Dashboard: About That Shutdown

[Music] welcome to another 21 hats dashboard brought to you by our sponsor of the great game of business I'm Lauren Felman I'm here with genan marks welcome Jean hello Lauren it's been a while it's been too long it's great to have you back um what have you been up to you been traveling I've in Charleston Asheville back to Charleston louville Atlanta I'm looking at my calendar now Oklahoma City uh Dallas Chicago and Providence Rhode Island this month you just been driving around yeah driving around aimlessly with nothing better to do so but speaking to a lot of very interesting groups a lot of associations and uh uh it's been good it's been really good been learning a lot have you come away from it with a sense for the the mood of things ain't great uh it's slow and it's a little uh you know I mean I speak to Associates the industrial Fasteners institutes and the association of corated containers they do packaging and uh you know they're you know the basket Fabricators associate a lot of really sexy people you can imagine um but they're they're they're all struggling all these industries right now manufacturing is struggling one bright spot is biomics you know the ones that are selling into the construction industry are doing a little bit better do you know what I mean right uh but the ones that are just straight manufacturing not as much and then I was in uh I spoke to the mass Massachusetts Bankers Association uh last week and um uh you know they're not they're not making many loans you know mortgage rates are high and so is the prime rate you know what I mean so they're not making loans because the the demand isn't there or demand isn't there I mean the interest rat's too high and they're cutting back on credit availability they're you know they're all reporting so uh so that ain't great that ain't great so that's what's going on well speaking of things that aren't great I I hate talking about issues like this but it it seems pretty inescapable that we're about to have a government shutdown um I was surprised to see that according to a Goldman Sachs survey fully 70% of small businesses expect to be negatively impacted uh most because of economic uncertainty and instability and and I guess that's understandable how big a deal do you think it'll be um it like everything else it depends on you know on the business that you're in and what you're doing I mean I think a lot of services businesses will be okay I think anybody doing business with the government are going to have to just wait longer to get paid um I think it's more of a headache and then of course there's all these businesses that rely on government workers nobody's coming into work anymore so I'm not sure you know how much more it's going to affect them um you know it's just it's there's going to be a lot of annoyances for a lot of businesses um I've got a lot of travel scheduled over the next couple weeks and I'm concerned about you know delays you know traffic controllers and TSA and all that people uh applying for passports relying on the IRS the small business administration um all those things are going to be you know suspended and it's just going to be annoying and and I think a lot of businesses are are going to you know have some issues around that nothing they can do it's hard to imagine how you prepare for something like this I mean there's no telling how long it might last it you know it could hit and be over in a couple of days or it could it could drag on do you have any advice at all for anybody who's trying to figure out how to c it's too late if we if you and I had this conversation like you know like we should have if I was around a month ago you know then we could have said like okay well here's how we can prepare I I do want to say like this comes as no surprise right Lauren I mean you know if you and I were having this conversation in July and you know and we were talking about September 30th how there was going to be you know the government was facing a shutdown is there any question would we haveed any question there was going to be a shutdown you know I don't think so well yeah I mean you never know for sure and you you I mean you you at this point it certainly looks as if you are correct there yeah I mean Washington being what it is and you know the political environment but it's so stupid and you would like to think that serer Minds would somehow Prevail right but I guess my I guess my point is is that if you are impacted by the government shutting down and you haven't prepared for it then that's on you you know because I don't this isn't like a it's not like an asteroid hit hit us or a hurricane came through unexpected that's legit you know so you know if you weren't squiring away money and and you know you're talking to your customers and preparing your suppliers and and your employee and uh you know taking all those precautionary steps just to or having a battle plan in place um then it's on you because I I you know to me I just think it's it's a no you know just it's just not a surprise the government's shutting down I was it was I thought it was inevitably going to happen the last round when they had their last round of funding they just pushed it to September 30th and you just knew it was going to come back and you know be an issue so here we are all right next topic you wrote recently about the IRS uh shutting down the employee retention tax credit program um couple of things on this first shouldn't most businesses be done with this by now no and so first of all they didn't shut it down they just suspended it okay ex that's what I me shut down temporarily yeah temporarily through the end of the year um they're coming up with there's been a lot of Bad actors that have been involved in this you know employee retention credit thing and um you know the IRS been buried in in returns um you know quite a few of them uh you know not you know relevant so they just had to cause you know take a pause um and now they're they're going to give businesses the chance to you know fess up if they think that they filed a you know a bad amended return for whatever reason um they're coming up with a process for how you can re amend the amendment and uh and and give the money back for whatever reason meaning maybe they were a little bit uh too aggressive or maybe they fell for one of those p for one of the Mills that reached out to them and they were encouraged either way there's still time to correcting that is correct so you can whether you it was an honest mistake or maybe it was a willful mistake or maybe you're just got you know you know you know HED by one of the uh uh one of these ERC Mills the IRS is basically saying it's it's okay uh but we're we're coming up with the process so that you can