Navigating Uncertainty: Financial Resilience Tips for Small Businesses

What if you could secure a steady income for your small business even during unpredictable times? Join Keith Hessel of Serve Business Consulting and Patty Bonsera of Resilient Coffee Pros as we celebrate surpassing 100 downloads and our expansion to major platforms like Audible, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and iHeartRadio. This milestone episode of the Continuity Conversations podcast focuses on the power of membership services as a sustainable income stream. From Keith's insights on accreditation services to Patty's expertise in contingency planning, we explore the potential for transforming various business models into recurring membership-based ones that ensure financial stability and customer loyalty.

Transcript

00:00 - Patty (Host)

Hey everyone, Thanks for tuning in. This is the Continuity Conversations podcast, where we bring big business resilience to your small business. 

00:09 - Keith (Co-host)

I'm Keith Hessel with Serve Business Consulting, where we help you hold on to people on both sides of the counter. 

00:14 - Patty (Host)

And I'm Patty Bonsera of Resilient Coffee Pros, where we fuel independent coffee shops with resilient ready strategies. One cup at a time with resilient ready strategies, one cup at a time. 

00:24 - Keith (Co-host)

Hello everyone and welcome to our 11th episode. We're over 100 downloads now. Thank you so much, everybody. This has been awesome and you know 100 downloads and we are on so many different platforms. You know we're on Audible, we're on Spotify, we are in Apple Podcasts iHeartRadio iHeartRadio yeah, we just got posted on there. I'm trying to think of places that we are not. 

00:54 - Patty (Host)

Yeah, well, nothing comes to mind. We're on quite a few. Yeah, those are the big ones. There are some smaller platforms, but also because we use Buzzsprout for our podcasts our main podcasting distribution form and so they will distribute it to some of those smaller platforms as well. But, yes, 100 downloads, you know, and we've been doing this now since what? January, february, yes, yes, January. 

01:21

January, and that may not seem like a lot to most people. Yes, January and that may not seem like a lot to most people, but I want to say that we're going at this from more of an organic level, in other words, growing organically. I mean, your first year or two of anything is almost like you're talking to crickets right, or you're hearing crickets it's going to be small, and that's okay. I'm perfectly okay with that. 

01:44

I'm not looking for and, Keith, I'm not going to speak for you, but I personally I'm not looking for these big, huge wins, right? Because the way I feel about it is that 100 downloads is still very successful. It's still a success. It is a step along the way to, you know, a much bigger audience. You know several years down the road. 

02:08 - Keith (Co-host)

Well, and one of the things that dawned on me too is, you know part of what kind of helped us grow, helped us get here, is being able to have all of our podcasts hosted in one place. Now, in order to do that, we had to buy a membership to Buzzsprout. 

02:27 - Patty (Host)

Exactly. 

02:28 - Keith (Co-host)

And it dawned on me that it has got to be one of the easiest ways for any business to have recurring, sustained, resilient income. Yes and Patty, do you offer a membership service? 

02:43 - Patty (Host)

Yes, and Patty, do you offer a membership service? So I wouldn't really call it a membership service, because a membership service when most people think about memberships. 

03:09

They think about a lower cost, monthly, like your Netflix or your Amazon Prime. You know, right, those are monthly memberships. Right, with what I do, it's really not a membership because they're not paying a monthly recurring fee. Yes, okay, now at some point and I don't know if I can transform or convert what I do to a monthly membership it's possible, it is possible, but because of what I do is most of the work is done up front, and so I'm really not quite yet sure if a monthly membership would work. Now I may be able to take content right and create a monthly membership out of that, but the actual service itself kind of remains to be seen if that can be converted into a monthly membership. The way I could see it is if it was more of a monthly management. 

03:49 - Keith (Co-host)

Very fair. 

03:50 - Patty (Host)

Yeah. 

