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Last month I was reading a couple of online articles about some businesses that closed, which quoted the owners saying it was because of the higher minimum wage in their city.
The comment sections below the articles were filled with hateful statements about the business owners. “Good riddance,” or “Maybe you wouldn't go out of business if you knew how to treat your workers.”
And then there was this one: “If you can't afford to run a business and pay your workers what it costs to make rent, then your business shouldn't be.”
As I was contemplating how people could be so cruel about small businesses who just lost everything, my brain started to combine these comments with some of the things I hear when giving this year’s State of the Industry presentation to different public audiences. For example, there was a pastor after one presentation at a Rotary Club who came up afterwards and asked, “What's a net profit? What does that mean?”
And she wasn't being sarcastic or nasty, she just had no idea. She's a pastor, she’s educated and she’s accomplished in her field, but she just doesn’t deal with business.
At another State of the Industry presentation, a self-employed small business accountant came up to me afterwards and said, “You know, I don't know how you keep criticizing having the minimum wage apply to servers, they make like a dollar an hour in tips.”
I asked him if he had been out to eat with his family that week and what he left for his server, and he pulled a receipt out from his wallet where we both saw that he had tipped $20 on a $100 meal for three people. He looked at me blankly as if “what’s your point?” and then I had to walk him through a five-minute conversation to explain tipping.
Neither of these people are socialists, in fact one of them was very much a fiscal conservative, and I would bet both of them voted in each of the past several elections. But they are perfect metaphors for our problem. We are contending with a fundamental misunderstanding of our business by much of the public, and that doesn't allow us to stand on solid ground when we make the case that state and local governments are going too far, too fast in raising the minimum wage for our industry to keep up.
After reading a bunch of nasty comments online about restaurants that closed because of Washington state policies and seeing yet another bad policy in Tacoma get introduced, I spent the night thinking, how the hell did we get here? How did we get to a point where these things are no longer thoughtfully debated?
As we approach the slash and burn approach to the health of our economy, this caused my mind to wander to the good old days. (Don't you hate it when old people do that?)
My dad had a personal relationship with every single city council person and the state legislators from his district—and knew their spouses, too.
The relationship between my dad's business and the officials who worked to improve the economy and their communities was personal.
He knew these folks.
So how did our industry get so disconnected?
While I don't know all the answers to why, certainly one of them is: not enough of us actually know our city council people as friends. How many people not only know your legislators, but their spouses and their top concerns and their favorite food like our parents and mentors did?
How many of you have had a chance to sit down over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and talk through your business struggles and your issues so your legislators understand them?
My guess is the reality of the world is that this is a low priority as you've tried to survive in your business, pick up the slack for the employees who didn't show and manage your struggling bottom line. And it’s doubly difficult when our elected officials are not taking the initiative to get out in their communities.
But the problem is compounding itself and the things being proposed are getting aggressive and worse, not better. And they are put to a public who is less informed and less connected.
Please make the time to make sure your chamber is focused. Please make the time to get to know a couple of your city council people and legislators on a personal level. In our industry, we have a unique ability to open hearts and minds—and that can make all the difference.
Make the time so that your business is personal to them.
And again, if I haven’t been to your area yet for my CEO Roundtables, I’ll be at the following locations in the coming weeks:
If you would like to attend, please reach out to your territory manager.
And as always, it’s an honor to serve you, |
