Dashboard: "I Killed"

[Music] welcome to another 21 hats dashboard I'm Lauren Feldman I'm here with genan marks to talk about the stories and issues we think business owners should be following this week welcome Jean hello Lauren how are you I'm great um I missed you last week but uh I know it was for a good cause you were off doing something important remind me again what was it I was in Bonita Springs last Friday Florida uh speaking to the Florida cremation and funeral Association oh that's right how how could I forget uh how'd that go I killed I knew you would I knew you would did you get a sense for uh what's happening in that industry how are how are they doing what were their concerns it's a touchy subject because it's thanks to co it's definitely been a growth industry they're doing well they are doing fine and if you're in Florida where you know which is as you know is God's waiting room um there's funeral directors and you know people running cremation you know uh you know companies um they've been they've been doing just fine they've been suffering with the same type of supply chain and uh inflation issues but my talk to them for an hour was about finding people oh interesting you know I was wondering about that because I figured it probably wasn't crms because they probably don't have a lot of repeat business yeah it's not definitely not it's not a marketing thing for them I mean they have branding issues I mean you know they want to keep their name out there so people think of them but you don't do direct marketing if you're a funeral home but um but no finding people is is is their biggest issue and it's not all just Mortuary schools you know I mean there's it's it's bringing them on and then of course you know you know what are the hot benefits and what are the uh you know you where where can they go to find people and what potential things could be coming from the labor department and from the government that might be increasing their compensation all that kind of stuff that we uh that we talked about it but I got to tell you something there was people people were dying to watch me there dying I got a milli all right on that note let's actually talk about some of these business stories that we uh promised our listeners you know um let's start with the uh the poll you wrote about um which you obviously got to laugh out and I got to laugh out of reading your piece it gave a pretty bleak outlook for small business is perhaps too Bleak tell us about it for God's sake yeah I this is a piece that I published in the hill on Thursday this past Thursday and it was uh uh it came after like you know Lauren you must be the same way you cover small businesses so you get lots of people sending you surveys and you know research reports and whatnot right and um I myself I don't know if you feel the same way but like I I I like to lean towards research report that's based on actual data you know like like when it comes to like you know payroll information you you know unemployment or whatever I like I want to hear from ADP and paychecks because they they they mine their data of their customers and say Here's what we're seeing do you know what I mean I do and you know I learned some of this working at the New York Times where they're very strict about poll results uh and Survey results that they will publish they want to know for sure that it's a scientifically yes reasonable uh survey or poll and a lot of what gets sent sent to them gets rejected I don't have the skills to figure that out quite as well but I'm I try to be careful yeah I mean you know the rule of thumb is again if it's if if it's data we're talking about and not a survey I mean if it actually came from a company you know if Microsoft releases a uh you know a research report based on uh you know security breaches in their Cloud users that to me is like data you know what I mean from their actual you know from their from their systems and which leads me to this survey this came from it was sponsored by a company called alignable um who by the way they're very good platform they're a small business networking platform um but you know people release these surveys they try to get attention for their companies uh and and clickbait so Ali's survey their their press release was that based on this quote unquote survey that they did 47% of small businesses were at risk of going out of business by the Fall that's literally what 47% of small businesses and they they they talked to they hired a survey firm who surveyed like 4,000 small businesses and asked them about their revenues and their profits and the struggles that they're having or whatnot and and they came to this conclusion that half a small there's 30 million small businesses in this country 15 million according to them are going to go out of business by the Fall like what the [ __ ] is that and then on top of that when you look at like what what businesses have gone out of business and like during the Great Recession which was a great recession I mean not so great but you know a big recession I know what you mean people estimate that 1.8 million businesses went out of business not even 15 million like alignable is is is warning Us in what is not such a bad recession I mean we're in a bit of a Slowdown now and of course we're having struggles and then you're like well there's inflation issues I'm like yeah okay well there's inflation issues for you know since the since Cleopatra and when I you you look at I went back to data some New York Times reports from the s were like there were tens of thousands of businesses that went out of business during the 70s because of you know the the hard times then not Millions like this this study said so I just had to write you know something saying listen when you see these studies man like take them with a grain of salt you know when you see these you know you know companies trying to get attention for themselves by catching your eyeballs by saying stupid things like half of the small businesses in this country are going to go risk of going out of business I mean you got to call into question that company's judgment whoever approved that press release to go out a couple of things struck me reading that uh one is you know