Dashboard: Email or Text?

[Music] welcome to another 21 hats dashboard I'm Lauren Feldman I'm here with Gan marks to talk about the stories and issues we think business owners should be following this week welcome Jean hello Lauren it's good to speak with you I'm excited because later this week I'm going to be speaking to the funeral directors of Florida Association so watch out what are you got to tell them Jean H that business is killing them it's killing them they're killing a million jokes okay be like I'm going to talk for like five minutes they're going to kick me right out of the room I'm going to make a few jokes I'm sure there'll be jokes that they've never heard before right exactly right they falely no I'm actually always talking to him about workplace and culture and attracting how to attract employees and retain employees because funeral businesses are legit genuine growing important businesses and they got the same problems that the rest of us have right I could imagine it might be harder to attract employees to a business like that not everybody's going to want to do that I suspect people are dying to work in that industry there we go right we'll be eager to hear your report are you are you going to write about this uh experience J possibly yeah possibly that something that I plan on uh you know thinking about it so we'll see we will be watching for that all right uh you recently did a podcast in which you talked about how businesses are shifting to uh digital and text messaging marketing can you tell us about that yeah this is so first of all this is going to be a self-serving discussion Lauren because you know I remember years ago like I I like to share with you like some of the stuff that I'm that I do and that I feel like I remember I I I I launched a platform that failed miserably after spending like six figures on it for like live training it it was training for uh Zoho CRM right yep and uh you know went and did the whole thing and everything and nobody came and it was it was just I had to take it down and it was a big failure did you decide it was a marketing failure or that the yeah you know what I you know my lessons learned from that by the way is it was a research fail it was a it was a market not knowing the market failure do you know what I mean on my part 100% my interes what didn't you know um what I didn't know is that nobody there there nobody has a desire for that kind of a training service good when there's so much available online and on demand and whatever who's going to pay for it when there's so much free stuff out there I thought that uh you know people would pay if it's that much better but it's you there's a perception that it's not going to be that much better so it was was hard to compete against free you know what I mean but listen let's not talk about the past long now you see you're putting me in a bad mood I was in a good mood before we started talking now I'm in a bad mood because and it's your fault you brought it but all all right text messaging the reason why I brought up my my failure is because I'm I'm I'm gonna do it again now and again you know I'm trying not to make the same mistakes this time but um I'm going to bring on a new product line for my business and um it is going to be a uh a text messaging application that uh integrates with the crms that I sell um there are a few of them that are out there they're called you know SMS magic is one t tatango is another twilio is another um and these are text messaging applications that um you know I I believe not only fulfill a need but I took a big survey this time what a concept of my clients and Lally ask them if this was something they would pay for and sure enough many of them said something that they would because text messaging is um think about it this way if you're using a CRM system a customer relationship management system say you're using Zoho or Salesforce or insightly or sugar or Dynamics whatever um you're you know maybe you're emailing out of it or you've integrated it with Outlook so good for you but your texts are probably not coming in there and perfect example like you and I were just texting before this you know before this recording and that's just not my phone it's nowhere else you know and if you were a client of mine and we were texting about an issue or question or whatever I would want that to be in my CRM system so that not only do I have a history of it but also other people on my team can see that it's an important part of messaging do you know what I mean sure um and none of these crms really seem to do it very well or out of the box or at all and U and which is why I'm and and you text messaging itself is a it it is a significant part of communications for businesses we all know that um and there is you know the thing that I have to be careful about is I have to be careful about how I use it because sometimes it's annoying right like you know I can't just be blasting out texts to people that haven't opted in to get text from me um that's a bad thing I mean worse than sending spam email because people get pretty ornery when it's their phones you know what mean well that is what I was going to ask you're talking about a CRM system so you're talking about uh using this with employees who would presumably be using their personal phone are do they want to attach their personal phone to the company's CRM yeah I mean I don't I don't think it's their personal yeah I mean the answer is they they would have to and I don't think that's I haven't had any push back from from my people um the key is that if they're having a communication you know we talk about CRM it's customer relationship management so if I have clients and they have said yeah sure Jean you know I'll opt into your text messages my text messaging will only be things that I want to make sure pertinent to my clients you know like oh you need to there's a problem with Zoho you need to check this out you know what I mean or uh you know we just released this new video that I know would be of interest to you uh some people just prefer to get communic Communications via text messaging you know nowadays and it's there the other thing that I also find uh intrigues me about text messaging is um I sometimes get leads um from from