America’s Future Lies in the Foundation and Success of Local Business

Small business provides 85 percent of all job growth and accounts for 98 percent of all business in the nation. Innovation, persistence and courage have always been hallmarks of the entrepreneurial spirit.

These qualities are being stretched to their limits in the fight for survival at local businesses throughout the nation. With the right mix of policy, resources and education, we can have a profound impact on the resilience of local businesses.

Local business is a national issue. We believe the federal government should be focused on local business especially now—in a time of shutdowns and reduced operations due to the COVID-19 emergency—local business is diminishing across the nation. A wave of local business bankruptcies is inevitable. Solutions that help local business will help to lift all Americans. Local business includes small business, entrepreneurs, freelancers, minority owned, black owned, woman owned, veteran owned—all of the traditionally underutilized groups while including small businesses owned by hard-working Americans of all backgrounds, size and color. We also believe it is time to shift from a focus on small business to local business.

The Local Business Institute convened a group of local business owners to discuss ideas for redirecting economic development policies to small local business. Following are their recommendations.

Redefine Small Business

The federal government has generally defined a small business as businesses with fewer than 500 employees. There is a vast difference in needs between a 500-employee company and a 10 person shop. We recommend shifting the definition of a small business to under 100 employees.

Current tax laws, emergency funding and other federal programs use the term small business to include businesses with under 1,000 employees. This means that larger organizations with access to significant resources for securing support in other ways, are legally and swiftly able to swallow up much needed resources that are intended to support smaller employers.

Redirect Economic Development to Community Economic Development and Locally Owned Businesses

Most Economic Development programs are focused on bringing new jobs through big corporate growth. This has been the standard of economic success in our country for decades. These policies from federal to local have grown our economy but damaged our local economies. We need to redirect fifty percent of our economic development efforts to small, local businesses and redefine success to include resiliency and sustainability as well as growth. A healthy, thriving local business is worth more to our economy and communities than 100 jobs brought in by big busi- ness. Economic Development programs that retain local businesses will keep more money in the community while building a stronger, more organic ecosystem for citizens.

Not everyone with a local business should be, or wants to be, identified as “small”. The word itself carries a connota- tion of lower value, which could not be further from the truth. Local business employs more people, generates more new jobs and the money spent with these businesses stays in the community, for the benefit of that local economy.

Address the Needs of Small, Local Business

• Access to better, more affordable health coverage for local business

Now more than ever, local business owners need good quality medical care. The Affordable Care Act has been a good start in terms of access and for covering pre-existing conditions. But the cost to cover a family, let alone em- ployees, has skyrocketed. And the plans available are not the same kind that are available to big businesses. That is because smaller organizations don’t have the same buying power. This may be as simple as encouraging cooperative buying or allowing trade associations to make big group plans available to member organizations. The status quo is not good enough.

• Business Investment Crisis Fund

The opportunity with regard to Federal Policy is to create an incentive for business owners to create a financial reserve for their business. Similar to how individuals have the ability to create a personal IRA to create a rainy day / retirement fund through small contributions made over time, business owners too should have a similar way to set aside funds in a pre-tax manner to create a Business Investment Crisis Fund to hold up to a maximum of one year’s expenses. These funds would become an asset for the business to be accessed by Federal or State disaster designation, trans- ferrable with the sale of a business, and managed by existing financial institutions with guidance on acceptable risk levels of investments made within the accounts.

The Federal Government could under the guidance of the Small Business Administration provide a matching grant program for historically undercapitalized businesses within specific communities or based on business demographics (minority owned, veteran owned, non-profits, etc). By establishing a direct connection between business owners and the government through these funding instruments the government would also be able to inject relief stimulus direct- ly into these accounts as needed during a crisis eliminating the need for the treasury department to outsource loan origination (PPP funds) to banks.

• Expand Resources to Directly Address Local Business

Many communities host a local SBDC office but the quality of these vary widely across the country and many are fo- cused on starting businesses, not retaining and growing business. Some are totally focused on local preparation. Local business owners need growth advice, mentoring and coaching, market research and more. Increase and focus the activities at these centers to focus more on retaining and growing local businesses. Change these to Local Business development Centers (LBDC) to express this focus.

Encourage Community Investment

Federal investment policies can open the opportunity for citizens to invest in our local businesses. Local investing
is another tool to build resilient, sustainable local economic ecosystems. Some communities are helping local busi- nesses that are willing to sell equity in their companies through local investing platforms, including MainVest (outside Boston), LocalStake (Indiana), and Milk Money (Vermont). Investors can buy into local businesses for as little as $100, based on business or expansion plans. These investments could receive tax incentives.

