Episode 208: Saving Mainstreet with Gary Rivlin

Welcome to another episode of the Culpa Capital Leadership Podcast. My name is Bradley Hamner, your host. On today's episode, we have Gary Rivlin. He is the award-winning journalist who just wrote the book Saving Main Street: Small Business in the Time of COVID-19. When I saw this book in Barnes Noble, Saving Main Street, I was like, I'm buying it. I didn't even read the subtitle before I decided to get it. Love all things small business. I really do. I mean, I think you can, hopefully you can tell my enthusiasm and genuine appreciation for small business, small business owners, small businesses. And so when I saw this, I was gonna get it. It's a fascinating book. I'm about halfway through it now. I think you're gonna enjoy this conversation just around his journey about why he decided to, to write this book, some of the stories inside of it. Without further ado, Adu, here's my conversation with Gary Ripley.

So the big question is this: how do small business owners like us grow our leadership, develop our teams, and scale our business in a way that allows us to get our products and services out to the world yet still remain profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers.

I'm Bradley Hamner, and this is the Club Capital Leadership Podcast.

Welcome to The Bottom Line, a new weekly podcast series that we drop every Thursday to complement our weekly Monday podcast interviews with the industry leaders. These podcasts are going to be designed to give you short, impactful, and value-driven information that you can start using right away in your business. I value your time and attention and will do my very best not to waste it.

Just get what you need and go.

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Gary Rivlin, welcome to the Club Capital Leadership Podcast.

It's great to be here. Thanks, Bradley.

Very excited to have you. So before we dive into the main topic for today, I, I, we always start with just kind of background and origin story. So before we do that, I want you to share a little bit about your, your background, your journey, uh, to kind of where you are today.

Yeah, so I've been a journalist for ever. You know, I just— it's funny, I was going to take a year off before law school to do journalism, and now I'm 40 years, 40 years and counting. You know, I've sort of written a little bit about everything: urban politics, machine politics in Chicago. I covered tech for a long while for Wired and The New York Times. You know, I've written about gambling. I covered Katrina— excuse me, New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. So I'm a longtime journalist, done the daily thing, written books, magazine pieces, and kind of find new topics, small business, you know, once COVID hit. So, you know, I'm always looking for kind of interesting areas rather than most journalists these days tend to be specialists.

Yeah, that's very true. What, I mean, the obvious of why, you know, with COVID there's so many different angles that you could go with that. Why did you choose Main Street? Why did you choose small business to be able to focus on for the, for the, the content for the book?

You know, it was interesting, about a month into COVID, I was listening to the local public radio station here in New York City. And they had a congressman on, and a small business owner phoned in. I've been in business for 24 years, I've been through the 2008 recession here in New York, New York City, you know, Hurricane Sandy, recessions, you know, all these different kind of things. But how am I going to survive COVID? Well, my dad was a small business operator his whole life. And, you know, it just became personal. The light bulb went off, like, huh, how are small businesses going to survive? You know, whether small businesses writ large or the restaurant I love, that toy store down the block, how are they going to survive this? And it just seemed like an important issue. Small businesses were under threat as is, right? You have Amazon, the internet, you have big box stores, you have chains. It was increasingly becoming harder and harder and harder to be a small business operator. My dad was done in by the recession of the early 1990s, but I mean, his business was done in, um, by the recession in the early 1990s. So I knew how hard it was, and just COVID just seemed like, wow, but how do you deal with— I'm 100% shut down for 2 months, or whatever you had to confront.

Yeah, yeah. And especially, which we'll dive into this, especially if you were not, um, uh, life-saving or whatever, like if you were not essential, you know, uh, like a gift shop or something like that, that obviously we'll talk about. It's like, well, No, you're not essential. It's like, well, my team is, my employees are, like my family is, like how am I gonna be able to survive? And so, well, why don't you just take us, so, okay, we've got the inspiration, it became personal for you. I think even you just saying that was like, wow, yeah. I mean, you know, my dad's a small business owner, I became a small business owner, I love all things business. And let me just, by the way, counter this. I, there's a podcast I love called My First Million, and they love talking about things on, you know, all the tech scene, Silicon Valley, raising VC money, private equity money. And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying there's anything else, but it almost feels like it exists in a world outside of small business. Right. And so it's like where there's that world and then there's the actual day-to-day Main Street. You know, oh, oh, oh, you're talking about a mom-and-pop business type thing. Yeah, that, that sort of thing, right? And so it's just kind of like that gets lost and forgotten in day-to-day politics, government, and then it also definitely did whenever it came down to Main Street. So you— it became personal for you. Where did you then go? What did you begin to do?

