3 Things and More that Small Business Owners Should Focus on in 2022 [Podcast]

On this special episode of the Capitalist Sage, Karl and Rico are joined by Mark Collier, business consultant and faculty member with the University of Georgia Small Business Development Center. What is affectionately called the SBDC, is a great resource to the small business community. Listen in to this episode to learn more about the SBDC and just how this asset can help you build your business.

Resources:

SBDC Website: GeorgiaSBDC.org
Mark’s Email: MCollier@GeorgiaSBDC.org
SBDC DeKalb Number: (770) 414-3110

Timestamp:

[00:00:30] – Intro
[00:02:30] – About Mark and SBDC
[00:05:07] – Hiring and The Labor Crunch
[00:09:52] – The Importance of a Business Plan
[00:11:30] – Supply Chain and Strategizing
[00:13:34] – Finding Your Differentiating Factors
[00:17:01] – Getting Financial Systems and Plans in Place
[00:23:54] – Resources with SBDC
[00:27:36] – Closing

“We have a singular, sole mission and that’s to help Georgia businesses grow. That is all we do. We help businesses along all, what we call five core business functional areas. Strategic planning, marketing, operations, human resources, and financial reporting. So we’ve got a variety of tools and resources for small businesses.”

Mark Collier

Podcast Transcript

[00:00:30] Karl: Welcome to the Capitalist Sage Podcast. We’re here to bring you advice and tips from seasoned pros and experts to help you improve your business. I’m Karl Barham with Transworld Business Advisors of Atlanta Peachtree, and my co-host is Rico Figliolini with Mighty Rockets, Digital Marketing, and the publisher of the Peachtree Corners Magazine. Hey Rico, how you doing today?

[00:00:50] Rico: Good Karl, it’s a beautiful day.

[00:00:53] Karl: Yes, no snow this weekend. As we sit here in January, getting ready for our mini exposure to winter. Excited to continue to have some great shows today. Why don’t you introduce our sponsor for today?

[00:01:06] Rico: Sure. Our sponsor is Peachtree Corners Magazine. The sponsor of the family of podcasts that we do, right? Between this and the Peachtree Corners Life and Prime Lunchtime with the City Manager. So, and now we’re working on our next issue, which is the best of Reader’s Choice Awards for Peachtree Corners. That’ll be coming out the beginning of next month. So a lot of stuff in there and it’s going to be a good issue.

[00:01:28] Karl: I think a deadline is coming up for that. I know I went in and made some, when is the deadline for people to get their votes in?

[00:01:36] Rico: Today actually is the deadline. The 20th when we’re filming, when we’re streaming this and filming this rather. So yeah, we’ve had over 1800 responses so far, which is phenomenal, I think for this type of survey.

[00:01:49] Karl: Well, looking forward to see that. And again, a lot of the small businesses that are featured in that survey also, I’m glad to see the many businesses that the community here supports. So really appreciate that. Well, today I want to jump right in and I’m excited to welcome today’s guest is Mark Collier. He is the business consultant and faculty member with the University of Georgia Small Business Development Center. And if you don’t know, what we affectionately call the SBDC is, this is a time to learn a little bit about it and understand it’s great resource to the small business community. Hey Mark, how you doing today?

[00:02:27] Mark: I’m doing well. Karl, and Rico, thanks for having me on.

[00:02:30] Karl: We’re really excited to talk. Why don’t you introduce yourself a little bit to our audience. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do with the SBDC to help the small business community?

[00:02:40] Mark: Absolutely. Again, my name is Mark Collier. I’m a business consultant at the University of Georgia, Small Business Development Center. I office in the DeKalb office, one of 18 offices around the state. And we have a singular sole mission and that’s to help Georgia businesses grow. That is all we do. We help businesses along all, what we call five core business functional areas. Strategic planning, marketing, operations, human resources, and financial reporting. So we’ve got a variety of tools and resources for small businesses. And here’s the best thing Karl, anyone who chooses to use our services have already paid for us through the tax dollars that they pay. So our services come at no direct cost because we have one singular mission. And that is when we help Georgia businesses grow and scale, and they grow their revenue, grow their employees, guess what? They pay more taxes.

[00:03:35] Karl: That’s right.

