Small Business News Roundup for July 2018- Small Business Show episode 179

The Small business show, episode 178 for Wednesday, July 11, 2018. Greetings, folks, and welcome to the Small Business show here at BusinessShow co. The show, you know, that's by four and about small business. Sponsors for this episode include Textexpander. We're@textexpander.com podcast to get 20% off your first year here, at least when I'm recording this. In Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And in South Lake Tahoe, I'm Shannon Jean. At least while I'm recording this, because we're recording early this week.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It's interesting. Yeah, it's always been. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're up in the mountains here, so you may hear a little noise popping in from time to time, but I think. I think we'll be all right.

You sound splendid, man. That's great. Yeah. If I didn't know you weren't in your normal recording studio environment, I would not know that you are anywhere else. So that's. That's.

Oh, that's perfect.

Yeah, that's how it should be.

We'll try to. We'll try to keep it that way.

Yeah, that's right.

We'll see if I can maintain. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So, you know, it was interesting. We were talking about topics for the show and I thought, you know, we should start doing some news things that are kind of around and discussing those. And I sent you a few over and chat.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because we're always. I mean, we're always aware of this stuff. It makes a lot of sense to do, you know, one episode every. Every four to six weeks about, you know, whatever's going on.

So, yeah, changes that will impact small business. And I think one of the first ones we should. We should jump into is sales tax for, you know, for many businesses, if you sell, you know, any physical product, you know, you've got to collect sales tax on it wherever you have a. Well, up until recently, wherever you had a physical location.

Nexus, we like to call it.

Nexus. That's right. And, you know, there were states have been trying to get access to this additional capital they would like. I mean, there's even a form on your taxes where it says, oh, did you buy anything out of state that you should have paid sales tax on?

Right, yeah.

And I don't think anybody fills that information out.

Oh, I'm sure I didn't. That's right.

Yeah. I'm sure I don't remember anything like that. And so some states Tried to get these out of state and remote companies. They began considering affiliates from, you know, affiliate marketing. So if you were an Amazon affiliate in California before Amazon had a presence here, they wanted to consider that Nexus. And so if you didn't have a physical location, so they kind of played that game for a few years.

But now, in fact there were a lot of states for a period of time where, if that's where your location was, you could not be an Amazon affiliate.

I think they cut off, you know, thousands of affiliates that just said, hey, sorry guys, we can't do this anymore because we're not going to pay these taxes.

We're not paying it. Right, right.

Yeah. But you know, the times have changed. Amazon pays, you know, sales tax now in about 45 states that, that have it. They've kind of, you know, gotten everything but you know, the marketplaces where people and small businesses sell, that's often that can be challenging. And this new Supreme Court decision I think is going to be challenging for, for some of us. So in a nutshell now what was decided this last week is that states can decide to require sales tax to be collected by basically any business that is selling products in their state, no matter where they're located. They don't have to have any physical presence.

So if I have no presence in say California, but you know, and I'm here in New Hampshire and I sell you a product, I now have to collect California sales tax from you and remit that to the state of California.

That's right. So it's still really early. This is basically just went out to the states and said you can do this.

They have allowed the states to do that. Right. I understand the states have not enacted anything based on this yet, but the Supremes have said you are permitted to pending any further discussion on the matter. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

And I mean, you know, and in their decision they did suggest that smaller retailers should be exempt. They didn't really give any guidance. And you know, kind of this hundred thousand dollar a year number has been, you know, tossed about in some articles that I've read. But and we'll post there's some, some good articles that up online that talk about it that we'll put in the show notes. But I think it's coming for all of us and I think it's coming whether you sell on your website, whether you sell, you know, on Amazon, whether you sell on ebay. You're going to have to start no matter where you sell. And about half of the states have Already been working together, actually, for, you know, almost a decade or more, they tried to come up with this streamlined sales tax. That would be a single tax you would collect, remit to a single organization, and they would distribute it. And I think that could go a long way to, you know, taking the difficulty away from smaller.

Well, that's, that's the real key here is. Yeah. I mean, as this comes into play. Right. It's not like the states are saying you as the small business owner or as the large business owner, have to pay more or pay anything. What they're saying is you now have to be our unpaid stewards to collect this tax from our residents and give it to us. Right. That. Yeah.