03:50 - Keith (Co-host)

Very fair and that's actually interesting. You bring that up because that's any time that I accredit a business, whether it's for their customer satisfaction, their employee satisfaction or both, once they attain that accreditation and because there are standards that you have to meet in order to get it. Once they meet that, they do move into a maintenance phase. Okay, where you know they yes, they're still paying for the accreditation. And that's to bring me in do a couple audits, you know, every year, making sure that they are still meeting those requirements, retraining their staff, because my empathy training, the customer service training that I do, that's a certification that only lasts for a year and so very similar. It's a maintenance. It's not so much a membership but it is a fantastic source of income and it does just give you that financial security. 

04:47 - Patty (Host)

Yes, absolutely, and so kind of similar to what you were just saying. Like with contingency planning, most of the work is done upfront in creating a plan, but it's not a one and done right you don't create a contingency plan and put it on a shelf so it collects dust. Right, you have to exercise the plan. Right, you have to exercise the plan. 

05:05 - Keith (Co-host)

Exactly. 

05:06 - Patty (Host)

You have to review the plan, what has changed, you know. And so a lot of that, though, happens kind of like on a quarterly or semi-annual basis, and then annually, of course. Then there's, you know, more of a bigger review. I'm not quite sure if that will fit into a membership model, but, yes, memberships themselves are a really great way for a small business to create an additional revenue source that brings in more consistent income, whether it's monthly or quarterly. And so one of the examples I think of too is like lawn service, right. So if you have a lawn service and you contract with them for however many you know services, right, or you know, Now, that's not the same thing as a membership. But if you pay them, if they converted that into a monthly membership where they'll come out every month and do whatever, whether it's reseeding in the summer, or you know, you know whatever, landscaping, you know whatever yeah, you know, that's more conducive to a monthly membership than some businesses. 

06:12 - Keith (Co-host)

Absolutely, so you know how where. Where does all this fit into continuity? I mean, obviously that's what we're here for. So what is something that you could do with your business that would be similar, because there are always possibilities. Coffee shops, for example, I'm sure you see all the times they have their loyalty programs. They have the discounts A lot of times. They have newsletters that you can sign up for, and one of the coolest things about membership maintenance type income is that it also gives you a way to stay in touch with your customers when you have promotions going on when you have new stuff coming out. 

06:58

that's a fantastic way to let people know, because you know, you let your members know first, and then your members let their friends know, and there goes your referral net. 

07:07 - Patty (Host)

Well, and to that, something I just thought of when you're talking about coffee shops is a lot of coffee shops not all, but many also are roasters too, so there'll be a roaster. But also many coffee shops will kind of outsource and use local roasters for their beans that you can buy the bags you know, in the store to bring home. That absolutely could be a membership, where you could be buying a bag if you know, have a membership for whatever, how many bags or bags of beans, whether it's already ground or not ground, you know, on a couple of weeks basis. I mean, I don't know how long for some people, for some people, a bag of coffee beans may not last a week but for some people. 

07:50

It may last a couple of weeks, but you can absolutely use those beans and those bags as a way to have a membership in your coffee shop for sure. 

08:00 - Keith (Co-host)

So I mean, that's actually something my wife and I have looked into. You know we have six kids. We go through coffee a lot. Oh, I'm sure the only reason we don't go through a bag a week is because we arbitrarily cut ourselves off, usually about 11 o'clock in the morning. But otherwise I know both of us would drink coffee all day, much to the detriment of our almost eight-month-old, because she's still nursing caffeine in the cyst. The last time we tried to do that we were up until three in the morning and yeah, that just didn't work. Sorry, that was a bad memory. 

08:35 - Patty (Host)

So it was kind of hard to get all the way out there. 

08:38 - Keith (Co-host)

But there are so many different ways to build income streams, to build revenue streams, and there are so many other podcasts that go through so many different details for these. But you know what? One of the things that we often take a look at it from is just that resilience and retention side. You know, a membership, not only is it a guaranteed source of income as well as guaranteed as anything can be but it's also a very good source of customer retention. You know, if you have someone sign up for that membership, chances are you have a customer for a very long time. 

