Dashboard: Keep Calm and Carry a Lot of Inventory!

[Music] welcome to another 21 hats dashboard I'm Lauren Feldman as usual I'm here with Gene marks to talk about the stories and issues we think business owners should be following this week great to have you here Jean Lauren thanks for talking oh my pleasure always where where are you today I am in London today I've been here all week wow are you there on on a reporting assignment yeah right well actually I did report back to somebody else about what's going on with small businesses here in the UK which it's always fun to talk about tell me what's going on uh you know I got news for you uh businesses here I've been to quite a few different shops I actually spoke to a few business owners here and um you know when you drive around London you can't believe there was a pandemic here I mean the stores are open very few vacancies nothing out of the ordinary than what I've Remembered in the past 30 years of coming here three or four times a year I have family here so um things look good you know plus the businesses here got a bit of a boost from the Queen's Jubilee which happened just a couple weeks ago the weather has been fairly decent in London which is unusual um but having said that like our friends at home in the US lots of concern here about inflation and Rising interest rates and you know in fuel prices uh and heating and utility prices so uh like everything seems fine now but nobody is looking forwards the fall interesting any talk about brexit and its impact no it is it's like it's just old news people are moving on you know from that I mean I'm sure if you were to talk to people bring up the topic specifically uh people would be happy to talk about it but it's not it's just not high of mind right lots of lots of stores I walk by in this neighborhood and then also a nearby neighborhood which we've been going to uh lots of help wanted signs that are out there so clearly the Brits are experiencing the same labor issues that uh the American business owners are having as as well um and then the other thing I can report is that my plane was full going there um you know people are coming the tourists are out you know and about the the tube we've been on a bunch of times very crowded uh so people are uh you know people are out and about moving around have you ridden the story that you're going to do about this or is that something we can look for I I'm not going to do any specific story I wasn't planning on it um but who knows I might think about it on the flight home and maybe there's an angle to come at here there's nothing no no shaking of ground so there's nothing that that comes to mind right away but we'll see maybe got it all right let's dig into a couple issues one you wrote about or you actually you did a podcast about something really interesting uh recently which is you suggested that businesses can use their uh customer relations management software to fight inflation can you explain that I can and it was a podcast and also a piece I wrote about it for Forbes and I just want to let you guys know if you're listening and you've got a customer relationship management application there there are two very big ways you can leverage it uh to fight inflation and and I'm seeing this amongst some of my better clients number one is just data um one of the things that our our our fathers and mothers and grandmothers and grandfathers didn't have back in the 70s when inflation was was really you know hitting them is they didn't have the kind of communication systems that we have to day and one of the big things I'm seeing my clients do one of the many things but one of the bigger ones is to navigate their way through inflation uh supply chain issues lead times all these Rising prices my better ones have really stepped up their Communications with their customers you know so if they are seeing issues if they want to keep their customers up to date they're leaning heavily on their CRM systems to do just that and by doing it you know that means really having great data in your system and segregating it well and then leveraging the mass email capabilities mass texting as well that many of these comes with because your customers they know we're in tough times right now they just want information and they want to know what's to come right and and and we have systems now that we didn't really have 20 years ago small businesses so really communicate with our customers so use them leverage your CRM system to to have regular communication with your customers you will keep them happier and keep them in the fold that was number one um the second thing I'm seeing to battle inflation is just leveraging all this automation that all the mainstream applications have and so many of my clients are using their crms like contact managers still back in the 80s and um my better ones are talking to their vendors you know Salesforce or Microsoft or Zoho or whoever and they're learning about all the built-in automation that these things now have so that if somebody comes to your website they can fill out a form and have a question answered for them automatically um or they can request information and it can be sent out to them automatically without a human being involved you know or if they need to have a chat with somebody about a product that you're selling or a service you can set up chatting from your CRM system on your website where where that is happening and your you know your Crum system is chatting with this visitor based on a standard set of responses that you give um and then escalating it if it goes beyond that all of these types of Automation and AI tools that these CRM systems have Lauren they um they reduce overhead you know you do have to have it's less employee hours having to do that which means potentially less employees so you know the companies with the you know lowest overhead they're the ones that navigate the best through inflationary times you know Jean you you've talked Us in the past uh a good bit about how a lot of businesses if not most fail to use all the capabilities of these systems um in part because they're intimidated by them and they don't uh take the time to to to really figure them out are the are the things the the applications you're talking about now are they difficult to get started with should should should someone feel intimidated or do you have advice for somebody who does feel intimidated so first of all yeah it's I mean it's not like you're used to it's not like turning on a TV you know so it's something you're going to have to learn some time that you're going to have to invest um so that's not easy if it was so easy everybody would be doing it instead of the 90% of my clients who struggle