By coinnews 
00:00 Speaker A
Small business sentiment has recently been on the decline as companies navigate tariff uncertainty. Now, temporary tariff cuts between the US and China, could that, could we see the relief that small enterprises needed. Here to discuss this Elizabeth Gore co-founder and president of Hello Alice and host of the Yahoo Finance podcast the big idea. Elizabeth, good to see you. You talked to a lot of small business owners of course, um, and help them navigate through their entrepreneurial journey. So, um, they’ve had a lot to do with this year dealing with all the tariff headlines that have been changing fast and furious. We see the public market, the market for public companies, big companies, reacting well to this. What are you hearing from small businesses?
01:55 Elizabeth Gore
Well, howdy, I hear a excited relief across all 50 states here. The cost of goods sold was going up so much that we had folks literally with things stuck in port because they were afraid to pay those tariffs. If you look at someone like busy baby who’s a US veteran and own business, they thought their costs were going to be going up 140%. So there is a giant sigh of relief. Maybe people sleeping a little better tonight.
02:53 Speaker A
Elizabeth, I’m just curious when you’re talking small business owners, tariffs obviously of course front and center right now, how often are they bringing up those Trump tax cuts getting extended Elizabeth?
03:23 Elizabeth Gore
Oh, over and over. So tariffs and taxes, those are double T’s right now. And that is the question that we’re getting thousands of emails at hello Alice on, am I going to get a tax break? Am I going to get a tariff break? What’s the deal with inflation? Small business owners are very savvy, they’re tracking the news just like the rest of us and this absolutely impacts them probably even more directly than the corporations that you’re covering right now.
04:12 Speaker A
Um, to go back to the tariffs for a moment though, we’ve been talking to some of the small business owners that you know, folks like at Brooklyn Tea, for example. And they were trying to navigate the worst case scenario tariffs by, you know, forging new relationships, trying out different supply chains, and trying out different vendors. So they were putting the work into doing that. Now are they still sticking with that? Are they going back to their Chinese vendors? How, you know, when things are changing so quickly, what do they do?
05:15 Elizabeth Gore
Well, this is an iterate or die situation. I mean, very much like we’re in COVID when things change every couple of days. So the smartest business owners like the folks over at Brooklyn Tea that we love. Shout out to them, are going to constantly have plan A, B, C and Z to make sure that they’re good to go. Now, the Brooklyn Tea is interesting because it’s not just China, they source from other countries as well, as well. So they’re not just tracking that one tariff, they’re looking across multiple countries. If you have to distinguish new supply chain relationships, you just have to and have those ready in case things flip flop again.
06:27 Speaker A
You know, Elizabeth, I’m curious we talk a lot on this show about the soft, the soft data taking a hit and if and how and when that would translate to the hard economic data. I’m just curious when you, when you’re talking to small business owners across various sectors, industries, Elizabeth, how would you characterize basic underlying demand right now? How healthy, how resilient does it seem?
07:17 Elizabeth Gore
Well, first, there’s no such thing as a soft cost in a small business. Uh, literally when you’re getting that cup of coffee, they had to buy the cup, it’s in, they had to source the beans, they had to pay for their water bill. So direct costs are all hard costs for small business. I will say the sentiment coming into the year was much higher than it is now. There was a lot of concern about consumer behavior, particularly going into the holidays, are folks going to step back because of 401Ks are going down or they not going to buy those gifts that they thought they were going to buy for their kids. Now, if we can get these breaks on the tax side and then also really thinking about the tariffs going down, folks in the stock market picking back up, that affects consumer and behavior, that affects if you’re going to walk into that small business and buy that item. And so what we need to know right now is it a pain pill or is it a vitamin? Is this going to make us feel better and so maybe we’ll go or is it actually going to fix something and we are going to purchase again. So that sentiment is going to keep evolving, but I got to tell you it’s still a bit of highs and lows right now.
09:00 Speaker A
Um, is there anything right now that small business owners can do in terms of, I mean, I guess there’s stuff always around in terms of small business grants, in terms of aid, in terms of loans that they can be getting. Is there anything people should be keeping an eye out on right now?
09:34 Elizabeth Gore
Yeah, the two areas right now is if you do have incoming receipts, I do like lines of credit. It’s something that you don’t have to use, it doesn’t cost you anything if you don’t use it. But think about applying for that. The second are grants, non-dilutive funding of capital, small business grants. You can go to helloalice.com/funding and apply for $10,000 to $250,000 grants. So look at those non-dilutive capital resources in case you do need them. And the best money is the stuff you already have in the bank, so try not to spend too much right now.
10:29 Speaker A
Elizabeth, final question when you look at uh, the environment we, we find ourselves in here for small business owners across the country, does it compare and contrast to other, other periods, other challenges, Elizabeth? Or no, do you think this is sort of uncharted territory here?
11:01 Elizabeth Gore
You know, um, if you really look back, you know, COVID and also natural disasters, I know that doesn’t sound like it, but small businesses, uh, two-thirds of counties in the United States have had some kind of serious natural disaster and that hits them really hard. They have to close, they lose receipts, they lose employee engagement. Um, COVID obviously was, was a big hit ups and downs like this. So I do think small businesses after the last six, seven years are used to uncertainty. They have to plan for it. On the flip side, I think that the, in a positive way they have better ability to get new data, um, using AI about their receipts, about their businesses. So that also helps them plan. But I don’t think we can use the word unprecedented anymore when it comes to the small business environment.