OOH Insider - Episode 020 - Andrea Henley, The Out of Home Girl

Okay, welcome to the out-of-home insider show, the loudest voice in out of home. We're bringing you tips, tricks, insider insights, and today's guest has a plentiful amount of all of the above Andrea Henley. Joining us live from anytime fitness, an out of home staple and a small business owner. Andrea, thanks so much for making the thank you my pleasure.

And I'm glad that we're doing the slide my first time too. And you're doing such a great job with everything you're doing. So finally, nice to see you face to face it's. It's, uh, it's exciting for me to do this face to face as well because you're somebody that I look up to in the out of home space and just in life in general, I think you've got great attitude about things and certainly the client, you know, the current climate in a marketplace that we're in is, has changed some things.

You're a small business owner, right? Yes, we are. We're in Florida. So it was, it was kind of interesting because it was during spring break that this all happened. So we get a lot of tourists visitors and that not knowing what was going on, but yes, we're a small business owner, anytime fitness, part of a franchise.

Um, so they closed the fitness clubs, mandated and bars, restaurants, you know, most of the restaurants are open until like seven or else you can do takeout. So it was, uh, quite the shock, but, you know, it was for the right reasons. You know, if people like we have a lot of members that are elderly too, and they were like, and it really hit home because they were like, I might not live through this, you know?

Yeah. That's a real thing. And then you're like, cause I'm thinking we're pretty healthy and we're working out and all that. But when they were like, we're not even going to be coming anymore because we might not even live through this. It's time to, you know, this is bigger than us. This is bigger than our business.

We can rebuild, you know, money and all that, but you can't replace lives. So, and I like that gives you a really valuable perspective, right? Because you're not just operating in a silo within, you know, a corporate structure of a nine to five job that we all go to Monday through Friday, you're, you're in a capacity, you're touching the public, you're seeing people and how it's impacting their lives.

Some of the things that are going on. So having both a perspective of a business owner and also a professional, how do you, how do you sort of separate the two and what advice would you give to other small business owners that are going through some challenges right now? Yeah, I mean, w it was, we were, you know, strategizing before what we were going to do.

Um, there are so many resources where you can get a deferment small business. If you have an SBA loan, if you reach out, if you have a loan on your business, they will defer it. Everybody has been really helpful. We went to all of our, you know, peers and said, you know, cable bill, they delayed payment, things like that.

Those are things that are kind of give you that runway, right? If you're not having people coming in and spending money or joining, you know, the club or even any small business owner, I kind of look at that. Um, we have a full-time manager and I did not want to let her go because there's still things we have to have done, like keeping the place clean.

So instead of, you know, signing people up, you know, she's, this is her only income. And I really felt for her. Um, so I did tell the cleaners because they have other contracts that we were going to take a hiatus from them until we figure out what's going on, but then allow our manager to come in and make some money.

So I think you have to sort of reinvent yourself or think about, you know, this is going to impact everybody, everybody, every single person from, you know, a bartender here, next door, we have a bar to, you know, fortune 100 companies, everyone's going to take a hit. So I think we all have to just be responsible.

They are the number 700,000 people filed front employment last week. And they expect that number to grow significantly. This week in 700,000, it was at the, at the peak of the oh 8 0 9 recession. That was, that was the most number of people that. You had filed and we saw it in one week. So there's certainly going to be more of an impact felt.

And the fact that you're thinking of other ways to use your employees, to defer things with your vendors. And like you said, I really like the analogy of a runway, right. Rather than, Hey, you know, I need to find a way to make money. Right. Which all companies run on sales in some capacity, rather than I need to find a way to make money.

What can I do to be responsibly fiscally right now and defer some of the saints. So knowing that you're making those, taking those measures to defer some of those things, how then do you approach the sales side? Because there's a lot of folks listen to this, even right now that they're in some sort of sales capacity, that's how they provide for their families.

What's w what do you think the right way is to go to market? I think that, um, it's very sensitive right now, you know, and, and people, and I, you know, it's funny, I put that post up that we, I closed my business and then somebody hit me up on LinkedIn and wanted to talk about how he could help me increase sales inside my, you know, that even thinking, like, not even being aware, right.

There's probably just a spam or, and it was like, this is a little insensitive, but, um, I've been through this. I've been through this when we were talking before this, there, the.com era, when that crashed, it was a little bit different, nine 11 and then also the real estate, um, crash, you know, we in Florida, especially.

Manage the Sarasota Bradenton market and every single one of my billboards I think, was sold for a year or two. And then it crashed. And I was like, oh my gosh, you know, what do I, we, I went from 95% occupancy down to 60 and like, and you're kind of like a deer in the headlights. And you're like, what, what, what do we do?

So I went back, you gotta let them cancel because they're not going to pay you. You know, they're not, if they're trying to save, you know, jobs and things like that, and you gotta be sensitive to that and know that it's not about you anymore. You let them out. When they come back, they'll come back stronger because you, a lot of them out and you, you know, they'll appreciate that word for it too.

You know, third or fourth quarter, once we get out of this. But, um, I went back and I said, who are the people that couldn't afford billboards when we were doing so well, that wanted to. And I've put packages together, right? Really like low end packages where we could live with it, 10, 15 locations at a time car dealerships.

There's always some sort of someone that wants to slide in there, you know, and say, oh my gosh, I can get on all these billboards that weren't available before. Um, it's pretty adaptable, right? So you can move them around when you, when you recover, but they get a lot of exposure for, you know, what, they couldn't be four.

And then, um, that's one thing that I did turning the market around, growing it by 18% market, because I could see drives rate on everything, but you would have to go to work. You can't go. I'm going to hold out for the rates. I was just getting, that's not going to happen. You have to like bottom out and then rebuild.

And it works. And I got, and that year actually, Not to toot my own horn or anything. It was just went to work. But I got MVP for the year. I grew in a down economy. So I know that you just have to think your mind has to change. You know, you have to go on a different direction. I think that's a really interesting approach of, you know, cause a lot of people's first solution is just drop rate.

Just drop rate to who though who can afford, who has the me too, who has the want right to, to do the thing that I sell right now, which is advertising space. Whereas the one who has the means and who has the need. Um, and right now there's a lot of places disrupted, but you know, when we see some of the advertising spends are down 15, 20%, it doesn't mean they're down a hundred percent.

