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Lori Walsh: One day, it was business as usual. The next day, not so much. We're talking today about disruption for small business owners in the state and how to move forward while looking at your individual business mission and needs. Michelle Kane is Director of South Dakota CEO Women's Business Center. Jamie Wood is the Small Business Association State Director, and they're joining us on the phone. Michelle, welcome. Thanks for being here. Thanks for returning.
Michelle Kane: Thanks so much, Lori. It's great to be here.
Lori Walsh: Jamie, thank you as well.
Jamie Wood: Good afternoon. Thank you very much for the opportunity to share this important information during this very critical time for South Dakota businesses.
Lori Walsh: Jamie, let's start with you and start with, what do you think is the most important thing? Where do you want to begin? What are some of the biggest, most important questions that you're hearing small business owners ask right now?
Jamie Wood: Well, first of all, thank you to the listeners for hanging in there with us and also want to make sure that we send reassurance to our small business community and to our customers. We're going to get through this together. It's a critical time right now for businesses, and it did change in the past two weeks drastically. We have a lot of things going on right now to currently respond to the disaster of this pandemic. Some of them are, we do have disaster loans that are available through the Small Business Administration. This is a government loan, so it's direct from the government that people can start applying for now through our site sba.gov/disaster or can call 1-(800)-659-2955 for information. But those disaster loans are available right now and they go across the broad industry and they're for small businesses. A small business is any business that has less than 500 people, but there are some caveats with that if they're larger.
And we just really want to make sure people get aware and get connected to these resources. There are some other loans that are available too, through SBA approved lenders called Bridge Express or Express Bridge Loans, and those are for clients that already have an existing loan, a 7a loan was one of those SBA lenders. There's some ways we can get through this. Also, a resource partner network, like Michelle with the Women's Business Center, that's a great value add for small businesses across South Dakota. But also, we have Small Business Development Center Network. We have a Veteran Business Outreach Center. And we have SCORE, a national network of 11,000 business volunteers across the state. So there's a lot we can do to help right now.
Lori Walsh: Jamie, for business owners who are hearing about the stimulus package and hearing about the forgivable loans and trying to decide whether, because they would prefer to have a forgivable loan that they don't have to pay back, versus taking out more debt, how do you know which loan to get and when? When do you act on reaching out to your banker to get a loan?
Jamie Wood: Yeah. It's really a precarious time right now as that legislation is still being decided upon and also, it's in the approval process. So as far as we know, it's going to be voted on tomorrow. That's what we've been hearing. So we don't have the exact pathway forward on how people, small businesses should navigate or how lenders should navigate through that. I anticipate by next week, and we're willing to come back on and talk about it then, but that we are going to have a lot more clarity on that. For right now, what we do have are those disaster loans. And it doesn't hurt for people to get into the queue with that disaster loan application right now.
The way that that's set up is it's a loan that's available up through $2 million for businesses. And so there's no minimal amount they can apply for, but it is up to two million. And the payments don't begin for a whole year, so there's 12 months of deferred payments on that. There's no prepayment penalty and SBA has really made it easy for the businesses to be able to use that as a bandaid to basically keep them operational because what we don't want to see our businesses closing down because of this disaster. We don't want to see them having to put a lot of effort into having to ramp back up after maybe they've been at minimal production or service. And so we really just want them to use this to be able to pay for their mortgage or their rent, to pay for their payroll, to pay for their supply chain. It can be used in a lot of creative ways.
Lori Walsh: Michelle, I want to talk with you a little bit about one-on-one consultations because we can get the general information, but so much of this is individual. What am I going to do with my business, in my circumstances, in my industry? Tell us a little bit about how you're handling that at the Women's Business Center.
Michelle Kane: Well, and thank you. And hard decisions are being made every day, and you're right, they're so different for each situation. And what we're doing is we are still offering free one-on-one business advising. People definitely can call our office at 642-6311 and make an appointment, and we can really go through each person's individual business scenario. But there is a lot of fear out there. But there's also a lot of collaboration. And I know we're all seeing this on Facebook, we're seeing this, everyone is sharing what's happening. It changes. It's happening so quickly. Who's doing what? Who's helping where? Who's closing? Who's going to retool? Who's doing all these things? So people are, and business owners are feeling... I mean, they're persevering. That entrepreneurial toolbox is all about perseverance and resiliency, and I think everyone's getting tested to the limit right now and just trying to do the best they can.
Michelle Kane: But yeah, such an individual thing. And sometimes just talking objectively to me as an adviser, I think helps because we can do some brainstorming and we can maybe think about what it's looking like short term, and then what can we be looking at longterm because things are changing. We're all going to be really transformed after this. So business owners are like, "Okay, there is going to be a light at the end of the tunnel. What's that going to look like for my business? Do I need to re-up my business plan? Do I need to re-up my marketing strategies?" It seems really early to be talking about this, but we're going to get there. So sometimes even just throwing that out there and getting people and business owners thinking about it can kind of help, even if they're closed right now temporarily.
