ELITE : SIX Think Tank meetings are discussed over ZOOM with our members every Friday at 9:30am.
Facilitated by DANNY : DE HEK meetings are recorded for our Podcast, we’ve been doing this since COVID-19 if you’re interested in joining in with us check out our Website.
Transcribed by Otter
Danny de Hek 0:00
Welcome to elite six business networking Think Tank, facilitated by your host, Danny de Hek. The place where decision makers come together to share their experience, knowledge and skill.
Start because I’m still eating breakfast, which is not very good idea. And why don’t we all introduce ourselves because we’ve got podcast. Let’s start with Matt James. He’s on the top of my screen, don’t know where he is on us.
Matt James 0:28
The Brady Bunch. So I’m Matt James. I run a business with my wife in recent years. So I have a business consultancy and coaching to small to medium sized enterprises.
Danny de Hek 0:43
Good Helen.
Helen Oakes 0:44
I’m Helen I’m a photographer and I read my photography. I’m also just started getting into podcasting. And I run some online businesses.
Danny de Hek 0:57
This is beautiful. Nigel Yang, the man has been away Holiday Inn in a recession.
Nigel Young 1:04
Yes, I just saw man cook absolutely covered in snow on a beautiful sunny day blue sky. It was just magic. lafley never quite be the same again. And I think yes design service specialising in affordable housing, but also getting more and more into writing as well. I write for the shade magazine. And I’m looking at doing more blog writing and that sort of area as well. So isn’t like Tim the tool, man?
Danny de Hek 1:39
He’s so cool. Tell us what you do. Right.
Lachlan McNeill 1:43
When I was locked in McNeil was really I’m a recruiter, specialising in a couple of areas, but generally engineering, architecture and environmental roles. I do a lot of stuff in the moment in renewable energy. And I did my first podcast last week, which was quite fun.
Danny de Hek 2:01
Nonetheless, like Vanessa Skilton
Vanessa Skilton 2:06
Skelton, I in in one of my lives travel advisor, which has kind of been put on hold, although I have been helping in New Zealand out for the last three months with the coaching that finishes tonight, so because they’ve caught up on all of their calls, and callbacks, all
Danny de Hek 2:25
Sore they have
Vanessa Skilton 2:28
Will find that zoom call at 430.
In more so what else do I do? I am assisting Helen as her VA with her online business during her email, email stuff and bits and pieces with Shopify. I’m also currently on standby with Ministry of Health to do the COVID tracing. And next week, I think we’ve known a couple of weeks time I’m going to be helping with the Electoral Commission for a couple of weeks. And I think that’s it.
Danny de Hek 3:06
Your revenue opportunity, obviously,
Vanessa Skilton 3:08
yeah, yeah. So and I’m going to try and push the VA business a little bit more to so I’ve started. I’ve created a logo and email address and all that sort of stuff. So I’m going to try and push that a little bit more as well.
Danny de Hek 3:21
There might have to change your company name to better
Helen Oakes 3:30
be VA Skilton.
Danny de Hek 3:39
All right, Paul, do we get another name?
Paul Starling 3:47
Hi, my name is Paul and I am kind of a computer services and my main task in life it’s helping small businesses manage it, providing IT solutions to make their life easier and ensure that their systems are secure.
Danny de Hek 4:04
cool to be chillin and stiff.
Jaline Pietroiusti 4:09
Hey, everyone.
Its diliman Steve from the odd wave and we specialise in building ecommerce stores or businesses.
Danny de Hek 4:20
That It’s! mother of three.
Jaline Pietroiusti 4:24
Yes, mother of three, actually five. No, four.
Lachlan McNeill 4:33
Good, no.
Danny de Hek 4:35
Excellent. So welcome along to the think tank session. started the meeting I was actually listening to the I was watching the listening to the news and watching Facebook is the same in my life at the moment that I just did notice that there was a lot of talk about we’re in a recession at the moment and sort of infuriates me to be honest because I don’t like this people sign up for an obsession because everyone thinks they have to act in a certain way. And do things a certain way or retreat back to their cave of all the positions and stop spinning. And it just amplifies the thought of being in a recession. And I personally don’t really even know what a recession is, because I’m too old, I’m too young. So in the past, we normally break the meeting into four parts, people’s experiences, problems, some solutions, and perhaps some some takeaways we get from the meeting. So in saying that, what’s people’s experiences was precisions. In the past, maybe some of their younger people, older people.
Helen Oakes 5:39
or younger people hate
Matt James 5:44
Employment last night, like differently than self employment and employment land. Normally, I was previously asked, or the whole management team Ross, take the pay cut for a period of time, I think it was 10 or 15%. from memory. And, and so pay pay reviews and recruitment. were put on hold, basically.
Danny de Hek 6:07
All right, so that’s okay. So payment, some employees may be asking for you to take a payment cut. As employees, do we like giving our staff less money to do the same job? Or do we have to incentivize them some other way?
Matt James 6:26
I think it was, at the time, it was more of a survival necessity. And it was a case of we need could you can’t make some kind of pay cut, you have to negotiate it. But at the end of the day, there’s a consequence to not doing that both either to the company or to the individual. Where they admit it or not. So recruitment freeze another one.
Danny de Hek 6:54
Yep. Typically, recruitment freeze. That means don’t employ more staff.
Matt James 6:58
Yeah. And training freeze or yet locking into lightest training? Yeah, often a training freeze for spending money on training and travel freezes, or restrictions
Danny de Hek 7:15
that get lost in anymore. Yeah. So I noticed when recession happened, a lot of online course, companies were cutting their prices by 90%. And a lot of people had an opportunity to upskill Is it a recession? Or is it just upscaling? Because there’s nothing to do?
Jaline Pietroiusti 7:37
Yeah, it’s a bit of both really, people are dropping prices to keep their businesses going and giving others the opportunity to study or, you know, take advantage of services that they couldn’t afford, I would imagine.