And it's, that's it. And it's, it's really difficult. I mean, you know, in my own experience, just collecting from, you know, selling in the Bay Area here in California, where, you know, it's not only just a state tax, but it's. Counties and cities all have their own rates and little bumps and half a percent here, a quarter of a percent there, 1% here. And you have to, depending upon the zip code of, you know, where these transactions take place, you've got to remit these different amounts. And it can be very challenging to get it done and to do it right. Yeah. And a sales tax audit can be a real nightmare to go through. We've talked about here on the show in the past. And, but there are, there are some companies out there like, you know, taxjar.com they offer a service, you know, they, they help automate, you know, handle sales tax on your website and on marketplaces. You know, their rates start at about 20 bucks a month. We'll link to them in the show notes. And so it's something that you should definitely consider and be prepared. Again, it's early, but it's coming and you got to get ready for it.

Yeah, yeah. And that's really what it is. It's more work for you and me and everybody else to have to deal with. And, and, and really, it does mean you're going to pay some more money, but hopefully it's not more than this, like 20 bucks a month or whatever, you know, depending on your volumes, but starts right about there. It. I look at this very similar to the way that I look at payroll because, you know, you could do all the payroll stuff yourself and it doesn't cost you a thing. But if you're smart, you'll realize very quickly that that headache isn't worth absorbing. It's worth paying Someone else to do. And so, you know, our banks take care of it or whatever it is, and it's like, oh, yeah, our Payroll service costs 20 bucks a month, you know, so those kinds of things will come around and there will be these services and, and in fact, you know, opportunity knocks. So if you're someone that this kind of thing, you know, get to cracking on, on creating this service and then tell us about it and, you know, maybe we'll sign up. So there you go. Yeah.

You never know.

Yeah.

And you know, to your point, like with the payroll, you're right, it is. That's spot on. You know, payroll is not very difficult, what I found. But what you're, what you're really paying for is liability coverage, right?

Yes.

Because if you, if you do it and you make a mistake, it can be a real nightmare. But if payroll company makes a mistake, then they're, you know, going to be involved and obligated and, you know, arguably, maybe they're less likely to make a mistake.

Right? Yes, that's right. Yeah.

Yeah. I imagine it's going to be the same thing with, with sales tax. Yeah. So it'll be interesting to see how it works out. We will, you know, chime in from time to time and see where it is. Of course, if you don't sell any products, then you don't have to worry about it if you're just selling services and things and. But you always want to keep up with, you know, what you might have to. You know, I was stunned years ago to lear that if we bundled the shipping costs with a service, we actually had to tax that shipping cost as well. And. Excuse me, there's lots of nuances to it that you want to keep abreast of, huh?

Fascinating.

Yeah, it's good stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Very interesting.

Good stuff to stay away from getting on the wrong side of.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The other thing I want to talk about today is. I see. I think it was just. Might have been just announced yesterday.

Well, it depends on when you're listening.

Oh, that's true. It'll be a couple weeks ago.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Amazon had, you know, they announced that they were looking for hundreds of entrepreneurs throughout the country to start their own businesses with Amazon's help. They want prime delivery businesses that will focus on delivering their packages from the local, you know, distribution centers out to homes and businesses. And I thought it was really an interesting. I think it's a very smart thing to do on Amazon's part because, you know, they're helping you. The startup cost is very low. It's about 10,000. You only have about $10,000 cash and you have to have access to about $30,000 liquid assets, they call it up there and we'll put the link up there. But it's, you know, logistics.Amazon.com you can read more about it. You basically are providing the leadership and the structure and they going to help you. They're going to help you with discounts on vehicle leases that are going to be branded Amazon Prime. Discounts on insurance. You own the company. They want you to be able to manage between 20 and 40 delivery vehicles. And I thought it was pretty interesting. They promote right up there on their, on their page says, look, if you've got 40 vans out there delivering, our estimate is that you can net about $300,000.

Wow.

So, you know, it's pretty cool.

That's interesting. So this is. Yeah. I mean to start a business like that with a $10,000 investment is unheard of. Otherwise.

It is, I would agree.

Yeah. And you're guaranteed, well, all but guaranteed a customer. Right?

