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When the market shifts, most business owners panic, retreat, or freeze … and that’s exactly what kills momentum.
In this episode, Samantha and Leon cut through the noise and reveal why certainty is the perfect breeding ground for leaders who step up, give certainty to their clients, and seize opportunities others miss.
Now is the time to protect your mindset from fear-driven narratives, adapt your offers to what clients urgently need, and leverage downturns to grow stronger while competitors collapse.
This is all about substance, clarity, and strategy that keeps you in the game when others bow out.
Uncertainty doesn’t have to mean retreat. It can be the exact moment your business gains ground. This conversation shows you how to stay visible, lead with clarity, and turn market shifts into opportunities.
Listen in and position yourself as the leader your clients need right now.
WHAT YOU’LL DISCOVER IN THIS EPISODE:
- 00:52 – How showing up as a leader makes you the anchor your clients need
- 05:17 – How fear-driven narratives hijack your thinking and stall momentum
- 09:12 – Why surrounding yourself with grounded, solution-oriented people keeps you strong and prevents spiraling
- 11:31 – Making your services relevant by solving immediate problems and adjusting messaging
- 14:19 – Increasing accessibility and touchpoints with clients to build trust and keep them engaged
- 15:51 – Why businesses built on hype collapse in downturns while those with real value grow stronger
- 19:10 – Lean, mean, and strategic spending
- 26:13 – Why more millionaires are created in economic downturns
- 28:37 – Will you follow fear or become the steady leader clients look to in uncertain times?
CONNECT WITH SAMANTHA RILEY
CONNECT WITH LEON FLITTON
TRANSCRIPTION
Samantha Riley 00:00
If it feels like people are pulling back right now, you’re not imagining it. But what most people do next is exactly what kills businesses, and that’s shrinking. I’m Samantha Riley, and welcome to the business growth lab, where visionary entrepreneurs come to experiment, evolve and expand what’s possible.
Samantha Riley 00:26
Welcome to today’s episode of business growth Lab. I’m your co host, Samantha Riley, alongside my partner in crime, Leon Flint and Leon, how
Leon Flitton 00:35
are you today? I’m good, and if he didn’t say partner crime, I should have been upset by this stage.
Samantha Riley 00:39
I know, right? It’s, I don’t even know why I bother, like, let’s just roll with it every way. Hey, it’s Leon Okay, let’s go. I want to just dive straight into today’s episode, because it’s a question that has come up a couple of times with our clients this week. It’s a topic that I feel like people are almost dancing around and they’re almost too afraid to say it, and I think that it’s the time to just, instead of like, pushing it under the rug and pretend it’s not happening, let’s lift up the rug, let’s put a spotlight in there and call it out. Because I think there’s a lot of people that are really afraid right now, there’s some, you know, awful things happening in the world. I think people have got this, really, like 2020, esque kind of feeling around what’s going on. No one really knows what’s coming up. We just all have this feeling. And I wanted to talk about it, because these times can make or break businesses. And I want everyone that’s in our world and anyone that’s listening to this to not be in the break category and to only be in the make category. So you okay if we just dive straight in?
Leon Flitton 01:55
Leon Absolutely. There’s plenty of tin foil hat stuff going on right now, but let’s get into
Samantha Riley 02:00
it absolutely, and let’s be brutally honest, I think you and I at some points actually do wear our tinfoil hats, like you and I have actually been saying it to each other quite a lot this week, haven’t we? Like, like, what sort of hats your favorite? So that we know what you know what to order in the tin foil. But I really want to talk about it, because I think that these are the times that we really need to have our head screwed on firmly, if that makes sense, like, really know who we are and what we’re about, because if and we’re going to talk about multiple things, but right now is The time that leaders are made, like every time the market gets uncertain, there’s either the people that retreat and there’s the people that lead.
Leon Flitton 02:52
You’re just going back to what you mentioned before, that there’s always a certain degree of uncertainty in the world anyway. And I feel like, in this case, the rules of business as they are, whether they’re spoken or not. There’s rules there that you need to play by to win. They just need to be adapted to in in this case that we’re talking about, so when we’re talking about leaders are made here as well. This is important, because these are the people that embrace the changes in the rules and step up. And just as you said there as well. I think the important thing there is, if you lead your clients, essentially, you become the anchor for them. So yeah, I think that this point in time is like the greatest influence you can have on your clients, and probably also your network as well. So I think that’s a crucial point to note there
Samantha Riley 03:43
absolutely so let’s talk about what not to do right now. And I think that’s allowing the media to hijack your mind, because that’s what they’re out there doing, right it’s really difficult to lead when you’ve got people trying to infiltrate your thoughts in the way that you don’t want to think. And the fastest way to lose momentum is to get caught up listening to the media. Because fear is contagious, right? And the media amplifies worst case scenarios because that’s what that’s their job, right? It’s to get clicks, so they they’re getting these worst case scenarios, and they’re like, playing on them. And the problem is, is that your nervous system doesn’t know the difference between the media playing a stupid game so that they can win and and what’s true? So if you’re allowing panic to be input, your output is going to be hesitation. Yeah.
