How To Avoid Business Failure

[00:00:00] Calan Breckon: Today’s episode is sponsored by SparkLoop. SparkLoop is the number one newsletter growth platform. I’m in the SparkLoop partner program and within the first week I saw my email list grow by over 12,000%. That’s insane. Their newsletter growth strategies and options are the most affordable rates I have ever seen on the market. I’m no longer paying between $5 and $10 per acquired email through online ads. Now I pay as little as $1 for warm emails that stay on my list and engaged for over 30 days. Everything is customizable in SparkLoop and they will set you up with a team member to help you through the process. Head on over to calanbreckon.comSparkloop for more details or just click the link in the show notes. Now let’s get into today’s episode.

Welcome to the Business Gay podcast where we talk about all things business, marketing and entrepreneurship. I’m your host Calan Breckon, and according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 45% of small businesses fail in the first five years of business and only about 25% of new businesses will ever make it to 15 years or more. But what can be done to improve these numbers?

That’s what we’re going to be talking about today with my guest, business consultant Inbar Madar. Inbar is a seasoned consultant equipped with over a decade of executive corporate experience. She now utilizes her experience in roles like head of brand and global sales director to empower small businesses to foster their own growth and success. Inbar’s main goal is to reduce the staggering closure rates for self-owned businesses and is driven by a commitment to aiding minority owned businesses and ensuring their longevity. As a business consultant, she offers tailored strategies and insights for the unique demands of each client and guides entrepreneurs towards sustainable profitability and success. With a strong emphasis on empowerment, education and support, Inbar aims to reshape what entrepreneurship looks like by fortifying the foundations of small businesses and helping turn aspirations into achievements. I’m really excited about today’s topic, so let’s dive in.

[00:02:18] Calan Breckon: Welcome to the show Inbar. I am so excited to have You. How are you doing today?

[00:02:23] Inbar Madar: I’m good. How are you? I’m so excited to be here.

[00:02:26] Calan Breckon: Yeah, thanks. I’m really excited to jump into this conversation with you because I don’t think we’ve really had this kind of in depth, business like, analytical conversation and I’m a numbers person and I love to understand why things happen. So I’m really excited to dive into today’s conversation with you.

[00:02:44] Inbar Madar: Awesome. Yeah, I am definitely a numbers person as well. So this feels like the right fit.

[00:02:51] Calan Breckon: Perfect. So, in my opener, I did talk about how 45% of businesses do fail in the first five years. I want you to help us understand those numbers. And let’s start with what does it really mean to close due to a lack of profit?

[00:03:06] Inbar Madar: So I’m not a fan of the way it was phrased in all of this research, because when you talk about profit, it’s such a broad word. It’s essentially saying, like, a person dies when their heart stops.

Yeah, if you don’t have money or if you don’t have profits, you really can’t keep going. But the bigger question is, why do you not have profits? And a lot of business owners immediately think of sales. Oh, if someone closed due to lack of profits, they didn’t make enough sales to cover their stuff, so now they got to close. And essentially, when you’re saying, I don’t have enough profits to keep going, you’re either saying, I don’t have enough money coming in or you’re saying, I have too much money going out. But on either of these options, there are a bunch of factors that go into it, from your pricing strategy to your client retention, to your cost of goods sold. So even if we’re talking about someone closes due to lack of profits and they didn’t have enough money coming in, it could mean a bunch of stuff. It could mean that their pricing strategy wasn’t right. It could mean that they weren’t talking to the right person. It could mean that their operational costs were too high. So it’s really important, as a business owner, I think, to look at this data, which is such an important data, and it’s an insane number, and understand the why. Like, why is it due to lack of profits, what’s actually driving businesses to have such thin profits or no profits at all that they actually need to close down?

[00:04:39] Calan Breckon: I’m glad you brought that point up, because it does make sense to me. It’s not just, oh, we don’t have profits, it’s, well, why don’t you have those profits? Are you not charging enough? Or are there other inefficiencies in your business where you’ve hired maybe one too many people, or you don’t have the right systems in place? Because maybe if you did have those right systems in place, you could be profitable. So let’s dive into this a little bit deeper. Where do you think the biggest issues usually lie, that you’ve seen where the problems happen?

