*** MY COVID RESPONSE THEORY ***
I own LINGsCARS in the UK, a car leasing brokarage, in case you don't know me. Apologies for the sweary stuff, I understand social values are more genteel in the USA.
Watching the UK news, about the economy ...I really feel that many companies are sleepwalking into going bust, now.
It seems all I hear about are people moaning and worrying. News channels love that shit, and I want to slap the moaners. I think they should be taking drastic action, diversifying, changing... instead. Get a grip. Stop moaning.
This all reminds me of successful reactions in times of other very local emergencies in the past.
For instance, the people who survived the Herald of Free Enterprise ferry disaster took drastic action. They got out of the hull of the ship as soon as possible, they didn't wait for instructions. They jumped.
In the Kings Cross fire, remaining and waiting for instructions to evacuate cost a lot of lives.
When those dams burst in Brazil, or when the Tsunami hit Japan it was the people who reacted the fastest and who got out of Dodge who survived. Immovable objects like the Fukushima nuclear station and people who waited for instructions about what to do, died horribly.
Taking fast and drastic action in terrorist incidents means you increase your chance of escape.
The New York Airbus pilot didn't fuck about, he just turned and landed... on the bloody river! No-one died.
Even during the current pandemic, people who chose to create their own lockdown earlier and who took action and avoided mass contacts, stayed safer. Care homes who reacted quickly and drastically has the best results. And so it is with escaping the economic stranglehold and stagnation of the Covid lockdown. You need to take quick massive action, don't fanny around waiting for instructions.
At LINGsCARS, I took massive action immediately... having seen personally (via my family) what happened in China. I was already buying and posting masks to my family, in January and February, because they had a massive shortage over there. I could see this coming, I'm afraid. Soon, the rest of the masks I had bought for China, would be donated to my local GP surgery... little did they know.
I immediately closed my (still small) 1-year old travel business LINGsWINGS, which I'd already given notice on after feeling that Thomas Cook would go pop. Blew some money and reputation on that. At the time: Fukkit. In retrospect, Thank Fuck!
Then, I sent all my staff home 2 weeks before lockdown.
Closed my office. BOOM! People at my badminton club said I was mad.
I immediately went on a massive cost-cutting spree. Cancelling all vehicle trade insurance (except my Renault van), including my own car, saved £5000 a year. (luckily it was the same week the renewal was due). Cancelling all services I could, like the cleaner, the watercooler and window cleaner. Cancelling the Tesla order. Selling off all the office TVs, printers and scanners, telephones and equipment, you name it... immediately. Chopping ALL overheads. Going on a massive invoice debt collection spree (in one week, I collected an extra £25,000 of debt, early). I forced loads of car deliveries before lockdown bit, I fired cars out like a machine-gun before it all ground to a halt. Then came the big stuff. GULP.
I put my (lovely) farm up for sale, and sold it immediately, (completes 1st Sept). I sold my own car, I now drive a 56 plate Renault Luton van (sheesh) and have been selling every surplus asset, vehicle and valuable thing I could lay my hands on. BOOM! I have sold the Ling office building, at auction for speed (completes on 8th July). BANG!
Yet, I pushed hard and got free publicity in major newspapers and on prime BBC TV, with my furlough strategy... defying claims that PR was impossible, due to the virus "noise". While all the car dealers were closed and whining about it. I virally marketed like mad.
For my staff, I paid full salaries in March, then I furloughed staff on 1st April [note, furlough means 80% of regular salary is paid by the UK Gov, up to a max of £2500 a month ($3100/mth) and some taxes are paid for the employer meaning payroll is effectively completely free, and is in place until October, although it tails off slightly, but the employee must not do any work for the company] and have since been working like a dog myself, (I'm bloody worn out). I never shut my service and was selling cars (often with fingers crossed as the suppliers were closed and I was selling fresh air for all I knew) every day as normal, while working late into the nights. I immediately offered to cancel existing car orders for customers as a gamble, as I thought that would generate an opposite reaction from them, and loyalty. It worked, thank fuck. Reverse psychology, heh. Nearly all insisted they would stand on their car orders... only a few who lost their jobs, cancelled.