So they're still spending money. There are people out there spending money. Are there any categories in particular that you think it makes sense to approach now? Or, or maybe what were some of those categories in that. That stood out as, Hey, this person wouldn't normally be able to afford it, but is now a player I think really right now is the small business owners, um, that are also having delivery service.

You know, the restaurants are closed, but they're doing curbside. People are I'm in Florida, right. And people are still driving around. So you can have that directional, you know, change to carry out Uber drivers, um, even going to somebody that's doing well, say Sherman. Um, there, you know, the toilet paper, maybe they could be a sponsor for public service messages.

Right? I mean, they're making they're up 200%. Last time I looked. And growing every single toilet paper company, that's killing it right now, online. All that you can say this public service message is sponsored by Sharman and out there they're making money. So you may be able to get a higher rate and say, look, you know, you guys are benefiting.

Everybody is taking a hit, you know, we've got these gaps right, right now. And we really need to have some positivity out there. So maybe a public service ad where they're obviously they're sold out. So they'll have any product to sell, but something like a community message I think would be. I like that idea of approaching some of these companies that are doing well and, you know, especially well like Sharman and maybe Purell P and G all these companies and approach it from the standpoint of, Hey, listen, we don't, we know you don't need to advertise.

Right. You've got nothing on the shelves, but there's a lot of people who are struggling that could benefit. And here's how we all come back from this a little bit stronger. I think that's a really good takeaway. So that's, that's a great idea from the right now. What was it, small businesses, particularly that you found the most success with when you implemented the other, you know, you get a lot of national business, especially in Florida for tourism and new products and, you know, tourism is huge.

Um, but the small business owners, you know, they were doing, you know, smaller. Direct mail and things like that. If you can look at your rates and see, oh, am I covering my lease and my covering the lights and we're making, we're not losing money, but they're able to get on there and say, look, I've got a 90 day window where, you know, Verizon just backed out or somebody just backed out.

Know, it'd be great if you could fill it. And they would love that, you know, and then they can take pictures of that. You know, it makes the community feel like it's coming together as well. Um, so I think local, you know, focus is really important right now. Yeah. I think the onus is really on, you know, on everybody as a community, on the small business, I and everybody to come together with great ideas like that because there's probably still no greater vehicle than out of home to almost reassure them.

You know, you start to see it. You start seeing posting coming down and our ad counselors stuff going up and advertisers, aren't advertising. Now the people that are having to go to work it's, you know, the people that are still having to go to work right now, essential personnel, it's the person restocking the shelves.

It's the nurse taking your temperature as the truck driver go. So, you know, they're seeing these things and they are these little like, uh, aunts, if you will, they go back out in the communities and spread the message. What's what's going on out in the world today, I went exploring and I saw this message.

And if, what about even like a thank you message. Sarasota Memorial hospital here is just overcrowded. I thank you to the nurses from, you know, one of the big party dealerships here. We appreciate you. We get out something like that. You know, just thanking the people who are really soft. I mean, I talked to a lot of the nurses.

They're like, we're working 16, 18 hour shifts, you know, and it's just tough. There's such a shortage of supplies to masks and hand sanitizers. And we think, oh, you know, Amazon, Walmart, but their sources to get that kind of stuff too. And if somebody could step up and just donate a bunch of masks, they would get the PR from that, the PR alone is huge.

So you bring up an interesting idea, which is something that we've talked about. And I'm sure you're having conversations with lots of folks as a mind about pivoting, about time. What is that opportunity? And we get it. We're not being pie in the sky. You know, everything's happy and easy right now. We realize that's not reality, but there's still, there are opportunities.

There are opportunities to train your team. There are opportunities to. Differ things to find opportunities for your employees. How important right now, do you feel it is for organizations to either retain talent through cultural engagement in a remote capacity or be stocking the bench right now? I know that a lot of people aren't thinking about hiring right now, but there's a lot of talent that's coming out onto the marketplace.

Where do you fall on those two things training in this, in this scenario and also stocking the bench. Okay. I think we don't need to stock the bench right now. You keep your talent, you know, they were there when he was good. They can, you know, if, depending on the person, you know, I think that organizations just a zone I've been around a long time.

We sorta, when times are good, people get really complacent. And if you have that mindset of this is going to happen every year you'll work differently. Like I would start working at a 10. Calendar versus 12, you know, oh, we've got an annual budget. I was trying to make it by 10 months. So that the last two months I could kind of have a little padding, you know, um, speaking of talent, we're like, for instance, Tom Brady is going to be coming down here, you know, to the, so the NFL can step up and take some of the stamp of bay inventory that we have, right?

Yes. TB to TB. Yeah. That's a big, that's a big news. I mean, whether you like him or not, it's going to be a big, like, that's why I feel like Tampa is going to recover really quick. Cause the super bowl is next year here. And then Tom Brady's coming here, you know? So some of those things like that and you have to look at, I'm not going to be able to sell anything.

But what can I do enforce border started putting those fourth quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter packages, and the talented people know how to do that to recover. So, so let's say you've got somebody. All right. So we know Q3, Q4 is the focus, right? You just gave such a good example, football. We're looking forward to football.

So we're looking past the current environment. We're looking forward to a thing that we know is eventual. And I think that's really important from a human psyche standpoint, Q3, Q4, should I be doing the plan right now? Should I be reaching out to who I think is great Q3 Q4 perspective, clients are what's, what's the right?

I think so, because everybody wants to hold. We're going to get out of this. It's not, it's not, today is not today. It's not tomorrow. It's probably not in 60 days, but the hope of going let's look at third quarter, how are you doing? Let's you know, try that. Figure out what, you know, get your mind off of what's the strategy, what are some ideas I'm not locking you in right now, but when we pull them back, what would third and fourth quarter look like for you?

And this is what we, you know, let's really strategize about helping people with a plan, instead of trying to have them come up with a plan, anybody that's in the local markets, they know their markets, you know, we w we weighed on national a lot and things like that, but just being the biggest, biggest, biggest word is proactive.

Always be proactive, you know, and, and give them hope. We're going to get as third, fourth quarter. We're going to have the super bowl, you know, and things like that. The plan for, cause no one, no one wants to buy doom and gloom. We all want to buy that hope, right? It's not, you know, there's a trillion dollar, uh, health and wellness industry and a billion dollar, you know, self-help book, industry and all that because we, we want, we buy hope.

