Episode
What to Do When Business Gets Really Tough
- Published
- Sep 3, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1673
- Processing state
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- https://traffic.megaphone.fm/ESHO9198181112.mp3
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Summary
Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribe Need marketing help? Visit: https://www.singlegrain.com/ and https://npdigital.com/Want to recruit great marketers? Find them here: https://marketingschool.io/hire What do you actually do when things get really tough in business? Neil and Eric share their worst moments — 2020 included — and the playbook for surviving them: eating the elephant a day at a time, buying time with cash, and choosing stability over growth when it counts. Then the reveal that hot AI startups like Cursor quietly run thousands of ads at a time, and a five-star massage-studio case study on referrals, grandfathered pricing, and service details that carry over into any business. Key takeaways◾Tough seasons are survived a day at a time — systems over panic◾The hottest AI startups test thousands of ads, not two◾Great service businesses engineer referrals on purpose Chapters00:00 When things get really tough09:14 Stability vs growth15:56 The 6,400-ads reveal17:10 The massage-studio case study