Covid-19 Crisis – What Accountants Need to Do

Hello and welcome to our Covid-19 crisis management “What accountants need to do” webinar. I’ll be really honest with you. I didn’t expect to be coming to you in these circumstances and we saw the Corona virus coming on. We heard about it in China, but it was just kind of one of those things that was off over there in the distance. And then it came to Iran, and then it came too easily. But so many people just assumed that this was going to be okay. So many people just assumed that you know,

that this was one of these things that would pass so many people on today’s webinar. You’re Irish based, your UK based. What have we been talking about for the last year? What have we been talking about for the last two years? Three years? Well, it’s Brexit. And as an accountant said to me yesterday, they said, Does bring back Brexit will deal with the fallout of Brexit any day in comparison to crow numbers. So, first of all, welcome on today’s Webinar. Thank you for joining us,

and we are a little bit concerned. We’ve over a thousand registrants and so we’re a little bit concerned as the weather resume and will be able to handle the numbers and will be able to handle the from a broadband perspective. But it looks like everybody is on here what we might do just before we start and just down in the chat box and down in the chat box. If you could just go into the chat box and just let me know where you’re dialling in from and so they can get a sense of who’s on here with me.

Okay, First things first. What is today’s session about? Well, I’m looking at this from five different perspectives. I want to look at Corona virus in your team. I wanna look at Corona virus in your customers Corona virus in your business Corona virus in your services and Corona virus and your future. Now we do have some downloads. Okay, so we have people from kill their y’all Bedford, Somerset, Tipperary and North Wales. West England. Okay. Excellent. Perth in Scotland. So we have people from the four corners.

We even have some people in here from America. Excellent. Welcome. Welcome. All. So first things first. What I want you to do is I want you to go to our downloads so down below in the in the chat box, and even our Jonathan are going to put up a link where you can download and the slides for today’s session. Our employee Q and A our client communication letter on other checklist that we have we’re going to go through. So you might as well do that now, at the start of the session and so keep an eye out and Ivan’s going to put it up,

and then you should be able to you should be able to download as we go through to the session. Okay, So as we go through to the session and if you have questions, either go to your chat box at the bottom of screen or go to Q and A. And I have them coming up here and now I’m not necessarily saying I’m going to be able to answer all of your questions. I want to make this very, very clear at the outset. I am not a medical expert. I am not a Corona expert.

I am not a pandemic expert, but what I am is somebody who is running a business who was acutely aware from the business owners perspective of the challenges. But mawr importantly, from dealing with accountants over the last week. And as this has developed that I am seeing the issues I am seeing the concerns on, I am seeing the challenges that the accountancy profession is facing. So if you have any questions, please put him in here on either myself or the guys will try and answer them as we go through this session.

Okay, First, I need to start a to very, very start. So there has been widespread condemnation and criticism of social media in the run up to where we are now, okay on. But the criticism of social media is that it’s it’s creating fear. It’s creating fear in people. Now. How I refer to fear is false evidence appearing real? And But this isn’t just a manufactured fear anymore. This is there. There’s a real issue here. No, one of the very first concerns I have is that a lot of people are still don’t appear to be taking this that seriously.

So what we’re finding is there are people who are plunged into the depths of despair and are terrified about what’s happening. And then there are the people who on the other side, are kind of almost flippant. Well, sure, you know, this flu will pass. Now any of you did know me. OK, any of you that know me? No, that I am an optimist, that I see the opportunity. I look for the opportunity. I try and see the positives. And in this session,

I am going to see the opportunity, look for the opportunity and see the positives. Some accountants have spoken to one last forty eight hours, particularly among more profit pro thrive group. And they’re extremely, some of them are really, really positive. And so there is going to be opportunity here on the horizon. But we kind of have this block to get over. Which is some people are saying is the next two weeks. Other people are saying it’s the next three months, but let’s come back to that.

So fear, false evidence, appearing real versus being dismissive. We probably need to be somewhere in the middle. Right now. We probably need to be somewhere in the middle. No, for me, what this is about is about leadership, and it is about action. And I’ve already spoken to accountants already spoken to accountants this morning on when I spoke to the accounts this morning, some of them were extremely, extremely concerned on DSS. Some of them were sort of what I would describe his flip flopping,

and it is perfectly natural to be concerned here. But I see that the accountancy profession has a huge responsibility to show leadership and take action, like what we’re talking about here is we’re talking about In the first instance, we’re talking about health. In the second instance, we’re talking about society, and then the third instance, we’re talking about the economy now. First things first, the health pieces riel like, I’ll be perfectly honest with you. Out of a twenty five person team we now have out of our team.

We have four families who have been tested. We have no cases of Corona virus currently in our building, but as of yesterday, we basically everybody’s working from home and we’re getting ready in case one of those results come back as a positive, and I am not going to get into the health element of this here. Other than one of the most helpful websites that I’ve seen is a website called World Ometer W or L D O N E T T E r. And they have a krone virus tracker on that.

For me, that’s something that I look at every day. I actually avoid social media. I avoid WhatsApp groups that are not positive. And I have only going to Facebook groups that are positive where people coming forward with answers and I try and avoid the news. But I cheque out this website once a day. So first things first their health and on the requirement to take this seriously that the second thing is going to be the fabric of society. And what we’re seeing now is we’re seeing China after eight to ten weeks coming gradually back into production on that the virus has been controlled.

Society as we know it is going to be different after Corona furs than what it was before going lovers. And then there is the economy. Now we come back to that in a second. Okay, so so so First of all, I think we need to acknowledge and appreciate the first line of defence on the first line of defence are the medical profession and I saw some statistics here this morning and I saw some statistics here this morning and those statistics suggested that a quarter of all cases are actually health care professionals.