We don't, we don't buy bad news unless you're, we've got to let this time go right here, but heavy up. All right. So you got a second quarter take all that money. You're going to be canceling it. Just boom, heavy up in third quarter. Real opportunity to create a ton of momentum. Once you go coming out of you, because you're going to have people like you and me who have been inside pent up for a couple of months and we're just dying to get out.

So give us something to go do, give us, give us experiential stuff. Give us the Superbowl. Give us Tom Brady, throwing touchdowns.

And just, you know, getting people's minds off of things like we're saying, or watching the news or social media, like you're, oh my gosh, what do I do? Like, let's talk about some creative concepts and these could just be ideas. It doesn't, you don't have to commit to this, but I think we, our mind needs some more exercise, you know?

No pun intended of at anytime fitness, that kind of thing. Like when I started doing my housework, now, those things that I put off, I feel like this is nothing's going on. So I think that minds, you know, keeping our minds busy and you and I are hunting for things and looking for side hustles, but, you know, I don't care.

Like I gotta do something. I gotta be out with people, you know? Yeah. And that's, what's so great about this. I appreciate you taking the time. Cause it, you know, it is, it's continuing to connect with people. It's continuing to tell stories that matter and show people, Hey, you know what, there's, there's other people just like you we're all going through something or some semblance thereof.

You know, we talked about earlier, I got furloughed today. You know, last week, last week, I'm the cheerleader I'm on. It's going to be all right, everybody buckle up. We're going to be fine. And then today I'm like, shit, this sucks. And like, I feel, I feel abandoned in a way. Like it was so quick. So being isolated already, right.

Having this uncertainty, which isn't a great thing. And now feeling sorta like, like I've got the disease myself and they're like, Ooh, stay over there on this island until we know it's safe. We'll come back and get you like, yeah, it's sort of, it's a little bit of a mind. Fuck. It is because it's a lot of it's in our minds too, because I'm like three weeks ago, this was still going on, but now we're all like, Hey, stay away, go away.

You know? And you're like, wait, why are you acting like that towards me? You don't know. We don't know. That's the thing. It's the unknown. But I know that we will recover from this. And it looks like there's some, I want to see some positivity though. You know, when the media is, so everybody like, it's so funny.

If you are in Florida, you see the beaches. And they're like those Floridians.

We don't go to the beach till summer. Just want to put that out there. You know, we tour our season, we wait until the tourists leave. And then when our kids are out of school, that's when we go to the beach, I'm like, oh, I'm not laying down this side. I'm posing now my business I'm homeschooling my daughter, you know, I'm making sure I got enough water and food for my dog.

And everybody starts pointing fingers, but we all have to just be responsible for ourselves. You know, you got on that plane knowing that this was coming and you're down there. And then you go back home and say, that's not fair. I'm going to catch it a bad rap as fast as you're still Tom Brady, everyone blames you for the world's Tom Brady.

And we got the beaches.

So with that segue, what I'm about to say is going to sound completely acid. I've said this a few folks. I want to be on record. I could very well come back to regret this my opinion right now, this is maybe the greatest opportunity we're ever going to see our entire life. And it's not for the reason that you may think, but we are all on equal footing right now.

Everyone has been slowed to the exact same speed. It's a race, it's a marathon, it's a sprint, whatever race you run, everyone is following the pace car right now. Do you believe that to be true? If you do Y if you don't, why not? I have a really good friend that I saw last week. Um, and she is very, very, very well to do.

No matter how much money you have, the bigger you are, the harder we're all gonna, it's all relative. It's all relative. We're all. If you got a billion dollars, you're going to probably lose 50 million. You know, if you've got $500, you know, in the bank, he's waitresses and people like that, that are date, you know, it's all relative and we're all.

And I said this to my husband. I'm like, America need us to take a break. And we were forced to, and I don't want anybody to lose their life or anything like that, but we needed to reset. You know, I'm looking at my pool that I never used for five years. I'm working my butt off to pay for it, but I never use it.

I got in it, you know, and like these, do we need to reset? We need to breathe. You know, one of the things was fitness is there are so many things online. You know, yoga or people can still do classes online, just feel like they're still connected and things like that. I think that's super important to keep your mind going through this too, and those endorphins, but I it's humbled me in a good way because I was stuck to my phone.

I was obsessed with work. I was obsessed with business. It was obsessed with making money. I was worried about this bill, that bill paying this for the business, taking care of all this. And like, I don't have control of this. And it gave me the break that I needed to reset really. And then also look at other people like there's so many people that are way less fortunate and there's people that are more fortunate.

So we all took the blinders off. At least that's what it did for me. I think that, excuse me, I think the sentiment is going to be pretty consistent, you know, depending on where people are in sort of this cycle, uh, You know, depending on, you know, every day, right? Every day is a, it's a, it's a fluid target, but I think that's ultimately going to be the thing that we all take away from.

This is damn. I was missing out on a lot of things last week, last Tuesday. Um, it was my son's first, first or second day of the homeschool thing and my first day of work from home. So, you know, I'm able to help his mom out and take him for a few hours and we, right. We did one homework assignment and then he watched WWE for an hour.

And then, Hey man, we should just like do another one now. He's like, yeah, why not? Oh, we did another one. And it was just so I felt like we got just as much work done and see what of, and just as much learning, but there's way less stress. The kids just hung out all day. It was great. Sort of when you don't like, there's a path, right.

For all of this. We've got to let that path go. We can't control it. And I can't pay my bills for the gym right now because, you know, I mean, we can, we can, I mean, I'm so with get that bill paid, this, that, that I'm like, oh, I don't want to think about that for a month. You know, I think our customers even coming back to the gym, they were so appreciative of having it right before we closed that they were even changed.

They were so nice. They're like, you are the best owners. You have the creaminess, Jen, we love you. You know, it's a community here. They, they really understood what they were about to lose and then also appreciated it up to the end. And so they were writing like really nice things to us on Facebook. And we love you guys and we'll be back and we're going to bring our friends.

And so, you know, we'll just have like this big read grand opening, um, Hopefully it will be sooner than later. I hope so. And I think that we just said is it's worth crystallizing because the bottom line is people are gonna remember what you did now and how you made them feel specifically. Right? So by giving people a hard time about deferring payments or canceling a contract, because they need to make payroll, you know, giving people a hard time about that.

