There is so much going on in the economy these days, so much for small businesses to deal with. We're in the throes of another significant variant of the virus; supply chain issues continue amid rising inflation. And if that were not enough, employers are having a hard time finding employees because many are either staying home, taking care of their kids, or finding new roles in different industries altogether. It's a lot for small businesses to deal with. So to help put it all into perspective, our good friend, Ryan Sweet, is joining us today to offer his take and an economic outlook for the new year. Now, if you're not familiar, Ryan's a Senior Director at Moody's Analytics, a leading provider of economic research. He regularly contributes to the Economic View, Moody's Inside Economics podcast, and as a member of the US macroeconomics team in Westchester, Pennsylvania. His areas of specialization include the US economy, monetary policy, capital markets, and forecasting high-frequency economic indicators. [Gary] Ryan, welcome to the Small Business Matters podcast. [Ryan]: Hey Gary, thanks for having me. [Gary]: To kick things off, the economy is doing well, but it doesn't feel that way. Why doesn't it feel like it's doing well? [Ryan]: Well, I think there are a few things behind that. I mean, I still think the economy's near-term prospects are tethered with the pandemic. Every time we go through a various wave of COVID cases, it weighs on business sentiment, investor sentiment, and consumers. Consumers don't feel great when they see case counts surging across the country. But, as you pointed out, the economy is doing really well. The job market is tightening. We have GDP growth that's among the fastest since the early 1980s. One reason why it may not feel as good is that it’s because of inflation. So that's cutting into people's household purchasing power and, you know, inflation is not popular. So I think that's what's kind of muddying the picture of how the economy is really doing versus how people feel about it. [Gary]: So what do you think is driving up inflation? [Ryan]: It's temporary, so the good news is the worst of the inflation has likely passed. So we should see inflation moderate. And, there's a couple of reasons behind that. First, what drove inflation higher was the supply chain disruptions. You know, I think the issues with supply chain is both supply and just having enough containers, having workers at docks to unload these containers, but it's also demand. So consumer spending on goods, just stuff that we buy. It went through the roof over the last year and that put a lot of pressure, a lot of additional strain on supply chains. Inventories are really low. I mean, anyone's who has gone to a used or new car lot recently. There's not a lot of cars on the dealership lots, and that’s what is pushing inflation higher. It's a lot of goods prices. So if you look at, the primary source of inflationary pressures recently, it's new and used cars, and that's a supply and demand issue. And the good news is, going forward, these supply chain issues should start to resolve themselves and you could see inflation begin to moderate. The other big source of inflation has been higher energy prices. So, year over year, the CPI was up, the consumer price index was up 7% in December. If you strip out supply chain issues, and energy, it was up closer to 3%. So our inflation problems are hopefully going to be temporary. Subscribe To The Podcast [Gary]: Yeah, so you're feeling relatively optimistic about things? It's not all doom and gloom? [Ryan]: Yeah. I don't see a lot of reasons for doom and gloom. I mean, with each passing wave of COVID, the economic costs are going to diminish, and that's attributed to rising vaccinations, boosters, hopefully children 0 to 5 can be vaccinated soon. And that would be really, really important for the labor supply problems that we're experiencing because, hopefully parents can get back to work, schools don't have to shut down as frequently or go to virtual learning. But I think the economy's near-term prospects are really good. I mean, we're going to have an unemployment rate below 4% by the middle of this year. So if you look back at past recoveries, this one's sort of like on steroids. This is a very, very strong and robust economic recovery. It's just, part of the reason is the nature of the recession. It was caused by a pandemic. We locked down, shut down an economy for several months. and as we are reopening, we're just booming. And I think the economy is going to do really well this year. Things begin to slow in 2023. but for now everything's goingo to feel much better, going forward. [Gary]: So, just about every store window I go down and look at on Main street has "Help Wanted [signs]." What's going on in the labor markets, particularly in retail and restaurants and those types of businesses? [Ryan]: There's a lot going on in the labor market. I think the biggest hurdle that small, medium and large businesses–everyone's feeling the pain of labor supply problems. And there's a few reasons why. The prime age employment to population ratio, which is those 25 to 54 year olds, is low. I mean, it's rising, but we're still below where it was pre pandemic. People just haven't come back into the labor force and there's a number of reasons behind that. And again, it gets back to the pandemic. people were worried about, you know, going back to work, contracting COVID, bringing it home, getting loved ones sick. And that's particularly true for those that have multi-generational households, which the number of has increased steadily over the last couple of decades. The other thing is daycare, childcare issues. So unfortunately, that burden fell very heavily on women. So if you look at, women's participation in the labor force, among those that have young children, it has barely recovered since the pandemic. So hopefully once we get on the other side of the pandemic, they'll be able to come back in, in large numbers and that should ease some of these labor supply problems. The other thing is, I think there's a lot of job switching. there's a lot of churn in the labor market, you know, people that were in retail or restaurants, some of them are considering new careers. Those two industries got crushed by the pandemic, and people are wondering, you know, is this for me? Or maybe I should look for a job elsewhere? Different industry? [Gary]: I'm hearing that a lot. I'm hearing about folks that have had that epiphany. it's almost like they've—I mean, these are hard jobs to do, right? You're on your feet all day. if you're a manager running a restaurant, you're dealing with a lot of stress, a lot of issues and people, and I think a lot of them kind of hit a wall. And I think we saw that in the business starts numbers where there was a sharp growth in business creation and people had downtime and they were starting a lot of home-based businesses. Would you say that that was behind some of those numbers? [Ryan]: Yeah, I think so. You know, something that we didn't discuss is, people are referring to as the “Great Resignation.” A lot of quits, but also, you know, retirements–early retirements have increased; people are seeing their nest eggs increase because the stock market hit new highs, which seems like day in and day out. House prices are steadily rising in the U.S. House price growth last year was very, very strong, and should continue to rise. So I think people are opting to retire a little bit early. But again, that's why I always focus on prime age workers. That’s 25 to 54. they need to get engaged in the labor market and they are, so I think that's a favorable development going forward, that we should see more labor, supply. But getting back to restaurants, I think the pandemic isn't over, and with each wave, I think it just takes a further toll on restaurants. You can see spending at restaurants drop during the Delta wave, it's dropped during the Omicron wave. That creates a lot of uncertainty and income issues for those that are in the restaurant business. So I think, like to your point, it's a very difficult job to do, and they'd be maybe looking to, you know, change careers. [Gary]: Yes, we saw a lot of innovation though in the restaurant space, fast innovation, curbside