In response to the economic environment brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pennsylvania Industrial Development Authority (PIDA) is making $60 million in favorable working capital loans available to vulnerable, impacted businesses.

• https://www.preparedyork.com/pennsylvania-industrial-development-authority-pida-covid-19-working-capital-assistance-fund-cwca/

Local York County Information 

• https://www.preparedcentralpa.com/
• https://www.preparedyork.com/

SBA Disaster Loans:

• https://www.sba.gov/disaster-assistance/coronavirus-covid-19

Apply for a loan as soon as its available. After they determine if you qualify, you will receive funds in 2-3 weeks. Apply even if you think you won't need it. You can always say NO.

MultiFunding has also put together a community site to help business owners navigate through the SBA loan process during these confusing times:

• https://multifunding.tribe.so/

US Chamber cheatsheet, do you qualify for financing.

• https://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/023595_comm_corona_virus_smallbiz_loan_final_revised.pdf

90 Day Financial Planning:

Meet with your CPA and/or Controller/Accountant and create a financial plan for the next 90 days. Re-evaluate this plan every 1-2 weeks to see if you need to adjust.

Stress test your cash! Alan Miltz’ SaaS tool for managing cash – no charge for 3 months – stress test your cash with just 6 numbers from your financials. www.cashflowstory.com/stresstest

Consider adding an expense line item called COVID-19 and dump off all expenses in there including your staff and personal time spent dealing with a crisis – this 30 second video by Ron Lovett, author of Outrageous Empowerment, will explain why it will make it easier to apply for government assistance if and when it comes available. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ron-lovett_outrageousempowerment-activity-6646137020743761920-N9Uo

Stabilizing Your Business: Improvise, Adapt, Overcome.

With constant changes brought on by the pandemic of COVID-19, your business may be presented with cash flow challenges and opportunities you may have never faced before. To respond to these changes, look no further than a motto with which you are familiar: Improvise, Adapt, Overcome. The slogan used by the United States Marine Corps outlines steps you can take to combat the challenges you are facing as you make decisions that will be key to the survival of your business.

Read details on this strategy here: https://www.cricpa.com/stabilizing-your-business/

Financial Crisis Management Templates from Greg Crabtree.

Will you have the capital needed to get back to pre-Covid19 profitability levels (or better)? Resource here: https://simplenumbers.me/crisismgmt/

MPL Law firm has a resources center where they are posting helpful information daily to our South Central PA community.

https://mpl-law.com/resource-center/

SBA Loans, State Programs, borrowing from my Uncle Joe – which is the right program for me and my business/organization?:  The long and short of it is…..ready, and I had to go to law school to learn this concept……IT DEPENDS.  Below are a few sources and topics that may help you out:

• SBA Consultants and Preferred Lenders:  We are in the process of compiling a list of SBA Consultants and preferred lenders who can help you navigate the process.  The most common answer we get in our discussions with them has been:  “the updates are changing daily….please give us a few days to sort it out”;  If you would like to be connected to our contacts, please email myself or our office for help.
• Coronavirus Emergency Loan Small Business Guide and Checklist – The US Chamber of Commerce provided a useful small business guide and checklist for Coronavirus Emergency Loans, which is attached to this email.
• If I have employees that make over $100,000 per year, are their salaries eligible for coverage under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)?  In calculating the maximum loan amount you can get under the PPP, a business can apply for 2.5X the average monthly payroll costs, not to exceed $10m.  Compensation of an individual employee in excess of an annual salary of $100k is excluded from the calculation.  This same calculation & exclusion is applicable to the loan forgiveness program for the first 8 weeks after the loan approval.  So, which is it, is the full salary excluded or just the amount above $100k.  We recommend that you discuss this question with your SBA lender or consultant.  If official guidance is released, we will update you ASAP.
• SBA Express Bridge Loan (EBL) Program:  Prior to the passage of the CARES Act, the SBA had released guidance that an express bridge loan of up to $25k could be applied for as a business awaits a long term financing approval.  It is not clear how this program relates to the $10k bridge loan program covered under the CARES Act for Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) Applications, but we are seeking clarification.   Attached is a guide for the EBL Program.

When will get my stimulus check and how much will it be?  The Washington Post has published a calculator which estimates the amount for you.  Check it out:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/coronavirus-stimulus-check-calculator/

NJ Ramps Up Stay At Home Order and Business Restrictions:  Please check out the latest email update from Tedd Kochman at Littler.  Also, if you are thinking of having a corona party in NJ, beware….they will find you…..see the story at the attached link:  https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/490023-man-charged-after-new-jersey-police-break-up-coronavirus-party

Preppers aren’t just a reality show anymore:  Check out the latest weekend update from the Hustle.  The numbers are pretty interesting.  In order to prepare for a doomsday scenario, a survey of 15 preppers showed they each spent an average of $10,393 in total over 7.6 years ($1366 per year) on food and gear.

