Dashboard: So You Think Building a Business in the U.S. Is Hard?

[Music] welcome to another 21 hats dashboard I'm Lauren Feldman I'm here with Gene marks to talk about the things we think business owners should be following this week welcome Jean thank you Lauren looking forward to speaking today great to have you here as usual you've been writing and talking about stuff that matters to business owners uh but once again you're doing it uh as you have for the past month or so in London and you've done some uh actual reporting while you're there talking to British business owners uh and you wrote a really interesting piece about what you've learned I'll quote you you wrote I need to stop complaining about how difficult it is to run a small business in the US it's much harder to run a small business in the UK particularly now tell us about that so it is and by the way come on I report I mean okay well no no no you you report all the time what I meant by that is you're kind of partially on vacation on the ground yeah and you're you know you didn't have to go reporting on stories you know on the ground in London while you were there but you did well call me Edward rrow our man in London exactly our man in London um so yes so I've been here for the entire month I've been staying in West hamstad my wife has family here so you know that's why we we've been working remotely and um we also have a bunch of friends here uh so I've you know we've been out and about with friends for you know for various things that you that are all English people and uh that that work for companies and um or have their own businesses actually we've talked to others business owners is around where I've gone to a few restaurants and talked to some of the owners there and um so you know it's it is amazing when I think about what it's like to run a business in the UK there's both macro and micro issues you know for a business owner here Lauren I mean the macro issues are the economic issues right now I mean as much as we complain about our six and a half percent inflation rate you know whatever it's at in England it's like 10 and a half percent you know um interest rates are higher here as well uh there is uh you know poll after poll survey after survey showing that consumers are cutting back their spending and I actually see it I mean I don't um you know we're definitely post recovery in London you walk around post pandemic I mean all the shops and stores are open it's not like shops are boarded up but you know they just don't seem as busy and crowded as as when when we're other you know when we're here normally which is a few times a year we're here um lots of you discount signs that are out there and you know you know you know half pric you know meals you know at certain times of the day that way more than I was expecting to see um you know I mean just you know last week there was a big rail strike so you know there's been strikes going on all over the place and that cuts back and makes it harder to get employees to work and it gets harder to have you know consumers coming into your business and and then there's like cost of running I mean you know energy costs here are skyrocketing I mean you everybody I talked to said that they're home eting bills have gone up double and businesses the business owners I spoke to have also seen the same thing's a lot of challenges macro you know in running a business here it's pretty wild and then there brexit we won't even talk about that but if you're a business that does buys and sells in Europe you've got a bunch of new headaches we highlighted a story uh about that in the morning report recently it was about uh somebody who exports to the European Union which of of course the UK is no longer uh a part of so the the red tape I believe has increased dramatic Al is that what you're talking about 100% And then it was easier to hire people uh because they you know because people could move from Europe to to England and so it was a source for I mean you go into any coffee shop here like Cafe Nero or whatever which are a chain and in London around the country and it's it's basically staffed by people from Eastern Europe you know but that's all choking up now because they can't get over here uh you know like they could before so that's a problem and then if like if you're running the business I mean the the the mandatory benefits I mean the government requires you to provide you know um um vacation to your employees and you know five weeks of vacation a year five weeks uh they require you to provide mandatory paid time off for like maternity leave for you know for moms right now uh and unpaid time off for both parents um they require you to pay in for health insurance and listen I'm a fan of national Health that's a whole other conversation but every employer who has an employee you've got to contribute to your employes National Health um where you know you might say like oh well we have to do that in the US but no you don't if you don't want to provide health insurance to your employees I mean you know there's no requirement well you do pay a price for that you do if you have less than 50 people you know there's no requirement of doing but you're right you pay a price for it you can't attract people but it's still an option so there's and I'm not even mentioning some of the other you know well let me ask you this don't you think I mean is that something like uh the minimum wage laws where it you know it can look very painful to see an increase in that to a business owner but some of that is mitigated if it applies to everybody so if all businesses are affected by the uh the rules you just described does that even things out a little bit it may I mean if if all businesses are mandated to have a cost the bigger businesses can easier afford that than the smaller businesses of course you know um so