09:14 - Patty (Host)

Sure. And so one thing I wanted to point out too, because we were talking about the coffee beans, right, and from the coffee shop, and I want to say that's not going to take away from people going into the shop itself. Oh, absolutely not. They would not be selling bags of beans for people to take home if that was right. People are still going to come into the shop for the experience of the shop and the con. You know the conversation, the community we talked about that last time. So taking something from your business that somebody can do at home does not take away from your business. 

09:53 - Keith (Co-host)

Oh, absolutely. 

09:53 - Patty (Host)

If you're also providing that same thing, it 's also going to add to your financial resilience because you now have an additional source of revenue. Something that you sold as a one-off right now monthly. You know continuity model business, you know it, contingency planning. Well, that's not contingency planning, but it's in a monthly model, right? Yes, you're going to have some attrition. Every membership does. I'm sure the YMCA has the right attrition. That's a membership model. Amazon I'm sure all of those Amazon, netflix, hulu, whatever they all have attrition right. 

10:31

Right. So you're going to have attrition, but you're adding another model for a service you're already, or a product you're already providing, just in a different way. You're still going to have your one-offs, but you're going to have your people who are going to want that thing on a regular basis, kind of like clockwork. 

10:50 - Keith (Co-host)

Well, absolutely. And it does give you that layer of protection too, because, say, you have to close down your brick and mortar for some reason, you still have the membership income coming in, as long as you're still able to provide whatever that membership does. 

11:04 - Patty (Host)

Right. 

11:05 - Keith (Co-host)

I do remember, through the pandemic, the YMCA, they tried to keep memberships going even though you couldn't use the Y, and they said that they're using it as a donation just to help everybody through this and, to be perfectly honest, I don't think anybody bought that. 

11:21 - Patty (Host)

Yeah, that's hard, because if you can't actually provide the service, then you really don't have a membership. 

11:26 - Keith (Co-host)

Exactly. So that's where you do have to be kind of careful. You know, if you are going to set up a membership, make sure it's something that you can provide, really, no matter what right. You know, like for me, for serving. You know when we go in and you know we do that accreditation, we can still provide that accreditation in person, virtually whatever, and even if your business goes virtual, we can still help out right exactly we can still monitor any recorded phone calls. 

11:53

So there is that layer of contingency, there's that layer of contingency, there's that layer of consistency there. So that's always something that you do want to take a backup location, even if it's just temporary, and those are agreements that are already prearranged, right. 

12:19 - Patty (Host)

So, for example, if you have a business, say a food business right, you can have an incubator, an incubator you know a lot of cities have incubators, where you can rent out that space to still make your product Okay, so you could use that as long as you have a place to store Like, for example, say, it is coffee, right, as long as you have a place to store, you know the coffee, you get that in. The only thing I will say is that in certain industries, if there is a supply chain issue, right, you will have to make sure that you have a supply chain backup. That is super important. We saw a lot of supply chain issues during COVID and I know we're still seeing a couple. We are and I know it's four years past lockdown, but we can't forget right. 

13:11

We can't forget that those are massive issues. During that time, supply chain was a huge issue and I mean it still is in some ways, and it doesn't necessarily have to be supply chain from other countries. We have a supply chain issue right now here in the United States with eggs. 

13:25 - Keith (Co-host)

Yep. 

13:26 - Patty (Host)

I mean eggs, like which you know we take for granted. 

13:31 - Keith (Co-host)

And there are some supply chain things that they're kind of cyclical. You know we end up with some kind of egg shortage, usually every two to three years. We end up with some kind of oh what was the other one that came up recently? I think there was a sugar shortage a couple years ago. You know , processed lunch meat comes up short, you know, every now and then. And so you know, as long as you do have some kind of backup, you're good to go. If you don't have a backup, give Patty a call. That's what we do. She can help with that. 