Also create new tax incentives for investments in the sustainability of local businesses by allowing landlords, banks and other lenders to utilize these tools for supporting and retaining local businesses. San Francisco has created a model program for Legacy Businesses that encourages landlords to retain existing locally owned businesses through tax incentives that help control rising rents. This could also be used during times of economic distress, such as a pan- demic, to help retain existing businesses.

The Local Business Institute Policy Recommendation Group

John Antonelli, Antonelli’s Cheese Shop Wendi Caplan-Carroll, Sound Endorsements Eric Groves, Alignable
Eileen Keller, Ideality.com
Sue Malone, Strategies for Small Business Rebecca Melancon, Local Business Institute Victoria Musa-Lyons, HR Matters Global Julie Niehoff, Local Business Institute
Derek Peebles, AMIBA
Annie Powell, Skills After Service
Della Rucker, Econogy Talent Group
Anissa Starnes, IOM, Swingbridge Partners Vicky Valdez, Local Business Institute
Chris Wyckoff, Consultant / Veterans Affairs

Inspiration! Purpose! Action!

What an evening it was! 

Our events have always been a great chance to catch up with our community for fun and great conversation, and this year was no exception. The crowd was full of artists, professionals, musicians, and all-around creative folk.  Shirley Johnson played music from all over the world on her accordion and sang, and frequently the guests sang along. The wine flowed and the snacks were gobbled up in a fury of hearty winter appetites, and of course we had king cake!

We went with a theme of three, this being our third annual Epiphany Party.

Epiphany is about the three kings and their three gifts to the baby Jesus: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

From Huffington Post: 

In this story, Magi (wise men) from the east follow a star to Jerusalem, where they ask the presiding king, Herod, what he knows about a newly born “King of the Jews.” This sounds like a challenge to Herod, who gathers his priests to learn where and who is this king. They relay a prophecy that Messiah will be born in Bethlehem, and Herod sends the Magi there, saying: “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.” The wise men — Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar — eventually find Mary and her son, Jesus, to whom they bow and worship. The Magi give Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, and then return home, for a dream told them to bypass Herod.

For designing elements of the party venue, Eileen's lovely personal abode, we decided on everything golden...

We wanted our guests to find within them the gifts of the third chakra: your power, your inner fire, the golden yellow zone between your navel and solar plexus.

We wished to bestow inspiration upon all who joined us that evening, and that their inspiration would drive them to action. It was our hope that everyone who spent that time with us, and that anyone who is reading this, would find a divine and powerful purpose for 2018 and do what it takes to make it happen.

Let us know how we can help. 

Plain Speaking

We recently hosted a reception to introduce our friend “American Strong Woman, Mama Lou” to our near and dears. She had just returned to Austin from a European tour and was about to leave for the western United States, in preparation for her September 10th appearance on the Today Show. Her motto is “Phonebooks. Your heart. Neither stands a chance”. We looked at photos and clippings of Mama Lou crushing apples with her biceps, doing one-arm pull-ups, performing acts of aerial daredevilry and of course; ripping phone books in half. Standard strong woman stuff.

It was an unusually mild summer evening and a group had gathered in the screened cabana of the compound at twilight. Among the guests were many of the women we count as collaborators and friends, including: an acupuncturist, two authors, a metal artist, an accordion playing yoga instructor, an interior designer, a private intelligence analyst, and Leslie Pool, a city council candidate who we support.

Leslie conducted a poll, asking what we thought of her slogan:

“A Pool For The Neighborhood“. The response was generally negative; the consensus being that it was cute, but not powerful. One person went so far as to say “It sucks.”

She replied that her consultants were professional and thought that it was good. Of course, they had been paid to create the slogan, ergo they were favorably disposed to it.

We felt that it was less of a word play and more of a meaningless promise. The problem was a lack of definitive position.

In moments like this we invoke one of our favorite credos:

“Well, sir, here’s to plain speaking and clear understanding.” A thief and a pathological liar, Mr. Kasper Gutman, uttered this line to Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon.

Plain speaking is the foundation for clear understanding in our idea of the world. Making information accessible, memorable and applicable to need is imperative to affecting a desired choice. No beating around the bush. No meandering. No maybe. Just spell out the answer.

If any one or anything desires to be a solution, they must be the definitive solution for the problem. Not “A” solution, “The” solution.

In the light of the next day we found the answer to our candidate’s concern. In the first part of the slogan, using “A” instead of “The” was not correctly positioning her as the only choice of reason.

In the second part, using “the” instead of “our” was isolating the choice from the community it serves. "THE Pool for OUR neighborhoods!"

We called the candidate to find out what she thought of our solution.

She answered with, “I like it!”

The final slogan for Leslie Pool's campaign for Austin City Council.