[00:03:36] Mark: A very simple business model that we work off of.

[00:03:38] Karl: Well, I love it. And most people already know. And if you don’t, most of the businesses in the US, 90 plus percent are small businesses. So continuing to support that is a mission that the SBDC and the folks that help advise and support the small business community is really passionate about. Well, today I wanted to start off by talking about some of the top issues you see business owners struggling with. And some of the things that they can do about it. Why don’t we start with the first thing that when you talk to business owners, where do you see them really having challenges?

[00:04:12] Mark: Well, that has shifted over the last couple of years. Prior to the pandemic year of 2020, it was the traditional things. Access to capital, strategic planning and marketing. Since the pandemic their needs have shifted dramatically to how do I deal with this pandemic? How do I pivot in an effective manner to continue to drive revenue growth for my company? So that’s kind of the core challenge that we are seeing now is how can businesses best compete in our emerging post COVID economy.

[00:04:44] Karl: Yeah. We’re seeing a lot of that when we talk to business owners. It’s actually incredible to think that in 2021, what constrained most business owners from having a really stronger bounce back from COVID in 2021 was that they didn’t have the people and they were struggling with supply chain issues that would allow them to continue to grow their business.

[00:05:07] Mark: Correct.

[00:05:07] Karl: But I’m curious, have you seen techniques and strategies that business owners have been doing, to succeed to navigate? Let’s say start on if you’re a service business, the people part, and then we could talk a little bit about people that sell products in the supply chain area.

[00:05:23] Mark: Sure. Well, from the people perspective, there’s been a labor crunch. Across the board labor crunch in a lot of sectors. So what small business owners have had to do is really wrap up their offerings to attract and retain good people. Not only in terms of salary but a huge one, Karl that’s emerged since the pandemic is the ability to work from home or some type of hybrid arrangement where they can work partly in the office and partly at home. Businesses who are focused on wrapping up their benefits and pay, are the ones who have gained a competitive edge in keeping and finding and retaining good people for their company.

[00:06:04] Rico: Has it become a problem with some companies trying to up their salaries, up their hourly pay to be able to meet the demand? Has that helped employment at all?

[00:06:14] Mark: Well, it’s gonna cause some kind of wage inflation, which we’re starting to see some reminiscence of out here. But in terms of the difficulty, yes. Obviously anytime you raise a pay of your employees, that impacts your bottom line because your labor costs start to rise. And there’s only so, so far that you can rise the prices of your goods and services to help mitigate that.

[00:06:37] Rico: Right. And to pay more for new employees to attract them, you also have to lift the wage just to your existing employees too.

[00:06:43] Mark: Correct. Rico, what smart employers are doing is they’re trying to get folks away from focusing purely on the dollars and starting to offer some ancillary benefits. Like I said, perhaps a hybrid work environment. Some additional vacation days or other incentives that are non-monetary that wouldn’t have that direct impact to a company’s bottom line.

[00:07:04] Karl: I think the market and what this has done, it’s accelerated a trend that we saw in large corporations for probably 20 years. You know, you work for a large company like Coca-Cola or UPS, you get benefits and vacation and all these things. that drove retention. That’s why you have people that have worked there for 20 years and 30 years. It wasn’t always about just the salary, although they were competitive. Some of that expectation now is creeping into the small business environment. And I know a lot of small business owners pride themselves of how disposable their workers were. If you wanted more money, I could find someone else to do it. Well, when unemployments under 3% here in Georgia right now. It’s 2.8, 2.7 and continuing to decline. The recognition in 2022, is that the market has shifted.

[00:07:56] Mark: Yes.

[00:07:56] Karl: We’re announcing it here. We’re calling it out. You can continue the same practices pre pandemic, but what you’re risking is being able to hire, attract, retain the best quality employees in this environment. And if you don’t have the employees to service your customers, you can’t grow your revenue.

[00:08:16] Mark: No. Not only can you grow your revenue, but you’re putting your entire business livelihood at stake. You may go out of business.

[00:08:23] Karl: Absolutely. It is something that when we look at financials for folks and we see what they pay on leads and salary, we’re just expressing to them the need. Now we understand that it’s going to decrease profit. If you act alone in that way. Some of these other benefits can be something that’s lower cost to deliver, but you’ve also got to think about ways of adding more value to what you provide so you can increase prices. That’s when it’s forcing you to think holistically about your business model. And if labor is going up by 10, 20%, what else can shrink? And where else can you grow revenue to help maintain an increased profitability?