that's that's where the problem comes in um but you by the way you mentioned minimum wage minimum wages here are like 50% higher than they are in the US interesting and tipping wa you talking about the federal uh minimum wage or yeah the federal well that's very low here as opposed to what it is in some states right but like I think more than 26 I think it's 26 States still abide by the federal minimum wage like the minimum wage in Pennsylvania is still $725 an hour but then again Philadelphia it's higher you know but right right you know so it just depends so but the minimum wage are but then then again tipping is much lower here I mean some restaurants add on a 10% service charge uh for tips uh not all not all and if you try to tip people here they give you like a really weird look just when I was in London a couple years ago I gave a cab driver a tip and he gave I think half of it back to me yeah he refused to take it yeah we had breakfast like the other day and like you I don't know we got it was like you know pounds and I'm like hey can you add three pounds onto the bill for a tip the guy looked at me like I had horns coming out of my head like you couldn't believe it so it's just all those things are are different um meanwhile what's amazing and I mentioned this in the guardian piece is how like England has like it's one of the top 10 economies in the world even though they're like 80th in population you know I mean so you know it just goes to show that you can have all these mandatory things and you know still have a a very strong economy you know what I mean well what what's the attitude among business owners when you talk to them about this did they did you sense resentment or do they feel grieved yes yes of course yes of course because that's the one thing that's not going to change among business owners no matter where you go in the world uh they hate the government and they hate taxes and they hate having to pay extra costs and all that that's none of that is any different they're miserable like we all are did you did you make them feel worse by telling them that you now real realiz that things are better in the US yeah I didn't actually go into that level I did not want that you know to happen but yeah but for the most part I mean and the business owners I spoke to were restaurant or store owners so that they weren't you know um they were mostly cheery and entrepreneurial and all of that yeah they Grumble about the government the economy and and their you know these these mandated costs that they have to pay uh but I walked away saying man like hey I got to stop complaining about running out business in the states I mean how long do you think you abide by that Jean about 10 minutes so okay glad to hear it next topic uh you wrote another piece uh and this one surprised me uh about why even small businesses should be offering their employees unlimited PTO um that sounds like the kind of thing you were just complaining about uh in the UK why why do why do you like unlimited PTO for small businesses in particular yeah I've been talking my face off on this topic for a couple years now I mean I offer my compan it's like it's just an Unwritten PTO policy is what it is basically but it is kind of unlimited I mean you know you you make the case financially that people when they have unlimited pay time off take less time off there's been a few studies that I cited in the piece that I wrote that actually show that now that's not great for mental health that's a whole other issue but but it is a cost saving it's just there's the psychological thing Lauren that if right if you're take as many days off as you want people get nervous and they have a fomo thing going on you know what I mean well that's the funny thing about it um I mean I remember when it first started to spread I I think a lot of employees viewed it as you know this incredible thing that they were hoping their company would do it sounded uh ideal uh but I think over time as people see the way it really works kind of nobody really likes it I think you know employees kind of view it as a scam because the studies as you were alluding to do show that people actually end up taking less time often um yeah and and I I've talked to very few small business owners who think it's a good idea I think they can see why it might make sense for a big company that has a lot of overlap and people you know people in reserve who can fill in when somebody's away but it much trickier uh for for a small business I think people aren't willing to adapt you know to it and I also think that it's um you know it's also a level of like mutual respect I mean if you're getting your job done take your time off um I always tell my clients because I do have a number of clients that do have uh forms of unlimited paytime off plans and the most successful ones they make it like yes you can have unlimited paytime off but it has to be approved by your supervisor first so you just can't walk in and be like hey man I'm gonna go surfing in New Zealand for two months see you later you know what I mean like it has to work for both parties so yeah it's unlimited but there's you know there's there's some control there limits on it there are limits on it yeah so so it's I guess if it's it's like anything else if it's explained and communicated the right way um I think that you know employees it could be a real selling tool for employees as long as they know what they're getting into the other thing is that I have some clients that have multiple PTO plans so you know they have the standard US it or L it plan and then they're like hey if you're with us for five years you can then participate in our unlimited PTO plan you have even more flexibility but well that's interesting and there's no problem with doing that from a regulation stoy you could offer different types of plans to