Free Speech or Just a Bad Business Decision?

The Small business show episode 310 for Wednesday, January 13, 2021. Greetings folks and welcome to the Small Business Show. The show by, for and about small business owners where the verb is we Small business. We are small businessing and small businessing here in Durham, New Hampshire I'm Dave.

Hamilton and in Lafayette, California I am Shannon Jean. I'm totally ready for small businessman.

Small businessing like bosses.

Yes.

That's actually what we're doing. That's, that's, that's not like a, like we are actually small businessing like bosses in that, you know, we are, we are the boss. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. That's interesting.

Correct, correct.

Our sponsor for today is LinkedIn.com small business, the LinkedIn Sales Navigator. We'll talk about that shortly here in the episode.

That's awesome. I'm thrilled to have them same on board with us. That's so cool. I love LinkedIn. I have some, you know one of, one of my comments that we were going to discuss today we may pushed into another episode related to LinkedIn which is interesting.

Cool.

So yeah, yeah, cool. I think it's cool. But you know what, we always do a little pre show discussion as I'm sure I don't know what we've talked about here before on the show but one of the things today that we're discussing was just you know we, we really stay out of politics and stuff on the show. But I had some, you know, things I always enjoy talking with Dave about and I. You pointed out a really unique take on a small business issue that's also some people are discussing as a free speech issue. We're not going to go down that road today but we're going to discuss it as a small business issue which I think is fascinating and I already feel better about it after I talk to you.

Oh, that's good. That's actually why I brought it up because I thought it would make you feel better.

So the issue, because it's so true.

The issue. And, and I'm curious to see how many comments we get about this just for saying this. So. Feedbackusinessshow. Co, we want your comments but the issue is what happened to Parler. Right. Parler, for those of you that don't know is a type of is slash was will be again a social network and they had like Twitter.

I mean just a feed. Yeah, it's a feed. Twitter. Right.

Feedback. Social network. They, they lost their, their hosting provider pulled the plug on them. Unceremonious. Well, I won't say unceremoniously, quite ceremoniously and with no notice. And, and we were, we were talking pre show about this and it kind of hit me that we've. As a small business owner, I didn't have a whole lot of. I had empathy for them because I've been in that scenario. But the fact that they let themselves get into that scenario left me in a scenario left me in a feeling like, well, that's your own fault. And the way I think about this is if you have one linchpin to your business that's controlled by someone else, upon which the entire business rests, it's not really your business to begin with, right? Like if someone, if one of your suppliers can pull the plug on you or you know, one of your service providers can pull the plug on you and you have no plan B, then it's. That's. That service provider like. Talk about terrible leverage. That's awful. Now, when you start a business, that will almost always be the case, right? You will find some customer, some supplier, perhaps one of each. You know, that is the thing that catapults you forward and, and gives you the momentum that you need to actually get your business off the ground. It happens almost every time. Very rarely does a business start with a hundred customers, right? It usually starts with one and then you scale from there, right? But that first customer is really important. But if a year, in five years, in 10 years in, you still only have one customer, you are working for someone else that is not your business, that's their business, and you are effectively their employee, right? You know what? It doesn't matter what the paper says. If you're only working for one client, you're their employee. And if they pull the plug, well, now you need to go look for a job. The same is true if you have a supplier or service provider that you rely on. If that company pulls the plug on you, it's over. Shannon and I dealt with this, right, you and I, with our, our deals on the web company. This is not the most recent of these that has happened to me. It's the one I can talk about because it's not actively happening. I actually have one of these scenarios happening to one of my businesses right now. Thankfully, it's not our only supplier. So it sucks that we have to deal with the supplier pulling the plug, but it's not the only one. And it'll be fine. We'll make it through. It's just a headache. But we dealt with this with deals on the web and it almost killed the business. Although it didn't. We. We successfully killed it by doing other things.

Yes, we did.

Right. But our Deals on the Web company, for those of you that don't know, was a website where. It was a brilliant idea that Shannon had where people we would set up, we would curate deals every day that you could find on the web. The name wasn't all that creative, but it was effective. Right. It didn't need to be creative. It. It told you what it was. And so people would come to deals on the web, they would see the deals that we had, they would click through, and we would earn affiliate revenue from most of, if not all of the deals. Occasionally we would put a deal in just because it was a good deal and we wanted our readers to want to keep coming. But by and large, it was all affiliate deals. And one of our affiliate partners was Apple. They were a hard program to get in with at that time. I'm not sure if they're still hard to get in, but they probably are. And we made the mistake of partnering with a website that Apple did not like, a website called 9to5Mac. I think Apple likes them a whole lot more now than they used to.

Well, they've changed. Yeah, it's not so much of. I mean, they were. I don't know how you describe it.

They were working at odds with Apple at the time.

