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[MOTIVATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi everyone, Steve Adubato, Wanna welcome our colleague Jeff Kanige, who is the editor of this publication, everything you ever wanted to know about or need to know about business in New Jersey.

Yeah, that's Stephen Colbert but it's not all about Stephen Colbert.

It's about business in the state, NJBIZ.

Jeff, how are we doing?

- All right, Steve, how are you?

- I'm doing great.

Listen, this is a co-production, a cooperative venture between our production company and NJBIZ talking about small business in South Jersey.

So here's the question, right outta the box.

You write about this, you research it, you interview people all the time, particularly on NJBIZ Conversations.

Check that out when you go on the website of NJBIZ, all kinds of conversations Jeff has, Jeff, what the heck is the difference between small business in South Jersey and small business anywhere else in the state of the nation?

- Probably not too much, although in South Jersey, obviously along the shore, you have a lot of bars, restaurants, entertainment venues, businesses associated with the shore.

They have the same concerns that everyone else does.

They're trying to hire the right people, they're trying to deal with costs of doing business in the state, property taxes.

They have the same kinds of concerns that everyone else does, and they have the same kind of hopes and ambitions that every other business owner does.

They want to follow their passion to make sure that their life's work is successful.

- Hmm, and the three people we feature in the panel discussion you're about to see, Max Gomez who is the owner of Amp'd Fitness, they're in Brielle and Belmar, Christina Renna, who is the President and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce in Southern New Jersey.

And Karen Primak, she's the CEO of IPAK, that's located in Camden.

So when we talk about South Jersey, Jeff, South Jersey is bigger than we think and it's not simply these three counties, correct?

- Right, it's a state of mind for one thing.

People in South Jersey- - What do you mean by that?

- Well, when you talk to people in South Jersey, they are concerned that they get the short end of the stick all the time, particularly in the media, which is natural in that there is simply more going on in the northern part of the state.

There are more people, there's more economic activity.

It just stands to reason that we're gonna pay more attention to the counties in the north.

And they, folks down in South Jersey rightly believe that they're just as important to the economic future of the state as the North is, particularly again, with tourism along along the shore and Atlantic City with casino gambling.

And there's been a concerted effort from folks down there to diversify the economy, to make it more like the rest of the state in that there is not just one simple dominant industry like tourism or gambling.

The biggest example is the wind, the development of offshore wind.

But there's more going on down there.

In Camden, you have several major companies, Campbell's, Subaru, American Water, and Cooper University Health, which is embarked on a very ambitious expansion plan.

So yes, there's a lot going on in South Jersey and the folks down there are rightly proud of that, and rightly proud of the progress that they're making.

- Yeah, from your writing, your research, your work as a journalist covering business issues in the state, do you have any sense that the pandemic, three years plus in, has impacted small business in Southern New Jersey in any significantly different way than the rest of the state?

- Well, again, I think that because a lot of the economy, particularly along the shore, is dependent on tourism and hospitality and folks gathering in restaurants and bars and on boardwalks and things like that, I think initially they were probably more heavily impacted than some of the other parts of the state, and also the fact that the immigration visas were not being processed by the State Department during the pandemic, that caused, exacerbated, the labor shortage that those folks felt.

And I think that they're now just starting to get back, from my conversations with folks down there, tourism industry has rebounded very strongly and folks are expecting a really strong summer.

So, I think that they seem to be on the right track to recovery.

But yes, the pandemic absolutely did impact, affect those folks to a much greater extent, perhaps, than some of the rest of the areas in state.

- Labor shortage issues?

- Yes, terrible a couple of years ago.

I would hear over and over again how difficult it was for folks to hire and retain the kinds of workers that they needed.

I'm getting the sense now that it's not quite as bad as it used to be.

I think that there is still issues involved in hiring and retaining people because of the advent of remote work.

Folks aren't tied as closely to a particular location as they once were, so it's just becoming more difficult for everybody.

