Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / Small Business Recovery Through Collaboration with Dave Walker
Transcript
- 0:01Hi.
- 0:02This is Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady host of the small Bizchett podcast.
- 0:06I want to serve you.
- 0:07This pandemic has been so hard on America's small businesses and on just America in
- 0:12general.
- 0:13If you're ready to start your dream business, boy, do I have a great offer for you?
- 0:17I am giving away 1000 copies of my best selling book, become your own boss in 12 months.
- 0:23Over a hundred thousand people have this book It has been printed in multiple languages
- 0:28around the world, and I wanted to find a way to serve America small businesses in this
- 0:33pandemic.
- 0:33And so I am giving away a 1000 copies of my book.
- 0:37All you have to do to get your copy is head over to begin my biz dotcom slash free offer
- 0:44to, you know, sign up for your copy.
- 0:46All you have to do is pay shipping, and we will mail one out to you.
- 0:49I am so excited about this.
- 0:51I wanna serve you.
- 0:52Grab your copy today.
- 0:56Ending small business failure.
- 0:58Welcome to the small biz chat podcast with a number one small business expert, Melinda
- 1:04Emerson.
- 1:05Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
- 1:09you need succeed and live the life you dream of.
- 1:13Now here's the small biz lady herself.
- 1:16Melinda Everson.
- 1:19Hi.
- 1:19I'm Melinda Everson's small business lady.
- 1:22America's number one small business expert and I would like to welcome you to the Small Bench
- 1:27Chat podcast.
- 1:28With that, allow me to introduce my guest.
- 1:31His name is Dave Walker, and he's the founder of the B to SMB Institute.
- 1:37He has spent 30 years plus as a business innovator floating in between Fortune Fifty
- 1:42Firms and lean startups that are scaling.
- 1:45He lives for innovation, but loves execution from methodical research to bursts of
- 1:51creativity He loves big picture vision, but he trusts discipline, facts, agility, and sweat.
- 1:58And as the CEO, he hates to fail, but he embraces failure as a tough teacher.
- 2:03For more information, you go to his website, bdsmbi.com.
- 2:08Hey, Dave.
- 2:09Thank you so much for braving the code with me to talk about the small recovery, or excuse me,
- 2:16the small business recovery, not the small business chat recovery.
- 2:18That's still going.
- 2:19That's still strong.
- 2:21So let's talk about it.
- 2:23You know, talk to us first about your organization and what you guys do that really
- 2:28ultimately advocates for small business owners.
- 2:30Well, listen, first.
- 2:31Thanks so much for having me.
- 2:32And, yes, I'm braving the cold.
- 2:34I'm here in Chicago.
- 2:35It'll be minus 4 tonight.
- 2:36We've got about 3 feet of snow on the ground that doesn't wanna melt.
- 2:39And all I can say is I'm glad I'm not in Texas.
- 2:42That's that's really, really, I guess, where my head's at.
- 2:45But, you know, the B2SMB Institute, first of all, B2S SMB stands for business to small
- 2:51business.
- 2:52And the reason I started it back in 2017 was because I had just sold a startup that focused
- 3:01on giving marketing advice to small businesses, had grown it over 6 years, and it met many
- 3:08marketers, salespeople, product development people from very large companies who were
- 3:14selling products and services to small business.
- 3:16So American Express, Microsoft, Sprint, Square, Indeed, legal Zoom, And I as I worked with a
- 3:26lot of these professionals inside these organizations, I realized that They had many of
- 3:32the same frustrations and challenges, specifically as related to small businesses.
- 3:38They didn't know how to reach them effectively.
- 3:40Once they reached them, it was tough to engage them.
- 3:42Once they engage them, it was tough to qualify and sell them and close them.
- 3:46Once they close them, it was hard to support them.
- 3:48Get them to adopt, adopt their products and services.
- 3:51Long story short is we built a community so that these professionals could frankly exchange
- 3:57ideas and insights and resources between each other so they could better serve small
- 4:02business.
- 4:02So that's our mission is really in a kind of a backdoor way helps small businesses by helping
- 4:09the large brands who are selling products and services to them.
- 4:12Now how big is your organization?
- 4:13How many members do you have?