Leon Flitton 04:54
So anyone’s watching this? I’m just smirking away here. We was having a. It was, we were having a coffee this morning. And the funny thing about living with a coach is you get coach sometimes. So I was having a little bit of a, almost like a rant about government. Is that, whatever else fuel prices and everything, anyone got diesel out there? Yeah, when it was pointed out that that was probably an absolute waste of energy on my behalf,
Samantha Riley 05:26
absolutely, because I don’t want those conversations to be our North Star. I’m not saying that those things aren’t happening. I’m not saying that I’m not empathetic, like I’m empathetic with what people are going through. But what I won’t allow is that narrative to be running our life. It’s not what’s the word? It’s not productive for us. It’s not conducive. It’s not the narrative that’s conducive to us showing up and leading and and helping people to get through these times. Right for me, it’s about I want to protect my space. I want to protect my mind. I want us to stay in our lane and focus on leading. Focus on growing our business, focus on our numbers, our clients, looking after them. I want to focus on creating positivity at this time, and those little mind viruses can absolutely wipe all that out.
Leon Flitton 06:32
That’s a great way of putting it. And I think that if we think about energy, and I say I think about energy because I’m not Woo, woo, but when you’re in a bad place, I know, as you know, we both had previous careers in lots of different businesses, as the boss, though you find those days that you come to work where you’re in a bad place, it’s like a virus. If it spreads straight through your business, and before you know it, you’re bringing everyone down. So just as much in the previous point, if you talked about, we spoke about you being the anchor for your clients and moving forward that space you’re coming from is critical. It’s crucial for you to move forward in the right way, because you could be bringing everyone else down as well. So yeah, hence the getting coached. But on saying getting coached as well. Probably brings up my next point, or their next points, I should say, which is proximity.
Samantha Riley 07:27
This is everything so important right now, because where we could have the proximity with the media, and we’re cutting that off, we do need to make sure that the input is positive, but also having or creating a safe space to actually talk about how we’re feeling as well. Because I don’t think just shoving down these feelings is right either. I think we need to balance showing up and being lead, it the leader, but also creating these safe spaces, you know, I say behind the scenes, but like, our little inner circle to say, Oh, my goodness. Like, actually, I’m having a bad day, or I’m I’m worried, or, you know, this is how I’m feeling. Because, like I said, Yeah, your nervous system’s running the show, right?
Leon Flitton 08:17
Yeah, yeah. Well, there’s those parts too, where you go. You know, we’ve talked about having the coffee and the me going in circles, which is a good point, right? Because having someone to be able to speak to and then say, Okay, well, you know, these are the issues that we’re having. I’m feeling down about it, but having someone around you that can actually, then, you know, help you to lift back up again as well. Yeah, totally otherwise, which is what you’re saying, otherwise you could just spiral down into oblivion. Yeah? Because if everyone’s
Samantha Riley 08:45
around you is panicking, you’re going to panic too, because that’s just the way it works. But if you’re surrounding yourself in people who are grounded, then you stay in the game. You can’t stay strong in a weak environment, yeah, yeah, it’s just not. Just doesn’t work. So do not isolate yourself like you need to get in the room with the right people. You need to surround yourself with grounded, smart people that are a part of your inner circle and and it’s safe. So like, now is not the time to pull back.
Leon Flitton 09:27
Yeah, yeah. I feel like it’s, you know, the people that go, that’s a complex issue, that’s a puzzle to be solved, challenge accepted. Let’s go, yeah,
Samantha Riley 09:37
the people you want, yeah, totally. I want to bring up the next point, because this is a conversation that we’ve had with a couple of our clients too. Right now, people are making decisions in a little bit in of a different way right now, this is where I sort of had that 2020, esque kind of feeling, where people are you. Thinking in a much shorter timeline right now than, Oh, what’s your five year plan like right now it might be, what’s your six month plan or your two month plan? Those timelines have sort of shrunk back again. So whilst we’ve said it is definitely not the time to panic, it is definitely not the time to do big pivots or burn everything down or start from scratch. You do still need to pay attention to what’s happening, like don’t ignore reality. You may need to adapt your offer just a little bit. I think that you need to really focus on what does your client actually need right now? What feels urgent to them, what feels risky to them, so things like maybe adjusting, maybe payment terms, maybe your messaging needs to be more around certainty and stability. It might be more around ROI and not sort of those big picture, kind of non tangible. I guess outcomes solve immediate problems first. And I know we talk about this with our clients, Leon, about focusing on like, what they need right now. So imagine your clients got a migraine, and that migraine is caused by maybe not enough sleep and nutrition, for example, right now they don’t need to hear that you need to have extra vegetables or take vitamins or take supplements. Like, right now they’re just like, give me the neurons so I can get rid of this headache, and then we can have that conversation. So like, what is that immediate thing, that immediate problem that needs to be solved so that you can make your offer super relevant for them right now.
