Opportunity Awaits podcast Episode Transcript
Aaron Henriques: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. And welcome to the get growing online podcast. My name is Aaron Henriques and today I'm going to be sharing with you something that I was just thinking about when I was literally just brushing my teeth before going to bed. And that's really about, you know, the entrepreneur right now, and the fact that the entrepreneurs today, the people sat there with ideas are going to be. You know, the next superhero. So, you know, for out this coronavirus, obviously there's no getting away from it. You know, everyone knows about it and everyone knows what it's doing to the economy right now. You know, the economy is screwed and that's not just the British economy. That's all around the world right now.
[00:00:46] And you know, there's, there's been lots of stuff in the media, particularly, obviously every day, everything is about the coronavirus and. You know, some things have gone unnoticed about, I don't know, like the war games that are going on between the [00:01:00] USA and China at the moment, which I've not really seen anything about in sort of mass media, but it is going on.
[00:01:07]As you can, if you read the tabloids. So what I really wanted to speak about was, obviously we've had the NHS, and there's been this clap for the NHS every thursday. You know, because it is such an amazing job, all those doctors, nurses, and all the support staff around them that are, you know, helping people, helping as many people as they can, even though they're not necessarily protected themselves.
[00:01:30] And there's a lot of public support for that. Now, I guess people are quite calm and fairly relaxed at the moment because everyone's been furloughed and the chancellor you know, sort of came on the TV and. Made it very clear to everyone that this is going to be there, that, you know, there is going to be a recession.
[00:01:52] There is going to hurt hard. There's going to be, there's going to have to be tax increases and cut backs all over the place [00:02:00] and, you know, pay freezes in the public sector, pay for easiest for the very people who, you know, have helped save many people. So you've got the NHS staff, you've got the ambulance staff.
[00:02:10] You've got. You know, my former police colleagues and in the police that have been working tirelessly and all the other emergency services that are out there every day helping us now, but there is going to be a time where the, you know, the economy is going to need, you know, it's going to need to get kick-started and that's.
[00:02:34] Where I really think that the entrepreneurs out there right now, the people who are active already and the people who are sat there with ideas, this is when it's your time to help out, you know, do your bit now, and maybe have people clap for you, for you, for creating jobs going out, you know, you know, for, for creating new jobs, creating new products and services exporting, you know, get, get, getting [00:03:00] money from abroad into the UK.
[00:03:02]To prop it up. And that's really what I was thinking about when I was just brushing my teeth because this isn't going to just magically happen and it's going to take a lot of effort and it's like, this is going to be our own little sort of war in a way. To try and get the economy back. So people aren't losing their jobs.
[00:03:26] So they're not losing their houses. People's credits not being ruined and you know, people going bankrupt to know that stuff. And the only people really who can help do that are business people, are entrepreneurs who can find ways to make money and create jobs and match you listening to the podcast right now.
[00:03:47] And perhaps friends that you may know who are also entrepreneurs already, or maybe have ideas or whatever, you know, tech, you know, , share this on your social media and tag them and ask them to listen and, [00:04:00] you know, sort of see what is it they can do to, to really sort of help out going forward because it is going to be really important.
[00:04:09] And I was really considering this a lot, you know, it's sort of over, over to today by the time you're listening to this, it was obviously it's the night after, at least the day after, but. I was, I was thinking about this from my own businesses because my cleaning business you know, the one that I had sort of had since 2013, it's, you know, that that's taken a real big hit and we've been one of those businesses that have fallen outside of being able to get any of the available grants.
[00:04:39]The only thing I believe that's available to us according to my accountant is the is the loans which are great as well. The, the bounce back loan scheme is, is amazing for lots of businesses out there. And if you're an active business and perhaps you haven't been able to get a grant and you're looking at, you know, how are you going to fund, you know, [00:05:00] returning your business back to normal.
[00:05:02] There is the bounce back loan scheme out there, which essentially what it does is it allows for you to borrow between £2000 and £50,000 pounds. It's not the initial scheme that you may have heard of. This is a different scheme. It allows you to borrow between two and 50,000 pounds. But it's up to a maximum of 25% of your 2019 turnover.
[00:05:27] Okay. And the thing with this scheme is that it there's no interest to the first 12 months and there's no payments. Re there's no repayments for the first 12 months. And the loan is paid over a total of six years. It's 100% guaranteed by the government. So the banks have been instructed, they're not allowed to try and tie this to you personally, in any way as a director of your business.
[00:05:53] So they cannot tie it against you. You are not personally responsible for paying it back your business is [00:06:00] and they also cannot tie it to any of your own personal assets. Theres no, you know, tying out to your house or your car or whatever. And you've got six years to pay it back and it's 2.5% interest.
[00:06:11] Okay. So the government have really sort of done a great thing there for businesses that maybe haven't been able to get a grant and haven't been able to access the other types of funding out there. Now, of course, there are eligibility rules. But if you just go to government website and type in bounce, back loan that, that will show you what that is and if you're eligible for it.
[00:06:32] And it will also let you know if. Who, who the lenders are, who can actually help you out with that at the moment. So yeah, just to go back to that, the reason why I was thinking about this was because of my cleaning business. And that was really thinking, you know, we're heading into a deep recession.