14:11 - Patty (Host)

Well and I think that's something to really think about too is because what you just said about sugar right, she can help with that. There's toilet paper right, but for food type products or anything like that, there's always going to be some type of weather related something that's going to affect something, or a natural disaster that's going to affect a crop, or a natural disaster or something that's going to affect a distribution channel. So those are the things that you have to do as a small business, as you're at the very end of that supply chain. You have to think about those things like what happens if Absolutely and again, we're not talking about every single scenario, because that's impossible to predict we're talking about the scenarios that are at most risk to your company risk to your company and when your employees and when your customers know that you have those backup plans that's going to help them stay with you, which creates the retention piece. 

15:20 - Keith (Co-host)

Exactly, Exactly, and so far we've talked very much about our goods businesses, but this works for service businesses too. Absolutely, Healthcare, legal accounting, what have you any one of those can offer membership style? 

15:40 - Patty (Host)

Yes. 

15:41 - Keith (Co-host)

You know, in healthcare there's that model the direct primary care, the concierge care that is membership-based yes, and a lot of doctors are liking going to that, because you don't have to deal with the rigmarole of insurance and a lot of doctors are liking going to that because you don't have to deal with the rigmarole of insurance. Insurance there is for healthcare. There's all the healthcare sharing programs that are out there. Those are all membership-based and those protect you from having to deal with insurance network issues. I still remember this was back, I think this was about 2019 here in Colorado, Blue Cross Blue Shield, one of the biggest insurance companies in the nation. They went out of network with one of the two hospital networks here in Colorado. So if you had Blue Cross Blue Shield, you couldn't go to half the hospitals in our state. 

16:33 - Patty (Host)

Wow. 

16:33 - Keith (Co-host)

And that's the cool thing with like a lot of the membership models, you know whether it's Samaritan Healthshare, Medishare, Samaritan Ministries, Christian Healthcare there are so many and they don't deal with any of those Right, and that's the cool thing with having those membership options just to kind of help build your own personal resilience as well as your business resilience. 

16:53 - Patty (Host)

Well, exactly. And from the consumer perspective, then you know exactly what you're paying every month, Now granted, when it comes time. So, in the health care world, for example, no, you're not going to know exactly what those bills are going to be OK. But I want to say too that when you go in, like hospitals, doctors, they just want to get paid. 

17:12

Exactly go in like hospitals, doctors, they just want to get paid. Exactly so when you go in as a cash pay and I know we're getting a little off topic here, but when you go in as a cash pay patient, they're going to give you a fairly substantial discount because it is going to, they're going to get their money. Exactly, and it's going to cost them less time, less energy of just getting their money from you as a cash pay patient, versus trying to put that all through insurance. 

17:40 - Keith (Co-host)

Exactly. 

17:40 - Patty (Host)

Because that's time. 

17:43 - Keith (Co-host)

Exactly so. There are so many different things that just this particular layer of resiliency really does come in handy. 

17:52 - Patty (Host)

Absolutely, Absolutely, and it comes in handy. And I mean it's from both sides really. It's from the employer side and when you think about the employee or even, just as you know, individual consultants, right, when you have some type of other membership, and it doesn't always have to be a physical product- it could be digital. 

18:11

I mean think about online. Okay, so for example I believe it's Coursera. Like you can just take one-off courses. I think Udemy does the same thing too, but if you join their actual membership right, you can access. You know whatever the difference is in classes over time with their premium membership, so it can be digital, which, if you have a service that can be provided digitally, that is going to absolutely save you. You know a lot of production time, production time and man hours. Man hours too. 

18:50 - Keith (Co-host)

Because then it's just it's out there, right, and it's residual income. 

18:55 - Patty (Host)

So to that I want to bring up this topic because if you've been listening for a while, you know that Keith and I had a resilience and retention workshop that we were doing live in person. 

19:05 - Keith (Co-host)

Yes, we did. 