And it's not just small businesses, larger companies are having same sorts of problems but yes, labor shortage, it is certainly still an issue.

- You know, as we put up the website for NJBIZ again, Jeff, tell everyone what NJBIZ Conversations is all about because I've been able to check out so many compelling conversations you've had and people can see it, they can read it online, in print, et cetera.

Talk about those.

- NJBIZ Conversations is a Zoom interview series that I do.

We started it during the pandemic when we couldn't get together in person.

So, and it was what most everybody was doing at that point in time, just looking at Cable News, what you saw was this on Zoom?

Right, exactly.

So I talked to mostly business owners and C-Suite executives about what they're doing, what their problems are, what their challenges, how they're meeting those challenges, how they run their businesses, how they get the most out of the people that they're working for, and how to hire and retain good people.

It covers the range of business issues and business operation issues with the people who actually run the businesses.

- Jeff made a great point about, yeah, we're in North Jersey, we need to do more in our media coverage and examination of issues, challenges, people, businesses, in South Jersey.

And that's why this cooperative venture with NJBIZ helped us do that.

So I wanna thank Jeff, and the team at NJBIZ for making it happen.

Jeff, great working with you.

It won't, not be the last time.

- Excellent, good to see you, Steven.

- South Business, Small Jersey is what you need to know.

To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- Hi everyone, this is Steve Adubato.

You know that 'cause you watch us on a regular basis.

This program is all about South Jersey business.

What's next?

We're doing this program with leaders in the South Jersey business community.

We're doing this program in cooperation with our colleagues, our media colleagues at NJ Biz.

It is my honor to introduce all three guests.

Max Gomez is the owner of Amp'd Fitness located in Brielle and Belmar.

Max, I got that right?

- That's correct.

- You got it.

Christina Renna is President and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce Southern New Jersey.

Welcome, Christina.

- Thank you for having me Steve.

- You got it.

And Karen Primak is the CEO of IPAK located in Camden.

Welcome, Karen.

- Thank you for having me Steve.

- You got it.

You're gonna see information up on the screen also.

The NJ Biz website will be up so you can find out more about what is going on in the business community in the state.

That's the job of NJ Biz.

Christina, let me ask you this.

If we were doing a program on small business in New Jersey, would it be any different?

Or how would it be any different than a program on small business in Southern New Jersey?

- South Jersey has so many advantages that so often the rest of the state doesn't actually recognize or realize.

You know, Steve, at the end of the day, we all know that New Jersey's a very high tax state, that the tax climate in the state of New Jersey is not ideal necessarily for businesses, small, medium, large, you name it.

However, in South Jersey we are a little bit more affordable down this end of the state.

And therefore as a potential business owner getting looks from businesses that maybe we never got before as a result.

- Again, but we're gonna be talking about labor shortage issues, some supply.

People go, oh yeah, supply chain thing, we're done with that, eh.

- We are not done with that.

We are not done with that.

- Not only that, but we're also gonna be talking about hiring people, keeping people, a whole range of issues.

By the way, Max, let's do this because your background is fascinating.

You are the owner.

How many gyms are we talking about now, Max?

- It's two and I have a small training room in Manasquan.

- How'd you get into it?

- So it's three.

- I've always loved fitness.

I used to wrestle in high school and middle school.

I was an avid motocross racer, actually from the age of four all the way to just a couple of years ago really.

And then I had a pretty traumatic accident when I was 18 where I lost my right leg actually from below the knee down.

And at the time I was just kind of coming outta the hospital and I was real skinny and not happy with where I was at obviously.

And then I just kind of built myself back up, went back into the gym and just developed this love and I've always wanted to have a gym.

And now it's pretty cool.

We got a couple of them and it's just been an awesome rollercoaster ride.

We've been open for a little over two years and I wouldn't change a single thing.

- Hold on, Max.

Before I go to Karen.

You opened up during the pandemic.