Danny de Hek 7:55
So does the thought of a recession terrify the hell out of anyone? To me? It doesn’t really because I think I could ask anybody who had gone through the worst recession and ask them whether they never could sleep at night or without they had a roof over their head or whether they never got fed Muslim, or say no, we managed to survive. So I mean, I’ve been in arrogance, probably. But what’s the big fear of a recession is we’re going to lose our positions, along with everyone else.
Helen Oakes 8:20
Well, it’s more that you won’t have a job and you don’t have any money to live on.
Danny de Hek 8:24
Great topic. Do you need a job? Well,
Helen Oakes 8:27
yeah, pretty much like a holiday.
Lachlan McNeill 8:29
I also think for some people, there’s a certain shame because some people through recessions, and I was in London for the first one I had there, and I did find out of it, and I realised I just shut my goal because a lot of people really were not doing fine any of it. But there was a lot of shame. And they they felt that in some ways that were unwanted. That was a big problem. Hmm. Could it be a bit diplomatic?
Helen Oakes 8:52
It could be a ageism thing now where if you live lose your job in your 40s 50s you may not be able to get another job because it’s absolutely true. ageism Yeah, they won’t take you on.
Matt James 9:07
Yeah, I mean, I think I’ve said before in previous me, that’s the big thing. The new great unwashed, are normally talented people with five or six in front of their age and even a four.
Danny de Hek 9:22
They put the age of retirement up a few years ago.
Lachlan McNeill 9:25
I think they can change his age on his passport.
Helen Oakes 9:29
is it so she says
Matt James 9:31
667
Danny de Hek 9:36
now I think Paul’s telling them to reset their computer.
Helen Oakes 9:45
Danny and I were talking about the thereafter seasonal workers at the moment. And here there’s a real big thing to get all these seasonal workers that are nurse they’re saying bring them in from the islands where they don’t have any COVID You know, and I think the others are saying we’ll use people that are out of employment and get them into it. But it’s that thing of, you know, who would take a job? I mean, some of you might, but who if you’d lost your job? Would you take a job at countdown or picking fruit? You’re picky about it, or would you take a job to get money? Yeah, I would. Yeah.
Danny de Hek 10:24
What about the logistics of being a fruit picker that what am I going to do? I’m going to travel to mobile. And then I’m going to find some accommodation I can afford and then get paid what? I’ve just
Nigel Young 10:38
hearing down south and apparently they’re so desperate at the moment. They’re providing accommodation for like 70 bucks a week. The rates very high. The accommodation basically is right next door, there’s no transport costs. Right now. Apparently, seasonal work self is the place to be like,
Helen Oakes 10:56
Yeah, it
Danny de Hek 10:58
Does make you wonder what’s wrong with doing something different for a wall is it
Matt James 11:03
there’s a reality check there as well. So I said the reality check of people person ageing cannot be considered. But it’s also a practical reality check. So the talking about doing some forestation or creating a forest and crushing it, but but that is, I went to work at night tahu. And a couple years ago now, and they had an initiative to do a lot of that planting, because there was a business opportunity. But the reality nobody wants to do it, because it’s one of the hardest jobs, physically hardest jobs you can do is back breaking back breaking work. And very hard terrain and place that they want to create forest for are actually some of the most. It’s not easy. It’s not easy territory to actually climb and traverse. So I think some of these people say oh, there’s jobs for beginners jobs, planting trees, but the reality for some or doing physically being able to do those jobs, or getting the opportunity to do those jobs is is a different thing.
Lachlan McNeill 12:06
Recruiters in the UK have started second shells, they did it because they had to do something. And it was he became quite a bit of a once a celebrity thing to do but a call good thing to do to to be stacking shelves because when you’re stacking shells, people you know walking past you Hmm. And people in your neighbourhood you at one minute you’re a recruiter and you’re doing pretty well. And next minute you’re stacking shelves but about to do that is quite powerful.
Matt James 12:31
I don’t think I agree blocking. But I think what I’m hearing from like foodstuff type recruiters is I won’t touch. Touch the age isn’t quite the issue. But certainly the experience of your ex middle senior manager, they just won’t touch you. Because they’ve got so many other people queuing up to do that work. And this is where one says ours are gonna get a job and Hackensack will know you aren’t
Lachlan McNeill 12:58
upset. There’s no demand in that particular but there are there are places with demand. I mean, I had a holiday job one time working at a pig farm. And my job was to click on all the slurry behind the pictures. And there was a shell for that. And the rats used to run down there or whipping their tails or whip your face as you’re going down. Any job better than that is good enough for me.
Danny de Hek 13:19
Yeah, good stuff. I’m sort of thinking recession here will converge.
Nigel Young 13:26
So I’m just gonna say one thing I just learned coming back from down south Is that right? Now if you’re going to go with a 22, there’s a lot of rabbits down there that aren’t taking up time but it says things you could make a living out of it.
Danny de Hek 13:39
I had a client I have a client still who’s in Kurow, and they had a guy that come onto the property with a shotgun and shot 500 years and a night rabbits. It’s amazing. But with a shotgun this show here close in here. swamp there must be
Nigel Young 13:53
well the thing is, so you probably could tune into a bit of an industry because Robert Robert Thoreau is just such a high standard. It’s just so nice
Danny de Hek 14:03
to be talking about the thinking different way and living up with their normal thinking and don’t carry on bedroom doing the same. Be more fluid on their feet. Suppose I’m going to use my screen on LinkedIn. Anyone want to get sued us?
Matt James 14:17
against her?
Danny de Hek 14:18
I’ve got a new best friend on LinkedIn
Matt James 14:22
grants person.
Helen Oakes 14:25
A nice a nice
Danny de Hek 14:27
Grant Cardone. You know, the guy that wrote the book I’m writing about. So he asked me where? And I said I’m on the bottom of the earth just about to fall off hanging on for dear life and a country called New Zealand. Dini with
Helen Oakes 14:41
Jeff last night. Yeah.