people and I try to reach them by email and my emails don't get through because they'll get blocked by a spam folder or bounceback or whatever sure but then I've got their mobile number and I'll just text them and say Hey you would reached out to us because you're interested in you know you have some questions I've emailed you you know and I'll get a response by by text saying like oh I never received your email but yeah we do have we need help you know what I mean so it's important you know it's an important form of communications and and it's it's missing from so many small business crms and I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna you know sign on to this product line and uh and then I got to invest some money in getting people up to speed on how to configure it and then do some marketing to to promote it so I'll keep you point you know I'll keep you up to date on it as we move along are you at all worried that there's a reason why the CRM systems haven't gone there yet maybe they've done some research that indicated people aren't interested in it oh I didn't think about that Lauren thanks great all right no what a good point I mean like these guys you would think they've got zillions of dollars in in you know resources they would be the first to jump on this right so geez I do wonder why not it does seem like a logical extension for them we'll see all right next uh next topic you recently wrote uh about why businesses should not be marketing on Twitter um you actually spend a good bit of time on Twitter and have a significant following there so I'm curious about this what's your thinking well couple things about Twitter and I just want to make sure that we're aware I spend I do spend a significant amount of time on there why because I I have an audience there I mean I I write and people that tend to follow news and opinions and things like that they tend to go on Twitter um you know you Lauren same thing you know I'm you know with with with 21 ads I mean you you go and you have you promote your podcast on Twitter um if if you and I terribly effectively I might say well that's that's a whole other discussion but you know you with Twitter like if you know that's fine there's an audience there for that kind of stuff so that's fine and if that's what your business is you know providing content or news or uh you've got an audience that's out good um but listen if you're selling office supplies or uh I don't know if you if your business is uh laminates you know your your industrial film I I'm going to bet that you probably don't have a whole big audience on Twitter and and you should probably be you know focusing if you want to focus on social somewhere else probably LinkedIn would be the place for you or if you're like a consumer facing business um you know you know you're selling you're a florist or you know you're you're a retail store maybe Facebook is better for you or if you're you know you know a young gen z type and doing some type of creative stuff maybe Tik Tock you know is better for you I it really depends Twitter is really ownery I mean it's Pew research just came out with with some some some numbers which I thought was really interesting one in five us adults about 23% so maybe it's close to one in four they only one in five use the social media platform Twitter I mean only one in five four out of five people and almost 80% of Americans don't even use Twitter you know and not only that but among the US adults who use Twitter now this is pure research the top 25% of users produce 97% of all the tweets you know so it's like they call it the Twitter verse it's people in their own bubble talking to each other it's crazy which and the bottom 75% only produced three % of the tweets so you're you're like wait let me get this right 80% of the people in this country aren't even using Twitter the 20% that are only a quarter of them they're producing 97% so it's it's really that's why it amazes me whenever like the media reports about you know somebody getting blasted on Twitter or you know or people get upset if they you know or if they go viral in a bad way on Twitter and you're like yeah but that's like a really tiny percentage of the population you know so you have to the other thing is about Twitter is that the Pew research found that the users there tend to skew to the left you know I mean you know not super hard left but just generally to the left so I guess my point is if you're a small business owner just be aware that you know if you're looking at Twitter as a place to be there's not like a huge crowd that's on it when 80% of the country isn't even on it um and and even then the people that are active on it who knows if they're even viable customers of yours and also just be really careful because a lot of them you know they do tend to you lean to the left which is fine if you do as well and you're okay with that but if I don't know if you're a gun store well gun stores can't you know really do much on Twitter they're they're not allowed but you know if you're a business that might be somewhat of a right leaning type of business or you're gonna you're a business owner with right leaning you know opinions and you're voicing them on Twitter you know you might wind up coming against a bunch of people uh that you and it might be bad for your business so it's a voicing those political opinions whatever they are might not be a good idea for a business owner don't you think whole other topic of conversation and one that I'm going to revisit as we get closer to the elections because that's always an issue every two years and I just have to remind people to um you know it's funny because employees want you to be more active and involved but you know just because your employees want you to do that doesn't mean they're right and I think that the more that you get more involved in politics in your business it's uh you know you're going to alienate half of your customers the way the world is right now and Twitter is one of those places you know so be careful if you're on Twitter has it worked for you mostly do you do you feel like yeah I mean not for my not for my CRM business does nothing for my CRM business uh it's worked for me for the writing that I do and the content I provide so you