- Yeah, actually I started doing workouts outside of people's houses and I didn't even really know what I was doing but just kind of figured it out as I went.

And then once it got too cold to do outside stuff I opened up my first small one in Manasquan that we have, it's kind of the training room now.

And then we went to Brielle and now we're opening a third one, I guess in Belmar.

- Before I go to Karen, Christine, help me on this.

You can talk about the role of the chamber in a second but I'm curious as I listen to Max, as an entrepreneur myself obviously much older than Max, I gotta tell you I've often thought that entrepreneurs are a little bit crazy.

I shouldn't use the word crazy, but there's something wrong with us.

Meaning we do things like, Max is more courageous than I would ever be, opened up a business in the middle of the pandemic.

The level of grit, courage, determination, a tenacity that just does not exist in most people.

Am I making too much of that, Christina?

- No, you gotta be willing to take the leap, right?

You gotta be willing to take the jump.

And the best entrepreneurs aren't scared of making big choices, big decisions that maybe normal people wouldn't necessarily make.

- We're not saying that Max is not normal, what we're saying is.

- Not at all.

We're saying Max is inspiring.

We're saying Max is inspiring.

- Max, you just inspired a lot of people not just to work out frankly, but to do more than that.

Karen, tell us about your business please.

- Yeah, so IPAK has been around since 1993.

We provide printing, packaging and value added 3PL services for customers in highly regulated industries like healthcare and education, assessments where there's a zero defect mentality.

- Okay, but let me follow up.

We talked about Max opening up during the pandemic, starting this business during the pandemic.

In your own way, you made a decision to do something, I don't know if it's courageous or not, but it's important.

You chose to locate in Camden, New Jersey that is one of the poorest communities in the United States of America.

Why did you choose to do that?

- Well, I was brought up to believe that we all have a part to play in the world.

And being raised in Camden County, I always loved the city of Camden.

I saw its potential, we were employing a lot of residents from Camden prior to moving there.

And we wanted to be closer to our workforce so that when a single mom gets a phone call from a school, they can run right over and see their kid.

- Talk about your employees.

They're from the community, are they not?

- Yeah, over 60% of our employees are from the community and we're also partnering with organizations within the community.

For example, I don't know if we'd be doing work with Cooper Hospital had we not moved to Camden.

We were forced to be closer during the pandemic.

Unfortunately, 5% of our employees were in respirators right in the beginning of the pandemic.

- 5% on respirators.

- Yeah, they're all back.

They're all healthy now.

But it was honestly my years, my decades of being that crazy entrepreneur, that was the craziest time keeping everybody safe.

And had it not been for people like Christina helping us navigate or NJ MEP to help us keep our doors open.

- What is that acronym for?

- The New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Program.

- Okay.

- So being allowed to stay open, even though our revenue was reduced by 50%, was still critical.

- Right.

- For our organization.

- You know, Christina, as Karen talks about the role of government, the role of the chamber, help us understand this A, the role of the chamber, B, the role of government, state and federal support for small business particularly over these last several years.

Please, Christina.

- Well, thank you Steve.

And we're talking about the city of Camden, so I'd be remiss if I didn't say that.

Our chamber is 150 years old this year and we were created in the city of Camden by Campbell Soup Company and RCA Victor as the Camden Board of Trade.

So in 1873, we were created as the group that was meant to really promote import exporting in the city of Camden in the late 1800s.

And here we are today, the regional business organization that has the pleasure to work with organizations like IPAK and Karen regularly.

But we are here to help push out governmental information, any programs, any assistance.

We know the people in state government that can answer our businesses that are members questions.

They pick up the phone, they call us.

We hopefully help them.

But what kind of programs are we talking about?

I know the EDA and the EDA is one of our underwriters.

I know the EDA is involved but there are others and there's federal money.

The CARES Act money mattered, right?

Please, I'm sorry, - Yes.

- Christina, I interrupted you.

