- Just ahead on Black Issues Forum, North Carolina's small businesses help drive our economy, but many entrepreneurs say that the current economic climate is making it harder than ever to survive.

We take a look at the realities facing black small business owners across the state and the difficult decisions.

Many are making about work, entrepreneurship and financial stability.

Coming up next, stay with us.

- Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you, who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.

(upbeat music) ♪ - Welcome to Black Issues Forum.

I'm Kenia Thompson.

North Carolina's economy continues to grow with new businesses opening and new industries moving into the state.

But for many small business owners, especially black entrepreneurs, the reality can look very different.

Rising costs, limited access to capital and economic uncertainty are forcing many people to make difficult decisions about whether to start a business, keep one open, or return to traditional employment.

In Durham, a new business listening tour is setting out to hear directly from the entrepreneurs navigating these challenges joining me now are Chisa Pennix-Brown, entrepreneur and business coach.

And Durham County Commissioner Michelle Burton.

Welcome to you both.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Thanks, this is, you know, a time now where we're seeing a lot of people having to make some hard decisions financially with their employment and we have been kind of hearing the economy is booming, but people aren't feeling a lot of that boom.

Chisa, Give It to the People is your your business, your love, and you've decided that it's time to make a difference and that it's time to listen to what entrepreneurs need to survive and succeed across the state.

Tell us a little bit about the impetus of you starting this tour and then what are entrepreneurs facing right now?

- Well, we started the business listening tour because I think that that is the first thing that you have to do is be intentional with finding out what people need.

A lot of times the decision makers are not business owners.

A lot of times the resource partners are not business owners, so going through what a business owner goes through every day, understanding a lot of times that there's more month than money.

And what do you do when it's time to feed the next employee?

What do you do?

Because if you have employees that is literally what you're doing right?

But you also have to take into consideration your own family.

So when you start a business you have, I think of it kind of like two families, your own personal family, but then your clients and your customers are that other family that you're feeding.

And so when you have those, you know, financial situations, it makes it difficult for a person to say, I really want to do this every day.

And I am one of those people who I'm never going to stop doing my business because I love it, but I also know that there are decisions that have had to been made, you know, even in my household when we talk about things that need to shift.

So the listening tour is really there to say, well, what do you need specifically?

And not just assume that people need things.

When you ask people, they'll tell you, well, I need this specific thing.

And they may often think it's something that it's not.

So if they say, well, I need money.

Well, do you have things together in order for you to get money?

Or was there money actually existing in your business that we could find because you were overspending on something?

So listening to people allows us to be able to see where those gaps are and be able to fill them.

And if we can provide services for people that allow them to feel better and also actually solve some of the problems, then I think that you know, we're definitely making sure that business owners can stay in business.

- Yeah.

Commissioner, what are you hearing across the county from business owners and what their needs are?

- Well, one of the big needs is capital.

Access to capital to keep the business running.

And also there are these micro issues that businesses face such as, let's look at downtown Durham, parking.

So, okay, if you have workers who are working for you and they have to pay for parking, how do we help them with that cost?

All right, another challenge is, well, before the pandemic, people were working in their offices.

Well, now after the pandemic, people are working from home, so you don't have the foot traffic, so it's like, okay, how do small businesses become creative to draw people in to get the foot traffic?

And as a commissioner in my first term, I really wanted to listen to find out how Durham County government, how can we support small businesses to make sure that they're thriving and surviving in this market.

- Are we seeing people still choosing the entrepreneurship route with those barriers in place here and across the state?

- Yes, people really want to be business owners.

They want to be entrepreneurs.

And one of the things that I see here in Durham County, Durham County has a history of business.

I often tell people I'm a history buff, so when Durham County was formed in 1881, the city of Durham, in 1869, those individuals who were tobacco magnets, they got tired of going to Hillsborough to record business, so they went to the legislature and said, we want to create this county to make it easier for us to do business.

So yes, people still have that entrepreneurial spirit and they want ideas and they want to create businesses, particularly as a lasting legacy for their families and do it and make it on their own.

- Chisa, entrepreneurship and becoming an entrepreneur was kind of like a fad or a cool thing to do for a time, especially during the pandemic, we saw that.

Are we kind of celebrating the idea of entrepreneurship more than the actual entrepreneur?

- I think that it's been glamorized.

I think that when you look at social media, we didn't have it always, and I think people take that for granted.

So when they tell you that it's easy to start a business, that is true.

It is easy to start a business, but maintaining it and being able to pay yourself and being able to get to the next level of being able to pay other people, those are drastically different steps that people have to really understand that there's a difference there.

Now I think that a lot of people are still enamored with the idea of entrepreneurship, and I think that it's great for a lot of people, but some people do definitely need to go to work, right?

And just because you work doesn't mean you can't have a business on the side.