Right now. And they're not going to come back and spend money with you later either. Yes, that's so true. I say, look, I can do this, you know, short term contract, but can you pay in a month in advance or something? You know, I don't see there's people that do have, you know, a dollar suspend that didn't have it before.

And plus allowing I really do feel like the restaurants could benefit from this because you don't know who's open. Who's not, who's got carry out. Um, I know that there's, some of them are hiring because they're doing phone, you know, you have to call in for the order. So there's like different jobs that have been reinvented.

And I think it's really cool. Like I've talked to these guys. And Mississippi, and they've converted their vodka distillery into making hand sanitizer collaborating ideas. And I was like, you'd have to make an airplane kit. So you've got five hand sanitizer with all your branding that, you know, and, and I said, the PR alone will be huge, like go to the airlines and sell these tickets.

And he's like, I've never thought of that. And then, um, uh, another guy, a company they make, um, custom made jeans, right? They're like high-end denim. They're amazing. They fit all the athletes. They come down and measure. I spent $500 a pair. He changed their whole operation and to making masks, it's making, you know, they, they have 30, 40, 50, so people that could, so they're like making a mass is like making a pocket on a gene.

So they made this prototype and they're amazing. And, um, they were like, we can prank out, you know, hundreds of thousands of these, and we've got the whole community, you know, wants to get back to work. So we're going to turn this manufacturing into that in the meantime. So they better themselves. And I think that's amazing.

So they're always there helping people, but then they're not laying people off because they have another need. So if you think about how you could do that, you know, I think that's pretty. Yeah. But we've got distillery by us doing something similar with the hand sanitizer. It's pretty about, you know, the.

Custom jeans and Hey, we're getting, we're gonna paint it. We're gonna find a way to keep people employed, fill the need, right? What's that need is a shortage of masks. And if we can satisfy that need, we've solved a problem and we can continue to stay. Yeah. A friend of mine, she's a nurse in Michigan and this is how bad the problem is because sometimes we don't see it at the, you know, 10,000 foot view.

And we're not in the trenches. She said they have masks that are, so-so only beyond for 15 minutes that they're wearing for 16 hours. That's how short of fly there is. And they're worried about now that, you know, think about the police officers and every area they're going to need. 'em, you know, it's not just the healthcare.

It's like everybody. So, you know, she was like, if you can find, you know, then I started seeing what she said. I connected her with these guys that are sewing of, and you know, it's like you start using your network. Not to dig up business for yourself, but connecting others who might not know those people.

And I think that's, what's been good about my network being so big and yours. We can reach a lot of people and get people the things that they need now. Yeah. I think that's super critical. Take a step back and say, who do I know that can do this or is doing that? Um, excuse me, I just had a call yesterday or this morning time is just compressed at this point.

Right. And about a company in my area that is basically has some sort of, I don't want to. FEMA's quoted here, but some sort of ready quick tests kit that employers can use. They're getting it in front of the federal government. There's no, there's no hotline that says, Hey, I've got this kit. You can get a thousand out the door today.

And a thousand, um, to get approval from the FDA. This is going to also realign. People's thinking this will never want this to happen again. So everybody is talking about, oh, don't want to be stuck with all those hand sanitizers coming up, we're going to be stocking up. We're going to be keeping it in our house.

In the gym. It was not, everything was back ordered. That's why I started researching. I found people that could make hand sanitizer because we had a shortage here. And then my friends, you know, John Paul in Hawaii, he's been using this manufacturer. I'm going to give him a shout out. He's been amazing. Um, That they use for promotional items.

Right. But one of their promotional items was hand sanitizer. Now he already has that relationship and that pipeline to call them up and go, Hey, I, you know, he's already, he's already approved. He's set up. He could start getting things from them quickly where somebody not just, anybody can just call and make a phone call and get, you know, millions of hand site, hand sanity, like literally millions of hand sanitizers, or those guys are amazing.

And Hawaii they've been there. They're not even sleeping. They're helping people so much so awesome. John, Paul's a great guy. He runs 18, I think a labor. Right? Right. Like real life is still going on. We still have. There's four brothers. I feel like I'm their missing sister. Um, it's yeah, they're great. Joe, Brandon, all of them.

They're, they're really good to people. So we were talking about what are we going to do together after this? Because we worked so well together. It's going to matter you to do something. Yeah. You and I too, we will for sure. Oh, for sure. I am just chomping at the bit that to get back out of the house and back out into the real world and he's set, he's going to be seven next month.

Oh my gosh. And so what grade is that second, first grade. First grade. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I think they handled it like such a trooper. He's yeah, he's doing his schoolwork. He doesn't understand why he can't see his friends. You know, you're shooting hoops with the neighbor yesterday, but yeah, they just want to hang out and go back to normal and you know, it's but the resilient kids are, kids are just resilient.

They sort of. Maybe, maybe more so better than adults. We get set in our ways. No, watch the news and they're not affect my daughter's 16, you know, they canceled their prime. They, you know, there's so many things like memories, she's a junior in high school, but you know, I'm thinking about the seniors, you know, they are, they were looking at in four plates, some of these girls are paying like $600,000 a dress.

They can't take them back in. Uh, maybe they will. I don't know, but it's just like, oh my gosh, just so many of those memories that this is going to be their memory. But also if it does humble, you, you know, my daughter came out of her bedroom and sat and watched a movie with us last night, you know, usually she's, you know, on the phone or it was good.

It's good to have that family bonding time that we needed. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. It's definitely bringing people closer and I appreciate this because it's exactly that. So. We should talk every day. I think that we can do that. We can just set up like a little team call of a, I don't know what the team's going to be, but like the Avengers definitely we can get stuff for people.

So yeah, let's use, let's leverage our network, right? People are always asking me to connect them with this person. That person is like, I, now I'm reaching out because there's a need, there's a shortage of hand, sanitizers, mass, medical supplies, you know, ventilate everything. And if we can try to get those to the people that don't know how to get those resources, you know, social media has been great for that.

I think LinkedIn is not as negative as some of the other social channels. I agree. That's really where I spend the majority of my time, these days sort of for exactly that reason. And also because it's where most of my real world relationships are actually on LinkedIn. I know, I'm feel like I've known you forever get like, so you can understand somebody's personality, right.