Go ahead.

- No, it sure did.

Federal government was huge.

The majority, the vast majority of our 1100 members at the South Jersey Chamber took out PPP Loans, CARES Act money.

The influx of federal dollars is tremendous and we're certainly reaping the benefits of that here in the state of New Jersey.

And we've seen the Murphy administration as a result of that, do some creative things, standing up programs predominantly through the EDA to help small businesses navigate 2020, 2021.

And now we're in a different phase of navigation where the challenges are different than they were.

But as a result of that federal assistance coming through, we do have a wide variety of resources available to businesses if they're able to take advantage of that.

- But at the same time, I appreciate what you're saying about the Murphy administration.

You can take a look at some of the interviews we've done with some other folks who do not feel that the Murphy administration has done enough for a business, small business or otherwise.

But I'm curious about this, New Jersey taxes.

Christina talked about the affordability in Southern New Jersey.

It's a relative thing, Christina.

- It is.

- I mean, I imagine it's not as bad as it is up here in terms of affordability but I have to ask you Max, when some folks are saying, I don't wanna be in New Jersey because of the cost of doing business, the taxes, the regulations, et cetera, you say what?

- I think that that subject is kind of, it's a relative thing.

Being that obviously the area that I live in here in the Jersey Shore, it's not a cheap area to live.

- Not cheap.

- Not at all.

But I think everything kind of plays together in a sense of, okay well you can charge more for your service than some other areas.

I mean, my one gym in Brielle, Brielle's a small city, but there is a ton of million dollar homes in there.

So $180 gym membership, you can kind of get away with things like that.

You can charge higher.

- You may not be, I'm sorry for interrupting you.

You may not.

- That's okay.

- Not may not, you'd likely not be able to do that in Camden.

- Right.

But what about the employee part of it, Max?

'Cause I hear from so many business leaders, small business and otherwise can't get people.

What about you?

- Yeah, that's actually, so like I said, I just opened actually we open next Monday, our other location in Belmar.

And one of my biggest issues is finding, thank you, is finding people to work.

It's just, the resumes come in and you try to get people to follow up and people are just kind of here or there.

I mean, I've always been a hustler and I like to get after it.

And when I want something, I will bother people 'till no end 'till I get what I want.

- That's called an entrepreneur.

- Yeah, I guess that's what you call it.

And it just seems like it, I can't, really have a hard time finding people that are like that, that want to hustle.

I'm lucky, I do have some employees that are on my team that are great, but just the growing aspect in terms of staffing has been, I won't say a nightmare, but it's definitely not easy.

- No.

Karen, jump in here.

Where from your perspective, where is the supply chain situation and how does it impact small business in southern Jersey, please, Karen?

- I think it's small businesses throughout the country.

Supply chain issues, inflation, we are still facing an unprecedented time.

So we're not able, we have to turn down jobs because we don't have the materials to manufacture something.

And I learned in business school, it's just kind of business 101, don't overpromise and underdeliver.

- It's the other way around, isn't it?

You overdeliver - Right, and under promise.

and under promise.

- Yes, yeah.

- But the supply chain issue's real, correct?

- It's very much real.

So we could be quoting a job today and we go to buy the materials three days from now and they're not available or the price has gone up.

Recycled paper is great to use but there's been a shortage of recycled paper.

So there's a trade off.

Do you want something printed that isn't on recycled paper or not at all?

- What are some of the other most pressing issues for business owners, small business owners in South Jersey?

Christina, please.

- Inflation of course.

I mean we're starting to see that settle a tiny bit but not much, Steve.

Not much.

- How does it impact?

I'm sorry for interrupting, be more specific about how inflation and forget about politicians arguing about inflation because we don't know what's real and what's rhetoric, what's real for a small business when it comes to inflation in Southern Jersey, please, Christina?

- What's real is that small businesses operate on slim margins, period.

So any price increase is going to impact their margins and may get harder and harder to do business in the state of New Jersey.

