How the Economy is Impacting Small Business | Ep 052

This episode is the second part to last week's episode. Check that out if you haven't already!  We discussed the state of the economy and its impact on personal debt and . This week we’re going to talk about how the economy is affecting small businesses.

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References:
https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/small-business/small-business-statistics

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/small-business-statistics/

https://mishtalk.com/economics/small-business-bankruptcies-surge-in-2023-five-reasons-why/

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=amount+of+personal+debt+2023+compared+to.previous+years&t=iphone&iax=images&ia=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.howmuch.net%2Farticles%2Fchange-in-household-debt-and-credit-outstanding-3b35.jpg

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/pennsylvania/articles/2023-10-02/feds-powell-gets-an-earful-about-inflation-and-interest-rates-from-small-businesses


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-Kacie Bryant and John Crespo

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Transcript

Kacie: Now, today we're going to break it down into specifically small businesses, how it impacts small businesses. And it's going to, you're going to stay frowning probably for a little bit at the beginning of this episode, but we will turn your front upside down because we have, I think some encouragement and some things that we can do to combat this.

The Business Project podcast 

John: business can be complicated. 

Kacie: We break it down to regular people like 

John: us can understand and find success. I'm John Crespo, accountant and consultants. I'm 

Kacie: Casey Bryant, marketer and event planner. If you run a business or want to run a business, 

John: welcome to the show. 

Kacie: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Business Project podcast.

We are so excited. To have you here, if you have not listened to last week's episode, please go and do that. Whether you pause this and go listen or listen after this, because these are very closely related. We were kind of Debbie Downers last episode. Bringing the truth, bringing the truth, but I think that it's really something that we need to be talking about openly so that we can talk about how to come together to create some solutions.

Yep. Truth hurts. It doesn't help if you just sweep it under the rug. You can't sweep 

John: it under the rug. Mm mm. Um, what is it called? Problems fester? Yeah. They don't 

Kacie: go away. They don't go away. Most of the time. Most of the time. And a lot of what we're talking about today, you can't hear in other places. Oh, 

John: we had problems finding information.

Kacie: Very hard to find information. Yeah. It's hidden in the deep, deep dark webs. 

John: Gotta dig. Mm hmm. I think this kind of stuff is more, you know, getting out. From behind the computer and actually going into your community to see the look and the feel and the energy of what's going on. That's how you're gonna really get some answers.

Kacie: Mm hmm. Yeah. Last week we talked about, if you missed it, we talked about the state of our economy. We talked about some things that we're causing. What we're feeling so heavy when it comes to you know supplies and kovat obviously and the cost of everything going up interest rates Debt we read some statistics from debt.

You have personal debt and how that affects businesses and So we kind of talked about the overall You know bigger picture of things now today. We're gonna break it down into Specifically small businesses how it impacts small businesses and it's gonna you're gonna stay frowning Probably for a little bit at the beginning of this episode but we will turn your frown upside down because we have I think some encouragement and some things that we can do to Combat this.

John: Yeah. Well, you know economies have cycles We have our good times, we have our bad times. When money's flowing, everybody's celebrating. Right? But when money's tight, we're not celebrating so much. Right? Especially small businesses because we're the ones, um, like directly, directly affected when the money stops flowing.

We're, like, immediately affected when the money stops flowing. So, there's reasons why the money stops flowing, but there's also solutions on how we can work together. To overcome that for when you know, the money starts flowing 

Kacie: again Yeah, and we know that not all of you guys as business owners are struggling I mean, there's some industries that are actually booming right now.

Yeah, and some businesses that you know have to We have to use every day to operate and so I know a lot of you guys are doing okay And you might have some things that are impacting your business like, you know, having a hard time finding good labor That's a big a big problem with a lot of businesses right now or the cost of some of your supplies going up So I think but I think that there are a lot of businesses out there that are like I don't know what you're talking about.

My business is better than ever Well, I, I'm sorry to say that there are businesses around you. I guarantee you there are a lot of businesses around you that are not feeling that way. Specifically restaurant, hospitality, anything that is a luxury, uh, event venues, 

John: discretionary. 

Kacie: Yes, those types of businesses are a little bit struggling right now.

Breweries, wineries. I know those businesses for the most part across the country are having a hard time. And so if you guys are doing great, that's awesome. We need your positivity. We need your encouragement right now is a time to link elbows with the businesses next to you and. You know, do some of the things that we're asking today so that we can all continue to support each other and Small businesses around the country can continue to thrive because it's such an important part of our economy for sure 

John: Yeah, let's get into some statistics.