- 4:14So we have over now over 200 plus major brands, our members, and over 4000 individuals.
- 4:21So we've grown pretty substantially to really represent professionals in in all aspects of
- 4:27selling products and services to small business.
- 4:29Good stuff.
- 4:30Good stuff.
- 4:30Alright.
- 4:31So let's talk about the state of small business.
- 4:35You know, the COVID 19 killed a lot of people, but COVID 19 killed a lot of small businesses
- 4:41too.
- 4:42Mhmm.
- 4:42That sure did.
- 4:43And, you know, unfortunately, we don't know the magnitude of the impact right now.
- 4:48Nobody has a really good sense of it.
- 4:51Because, frankly, it's tough to report out and really track all those one person small
- 4:59businesses that have had to close.
- 5:01And all of those businesses that weren't incorporated necessarily.
- 5:05You know, they were a small shop and, you know, maybe two or three people, and they never
- 5:09really went to the you know, to to incorporate in some state.
- 5:14We don't know really frankly how well the surveys that are being done everyone in
- 5:19existence.
- 5:20It seems like at a government level to try and track business closures.
- 5:25And frankly, there's a lot of businesses who are kind of I would call them in suspended
- 5:29animation.
- 5:30They're not open.
- 5:31They're not doing business, but they're not officially closed either.
- 5:35So, you know, best estimates right now is it could be anywhere between 30% 50% of all small
- 5:43businesses, and that's under 500 employees that have closed during the pandemic.
- 5:47So it's a it's a really alarming number to say the least.
- 5:50It is.
- 5:51It is.
- 5:51And I think certainly for African American businesses, probably it could be 50 to 60%.
- 5:57And a lot of that had to do with just, you know, how incredibly poor the PPP loan and EIDL
- 6:03loans were administrated and given out and and and who got loans and and, you know, credit was
- 6:10used as a validator for loans, not how much people needed help.
- 6:13Mean, there was a lot of crazy stuff that went on that really wasn't helpful, which is why I
- 6:19think so many brands have now tried to scramble to fill in the the gap that was left because so
- 6:25many black owned businesses did not get help.
- 6:28So, you know, one of the things I really wanted to talk to you about tonight was just sort of
- 6:33like the direct and the indirect causes of why so many minorities and women have been
- 6:41adversely affected.
- 6:42I mean, I think all small businesses, like, kinda took a hit.
- 6:45Although, I've definitely talked to people who did better in 2020.
- 6:49But those were people who were already online, and they were already set up.
- 6:53So when when the pandemic happened, they were able to put money on ads and put the gas on it.
- 6:59You know?
- 7:00And I think there were other people who positioned themselves to do well in 2021.
- 7:05Right?
- 7:05So there were people that did that too.
- 7:07And then there were people that were, like, caught flat footed, you know, like, Fred
- 7:10Flintstone with his feet at the bottom of the of the car.
- 7:13I mean, you know, there were people who really had no idea what to do had never sold online or
- 7:19did had no idea online ads.
- 7:21What are you talking about?
- 7:22You know what I mean?
- 7:23Instagram was the I mean, they they there were people that were that clueless, didn't have
- 7:27updated websites.
- 7:28I mean, there was there was there's a lot of you know, there was a lot of bad practice out
- 7:32here that got caught.
- 7:33Right?
- 7:33Some of these people who we don't know whether they're in biz or not, part.
- 7:37That's because they never registered a EIN number with the IRS.
- 7:41Right?
- 7:41They do a business with their Social Security number or letting people pay them with Cash
- 7:44App.
- 7:45You know what I mean?
- 7:45So there was all this kinda other gray economy stuff, and those people really got hurt because
- 7:51if you'd had no paperwork, you definitely didn't get a PPP loan.
- 7:55It was that was just what the deal was.
- 7:58So talk to me about, you know, what the other side is talking about in terms of all this
- 8:03stuff that that's out here that was going on and who won and who didn't.
- 8:07That's a that's a really that's got a lot of a lot of hair on it, but to to kinda break it
- 8:12down when the pandemic started, more importantly, when the quarantine started, when
- 8:16the shutdown started, alignable, which is a small business network, probably your audience
- 8:22is familiar with it, has over 6,000,000 small businesses in the US.