Danny de Hek 14:43
Yeah. If you read his books as they’re really good, and they really do get your thinking and as it talks about going out there and getting some of the stuff that’s about to happen. And Zig Ziglar is another guy. He’s stood up in a crowd and they said, This is the worst recession Americans had for years. This is years ago, and he said, How many people have had their best year ever? last year and 70% of the audience put their hand up? So I said, Why do we have to listen to the news and the doom and the gloom? So why can’t we look for an opportunity?
Nigel Young 15:15
You know, that’s often the cases and the likes of the of the recession. There are the opportunities here on Hmm, definitely. Okay, so john,
Lachlan McNeill 15:29
I saw a quote somewhere. And I must often loath to repeat these, but it was quite a good one that said that managers will be looking at people in a few years or years time and saying, what did you learn from the recession?
Danny de Hek 15:42
Oh, stuff like that. What
Lachlan McNeill 15:44
did you learn over? You know, and, and I’m thinking, what would I be sad? What but I’m saying
Danny de Hek 15:50
now, just listen to a leader like Donald Trump. Oops, sorry. It was anything. Let’s get the nitty gritty stuff. What some problems that we can have in a recession.
Jaline Pietroiusti 16:04
Cash Flow.
Danny de Hek 16:06
We need money. Yep.
Matt James 16:08
And the bank really sorry, guys. Sounds come out. We’re gonna have to go. In Touch later on. Sorry.
Danny de Hek 16:14
All right. All right. Yeah. Anyway. Anyone else have to go?
Stef Pietroiusti 16:22
That’s what’s the next sub sentiment? Like, you just feel like negativity from people around you?
Danny de Hek 16:30
Was it with me?
Jaline Pietroiusti 16:33
negativity,
Lachlan McNeill 16:34
negativity. Yeah.
Stef Pietroiusti 16:38
And it can be depressing.
Danny de Hek 16:41
Yeah, I do. I can’t stand it and I just don’t buy. It really gets my head, like, when I saw the National Post, saying that New Zealand has, is officially in a recession. And I think that’s a Facebook post. And I’m gonna really guys, do you want to publicis that?
Stef Pietroiusti 16:58
It’s the wrong thing to do. Yeah, you’ve got to be more passive around options that could actually wash during recession. Mm hmm. And I think we have more to be around there. Yeah.
Danny de Hek 17:11
Because Grant Cardone was saying that, you know, you can’t ignore things that happened. He said, for example, he lived, he lives in LA. And he said, there’s a big earthquake, it’s a massive event, he can’t just sit there and ignore that the earthquakes happening. But it’s how you act at that period of that time, and what you do, and they said, you know, so but you can’t sit there and dwell and just go into the corner of the room and say, there’s an earthquake, I’m just going to do nothing. You have to come up with a strategy or plan. I really believe that that’s what you need to do, you know, yeah,
Vanessa Skilton 17:44
gee, that’s a really good analogy, because you know, the math people, there are some people who will get not get over an earthquake, but can actually get through it better than others. You know, there are some people who will hide under a rock, or who won’t go to a mall or who won’t do things. And, you know, while it’s, it’s still a scary thing for everybody, you know, it’s like, like he says, it’s how you react and actually, how you actually cope with it, you know, and so a lot of people moved away. So yeah, in business, if you want to put the analogy together, yeah, absolutely. I think that’s the right thing to compete.
Danny de Hek 18:21
I put my hiking boots on mini earthquake, heaven matched into the centre of town, to be told that put your name down on a piece of paper, and we’ll call you when we get the need for you. Mike was on the phone crying, begging me to come back and huddle into a corner of the house.
Helen Oakes 18:37
The time wasn’t a
Danny de Hek 18:42
human nature as as those people obviously want to get involved and do something constructive. Yeah, there’s an emotional attachment to something that may have happened and, you know, but you, I feel like we can all offer something to society, even if we’re giving somebody some good advice on things to do here. I truly believe that. If we’re in business for ourselves, we’re already doing those things.
Nigel Young 19:07
Yeah, I like a suggestion.
Danny de Hek 19:09
No, sorry, nice was shot.
Nigel Young 19:14
Just sort of thinking out loud here. But the term opportunity banking sort of comes to mind in that there are always things that need to be done but right now somebody simply can’t afford to pay for them. And oftentimes the things that don’t actually involve costs as such apart from your own time, is there any way you can sort of, I don’t know do work in advance. Or I don’t know.
Danny de Hek 19:41
Thank you services. Hi, me and pay me later,
Nigel Young 19:44
sort of living in a way that actually helps whoever it is you’re doing it with to move through the recession together, have it as a recession.
Helen Oakes 19:55
My stright time for each other, you know, time for service. I guess.
Nigel Young 20:00
Something like that. Yeah, something like that. So you’re sort of helping each other move forward. And then when these come right, you’re getting sort of settle up, move forward.
Danny de Hek 20:08
But wouldn’t that be voicing obstacles? Or things that we’re trying to overcome them in groups like this are really good for that, obviously. But we’re like, what are we trying to accomplish at the moment? What’s slowing you down?
Nigel Young 20:19
I suppose I’m just trying to see, get back to the statement before where there’s a recession, there’s an opportunity. I’m trying to sort of bring those two together, I suppose. Well,
Helen Oakes 20:27
they can be I mean, for some people, a recession isn’t a problem. Like we haven’t had a problem only because we’ve had the online businesses. Now, if we didn’t have the online businesses, we’d probably be stuck. So you know, some people it does benefit, I guess, and some people definitely not. But I guess that’s almost like future proofing. Not that we knew there was going to be a recession. But no, we have actually future proof.
Danny de Hek 20:53
My biggest fear of what we’re doing at the moment is the fact that we’re reliant on one big player. And it’s Google and Google and just move again, a little bit over this side. And we literally would be out of business overnight. So now I feel quite vulnerable. So now, when I i’ve always bought business on the fact that I like a little bit of setup, Google, I’ve always been
that you spread your income over multiple streams. Yeah. And one, you know, and it’s worth late sex is a good example. You know, if I had 140 members, like I did everyone’s pay me a little bit of money, the chances of delusion, everyone at once is quite slim. Yeah. But at
Nigel Young 21:39
the end of the day, your online businesses are still discretionary dollars.