These people are out the front line. They’re actually engaging in head and hand combat with this thing on. They are being affected and impacted the first line of defence. The medical profession. We need to acknowledge what they’re doing. Who is the second line of defence? You see, this is where I see you coming in. Because I see accountants being the second line of defence. Why don’t I see account has been the second line of defence. I see the accountants being the second line of defence because business owners and small business owners,

as you well know, are the backbone of our economy, the backbone of society. So when these people are under pressure, the future, the future economy Yes, the governments have responsibilities on Do you know the government’s on globally action is going to have to be taken. We heard this morning and the eurozone quantity of easing already set at one trillion. We’ve seen the UK government step in take action in terms of loans in terms of tax, in terms of people can’t pay taxes. They can engage the same with what we’ve seen here in Ireland with the revenue commissioners.

But you see, the future economy is based on the business is surviving. Here’s something that I want to talk about on dg Very, very get very, very clear on this right from the outset. Okay, some of you may be a little bit relaxed. What’s all this cruel of Irish panic about Maura? View may be freaking out wherever you are in the spectrum. It doesn’t matter, because here’s something that I know for definite. What I know for definite is that this too shall pass. What I know for definite is there is going to be businesses in the future on there is going to be a boom in the future.

At some point in time with businesses in the future, they’re going to continue to need accountants. What do we know from the last global recession? Well, what we know from the last global recession on let’s be really, really honest here. And Ireland got a really bad hit, So Ireland got a really bad hit. Our recession didn’t last in weeks or months. Are recession here in Ireland lasted in years. So a lot of lessons from the recession when we look back at our customer lists before the recession and after the recession.

So we look at the two thousand eight customer list on we lend. Look at the two thousand fourteen customer list. You know what everybody? That was customers before they were still in business afterwards. So accountants and the need for accountants were one of the lucky businesses that despite the issues, there’s going to be a huge need for accountants in the future. On businesses, we’re gonna need to be supported. Theis, you that we have here really is the next two week window, four week window, six week window is going to be a three month window.

You are the second line of defence and you are now being called upon and you’re being called in to action. First, I want to read you with statement and okay, so there’s been some difficulty with downloads. I think the website had some difficulties that when everybody went, everybody went to go do a download and that I had some some difficulties. So the guys have put up a link there now and you should be able to access your downloads. So here’s Here’s a statement. Okay, the Covid-19 crisis is unlike any previous crisis.

Traditional crisis response approaches will not be sufficient. The process of containment and slowing the spread that is phasing in country by country will create major disruption in itself, irrespective of the seriousness of the virus spread. Prepare for the worst and be thankful it doesn’t eventuate. The wait and see approach is a non starter here. There’s a high likelihood of a substantial revenue disruption, leading to a potential liquidity crisis. For many, the recovery may not be a quick bounce back and business owners need to plan for multiple quarters of lower revenue.

In the face of a global recession, employees and customers are likely experiencing fear and panic. Businesses need to appoint a dedicated covert war room team that focuses on this every day. We have to have a planned cascade of possible actions. It is not just one decision is what if we do this, then we do this, then we do this. But if this happens, well, then we need to do this. This this here’s a listen to this. Customers will change behaviour in non reversible ways. Accelerating prior trends.

Bold action now consent you up for success through the downturn on beyond. That’s not my statement. That’s a statement from Bain and Company being a company or one of the biggest global consulting companies. This statement was released by Bain in the last couple of days. I don’t have all the answers to the Corona virus question, but I have spent some time studying what the global experts are saying and doing. You don’t necessarily have time to be a global Corona virus expert tighter, but you do need to ensure that you have appropriate information to give informed advice to give informed insights.

The one thing I would say to you, we have experienced this from the time that we set up to do this. Webinar. We created a whole lot of documents last week in relation to HR policies and procedures on DS stuff to give team members on about E working. We had to scrap them all this morning because basically they were now five days later, totally out of date, our HR adviser sent to us. Well, I I don’t think you can publish those because this situation is so fluid. So wait and see.

Approach here is a nonstarter. We need to take action and I want to talk for a second. I want to talk for a second in relation to what I call the Corona virus. Iceberg him. This iceberg came out of nowhere and has rocked the world. And think about it this way. Imagine that you have three lifeboats. Okay? You’re three lifeboats. One lifeboat is for you and your family. One lifeboat is for your team,

and the other lifeboat is for your customers. Now, first things first. We need to get you on your family into the lifeboat,

this for you guys, and you need to put yourself first on. I’m going to come back to one of the things that I have seen as a huge mistake that the accountancy profession makes again and again and again.

I will come back to the first lifeboat. But the second lifeboat is about your team members. What I often classified as the most valuable resource and assets that any firm has.

Really? What? Our accountancy firms, accountancy firms, We’ve got customers over here who have wants and needs,

and the accountancy firm brings together the resources to deliver what the customer wants and needs. But basically, our job is to bring together these people.

Your team and your resources are your most valuable asset, but your customers are a truly valuable asset. Well,

now here’s the situation right here. Right now, many of us are in the water. You can’t save everybody.

Okay? So you can’t save everybody. Definitely with customers. You can’t save everybody. So think about the lifeboats now.

The other thing that I want to talk about is the ten X View versus the three to six months view.

I know this is particularly challenging and again, it’s a threat for me. It’s a danger. It’s a trap that people could fall into.

Okay, if we look at the Corona virus on what date is today, today is the nineteenth of March twenty twenty,

the nineteenth of March twenty twenty. If we look at the crown of ours on, we take a ten x ten year view.