Yes, let's do it. This is some stuff that Data data it comes to information. We got to provide some data. 

Kacie: And again, it was really hard I mean really hard to find good information. It is hidden But these are just general statistics for businesses. So 3. 2 million small businesses exist across the U. S. And this was in 2023, so recently.

32. 2 million. 

John: 32. 2 million small businesses. Yeah, 

Kacie: that's a lot of businesses. And 32 percent of those small businesses say that inflation is their biggest business challenge right now. Yeah. 32%. I see that. I know one of the things that falls quickly behind that is finding good employees. We hear that a lot.

Yep. Yes. There is a staff shortage. Employees that stay. And that actually do the 

John: work. Yeah. Yes. I think the, the, uh, the, the sentiment amongst employees, like getting good employees is like, how do you encourage someone to work hard, right? For a small business. When they could stay at home and get government money and not 

Kacie: do anything.

Or they can work for these big corporations and get all of these benefits and high pay and things. Right. Get paid double to go work at McDonald's. Yeah. Yeah. It's rough. Uh, so over 99 percent of the businesses across the U. S. are small businesses. Over 99%. That's a lot. That's a lot. So most businesses are small businesses Wow, which is what considered 500 employees or less 500 

John: employees or less.

Yeah. 

Kacie: Yeah Nearly half of all US employees are employed by a small business So half of the people in our community are working for a small business. Yep That's pretty cool Small businesses have added over 12. 9 million jobs in the last 25 years So we're getting into this so that we can make sure that, and you guys know this, but put numbers behind the impact that small businesses actually have in our communities.

John: This is why focusing on the small business community has to be important. Like our government, who loves to create policy on the economy, you know, should be paying some high attention. On the small business community, right? Not, not just how it affects large corporations, but how their decisions are affecting us, the small guys.

Because we're 99 percent of the businesses in this country. 50 percent of the employees work for small businesses. If we can't, if we can't make it, that's gonna, the country's not gonna survive. No. 

Kacie: And that was according to Forbes. We probably should tell them when we got our numbers. Yeah, it's a big part of our economy.

And so this is kind of where the troubles come in. This is mishtalk. com. Uh, talks about small businesses. And again, it's hard to find this information. Bankruptcy surge in 2023. And according to this, nearly 1500 small businesses filed for subchapter five bankruptcy this year through September 28th. And that's only just one type of bankruptcy.

And there are several types of bankruptcy. So I can imagine that number is a lot more than 1500. And it says that nearly as many as in the entire 2022. And this gives five reasons while bank, why bankruptcies are surging. The first one is rising interest rates. Which we talked about in the last podcast.

Crazy 

John: interest rate environment right now. 

Kacie: Yep. Surging wages. Again, it's really hard to compete with a big corporation that's bringing in all this money. And can afford to pay it. And some McDonald's are locally owned. So I shouldn't, they're locally owned franchises. And they have their own struggles. So I didn't mean to throw McDonald's under the bus, but I was using it as an example.

Yeah, I 

John: mean it's a great example because it's true. 

Kacie: Yes. Tighter bank credit is the third reason, having a hard time getting bank credit. Over leverage. That one, I see, I have personal people in my life that I see going into insane amount of debt. Yep. And we've talked about that in past podcasts too, how that's, you know, the trend now from all these little trendy.

Tick tockers as they tell you to get all these credit get all these credit cards stack 

John: them up Yeah, you fund your business with a credit card get into all 

Kacie: this debt 

John: because then you'll become a millionaire But they don't they don't tell you that you got to pay that stuff back 

Kacie: Or you have to have a plan in order to pay it back.

It's not just gonna magically show up And then the other one is work at home curtailing demand So a lot of people don't want to work from home. I can see that. Yeah. Yeah. We got, they got spoiled. Yeah. During 

John: COVID. You know, one thing I want to point out is when you were reading the statistics there is that, um, there's already more bankrupt or there's the same amount of bankruptcies now the year's not even over yet than all of last year.

So I'm just putting that into perspective is, is that, um, there's still. Time to go before the year's over. We still have a whole quarter left. Still have a whole quarter left and a lot can happen in that quarter. So the economy is going backwards. It's not going forwards. So these statistics are telling us that we're going to be suffering, right?

It's not going to get better. It's not going to get, I mean it's going to get worse before it gets better. Let's just say that. Yeah. Right. Um, and. You know, we, you, you played a video, a local in my city video, um, before, before this podcast and when there was, uh, an interview with a restaurant owner that, um, said revenues down 27 to 28%.

