We are a group of business owners that currently own or have owned small businesses in the United States.  We have faced challenge after challenge over the years and want to help other Small Businesses in the U.S.  We know what it takes to create a concept and take that concept to reality.  While there are Small Business Agencies & Groups we believe that we can do more by coming together and creating a platform that will truly help local small businesses across our amazing country, for FREE.  We Thank You for your time and if you would like to get involved please reach out and let us know how you are willing to help, we can take all the help that were can get.  

We range of all ages and we remember when things were different.  While we always have to accept change and evolution we believe that holding onto some morals on which this country was founded on can still exist.  Our hope is that we can drive this cause to better small businesses in our country we understand that some might not agree and accept small businesses in our country getting crushed year after year and business after business.  We still believe that we can make a difference.  

Nowadays small business owners are facing more challenges than ever being that life and business just keep going faster.  The concept of valuing a local small business owner and supporting their business because they were provided with a good service that was efficient and always consistent just doesn't seem good enough anymore.  While we fully understand that our country is in yet another financial crisis It seems like customers are more than ever abandoning the local small business for the big business corporation which further solidifies the grasp of the corporations leaving the small business owner on the way out more and more every day.  

We want this website and cause to help small business owners in every way possible.  And we hope to grow this cause to truly do just that, help them all!  When you truly do the research as to why small businesses fail year after year it is pretty obvious that the cards to success are against them all.   

When deciding to take the leap to start a new business in this country you create a concept.  You take this concept which you might have learned from a previous employer.  You decide to put all your cards on the table and make your dream come true.  Dream?  Yes.  The American Dream! “The ideal that every citizen of the United States should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative.”

So you decide to start this business and you confide in your family and friends, they give you both positive & negative feedback but you don't care, you are doing it!  You have been an employee for long enough.  You are ready to be your own boss, you believe that you know better than they do.  You start Googling checklists and more so that you can figure this out as you have never done this before and don't have many true friends which are business owners.  You now have a checklist, notes, and maybe even a solid plan.  You get started... 

You figure out how much this is going to cost, most take loans and are in debt before they even name the business 

You create a business plan 

You name the business 

You start tackling all the legalities associated with opening any basic business, if you decide on a business that is heavily controlled by the local government and requires licensing there is another huge step that will take you months because none of the agencies which you are dealing with care if you succeed or even open your "doors" because they are getting paid no matter what.  You were heavily mistaken thinking that government employees work for the people who pay taxes and we do apologize to those who actually care, just rare based on our experience.  The only people who care about your success are the ones waiting to sell you something and hit your bank account as much as possible.  Yes, that's coming. 

You finally get through the initial setup, you have your name, your Tax ID, your bank accounts and are able to actually sell.  But you're not.

Now you need to create a brand, a logo, an email, a website, a google local listing, a Facebook page and about 100 other things that need to be completed before you have an actual presentation to promote. There goes more money... 

Depending on the business model you will need tools regardless of if they are physical, mental, or digital.  You will need something in most cases, there goes more money... 

You are fully set up, you have a legal entity, and you have the tools and equipment needed to provide service to your customers. But you don't have any customers.  You are thousands and thousands of dollars, months and months into this venture and you are already in debt. 

Now you need to sell and don't be mistaken, there is outside pressure building.  Usually, it would be an investor, a family member, or significant other and your head is spinning.  This is when business owner stress starts to initially kick in. 

It's time to sell and make this concept become a reality.  You have your website, social media, and vehicle lettered and you realize you aren't getting any calls.  You thought your website and social media would have your phone ringing but it's not.  Now you are on the hunt for sales, you have some friends and family that give you some opportunities along with some free word of mouth initially.  This is your chance to knock their socks off because this phase will fade away quickly and you need some business from these people's word of mouth or you will realize soon you are in a bigger hole than you could see coming.  The friends and family phase comes to an end in usually 1-2 months and you still don't have enough work, you are actually getting thoughts in your head like "Man, that weekly paycheck which showed up in my account every Friday morning looks pretty good right now" and that thought will come back much more in the near future.  

You now realize you need to get leads coming in the door but you are already thousands out of pocket and this phase is about to truly break your patience and wallet.  You start looking at Facebook, Google, Nextdoor, Yelp, Angie, Home Advisor, and a hundred other "Lead Generation" services. You are about to cry because of the reality which nobody ever told you but we did above, they are all about to kill your bank account!  You haven't made any money in months and now you need to advertise, but you don't know how to!  You don't know how to efficiently run Google or Facebook ads, you try it and see no calls and tried spending $5, $50 maybe $100, and got nothing.  