That's just a fact.

So whether or not inflation is getting better moderately, it doesn't matter.

At the end of the day, small businesses need price stabilization in order to continue to be successful if they wanna continue operating and it's just something that is very real regardless of what politicians say on either side of the aisle.

- Yeah.

With the few minutes we have left, I wanna uncover a couple other areas.

And real quick a recap if you could Christina.

The government program, state and federal, correct, or more state for Southern New Jersey business?

- It's a combination, Steve, it's a combination.

Federal government has absolutely stepped up to the plate as they should.

We have an influx of COVID cash that is sitting there.

And same with the state.

However, the state has been sitting on a massive amount of federal dollars that is yet to be spent that we would certainly like to see that spent on the small business community here in south New Jersey.

- Okay, so in that regard, how is Governor Murphy and his administration doing as it relates to utilizing those federal dollars for business, small business in Southern Jersey?

- You know, to date, he's done a good job, 2020, 2021.

However, I'll say that not enough has been done.

Not enough has been done to help our most vulnerable businesses, which is our small businesses, our mainstream businesses, our minority owned businesses, our women owned businesses, our businesses in urban centers.

Not enough has been done.

EDA and Governor Murphy have the best of intentions.

- Economic Development Authority.

- But at the end of the day we need more money out on the street to assist them.

- What do you mean out on the street?

Make that clear what you mean.

- So we need money allocated to certain programs for small businesses.

Then we need the application process to be a process that is simple and easy for small businesses to navigate and that we need awards or denials in some case, but we need awards out on the street in a timely manner too.

Time is money for small businesses and that's something that government has to do a better job of realizing.

- We got a minute and a half left.

Max, let me ask you something.

If you knew then what you know now, being a entrepreneur and a small business owner, opening up during the pandemic, would you still have done it?

- Oh, absolutely.

I'm the type of person that I like to worry about the things I can control and there's a lot of things that I cannot control such as the conversations that we're having here at least to my extent.

And if inflation and things are tough and people are holding onto money and people want to save, that just means that I just gotta be that much of a better salesman and offer a better product that I gotta be able to find a way to make it happen.

So yeah, I would not change anything.

- Karen, you're smiling.

Got a minute left.

Your reaction to that, Karen?

- I think it's wonderful.

Talk to me after 30 years.

(laughs) - Hold on Karen.

You can end on any note you want, but are you saying?

- No, no, no.

- If you had a mulligan in golf, you get another shot.

If you have a mulligan, you'd do it again?

- I'd absolutely do it again.

I might do things differently, right?

- Join the club.

- Yeah, yeah.

- But you would still do it.

Be a small business owner.

- Absolutely.

- In Southern Jersey.

- Business owners are rebels that refuse to accept the status quo.

So that is my theory.

I'll forever be a rebel.

My home is New Jersey and I'm a rebel here.

- Southern New Jersey, South Jersey small business, what's next?

I don't know what's next but I can tell you what it is right now.

And that's because of Max and Karen and also Christina Renna, President and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce of Southern New Jersey.

Cannot thank all of you enough.

And our colleagues at NJ Biz, we wanna thank them as well.

We really appreciate it.

- Thank you, Steve.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you Steve.

- Here's to small business in South Jersey.

See you next time.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by Wells Fargo.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

The Turrell Fund, supporting Reimagine Childcare.

Delta Dental of New Jersey.

NJM Insurance Group.

Choose New Jersey.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Hackensack Meridian Health.

And by PSE&G, Promotional support provided by BestofNJ.com.

And by Insider NJ.

- (Narrator) Life is full of changes.

At Hackensack Meridian Medical Group, we're ready for them.

If you have a cold or chronic illness, our five star doctors can treat any ailment.

Whether you're starting recess or retiring, we're prepared with pediatric and adult specialists.

And if you just moved here, we are in your neighborhood.

You now have access to a health team thousand strong.

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