- 8:26And they, since the beginning of the pandemic, have been every single week surveying their
- 8:31small business members on a variety of questions.
- 8:33And one of the first questions that they asked their 6,000,000 members back in March was How
- 8:39much cash do you have on hand right now?
- 8:41What do you have in your savings account to really support your business?
- 8:45And 67% said that 30 days that's it.
- 8:50I'm out in 30 days of of having cash on hand.
- 8:53And that's why there was, frankly, a rush to give the PPP loans because there was so little
- 8:59cash saved on the part of of small businesses across the country.
- 9:03You can imagine that minority owned businesses women owned businesses, urban businesses, high
- 9:10touch service businesses like salons and manicurists, were all crushed by the closures
- 9:17that went on because as high touch businesses, they frankly couldn't they couldn't do their
- 9:21business in any way, shape, or form.
- 9:23And nor could they offer an e commerce offering and kinda survive that way.
- 9:27But in in in kind of in a nutshell, those businesses that were in very poor cash
- 9:33positions that were frankly disproportionately impacted by the closures.
- 9:38They didn't they didn't have access to their customers, basically, were the ones that got
- 9:43heaviest hit.
- 9:45And and and and probably make up a lot of the businesses that closed.
- 9:50Now I think my hope is from a recovery standpoint, that those entrepreneurs who were
- 9:56in those service businesses who started a business the first time wanna start again, You
- 10:02know, they wanna as the recovery really happens, they wanna get back into the business.
- 10:06They're, you know, they're a hairstylist.
- 10:08They wanna go back being a hairstylist.
- 10:10They don't wanna go off and be a nurse or or something else.
- 10:13So hopefully we'll see what a lot of we're trying to track is.
- 10:16What's the emergence of entrepreneurs now that we're starting to come out of the pandemic.
- 10:22And one important stat is is tracked by the small business administration is there's been
- 10:27more new business applications in the last 3 months than there have been in the last 3
- 10:31years.
- 10:32So there's a lot of people who are flooding into the new small business kind of space And,
- 10:38hopefully, that'll be a big part of of our recoveries and economy.
- 10:42Well, I'm certainly seeing that from my business, you know, as the small bus lady is
- 10:46you know, America's number one small business expert.
- 10:49Our website, our tools, my books.
- 10:52I mean, it's like, you know, like, I got a flashing sign on.
- 10:56Come by this stuff.
- 10:57I mean, definitely, I'm seeing a demand for my information and for the types of trainings that
- 11:03I do And we even actually decided as a part of the pandemic because everything has been so
- 11:08tough on people.
- 11:09I actually am giving away a thousand copies of my best selling book come here on Boston 12
- 11:14months for free.
- 11:15Like, all people have to do is pay for shipping because I was like, obviously, I'm not Verizon.
- 11:20I ain't got $1,000,000 to give away, but I I decided that the most valuable tool I ever
- 11:25created my book become your own boss in 12 months that I would give 1000 copies away free.
- 11:32And so we're doing that over on my website on beginmybiz.com/freebook.
- 11:38So all you gotta do is pay for shipping it.
- 11:39It will come to you and And and that's what my little corner of the world, what I can do to
- 11:44help.
- 11:44But speaking of people helping, I know some brands have gone out here and and and tried to
- 11:51help.
- 11:51And some of them have, missed the mark with their help, and some of them have done a really
- 11:56good job.
- 11:57And I kinda wanted to talk to you a little bit about, like, some best practices that you've
- 12:02seen that have been pretty successful.
- 12:04And and I certainly will share some of that I've seen as well, but I'm curious as to, you
- 12:08know, given the fact that you have the lens to kinda look and see what everybody's kinda
- 12:11doing, who have you seen just really do a fantastic job?
- 12:16Well, we actually did a an event last September where about 25 of our members actually came to
- 12:23a virtual event.
- 12:24To showcase what they had done on behalf of small businesses.
- 12:28And this ranged from everything from minority owned small business directed grants, to
- 12:33educational programs, to different product and service offerings, and it was really frankly
- 12:40enlightening for all of our big brands who sell the small business to see what are other people
- 12:45doing and how exactly are they doing it?