it's just further proof of something you and I both know which is that uh the coverage of small privately owned business is not what it should be there's a lot of bad information out there and you know it's it's not like it's rocket science but a lot of journalists move on quickly to another beat and people just don't you know figure out what talking about uh before they move on and and that's how something like this can can get through and get published the other problem is I think it's amazing but we still don't really know how to define a small business uh who knows what they were referring to when they said small businesses you know this the SBA says anything with uh I think fewer than 500 employees is a small business uh other places refer to a small business and a mom and pop as you know essentially the same thing you know obviously there's a big difference between a mom and pop and a 500 employee business uh we should figure this out yeah I agree I agree and I also just don't your point about the journalist is very true I mean small business is an area that um it gets a lot of coverage when the news is really bad you know and we have you know the pandemics and you know and you know recessions and all that you know the media but for the most part it's not covered that deeply and they usually put Junior reporters it's not the Marquee beat it's not where everybody wants to be people go there to pay their dues and when they want to move on yeah that's exactly right and so then you know and I I could just see like a kid out of college um you know looking at a survey like that and writing about it like oh my goodness you know this company says that you know half a small business are going to go out of business and you and I have been you know we've been covering business small businesses for years you you look at that numbers and you're like you got to be this is such Boney so all right uh let's move on the Department of Labor is working on rules we've talked about this issue so many times but the Department of Labor is working on new rules you wrote about this uh defining an employee versus a contractor is this something we need to be concerned about yeah we we've talked about the issue before in the past um because it it's been you know bandied about for so long but it's really it's really starting to progress um earlier this year um secretary Walsh Marty Walsh who's in you know is the uh Secretary of Labor uh ex- mayor of Boston ex-president of a large Union in the Boston area uh his Labor Department announced their intentions to change the definitions of worker classifications and then they just hel held two big online forums about this in June and I've announced Now by a Blog on their site they're now going to start moving forward with uh redoing these these rules and I expect to see something by the end of the year and I don't think a lot of small businesses are aware of this but it could have a dramatic impact on a lot of businesses around the country you know as a rule of thumb I generally try not to pay too much attention to rules new rules that are in the works because you just never know sometimes they happen sometimes they don't you have a sense this is really going to happen though yeah I do I do and and I you're right about I I try not to uh pay attention like you I mean even when people like uh have like bills that are proposed in you know in Congress I'm like all right we'll talk about it when I really becomes close to reality this though is close to reality I mean this is um this is not just you know rules that they're talking about changing these These are rules that they're now working on to change and um but there's going to be a lot of lawsuits about it I mean Lauren what it is is right now there's there's a bunch of different criteria for classifying whether a worker is an independent contractor or an employee and um you know these new rules are going to use something What's called the ABC test and without going into too much detail about it there's one part of it the B part which is the issue for business owners like me by the way it really impacts me because this part says that if a small business or any size business hires somebody and that person is generating revenue for their business um then that person could you know very probable has to be classified as an employee not as an independent contractor so as we've talked about my firm like we sell CRM systems and I frequently hire outside developers to do customizations for specific project and I may pay them 50 bucks an hour and then charge my clients a hundred bucks an hour and they're 1099s but um under these new rules I I may be required to classify them as employees of mine which means I have to withhold payroll taxes and potentially U make them eligible for my benefit plans health insurance or retirement um and that's a big issue I was speaking just a couple weeks ago to an association in Miami that does uh they're a courier Association you know messenger services and packages and Couriers uh that compete against the fedexes of the world and uh these guys are freaking out because they're they're their drivers of their Vans and their trucks and whatnot they're like all independent contractors you know that's how they prefer to do it but that does raise an interesting question what's the definition of generating revenue does somebody who delivers a package generate Revenue it's a very very good question and there there's core language about being uh being you know uh you core to your business the the stuff that they that that independent contractor is doing so it is uh you know it is whether or not somebody is if they're just doing marketing services for you or they you know Financial Services that's one thing but if what they're doing is is the services that they're providing are are core to the services you're providing to your customers um then that means that that contractor could very well have to be an employe and in this case there truck drivers or their Courier drivers they their services are core they're delivering packages to the customers of these delivery companies and the costs their costs are being built into the you know Revenue being generated the fees that they charge their