You know, on and how, who they are, what they are. It's so cool to see. It's like an art versus science, you know? And then some of these people that just kind of repurpose the same propaganda, they they're invisible, you know, you gotta be part of the conversations and this is why it's important to be engaged on social media because we, you, and I know who to contact for this or that, or we saw this over here and you know, that can help that person.

So just making those connections that are valuable times and bad. Absolutely. When you were talking about the hand sanitizer, before you even said John Paul in the back of my head, I'm going, I know a guy who's got a hand sanitizer, but the guy that was also John Paul and it's from LinkedIn. Yeah, he's, they're amazing.

And his brothers are helping. I mean, they're not like they're not sleeping and they're like me, I'm not sleeping either. They're eight hours behind us. And I'm like, it's, you know, a one at 1:00 PM here. And I'm like, what time is it there? We didn't sleep. But they're, they're hustlers are fricking insane. I love it.

So you had said something earlier and want to come back to it. Cause I think that was really valuable about, you know, what, what brands are doing right now to have, you've got that great sense of community. You know what people are gonna remember you for? Like, if you're a big brand right now, what beyond out of home, what are some ways that you just, as a consumer, how do you feel connected to the brands that you think you've done the best job through this.

The it's, you know what, it's funny. It's um, I, I always said like, you know, people used to be brand loyal, but now they're going to be need loyal where you hear my time and need, and those are the brands that are going to step up. Right. That's what I think. And your time of need, not brands like Coca-Cola or whatever, they're always there.

They're always, we see them everywhere, but you know, who stepped up in a time and I haven't seen anybody really, really big come up and make huge, huge donations. Yes. You know, we went, I mean, this is sorta early on here, but you know, Jeff Bezos donate, you know, millions of toilet paper to somebody versus, you know, he's gonna take a hit, but now are you, where, where are these voices we're hearing about these celebrities that, you know, have contracted it, but the people just want to know.

I see the hope and the positivity and donate. You know, those things, those brands that are, were there in the time of need, I can't figure, I haven't really seen anybody, you know, have you, I mean, is there a brand that you're like, oh my gosh, they're really stepping up and they're making donations. I think the one that stood out to me early on and really throughout it was just mark Cuban, because right on the spot, like when he found out the game was being canceled on the spot, he said, I'm going to take every measure to make sure my people are paid.

And all my hourly employees are not disrupted. Like it was an organic response from him. And as a mark Cuban fan, I'll always remember it, but I think it introduced mark Cuban to a lot of people that maybe didn't know him as anything more than just the guy on shark tank. So that's a great point. It's maybe not a brand we're looking for those, that leadership.

That's what it is.

Yeah. So these days it's still play, pay the employees. And I love what he gave me actually gave me that idea. Okay. Have my manager clean here because you know, he goes to school, we'll take our employees that worked at the stadiums and actually have them volunteer and we're going to still pay them, but they're helping, they're getting paid to sort of do volunteer work, to help people.

And he was the repurposed, the mindset. He is such an entrepreneur and so successful that he was like, I do not want these people to lose their jobs because I want them to come back, you know, and I don't want them to suffer, but he just said, okay, we're close. You know, we're not going to have the games anymore, but we, we want you out in the community.

You know, helping people get the things that they need, the elderly people, I really feel bad for, you know, we should be taking food, water, things like that to them, you know, that can't get around. So I think there's a lot of outreach that needs to have, I feel like we need that leadership versus brands.

Yeah, no, I, I totally agree with that sentiment. We lost, we lost Nana. She was 93 back in August. I'm so glad that she's not having to see this or, or live through it, but I, but I can't help, but to think what if she, what if she was, or what if she was, you know, no, that that's, that's just that sucks. Like, so there's a lot of people out there that we can help and, you know, I'm staying close to all my neighbors, making sure each other's back and you know, a couple of elderly folks in the block, same thing.

Got everything you need. Um, yeah, there's real sense of community Friday when we were talking over at LinkedIn, I called my dad and he's 81 and I'm like, dad, we had a close of business and he's like, you did the right thing. Wait till you get to the age where they don't care. If you get a colonoscopy or not, that puts things you're going to live through this, like that put things in perspective to me, what matters right now?

That was so funny. Like, yeah, you know, you're going to be able to reopen your business, you know, how to make money. You're young, you know, to him, you know, We're shut in where, you know, this could take us, this could take our life he's and then he brought up the colonoscopy thing. I was like, that's just my that's when my dad, that's how he gets through things.

Like you're going to get through this. Yeah. Find something to laugh about. I found myself earlier today, just sort of like, not in a bad mood, but just like in a row, I was listening to the news. I was like, so I was like, wait a second. I need to, I need to break this. So I just immediately turned on some standup comedy.

Just break that up because we can just allow ourselves to get really overwhelmed and now working from home and having less contact with people. We're still filling that void for communication. What are we filling that void with? Is it good? Is it bad? Is it neutral? What is it? Because the output is going to reflect the input and then it just take literally hour by hour, day by day.

And no. That a good friend of mine gave me that advice to just breathe, take hour by hour. You can only, you can only get through this hour. You can only get through this day and walk, move, get out of the house, whether it's a 10 minute walk with your dog or just a video, you know, online, you know, fitness video or something like that, you know, just some positivity and it's, it is hard.

Cause we're, we want to be tuned in because I think we're all looking for that. Okay, we're done like this, you know, we're waiting for it. Like

I was like waking up thinking this was just a dream, but in a way it's, it's giving us, you know, a different perspective. So I think it's, it's going to be good. And in chaos, there's always an opportunity. For somebody listening right now that maybe is in that, in that flux state where they're not too sure about what's going to come, may maybe they're in a situation like myself.

Right? What would you, what would you recommend to them as like the top priorities? There's no one hiring right now. I can't go out of my house. Um, you know, potentially in a scenario where you're out of work, what are those three or five things, you know, fitness, what you're eating your mindset, what are the things that you're focusing on to keep all of that aligned regardless of the circumstance?

Yeah, definitely fitness. Those things that we put off inside our home, you know, I'm always like, oh, I wanted to straighten out the den and organize that. And you know, just staying away from your phone for, I mean, it's, it's hard, we're sorta all addicted to it, but just those things, that key call somebody you haven't talked to when.