know because I have two businesses I have like a speaking business you know you know so that kind of media related media related so that's good for Twitter sense but CRM business my best uh LinkedIn has been good I I I feel as though you know Twitter takes takes a lot of heat for all sorts of reasons most of them deserved but I kind of feel like if you use it smartly um you can you can make make of it what you want to make of it so I follow a lot of smart people on Twitter and I feel like I get good information out of it and I ignore all of the crap and certainly there's a lot of crap but uh but I I feel like I use it in a way that's that's helpful to me and I think other people can can probably do that too but I like you I don't really see it as a place to do any real marketing or you know Community Building yeah I'm curious to see what Eli mus does with the platform and if he recognize he's not going to get the platform he's trying to get out of it I don't think he ever intended to buy it yeah you you could be right but if he does uh I I just don't see this being a business platform I being you know it's a platform for communications and ideas as long as it doesn't get too toxic so um so again this is a small business conversation I just don't know if it's really the place for you for most businesses got it all right um next topic on Friday the latest jobs report came out and the US economy added 372,000 jobs I know what the hell is going on which is a lot of jobs and we're all talking about a recession what do you make of it Jean I first of all I you know everybody is on president Biden and yet you know the economy is not a bad economy right now but you know there's a lot you know there there is a lot of of what's the you conflicting information and let me explain to you what I mean GDP last quarter fell like 1.6% um I'm tracking all these forecasts for GDP for the second quarter meaning the first quarter of the Year first quarter correct first quarter now I'm tracking forecast for the second quarter which are going to be coming out soon and they are ranging between Z 2% growth and another minus one and a half% growth or negative growth which would mean a recession two you recession yeah so there so there's that meanwhile you know our unemployment rate is still at very very low levels at 3.6 or 3.8 the lowest it's been in 50 years yeah and and you know employers are adding employees here's the other weird thing and I I the nfib national Federation of Independent businesses they you know they have a large following they do their reports they just reported just last week that half of us small businesses had job openings in June half and that completely dovetails in with what I am seeing of my clients they have you know they're all looking for people meanwhile three weeks ago the same organization nfib reported that small business owners expectations for the future you know their optimism looking forward is at a 48-year low right so you've got all you don't expect people to be hiring and have openings at a time when they think the the economy is as bad as it can be absolutely like you're like I don't I you know I can't get my AR I don't know what to believe and then you know there's the tech industry is laying a lot of people off the construction industry so far largely confined to the tech industry especially startups absolutely right because funding is drying up because the cost of capital and then which they had a wild party for the past 15 years so now it's you know coming to ro and then you've got Industries like the construction industry where homes you know home Inventory has now built up to like a three-month High uh lumber prices though meanwhile have dropped considerably uh meanwhile uh red fin and some other your real estate companies are laying people off meanwhile mortgage rates are going up now they're around 6% which is like three times what they were you know 34 years ago so you know you got people in financial services mortgage brokers they're talking about layoffs uh but none of that is really happened because the job numbers are good you know so I still hold to to what my clients are showing me and I was just at another manufacturer just last week Lauren that it is telling me that they've got customers that are just holding off on buying you know because to him he said people were buying buying buying like crazy because they didn't know if they were going to ever get supply again and um now as things are starting to loosen up they they've got too much inventory so they're holding back on mine and he said there's they have a number of customers that are doing that to them this a client of mine and you know I I I see that slowdown is going to be coming um but it's not indicative of the job numbers so I have no clear answers for you right now it's very murky it it really is I I think it's unprecedented I you know I don't think there's been a situation where you've had you know the indication that we're moving into a recession at the same time you have an ongoing labor shortage that shows very few signs of letting up yeah and you know what's funny about that too is um sometimes I really feel like we are we are being just too harsh on our elected officials and leaders again like I said I I think that's part of it I think you're right about that I think everybody's angry everybody's confused and you know the the the hot takes just keep coming and I think that's part of it yeah I mean people are you know they're on Jerome pal and Janet Yellen and you know all these top economists how did you not see this you said inflation was transitory or whatever I we have this like sort of once in a in a lifetime pandemic which you know obliterated economies around the world and now we're starting to try to catch up with it and how do you play for how do you know how do you know well you know there's just to many unknowns right and you it was the Pand and then it was followed by the War uh which is ongoing and obviously that's an impact and then there's people are you know they're screaming at the FED because you know $6.2 trillion doll and uh you know additional uh you know M2 money supply is there but that was because of stimulus bills and liquidity that was provided which thank God got us through the