May 25, 2026

168 - “The Best Never Panic: Why Elite Businesses Thrive in Any Economy”

Show Notes
Transcript

In this powerful episode of The Jeremy Hanson Podcast, Jeremy Hanson breaks down the difference between businesses that panic during economic uncertainty and businesses that rise to the top.

From recessions and inflation to market instability and fear-driven decision making, Jeremy explains why elite companies continue expanding while average businesses retreat. This episode dives deep into leadership, customer trust, execution, service excellence, and the mindset required to become recession-proof in today’s economy.

Whether you’re a small business owner, entrepreneur, contractor, creator, or executive leader, this episode delivers practical strategies for surviving difficult economic cycles and becoming the obvious choice in your industry.

Topics include:

Recession-proof business strategies
Why elite companies dominate downturns
The psychology of successful entrepreneurs
Why execution matters more than ideas
Customer trust and long-term growth
Leadership during economic uncertainty
Service businesses and economic resilience
Why the best businesses never stop marketing

Subscribe to the Built Different newsletter for exclusive insights, business strategies, and entrepreneurial mindset content.

Newsletter: Built Different

Email: unleashedentrepreneur@gmail.com

Website: JeremyHanson.pro

What businesses survive recessions best?

Businesses with excellent customer service, strong reputations, operational discipline, and consistent marketing are most likely to survive recessions.

Why do elite businesses thrive during bad economies?

Elite businesses prepare before economic downturns happen, stay calm under pressure, and continue executing while competitors panic.

How do you recession-proof a business?

To recession-proof a business, focus on becoming exceptional in your market, maintaining customer trust, managing cash flow carefully, and consistently delivering value.

Should businesses stop advertising during recessions?

Many successful businesses increase strategic advertising during recessions because competitors often reduce visibility, creating opportunities for growth.

Why is execution more important than ideas?

Ideas are common. Elite businesses separate themselves through consistent execution, systems, discipline, and customer experience.

This episode of The Jeremy Hanson Podcast discusses recession-proof entrepreneurship, elite business psychology, leadership during economic uncertainty, and strategies used by successful companies to thrive during inflation and downturns. Jeremy Hanson focuses heavily on service businesses, execution, branding, customer trust, and long-term business resilience. This episode is highly relevant for entrepreneurs, contractors, creators, executives, local businesses, and leadership-focused audiences looking for practical business growth strategies.

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elite business mindset
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business leadership
service business growth
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small business success
business growth podcast
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leadership during recession

why elite businesses thrive in any economy
how businesses survive recessions
why the best businesses never panic
recession proof strategies for entrepreneurs
how service businesses thrive during downturns
leadership lessons for small business owners
business execution strategies
how to dominate during a recession
customer trust in difficult economies
why great companies grow during recessions

THE JEREMY HANSON PODCAST

“The Best Never Panic: Why Elite Businesses Thrive in Any Economy”

www.jeremyhanson.pro

Built Different Newsletter: unleashedentrepreneur@gmail.com

#Entrepreneurship #BusinessGrowth #Leadership #SmallBusiness #RecessionProof #JeremyHanson #ServiceBusiness #BusinessMindset #Marketing #Execution

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WEBVTT

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Right now, across this country, somebody is closing their business

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because well, they panicked. Somebody else is lowering their prices

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because they panicked. Somebody else is laying off good people

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because they panicked. Everybody else is quitting on a dream

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they've worked years and worked really hard to build because

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they panicked. Then here's the thing. In the same towns,

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in the same industries, in the same economy, other owners

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are doing the exact opposite. They're raising prices and they're hiring,

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and they're picking up market share. They're literally booked out

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for months. And my question to you today is why

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same economy, same competition, same AI headlines, two completely different outcomes.

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And that is the gap right there. That's what we're

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talking about today, because the best businesses in America almost

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never panic. And it's not because they're lucky. It's not

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because they're connected most of the time, not because they

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got there first. They figured out something that a lot

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of people don't. When you become undeniable, the economy stops

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being the thing that controls your business. You see, you do.

