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-Hello, I'm Steve Beverly, and on this edition of Tennessee is Talking, the topic is small businesses.

Have they recovered from the pandemic and what's the outlook for 2024?

Let the conversation begin.

-That's so cool.

-Then that's when I said that-- -The problem with that idea is-- -Wow, that was amazing.

-Then I came up with a solution.

-What was that about?

-Here's what I think about it.

-Now, we're talking.

-West Tennessee PBS presents Tennessee is Talking.

Let the conversation begin.

-Thanks for joining the discussion.

I'm Steve Beverly, and today, we're talking about small businesses.

How they're doing, the outlook for 2024, and resources to help them grow?

Who better to talk about small businesses than two of West Tennessee's best chamber leaders.

Amanda Love, executive director of the Humboldt Chamber of Commerce, and Kayley Coday, the executive director of the Milan Chamber.

It's so good to have both of you with us and to really have a conversation that's about the heart and soul of West Tennessee, and that is so many of our small communities that are around us.

Let's talk first about this.

We know that small business is essential to any community in our area and across the country and to our economy.

Start with you, Amanda, on this and then I'd like for you to pick up on it.

How are small businesses doing today?

Because we get a mixed bag from time to time.

What's your story on this?

-We get a mixed bag actually in our communities as well.

There's some who are doing extremely well, some who, and we preach it a lot, make sure when you're opening a business, starting a business, make sure you've got a business plan, make sure that you've gone into it knowing all of what you need to know.

Those that have a plan and plan for the future are doing well.

There are others who are sort of flying by the seat of their pants who are struggling a bit and that's where we come in.

We can actually put you in touch as a chamber, Kayley and I both, and our partner, Libby Wickersham, with people who can help you to write out your plans, get a marketing plan, a business plan.

If you need any demographic help, that's what we can help you with as..

Some are struggling and it's the economy to a large extent, it's the type of business that they're in to an extent.

It's a mixed bag.

-All right.

Kayley, how about you?

-Yes, so I just started this job in September.

I've came from the other side of working in a small business and then coming over to chamber world.

I've seen both sides.

The pandemic was hard on a lot of businesses, but believe it or not, we've had quite a few small businesses come in and want to open a new business or develop their business more.

Even though there are businesses struggling, I've seen a lot of new businesses start and I think that's a good thing, that's a good sign for the West Tennessee area.

-What was it about the pandemic that really hurt, struck, if you will, in some instances, a dagger to small businesses?

What happened then?

-We were blessed to not lose any businesses during the pandemic, but a lot of it was the fact that people were scared to come out.

At the beginning, all the businesses had to close their doors and if you w.. which I think if that ever happened again, more people would be prepared, but if you weren't prepared to do curbside delivery or shipping or whatever needed to be done and had the staff to do it, then you were going to struggle with it.

People after that were still scared to come into a place.

My parents, it took two years for them to walk back into a restaurant.

The fear I think is what killed a lot of business.

-Like you said, if it was to come again, all of the businesses have adapted well.

There's businesses doing curbside that you would have never probably seen ever do curbside unless the COVID/pandemic would have came.

I think businesses in our area have adapted well to the change in scene.

-All right, before we get into looking ahead to the rest of 2024, there's one other issue that I think is so crucial because you've heard it, I hear it, many others do, is business owners or managers who continue to say it's difficult to get enough or enough good help.

I have asked many people, why is that happening now?

-If we could figure that out, our industries, our small businesses, our restaurants, everyone would be thrilled.

Our farmers, we've got ag problems with the same thing.

Honestly, I hate to say, I don't know, that's my least favorite phrase, but I don't think anybody can figure that out yet.

There's some people who are, heaven knows where they're getting it, but there's money coming into the household some different ways.

There's some, unfortunately, who will work a job until they can get unemployment and they quit and they stay off for a while and they work.

They're job hoppers.

-Play the system.

-Yes, they play the system a bit.

Then some, to be honest, are parents who don't have childcare.

Childcare is a huge-- childcare, housing, workforce, three of the biggest issues that we deal with in Gibson County and probably all of West Tennessee.

If they can't find reliable childcare, at least one parent can't leave the home.

There's one parent who's not in the workforce.

That's a big issue.

-We have industries-- I came from working at an industry in our county that built a childcare facility on their property and have had success with it.

I say that's one of Gibson County's biggest success stories is you can do it if you put your mind to it and find a plan for your employees to come to work.

They will come.

They will come.

-Let's look ahead now.

What do you think the outlook is for small businesses in each of your cities in this current year?

We're still looking at it as if it's the new year because we are taping this, we're barely a month and a half into it.

Let's look at this.

What is really the forecast for this year?

-I think small businesses have a great shot at it.

I think there are a lot of resources available now.