pickup, tented areas. I saw an amazing array of patio areas, outdoor dining, and really, we've seen that continue somewhat. I mean, the tents kind of went away after Delta, and I saw a few popping up again. It seems like, in the small business space particularly, small business owners are doing what they need to do to make ends meet, and it seems like this period in time has just been a real tester for how innovative you can be to keep your business running. [Ryan]: Yeah. I think these are all great points. And I think this is one reason why it should be very optimistic about the economy that small businesses, they adapt. You throw a challenge at them, they'll figure out a solution. Using the outdoor dining, for example, or curbside pickup. In downtown Westchester where our office is located, they shut down the street during the summer months, just so people could sit outside and help the restaurants out. I think innovation has increased. I think the entrepreneurial spirit has hopefully been rekindled because of the pandemic. I think if you look at new business formations, they're up, I think a lot of people are smarter starting their own businesses. some people are retired; maybe they weren't ready to completely shut it off. So they're starting their own small business. The data I look at is weekly employment identification numbers, and that was very, very strong throughout last year. And it's been strong so far this year. And I think that bodes well for business formations, innovation, productivity growth, and these are all things that will help the economy and small businesses and individuals, not just this year, but longer-term as well. [Gary]: So, Chairman Powell had said that there will be some interest rate increases this year. I think there's going to be three. What should small businesses be doing to anticipate or get ahead of the curve on that? Is it time to get financing that they needed a lower interest rate? Or what would you say to a small business that's looking at the prospect of higher interest rates? [Ryan]: Yeah, unfortunately, interest rates are gonna go up, and they're likely going to go up pretty quickly because I think the Fed has recognized that their inflation problems are lasting a little bit longer than they had hoped. And also, the economy is doing well; it doesn't need this extraordinary monetary policy accommodation. So it's kind of time for the Fed to take their foot off the accelerator. And hopefully they gradually apply the brake and slow things down. Businesses that have variable loans, I think you're going to see a rush to refi because interest rates are historically low. So, we're likely not going to see these interest rates until the next recession and hopefully that's years away! So the only place interest rates have to go is up. I think what's important is not just necessarily the level of interest rates, because we're coming off a very low rates right now, it's the speed that they increase. And that could undermine business investment; could undermine financial market conditions. One area that I'm concerned about is a policy error by the Fed. You know, there's that saying that recessions or expansions don't die of old age, something kills them. And usually it's the Fed, and if they go barreling into this and try to raise interest rates very, very quickly and reduce the size of their balance sheet, I think that could really undermine the economy. [Gary]: So, so from an economist’s standpoint, are there any sectors that give you concern and are there any sectors that excite you right now? [Ryan]: Well, there's plenty to be excited about in the economy. And you look at the housing market, for example; I think the prospects there, the outlook there is favorable. I mean, we're not building enough homes. So I think construction is going to do really well over the next couple of years. Now, of course there are some labor supply issues; construction costs have gone up, but those pressures should start to ease over the next 12, 18 months. But I think the biggest hurdle for the housing market is not a demand issue. I mean, demand for new homes, existing homes is, is a very, very strong, and that's partly attributed to the improving job market, but also very low mortgage rates. the issue is finding buildable lots. and that's going to be kind of a constraint, maybe that limits how many homes we can build, but I think, you know, housing is, is one area to be excited about. I think the other thing is, innovation and, you know, we talked about with businesses, adapting, I think productivity growth in the U S so, you know, how productive, how many widgets in an hour we can make, is going to be much stronger than it was pre pandemic. And when productivity goes up that that improves people's living standards. So I think that's another area that, you know, it got, it was very, very weak after the last recession. I think this time around it's going to be much, much different. [Gary]: Fantastic. Any closing thoughts, Ryan? [Ryan]: Hang in there with inflation. It's top of mind; a lot of our clients are asking us when's inflation going to moderate; it's coming. It may not slow as quickly as we had previously hoped, but I think as these supply chain issues begin to ease as the pandemic hopefully winds down, the underlying fundamentals and the long-term drivers of inflation haven't changed. We have an aging population that's disinflationary, and the rate at which money is changing hands is very low. So I think we're just going through a temporary period of high inflation, which is new for many people. I mean, I've been a professional economist for 16 years, and I've never seen inflation until last year. So hang in there on the inflation front, and cross your fingers that the Fed can kind of land the plane perfectly on the tarmac. It's going to be bumpy over the next few years, but don't count the Fed out. They may be able to pull this landing off perfectly. [Gary]: Yeah. It might be in the Hudson though. Right. We may need Sully for this one. [Ryan]: I'm going to use it. That's a great one. I might have to use that. I'm going to steal that from you. Okay. [Gary]: You got it. [Ryan]: Hopefully we don't go down that road. Hopefully we don't have the plane in the Hudson, but you know, it's going to be a bumpy, bumpy landing. [Gary]: Yeah, Okay. Well, this has been very enlightening my friend, I'm feeling a little better about the situation given the insights you just shared. How can people learn more about you and Moody's Analytics Economic Insights? [Ryan]: So anytime you start to panic and you get worried, call me, I'm here, I'll talk you off the cliff. at least for the next couple of years, things are going to be fine. With Moody's, I would suggest, or kind of pitch our Inside Economics podcast. You need to come on. It's with me, Cris DeRitis, who's our deputy chief economist, and Mark Zandi, our Chief Economist and it's a weekly podcast. And we talk everything about the economy and how our views are changing from, from week to week. [Gary]: That's awesome. Yeah, I've been listening and it's a really super awesome vibe that you have going there on that podcast. So, yeah, I would love to have Experian on there. So thanks for taking time out and thanks for talking me down off the ledge there. [Ryan]: Yeah, yeah, no, thank you very much for having me. I always enjoy our conversations. [Gary]: Alright Ryan thanks so much. Experian Employees Celebrate & Remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We celebrated Martin Luther King day this week at Experian. For our Inclusion-Forward segment, we asked Experian team members what inspires and motivates them the most about Dr. King, and how they carry that in life and work. Gary, Senior Manager, Business Information Services, says the thing that inspires him the most about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was his message about nonviolent resistance, and how it can bring about social change. Corliss, Senior Manager, Financial Inclusion, DEI Marketing said his work taught her to never to give up hope in the face of despair. Bryan, Social Media Specialist, said King’s iconic “I have a Dream” speech has been a huge inspiration for him, it taught him if you believe in something, to stand up for it. Emily from Business Information Services said she wants to make it her personal responsibility to ensure King Junior's dream is not buried, and that she will practice ‘dangerous unselfishness. Taneishia, Account Executive, Software Sales, says that hearing Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech as a child encouraged her to dream, to hope, and to believe in something bigger than herself. Jennifer, Senior Manager, Marketing spoke of having faith and taking the first step, even when you can’t see the entire staircase. You can watch the individual videos each team member made on this post. Got a story about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion? Email us at smbmatters@experian.com.   Listen to the full episode on any of these platforms:            

The legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. is one that has spanned generations and continues to inspire people around the world. The hope he brought with his message of non-violence was a catalyst for change for millions of people, including many of us who work at Experian. We are honored to share what Dr. King's legacy means in our own lives and how we plan to carry his message of courage, strength, and determination into the future. "Love is the Greatest Force in the Universe" "What inspires me about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is the way he was always able to show love, no matter what he was going through," says Chris, VP of Sales at Experian. "Despite threats, despite social injustices, despite assassination attempts on his life–he didn't grab a gun. He didn't teach hate. He taught love. Just like Dr. King, I teach and tell others that no matter what you're going through, or how hard it gets, just show love–genuine love–and it will always work out." His Message of Nonviolent Resistance Gary, Senior Manager, BIS, says the thing that inspires him the most about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was his message about nonviolent resistance, and how it can bring about social change. "A simple but powerful act of boycotting public buses en masse brought about the November 1956 ruling by the Supreme Court that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional," he says. Today I celebrate the life, legacy and message of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." "I Can Do Small Things in a Great Way" "His work taught me never to give up hope in the face of despair," says Corliss, Senior Manager, Financial Inclusion, DEI Marketing. "As he said, 'We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.' Dr. King also taught me that we have a role to play to make a difference in this world, and that ordinary people can do extraordinary things. He said, 'If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.' So thank you, Dr. King, for your legacy of hope, love and reminding us again, that ordinary people can do extraordinary things." "I Have a Dream" Bryan, Social Media Specialist, says King's iconic "I have a Dream" speech has been a huge inspiration for him. "That speech…taught me that if you believe in something, stand up for it. It taught me to be the change that I want to see in the world," he says. "I'm proud and honored to continue his legacy. So, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.–you had the dream, and now it's my job to make sure your dream becomes reality." "Dangerous Unselfishness" "I believe it is MY responsibility every day, to use my privilege to ensure Martin Luther King Junior's dream is not buried," says Emily from Business Information Services. "To amplify the voices of people of color who are still not being heard because white people will not stop talking. Today, I will listen, I will learn, and I will practice 'dangerous unselfishness.'" Together, We Make the World a Better Place Taneishia, Account Executive, Software Sales, says that hearing Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech as a child encouraged her to dream, to hope, and to believe in something bigger than herself. "His work and his impact is evident in the fact that I, a woman of color, a Black woman, have the opportunity to work for a company like Experian alongside people of all types of ethnicities and backgrounds," she says. "Coming together, we are making Experian and the world a better place." Taking the First Step, Even When You Can’t See the Entire Staircase “When reflecting on the memory of the late, great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., there are so many things that I'm struck by,” says Jennifer, Senior Manager, Marketing. “His grace, his humility, and his ability to triumph in the face of adversity. One of the things that he said is that faith is taking the first step, even when you can't see the entire staircase. This resonates with me, because it shows that in times of difficulty and uncertainty, you just have to keep moving forward, taking the first step. Even though you don't know what the end result will be.” “We have an opportunity to make America a better nation.” We are grateful to Dr. King for his tireless efforts towards equality for all people, for his vision of the future that he would hold, but never see. Today we at Experian join people all over the world as we honor his memory, his work and his legacy. "Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation."1   Footnotes: 1.    From the "Mountaintop Speech," King's last speech on the eve of his assassination, April 3, 1968

You’ve heard it a thousand times: location, location, location. And sure, if you run a brick-and-mortar small business, details like great traffic and excellent parking certainly improve your possibilities. But regardless of your location, I thought maybe we could talk a moment about “place” and what it means to be a small business rolling into these next years.

Small business owners may have a small business credit card or even use their personal credit card when they’re just getting started. However, as a business grows, new types of financing that don’t depend on the owner’s personal finances—such as corporate credit cards—may become available.

Paying down commercial debt — is paying one account and going delinquent on another a good idea? In this business credit answer, I want to talk with you about paying down commercial debt, and establishing your small business and gaining access to commercial credit. To do this, you need to focus on your commercial credit score. It's just like your personal credit score. You monitor it, you try to get it up, you pay your bills, and you make sure that everything is being reported to the credit bureau. Doing those activities will help your consumer credit score to go up. Same thing for your commercial credit score. It's looking at any type of commercial credit cards that you have, term loans, how you are honoring the debts that are there, and repaying them. This is what a lender uses to establish your repayment behavior and to look at how much additional funding they want to give to your small business. I had a friend that wanted to pay down some of the debt that they had for a small business, and they had two different accounts that had pretty high debt. He was asking me should I just pay down one of those debts, and let the other one go into delinquency for a while and then come back to that one and pay it down?  He figured that way he'd have that sense of paying one down quickly and get one out of the way. And then focus on the other one. Well, what I told him was that it's not just a single debt that your credit score looks at. It's over your whole portfolio of debt. And so, missing a payment or pushing a bill to the side can bring your credit score down and sometimes significantly. So, you look at your credit score and you see it go down maybe five or 10 points. With delinquency, it can bring it down up to 30 points. So it's a big drop. As you bring up your credit score, it takes a little while to regain ground you may have lost.  So you want to keep that propensity to pay, and that lender view of you in a very positive light. You can check your Experian Business Credit Score by purchasing a one-time copy of your credit report, or by signing up for business credit monitoring, including unlimited access to scores. Read our post on checking your business credit score for more information.