Helen Oakes 21:44
Yeah, money, isn’t there. It’s not there. Yeah, exactly. Man, if I was just relying on photography, I would not have much money coming in all I have. So yeah, I guess I’m quite lucky in that.
Nigel Young 21:56
It’s because I’m trying to say, Is this some way that? Yeah, it can be sort of? Good. Yeah.
Helen Oakes 22:06
The key to which the title is being recession proof is to have income coming in and different streams. And if one falls, yeah.
Danny de Hek 22:17
But technology is where I realised most of my income is now in the banking future on technology. I mean, I think what you probably might be better off doing is coming up with a project that you want to accomplish. And then finding those those stumbling blocks. And and voicing what they are. We try to do better solutions. And Helen’s got a solution. We keep firing three comments if you can.
Lachlan McNeill 22:44
Well, I certainly think the first thing to do is to start with, you’ve got two sides of it, you’ve got the person and you’ve got the possible opportunities. And you look at the people, not everything suits, everyone mean Danny, you’re quite tech savvy, and you’ve done lots of different things. So but but um, for example, if I was talking to some more like mom, mom, that would be a problem because she wouldn’t be able to start a Spotify store, but you have a certain abilities, and then had the situation, some people might have heaps of money in the bank, no problem at all. Some people might be on the bones of their bum. And they might just need to get $1. And you know, and so those are the situation and the abilities are one thing. And on the other side, you’ve got, what the opportunities are new looking for quick, quick, very carefully looking at and matching those things up is quite important. Because if you Danny said to my mom, like, okay, Marjorie, but what you need to do is you need to, you know, get your Google backups, you said hang on Google, I’ve heard of it before. Yeah, you know, and so you’d be on a road to nowhere, but it’s really important to match those things up.
Danny de Hek 23:44
Yeah, I did a three hour training lesson with a lady who wanted to be a drop shipper. And at the end of it, she was glazed over a room, she turned up with her Chromebook. And then I’ve got my big three screens, and I’m using all the screens, like some sort of conductor on the orchestra. And, and she just never did enough with it. What I told her afterwards, and it was a shame because you then I’m thinking, Well, what can I get to do? What can I help her with? And then that’s sort of what you’re saying is, it’s very difficult to help somebody with
Lachlan McNeill 24:15
Just a different matter, don’t you may, you might not be the right person. For that, you know, I know in terms of CDs and stuff, there’s a lady who’s sort of at the senior end of the market, you know, and she helps people with their CVS and LinkedIn profiles. And she does it in the way that they understand.
Danny de Hek 24:31
The other one too, is I used to be a gardener. And I used to have this garden round and I used to what I used to do, I forgotten I used to walk out people’s drives, and ask them Oh, that’s right. When I was a kid, I was 14, I left school and I was to walk out people’s driveways and ask and tell them I had a lawn mowing business and would they be interested in hiring my services to mow the lawn once a week? And they say, oh, how much do you charge? And I’d say $10 an hour and they go that’s quite reasonable. Yeah. Okay. Is it cool? Can I borrow your lawnmower? Danny, and I looked at those same clients and I thought, well, what else do they do? I said, and I finished up digging over. I remember digging over this old man’s lawn. It took me a week, and he paid me $5 an hour at the time. And I still remember the paycheck he gave me. He used to give me sandwiches, morning tea. Oh, and then and then I found these millionaires that used to take away a drive out a drive every morning with a wheel spinning, they had Mercedes at the time. And I used to spend two and a half hours sweeping the leaves of their drive. Innocence, I still remember their name. And then, and then I said, What are you spouting? Do you want me to clean it out? And obviously I had all these different things, all these services that I could do. And I remember as a 14 year old indian around about 80 $100 a week. And then when it comes to wintertime, I hated that job. I mean, it doesn’t have to be inside your profession. I mean, it’s so I think people’s expectations of monies and what they get, I mean, we could all go out and mow lawns, or we could knock on their neighbor’s doors and say, Look, I’m doing gardening for $25 an hour, you’re interested in our services, I bet you would only have to walk around northward duty houses and you’d get a job.
Helen Oakes 26:12
Yeah. You were quite entrepreneurial back then? No,
Danny de Hek 26:16
Not really. I should have I should have electric cars.
Who was one of those?
Nigel Young 26:32
George W. Bush. He said the problem of the French is that they have no word for entrepreneur.
Danny de Hek 26:40
It’s an oxymoron. That one don’t buy george bush. Yeah. George Bush, President knighted states book Donald Trump and I switched off. But that reflex mechanism is brilliant. All right, guys, here we go. With this meeting, we’ve got half an hour, oh my god, we don’t have to do a whole half an hour. But we haven’t got we need some more solutions man would have any more problems.
Lachlan McNeill 27:01
I tell you what you got in America, you got to include TaskRabbit, TaskRabbit. What it is, so basically, it’s like, it’s all geared up, like Uber for for jobs. So if you want someone to come and clean your front windows, you just got to TaskRabbit you say I want to clean my windows and you go look at the feedback, the clean windows, they clean your windows, I’m just amazed. We don’t really have something like that we should
Danny de Hek 27:25
We do… There was a New Zealand app. I just started playing with a few months. I can’t remember the name but sorry. But you basically put your job that you have and what you’re willing to pay. And then somebody would come along and say I’ll do it for that. And then
Lachlan McNeill 27:38
yeah, really taken off, which really surprises me in some ways. Because, you know, there’s a real opportunity there because you could think, well, I can clean windows, I can wash cars, I can change the oil in the car can do all those things. And and when that just keeps people engaged, it would just be to me the most logical thing ever. Can you hire a hobby? or hire a hobby?
Paul Starling 28:02
stuff? I do.
Danny de Hek 28:05
I could do one of those. Yeah, we have.
Helen Oakes 28:09
Yeah. Mr. Fixit needs.
