#8. Financial advice for business owners navigating the COVID-19 epidemic from a certified accountant (podcast)

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A Different Episode…

For this podcast episode, we take a detour from our regularly scheduled program discussing the hemp industry. Today I speak with Mike Sowinski, CPA, about how to navigate your company during the COVID-19 crisis and future uncertainty. This is not all doom and gloom, we also discuss potential opportunities during this time. This conversation is applicable to hemp and cannabis companies as well as any small and medium-sized businesses that are navigating the Coronavirus uncertainty.

About Mike Sowinski

Mike Sowinski has managed financial operations for companies of all sizes, from small family-run enterprises with less than $100K in sales to Fortune 500 companies with $12 billion in sales. He is especially skilled at guiding businesses through complex financial scenarios with a distinctive mix of practical advice, on-target, problem-solving abilities, and a deft sense of humor.

He’s spent his entire career in financial management positions, working for business owners in real-world scenarios, skillfully managing a range of internal operations and business models. From simple cost-reduction programs to complex IPO procedures, Mike’s experience ranges from banks to insurance companies, national CPA firms, and smaller regional and local businesses. As a Chief Financial Officer, he effectively executed numerous external projects with audit firms and regulatory agencies.

In 2010, he became Accredited in Business Valuation and has performed more than 100 business appraisals in a multitude of industries. He has provided litigation support and has testified as a valuation expert in several owner disputes and equitable distribution matters.

He graduated from the University of Central Florida in 1990 with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting. He holds CPA licenses in Florida and North Carolina and has more than 25 years of progressive financial management experience.

His passions include original music composition and fishing.

Contact Mike: www.CFOConsultants.net

Episode Transcript

Jason De Los Santos: [00:00:00] hey guys, Jason here with spectrum labs. We are taking a bit of a detour for this episode. Normally we talk about cannabis regulation. We’ve talked about the endocannabinoid system seem to be, and the adenoids. This one’s to be a very different internally for the next angel episodes as well. Well, we’re all going through this.

Current events, crisis and epidemic. Now it’s important to understand the facts of what we’re going through today. There’s a lot of uncertainty

facing all of us right now, handling ways, but these next few episodes is to give some actionable steps. Wrestle. Think about, you know exactly which ones. Be the best steps to take, but I’m just trying to use some logic and reasoning and how to best move forward together come out of this as best as possible.

And your side. So for this particular episode, I brought a friend, his name is Mike . He’s an accountant, a certified CFO consultancy practice. And he has a lot of good insights. Think about your company right now from a financial perspective and we’ll  it pretty short and actionable.

Mike, welcome to the hemp start journey. We’re taking a bit of a detour with a typical content that I go over on the podcast. And, so, you are my first detour guest, so, yeah, we’ve been friends for a long time. So, you know, when, Marcus actually suggested, you know, Hey, what did you think about, maybe offering some, some advice or some guidance about.

Finance or just know kind of how to navigate and actually knew your company. So you were the first person that came to mind. Yeah. So just for folks that don’t know about you, just can you say a little bit about what you do? what’s your background?

Mike Sowinski: [00:01:53] Yeah, I own CFO consultants, which does, decision making for companies, but I’m a CPA, so I do all of those normal CPA firm things.

And so, the, the tax law and all of that that’s coming out now as well as, what’s going on, in the, in the Congress and all that I have to stay up on because of tax law and I’m staying in touch for all of my clients and putting out information like this.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:02:18] And you have a quite a variety of clients.

You do have some people that are in the hemp business, right? Some clients that are in the hemp business. so w we, if it’s appropriate, you know, as long as you can keep things private, maybe we can talk about some of that you’re seeing, but just in general, and you know, from a high level, you know, we’re at the, let’s see, at the end of March right now, what, what are you seeing with your clients.

and what people are, I guess, how they’re reacting to current situation.

Mike Sowinski: [00:02:42] Yeah. That w what’s interesting in the, in the hemp industry anyway, is all of the retailers, which is, they’re all trying to stay open. And, I even, you know, drove by some of the shops and they have their doors open physically so that you know that they are open.

because CBD is used so often for medical things. That, you know, and we were just talking about whether, is an essential service so that when we all have to stay in place during this time, if, if that has to remain open because it’s like a pharmacy kind of thing where it’s medical and you, you were saying, I think something about the West coast that that’s a, a prevalent thing.

