Dashboard: How Concerned Should Businesses Be?

[Music] welcome to another 21 hats dashboard every Monday Gan marks and I talk about the issues we think business owners should be following welcome Jean hey Lauren how are you I'm doing great how are you I'm doing good always good to have you here uh G you know I I kind of hate to say it but there there's really one big issue right now that I think is confronting business owners it's kind of uh exploded on us in the last few days and that's amcron um you know all of a sudden holiday parties are getting canceled sporting events are getting canceled offices are closing um it's starting to feel a lot like not Christmas but March of 2020 um and I'm wondering what you're thinking how how concerned do you think business owners should be well I'm concerning news and that I've got good news to follow up with it so let's Lauren let's talk about my Saturday okay not not not the past Saturday but the Saturday before that okay okay my uh my wife and I went to the uh the Philly pops Christmas concert which we have been you know we we've been going to like the past five or six years and it's awesome and uh we went there it was a great show um of course everybody's masked up which doesn't make it so much fun um and and of course the orchestra is it inside or outside it was inside you know it was in the it was in the you know the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia and the the violinists are wearing masks but the horn section are not wearing masks you know so just all that going on right um but it was great and then you know I I read I heard from a few people that I knew that you know affiliated with the organization and then I I looked into it that um they normally do 13 shows every holiday season but this year they were only able to do eight um shows and um there's a big reason why and and the reason why is because um uh there's less people coming to the shows uh you know and and the reason why there's less people coming to the shows is because if you are if you're an organization that's doing any type of event in the city um although there's no City mandate right now there's a lot of pressure on these organizations to to require vaccinations so they're all being good boys and girls and that's what they're doing and these are theaters these are even like you know an organization like the Philly Pops I mean they're a small business you know they're not like some giant multinational whatever um so they got to comply because that's what the that's what sort of the narrative is now 40% of the people in Pennsylvania Lauren are not vaccinated we don't have to have a discussion as to why or whether we agree with that or not but they're not vaccinated right those people can't go to the Philly pops or any other theaters or you know a lot of movie theaters or a lot of events in the city of Philadelphia because they can't get in because they're not vaccinated and the theater owners aren't thrilled about doing this but they're doing it because that's what you know the public opinion wants them to do I guess or the city is is really pressuring are you sure that I mean did you talk to them you sure they're not thrilled about it because you know there is Broad support for those kinds of vaccine mandates well I'll put it to you this way no I didn't talk to the owners of the Philly pops but would you be thrilled to lose uh to to cut down your shows from 13 to 8 when it's such it's your biggest money maker of the Year certainly not although you know that that gets back at kind of the the central discussion we've been having since the pandemic hit which is uh you know what what causes the economic problem is it the covid or is it the restrictions and you know a lot of analysis has shown that people have dropped off going to events and eating in restaurants before regulations set in back when there were were you know lockdowns and things like that certainly the unvaccinated or like unwanted um and even the vaccinated people are they're afraid of getting Co from the VAC from the unvaccinated although uh we can't we're not scientists so I can't tell you whether or not that's even you know a valid fear or not but the bottom line is well let me stop you there CU that that has evolved um and I I think the the people had a lot more confidence that that wasn't a problem uh some time back but there's you know there's there's a lot more that we don't know about especially me about Omicron uh than we do know but but there seems to be some concern that the vaccines are not as effective and uh I mean you can just look at the professional sports teams you are seeing a lot of vaccinated people get breakthrough cases you are but then you're also seeing that there's same vaccinated people that have breakthrough cases they're they're not being hospitalized you know which is a good thing absolutely yeah I mean that you know so it's you know there and so there's there's that that's going on that you know people don't know and fortunately though it is the the businesses like like the you know like the Philly Pops that have to suffer and it's not just the Philly pops because of this unknown and this uncertainty and sort of this knee-jerk hysteria about this um the city of philadelph knee-jerk hysteria I mean yeah you don't think it's legitimate concern it is a concern but here's here's what the city of Philadelphia is doing and and really it's it's it's just the city of Philadelphia I think New York has got their own restrictions but but just talk about Philly starting January 3rd restaurants are not allowed to serve customers unless they're vaccinated so they're just not allowed to do that so think about it la like you're running a restaurant in Philly um you know a good part of your revenue is people coming in from the suburbs that you know dine in in your restaurants as well as local residents and not only you short staffed and dealing with you know price increases and all of those kinds of challenges but now you've got to turn customers away unless they're vaccinated and let's again going back to 40% of the people in Pennsylvania alone are not vaccinated these are all the people in the suburbs if you're not vaccinated again for whatever reason um you know do are you going to go into this you're not allowed to eat out in the restaurants you can't go to the theaters you got to wear masks everywhere indoors in the city so because of all of these restrictions and again you know we're still trying to figure out whether or not this is these restrictions are even needed you know with this whole Omron variant that you know what I'm told is that the impacts of it are are significantly less than the Delta variant not only that but I'm also reading that we're just literally days away from these new antiviral drugs of which hundreds of millions have already been produced from Merc and from fizer um where if you do test positive for covid you take this course of drugs like the tamy flu and apparently it it reduces your chance of going into a hospital by over 90% so you got all