For a restaurant 

Kacie: and that was actually during that was during COVID. We did that interview during COVID. Mm hmm I guarantee you if we went back and interviewed that business owner, it would be even worse now. It'd be even worse. Yeah But that business that restaurant went through that downtime for a good amount of time and then trying to dig yourself out of that and then Coming into this environment is it's like just piling on top of each other Yeah, 

John: and I think, uh, you know, a lot of the reasons why, um, some businesses have not closed is because of the, um, the government incentives that were 

Kacie: created during COVID.

loans and all of that. You had 

John: PPP, you had ERC, employee retention credit, you had the restaurant revitalization fund, um, so there's a lot of money given out to help, um, help businesses, you know, stay afloat. But how do you recover demand right, you know because when that money goes away number one So you were given that money to help stay afloat, but then your cost increased.

So it was more expensive to get supplies, right? More expensive to keep employees because they were, you know, the, the employee wages went up exponentially, more important. So more important to, or more difficult to get clients in because people were spending money differently. No one, you know, it took a while for people to actually, um, get back out and go.

Kacie: Well, and when they did get back out, they're like, I got all this money. Let me go spend it. So it did go back up for a little bit. It's like it went down and then it went back up and then it's gone. Yeah. 

John: You know, people, we, we went out there and we spent that money real quick. Yeah. So that was a small little blip of, of good times.

You know, not all that free money is gone. So people aren't spending that money anymore. Right. And those incentives are gone. And it's like for a restaurant. That, that operates on a thin, razor thin profit margin. That's devastating. 

Kacie: Yeah, you guys know, that's, I think the community a lot of times doesn't understand, I hear all the time, well, you're a small business owner, you're a millionaire, you know, you make a lot of money, you don't have to worry about this.

And you guys know out there that have been business owners for a while, there's very few small businesses that bring in the bucks, like most of them are working every day, and they have very small profit margins, and if one, you know, one thing impacts the business, it can have a big. Impact on your entire business for sure.

Yeah, and now we have Five ten fifteen different things getting thrown at y'all at once. Yeah 

John: I mean a lot of majority of the business owners business owners I can't even speak right now, but the majority of business owners that I know Don't even pay themselves. They go through times where they don't even pay themselves Because you want to take care of your people you have to continue reinvesting into your business So there's that stigma It's not true.

Kacie: Yeah, I was reading, when I was doing this research, I was reading about the runway. Do you know what the runway is? No. No. So the runway is the amount of money, specifically for startups. That's what it talks about. So when you're a startup business and they talk about needing a runway of money. From the time you open to like cover all of your bills until you're going to start making money.

And so before I'll just throw out numbers. This isn't actual numbers, but before say they would be like, okay, we need a runway of six months. We need all the money in our bank to cover our expenses for six months. Now they're extending the runway pretty significantly and all these startup companies. So if somebody is investing in a startup or looking to work for a startup, they're asking, you know, well, what is your runway?

And it's. Significantly longer because they're expecting to take longer to be able to bring the money in and expenses are more So it gets spread out longer. 

John: That's You can see that. Yeah for sure. Everything's so much more expensive now Yeah, the cost to start a business is that's so much higher. Yeah, 

Kacie: and so let's get into let's transition into because I think one of The things that really impact small businesses also is that all of these Incentives are created.

I mean all of these large corporate corporations Not all of them a lot of the large corporations are getting all of these tax breaks They have the money to do advertising during this time. They you know, they just have so many advantages over small businesses and Apple lobby Congress they lobby Congress.

Yeah for their benefit they make There's a lot of laws that are passed that benefit the large businesses. So Apple brought in nine point ninety four point six eight billion dollars in 2022 Amazon thirty three point three six billion dollars Alphabet what you said is Google. I never even heard that before.

Yeah, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, Microsoft, Amazon, Exxon, JP Morgan, Chase You guys know all these like all of these businesses Pfizer, of course, Verizon, Fannie Mae, Ford, all of these businesses are still bringing in these huge profits. And I've seen things, I don't have it in front of me, but the difference between before COVID and after COVID, specifically businesses like Amazon, I mean, they just have like gotten Insane amount more 

John: profit people spending their COVID money on Amazon.

Yeah, all you saw was these Amazon Nobody was outside, but Amazon trucks were out there. Yeah, they were 

Kacie: packages. Yeah Yeah, and so I think this can kind of roll into our solutions Yeah, you want to talk about some of our solutions? Do we have anything else to talk about with that? 