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I'm Jeremy Hanson. This is the Jeremy Hanson Podcast, and

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today I'm going to walk you through exactly why elite

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service businesses thrive while average ones collapse. And I'm going

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to share a couple of stories from my own life

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that prove every word of it. All right, so let's

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get into it. To the Germany hassle. All right. You

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can feel it right now, the anxiety and the hesitation,

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the constant drum beat online telling people that the economy

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is collapsing. Watch y'all, be careful, all you know, the

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same stuff AI is taking jobs, and competition is everywhere,

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and somehow the average person is supposed to serve five

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while standing in the middle of all this chaos. Everywhere

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you turn, somebody's panicking the doom and gloom. People are

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panicking over recessions, and people are panicking over competitors. People

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are panicking over technology. And there are even people out

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there that are panicking in perceived market changes. People panicked, why, well,

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somebody younger showed up, somebody cheaper showed up, somebody louder

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just showed up. And yet the best businesses, the best contractors,

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the best operators, just the best entrepreneurs. Those are the

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people that aren't panicking at all. Now here's something I

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need you to understand, if you become undeniable, okay, competition

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starts mattering a whole lot less. So that doesn't mean

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that you become arrogant. It doesn't mean that you stop

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adapting to the market and to what your customers want.

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It doesn't mean that you stop improving your business. That's forever.

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But there is a major difference between a business that

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survives off of I hope so and a business that's

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built on your reputation, your reliability, your trust, and the

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systems you have in place for execution. And that's where

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I want to start with today. There's a reason that

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the best mechanic in town still has a waiting list

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during a recession. There's a reason that the best roofers

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still has work booked out for months while average companies

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literally go under. There's a reason that the best HVAC

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companies can charge more and still stay overloaded consistently. There's

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a reason that elite businesses in general continue making money

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in economies that destroy weaker owners, and it's because necessity

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and excellence together becomes almost almost unstoppable. You see. I

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think people misunderstand recessions. They think that a recession hit

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that means nobody spends money, and that's simply not true.

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What happens is people stop spending carelessly, and that's a

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big difference during uncertain times. Consumers. Instead of not spending,

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what they do is they just become more selective. You know.

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They stop gambling on service companies things like that. They

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stop experimenting with Okay, well, this guy's cheaper. They don't

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want cheaper, they want something that's a sure bet. They

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stop hiring companies with terrible reviews and no track record,

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and instead they start start searching for certain and tea.

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And that really does matter because certainty has intrinsic value.

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Think about this for a second. If your furnace dies

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in January somewhere in the Midwest, you don't care about

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saving fifty bucks from some sketchy contractor that may or

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may not show up. You care about being warm. You

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want somebody that's competent in the problem that you have,

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somebody that can solve it in fast, reliable, trusted company.

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If your basement floods, or your roof starts leaking, or

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your electrical panel starts smoking, if your restaurant freezer dies

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or your septic packs up, you know you're not the person.

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Nobody is sitting there saying, well, maybe I should wait

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for the economy to improve. No, you have to get

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the problem solved, and you have to do it immediately

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in a lot of cases. That's why service business, says,

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have always been and will always continue to be, one

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of the strongest sectors in America. According to the US

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Bureau of Economic Analysis, service industries account for roughly seventy

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to seventy seven percent of the American economy, depending on

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how you measure it. That means America runs on services.

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Now that's not theory. I'm not hyping this up. This

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isn't some social media guru telling you this. Services people

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fixing things, building things, maintaining things, protecting things, moving things,

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repairing things, and the list goes on. The people that

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help other people solve real world problems. Okay, And when

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you're the person that solve real world problems better than

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everybody else, you become almost irreplaceable, extremely difficult to replace. Okay.

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Average companies out there they compete on price, okay, Elite

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companies they have a whole different metric okay, because they

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are competing on trust. And that is the whole game

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and the truth is, trust becomes even more valuable during

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difficult economies. Okay, according to multiple consumer studies, over ninety

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percent of customers now read online reviews before hiring a

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local business. Why because people are terrified of making the

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wrong decision, Okay, especially when their walle gets a little smaller,

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when money starts getting tight, especially when every dollar matters,

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especially if they've already been burned before. That's why the

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business is obsessed with quality, communication, reputation, consistency, and customer

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experience continue to separate themselves from average owners. And this

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happens year after year because in uncertain economies, people buy confidence,

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not just services, confidence, they buy certainty. They buy that

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peace of mind. And that's where the best companies dominate.

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Now you might not like this, but most competition isn't

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actually competition. Most businesses are just average, and that's just

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a reality. Most companies don't answer their phones properly, they

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don't follow up, they don't market consistently, they don't train

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their employees. They just don't communicate well. They don't show

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up on time. They do not create a memorable customer experience.