A massive customer.

Right.

A massive, massive customer. 1. And that's where the pros and cons. Because first I was like, well, this is pretty cool. But anyone that's ever done any business with Apple, Amazon or these huge companies, you know that it's, you know, there are definite pros and cons. I mean, it's great when you get the opportunity, but when you become dependent on it or if something goes awry, it can devastate your business as well. And I think that's the case here. You know. Yes. You know, you have this massive customer, instant revenue.

Right.

They're going to stuff your trucks as full as they can get them. They're going to help you. They're going to give you all kinds of professional assistance and everything. They just want you to be the leader and to manage the, the drivers, you know, and set up, you know, you don't have to have a, a big facility. You go right to the Amazon facility and everything. I don't even know if you need a place to park your trucks. You, you might be able to park all the vehicles at their, at their facility, but the, the obviously on the flip side is you have one massive.

Yeah. Are you stickle. Is there. Right. Is there something in here that, that locks you. I assume there's something in here that locks you in to only doing deliveries for Amazon. Right. You can't, you couldn't go to your local UPS folks and say hey, at Christmas time, you know, I've got some trucks and I haven't quite ramped up yet. So, you know, if you got a little extra, I'll take some tall and let's go.

Yeah, I think that would be great if you can do that. Now, I don't know, I have not dug into the contractual, you know, part of it, but I mean, if you're driving an Amazon branded truck, I don't know, but that is a good question. And something that I would be asking is what can I do with my overflow? You know, what can I do when all the packages are delivered and those trucks are empty at 7 o' clock at night or whatever it is? Is there other ways to use the capacity that you have? You know, it, it's, it would, it seems like a great thing for a person maybe that was considering opening a franchise, you know, that, that kind of thing. But the, the one customer thing does worry me. Oh, in the sense that because you're.

Not, here's the thing, if you have one customer, you are not in business for yourself. You are working for that customer.

You are. Yeah, yeah. And you know, if everything goes great, it's awesome. But if something happens and things go wrong, you hire a couple of bad drivers and some things happen and I'm sure there's all kinds of metrics you have to keep meeting and what I found with Amazon is it's awesome and they can really drive business to you and your revenue and everything can really increase. But over time, the metrics that they want you to uphold, you know, tend to get stricter and stricter, of course. And sometimes it just seems impossible that you can meet all these needs. You know, I always used to tell our Amazon reps like, look, you guys want us to do, or to have Walmart pricing and do Tiffany, you know, level service and it, it just doesn't happen. But the, their answer was, well, that's a business decision that you need to make. But if you want to be on our platform, you have to meet these, these certain metrics. You know, you've got to ship within one business day. You have to add, you know, you got, you have to do free returns, you have to do 60 day returns now and you know, these, this kind of thing because they're driving this, this market and I would imagine with the, with this same thing. One thing that Amazon is just phenomenal at is creating those metrics based on what their customer expectation is. And you know, now it's, you can deliver up till 8pm if you order from Amazon and they are local drivers delivering it. You'll see. You know, you get these packages that at 7:30, 7:45 at night, which is kind of weird.

Packages from UPS at 7:30 at night, let alone delivery. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. And I could just see one day them go, well, you know, we want to hit those numbers before 6pm now or something. That would be tough. And if you've built this big infrastructure and you're, you're the one signing those leases and you've got, you know, insurance and, you know, maybe healthcare and all these things, it could be a big liability for you if for some reason you can't meet those metrics anymore.

Yeah.

So you really got to look at the details. If anyone out there that's listening has looked into this more than we have, we'd love to hear from you. Feedbackusinessshow.co. you know, if you're working, there's some other programs they have called Flex that you can just use your own car and go drive there now if that's working for you. You know, tell us how it works and why we're, we're either hitting the nail on the head or why we are wrong about it. So it'd be great to hear from you.