Okay, so if we take a ten x ten year view ten years from now, what is possible in your business.

Well, you know, and you’ve definitely heard me say this before. Bill Gates always says people overestimate what they can achieve in twelve months and underestimate what they can achieve in ten years and look internally at our accountancy profession within within the accountancy profession.

And, you know, the likes of zero zero is just over ten years old. It did. It didn’t exist.

Then it became this global Bahamas. So if we took a ten year, ten eggs view of your business notwithstanding what the situation we’re in right now,

anything is possible. Anything is possible in the future. And here’s the other thing. If we took a ten x ten year view so a ten year view was one hundred and twenty months now,

it doesn’t matter really what happens in the first three to six months as long as you are crystal clear on what’s going to happen in the next hundred and fourteen to one hundred and seventeen months.

So if we take a ten IX view right here right now, well, if we link it out the view if all we’re looking at is the next week,

the next two weeks, the next three weeks. The next four weeks. If that’s all we’re looking at,

well, then it looks very, very bleak. We have to be realists on. Look at what’s happening now,

but we also have to think about life after Corona virus. Now I just want to talk about one thing and so looking at what is happening around the world.

And so the initial locked down on the assumption of most of you here with me are in Ireland and the UK on the initial locked down,

they talked about the twenty ninth of March. Now the reality is, if you listen to if you listen to government pronouncements,

they are clearly saying this is boarding a two week locked down and again without be negative. But being realistic,

the likes of the moves by HMRC and the likes of revenue in terms of putting out a message that if you can’t pay your tax bill,

pick up the phone to us on the cessation of interesting penalties and enforcement, that’s a big move by the tax authorities.

You then look at the government’s. They’re talking about financial packages. They’re seeking financial support. They’re talking about getting the banks to give mortgage Hollis.

There could be a miracle there could be America. They talk about past flu pandemics that as the year got hotter and as we moved on in the seasons,

the flu disappears as quickly as it ever arrived. That could happen this week or next week. But you gotta look at what society is saying.

You’ve got to look at what the government has seen. You’ve got to look at what experts like Bain and Company global McKinsey.

What they’re all saying is they’re saying This is not going to be two weeks. This is a longer term view.

And so let’s look at taking the longer term view here and so So I’m going in the wrong direction.

So I want to first talk about team and your team is obviously your key priority on dear. Safety comes first.

Protecting them comes first. Now what we’ve seen in the last week, two weeks. We basically issued communications to our team.

Back to three weeks ago, we began moving everybody towards the working and we began communicating with people in relation to the working.

We began communicating with people in relation to well, if you have If you have a interaction with somebody who’s been to one of the hot spots or if you have at home,

how is this going to work on? We’re now in a situation where basically, there’s nobody here in the office.

Everybody at this stage is remote and were able to were able to work remotely. But we had to make a big call because the government is not telling us to shut down.

The government is not. They haven’t passed and the likes of the the the emergency state of emergency that it is muted that Portugal is going to enact at some stage in the next twenty four hours,

where literally were on total lock down and in our own homes. And but we had the experience. We’re out of a team of twenty five.

Four of our people have now had family members are themselves be tested for the virus. So our first responsibility Woz to our team,

the policies and procedures and part of the difficulty with policies and procedures on. Hopefully we get to share them with you at some point in time in the future,

but the policies and procedures that we had created was about. You know what to do in the event of this,

What to do in the event of that? Now we do have as one of your downloads here we have,

and we have got acuity, acuity for employees, so I could see the vast majority of people have downloaded the links.

Just one thing, folks, that we’re finding a lot with accountants. Internet explorers no longer supported. So if any of you are using Internet Explorer and chances are you’re going to have difficulty accessing the documents if you try of chrome or safari,

and you should be able to. So if you copy and paste the links in and but the policies and procedures,

the E working, the flexible working one of the things that we’re looking at is we’re looking at getting in a sort of a flexible working expert in for a webinar next week to talk to us about how to manage remote teams on how to work differently with remote teams.

We are extremely glad that we took proactive steps over the last two to three weeks because if we hadn’t taken those proactive steps as soon as one of our team members comes back as a confirmed Corolla virus,

which is a highly likely possibility Now we would all have to self isolate if you have not taken the steps yet to facilitate the working.

I suggest that you move straight away and another one of the providers that we hope to have on a webinar Sunday next week are in our Facebook group.

And we’re going to open up a free Facebook group specifically for accountants and specifically for this time of Corona virus.

And we’ve been speaking to firms this morning. Even though farmers may not have fully working set ups, there is work arounds on ways of allowing people work.

One of the things that you’ve probably heard me say in the past is innovator die. And one of the things that we’re seeing,

you know, they thought making tax digital was going to do it. They taught to they talked to,

You know that, you know, cloud accounting was going to do it. They thought that, you know when there was APS not everybody has moved to an Elektronik working environment.

And this is one of the innovations that we’re seeing. I’m not suggesting you do this right now by any manner means but one of the things that we can already see the accountants who are not set up for the working,

not set up for the flexible working, not set up for the short term working. They’re struggling and they’re scrambling a digital business and a digital firm is one of the things that I think we absolutely need to be focused on at the end of this process.

In terms of your team, you’ve got to think about it from their perspective, open and frequent communication.

There will be some people on your team who will be very matter of fact. OK, sure, whatever is happening is happening.

Let’s go. Let’s just get it sorted one day at a time, type people. But then there are other people who are deeper thinkers on aunt.

