Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / Small Business Trends for 2020 and Beyond

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Small Business Trends for 2020 and Beyond · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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  3, 10, 1, 0, ignition, liftoff, Ending small business failure.
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  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with a number 1 small business expert Melinda Emerson.
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  Belinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
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  you need to succeed and live the life you've dream of.
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  Now here's the small Biz lady herself.
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  Melinda Everson.
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  Hi everyone, and welcome to the small Bizchett podcast.
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  I'm Milan Emerson, the small business lady.
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  And I am so excited to be here with you today.
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  You know, as we end this year, as we're coming into a new year, I thought that it would be
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  really interesting to reflect on the last 10 years and the trends that I see going into 2020
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  in the next 10 years.
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  And, you know, as some of you may or may not know, I have been in business for 20 years.
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  So I've actually seen some stuff.
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  Right?
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  So what I'm excited about is, you know, it was interesting for me to sit back and kinda think
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  about the things that I thought really revolutionized business in the last 10 years
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  and where I think it's going.
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  But I but, you know, I really wanted to share with you what those things were.
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  So that you could really appreciate them because in the olden days, it was a lot harder.
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  So with that, I really wanted to think about what I thought was the most revolutionary thing
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  that's happened in business in the last 10 years.
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  And honestly, I think it's wifi.
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  I think having the internet everywhere, being able to work from anywhere, you know, all of
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  that really kinda got rolling in the early, you know, 2010.
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  I mean, I think Wi Fi started to become more pervasive in 2008, 2009, but literally, like
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  being able to go to any cafe and work anywhere, that happened and really 2010 was when I really
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  start thinking about, you know, coffee shops popping up with wifi and being able to work
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  the, you know, local panera bread or whatever.
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  I I that stuff all really started about 10 years ago, and I really think it revolutionized
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  business, and it really destigmatized sort of, like, working remotely and stuff like that.
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  So working from home became something that even major corporations started doing let alone
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  small businesses.
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  And so I really think Wi Fi everywhere was a major thing that happened that changed business
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  The second thing I think that really changed business in the last 10 years was just
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  smartphones and and being able to conduct business.
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  I mean, there's small business owners out here that run their entire business from a
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  smartphone.
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  And I believe being able to, you know, check your bank account, manage your payroll, respond
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  to clients a lot more quickly.
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  That, you know, smartphones made that possible.
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  And and, you know, I don't even remember what it was like before we had smartphones, you
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  know, just being able to go somewhere you've never been before by just putting an address in
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  Google Maps and driving.
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  Just all of that stuff really change the way we operate and and how mobile we feel.
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  You know, we used to have to print out these map quest directions and all this stuff.
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  And and really being able to have, you know, directions at your fingertips, all of that
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  really revolutionized business.
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  And and I think it's gonna continue to do so.
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  The next thing that I think really has changed about business in the last 10 years is cloud
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  based computing.
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  You know, software used to be really, really expensive and used to have to go to the
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  OfficeMax of the Staples and buy a big box off the shelf.
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  And cloud based computing made everything, internet based, and a lot cheaper, a lot more
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  affordable.
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  So there was so much more software that small business owners have access to now that 10
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  years ago, you you didn't, unless you bought it outright, unless you had your own servers, you
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  had to buy a license to use it.
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  I mean, it was really, really complicated and convoluted.
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  And now for, you know, 10 to $50 a month, you can kinda use almost any software you could
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  possibly think of.
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  The other thing I think that's interesting about what has gone on in the last 10 years is
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  social media marketing.
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  Social media marketing really came of age in the last decade.
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  And it really changed business because before that, there were all these gatekeepers and all
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  these people you had to go through to reach people.
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  Now social media removed all of that.
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  And I think it has has made a remarkable difference for small business owners, but it's
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  also made big business have to become a lot more authentic and not be able to hide behind
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  their big brands.
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  And and and I think that that's been something that has really revolutionized the way we do
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  business today.
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  The other thing I I think that's interesting is online advertising, you know, Facebook ads,
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  Google AdWords, they really came of age in the last decade and and really changed business.
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  And certainly now you got Instagram ads and TikTok and all this stuff, but I I really do
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  think that online advertising is is is just really coming into its golden age.
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  Like, in the last 10 years, it kinda became a business norm, but now you have to have some
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  kind of advertising strategy.