And by the way, just to react to what you just said, like, so remember, I, I covered Silicon Valley for a decade plus. And it's true, like, it's almost like 95% of the attention that the mainstream media pays to entrepreneurs are tech startups that are small businesses, at least for a moment. And like, well, what about businesses that don't, you know, have 5 employees because they want 5,000 employees and be, you know, have the IPO? It's just, it's a restaurant, it's a gift shop. So, you know, that's really where I wanted to focus. You know, I think this is a travesty. If I had like a magic wand, around the small business issue, the one thing I would do is have the US government redefine what it considers a small business. You're a small business in America, according to the US government, if you have up to 500 employees, and there's some exemptions, there's some industries where you could have far more than 500 employees. But like, by what definition is a small business have hundreds of employees and millions in revenue? So it was really important to me that I found true small businesses. You know, 2, 5, 10, maybe 20. In fact, the restaurant that's at the center of the book, Cusimano's in Old Forge, Pennsylvania, it had 23 employees. I think that's the biggest business I wrote about. So, you know, in a book like this, I really wanted to set it somewhere. I'm in Manhattan, I'm in New York City, the center of New York City. And the issue here is rent, rent, and rent, right? I mean, it's just like they pay so much. So surviving was different in New York City than it would be for most locales around the country. I went someplace away from the coast. It's early in COVID, you know, I really wasn't looking forward to flying. I mean, at that point I couldn't fly. And so I thought, well, Pennsylvania, you know, it's a couple hours drive to northeastern Pennsylvania. That's former coal country. That was interesting to me, these, you know, towns that have been struggling. And so I just, started looking for businesses there. And as you point out, you know, the, the non-life essential, um, uh, ones. And, you know, you correctly say, like, well, when you put 5 or 10 or 20 years of your life into something, you might consider it essential. But, you know, for that moment, you know, government— like restaurants, food places, you could stay open. But, you know, gift stores, no. Hardware stores, depending on the state. You know, bicycle stores, depending on the, the, the state. So I really wanted to find businesses that were hit hard, uh, by, uh, by COVID. And I also wanted diversity. When I say diversity, I mean in every sense of that word— type of business, uh, geographic, rural versus urban, uh, gender, age, race. In this day and age in the U.S., politically, you know, they're on one side of the divide or the other side of the political divide. I just wanted a kind of a, a range of views. The idea was to you know, look at small businesses. They were presented with this enormous, enormous challenge. Predictions early on, you know, a month or two into COVID, if you remember, in 2020, spring of 2020, they're predicting that 1 out of 4 small businesses would go under, 1 out of 3. I found a prediction that 40% of independent restaurants would not survive, uh, COVID. And so it just seemed really important to be out there and document and see how these various small businesses dealt with the challenge.

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I have to tell you, thank you for doing the work. I know it's in the context of COVID I get it. But still, at the end of the day though, and I told you before that I've gotten maybe halfway through the book or so, something like that. So I haven't finished it, but Like it is, it is important work. It is deeply personal to me. So thank you for doing the work to get this, this message out. And I wish you all the best in the success of the book. Okay. So let's get down into it. I, um, just this morning— no, well, actually this afternoon, mid-morning, was on a call with someone who, a small business owner. He had two companies. He was a, has a healthcare. It was actually a nursing home facility. They were, he told me, he said we were losing $500,000 a month. For the first few months into COVID. And then he had a— he said, I had a 34,000-square-foot facility, um, and it shut down. We didn't survive. And so it was, it was, it was a, it was a workout place, you know, and he had put a lot of his capital into it, and they just couldn't, they couldn't keep it up. He said, uh, 78% of our employ— of our, uh, members called in, left a voicemail, and canceled within like you know, 30 days. And he said it was an unraveling of everything I thought I'd built, you know, in my life. And it was like, what? I don't even know where this is going to stop, you know. And so luckily they were able to survive through that, through, you know, the, uh, with the nursing home facility. But I mean, the other ones didn't survive. And so that's unfortunately been the story for a lot of small businesses around the country. Business is hard enough as it is, let alone this coming in. And so can you just talk about whenever you first went in, you, you've got the kind of the backstory of it, but then you start to add these conversations. Is that— how did it come about to choose who you ultimately portrayed in the book?