[00:09:01] Mark: No, I was going to say probably you’re spot on that the words value added has taken on a new meaning for small business owners that they’ve got to have that value add.

[00:09:09] Rico: I was just gonna point out that, I mean from my experience with advertisers and such and being out there with some of the small businesses in retail, is that if there’s not enough employees, you end up limiting the hours that you’re opened. You end up, the service suffers and people are funny. The Yelp reviews we’ll go flying. And in fact for every one bad Yelp review, there may be 10 people that are not even going to bother doing a review. They just won’t go back. So it’s not just saying I don’t have enough money to do this. It’s more like, is my business going to suffer? And I’m going to lose clients because of that. Because eventually you ended up closing.

[00:09:50] Mark: No, absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:09:52] Karl: So this leaded to an interesting discussion for business owners. If when you have business owners come into your office, I’m curious to how often they walk in and they open up and present you a business plan for the new year, 2022. Here, Mark, here’s my business plan. Here’s where I’m going to grow revenue. I’m going to diversify revenue stream, I’m going to offer catering in my business. I’m going to offer delivery. And then here’s my cost basis and here’s how much profit and here’s some of the things I’m doing strategically. That’s what you get when people come in every day, right?

[00:10:24] Mark: Oh, absolutely Karl. It’s routine, no. Absolutely not. Most folks who come in, and it really depends on what stage they’re in. If they’re a pre venture or startup, there’s a whole different set of needs that are very different than an established business or what we call professionally managed business. But you’re right. The majority of business owners come in, they do not have a business plan. And that’s something I strongly urge because a business plan serves as a blueprint for success. You can’t get to a destination if you don’t have a roadmap to get there. And that is what a business plan serves. It is a living breathing document that kind of drives the company’s culture, it drives the mission, drives the vision. It drives everything. And Karl, you mentioned something where they come in at the beginning of the year. But within that overarching business plan, there has to be a strategic plan that has to be a part of that business plan. But that’s something that has to be looked at least on a quarterly basis to make sure that you’re on track. And if any course corrections need to be made at that point.

[00:11:30] Karl: One great example around that, as we talked a little bit about the impact of supply chain. I was talking to a business owner the other day, you know, we started talking about some of the challenges that’s happening currently. And I ran into a business owner that did a really smart thing. They saw what was coming with the supply chain challenges and they placed orders for key materials months in advance. And so now they’re going into their peak season in the spring and they’ve got all the inventory they need for over a year of the business. So they did some tactics, but they saw it coming around the curve. When I talked to them some further, the next evolution is they’re looking at getting suppliers that are more domestically based versus overseas. All the way around it, they don’t know how long ports are going to be jammed up, but they realize they have to make a strategic shift in their supply base so they don’t have to keep ordering all that inventory in advance and dealing with that. How important is it to start talking to somebody through those things to be successful?

[00:12:35] Mark: I can guarantee you that client of yours had a strategic plan in place with some mitigating factors that helped them forecast those types of things. And typically those things are uncovered during your SWOT analysis, your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. So you can start to make some adjustments when things happen and do some better forecasting. But your client also has understood the importance of supply chain diversification. Because the clogged supply chains, and there was a point early on in the pandemic where nobody even wanted anything from China. They didn’t know if it would come over infected with COVID. We didn’t know what extent that virus can infiltrate products. So we went through that stage where they didn’t want any products from China. And what that did is created a mini revolution of Made in America products. Which I think we’ll start to see the fruits of that as this year rolls on and on into 2023.

[00:13:33] Karl: Absolutely.

[00:13:34] Rico: Yeah. And I agree with you, Mark. Politically speaking, even if the supply chain fixes itself to a degree with the world politics, the way it is and the stresses that are going on in the South China Sea and all that stuff. I mean, most people are moving towards American products. There are international things going on that we can’t even fathom at this point. But Ukraine is an example, what’s going on right now. So imagine something like that going on. What’s the practical things businesses should think about when they come to see you to be able to know. So then you can help them with a business plan? What’s the top three or four things they need to know to come to you with?