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  It's not even an option if you really want to be driving traffic online.
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  And so I really think that that's another thing that's come about in the last 10 years.
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  This made a big difference.
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  I also think, you know, Square and really being able to process credit cards from anywhere from
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  a smartphone That really took on a whole new meeting, you know, having mobile point of
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  purchase, you know, displays and stuff like that.
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  You know, to process credit cards back in the day, you had to apply for a merchant account
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  and pay a monthly fee to rent the equipment and then you had to batch the the the credit card
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  machine every night to make sure your money got through.
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  I you know, the internet being able to process transactions, you know, wirelessly really
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  changed the world.
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  And and really, it started in 2009, but since, you know, it really came of age in the mid to
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  2010.
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  And and I honestly think that that that's something that has revolutionized small
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  business The other thing that's interesting is that lending has completely changed.
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  You know, we're in a culture now where 8000 loans a day are turned down by as banks.
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  And so what that has done is created all of these merchant advanced lenders.
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  You know, some people call them predatory lenders.
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  I don't I don't know if that's completely fair, but I think that it's a lot faster and easier
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  to get money.
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  It's also really, really expensive to get money.
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  But, you know, if banks are playing ball, you gotta get money from somewhere And so I think
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  that that's something that has really, really changed.
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  And, certainly, Amazon And E Commerce businesses have come of age in the last 10
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  years.
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  It's amazing.
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  You can buy absolutely anything on Amazon, and you can sell absolutely anything on Amazon And
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  I think that that is exciting, and that has really been a game changer for small business
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  as well.
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  I mean, a lot of people knock Amazon for putting small business is out of business, but
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  I think that, you know, Amazon has opened up a lot of opportunity for small business but it
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  has definitely hurt, you know, retail, major retail for sure.
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  But I also think that one of the most interesting things about business in the last
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  10 years is content really has become currency.
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  And if you develop great content, the world will be to pass to your door no matter where
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  that door is, And that is something that I don't think anyone anticipated.
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  And that, you know, kind of dovetail's hand in hand with social media, you know, how you
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  leverage social media is with great content.
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  What's been interesting, and I think what's gonna be interesting going forward is just, you
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  know, all the different distribution channels that are gonna continue to prop up you know,
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  sprout up.
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  But honestly, I think content becoming so powerful.
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  You know, content is king and it's still king, but I also wanna say too, the fact that content
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  and social media have become so powerful in today's marketplace, it also has created this
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  this kind of like expert economy or, you know, influencer economy where if you have a a a
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  narrow niche and you work your niche, and you've got, you know, 600,000 followers on
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  Instagram or, you know, like me, you might have, you know, 300, 400,000 followers on
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  Twitter or you might have a humongous YouTube channel like Marie Folio.
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  I mean, there's there's all these people that have created amazing niches for themselves.
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  And and made real money in the expert economy.
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  I mean, not not even to to degrade the the Kardashians, for sure, but regular people who
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  are not celebrities do not have porn tapes out, have amazing expert businesses as well.
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  And that's like a real business, you know, professional bloggers and things like that.
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  All of that has come of age in the last 10 years, and it's been really you know, kind of
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  amazing to see.
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  When I think about going forward and what we have to look forward to in in sort of like 2020
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  and beyond.
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  When I think about the next trends that that are here that are coming, I really feel like
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  Stories are a lot more important than brands.
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  You know, that there's a great book that came out last year that the story brand, and I think
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  that It's really about story stories are what people remember.
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  People don't remember slogans.
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  They remember the stories behind the business, and I think that that's gonna continue to help
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  small business owners position themselves going into the next decade.
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  I also think mobile marketing and just mobile communication, whether it's with your employees
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  or with your customers, All of that is gonna continue to become way more important as we
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  look at how many people operate their whole lives, some smartphones.
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  You know, it's not even about computers as much anymore when, you know, half the world is using
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  a smartphone to to learn anything.
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  I I think that data driven marketing is gonna become even more pervasive in small business.
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  At least I hope it is I want people to measure their marketing and not just, you know, throw
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  money out the window because they're not measuring it.
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  I think that 5 g is coming.
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  5 g is gonna make everything faster.
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  It's gonna make money move faster.
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  It's gonna make video move faster.
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  It's gonna make our smartphones be even smarter.