Right. So, um, I had a few criteria. I, I So there's an amazing stat, I'm sure many people listening know it, that 5 years— it's half the small businesses will not survive 5 years. And so I really wanted survivors, I wanted businesses that had been around for a while. And so, you know, I just wanted like, okay, fighting chance, they've obviously proven that they can survive up against the chains or whatever competitors were out there. And then, yeah, I don't know, there's something— I initially did Zoom calls, of course, and, you know, it was almost like auditions for a play or, you know, tryouts for a team. I reached out to— I think I ended up talking to 60 small businesses And in the book, there's 3 main small businesses you follow and another 6 or 8 small businesses that are kind of secondary characters. And some of it was that diversity, how do they fit together? And some of it was just kind of the grit, the determination, just the creativity of folks. I mean, I didn't realize this when I started, but what I was really excited about, what really got me, were folks that were fighting back. You know, that they really— this is a terrible hand they've been dealt. Like TJ Cusimano, I've been cooking since he's in the third grade. He and his wife Nina, you know, in their 20s, started this Italian restaurant. It'd been around for 7 or so years at the time of, um, COVID, high-end Italian doesn't really lend itself to takeout kind of thing. And he tried everything, you know, some things did not work. He tried, you know, meal kits like, you know, Blue Apron, that proved a bomb. No one really wants to pay his prices to then cook it and clean up afterwards. But, you know, he did this Italian restaurant, he did Taco Tuesdays, made a lot of money that way, or at least brought in cash. At a time when he was desperate for cash. He never particularly cared about barbecue, never cared for barbecue, but taught himself how to do Southern-style barbecue. And every weekend, his restaurant, you know, they just, they sold out barbecue chicken, barbecue pork, the sides and stuff. And again, just brought in several thousand dollars every week at a time when a few thousand dollars was the difference between surviving and not surviving, the difference between paying the rent and the other bills and not being able to pay it. I just kind of marvel that whatever the state government threw at him, you know, you can open but only 50% occupancy. Oh no, it's rising again in the fall of 2020. We're going to shut you down again for several weeks. Well, we won't let you do bar takeout. We'll let you do— we'll let people sit at the bar. We'll let you do 50% occupancy, then 75% occupancy. And whatever it was, he just figured a way. And so those are the folks who really drew me. Those are the people I kept on going back to again, again, again, and ended up featuring in the book.

Alright, so may not be a fair question, but I'm curious of your opinion of this. Okay. And I think you'll give— you'll definitely have an opinion, I'm sure. Business is hard, and there are some people that shut down, and some people shut down and they were already on the edges. They were already on the edges. So now this gave them a convenient excuse. Yeah. Oh, see, see, convenient excuse. I, I can't, I can't do it. And nobody would blame them, blame them. Nobody would blame them. They'd say, golly. That, that was tough. I'm not saying everybody, but some people. And then the reason I'm telling it, bring this up, is on the opposite end of the spectrum is the guy that you just mentioned, Creativity. I do not know how to do barbecue. I've never actually really loved barbecue, but I'm gonna learn how to cook Southern style barbecue and I'm gonna do whatever it takes until I run out of ideas. To me, that is a fascinating thing to pluralize and say like, well, what makes this person? Be so driven, grit, creativity. This person who's a business owner themselves too started the company, but the sense says, oh, this is now a convenient excuse. Have you ever thought about that? Like the difference?

Yes.

Personality.

