Dashboard: The Case for Facebook

[Music] welcome to another 21 hats dashboard every Monday Jean Marks and I talk about the issues we think business owners should be monitoring this week welcome Jean hey Lauren great to speak with you happy Monday great great to be here uh let's dig right in Jean I know you like to be a contrarian but you kind of outdid yourself recently with a piece you wrote that I really enjoyed uh you decided to make the case for why Facebook is good yes it's an interesting time to do that uh please tell us what you're thinking well it was I think it's the right time to do it and first of all let me just say I and I wrote this in the Washington Times um you know I said it a couple times in the course of the article I do not work you sounded a little defensive about I started counting the number of times you said I'm not being paid by Facebook because I mean that's like the initial your reaction oh you just Shing for Facebook or whatever I'm not being paid I have no relationship with Facebook I've never you know I don't do anything with Facebook but I you know all of this you Facebook has done a bunch of horrendous things over the past few years we all know those stories uh so I am not making any excuse or defense of their behavior but you know but let's all agree that you know last week Facebook went down for like the better part of a day and there were a lot of small businesses that were really screwed because of it which you know you know caused us all to remember just just how you important Facebook is to so many small businesses there were like you know 3 billion monthly active users on Facebook and like 10 million you know firms of all size that advertise on Facebook and millions of small businesses that have pages on Facebook and when you know when Facebook goes down um or you know you these these businesses rely on this platform for to sell to advertise to stay in touch with their their their communities and there are countless stories all around the country of small businesses that were like you know suffering because Facebook you know went down so yes Facebook you know deserves a lot of the that it's getting because of its Behavior but at the same time Lauren I mean you know let's also take a step back and say my God I mean this platform is really you done a lot for small businesses and continues to do a lot you know well that said uh do you have clients who use Facebook and do you encourage them to keep using it or continue to be dependent on I what I do I mean you know people are like oh we should have an alternative to Facebook well the the the the fact of the matter is there's no alternative to Facebook right now you know if you're if you're on it you're on it as a platform do I think Facebook is is you going anywhere you know in the next few years no I not actually the other way around I mean Zuckerberg is is right now planning virtual communities and and ail leveraged interactions where you will not only connect to your to your customers on Facebook but you will you'll go through virtual meetings with them you know like like hologram type meetings using VR headsets to do that I mean they're working on all this and this stuff is like not too far in the future so I don't say Facebook this in are you talking about the metaverse that is the metaverse which I wrote about on Forbes you know a few weeks ago um and that is that is a real thing and Facebook is getting a lot of Investments not only from itself but it's you know from other tech companies that is coming Lauren and so I guess my point is is that you you you ask should we like you know should we be you know getting away from Facebook or finding an alternative and I mean I'm sure they're going to have their issues I hope they behave better but you know as a business owner if you're on Facebook and all in I'm I'm telling you to stay all in one final thing I interviewed I don't know a couple months ago the the guy in charge of like small business on Facebook or whatever and he was telling me their their big push is e-commerce they're going after Amazon you know they want to be selling products they want their businesses to be selling products on their platform so you know I'm still Allin with Facebook I think it's it's absolutely uh a great platform for the for the foreseeable future well we can all agree it's good to have somebody competing with Amazon certainly AG agree by it's not just Facebook but some of the other larger platforms like Twitter for example are planning big pushes in e-commerce so keep an eye out next story uh here's another one you wrote recently that surprised me uh in a piece for the Philadelphia Inquirer you offer suggestions on how small businesses can go Global I all good advice the thing that surpr Uris me is the timing is right now with all that we've been hearing about the supply chain problems or experiencing with the supply chain problems is now the time to go Global yeah I mean when we talk about global let's all agree that you know you know Global could mean Canada and Mexico you know I mean they are they they're very good countries and they happen to be very close it doesn't necessarily have to be China and by the way you know there are all sorts of supply chain issues from from we hear about Ships coming from China cuz that's are you know like you know our biggest trading partner besides Canada uh but you know there are obviously plenty of other countries in Europe you know Africa South America that you know can still be supplying us and you know listen the but they all have supply chain problems too I mean but but these problems are going to work themselves out over the next year or two which is actually a great opportunity for small businesses to be right now spending the time to establish Partnerships and investigate opportunity I mean if you expect your business to be around in more than 2 years and I certainly hope that you do uh you know now is the time to be thinking about where your supply is going to come from in the future