You have to stay open. But all the clients that I have that are in retail, they’re desperately trying to stay open. But. We have seen, people not wanting to go into even stores. And I’ve had some of my, employees as well that wanted to do some accounting things for some of these folks. They’re afraid to walk into the store because there’s the general public, you know, and accountants are fearful anyway, but all you have to do is put some germs in there.

And now we’re like, well, I’m not going there, you know? So you’re trying to find electronic ways to, to communicate for that. You know, like, I’m Skyping. I have a lot of those now. no one’s coming to see me anymore for the same reasons.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:03:50] Yeah, sure.

Mike Sowinski: [00:03:51] Even even us together right now, I think is a dangerous thing.

We’re pretty far apart.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:03:56] Plus where we are in a, in a booth and closed and a weird hazmat suits, right. Masks on and face guards.

Mike Sowinski: [00:04:04] Yeah. I think we’re okay. Yeah. That’s specialty. Mike you had for the suit was cool. That’s awesome.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:04:10] so, let’s see. And then one of the things that happened today, so this, it’s March 25 right now, and there’s this new $2 trillion stimulus package that the government just released.

and we talked a little bit about that before. What’s your take on it?

Mike Sowinski: [00:04:25] It seems like there’s a lot of pieces that no one knows yet. Because they haven’t actually signed it. And a lot of people ask me for advice before signing, and a lot of people get on a podcast and listen to what all the politicians say.

But, you know, that wasn’t necessarily helpful because you’re, you’re fearful anyway and now you’re listing of things aren’t exactly, done yet. And so they’re still arguing about it. But the reality is, is that the, the, what the Congress wants, you know, American America to do is to employers to continue to employ the people that you can.

And they’ll give you the help to do that. And so, this morning a Schumer talked about, the, what the final deal is going to have, unemployment on steroids. And so what they’re saying is, is that they’re going to have full unemployment benefits, which means that whatever you were making before, you’re going to make after.

And the government’s going to pay for the rest of that. And, you can remain, you know, you, you remain whole  for the next four months, you will be paid in full as an employee. and, and, and then as, as, the second part of that is for companies is to have a loan program and they call it a loan, but really it’s a grant and it’s a grant if you use the money in the right way.

And so what they’re saying is the, if you continue to employ your folks in, in the places that you can, I mean, some things are closed because they simply can’t operate like a restaurant. But if you can employ people, and CBD a retail store is a perfect example of where they want you to continue to employ your people, but they’re going to support the small business owner by giving you four months of, of payroll money.

That you can use and as long as you use it for payroll, then that loan they’re calling it will be forgiven. And that’s the latest version of, of now it went into the dark hole and it’s still in the black hole. But that’s the latest version of those things

Jason De Los Santos: [00:06:14] change pretty rapidly after  try me. If they’re still in final negotiations and

Mike Sowinski: [00:06:19] all that stuff, why don’t they put planned Parenthood in there?

I don’t know why, and there are other things they put in the, you know. They just load the stuff with what I think now’s the time to have a green new deal or whatever the latest thing is, emissions for airlines was in there. You know, the, the, we’re trying to protect the airlines and, and then by the way, you need to stop polluting.

So. That’s the Congress for you.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:06:42] And I’m sure this is one of those words, like, you know, 10,000 pages. So people still, you know, they don’t even know probably what’s in the whole bill,

Mike Sowinski: [00:06:49] right? This new law. Yeah. And I count on, and by the way, also all small business owners should be looking at their associations that are related to what you’re doing because they stay on top of that stuff.

I get a lot of information from the AI CPA about specifically for finance. but in the, in the Hamptons tree, I know there’s a lot of different associations and that those people stay on top of those things.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:07:11] Yeah. Yeah. That’s a good idea. all right, so we’ll, those are some, some good highlights about that new stimulus bell and we’ll see.

We’ll stay up to date. And see what a, what are the details come out of it. and I think, so you talked about some benefits for individuals and benefits for small businesses. but then I guess the, there potentially some out what we usually call bailouts for some industries rather than thinking that your line is three.

Mike Sowinski: [00:07:32] And that was, that was the biggest sticking point in the entire, program was, that stimulus because there was no strings attached and no visibility on what they were spending it on. And it was just like, here, take it right. Take what you need, basically, but 500 billion on the table and take what you need.