Supply Chain Challenges for Small Business | Episode #002 On this episode of the Small Business Matters podcast, we focus on a problem that's looming just off the coast of California as we speak, the glut of inbound freighters waiting to be unloaded and reports of short supplies in many industries, and rising prices at many retailers. Gretchen Blough serves as Customs Brokerage Manager for Logistics Plus in Erie, Pennsylvania. She's an expert who has appeared several times on American Public Media's "Marketplace" and "Make Me Smart." So we reached out to Gretchen to ask her if she could make us smart on this small business matter, the rising cost of shipping, and what's going on at the ports.   Interview Transcript What follows is a loosely edited transcript of our interview with Gretchen. [Gary]: So there's a lot going on in the world of the supply chain. It's in the news every week. The other day I was reading about the cost of shipping. What's going on there with shipping containers? [Gretchen]: Well, shipping containers before the pandemic, we're about $2,500 for a full container. Right now, the costs have gone up depending on the trade lane from $14,000 to $40,000. There's a lot of shipping consoles, which are the consolidated shipments within a container. So that costs can be divided among a bunch of shippers, a bunch of importers, but we do see a lot of importers that are bringing in full containers. So that gets pretty pricey for them. [Gary]: We hear a lot about the backups at the ports. Long Beach has set a new record for waiting ships. Is that true? [Gretchen]: Yeah, that's, that's true. Over the weekend, there were 76. It's hanging in the eighties right now, but that's changing hour by hour, and I haven't checked it recently. It's been a busy morning, so not sure exactly where it stands now. I was advised by a contact that they were doing a show on this same topic and they had to keep updating it throughout the day in their script. Subscribe To The Podcast [Gary]: What's driving the delay at the port? [Gretchen]: Well, I mean, there's just such a, such a demand for everything. Last year, manufacturing was off, shopping was off when people went shopping, they typically did it online. So brick-and-mortar retailers are trying to get caught up with their warehousing with our stock. Speaking of warehousing, everyone has been switching to just-in-time inventory. So when they went through their stock last year, either parts or retail items, they were left with nothing, and that's why the store shelves are empty. That's why, if you need a replacement part for anything, you have to wait weeks, months. You know, as an example, I had a screen that was damaged and my local hardware store store can't even get the parts to fix it. And it's been, I took it in at the beginning of summer because obviously I want to open the windows, and use the screen and I still don't have it. And they keep calling and apologizing, but I know there's nothing they can do. I mean, I work in the supply chain. So if they say they can't get the parts, I know that that's absolutely true. [Gary]: So the cargo that's coming in, what I hear you saying is that the explosion of e-commerce is really helping to spur that along. And people are getting allocations on the ships for, Halloween is the next season for retail, and beyond that Thanksgiving holidays, what would you tell retailers? Should retailers be a lot further along now than just putting their orders in? They would have had to have been several months ago. [Gretchen]: Yeah. It's, it's worrying me because I'm not an early Christmas shopper. I tend to wait until, you know, more towards December, but I found myself picking up stuff over the weekend because who knows what's going to be available when December rolls around. So yeah, if retailers haven't already placed their order, they might be a little bit out of luck there. [Gary]: What about larger industrial items, things that wouldn't necessarily fit into a crate, but let's say wind turbines and a lot of the environmental development or construction that's going on. How do they transport that with, with this situation with shipping? [Gretchen]: It's called breakbulk, and basically, they put it on a ship. It's not in a container. What has been happening is because the container prices are so high. A lot of these breakbulk ships are being refitted to accommodate containers. So the space is getting more and more limited for breakbulk because of this. And that would include, you know, wind turbines, mining equipment, a lot of times, great big storage tanks, that type of thing. Fortunately, solar panels will fit in a container. So it's not affecting that aside from the high cost of shipping, but that's one example where an importer will fill an entire container and then they have to bare that entire cost of the container. [Gary]: Is it impacting exports? [Gretchen]: It is impacting exports. We see delays in the port there as well. Since I'm a customs broker, my role is mostly imports, but there's, you know, too many ships are coming in, not a lot of ships can leave. So there are delays there. We're seeing things being rolled over and whatnot so that the actual date of departure gets pushed out or if it's not available, that needs to, they need to wait until the next ship, that type of thing. So it's, it's impacting everyone, whether importing or exporting. Yes. [Gary]: So can you talk about some examples where things have taken additional time? [Gretchen]: Well, I spoke to our import manager, and she said, on one example, they paid for expedited premium service from China, which takes 15 days. And it did take 15 days. And then it sat in the port of LA Long Beach for 30 days. And then it finally got offloaded and sat in the terminal for another 30 days. So that expedited service was two and a half months when it should have been 15 days. [Gary]: So the cost of the space on the containers is higher. What options do you have? Do you buy smaller lots and ship by air? I mean, what are people doing? I heard one story about buying or looking at buying their own ships, retailers investigating buying ships. [Gretchen]: Yes, that's definitely the case. They are looking into cutting out everyone involved and using their own ships. But, still that won't help with the port backup.  And other things that are contributing to the port backup is there's a shortage of chassis, there's a shortage of drivers. There's a shortage of stevedores and, and whatnot to offload everything. I mean, it's a real labor shortage as well as just the ships you know, putting some more ships into the port. If they're privately owned, they still have to have people on those ships to run them so, you know that's a really big problem with the labor. [Gary]: I heard that rail cars, once it comes into Long Beach, a lot of it is transported to other hubs around the United States. And are there any backups in those locations, Chicago or Memphis? [Gretchen]: Yes. Chicago, Memphis, Kansas City, and the other thing is when they can't predict when exactly it will offload and be on the train. In those cases, what is done is there's an in-transit bond, which is cut. And then, the customs clearance is done in the inland port. Well, it's a little bit difficult to cut it when you don't know exactly when it will be able to get out of the port of Los Angeles and on the rail. And once it gets on the rail, you have two free days in the rail yard, and the clock starts ticking on those immediately. Most seaports give you a couple of free days, at least airports as well, give you a few free days at least. There are two days you have free in the rail yard, and it starts ticking immediately, whether it's a weekend or not. So you have to make sure you can get in with a chassis or a flatbed, depending on whether they're unloading it, there are, or however it's being handled and get your freight out of the port, the rail yard immediately. So that's been a little bit problematic considering the shortage of everything there is. [Gary]: Well, I certainly hope this doesn't last too