- 12:47I'll talk to the negative first.
- 12:49I think that there were a lot of well intentioned.
- 12:52And I think you could say that about everybody, well intentioned programs that were either too
- 12:57narrow too small or too self serving that were offered by by large brands.
- 13:03And, you know, I gotta say small businesses of nothing else know how to sniff out bullshit.
- 13:08And they basically called bullshit on wait a minute.
- 13:11This program is not really helpful to me, accessible to me, relevant to me.
- 13:16It's a disappointment to say the least.
- 13:18Mhmm.
- 13:19And I won't name any names there.
- 13:20But, again, well intentioned offerings that seem to work, just highlight 3 of them, Zoho,
- 13:28which is probably one of the largest purveyors of applications to run business, particularly
- 13:34small business, has millions of small business customers around the world.
- 13:38All of their applications and and programs are are made available by subscription, and they
- 13:43pretty quickly, like within the 1st 30 days of the pandemic really hitting said to all of
- 13:49their customers, you don't have to pay for our product, but we wanted you to continue to use
- 13:54it so we are offering it to you for free for the next 6 months if you wanna use it.
- 13:59What was interesting is about 30% of their customers actually reached back out to them and
- 14:03said, thank you very much.
- 14:05I don't need it.
- 14:05I'm doing fine.
- 14:06Wow.
- 14:07And and I thought that was a really wonderfully honest exchange between small business
- 14:12customers and a large enterprise that serves them in, in really kind of, in those who took
- 14:16advantage of it, obviously, were able to cut an expense out of their, out of their operation.
- 14:22Another one that did it some really cool things was Aweber, which is an email company very much
- 14:27like Constant Contact Competitor to Constant Contact And they pretty quickly started to
- 14:32create based on the response that they had seen from their small business customers what they
- 14:37call pivot packs.
- 14:38And pivot packs were very, very focused on specific industries like fitness centers.
- 14:45How does a fitness center actually pivot to successfully survive what is a shutdown in
- 14:53their particular business sector.
- 14:55And these were terrific.
- 14:56And they really created them with their customers.
- 15:00So they went to fitness centers, and they said, their fitness centers are your customers.
- 15:04What are you doing?
- 15:04You know, How are you wiping down everything?
- 15:07How are you exactly, you know, what hours are you able to operate?
- 15:09What machines are you able to operate?
- 15:11What things are you learning how to do?
- 15:13With video, and it was very, very helpful.
- 15:16And then 3rd and final example I'll give is I think that there were there were a lot of
- 15:21brands who tried to recognize or tried to really solicit the specific pain point that the
- 15:29small their small business customers were having and discover ways in which they could
- 15:34help, Verizon Business, great example, discovered one of their sales representatives
- 15:40saw that their local corner restaurant was struggling to do curbside delivery.
- 15:46And they were struggling because the somebody from the restaurant had to come out to the curb
- 15:51you know, present the bill, take the credit card back, go back into the kitchen, pay the
- 15:55bill, come back out, you know, with the food.
- 15:58Oh, there's a mistake.
- 15:59Go back in.
- 16:00It was just a mess.
- 16:01And what Verizon realized this Verizon representative realized is, you know, cell
- 16:05phones can be used as walkie talkies.
- 16:08Why don't we just simply instruct our small business restaurant customers?
- 16:13Hey, you've got a powerful communication tool a walkie talking in your hand.
- 16:17It's called your phone.
- 16:18Here's how you set it up.
- 16:19Here's how you use it.
- 16:20And that was something that was, you know, it's not a revolutionary kind of stuff, but Wow.
- 16:26Talk about practical assistance for a problem Sure.
- 16:29That virtually every restaurant in America is pacing.
- 16:33Would I would also give Verizon another shout out.
- 16:36You know, very early on, Verizon was one of the first corporations that I saw try to do a grant
- 16:41for small business.
- 16:42And they were also one of the ones that got clobbered because, like, we had to shut their
- 16:47program down within, like, 28 or 48 hours because they had no idea how many people were
- 16:52gonna come.
- 16:53But I give them credit because then they said, okay.
- 16:57We know people need money and we know we're not equipped to distribute it.
