Dashboard: Forget Your Monthly Newsletter

[Music] welcome to another episode of dashboard every Monday Gene marks and I talk about the issues we think business owners should be monitoring this week Jean is president of the Marx group a consulting firm that advises small businesses especially about their technology needs he all host also hosts his own podcast small Biz ahead with the Hartford Insurance you can find it at sb. hartford.com welcome Jean welcome thank you very much Lauren how is your weekend uh my weekend was great the weather was beautiful watch watched the Phillies a little bit but let's not talk about that yeah me too I was down I was down the shore all weekend the weather was really good as well a little bit of beach time rode my bike it's great happy to be back all right all refresh ready to go you recently wrote about into's purchase of MailChimp um I found that deal interesting in part just because MailChimp is a bootstrapped unicorn uh that serves small businesses it's a pretty unusual company kind of interesting but you wrote about this deal uh and you suggested that it's going to result in a lot of businesses killing their own newsletters yeah why is that well you know I I wrote about this in Forbes last week and uh the you know the the the basis of that is that this deal this transaction I think it's going to change the way small businesses in particular are sending out their email campaigns in the years to come and here's the reason why you you we send out our email we use MailChimp we use Constant Contact you know you know Emma you know there's a bunch of services out there right and we we use them to send out basically newsletters that's what all my clients do you know once a month once a quarter you know you know education information about your business it's fine um this is something different and and I know it into it's got planned see you you know people don't really want to hear about your company they want to they want to buy products from you if it makes sense that's what they want and frankly I don't want to be sending out newsletters to people I want people to just buy my services or buy my products you know and I'm using newsletters to dry people have newsletters because they think it's going to lead to sales and people have to well people have to sign up for them they don't just send it out yeah that's right now now with with the introduction of this this this integration future versions of MailChimp are going to be able to leverage accounting data so again all within an optin environment yes some you know I I do you know agree to receive me from you this company um now when you send out emails you're going to be basing them based on history of accounting which means this you're going to send out emails to everybody with blue eyes and green hair who bought some titanium refrigerator from you if you make refrigerators because you've got an upgrade to the m the titanium brand or you're going to send out emails to everybody who got a special type of Landscaping service from you in the past two years because you've got a new fertilizer to sell to them that will ha their help their lawns and and complement that Landscaping service in other words we're going to be leveraging prior orders and history to send specific targeted emails to people who bought this stuff who may be interested in more stuff related to the stuff that they bought and that's the reason why they're doing business with your company not to get a newsletter once a month they're doing business because you sold them a product or a service and we're going to leverage that accounting history going forward to be able to you know send out emails and only larger companies are able to do that when we start integrating MailChimp with QuickBooks which is used by millions of small businesses I think it's going to change we're going to get rid of the newsletters and start sending more targeted emails to our customers so this hasn't happened previously because you haven't had the two elements in one house the account off yeah QuickBooks and these email services or CRM applications they they say they integrate they don't integrate they they synchronize contact data basically you know so okay I add a customer to QuickBooks it winds up in my Zoho or my Salesforce you know fine but you know it's the what really is needed is the is the transactional history you know the the accounting data the the order data from the past that's the data that we want to leverage our emails off of and that that just does not happen in this world right now so for those people who you've just gotten excited about this possibility when do you think this will be available I think it's sooner R than later I mean I don't think this is a really hard thing for people to be able to do I think it's going to be available for QuickBooks Online customers though because that's where the integration is the easiest to occur so if you're still back in the world of QuickBooks desktop or QuickBooks Enterprise I think you're going to be looking at a longer time frame if at all and I think int is going to be pushing A lot of people to move to their online product so that they can take advantage of this integration got it all right Story number two you also wrote recently about companies that are so desperate to fill jobs and we know there are a lot of those that they're getting rid of drug testing for job candidates what's your take on this yeah I think it's a long time in coming I mean you know I it's funny the um people some of my clients don't understand that this whole drug testing thing is really up to them I mean it might be regulated in certain industries that's fair enough but for the most part you know it's up to you as the business owner Amazon right now there's reports out there that they are going to do away with some of their drug testing for some of their employees because you know I don't know you know if look if you're an Amazon driver I think you'll have a different requirement but if you're working maybe in a warehouse or if you're even in the office who cares if you smoked a little weed over the weekend you know I mean it's you know it's is that really impairing your job and plus more than half of the states now you know have legal cannabis for recreation or your you know medical use so is it really worthwhile tracking all of this stuff the big thing that's driving is though we have a big shortage of employees and Amazon is looking to hire tens of thousands of people over the next few years and you know let's face it you there are a lot more people that are that that are that they could be hiring if they got rid of that limitation now I have a client um