One day at a time. You’ve got to try and understand what type of a person are you. But looking at this from a leadership perspective,

you’ve got, you’ve got to look and see, and you’ve got to look and see why. How what type of communication you need to give to lead.

Just looking at some of the questions in here. So there’s a question in in relation to What’s the Irish Sea Roo doing and,

you know, submission deadlines. And obviously there’s a significant difference between the UK system and the Irish system and the the Irish system.

We have this crazy scenario whereby if you filed late, you lose your audit exemption and I’ll be honest.

Guys, I’ll be honest. It’s the C R O is not really very, very high. And late filing is not very high on a national perspective.

The Department of Enterprise on Innovation obviously has a significant amount of things on the agenda. People have asked us to run petitions to lobby to do the whole lot.

Look, you know, we make contact with CR Oh, and I hope that sense will prevail. But it’s hard to know right now.

I have no answers for you if you’re Irish accountant, if there is answers in relation to that and we will communicate them into our into our free Facebook group as soon as we get it up and running.

And so if an employer pays an employee, say five hundred, can they still claim back to two or three and okay,

so that question there and the thief employee. Rapid unemployment benefit incentives around cold with nineteen Whether they have to go self quarantine because they’ve been tested positive are just because they’re in short term layoffs.

Currently, the employment legislation, the way its word it is, you can’t give somebody social welfare and top it up.

This is for people who are not working due to the Covid-19 crisis. And now I have been lobbying. I have been communicating with politicians in relation to this to see Is there another way and okay,

one other question there is. Okay, so So I tell you what. I tell you what the problem here is.

The problem is that the zoom we’ve been in touch with them over the past twenty four hours to try and get more seats on this webinar.

And but Zoom has locked us out at five hundred. And so we know that there’s there’s another six or seven hundred people trying to get on here.

And so just don’t worry. Don’t worry if you can’t get the downloads because UMA’s having difficulties. If you can’t,

we will send you the downloads after the event. So if you’re having problems with the downloads. Don’t worry,

we will get you sorted and the team comes first. But then there’s customers and customers safety first for Damon,

their business. And so there’s a couple of elements here. There’s your business. And then there’s your civic duty.

I do think that you need to start having conversations, which our customers, in terms of them and their business on that they need to adopt the safety first policy.

And I’ve created what I call a covert customer classification. Now I’m obviously going to be producing significant amounts of material in the coming weeks,

and but I just want you to go in here on look at the customer classifications and so the customer a classification,

right? So this is part of our covert fast action plan. And now I think from a customer classification,

any of you who have done profit pro programmes with us and any of you who have done profit pro programmes with us,

we’ll have come across our customer classification matrix where we castle there climbs into a B, C’s and D’s.

I’m suggesting that the traditional customer classification model it needs to go out through the window. I’m suggesting that we need to take a different approach.

And so this is the checklist that some of you have downloaded and that some of you have downloaded. But,

you know, if you can’t access it, we get this tea afterwards. I think that now you need to classify our customers a little bit differently.

We need to classify. The customers were going to try Eve during this period, and they would definitely be a great customers.

The customers that may have some difficulties. We’re going to try after the Covid-19 crisis period. And then there’s the customers who always survive.

Okay, so so there’s some of these businesses. They’re just really resilient that no matter what’s thrown at them,

they will keep going. Then you have the customers that would survive but will really struggle after the Covid-19 crisis period.

And then we have the customers that we already know might survive for a couple of months but ultimately going to fail.

And then you have what I call the degrade customers the degrade customers. They’re going to fail no matter what.

Now there’s an underpinning classification that underpins these customer types. We need to be focusing on the customers that can and will pay.

This is back to the lifeboat you have to accept now. For the vast majority of accountancy firms, they had too many clients.

Too many customers. Coming into this having too many customers and not having enough ideal customers is what causes the stress.

It’s what causes the overwork. What causes the workflow pressures of what causes all of the problems. There’s people in the water.

You can’t save them all. And I talked at the start of this session I talked about. I talked about the the medical front lines.

You know, one of the challenges that the medical front lines have. Andre. They only see this in war times.

What? The medical front lines. Now they have a situation where three people present themselves with the Corona virus and all three of them need a ventilator or they need a nice see you bed on.

The concerns that the medical profession have is they’ve only got one medic, one bed, and they’ve got three people,

and they’re effectively deciding with people’s lives. Well, you know this person. We don’t believe they’re going to make it,

so I want to send them home. That type of a triage approach is what we need to do now with our customers,

and that’s that’s what we need to do. We need to triage our customers. We need to break them down into a B,

C’s and D’s on. Then what we need to do is we need to focus on the A’s and B’s on Give the right energy effort and attention to those A’s and B’s.

We need to create a targeted prioritised communication plan and on do reclassify service levels. You know that way can’t like I’ve seen it already this morning and,

you know, accountants. I was I was on a phone call to a guy from ten o’clock and his phone was ringing Non stop.

When we classifier clients, we need to look at our service levels and who’s going to be the portfolio manager?

If you want to put this up on screen hero, even. Is it going to be who’s going to have partner access?

Who’s gonna have manager access? Who’s going to have team access on who’s going to have leveraged access? I would be suggesting that you’re seeing degrade customers and when go for the leveraged access,

maybe the sea great customers, depending on how big and what scope you have in terms your team, well,

maybe the secret customers will have team access. But who’s going to have you? Who is going to have you?

And I see there’s Mawr questions here about Mork questions in relation to in relation to zero and look, we will put whatever pressure we can to solve this problem of late filing.

But I I think you was accountants. You need to take this up with your institutes. The institute’s need to lead here is well on.

Dis is one of the areas where they can apply. They can apply the appropriate pressure and probably get this sorted in a matter of hours.