I was in there texts, you talk over social media column. How are you? Do you need anything? You know, um, I have friends that live up north, their families live down here close to me. Can I go check on your mom? And I can take her toilet paper? Can I, what can I do to help you just in a little way, even just drop it off at their doorstep.

You know, there's so many elderly people like, you know, have families or, you know, can't get, can't get the things that they need. They may not be able to drive. And I dunno, it just, how can you, like, I always say, even in business, how can I help? What can I do to help you? And people are not used to it, whether they say no, or yes, or, but at least they know that you're there and like, Hey, I'm willing to, you know, drop everything I'm doing, you know, a good friend of mine and she's going through tax season right now.

And she's working from home and getting all these audits. And I mean, she's always got her act together and I'm like, you know, I've already been through the storm. Like. Goes through that whole, wow. There's sort of a sense of peace. Like now I got to try to figure out how can I help somebody else. It was health, you know, just trying to figure out what was going on, but the quicker you can kind of get through it.

And I know that this isn't nothing's forever and just, I think really I'd say, you know, keep moving your body, keep talking to people, get those face-to-face conversations like we were doing. Even we could even Skype your family, FaceTime people, that kind of stuff. Yeah. I think that that fi finding a sense of purpose, right?

So the fitness taking time, focusing on your wellbeing physically, mentally, I think about the brain, the brain's a muscle, but we don't take time to train it. Meditation, yoga, breathing, things that are allowing ourselves to sort of flush some of that stuff out. Cause it's all stress. That's all stress and that can create such a toxic environment for our bodies.

If we don't take time to get rid of this, I'm gonna just delete it. It's the end of the day. I'm going to get rid of all of it. It's got to go. It's got to go. Did you see the geo path is doing like an out-of-home happy hour? Yeah, I know

they did the last one. Uh, they had St. Patrick's day. I didn't, I didn't. Cause I had my son on say Badger, I have him again on Thursday. So Joe Beth, Kim, Frank listening, Scott, maybe we can move that to it. So I was thinking of something creative to get people together. And I think, I think that kind of stuff.

What about doing that with your family? Let's do a at happy hour and everybody gets on Skype or, you know, and then you talk, we're all kind of together, even though we can't. I've seen a few birthday parties done that way over the weekend. Friends just all got together. Yeah. Two that I can think of. And my son this morning was like, I miss my friends.

I was like, all right, well maybe we can, maybe there's a way we can get in touch with a few and I'll use zoom and send a link out to everyone and you can hang out with, yeah. That's like thinking out of the box, what can we do versus what we can't totally right. Don't tell him, don't tell me why we can't come up with a way that we can do the thing, whatever the thing is whenever.

So he says you can't do that. Andrea. I'd always show him that I can. Yeah, exactly. Like don't oh, that's the wrong thing to say to me, but just making, you know, positive, like positivity, fun, you know, get going online. So negative people are blaming everybody. You can't blame anybody for this? You know, I literally no one's fault there.

The only thing that we have control of is our reaction to the circumstance. And that reaction can be a number of different things. But I say, start from the end goal, work backwards. How do you want to be remembered? Okay. That's how then what do I need to do to be remembered that way right now? Is it reaching out to your clients proactively not waiting for them to call you?

I liked that too. I went ahead and cancel this because I knew, you know, I better call you and him obviously with approval and all that, but just go to your managers and say, what makes sense? Like, you know, this person was already leveraged and you know, and you can't say, you know, you can't, there's not as many people on the road and you can't really validate the out-of-home.

Vehicle in the way that you could be for, you know, and you can say, you know what? I want you to come back when everybody's back and you're going to get the most return on your investment for this. This is not the time. Yeah. Had that conversation this morning with a client. And you could almost hear the surprise in their voice.

Like you telling me to stop right now. And there's just, you know, just a human empathetic level that comes out. Wow. Thanks. Like I was over here thinking about how I'm in this contract with you and that my business is going to be closed for the foreseeable future, but I still want to honor this contract.

So coming up with ideas, like a deferment to just say what proactively saying, Hey, listen, man, I know that you're affected here. So are we, here's a way that we both. And that's, I mean, it's funny, anytime fitness business model is sorta like the out-of-home industry. We have annual contracts or, you know, and I always said, we should do in the out-of-home industry is also have the option to freeze.

Right. We can freeze people's lookouts. We get a lot of people that are snowbirds that come down. They want to lock in the rate, you know, with their monthly rate. But they're, you know, they go back up north for three months, so they don't get out of those payments. We just put it to the back of their agreement.

They still have a 12 month and they appreciate that because they know rates change and all that. Um, and then we could freeze it for them. And then when they come back, it's almost like you've sorta got them locked in because they know that, oh, I've got this agreement. They let me out of it for the, you know, the time that I'm not actually using it.

And then we just added to the backup. And we keep getting more and more long-term contracts because of that, because of the flexibility and people, you know, with gyms, especially they're like they won't, you know, it's so easy to sign up. It's so hard. You know, when you actually have a real situation to you, they send you to a one 800 number.

This, like, that's what I'm saying with small business owners do, if you can handle things on a customer service level at the bark at level, or at the business level, people really, really appreciate that because I walk into businesses. I'm like, well, what do I have to do to get out of this? It's going to be, you know, I've got to call this person this.

And when somebody is like, it's fun. And they're like, what, what do you mean? I guess like, I'm totally coming back here and telling all my friends how great you are. And that goes, so, you know, that goes such a long way and it's counterintuitive. It is. You're like, they're ready for fight. You know, they're ready for.

Oh, I knew you were going to come in and want to do this, or I took care of it and they're like, I had this whole speech to fight with you. I think it's great. Yeah. And it's totally what I would want. And then they're like, they, it always comes back so tenfold. It does. Cause they'll tell people and they'll say, I'm going to give you a five-star rating on Facebook so that when people go to select a business, they see, I was having a hard time.

We kind of tell them what to say. You know, we helped you out of this it's because we help you out this. Can you like give us a little love? And they're like, absolutely. So those things that's huge too, you know? Cause customer service testimonials, things that show people that, you know, in good times and bad you were there for them over the next 12 months, the conditions have changed.