pandemic so nobody was complaining about it then but now it's there you know it's just these people are trying to do their best in a situation where they've got no no track record to follow do you know what I mean it's tough all right um I want to ask you about something we've talked about in the past which is the state small business credit initiative uh you introduced me to it um it's $50 billion dollar of government money that is still directed at small businesses ultimately although through the states the states administrate as you explained to me um I've uh been telling people about this a lot of The Bu business owners I've talked to feel a little bit frustrated they they they're having trouble figuring out how this works for them do you know anybody who's actually been able to get the money where do we stand no and it's a good first of all just it's 10 billion uh that has been made available uh because of the cares act and or not the cares act the American families act one of the stimulus bills so it's 10 billion I said 50 it's it's just 10 correct it is just really what's 40 billion between friends okay so the 10 billion dollar itself is coming from the federal government to the states each state is getting their share based on a formula of whatever and the states then are then Distributing this money to organizations within their states who are then going to get this money out to small businesses in the form of some grants some Equity Investments and uh loans like maybe even below Market loans but loans to businesses that otherwise couldn't get loans from Banks so it's a lot of liquidity that's coming out for small businesses great um yes some of is going to be going to minority businesses so that's also fine but it's going to be available for all businesses And I stress the word GNA uh because it it it it's not available yet right now I mean the money is just starting to be released I wrote about this in the inquire just last month uh you know the the the gates are starting to open and it's going to be released this 10 billion really over the next probably two years before it's all been distributed so it's not this Guster of money just suddenly came out and now they're going to turn around and spend it secondly a lot of the states are trying to catch up and identify the organizations are going to get the money and the organizations have to apply for the money so there's that process too you would think they would have had all this together last year because they knew it was coming but no no no so they're kind of behind in doing that too so I what I wrote about a couple times and the advice that I'm I've been giving a couple times is if you're looking for the money or the funding identify the organizations in your state that are apt to get the money and these are generally Community Banks um cdfis Community deposit Community deposit federal instit what financing institutions um you know local nonprofits that support small businesses you got to Google around for the organizations that are expected to get this money and then start reaching out to them now so you get put on the waiting list like it's a restaurant and that way you can start building a relationship with those organizations um maybe providing whatever information they might require in advance and you just being ready for it but you might not see the money until later this year or even sometime into 2023 it's it's frustrating because it's not like you can say just go to the SBA and that's where you apply and you find out whether you qualify or not it's it's different in every state right yeah it's different in every state but listen you know if if it was so easy everybody be doing it you got to hustle a little bit do a little bit of research investigate in your state um it's it won't be the best place I would recommend that you start is call up a Small Business Development Corporation in the state in sbdc um those sdc's they're part of the SBA but they're there as a free resource and there's there's multiple ones in every state generally associated with colleges and un like in Philly there's a really good one at Temple University and if you talk to the right person at the spdc and ask them they will they're probably not going to get any of the money but they'll they're going to be aware of the organiz ation that are going to be getting this funding and they can point you in the right direction and that's probably the best advice I have excellent all right G are you uh I we know you're going to be visiting with the funeral directors um anything else you're working on that we should know about stories we should look for one big word for you uh it's an acronym pep pep pep p p pulled employer plans Lauren get ready I'm gonna blow your mind get ready can you define for us I'm writing about it next week and maybe we'll talk about it when we uh you just got to tell us what it is it is because of the secure act uh organizations are allowed to pull uh 401K plans funds all together and take over the fiduciary responsibility so for example say you've got a payroll company that you use ADP or paychecks or whatever uh you can get your 41k through them they will have a whole bunch of their clients with all their assets co-mingled and that organization takes all responsibility for the reporting the Audits and the fiduciary duties it's no longer on the heads and shoulders of you the small business owner which significantly decreases your costs and your liability for having a 401k plan interesting so it's a big deal and it's a lot of companies are moving in that direction and I'm writing about it next week what you want to be aware of and why you want to take advantage of them we will look for that article and I'm sure we will talk about it here on dashboard after it comes out thank you Jean Gene marks is a CPA who writes weekly on small business for the guardian the hill the Philadelphia inquire the Washington Times Forbes an entrepreneur you can also hear him on ABC radio's eye on the world with John Bachelor Jean hosts two small business podcast with paychecks Corporation and the Hartford um and uh he spends a lot of time on Twitter although he doesn't recommend that you Market on it thank you Jean thanks Lauren we'll see you soon appreciate it [Music]