customers and because of that it's it's going to be a real debate as to whether or not they should be classified as employees and most people in that industry think that they will be and that's going to be a significant you know potential Regulatory and and cost thing for a lot of these businesses so uh I'm just warning you when I speaking to the funeral directors by the way same thing I mean a lot of the people that drive the herses a lot of people that they bring in to do services on the actual cemeteries and Lawns or whatever some of the funeral directors they they hire you know contractors to come in to help and run their funeral services you know because they they're trying to keep cost down um some of those people might have to be classified as employees you know based on these rules so we have to keep a real close eye on this it's it is coming in the next couple of months interesting but although even if it makes it through you did mention the Spectre of litigation that could delay it and you know push it down the road there's no question that there will be lots and lots of litigation around it um a lot of people are accusing the Biden administration of that they want more employees so it makes it easier for employees to uh unionize um you know obviously there's a big labor push you know behind this so there will be lots of you know I can guarantee the nfib and you know the uh you know other business groups like them will will immediately start filing lawsuits against us all right here's another story based on a survey you reported um I think uh last week that one in four small businesses have replaced their CRM systems this year that seems like a remarkably large number to me one in four it really is this uh was a piece that I wrote in Forbes it was a research report that was done that um showed that these small businesses are basically not happy with their crms they're just they're just replacing them and you made a really interesting point about that that there might be a reason they're not happy with those systems yeah usually when I find people aren't happy with crms it's because they're they're doing a really bad job at using their crms you know um and I there used to be a time when um we sold a product called Gold Mine software which is still available and um it's like this on premise CRM we still sell it but it's not very popular anymore cuz it's not cloudbase but it used to have a really interesting feature Lauren um I would get called out to some client or some company that's using Gold Mine by the way this was like 150 years ago and they'd be like you know oh you know we hate this software so much and we want to replace it and we want to know you know what other options are goldine has this little feature you can go behind the scenes and look at Key clicks by user and I would bring up all of the users in their system and be like yeah well I don't understand how you hate this system most your people have like 14 key clicks like you're clearly not using this you know what I mean and I and I guess I have to say that to anybody with a CRM system that you have honestly if you've got a mainstream CRM that's out there and there's plenty of them that we all know the names the Zoho and the sales forces and the insightly and nimbl and you're quote unquote not happy with your CRM before you start you know turning your company upside down and disrupting your world it's not an easy process to switch crms which is why it's so stunning that one out of four might have done it this year I know and and I just I think that some of these people might have been duped by salespeople into changing their crms or others just you know it's a political thing like you know the new sales manager takes over and you know only liked Salesforce in the past so I'm going to have Salesforce here but before you like turn your company upside down by replacing your CRM system I would invest you know you know a few bucks and you get a consultant in there to really look at what you're doing with your existing CRM and I am going to bet you that with a little bit of training and a little bit of reconfiguration and a lot less money than replacing it um you could probably get your existing CRM system working the way you really want I'm not going to say that's all the time but I'm going to bet 80 to 90% of the time these people don't have to be replacing their crms they need to be uh you know focused more on using them better should these crms just be easier to to use is that the basic problem no because they you know I get that a lot where people say like hey you know is this CRM user friendly and you know and you know what do you think of this CRM is it user friendly and there's no such thing as user friendly see it's it's in Beauty in the eye of the beholder you know I mean I can look at a wall you and I at a at a wall and I could say it's blue and you'll be like well it's navy blue you know I mean nobody can really agree so it's really just a matter of the users being trained the right way and the owners of the company or at least the uh you know the person that's leading the team needs to basically say shut the hell up this is the CRM system we're using um so I'll give you the training that you need but I don't want to hear anything more about it just just use it the way we should be using it I'm telling you you know this is different than it was 15 years ago most crms that are out there they they have all the features and functionality any you know small or mediumsized company needs and if you're really unhappy with your CRM I'm going to bet it's more your fault than the crm's you know fault I know that sounds like tough medicine to take but I think that's what it is I think that probably hits home with a lot of people um I you know I've talked to people who've been very much aware that they have not put the time and energy into mastering the system that they should right and for you know for obvious reasons I mean it it's not easy it takes a commitment so one last story um and this is as you often do you uh pick up on things that I have no idea are going on this one is about retirement plans and something that I didn't know existed called a pulled 401k plan which I gather uh from your story