Oh my goodness. Yes, yes, yes. So, you know, just like there are preexisting conditions that made you more vulnerable health-wise to COVID, there are preexisting conditions economics-wise. If you were limping, if you were struggling going into COVID, It was much harder to survive than, you know, you had a thriving business, or at least a business that was covering expenses. So I told you about TJ Cusimano. On the other end of the spectrum, you know, Glenda Shoemaker, gift shop in a rural area in Pennsylvania, second generation. Her mother had started the store in the '70s. You know, it's like she's sells greeting cards and gifts, and she's on the wrong side of every trend, right? I mean, greeting cards, younger generations are not buying greeting cards. There's electronic free alternatives to that. You can just text. Gifts, she's competing against the Walmart on the edge of her town. She's competing against the internet. And she did not innovate. In 2020, she didn't. She had no online presence except for, you know, a Facebook page that she could announce that she's having a sale this week. No one could buy anything, no one could do commerce. And that, of course, really, really hurt for the two, two or so months she was 100% shut down. You know, she did no business. And then once people slowly came out of their shell, like, they're not sure, they— is it worth it to go to a retail outlet to buy something? I could be safer just buying online. And in that case, really, it was something you don't hear very often, government worked. PPP, the Paycheck Protection Program, let her survive. That was the difference between her having to shut down her store because she couldn't make her bills, couldn't pay expenses for the product she had on hand and her rent and stuff. But she was able to do it because of PPP. And I'll give Glenn the credit. And sheer determination. You know, that woman just worked 7 hours, excuse me, 7 days a week, you know, 10 hours a day, if not more. And so she didn't have the innovation, the creativity, I'll try new things. She was kind of stuck in her ways. She didn't pivot, to use the term, you know, we all use. She said, oh, I should get online, I should get online. And, you know, 3 years later, she just still got online. But now, on the other hand, it's, It's her baby. It's, you know, her mom who's still alive, her legacy and stuff. And so, you know, even on that other side of the spectrum, you know, where you're not facing reality, you're not making the kinds of changes that, you know, podcasts like this, I'm sure, are telling you you should do about marketing this way, whatever. Um, you know, she, she too survived. You know, it was interesting, far fewer small businesses went under than were predicted. You know, we don't have exact numbers, but it seemed like there was a few percentage points tick up in the numbers. You know, typical year, 8 to 10% of small businesses will go out of business. You know, as far as the— there was a Federal Reserve study in 2020, 11, 12% went out of business. And that's because of the grit, determination, and creativity. PPP— it was like there's PPP and a second program, the EIDL program. Add them together, we, we gave $1 trillion. The U.S. government gave $1 trillion, uh, to small business. And, you know, PPP was inefficient, inefficient. I could tell you all the things that were wrong with it, but you throw a trillion dollars at a problem and, you know, you're really going to help a lot of a lot of folks. And so it really wasn't the calamity because again, I think there's something about small businesses. There's something about, there's the benefit of a federal bailout. And a third factor, I think people with COVID got to appreciate small businesses because they could imagine their life without that favorite shop, that favorite restaurant. And so from all these small business owners I was talking to, whether they're featured in the book or I ended up not using them, they all talked about, you know, customers, you know, I'm here shopping because I want you here a year from now. So fewer customers came in, say for instance, to Glenda's shop. But the ones who did spent a lot more money because they really wanted that shop to survive. You know, otherwise, what do we have just like restaurants on the edge of the highway and, and Kmart and the internet.

What did you personally learn about small businesses, small business owners, that even with your dad, uh, being, being a small business owner himself, that you didn't know going into it?

So, I mean, one fact I didn't appreciate— there's a famous study from JPMorgan Chase. They looked at hundreds of thousands of their small business customers, the average small business has 18 days of reserves on hand. And it just so reminds me of kind of the stat that, you know, half or so of Americans, you know, are, are, are one or two months away, uh, from financial disaster, being in, in debt. And it's true for small businesses too. I, I, I knew they were vulnerable. I knew that there were these larger forces that was making it harder for small businesses to survive. I didn't realize how precarious, uh, it is. The other thing too is the million small ways the system seems rigged in favor of larger players. We saw with PPP, remember the first round of PPP? They ran out of money within 2 weeks because all these publicly traded companies figured out a way to apply for money set aside for small businesses. Part of the problem was like we say small businesses can have hundreds of employees, up to 500 employees. Part of it was an exemption was put into PPP that said, you know, no more than 500 employees per physical location. So all these hotel chains and restaurant chains have thousands and thousands of employees, but no more than 500 in any one place. You know, uh, policies that happened in Pennsylvania where I focused, but you know, many states did this, uh, they shut down non-essential businesses as we've been talking about, but they let the big box stores stay open. So here's a policy that had hundreds and hundreds of people congregating in the big box stores because perhaps they sold food, perhaps they sold hardware, they had something essential. So they could stay open. And yet, you know, you have the, the, the, the garden, the garden, uh, flower and garden stores shut down, and they're going to the big box store to buy it instead. It's just like, that was a terrible idea. I mean, a small business could have a few people in it at once. They could easily separate people socially distant and all. And so I, I really think we have to rethink our policies. I really do think our policies are slanted in ways we don't even appreciate in favor of the larger players.

Everybody's listening to you saying, yes, Gary, yes, we, we agree with you completely. And I know you mentioned it and I want to come back to it. Yeah, I mean, whenever you read the SBA definition, you know, typically 500 or fewer employees, you know, no more than $41 million in top-line revenue, you're like, $41 million? I do 2 or I do 1. Like, I can't even imagine 40 times. Like, that's not a small business to me. That is like a— that's a sizable company in my hometown, right? If you think about revenue per person and the number of employees at that. And good for them.