Obviously we have variables now that we didn't three weeks ago. Oh, the next 12 months, what's the biggest impact to the out-of-home industry that you foresee not going to hold you to it because obviously

these are fluid times. Oh, I think you're going to see there in the industry as a whole. I mean, the thing that I've always advocated for is not, it's not about a company, it's about an entire industry. How can we come together? You know, you hear this, the billboard companies, aren't each other's competition.

We are in the same industry. We are, you know, I think that they need to sort of start looking outside. Other than we have a really nice close knit industry where it's like, you know, we all know each other for the most part. Um, there is a whole bunch of people that I learned over the course of the last year that are curious about the out-of-home this.

But don't know, like how do you even get parked? How, how can we get part of this digital agencies, brands direct, um, record labels, local, you know, there's so much, you know, in Tampa alone, I think there's 19 companies that are, you know, fortune 500 or billion they're based here. Who's, who's talking to them, you know, and it is like community service.

Um, there's so much business development because we sort of keep going back to the same agencies, the same pot of money, the same renewables, you know, I like to look at somebody that's never done out of home before and say, okay, we want to add that. I see your feed. Like I see that there's a diversion that needs to happen with social media.

So I read there's 80% of the ads are going to 20% of the audience. It's time to reallocate those dollars to now we have the audience measurement. Now I sound like Tim Frank, knowing the audience measurement, and we can show them these locations, index high against your audience that you already have. You know, people are going to be, you need to diversify.

And so the impact is all up to the out-of-home industry. How are you going to change? Go back to work. Don't be complacent work every day as if this is going to happen in three months. And when you build up your, your plan, your occupancy, all of that, it's just gravy. On top of that. It does work when you, you are always sort of living in that fear, being proactive.

I could lose this all over again. And we've had that really, really, really good for a long time. And the industry is strong and know it's been around since the cave then, and it's, you know, you can build a business around something that's solid. I mean, there's, it's, it evolves. It's great. But you know, a lot of times we don't look outside and see what we're surrounded by.

That there's a whole ton of people that are curious and want to buy out of home. We need to start knocking on those doors and that waiting for them to come to us. I, I, I think that's awesome. I had a call last week, again, time at this point in time, it all blurs together. But with the, um, with, uh, a state council in the agriculture field and with their executive director, and we were talking about, you know, all things marketing, but specifically the challenges.

This segment and what her team was responsible for. So we got through all that and got a good understanding of what, what she's up against. And then we started to talk about out of home, how out of home works, how you can target an audience, what the three key audiences are for this particular organization and how they foresee being able to influence that point of purchase.

So we're having this great conversation. So then to be able to come back and say, well, did you know that you could actually target the same audiences you're targeting on Facebook? Doing billboards is kind of like running a Facebook ad. And here's how I can start to attribute the change in behavioral patterns with things like foot traffic analysis, or I can, you know, start to tell a story in Google analytics with lifts, organic and direct traffic.

And how does that tie back to a conversion goal on your website? There's ways to quantify a targeted campaign. It was an incredible response, but exactly the response that you'd expect from somebody that understands all of these other digital components that goes on, it just makes so much sense. I never thought about out of home that way.

That's awesome. So there's this huge education gap that we need to work together to help build that bridge. Yeah. We never industry conferences that we all go to, but start looking at other conferences like automotive conferences, where's the out of home presence there where somebody's to go to NAD, a digital dealer, all of them, because I'm a whole needs to be there.

We got to go, yeah, we have to go outside to bring it inside. You know, and that's the thing where it's like, we need new business. We need, you know, we need to know that we've got our core business and that's awesome. And keep taking care of that. We always got to kind of keep, you know, make it, it's not a one size fits all.

We try to say, oh, just put this up. You know, back in the days when you could just put it up and hope, hope it works. You got to put some strategy behind it now. And this is the bridge from digital to traditional is out of home, you know? And we can walk people over to traditional because you know, it was so ambiguous.

I want to reach women 25 to 54, or you kind of didn't have all the data before. And now we can say that person, isn't this car that drove by this billboard at this time. I mean, there's so many ways to track it and that's what people want. They want to know at the end of the day, how do I make my cash register ring?

I mean that at the end of the day, that this makes me want, you can give all the data you want this and this and this, but you've got to have a plan that you can start, you know, once the campaign starts. How's it working. Are you seeing what you want to see? Should we change it up? Are you seeing your, you know, your phone's ringing, you said you wanted your phones where you said you wanted more people.

I don't think we do a lot of that while the contract is going on. And then your management side, you're saying your talent management. I always say that, you know, the sales starts once a contract is signed, you know, that's when you want to make sure it's working and you know, if people don't hear from you, then you, they're kind of like, oh, well, I don't know if that worked or not, but if you start asking them questions, oh yeah, I did see some traffic, you know, start, you know, there were phone calls or were people asking, somebody did say they saw my bill or it it's all obviously communication, but, um, that's, I've seen the contracts go from, you know, annual contracts to six months was the new annual to three months to a month.

And we can turn things around so fast, but I think. Getting more money from the people that are already buying. It makes more sense of trying to get brand brand new customers, grow the base that you have and keep that, and you can get longer term agreements, but it's just at these times for sure. It's gotta be proactive for sure.

And I think it's especially important to be able to be a good storyteller with how out of homeworks and being able to do all those things. So if you plan to continue to have a career in out of home, becoming a good storyteller is a pretty important thing to be focusing on right now. And that account management side, I, you know, I saw some of the same myself coming from the agency side where you've got clients spending significant amount of money on a monthly basis.

And it's high touch. You're talking to your clients all the time to come to a space where it's like, oh yeah, I talked to him last year when I got the. Y here's you? I was in my clients. I saw every single my clients once a week. Yeah. Or it's talk to call. I, you know, so I saw you on Google alerts on, oh my gosh, then they'll think you're paying attention, but you can put it, you know, Google alerts for, you know, this certain category and you just stay up on that.

You know, if you're in their ear, around them all the time, they're going to be like, wow, this person is, you know, didn't just get the contract and leave. They're collaborating. And they're becoming a consultant for me. And I had probably the least amount of my customers in Tampa when I was in Tampa at Outfront.

CVS was, I think my list was like 60 customers, but that was billing one of the highest billers because I kept selling them more and more and more and more and more, and it was working for them. Versus somebody that had a hundred accounts, it was just reinventing. You're wearing yourself out. Like, just go and say, Hey, I've got this location.