Your people, your customers, not all of them are going to make it. You need to make sure that you’re working with ones who are to help them preserve their business.

But in doing so to also preserve yours and to save yours, him, the support services so support services like cash flows and scenarios,

and I think that people now may just need somebody to talk to. They may just need somebody to talk to them.

They need somebody to allay their fears. But we very quickly here are moving into crisis mode and that’s going to require cash flows and scenarios.

We’re going to have to be there to help with short term challenges. We’re going to have to distinguish and differentiate what are the short term challenges?

What are the medium term opportunities? Here is the one thing that Corona virus is going to do for the accountancy profession.

The Corona virus for the accountancy profession is going to drive innovation. It’s going to drive innovation. And if you look at it and if you look at the Fortune five hundred are the Standard and Poor’s index Of the top five hundred companies listed on that exchange,

a tiny percentage of the ones who existed forty years ago still exist today. Innovation is going to happen.

Your customers are going to change what they want. They’re going to change in terms of the services they want,

how they want the services. This is inevitable. Everybody is going to learn and develop on innovate arising out of this situation him from a your business perspective.

Well, to be honest with you, this checklist that we have here okay, so this checklist that we’re looking at on screen now.

This is the fast acting plan. This is protect you, protect your team protector customers, create a covert border response team and internally here we now have daily meetings we now have daily meetings on.

We’re having daily meetings because it’s myself. Me, Holland, Caroline and its way reach out into the team.

We’re having huddles, but basically called with his top of our agenda. Right now, it’s top for agenda,

and I’m saying for you in your business, there’s two levels of cash flow modelling. I’m suggesting that you do a cash flow model for the next three to six months and that your cash flow model is bad,

worse and extreme on. Did you look at the variables in your cash flow models? You look at the variables like activity receipts,

length of time, and we talked about the customer classification peace and a targeted prioritised communication plan. Once we have classified the customers and reclassify your service levels in your portfolio managers,

this is who gets partner access. Who gets manager access? Who gets team access? Who gets leverage,

access. I’m going to come back to leverage access in the second. We look at the organisation structure,

so your organisation structure right now and then We’ve basically got a look at what’s the organisation structure that we can survive with?

What’s the organisation structure? We can survive it. Look, somebody in here is put in a common saying days.

You’re being very, very negative and they’re a little bit surprised that me being negative folks, I am being realistic.

I’m being realistic based on what I am seeing right here right now, talking to accountants in Ireland, talking to accountants in the UK there is no question it appears that there is a significant leg in terms of what’s happening in the UK and there’s a significant lag now.

It’s only seven days of a leg in reality because they’re shutting the schools from this week. But it is a significant leg and we’re seeing it really happening here.

We’re seeing it really happening. We have some account listener rubbing their hands. They’re rubbing their hands because they have the cash.

They have the resources, they have the client list. They know they’re going to get true. We have some accounts of rubbing their hands are saying Well,

brilliant. What is this going to look like? And three to six months I’m going to be able to become king or queen of the world here.

That is true. And then there are other people where their circumstances or scenarios a little bit different. I think you need to look at your organisation three months from now on.

Then we need to do this. Ten X thinking where we look at five, ten years from now.

Why am I doing that? I’m doing that because we may have a short term cash flow issue. But we’ve got to have a strategy around every single team member as who can.

If we work on the basis that some of us are going to save more, some people are not going to be able to save them all.

So who do we have to have onboard three months from now? If we assume that that is when this is going to lift on,

things are gonna start coming back now. I sincerely hope I’m wrong. I’m sincerely hope that the twenty ninth of march on this is all behind us on.

People will look back on this weapon and say Jesus That was a great our webinar. But you know,

he was all TT. I hope that I am o T t. I really, really hope I m o t t There’s just a There’s just more questions in here.

More questions about institutes. Look, it’s we’re not an institute. We do not have membership subs. We do not have membership fees,

but basically what we’re looking at here is we’re looking at Well, the accountancy profession wants to give leadership on the accounting profession,

wants to stand up and be counted. So if we can help you do that, well, that’s what we’re going to do s o.

So thank you very much. And Paula for for acknowledging and that we are doing on going a little bit further.

And I talked about cash flows. Let’s bring this back up on screen, hero. Even we talked about cash flows.

I think we need to do the short term cash flows, and then we need to do the long term cash flows.

So I want to keep you in this long term mode. I want to keep you in this. Okay?

We’ve got this period of uncertainty now, but what does business look like in two three years time, We got a plan to who’s who do we need?

Short term? Long term on what are the team and resource actions? We gotta cut the costs and conserve cash.

What am I talking about here? In terms of cutting the costs and conserve cash, I think we need to break down our costs and our outflows.

What’s? So we deal with the team, we then look at our costs on her outflows. So what are the critical and highly valuable services?

What are the ones that are highly valued but not mission critical on what are the ones that are not mission critical and low value?

Because obviously, then way we’re going to know where to cut. If we castle a them on those three basis,

I think that you need to go down the road of direct outreach to your key suppliers on begin having conversations with them.

Now somebody is asking What do we do for our clients? What? This checklist here. We’ve basically created this for you.

But what we’ve also done is we’ve created a ward version of this so that you could put your own logo your own name on it.

If you want to go down the process of having an initial communication, I think we need to remodel our business services.

Now, what do people want during the Covid-19 crisis and the future? What do they need after this Covid-19 crisis?

I think we need to look at our systems and procedures. I think again, we’ve got to prioritise here.

But here’s one the opportunities. I see that we can use this to leverage our I, t and automation.