Demystifying CARES Act:

Ami Kassar is holding a DAILY webinar at 12 noon EST to help you flesh out what the stimulus package means for small businesses. You'll want to jump on this webinar when you see changes coming down so you can hear in plain-speak what to expect.

In this one-hour interactive session you will learn:

• SBA emergency loan status - after CARES Act approval
• Existing SBA program initiatives - after CARES Act approval
• Importance of filing 2019 returns
• Do you have liquidity you can leverage?
• Calculating Operating Expenses (6 month burn rate)
• Online loans to watch out for and stay away from

Sign up for the webinar here: https://769yv3el.pages.infusionsoft.net/

Zoom Webinar: https://zoom.us/w/378451652  and  Password: 423895

Top 6 Best Practices For Businesses Amid COVID-19

Scan the article for details, but in a nutshell:

1. Prioritize Issues of Greatest Urgency
2. Triple Your Communication
3. Work from Home
4. Use Video Conferencing
5. Manage Your Cash
6. Look for Opportunities to Do Something Extraordinary

For more on these, visit https://petracoach.com/top-6-best-practices-for-businesses-amid-covid-19/

SANS Security Awareness Work-from-Home Deployment Kit - FREE

The SANS Institute put out a free deployment toolkit/security awareness for working from home.

https://www.sans.org/security-awareness-training/sans-security-awareness-work-home-deployment-kit

Don’t Have Laptops For Your Remote Workers? Try our Computer Equipment Rentals

We have several recycling partners and we have set up a program to rent refurbished laptops! If you’re short on hardware, they have laptops and desktops available that can be configured to your specifications and shipped to your workers anywhere in the country.

Once the dust has settled and things are back to normal, we’ll handle the logistics of returning the equipment and wiping it of sensitive data. To discuss how we can help your business through this difficult period, please contact us at: kyle@coulsontechnologies.com or call 717-801-1279

Lets Face it - no one likes to think about bad things happening to them, much less plan for them. But since we are all dealing with the Covid-19 Crisis, we wanted to give you a quick guide on some simple things you can (and should!) be doing to help your business survive.

• Set up Secure Remote Access. Still need help with the transition to working from home? We can help set up remote access for your employees to use their office computers from anywhere they need to be located. Two-factor authentication and other tools like VPN help keep your organization’s data and systems safe even when workers aren’t in the office.
• Trust but Verify. Get updates about COVID-19, scams and frauds related to the Coronavirus pandemic, and its impact on cybersecurity from trusted, official sources, and encourage your staff to only use vetted information for planning and communications. Be wary of any email with a COVID-19-related subject line, attachment, or hyperlink. Avoid sharing or clicking on social media posts, text messages, or IMs offering Coronavirus information, vaccination, treatment or cures.
• Consider Cloud Computing. One of the biggest advantages of cloud computing is that your data and assets are stored off-site in a highly secure, high-availability data center, with failover and redundancy built in. That means that if your building were destroyed and you had to evacuate, or if your server melted down due to an unexpected hardware failure, everything you’ve worked so hard to create over the years is safe and not a sitting duck in your unsecured closet or server room. Coulson Technologies can help you migrate to the Cloud with ease!
• Make Prevention a Priority. Refresh every staffer’s training on how to spot phishing scams and online fraud. Remind your staff that government agencies will never ask for sensitive personal, financial or business information via email. Reinforce that clicking on links or opening attachments from unfamiliar sources is a quick way for scammers to infect your systems with malware. Employee Security Awareness Training and Phishing Simulations can help make sure that your staff is ready to spot and defend against attack.
• Continuity Keeps Businesses Running. No matter what type of disaster we are facing, disruptions to your business could be devastating. We can keep your systems available and reliable no matter what happens using image-based backups. Smart Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Solutions back up content to a Secure cloud which lets you easily recover a lost file or an entire business infrastructure in minutes no matter what happens. The average time it takes a business to recover from a typical disaster is 18.5 hours, but 43% of companies never totally recover. Eliminate downtime and help protect your organization from any future disruptions. Empower yourself to continue your business operations without losing any data, incurring any damage, or experiencing any downtime.

Good News About the COVID-19 Virus from Peter Diamandis

• https://www.diamandis.com/blog/good-news-covid-19

Staying Centered And Grounded - More Important Now Than Ever!

We are in unprecedented times and the pressure on us as leaders has never been as great. Now more than ever we need to assure we take time for centering, grounding, mindfulness.