Yeah, absolutely. Hey, I want to take a minute before we go to our next story. I want to talk about our sponsor, which is Textexpander, where@textexpander.com podcast you get a 20% discount off your first year of this fantastic product slash service that streamlines all of your customer service responses, all of really any text response that you give or text information that you give. I use it for phone numbers, like things as short as phone numbers. I just use it for that anyway because it's way easier than, you know, hitting all the dashes and all that stuff and getting it just right and the email addresses I use it for. But also you can use it for much longer responses where you've got formatting and you can even have textexpander. You know, you type a little shortcut and it explodes this snippet, but it can say, hey, insert the customer's name here, insert the name of the product that they bought, insert the date that they bought it. Right. And it really allows you to customize without or while limiting the opportunities for human error. And TextExpander supports teams, which means not only are you using the snippets that you've made, but everybody on your team can, and they now support single sign on for their team. So if you've got, you know, Google or you know, actually they support quite a few different single sign on services. So you're probably already using one for your teams. You can just lock it right in. You don't have to create separate accounts or anything like that. Very, very cool stuff. Check it out. Go to textexpander.com podcast and that's the right URL. I know it sounds a little generic. It is. As you're checking out, they'll ask which podcast. Make sure you choose small business show. And then, you know, that way they know we know and it's all great. So our thanks to textexpander for sponsoring this episode.

Yeah, I always like to comment, you know, this is definitely one of the life changing apps and that will help you with your, you know, automate your small business. You really deserve, with your team and everything to go take a look at it. It's incredible.

Very cool stuff.

Yeah, it is, it is. All right, so let's talk a little politics here on the show.

No, no, let's avoid politics while still addressing, shall we?

There we go. I think that's a great, that's excellent. And you know, the way I titled this was, you know, let's discuss the politics of mixing your politics with your small business. You know, we've all, you know, it's almost impossible to read any news, you know, these days without some, some political thing going in. And we've, we've all probably read about, you know, people deciding not to serve certain people or different things happening. And so I thought it would be a discussion, worthwhile discussion. I have no notes on this topic, so it's gonna be really free, you know, flowing. And I just, you know, I have always worked really hard to keep my politics out of my, my businesses. And unless, you know, it was some patriotic thing or whatever, fourth of July, you know, that those kind of, kind of innocuous things that, you know, you're probably not gonna.

Mostly innocuous, but you could get in trouble for those too. Yeah.

Yep, you could. You could. So you know what I wanted to ask your opinion, Dave, is, is there a, do you think there's a time and a place where, you know, putting your politics into the way you do things at your business is appropriate?

I have, every time I've experienced this has led me to answer no, resoundingly no to your question. Right. There is no time. You know, at Mac observer, right, we're constantly publishing news pieces alongside opinion pieces. And then of course, we have a slew of podcasts where we're discussing things that happen in the news. And anytime one of. I made a rule a long time ago, I just stay out of it. You know, I have, I think it's something in my DNA. I have absolutely no emotional reaction to anything that happens on the national politics level, like pro con, sure, local politics, I get super fired up about it, but on the national level, I just don't. So I find it very easy to kind of keep out of this because I just don't get emotional about it. But I understand. And I'm sensitive to the fact that, that, that's. I'm, I'm, I'm the rarity in that case. Most people, a lot of people really do get fired up about this stuff. And that's okay, right? That. That's totally fine. Where it's not fine is when it crosses that line. And, and you know, on one of our podcasts or in one of our articles, somebody starts railing on about, hey, here's this thing that, you know, we focus on Apple, obviously, and here's the thing that, that Apple's doing, and we think that anybody that's not doing it this way is stupid and yada yada, because they. You did it this way and sided with this half of the country and not that half of the country, right? And we've, I mean, every single time we do that, we get the emails and the phone calls and the comments where people are like, you know, I come to you for like your, your tech opinions, your tips, your news, right? It. And so the message that comes through to me every time we do it is because we have chosen not to be in the business of talking politics, right? And anytime we veer out of the business we have chosen to be in, into that business of talking politics, we hear about it, right? Just like I would hear about it if on this show we suddenly started talking about, like spending an entire episode talking about our favorite beers, Right. Or something like that, right. People would say, what, what are you doing? This is like, why did this sudden. It's off topic. Right? Right. So it's the same kind of thing, except people generally don't have massively negative emotional reactions if you happen to like a beer that they don't. Whereas with politics they do. Right? So it's a much more dangerous thing. So I think, you know, your question was, should you mix politics with your business? If your business is politics? And look, there is, there's a lot of money to be made in political business. You know, when I think about like, you know, Publishing a website or a podcast, if you pick a choir and preach to it, there's an audience for you built right in there. They're happy to listen and, you know, cheer along with you. And so like, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. But again, on that, if you start talking about your favorite beers and spend an entire episode, I mean, if you casually mention it, that makes, that humanizes you, right? If you spend an entire episode now, like you said, you're off topic. So I think, yeah, just like with everything else, just because you're emotional about something is not reason enough to include it in your business as, as a, as a foundation of your business. Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would agree. And I think that there's that old saying, don't talk about politics or religion. And that's probably a good thing to think about. And I also, not to go too deep in it, but I often think I like your point where you're just like, I'm just not emotionally connected. I'm not involved in it where it's not going to rile me up or whatever. And I think if we choose to focus on that political side of things, it really hinders our ability to meet new people sometimes and, you know, connect with some incredible people, business wise or personal wise or whatever, which is just another argument for leaving it out. And I don't, you know, like you said, okay, great, you're gonna, half the country's gonna be mad at you and half the, you know, will love you or whatever. But I would say, and I would agree with you, unless your business is in the business of politics, political market, marketing, consulting, strategizing, whatever, or if you're just, you know, passionate about some political, you know, aspect of things that you want to get involved and start a business related to it, that's great.