this just on the cusp um you've got the Omron variant that again no one really knows how you know how much of a problem it is so what what the we do know it's very transmissible so transmissible but again you know what the effect of it is then you've got the people that are impacted the most are the unvaccinated which again the unvaccinated are those are the decisions that they're making um but in caught in the middle are the small businesses I guess is my point caught in the middle of the businesses that you know the restaurants in Philadelphia the theater owners in Philadelphia the gyms the service providers because of all of this reaction to this um which I think is to me I think it's it's it is really just this sort of excessive reaction right away um the people that are paying the price of it are the small businesses in this city now I know let me ask you this Jean you're you're raising the concern and obviously it's a legitimate one uh that these businesses are are going to be hurt because unvaccinated customers will not be able to uh partake uh and and clearly what whatever one agrees on or disagrees on we can all feel for those business owners that said there's no perfect solution here you flip the scenario and the same thing happens if there is no requirement for vaccination you surely are going to lose some customers who are vaccinated and don't want to go into that environment don't you I think what the solution is and you're right there's no perfect solution but I think the best solution is to leave the decisions up to the business I think if you're running a restaurant like many restaurants already are doing in Philadelphia they are requiring vaccinations for their customers but they're doing that on their own um and by the way they're advertising that they're getting good PR about it they come up with their own rules saying we have we have sections or outdoor seating uh you know or indoor seating over here for customers that aren't vaccinated but in in any case they're making the decisions they're not being mandated uh by the government on these decisions and and unfortunately um because of these mandates you've got a lot of businesses that otherwise uh would have had these customers coming to their doors they're they're not even going to have the customer showing up let alone having the opportunity to turn them away and I just think it's tough and and what I think is also going to be um I here's my expectation though um and there's a couple things on this like I said earlier I do think that we're going to be finding out that the zercon variant is is nowhere near as significant as what the Delta variant is I do think that um with with this new course of medications that are coming out within days um I think that's going to weay a lot of fears and I think this wave itself um of fear and I'm calling it hysteria um I think we'll dissipate a little bit and I think there's a surge people want to get the out you know they they want to go out they want to they want to you know they want to go to theaters they want to be out there if they're just allowed to do so and I think that you know it will this whole you know there is some evidence against that Jean I I mean yes everybody wants to but I I read a story in the Washington Post this week and this is irrespective of Omicron uh music venues are finding that 20% of the people or more uh who've bought tickets for an event are just not showing up and this is going back over the past couple of months so preceding amcron I you know people do want to get out there's you're you know no question you're right about that but but there is some hesitation and right now there's a a lot of unanswered questions I think there's some people who are just thinking you know what let's let's just take it careful right now and see let's learn more and see where we are in a couple of weeks well Lauren that gets me to the second part of my my story about Saturday so we finished the concert uh we went out to dinner to a restaurant uh which was actually doing quite well Saturday night because they could still allow unvaccinated people in um and then you know we did Lauren this is a very thing unlike myself and my wife normally we're back on the sofa watching TV but we weren't tired so um we heard that there was this this club in Philadelphia that was doing an ABBA dance party can resist so we go there on Broad did not see that coming Jean did not see it coming we get there at like 8:30 right empty nobody's there and we're texting our kids and our kids are like well that's because you're there at 8:30 nobody goes to a club at 8:30 sure enough by 10:00 at night Lauren I can happy to report to you that the club was packed wall to wall with dancers and party goers a couple of hundred people in there sweating and singing to Abba we left at around 1 in the morning and the club was still bopping at that point at that part of time so people do want to go out now they did check your vaccination status to get in so the people that did come did have their you know as your friend jeene I'm feeling better about this story spreader event there is no doubt about that but there is this people people want to get out if they're given the opportunity to get out and those are just the vaccinated let alone the unvaccinated you're walking a very fine line here I'm not sure I completely understand all all of your uh opinions put together but let's let's leave the regulatory discussion aside let's just talk about the realities of business this is you know we've been through a tough time you know these last two years for businesses have been terrible and it it's it's looking a little bit shaky right now from a purely business perspective forget about the regulations How concerned do you think businesses should be and what are you hearing from your clients well first of all I got to argue with again about the whole you know Narrative of business being terrible and you know it's being a bad I didn't say that it's been a tough time in a lot of ways you say business been terrible this has been a bad year and I no I don't think I said that but if I did I I take it back you're right okay so so you when I look at you know this past year in business actually for my clients across the board it's actually been a great year for most of my clients I mean it has been um you know it's been a great year of recovery even restaurants and Merchants have been breathing a s of relief until this most recent round of mandates for those guys that are working they're in Philadelphia um B2B businesses have been doing great gross domestic product this quarter is estimated to be about 7% you know Lauren which is normally like 2 to 3% industrial production is up there are more houses under construction now than since 1973 and you know how many businesses there are small businesses in the construction industry you can imagine so yeah we're going to have our challenges this year continuing with supply chain we're going to have our challenges continue with Rising prices and of course finding labor we always