00:00 - Well, I want to welcome everyone today. We're talking about the comfort indicator, and you can see my Hollywood type lighting effect with the sunlight's this morning. It's, it's interesting to have this up and lighting, but that gets away from the point I want to make today on this short video on the company indicator, which is one of my seven magic numbers.
You may or may not know that I have. The seven magic numbers that if you control them, if you manage them, because many people come manage their business within numbers. It's confusing. It's difficult to smoke their natural talent, and so they just wing it. They fly by the seat of their pants and hope they get a great result.
Sometimes they do, many times they don't. They get an average result in most cases, and sometimes they get a poor result. But on managing these seven magic numbers.
01:00 - You get a better result every time because what you're doing is bringing your focus. It's not because of me. It's because of you. You're bringing your focus to the right areas in business that has an impact on how your business runs, how your business functions, how your business performs, and more importantly than that, it gives you the.
Peace of mind to know that you are controlling your business rather than your business controlling you rather than your business running you ragged. You are controlling and leading your business. You know, it's a bit like having an animal by a lead. You know, you need it rather than it's just flying wild and you're being dragged along by the Hills, you know, and you know, Hollywood.
Yeah, Western movies when sometimes the, I'm hoping it was a stumped and there wasn't a mistake.
02:00 - The stuntman would be, we would get shot on this horse and he would fall down, but his leg would be caught in the street and we dragged around everywhere. The horse panics and goes everywhere. Well, having these seven numbers gives you the control to control what's going on, rather than be dragged around.
doing the best you can to to make ends meet and survive. And in that vein, there's never been a more important time to consider your business, even though you may now not have much to do because of the circumstances. You may be at home, you may be, you know. Unable to service your customers. You may not have customers you can serve because you're maybe not considered to be one of the people who should be going out, to work for safety.
So it's more important now that we start considering when we get back to a new normal.
03:00 - And in my opinion, it's never going to be the old normal. It's always going to be a new normal after the extent to which. Society has changed. The economy has changed. A psyche has changed of the population at large, and we're never going back or going to be going forward into a new norm, and we've got to be prepared for that.
And today, if you are sort of a little bit concerned, I mean, you know, you can be, you can be forgiven for being a little bit concerned who wouldn't be right for various reasons. But if you were a little bit concerned about your cash reserves and your cash resources, then this is a, this indicator, this comfort indicates that.
04:00 - That I have devised is a really good indicates off how comfortable you will feel if things like this happen in the future and there is a fair chance that they will happen in the future. whether it's the future 10 years or within the future one year I'm not, I'm not sure. I think it may be both.
And so. Mind juicy. As I see it as I feel it is to help my clients, help my, business community, help the business community at large and the business community that's helped me so much in the, in the past 40 years to get me to where I am today, to help them back, to be able to sort of alert them to these opportunities and dangers.
So that they can get prepared and being prepared is half the battle. I remember when I did a trip up Kilimanjaro some years ago now.
05:00 - I had to get prepared and my preparation was woefully inadequate, which is a reason I didn't get to the summit of Kilimanjaro. And in fact, a lot of my colleagues did get to the summit of Kilimanjaro, albeit they took drugs to help their body absorb the less oxygen than was in the air.
I refuse to take drugs to do that. But they managed me. There were, there were in the main, in fact, all of them are younger than me, a lot younger than me, but I still felt I, I, my preparation led me down. I wasn't prepared enough. I didn't watch the right train, do the right trading. It didn't get a trainer.
I wasn't coached. I wasn't mentored by anyone had done it before. It was just a whim. I did it for charity. We raised 3000 pounds for charity, but. I didn't the summit and that, you know, I tell him like not achieving goals. It is, one of the things I already enjoy doing is achieving goals. And so preparation for things that you're about to do, a challenge that you're about to approach is really key.
06:00 - And so. In my opinion, and I'm not sure how you see it. I mean, maybe you, you let me know on this as you watch this video, either now or in the recording, whether you see that we're in challenging times come and going forward, do you think that everything's just going to be back to normal as soon as this issue comes to an end in the next week or three months?
Or do you think that we're going back to a new norm like I do. And so what are, what I'm looking to help you get prepared for is a new norm. As I've said before, new challenge, which we probably haven't seen the likes of before. If you listen to many of the pundits and now agreeing that, things are going to be different, things are going to change.
07:00 - We're going to go into a new environment. And if our businesses are operating a new environment, who better than you as the business owner, the leader of your business, maybe even the leader of your community, certainly the leader in your family, you're providing for your family. You owe it to everyone around you to be prepared.