- 17:01So then they went and partnered with Lisk and gave Lisk the money who had the infrastructure,
- 17:08and they they and they have done 2 or 3 different grants through lists.
- 17:12And and I appreciate them for not just getting knocked down and being like, oh, forget it.
- 17:17I mean, they they were like, okay.
- 17:18We gotta do this smarter.
- 17:20They also did an amazing webinar series that they started I believe it was, like, in April,
- 17:26and they went every single week.
- 17:29They gave a valuable webinar, and they did that all the way through the end of October.
- 17:34And I think that they are to be credited because I think of all of the stuff I saw,
- 17:39theirs was the thing that I thought helped the most, that I thought was most visible because
- 17:44they didn't just do one thing.
- 17:45They did a couple of things to help people.
- 17:47And I think that, you know, we'll be forever grateful to them for that, for sure.
- 17:52But, listen, We are having a great conversation tonight here on the small biz chat podcast.
- 17:57I'm Melinda Emerson, the small business lady.
- 17:59Stay with us.
- 18:00We will be right back.
- 18:01People and businesses everywhere use plastic to pay for virtually anything using their credit
- 18:06card, even where cards aren't accepted.
- 18:10It's so fast and easy.
- 18:12We'll explain how it works in less than 60 seconds.
- 18:15Ready?
- 18:17First, you tell us who you wanna pay.
- 18:20How much you wanna pay and enter your payment information.
- 18:26Next, plastic charges your credit or debit card.
- 18:30Finally, we send your recipient a check, ACH, or wire transfer, and you rack up points from
- 18:36your credit card reward program.
- 18:39Don't forget plastic also offers global payments, the ability to pay in cash from your
- 18:44bank account, and more.
- 18:47Take 2 minutes make a payment with plastic today atplastic.com.
- 18:52Plastic.
- 18:53It's the smarter way to pay.
- 18:55Welcome back to the small biz shaped podcast I'm Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady.
- 18:59America's number 1 small business expert.
- 19:01I'm here talking with Dave Walker, the founder and CEO of the SMB Institute, and we were just
- 19:06talking about brands that got it right in the pandemic, helping small business owners
- 19:12Alright, James.
- 19:13So let's talk a little bit about some of the work that you do with some of your brand
- 19:17partners.
- 19:17I know you recently did a research program with a center.
- 19:20And I wanted to talk to you about some of the things that the that the research on earth for
- 19:24you.
- 19:25Yeah.
- 19:25I've had a suspicion back since I was building my own company that searched small business
- 19:30that it was hard to earn and hard to keep the trust of small business.
- 19:35And like any relationship, even though, you know, I was in a buyer and seller relationship,
- 19:41myself, the the the seller and small business customers, the buyers, any relationship
- 19:46basically lives or dies on trust.
- 19:48And we all know that as adults who've ever had a relationship, you know, trust is basically
- 19:53the cornerstone of making it work.
- 19:55And so based on the suspicion that, boy, you know, one of the reasons why maybe the the the
- 20:02challenges that so many brands are facing and selling to small businesses, they're not
- 20:06trusted.
- 20:07And how do we quantify that?
- 20:09So one of our charter members is Accenture, the big consulting firm Accenture, and they were
- 20:14gracious enough to partner with us on doing a very large national survey of it's called a
- 20:21mirror survey.
- 20:22It was of thousands of small businesses across the US.
- 20:26And thousands of people who sell to small businesses from midsize to large enterprises.
- 20:32So the buyers on one side, the sellers on on the other side.
- 20:36And we got straight to it.
- 20:38We said, do you trust small businesses?
- 20:41Do you trust the enterprises that sell you products and services particularly the large
- 20:46ones.
- 20:47And the short answer is only 50% said they trusted.
- 20:50So you could say that 50% of the marriages are kind of doomed to failure.
- 20:54Because there's no real trust at the heart of it.
- 20:56On the flip side, the mirror side, we asked those folks in the large businesses how many of
- 21:04your small business do you think your small businesses trust you, your small business
- 21:07customers trust you?
- 21:09And they said, 80% said, yes.
- 21:12They trust us.
- 21:14So right there, you have an enormous gap basically in the perception of trust on the two
- 21:20sides of the relationship.