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They don't build trust, they don't improve, and then what

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they do is they blame and they'll blame the economy,

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and they'll blame politics, and they'll blame competition and AI

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and interest rates and market just everything. They're just bad luck.

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Social media doesn't work for them. And meanwhile, the elite

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owners of they're keeping working. Then they keep adapting, and

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they keep improving, and they keep building relationships and they

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just keep showing up. Isn't that business? One oh one?

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So what recessions do is they expose weakness. Okay, recessions

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do not destroy excellence. And I think that's one of

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the biggest mindset shifts that you have to understand. Weak

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businesses often disappear during economic downturns because their systems were

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too week long before the recession ever started. The recession.

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What it did, it just peeled back the layers a

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little bit and exposed the flaws in it. And while

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the weaker companies they do things like pullback marketing and

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then they start to panic and then to make a

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few extra buck sales, slash quality and they stop networking

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and they just poof disappear. Strong owners what they do

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is they start gaining market share from that exact company.

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Now this has happened over and over throughout American business history.

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It's just part of life. Some of the biggest companies

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in the world exploded during these uncertain economies. Okay. Airbnb

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launched during the twenty eight financial crisis. Uber Okay, they

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grew during a lot of economic instability. Microsoft aggressively expanded

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in downturn periods over and over. Because what happens is

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uncertainty creates openings for your business. Fear itself creates openings

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and discipline. People move when everybody else just sit there

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and they're frozen. Okay, So now let's take that and

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specifically talk about the blue collar world for a second.

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There is a lie floating around right now that somehow

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skilled trades are dying, and that is so far from

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the truth, absolute garbage, absolute nonsense. If anything, skilled trades

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have become way more valuable. Okay, America still desperately, and

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I'm talking desperately, critically needs plumbers and electricians and HVAC

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technicians and welders, mechanics, heavy equipment operators, restoration companies and

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roofers and builders and technicians and logistics operators, everything that

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has to do with a real craftsman. Now you want

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to know why, but one of the reasons. AI can't

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repair a broken furnace. Okay, AI can't climb onto your

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leaking roof during a thunderstorm. AI can't replace the trust

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a homeowner feels when an experienced tech walks through the

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door and solves a serious problem for them. Honestly, AI

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is probably going to increase the value of real human

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craftsmanship year after year after year because as the Internet

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fills more and more and I'm sure you've seen this

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with automated noise and fake expertise, that's a big one,

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and information the real world trust becomes more rare, okay,

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and rare things become valuable. I deal with this on

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a weekly basis. People call me and say, hey, I

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tried this, and I tried that and it just doesn't

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seem to work. And I was like, yeah, because that

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guy's never done this a day in his life. He

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had AI write something up and you bought into it

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and you tried it. Okay. It's important to recognize that

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average information is becoming free, Okay. Execution is not you.

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Being reliable is not your craftsmanship and your discipline and

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your reputation and the trust you build on a human level.

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None of that is. I want to pause here for

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a second because this conversation about adaptation and technology and

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competitive advantage ties directly into something that I use every

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single day in my business. These days, it feels like

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everyone is talking about AI, including us here at the

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Jeremy Hanson podcast. But if there's one thing that you've

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learned from my show, it's that talking about a new

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technology isn't the same as actually implementing it. Zep Yer

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is how real people use AI to do real work,

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and honestly, for me, it's changed how I operate. Okay,

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I run a podcast network, I run multiple service companies.

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I have a retail company that I do. I do

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a ton of consulting. I have a content production and

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scheduling and customer follow up and lead intake and sponsorship

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coordination and family operations, multiple shows. I call it the

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Hanson Verse, all happening at the same time. Now, without automation,

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that workload truly would be impossible. With Zapier, it runs

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in the background while I focus on the things that

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actually matter. A lead comes in from one of our

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service business landing pages. Zapier catches it and it runs

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it through an AI model, it sorts it, and it

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drafts the follow up, and then it routes it to

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the right person on my team. Okay, if an episode

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goes live, Zapier triggers the social post updates, the show

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notes platform, and the flags on the sponsoring reporting. See,

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I don't sit at a desk all day just clicking buttons.

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The work happens and I get to spend my time

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creating and building and serving people people that I care about. Now,

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this is me and this is what I love about Zapier.