So that wasn’t good enough for the Congress. So they went back and that was the one that they kept voting down. And now, why it’s taken five days was basically that, that you just give them the money and no strings attached. And that’s fine. We, interestingly enough, they didn’t do that to small business owners.

There were strings attached for them, but the big ones, they didn’t. so anyway, they’ve, they fought through that and now they do have strings attached and they do have, an oversight board that’s gonna ma, monitor where that money goes and have complete reporting and visibility. So if you take that money, it’s going to be visible and everyone will know how much you took and what you used it for, which is really, really what they wanted.

So that’s a good piece.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:08:26] Okay.

Mike Sowinski: [00:08:29] And one of the, one of the things that, I noticed with, getting back to small business owners, w one of the things I saw a lot of people do immediately, for example, restaurants that were really on top of their game was as soon as they announced the closing of the company or the closing of the restaurant, they immediately laid off all of their people nationwide.

Darden did that, which is the owner of ’em. olive garden and some of those, Tupelo honey, which is a local business, they did that immediately. they did it on the Friday that they announced that all restaurants must close. That Friday they laid everyone off. And so it was sort of an immediate action because, you know, the name of the game I think now is to defend your company, is to make sure that your company is still alive and now government is going to help you now.

But at that time, there was no assurance when they were, when they immediately said, you have to close. But I, I think that the goal was there was to have a plan. And so the, all these people kind of had a disaster plan to say, here’s what we do if this happens. And, they, and they brainstormed all of those kind of eventualities.

We, we’ve talked, I think about climate change and so forth where, some companies have entire infrastructure like Starbucks. They know that some of their countries are not going to be able to produce their coffee beans. And so they. They have a whole infrastructure set up outside of that country in order to continue their operation without having any disruption.

And so that’s very costly, where you might have warehouses that are closed and empty trucks and entire fleets of things just waiting for that to happen. But they do. And, and, they’re, they’re a major fortune 500 companies that have entire, operations set up. So that they can act on these things quickly.

They have meteorologists that work for the company, you know, that sort of thing. And, and in small business, you can’t do all that, but you can certainly have it in your head. And to plan on doing these things like, Darden restaurants did, where they, they knew what they were going to do and they took the action as soon as it happened,

Jason De Los Santos: [00:10:27] you know, pretty quick.

And so they fired their entire, like front office. It’s not like servers and, yep.

Mike Sowinski: [00:10:33] And chefs and cooks and all of the HR staff, accountants, everyone went, yeah. It was basically just a skeleton. and they, there are certain things like, and this is really interesting now, is the essential services idea. If you’re staying in place, you know, what is an essential service.

It turns out that accountants are essential services because we, we, are the backbone of everything else. And, and of course, the payroll, you know, for processing payroll, that’s important to everyone. but that essential services thing might be the very thing that gets your, the HAMP retail people to stay, to stay open and be able to keep going.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:11:10] Your clients are people calling you. You probably had a lot of phone calls and lot of emails in the past few days. what’s the, the sort of, the sentiment that people are calling you with? Like are they, are they freaking out? Are they sort of level-headed? what, what’s your take on

Mike Sowinski: [00:11:24] the ones that, it’s interesting, the ones that did freak out, I could call it that, but what they did is they went deep into the rabbit hole of studying what the Congress was about to do or studying what the government local was going to do.

And so they went down that rabbit hole. some of that wasn’t healthy because what they were worried about didn’t happen. and, and, and now I hear that a lot of people are buying guns and so forth. So a lot of this, it’s not a good sell, and I don’t know how healthy and, and so some of that going down that rabbit hole was, was unhealthy.

But, another thing I found is that a lot of people are getting . really, insistent. they, they, they want to know more things. So if they have control of something, like, let’s say how much your refund is, and I tell them what the refund is, believe me. They want that like tomorrow, you know, the very same day.

and so it’s a little bit, they’re a little bit stressed out with timing and, a lot more worried about things they normally would be.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:12:23] I guess the uncertainty is so strange. I mean. You know to, to, to nail that to that you don’t know how long it’s going to be. Right? Like that’s, that’s tough to take.

Cause, you know, like businesses, I think in general, you know, some people do it better than others, but you know, we, we play, like we do a marketing plan or review upon them to hire an employee or something like that. But, you know, for, in our lifetime, nobody’s ever said, you have to close your doors.