[00:06:48] Now they're talking about house prices, potentially dropping, you know, over the next three years, up to 30%. And that's, that's insane. You know, they're talking about tens of thousand, hundreds of thousands [00:07:00] potentially in that even in the millions of job losses across the UK. And I know with my own business I'm trying to prepare, I'm trying, trying to prepare things now.
[00:07:11] So I've got, you know, Kind of like a business plan. I guess I'm trying to prepare things so that if this happens, then this is my plan and run with it rather than trying to work it out at the time. I'm trying to prepare ahead. Now I'm doing cashflow forecast and all sorts to sort of have a good idea about where I am in my business, took a hit.
[00:07:30]It's a bit odd. I operate mostly in Cardiff, Newport, and also in North London. Now, let's see, we know that England has relaxed the lockdown rules quite quickly. But Wales hasn't. And what, what was it apparent very early on, is that in Wales, I lost probably 80% or more of my business in Wales within the first few weeks of the coronavirus.
[00:08:00] [00:07:59] And that wasn't only just because of clients canceling or wanting to pause their services. Also a lot of the cleaners of course, were not, they didn't want to go into people's homes and that's absolutely fine. I completely get that. And even now that the government has specifically stated, for some reason that cleaners can go back in and nannies, I'm not quite sure why that, and if there may be some MPS where I've maybe bored of cleaning their own home and looking after their own kids maybe that's why that's happened, but they, they nonetheless, they have said that domestic cleaners can return to work.
[00:08:33]So that's fine, but in Wales they don't want to do that. However, in London I found that lots of the clients and cleaners actually wanted to keep going anyway. And I'm not quite sure really why that is, but that is, you know, the difference between two big cities in the UK of how things have happened.
[00:08:54] And I'm personally, I'm quite concerned [00:09:00] about, you know, the recession, you know, having you know, if there are job losses in the millions. Is a business like mine is not necessarily an essential service for most people. Most people don't need to have a cleaner. They'd like to have one, but when it comes to cutting back on their costs, it's not necessary as such.
[00:09:21] And so see, I do have a digital marketing company, which hasn't been affected as much. But I'm also looking at other ways, I'm looking at things that. You know, I've always really been in the online space. And one thing I haven't ever really done is look at exporting. So I don't really do much in the way of exports at the moment.
[00:09:43] I don't think I have any like the cleaning company. Definitely not. The digital marketing company, I'm pretty sure we don't have any. Now I know we had an American company before working with us a few years back. But now I don't think we do. I think it's all British based and that's [00:10:00] something I think is going to be really important for our economy.
[00:10:02] And I keep talking about the economy, like is it's mine, but we all live here and, you know, we're all going to face the consequences. If we can't get the economy bouncing back it's going to be us who ended up paying more taxes. It's going to be asked who You know, ended up losing jobs or our family who ended up losing jobs.
[00:10:26] And it is for us as entrepreneurs to now create those jobs, create those opportunities and start selling. So I'd be really interested to see if anyone listening now has some really sort of great ideas, you know, that the sort of things that we could be doing right now as entrepreneurs that I could perhaps share on another podcast.
[00:10:51]You know, maybe in a few weeks to share some ideas about what types of businesses that could be created [00:11:00] now to help help the economy, particularly with exporting. Let me see when you're selling at the moment like I do within the UK, it's just moving money around the UK. Obviously it does still help, but it's not the same as, you know, if you're being able to sell hundreds of thousands, millions of pounds of goods abroad.
[00:11:20] And you're bringing the money from abroad into UK. That must help more. What was I going to be speaking to one of my good friends he works for, I'm not going to name his company, but you worked with for a very, very big finance company. And they're doing a lot of work on this exact thing at the moment to see what his opinion is on this.
[00:11:39] And. If I can get them on a will it may be difficult because of his job. I don't know if he's allowed to mention the company he works for. But I can ask and if not, at least I can share some of the sort of advice that he gives to me. So I just want to wish you well, really, and I'm recording this literally just from going to bed.
[00:11:58]That is just something that came into my mind and [00:12:00] it's, you know, this isn't a. It's not something that's on my content calendar actually. Have things to share with you. This is just something that come into my head today, and I really wanted to share that with you and see if any of you had any of your own thoughts on this.
[00:12:17] If you do just come and find me on Instagram, you can send me a message there. It's @AaronHenray, that's AaronHenray. Hit me up on Instagram, you know, share your thoughts with me, let me know what you think are right. Really good ideas. I'd be really interested to see what could be done, particularly in the online space and sort of, you know, it'll get my juices flowing as well and make me start thinking about ways of being able to export more services abroad you know, to use that British brand that I've never really taken advantage of, but it is definitely there.
[00:12:54] The British brand all over the, all over the world, they really do pay a premium for it. [00:13:00] So yeah, why not? Let's get started now in the planning for the future, because it's going to be very soon that, you know, maybe the coronavirus might start reducing and you know, the clap every thursday, for the NHS will probably stop, but.
[00:13:18] The next set of heroes are going to need to come in and that will be yourselves to actually keep these people in jobs. Okay. Right. So I'm going to head to bed and thanks very much for listening. Remember to hit me up on Instagram is @AaronHenray. I'm on Instagram and I'll see you next time.