Leon Flitton 11:48
So I know that’s something we’ve talked about before with our program, the making sure that we have the right level of support for our clients ongoing anyway, but I feel like now could be a really crucial time to be well available, I suppose you could say, yeah, so now maybe it’s a time to make sure that you have the things in place for your clients, like maybe there’s support via WhatsApp group, or maybe there’s an extra call at the moment per week, or something along those lines. So, and these are things that we’ve spoken about with our program normally, which we think is important, but I think now could be a, probably a really critical time to make sure that that that’s available for them, because we didn’t know what’s happening day to day at the moment, and tinfoil hat on here a little bit, we don’t know what’s gonna happen tomorrow, next week, whatever it
Samantha Riley 12:34
is, one of the things that we talked about with our clients this year is to Also notice that this is just another cycle, like everything happens in cycles, and while this exact situation that we’re in right now hasn’t happened before, exactly the same, it has happened over and over and over, you know, the 2008 GFC and a million other sort of economic downturns. It wasn’t the end, it was a reset. And that’s exactly what’s happening here. The businesses that have relied on hype collapsed, and we’ve seen it. I actually saw someone post about a specific business that they’d seen collapse just in the last few weeks, and they were sort of saying it was because of what’s happening in the economy. And I don’t want to say any more than that, because I don’t want anyone to know who this is. Even though the post that I saw mentioned who it was, I don’t think that was very nice. I did a really, really quick look and went, Oh, it was that business was based on hype, and the business was based on a hey, look at me in the millionaire lifestyle I’m living, and it’s gone really quickly because there was no foundation. There was no substance to it. So that’s what we’re going to see businesses that don’t have substance and are relying on a fairy tale, essentially, are going to collapse in this cycle, you’ll see businesses with real value get stronger. You’ll see consumers become more intentional about where they’re spending their money. I’ve shared the story so many times on this podcast that I opened my very first business at a time where interest rates in Australia were at 18% I talked about, I think, last week or the week before his episode, so I won’t cover it again, but Essentially, that crazy, hard economic time in Australia was actually what gave us the leg up, and it’s how we grew a multi million dollar business. Because we had to have real substance. We had to know our numbers, we had to play the game so that we were strong. So that we could go on. So I seen this cycle. I have lived this cycle multiple times. And I can tell you that if you pay attention to your data, if you absolutely play the game properly. And when I say properly, I mean like a grown up business owner, you laughed. Then Leon, do you want to add your way of saying what I just said?
Leon Flitton 15:22
So there’s a few things to look at here. One of them is the fact that, and I’ll bring up that point again that you made about when you open your first business. So because it ran lean and mean, which is probably the way I feel you should run a business anyway, because every cent counts, why would you spend money on things don’t have to. Why would you waste Money? Etc, but it makes more sense, because it gives you the most strength possible with, you know, sales, profit ratios, all that kind of stuff, right? So think that’s a good point. The other point is that the ones that seem to like flake out are the ones that just come in off hype, right? Like you said, but the people that have hate experience, like yourself, right? They’ve got experience. They’ve been through these cycles, are the ones that will just keep on, trucking on, and not you, but you truck on, but anyway, but they keep going, right? So that they understand these are cycles. They happen if you think this isn’t going to happen again, like crazy, and yes, otherwise. So that’s people that have been in business for a while. I understand these ebbs and flows. A friend of ours is in property, and I was saying to her about she almost just laughed at me. She goes, this is what happens. It’s a cycle. Yeah, it is exactly. So she wasn’t even worried in the slightest about it. So, and because she knows like it’s gonna cycle, it’s gonna come, let’s go as it is. So I think that if you’re setting the right intention with your clients, your customers as well, and with your business, that you can move through this and come out other side even stronger.
