way that I've responded is by being transparent with them and the transparent part of the transparency is look, I'm working to protect you and to protect the business and I'm going to do both. So they know that that's what I'm doing and I'm just transparent with them about it. And they just really have responded really well to that. And you know, the decision might be harder if you're in a state where you're having to pay unemployment insurance now because all your people are laid off that might change it for you. So, you know, I think you have to look at that. But I do think that transparency piece translates across across the board. What I found is the companies who are staying open and being transparent and talking to their employees about the risks and everything else. Those people are very loyal and they want to go out and clean. So I think it's the same thing that transparency piece is really really important. Employees are wanting to feel like they can trust their company and that their company has their best best interest in mind whichever way that's going and however that's going. They just want to believe that they have they're working together with their company. And so I think it's very important to set goals for your company through the crisis. So like I'm just sharing my screen again here and this is where you know I've set these are our three goals very simple but these have now been shared with my staff and I'm going to share them with my clients in the next email I send out which will probably be tomorrow at this point but our number one priority is that we want to contribute to the community effort to slow the spread of the virus and everyone so far has completely respected that and been excited to be a part of that whatever that means. The second thing is ensure the health and safety of our staff and our clients and then the third is to ensure the long-term health and continuity of the business. So we're looking at all three of those things all the time and everybody knows that and I'm just consistently in my communications with the employees and the customers talking about that and you know I think Matt Rickett said it best recently when he said I'm not going to resume operations until I know I'm part of the solution not part of the problem and I just need to make sure I feel comfortable with that and I couldn't agree more but this is also a very this is also a local crisis so your response is going to depend partially on what's going on in your own local area so where I operate is the hotspot in the state of Maine in Cumberland County so I just didn't feel comfortable staying open so that's an interesting thought Joe because you know is it possible that a company could get too far ahead of this that wanting to do the right thing they shut down but maybe they should have stayed open a couple of weeks and waited until things got a little hotter maybe before shutting down when the local government or state government or whatever kind of tells them to do it I mean maybe I think you know I think the argument can be made that you know you have a responsibility to your employees in your business and you need to do everything you can to keep things going you know so that you know you don't want to close I think I was the first one that I knew of to completely close I was a little on the earlier side but I'm really glad that I did because now you know my employees are taking care of and it's giving me the breathing room that I need to figure out our next steps so um some of the questions over here on the right you guys we got some stuff going on yeah so I'm seeing some questions here let's see my employees my employees that are now laid off still have the supplies and equipment that I distribute to them should I get it all back I think that's a personal choice so argument for taking it back is I don't want the moonlighting with my equipment while we're shut down and I think that's a valid argument there could be liability issues there and so that's also a valid argument argument against doing that maybe would be that you don't want to to me it's more of a psychological one um and Liz I think you would understand this because you're done here so I'm not asking for them to bring the supplies back it's more of just a psychological thing like I don't you know I don't want to send the message that you know I'll give you an example my brother in law was laid off from his job because of this and it was supposed to be temporary but they said come clean out your desk and they escorted him on to the campus of the company and escorted him off and like take all your belongings so that didn't really send the message that you know I said that's kind of a little you know that's kind of a weird way to handle it if it's supposed to be temporary and we're all in this together so a very a variation of that and the question I've heard ask is should we be getting uniforms back like company shirts back and along that lines you know what is the value of that shirt versus the value of that employee feeling like they're still part of the team that's exactly it so I mean I think our value either way but that's that to me is the major pro and con there I might say one way that you could deal with that Susan also is maybe we let them keep that their uniforms because they're part of the team but bring in all the equipment because we want to have it all cleaned, sanitized, disinfected etc but if you're concerned about that that would be a way to be able to bring it back in but still leave people feeling cold yeah that's that's really good idea actually yeah hey Liz so I might use that one Liz so Robin says with the payment protection program can the employees who work receive the earn wages plus the payment protection payment so just to be clear to my understanding the payment protection it's the payroll protection program through the SBA that we were just talking about is reimbursed sorry it's not reimbursed it comes in the form of a loan and then you just don't have to pay that portion of the loan back so the assumption is that you're employing these folks so you know the answer would be that they're just getting their earned wages so if you decided to pay these employees more because you knew that you were getting partially reimbursed from the government then that's your choice but the employees don't receive direct compensation from the payroll protection program it comes from you and then the government just doesn't take their loan money back hope that answers the question Charlotte says I've laid off four employees so far but I have 20 left will I still be eligible for