I mean, good for them. We could talk about a program to help them. They were challenged, of course, by COVID too. But like, this was a program for small businesses. Can't we create a small business program that's for small businesses? No more than 50 employees, no more than 100 employees, but, you know, something that, you know, a definition that more or less all of us can agree is actually a small business. And then let's come up with another program to help medium businesses. And, you know, totally tailored for that.

Yeah, yeah, we're not knocking the business that's been able to go from $2 million to $25 million or $100 million. Like, good for you. Yes, absolutely. But to your point, like a lot of the, back to the venture-backed companies in Silicon Valley, it's like you were a small business for about 3 months and then you actually got your funding and then now you're a $100 million valuation, not a small business, not what we're talking about, you know? So yeah. What, um, so obviously coming, uh, coming out of the pandemic, what are some of the like biggest takeaways? You mentioned one of them, which is cash reserves. And I was curious if this was going to come up today. But what are some of the takeaways that you actually feel like are some things where it's like, man, these are some— outside of the character traits of grit, determination, resiliency, those sort of things, which obviously are incredibly important— what are some additional things that you feel like that are almost best practices or things that you've learned that we can all share, not to just prepare for the next pandemic or something, but just in general to be able to bend the odds, bend the odds more in our favor as small business owners?

Right. I mean, first off, you know, we're talking about retail online presence. I think everyone should have, you know, more of an online presence. But, you know, I'm sorry, in this day and age, you know, as you point out, yes, for the next pandemic, if when, but just, I, it just seems like there's tables, table stakes. You know, policy changes. I really do think it's important, like, you know, we give lip service to, uh, the support of small business on the right, on the left, every politician in between. Small business is the backbone of America. Um, you know, we as consumers, we love small businesses, we say, and yet what happens every year? The big box stores take a larger percentage of our spending. Amazon, internet-based companies are taking more of our spending. And so, you know, there's a hypocrisy. You know, we fetishize small businesses, we love small businesses. And yet what happens is, you know, most of us support large, large businesses. I think, you know, putting our money where our mouth is, again, I do think that was a big plus to COVID, or that's a funny way to put it. There's no plus to COVID, but I think something that came out of it that's a positive is we saw the power and might of the Amazons of the world, and we started to appreciate life without these small businesses. So I guess the optimist in me is hoping that that's a change. And, you know, this is something others have reported. I wouldn't be surprised if you've had guests on here talking about it. Millions and millions of small businesses were started in 2021 and 2022. I think it was 5.4 million new small business starts in 2021. Certain percentage of those are 'cause people laid off, they had no choice, they lost their full-time marketing job and now they're a small business making a fraction of what they used to make. It's not all good, but you did see this entrepreneurial thing stirred up. They might have had extra money from lack of spending because they weren't spending on entertainment and travel. Could have been extra money from the US government and stuff. And so we did see a lot more small businesses. So all those vacant storefronts, because businesses went under during COVID landlords wanted people in there and they gave them good prices and they started their business. So there are kind of the shoots growing out of the cement that had me feeling, you know, positive about small business looking forward.

Hmm. Shoots coming out of the concrete. I think everybody likes that. I get that visual. And I think that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, because I'll ask people on the podcast from time to time, what is something that you feel like was positive or something that good came out of COVID for you personally? And that's Again, you know, there's been a lot of tragedy in people's personal lives, and that's not to diminish any of that by no stretch of the imagination, and the lives that were lost, etc. But then, you know, there are some deeply moving things that have also happened within our businesses or teams, or even just how we've been able to connect back to our families, or we did connect back to our families. When we—

but before we get off that, you know, Something I did miss is there were— there are businesses that are now better run today.

Yes.

Because they went through the experience of COVID I think of, you know, two examples from the book. There's these three chocolate makers in the Bronx. There's, you know, only one maker, you know, rather than retail or restaurant. They focus in— it's the only place outside of Northeastern Pennsylvania. And, you know, they had done 90% of their sales— they make chocolate bars. High-quality dark chocolate bars. And 90% of their business was to retail, you know, they sold to stores, specialty shops, Whole Foods, some of them pick up, sell their chocolates. And with COVID that really snapped shut. And so they started doing corporate sales, they started doing more, more direct-to-consumers and stuff. And now they have a healthier business because Things have reverted on the retail side. That business come back, but now it's about half retail and the other half is a combination of direct sales through their website and corporate sales. They're stronger now because of it. There was a small cafe in Hazleton, a city of 30,000 in northeastern Pennsylvania, once a strong coal region, a coal city. Coal dried up. They really struggled. They were coming back when COVID hit, and she had this popular cafe in the middle of town. But the office workers still haven't come back in the same numbers, and she started doing catering. She came up with this idea of boards, like gift baskets essentially, but on a cutting board. And she ended up selling the cafe to someone younger who wants to try it. A cafe, the shoots coming up through the cement. And now she just got a kitchen on the edge of town for much less, and she's a caterer. And she's doing a really healthy, good business as a caterer and doing these gift baskets and other products like that. And she just, she changed, she morphed, she pivoted. Again, let's pick on Silicon Valley. We celebrate that in Silicon Valley, like, oh, they could pivot, they're so creative. That kind of creativity is going around everywhere. They're just not really talking about it in the business section.