John: Well, I mean the major solution is Focusing on local.

Yeah, right, you know as a community as a Business owner, especially if you're a business owner that's doing well during this time Support your local community. Like we should be out there really making sure that Number one, we're visiting local restaurants if we're buying some stuff them, you know, we choose local first Mm hmm, right because With these statistics alone, with this data that we've provided alone, it tells you that if our local community, if our local business community is not surviving, is not doing well, then our community is not going to do well.

No. Crime's going to go up because there's no opportunity for people to find jobs. Um, nothing's going to be, there's not going to be any after school activities, you know, all that. There's nothing to do so people are going to get bored. Kids are gonna go out there and start doing some craziness. Crime's gonna go up.

Drugs, mental health, like all of that affects everything. If we're not ensuring that we have a healthy business climate locally, then... You look at, you look at the, look at the, um, town centers all over the country. If you just do a YouTube search for, um, Main Street America, right? Looking at Main Street America.

It's being gutted. It's being gutted right now, especially 

Kacie: in the bigger cities because of all the crime and all the things yeah and um So I think that that was a good think local first. So we're going to ask you guys We're going to give you guys some takeaways some things that we can do because in the past episode we talked about Um, how we, it's up to us to stand up and do something.

Nobody's going to come save us. There's not a, no Superman knight in shining armor. Like that's us. We have to be it for each other. And so this is kind of our call to you guys out there to share this video, you know, talk about this with your friends, because these are some actual things that we can put into play right now to where if a lot of us got together and did this.

At once it would have a huge impact, but we have to do it together It can't just be us and you going and doing these things We have to spread the word and make a commitment to talk about this get it out from under the rug let's like spread it out clean it up and Let's make a commitment to do these things.

So the first thing was choosing local which sometimes I will say is really hard I mean I can And I'm a huge, we'll talk about my other business in a minute, which is another way that can help, but, um, you know, I'm a huge advocate for supporting local and sometimes it can be hard. We went to order a lunch for our team and I always.

Get local from a local restaurant for our team, even though getting Jimmy John's is way easier. They have an online thing. I order it online. I go pick it up. There's never a problem. It's always on time. It's always fresh. Jimmy John's is good. Like easiest thing in the world. And I don't know if our Jimmy John's is locally owned or not.

Again, just using that as an example. But, um, so I'm like, okay, I'm going to support a local taco shop instead of doing that. I called. I couldn't see a way to order online. I called them on the phone. We, the connection was bad and then they had somebody walk in. Cause it's just one person working at this restaurant.

And they had somebody walk in and they had to put me on hold and then we're talking and then we break up, you know, they can't hear me and I'm like, do I just need to come in and order? Would that be easier? And so, which was tough for me because I was getting ready for a meeting and had a million other things to do.

So to get, you know, in my car and go around order and then wait, it was very inconvenient, I will say. But you know what? The, the impact that that decision had, it was, yes, a little bit inconvenient for me. But that was, instead of, you know, that 70 going towards a corporation that is gonna not stay in our community, that 70 went towards a small business.

John: Yeah, yeah. Um, another thing is, you know, as small business owners, We can start working together a little bit more, stop looking at each other as competitors. I mean, we may be competitors in the same space, but in all honesty, we're supporting a community. So there's enough to go around if we work together to provide great service, share information on how we support our customers or our clients better, like provide more convenient services.

Like, if there's a taco shop down the street that does a better job of providing convenient services, share that information with the other one down the street, you know? I think working together more, like, truly creating a small business community that works together, that, you know, helps each other out.

But information is free flowing can build a stronger, a stronger, um, you 

Kacie: know, base phone. Yeah. Base. Because I mean, even systems is a big thing with small businesses. A lot of these small businesses, especially if they're not a franchise, they have to create the systems. You guys have to create the systems from scratch.

I mean, you're, you're building your logo, you're building your website, you're getting a, you know, a CRM system. Figuring out merchant services, you're hiring, you're creating employee manuals, like all of this stuff is done from scratch. And so if you are a small business that has this worked out and you're going, you know, getting your head up and getting active in your community with other small businesses, you can take some of the tools that you've created and freely open handedly give them to support another business.