the loan or do I have to try and bring those people back okay yes and they can sit on the couch and make more money or just talking about that so the answer is from my reading of it again I really encourage you to find professional advice here but my reading of it is that is that no you don't need to bring everybody back in fact they're saying you could lay everybody off tomorrow and really all they're considering is all that's going to matter is your employment levels for the eight weeks after you get the loan and then again by June 30th it's actually specifically says in some of the literature I was reading today that it doesn't matter if you lay people off like starting now until you know there was something maybe it was over the next 30 days or something I can't remember exactly but I would say Charlotte that if you feel like you need to lay off more employees go ahead and do it it's not going to affect from what I can read it's not going to affect your eligibility for the program you just bring them back though so you just hired people on June 30th is that the deal well if you have to be back fully by June 30th yes but to be clear you only have to be back fully by June 30th to get all of the money to get all of the money and this is where it's tricky right because I think they did this so that you can't like kind of gain the system and get a bunch of free money from the government so like you for this is how I read it um if you're back to full employment let's say you hire 30 people on June 29th okay they're only going to though forgive the um the payroll for the 8 weeks from the time you originated the loan you have to remember that so if you originated the loan on May 1st and the 8 week period is going to end June 30th so by hiring 30 people on June 29th they're not going to get paid for all that you know it's only from the loan origination date so there is an argument for actually waiting to accept the loan until later again this is something that you have to work out yourself it's going to be different for everybody that's interesting Joe say if one gets approved for the loan now but you're thinking I'm going to be down a month before I can start working again can you accept it say I want the money but not today I wanted a month from now you know I don't know the answer to that so that would be something where we wait more guidance on it seems like these are the ones I have to keep checking my own notes because I keep forgetting it seems like are these the ones yep I'm going to go through a local bank so the PPP is through a local bank so you should be able to talk to your local bank and by the way the banks don't have the guidance on this yet so I would contact your local bank they still aren't exactly sure the SBA is still bringing the guidance down for them so Tom I think that would be a question you could ask your local bank once the time comes I know that I did and they said this wasn't available yet but we got on the list of people that they're going to call when it is I might recommend that you contact your local bank and find out they're going to start calling people yeah if you haven't already received notice from them I have a relationship with a local bank and also with KeyBank which is a big regional bank and KeyBanks already emailed me so some banks might start reaching out to you proactively I got a question real quick sorry before we sorry Greg sorry what was it oh this question was for Tom Tom we have been talking about this date that kept changing it was April 2nd and it was April 1st to be safe do whatever it was on the 31st we keep all of these different dates we forgot what is this thing and is it still something that needs to we need to make the decision about beforehand the date according to the most recent thing I read from Don Finn was technically anybody you have on your payroll April 1st can qualify for paid FMLA and paid sick time there was a thought that it had to be the 2nd but he came out with some guidance last week and I haven't seen anything today I don't know if anything has changed or not but all of that was pertaining to paid FMLA and paid sick time and if you didn't have anybody on your payroll you know after that date they didn't have to worry about it but theoretically anybody on your payroll from April 1st on would be a candidate and qualify for those benefits and you would you could get that money back through some of these other programs that we're talking about but you have to have the cash up front to make those payments so to be clear and on this with the FMLA and the paid sick leave we're going to get reimbursed 100% on that so it's not up front cost but it's not something that and you have to remember it's an up front cost and it's only going to apply for people who it affects it's not like you're going to have to pay all 20 of your staff FMLA and stuff like that what is this? just those 3 criteria yeah and so it's important to remember that so I just I think I've seen a lot of panic on the boards around that and I just think that remember that it's only for like certain situations and you know we don't really have time to get into the specifics here but it's only for certain situations and also you're going to get reimbursed 100% for all of that so I just think you know businesses that are big enough to have like if you have 30 employees I would think you would have access to enough little short term to cover the you know 2 or 3 or 4 employees or however many would fall under that at one time I will say however that by closing when I did and laying everybody off it made it a lot easier for me to have the time to get my head around all of this because the other thing about closing that it's enabled me to do for those of you that are on the fence should I close, should I not close I will tell you that it has enabled me like for example I spent 4 hours today learning about all these different mechanisms that are coming into place and it's also giving myself and my HR admin person in the office time to revamp our own manual and do like a temporary employee manual supplement for all these emergency regulations and also get our payroll system ready so that you know what I mean so it's actually given us a little breathing room so that's been one of the advantages of fully closing the fact that I closed before the April 1st means that like I don't have to worry about any of the employees that are now laid off I don't have to worry about that provision it's only as I start bringing them back so it kind of gave us a nice clean slate just an advantage if you do have employees going into April and if any of them