I took advantage of every gesture the UK Government offered, I banked the £10k rates grant immediately. I also slashed my own salary to zero completely. I canceled my (and Jon's) hefty pension contributions completely.
I'm so reliant on car dealers for deals and supply. My main issues have been the slow and over-cautious response of so many suppliers which killed car deliveries dead, many are still slow and sluggish at getting back to normal... that's madness IMHO. I've been talking to a fleet manager today who is still on furlough, and very frustrated. My car orders for him are going in another direction. Unbelievably some dealers are still closed. They love applying letters of the law instead of seeing how they can manage to remain within the spirit of the law. Dominic Cummings take note. They'll spend hours taping the floor at 2m intervals, and putting up ridiculously patronising signs for people who missed the pandemic news... but then they forget to attract customers to form a queue in the first place.
There were two big exceptions to this: one big dealer group with a wonderful CEO and one regional supplier with a brilliant manager who both resumed car supply and deliveries at scale (safely) over a month before anyone else. Their managers kept working, alone, like me, from home. Heroes. I needed cars delivering, and these people have been champions, managing it safely. Customers badly needed their cars, many were key workers.
At some stages, there were no deals to sell. so I guessed car supply, guessed deals, guessed delivery dates and sold invented cars on invented deals, and have been madly transforming them into real orders/deliveries, since. No disasters (yet) thank fuck.
Drastic times meant drastic measures. I had to guess rates, as the Government (unhelpfully) increased road tax VED on April 1st just as lockdown was biting hard. The twats (a cynical move from the Government). I had to pluck figures out of thin air to keep sellin'. I spent hours on the phone with some suppliers (privately), just brainstorming purely imaginary car deals and then selling them to customers as "Corona Bargains", both of us saying .... "FUUUUUUUUCK" and crossing fingers and toes. We eventually won on some and subsidised others (and substituted some similar new cars), to make them work for customers. No customer suffered. Many new cars were sold.
So, what has been the result so far???
While many UK businesses are saying they will have to close, and have burnt through cash reserves, I have already built my business current account up to a >6-figure cash buffer amount, and will soon make that well over £1/2 million (maybe even a £million at the peak) as the property washes through. I have HAPPY customers (a massive result). I'll generate tax receipts for the Government, needed at the moment. I even have my bank manager emailing happily, asking me how my cash position is rapidly expanding "in the current situation".
I've told him it's because I pressed the "ACTION/FUKIT/WARP FACTOR" button, not the "SAFE/FOETAL POSITION/CRAWL INTO A BUNKER" button.
Now, "magically", LINGsCARS remains really cash-strong (cash is king), and with my massive personal workload comes yet more car sales. Real cars, now. I have 135 real new cars waiting for delivery, while other companies have virtually empty order banks as they were selling fresh air during lockdown. Current car orders for June 2020 are just £1000 in gross profit behind this same month in 2019, yet, my overheads have diminished massively, so net profit is WAY up.
I hate people who suggest I am "lucky". Lucky my arse. The effort has been epic, I'm knackered.
But I'm part of an industry that claims to have been one of the hardest hit by the virus! Every car factory closed. Every car factory supplier closed. Every car dealer closed (some still are, some just mentally closed). Every finance company defaulted to a crap 7-day email response cycle. They're still slow and at half-strength. Really? Was/is that the best everyone could do? I can imagine all the empty desks, covered with sticky hazard tape. I bet all the HR people still have jobs.
Note: I didn't close, even for 1-hour.
All I read in the news streams is how new car sales have been decimated, how lay-offs are inevitable and how some large dealers (eg Lookers) are in dire straights, how manufacturers (Nissan) are closing factories... and how share prices have crashed. Pathetic attitudes.
So... and this is my point... I would urge other businesses (in any sector) to take radical actions, risks, instead of being crushed by the Covid effects. They need to find ways to transform their operations, which work. Some decisions mean an immediate financial loss, but create medium or long-term gains. Some decisions may seem nuclear. My office sale is a case in point. £££ loss. But, Covid quickly taught me staff can be just as effective working at home! And I'll recoup that loss many times over.