We can use this experience to document operating systems and procedures that maybe we never got around to before stepped fourteen here in our checklist and step fourteen and a checklist.

Sorry, I’m jumping around. And step fourteen here is a coordinated customer outreach based on the covert customer classifications.

What we’ve got to do now is we’ve got to protect revenues. We’ve gotta preserve revenues. How do you preserve revenues?

You classify them, you give them portfolio managers and then you reach out and you may contact. You see,

from my perspective, from my perspective and this doesn’t count for every accountant. Okay, so this doesn’t count for every account,

but now your customers need you more. Never before. I’m not talking about the people who just get a tax return done.

I’m talking about customers who have businesses. They need you more than they ever need you before during this Covid-19 crisis,

how many people are going to stop paying their electricity bill? How many people are going to stop paying their phone bill?

Actually, during this Covid-19 crisis, how many people are going to stop paying for Netflix, Disney plus Amazon Prime?

You are a vital service. We’re going to have to have some difficult conversations. We’re going to have to have some difficult conversations on myself in Carolina going to run a webinar on that or a live stream in the Facebook group.

And next week, in terms of having crucial conversations with people we can’t do free. We can’t revert to a free model if we put free people into the lifeboat.

We’re going over, fill it and we won’t fail to save all the people that we need to save that way need to make that difficult conference.

We need to make that difficult decision and have that difficult conversation. Already, I have started working with firms already.

I have started working with firms on bond. We’re working to avoid the next crash to see here. Step seventeen for some of you.

You probably wish I got to this sooner. Because if you’re looking at this is an opportunity. Well,

this is where it is. But you see this checklist here. This is not just for you. This is something for your clients as well.

This is something for your customers to avoid the next crash. Well, let’s start looking. Akash buffers straightaway.

The businesses that have cash buffers, the accounts I’m talking to have cash buffers that I carried him for two,

three, four, six months. It’s a whole different conversation than the people who are looking at things getting tight straight away.

Reduced costs reduce costs by embracing technology, embracing automation, offshoring, flexible working and assets Build assets. Your team,

your process procedures your intellectual property. Standout. Standout. Identify who your idea customers are picking each during this Grow your business,

grow your business during this Covid-19 crisis. Go looking for refers. Actually help people actually help people Give them what they need.

Listen to what they’re saying and give them the support that they need. Help yourself. Help others Him.

You know, from from a service’s perspective again, I really love the conversations I’m having with our prophet pro members.

I am because our prophet pro members you know, part of the role that accountants play is the external voice of reason.

The external expert, the coach. You know, the coach that the person who sees things a little bit differently on can come up with better answers.

So the issue I have what’s happening now is, well, clients are coming seeking this. It’s how we package this service on degree,

the pricing on this service. So So there’s remodelling is happening right now on. Then there’s gonna be remodelling in the future,

your delivery methodology, how you deliver your services and, you know, like this is a time to look at.

How can we make it easier and simpler for our customers to interact with us? Here’s a question for you.

How do you think the firms that have moved to the subscription model are fearing versus those that were on the traditional historic retrospective time based building model people around the subscription model?

Yeah, it’s true if businesses run out of money and they don’t have money in the bank account. Well,

then, the monthly D D is not going to come in. But people who are on the monthly recurring subscription model again a total difference.

Talking to people who are on the subscription model versus people have it all tied up with work in progress and debtors.

And now the cash is drying up because they are just not spend. They’re just not issuing cheques. They’re not making payments because there’s so much uncertainty.

Who do you think it’s faring better and technology automation outsourcing Now, with time to make shifts and changes,

Maybe not now in the next week or the next two weeks for the next three weeks. But you see,

at the end of this, you know, and I know I look. Some accountants experienced extreme hardship in the recession two thousand eight,

but the vast majority of them are still in business. You know you’re going to still be in business.

Let’s come out of this thriving by keeping an eye on stuff like this. And I just want to talk about some technical innovations right now.

Okay? And Ada’s meetings air dropping as meetings airdropping. Get onto Zoom. Now you’ve seen our own problems here with Zoom.

I think we had twelve hundred people registered. Only five hundred could get on the could get on the Web in our witness.

And so there’s seven hundred people are just blowing up reception given out they can’t get onto the webinar. And for those of you who couldn’t get into the weapon,

our sincere apologies. Here’s what happened with Zoom, and we saw the number of raising on this, and we always had a five hundred licence.

When we want to go upgraded to a thousand or two thousand, you know me. Hall was customer number two hundred and eighty two and Q.

And yesterday morning. But right now, zoom for face to face meetings. There is a free version of Zoom.

Let’s just go in here and have a quick look at this. And so there’s a free version of Zoom,

a basic version of Zoom Recon do personal meetings on Did you know it sets up the meeting. It gives the access.

It does the whole lot. So Zoom is a tool that if you’re not using it right now, there’s a great opportunity on me.

Ha has put the link into zoom in there in the chat box just as I’m speaking. And the second thing that I want to draw your attention to is a nap.

Call Callen Lee Callin Lee. This is something that basically it allows you to schedule appointments automatically so it allows you schedule appointments automatically,

and you could get this. So, in other words, you can set out a day next week on.

You could send an email to your client saying, Okay, I’m available for half our calls on such and such a date.

If you have any issues, let’s schedule the call on you. Set aside your dear your half day.

They click on the link. They come in the call of set up all the appointment pieces done without any admission,

and the next tool that we’re looking at here is a tool called Loom Loom basically is a video video screening screen tool where it captures what you’re doing.

We use this for internal processes and procedures, but we’re now seeing one of the things that Mi Ho is going to do is me haul.