qualify and Liz you mentioned the three things so I guess if you're sick or if you're caring for someone who's sick or if your kids are out of school those are like three criteria and this emergency loan program that we were talking about earlier if you go to the SBA website the initial $10,000 as I understand it's supposed to show up in your bank account in three days and I believe the intent of that in part is to give you some extra cash to deal with things like you know people who pay 8 FMLA if that pops up and also remember that this is an important point there's a 30 day grace period in enforcement so from April 1st to April 30th or 31st I don't remember how many days are in April it's not really enforceable so if you make a mistake no one's gonna, no one's enforcing it that's an important point I think to understand too so I kind of have less than the anxiety about what am I gonna do if I don't get this right and one more point too that Tom is always talking about that you have the protection of the masses so don't want to forget that little piece too that while this is going on it's not just you out there all by yourself and if you make a mistake you're the one person you're the only company in the country that didn't get it right that's right you know and just in another plug for closing is that you know if you're trying to weigh that decision right now I can just because I've been closed for over a week now I can also say that it's giving us getting our head around all of this stuff allows us to present ourselves and actually become experts in the changes that are happening which is really great for instilling confidence in our employees and instilling confidence in our customers so it's also having that headspace and having that bandwidth to really wrap your head around the new world now that we have COVID in it has enabled us to become professionals at it so that when we do reopen we hit the ground running and we're ready with all the systems and the information that we need to do it right and we've gotten really good feedback on employees how appreciative they are that we're staying on top of it and working to make sure we're doing it right so the customers appreciate it too so it's something else to remember I need to say there Linda has a concern about how long our clients will wait for us to come back before seeking out another service I agree completely it's something that I've been losing sleep over I have customers right now that I know I'm going to lose if I don't reopen next week the thing is that I think I have bad news for those customers because I don't think we're going to reopen next week I just don't see it happening what I'm trying to do Linda has come up with a succinct way of telling that story that uses third party sources to say I can cite and say hey look until this emergency declaration is lifted or until the personal protective equipment is available in our supply chain or whatever the things are that I'm looking for we're not going to reopen and just share that message with the customers hope that the ones that you really want to keep as customers are going to understand that and stick with you and maybe these ones that think that getting their house cleaned is so important during a national pandemic that they're going to fire you over it because you're trying to keep your employees safe I don't really want them anyway and that's I have to just keep falling back on that it all comes back to our original goals and how are we meeting those goals and just sticking to that and understanding that I have to keep stealing myself that I'm probably going to lose customers over it and it's I don't know and to be clear it doesn't really matter which side you fall on whether you're staying open and you have your own moral reasons for staying open or if you're closing sorry or if you're closing can one of you guys mute oh sorry that's okay if you're staying open or if you're closing either one of those things you have to stand strong to your moral reasoning it's the flip-flopping that's going to cause you trouble if you have a reason a strong reason and a strong story for why you're staying open and how you believe that this is better for the community etc tell that story and make sure that you tell that story in a way that people believe it like you believe it so that they can get behind it and support you and on the flip side if you're closing because you morally believe that this is the best way to protect the community and protect your employees stand strong with that that message you know the flip-flopping is what's going to cause you trouble you think that I guess we're kind of getting to the end of our hour here Joe thank you so very much for everything that you've shared here really really useful stuff I'm going to share my screen here and go to while you're doing that Tom I'm going to try and hit some of these real fast I feel bad that we did not answer as many questions as we normally do Greg wants to know how do you communicate a job offer that was declined to the unemployment office I would say that I would put any job offers in writing just because it's always going to be the safer way to do it the next thing I agree with Joe but there is that unknown factor and concern of how long will our clients get we already got that one Joe did you find out how to apply for a waiver from the sick leave and new FMLA laws that is not that those details aren't there yet sorry Robin for the unemployment benefits the way I read and understand after speaking to a family member who works for California EDD unemployment is up to $600 weekly not a guarantee $600 weekly that is not what any of the people that I have spoken to have interpreted it to mean everyone I have talked to has interpreted it to mean $600 on top of and so we might want to have a little bit more discussion around that if you have that in writing somewhere if there is a website or a document or anything that you could share with us that would be really good because that's the answer we are looking for we all want that we would love to see that Tee if you could shoot us something writing would be awesome our stance last week is that's what was going to happen that people were going to get an additional $600 that was available to make sure that they were brought 100% whole but that's not what we are reading now I'm going to shoot through these we can have more conversation in a minute the ones I laid off Charlotte said the ones I laid off I got all their supplies back and I'll clue what they want we brought it back to clean and tune up I'm not sure exactly what Greg is saying there