actually they're they're in Trenton New Jersey and they're a logistics company they they you know they truck chemicals as their specialty and like you know dangerous and hazardous chemicals they're not changing their drug policy the drivers which is a very good thing I live fairly near trendon so I'm glad to hear that yeah it's a good news for you but the bottom line is is that um I think relaxing those rules are right that the world has changed and you know cannabis use is being used by so many people that's the key as far as the drug you know when the people talk about drug testing I'm in favor of it well it is kind of weird to have it legal in so many places and yet have employers still screening for it yeah and and I also think that the I think I'm not like a scientist here but my understanding is that alcohol leaves the bloodstream a lot earlier than cannabis so like you know again if you people smoked on a Saturday it's still there the following Thursday um you know even though it's you know obviously it's still their blood suo there's no evidence of it it gets picked up in tests and that screws a lot of people up so I think employers need to change their their views on on drugs and particularly cannabis particularly that um because I think it'll open up for more applicants to work for you and we're looking for people Story number three we have by the way Seth Logan does like his best work when he's high on Le so that's not right I mean that's a good evidence I'm sure in Hollywood he's not getting drug tested before uh he gets signed to a deal or maybe they do just to make sure he he has partaken I bet you the Grammy is that they're know the Emmy Awards uh they'll drug test them next year they even write them back story number three we highlighted this one in Friday's Morning Report the government gave free PPP money to public companies despite warning them not to apply this is a a story that propublica uh published last week it it's kind of infuriating that as we all know the PPP uh program was set up to help small businesses we all heard about the the stories of public companies applying for these loans and getting them it turns out they're also getting their loans forgiven and uh this story actually highlighted a business and uh a collection of RV dealers that borrowed uh nine nearly $9 million uh they actually had $31 million cash on hand when the year uh began 2020 they had a great year people were buying RVs left and right um they're they public company their stock price shot up more than 500% and they got their $9 million loan forgiven what do you think of that well I can tell you this much there's this dirty little secret out there about the paycheck Protection Program loans it went out to millions of small businesses Lauren that really in the end probably didn't need it um you know I'm kind of okay with that though you know it was a a once in 100e pandemic we didn't know where this was going to go if you know some small businesses got more money than they actually needed at a time when we weren't really sure how bad this was going to get I I can kind of live with that what do you think well what do you think about the then how how do you draw the line between them and a publicly held company I mean there's still I mean there's certainly not General Motors um they're they're of of a smaller size but just because they're publicly held you don't think they should get take advantage of the loan well that's not a was designed for I think I think you you're right there is a gray area there and it's worth thinking about the obvious thing is that that loan for a company like the RV dealer uh I just described probably shouldn't have been forgiven why can't they pay 2% or whatever the yeah it's 1% so in in further iteration of the pbtp they the government did restrict it going out to publicly held companies but this was before these lo you know these loans were given before um that ruling came down um listen I mean there there was a lot of companies that were visible I remember Danny Myers company of the Shake Shack guy he got PPP loans um when you've got he had plenty of other resources to raise capital and he still took advantage of the PPP loan you know it's legal for a company to do I think he might have given it back did they he did actually I mean because he was publicly shamed into giving them back I mean right so which is funny you live by the sword you die by the sword I mean he likes being in the public eye except when the public attention is saying why did you borrow there's BPP money you know so a lot of companies were with were within the legalities of doing it and if it was legal for them to do that's fine um the PPP program Lauren is first of all I think it is a great model for the future for future disasters future pandemics future what I think it's I really think it was a great model um I think that it's there was abuse of it and fraud that is we're going to hear stories like this for years um because so many people so many businesses took advantage of the program because all they tried to do is get billions of dollars out there as quickly as possible and there right thing to do it was um it was the right thing to do but they got it up their F and it makes me laugh when you know we we both just said it was the right thing to do it was a freaking pandemic we were terrified that these businesses were going to go belly up it's liquidity liquidity liquidity and the government provided it now we see these stories saying oh you know these guys shouldn't have been allowed to borrow or these guys shouldn't have been forgiven and those guys stole a bunch of money and you know and used it to buy a yacht and and those guys should have never you know you been re you know it's it's easy to point fingers a year and a half later um for a program that was devised to provide like immediate funding to rescue businesses so I don't know I just take it with a grain of salt um yeah that probably shouldn't have been done so the next time around as this program hopefully gets revised in the future because it'll be needed for stuff in the future uh they'll make sure those loopholes are are closed I think you you talked to me off my ledge I think I might agree with you all right I'm sorry did you say you agree with me God yeah yeah have I ever said that before to you Story number four uh this is also from Friday's morning report a bunch of tech companies are offering new solutions to try to improve performance reviews um I think everybody hates performance reviews these days um what do you think of perform performance reviews I think I think listen we small businesses in particular just do we do a great job with performance