But what about my staff, who have been with me for years? Currently, I am topping up furlough with extra £350 payments, to ease their belt-tightening and so they share rewards... and I'm working myself like fuck, to pay for it. Not many companies do that! They're too busy filling in risk-assessment forms and being afraid to make decisions, being mean with staff.
For the future, I am already talking to key staff about a further drastic action plan which will completely secure their jobs and income for the short and medium term. I'll announce that in a month or so. It's very big, I think. It will involve a massive decision which will completely secure everything into 2021 and well beyond, No 3rd party will be involved. My staff have been wonderfully supportive.
The virus, and lessons I have learned from what is happening in China during the Covid recovery, has convinced me you need to be ultra-brave, bold and innovative to survive. Not cautious and safe. Take big, effective decisions quickly. Control the situation, don't let it control you. Too many people allow the winds of Coronavirus to blow them around.
Have I had worried sleepless nights??? Yes! Hell, yes! I've shit my pants thinking what could have been the situation. I've been sick into the toilet, thinking through disaster scenarios. I'm sure many business owners know the same gut sensation, the rollercoaster stomach feeling, the racing heartbeat, the hot and cold feelings, like you are losing control as events race ahead of you.
But, fuck, you've got to fight... not roll over. Stop moaning and take action. Take risks. Too many people are allowing their cash to get sucked away down the plughole. Me, I rammed quite a few bundles of £50 notes down the plughole to completely jam it up, and I turned the taps on, full blast.... immediately. And ran out a hosepipe, too. And got some buckets going. And pissed into the bath, too. Soon my money-bath will be overflowing with company cash and the money-worry will mainly be gone, a thing of the past. I'll have to live in an air-bnb, but what the hell?
Far too many business people are still trapped with that worry. They fear the fear. But, their future is in their hands. They have to press a few big bright red buttons, I think. There is no "SAFE" option. People who want safe, will die safely, and that's no fun.
I don't know all the answers and I'm very simple and naiive, and often stupid. I make many mistakes. But, FFS, you gotta grab your chances and DO SOMETHING!
Ling
(I'd love to hear how everyone is coping in the USA)
I own LINGsCARS in the UK, a car leasing brokarage, in case you don't know me. Apologies for the sweary stuff, I understand social values are more genteel in the USA.
Watching the UK news, about the economy ...I really feel that many companies are sleepwalking into going bust, now.
It seems all I hear about are people moaning and worrying. News channels love that shit, and I want to slap the moaners. I think they should be taking drastic action, diversifying, changing... instead. Get a grip. Stop moaning.
This all reminds me of successful reactions in times of other very local emergencies in the past.
For instance, the people who survived the Herald of Free Enterprise ferry disaster took drastic action. They got out of the hull of the ship as soon as possible, they didn't wait for instructions. They jumped.
In the Kings Cross fire, remaining and waiting for instructions to evacuate cost a lot of lives.
When those dams burst in Brazil, or when the Tsunami hit Japan it was the people who reacted the fastest and who got out of Dodge who survived. Immovable objects like the Fukushima nuclear station and people who waited for instructions about what to do, died horribly.
Taking fast and drastic action in terrorist incidents means you increase your chance of escape.
The New York Airbus pilot didn't fuck about, he just turned and landed... on the bloody river! No-one died.
Even during the current pandemic, people who chose to create their own lockdown earlier and who took action and avoided mass contacts, stayed safer. Care homes who reacted quickly and drastically has the best results. And so it is with escaping the economic stranglehold and stagnation of the Covid lockdown. You need to take quick massive action, don't fanny around waiting for instructions.
At LINGsCARS, I took massive action immediately... having seen personally (via my family) what happened in China. I was already buying and posting masks to my family, in January and February, because they had a massive shortage over there. I could see this coming, I'm afraid. Soon, the rest of the masks I had bought for China, would be donated to my local GP surgery... little did they know.
I immediately closed my (still small) 1-year old travel business LINGsWINGS, which I'd already given notice on after feeling that Thomas Cook would go pop. Blew some money and reputation on that. At the time: Fukkit. In retrospect, Thank Fuck!
Then, I sent all my staff home 2 weeks before lockdown.
Closed my office. BOOM! People at my badminton club said I was mad.