and also where your customers are going to be in the future and there are all these organizations you know Lauren that when I did this piece for the inquire it's like gez there was the you know us Commercial Services which is part of the US Department of Commerce and the you World Trade Center in Philadelphia and there's other locations as well and you know states have their own program Small Business Development Centers the US chamber these people are like offering free services I mean partner what kinds of services yeah like matchmaking services so that if you're like hey I'm looking for to to expand my Supply I want to get materials you know for for me who else in the world makes this that I can be connected to you got to any one of these organizations like again us Commercial Services is a great one they will literally assign somebody a trade representative to help you source and connect you with that with with with potential you know partners and then give you like a background report do like research behind them um you know all that kind of stuff is just who has the time to do that and who who can pay to do that all of this stuff is like free and available from these different government and and even industry Association resources and I think that now is the time to be looking into because there's a lot of disruption going on and disruption to me means opportunity I I think there are a lot of business owners everybody's overwhelmed everybody's working too hard and they're reluctant to reach out to some of these government uh related organizations they just imagine it being a a bureaucratic Nightmare and they just don't get around to doing it even if they are inclined to do it do do you have any advice about how to get started yeah um the first place that I would go to start um wherever you're located around the country Google and find a local Small Business Development Center um the Small Business Development Centers are funded by the SBA they are staffed with people that are trained to leas with small businesses to help them deal get resources they need from the US government I I spoke to this one woman for for the article I did her name is blandine Shantay carry she's French she's been in the US for I don't know a decade she works at the Small Business Development Center at Temple University and like she was unbelievable like what she knew about procurement opportunities grants Consulting OPP OPP unities what different government agencies do you know like you get her in a room for an hour and and pepper this woman with questions she will be able to point you to the right place to be and there's people like her in various Small Business Development Centers all around the country that's where I recommend that you start that is great advice next story uh The Insider recently reported that the guy who coined the term the great resignation is predicting the great boomerang that many employees who when in search of Greener passengers are going to come back begging for their old job what do you think do you take that seriously I do I mean I I I think that's going to happen I I think right now you know everything is supply and demand right now we're in our you know the workers are driving this economy um and they drove it before the pandemic and then you know now they're they're still in the driver's seat but things are going to change there's going to be you know you know work you know employers will catch up there'll be other recessions where people are going to be afraid of their jobs you know you going going away a lot of workers you know might come back to their existing employers listen here's here's my my thoughts on rehiring people or even hiring people that might have ghosted you or behaved in a bad way I'm a big believer in second chances you know Lauren and I believe that um people should you know you know if you can profit off of somebody I think that you need to have um you know what's the word for it a um um a low level of you of Burning Bridges um so I I'm I'm into bringing people back you know I wrote a piece just recently for the hill just this past week about there being um this surge in um in employers hiring ex felons like the Society of human resources did like this study that said that like 28% of employers would consider hiring a felon who who committed a violent crime in the past you know and and makes me laugh because we're in such an environment right now of you know of you woke people complaining about workplace bullying or being offended by something that their colleagues said and now at the same time I've got we've got all these employers that are looking to bring back felons um into their businesses ex felons uh because there's a big labor shortage it is a great thing it is you know I I think employers should the fact that they can give opportunities to people that have served their time um coming out of prison these people need uh can be great employees and great assets to companies so I guess the boomerang effect hiring X you know we're looking for workers that can profit our business and you should be confident that you you'll take care of those workers and compensate them fairly as well um but I would not shut the door on anybody who has got some skills and wants to come and work for you regardless of their behavior in the past you're you're talking about uh hiring uh people who have done time reminds me I edited a story at Forbes about a actually an Applebee's franchisee who does exactly that or did exactly that at the time um he he had had his own brushes with the law and learned some things along the way and discovered that uh he could hire great employees that way by giving people a second chance and we asked him well you know how do you determine if they're ready to to really be great employees and his answer was he looks them in the eye and asked them to tell me precisely when it was and why you decided you were going to turn your life around and he said that with the people he hires almost invariably the reaction