[00:14:15] Mark: Top three things is to have kind of their strategy, their overall strategy in place. What is their differentiating factor? What makes a client or customer want to purchase their product or service versus other offerings in the marketplace? And you’d be surprised at the number of businesses that can not answer that question. And I tell them, the business owners, you can’t answer the question, what makes you better than the competition? You really need to reevaluate if you want to go into this business.

[00:14:41] Karl: That’s a great point. I know that differentiation and starting to understand how you’re different for a neighborhood pizza shop may not think like it makes sense. But what this pandemic is showing is, taking the time to think through that and coming up with that, and it could be simple as service. We provide better service than anybody else. Dominos made a killing off of the 30 minute guarantee when they started. Why? No one else did it. No one else was guaranteeing the pizza’s free in 30 minutes or less. And guess what? All the competitors started trying to figure out how to deliver their pizza faster, because they wanted to make the claim and build systems to support that.

[00:15:24] Mark: No, I mean you hit on it. I mean, there are three broad categories that you can compete on. The low price, differentiation, or quick response as Domino’s did, we’ll get you a pizza in 30 minutes, quick response. Not going to be the cheapest. Not going to be the best pizza. But we’ll get it there in 30 minutes. So those are the three broad categories that you can compete on. And of course there’s some hybrids in some other underlying areas that have overlap. But those, you hit that one right on the head Karl.

[00:15:50] Rico: Because most businesses are, they don’t have a cutting edge technology. They don’t really have anything completely different. An HVAC company, a pizza place, a restaurant. They’re providing the same thing that you probably could get somewhere else.

[00:16:03] Mark: Correct.

[00:16:04] Rico: But you’re right. How do you position yourself and how you think about yourself? Would make some difference, at least, right?

[00:16:12] Mark: Rico, you’ve made a very important point. You raised the HVAC component. I’ll give you a prime example of that. I’ve got a client who has an HVAC company. He grew his business tremendously with one simple pivot technique. When he went out to service an AC, his people would find a loose door knob, something else that was totally unrelated to the HVAC problem. And they would fix that. Screw in that funny light bulb, fix a door handle, fix this. That small pivot created a, just a groundswell of goodwill for them. Positive reviews. And it just exponentially grew their business.

[00:16:51] Rico: Wow. Doing something outside their…

[00:16:53] Mark: Doing something extra. I spent seven years in New Orleans they call it lagniappe. A little something extra.

[00:17:01] Karl: There’s another area that I’m curious what you’ve been seeing. Many people start or acquire a business and one of the skillsets that I noticed that’s in high demand is good bookkeeping and accounting financials. I ask business owners three basic questions. I asked them, do they know how much money they made last year? That’s the first question. And it’s an open book test. I love it if they go in and grab their tax return or anything to be able to answer that question. Then I asked them if they know how much they made last month. And that’s usually telling me the difference between someone that’s really paying attention to the details of their business and really know what the quote unquote score is. The third question that I ask is, do they know how much cashflow they generated last month. That shows me that they’re at another level in their financial acumen in their business. Because despite all the claims of profit being good, cash is king, when it comes to business. Businesses don’t go bankrupt or go out of business for profit, they go when they run out of cash.

[00:18:05] Mark: That’s right.

[00:18:05] Karl: What can you advise people to close this gap in where you see people at today with their financial acumen and where they think they need to be a professionally managed business?

[00:18:16] Mark: Well, I think it comes down to utilizing the resources that are out here available. I mean, experts like you, Karl. The experts that we have at the SBDC who can help a business owner, get his arms around his finances. Help understand what the inflows and outflows are of his cash each month. Cashflow projections. Most companies don’t even do that. You’ve got to do some type of monthly cash flow projections in order to get your arms around your cash and what’s running, moving in and out of your business. So I would say one of the first necessary step is to get educated in better cash management techniques and financial techniques. And if not, reach out to the available resources that are out here that have experts that can help them go from one level to the next.

[00:19:02] Karl: What’s key in that thought is, we’re not suggesting that you need to become a certified CPA accountant. You need to build in your team. Somebody with good financial acumen to help keep the books. But you as the owner and leader of your business is responsible to what that score is. So if you’re not looking and reviewing your financials, I would almost argue, it doesn’t even make sense you keep it. You’ve got to track it. So that review of them and taking actions based on deviations from what you expect, is what the great companies do differently than everyone else.