So if you, instead of going to go get a part-time job, a lot of people are shifting to, well, let me start this business and do that on the side, because then you have that flexibility that's there that you wouldn't have with a part-time job.

But then there's still issues that arise, like you still need to pay yourself, you still need to pay taxes, you need to take those things into consideration to be a legal business.

So I think that entrepreneurship is something that is a great thing, it really is, but you just really have to see where does that skill set align with, this is something that people are gonna pay me money for, and I can run it as a business.

'Cause a lot of people are creative, a lot of people have great skill sets, but being able to run it as a business is a whole different thing.

And once they understand that and embrace it and get the resources that they need, then I think that they can be successful for sure.

- Yeah, Commissioner, when we, I think entrepreneurs have been tasked with the responsibility of being the backbone of the economy of whatever city, state that they live in.

Is that a lot of pressure to put on an entrepreneur?

Are they, in this county, Durham County, and in the state, fulfilling that role of truly being the financial backbone?

- I would say definitely, in my observation, I've been in my role for a little over a year, and I'm clearly seeing where small businesses are the backbone of the economy.

We are home, Durham County is home to the majority of Research Triangle Park, and so we have these big companies here, and they do fuel the economy as well, but those small businesses come out of that.

And so we really need them, not only in Durham County, but in counties across the state.

And so as a elected leader, what I want to do is to figure out how can government support small businesses.

- So how do governments support?

- Well, one way we support is supporting nonprofits that support small businesses.

So giving them funding to help small businesses with their marketing, or with ideas, or helping them find resources.

Also working with the city of Durham, the county of Durham, the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, thinking about, okay, what can drive the economy, helping to fund Downtown Durham, Inc.

to help support small businesses in Downtown Durham, the Durham Chamber of Commerce, the Durham Black Chamber of Commerce, funding these organizations to help businesses, small businesses, with the resources to help them thrive.

So that's how county governments do that.

- Now I know we're not here to talk nonprofit, but we have seen nonprofits shut down.

I've been on a few boards that had to have closed as a result of lack of funding.

So if those resources get removed, I know you talked about the business chamber, and what happens, what gaps do those create within the economy?

And this is open to both of you, but what gaps does that create for small business owners?

- It creates a lot of gaps, because we know that when you, like Chisa was talking about, we kind of glamorize entrepreneurship, and it's easy to start a business, but we know that, what, nine out of 10 businesses fail after five years.

So if those nonprofits aren't there to help with supports, it really affects the economy in a bigger way that most residents don't even see.

So the challenge for city and county governments is to figure out where do we find the resources, the money, to ensure those organizations are doing well so we can give the supports to small business owners.

- Well, I wanna add on to that too, because even though, and what she's saying is 100% true, there are still for-profit businesses that are there to fill those gaps.

So for instance, my company's not a nonprofit.

We do have a nonprofit, but our main business is a for-profit.

There are for-profit businesses, similar to myself, who do provide these resources.

What happens is, a lot of times, is that the nonprofits that she's mentioning then will contract us to come in to put on the actual programs, to make sure that we're kind of that boots on the ground.

We are the people that are actually facilitating the workshops and the summits and all of those things, which are things that we do with Give It to the People.

So part of it is you're still supporting small business.

So even if you give the funding to the nonprofit and then let them parse it out to the other small businesses, then you're still making sure that that economy is there.

I think the biggest issue is, people are talented, but there's a lack of knowledge about where to go.

So if you even look at what's happened over the last year, right?

The SBA funding has been cut.

SBA is down nationally about 48%, because they're not getting the funding that they got from the federal government before.

Locally, it's still down in that same 40-some percent range.

And SCORE was one of those organizations that people look to to go get free resources.

But what's happening now is it's transitioning to where organizations even like that, that historically had services for free, are charging now.

And that's where this impact comes in at.

So if there's not somebody there, the gap is the money, but that doesn't mean that there's still not another organization to be able to fill that gap.

I think that people just are gonna have to understand that the transition is, if you wanna be in business, you literally will have to pay for some of these services that have historically been free.

And that is a big thing for people to say, "Oh my gosh, now I have to pay?"

Yes, you have to pay, because you want people to pay you for your business.

So the one thing I want people to also realize is, even when money is given from the city or the county or the state or the federal government, if the service is free to you, there's still a cost to the service.

And just because it's not passed on to you as the person that is receiving the service, doesn't mean that it didn't cost anything.

And so that program that you go into that might be free, it may be $5,000 for you, but you're not having to actually pay that cost.

So just, yeah.

- How are we seeing some of these barriers impact black business owners in particular?

Is there-- - Oh, historically.

It's a disparity.

I mean, it's always been a disparity.

There's a starting line, and let's just say, if the black business is all the way here, there are gonna be other businesses that are already here.

And we're both starting from the same place, but I'm so far behind because of things that have happened in the past, right?