different emplo there's no regulations on paid time at least not in the US I mean that gets back to the UK issue but in the US you could do whatever the heck you want so you can have different paytime off plans for different employee groups and you can hold this one out there as a carrot um you know and again I think it's just we're all struggling to find good employees you know to sit down across from a younger employee particularly because their number one desire is flexibility and to say Hey you know we offer an unlimited PTO plan work for us for a couple years and you can have way more flexibility you know I I don't know could be a real selling point it is for some of my clients all right next topic I want to talk a little bit about the uh employee retention tax credit we've talked about this quite a bit before um I think most of our listeners are aware that it's an incredible tax break if you qualify for it as as you recently wrote it it sounds almost too good to be true but it it actually is true the the thing that's that's evolved with this I think is that uh as you point out there are an awful lot of scam outfits out there that are looking to take advantage of businesses who aren't sure how to get this how to claim this tax credit it is complicated uh so a couple of questions about that first of all how do you know if you're dealing with a scam outfit or a legitimate outfit you do which is why you want to deal with one or two people either your accountant or your payroll service firm period period so ask your accountant if they have experience with the employee retention tax credit or if they can recommend somebody that does or if you use a payroll service firm you know ADP or paychecks or payor or whatever that you're using turn to them because all those guys seem to they're offering the service as well and they all do it in credible way because they're National and have reputations to maintain is the difference that I mean if you turn to the people you just suggested will they still charge you a percentage of what they save you or do they charge you the way accountants normally charge you that depends uh the payal service firms I think have like a flat fee that they charge the accountants it depends on the accountant what they're going to charge some do it on contingency some don't you know as part of their service some charge you by the hour um at the very least the the good ones you're if you you know you've got a good account then you've got a good payroll service firm if they will at least evaluate you and determine whether you're eligible that's the big issue you shouldn't have to pay for that yeah you shouldn't have to pay for that and if they say you're not eligible then you're not eligible because they have every motivation to do the work that that you have to get the credit so if you're not eligible fine but if you are eligible then you know you have to talk with them about how they're going to get paid and again it just usually depends on who's doing the work and and this is complicated but is this something that you should expect that you're um you know your accountant would be well enough versed in to to determine no because it's accounting is become so Niche you know that there for example like there's you you've heard of the research and development tax credit you know you can get a tax credit if you've got a certain amount of R&D expenditures that you make there there are basically Boutique firms that specialize in that and it's the same thing with the employee retention tax credit and the reason why the ertc is is you know a lot of accountants don't want to spend that much time on it it's because it's going to end in a couple years you know it's it's you can extend you can amend your returns as late as 2025 so you've got two more years left to do it but it's already looking back it's not for the current period right and then it's over then it's done so like account like well why do I want to become expert in this if it's just going to be over you know what I mean so that's why you might get an account and your account might say I'm sorry but we don't really deal with this that's fine then just ask if you can you know can they recommend somebody that would do that and most you know if you're a good accountant you'll find somebody that can help a client you know help a client out without tax credit got it all right last topic this also is something we've talked about before which is AI and chat GPT um you've written another piece I I believe for Forbes um about about chat GPT yes and I I'm sorry go ahead I was going to I I think in this piece you uh talk about how actually uh could be useful to uh small business owners so um so two things so I have a piece coming out today Monday um on some myths about chat GPT and then I'm going to have another piece coming out next week both in Forbes um where I've got like three or four dozen things I'm up to like 32 things right now that your business can do or will soon be able to do with chat GPT you know so I just 32 more things than lot of people are expecting I think yeah I mean I'm I'm building a list and it's a lot of fun you know to put it together and just so everybody knows you know chat GPT you know please you can try it out yourself I mean if you just Google Chat GPT and open AI That's the name of the company the nonprofit that makes it you can get on to their site and set up a username and play around with it it's a lot of fun well let me ask you there let me stop you because I went there and I thought I was going to find a you know like a Google search box where I could just immediately plug in my query and it would give me you know a college entrance uh essay or something um it's more complicated than that how how complic I I stopped at that point because I just no no no well you have to register and you know get a username