Danny de Hek 28:12
Yeah. I was trying to help Helen start her car the other day, we nearly had an argument,
Helen Oakes 28:17
or we did have an argument. But she’s got
Lachlan McNeill 28:21
sorry, was that Danny being diplomatic there, dari
Danny de Hek 28:27
in the garriage for about two minutes as you because I won’t start like I won’t stop. And you know, I get in there. And I said, Well, what I normally do is I just pump the gas a couple of times and start leave. That’s probably an electric pedal peddle these days, and it starts. So then. Yesterday, I went there my car waiting for to get a car who was switching cars around. And she’s sitting there. What’s she doing? And then I drove out there and she said, wouldn’t start again. That wouldn’t start again. Did you pump the gas? Yeah, it didn’t start the I told you to do that. Anyway, so we’re having a bit of a discussion about a cooking dinner last night. And then her 17 year old boy comes out just as I got in the car.
Helen Oakes 29:02
No, Danny goes, I’m gonna go and do it. And I see it. If you do it, you’ll be say I told you how it works, you know and all that. So I didn’t want him to go out and then dominate my 17 year old comes out and goes, you know, you need to put the foot on the brake to actually start those newer cars because my old car you never had to do that. It’s old, so I’ve never had to do it. And he said you need to put the foot on the brake. So Dhoni comes out. I’ll just put my foot on the brake and it starts
Danny de Hek 29:36
I just went through the whole process of me starting the car. What’s the difference between Helen and me? And I just naturally put my foot on the
Helen Oakes 29:45
gas and you don’t do that.
Danny de Hek 29:48
We’re still married.
Helen Oakes 29:49
We still wait it out. Not everyone
Lachlan McNeill 29:53
have a nice discussion.
Danny de Hek 29:56
Yeah. All right, guys. So that’s good. That’s a problem we had. So if we We’re talking about recessions. What toll does it take on families, and maybe people who don’t understand business, that’s probably a good way of taking it. Because you, you might be self employed and your wife or your partner might rely on your income. And all of a sudden they hear in the news that there’s a recession on and it’s going to get doom and gloom. What can you do to give you your family peace of mind?
Lachlan McNeill 30:20
Lie?
Danny de Hek 30:25
Let’s put that over here. Can we
Lachlan McNeill 30:29
write the truth? Honest, honestly, there’s some times when I’ve been in business in the UK when things got a bit bit rough there. And you just had an absolute focus on what you were doing. You’d come home instead of, you know, post, it was a how’s it go? Oh, fine. Really? Yeah, fine. I’ve got to focus. I’ve got some things to do tonight. I got to put a proposal together. It’s my night this weekend. And I’ve got to keep my head in there. I’m not going to sit there and have a discussion. Because if you say so quickly, well, then all these solutions come out in your left ear while you’re trying to listen to the client with the right ear. And then yeah, huh. But you’ve got I think people have to also appreciate you have to focus. You have to be practical. Yeah. This time. Sounds clear said to me. Look, that’s a date that Jeanette she’s absolutely right, because she’s a lot clearer than me. And so
Danny de Hek 31:17
it’s a funny one. So the reality is, it’s not gonna work but you so much wanted to that you keep pushing the flag, waving that flag, log in that bag, that dead horse. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Being focused. Is he a really good topic in itself? And staying on target? There was a Star Wars stay on target. stay on target, because all these distractions come along in your life.
Lachlan McNeill 31:40
But every so often, you can stick your head up and say, right, is this a dead duck? Was this a big duck? You know, you know, it looks like a duck and it’s dead. It’s a dead duck.
Danny de Hek 31:51
When you reliable a ducks
Lachlan McNeill 31:53
Yeah, right?
Danny de Hek 31:54
Yeah. Tarceva. Yeah. Is it for Americans mainly? Yeah, you
Lachlan McNeill 32:00
get after the long flight just to do playing songs when done
Danny de Hek 32:07
good stuff guys solutions, right? We’re going to solution so some solutions takeaways. We’re going to take away Ziad
Lachlan McNeill 32:14
back and back and problems can I just put there, you’ve got over can do jobs, lots of negativity, but the status thing is a biggie, honestly, a lot of people yes. They don’t want to be seen doing certain jobs. I still remember having a job as a charity thing delivering beer selling beer up at the stadium for I was working for consultancy, and they said, Can we have people to raise a bit of money for the rug for the dragonboat so I did go out there. And there was some of the people in the same company as raising money for when they saw me, like supposedly earning money from beer for the bloody charity is they looked away and I’m thinking you think I just don’t deserve money? I’m doing your damn charity. Yeah, so was there wasn’t there shame on mother? Oh, and there’s things a bit tough.
Helen Oakes 32:56
Yeah. And that’s what I was saying before about the apple picking or waiting for countdown. You know, if you’ve been a big CEO, you feel you know, it’d be pretty hard to go and do something like in a supermarket or pick froze, but you’re the bigger person if you can do and I guess and you need the money a lot
Lachlan McNeill 33:13
of those particles to people in the middle often have more of a problem with with stacking shelves
Danny de Hek 33:19
Yeah, hello. Photography the other day she doesn’t like doing event photography and we went to the party
Lachlan McNeill 33:27
don’t have discussion don’t have discussion.
Danny de Hek 33:32
Just send them your normal pricing and and you’ll get the job and she got the job to the job and that was quite fun but it wasn’t me she wants to do but as me and you know she doesn’t want to be known as that type of photographer she’s used to taking photos of me, it’s cool, all right guys with.
Paul Starling 33:52
Too many lenses Yeah,
Danny de Hek 33:56
What are we getting from this meeting but being recession proof What does it pissed me off so much when I saw that on the internet that I had to write? I wonder if you have another Mona but I’m not going to talk politics but I am Why is it the opposition doesn’t even mention the Prime Minister’s name when she’s talking about as she talks about her as the leader of the opposition,
Helen Oakes 34:17
or he or she
Danny de Hek 34:19
and her
Lachlan McNeill 34:22
as a friend,
Danny de Hek 34:24
friend,
Lachlan McNeill 34:25
so called by the first night just send that that that brings them into your friend circle.