Samantha Riley 16:53
Yeah, I just want to mention something else with cycles, and that’s cash flow as well, because you just mentioned then Leon lean and mean. And I’m a big believer that that doesn’t mean, like, just absolutely stop spending, because money needs to flow. Like, money is energy. So can you speak a little bit to what you mean by lean and mean? Because you and I talk about this a lot, I am very much do not just, like, save every penny like I’m a big believer in money coming in and flowing out
Leon Flitton 17:26
with lean and me. So just as you started saying it as well, what it made me think of is that. So from my experience, a lot of businesses, and I started noticing about 2008 and I started noticing, you know, that’s next like that, which was 2020, that notice. We anyway, was they cut their advertising budget. First thing land mean doesn’t mean cut your advertising, get rid of all your staff, or whatever it is. They’re calculated decisions so that you’re not wasting money, but you need to spend it in the right areas, so that it’s doing the right things for you. So, and I say advertising, because marketing, advertising, if you’ve got, like, a, you know, Facebook ads budget, or whatever it is that you’re doing to cut that, is absolutely ludicrous. Because if you’re totally bring your leads in through that and you cut it, what do you think is going to bring your
Samantha Riley 18:14
leads in? Yep, do you know there’s something that I’ve always done, and it was really scary the first time because someone else told me to do it, and I was a bit like, oh my god, am I doing the right thing here, but it’s something I’ve done ever since. When things tighten up, I spend more on marketing, and I’ll tell you why I do that, because at times like this, people freak out and they pull back so your marketing budget goes further. I always up my marketing at times like this absolutely.
Leon Flitton 18:49
So what I will say is that if you haven’t been tracking your numbers, but know your data, you haven’t been, you really should be. And now if you aren’t, you need to start doing it like straight away, so you know where you’re at, because you can’t make, as we said, minor tweaks, minor adjustments if you don’t know where you’re at, because you might have a marketing budget and whatever that is, essentially, you need to be aware of that so you know what you’re spending, so you don’t overspend, underspend, you just spend what you Plan, spend the right amount and then make an actual decision based off that,
Samantha Riley 19:25
not just that you say that Leon, because even though I just said we up our marketing budget, we know exactly where it’s going. We know exactly what’s working. We know what’s not, so that we can, you know, turn something of up our budget in a different area, like we track everything. You know, it’s really interesting, because we ask all of our clients to track their numbers, and not all of them do. And I can say as a coach that the clients that are tracking their numbers and sharing those numbers with us, man. And dialing it in, able to dial it in, they’re able to see it. We’re able to see it, and it’s we’re not guessing. Oh, well, try this, try that, like you can see the data. So right now isn’t the end of opportunity, it’s the end of lazy strategy, because you need to know exactly where your money’s going, and I guess, like following on from this, more millionaires are created in downturns. And I’ve always said this, it’s because there’s less competition, like you just said, people are pulling their marketing back so there’s fewer voices in the market. It means that attention is cheaper. Like ad prices drop. I actually noticed it this week. Our ad costs have come down. We’ve definitely been noticing that, and it’s because buying behavior changes. And so if you know where your money’s going and you know what’s working, it’s really easy to dial it up.
Leon Flitton 21:01
Yeah, how awesome is it, though that this is awesome. There’s a crisis, but it’s awesome. So a drop in the ad price, if you keep your marketing budget the same, means that you’re getting more bang for your buck, and then totally then, because it’s getting less competition in there, you put more in. And it’s like, not just like, a little bit more extra that you get, you get a lot more bang for your buck by putting a little bit extra in. So you know, if you have the available funds, and you know your data and you can do it, you should be trying to push it up, not up or down.
Samantha Riley 21:36
Yep, totally, totally. One of the things that I really want to land right now is that wealth isn’t created in comfort. It’s created in moments where people hesitate, where they pull back, where they slow down, where they freeze. So the reason that we’ve recorded this episode is because I want you to do whatever you can right now to create certainty and to lead because right now you’ve got a really big choice to make. You can either follow the fear or you can become the person that people look to when everything becomes uncertain. So right now is the time to make sure you’re surrounded by the right people. Be really clear on your vision. Be really clear on your numbers. Go back and get really clear on your offer. Get help if you need it, because there are massive, opportunities in times like this. And I think it’s a lot of people think it’s the opposite. There’s less opportunities, but there’s actually more opportunity, but you need to make sure that you’ve you’ve got yourself in the game.
Leon Flitton 22:55
Yeah, that point in itself is that opportunity is going to be there and most likely increase, and that’s very important. So self reflection on yourself and your behavior and how you’re showing up is critical right now. Luckily, I have a coach. Thanks, Coach Sam to tell me that I’m going circles and talking about body diesel prices for too long. Exactly that was gonna spiral down for sure. So, yeah, a bit of self reflection, just to the go. Am I going circles? Here? Am I on a negative slope, and how should I be showing up? Is a really good thing be asking yourself right now
Samantha Riley 23:34
totally and going through these cycles, you and I, Leon, have been through them multiple times. There were multiple, multiple times we’ve been through these economic cycles. So if you do want to reach out and have a chat about your offers, your messaging, maybe what needs to change or what to lean into, please do. We’ll put the link to book a call right below this episode. If you do want to reach out and have a call with us, because we’ve been there. We’ve done it, we’ve come out better and better every single time. So yeah, surround yourself with the right people. Thanks so much for listening to today’s episode. It’s been an absolute pleasure to hang out with you for another week, and we look forward to catching you next week for another episode of business growth. Thank.
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