Well, exactly. But you didn't make TechCrunch. You didn't make TechCrunch because Mark Andreessen didn't invest in your company. But the reality is you pivoted and you just added half a million dollars in top line revenue and, uh, 40% of gross margins to your family. And you just helped employ 2 people that changed their life, that got them out of $12 an hour jobs. Now they're making $75,000 a year. Like, that's a significant change. And those stories are just not told enough, right? Because again, it doesn't hit TechCrunch, which again, nothing wrong with that. But there's just like the broader economy is way bigger than just your app startup that you just, that you just created.

Right, right, right, right. It is funny. We love small businesses, but we especially love small businesses with dreams of becoming huge businesses.

Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah. Um, what are your thoughts about over the next, uh, pull your crystal ball out a little bit, but where do you see things? I mean, we're now, okay, so come out of COVID now we're just hitting interest rates. Obviously we've got possibly, very likely, an impending recession that, that could occur this year. I mean, nobody really knows. Where do you, what do you see as much resiliency, determination, creativity that's happening? Man, small businesses just seem to be under fire constantly from the barrage of things that they're dealing with, let alone competition online, etc., that's happening, and it's happening at a faster pace.

Yeah, I'm, I'm, I am a bit scared, I, you know, that The point of the book almost is, you know, all these small businesses survive so they can get back to the fight they'd always been fighting against the chains and the better-funded competitors and all that. But, you know, there's something broken in the economy of small businesses, and we see it through labor. You know, so all these small businesses, you know, they had been paying their employees 10, 12, whatever, $14 an hour. But now, Walmart's paying $16 or $17 or $18. Amazon, the fulfillment center, is paying $16, $17, or $18. And so I thought this was going to be a short-lived problem that would take a few months before the economy kind of worked itself out. But it's not. I mean, these small businesses I wrote about, they still have problems finding employees because their economics don't quite work. Paying the $17 or $18 or $20 an hour that the larger businesses are able to pay or have to pay to get their employees. So that really makes me nervous. There was a hair salon was one of the main businesses in the book, a Latina immigrant woman. She always had 8 employees or for years she's had 8 employees. She can't get employees number 7 or 8 anymore. And so everyone's working harder. She's, you know, trying to make do, you know, she can't handle as much business because she doesn't have the employees. And, you know, she will hire someone, but they'll get hired away for more money. So, so that really does have me nervous for a lot of these small businesses because there's a real employee problems, real hiring problem right now that again, I thought it was like, oh, a summer of 2021 thing. But here it is, January 2023. And we, we still have that problem.

Have you heard of the, or do you know, familiar with the Buc-ee's gas stations?

I know, where's that?

I think it started in Texas. Some people listening to this are probably like, oh my gosh, Buc-ee's. I mean, there are these massive gas stations. I mean, I think the one in Athens, Alabama, about 30 minutes from here, that opened up on the interstate, uh, has 250 gas pumps. I mean, it is just this— oh, oh, it's, it's, it's unbelievable. Look it up, look it up. Buc-ee's, B-U-C-C-E-E-S, I guess. And, uh, that started in Texas. Everything's bigger. I mean, and they'll advertise, they'll advertise they have super clean bathrooms, like very, very clean bathrooms, and they've got just food galore. Anyway, it's, it's a whole experience. I mean, it's like a destination. People will not stop at certain gas stations to wait 50 miles to go to Buc-ee's. Okay, here's the reason I'm telling you this. Telling you this is because when the one closer, the closest to me opened, they had a sign out front and it said starting pay $17 an hour. It was like $17 to $21 an hour. And if you were like a general manager, you made $150,000. And if you were the— no, no, no. If you were one of the managers, made between like $125,000, $150,000. If you were the general manager of the whole thing, you made a quarter of a million dollars. I was like, what in the world? Holy smokes. And I sent this to some several business owners to say like, wow, this is what you're competing with, right? And so I mean, somebody working at a gas station, now it's $17 an hour. Hey, good for them. Great for them. But now you have to look at it and say, how does this affect me? The work may not be— what we do may be more meaningful, or you may feel like it's more meaningful. But for that person that's saying, gosh, I can go make this on these hours, that starts putting a lot of wage pressure on the small business owner in that area.