[00:19:40] Rico: I was going to say, there’s enough absent technology out there, that once you have someone set it up for you. A couple of hours of them set up, you can pull down your phone app of QuickBooks or FreshBooks or whatever you using. There’s no excuse. It’s so simple to be able to track your stuff day to day, or week to week on it.

[00:19:59] Mark: You’re absolutely right. I mean, those systems, that’s part of the systems that you want to put in place. I call them the three P’s, policies, processes and procedures. They all build up into your systems. I’ll ask business owners all the time, what’s the highest and best use of your time? Is it doing books? Is it HR functions? Is it doing the marketing? Typically for most small business entrepreneurs, the highest and best use of their time is going out, making connections that will drive revenue, additional revenue for the company. That’s the highest and best use of their time.

[00:20:32] Karl: Absolutely. I’d say a close second to that is being a leader to your employees. Training them, building culture, building value, building ethics. If you’re going to focus on two groups of people, your customers and your employees, I’ll let you pick the order. Each businesses. But if that’s where you have to spend your time, you can outsource the bookkeeping. You can outsource the marketing, you can outsource some of these other functions. But being present and really focusing on that, is going to be really key. The one other tip I’d give is starting out in January of 2022, have a conversation with your accountant, your bookkeeper, or even with yourself and your team to create a budget for this year. A forecast. How much in revenue do you plan on doing each month? A monthly budget. And how much expenses? Both costs of goods sold costs, as well as operating costs, all those. Just by putting out a number, a target each month that you sold, those great tools Rico was mentioning QuickBooks and others, you could easily see whether or not you win or lose each month.

[00:21:38] Mark: Yes.

[00:21:38] Rico: And if you keep life as simple as that each month you want to win. And if you win 12 months in a row, you are going to have a good year.

[00:21:46] Mark: Oh, absolutely. And you know, I’d like to add something to that. In addition to setting that goal, you also have to have a set of tasks underneath that goal that are going to illustrate how are you going to do it? You know, I always say a plan without some detailed steps behind it is a dream. That’s all it is.

[00:22:04] Karl: Absolutely. Perfect example is, you want to increase revenue by 20%? You’re going to implement a marketing plan, that includes digital marketing. You are going to engage in X amount of sales calls per month. You’re going to approach new clientele or new customers or new channels and take those actions and each quarter break the year into four quarters. Each 90 days, set a goal to improve your business and put the actions in place to do it and hit it. Don’t move on until you hit those goals. If it takes you five months, then take five months. Then you set a new set of goals and repeat. And that’s what world-class companies do.

[00:22:45] Mark: Fully agree. Fully agree.

[00:22:46] Karl: The other thing I’d mentioned along that is once you set the budget, you have to review it. And if you’re going to ask me the frequency, a minimum of monthly. Depending on your business, you might need to review it weekly or twice a month. But a plan without some review and accountability to it just really isn’t helpful.

[00:23:04] Mark: No, you’re right. I mean the old adage is true. What can not be measured can not be improved. So without those measurement intervals, as you said, you’re like a hamster on a wheel.

[00:23:15] Rico: And that gets a little scary, I think for businesses that don’t have contractual agreements that don’t have expected certain amount of revenue every month. I mean it could be a restaurant that, every month is going to be different for them. Mother’s day. Father’s day. Those are going to be big events. Christmas maybe, thanksgiving. For other types of companies, like HVAC, the beginning of the spring, the beginning of winter. So, and some of them will have contracts, those monthly maintenance, but not all of them. So, being able to understand what you did the last two years, where you think you’re going forward, that’ll help protect maybe, you know, any losses that might be coming because you didn’t plan ahead.

[00:23:52] Mark: Great, great points Rico.

[00:23:54] Rico: Can people come to you to get regular assistance, even? Instead of just the initial thing. Can they come to you on a regular basis somehow?

[00:24:02] Mark: They certainly can. I’ve got clients across the continuum. Like I said, we kind of segment our clients out into pre-ventures, basic businesses, established businesses, and professionally managed. And typically those business segments will have different needs. But I’ve got clients where I do a monthly check-in. I’ve got clients where I do a quarterly check-in and some are semi-annual check-in. And I serve as a sounding board for them. And they know that I have no other vested interests other than to see them succeed and grow their revenue.