You call your "website guy" and they will now tell you that you need to "optimize" your website and overall digital presentation.  It's going to cost you $1,000's more to get found on page one.  You get on Google and start to look for someone to hire because you feel ripped off but it's about to get much worse, you are about to get ripped off again and most digital marketers are going to tell you your website cannot be optimized, especially if you used Wix, Square or Godaddy for your website.  They are telling you the truth!  You are hating your life now.  You give in and go with them and are hopeful but unless you are lucky you are going to go through this hampster wheel a few times.  You finally have a solid website built that you can genuinely optimize so that you can manipulate the content, keywords, URL's, meta tags, and page titles.  You are on your way to climbing up the rankings for your keywords on Google usually starting at page 10.  While this takes months to usually achieve you get a few calls because of your Google local listing if your new digital marketing service provider led you down the right path.  But you need more!  Here comes the small business owner devil.  Lead Generation Services & PPC (Pay Per Click)

Leads Services are evil and you are about to learn why.  You see Home Advisor on TV, Google Ads on top of each search, Angie on TV, Facebook Ads popping up as you scroll through your feed.  I will start with the worst one, Home Advisor.  Potential customers see their ads on TV and Online and they are looking for a quality service provider, they submit their info and expect to get a few calls.  Meanwhile, Home Advisor is taking that info and selling it to the poor business owner who needs more work to stay alive.  The customer has no clue that they are selling that info to as many as 5+ business owners for anywhere from $25 to $150 per owner and times that by 5 and this is only for the connection to talk and bid on the project!  While these homeowners have submitted their requests to Home Advisor they always called the top 3 local map listings on Google and they went on Facebook and asked friends and family for referrals.  You see where we are going here, the odds of actually getting a warm quality lead that will sell based on a quality price and your proven track record is not very favorable.  These poor small business owners are getting slaughtered and nobody excluding the business owner and lead generator knows this.  Now we can talk about Google, those listings on top of each search where it says "ad" in small font.  For years Google has expanded their ad options more and more leading to owners almost being forced to pay or be left out.  As we said above, you don't know how to manage ads on any of these platforms so you hire someone, they are taking a cut of all you spend.  Depending on the keywords you can spend up to $50 per click, yes per click! See an example below of what your competitors are spending per month. 

What costs from Google Ads can I expect?

Typically, businesses can expect the following costs from Google Ads:

Sourse: https://www.webfx.com/blog/

marketing/much-cost-advertise-google-adwords/

We are pretty sure you didn't see that coming. 

While you are up and running you are probably gaining 5-star reviews and as the number of reviews climb you will see the negative side of growing a successful company.  You have a 5.0 rating on Google and out of nowhere, you get a notification that you just received a 1-star review from a customer that you never heard of before.  You double-check and that name is not in your database.  That's because it's most likely not a customer, it's an ex-employee or most like a competitor. Yes, sad.  The more you grow your business the more work you are taking away from someone else.  There are only so many customers in each market and if they are coming to you that means they aren't going to them.  Here come the haters, they want you to fail because they are jealous of you for doing something they didn't think of.  You just have to deal and keep going.  

 With you growing a successful business in a perfect world you are now getting a feel for who your customers are and who they aren't.  Yes, arent. Every customer is not your customer but we see a growing trend and it;s one of the main reasons we started this website.  Back in the day, we had local small businesses which we would visit consistently because we felt comfortable and enjoyed the experience.   We didn't go there for the cheapest service or product.  We genuinely supported small businesses because we supported each other.  This is no longer the case in many markets.  With businesses being so easily visible online we see a new trend.  While times are very tough in this country once again these are the times when we need to support our local small businesses more than ever.  While everyone is on Facebook and Google they are offering special deals and the cheaper prices go, leaving everyone else to lower their prices more than ever to compete.  Supporting local business should not be about best price solely it should be about American pride in supporting our communities.  The price should be fair and affordable but only visiting a business because they have $1 wings is just sad.  That business is not making any money on that $1 wing and these customers know it.  Our hope is that we can unite and find a way to the way it was.  While the evolution of business in the United States is what it is, we don't need to abandon each other during the process.  

We walked you through a brief first year in business for a reason.  We ask, after all the headaches and the money and the stress is it worth starting a business in today's society? 

We say YES! Being a business owner isn't for everyone but we do believe it's one of the most rewarding ventures we can take.  While it's rewarding it's truly made harder and harder every day by so many factors with the main ones being people and government. Our goal is to help small businesses by being honest and blunt helping them better prepare, make better decisions and hopefully find more success.   The failure rates are so alarming that we feel even if we change the bad stats by 1% we have found success together.  

Thank You for taking the time to read this, if you enjoyed it please share it using the social share buttons on the right side of your screen.