There’s no like, okay, you know, you close your doors for two days or two weeks or two months. You have to close your doors. And then, I certainly been, you know, put myself in a really bad position of just, coming back to the news every few minutes. It’s been overwhelming. And so of course people have different opinions cause you know, this is totally new to us.

So some people say like, Oh, well we’ll only be closed for a few days. And some folks train like the rest of the year. Like, you know, nobody’s gonna be able to go outside.

Mike Sowinski: [00:13:18] Yeah. And who knows how long restaurants will be closed. I just can’t even

Jason De Los Santos: [00:13:21] imagine. Right. Yeah, exactly. So,

Mike Sowinski: [00:13:23] they’ve set up the, I guess the Congress has sorta said four months.

That’s their assumption.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:13:29] Yeah. which is crazy for, for a lot of different perspectives. I mean, of course, you know, the business side, just people in general, I mean, in this country especially. We associate a lot with the work that we do, right? It’s like, Oh, I’m a chef, I’m an entrepreneur, I’m a this over the other.

I’m an accountant. And I think when that’s taken away from you, that’s really hard, and then you’re, you’re, you’re then a forced to be, let’s say, secluded or isolated in your home. And it’s one thing if you’re by yourself, but then it’s a whole nother thing. If you’re with either roommates or with family, then you have to deal with those dynamics of being in the same place 24, seven.

It’s just, it’s beyond business where like this is just about humanity at this point. And absolutely the intensity of the, the emotions.

Mike Sowinski: [00:14:11] and one of the things that I found that really helped, business owners on. On that side is to make sure that the, the, the information they’re getting is accurate and, and, and that, that you don’t listen to any authority necessarily, that you, you dig deeper.

Neil deGrasse Tyson, who’s a famous stuff physicist, he always says that, you know, it’s, it’s all about the facts and you can’t hide from the fact. That’s it. Or they are what they are. You don’t, you aren’t entitled to your own facts. Actually. It’s, it’s a scientifically proven, and he goes through the methods and so forth.

But I found that a lot of people have really appreciated when you tell them that this is a, and that’s where they, they ha, retreat to as sort of the professionals like myself and, and lawyers and other people that they trust, financial advisors, or, or even a trusted family member. That, that is sort of, you know.

In the middle and doesn’t all of the hype and hyperbole and, and, and political, whatever, political environment, all that doesn’t matter at the end of the day. In this case, in this particular, environment, it’s a fact that there’s a virus and it’s a fact that people are dying. And so that’s not something that’s open for.

Interpretation. You can’t argue about it. so what do we do about it?  and so the, the, what do we do about it becomes a lot more interesting when you get past the fact that we have to deal with this.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:15:32] You’re probably one of the most logical minded people that I know. You’re always like, you know, here, here it is.

Like, here are the facts. And so therefore, here’s what we have to decide on. do you find yourself as much as you want to share? Like do you find yourself kind of. Teetering on that, like emotional kind of, indecision or, or maybe the indecision is not the right word, but just, moving away from that, the typical logical side of you.

Mike Sowinski: [00:15:53] Yeah. The, the hard part is, is that, all these are unknowns. And so even in my business, we’re an essential service. And. I’ve had absolutely no slow down. It was tax season when the stuff hit. So I had more than enough work, and a lot of people want their stuff, like when it, like now, like I was saying, they’re a little more nervous about things.

but even in spite of that, all of these things coming out from the Congress, I really don’t know. What they’re going to come out with and, and I don’t know which direction I’ll take the firm because every small business owner has to do the right thing for their business, whatever that is, and you have to make the best decision based on what the facts are at the time and what you have available to you.

I’m fortunate that I didn’t have to make any decisions yet, but I know that all that’s coming. And, and if the Congress is going to give you, for example, free payroll, you know, why wouldn’t everyone take advantage of that, in this time? I think the problem in my business is certainly going to be collections because all of my clients are feeling the problem more than I am.

And, and, and some of them are in the hemp industry, some of ’em are retailers, large retailers, and some of them are, are directly related to advertising or something that’s not going to be restarted right away. And so when those things hit. I have to take the actions I have to do for my business, but not until those things happen.

