Mark Bouris’ Thoughts On Just How Much COVID-19 Will Impact The Economy

Last week, Jules Lund’s Tribe in partnership with Facebook launched a video series in an effort to keep the industry connected and informed as we confront our new reality.

Each week, Lund streams into the homes of the world’s most innovative marketers to uncover how they’re leading their teams to use this disruption as an opportunity to thrive, not just survive.

Today, Lund spoke with Australian businessman Mark Bouris, founder and charmain of Wizard Home Loans Australia’s. He is now the chairman of Yellow Brick Road, a business which he founded in 2007.

On just how badly COVID-19 will affect the economy, the outlook doesn’t look great.

Bouris said: “I actually think we’re probably heading for a worse situation than what we had in the GFC, because this is a consumer-led problem as opposed to a financial balance sheet problem that the GFC was.

“And so we know we’ve got to wait for people to get confidence back and get money back in their pocket before we recover.”

It’s not all bad news, however, with Bouris offering his advice on what businesses need to be looking at the right.

“If you sit back like a stunned mullet, you’re gonna be a target and you’re gonna get stuffed. So right now we need energy. We need to be creative. We need to show initiative. We need to come up with new ideas. We have to be innovative. That’s really important.

“Businesses need to be looking at two things. It’s your revenue line and your expense line and putting yourself in a position that you can survive in a cash flow sense. So if your cash flow has stopped, then you got to do something about your expenses.

“And then once you get your expenses to a point where it’s doable or bearable, you’re either going to be spending your savings, you’re gonna be redrawing money out of your mortgage, which you have prepaid maybe over the last few years in Australia – the average Australian is two years ahead of schedule, so there’s some fat there – or if you’re in business, you’re gonna go and access the two hundred fifty thousand or some part there of these government-guaranteed bank loans and OR you’re gonna talk to those expense items and collaborate as to how do you share the pain. Rent? Share the pain with your landlord. Staff. Share the pain with your staff, and so on.”

On how to be a leader in times of crisis, Bouris said leadership is not about “carrying the burden on your shoulders”.

Rather, he said, “leadership right now is about collaboration, communication, understanding and then driving.”

He added: “Leadership right now, in a distressing time, in a confusing time, in a crowded period using all the digital mediums, the communication is not about as much about your content. I don’t think. You’ve got to have content to put it up. But it’s not as much about the content as it is about repetition and it’s about making people feel comfortable. Yeah, there’s Mark and he’s saying something sensible.”

You can watch the full interview with Mark Bouris and Jules Lund here.

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