[00:05:13] Inbar Madar: I think it all starts with education. I don’t know many business owners that opened the business after they got their business degree or after they were in business for years. Usually it comes from a genuine passion. And when you start a business, unless you start educating yourself on the ins and outs of what everything means, and you’re really curious and not really scared to learn fancy terms and understand how it affects your business and all of those ins and outs, a lot of the times you’re just essentially not able to be proactive with blind spots that any business has at any point. We all have blind spots all the time because businesses are also, they change all the time, the market changes all the time. You can’t really be the same every year and not have different blind spots. But unless you’re able to take the time to really educate yourself on what that means and what that looks like, you’re going to have a really hard time being proactive on time to avoid getting into that statistics and having no profits to the point where you may need to close.

[00:06:22] Calan Breckon: I really like this. There’s one example I have of I had a friend, I have a friend who’s a fashion designer who is an amazing fashion designer, but really was the creative, like really just could not wrap their brain around the business side. They’re like, I just want to create. I know I’m good at this and I know I’m selling them, but everything else just I couldn’t figure out. And it was going down a very bad path of like, you’re going to have to close because you can’t keep a roof over your head. But what ended up happening is that his mom stepped in and it ended up taking over the actual business aspect of the business.

I guess SEO spot, she stepped in and did that and it completely changed and revolutionized his business. It became profitable, sustainable, consistent, everything worked. And so it doesn’t always necessarily need to be you who’s the person who’s figuring that out. Figure out what your strong point is and then find somebody who is strong in those other things.

[00:07:23] Inbar Madar: Definitely. I think it’s all about awareness, especially with the great example you provided. When you’re aware enough of what do you not know, you have two options. You can either take the time to learn it or you can just, like you said, find that right person that you can trust that can really help you level the business. And it doesn’t even have to be a business partner. It can be a mentor if you don’t want to have a partner or a consultant or a friend that has a business just anyone that really has that wealth of knowledge and information that you may be lacking. And that’s okay. We’re not perfect. I don’t think I’ve ever walked into any corporate position or to my business knowing everything about what I’m going to do. And it’s all about learning and also identifying where should I partner with others? What do I not want to touch? What is not my strong suit, even as a human. So I’m not setting myself up to fail, and instead, I’m getting the right partnerships in place to help me take my business to the next level.

[00:08:26] Calan Breckon: Yeah, I’m really glad you brought up mentorship because mentorship has completely changed my life and my business. And when I got my first mentor, she’s a bookkeeper and finance expert. I thought I wanted a marketing expert because I was in business marketing. I was like, this is what I want. This is the mentorship that I want for me specifically. But I’m so glad that I was matched up with a finance expert and a business bookkeeper because she helped me stay on track in the spots that were very difficult for me and that I didn’t know or understand, and they scared me. And she pushed me to really understand them, at least on a level, so that I could keep my business going and consistent. Without her, I swear I would not be here today. She saved me SEO many times, and it really has helped educate me to build stability into my business. Because if your finances aren’t in order, the whole house of cards is going to come crumbling down. And so making sure that you have that foundation is really important, and mentorship can be a huge part of that. It’s true, you don’t need to be a business partner or bring somebody in, but if you can find a mentor who’s open to working with you, that can be a great option for helping build that stability into your business.

[00:09:40] Inbar Madar: Yes. I love it. It’s exactly what you said a lot of the times. Business owners are scared of finances because it’s such a big topic and there’s so many different nuances to it, and it’s very different as well from personal finances, and they end up kind of avoiding it. It’s like if I don’t touch it, maybe it will go away. And I work with many people that come to me when it’s essentially too late. You got to have something to work with to even just revive your business. And if you’re avoiding your finances and are not seeking that mentorship or partnership or whatever it is once, you must find help. It may be too late unless you have more money or more time or more something to invest back into your business. So it’s so important to, especially if you’re uncomfortable with that subject, to find that mentor, to find that person that will force you to make the right adjustments and educate you in a way that you feel a little bit more comfortable at least knowing what’s going on so you don’t have to execute it on your own. But if you outsource it to someone, if you work with a bookkeeper, with an accountant, whatever it is, you want to know what you’re looking for, and you want to know how to measure them doing a good job, them not doing a good job. And you can’t do it without really understanding at least the foundation of the topic and the task that you’re outsourcing 100%.

