Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio brought to you by on pay Atlanta’s new standard in payroll. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one today on the show, we have Enrique or with Salesforce. Welcome, Enrique.

Enrique Ortegon: [00:00:35] Hi, thank you, Lee. I’m so happy to be here. Thank you for having me here on your show today.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:39] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to and what Salesforce is doing here with this new, I guess it’s the fifth edition of the Small and Medium Business Trends report. Can you talk a little bit about what’s the kind of the reason behind even creating the report in the first place?

Enrique Ortegon: [00:00:57] Yeah, no, absolutely. Thank you so much. Yeah. So today we launch our fifth annual Small and Medium Business Trends report, and we launch it in the framework of the Small Business Week here in the United States today kicked off the National Small Business Week, which is the opportunity for us to recognize and celebrate what I call the foundation of our economy and the fabric of our society and what we try to do here at Salesforce. We are very we’re customers, first customer centric company. We want to understand what’s going on with our customers, right? What are they going through and what are they doing to adapt, to survive, to thrive in different environments and listen? The last 18 months have been very challenging for all of us, and a small and medium businesses have, you know, are not the exception. So we went out there. We asked more than ten thousand five hundred small and medium business leaders and owners from around the world. What are they doing? How have they manage the pandemic? And we found things that are very encouraging and that makes us feel very optimistic about their creativity, their resilience, their social resourcefulness of this small and medium businesses. When we ask them how they manage to survive the pandemic. Seventy one percent of them told us that they did so by going and adopting digitalization, which is a very encouraging trend. The other thing we realized is in the U.S. alone, more than four point four million businesses we’re creating were created during this time. So I think it’s a very encouraging landscape. I think a very I’m very optimistic about what small and medium businesses are doing and will continue to do for our economy and for our society.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:41] Now, having my business, all I do is interview small and mid-sized business owners. So every day I’m on the I’m doing these kind of interviews with maybe half a dozen or so different small business mid-sized business owners around the country. And what I’m seeing is, again, just like every other crisis. Business owners tend to be optimistic. I don’t think you can be in business and be pessimistic. It’s very difficult to be kind of a naysayer and still try to grow a business. What are you seeing as kind of some hurdles ahead of small business that they’re going to have to deal with? One of the obvious ones is hiring. A lot of folks are struggling to find the right team members. Do you have any kind of insight based on your report of how they’re attacking that part of the challenge?

Enrique Ortegon: [00:03:35] Yeah. Well, I’ll just say firstly, I knew I liked you for a reason and I love your job because as much as I love my job because I also spend a lot of time talking to small and medium businesses, I mean, it’s my job, and I find it fascinating, and I admire and respect small business leaders, owners, entrepreneurs so much. And you’re right. I mean, it’s been a challenge to feel the need for employment, right? The first thing that we saw is that a lot of small businesses have to furlough a lot of their employees. Now, about half of them have a starting to hire them back, but they’re starting to hire them back under different conditions. What’s going on right now is that employees, usually customers, their expectations have changed. So now you have employees, they’re asking if they’re going to come back to the workforce. They want to come back with a flexible work and flexible work arrangements. They want to do so remotely right under the conditions that are better for them, that help them be more productive, that helped them to be happier, right, and helped to contribute more to their own onto their customer success. So as a response of that, what we’ve seen is that there’s momentum. Businesses are offering flexible work arrangements, the ability to work from home. They’re investing in online productivity and communication tools, and they’re rebuilding these relationships that they have with their own employees, right? By allowing them again to be successful from anywhere right on in the working arrangement that they find more flexible and better for them.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:08] So now how how have kind of the underserved entrepreneurs done through the pandemic? I know there’s been record numbers of black Latina women owned businesses. Two bubbling up during the pandemic, but how have they fared?