re amend the amended return and you know give the money back and all will be fine without interest penalties so that's happening what do you do if you're concerned that you might have a problem who do you take your uh return too you wait because they they're coming up with the process right now so we're waiting to hear from the IRS what that process will be so you can't get ahead of it by like taking it to the accountant you should have taken it to I would not recommend doing that no I would not because there's literally for all I know the IRS is coming up with a with a specific form to use or a specific um you your procedure to follow um and we don't know that so all I would do is I mean I would start lining up my ducks in order if you think you have to give the money back you might want to make sure the money's there good thought uh and then also you want to you know talk to your accountant or your payroll service company and uh make sure that they're standing by and ready for when we get the instruction from the IRS um and then you asked originally like you know shouldn't most you know of you know I mean you know this credit starts expiring in April of 2024 and you know we there's a there's still procrastinators that are out there there are still people that are out there that are believe it or not are not aware of the this tax credit I know it sounds crazy even though they're getting five phone calls a day they're still not you know they haven't been paying attention they're not aware they're just they don't really don't really know what it is and so you know so there's yeah there's there's people that are still out there they got time they're still allowed to they put it off for whatever reason and so they're they're out there and those are the ones that get hurt the most I mean they delayed and now they're waiting or they haven't filed the return yet and now it's suspended even longer it could take six months now before you get any refund back from the IRS they say right was this program a good idea I don't think I've ever been really given it a thought it was one of those you know pandemic era things American Rescue plan 2020 yeah to try and provide there was the paycheck Protection Program and then there was uh this one kind of flew under the radar for a while I don't think people knew it was coming agreed and it's of course when you think about how ridicul ous it is I mean the the onslaught of returns that got filed these amended payroll tax returns they came once businesses started waking up to like being like oh wow there's this like huge your credit out there I could be getting what months and months and months after the pandemic I mean the whole idea was right that it's during the pandemic they're trying to provide the government financing for businesses you know rewarding businesses for keeping their employees employed and now like it's 2024 you know when they can apply and still get the money back even though they've Sur obviously survived or actually I should ask you if if your business if you just went out of business could you still file for retaining your employees During the period when this applied yeah as long as well the business has to be still active as an oh it does it has to be active so yeah as an entity but you could have declared bankruptcy or you could have you know liquidated but still kept the business open you know in other words you know you haven't closed out your final tax return and then yeah you can go back if it was taxes that you overpaid back when you were in operation seems like there must have been a better way to do this yeah I agree I I I do agree these are all Lessons Learned From the pandemic what can I tell you you know well I hope they're learned that's the thing are they learned yeah you know I just it's funny when I look back at the different pandemic things that were tried you know even with the paycheck Protection Program and all the fraud that occurred and and all of that I I truly feel like this was like you know our government Representatives really trying to do something to help small businesses you know I'm glad you said that because I I feel the same way it's like I I think if you it's hard to remember what the sense was at the time but if you go back then the I I think we we all would have agreed it let's error on the side of just shooting too much money into the economy not too little we all were at the time Lauren I mean when this hit and they were locking down and shutting down you're like holy [ __ ] what am I going to do you know and then to hear the government come and then say listen we're going to take care with you we're going to have this paycheck protection we're going to have the employee it it was like a lot of business owners were like oh thank God I mean like you know we were really so you know and and like I said they they put these together rather you know you know fast and you know they were holes in them and subject to fraud and here we go you know it's yeah it could have been better if more thought was put into it but I don't hold them I don't hold our Representatives accountable they had to move quickly they did they moved quickly and I think they in a bipartisan way too by the way right right yep all right last topic you also wrote recently that you I really enjoy this you hate LinkedIn uh but you feel you need to use it uh why do you hate it and why do you use it you know what's funny about that kind that got a lot of traffic actually I was surprised editor at the guardian and um it was just like you know I go on LinkedIn and it like depresses me you know because like everybody is crushing it on LinkedIn everybody's winning on LinkedIn it is like a community of Charlie Sheen everybody is like their presenting here they get accolades there they were so pleased to be part of this and oh I'm so honored to be on you know participating on this panel with such luminaries meaning you know you're a luminary too right you know or congratulate me on my new job or my position it everybody is [ __ ] killing it on LinkedIn and it just and it drives me nuts it's so cringy um and you all know it's not true you some of that is just LinkedIn doing it I just I wasn't aware that I just had my fifth anniversary of of leaving Forbes to start 21 hats I had I had no idea until I started getting congratulations on your fth year anniversary back LinkedIn just sent it out for me yeah on your yeah they just s it out you're like geez I didn't even ask you to do I guess we did there was some setting that you forgot I'm sure I'm sure yeah I forgot to to not click the send out the fifth year anniversary button yeah and so so there's all that that's going on in LinkedIn and it's just it's annoying to me and and I also know it's a bunch of baloney