[00:24:35] Rico: And just to, so that people remember, this is free. There’s no fees here. You’re a professional. And you’re providing these surfaces.

[00:24:41] Mark: Yes. Well, we don’t like to use the word free cause that sometimes implies no value, but we say it comes at no direct cost. You’ve already paid for us through the taxes that you pay. So why don’t you go ahead and maximize your ROI on those taxes?

[00:24:54] Rico: Yeah. And people can come back to you, I mean, accountability partner to be able to hit things off with you.

[00:24:59] Mark: Absolutely. Yeah, so that’s one of the key needs that we feel as an accountability partner. And many business owners are very appreciative of that.

[00:25:07] Karl: So let’s talk a little bit about some of the resources that the SBDC and some of the other resources available to small business owners. And I’d like you to comment on one small thing and see if this. When folks are looking at doing their planning, they’re always asking the question, how are my peers doing? If I’m setting a goal for profit or how much I’m spending on labor relative to my revenue. Does the SBDC have resources that can help people answer some of those questions?

[00:25:37] Mark: Absolutely. We all have access being University of Georgia, to a number of databases that can generate some impactful reports for our clients. Industrial CFO is a benchmarking data that lets you know, how am I doing relative to revenue, expenses, where my revenue is coming from? So it’s kind of a benchmarking report for other similar firms that are in your industry. We also have access to what are called Vertical IQ and that is an industry report. Good at giving forecasts for what changes or forecastings are upcoming in a particular industry. So, those are two of the most impactful reports that we have access to that we can distribute to our clients, again at no direct cost.

[00:26:18] Karl: And if you were to try to buy these reports online. And so some of these costs thousands of dollars.

[00:26:24] Mark: Absolutely.

[00:26:24] Karl: Just on that alone. I just want to make people aware of that. One of the great ones is there’s resources like IBISWorld and other similar. This benchmarking, if you are a professionally managed business or a business that has some scale and size, going out and seeing how you compare to your peers, benchmarking will tell you a couple of things. If you are below the financial metric averages for your industry, it tells you, you’ve got some work to do. If you’re looking at selling one day or exiting or valuing a business, it’s going to matter whether you’re above the average, below the average, or at the average. So understanding that sooner so you could take action to make improvements. But on the other side, if you’re performing well above the average for your industry, that’s a point of pride. And you need to figure out what is making you do that? How is it? Bottle it up and leverage it to scale and grow the business. So something as simple as that, if you wanted to do this year, go out and benchmark your business. Approach one of the great SBDC consultants like Mark out there and start that process of learning more about your business.

[00:27:34] Mark: Absolutely Karl.

[00:27:36] Karl: Perfect. Well, I’d like to attack, you know, do you have things going on? Besides the consulting service, I know you offer training and classes and stuff. Do you have anything that’s coming up or things you’d want to highlight?

[00:27:48] Mark: Sure. For a kind of an overview of our upcoming trainings and classes, you can go to our website, GeorgiaSBDC.org. It’s Georgia spelled out sbdc.org. Go to the training tab and you’ll see all of the training on there, but I’d like to highlight two signature programs that we have. One is called our Grow Smart Program. And that is like an mini MBA. It is an intensive eight week program that business owners come in once a week, for eight hours a day, for eight weeks. And they cover all of the business, core business functional areas. That class is open. It’s only open to businesses that are generating at least $300,000 in revenue, have some full-time employees. But that class is one of our signature programs because it can really make a huge difference in propelling that company from good to great. The other signature program we have is called Start Smart. And that’s at the other end of the spectrum for people who are either looking at getting into business or have been in business for less than a year. That program is more foundational. It’s a four weeks, it extends four weeks, I think, twice a week. Three hours after work night. But what it does is it sets the foundation for success. And I came from a Capital Projects Management background. And what I know is that businesses are much like buildings. The most important part is the foundation. So what that Start Smart class delivers are those business foundations that will help business owners get off on the right foot.