In the coming days, it is going to bring you true, set up of certain things he’s going to use Loom to do that and drift.

Here’s another one and drift. So people want support right now. But what we can’t have is we can’t have and the phone constantly ringing email constant ringing.

So down in the chat box, me, Holly is putting in the links expense. Okay, so meet me house shouting across the room at me,

saying there’s a free version s so there is a free version of drift, but this is a ticketing system.

We’re finding this a problem because emails are coming in centrally here on some people are in isolation and are sick,

and then other people are working. Basically, what we’re using is we’re using drift to amalgamate all the questions inquiries,

so that way can pick them off. So we’ve got team members in killdeer. We’ve got team members in port leash.

We’ve got team members of Wexford. We’ve got team members all over, but basically they could pick up the queries and help the customers using drift.

And the other thing that I want to talk to you about is I want to talk to you about serving everybody.

Okay. What this here is is an accountant’s Facebook group. Okay, so me ha has put up this accountants Facebook group in the chat box.

If you want to join this group, it is free. Okay, it is free. So the very same way as I am suggesting okay and that we have our top thirty customers on my job now is well,

I’m going to have to I’m going to have to create the time to look after those thirty customers were now allocating our client base out among the team.

But there’s a certain number of customers that we don’t necessarily get to spend a significant amount of time with because we’re focusing on our paying customers over here.

So what we’re doing is we’re setting up a Facebook group, which we’re going to create a community of accountants to get through this Covid-19 crisis on in here.

We’re going to be providing daily updates, daily support, live streams on all of that. On what I’m suggesting is one of the things and we’re already working with our first accountant on this.

One of the things that we can do is set up, and that you could do is set up a Facebook group for your clients.

Remember, I had the A, B, C and D customers. Well, you might put your C and D customers who who basically they’re not paying enough are unlikely to pay enough for you to serve them.

But you can’t just turn them away. We got to help people and on. And here’s the thing In the coming days,

weeks and months, we’ve already got a schedule. I’ve got a whiteboard set of upstairs. We’ve got lists and lists of documents that we need to create to tackle this groan of ours.

We’re going to be dropping those documents in here into this free Facebook group. So please click on the link,

joined the Facebook group. And and here’s the thing about Facebook, right? I am not a significant Facebook user,

but I was introduced to Facebook groups for business three or four years ago in a group I was in on.

My Facebook groups are the most valuable resource I have in my phone. There’s some of the groups that I have in there.

Where there’s people who are on the same journey is me having the same challenges as me and the sense of support and community that comes out.

This is a support group for accountants were going to be in there. You’re going to be in there.

Some of the questions here, to be honest, which is the questions that times came up so quick and fast.

I couldn’t answer them today. I’m not sure what they’re lads got to answer them. But those types of questions,

I guarantee you, if you post those questions in this Facebook group and we get people in here interacting,

you’re going to have people are going to have the answers and we’re going to share knowledge Facebook groups for you.

But I also believe Facebook groups that you can use with your customers him six steps to success. OK,

so for those of you who are looking to get ahead, we have a download in here, which was part of a recent masterclass that we did.

Okay, so we did a recent masterclass on DNA. First thing it does is it asks you will where are you now and gives accountants of field for where they are on having identified where you are.

What we gain in this handout do is we give you our six steps to success now the six steps to success the six steps to success is the basis for is the basis for solving the problems that we currently face.

And so even there’s a request there to blow up the downloads, the downloads again. And can you put up the downloads again?

Just to just to see now? I don’t have time to go through the six steps to success today,

but for those of you who are focusing on what happens next, where do we go with this? It brings you through the process,

and you think this process here. So whether it is a Corona virus covert nineteen situation or whether this is a planning for the long term future,

these six steps to success could do it for you. I want to talk about opportunity. I’ve spoken about enough negative things.

There’s huge opportunity here. There’s opportunity for your accounting business. There’s going to be business opportunities, terms your accounting business.

Well, things were going to change. Things are going to change. So maybe now was an opportunity for things to change.

There’s going to be business opportunities for you and for your customers. The people that have cash there’s gonna be significant opportunity when this is over,

because when this is over, one thing is for certain, we’re going to be in a different world.

The opportunity, The reason why I shared a six steps to success with you is this is what we’re working through,

whether accountants, growth, formula members. Now, this is what we’re working through with our prophet pro tribe members.

Now you see, what we’re working through is we’re getting them to keep a focus on the horizon and keep a focus on the future.

And then we come back. We deal with the challenges day today, but we keep this focus. Strategy has never been more important,

and I don’t care what hurdles you’re faced with. The key of leadership is holding your head when all those around you lose theirs.

Sometimes that’s why people need to be part of a community. Sometimes that’s why people need an external voice.

That’s why your business owners, your business owners, some of them it is going to be making failure as comfortable as possible without it costing you,

whereas mawr of them, it is going to be how do we innovate and develop this opportunity on for everybody,

for everybody. They said that this things go in ten years cycles. Nobody saw the Corona over spin The cause it was Brexit was going to be the cause.

The instability in the U. S. Market was going to be the cause. We’re going to have crash when this one’s over.

We’re going to have another one. Could be five years. Could be ten years. It could be longer,

but you could be guaranteed. Do not waste a good crisis. I know that. I will see all of you at the end of this.

I know I will see all of you on the far side of this. Don’t waste a good crisis,

Okay? Just some quick things before we finish up. Float. Okay. Float are an app that provide cash flow on basically projections for businesses and me.

Hall is going to put up a link for float. There’s two floats. There’s the float for accountants and bookkeepers.