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  So I think 5 g is gonna be something that you know, kicks everything up a notch.
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  Voice marketing is here to stay.
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  I think as long as people have Siri, Alexa, and Google Home, you know, the voice search
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  marketing is really gonna become a lot more powerful and pervasive.
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  I think user reviews, I think customers are are continue to have a lot of power.
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  Sites like Yelp are not going anywhere, and everybody else is getting in on the review
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  business.
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  So I think that, you know, user generated content, user reviews are gonna be essential to
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  any brand And so that's gonna be really important.
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  You gotta be extra careful with your customer service training and how you treat people
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  because they will have the ability to fight back I I think that remote work is gonna
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  continue to grow.
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  You're gonna continue to see more small business owners have, you know, virtual teams
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  and people working all over the country.
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  I also think the green lifestyle is gonna really start to become pervasive because I I
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  mean, it's it's it's pretty you you definitely see a lot more people more concerned about the
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  planet concerned about, you know, waste and plastic bags and stuff like that.
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  But I think that the green agenda is gonna become really, really important as of 2020,
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  we're only gonna have 30 years to reverse the damage that that all of this industrialization
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  has done to the planet.
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  And so you're gonna see more corporations, more customers, more people really talking about
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  this.
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  And so you've gotta you're gonna have to figure out how to incorporate green tactics in your
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  business, whether it's a triple bottom line business you're gonna have or, you know, are
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  you gonna be like Bamba socks or Tom's shoes or, you know, you're gonna have to have some
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  kind of green thing going on in order to stay relevant I think ecommerce is gonna continue to
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  dominate.
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  It's gonna become even more pervasive.
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  I would be interested to see if there's shopping mall anywhere in the world in 10
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  years.
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  I I do believe that the ecommerce is going to, you know, change forever regular traditional
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  retail.
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  And I think that that's gonna be something interesting to watch.
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  And, you know, you do still wanna go somewhere and try on things sometimes.
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  So I don't know.
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  They're gonna completely go away, but I I do think, you know, the concept of shopping mall
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  is not going to be what we know it is today.
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  And lastly, I I'm really think that, you know, there's all this conversation about AI and and
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  the robots taking over.
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  And I think what we're gonna discover in the next decade is that the the robots are not
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  gonna displace humans.
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  They're still gonna have to be humans to direct the robots.
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  I think we're gonna do less repetitive work, thanks to artificial intelligence.
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  But I think the the concept all the way, you know, to the Jetsons where, you know,
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  everything is working, thinking for itself.
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  I do not believe that's coming, not in the next 10 years.
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  So I definitely think AI is gonna continue to assist us but that's all it's gonna do.
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  It's gonna assist us.
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  I do not think the robot is gonna be thinking for me.
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  So with that, that is my prediction.
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  For 2020 and beyond.
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  I, hope that you are really excited about what is to come in your business.
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  I know for me, I'm really excited about what, you know, god has a story for all of us and
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  what the future will hold I want you to be excited about your business.
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  I want you to start planning.
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  I want you to be writing up your one page business plan or if you're really ambitious.
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  Do a 10 page business plan, but please plan, you know, because you plan for failure if you
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  don't write down how you want to succeed.
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  And so it's really important that you figure out your your sales plan, your sales targets,
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  your sales goals, write them down.
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  If you write them down, you're gonna be far more likely to achieve them.
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  So just don't, you know, just think, ah, I got it.
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  No.
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  Just write it down, write down your new sales plan, write down how you're gonna focus in.
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  All of these things are gonna be really important for you to make sure that 2020 is
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  your best gear yet.
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  And I know it can happen.
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  I believe in you.
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  And, listen, I am Melinda Emerson.
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  I am the small business lady.
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  And so my last thought for you is that don't worry about 2020.
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  Worry about how you're gonna make the most out of 2020.
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  That's what I want you to do.
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  Write down your goals, write down how you're gonna achieve your goals and then go execute
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  your plan.
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  That is my wish for you.
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  Happy New Year.
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  Know that I'm here for you always as a resource.
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  You can always go and check out my website.
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  Succeed as your own boss.com where I've got great tools and tips to help you live your
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  dream life as an entrepreneur.
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  Happy New Year.
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  You for listening to the Small Biz chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
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  For more resources and small business success strategies, visit succeed as your own boss.com.
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  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and join us next Wednesday.