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Tami Erwin Verizon Business CEO, Christina Stembel Farmgirl Flowers CEO, and Nancy Lublin Crisis Text Line CEO join Yahoo's Reset Your Mindset at Work special

Tami Erwin Verizon Business CEO, Christina Stembel Farmgirl Flowers CEO, and Nancy Lublin Crisis Text Line CEO join Yahoo's Reset Your Mindset at Work special.

Video Transcript

TAMI ERWIN: Welcome back to "Reset Your Mindset," a Yahoo and Fortune special. I'm Tami Erwin, and I'm the CEO of the Verizon Business Group. And you know, as we think about COVID and the impact on small businesses, they have most directly been impacted by this crisis. A recent survey that we saw suggested that about 50% of overall businesses are in danger of failing. And yet, as you've heard throughout the day, there's an incredible sense of optimism about how businesses are thinking about reimagining and really using the resiliency that small businesses possess to think about what their future might look like.

And I'm really delighted to have a chance to have Christina Stembel, who is the CEO of Farmgirl Flowers, and Nancy Lublin, who's the CEO of Crisis Text Line, join me this afternoon to engage in a dialogue and conversation about how we're managing through this crisis. Nancy, you're certainly on the frontline. You're seeing how COVID has impacted all of our lives. In particular for women, I think about 85% of essential workers are women. And then of course, they carry much of the home duties, whether it's educating or cooking or cleaning or all of it. And you're in the thick of it with the Crisis Text Line. Talk a little bit about what you're hearing is the mindset of where we are now, about 70 days into this crisis.

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NANCY LUBLIN: We've basically seen three waves of emotion. The first wave was anxiety, intense anxiety, words like panic, freaked out, and reference to symptoms. That was starting in the end of February. The next wave we saw was the impact of the quarantines themselves. That was felt most intensely by the 18 to 35-year-olds, what I would consider the adulting age group. And they were disrupted in three ways. One is they moved back home, their housing situations.

TAMI ERWIN: Yeah, yeah.

NANCY LUBLIN: They are back home in their childhood bedroom, which feels like a defeat, or they're sheltering alone. Or they have a new young family, and it's very hard to shelter with little kids. Or they're with roommates they met on Craigslist, and they're thinking, I never thought I was going to spend this much time with you.

The second way they were disrupted was their careers, right? Their school, their jobs, they were the first to be furloughed, first to let go. And the third thing that was disrupted was dating, relationships. You can't date in a world where you're supposed to wear a mask and stay six feet apart. So they've really been disrupted.

And the third wave of emotion that we've seen is the impact of the grief and the job loss. And we expect this third wave to last a very long time.

TAMI ERWIN: You know, Christina, I think about your business, and you started Farmgirl Flowers in your apartment. It's now a growing $33 million business with 100 employees. But you've had to face some really difficult decisions over the last several weeks. Talk a little bit about how your company is navigating through this coronavirus pandemic.

CHRISTINA STEMBEL: Yeah, what you mentioned, Nancy, those emotions, I felt all of those emotions very acutely and very quickly. You know, to have 12 and 1/2 hours to shut down a company, basically, where 90% of your operation, you have to shut down into a short amount of time, the first feeling is just tremendous fear, you know? Like, something that you've just spent 10 years of your life, 120 hours a week building, you know, at no-- you know, no reason or rationale for what you've done, it's just an outside circumstance that nobody budgets, you know, or puts in their financial model, you know, a pandemic line, you know?

And so, you know, we're bootstrapped. We're a high-growth company. We were on track to do $50 million this year. We had 197 team members the morning of March 16, and I had to Furlough all but six that day in 12 hours with no notice. And then had to figure out how to move thousands of orders to another facility that didn't have the infrastructure to set up to do that and how to communicate with our customers, thousands of customers, their orders we're going to be late and then to figure out if I was going to be able to stay afloat.

TAMI ERWIN: So Christina, I think you've given us a very specific example of how you've had to play that out. And Nancy, I want to come back to you. Talk a little bit about what guidance would you give us as employers? I know I've worked very hard to make sure that I care for my employees, my customers, my shareholders, society at large. What advice would you give Christina, give Verizon as we think about how we show up on behalf of our employees, based on what you're seeing and hearing?

NANCY LUBLIN: So we are seeing some things that work, that are helping people feel strong. Taking the big, massive, overwhelming, unknown, unpredictable-ness of this and shrinking it into time bites that seem more manageable. Saying to your co-workers and your friends and family, what are you going to do tonight to stay strong? What are your plans for tomorrow or for Memorial Day weekend? So thinking in shorter time frames will help give you a sense of control. And then I will tell you that people are really looking to family, friends, and pets.

TAMI ERWIN: Christina, maybe some advice as we think about small businesses. One of the things I'm very proud of at Verizon is we've been very involved in the Pay It Forward program. We've donated $7.5 million to small businesses in grants of $10,000. And I love it because I know that every dollar is going to rebuild for small businesses. What advice would you give us as we think about where we are today for small businesses?

CHRISTINA STEMBEL: Yeah, so I think that the difference between the companies that make it and don't make it are the ones that are willing to do the hard things, the things that you don't want to do to pivot, which is what we had to do. We had to change our entire distribution model in five weeks and open four additional distribution centers in different places, which meant while we couldn't save our jobs in San Francisco, we could save jobs in other places, which is a really hard thing to do. But you just have to do the hard things and rethink of the way you're doing business to change it. Because this is going to be a new normal, and you have to pivot very quickly before you run out of money.

TAMI ERWIN: I love it. Do the hard things, and be willing to reimagine. Christina and Nancy, thank you so much for joining us. We'll be right back.