If you want to start a new business, if you want to grow your business, we've got a lot at the chamber.

There are a lot in state organizations.

Right now, one of the things is there are a lot of grants available for small businesses.

We are currently going through a downtown improvement ..

Anything that's outside of your business, you can get a new sign.

You can get paint on your building.

There are a lot of grants for murals to make them prettier places.

If people want to come and take a selfie there, then they're going to come into your business.

There are grants for tourism to bring more people to your city.

There's lots of money available to help grow your business, even if that's just growing it from an entire town level.

-That's how we have to approach a lot of things.

We put our three minds together a lot.

Even if it's one of her chamber members or one of my chamber members, we put our heads together to try and help them as a whole.

Because at the end of the day, it increases revenue in the county, and that helps us.

-That's good for everyone.

-That's one thing I wanted to follow up.

Kayley, if both of you can elaborate on this, how much do the two of you and say other chamber managers within Gibson County collaborate for the greater good of the county?

-A lot.

-Daily, hourly, every minute maybe.

-We had two meetings today together.

-It's a good thing to have.

I couldn't imagine being in a county where I didn't have somebody else because we can feed off each other's ideas.

We're doing a lot of joint events together this year, which is for the greater good of all of our members.

I think it's really important to put our heads together and our members together and let them network as well and learn from each other.

-One of the things that we do together is we've got a workforce committee.

Gibson County has had a longstanding workforce committee over 16 years old.

I'm not sure exactly how long.

A workforce committee that meets monthly, bimonthly is about to go too.

We have an HR group that meets.

We take the pulse of our industries, our small businesses, and then find out what we can do to help.

I think those collaborations between the three of us and with other experts in the field actually help all of our businesses.

-Yes, and we're bringing the school systems into the table too.

We are helping to prepare those that are about to go into the workforce directly, hopefully in our county and stay there.

We collaborate with CT directors and district superintendents to make sure that we're doing the right things for students coming directly out of high school.

-I was going to ask about that because, in Jackson, one of the shining spots was early college high when that was developed that really opened a pipeline between high school seniors, even some juniors, and industries and businesses.

How much with the high school seniors that you have in each of your communities is that open door as far as being able to get many internships?

-Yes, I can speak on that a little bit.

Gibson County was a pilot program, three of the schools in Gibson County for the Innovative High School Grant.

We had over 120 students out working and we're talking jobs that were getting them ready to go into their field that they were interested in.

If they were interested in being a pharmacist, they were a pharmacy tech, et cetera.

We had students making $18, $19 an hour in high school.

-I wish I had that when I was-- [chuckles] -I think over that year of them being employed, they made about $500,000 together.

That's really big revenue.

They're putting it back into the county.

-That is huge.

That's huge for marketing for the county where that's concerned.

-Another thing that's good for the county is we have a program that's actually won awards.

It was written by a lady who works for TCAT Jackson.

It's a way to win at work.

We won a state award for this.

It's a soft skills class.

All six of our high schools are now doing that soft skills class to get these kids ready to shake your hand, look you in the eye when you go for an interview, do a resume, all of the things that you need to know before you get out into the real world.

-Learning how to handle a budget, things like that.

-Yes.

-Exactly.

-I think about the fact when I w.. we had some marvelous teachers, but there was not that program to really teach us those soft skills that you need to go out even if you're going to college after that.

It was a hardcore reality in some instances.

Tell us about your chambers because this is obviously what your heart and soul is.

Tell us about your chambers and who can join.

-If you've seen one chamber, you've seen one chamber.

Our chamber is made up-- we have two and a half people.

I have a strawberry festival coordinator because we own the West Tennessee Strawberry Festival.

We have a strawberry festival coordinator, an admin/events coordinator, and then myself in the office.

The festival coordinator is part-time.

Anyone can join.

We have openings for individuals.

We have non-profits.

We have small business.

Ours is not a tiered system.

It's based on the amount of employees that you have, but we have openings for anyone.

If you're just someone in the community who wants to be in the know and go to our networking events and come to our other events, then you can join the chamber just as an individual.

We try to get out all of our information to everyone.

I've got a newsletter that I'm fairly proud of that every week, we pull in information from the Tennessee General Assembly.

When it's in session, we pull in information.

If you're from HR or marketing or social media, get that news along with news of the chamber and news of the city.

We've become a little newspaper almost online ever.. -How about you in Milan?

-Yes, we're the same way.

I started, like I said, in September.

It's just me and my executive assistant.

She's been with the chamber 35 years, so she is a jewel to our office.

We're the same way.

Anybody can join.

We are tiered more than based off of employees, but we have, again, non-profit level individual membership.

If you want to be involved in Milan and in Gibson County or in Humboldt or in the greater Gibson County, come join us.

You can join all three chambers.

We work together.

