TLMM #003: Why Local Small Businesses Need Your Help Today More Than Ever Before

Read time: 4 mins

Today, I want to talk to you about why local small businesses need your help more than ever before…

Most local small businesses are hurting from all of the extenuating  circumstances and recent events that have taken place over the past couple years.

They’re at crossroads where they are on the verge of having to close their doors permanently.

However, you may very well be the key to saving local small businesses from impending doom.

But before I get into that…

Let’s take a look at how local small businesses have gotten to this point.

 

The Pandemic

Ever since the pandemic started…

Local small businesses have been struggling to survive and thrive.

The pandemic all but destroyed local small businesses.

Those who survived have been decimated by labor shortages for a variety of reasons…

Namely, employees quit their jobs in fear of getting sick…

Or not being able to work from being sick, quarantining, etc…

And some employers had no choice but to lay off employees due to economic reasons caused by the pandemic.

Although we’re almost a year removed from the lockdowns that really hurt local small businesses…

They’re still finding it extremely hard to staff up.

Why???

Simply because employees they once had got really, really comfortable collecting unemployment…

Or found themselves at a crossroads questioning what they were doing for work…

And in the process discovered alternative means to earn an income…

Switching jobs, starting side hustles, or even their own businesses.

Thus creating a buzz term, which you’ve probably heard at nauseum…

 

The Great Resignation

This movement, if you will…

Has contributed to the labor shortages local small businesses now face.

Part of the movement was spurred on by employees feeling that they’ve been underpaid for quite some time.

And that minimum wage has not been raised enough over the years to be in alignment with the cost of living increasing (or dare I say, inflation).

To combat this problem…

The government decided to increase the federal minimum wage on January 1st, 2022 to $9.50 per hour…

And incrementally increase it to $15 per hour for work over the next 5 years.

For tipped workers, the Raise the Wage Act of 2021 immediately more than doubled the cash wage to $4.98 per hour while providing for incremental increases until reaching uniformity with the non-cash wage.

Of course each state has its own minimum wages as well…

So some states are much higher than others.

Putting even more strain on local small businesses…

Meaning, they simply cannot afford to hire enough help.

Or even pay for the help they currently have.

So the local small business owner has only a couple options to make their numbers work in order to stay profitable…

Raise prices.

Or…

Be understaffed.

Neither is good for the local small business’s survival.

And both are contributing to more and more local small businesses having to close up shop.

 

The Recession

And if the two problems above weren’t enough…

We’re now in or soon to be in a recession.

Recessions historically have hurt local small businesses as much as anything else.

It’s no wonder why it’s more difficult than ever for local small businesses to survive, much less thrive during times like these.

Since we’re just in the beginning of said recession…

It hasn’t fully impacted most local small businesses yet.

So there’s still time for local small businesses to get the help they need to stay in business…

But time is running out.

 

How you can help

You can help local small businesses through providing them with various digital marketing solutions that about 99.9% of them all desperately need…

And BTW, it doesn’t really matter what services you provide them with.

They don’t care how you do it.

They don’t care why you do it.

Because what they ALL need in order to survive and thrive is…

MORE SALES!

So ask yourself this…

Can I help them get more customers and ultimately make them more sales?

Because it’s all they care about.

If the answer is a resounding, “YES!”…

Then you will not have any trouble finding clients (or customers) for your own Digital Marketing Agency business.

However, if your answer is, “No.”…

Then you need to figure out exactly what you can do to help them out.

And remember it just might not be one thing…

There may be several digital marketing services that when combined produce the desired results.

 

How to close more clients (or customers)

I get asked this all the time…

And while there’s no perfect answer…

What I’ve come to learn over the past 13 years as a Local Small Business Consultant is this…

You need to have a full understanding of what your local small business clients (or customers) are going through.

When you figure out what their major pain points are, you can then easily craft an offer and your sales pitch that will get their attention.

So hopefully you were paying attention throughout this week’s newsletter. 😉

Because there’s a ton of nuggets (pain points) listed above that you should be aware of…

And that my friends, is what your ideal local small business clients are currently going through.

So will you be one of hopefully many Local Small Business Consultants who will save local small businesses?

I know I will. 🙂