you know with doing these things but I'm telling you if you're like hey uh you know that for the next year you're going to be in an environment where you've got Rising prices and supply chain challenges I mean we know this any talk to any small business owner right so I'm like all right you need to do everything within Your Arsenal to navigate your way through this and if I'm telling you that if you learned how to use the communication features in your CRM system better to regularly stay up to date with your customers and if you learned about all the AI and workflow tools so that you can cut out employee hours doing stuff automatically and you know that that's going to reduce your costs and help you better navigate through inflation and you're Dopey for not doing it and yeah okay maybe it's not going to come to you right away somebody's got to teach you how to do it or maybe you hire a consultant to like train somebody or configure it for you but for God's sake do it are the companies themselves helpful if you reach out to them depends on who you're talking to it's that's another great question I mean you know it's like anything else if you call up Salesforce or Microsoft or Zoho you know initely or Nimble or sugar yeah there's great people on their support and sales size and there's Dopey people as well you know what I mean so if you're not getting the answers you got to push for the answers and don't forget all these CRM systems have you know outside consultants and experts like like our firm right so you you can go on LinkedIn and look for a you know you know a Salesforce expert or a Dynamics expert for Microsoft you'll get plenty of them yes they're going to charge you an hourly rate but okay so you cough up a th000 bucks to save you $10,000 on overhead over the next year it's just to me it's like a no-brainer and again our parents never had this stuff you know last round of inflation so you know use it man it's it's it's really valuable stuff uh especially if you're paying for the system why not agreed uh all right next topic uh Jean you recently wrote about a uh kind of good news bad news situation the bad news is that uh as you've told us here uh several weeks now uh there's a real strong possibility of a recession uh in our near future uh and because of that we can expect expect some more bankruptcies uh they're actually they've actually been down of late uh in part because of all the government funding but that is likely to change the good news you said is that the rules have changed a little bit and gotten better for businesses that have to reorganize can you tell us about that yes and for that you can thank Senator Chuck Grassley of ID Iowa Iowa excuse me Iowa who um he have has a a you know uh sponsored uh a bill that back in 2019 that passed called the small business reorganization act and then he just updated that bill with a new bill that was just signed by the president last week Lauren uh for small businesses that are potentially going bankrupt and if you have if you're like really facing headwinds and you're looking at you know potential bankruptcy um you know before you would have to do this under chapter 11 to reorganize yourself but chapter 11 was really expensive and time consuming and Regulatory and administrative work had to be done gry's bill um was just passed it this if you've got less than7 A5 million do in debts so it's for small business that's how you're eligible that's you've got to be a small business with less than $7.5 million in debts and you decide that you need to go into bankruptcy to reorganize yourself you can elect it's now called sub chapter 5 under chapter 11 you talk to a bankruptcy attorney and if you do that then you don't have to get approval from a creditor committee your personal assets may not be subject to um you know to to withdraw you you you will not have to be required to put more money into the business the amount of time that you have to reorganized now won't go on and on forever it's limited to like 90 days your administrative costs will be less and you can pay them off longer the bottom line is is that this sub chapter five this new sub chapter 5 in the the bankruptcy legislation it will allow small businesses to reorganize themselves um less much with much less headaches and at a much lower cost and uh Senator Grassley told me I interviewed him a couple weeks ago he thinks that it will help about 40% more small businesses um emerge and reorganize themselves than before this rule you know this law was passed so keep that in mind if you're you know if you're heading into trouble that's really interesting Jean I I'm curious uh obviously nobody wants to go through this um but do these new rules make it a uh a a plausible positive alternative for more businesses in other words because of the relaxation of the the regulations does it mean that this is a viable option for uh even for businesses who previously wouldn't have considered bankruptcy because you know like Senator grassy had said that 40% number you know what he saw in his State's a lot of a businesses a lot of people you know Farmers you if they face issues like this they are really in you know you know they they look the cost of reorganizing under chapter 11 and they're like you know what this is just too expensive too much time to you whatever we're just going to liquidate it's not worth it but with this new sub chapter 5 roles a lot of those businesses would look at it and say okay it's it's not so expensive or timec consuming or regulatory for me to reor I can still save my business you know rather than liquidate and I think that it will become a really good viable alternative for those small businesses again with less than 7 and a half million dollars in in in debt good to know all right next uh Fortune recently ran a story uh about ways that businesses can increase profits without raising their prices and um the the biggest examples they gave of restaurants that choose to push people in the direction of uh meals uh orders that uh offer a higher margin to the business uh and also uh examples of item pricing what airlines do when they force you to pay uh extra for meals or for to bring baggage or uh to have air to breathe or whatever they choose the point fortun made was that nobody likes those item pricing changes but by and large they've accepted them their behavior hasn't really changed and it may be something for businesses to keep in mind right now what do you think well first the item price is like you know you get on have you flown like Spirit or Jet Blue you know like buy not it's like you buy like a $35 ticket and then it's like to check in will be another $35 you know to bring a bag to you know to select a seat will be another $35 