19:05 - Patty (Host)

Here in the Springs, and so now we are actually in the planning process of recording that workshop to put on one of those platforms. Absolutely Because we want to be able to reach a wider audience, and that's going to be one of the cool things for you, too, as a small business owner, even if you are a product-based business. If you can teach something right, you can do that digitally and put that on a platform, and I'm not going to recommend one platform over another, but if you can put that on a platform, that can be an additional revenue source for you. Now, granted, you have to market the thing. Okay, we're not saying you just record it, put it up there and, just you know, forget about it. No, everything requires marketing. Okay, but if you know exactly who your audience is and if you can teach something to that audience about your product or your service, absolutely you can create a membership out of that oh, absolutely well, and a lot of those platforms. 

20:06 - Keith (Co-host)

They basically already have the membership built in, yes you know the? You post the content, the people come on, they view the content and they pay the platform and then the platform pays you. 

20:18 - Patty (Host)

Yes, yes, and there are other platforms too where you can install that like on your own website. But Again, and there's pros and cons to both rights, so putting it on your own website, the pro is, of course, you don't have to pay a cut to one of the platforms. The con is that you probably don't have as wide of a reach on your individual website as those platforms do. 

20:41 - Keith (Co-host)

A lot of those platforms you know reach not only locally but up to internationally as well. So you know, especially if you're multilingual, that can be really cool too. 

20:53 - Patty (Host)

Oh, absolutely. 

20:53 - Keith (Co-host)

I'm not, but if you are, more power to you. 

20:57 - Patty (Host)

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, multilingualism is huge, you know, and think about that too, Like if you are putting it on a platform that has a super wide reach. Yes, you're going to pay them a cut, but you're also going to have potentially a lot more students. 

21:13 - Keith (Co-host)

Billions of students. 

21:15 - Patty (Host)

I don't know about billions. 

21:18 - Keith (Co-host)

Well. 

21:18 - Patty (Host)

I mean if you take the average global population. Yeah, okay, maybe billions, I don't know. Billions is nice. 

21:27 - Keith (Co-host)

We like big numbers, we do. 

21:28 - Patty (Host)

We like big numbers, but you're going to have a much wider reach, right? So that percentage that you're paying to that platform really becomes almost relatively insignificant to the overall bigger picture of being able to reach more people with whatever it is that your membership offers. 

21:45 - Keith (Co-host)

Absolutely so. Especially coming up over these next couple of weeks. I would say that's a good challenge for our listeners. What can you do to generate that residual income? 

21:56 - Patty (Host)

Yeah. 

21:56 - Keith (Co-host)

And if you need some more ideas, contact us Right. 

22:10 - Patty (Host)

We would love to hear from you and more power to your small business, especially now you know we're in the summer months, and this kind of brings up a really good point too, because we're in the summer months and a lot of businesses, if they're not summer seasonal, tend to kind of slow down on their marketing and on their planning, and this is not the time to slow down. 

22:23 - Keith (Co-host)

No. 

22:24 - Patty (Host)

Summer is, I mean, sure, go on vacation or whatever, but if you're in your first five years of your business, no, this is not the time to slow down. This is the time to plan. This is the time now to really start planning for 2025. 

22:38 - Keith (Co-host)

Well, exactly Exactly, if not even further, you know. Hopefully you already have a good portion of 25 already planned and can start working on the rest of next year and into 26. 

22:49 - Patty (Host)

Yeah, I mean, I'm already getting emails from you know, trade groups that I'm looking to go to, their events that are already planning out into the end of 2025. I haven't seen it. I will say I haven't seen anything yet for 2026. 

23:02 - Keith (Co-host)

That's more September, so we still have a few weeks left. 

23:05 - Patty (Host)

Yeah, exactly, exactly. But this is not the time to slow down. This is a really great time because, if your business is not summer seasonal and if you are just in a natural cyclical, slower time, that is the perfect opportunity for you to really start planning and putting some of these things in place, so that you know however long it takes you to plan and put the thing together, whether it's three months or four months you know you can get it out there and then you can start. You can even start doing pre-announcements. 