And I think that’s what the Congress is real legislation is really about, is trying to help you. If you’re going to make a decision, that’s perfectly logical, but if you’re going to make that decision, they’re going to help you. In every part of that,

Jason De Los Santos: [00:17:23] if an individual for

Mike Sowinski: [00:17:24] the businesses. Exactly. As the small companies.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:17:27] Yep. Okay. So now that we sort of, you know, from this conversation, we understand the facts, right? Like this is just a catastrophe of great magnitude. It’s just a fact. Here’s where we are. So what about, let’s talk about a couple of different companies scenarios, right? Let’s talk about, companies that, let’s say they’re there.

They’ve done well so far, and, you know, you always talk about cash and, and you know, cashflow. And so let’s say that some company’s positioned well. What, what should they be thinking about at this point with the uncertainty that lies ahead? What do you suggest?

Mike Sowinski: [00:18:00] Well, the, it’s really interesting cause a, Warren Buffett’s had always said that when other people get concerned, I start to get greedy.

And so it’s kind of the same, environment I’m seeing. I talked to bankers who bank only large really successful companies and the bankers messages were open for business. Come in and and get your, get your money, you know, whatever you need, whatever you want to do. And so what, what, the really successful folks can do is take advantage of this time and, and look for opportunities.

For example, you know, if there is a failing business or someone’s going to have a real problem and they’re related to your business, you could actually buy them. Or you could go into business with them or provide them alone alone that has a string to it that says that if you’ve default, then I get your business kind of thing.

but you’re helping others, but you’re also expanding your business at the same time. A real, real estate hasn’t been, there has been some impact to real estate already with people worried about closings and so forth. But a lot of that is still moving forward. And so, the pricing of real estate’s going down.

And so the, the, the opportunity for companies and individuals is going to be much greater in the, in the near future. In fact, some appraisers or real estate have, you know, barked right now because. The uncertainty is hurting, how would you value a, a house right now? and sign off to it because no one really knows what this means to their market.

So it’s a really stressful thing to be appraiser right now and that environment, you know. But those opportunities, are, are definitely, and it’s been a long time, 11 years or longer, where there was this opportunities that, that are going to come in front of these folks that have the ability to help, but also be able to, at the same time increase your wealth and increase your business size.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:19:47] Okay. And what about on the other end? So companies that, let’s say maybe they were just barely treading water and ran like cash strapped, maybe businesses not doing so great. So what, what should those companies consider doing right now?

Mike Sowinski: [00:20:00] And that was a, I have some of those, you know, where you have a new business and that, and that’s another thing.

There was an opportunity was, these new businesses that just started up, or he just had a thing. Th there’s going to be something in this package for everybody. because the ability to stay open and have your employees paid for is really a gigantic leap forward for them. but in terms of, you know, the, the planning, the, the, hitting milestones and, and when, when you’re struggling, you know that you gotta see the ramp on the way out.

You know, we’ve, we’ve, you and I have gone through many ramps and, and having that ramp and knowing what that looks like and hit those marks as you go, is critical. The other is the metrics of the company before and after knowing the metrics of your company. I had a, I had a friend that had a boat and he knew how many, he had a fish store and that’s how he bought his boat.

And so everything in his life was how many fish you would have to sell. How many of these tropical fish, and he had it down to, well, that’s 1,300 fish or 2000. And everything in his life was based on those fish. and that example can be put into, into service for any company, especially the ones that are struggling or at the, at the beginning of a ramp, just to have an idea of what’s the, what is that break even?

Where is that fish? And also, how, how much are you willing to, to stick it out. Right? Because you don’t want to sacrifice your family, your sacrifice, your entire wellbeing because you’re trying to start something. But on the other hand, you got to take that risk cause that’s where the reward is. Then the

Jason De Los Santos: [00:21:29] rainbow.

Yeah. That’s a good way to think about it. That’s fine. You know, you’re friends with the, with the finish, like it wasn’t dollar amounts. It was like how many

Mike Sowinski: [00:21:35] fish?

Oh yeah. And, and some other, people people had been taking advantage of lately. it was, you know, their relationship with vendors has been absolutely critical because when you tell them, Hey, the chips are down and they know the chips are down too. But if you tell them what your ramp looks like, or you tell them how long it’ll take to pay, or you, set up a payment plan with them, they will provide you free lending.