I immediately went on a massive cost-cutting spree. Cancelling all vehicle trade insurance (except my Renault van), including my own car, saved £5000 a year. (luckily it was the same week the renewal was due). Cancelling all services I could, like the cleaner, the watercooler and window cleaner. Cancelling the Tesla order. Selling off all the office TVs, printers and scanners, telephones and equipment, you name it... immediately. Chopping ALL overheads. Going on a massive invoice debt collection spree (in one week, I collected an extra £25,000 of debt, early). I forced loads of car deliveries before lockdown bit, I fired cars out like a machine-gun before it all ground to a halt. Then came the big stuff. GULP.
I put my (lovely) farm up for sale, and sold it immediately, (completes 1st Sept). I sold my own car, I now drive a 56 plate Renault Luton van (sheesh) and have been selling every surplus asset, vehicle and valuable thing I could lay my hands on. BOOM! I have sold the Ling office building, at auction for speed (completes on 8th July). BANG!
Yet, I pushed hard and got free publicity in major newspapers and on prime BBC TV, with my furlough strategy... defying claims that PR was impossible, due to the virus "noise". While all the car dealers were closed and whining about it. I virally marketed like mad.
For my staff, I paid full salaries in March, then I furloughed staff on 1st April [note, furlough means 80% of regular salary is paid by the UK Gov, up to a max of £2500 a month ($3100/mth) and some taxes are paid for the employer meaning payroll is effectively completely free, and is in place until October, although it tails off slightly, but the employee must not do any work for the company] and have since been working like a dog myself, (I'm bloody worn out). I never shut my service and was selling cars (often with fingers crossed as the suppliers were closed and I was selling fresh air for all I knew) every day as normal, while working late into the nights. I immediately offered to cancel existing car orders for customers as a gamble, as I thought that would generate an opposite reaction from them, and loyalty. It worked, thank fuck. Reverse psychology, heh. Nearly all insisted they would stand on their car orders... only a few who lost their jobs, cancelled.
I took advantage of every gesture the UK Government offered, I banked the £10k rates grant immediately. I also slashed my own salary to zero completely. I canceled my (and Jon's) hefty pension contributions completely.
I'm so reliant on car dealers for deals and supply. My main issues have been the slow and over-cautious response of so many suppliers which killed car deliveries dead, many are still slow and sluggish at getting back to normal... that's madness IMHO. I've been talking to a fleet manager today who is still on furlough, and very frustrated. My car orders for him are going in another direction. Unbelievably some dealers are still closed. They love applying letters of the law instead of seeing how they can manage to remain within the spirit of the law. Dominic Cummings take note. They'll spend hours taping the floor at 2m intervals, and putting up ridiculously patronising signs for people who missed the pandemic news... but then they forget to attract customers to form a queue in the first place.
There were two big exceptions to this: one big dealer group with a wonderful CEO and one regional supplier with a brilliant manager who both resumed car supply and deliveries at scale (safely) over a month before anyone else. Their managers kept working, alone, like me, from home. Heroes. I needed cars delivering, and these people have been champions, managing it safely. Customers badly needed their cars, many were key workers.
At some stages, there were no deals to sell. so I guessed car supply, guessed deals, guessed delivery dates and sold invented cars on invented deals, and have been madly transforming them into real orders/deliveries, since. No disasters (yet) thank fuck.
Drastic times meant drastic measures. I had to guess rates, as the Government (unhelpfully) increased road tax VED on April 1st just as lockdown was biting hard. The twats (a cynical move from the Government). I had to pluck figures out of thin air to keep sellin'. I spent hours on the phone with some suppliers (privately), just brainstorming purely imaginary car deals and then selling them to customers as "Corona Bargains", both of us saying .... "FUUUUUUUUCK" and crossing fingers and toes. We eventually won on some and subsidised others (and substituted some similar new cars), to make them work for customers. No customer suffered. Many new cars were sold.
So, what has been the result so far???
While many UK businesses are saying they will have to close, and have burnt through cash reserves, I have already built my business current account up to a >6-figure cash buffer amount, and will soon make that well over £1/2 million (maybe even a £million at the peak) as the property washes through. I have HAPPY customers (a massive result). I'll generate tax receipts for the Government, needed at the moment. I even have my bank manager emailing happily, asking me how my cash position is rapidly expanding "in the current situation".