[00:29:24] Karl: Thank you for sharing that. And I’ve taken courses through the SBDC and I refer many clients to them. Those that go through and set that strong foundation from the beginning have a higher success rate and they were able to build and scale the business much, much quicker than learning along the way. It’s always tougher to learn after you realized you should’ve done a thing. To be able to learn that afterwards in the middle of satisfying customers, trying to hire employees, dealing with a pandemic, you want to get the foundation strong.

[00:29:56] Mark: Absolutely, Karl. You hit something very important. Now, sometimes those real life lessons can be very, very expensive in both time and money. So you will try to want to avoid those.

[00:30:06] Karl: Absolutely. Well Mark, if someone wanted to reach out and contact you, what’s the best way to reach and contact you?

[00:30:12] Mark: Sure. They can email me at MCollier, C O L I E R, @GeorgiaSBDC.org. And then our office number in DeKalb is (770) 414-3110.

[00:30:28] Karl: Excellent. Well Mark, I want to thank you so much. Let me reintroduce Mark Collier. He’s a business consultant, a faculty member with the University of Georgia. Go Bulldogs. Small business development center.

[00:30:40] Mark: National champion Bulldogs.

[00:30:42] Karl: National champion Bulldogs. Have to make sure I get that in there. Respect. At the University of Georgia SBDC, he and his colleagues all around the state. There’s offices in South Georgia, North Georgia, all around the Metro Atlanta area. There’s plenty of people out there to help you plan, execute. Whether you’re starting a business, whether you’re growing your business, where you’re planning on an exit feel free to reach out and leverage these resources in the community. And Mark, I want to thank you so much for sharing your insights and experience.

[00:31:11] Mark: You’re welcome Karl and Rico. And I really appreciate both of you for allowing me the opportunity.

[00:31:17] Karl: It’s our pleasure. We would like to thank our audience for tuning in. And we enjoy that. I’ll introduce myself again. Karl Barham with Transworld Business Advisors of Atlanta Peachtree. Our business advisors are passionate about small businesses. We’re available to consult on your business. Whether you’re looking to improve it or looking to grow in particular by acquisition, or you’re looking to exit the business. We are qualified in doing valuations and consulting business owners. And feel free to schedule a consult with us. I can be reached at KBarham@TWorld.com. Or you can visit our website, www.TWorld.com/AtlantaPeachtree. And come in and see some of the tools we have, information we have for small business owners to help them grow and be successful in their business. Rico, why don’t you tell us a little bit about what you’ve got coming up?

[00:32:06] Rico: Sure. Our Pastry Corners Magazine, we’re working on the next set of feature stories for this issue coming up, February and March. The cover story is Reader’s Choice Award. So we did a survey, we have over 37 categories. So our readers and social media followers have told us who their favorites are in some of these categories. And we’re going to be sharing that in the next issue. Along with some information about we’re doing an overview article about the commercial and residential development that’s going on in the city over, the next year in 2022. What’s been approved, what’s in construction, and what’s coming up. So we’re doing that overview plus there’s a whole bunch of other features in there that, we’re be talking about Pinckneyville Middle School, about businesses opening up, restaurants and such. A lot of stuff going on there. You can find more information at LivinginPeachtreeCorners.com. Follow us on social media. Peachtree Corners Magazine can be found on Instagram, @PeachtreeCornersLife. Facebook, same thing, Peachtree Corners Life. Search those and you’ll find that. Follow us on LinkedIn. We have a page for the magazine there as well. And if you’re looking for someone to do content online or social media or other things along those lines, just check me out at MightyRockets.com or look me up on LinkedIn as well. And I’ll be more than happy to consult with you and see what you need.

[00:33:22] Karl: Sounds good. And we’re continually excited to bring you these Capitalist Sage podcasts. We have more folks coming in, in the upcoming weeks and months. We’re highlighting some local business owners. We’re talking to some of the great resources that are available here in the community. If you have a topic, feel free to reach out through the website and suggest a show topic.

[00:33:42] Rico: And actually you should follow us on Instagram @TheCapitalistSage and visit us on Facebook @TheCapitalistSage as well. So there’s a few places you can go to pick up more of these podcasts and learn more of what’s going on.

[00:33:56] Karl: Absolutely. Thank you everybody for joining today, have a great day.

[00:33:59] Rico: Take care.