because these people aren't we're all not doing as good as we say we're doing we all suffer from impostor syndrome we're also not all as young as our pictures look I would we're not as young as our pictures we're not you know like it's it's just a bunch of baloney so I wrote about that with the guardian and and but and yet I'm like here I am on LinkedIn wow what do you do with it if you hate it so much why are you on there do you know what I mean yeah and I have to be I mean I I I get leads from LinkedIn I mean it's it is a businessto business social Community it's not Twitter where you know the with the you know whatever okay we'll put that aside it's not Facebook which has its own issues you know link and Linkedin to to its credit if I post something saying like oh I oppose the minimum wage you know you know on Twitter I'd be called you know cancelled called out stripped quartered hung you know un like d you get people because it's a professional you know platform people will respond with more you know uh gravitas you know more professionalism do you know what I mean and I like that but my my clients are there my customers are there and my leads are there because I we're a B2B company so I have to you do get business out of it I do I I definitely do I get business I get speaking business out of it but I get CRM business out of it believe it or not more so and what do you think drives it are you posting uh about CRM are you commenting on other people's posts about how great their CRM is or yeah I I drink the Kool-Aid can I tell you get out there and I do those things and sometimes I I bump in I I I look at it like I've got you know somebody's VP of sales or VP of marketing that comes across my stream and I'm like like oh man dude this is like a Potential Prospect for you know for Zoho you know what I mean and I'll reach out to connect and sometimes we start up a conversation it turns into work so it's it's it's defin we don't I don't advertise on LinkedIn because it's super expensive um and I don't even get the advertising on LinkedIn because I never really see any ads on LinkedIn um but I I do post and I do reach out I do proactively reach out to their potential prospects um so I do all that and it works what what can I say what can I say it's just it just it just works are there that many people on LinkedIn you know you're the kind of businesses that you would reach out to who don't already have a CRM uh yes and no I mean there's there's a percentage of my customers that have a CRM but but hate it you know so sometimes I'll see like I'll be in a LinkedIn serum group and somebody will be complaining about Zoho and I'll be like hey we we we do Zoho I think we might be able to help you if you'd like me to spend like half an hour and see what you're up to do you know what I mean so I get leads that way as well when people talk about the products that they have just because they have a CRM doesn't mean they're not a prospect for me and even if they love their CRM if it's one of the ones that we Implement that's me also saying you know um you know hey I can help you you know what I mean yep did you see The Insider ran a piece about LinkedIn last week which talked about how in their words how weird it's getting and what they were referring to is that maybe because what you were describing with the problems with all the other social networks people are starting to reveal more personal information on LinkedIn than they used to and some uh business executive wrote about how upset he was to be getting divorced and initially he got a lot of sympathy and then he got a huge backlash from people who couldn't believe he was sharing this stuff on a you know business networking site have you seen that as well I have not that's a really good point I I have not seen that um I don't know if I want to see it on right exactly you know I I have to tell you I you know what's funny Lauren like you know maybe this I'd like to write about this like I think these social media platforms are actually really starting to diverge like I think about the world right now like the the big three to me because I'm you know my demographic it's not necessarily Instagram or Tik Tok but it's LinkedIn Twitter and Facebook you know and like Facebook is like a personal site that I think you can talk about the breakup of your marriage if you want to among other personal things you know because it's a personal thing LinkedIn is a professional site Twitter is just a site like it's supposed to be like a town hall where a bunch of lunatics going back and forth sharing opinions well it's it's it's quartered the market on that yeah you know what there's room for that as well I actually think that's fine you want to go and be in that community and and engage on Twitter go ahead and do your thing but it's not good for LinkedIn it's not good for Facebook I think um but I can see those three big platforms kind of diverging and as a business person you need to make some decisions where you want to be I think it's becoming less and less of an option for a business to be on a Twitter for example um unless I guess you're a journalist is your business um and Facebook also the same thing I think it's just becoming that much more of a more of a consumer individual personal type of place as opposed to a professional business place do you know what I mean yep um Instagram's the other one I mean if if you have a a visual business of some sort or a restaurant you you kind of need to be there it's true but but then again Instagram is Facebook right I mean it's owned by the same company and you know there's a lot of back and forth not the same site but yeah yeah so you're right there's overlap there it's interesting all right Gene marks is a CPA who writes weekly on small business for the guardian the hill the Philadelphia inquire the Washington Times the Chicago Daily Herald Forbes an entrepreneur you can also hear him on ABC radio's eye on the world with John Bachelor Jean hosts two small business podcasts with paychecks Corporation and the Hartford Jean anything coming up that we should look for um well next week I'm going to be writing about companies that pay their employees the day that they work get ready why do they do that then why because they can attract better employees that way Lauren three out of five workers are living paycheck to paycheck dude why would they do that come on all right well then you're going to read the article you'll learn you're right I always read your articles this episode was brought to you by the great game of business which helps businesses use an open book management system to help build health your companies you can learn more at Great game.com thank you Jean thank you Lauren we'll talk to you soon have a great week everyone [Music]