[00:11:04] Calan Breckon: Because I actually fired my first bookkeeper because they were going to cost me, oh, this is such a story. They were going to cost me my business. Basically, they were saying, oh, you owe $5,000 this year. And I was like, that can’t be right. There’s no way. I did not make that much money. This is impossible. And it’s because I didn’t do my due diligence of hiring the proper bookkeeper, who I knew what they were doing because I didn’t know anything about bookkeeping. I was just like, I’m just going to outsource this. And then they didn’t even look at any of my books, at my quickbooks, nothing. And so when my mentor was like, something’s like, I was like, this is going on. She’s like, something’s wrong. Came in and looked at everything, was like, did this person even look at your.

That all of these things are red flags to me as a bookkeeper. I would come to you and be like, look, something’s not right here. And so that’s when I got the education of, at least in Canada, anybody can put the bookkeeper sign on their door and say, they’re a bookkeeper. You don’t have to have a proper license or anything. Like, there is kind of a governing body, per se, but they don’t have to be a part of it. Anybody can do it. And so that really was eye opening for me to get that education. That’s when I went, okay, right? If I want to build sustainability into my business, I don’t need to fully understand bookkeeping and all of these things, but if I can keep it in order enough and do it at least once or twice, myself when time comes for me to eventually again hire a bookkeeper. When things grow, I will know what to look for and I will know how to ask and I will know how to put those pieces together so that I know I’m getting a good job done, not getting screwed over, and my business isn’t going to be sunk because we’ve heard it so many times like, oh, this is going out of business, or this bad bookkeeper, a bad finance person, or yada, yada, yada. And I like to push back a little on that because it’s not just the bad bookkeeper, it’s you not having educated yourself enough to know that that was a bad bookkeeper.

[00:13:03] Inbar Madar: Exactly. It’s exactly that. I’m thinking about my corporate career. And in corporate, you have to learn.

You can’t not know and expect others to do it for you. And when you’re in positions, when you’re leading teams or you’re leading brands and you don’t know what marketing means for that company or for wholesale versus retail or whatever it is, you can’t really manage them. And I don’t need to know how to execute everything on my own, but I got to know what a good project looks like and what a bad one looks like so I can make better decisions for my business. And especially when we’re talking about business professionals, like service providers to businesses, I don’t know if a lot of these professions need to have certificates. A lot of them really just need the experience and kind of like what you said, just put a sign on the door and be done. And so if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for and if you don’t know how to keep track on the type of outcome that you’re getting from this person.

Yeah. You’re way more likely to be part of the statistics and end up losing all of your profits or potentially even close your business because you don’t know how to measure the success of it. You don’t know how to measure that kind of progress.

[00:14:20] Calan Breckon: Yeah. And I’m glad that you brought up service based because I’m curious, what kind of are the big challenging differences between product based businesses and service based businesses?

[00:14:32] Inbar Madar: SEO, I think with product based, what I have seen happening a lot of the times is they start working with smaller manufacturers because they have smaller moqs, smaller minimum order quantities for their products. So their profits essentially, at the beginning are very thin. They’re paying more because they’re ordering less. And so they have very little to work with. And as they grow. They don’t realize that they have a huge power to negotiate those cost of goods, sold those cogs, and also do their research and find a better suited manufacturer. And a lot of the times, product based businesses, they keep growing, but their profit per product stays the same. And SEO, that is not enough to cover the additional expenses that you have as your business grows. So unless you really take the time to understand how can you negotiate this type of costs? Can you do research? Can you find other manufacturers that you can potentially work with? You’re essentially keeping your profits really thin, but your expenses are going high so much quicker that your business as a whole can’t really keep up with that.