Helen Oakes 34:31
What is she says methadone or something like that?
Lachlan McNeill 34:34
That’s what that’s that’s equally derogatory in many cases.
Nigel Young 34:38
I was I was quite surprised not that long ago to discover that Helen Clark and Jenny Shipley were perfect. extremely good friends and always had been really lovely. They read each other’s throats. Just once they stepped outside that arena library close friends
Danny de Hek 35:01
talk on LinkedIn as
Lachlan McNeill 35:02
well. Oh, you creep.
Danny de Hek 35:05
I think I used to be on a dating profile. They used to ask me my view on politics and I used to always say, I’ve always thought Helen Clark was sexy.
Lachlan McNeill 35:17
There’s a bucket more or less, right.
Danny de Hek 35:21
Anyway.
Helen Oakes 35:22
Well, Nigel, I think the media have a lot transformed with that too. Like they playing against each other so much
Nigel Young 35:30
into the day that they’re all the opposition has to oppose whether you like it or not, yeah. Find the negative or they have to whatever the other ones sides done, they have to find the negative they have to play it down. You look at Winston Peters, he will not recognise anybody pretty well that time, so it just doesn’t do it. You always been like that kind of extra politics. Unfortunately.
Helen Oakes 35:55
You like weird people?
Danny de Hek 35:56
Oh, I just like the fact that you can get away with it.
Helen Oakes 35:59
He likes Winston Peters and Donald Trump.
Jaline Pietroiusti 36:07
like Donald Trump, but he seems to be messing up quite a bit lately.
Danny de Hek 36:11
Yeah, like killing 190 people whoops. Yeah. Yeah.
Stef Pietroiusti 36:18
Giving Donald Trump a second chance all the time, being sarcastic.
Nigel Young 36:25
And again, he’s talking about wanting a third jolly term. limited to two terms. They are exactly. He’s gonna do a Putin. He’s trying to say, Well, the first one didn’t count because there’s too much opposition or some such thing.
Danny de Hek 36:44
All back anyway, look for for leadership in a recession. Like, where’s that go to? Like, with our liability with you know, this will take the leadership of the team? I mean, we have one for ourselves, one for all that sort of vein. Like, do you look to the government, not what happens in the government says, I’m sorry, I can’t print any more money. We will go back to our caves, don’t we?
Paul Starling 37:14
If that’s gonna happen,
Nigel Young 37:16
Chamber of Commerce moments is saying that the government get out of our way. Just let business run. Hmm. Let’s do it. Just sold though, isn’t it? Yes, it is.
Danny de Hek 37:26
No. Get rid of the tape. quite good. You know, I mean, like, I find it hard to know when I know like, I’ve got to pay my GST the other day, would you believe? And I get a $70 fine, along with an email saying you’ve got to pay GST and I hate paid is the receipt. And they go No, that was too much. I didn’t know that. That’s the very well. Yeah. Would it be nice just to get an email first before I got a fine.
Paul Starling 37:56
email reminder.
Danny de Hek 37:58
Oh, no, I missed the
Lachlan McNeill 38:01
deadline, anything on the site?
Jaline Pietroiusti 38:03
next week.
Lachlan McNeill 38:06
Mike, Mike had a cartoon as was said, so do please take me off your mailing list. I’m no longer interested in your services.
Danny de Hek 38:20
It’s pretty cool.
Nigel Young 38:22
unsubscribe me.
Lachlan McNeill 38:24
But who do you look to I look for people who are not in castles, you know, people who work in big institutions, and they’re completely isolated from the outside world. They often have a tremendous amount of advice. But I look at people who move quickly with the times and and you know, who are also in touch with other networks. And people who’ve got a few bit of money, you find out who works for them and what they’re doing.
Danny de Hek 38:49
I think the most the thing I enjoy the most as I am set up in business, and I do have systems, I have invoicing programmes, I have technology, I’ve got the best technology. I’ve got everything I need. So if I were like, coming straight out of school when I didn’t have a laptop, that would be I remember bottom of his laptop. It was such a big thing to be able to afford to buy $1,000 laptop at the time, but it gave me a mobility. They started to get the money.
Lachlan McNeill 39:13
How many did you get for $8,000? I get that 10
Danny de Hek 39:17
Yeah, just go
Nigel Young 39:19
back to locklin’s point there. It simply reminded me I think I might have mentioned this before, but I’ll say it again of a principle I learned years ago that if you want to get something that you find out that number one is when you go after number two, because number one unbearably is hungry. So it’s very arrogant. Why should we deal with you? Number two hungry? Yeah, they seem to me to always be the better person to try and deal with. Mm hmm.
Lachlan McNeill 39:42
newest you Nigel. You did
Danny de Hek 39:47
me number two.
Nigel Young 39:52
Your three Yes.
Danny de Hek 39:59
Please Got to match some takeaways that you’ve got so far from the meeting
Nigel Young 40:05
isn’t funny.
Danny de Hek 40:12
Who’s gonna buy our products?
Lachlan McNeill 40:14
I also look to people who diversify. You know, if sometimes people get stuck in a recession, they know what to do. They’ve been working on something for the same time. Just look at other people, often they have three or four opportunities. And they can only do one or two of them. Yeah.
Danny de Hek 40:29
He, he offer help. I still remember one guy, I met once, and he was a developer, tonnes of land, and I’m doing really well. And then somebody said to me, if you see something good ASCII, you can get become part of it. And I tried that once. And the guy said, Yeah, okay. We’ll take you down and show you some property and some land and he was starting to show me the ropes. And then I freaked out a bit, because I had no money, but I wanted to maybe look at somebody who’s doing something you like, or envy in a way, then ask them here. Can you get involved in what they’re doing? You’d be surprised how much people shoot.
Lachlan McNeill 41:05
good fun. Yeah.
Danny de Hek 41:08
Down, down.
Lachlan McNeill 41:11
On number seven
Danny de Hek 41:14
on the list. Yeah. down the list.
Helen Oakes 41:16
Okay, two takeaways. Not doing it. Right.