And I don't wanna necessarily dwell on the past 'cause I'm not saying it doesn't matter, but people are concerned with what's happening right now.

So we have all the historical facts, we do disparity studies, we understand that there's a lack there, but people want answers today.

They wanna be able to feed their families today.

Gas just went up, right?

I was just, you know, touting like, oh my gosh, I got gas for $2.36 the other week, and now it's $3 and change, right?

So you thought you were gonna be able to get ahead on some things, and the economy shifts.

And this is what everybody is feeling.

And so the cost of goods goes up.

The time that we have to spend doing things is still the same time, but now it's literally costing us more to have the lights on.

- So is it worth being in business for yourself anymore?

- It is.

- Why?

- It always is, because I think that there's a value intrinsically that we have in achieving things.

But I also think that with certain types of businesses, there's not necessarily a specific job that's out there that's gonna pay you what your business can pay you.

You know, so if you take into consideration, if I were to go on a different route, and I could still be teaching or something like that for a school or something, I wouldn't make as much as I make independently, right?

The years of experience that you put into it.

And for some people, this is not an option.

This is survival.

All of those 300,000 plus, which is probably way higher than that if we have real statistics, black women that just lost their jobs, a lot of them are starting businesses because they need to, but they also have the skillset to be able to.

So we have to look at where people are, and it's a lot of different ranges that go in that.

But it doesn't mean you can't get a job and run a business.

It doesn't mean you can't run a business full-time.

It just means you have to do what the right thing is for you and immediately try to get money into your household.

- Commissioner, I'd love for you, opportunity for you to add.

- Yeah, I'm looking at it from building generational wealth.

When you own a business and you're successful, that is what it does, particularly in the black community.

And thinking about my family, my grandparents owned two successful barber shops in Cumberland County.

And they owned them for over 30 years.

And to this day, my family is reaping the rewards of that because they own the property, they own the building, and they were able to hire barbers.

And those barbers, as a matter of fact, when my grandfather retired from being a barber, he turned over the business to his head barber and he ran it for another 20 years.

So that's why this is so important for me because I've seen how if you're successful with your small business, how it can just not only help with the economy, it helps with generational wealth, it employs people, and it helps the greater community.

My grandfather's barbershop was a pillar in the community right there in Fayetteville.

- So you've had one tour so far as of today's recording.

You've got six more?

- Six more.

- Six more to go.

So what have you heard so far and what are you anticipating hearing?

- I think what we've heard so far has been kind of like a consensus on some of the things that are necessary as far as like that we already mentioned, money, right?

Money is always gonna be a thing.

But it is also people having the information that they need so that they can make better decisions.

So when we're looking at the fact that things are spread out, you have all of these different counties.

In the summertime, Mecklenburg County is about to raise their tax.

There's a lot of things that people may not realize.

So having the right information and not just the sensationalized information, doing things in the right order, I think makes a difference.

- Give me an example of right information versus sensationalized information.

- So if a person just tells you, "Well, go out there and the first thing "that you need to do is you just start your business "and you get your LLC and then you go ahead "and you just get your EIN number "and you just start that business."

Okay, that is right.

But what order do you need to do things in, right?

And a lot of people tell you, "Well, get the EIN first."

You really are not supposed to get the EIN first because you actually need to see if you need the EIN.

It also is applicable to what type of business you're starting and which one is better for you based on taxes and based on what you're doing because are you still working your day job?

What are you doing as far as the tax benefits?

And so what things make sense for you to do?

And so if you were starting a sole proprietorship, you wouldn't need to go get an EIN because you would use your social security number, right?

So a person telling you that and maybe your business doesn't need certain things or maybe they need them at different times or maybe you need to consider certain things based on where you're at in business and what you wanna do going forward.

Things like that make a huge difference.

And so having one place where you can also find that information makes a huge difference.

So that's why we created our Give It, Get It platform where we have our business membership so that people can get that information and then we consistently send out emails.

We consistently make sure that things are updated on the blogs and it's statewide, so it's not just one area.

So if you wanna do business in another area, you can still be registered, of course, in the state of North Carolina, but now you know what's happening in that other county.

Now you know where you can go to get contracts.

Now you know what you need to do if you're a retail business.

- So Give It, Get It is part of your Give It to the People resources that you provide through your business.

What are other resources out there, Commissioner, that folks can go to?

- Well, one of the things that I'm really proud that Durham County government has at our Durham County Library is the Small Business Center.

And again, that is using county dollars that our residents pay in taxes for our library system.

And we have the Small Business Center there that residents can go to who are wanting to start a business to get ideas, to get information.

And so that's one thing that we provide.

The other thing is with Durham County government, the people in the procurement office do workshops about, okay, if I want to be one of the vendors that Durham County government uses, they can learn how the process works to be on the list of vendors, because that is a process.