I think it's beneficial to not only be a part of one, but to be a part of multiple and get a little bit of everything in one.

-A lot of people think there's competition amongst the three of us.

We don't consider it competition.

If she's going to come to Humboldt, she's going to shop at a chamber member.

If I'm going to go to Milan or Trenton or anywhere, then I'm going to shop at a chamber member of theirs.

-Yes, for sure.

-Let's look at this.

You mentioned some of this earlier about re.. for people who maybe want to start a business.

Before I go in-depth with that a little bit more, if you had to come up with a profile of what the average new business.. is, somebody who's getting into it, what would that be?

I know that's somewhat of a cold question, but you get this idea in your mind that maybe it's a male of 35 to 40 in there, but that may be a myth.

-Ours varies, but I think these days, at least in my experience, it seems to be a younger generation who has grown up with all the resources at their fingertips online.

They can Google anything they need to know.

They can Google how to write a marketing plan or a business plan.

They know social media in and out, which is going to be a great help for them and their business.

To me, a lot of the new ones that I've had are female and they're younger.

They're millennials or younger.

-I agree.

I've seen the same thing since I've started.

We've had quite a few new chamber members join and a lot of them are new businesses and they're the same profile.

-They'll start at home as a home business a lot of times and t.. for a brick and mortar store.

-It's almost like Shark Tank.

-Yes.

[laughter] -I think about when you talk about women in business and someone who I know because her daughter was one of my students at Union University, but somebody like Deshaun Box with Maine.

You're talking about somebody who started from scratch, but then has built this into-- it's got a name brand for the City of Humboldt.

-She's a great example.

She learned during the pandemic what to do quickly.

She did curbside, she did shipping, she did Facebook orders, and all of the things that you're supposed to do, and kept her business not just alive, but thriving in the middle of pandemic.

-Yes.

I remember talking to her daughter, Sophie, about that.

She says, I'm just so concerned about, "I don't want mom to have anything to happen to her business during this time."

It was marvelous to see.

She has made-- well, let me get into this, is that people like Deshaun have made more use of social media to market their businesses.

How important is that now?

-I think it's very important.

Since I came on, I've stepped up our social media game in a lot of .. People look at social media, they're at home, sitting there, they're on their phone looking at social media.

-If they're in the doctor's office.

-Yes.

I've noticed a lot of my new businesses joining together and creat.. a social media event that they're all three hosting together and encouraging people to come out to.

I think it's one of the best ways to get news out nowadays for free, for businesses.

-You think about that people can get the amount of repeat viewers that you see with this.

I think about-- I would not have thought maybe even two years.. about how important that is.

Now, I see everybody going in that direction.

-If you think about it, I came from a TV and video background as well.

You had to have an exactly 30-second spot or an exactly 60-second spot.

Not anymore.

You can do a little reel on Instagram or Facebook or do a TikTok video and it could be 21.3 seconds and it doesn't matter.

People are going to get the point of it.

-I'm so glad you said that because I have been saying for years that I'm chasing a rabbit here, but I've said for years that television news has to get out of this perfect 30-minute box because younger people are not sitting there for a half-hour newscast anymore.

This is the same thing that we're talking about with advertising here, not having to be cornered into that 30-second box for all of this.

How do you go about attracting not only small businesses, but also for industries and larger businesses in each of your cities?

-It's a little bit different.

Small businesses, it's easier to go in if they've already gotten there to attract them to the chamber.

It's a tough-- I'm going to be really honest.

A lot of times, you don't recruit a small business in.

You just help them along the way when they want to come.

With industry, it's a little bit different.

It's a tougher nut to crack.

You've got to have the space for them.

You've got to have the industrial park.

You've got to have all of the utilities out there, the infrastructure out there, or if not a plan in place to get the infrastructure.

It's a lot more expensive.

You're on a list with someone in Lawrenceburg and Paducah, Kentucky at the same time.

You've got to win them with not just that pad that you've got ready for them, but also your community and what the families can do when you get there too, so it's different.

-I personally think Gibson County has such a strong .. with Tyson landing and Humboldt and FedEx.

We have Ceco Door in Milan and a lot of smaller, but heavy industry partners.

-We have an economic developer.

-Yes.

He helps us with all of the recruiting process and he's great.

He landed, helped to land Tyson and Humboldt.

I think we have such a strong industry profile that it's easier for us to recruit the small businesses because of what we already have there.

-I know you have to stay on top of it constantly because I remember when we finally had that digital or internet became so prevalent that it was just almost like an appendage with all of us, that the story was told by so many chamber managers I encountered that sometimes you are out of the running for an industry and you don't even know it because they've already done all the checking up that they want to.

I presume that has made the job a bit harder.

-Yes, you've got to make sure your websites are up to date.

You've got to have all of the information, all of your incentives that you're going to offer to them.

