Survivor’s Guilt

- Hey everybody, Drew McLellan from Agency Management Institute. This week, once again, I am coming to you from my home. And behind me is an antique gun that has been in my family for generations. When my dad passed away, the gun was passed down to me. And you know what? I was super excited to have it because it's a part of our family's history. But I also felt bad, I felt guilty because I know my sister would've liked to have it as well. And there was only one and I'm the oldest and that's exactly how it played out that I got the gun. So I had, in essence, a little bit of survivor's guilt. And I think a lot of agencies that I'm talking to in these last few weeks are suffering from the exact same thing. Some of you are not experiencing great loss because of COVID in terms of business. Some of you are actually busier than you were before. Some of you have landed great new clients, are actually having to hire, and you're a little weighed down by that. And one of the conversations I just had with an agency owner was, "Yeah, we're super busy. We're stretched really thin. We know we should hire but it just feels almost inappropriate to advertise or what if all of a sudden everybody pauses?" So I want to make sure that you are not allowing survivor's guilt or COVID fear, by just being bombarded by the news of how horrible this is for everyone, when the truth is it's not been horrible for everyone. So I want to make sure that you are being mindful to make great business decisions and not to allow the voices in the back of your head that say, "It's inappropriate to hire." "What if everybody pauses tomorrow?" You know what? We're in a risky business, COVID or not, and we are always at risk of a client deciding they don't want to work with us anymore or they want to pause a project, that's normal for us. So I want you to have a normal level of thoughtfulness around that risk. I don't want you to allow the 24-7 news and the horrible statistics that we're seeing about how this is impacting everyone to influence the way you run your business. Now, for some of you, you absolutely are suffering significant loss. But even for you, I don't want you letting the news define how you make business decisions. I want you to use the right metrics. I want you to use what you know is right for your agency. And I want you to take the appropriate level of risk based on your business acumen, your customers, what your pipeline looks like, all of those things. So in other words, I want you to run your business like you've always run your business. Do not allow survivor's guilt or fear of the unknown force you or push you into either making a decision or not making a decision that's right for your business. Do I think you should be thoughtful? Absolutely. Do I think you need to be judicious about where you spend your money? Absolutely. But do I think that you should be stalled or paralyzed because of this? Absolutely not. Do not let survivor's guilt or that constant buzzing of bad news and that feeling of something around the corner, there's a boogeyman around the corner that's going to get me, be ready for that, be prepared for that just like you are every single day, every single year. But don't let it paralyze you. Make good decisions, and if you can grow your business during this, absolutely double down and do that. Okay? I'll talk to you next week.