FREE Daily Mindfulness Sessions with Oksana Esberard.

Info on these sessions can be found here: SattvaMe Mindfulness Schedule

Pass along to your team!

PODCAST: Mindsets for Scary Times

So, how is all of this affecting business? And how will it affect YOUR business?

While many people are in a panic, Jay Abraham, Dean Jackson, and Joe Polish are NOT panicking at all, and you should know why. The three of them just had one of the most insightful, calm, and important conversations ever about succeeding in business in scary times such as what we’re experiencing right now.

They recorded the conversation and it is available for you to listen as I Love Marketing podcast Episode #362. Of all the podcast episodes they've ever done, this will be one of the most important you’ll ever listen to.

https://ilovemarketing.com/safe-ideas-for-scary-times-entrepreneurship-amidst-chaos-with-jay-abraham-dean-jackson-and-joe-polish/

Tracking Covid19

COVID-19 live tracker – ‘This is a comprehensive, as close to real time as I have found, tracker of the global to local impact’

I suggest you book mark these so you have access to data should there be a need

• https://ncov2019.live/data
• https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Littler – ‘What we should be doing with teams during this time’

• Take a look, there is a ton of information in here, find the ones that meet your needs right now. https://www.littler.com/publication-press/publication/coronavirus-employer-action-items

CDC – ‘What to do if you think you may have COVID-19’

• This should likely be in everyone’s communication to their teams - https://mcusercontent.com/ae46b0c2f82c481bb31830fbd/files/1ceb0f7c-c298-47dc-9e66-7916c4c61dd7/Sick_with_COVID_19_sheet.pdf

World Health.net – ‘High dose Vitamin C and a prevention and/or a treatment’

• Obviously we are not medical professionals, but in my personal opinion I believe that High Dose Vitamin C is a preventative in general by boosting the immune system. Judge completely for yourself but here is some data. https://worldhealth.net/news/official-statement-china-recommended-treatment-covid-19/

OSHA – ‘Guidance on preparing the workplace for COVID-19’

• Leadership teams should review this and ensure they are doing what is needed to be prepared - https://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA3990.pdf

Asaf Bitton, MD, MPH – ‘Why social distancing is needed and how to best go about it’

• Consider the impact of being a ‘node’ in the distribution of the virus and how you can limit the spread. https://medium.com/@ariadnelabs/social-distancing-this-is-not-a-snow-day-ac21d7fa78b4

NBC News – ‘Video covering several areas of the virus – overall very good information’

• Consider sharing or even watching this as part of your meeting rhythms – you can do this virtually as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSVqpWkoK30

Fast Company & A LOT MORE – ‘How to manage virtual meetings – best practices’

As we move to more remote working have ‘good’ and ‘frequent’ meetings will become highly valuable.

• https://www.fastcompany.com/90304194/best-practices-for-virtual-meetings
• https://hbr.org/2016/04/what-everyone-should-know-about-running-virtual-meetings
• https://hbr.org/2017/03/how-to-raise-sensitive-issues-during-a-virtual-meeting
• https://www.inc.com/guides/2010/12/5-tips-for-conducting-a-virtual-meeting.html
• https://hbr.org/2012/05/the-right-way-to-run-a-virtual
• https://www.nten.org/article/9-best-practices-engagement-virtual-meetings
• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Aeglaw0DYPXoM9L4WE6ftK3g1PgEorTIoCprjW-jMhI/edit

US Chamber of Commerce – ‘Top 20 Tips for building business resilience’

• Take a look at this list, not all will apply to you and your business but some will and some will just spur your thinking. Biggest take away is that you need to create a plan of action and, in my opinion, update it frequently, maybe daily in some cases. https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/sites/default/files/media-uploads/3-RiaB_BASIC-Top-20-Tips-for-Biz-Prep-ENG.pdf

Medium – ‘What is flattening the curve and why it is important’

• This is a long one and it’s is a few days old but it is full of data with graphs and gives a good overview including data from China and Europe for better understanding of what could happen in the US’ https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

Sequoia Capital – ‘A look at the financial implications of COVID-19 from a business perspective’

• Managing the financial health of your business is paramount. This article gives some good insights on how to think about doing this. https://medium.com/sequoia-capital/coronavirus-the-black-swan-of-2020-7c72bdeb9753

McKinsey – ‘General implications for Business’

• This is a few days old but after rereading this weekend I felt it is still very relevant and is one of the most comprehensive overviews I have seen to date. There is a checklist at the end of the article that gives a very good overview of what to be doing to mitigate risk. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/risk/our-insights/covid-19-implications-for-business