And so that’s a great place to start is with vendors to make sure that they know where you’re at. some people, for example, I was with a, I have a, a struggling, we’re, Countrywide, wholesaler of foods. And so because of this thing, they were struggling. But then because of this crisis and everyone’s in a grocery store, suddenly they’re the star of the show.

And so we’re a bank was very upset at them and the bank is doing all sorts of things that are really upsetting to that whole S to that, retail or that wholesaler of, of foods. Now that they’re there, suddenly. You know, bright star. And so this has not changed everything for the worst cause. The other thing I like to say about small businesses is if, when you are a, have this relationship with your employees and you want to lay people off or you want to help them, obviously everybody wants to help your employee, point them in a direction of a, of a place that’s still open.

grocery stores are, are, if you fog a mirror, you can work at a grocery store right now.

If you, if you walk into a grocery store, you’re hired and this, and, and they’re, they’re not a bad career. And there’s, there’s a lot food, of any sort that, that’s being sold. You know, all of the, manufacturers of food, all of them are hiring as well. And so there’s a lot of opportunity out there for people to get to work and that want to still succeed and there’s so much opportunity out there.

It’s just in a different place now. Sure.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:23:27] It seems like food delivery, groceries,

Mike Sowinski: [00:23:29] exactly.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:23:30] What was that? Heard that Amazon was hiring 100,000 people or something like that? Have you heard anybody else that’s really getting into hiring right now?

Mike Sowinski: [00:23:39] Yeah. It was just all the, all the major grocery stores that that fog a mirror thing actually came from them, I think because they’re all hiring like that, that you walk in and you’re hired by the time your toe touches the front of it because there’s so much restocking.

That has to happen. And then of course, Oh my gosh, the, the delivery industry, like you said. but all the truck drivers that are delivering the food to the places and then all of the warehouse workers, it’s just, it’s insane. And all those are, and of course pharmacies and, all of those things that are so what you’re right, health care.

So what you’re looking for is those essential services thing. If you want to get a job, now’s the time and all those essential services cause everyone needs you.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:24:19] Yeah. So, you know, one of the things I’ve been thinking about is that in a time of, let’s call it turmoil, or let’s say if you are secluded to being home and maybe your job is a, is at risk or, or not, you know, it seems like this could be a good time to rethink what you’re going to do after.

Sort of after the hump. Yup. and so let’s talk about small businesses and your small, medium sized businesses that you work with. And, some of the things that you typically see that these companies get wrong. What are the things to think about, to fix today? Where I like if, if they can continue working right after this, this crisis, what are the things to think about and to fix today so that when we come out of it, that they’re poised to be in a much better position, haven’t taken advantage of, gotten better.

time period.

Mike Sowinski: [00:25:05] And that’s a, there, there were a couple of things I always recommend to folks, before this kind of thing. It’s just a daily kind of reminder and one is, always to have an open line of credit. And so it’s going to be for everyone a great time to talk to banks because, they’re required, you know, banks are required to give you this model.

This is not like optional for the bank. They don’t get to say, Oh, who gets it and who doesn’t know? Everyone gets the money, for this particular purpose. So it’s a great time to look at the whole picture with a banker and, and have some open lines of credit because nothing makes you feel better than having $100,000 a stack of credit cards that you can just.

It’s okay. Your life’s okay. Regardless of visits, zombie apocalypse, and everyone buys guns and starts fighting, you still have the ability to do what you need to do for your family. You know, that’s the most important thing. and the other thing is diversification because, you know, whatever it is that might’ve hurt your business right now was likely caused because you didn’t have more customers, or you didn’t have different lines of business that aren’t related to each other.

I know, you, you and your business have, have done that. with hemp, but also other areas where you’re in to several different industries. It’s not just one. And so if one’s impacted, it doesn’t impact the whole. And, and I’ve certainly done that in my business and I recommend it to everyone, is to have, you know, as much diversification as you can without losing focus on your products and stuff.

and the other is planning, knowing, you know, having those number of fish in mind and know exactly where those points are. Because no matter what happens, you can always take action. And you can decide how many fish are dead before you, before you decide you need to do something about that. And then the LA, the last thing that I thought about was, take, take action, based on the best and best facts you have at the time.