So let's look at this comfort indicator and what the comfort indicator is, is a really simple number you can take. Yourself. You don't need an accountant to take this, this indicator. It's basically a function of, if you look at your balance sheet, if you have online accounts, you'll have a balance sheet, and on your balance sheet you will have assets and you will have liabilities, and if your liabilities are bigger than your assets or there's not much of a difference, then your comfort indicator is low, which means that if you have.
Things that are owed to you are very similar to the amount that you owe. The comfort indicator is going to be very, very low. Okay. Because that means as money's coming in. You owe it out.
08:00 - Right? That's not a great position to be in. However, if the money owed in is much bigger, and the money you have in your bank and the money you have owned to you from, from people who bought your stuff, from money you have in stock alone, you know that's a, you've got to be careful what type of stock it is.
It's going to be all realistically valued if that is much bigger. If you're 70 and if you look at your cash balance is much bigger than the money you owe out. Then your comfort indicator is much bigger, and if you manage that comfort indicates someone, how do you manage that comfort indicator? Well, you've got to manage your cash flow, but more importantly, you've got him.
You've got to manage your business because if you're not managing your sales and stuff, the other magic numbers we talk about. You did not managing stuff in both the the fold if you like, and above the fold is how you create the income. You know, are you packaging your stuff and you pricing your stuff?
Rather you're giving people the opportunity to buy more.
09:00 - Are you cross selling? Are you following up? Are you keeping in contact that you're giving great customer service? All of these sorts of things will contribute to your comfort indicator and if your comfort indicated going into this situation we're in now.
Was not good. Then I could, I could understand how you might be feeling a little bit exposed. Now people go, well, Mike, my business comfort indicator is low, but my personal comfort indicator is high. And that's already a good distinction to make because you may have a personal balance sheet, which you should have if you don't have a personal balance sheet.
Now he's already good. You know, you've got so much free time right now. I suspect that, you could be looking at how do you create your personal accounts, your personal balance sheet, because that back will track your personal journey.
10:00 - Through towards your goal, right? The business, you know, business plan and a business balance sheet is great for your business and critical for your business, but it's no less critical than a personal balance sheet.
Cause your personal balance sheet will tell you how you are doing. Right? And the two can be very, very different. You know, if your business is providing all your income and then may be very closely aligned. However, if you business is one of the sources of income, which it should be in due course. if you follow my methodologies, then what happens is your personal balance, you will start deviating from your business balance sheet.
You can have a good strong personal balance sheet and an average, comfort indicator on your business and a great comfort indicator on you personally. Okay. And just think about this for a second. Just imagine you had in your personal bank account, loves a cash ride much more than you needed for the next three or four years, right?
11:00 - You can meet all your liabilities, your mortgages, your rates, your rent, or your. Light bills, your, your electricity bills, your water rates, your food bills, your entertainment. You know, if you're subscribing to Netflix or Spotify, whatever it is, if you had loads and loads of that, of that, of the cash to allow you to survive for three, four, five, 10 years, and then just think of yourself and how you would be feeling different to somebody who only had.
One week, two weeks, they're thinking now that many business owners will have to fold in three to four weeks because if things don't get back to normal, they're going to run out of cash, right? That's a low comfort indicator and that magic number is so critical. now it's too late to adjust your comfort indicated for the last one, but it's absolutely right to adjust your, your comfort indicates it for the next time this thing happens.
12:00 - You've got to start now. Planning. How do you avoid the situation? How do you avoid this feeling of exposure, this feeling of not having enough cash, not having enough assets, not having enough resources to see you through you and your family in your, maybe your extended family, see you through this difficult period.
And so, you know, on various Facebook groups they're talking about, there's various people talking about the conga universal credit because they just got enough savings. That stops them getting universal credits or all the savings they've had for buying a house or, or buying a new car or replacing their van or buying some more tools and buying another computer is now going on just living because they, you know, this has happened and now the income has dried up and they don't qualify for universal credit.
And so you begin to see how, how worried and scared and how much damage this is doing to people's internal States.
13:00 - And it's hard to function really easily, really well with, with that sort of worry. On you. So, that is why we need to start looking at how we plan for our businesses in the coming months, in the coming years.
And there's never been a better time to plan it. I know it's not, the new year is not the trendy time to set new year's resolutions and goals and all that sort of nonsense that most people don't keep. Now is the time. To set a plan that you keep to, that you adhere to, that you would to that even if it doesn't work, first time you work again, you sort of look further at it.
You develop other ideas, other tactics, other strategies, other methodologies to get to where you want to go. You don't give up. You don't go, well, it's a new year's resolution now, whether it's now February, let it drop. That's where your resurrect that new year's resolution we have now. What was your new year's resolution this year that maybe you've forgotten.
Was it to double your sales this year? Was it to double your profits? Was it to buy a new house?