- 21:22And we're really trying to understand now what are the component parts of that is it because I
- 21:29I don't trust you because I don't believe you care about me, or is it I don't trust you
- 21:34because you don't understand me.
- 21:36I don't trust you because I don't believe you have my interests at heart.
- 21:41And as we followed on with the survey and the second wave of the survey, we asked those
- 21:45specific questions And, literally, all three of those were sta were the same.
- 21:5080% of the large businesses said yes.
- 21:53Yes.
- 21:53We care.
- 21:54Yes.
- 21:55Our small businesses believe that we have their best registered heart.
- 21:58And then on the small business side, only 50% said said, yes.
- 22:02We we we they care they trust us, and most importantly, they understand us.
- 22:07So now that frankly gives all of us on the large brand side.
- 22:11It gives our community the opportunity to address that, to actually say, okay.
- 22:18We gotta up our game.
- 22:19We actually have an event in May for all of our senior most executives in the institute.
- 22:25It's called the leaders form, but the theme of it is exceed.
- 22:28We have to now as a as a community of brands that smell sell to small businesses, we gotta
- 22:34exceed expectations in a very big way, particularly as small businesses are going into
- 22:39recovery.
- 22:40And that doesn't mean lowering prices.
- 22:42That doesn't mean, you know, offering more bells and whistles on a product.
- 22:47It means Really simple stuff.
- 22:49Like, ask a small business.
- 22:51What do you need?
- 22:53What how do you need it?
- 22:55And when do you need it?
- 22:57And to accept the answer, not try to sell against the answer.
- 23:02And I think, you know, it's a long road and a long haul but with the frankly with the
- 23:08underpinnings of the data and insights of this research and how much it actually financially
- 23:15impacts these large enterprises.
- 23:17The customers, they don't win.
- 23:20They win and then lose.
- 23:21The customers they can't keep, it's got real financial consequences.
- 23:25I I completely know it.
- 23:27I completely know it.
- 23:28Alright.
- 23:28Last question for you, Dave.
- 23:30Tell me about small biz aid in June.
- 23:32What are you guys doing to support small business?
- 23:35Well, we're literally modeling this on farm aid.
- 23:38One of my favorite organizations that I've supported now going on 20 years.
- 23:43We wanted to create an event that will hopefully everybody's fingers crossed will be
- 23:49timed to the the emergent recovery that we hope we're all in in the month of June, and
- 23:55particularly the emergent recovery that's in back small businesses.
- 23:58It'll be summer.
- 23:59Hopefully, businesses will be reopening reopening for good.
- 24:03A lot of the kind of constraints that we're under right now will hopefully be lifted, and
- 24:08we wanted to do an event entirely focused on helping small business, not a selling event,
- 24:14but one where we could work with our our member brands to create lots of terrific advice on the
- 24:23very real challenges that we are the the small businesses are facing.
- 24:29We're actually gonna host this on the alignable platform.
- 24:32So those 6,000,000 members of alignable will be kind of the underpinning of the audience, but
- 24:38we're gonna invite all small businesses to attend.
- 24:42And we're really hoping that the content that we develop which begins with asking the
- 24:46question, what do you specifically need?
- 24:48And we're querying a lot of small businesses on that through through alignable.
- 24:52We'll we'll have a really terrific event.
- 24:54So it's a 100% virtual.
- 24:56It'll be the 2nd week of June, the full week, and it really will be offered for free for
- 25:01everybody who wants to attend.
- 25:02Thank you so much, Dave, for being here with me.
- 25:05Thank you all so much for joining me for this episode of the small Bishop podcast.
- 25:10If you want more information about how to start a grow a small business, head over to my blog,
- 25:15succeed as your own boss.com to get more information.
- 25:18Now the mission of small fish chat is to end small business failure.
- 25:23I'm Melinda Emerson, small business lady, your host, and I'll leave you with this.
- 25:26You never lose in business, either you win or you learn.
- 25:29God bless everybody.
- 25:30Good night.
- 25:32Thank you for listening to the Small Biz chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
- 25:37For more resources and small business success strategies, visit succeed as your own boss.com.
- 25:44Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and join us next Wednesday.