Yeah. And that really will help you in everything that you do, but don’t be rash about it. You know, you don’t want to, for example, in, in my business, I had taken the, the cue from the restaurants and laid everyone off. That would have been exactly the wrong thing to do. Sure.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:27:06] So, I know you hate this question, but I’m going to ask you anyway

what, so again, we’re, we’re at the end of March here. how long do you think that we’ll be in this position? However you wanna define it?

Mike Sowinski: [00:27:21] Well, the Congress and I, I, you know, as much as I hate to say it, there, there are some of those folks have some people that are smart around them or they are smart.

and the four month, stimulus that they’re, they’re putting in place is for a reason. they, they spent time, cause a lot of them have international. Contacts, a lot of those folks. So they believe, you know, the Congress believes that we’ll be out of this, in terms of being able to get back to work in four months.

And if you look at China and the places where it originated, they have started, they have restarted their economy. They’re actually people going to clubs and restaurants now and . I mean, it’s amazing. They have done it. They, they got the, they pulled the rabbit out of the hat. but it did take about. The magic four months that they’re putting together here.

And so I believe that things will start, begin to start where you starting in four months.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:28:09] So possibly like beginning of August

Mike Sowinski: [00:28:12] like that. Yep. In the summer. And you know, if, if Trump’s ride, and I hope he is, that, that the virus is seasonal, then, it would go away naturally in the summer anyway. a lot of people internationally are worried about their outbreaks recurring.

And I think what we’ve all learned from this is that these things happen and you just have to be prepared. .

Jason De Los Santos: [00:28:31] Yeah. Yeah. Usually. I don’t like to use the word hope, but I hope so.

Mike Sowinski: [00:28:36] I

Jason De Los Santos: [00:28:36] hope that. It doesn’t take much longer than that. I think just for, for our sanity, and I think for a lot, a lot of parents out there, you know, at home with kids.

And I don’t know, I think just for, for just our, our whole community, right? Like, we’re so used to being around. People for the most of, most of us. Even me as an introvert, you know, it’s like,

Mike Sowinski: [00:28:57] Oh, do you want go to a party? Like, eh,

Jason De Los Santos: [00:28:58] I’m fine. And now it’s like, get me outta here. I want to go see people.

Mike Sowinski: [00:29:04] And then we both go to a party and we’re introverts together.

So

Jason De Los Santos: [00:29:08] goats. Oh man. Okay. So I think those are good. Yeah. Anything else you want to leave people

Mike Sowinski: [00:29:12] with? No, no. It’s just a, it’s not a time, you know, in, in, in business owners, the best advice I could give is not to be fearful, but just take action based on the best information you have. And, and, and you, you know, if you’ve been in business for a while, what you need to do just execute and don’t worry about the.

The other stuff,

Jason De Los Santos: [00:29:30] have the analysis paralysis, know

Mike Sowinski: [00:29:32] exactly. Yeah. Yeah. This is not a time to, to, to study spreadsheets.

Jason De Los Santos: [00:29:38] That’s a lot coming from you and from an accountant. Right. all right. So if somebody wants to get ahold of you, how should they do that?

Mike Sowinski: [00:29:44] Yeah, you can find me at CFO consultants. Dot net.

and, I have other businesses, but that’s the best one. And it has all my email ad address and all the telephone information,

Jason De Los Santos: [00:29:54] so, all right. Awesome. Mike, thank you very much to adding a little bit of a logic to this, uncertainty. So, if, yeah, if anybody has any questions, just to reach out to Mike.

at his domain or, guests can reach out to me. I’ll point you in the right direction to get ahold of Mike. And, let’s, let’s keep moving forward.

Mike Sowinski: [00:30:10] Yeah, thanks Jay .

Jason De Los Santos: [00:30:10] Hey guys, and before you go, this is Jason from spectrum labs. Please be sure to visit us on the web as the spectrum labs.com for any show notes and links discussed in the podcast. Also remembered. Click the subscribe button, wherever you may be listening from, so you get notified when our next episode comes out and tune in next show and have a fantastic day.

About Spectrum Labs

At Spectrum Labs, we source local hemp and extract high-quality Full Spectrum Hemp extracts that even our families can use.

Spectrum Labs can manufacture and white-label these hemp extracts:

Crude
Distillate
Tinctures
Gummies
Lotions
Custom formulations

To learn more about Spectrum Labs, visit TheSpectrumLabs.com or contact us at (828) 229-7952

Asheville, NC