We don't have to operate like this. It's so much better when we operate like this. Right. And I'm not saying give them your grandma's. Cookie recipe that makes money, you know, but when it comes to systems and operations and things like that We can definitely help each other out more than we do. Yeah, because that 

John: information is not gonna make one person Get more business than you, you know, it's just gonna help you operate your business more efficiently Mm hmm, you know if you can operate your business more efficiently, then you can provide you can focus on providing better service All that stuff, you know plays plays hand in hand Um, so I think, uh, number one, focus as, as, um, as consumers focus locally, as business owners talk locally, right?

And collaborate locally, like the, the mindset should be, where can I help and get information and locally? So that we can build this community

Kacie: when's the last time you as a business owner went into another business and talked to another business owner when's the last time you did that and just Said hey, hey John.

What's up? How are you doing? How is your business doing? What can I do to help you? when's the last time you actually did that because John is a person running a business just like you are a person running a business and I think this ties on to number three, which is Don't just ask how to help, you know, with their systems, but, or, you know, supporting their business, but ask emotionally.

How are you doing? Because we're not, we're in a bubble as business owners and it is tough and we go through things and I guarantee you there's somebody around you that's running a business that is not doing well mentally. Right. Oh, yeah And for you to just come in and ask how you're doing and what can I do to help you is gonna make The world of difference in that business owner's life.

You 

John: said a little while ago, um, you put a post out there on Facebook, just asking that question, you know, asking small business owners, Hey, how you doing? You know, and it just opened up an opportunity for business owners to just really put out, you know, some feelings. We hold it all in. Yeah. We're holding it all in and that affects our ability to think logically, especially when we have to make business decisions.

So if we have, if we're holding our emotions in, if we're holding our struggles in, we're not going to make good decisions. Our judgment is going to be clouded. We're going to be stressed. Yeah. So build that community where we can, you know, let it out. 

Kacie: And sometimes all it takes is just somebody... Showing that they care.

Yeah, because I think too that's another thing is we're down in the grind and we're doing this thing and sometimes as business owners We don't feel appreciated, you know, sometimes we're dealing with employees that take advantage or contractors that take advantage You know all of these things that are heavy that we're dealing with in our business and and sometimes we don't feel noticed We don't feel appreciated.

We feel like What's the point? We're going in every day and doing this thing. Are we really making a difference? And for somebody, another business owner to walk in and be like, Hey, I see you. How are you doing? Is going to just, I promise you just pick one, just pick one business this week and walk in. And ask them how they're doing and let me know how it goes.

I love it. Yeah. So we talked about choosing local first, even if it's inconvenient, sometimes it's not inconvenient. Sometimes it is, it's easier. Um, and then number two is talking to other businesses, collaborating. Yep. Uh, an example I can give for that is, there is a place around here that does, um, that has partners with other breweries.

to create, to sell craft beer in their place. And so they've gotten like five or six other breweries in the area that provide craft beer to their, and their place is always rocking. It's so fun. Yeah. Because people are, they're like, instead of, you know, I guess this doesn't help in a way, but instead of going individually to all these breweries, I can go to this one place and do it, but everybody wins doing that.

So pretty cool. Um, so yeah, collaborate with other business owners and then just asking a business. Yeah. Do emotional check. Yeah. How you doing? What can I do to help? 

John: Yeah, well, they call it health and wellness checks. Mm hmm temperature checks. Temperature checks. Either way. Yeah, do a temperature, temperature check.

Get out from behind your computer. Um. Walk in your community and do some 

Kacie: temperature checks. Can you guys imagine if we had hundreds or thousands of businesses around the country that spent the month of October doing these three things, the impact that it would make, and then grab hold of a friend and say, Hey, this is what I'm making a conscious effort to do this month.

Can you do it with me? Can you imagine the impact that that would have? Yeah. Oh, man, it'd be amazing. Yeah, and we talk about, you know, nobody's gonna save you. We talk about doom and gloom and how, you know, all of this stuff is happening and we feel out of control. We feel like, and I think that's why we don't do things sometimes, is because it's like, well, what am I gonna do?

How am I gonna affect that or change that? But this is something that you can do and we can all do it. Yeah, 

John: I love it. Yeah. So why don't we talk about, um, Local in My City and how that is helping. The small business community because it's that's what the focus is. It is local in my city. 

Kacie: Yes. That's exactly what it is So we started a business six years ago called local clerksville here in our hometown And that's it's a facebook instagram.

We had an app in a website. That was just highlighting locally owned businesses And we don't let Any big corporations like the business has to be, the owner has to live in our city in order to be on our platform and highlighted on our page and it grew like crazy and now we have local guides. You know, we have a food guide, a nightlife guide, holiday shopping guide.