didn't used to be available to smaller businesses but it it now is yeah it's called a pep pulled employer plan and it's because of the secure Act of 2019 that's relatively new it's three years old now um but here's why it's important um if you're listening to this conversation and you've got a 41k plan in your business I bet that you've got some costs involved with it a lot of times depending on the size of the 401K plan uh you have to get an audit done or a review from an outside accounting firm uh you have like uh you know regulatory F paperwork that has to be filed a Form 5500 the some forms with the Department of Labor both state and federal so it's a cost to have that you know plus you're paying a fee for an investment manager to be overall in charge of your 401k plan well these pets change it all so you want to talk to either your administrator or you want to talk to a larger company that administers 401K plans a lot of the payroll firms are doing this the uh adps and the paychecks and the pay scales and pay cores of the world um they what what they're doing is they're taking advantage of what's called these pulled employer plans which means that you can take your 401k and throw it into a pool with a bunch of other businesses 401ks so you're all one big happy account before you only could do this if you were related to these businesses but now because of the secure act you can be in the same pool with any number of businesses it's it's administered by one person the administrator and although there's Le a little bit less flexibility number one you you absolve yourself of your fiary duties uh because it all you've got the administrator who takes responsibility of that now for all of the plans so that's good so you don't if there's any issues fiary wise you're you've got less liability but more importantly say you've got a pulled Plan and there's a hundred companies that are participating well those 100 companies before all needed to get their own separate audits now there's only one audit that's needed of the plan and then that one audits cost is split by the 100 companies that are in that pool which basically means you would be paying a lot less in those kinds of fees the same thing with administrative and and filing fees as well so not a lot of business owners know this but you should absolutely talk to your 401k administrator and ask them about pulled employer plans um and if not they don't offer them you should be talking to a larger organization principal you know any of these you know in you know large financial institutions that offer 401K plans because they've got peps set up which can save you a lot of money in administration it seems kind of like a no-brainer is is there some kind of drawback why wouldn't everybody do this it's a bit of a brainer and the reason why is first of all if you got a very small plan maybe your administrative costs aren't so much that it's worth the the effort but um you know bear in mind though that there's a transition you've got to take it out of the Assets in your existing plan and put it into new assets and a new plan which might mean there's like you know new names and faces and new investment op so sometimes employees get a little nervous like what the hell are you doing with my retirement savings so you've got to make sure you've got good education involved to do that um and then it's just a time period to transition it over um I spoke to a few people I interviewed uh for this piece I did it in the inquire the Philly inquire and um they all said it took them about three to four months as a transition period to like not only educating you know everybody's got to sign off on it your employees because it's their retirement savings um but and also then do the actual transition so it's not something you just snap your fingers and it happens overnight but I certainly think it's worth the effort long term one woman I spoke to they were pay like 10 12 Grand a year for like an audit of their 401k plan because it was required they had 100 employees and uh now she says like their their overall fees are like a grand a year so it's huge interesting it sounds like maybe it is a no-brainer for somebody that doesn't have an existing plan and is just starting from scratch yes also true if you're going to start you know from scratch with a 401k and if you don't have a 401k for God's sake what do you you got to have a 401k I mean they're inexpensive to set up and the more your employees put away the more you can put away as well it's you know it's it's like that's a no-brainer uh so if you're going to start one all definitely start one as a ped employer CL all right Jean anything you're working on this week that we should be looking for um I haven't decided what I'm going to write about uh next week for uh the inquire I've got a few things up up in the air um so more on that when we when when we speak uh the following week but thank goodness my editor from the guardian who I love he's been on vacation for three weeks can you imagine yeah that's what happened I noticed you hadn't appeared there it's because your editor was away yeah my editor's on vacation so I guess we're all on vacation they don't have backup apparently not so you know I've been off for three weeks I can't wait till I'm itchy to get back in writing for him he'll be back in Action next week and um entrepreneur you I have a recent piece coming out on unless it's already been out about being careful about stating what your revenues are for your business um that's actually coming out soon oh don't tell anybody that as a journalist I need people to talk about their revenues yeah we're gonna talk about revenues for your business because uh people say their revenues in 2022 is a certain number and I got to tell you something with inflation uh we shouldn't be looking at dollars in 2022 anyway we can talk about that when that piece comes out you're making me nervous I don't know if I want to talk about that uh Gan marks is a CPA who writes weekly on small business for the guardian the hill the Philadelphia inquir 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 podcasts with HX Corporation and the Harford thank you Jean thank you Lauren we'll see you next week talk to you soon