[00:15:42] Calan Breckon: That’s really interesting. I never thought about that. It’s kind of like I was watching this real or TikTok or whatever it was recently, and there was this girl talking about how you should be changing jobs or positions about every two years. Otherwise you’re missing out on ten to 15% in wage growth. And if you’re stuck in the same job, you can either ask for that or you have to switch if they’re not willing to give you that growth, because that’s the only way you’re going to get it. And that’s how you move ahead and progress, which is a completely different mindset than our parents generation of like, stay your job forever and it’ll take care of you. Times are very different now, and you can almost layer this on top of a product based business of if you’re staying with the same providers out of loyalty or what have you, and you’re not shopping around looking for where you can, not to be cheap, but to get a better deal so that your profit margins can get a little bit bigger. I never even thought about. Just because you’re selling more and you’re growing more doesn’t mean you’re making any more profits. Because you’re using the same suppliers, they’re providing you the same stuff at the same cost, you need to be able to negotiate those deals so you can get a better deal. Does that sound like it makes sense to you?

[00:16:53] Inbar Madar: Yeah, 100%. It’s exactly that.

The loyalty thing is exactly usually what it is, from my experience. Because when you start, you’re just looking for anyone that is almost willing to work with you, especially in product based businesses. Usually your quantities are so small that the big players are not even going to look at you. And so you’re kind of out there just like talking to anyone who would talk to you, try to make something work, and essentially factories, they’re a business as well. So if they take you as a client, they’re going to have something in return which is usually just really high profits for them because they’re selling it to you for a high cost. And so two, three years down the road, if you’re still loyal to that same person and that same person is not willing to negotiate because that’s their business model, you got to know how to pivot, you got to know how to go out there, ask other people, ask other factories and really compare those prices. Otherwise you end up hiring more people. You have a better CRM, you have a better pos, you have a better website, your expenses are going up, but your profit per product is still really thin like you just got started. So loyalty, I think is important, but in business it’s transactional before anything else. And it’s really important to look at it like that and make that a priority. And then loyalty and all of that kind of falls under that to create a really solid, lasting relationships with providers. But it’s got to start with a transaction and it got to make sense to your business financially. Otherwise you can be loyal to a lot of people, but you may end up losing your business because of that.

[00:18:37] Calan Breckon: Yeah, and it doesn’t need to be a bad thing. I know that I like to do business with people, people do business with people. And if it is coming to a conversation where it’s like, hey, I need to migrate to either a bigger facility or what have you, whatever it is, if you have genuinely built that great loyal relationship with that person, positioning it in a way that it’s like, I want your business to grow. I would also like to grow my business. SEO. Either we can work together for you to help me grow my business at a lower cost or I can go somewhere else. But chances are you’re in that industry, you know, other people, I’m happy to still also recommend you to other people so that it’s not a loss of business. And if people thought a little bit more like that in supporting each other in business and helping each other grow in different ways, it would be a lot better. And it’s also a lot more comforting when you’re saying it in that regard to somebody, you’re saying, hey, you’re awesome. I really appreciate what we’ve done here. It’s time for me to grow and hope that the other person would also like to see you grow. I know that doesn’t always happen in business and all that, but that’s a nice little world. I like to live in.

[00:19:47] Inbar Madar: I think your world is pretty realistic. I think it’s all about our approach to things. Usually essentially, like the bottom line, business is business. You’re going to work with different people. Some will be okay with you moving on. Some may be a little bit bitter, but it’s really important to just stay true to yourself. And I think providing that transparency and saying, I love working with you, it doesn’t make sense for me financially right now. Here are my two options. Let’s talk about it. That’s the best you can do to stay transparent, stay authentic, give that additional information to the other person, and it doesn’t have to be a conflict. Like sometimes things like that just don’t work anymore. You grow out of a relationship or whatever it is, and that’s okay. You got to keep moving and you got to adapt to whatever is coming your way and not avoid certain conversations out of the fear of it may be a conflict or it may be uncomfortable. Because as long as you provide that transparency, I think that’s all you can do as a business owner. And then the rest is up to the other side.

[00:20:51] Calan Breckon: Yeah. So we’ve talked about the physical, product based businesses. Now let’s jump over into the service based businesses. What are usually their biggest challenges?