Yeah, no, I, I, again, I, I, I see it, you know, in the towns I was writing about. Literally, there was a Walmart, same story as you're saying about Buc-ee's, you know, they had a huge sign in front of the Walmart, you know, starting pay at $16 an hour. Again, that's great. I, $16 an hour, that's what, $32,000 a year or something, under $35,000. And so, you know, we do need a living wage. But I also saw, in fact, the café owner I was talking about, part of the reason she had to close the café, she could never get any employees. You know, it was a café. It's a $10 or $12 an hour kind of job. And she used to have, you know, college kids working part-time, that kind of thing. But now they can make a lot more money at the big chains. And in her area, It was the fulfillment center. So you've got Amazon and Michaels, the art supply. And they too, Amazon, there were flyers. I'd go, I'd visit the town to do my reporting and they'd have flyers like $500 bonus. I went a few months later to sign up, hiring bonus, $1,000 hiring bonus. I went back again and we'll pay for some college. Yeah, we— and we have healthcare benefits. And again, these are all really good things, but if you're a small business operator who's been living on a shoestring, you've got 18 days of, you know, cash in the bank, and it's been barely working at $12 an hour, you know, going up to $16 an hour, that changes the whole economics of it. You could charge more, but that's the problem. Like, you're a small business, you're already charging more. You know, you're Walmart, the Walgreens, the, the internet is, is underselling you. And maybe people want to support you, but if you have to charge that much more for your product because you're getting it at a higher price, you're buying it from a middle person, you know, rather than directly like a Walmart would do, you know, it's just like it's yet more pressure on these small businesses. Um, and I, I, I You asked me before what surprised me. I don't know how some of these small businesses survive. I don't know why they do it. It's just like, work for someone else. It's their headache. Get your salary. A good week or a bad week doesn't make a difference. I get the same paycheck every week, every other week and stuff. But everyone dreams of small business. I quit a job at the New York Times to be a freelancer and do my own books and that kind of stuff. I don't understand it. It's absurd. And yet I'm doing it too.

Yeah, I think it, I think it's, it's cliché. Yes. But it's the American dream. It's American dream. And it's just, there's something, there's something deeply satisfying. And for, look, I can only speak for me, but like, I'm unemployable now. I'm unemployable. I mean, I would be the worst employee. Ever. Okay. Like if somebody offered me X amount of salary, I'd say, I can't take it. You don't want to hire me because the, the things, the expectations, the way of doing things. And so it's like, once you, once you become a business owner, entrepreneur, there's no going back. There's no going back. It's like, no, this is, this is, this is, even if no matter the hours I'm putting in, so many more hours than I ever would working for a W-2 wage. Right. I just, I think, I think that that's why. I think that that's why. They're just like, no, I am going to go down. And man, you just, I just love that spirit. I don't know. I just love this spirit.

Yeah. I, I, I talk about this a little in the book there. There's something about kind of the American ideal, you know, the, you know, we, we were independent, we were independent farmers, you know, the, the, the, the corner druggist, the general store. It's like, it's so central to our narrative. You, you have small business and entrepreneurial energy all across the globe. And stuff. But there is something about America that being your own boss, standing up to the establishment, and that, no, I want to do it this way, and I don't want to have to answer, I— this is the way I think it should— you know, it really does seem kind of essentially American in, in many ways.

Yeah, good point, good point. That's not to say— you're, you're so right, there is entrepreneurship in that spirit of want to be a business owner around the world, around the globe. Absolutely. But it does seem, it does seem to be even, even deeper in America. And that's not to say that because I haven't ever done the study of what that looks like in entrepreneurship in other parts of, other parts of the, of the world for sure. Gary, this has been a great conversation. People want to connect with you, obviously point them to where they can pick up the book. I really recommend that they do. It has been a fantastic read for me. When I saw Saving Main Street, I was like, I'm buying it. I don't even know what the subtitle was. I'm buying it. But it's been fantastic.