long. Did, did the situation in the Suez Canal, that one ship that was blocked and it backed everybody up, that was over on the other side of the world, did that impact the US? [Gretchen]: It didn't impact us personally. Most of that stuff was headed between the middle east and India, and Europe. From my understanding, we did have a number of phone calls that people didn't understand how things were routed and you know we're quite concerned as to if their cargo was behind that ship, but we didn't have much impact here. [Gary]: Well, this has been so enlightening. I want to thank you very much for coming on and sharing your insight with us. [Gary]: Well, that was Gretchen Blough, from Logistics Plus in Erie, Pennsylvania, Gretchen told us that a container ship generally holds between 20,000 to 24,000  TEU or 20-foot equivalency units. And these are the smaller 20-foot containers. So multiply that volume by 70 or 80 ships. And you get an idea of the magnitude of the challenge. We'll be watching this story as it develops and bringing you news on future episodes. Experian wants to shine a light on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion by sharing stories told by business owners, policymakers, or anyone who believes actions speak louder than words when it comes to creating jobs, equality and inclusion in the workplace, and what it feels like to run a small business when the odds are stacked against you. We call this segment Inclusion-Forward.  Our first story comes from Tarsha Joyner, Owner of Mrs. Joy's Fabulous Tasty Treats in Lynchburg, Virginia. Lynchburg Business Owner Makes a Big Bet on Fabulous Tasty Treats When Tarsha Joyner came to the phone to share her story with Experian, she was juggling batches of tasty treats coming out of the ovens at her downtown Lynchburg, Virginia bakery – Mrs Joys Fabulous Tasty Treats. Baking wasn't something she enjoyed in her early childhood, it wasn't until she attended a business class at Lynchburg University when a class assignment had her inventing an imaginary bakery. After baking some samples, designing packaging, and enlisting the help of her son the adventure began. Tarsha would eventually go on to appear on Food TV's Project Bakeover and compete in local small business contests, re-investing their winnings into upgrades on her downtown storefront, an abandoned building that Tarsha and the landlord worked together to recondition as a bakery. But her biggest gamble was taking out a home equity loan to fund Mrs. Joys Fabulous Treats. We hope you enjoy listening to the interview as much as we did listening to her describe her journey. Follow Tarsha on Instagram @missusjoy where she shares photos of her tasty creations. Got a story about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion? Email us at smbmatters@experian.com.   Listen to the full episode on any of these platforms:

    Why it is so important to separate business and personal credit When we look at small business owners like you in the U.S., we know that you are less delinquent on your accounts. You revolve a little bit more of those balances as you go forward, as you're trying to grow your business. And we know that you are more likely to pay your debt because it's tied to your livelihood. And if something is tied to your livelihood, you're more likely to honor it. Well, we want you to honor all your obligations on your consumer and commercial credit. And so to do that, it's better to separate out those two forms of credit. Your two profiles, your business, and your consumer, meaning just your personal credit. So when we look at this, think about it in this way. I have a small business, and with my small business, sometimes I need to buy equipment. But it as a small business owner. I may not have established my commercial credit. I don't have anything on a commercial credit card. I don't have an installment loan through my business. And I want to do it on my consumer credit card. So I go out and I buy this piece of equipment. I put it on my consumer credit card. What that does is add debt to my consumer credit. A lot of times that utilization will be a little bit higher. The debt will be higher. It's a piece of equipment. Generally, it's pretty big. That means my score will go down a little bit.  You may come into a life event. So we've had a third kid and my wife says, hey, we need a little bit bigger house. So to do that, we go shopping for a house. But what I have is this piece of equipment on my personal credit, bringing my score down a little bit. That's going to make the cost of my house a little bit higher. And I may not be able to afford the houses that I'd really like. So pulling that piece of equipment, going through a commercial credit facility, getting it on a commercial credit card or an installment loan through my business will bring that debt off of my personal credit and put it under my business, where it should be. That establishes my small business, allows that score on my small business to go up. It also takes a debt load off of my consumer credit, allows that to go up. And so it makes me have a better opportunity to buy a house at a cheaper price, also allows me to build my small business credit. And in doing that, I can gain access to cheaper funds for my business going forward and grow. You can check your Experian business credit score by purchasing a one-time copy of your credit report or by signing up for business credit monitoring, including unlimited access to scores. Read our post on checking your business credit score for more information. Related: What is a good business credit score? How do I check my business credit score? Adding tradelines to build credit for your business

We are very excited to launch The Small Business Matters podcast with this post.  We will be interviewing small business owners, experts, and authors about what it takes to run a successful small business. We will also be including some helpful info about how to build strong business credit. Please listen and subscribe using the links at the bottom of our post. Our first interview is with small business author and expert, Chris Brogan.  Chris really gets small business, and he understands the importance of telling a great story, and he knows a lot about how to weave stories into the fabric of a business. We hope you enjoy the interview as much as we did.   [Gary]: I have been waiting to speak with you for quite a long time about this topic because I see so much evidence of the storytelling you're doing daily with people. For small businesses, I think storytelling can be a bit of a challenge when you've got your fingers in the weeds, so to speak; why do you think stories are becoming such an important tool for growing a successful small business? [Chris]: I love to say to people that story is the basic unit of memory. If you think about the things that you remember most, you usually remember them because there's a bit of a story around it. So if I say, what was it like at your first job? You remember a story from your first job. You don't remember your wages, and you don't remember what your duties were. You don't remember some bulleted lists. You remember there was this one time that I got in trouble because I didn't really know what this word meant. And I acted like I did, and all this stuff befell me. Right? So we remember in stories. So if a story is the basic unit of memory, why aren't we leaning on that a lot more in our business? Partly because people hear story and think of princesses and dragons and sword play or something and what they don't understand is that story just means an account of events. You know? [Chris]:  So I could say right before this, I went out and got iced coffee here would be the least interesting story of the world that ever heard Gary. But what it is, is an account of events; what you might then think of is, oh, so he bought coffee?  