[00:21:00] Inbar Madar: So with service based, I think because marketing a service is not a little bit. It’s a lot different than marketing a product. I’ve seen a lot of service based businesses that are just pouring money everywhere. So they’ll join a BNI and they’ll boost a bunch of posts on Instagram, and they will go to that convention, they will do flyers, and they do it all at the same time to see what sticks. And essentially, in marketing, product or service based, you got to have more than one touch point with a person usually. And when you’re talking about service based, it’s extra important because it’s usually about trust. You’re building a whole relationship before someone is saying, I am ready to work with you. And so when you’re just spending that money like that, your client acquisition cost is so high that you’re remaining with very little to nothing to sustain your business. And that’s also a really hard cycle to get out of. Like, once you get started with it, it’s really hard to break through and say, I’m going to look at my bigger picture. I need to identify one strategy that brings me the higher ROI and just focus on that. And with service based, it’s usually not the most expensive one. It’s usually low cost to zero to really gain those clients. But when you just get started again, if you don’t have that business experience, you’re just doing it all and you’re trying to touch as many things as you can. And because people are looking for trust when they’re choosing a service provider, it sometimes doesn’t work and you end up just having really high costs with not enough revenue.

[00:22:41] Calan Breckon: I fully, fully agree. As somebody who is a service provider, I found my biggest clients and the people that I work through through going to either conventions or conferences and just like meetups and kind of business meetups and groups like that. And honestly, I don’t do any advertising, I don’t pay for any marketing like Facebook ads, Instagram, any of that. I have my podcast here because I enjoy having these conversations, which gives people something to listen to, to get to know me and like me and trust me. And then I go to these conferences and these events and I just talk about who I am and what I do. And I work in SEO and kind of the organic long term marketing because I see that as part of the getting to know like and trust you in SEO, you’re building out this library of content for people to come to your website to be able to go through and understand and see, oh, this person knows what they’re talking about and that takes time to build. But I know in service based businesses, especially a lot of young people, they want to get into the service because they think that they’re just going to make a ton of money up front and that’s their goal. They don’t really care about the other stuff. But truly, at the end of the day, people do business with other people and you have to build those relationships. And yes, that takes time, but if you put in the time, the effort over the long run, it will do you wonders if you invest into that relationship.

[00:24:13] Inbar Madar: Yeah, 100%. And I think especially as solopreneurs, most service based businesses start at least with one person doing it all. Understanding what you enjoy doing is going to be your key to your marketing strategy. If you love meeting people in person, you can go to networking events, you can go to conventions. If you like doing things online, you can join Facebook groups, whatever it is. But there’s like so many things you can do as a service provider to connect with the right client. And you just want to make sure you’re really utilizing your strengths and things you already enjoy doing and you leverage it. So you’re also less stressed about actually executing that marketing strategy. It’s less like daunting when you actually do it in a way that you.

[00:24:59] Calan Breckon: Like, and I am fully admitted, I am a crazy introvert. I love being an introvert. That’s why I love working for myself, working from home. But I still enjoy going to those kind of mixer events because it’s like that one day, that month that I’m going to be going out and mixing with people who are also in business, who can also be part of that support system. And I always go with the intention of like, well, I’m going to meet some really cool people and make some friends. I never go with the intention of like, I need to sell, I need to get a new client. Because to me, that energy, you feel that energy off of people, and nobody wants to work with somebody who’s like hyper, like, work with me, work with me, work with me. You’re like, why are you so desperate for me to work with you? You know what I’m saying? People like, 100%. I remember those people who just made me laugh and I really enjoyed, and then I found out what their business was. It was like, oh, actually, I could use you because I also already like you and I want to do business with people that I like. And that’s just how I roll.

[00:25:57] Inbar Madar: Yeah, I think most people roll like that. And whether you got a client out of it or a referral partner or a friend, you’re going to get something when you walk into a room with that mindset. And, yeah, the more aggressive tactics, I am kind of the same mindset as you. I don’t do that. I don’t enjoy it. And it’s almost like a principle. I don’t want to work with someone who’s in my face like that. And it’s like, no. So I definitely agree. It’s about a balance. And really understanding business is not just about going, finding a client, starting to work with the client. You’re done working with another client. It’s about creating that wider network, that wider referral partners and friends and mentors and all of that kind of stuff. You can’t be alone, alone in business. It’s going to be really hard, not just to succeed, but to be happy. It’s a lot, and it’s a lot of different areas that you need to kind of touch on.