and password and then that's all it is yeah that's it that's it and then you get your search box that you're looking for got it's very simple and what really prompted me is again here I am in in London I was talking to this guy who works at a um company a software development company and he's a software developer and um he was telling me he uses chat GPT all the time for his job like he's right now using it real life and the reason why is because he'll be writing software code and there's some bit of code that he needs to write and he wasn't really sure how to do it and he'll ask chat GPT I need help writing a code that does this this and this in this language and chat GPT gives them the Code wow he gives him the code so and then he copies and pastes it but he has to edit it review it and make sure that it dovetails in with the big picture of code that he's writing one of the things we're hearing is that you you do have to check it right yeah it's not fully accurate it's it's sometimes it's incomplete there are privacy issues there's uh bias issues as well which has been a topic on Twitter with Elon Musk uh just last week um so there's a lot of things that needs to be addressed with it but there's a perfect example of a guy who's using this he would have taken an hour or two to write this code and chat GPT gave it to him in like a minute and then he has to you know he spends 15 minutes reviewing it and then he moves on it's a powerful powerful tool and it's getting better all the time it's not exactly ready for prime time my advice to all clients is to wait because the big software developers and a lot of tech startups are right now developing chat gbt based applications and to as Microsoft is they just invested a billion dollars in it and they're going to take it and they're going to embed it in office and what does that mean well if I'm going to go and do a a presentation to a Wildlife Foundation about squirrel eating habits in North America I can I will soon be able to tell office can you please prepare for me a presentation on the Wild squirrel eating habits in nor and it will use chat GPT to create a PowerPoint presentation and bullet out all the points that it finds crazy now of course I just want to be clear about this when you say squirrel eating habits are you talking about what squirrels eat or people who eat squirrels What squirrels eat I just I'm sorry for not being clear on that I'm about that it is what squirrels eat I I know it's generally nuts but not all the time okay but but imagine getting like a PowerPoint done you for and then of course you still have to to go through it and make sure that it's right and you know formatted or whatever you're going to do to it put your your thing on it but it will it'll do all of that kind of stuff for you I mean I'm gonna you know office will say it will have a tool for you to say to chat GPT look through my past year emails from my customers and tell me if they're happy with me and chat GPT will be able to come back and say well based on reviewing all of your emails and Outlook uh they they think you suck which is pretty consistent with what I think they would think but at least jet GPT can validate that for me you know you're an expert in uh crms that kind of suggests that there's going to be some powerful applications for crms absolutely I mean now right now there's chat features that integrate with CRM somebody goes to a website and you know but they're they're limited do you know what I mean chat GPT is is very conversational and based on a question it gives you an answer you can then ask other questions you can go back and forth so it's very very you know it gets you know much more detailed and all of this is going to happen I mean if I'm like hey I need to do I'm thinking of opening a store uh a retail store in Oakbrook Illinois that sells toys you know um what are other stores in the area what's their revenues and what's the competition like and what would be the best chat GPT could prepare a report for me that that that gives me some of those answers you know what I mean yeah that's huge so I don't you know will it replace people I mean it's going to replace some dopes that don't have any skills so get some skills other than that um it's gonna enhance our jobs it's going to make people better at their jobs because we'll be able to this the that we're wasting our time on will be done by this bot and we can you know we can spend our time doing more productive and valuable things will I be able to go to it on Monday mornings and say uh chat GPT please tell me what small business owners uh should uh be paying attention to this week and do it in the form of a podcast Mar of course it won't have the personality and humor that you and I have understand but but no when you when you do your your newsletter um it might help you with a Roundup of of interesting stories this week about small businesses that you can look at that sounds good yeah you might be like hey prepare a newsletter for me on the three most interesting stories this week about small business see what that means that all my readers can do that too they won't need me what you'll do though is you won't just do the Roundup but you'll put it into your voice with your commentary and make it all yourself and that's why I would continue to subscribe to 21 hat for you on that note Gan marks is a CPA who writes weekly on small business for the guardian the hill the Philadelphia inquire the Washington Times the Chicago Daily Herald Forbes an entrepreneur you can also hear them on ABC radio's on the world with John Bachelor Jean hosts two small business podcasts with paychecks Corporation and the Hartford thank you Jean thank you Lauren I will see you uh back in the States you'll be back State Side soon right that's correct looking forward to it thanks again Jean see you soon [Music]