have challenges there's never which is what I meant to be referring to and I agree with everything you're saying sure and it's never there's never a perfect economy I mean even in a the best for growing economy there's always you you can always find the negatives you know but this year itself has has been good and I think that plays itself out it's not what I hear anecdotally from my clients but just this week the US Chamber of Commerce came out with their survey of of optimism among their members it was an expansive survey of thousands of their members and found that uh the you their their confidence levels their optimism levels were at a a pandemic High um and the same thing with the national Federation of Independent businesses now this this is the nfib this is a right leaning organization they can't wait for bad news from small businesses so they can turn it against you know the left and Biden and all that kind of stuff their optimism index also ticked up and are also approaching historical highs among that index what that says to me is that small business have come off a year that was challenging like every year is challenging but look at ahead into 2022 maybe a little more than most little bit depends on the business you're in depends on the reason you're listening you know you're in Texas you're in Florida you're in you know the Midwest you're in you're not in California or New York City or Philadelphia you're probably not having such a bad year depending the industry that you're in well but wherever you are I mean it maybe especially in Texas or Florida you you are fighting labor shortages you are dealing with inflation there there certainly have been challenges but you were fighting before covid you know those are the same issues that you had and even though you didn't have the kind of inflationary pressures that we've got this year you still had other issues and managing your business and investment is there always issues it's always something so you know I get I guess the point I'm making is that most of my clients that I talk to and I and the the studies that have just come out and you know my readers and the community looking into 2022 people are so optimistic and they are optimistic that this again I keep using it I know you bristle every time I do but the hysteria that's surrounding covid which will never go away covid there will always be covid it's not going to end but because because these variants are becoming less of a problem and let's Reserve judgment on that we want them to be less of a problem you know I mean keep in mind it it it's dramatically more transmissible and I I I don't want to be the you know the voice of Darkness here but I I I think we need to wait and pass judgment after we know a little bit more it's more transmissible maybe it's less severe maybe fewer people are going to die but if it's if way more people get it then you could still have hospitals overrun and you know a a lot of uh a lot of sadness and people nervous about going out that that is one possibility for a period of time now one thing that seems to be happening and seems to have happened in South Africa and to some extent in the UK is this thing Burns bright really quick but then ends pretty quickly so whatever it is it could be over pretty soon yeah I I actually and I I'll jump I'll jump on what you just said because I think that that you you are absolutely right about it burning bright and ending quickly uh cuz it gets back to confidence you know when I look at again you know when I talk to my clients and they they read and see what's going on um you know their attitudes is this is a variant that is not going to last that long plus they look at again you know the the medications are coming out the vaccines that are available and the people that will make their choice whether they get vaccinated or not it's probably not going to have an impact on their business going forward the only thing that will um again is if there is a continuing narrative that Co is going to keep people uh you know locked into their homes and into their apartments and you know the hope is that a lot of that will get behind us for most people there will always be some people that are just going to be scared to death to continue on with their life but hopefully that number will diminish significantly in 2022 and I think it will well I guess some people are more afraid of the narrative some people are more afraid of covid uh we're not going to settle that discussion today um but uh let me just ask you this this is our last uh taping of the year you're a a metric guy you're always looking at numbers trying to figure out where things are headed how are things looking for your business how are you feeling personally your business for next year okay so first of all I have to call in a question that you use the word taping as if we're like back in 1990 actually recording this onto like videotape but okay I'll let that pass for now but my my business St heading into I I I have two businesses that I that I run one is the CRM business and then I do a lot of speaking um so first of all my uh my CRM business right now we have a a full plate right now and you know me Lauren I'm always honest about uh the ups and downs in my business but um right now our chargeable hours are up and looking to be up at least for the first quarter of 2022 so I'm feeling very good about that people are investing in CRM systems and they need help on the speaking side um my backlog is bigger um than what I've ever had I've got about like 15 or 20 right now booked you know speaking gigs and usually it's half that amount um and then are they all in Florida and Texas yeah frankly yeah a lot in Vegas Florida Texas yeah you got it but the the good news is the good news is is that these are again these are business associations as you know that I speak to um and these are industry groups and they are they got their conferences booked and they are getting people you know people are coming to these conferences which means that the businesses that aren't you know cowering down in New York or Philly or San Franc Francisco the rest of the businesses in this country right uh those owners are actually getting on planes and going to their conferences and going out and meeting with their customers and moving on with business which is I think why we saw gross domestic product uh we'll see increase the way that people are predicting it's going to increase so um my business is good and and I'm I'm I'm happy to say so are most of my clients and um I'm very optimistic heading into 2022 I'm glad to hear that Gan marks is a CPA who writes weekly on small business for the guardian the hill the Philadelphia inquire the Washington Times Forbes and entrepreneur you can also hear them on ABC radio's eye on the world with John Bachelor Jean hosts two popular small business podcasts with paychecks Corporation and the Hartford thank you Jean always great speaking with you love speaking with you Lauren we'll see you next year yeah absolutely see you next year thanks Jean