And then there’s the float for business owners. If you click on this link, you can get float for free for the next three months.

Float have stood up, they’ve stepped in and they said, We’ve got a product can help here. Take it for free for the next three months.

So I would strongly encourage you to click on the link somehow has it down the chat box. Click on the link.

Now, what me all is going to do at the end of this session will send out a recording because there was some difficulties because there were some difficulties in relation to the downloads.

He’s going to send you the downloads. He will also send you this link to float. And so Paula has just come in their photos.

Amazing. Everybody needs this. Okay, so that’s one of your fellow accountants. That’s their experience of float.

And this automatically integrates with zero on QuickBooks. So just get in there and get float. This is critically important when I’m going to cover next.

I’m already seeing this happening. I saw this happening in two thousand on eight, nine, ten. I see it happening all the time on.

I’m already seeing it in the faces of the accountants that I am working with and profit pro thrive. You’ve got to save on protect the golden goose.

You come first. You know what? The most worrying thing for me talking to accountants over the last two weeks.

All accountants, they’re talking about all with business interruption and looking after our clients and doing this and what’s going to happen over here.

And do we get them not to pay taxes? What do we could cost on? So I’m asking accounts.

Do you have any concern about what’s happening? And they go on No, no, no. She was just a flu.

Sure, if I get it, I’ll be fine. Are they are they say things like, Well,

look, I’m fit and healthy. That first lifeboat that I talked about is you and your family. Get you and your family into that lifeboat and do it now.

Do it now. We have, unfortunately, seen people that didn’t take precautions that have left it too late.

That now have Corona verse. You’ve got to protect the golden goose, so there’s the cruel of iris stage.

And then there is the recovery stage in terms of dealing with the aftermath. During the crawl of our stage,

it’s all about inflammation. I’m not a medical expert. It’s all about inflammation. Stress creates inflammation. Lack of sleep creates inflammation and,

you know you’ve got to create routines. I don’t care whether you’re the healthiest accountant I’ve ever met. Or maybe you’re somebody like me that has has more than a few pounds to lose.

You need to take action on your health. Right now. We need to manage the stress we need to manage your energy.

We need a manager, energy, four types of energy, physical energy, mental energy, emotional energy and what I call purpose energy.

We’ve got to watch this. I’m talking about sleep. I might I might actually do a Facebook live on it next week.

And I came across this guy last year called Win Half, and it’s all about a very basic breathing exercise.

But, you know, I do win half every morning to protect my immune system to give me more energy.

I take a nice bath or a cold shower every morning because again, the physiological benefits, but also the psychological benefits by God.

If I could face that cold shower, there is no challenge that you were going to throw at me during the day that is going to throw me if I get into that ice back in the morning for even just three four minutes There is no challenge that you control me.

Whatever the thing is for you, Maybe it’s meditation, but watch your nutrition. Watch your exercise Like I was talking to somebody this morning.

They had built this habit of going swimming leam. They go swimming every lunchtime on Daz, he says.

They work in the morning, longstanding. Go swimming, they come back. It’s like it’s like they’re starting to date again from fresh.

They started off with him in a couple of links. Now this one twenty, thirty lengths at lunchtime.

Hop in, hop out, swim, Come back, A new person. And Liam, I hope you don’t mind me sharing this if you’re on the webinar.

Leam. The office is very close to his parent’s home, so he used to do that There was swimming and then go visit his parents.

He couldn’t visit his parents because they had to be isolated on Ben. He stopped doing swimming because the swimming pool was shot.

I guess what? Lien doesn’t feel as well this week as he always does. Protect you, protect you from the virus,

protect your family, and then, as we navigate through this Covid-19 crisis, if you overdo it, you’re not going to be any good to anybody,

so protect the going ghosts. Okay, What’s up? Next steps. S o me. Hall has the link there for float.

There’s one for APS on there’s one down the chat box And then there’s one for accountants on. It’s free and I invite you to join our Facebook group and we’re gonna have more free webinars next week.

And so on Monday at three o’clock, we have a hey char expert who was going to talk to us about the conversations were having with team members,

and we’re hoping on Wednesday to have a remote working expert on Friday will probably have. We will probably have somebody from a nightie perspective.

And we do have a limited number of places for accountants in our groups s so anybody who wants Mawr one to one support,

we’re going to give you the Facebook group that anybody who wants more one to one support our thrive. We have two places left in thrive on.

We have a small number of places left in our accountants growth formula programme. So if you’re interested in any of those,

please just email in to me, haul myself or Caroline on. We can set up a call to see.

Where are you? What do you need on how best can we help? And we’re going to produce Mawr information,

Mawr documentation and mawr guidance in the Facebook group in coming days and weeks, our team here is basically committed to pulling together resources,

creating resources, getting them in. Obviously we’re going all in behind our tribe members, all in behind her accounts,

growth formula, members. But way want to support you guys too. We want to get through this because you are the people who were going to put this back together again when it’s all over.

Thank you for joining me here today. Thank you for Thank you for attending. And thank you for giving me your time.

And we’re going to try to get our our webinar authorisation up to two thousand people. And But when we launch the next webinar,

the best way to do it is just if you book early, if you book early and get your place guaranteed well,

then we can We can close it off, but we’ll have recordings will have everything. So thank you very much for today and I’m going to leave you on one thought one thought,

and this is possibly a daily exercise for you about what’s the one thing you can do today, In other words,

is within your control. What’s the one thing you can do such that by doing it will make everything else easier,

are unnecessary. What’s the one thing you can do? That’s what you need to do today. I talk to you soon signing off on covert nineteen Women are for accountants.

I see you again. Let’s get it done.the