Yeah, Apple was super secret. It was back, I think, Steve Jobs days. Steve was there, and it was just a different mentality.

But we partnered with a bunch of different websites because we had built this deal engine. Right. And so people were like, hey, we'd love to leverage your deal engine and expose your deals to our readers. It's like, great. And I mean, it wasn't like these deals showed up on our doorstep. We went and cultivated these relationships and did that. But I think in retrospect, I knew that this was a risk at the time. I don't know if we'd actually talked about the risk of it.

Well, we probably hadn't read the terms and conditions of that relationship. Right.

Prob's not.

Yeah, I know, I know. I didn't. There's probably a hundred pages.

Yeah, no, we didn't. That's right. And so when we, you know, it didn't take Apple's. It wasn't. I don't think it was people at Apple. I think it was whoever was managing their affiliate program at the time. But it didn't take them long to realize what we were doing, and they pulled the plug on us. That's that was it. Like it wasn't, hey, you have to stop this. Or it was, they pulled the plug on us. Now Apple at that point, I want to say was worth, let's say 35% of our gross of our business. Right. That's could have been 25, it could have been 55, but you know, somewhere not insignificant, but not all of it. You know, we had other big partners. Amazon was always a big partner of ours, but so was like, you know, Commission Junction and Link Share and you know, these others that have lots of different places. So at the time we probably had 30 active companies that we were posting deals for every day. But you know, the big ones were Apple and Amazon and a couple of others. And so then we just, we lost, you know, one of the big ones. And you know, I tried everything. I called all my contacts and apologized and they were very understanding of the scenario. They believed that my apology was sincere because it was. But it did not change the relationship for that website. And we never got that deal back.

And it was kind of the beginning of the end for that, that business which, you know, kind of kind of went down.

It was, yeah, I think we would have survived that pretty easily. But, but then we, our big problem with that business I think was that we, we checked out as soon as a.

We did it for 10 years and it showed up. Yeah, yeah, it just kept going. But I want to, I want to go back to the beginning of our conversation.

I want to. Before you do, I want to take a minute and talk about LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Because this is the best version of LinkedIn for sales professionals. I have used this, I think Shannon has used this. And if you want to exceed your 2021 sales goals, get ready to do it with the help of LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Because the best salespeople know that closing deals is about understanding your customers needs and building relationships. That's what sales actually is. Right. I might even reverse those two. I think I would say it's about building relationships and then understanding your customer's needs. And it's time for us all to reimagine in person selling and cold calling for the digital world. And this is where LinkedIn Sales Navigator comes in. Because you get to tap into the power of LinkedIn 700 million plus member network. And LinkedIn Sales Navigator gives you 20 monthly InMail messages, lead recommendations, unlimited searches, actionable insights and news, and access to free courses on LinkedIn learning. So you get to target the right prospects and decision makers, unlocking 15% more pipeline from sourced opportunities, 17% lift when saving leads on sales navigator and 42% larger deal sizes. So as the world adapts to these new working habits, we people that sell must also shift tactics to stay ahead. And that's what LinkedIn Sales Navigator is here to help us with. And guess what? You get to start your 60 day free trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator today by going to LinkedIn.com small business. That's right, LinkedIn.com small business to start your 60 day free trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator one more time with feeling LinkedIn. Com/small business. And our thanks to LinkedIn for sponsoring this episode. All right, Shannon, so where are you, where are you taking us next? Here?

Yeah, I want to go back. I think it's worth calling out is here I was kind of thinking along the lines of, okay, all this big corporate control and Apple shut down parlor, Google Shuttle got them, kicked them out. And I do think it is and would be and will be good to have a discussion about the merits of all that. But when I mentioned it to you, you came with the end around of, oh, well, that's that guy's fault because he's relying too much on one thing. So they had more flyer.

Yeah.

Now, I mean, you could definitely argue about the issue where you can't be on these phones unless you do these kinds of things. Well, that's a business decision then, right? There are companies out there that have decided, well, okay, we can't be on these phones, but we could be on the web or whatever else.

So I just put up an article today at, at, at Mac Observer. I was, this is CBS Week, which is weird because we're doing it all.

From home because you're not there.

But there was a big CES press event yesterday where there were like 30 companies. Two of those 30 were in the cannabis tech space. Okay. Companies that are making products for controlling your dosage when vaping cannabis products mainly. Well, probably both for medicinal and recreational use. Right. And this is a major problem to solve with cannabis. Like, there is opportunity here because getting the dosage of anything that you ingest correct is paramount. Right. Like that. That's. Would you, would you take Tylenol if you didn't know how much you were taking?

No. And you didn't know maybe where it came from.

Didn't know where it came from.

Be careful. Yeah.