Why didn't he make it? What's wrong with his coffee at home? You know you can infer. So before we go to your next question, the other thing that any business should be thinking about immediately with these, this particular small business matter, it's what stories would my buyer need? You know, what if you sell air conditioner repair, for instance, air conditioner repair, I couldn't think of a more boring thing to sell, but you'd be the kind of person that has to say to me, if you do this every spring before the weather changes from, you know, warm, heating problems to air conditioning problems. And if you do your maintenance every spring, you're going to have it so much better in Summer, so much better in Autumn, it's going to cost you less money. So the story becomes about savings and timing, and prep. And the fact that you're going to extend the experience of your unit. And I think that once you hear that, you go, oh, well, I could be a storyteller if that's how it's going to impact my business. And so, I mean, hopefully, that's a good starting point just for people to realize that I don't mean anything weird or fluffy or star dusty. I mean, an actual business story. Subscribe To The Podcast [Gary]: Do you think people have to be, good writers to be, a good small business storyteller? [Chris]: I think they have to just be thoughtful writers. I think that to be a storyteller is to say, I gave this some thought, in fact, one thing I feel that storytellers need more than writing skills is they sort of need, permission and or reminders that they're not handing this into some school professor. They're not handing this thing that they're putting together to some teacher who's going to judge them or grade them. All you're really doing is saying, I want to put together the bits and bobs of what my business is in a way that my customer will understand it, or my employees will understand it, or you know, all the stakeholders. So if you run even a little sandwich shop in a small beach town, you can say no matter what, our job is to get people in and out. But to never rush them, to give them that feeling, that they're the only person in the world, no matter how big the line is for that moment, that we've produced and handed over their sandwich. And maybe that's it. Maybe that's the only story you have to say. It's never a rush. And you then from that, teach people at the counter, not to say my least favorite customer service phrase ever in my life "No problem." I loath that and just replace it with "My pleasure." So I think that there are some really simple ways to implement this. And again, you have to be thoughtful. What does your customer want in that moment? And, even if you go to the McDonald's drive-through, what does someone want at McDonald's? They want it fast. They want it efficient and they want it to be the same every time, they want consistency is the story of McDonald's. So even if that's not your particular food choice, if you go there, it'll be consistent. And that's what you're aiming for in your business. So if someone were to say, I know about this business, I know this, what would you want it to be? And then do your work to engineer that to be what it is about? [Gary]: Mark Schaefer told a wonderful story about visiting some friends in Knoxville, Tennessee in his book "Marketing Rebellion. While there, he noticed a stack of handcrafted soap from a local company, so he asked his friend why they bought that soap instead of Ivory or Dial, why did they love that brand and his friend thought for a moment and said, "I'm not sure I would say I love the brand, but I love the hands that made it." His friend said that she knew the owners and that they made a sustainable product, was environmentally sound, but that they were good people who treated their employees well.  Can you share some examples of small businesses you've seen, who are telling powerful stories and, and what made them stand out to you? [Chris]: So depending on whose definition of small, because of course we slice this different ways. There are some new companies I find that are doing interesting storytelling. One time where it's really important to have storytelling is when the product is something that not many people know much about. For instance, Humm Kombucha out in Oregon they're a smallish company. But when I say that they were, they were very small, they were kitchen table, batches and farm stand batches, but they were introduced into places like Target stores and Kroger and Walmart. So that's not small anymore, but what they had to explain was everything about Kombucha, because it's just not a product that people have a lot in many circles. It's not very widely understood. So people were saying things like, "well, I hear there's an alcohol content to it." [Chris]: My person's a recovering alcoholic. Should they be drinking this? Should kids drink this? it's got alcohol. Well, it has, it has some alcohol consistency, but it's almost like when you eat Brandy flavored food, you don't loll around in the bushes afterwards. They had to explain it well, is it fermented? I heard it's fermented like some kind of fermented tea what's that about? And so the story had to be about how this is great for gut health and how this is a simple product that's made with very natural things. It's very low sugar in a world where there's so many sugary drinks. It does all this incredible stuff to your belly, and it's just generally full of helpful, properties. And so, that became the story. And I find that companies that are having to sort of work with a new category or a new approach on a category, have the best opportunity to tell a story. [Gary]: What if you are working in an industry that's boring. Can you still use storytelling as a tactic? [Chris]: I will tie this in, in a weird way. And then I'll also tell you a story that gives you a sense of how this works well, that happened to me just the other day. So my weird story first is about home pregnancy tests; there were TV commercials for home pregnancy tests. And for a very long time, the commercials were always, basically someone looking down at the test and going, "we're pregnant." And, the unspoken joke was that that's not always how people want to read that stick sometimes. It's, we're safe, you know, we're not pregnant. And, they started making commercials for both outcomes. And so you would see different ones at different times, or maybe in different channels or different demographics. And it was a grand thing because, that to me told the story much more realistically for how does someone use that product. [Chris]: Now, to tie that to things like credit scores, some people are like, oh, I'm just really trying to work my credit score up. And other people like myself, I'm an entrepreneur, entrepreneurs have the worst credit because a lot of times we put all our own money into the projects we get, you know, one client says, forget it. And you cascade a bunch of bad credit indicators down the line. Last I checked with your company, it said, maybe just don't. But I got a letter the other day, a sort of a status update because, you know, I'm using the service, and they said to me, Hey, we noticed that you took care of this bill on time. That's great! You should do that more. And I felt oddly like positive. I felt oddly like motivated. And I thought, I can't believe how that marketing just motivated me, but it really did, Gary. I thought, Hey, good for me. Maybe I'll go see if there's some other bill I can get ahead of. And it really was a positive feeling. So think about that as a story, right? These are not, you know, we're not making "The Matrix" here. We're not making "The Sixth Sense," you don't get to the end of the movie and go, oh, you know, this is just the story was, Hey, Chris, you're doing better than you thought you were. That's a really great story to tell any customer in any business you've ever had. [Gary]: Yes, positive reinforcement of good behaviors. We've got a score planner on our website that helps entrepreneurs and business owners calculate what-if scenarios on delaying payment vs. paying on time. A lot of it comes down to just paying those bills on time, not over-utilizing certain credit lines, they call that the debt-to-limit ratio. Just those positive behaviors can, over