you know to bring a bag by the time you're like you're backing like 300 bucks for a ticket uh with all the extra fees you know I but I think the fortune article really hits a point um which is this I mean you you this gets back to the CRM part of this conversation we have data that we never had before so yeah if you've got good data in your system and you can really pinpoint those products that you're selling that have the highest margins um that you're making good enough money on then you should be turning around and leveraging that you should be selling more of that because maybe you don't even have to raise prices if you've already got a decent margin and you can double down on getting that product out the door and I love that because again that's like it's just not something that the typical small business owner had back in the 70s you know we've got really great you know accounting and Erp and CRM systems that that have this data so you should be leveraging to do just that the same thing that I've seen is without raising prices you and I talked before about shrinkflation so I see that a lot I got a chicken pot pie at my favorite restaurant in Philly like last week and Lauren I could swear there was less goddamn Chicken in that chicken pot pie but you know you know what I sucked it down I had a couple more potatoes and you know whatever you respected that business owner for doing what had to be done I'm like all right the guy's putting a few less pieces of chicken in here he still charging the same price and I'm still satiated so you know it's shrinkflation is another way of doing it you know what I mean like selling things out the car selling a little bit less for the same price focusing on those higher margin products and pushing those instead of the lower margin ones those are all really good tactics from a selling side um to you know to to to get around these t one thing you got to admit though l i mean people are there's not enough articles about this and I I'm fascinated that's what I talk about is like we all know inflation is with us so what are businesses doing you know to to navigate their way around it that's what I want to know you know and that fortune article was great for that reason because it gave some really good examples cool all right uh finally Elizabeth Dan founder of work Talk Communications Consulting wrote a piece for Inc last week saying that it's now okay since the pandemic to swear in the office um she cited studies indicating that people used to consider people who swore stupid uh but now it's actually a badge of intelligence um I don't know if you're the right guy to ask about this um Gan since you work by yourself in your home uh but you've worked in an office before what do you think I think it's a bunch of [ __ ] [ __ ] I knew that was coming you knew that was coming right uh no I actually I actually do think it's a bunch of [ __ ] I I don't think there's uh first of all I don't know if you feel the same way I do I mean yeah we don't have official offices but I do go to a lot of clients and spend a lot of you know time in offices and um I am so way more than a few years ago I mean pandemic aside I am so more conscious about what I'm talking how what what I'm saying when I'm around people you know like when there were there was a there was a time like there was like some younger woman you know some woman in her 20s at some meeting um who I've known you know for like the past couple years and she was wearing like a nice shirt and I was going to say something like oh that's a really you know that's a really nice shirt it looks great on you thank God I didn't say anything and I told my wife about that later and she said you would have been oh my God don't even think about it it's the same thing about swearing I mean we live in a very sensitive world right now and there is such a chance that somebody in your office an employee or a visitor will be offended or upset because you said a swear word in the office you know what I mean it's it was you know it triggered them and um but it's okay on podcast I guess yeah it's on just you know [ __ ] who is a [ __ ] so you know but when you're face to face and you're in a profession first of all this is not a professional environment it's Lauren and excuse me yeah you can't get any less profession than this but in an office where there's a particular where there's younger people you around and I don't know what do you think I mean I think they swear more than the older people not less I don't know and I'm not going to test that theory out because I feel like I'm going to get sued or fired or you know or or people are going to get upset with me I me what would you do gloren say you're if you're running a company say you've got 10 or 50 employees would you be swearing in front of them I mean I can't imagine you I've never really heard you curse say something bad right now I do curse from time to time I try not to make a habit of it in public settings and no in the situation you describe uh I would not I I would point out that uh the woman who wrote this piece did offer some guidelines and one was don't be the first person to swear and you know maybe that's a good start um let somebody else go first and if it's if it sits well then you can join in um although that does take some of the impact away if if you were hoping that you're doing it would give emphasis to whatever it is you're trying to say right right that's fair enough that's not bad advice I but at the same time you notice I let you go first in this situation and yet you still haven't sworn even though I'm dropping the f bomb left and right you're still I'm tempted yeah you're taking you're taking the high road I listen I just think avoid it uh even and I I think it's you know I think it any age I think it's inappropriate and I just honestly I just say and and outside of the office as you could tell I swear all the time I mean that doesn't when you're around other people I just don't think it's fair I just think if you're in an office environment and you know I just don't think it's fair to other people if you know they they don't really want to sit around and hear something that's offensive to them um you know they're in an office they're not they're not your friends you know they're not you're not the bar so you know I I I disagree with her yeah I'm inclined to agree with you all right Gene marks say 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 him on ABC radio's ey on the world with John Bachelor Gan hosts two small business podcasts with paychecks Corporation and the Hartford and today he was reporting from London England thank you Jean H Lauren we will talk to you next week great talking have a great week everyone e