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It's not just tech for tech people. You don't need

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to be a developer. You don't need to know how

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to write Python or any code for that matter. If

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you can describe what you want to happen in plain English,

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Zapier can probably build it. And that is magic. With

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zap Year's AI orchestration platform, you can bring the power

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of AI to any task and any process. So the

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truth is you can spend more time, your time, your

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to join them? I did get started for free by

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visiting Zapier dot com forward slash Jeremy. That's z A

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p I e r dot com slash Jeremy Zapier dot

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com slash Jeremy. Now I want to camp out here,

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just for a few minutes. It's it's almost summertime and

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I like camping. I want to talk about things that

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owners overlook. And this is a big one. Everybody wants

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to be big, big, big, big, But if you ever

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thought about the advantage of being small. Okay, for some reason,

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the culture warship scale company up on a bigger team

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and a bigger building and a bigger logo and a

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bigger ad budget, and as you're doing that, somewhere people

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start believing that bigger automatically means that it's going to

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be better. Now in service, I would say that that's backwards.

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Smaller service companies often have a lot of advantage, especially structural,

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that bigger competitors they just can't replicate. Okay, that's not weakness.

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I'm talking advantages, and they're built right in. Now, think

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about this. When you call a giant national service company, well,

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who answers a call center? And it's probably out of state,

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probably reading from a script of one of the companies

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that are working for that day. Okay, they're getting paid

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by the hour to move you through some queue. Okay. Now,

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when you call a local owner, well, who answers phone?

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Usually the owner or somebody who works directly with the owner,

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somebody who actually cares whether your problem gets solved or

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whether it doesn't. Now, that to me is not a

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small thing. That's huge. It's enormous because in service businesses,

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trust starts from the very first time you have contact,

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the very first phone call, and small businesses have a

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built in advantage there before the truck even rolls down

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the driveway. But see it goes a lot bigger. In

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a small service business, the owner usually usually does the estimate.

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The owner usually inspects the work. The owner usually answers

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the upset customer personally okay. The owner's name is stamped

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on that invoice. The owner's reputation is on the line

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at every single job, and people know there's nowhere to hide. Now.

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Compare that to a big operation. All right, The salesman

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sells a job, a dispatcher somewhere schedules it, a crew

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that you've never met then comes and does it. A

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manager that you'll never see or never speak to, will

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they oversee it? And then a trained customer service rep

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handles the complaints and somehow everyone hopes the experience feels

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like there's no bumps in the road. The truth is

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it usually doesn't. And that's the corporate trap. The thing is,

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when you start layering things that we just talked about.

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The salesman and the dispatcher and the customer service rep,

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all of those things create layers, and layers create distance,

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and distance starts killing accountability, and accountability is exactly what

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customers are paying for. See, in a small business, small operation,

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mediocre work gets caught immediately because the owner or somebody

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that's been trained very well by the owner sees it.

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In a big corporate situation, mediocre work hides in the

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cracks for months because nobody owns it because of that distance.

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That's why small businesses, when they're disciplined almost all the time,

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deliver outstanding craftsmanship, not because of their size, but because

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of it. See. Smaller usually means faster. Also, because there's

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no committees and there's no corporate approval change, there's no

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three weeks of well, let me circle back to that.

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A small business owner can quote a job and then

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schedule it and then execute it and then follow up. Well,

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a big company is still writing your call to the

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right person. And most of the time speed matters, especially

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especially in service work, especially in emergencies, especially when customers

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are stressed and scared and they just want someone to

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show up. There's another thing. Small operators usually most of

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the time live in the community that they serve. Okay,

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their kids go to school there. Usually their families will

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shop at the same grocery stores or the same area.

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They run into customers at gas stations and at church

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and at restaurants and high school football games, stuff like that,

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and that literally changes everything. Okay, reputation isn't some abstract

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thing for a small owner. It's personal, and it's daily,

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and it's right there in front of them. You can't

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go to customer when you're going to see them at

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the gas pump in the morning. That single thing alone

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forces a level of care that most national chains well,

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they never replicate it. And then smaller there's this other

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thing called overhead. Small companies don't have to fund corporate

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headquarters and executive bonuses and get multiple, multiple layers of

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red tape and middle management, even shareholder dividends. That means

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more of every dollar can be invested into better tools

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and better training and better materials and better technology, better

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customer experiences. Or it can simply mean more competitive pricing

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while still maintaining quality. You see, either way, no matter

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what happens, the customer wins. Another advantage, small companies can

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pivot very quickly. They can add a service line in

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a week, they can drop a process that isn't working overnight.