time have a beneficial impact. Then on the consumer side, Experian came out with Boost, which you may have seen on the TV commercials. [Gary]: Do you have a framework or approach that helps your stories come together in a way that connects with your audience? I mean, we've heard of the hero's journey. "Star Wars" is based on that framework, but do you have a framework that you work within, or are you just really trying to understand as much as you can about the businesses that you're working with? [Chris]: So there are a couple of different types of tools that might be helpful. Things like The Hero's Journey, a lot of time a hero's journey story is a slightly larger kind of story. What's the full origin story of my company that could maybe fit in a hero's journey? Somebody like at Chobani yogurt, for instance, that's a great story in the way it's told. And, you know, we made all of our employees owners. That's a great use of that story, but there are other kinds of stories. And, and for instance, in software and planning for software there's things called Agile user stories, and these user stories are basically this verb does this noun kind of a thing or whatever. So there's these, these circumstances where you can use really simple tools to tell, use case kinds of stories. [Chris]: I think that's one really fast, easy tool for anybody paying attention to this podcast to think about, because — let me walk you through it. So you start with, what do I need a customer to think right now? How do I need them to feel while they're thinking that, and what's the simplest way I could walk them through it. So, there's a hardware store beside my house. They sell, you know, hardware — they sell toilets and pipes and all that sort of thing. And I'm not an especially handy person. So every time I go in there, I'm lost. And to me, the simplest story they could say is, you know, "We'll be your guides." You know, "We are your Sherpa" You will feel smart when you leave this store. And I would feel so great. And that's the simplest story to tell right? There there's even the promise that you'll feel confident leaving this store. That's almost like a tagline more than a story. And yet, that's what gets done. Stories can be used, even if you don't express them outwardly or verbally, too. like I said, about customer service to explain that we want the person to feel like the most cared for person while they're in our building, stories can be used like that. So they don't actually have to be expressed to people. Stories can be expressed to people in places like email marketing or your advertisements, or in your instruction manuals or your customer service experience, even in the phone tree. When someone dials in and they, you know, for English, press one for Spanish, press two, what happens after there can be scripted like a story, "thanks so much for calling." [Chris]: This is so important. We know that if you're on the phone, then you've either got some questions about something you're thinking about buying, or maybe you've got some challenges with something you've already bought. Let's walk through it together. You know, we're here to make a good experience for you. There's so many real simple touches that people can make. It can even be in the bill, right? "Your invoice is enclosed — It means so much to us that you continue to be our customer. If you ever have a question, here's my cell." If you have a small enough business, give them your phone number. What's the very worst thing that's going to happen is that they'll call it. And I know there's some business owners who are panicked that heaven forbid the customer try to connect with them, but to me, that's the biggest possible opportunity you could ever have in businesses, direct access to your customer. [Gary]: Where you share your story, just as you were eluding to, that’s so essential, you want to meet your audience where they are. Can you talk a little bit about matching story outlets to the audience? Our group at Experian is B2B, we tend to focus more on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and now the podcast, this is a new podcast for us and we want to reach small businesses with this podcast. I probably wouldn’t spend a lot of time of TikTok, a lot of time on the consumer facing social outlets with stories because I am not sure the audience would be there for us, am I wrong? [Chris]: Business to business people tend to go over and look at places like Facebook and TikTok, and those other places, they sometimes bring their business mind to those places. Other times they think of it as an intrusion. So TikTok, for instance, I'm not a big fan of TikTok in general, so I'll just put that out there ahead of time. But what I'm a fan of has nothing to do with as a marketing professional, how I advise people. My advice would be that people go to TikTok to be entertained. And if you just couldn't entertain, "We've got cool office supplies." No one's going to be happy with you at TikTok. So you might pick a new thing. Instagram is a completely consumer experience, unless you're a retail provider, it's a completely consumer kind of space. And, you know, if you're selling HVAC or you're selling small legal services, or  you're an accountant or bookkeeper, you're not necessarily thinking Instagram's your place, but it can surely be your place because people want to know who they buy from. We buy from people we like. [Chris]: So if your story is just that, we're lawyers, so you don't have to be, I mean, you could do a lot of stuff with that. And you're in your Instagram. You could do stories of here's our client who just climbed a mountain. Here's our client who just went water skiing. Here's our client who just got the lake cabin that they've been dreaming about for 25 years. And you know, you're not going to see that many pictures of us because we're busy doing the legal work so that you don't have to, right? So that becomes the story. [Chris]: There's so many ways to tell business, to business stories that humanize what goes on around the business. One thing for instance is if the only thing that separates you from somebody else is your installers, let's say.  Then interview the installers, because if they're the best thing, then they're also the facing point of contact. So interview them. And so the people can have relationships of sorts with them. And they will say, Hey, I saw you in a video and it'll be that strange sense of you feel like you know someone ahead of time. When you go to a conference, you've met someone that you know from online or something, well, you can do that in really small, local B2B circstances and people love it. [Gary]: Yeah. The, I met, well, of course I met you at a conference and, I met a guy named Roger from Texas, and he's a plumber. He really stood out to me because he had been to this conference. It was all about social media. And his business was in some trouble at the time. He had to turn things around, and he went to really study social media, came away from that conference thinking that YouTube is where it's at. He set about recording a whole bunch of tutorials about fixing plumbing problems and became a center of excellence, basically on YouTube for plumbing. And now it's almost like he's got this whole entire other aspect to his business as a specialist in the field, but you wouldn't think that a plumbing business could make that leap, but he showed us that he could. Now I'm seeing that in tons of other areas, too, [Chris]: For sure. With plumbing in my house, I had a situation where my children were complaining about the showerhead. I didn't even notice, it wasn't a big deal to me, but I went out and I bought a new one and then realized, I don't know the first thing about replacing a showerhead. And so I went right to YouTube and I found probably Roger. And, you know, he showed me how to replace a showerhead, and then I didn't have to call someone to do it. So first I realized I probably saved $300 to $500, and second, I felt quite mighty, quite performative that I was able to put the shower head on. I felt like inviting people into my house to come look at it like this is a beautiful shower head. [Chris]: So I think there's so many opportunities for that.  