That's great. Yeah.

But if you're in the business, you know, of, you know, nothing related to that, I think that it's, I would suggest that most of our listeners would agree with us, but I would love some feedback.

I have no doubt we're going to get yelled at for not being emotional about politics. And I'm okay with that. Right. In fact, I understand it because if this is something that really impacts your life in one way or another, you're like, how could these two guys that I know and trust and love, how could they not care about me? Right? And I mean, that's how it comes across.

To put a little finer point on it, I'm very passionate about it, but it does not Impact things about my business relationship with people. So I don't care if you come in and you're using my service or you're buying a product from me and we have a great engagement, whether online or in person or whatever it is. That's awesome. One of the things I really treasure the most about running different businesses is interaction with people. And for the most part people are pretty awesome. But if you start, start every conversation with well, what do you believe about this? Or what party do you do? Well, that's just a recipe for disaster. So I think you can still be passionate about it, but separate it from your customer base, your certainly your employees. You know, different things because everybody is going to have different, different opinions.

And one piece of advice. If you are going to communicate in some way, either talking or in your, you know, advertising or whatever you're doing, if you are going to include politics in that. There's a difference between saying here's what I feel strongly about, here's what I believe in, here's what I think is right and saying if you don't think this is right, you're an idiot. You're right. Like, because it's very easy for. I've seen people jump from here's what I believe, which actually comes across very respectful. Right?

It can, sure, that's fine.

It's totally fine. It's, in fact it's great. Like, you know, it, it, like I said before, it humanizes you. But as soon as you start insulting people either right. Explicitly or even implicitly, that don't share exactly that same viewpoint, now you're just pushing people away. And I would agree. And, and so it's, it's, and, and, and the difference is nuanced. Right? It's, it's, can you believe that idiot did this thing is less, it is less offensive than saying every idiot member of X party is supporting that thing. Right. I mean it's, it's, it's nuanced. But you're, you're now talking about one person versus, you know, hundreds of or millions of people. Right. And that's where it gets very, very, that's where you have to be careful. Yeah. Really careful.

Yeah, I would agree.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah. So come, come talk to us in the small business, you know, support group at BusinessShow Co Facebook and you know, share your opinion. Have you used, you know, your political beliefs in some way that we're not, you know, considering here that's worked well for you or vice versa, you know, tell us your horror stories about things and we we'd love to hear it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Fun stuff.

Yeah, it is fun stuff. That's what I've got in the news today, and I enjoy talking about it. We'll check back and do this from time to time.

Yeah, I like that. This is a good new segment. And here's the thing, folks. If you have different news stuff, I mean, obviously, if any reactions to what we talked about here, please let us know. But any new news or anything you see come up, let us know. And then that way, we'll include it for you and for everybody, everybody else to hear the next time we're together. All right, folks, we'll see you next time. Our thanks to smile@texpander.com podcast. Keep living that charmed life, Shannon.

You, too, man.