[00:26:58] Calan Breckon: Yes. And I want to just say that it’s like, there is no tech, bro, go get money. And all these grow, grow, grow kind of intense. That’s what we hear and see a lot about in tv and movies and news and all these things about these businesses that were super tech, bro, and super aggressive and grew really fast and made a lot of money. But behind the scenes, I’m just like, that’s not the kind of business I want to have. I want to enjoy building my business and enjoy my life and have them coexist at the same time. And a lot of those grow at all cost. Vibes doesn’t allow for balance. And I believe if you want to build a long lasting business, you have to build that balance into that business from the get go, from the start and bake it into your everyday life. Like, I don’t work on the weekends or past 05:00 very rarely will I do that because I’ve built that into my business because I know if I want to go the long run, I can’t burn myself out. And if I do that, I’ll burn myself out.

Yeah. So it’s important not to bring that energy in and to kind of be conscious about what kind of a business you’re building. I’m really curious, what are the most valuable skills that you learned in your corporate life that all small businesses can use today?

[00:28:19] Inbar Madar: I think the main thing is really getting comfortable with asking questions. I think a lot of business owners are scared and kind of goes back to the beginning of our conversation, really understanding what everyone are doing, even freelancers that you work with. A lot of people are scared to ask too many questions because it may look dumb or like they don’t bother the other person, and it ends up really putting you in a box that you can’t really get out of because you don’t have enough information of what’s going on outside. So when I was in corporate, my last corporate position was in a wholesale company. I’ve never done wholesale before. I never touched wholesale. I was coming from more of a retail background and ecommerce. And so if I would have walked into that position not asking questions and just having account managers and marketing managers and everyone just doing their own thing, there is literally no way I would succeed. And so I needed to be that annoying, quote unquote person that goes to everyone that asks a million questions. If I don’t understand something, I’m going to say, I’m sorry. I know you explained it four times. I’m going to need to do it for the fifth time because it doesn’t click in my brain until I got really comfortable with everything.

Otherwise, I would just be not just dependent on people, but not really able to identify whether I’m heading in the right direction with my brand or whether I’m just like going sidetracked and I’m not even understanding it. So especially when you’re a small business owner, you got to shift that mindset. You got to be comfortable asking those questions and understanding that asking questions is the smartest thing you can do. That’s going to be your power in understanding the ins and outs of your business, the ins and outs of the work your freelancers are doing or your employees are doing whatever it is. That knowledge you can turn into an action plan, into more employees, into more profits, into whatever it is. But it really starts with getting comfortable with asking those questions, especially if you’re not coming from a decade of experience in business and business schools and all of that good stuff. If you don’t have it, you got to ask those questions. So you start gaining that experience.

[00:30:42] Calan Breckon: Pardon me, but even people who have that ten years of experience or whatever, if they’re good at what they do, they’ll still have that growth mindset and still be always learning. There’s this awesome book that just came to mind called mindset by Carol Dweck, and she’s a researcher and she did research on children and the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset and how as children, we are all built, born and bred to kind of have fixed mindsets at all costs because the fixed mindset is praising the fact that they got the a. Like, oh, you got an a? That’s amazing. We only care about the outcome versus, wow, you must have put in so much work and effort to get the a. And for me, having that open mindset and asking a lot of questions is having that growth mindset of like, it takes a lot of work to get to that spot. That’s a great goal to have. But we know we’re going to eventually grow past that goal. That’s not the important part. The important part is the journey and the work it takes to get there. And we need to really switch our minds from being, I know it all because that’s the straight a’s. I know it all to being, well, how do I know a lot of the things that I know I need to grow and learn. And the more you can have a growth mindset, an open mindset and be like, I don’t know, let’s just keep asking and asking and asking. Those are the ones who get ahead and the people who know it all stuck at the level that they know it all at.

[00:32:08] Inbar Madar: Yes, I love that. Especially in business, things are changing literally daily. I have so many people who would ask me SEO is a great example. Like, oh, I want to work on my SEO, what should I do? And it’s like, I don’t know because it’s different than yesterday. And so you got to be comfortable asking those questions. Even with bookkeeping. When I started my business, I come from all of that experience. I don’t know how to do bookkeeping for a small business. I have no idea what you need to do, how it should look like, I have no idea. I know how to look at a really big company.