he gets is somebody telling a really convincing genuine passionate story often involving tears about something that happened it might involve a child you know or something that convinced them that the time had come that they had to do this right and it's a complicated thing I mean first of all I'm sure the the families of victims of some of these felons would you know wouldn't necessarily be so open to giving these people a second chance and that's certainly fair enough there's also a workplace safety thing I mean imagine if you hired a felon who had a history of violent crime and he did something or she did something violent you know to another employee and then they're like how did you how could you hire this person knowing what their history is so there's you know it's a lot of times it's easier said than done but you know every state has got programs if you Google in your state or you go to your State's website um where they offer programs to try and move people from the prison system back into the workforce again so you do get government help you do get counseling um there is assistance that's out there and U you listen you like tax credits too right you get tax yeah the work opportunity tax credit will allow you to you you can hire an ex-felon and you get the government will will give you credit against your taxes for up to 9600 bucks so for hiring somebody um that that served time in prison recently so you there's a lot of incentives to do that and we're in a labor shortage Lauren so you know this is what you got to do you know to to to find workers so they're out there they are out there last story I want to highlight is from Fortune uh they put the headline on it the tick tock economy uh the piece suggests that it's time for geezers like us um maybe I shouldn't include you I'm a little older than you are all right uh gyers like us to start talking to start taking uh the social media channel Tik Tok seriously it says brands are embracing it and making millions do you buy it yeah I do I mean it's I mean theyve they've you know more than a billion active users on Tic Tac you know Tik Tok worldwide you take it seriously if that's your market like I would never be on Tik Tok because I'm not selling CRM systems in my company to you know to teenagers you know what I mean so but but that's their point it's not just teenagers anymore um you know it is teenagers and uh you know I'm certainly not trying to convince you that you should be selling your CRM there but there are uh companies and products um for grown-ups uh on Tik Tok now as well the demographics don't skew this way I mean listen I speak to you know industry associations all the time and you can take a look go on stage with me and look at the audience you know it's a bunch of middle-aged men and women that are out I trust me when I tell you they're not on Tik Tok you know you you know that's that's a again that's my audience so again you you um you know you got to make sure that you got the demographics down I will tell you one thing that I think Tik Tock is you know which people sometimes don't realize and it's the same thing with Instagram as well many of the same brands that are trying to sell their products you you'll notice they're also looking for employees on those platforms and again you know if you're looking for somebody entry level that's a great Point yeah you know okay maybe you can't sell but you know I am looking always looking for good talented people in their in their 20s for example for entry level stuff to help me sell or uh you know implement the systems that we do and Tik Tok is a is a resource for those people and and so yeah I would consider you know the next time I'm looking for somebody placing some ads on Tik Tok because I think I'd be hitting the demographic that would be suitable for my business do you have any clients who as far as you know have made an attempt to use Tik Tok in any way shape or form not which is why you know why that article was written in fortune and why you and I are talking about that now because I think it's all about awareness so I think I think the big brands are testing this out you know they're I haven't seen any big Brands come back and say like oh my God this is going to replace all of our you know all of our advertising spend it's the perfect place you know they're they're they're they're spending summer getting you know results but you know it's too early to tell long term smaller companies which are mostly my clients family-owned businesses you know they're they're not going to do something unless they're sure that their audience is going to be there and it's a sure thing one of the first pieces of advice in that piece comes from a uh a marketing VP who made the point if you're going to use Tik Tok don't make ads make Tik toks and I guess if you don't know what that means you're probably not in the right place yeah I mean I you're right and and I am not I don't post anything personally on Tik Tok um and I don't post anything on Instagram although I do follow a number of highly inappropriate accounts on Instagram um and I can't even imagine um the type of posting you got to do to attract um you know the audience that's on those platforms that is not you know I would have to hire somebody you know a digital marketing person um that's probably 13 or 14 years old who can uh take over my advertising uh to actually do the right kind of Tik Tok that would attract potential employees or even customers you know Gene marks is president of the marks group a consulting firm that advises small businesses especially about their technology needs he also hosts his own podcast small is ahead with the Hartford Insurance you can find it at sba.com and if you want to know more about any of these stories we're discussing read the 21 hats Morning Report where we highlight the most important news of the day for business owners 5 days a week thank you Jean thank you Lauren we'll see you next week always great to speak with you have a great week everyone