If whether it's a pilot or a tip or anything else, you've got to make sure that that's out front and center so that they don't bypass you thinking, well, they don't have any incentives or they don't have any property.

It's amazing.

We do have a fantastic economic developer who stays on top of that.

That's his lone job is to do all of that.

-Kayley, in looking at this aspect of it, how critical is the public education system to being the catalyst to bring in more business and economic value?

-It's very important.

Not only from your public school standpoint, but your community college.

We're heavy in Gibson County.

We have Dyersburg State Community College, which is a great resource to have a campus in Gibson County.

They're getting students ready to go out into our workforce.

They're supporting us.

They're sponsoring us.

They're helping us with things, TCAT.

We just have some really great resources in there.

-Jackson State.

-Yes, Jackson State's a huge cat.. -When I was there to host the Strawberry Festival parade for this station back last spring, I had not been inside the old elementary school that now is community college in TCAT.

I was astounded at how wonderful it looks on the inside.

That's a fabulous place.

-It's a great place, and it's just one more feather in the cap for Gibson County of training for, not just students, but also traditional students, high school students, but also anyone who's graduated who can get funding to go as well.

There's Reconnect money for people who have already graduated and maybe 45 years old and want to change.

-The certifications that students come out of high school with, our county high schools have forklifts in them.

They can get their forklift certification and go into a forklift job over just a general labor job, which means more money in their pocket out of high school.

Then they can go on to a TCAT or Jackson State and learn even more to help them at their job while they're making great money being a forklift driver at one of our factories like McLean or something.

It's awesome.

-That's just absolutely huge.

Just think about some of the kids that were little boys who just dreamed of driving a forklift, and now they can make substantial money doing that.

-Yes, and they can.

They pay very well for that.

-This is one of the issues that we have been seeing about the somewhat of a tug of war between those who have said you don't need to have a college degree to have a quality paying job anymore, and to a degree it has cost some of the enrollment in a number of schools across the country where that's concerned, but it's true.

We have to face that fact honestly.

We've got about three minutes left, so I want to throw this to each one of you because I know you've had plenty of experience with this.

Let's say I'm this guy or I'm this woman that wants to start a new business, and I want to start it in each one of your communities.

What do you tell them?

What advice do you give them?

-The first thing that I send people to, before I even sit them down and talk to them or send them to any classes or talk to them about anything, even send them to the SBA, one of the greatest things that the State of Tennessee has done is put out a Tennessee Smart Start Guide, and I've got it in paper.

There are people who come in who don't want to go online.

Tennessee Smart Start, google it if you're thinking of starting a business because it will take you online start to finish on what you need to do and where you need to go and get it.

That's the very first thing I tell people.

-I think that's a good avenue.

I also tell my small business to make sure and focus on your social media.

We just had a small restaurant come in, and I kept telling them you have to get a Facebook page, something where people can go and say, "Oh, this is their special today.

Let's go eat there," because people aren't going to pick up the phone like they used to and call and say, "What are you having today for your special?"

Having your social media organized and appealing is very, very, very important to small businesses.

-We've got just a little bit more than a minute.

Give me in about 30 to 35 seconds each something positive about each one of your communities.

-I think Milan as a whole, everybody is very close, and we support each other.

I come from outside of Milan.

I live in Trenton, and so they have been very welcoming to me, and we're welcoming to all small businesses and industries alike.

That has helped me to meet people and to flourish in my new environment.

I think that's attractive to businesses as well.

-Amanda?

-And she has taken half of mine.

-[laughs] -I didn't grow up in Humboldt as well, and it's such a warm, welcoming community.

When you walk into a business, they greet you and they want you there.

Not every city is like that, unfortunately, but if you walk into, say, City Gift on Main Street, she's going to greet you and ask if she can help you, but she's not going to follow you.

It's just a warm, friendly, welcoming community.

-Amanda Love and Kayley Coday, it's been a joy to spend this time with you and to find out more of the exciting things that are happening in our smaller communities around West Tennessee, and I hope you'll come back to be with us again real soon.

-Thank you, Steve.

-Thank you for having us.

-It was a great pleasure, and as I say, we want to thank Amanda and Kayley and all the guests that we have here on Tennessee is Talking, and I'm Steve Beverly.

Remember that you can stream today's program and all local Channel 11 programs on the PBS app, the West Tennessee PBS YouTube channel, and on westtnpbs.org, and you can keep the conversation going by following West Tennessee PBS on social media.

We'll be back with another edition next week of Tennessee is Talking, and until then, I'm Steve Beverly.

Thank you for joining us.

-Do you have a topic you'd like to see discussed on a future episode of Tennessee is Talking?

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Send your ideas to TNisTalking@WestTNPBS.org.

Include all your contact information and let the conversation continue.

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