Lori Walsh: Michelle, I want to talk a little bit. We heard the governor talk today about how she believes that the efforts that people are doing right now are working in the sense that we are capable in South Dakota of slowing the spread of this, of not overwhelming our healthcare system, but we have to do these drastic measures. We can't let up on these drastic measures. And, no, they're not going to go away in the next couple of weeks.
And Michelle, I'm wondering if you might talk for a minute about this notion of normalcy and who is essential because I know for me, for the first little bit of time, buying anything was the last thing on my mind, right? You're doing all these other emergency things. But as I've seen some of these business owners on Facebook having virtual shopping tours and that I start thinking, "Is that necessary?" But boy, does it feel nice and normal.
There's a role for the business owner, not only in employing people, not only in sales tax, but in keeping people in tune with the things that they just used to do, like shop for shoes, or the things that they did that made them happy at one point. There's a role for that too, isn't there Michelle? Are you seeing that same thing where business owners-
Michelle Kane: There is. Because you know what?
Lori Walsh: ... are kind of just saying, "Hey, cupcakes. Puzzles. We still do this?"
Michelle Kane: You know what? You're absolutely right. And it's because we're all human and we really want that, we want to see some sense of normalcy. And I think we also have that sense of compassion when we see businesses, that a business owner may share something on Facebook and really share what she's feeling, what she's doing, how she's trying to keep as many of her staff, even if they're reducing hours and doing some different things. We respond to that with compassion and empathy, and then we want to support them. And that if we support them and maybe buy those shoes, we get them dropped off at our house, we get them shipped, somehow there is this level of normalcy of, "Okay, I'm still contributing. I'm still part of this market. And I'm also helping my local business while I know they're all struggling."
Lori Walsh: Jaime, do you agree that this is a time when for some businesses we want to get ahold of, we get sent to their corporate headquarters and I'm not criticizing that. But for these small business owners, I mean, it's the owner who comes on the phone and talks to us about what they're doing in their community and how they're trying to help and how they're trying to stay open for their employees and for their downtown, for example. There's a real face to these business owners right now that in some ways, people weren't thinking about before.
Jamie Wood: Absolutely. Even before the disaster hit, throughout the year, it's those small businesses that are the real members and entrenched in communities. They're the ones that do a lot of extra things for the communities. Not just providing goods or services through their business, but typically, they're the ones that... The charity organizations, the schools, the music clubs, they'll go around and they'll ask the small businesses for support throughout the year. And those businesses are the reason, they're the fiber of that community so that a lot of other things can happen. But this is a time of also great opportunity and innovation. Michelle hit on some of it already, but this is really an exciting time as well. I mean, we can't discount the threat of the pandemic and we're dealing with that, but I like to liken this as there's two lanes that small businesses are growing down right now.
There is a lane that's full of the disaster response activities, but there's also that other lane about growth and opportunity and looking for ways to morph and expand their business so that they can stay relevant in the marketplace because the marketplace is where the dynamic environment is, like you pointed out with shopping online, virtual tours and whatnot. And some examples that are coming in, and there are many. There's a lot of great opportunity happening right now. Some businesses are... I talked to a gentleman that owns a transmission shop in the Eastern part of the state earlier this week and he said what they've done is they have to keep business up. They are going to pick up vehicles at a person's house or at the person's business so the owner doesn't have to bring the vehicle into the shop worrying about getting exposed.
But not only that do they get their transmission work down or their automotive activities taken care of, their needs taken care of, but they disinfect the entire vehicle and drop it back off, including the keys, and the electronic payment that is included. So there's never any exchange of money through hands. It's through the digits. And so that's helping. And then the way that restaurants are responding, I've heard of a few Sioux Falls restaurants are doing this, and Michelle and I talked earlier and she mentioned it's happening out West, too. Western South Dakota. They're modifying the way that they're offering their menus. Instead of offering 50 items, they might offer five items, or instead of offering individual meals, they're offering family-style meals. Maybe a tray of tacos or a pan of lasagna that a person can pick up. They might prep it at the restaurant and a person can take it home and cook it themselves, or they can get the cooked pan of lasagna. So there's some great innovation happening right now.
Lori Walsh: Michelle and Jamie. Michelle is Director of CEO Women's Business Center, and Jaime's the Small Business Association State Director. As you said, situation chains on a weekly basis. So hopefully, we'll have you back maybe even next week for updates. But for now, we thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it.
Jamie Wood: Thank you.
Michelle Kane: Thanks, Lori.