14:00 - Was it to buy a new car? Was it to treat your family to go to a holiday abroad? Goodness me, that would be a thing now, isn't it? What was your goal? And maybe has taken a bit of a back seat. because you know, you just forgot about it because it wasn't drilled in into a methodology.
It wasn't ruled in, into a support mechanism that somebody was holding you accountable and helping you achieve that and supporting you and guiding you through that. What was it that stopped that going, let's resurrect that goal and let's begin to start lighting a fire underneath it so that we can really, really get it going.
This weekend. We're sort of lucky to have a pretty large garden, but mostly quite unlucky to have a pretty large garden in that, that there's, we've just moved in and there's a lot of mess. The people who were here before, there were, it was an old lady who unfortunately passed away, but she hadn't, you know
15:00 - She had a garden who was doing so one hour a week and you probably need more, like 10 hours a week to manage this.
And it was all overgrown and it was a real mess. So we had a tidy it up and out too. We piled all this big wood and stuff, on a, on a big pile, and we thought, I'm going to light it, but hadn't prepared properly. Right. I hadn't prepared to put a fire underneath it all. So I had to somehow devise a way of getting a fire underneath it to light it.
And then once it got going, it was, it had a life of its own. The heat. Kept it going and it kept, it kept flaming and running. That's what I'd like for your business. That's what I'd like for this comfort indicated to be one of the seven magic numbers that you begin to focus on for the coming year. So that if this happens again and we end up with this again, that you can really, take control and make a difference in, in how your business performs.
16:00 - For the next time you need it. Okay, so that's what I really want. If you'd like to know more about that, the other of the seven magic numbers, I've got a training. I will put a link some way for you. If anyone's interested, just let me know and I'll put a link in the box. Just type a yes in this and I'll, I'll find it in due course and I'll, I'll put a Lincoln in for you so then you can watch the recording of the seven magic numbers so you can begin to see how the whole thing fits together as a whole and how your business will develop really well.
If you begin to manage your seven magic numbers, you don't need, you don't have to have an account and you don't have to have a coach. You don't have to have a mentor to help you through it if you don't want to. Although those will help you accelerate your process, your progress through the numbers and improve that.
17:00 - Helping guidance you get from the people around you, the people you include in your team will accelerate your progress through to a better business now. No, it's not the right setup. If you're concerned and worried, then you may be thinking, maybe this is not the right time to be thinking about improving my business.
I just need to survive. However, I would put it to you. That now is exactly the right time. If you are in any way concerned about your business, about your livelihood, about your income streams, and about your ability to weather a storm for the next six or 12 months, this is exactly the right time to begin to think about how you will act differently if you don't interested in change.
Change is going to be forced upon you, in my opinion, right? Because if I'm wrong, fantastic. Nothing would please me more than being wrong in this particular situation. But however, if I'm right and you're not prepared. Not only will you suffer, but your family and loved ones and team members and their families will all suffer and your communities and stuff.
18:00 - We need to get business moving business. You know your country. Realize the New York communities rely on you. Your teams rely on your team's families, and of course your family relies on you to do, make the changes that are going to be necessary to keep them. Now safe to keep them, you know, with income to allow them to work and fight and, and help others.
Because with income, you can help others, right? Without income, you can't even help yourself. You can't help others. It's really difficult. I mean, we are a very general society here in the UK, but yet if we don't have income, it's hard to, so did put our hands in the pocket and give a hundred pounds of the NHS.
it's hard to put your hands in your pocket and give a hundred pounds to help support. To be well homeless and, and exposed even more. So let's, let's get business moving your business needs. You. I would love to be part of that journey. Even if it's what we, these free Facebook lives.
19:00 – I promise to do all through this month. Just keep an eye out. There will be more Facebook lives. I'll be posting them in different groups that I, that I'm in. I will be putting them into my website. I will be allowing them to be downloaded on PMO. They, they gotta be in different places every, every few days. Because I want to get the maximum reach of you.
If you've seen this and you like it, please, please share the love. Tell me if this is of any value at all we need. There's enough bad news out there. Let's bring some good news. Let's bring some. Focus to the future, to a better future for not only you and for your family and your teams and the country. This is, I'm going to call it quits there.
There's no questions or comments, so I'm going to leave it there if you'd like. If you're watching this and you get into it a little bit, please comment. Tell me whether I'm on the right track. I've got it completely wrong, and the let's continue to compensate conversation that they care all the best.
20:00 - Goodbye. Okay. My name is Barry Pickett and I've been with Gordon four, nearly 10 years, 11 years now. So I think generally on a, how his business is grown and it's, customer services impeccable always. And Germany, you always get response fast. and the right responses and it's fair and it's always good quality advice.
