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Don't jump to borrow just yet. Try to wait until Washington has made a decision on interest rates, as they might be lower. If you have a close relationship with your bank (or not) call businesses you currently hold loans with to ask them to defer your payments, if at all possible. If the government decides on a -1% interest rate, individuals who take out loans will actually pay you for borrowing money. Think ahead and prepare - now is the time to be proactive, not reactive. Execute your decisions with strength and confidence. If you have a plan, have the confidence to move forward with it. In terms of expenses and debt restructuring, contact all of the businesses you work with and ask to get a 90-day deferred payment on debt. It may not always work, but it's worth it to ask. Every day that passes pushes things back further. If you have a lease, reach out to your lender for deferred payments. The only way to combat zero revenue is to get ahead of your lease holder. THIS IS PARAMOUNT. Some will get creative with you to keep you afloat. If your state or county has issued a state of emergency, you can apply for SBA disaster loan assistance at https://disasterloan.sba.gov/ela/. The states have to kick it into gear and it's done at the governor level. If your state hasn't issued this yet, reach out to your representatives to urge them to do so. If you haven't applied for the SBA loan, do so so that they know where to designate the funds. They're using money from last year for 4 months, what you anticipate your losses will be and it's just a request to get an idea of where the need is the most. Facebook will be offering $100 million in cash grants, ad credits to small businesses due to coronavirus. Click here to learn more and to sign up for updates. Pay attention to and utilize social media. Now is the time to connect with your community and to learn new ways to improve your business. Staff optimization. Every state is different, but if you can, think of ways to best utilize your current employees to the best of your abilities, come up with marketing battle plans, improve processes and system controls. Messaging. Scale back any scheduled posts about events that were supposed to happen and make sure that your messages are POSITIVE, POSITIVE, POSITIVE! Everyone is living with uncertainty. How you approach your customers and this global crisis will really show the community what you're made of. Do you want to be a trailblazer or just react? Reach out to your customers who had parties booked, and work with them to reschedule versus cancel. If you can, offer gift cards in the amount of the party so that they will return once things return to normal. Start thinking about how to protect yourself and make a business plan when you do get back up and running. Many members are using this time to remodel or to make improvements in their skating center. Consider doing the same and keeping busy. Take photos and videos to share on social media so customers can get excited about what they'll be coming back to. Cut as many expenses as you can so that when revenue is coming in you may not need to raise prices. Focus more on the engagement side of things rather than price increases. Change pricing strategies so that you're in one or two hour blocks rather than all day if you don't already. Contact your CPA and, while every department of labor is different when it comes to FMLA if an employee does end up with the virus, the house bill overrides every state. Part time employees are exempt, so it's only full time employees that you need to worry about the FMLA covering. It is believed that the SBA loan down payments will be waived, but make sure to check as this may be different for everyone. The SBA is the vehicle that the loans are given through, but the government is who is putting the money in place that the banks can get to. STEM program payments for licensees will be waived for 90 days as we don't know a lot about what schools are doing at the moment. Some are closing for the remainder of the school year, others are closing for a month. Rather than getting the cancellation, try to get parties or schools to reschedule when school is back in session. USARS is continuing its plan for indoor/outdoor nationals and purchased a new roller skating floor from southern Italy. The Velodrome is still scheduled to open in May if all goes well. The World Inline Hockey Championship was canceled. Local events will honor any sanctions that need to move. Las Vegas has shut down all casinos for 30 days. The RSA is looking into moving the Convention to the dates that were scheduled for Sk8Expo, but we are still in negotiations with our contracts with both hotels. Hownd is working with customers to launch gift card promotions to keep money coming in so that when the doors open, customers are returning. Make sure that you're following your health department guidelines as to the number of people you can have in your business, if you do remain open. If you do not, this could get you fined and you may lose your business license if you don't. Keeping customers safe is our number one priority right now. The Small Market Rink Committee is going to do everything they can to help give you ideas on making your rink better and will be meeting soon to come up with ideas during this stressful time. Some members are doing virtual toddler time with mascots and characters, producing "how to skate" videos to keep roller skating in front of their customers, asking customers to share their favorite roller skating time at their rink on social media and tagging their business in the post. Because ASCAP is based upon annual revenue, your rates for 2020-2021 will be lower. SESAC is incredibly reasonable and members already pay a considerably low fee. BMI is still based on skate floor size and admission cost, but the RSA will touch base with them to see if anything can be done. For more information, please watch the video here >>