the equipment we brought it back to clean it and tune it up Sarah says if we are closed down and we take the PPP would we continue to pay them to stay home anybody want to speak we spoke a little bit to that earlier I'll jump in there sorry I lost my internet connection for a minute there guys so to Sarah's question I think that's a risky strategy because you may just have to lay them off again if you don't actually have the business there so I think part of the answer to that question Sarah is going to depend on what your state unemployment is doing to supplement the federal unemployment that would be my stance on it I just think it's risky to pay people to stay home because then you might have to lay them off again and when you lay them off again you might not be protected under some kind of emergency unemployment you know what I mean I think it's a little early to say that that's a good idea plus it's a culture thing and your developing habits that you're not going to want to live with in the long run I mean if you create a situation where people are used to you paying them and they're not working there's going to come a day when you're going to want them to work and that might not be an idea at that point so I wouldn't open that can of worms and also keeping in mind Sarah that you have a little bit of time here still give it a day or two like Joe was saying even though that doesn't sound like very much time right now one day is a lot of time a lot of stuff's happening just even in a 24 hour period let's see we have Linda that's great I think that's the message that we're recommending to Linda stay in touch and make them feel like they're part of your company Sarah if we're working we have some revenue coming in we'll be used alone to pay them but the revenue coming in to pay them extra talk a little bit about how that might work Sarah a lot of these kinds of conversations are conversations that you're going to want to have with your accountant and figuring out what those numbers are for you and how they work so it's not the answers that we can really give you here and then Robin so can the employee or both the earned wages and company provides the employee the portion of the paycheck allocated to them had they not worked that week somebody else can have to get that one my brain went a little crazy on that question I'm not sure if I follow I think if I understand that Robin it's a variation on the question that was asked earlier and understand that that's going to be totally up to you the SBA is providing you with the funds they're going to go into your bank account and how you spend them is partially up to you but you're only going to get reimbursed for payroll expenses and the other expenses that are on that list I showed you and yes I will share I'm happy to share that document however I can but so when you ask can the employee earn the earned wages and the portion of the paycheck allocated to them had they not worked I guess if you're talking about can they collect partial unemployment that depends on your state some states allow partial unemployment it's called work sharing and some don't so it depends on your state but in terms of how you're paying them remember the SBA is giving you the money it's in your bank account you can use it to pay all these different expenses and the payroll portion of that they won't ask for it back you don't have to pay it back but that also gets into the $600 coming from the federal government and there's a long list of regs that haven't been written yet and I'll just say like I did see another question here about did I get a link for something how to apply for a waiver for the sick leave and new FMLA yeah so the sources that are in the document that I'll share like the US Chamber of Commerce there's a senate subcommittee on small business couple of other sources they all contain the links to that waiver application and yes you can apply for that so I just wanted to that's new information for me too thanks Joe that's super helpful so Bridget says when having an employee who doesn't want to work from fear I legally can't lay them off when there is work is there a work around Joe touched upon this earlier we talked about this last week you know if I'm a first responder if I'm a healthcare worker that's part of my job description legally I don't know what you know all the issues are I guess that's a state by state thing but it would be hard to penalize somebody for them refusing to do something that arguably isn't part of their job description to begin with I would agree I would say that if you have an employee who doesn't want to work due to fear I wouldn't be I'd be trying to figure out how you can allow them to stay home and collect unemployment benefits and again culture thing for me but they didn't sign up for this and I think they have a valid concern and I think my prediction would be that the employers that are able to work with that and respect that now I'm assuming this is a high performing employee otherwise but assuming this is a great employee otherwise if you're able to work with that employee and make it happen for them they're going to stay with you and I think that's more valuable than trying to force somebody to come to work right now and see what the legal you know piece of it is I hope that's helpful so to be clear neither one of these guys is saying go against the law they're saying find a way to remain legal and meet the needs of your people and protect them as best you can yeah I would say I would phrase that in a way like you know find a way to optimize the current regulatory environment to benefit your employees and your business the most and do however that whatever that means to you you know I mean everybody's trying to figure this out guys like this is like everyone's confused okay everyone is confused I have a I've been getting a lot of great updates from one of our state senators serves the city of Portland where I'm at Portland, Maine on the east coast and our state senator in Portland, Maine she owns a brewery and she has like 40 employees she's a lawyer and a state senator and runs a 40 employee very successful business and she's confused I mean she's very open about that she's doing everything she can to help us understand it she's a newsletter going to fellow small business owners but everybody's confused guys so you know that's it's to be expected I guess would be my what I would say we all have to deal with the ambiguity right now trying to zip through a few more of these real quick because I know Tom we're like way over our time this is just a watch Joe would you like to join us again