Danny de Hek 41:19
Yeah. If you
hear any pin drops?
Nigel Young 41:30
Well, just running Danny, based on what you’ve just said, is perhaps recognising opportunities.
Danny de Hek 41:36
recognising opportunities. Yep. Yeah. So yeah. So whose journey? Have you identified all the industries that are thriving at the moment? I mean, Amazon, I think double their income. And the last half quarter, whatever they call it. So tells you they’re obviously online stuffs going crazy. There. What are people buying this road be wondering?
Jaline Pietroiusti 42:00
Hmm, well, actually, we had a webinar with Shopify and the e commerce and Shopify has increased 150%. In New Zealand.
Helen Oakes 42:11
Wow.
Stef Pietroiusti 42:12
Wasn’t the guy. Okay.
Danny de Hek 42:19
Have you guys partner? Are you Shopify partners?
Jaline Pietroiusti 42:24
Yes, we are. They actually invited us to this time based on what we did in Australia for the party that we were talking about. Before
Danny de Hek 42:35
they got a partner account,
Stef Pietroiusti 42:37
yes, yeah. We’ll actually show you some of the resources are so rich, and kids and all of that, which you
Danny de Hek 42:47
know, as well, but they wouldn’t give it to me originally. So then I sit three accounts. And then they flagged it as okay and approved it. So then I moved all the three accounts into one. I’ve got a daycare. I wanted it originally now. But what a performance but I am. Good thing about being a partner is that you can actually give people a link, and they can sign up and then you’ll get a bit of a kickback for this couple of months, which is quite nice.
Helen Oakes 43:15
Yeah, that’s
Stef Pietroiusti 43:18
what apart from tanks was because we do so much work for other partners. They get all their income stream, and we don’t get anything because we doing all the fixes for them, but
Jaline Pietroiusti 43:29
it’s on their partner. Things Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Starling 43:37
Yeah. A custom not have multiple partners.
Stef Pietroiusti 43:44
can connect multiple separate accounts, but you’re an NDA with under NDA with this one company, so we can’t really do that.
Danny de Hek 43:55
Yeah, that’s right. Anyway, there’s no financial gain from having a store link to you. And you I haven’t found one yet. That it’s going to be getting from day one. Unless you get something for a little bit.
Jaline Pietroiusti 44:09
Exactly. Yeah.
Lachlan McNeill 44:11
A lot of you.
Stef Pietroiusti 44:13
Yeah, sorry.
Lachlan McNeill 44:14
Locking you website. Any website?
Stef Pietroiusti 44:18
Oh, thank you. Yeah, that’s actually quite You know, we’ve changed the chance I fall between needs to change it again based on
Lachlan McNeill 44:30
but it’s always a work in progress, isn’t it? That’s nice first impression
Jaline Pietroiusti 44:36
images and things but it’s gonna move to Shopify, because we’re going to put some we’re going to sell packages and things off there will be a lot easier to manage. Yeah.
Lachlan McNeill 44:45
But I’ll tell you what, like it’s got a nice upbeat sort of feel you can like it’s quite an optimistic feel, you know, going to the mall. You know, for Accessible like this sort of general first impression. Too geeky Have you got products that you can sell for large number of product lines.
Jaline Pietroiusti 45:04
Um, as in, because we sell more services Really? So support packages and stuff to build, which
Paul Starling 45:13
is useless for big databases.
Jaline Pietroiusti 45:16
I’m not really
Danny de Hek 45:19
one What do you say Paul?
Jaline Pietroiusti 45:21
Look, you can use Shopify advice and then a Shopify plus depending on how you’re doing, because that’s really big. And we’ve got some customers that have got 15,000 products in Shopify.
Danny de Hek 45:34
So we’ve got about that. Yeah.
Helen Oakes 45:39
Yes. Nice website.
Nigel Young 45:41
is cool. Thanks,
Danny de Hek 45:43
guys. Yeah.
Stef Pietroiusti 45:45
This slide gets was something quick and easy, then.
Lachlan McNeill 45:51
It’s like there’s like so much like my wife says, I said, Well, that’s a nice dress, use this old this old thing. That’s the website version of that. Actually, check that out next week. just just just take the compliments there.
Stef Pietroiusti 46:15
I can’t wait. It must be tough. I’d love to listen and say, Okay. Okay. We’ve done the change, and return last bit of meat and weakness. Needs he’s quite good at like being like, something similar to Shopify.
Jaline Pietroiusti 46:35
Yes. Yes.
Danny de Hek 46:39
What, what’s the code again? It some back end as to I didn’t realise.
Stef Pietroiusti 46:48
Very similar. Yeah, very similar.
Danny de Hek 46:50
Yeah. As e commerce is also another one, which is, yeah, otherwise you don’t
Stef Pietroiusti 46:55
what attracts with Shopify is the tagging and the smart collections, it just becomes so much easier to use an exporter into the wine collections. And when you do product categorization, I think Shopify then and then really well, yeah..
Danny de Hek 47:10
Good stuff, guys. Yeah. All right. So we’ll just go back to the meeting so we can finish some more takeaways, and then I can close the room off, and then we can have a more general Tredegar light. So does anyone else got any takeaways that they’ve got from today’s meetings? During sharing a string? Yeah, I’m just trying to Oh, was it? There we go. Yeah, yeah, we’re gonna let
Lachlan McNeill 47:34
Well, I think Nigel’s point about doing stuff beforehand. But almost the reverse of this is if you get excess opportunities now is I mean, I’ve got a couple of other other recruiters and I’ve had roles that I can’t deal with. And I’ll be able to say to them, hey, look, I’ve got this, and I’ve got that you can, you can get on with that. And it’s just built up your karma network and my camera account, you know, yes, they do appreciate that when things get tough. And also some things that are not maybe within their connections or abilities or stuff. It’s just it doesn’t cost you much to give something away, and you almost always get it back.