How-to videos are great, instruction videos, care and maintenance type of things. Also, how to enjoy the space around your product, no matter what it is. So even if you're doing office supplies or something like that, you can say, we've got some handy tricks to stop office supply thievery. You can have some fun with it. You can make things that we all think about into something else. Or you could talk about, how now that we're all remote, what kind of office supplies do you need for your own houses? Here's a cool checklist that you can give your people at the company and they can mail one of these out to each house that's dealing with being a remote person. So there's so many, storylines to be done. There's no business too boring, a toilet seat company I talked to had an incredible campaign going. I'm super partial to things like HVAC and plumbing like you said with Roger. I think that there's really hardly a business out there that I can't find some reason to make interesting and useful content. And then the only challenge there is don't go; you can't really just follow any old formula that's out there because a lot of them were created by people. Zig Ziglar said years ago, never buy an encyclopedia from an encyclopedia salesman. Well, a lot of the people that sell you one you should buy, you know, make content, they sell services on how to do content. [Gary]: Chris, thanks for sharing so generously with us. Where can our listeners find out more about you, [Chris]: They can come to chrisbrogan.com/nl for newsletter, pick up my weekly newsletter. It comes out every Sunday. And one thing you could do with my newsletter that you can't with many is just hit reply, and it goes right to me. So you and I could start a conversation. So that might be a good start. [Gary]: Chris, thanks so much for joining us on Small Business Matters.   Listen to the full episode on any of these platforms:

Maintaining a good business credit score should be a priority for all businesses. It helps with securing credit cards, loans and leases, and can aid negotiations for favorable terms with vendors. It can also prevent business owners from having to put their personal assets or creditworthiness on the line by separating their business’s credit from their personal credit reports and scores. What constitutes a good business credit score? Each of the three major business credit reporting agencies uses its own scoring model. Moreover, every vendor and lender is likely to have its own criteria, so there’s really no universal standard for what’s good or bad. There are, however, some guidelines you can use for a general reference. What Is a Good Business Credit Score? To help get some context for your business credit score, you can start by looking at how business credit scoring ranges might correspond to levels of risk. The Federal Reserve’s 2022 Small Business Credit Survey provided a handy definition of risk levels using both personal and business credit scores: While fitting into one of these risk levels doesn’t necessarily translate into absolute success or failure in accessing funds, it can certainly help your odds. In the Fed survey, 62% of low-risk applicants for small-business funding received all of the money they requested, compared with 39% of medium-risk applicants and just 23% of high-risk borrowers. Experian’s Intelliscore PlusSM uses the following ranges to describe risk: How Do Business Credit Scores Work? Business credit scores are similar to personal credit scores in several regards. In both cases, financial institutions and other account owners report your account and payment information to credit reporting agencies. Agencies use this data to create credit reports, which in turn are used to calculate credit scores. A business’s credit score is an indicator of the level of risk it represents when it comes to missing payments or defaulting on debt. Where most modern general-use personal credit scores range from 300 to 850, business credit score ranges can vary. Experian business credit scores range from 1 to 100. An Experian business credit report typically contains identifying information; payment history; public records of judgments, liens or bankruptcies; inquiries; company background; and your business credit score. You can view a sample Experian business credit report to get a sense of how this information appears. As with personal credit scores, the precise formulas used to calculate your business credit score are proprietary. But the factors that contribute to the calculation are known: Number of trade experiences Outstanding balances Payment habits Credit utilization Trends over time Public record recency, frequency, and dollar amount Demographics such as years on file, SIC codes, and business size Where Can I Check My Business Credit Score? The best way to understand your business credit reports and scores is to see them for yourself. Here’s where to go to access your score and report: ● Experian: Visit Experian’s website to access your Experian business credit report or sign up for Business Credit Advantage credit monitoring. Credit monitoring can also help you stay on top of your business’s credit. Experian’s Business Credit Advantage provides access to your current business credit file, sends alerts when any changes occur, and even offers tips for improving your company's credit standing. How to Improve Your Business Credit Score Improving your business credit score generally involves two steps: establishing credit and building on your existing success. Here are a few tips to get you started: Establish your business as a corporation or LLC, so you have a dedicated business identity. If you’re a sole proprietor, apply for an employer identification number (EIN). Work with vendors that report to at least one of the three main business credit reporting agencies. Encourage vendors that don’t to do so. Open credit using your business identity only, even if you have other accounts that rely on your personal credit as a guarantee and even if you have to start small. Utilize your business credit and pay it off on time. Don’t overutilize business credit. At the same time, don’t overdo spending on any account. In the same way that maxing out your personal credit lines can negatively impact your credit score, carrying a balance that’s close to the limit on your business credit can be a drag. Keep credit utilization below 30%, and the lower, the better. Pay on time, every time. Pay early if you can. Separate your business and personal credit. Although securing credit for your business without a personal guarantee can be difficult, avoid personal guarantees on your business lines once you’ve established a strong payment history. Download our free Blueprint for Establishing and Building Business Credit. It contains step-by-step instructions and tips. Finding Room for Improvement Focusing on business credit is a worthwhile practice: Good credit is the key that unlocks funding for growth, resources in an emergency, low-interest rates and great supplier terms to promote efficiency and a host of other building blocks for financial resilience. Check up on your business credit and, if warranted, look for ways to improve your business credit score. To paraphrase an old cliché, you can never be too rich or too creditworthy in business. About the author Gayle Sato Gayle Sato writes about financial services and personal financial wellness, with a special focus on how digital transformation is changing our relationship with money. As a business and health writer for more than two decades, she has covered the shift from traditional money management to a world of instant, invisible payments and on-the-fly mobile security apps. Gayle began her career as a staff writer for Entrepreneur magazine. As an independent publisher, she edited and produced a series of personal finance magazines for credit union members and THINK, an executive magazine for the credit union industry.