sometime later this week maybe we could pick up the discussion yep I'd love to and I also see Regina I just want to see I do see your question here directed at me for those of us who have known only growth how do you communicate this with your employees etc etc again I would go back to set goals for yourself through this what are your priorities what's guiding your decisions through this and then communicate that with your employees I'm happy to share a series of communications I've shared with my employees and generally just being transparent letting them know where you're at and giving them all the resources that you can to help keep them comfortable and safe right now I mean that's basically what we're doing it's going to be different for everybody but I think what's not different is setting goals and being transparent I think that's just how I would advise you to do that real quick yes a lot of people are concerned about the your SBA form after we just had the longer conversation on Friday yes that's one of the things that happens real quick yes they shorten that form don't worry that you're in the wrong place now they've taken away the long form and now there's the short form one question that has come up that would probably be important to answer is if I've already filed the long form do I need to go back in and do the short form or a variation of that because I've started the long form but haven't uploaded all of the documents what do I do I've been looking for an answer for that like an official answer from the SBA and googling various things and have not been able to find an answer Joe do you have you heard one so I did the long form and neglected to submit any documentation along with it it wasn't until I was talking about it with Tom they told me oh yeah you were supposed to submit all this other stuff you should have been here Friday I should have been on the call Friday no but I I have done both and I would just say do both I would just say do it I mean it's not there's nothing there's no harm in doing it the short form I just did it this afternoon it literally takes 15 minutes or less less than that and just do it and just get in line that's what I would do that's not you know officially I can't find anything but that's the same advice I've been giving people it's like I'm gonna be wrong I'm gonna be wrong by doing it twice yeah worst case scenario is they give you two loans you give one back exactly and I did get the guidance that they're categorizing it by EIN number so you know you won't they'll eventually figure out that you've got two applications in the system but I wouldn't worry about it right now they're all overwhelmed so I wouldn't worry about don't try to call them or anything just apply again don't figure it out you know okay I'm gonna share with you our cleaning business today website cleaningbusinesstoday.com that's who we are and this is where we're posting all our information over here to the right is where you subscribe I had some feedback last week that this wasn't working I've been testing it and it works for me just a valid email address first name, last name if anybody tries to subscribe and they run into any problems please please let me know but it seems to be working for us and if you go here and there's a hidden link called coronavirus-downloads it takes you to all of our resources and some of the really good material that Joe shared with us we'll be taking the information that he's going to allow us to share and we'll post that here for download along with a lot of other forms and resources and useful information and I'll take this link here and we'll post it in the chat we'll make that go away if I could just there's a couple of key points that we didn't cover that I think are important before we wrap up one is that when you apply with the SBA short form online what you're applying for is the disaster loan which we didn't even talk about today and that grant the $10,000 the PPP the paycheck protection or payroll protection program that you apply for through an SBA approved lender so like your local bank it's a separate application so I just want to make sure that we're clear about that because that is important to understand and I didn't understand that until this afternoon so the SBA form online is the disaster loan which we didn't even talk about today which is a whole separate thing and the $10,000 grant and then your local bank is the payroll protection program and then the second point is there's also employee retention credit that we didn't even talk about where you get a break on your payroll taxes up to $5,000 well it's 50% of the first $10,000 of every employee so it's up to $5,000 per employee for wages paid during some time period around the crisis it's in my notes I don't know if it's out of my head but that's important if you get the PPP you're not eligible for that but I think for some businesses employee retention tax credit might make more sense than the PPP so it's just something that's good to be aware of it should be in your uh-oh it looks like Joe's taking a little nap right here but maybe that's good timing for us to realize that we definitely need to bring Joe back if at all possible and address some of these things consideration yep uh-oh he's gone oh he's back sorry guys it's uh it's mountain internet up here it's cold I know okay so yeah we'll be we'll be talking more about this in the in the days they had Joe is really a busy guy and he has a great job of managing multiple priorities and his time well I am grateful and I'm sure everybody else here as well that you're helping us out here today and come later this week I just I just want to thank you Tom and Liz for being such great leaders and this is like I mean now more than ever we need you guys and it's really great that you're that you're doing what you're doing so thank you it's awesome nothing happens without y'all right thank you we're in this so tomorrow five o'clock eastern we'll pick up the discussion then anything else Tom one thing tomorrow on your tell it like it is Tom is there any way that we could get like a list of all of the potential loans and grants because we keep hearing stuff like like we haven't even talked about this and this thing is not that and some people are calling along in EIDL other people are calling it disaster long what's what all of these different names anyway for that tell it like it is we could just get like a clean list or is that too difficult Joe you're you're is tomorrow cool I already have a list we're good that's a great idea Liz okay guys seriously dinner time here we'll see you guys tomorrow bye