Helen Oakes 48:10
Well, yeah, and with me, it’s good if you can refer people to other jobs that you don’t do. I have a friend next a wedding photographer, and I do weddings. So whenever anyone asked for that I was get them her name and often chill, get the job. So it’s Yeah,
Lachlan McNeill 48:27
I share other other recruiters vacancies officer vacancy, that’s not really my area, you know, I’m not going to give away is my area but but if it isn’t, I’ll just forward into my little network. And, and really, it’s no skin off my nose at all. Yeah, a lot of engineers. I’ve had accounting people do that. That’s it’s an easy thing to do. Just takes a few seconds and FL helps them. Now I went to a digital and they wanted somebody to help them do look out to the clients.
Danny de Hek 48:55
Between the five and the $15,000 website price, because the average website price was between 30 and 120,000. I didn’t want the small guys clogging them up. Yeah, that’s quite funny. I was thinking yeah, that’s like three times Oh, charge anyway.
All right, guys. Um, right. So we’re gonna get style on and talk. I think the topic is pretty cool. I just think. I think bravery is something that I’d probably put out there to actually ignore the fact that there’s a recession on going and get some business would probably be an oxymoron, right? Really. But I actually want to do more than ever.
Lachlan McNeill 49:40
I think recognise the opportunities a big one but I think combination of asking ask just asking people what’s coming up on your own. I’ve got I’ve got a friend who’s a developer, and he sees opportunities all over the place many days you just can’t deal with. You know, it can be that’s that’s a pretty good sort of a thing can be Just recognising also that a lot of people just have very low levels of energy if they’ve been made redundant and stuff like that. And you have to, like I’ve got a candidate who’s been come from, from South Africa, in coming to Wellington got made redundant. A new job got made redundant about two months later. And that’s really tough. But yeah, you gotta think he may not have the energy, you just may not even the connection. So you sometimes have to just help them along a little bit. And tell him about places and a little bit of insight and introducing them to people.
Jaline Pietroiusti 50:29
Yeah.
Lachlan McNeill 50:30
You know, you’ve got to remember that lack of energy some people have,
Vanessa Skilton 50:34
and it’s hard. I’m sorry, I’m, I’m back now. Sorry, it is it is hard. Like I I see not only our sort of age group, I’m, you know, I’m dealing with my stepson who’s 20. And I’m above 30.
Danny de Hek 50:55
Whatever. He says, Stop
Lachlan McNeill 50:59
the rumour carry on.
Vanessa Skilton 51:03
He’s got no experience. And he’s struggling to find what he wants to do. You know, he’s he’s. So it’s not just people who’ve actually been through the work industry, who is trying to find jobs. It’s the it’s the kids that don’t have the experience, who, who just can’t find something he’s tried. He has tried all sorts of things. We’ve tried to give him different ideas. And the hard thing is, he feels that the family of pushing him too much. So we have to try and get an external person now to to maybe come up with some ideas for him or I don’t know. I mean,
Danny de Hek 51:40
I’ll have a look in on you. Seriously, oh, I haven’t been knocking on your neighbor’s doors. I’d go buy a polo shirt, a black one, nice jeans, I go knocking door to door saying that I’m looking for some work some odd jobs around the home. Because if this opportunity that comes along, and somebody wants to employ somebody that will ask them, What are you doing currently? And as soon as I say nothing, they’ll go. But if you’re doing something, even if it’s, you know, people will go there are support that because you’re out there doing something and you’ve got off your bum, but they don’t see the the importance of that sort of one.
Vanessa Skilton 52:13
Nine. Exactly. So, you know, we suggested doing work experience, we’ve, you know, we’ve suggested doing voluntary stuff, just in the meantime to just to kind of do something. So yeah, I don’t know. laquan. I don’t know if you’ve got any miracle things I could I could talk to him.
Lachlan McNeill 52:31
Yeah, I mean, that’s i have i do do that occasionally as well. People
Danny de Hek 52:37
are home washing service. You bet. 1020 foot?
Lachlan McNeill 52:43
Yeah. Well, like it’s an alignment. This thing? Yeah.
You know, it’s
Helen Oakes 52:50
nice when I were talking about this, and we were both saying he’s got to want to do it because Vanessa suggested maybe get a Shopify store going and sell some things. But he wasn’t keen on it. So you’ve got to have the drive behind you to do it as well. Yeah.
Jaline Pietroiusti 53:06
Yeah. But so what does he enjoy? What does he enjoy in life? Does he like extreme things, extreme sports, taking risks.
Vanessa Skilton 53:14
He’s in that’s the thing like he, you know, I mean, we can’t complain, he doesn’t drink, he doesn’t do drugs, all that sort of stuff. He doesn’t go out.
Lachlan McNeill 53:23
To do this often reform
Vanessa Skilton 53:27
really does is he does the computer games. He does do audio books and stuff. And that’s why I was trying to think when I was talking to Helen about doing something online, maybe because that could potentially be something he could almost use. He did a he did an auto course fit and then decided that’s not what he wanted to do. He kind of had an interest in possibly doing welding. But then his brother got a job in welding. So that’s kind of put him off a little bit. Yeah, I don’t know. It’s like we’ve given all of these options. He’s, he’s having issues with his back. So we’re trying to go down the path of trying to sort he’s back out first. You know, if that’s an issue, then let’s sort that
Jaline Pietroiusti 54:22
I was gonna suggest, I mean, why doesn’t he volunteer at the fire station and start there because he’ll learn first aid and at least he’s doing good. back and then he learned something new.
Vanessa Skilton 54:33
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s a good idea. Yeah. Just just to find something. And honestly, I mean, I can generally talk to him reasonably easily. But you know, some people he won’t listen to so much. That’s why sometimes I think maybe an external person. Yeah.
Danny de Hek 54:54
Just before we carry on, I just want to finish this lien off again, because we got off topic. That’s okay, too. For next week, any ideas on a topic that we could discuss? anyone got any? Any ideas on that one? Let’s find something topical and come up with it next week. I’ll just stop the live stream. If you have been listening and you wonder who we are, we’re elite six and if you go to elite6.co.nz, you can find out more about us. So thanks for listening.
Transcribed by Otter
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