So thank you so much. You know, I guess it would be ironic given the topic for people to buy it at Amazon. You know, Amazon's a bit of the bad guy in the book. But you know, you get anywhere online, go to your independent bookstore. You know, it's funny, we, we sent a free book to every bookstore that HarperCollins had their data base that had a Main Street address. And it turns out there's thousands of small business— of bookstores around the country with a Main Street address. So even if it's not Main Street, it's Broad Street or whatever you want to call it, you know, buy your book at an independent bookseller, you know, support small business. And I have a website, just my name, www.garryridland.com, you know, about Saving Main Street, my other books, you could buy it through there. In fact, there's a tab for Amazon, but there's also a tab for, you know, independent booksellers, and they'll kind of arrange for you to buy it from the local shop. It could even have it sent from the local shop to your, to your home.

Awesome. Awesome. Gary, enjoyed the conversation and hope to have you back on in the future.

This was great. Thank you so much.

Well, a few takeaways. I think one is just my reason why I love small business owners so much is that they're scrappy. The grit, determination, the resiliency, that just the innate characteristics that's there for all of you that listen to the, to this podcast and, and so many other people out there. I just love that, that spirit, as he and I were talking about, um, at the very end. And, you know, a big takeaway, again, I think practically, is just how little reserves— in other words, I, I sometimes refer to that as dry powder. I mean, just coming out of it, say, hey, we need to sit on more dry powder because we don't know, you know, another pandemic, etc., that's going to come. We need to be able to prepare ourselves so that we're able to survive in the event something like that were to happen, whether again, it's a pandemic, or whether it's a recession, etc. Just the best practice to be able to sit on more cash in the business, cash and access to cash, I think was a big takeaway. I would also say this, he and I ended up having a really nice conversation after we hit record around just the differences of where he is in Manhattan, where I am in, you know, in the South and North Alabama. And, you know, the differences in policy and politics, socially, economically, etc. And so we had a fascinating discussion about that. I don't talk about politics very often in my life, let alone on the podcast. I'm just— that's just not something. And so the reason I bring this up is because it has— I gave this a little bit of thought before I shared it. It's giving me more thought to, you know, maybe I should be not an activist, by no means, but maybe I should actually pay more attention and maybe do certain things to help influence policy for small businesses. That's not something I've ever done. That's not something I've gotten involved with. Yes, I live in a state that is going to be more conservative when it comes to small business policies, etc., but it is incredibly important. Small business is in my blood and who I am. It's personal for me. Maybe I'm going to give that some thought. So that's just something I'm pondering personally. Hope to have Gary on back on in the future if he comes out with another book that we think that would benefit all of you. Thank you to our sponsors who are small business owners themselves, and they care about your success: Club Capital, Coach B Consulting, Autopilot Recruiting, and of course DirectClicks. Visit them, go to their websites. They can help you and to be able to grow your small business themselves. You want to understand how to manage the finances in your business at at a better way that work with all the insurance agency, a lot of the insurance agency owners around the country. You're going to want to just at least book a demo with somebody on the Club Capital team. Go to club.capital. You got all the information on the website that you need just to be able to take that step and jump on a call with someone. Obviously, using that and getting those financials helps you to be able to make better decisions about bringing someone on. Can I afford to pay people more, as Gary and I talked about? Can I bump up salaries to be, to stay competitive? Can I be, you know, with my wages, etc.? What does that look like? Well, those type of decisions you're making as a small business owner about how much profit do you have to be able to, to invest in, in somebody else, and also just being, being able to pay your, your team more. Well, that all comes down to affecting your financials. And if you're going to make that investment then you want to be able to get some great players on, go to Autopilot Recruiting so that they can do— you can outsource the recruiting on a regular basis to be able to find some top talent for you and your team. I get testimonials from David all the time around the success not only has he been able to have in his own offices, but also the success that the people that are learning from him and his team are having. And I think that's the mark. I mean, you might be able to do something, but are you able to transfer that knowledge in a way that helps other people, that they're then having success? And that's— David sends me testimonials all the time from the things that his clients and his members are being able to have based on the things and lessons that they're learning from him. You want to give him a test drive. Let him know that you heard about him on the Club Capital Leadership Podcast, and he'll give you an entire first month off. Go to coachpconsulting.com. You know, another investment you're making is obviously in the leads that you provide to your sales team and the presence that you need to be able to have and want to have online. I mean, in the podcast, Gary talked about, hey, it's just kind of table stakes at this point that you got to be online. So, you know, you need to do that, but you want to work with a company that's reputable, knows your business, go to directclicksinc.com. So thankful for our podcast partners to be able to have great guests like Gary Young. All right, everyone, till next episode, lead well. Thanks, Dean.