So if I wouldn’t take the time to ask questions and if I would have walked into the room being like, well, I have all of this experience, I have a business degree, I’m good. I don’t need to ask anyone for anything. I would have probably been powered with statistics at this point because I don’t know these parts. So it’s so important to be comfortable asking questions. And to your point, also being okay with saying I don’t know everything and that’s okay. And also, everything is changing all the time. SEO, unless you ask, unless you go and learn, unless you go out there and really grow yourself and grow your information and education and all of that good stuff as much as you can, you’re going to be left behind because the world is changing and you got to be on top of it, and you got to know how to ask these questions and get that information to stay on top of it.

[00:33:33] Calan Breckon: And talking about the world is changing. I know that we’re kind of entering in, they’ve been saying a recession is coming for so long, but it takes a long time for these things to happen and to actually play out in the economy. If you look at previous events that have happened, the 2008 didn’t just happen in 2008. It goes back to 2005, and it went all the way to 2012. And so with us entering into this kind of next progression where things are going to be a little bit tighter, a little bit more difficult, maybe loans are going to be harder to get. What do you think? Kind of. I know we’ve talked a lot about a lot of great stuff in this episode, but what’s one thing, one piece of advice that you would give somebody who is running maybe more of a bootstrap business, what’s one really golden nugget that you want to give them?

[00:34:23] Inbar Madar: I think the most important thing is to really diversify your revenue. Whether it’s with an assortment of products or services or different businesses, you want to have a diversity. So if something happens, because we don’t know when recession will happen. How will it happen? It’s like you can compare it to Covid that came out of literally nowhere and no one knew it’s going to come. And things like that happen all the time. So you can’t stop when something like that happens. But when you have a good diversity of revenue streams and when you have this one product or this one service that is almost always on demand, people need it all the time. You reduce your chances of really getting hit by that. And I think on the other side, just having that loyal base of clients, like making sure that you’re really taking the time to build relationships with your clients, you’re rewarding them for staying with you. Because even if you’re a luxury brand, let’s say you’re an esthetician and you do facials, and during recession, that’s probably not the business that’s going to be the most successful. If you have a base of clients that are super loyal to you, they’re going to prioritize your service over going to a restaurant or doing something else because people don’t lock their bank accounts when there’s recession, but they reduce their spendings significantly. So if you have that loyal clientele and you’re keeping that connection with them, chances are they’re going to prioritize you over other spendings. And if you have that hero product or service that is in demand and you have that revenue diversification, you’re not likely going to need to close because of that. You may get hit and that’s okay. That’s business. But you’re going to be able to really take it, adapt to it and grow from it.

[00:36:18] Calan Breckon: And that’s really important. I know I’ve diversified my everything. I have this podcast, I have my website, which doesn’t just work as my SEO business front, it’s also I have blog posts that have maybe affiliate links in there and I have affiliate income coming in and I have different ways to generate that revenue because you never know what might happen. And as long as you build it consistently over time, you should be good. And Bart, I want to thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This has been absolutely riveting. I love having conversations like this. They always make me so happy. Where can folks find out more about you if they want to work with you or just find out much more about who you are and what you do?

[00:37:00] Inbar Madar: Yeah. So thank you. It was great. First of all, I really enjoyed our conversation.

You can find me online on my website, mibusinessconsulting.com. And you can find me on instagram @inbartalksbusiness. I’m pretty active in both, so that’s the best way to kind of reach me or learn more about me.

[00:37:20] Calan Breckon: Magical. Awesome. Cool. Well, thank you so much and I hope you have a magical day.

[00:37:25] Inbar Madar: Yes, you too. Thank you.

[00:37:28] Calan Breckon: What an absolute phenomenal interview with Inbar. She’s just a wealth of knowledge. I know that she does mentoring with StartOut, so if you’re interested in maybe working with Inbar as a mentor, you can go to the startout.org website and get involved there. And if you’re lucky, maybe you’ll get partnered up with her.

[Thanks for tuning in today. I really appreciate your support. If you want to give me some good vibes, you can head on over and hit that subscribe button and maybe even give me a star rating. Just for good measure. The business Gay podcast is written, produced and edited by me, Calan Breckon. And if you’re looking for some SEO advice, you can head on over to calanbreckon.com/audit and fill out my intake form and I will help give you a little audit for yourself for free there. So that’s it for today. Peace, love, rainbows. I hope you have the most magical day ever.