So there were two of these companies on there and I went and visited them because I'm always curious about, you know, like, what, what innovation people are doing. But I'm Also curious because Apple a year and a half ago banned all vape apps from the store. Now they banned them partially because they were. There was a trend, there was a problem, I don't want to say a trend. There was a problem with the company Juul targeting E cigarettes towards minors. And so Apple didn't want to be affiliated with that, which I totally support, for whatever that's worth. And then there was this series of deaths, which is awful. From what I would essentially call bathtub vape cartridges, cartridges that were. I think it was just one like, guy in New York that was making these things with vitamin E and vaporizing vitamin E, it turns out, kills you, which most people know that are building these things. In fact, everyone that's commercially building vape cartridges knows this, but the dude that was doing them in his bathtub didn't know this and he wound up killing a bunch of people. But the problem was at the time, there was this media frenzy about it and Apple just wanted to distance themselves, so they just said that's were out the. And they pulled all these vape apps. Now the thing is, a lot of these companies would have allowed users to use those apps to certify that their cartridges were coming from the right places. So it almost was at odds with what Apple's decision was. But it's interesting that there's these people that are creating new products for the market. Some are even brand new companies. And that's what, what really fascinated me. And they're like, yeah, we got to figure out how to get our stuff to Apple users, even though we cannot be in the App Store now. They hope that at some point Apple will change their stance, but they're not banking their business on it. They're figuring out plan B and plan C so that they can serve that user base without being reliant on Apple. Because what did we say before? If one company can make or break your business, it wasn't your business to begin with.

So, yeah, that's great. That is. That's another T shirt comment right there because, you know, it is true. And I think that regardless of your feelings about Parlor and all these different things, which I, you know, probably would agree with many of you on it, just from a fundamental perspective, that was the weakness of that business model is that you had no plan B or plan C and, and you know, Parlor was new, right?

Like, maybe, maybe they did.

It was number one on the, on the. At the App Store.

No, but I think it like was 2020. It was its inception, I think so Maybe. Maybe they had plans to, like, plan B this year, right? Like, you know, figure out how to get started. Maybe, you know, well, too late.

Yeah, certain. Certainly could be. And. And it's. But. But more than anything, it's that I think it's great that it spurs the discussion of reliance and, you know, not being too dependent on either one supplier or one customer. It's just a great small business lesson. I would love to hear from you, dear listener, and see what you think. I. I don't need to hear what you think of parlor and different things. That. That's irrelevant to this conversation. It's more about looking at. Look at your own business and maybe give us some examples of how you've solved that problem with the plan B or plan C or just how you think the. The folks that are getting blocked online ought to solve their problems.

Ought to solve their problems.

Small business perspective.

Yeah. Well. And if you. If hearing this conversation makes you realize, wait a minute. I need to come to terms with the fact that I do have this scenario where I have one client or one supplier that could wreck me if. Pull the rug out from under me. Tell us that too, and we're happy to give you advice. We like business therapy here, too, so send it in. You can be as anonymous as you like. It doesn't have to be. I've told lots of my own stories on this show because that are actively happening to me, but I've couched them in past stories or your stories. It's okay. We're pretty good at shielding, you know, the data that needs to be shielded.

Yeah. Yeah. And also, I think that it's important that your plan B may be just completely opposite. It may not be, oh, I got to find another supplier. I got to find a customer. I ran a business myself for over a decade that generated a significant amount of money, and there was only one supplier and one customer. But my plan B was that I knew it would eventually end, and it was not my sole source of income, and I didn't have a bunch of employees relying on it. I managed the company myself, and I managed the relationships myself. So, you know, your plan B may be. Well, when it goes away, I'm ready. I've got other things. I have my other business, you know, so it may not be that bad that it goes away. It may be inevitable because the opportunity may just be, you know, you're handling relationships between two different parties. You just. You just don't know. So share that with us. Feedbackus show co. If you're so inclined, go to, you know, businessshow co Facebook. Is that the link that'll work? That'll take you over to our small business support group. You could share your thoughts there as well. We'd love to hear from you. Certainly like to hear about your plan B. And let's talk.

I like that plan B of just acknowledging that it's going to go away. Yeah.

Every business, it has a life cycle.

Yeah.

And you need. Your plan B certainly must include, you know, moving in different directions. So when that inevitability, I think, happens, you're ready for something. Ready for the next thing. Change, man. Embrace change.

Yeah. Oh, that's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't be resistant to change that. That will be the death of your business, but it will also be the death of your livelihood. Your business might die anyway. Yeah, that's right.

But thank you, Dave, for pointing out the real important aspects from a small business standpoint over this whole parlor issue and suppliers and Amazon Web services, Google, Apple, all that stuff. Just a great way to look at it. And I thank you for that.

Well, you're welcome, man. Thanks for doing the show. It's always a blast. Go check out LinkedIn, LinkedIn sales navigator@LinkedIn.com smallbusiness and keep living that charmed life, folks. We'll see you next time.