reviews Lauren we're on top of them we're giving them all the time where we never let them lapse we're we're just super with it um of course do I send some sarcasm there yeah so we as business owners are horrible with performance reviews there there is by the way there is a demographic thing going on about performance reviews let me explain why more than half of the I've probably given you this but I keep saying it over and over more than half of the businesses in this country are run by people over the age of 55 right guys like me we didn't get performance reviews as kids you know we were lucky that you know we our parents paid attention to us so we meanwhile more you half of the population of workers that are in you know that are working in these companies are Millennials and younger these are the people that grew up getting trophies even when their team came up in last place in Little League it's because everybody wins you know so you've got there's one generation that's the majority running businesses that are just like shut up come to work and if you get your paycheck that's your performance review and then you've got the other generation that makes up half of the workers that are saying please please please give me good feedback and tell me what's going on I need affirmation because that's how I've been raised to expect that and I think there needs to be a meeting in the the middle of that employers business owners like me need to realize that we have really good people working for us and this is a generation that needs that affirmation of course that generation also has to realize that this is a new thing for us and we need to adjust to that reality there are plenty of great Technologies out there though that will help us do this you know and I will say I got to stop you for a second go ahead uh Boomer I didn't realize I didn't realize what a hard edged uh opinion you had of Millennials I find that interesting well first of all you raised a few of them right it's just reality I mean listen I think our the millennial generation I think it's a myth when people you know you make out that they're not hardworking or not good employees or anything that that's a bunch of okay that's I mean I I mean the people I know in that generation I mean I can speak even from the Bas of I think they get a bad R and it sounds like that's where you're going too no not at all I'm just saying this generation is different you know this is you know this generation is used to getting affirmation this generation is used but they're also smarter than they were they care about things that we should have cared about and weren't smart enough to care about I completely agree and the millennial generation as well has taught us as Boomers that yes they can be more independent and mobile and flexible and work from home and rely on Technologies but getting back to performance reviews this is a generation that throughout their entire lives are have been raised to get more frequent feedback and more affirmation as to how they're do isn't that just good management I mean what's the what is the theory behind you know keeping notes and once a year telling somebody what they're doing right and what they're doing wrong that shouldn't which is exactly what should not be happening now in in 2021 because this generation doesn't want you to keep no generation that I mean that wasn't good ever in my opinion yeah you know what it it wasn't good ever but if for speaking for my generation we kind of sucked it up and said well I guess that's just the reality cuz don't know any better and this generation says no no no no no not only is that not good enough but we think you've got the tools and Technology to fix that so fix it because I want you know ongoing you know responses to what I'm doing and ongoing reviews I want to hear that feedback so it's changed so is this a problem that can be solved with technology simply solved with technology first of all there are existing HR platforms that are out there the paychecks and ADP and Gusto and zenefits and bamboo they all have these things built into them and these HR platforms do a whole lot of other things besides just performance reviews but in addition to that there are you know there are some easy applications that can be built using you know Microsoft you know power apps or Google Sheets apps or even Zoho has something called Creator very simple you know you know note-taking things that can be built I know this because I have a couple clients that use these applications they hired a developer to build something simple using actually this was Zoho cre Creator cost like ,000 $2,000 and everybody has a mobile app so that they can leave notes and have it on an employee by employee basis supervisors can do that and then it's kept in a database with reminders so that when it comes time for performance review You've got a whole history of what they did that quarter for example so all those technology will really help you the key things that technology should be doing all these platforms is making sure that you're alerted to that you're you're giving that constant feedback like in other words if you have not given feedback to an employee um and it hasn't been noted in the platform you should be getting dinged about it so that you do give them the feedback because everybody's busy and running around the bottom line is there's plenty of platforms out there that'll help you do it and do you think um do you think this has already made a difference are there a significant number of companies that have changed the way they handle performance reviews because of these Technologies big companies not small companies so when I hasn't got small companies yet yeah when I go to my corporate clients and when I talk to again my kids and friends of theirs that work at larger companies all of this stuff is happening all the time they they they lean on performance review applications to give them continuous feedback smaller companies not as much um I actually think it is a huge opportunity for technology firms that make performance review applications or technologists that want to build simple performance review applications because I think you've got millions of small businesses out there that aren't doing that and it would give them a step ahead of their competition and make them more attractive to recruit better employees and and retain employees as well thank you Jean Marks great talking to you as always great talking to you always looking forward to the week ahead Lauren and uh we'll see you next Monday you can learn more about Jean's business at marks group.net and you can hear his weekly podcast small Biz ahead at sb. harford.edu