I've told him it's because I pressed the "ACTION/FUKIT/WARP FACTOR" button, not the "SAFE/FOETAL POSITION/CRAWL INTO A BUNKER" button.
Now, "magically", LINGsCARS remains really cash-strong (cash is king), and with my massive personal workload comes yet more car sales. Real cars, now. I have 135 real new cars waiting for delivery, while other companies have virtually empty order banks as they were selling fresh air during lockdown. Current car orders for June 2020 are just £1000 in gross profit behind this same month in 2019, yet, my overheads have diminished massively, so net profit is WAY up.
I hate people who suggest I am "lucky". Lucky my arse. The effort has been epic, I'm knackered.
But I'm part of an industry that claims to have been one of the hardest hit by the virus! Every car factory closed. Every car factory supplier closed. Every car dealer closed (some still are, some just mentally closed). Every finance company defaulted to a crap 7-day email response cycle. They're still slow and at half-strength. Really? Was/is that the best everyone could do? I can imagine all the empty desks, covered with sticky hazard tape. I bet all the HR people still have jobs.
Note: I didn't close, even for 1-hour.
All I read in the news streams is how new car sales have been decimated, how lay-offs are inevitable and how some large dealers (eg Lookers) are in dire straights, how manufacturers (Nissan) are closing factories... and how share prices have crashed. Pathetic attitudes.
So... and this is my point... I would urge other businesses (in any sector) to take radical actions, risks, instead of being crushed by the Covid effects. They need to find ways to transform their operations, which work. Some decisions mean an immediate financial loss, but create medium or long-term gains. Some decisions may seem nuclear. My office sale is a case in point. £££ loss. But, Covid quickly taught me staff can be just as effective working at home! And I'll recoup that loss many times over.
But what about my staff, who have been with me for years? Currently, I am topping up furlough with extra £350 payments, to ease their belt-tightening and so they share rewards... and I'm working myself like fuck, to pay for it. Not many companies do that! They're too busy filling in risk-assessment forms and being afraid to make decisions, being mean with staff.
For the future, I am already talking to key staff about a further drastic action plan which will completely secure their jobs and income for the short and medium term. I'll announce that in a month or so. It's very big, I think. It will involve a massive decision which will completely secure everything into 2021 and well beyond, No 3rd party will be involved. My staff have been wonderfully supportive.
The virus, and lessons I have learned from what is happening in China during the Covid recovery, has convinced me you need to be ultra-brave, bold and innovative to survive. Not cautious and safe. Take big, effective decisions quickly. Control the situation, don't let it control you. Too many people allow the winds of Coronavirus to blow them around.
Have I had worried sleepless nights??? Yes! Hell, yes! I've shit my pants thinking what could have been the situation. I've been sick into the toilet, thinking through disaster scenarios. I'm sure many business owners know the same gut sensation, the rollercoaster stomach feeling, the racing heartbeat, the hot and cold feelings, like you are losing control as events race ahead of you.
But, fuck, you've got to fight... not roll over. Stop moaning and take action. Take risks. Too many people are allowing their cash to get sucked away down the plughole. Me, I rammed quite a few bundles of £50 notes down the plughole to completely jam it up, and I turned the taps on, full blast.... immediately. And ran out a hosepipe, too. And got some buckets going. And pissed into the bath, too. Soon my money-bath will be overflowing with company cash and the money-worry will mainly be gone, a thing of the past. I'll have to live in an air-bnb, but what the hell?
Far too many business people are still trapped with that worry. They fear the fear. But, their future is in their hands. They have to press a few big bright red buttons, I think. There is no "SAFE" option. People who want safe, will die safely, and that's no fun.
I don't know all the answers and I'm very simple and naiive, and often stupid. I make many mistakes. But, FFS, you gotta grab your chances and DO SOMETHING!
Ling
(I'd love to hear how everyone is coping in the USA)
Your post made me realize the American car dealers that have adopted your model are the ones who are thriving today. They are the ones who made rapid/drastic changes to prioritize technology and people over real estate and marketing.
Ling in the US... hmmm... you could kick some serious butt over here!