Even if you want to be a vendor at the state level, you have to be in the procurement system.

So offering that as a service.

And also just, like I said previously, funding nonprofits, that's what we do.

We fund nonprofits to help with small businesses, with small businesses wanting to get information, resources, knowledge, skills, and really just, and I just want to say with the listening tour, the reason why I'm working with Chisa is because I want to hear from small business owners about the challenges.

So when I'm having conversations, because at my level, I'm a policymaker.

So if I'm hearing about the challenges, then I can go to my colleagues, I can go to county staff and saying, hey, what are we doing to help, to support, to grow this economy?

- So let's talk a little bit about the listening tour.

I want to pop up the date so folks can see it.

It will go through April.

The intention is though to go throughout the state.

This is just through Durham right now.

What can be expected?

I show up at this listening tour, I'm having a hard time as an entrepreneur.

What can I expect?

- Well, one thing I want to tell people is we can't solve everybody's problems.

So I don't want people to come with the expectation that that's going to happen that day.

It is really literally to listen to see what you need.

But when we kind of crowdsource resources, when we know that other things are happening, when we know who we can connect you with, then hopefully it will be a solution to some of the problems that you have.

So when people show up, they should expect that they'll be able to talk for about three to five minutes to really let us know what is your issue, what do you need help with?

And then if there are resources that other people in the room have, then they can write them on the board, they can give you a contact immediately, and then connect you with who you need to be connected with.

The other thing is is that we do want them to also join the membership because then they'll consistently get information and also be able to reach other members online to be able to connect with them.

Because I think one of the biggest things is it's not necessarily like who you know, but it's also who knows you.

- Right.

- And when people are looking for specific things in business, oh well I know somebody that can do that.

So like for instance, I just talked with a person that was like, well our cleaners at the apartment complex, they're not doing X, Y, Z, and so we're looking for new cleaners.

But then we have a member, you know, It Sparkles, It Shines, It's Clean, that we can recommend to people.

So that connection.

- You don't have to be a member to be part of the tour.

- No, you can definitely come and be part of the tour for free.

And you can just come.

So if you come and you say, listen, I just wanna listen, I don't even really wanna talk, you can definitely do that as well.

- So what are the actionable steps after listening and hearing who are your partners and making sure that now you can actually go throughout the state and implement what you've been hearing?

- Well, one of our partners is Infinity Bridges, and so Latasha Besagady, her and I work strongly together.

She does funding strategy.

We also have LAH Companies with LaShawn Harley.

And so she helps with clarity and business development, and specifically people that are starting businesses.

We're also working with Durham County Library specifically to do the tour, but also once we know what people want to formulate additional classes that we can then host at the different libraries.

One of the things that we've been posed with thus far has been can we do an AI series?

And we're like, absolutely, we can do an AI series.

I already teach the AI series.

So now people need things in person.

And that's one of the things that we're hearing too, hands on.

So this COVID caused all of the online, which is great, right?

But there are people who need to touch, feel, and they need to ask questions, and they need you to come look at something.

And so the hands on nature of things is something that we've also been able to add on.

So let's listen to what people need, and then go ahead and then formulate those classes that'll come up.

- Commissioner, once this listening tour has kind of concluded and we start moving on into the solutions, what does success look like in Durham, but across the state?

- What it looks like for me and for Durham County is that we have lots and lots of thriving small businesses, right, in downtown, in the RTP area, in the South Point area, wherever people want to create their business.

And that it's contributing to the economy of Durham County, to the success of our people, because as a commissioner, that's what I focus on, the success of our people.

And I'm excited that we have partnered together to do this.

And for me, when I go to these listening sessions, listening tour, I'm listening for, okay, how can Durham County help with this?

What resources can we provide to support small businesses in crafting policy and taking the resources that we have to support?

- I wanna pop up that dates list one more time.

I want you to share, how do people contact you?

I know there's a QR code on that screen.

There's a website.

- It is, so they can go to giveitothepeople.com and then forward slash Durham Business Listening Tour.

Well, excuse me, it's DBLT, 'cause it was just too much.

But they can also Google it.

It is on the website for the county, as far as for the libraries.

They can go on Eventbrite and they can find it.

So if you put in Durham Business Listening Tour on Google, you should definitely find it.

And then just go ahead and register.

And if people don't register, they can still show up at the door and register.

And one of the things that we're doing in order to make sure that the county also has some information is, we're also doing the metrics.

So we'll have people fill out surveys once they get there so we know who came out.

That is an important thing.

- Chisa Pennix-Brown, Commissioner Michelle Burton, thank you both so much.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- And I thank you for watching.

If you want more content like this, we invite you to engage with us on Instagram using the hashtag #BlackIssuesForum.

You can also find our full episodes on pbsnc.org/blackissuesforum and on the PBS Video app.

I'm Kenia Thompson.

I'll see you next time.

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