You know, it just work, you know, a lot smarter than harder. So I think we need to do a, uh, like a virtual account management session.

I think it's so cool because that lends itself to just being a good ambassador for the industry, telling better stories, talking to people that haven't been exposed and being able to, to talk to them about a thing that maybe makes sense to them. If it's a brand that's doing Facebook ads, being able to intelligently say, listen, did you know buying a billboards just like buying Facebook ads in most cases, it's about the same CPM or last wait, what really?

And is that Facebook ads work better when you do billboards with. Let's have a conversation instead of, Hey, I can get you a great rate on this board. That's on this big highway here, you pass it every way on the day. And you know, on your way in don't you, yeah, it's not real estate anymore. They all have their own personality.

Every single location, you know, it says it reaches this audience or that, or, I mean, obviously the creatives, the number one thing, you know, you can have the best location and the best market with the most traffic. And you've got 18,000 words and your dog, you know, you got to take all of that. You've got to say you sell cars.

You don't need your dog on the billboard cares about your dog. That's dogs, not the demo. Now, you know, it's more of an ego buy, but it's not going to work. And you are an expert in this. I'm an expert in. And let me show you something that will work. And if it doesn't, then we'll have a conversation about that.

You know, I had the laugh, if they're listening, what agency down here that would only buy right-hand rates, that's it right here rates. I'm like, why? Because they're better. Like, okay, so I'm going to give you all, and I've told this story many times left-hand reads for free every single one I'm on this available.

Really? Yeah. But we're going to put free hamburgers on it and it was for a fast food and they're like, no, I'm like, why didn't think they worked? I didn't think the left-hand his work was so funny. So that was always a fun story. And they're kind of like, well, we think, you know, there's just all perception, you know, you can never write right hand read with crappy copy or a left-hand read.

That's just, it's simple. That's what I love about sort of being a new cover and then seeing a tool like geo path, because I don't know where half these billboards are at anyway. So I take my opinion out of it and say, all right, what's the data. Tell me, and then I'll go through and select which ones are the best reads.

And yeah, I don't have too much Badger, you know, aren't worn out. But my first call is to say my opinion, doesn't matter. What's the data. What does the audience insight? Tell me about the person I'm trying to reach and that's effective too, for sure. But yeah, having the right simple creative, you know, it doesn't even really have to say anything.

Like one of the billboards that I did years ago was for Vic cafe and we had 3d coffee cups and it just said, you know, steamy, dreaming, Creamy and then add the steamers. That's it? I mean, it's still talked about to this day and their steamers and all that. So I mean less, less is definitely more. I know, cause you really have an impact on people.

People's attention spans are so short and unfortunately people are not really paying attention. Sometimes they're looking at their phone or, but if they're stuck in traffic and you've got, we used to say you have 10 seconds to read the billboard. I think it's probably to now, you know, to make a connection.

So make them cry, make them feel something. This is a big space. I've got to use all of it. Every single piece, you know, it's like, you've got a big space to put a big ass message on what was that? One is, there's like a piece of art that went viral. It was just a banana duct taped to the center of a cannon.

Yeah, that's

a billboard like that would be great. Chiquita, Chiquita, banana, a billboard of a banana say duct tape to it. Oh, we'll come up with some crazy stuff, but got plenty of time. So yeah. Well, you don't want to do this again tomorrow. Regis and Kathie Lee. We'll just make this a day.

Let me check my schedule. Yeah, it's clear. Okay. Yeah, me too. No customers in here. Okay. Yes, we could do like a workout like Dwayne Johnson does. And his Jeff I'll be Kevin Hart. You'll be, you'll be the rock. That's right. Okay. I like that. I love them. I love those two together. Showed somebody a picture that they thought I was kidding.

I'm like, here's my new home gym, because obviously we don't have customers. It's like, what are you going, Johnson?

Well, we can't wait for things to get back to normal. Andrea, this has been a lot of fun first YouTube live. I'm not sure that I'm going to, you know, let me see, I'm going to jump over there. It says one watching now. I don't know what that means. Exactly. It could just be me from, it's probably just us, but we've made history today.

The first YouTube alive edition, the out of home inside of this, we have what we, one to one relationship. Right. You know, we know we know who our audiences. Yeah. It's just so that's the, that's the weird thing about like, since starting doing this in some format it's been downloaded in 11 different countries as far away as the Philippines.

Wow. There was a city in Mexico that trended as like one of the most popular podcast download sites for a month, which I'm like who's right on YouTube. About 23% of the audience is based in the United States. They are 77% is international, which is just cool. But then the exact opposite is true on the podcast side.

It's about 78% us and 22% international. So I don't know who the people are. Um, but there's people out there that are listening or watching at some point in time. Let's go. That's great. Well, survive this. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me actually. I was so looking forward to this. Yeah, it was been so fun and I'm honored of course, to be part of this.

And if you ever need anything. Because somebody else,

for sure. So for everybody listed in don't call two or five, I was like, I'm helpful. And now I would, I'd always be there, distancing, social distancing. We're all gonna recover. I swear to God we're going to be recover. I always had a manager to say, you feel like it's enter the world and it's a year from now.

And obviously gonna remember that, you know, you're going to recover. Are you going to rebuild this? We can't. We always do. And Americans aren't really inpatient. So I'm sure we're going to try to figure this out quicker than I feel like we got a few ideas just here tonight. Now we got to go execute. Yeah, somebody's got to do what we said.

We were going to do. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you, Andrew. You're awesome. Thank you so much. Stay safe. Be well, have somebody on tomorrow. So I'll tune in tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. No Wednesday. Yes. I'll have Jonathan and I just can't do the roll. The R thing. True. Herez truck media. He'll be on Wednesday release.

The episode that I did with Brian rapper for a few weeks ago, I didn't feel like it was time to release it. Cause it's some really good conceptual stuff that I think we're just now starting to, we're getting ready to get back out there and that's going to be a really good episode. Yeah. Like we keep in con he's just a really great person and just such a great guy.

Great guy, super generous and helpful. And he's. So keep that person for the industry. Definitely. Definitely. So we'll keep cranking up the volume is the loudest voice in home? Yes. And I'll let's yeah. Keep in touch for sure. Absolutely. Thanks, Andrea. And thanks to everybody. Listen, if this has been helpful, please share it with somebody.