23:37 - Keith (Co-host)

Well, absolutely. 

23:38 - Patty (Host)

If you have a newsletter list. First of all, if you don't have a newsletter list, the first thing you're going to want to do when you get off of this podcast is set up a newsletter, please. Set up a newsletter, please. Whole different topic newsletters, social media, another day. But you're going to want to start sending out awareness, pre-notifications like hey, we're planning on this thing and whatever that is for your business, and set a date. Don't just set an arbitrary date to launch it. Set an actual date so that gives you a deadline to plan. But then you have to start creating awareness. And I'm not talking about scarcity, because that's a whole nother mindset and quite honestly, I'm not a fan of scarcity marketing at all. 

24:23

I'm really not. 

24:24 - Keith (Co-host)

No, that's gotten to be so much of a big turnoff for people, especially through politics and that kind of thing. That is one of the biggest political scare tactics. Yeah, and we're dealing with that enough as we get closer to November. 

24:37 - Patty (Host)

Yeah, exactly. 

24:39 - Keith (Co-host)

Yeah, just don't go that route. 

24:41 - Patty (Host)

Right, but absolutely you can start doing some pre-announcements and some awareness out there now in your marketing and in your social media, getting people into your email list, and so when that time comes, when you're actually ready to launch, you've got, you know, people who already know what you're doing, you know super important super, super important. And now, now, granted, there are some people out there that membership is their sole source of revenue. That and I'm not saying that, that's what you should do. 

25:12

Yeah, oh, absolutely the gym. I mean you know you go to a gym and that's well, that's not their soul, but that's their primary right. I mean they sell merchandise. They sell, you know, nutritional supplements or whatever, but you have to think about it as an additional source of revenue for your business. That's something more consistent that's coming in, especially if you are a cyclical business. 

25:35 - Keith (Co-host)

Oh yes. You know, very much so. So that's definitely our challenge for this, for these next couple of weeks, is, you know? But okay, first and foremost, please make sure that you do have a newsletter. And then, secondly, what can you do to develop this type of model so that you do have that resilience? Whether you are a fitness coach, a financial planner and I think I actually combined those two words earlier. I apologize to those respective industries. 

26:02 - Patty (Host)

Oh, I didn't notice. I was listening, I just didn't notice. 

26:07 - Keith (Co-host)

Well, absolutely, and I didn't notice until after the fact either. But that is what we would challenge you this week for if you know what are the other income streams that you can develop for your business to bring that resiliency to the next level? 

26:23 - Patty (Host)

And it's not just financial resilience, it's also emotional resilience. 

26:26 - Keith (Co-host)

Oh yes. 

26:31 - Patty (Host)

Emotional resilience, oh, yes, right, because when you know that you have another source of revenue coming into your business, that gives you more financial peace of mind. 

26:36 - Keith (Co-host)

Exactly, Exactly. And that is what we really always want to see is just that peace of mind, the strength of your business and the continuation of your business well into the future. 

26:48 - Patty (Host)

Yep, absolutely, absolutely. So, Keith, is there anything else you want to add to that that you can think of? 

26:54 - Keith (Co-host)

Oh, I think we have covered everything this time. 

26:57 - Patty (Host)

I think so too. 

26:58 - Keith (Co-host)

So we will see you guys next week. 

27:01 - Patty (Host)

Thanks so much for joining us. This is the Continuity Conversations podcast. Be sure to subscribe and listen on. Wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. 

27:10 - Keith (Co-host)

This has been Keith Hessel with Serve Business Consulting. Connect with us at www server business consulting llc com. Click the contact us page and follow us on social media. 

27:22 - Patty (Host)

And I'm Patty, and you can find me at resilient coffee proscom and, again, follow on all of our social media. Thanks so much and we'll see you next time.