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They can experiment and they can adjust and they can refine. Well,

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here's the thing. GIINT companies are still scheduling the planned meeting.

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For the planning meeting, a small business owner has already tested, fixed,

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and moved on. The nimbleness is a massive competitive weapon,

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especially especially in a changing economy. Now, please don't misunderstand me.

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I'm not saying every small business is automatically great, because

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it's not. There's plenty of small business owners out there

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that are terrible. They use their size, okay, and I've

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seen this as an excuse to be sloppy. They blame

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their lack of resources. Instead of leveraging their advantages. They

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do things like not show up, or misappointments or cut corners.

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And what those people do, I like to call them

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the beer bunny guys. They give the whole industry a

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bad name. Okay, but that's not what I'm talking about.

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I'm talking about the disciplined small business owner. The one

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who treats their business like a craft, the one who

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answers the phone no matter how they feel with energy,

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the one who shows up clean and on time and prepared,

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and the one that actually does the little thing it's

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like follow up. The small business owner who stands behind

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every job personally. You see, that owner has built in

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advantages over any national chain you're closer to the customer,

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they have direct accountability, you're quicker the speed you got,

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community trust. Okay, adaptability. Those aren't advantages. Those are weapons,

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and in uncertain economies, those weapons only sharpen each other. Now,

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while big companies they're tightening budgets and they're freezing hiring,

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or or worst case scenario, they're laying off staff, a

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small business owner can lean into that, and they can

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show up harder, and they can communicate better. They can

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literally take market share from the big companies. I've watched

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this happen time after time after time in the trades.

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The big regional companies starts cutting corners because they're doing

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what big companies do. They're protecting margins. Customers start noticing

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reviews they start getting instead of the five, they're getting

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four to ones and three nines. And then pretty soon

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something usually catastrophic happens. Their reputation starts getting a crack

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in it. And meanwhile, the local owner right on the street,

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the one who's been quietly doing this for years, Well,

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those small business owners are the ones that are picking

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up every job. Those bigger companies are fumbling around, and

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that's how empires get built in service businesses. Okay, it's quietly,

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and it's consistently, and it's one referral at a time.

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So if you own a small service business and you're

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listening to this, thinking how do I do it? I

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can't compete with these big guys. Stop. I don't want

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that thought to come through your head. You just don't

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have the correct mindset. You don't understand because you can.

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You already have advantages they would kill to have, and

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you just have to actually use them. Okay. Now, I'm

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not telling you this because I read it somewhere or

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somebody told me about it. I'm telling you this because

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I've lived this. I'm going to give you a real

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world example. Here years ago, in my own world, something

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happened that fits this entire conversation perfectly. Okay. I had

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a friend and he's looking around and say, like, have

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you seen how many people are on Facebook? And all

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these new pressure washing and standing companies that just popped

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up in your area? And I'm talking like there was

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a ton of them. There was probably fifteen to twenty companies.

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You know, trucks and trailers everywhere, and you know social

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media buyers and flyers stuck to mailboxes and you know,

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on people's cars. Suddenly every person I knew was talking

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about somebody, you know, their cousin had a pressure washer

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and you know, got a logo and had a phone,

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And every single person around me they were saying the

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same thing. You better get out, Jeremy, get out right now.

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The market is you know, if you don't get out now,

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you're just you're gonna kill time. It's a race to

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the bottom. Well, you know this guy's doing it cheaper.

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People are only going to hire that guy now because

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it's so much cheaper. And that, I guess was their

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conventional wisdom, you know, give out, pivot, quit, whatever. So

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you know what I did, I did the exact opposite. Okay,

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I had an experience when I was younger, and I

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read this book called Succeeding in Business by breaking all

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the rules. So I didn't lower prices. I raised my prices. Okay,

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I didn't chase volume. I just tighten my filters. I

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stopped saying yes to the calls that were coming in,

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at least all of them, and I started saying no.

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And then I started saying no more. And then I

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started saying no a lot, and what I did is

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I only took the jobs that were high in the

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customers that I didn't have to worry about. I didn't

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have to calculate how well things were going to end.

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I wanted the customers. The only perfect customer for customer

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for me were the people who wanted perfection, the projects

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where the craftsmanship actually mattered, the work where the price

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wasn't the first question out of their mouth. Now that

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168 - “The Best Never Panic: Why Elite Businesses Thrive in Any Economy”

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