That's a physical printed and we spent the last year completely redoing our platform because we see this making such a big impact in our community. And we see other cities that are, that don't have this tool and I think that it could be so helpful. So we've created local in my city, which is a national brand.

You can go to localinmycity. com. You can add your business for completely for free. It's all over the United States. We even have people in Australia and India and all these places adding their local businesses. Yeah. Um, but it pulls up by your, by your phone GPS. And so. Geolocation, I think is the technical term.

Um, so if you're in Texas or if you're in Louisiana or if you're in New York or California, Oregon, no matter where you are, you'll eventually be able to, you know, as businesses add themselves onto the website, you'll be able to pull up the app and it pulls up all the locally owned businesses next to you.

So this makes it such a great, easy way. To support local. And as a community member, it costs nothing to use the app. We don't charge to use the app. We don't charge to go to the website. There's no membership or anything like that. Businesses can add themselves for free. So it is a great resource to be able to you, you know, use to find local businesses.

Yeah. 

John: You know, so when you have an opportunity to travel, you want to, you want to go to those places and walk like a local. You know, like, get, get access to the good places that aren't chains. Cause the chains have all the airports. You know, lockdown, the little, the areas around the airports, it's all mostly big chains, right?

But when you're out, when you, when you want something authentic or something good, you know, you want to go local. And what better way to go and um, access local in my city for that. I love it. I love it. I go on it all the time and when I'm, when I'm thinking about something different to eat or a different place to go in our area, I go on there and I say, so what's going on?

What's poppin? What can we try? Let's check it out and see what's what's available. 

Kacie: No matter where you are, you can go where the locals go. Yeah. Yeah. 

John: So I think that, you know, sticking to the theme of supporting local, that's a great way to do it. That's a great way to do it 

Kacie: and we just launched in June the the nationwide platform So we just started posting on our Facebook and Instagram about a couple weeks ago We're starting to get active in groups and the you know We have businesses all over the country adding their businesses, but they're they might not know about it where you are yet You you might not know about it.

So What would really help us? This is genuinely a grassroots movement. There were two of us that started this and now we have a team of about eight. Um, I mean, we are a small business trying to support small businesses. And so, um, it would be very helpful if you guys could share that in groups, add your business to it for free, tell the community about the app, go to local in my city.

com and your player app store. And you can see. Yeah, events too. That's another thing. It does local events. So any local business that's putting on an event, whether it be a vendor event or a concert or, you know, anything like that, they can put it in the app too. I love it. 

John: I love it. So it's like your one stop shopper, everything local, anything that's going on, you'll find it there.

Support your local community and that's the way to do it. Yeah 

Kacie: So we gave you like four tips four good tips, right? Yeah. Yeah Oh before we move on one more thing. I want to say about that There's a if you're on facebook, there's a facebook community that we created. There's two of them. There's local in my city community which the Intention of that group is to get obviously we can't be everywhere right now And so we want people going and shopping local eating local and then posting their experience in that group And then we're gonna pull from that group and do posts on our page So if you guys go to a local restaurant or go get a gift somewhere locally You just snap a couple pictures do a quick write up about that business put it in the local in my city Community Facebook page and then we'll pull from that and you're at that business might get a shout out on our big page I love it.

And then there's a local in my city bulletin or local local in my city bulletin I think that's what a local business bulletin is what it's called. And that's also on Facebook Um in the groups local business bulletin and that's for if you are a local business you can post you can advertise on that Yeah, the other one we don't allow advertising on but this one you can tell everybody all about your business.

John: I love it So check it out Get in there, start supporting your local businesses, start supporting your local communities, and why not use the tools to do that? Download it. It's, it's, uh, it's an awesome, it's an awesome tool. I love it. Yeah. Thank you. Well, hopefully this stuff helped. 

Kacie: Hopefully it did. Yeah.

Let's do it. Let's make a commitment. Write in the comments right now. I want to hear y'all's commitment to maybe just pick one. Pick one of the four things that we talked about today. Maybe pick all four. Maybe pick two. Whatever you can commit to. If we are spreading the word, that's another thing. I guess we can add a five, which is share it.

Share. Yeah. Share this podcast. Share the movement that you're doing, share the commitment, and let's get people all across the country doing this all at once for the month of October and November. We can't 

John: rely on our government to, uh, find the solution to our problems, right? We have to do it ourselves.

So let's, let's, you know, take that initiative. 

Kacie: Let's do it. All right, y'all, we hope you had a wonderful day with us for another episode of the business project podcast. We will be back next week. 

John: See ya. See ya.