Enrique Ortegon: [00:05:27] Yeah. Listen, Latina and black owned businesses have not fared as well as the rest as well as the rest of the other businesses. That’s that’s a sad reality of the environment in which we are. And that’s why when we look back and think about when we ask them all of the businesses, what has helped them succeed get through this pandemic, both government and community support has been very important. Sixty nine percent of the leaders we asked said that government support play a key role. Sixty seven percent of the leaders we asked said community support played a key role in their in their survival. Even one one out of 10 said they will not be around if it wasn’t by a combination of good government and community support. And this is even worse for Black and Latinx owned and supported businesses. And I think that’s why it’s so important not only on this week, which is a small business week nationally. I like to say, you know, Small Business Week should be like Mother’s Day. It should be every day of the week. It’s important that we go out there and we support our local, small and medium businesses.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:39] Now it’s encouraging to see that community support is almost as high as government support because community support to me is sustainable and replicable year round, where government support probably has a expiration date. And that’s hard to kind of count on that year after year. Is there anything that you learned that is maybe kind of be actionable teaching items for folks to leverage their community more to immerse themselves in their community more to get the most out of it so they can really bond and have the community care if they’re not there anymore?

Enrique Ortegon: [00:07:14] Yeah, I mean, this goes hand in hand. We learned about how businesses actually survive and are finding success in these new environment. And the answer is do utilization right? What we’re seeing is that as small and medium businesses through digitalization are extending their relationship with their customers, they’re giving their customers the choice, the flexibility to engage with them right in the channel of their choice, the device of their choice, the time of their choice. Right. So they can have both a detail as well as an in-person relationship. I got to tell you, I love walking down the street to my favorite coffee shop, pick up my coffee and my donut right in the mornings. But sometimes I’m going to be in a rush. So I also love the ability to order from the app and have again my coffee, my donut right there waiting for me. So it’s a transaction that will usually take five 10 minutes. I can. Sometimes I stay there, I hang out there for for a few minutes to one that could be just I used to come by and grab my stuff and move on with my day right? I’m still supporting my local, my local business, right? But I’m doing in a different environment. So small and medium businesses are finding that is really important. So seventy five percent are establishing a digital E commerce and e-commerce channel, right? And they don’t anticipate this is going to go away. So they continue to invest in contactless delivery options, et cetera. They continue to invest in social media channels and communication with their customers through different channels via text message, email, marketing campaigns, etc..

Lee Kantor: [00:08:49] Now are you finding that because of this digitization and this kind of ecommerce element that they’ve added to their business, is there a chance that they might say, You know what, maybe we don’t need to be brick and mortar anymore. Maybe we can be all digital.

Enrique Ortegon: [00:09:06] I think the key word is flexibility and choice, right? I think they’re finding that they’re going to have to live in this both worlds. They’re both here to stay. Seventy five percent of the growing businesses we talked to said the changes they did in the past are going to stay and they’re going to help them remain competitive and successful into the long term, whether they’re going to keep both options. Users like employees are going to continue to say, Hey, I might be working remotely, but I want to have the option to come back to the office maybe one or two days a week if I need to. So I, I don’t anticipate and we haven’t seen a downward trend where say, Hey, we’re completely shuttering our doors and moving into an entirely digital engagement form. But rather, we’re going to leave from this duality where the customers and the employees are going to have the choice to engage both digitally and in person.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:59] Right. But that’s an interesting trade off that they’re making because in one case, they’re just competing with the folks around them and then the other case, they’re competing with the globe, whether it’s in terms of talent or whether it’s in terms of competition. Is there anything that Salesforce does to help them kind of, you know, kind of maintain that hybrid plan of attack?

Enrique Ortegon: [00:10:20] Yeah, absolutely. Listen, we’re in number one. Crm, customer relationship management platform and what we do, we actually help teams sales, marketing service, e commerce, IT teams work as one team from anywhere. So what we’re doing, we’re empowering companies. Customers of all sizes, small and medium businesses to use our tools to find ways to connect and to satisfy their customers in the ways that their customers find best as well as their employees. And we’ve done things like, for example, Slack, which, you know, introduces a whole concept of the digital HQ, right? Which means now we’re all working together in a virtual world that we can be working together side by side, and we will also be collaborating with a teammate that is in a different timezone, right in a different state, a different part of the country.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:09] And then not all of your offerings are for fee for these microbusinesses, there’s kind of no charge low charge versions of Salesforce.

Enrique Ortegon: [00:11:17] You’re certainly options. Listen. They’re very affordable options. There are different ways to get into our platform. What I will say, you know, if you know your people listen to your show, are interested. Go to Salesforce.com, a small business France sub trends and find out. Engage with us and we’ll figure out a way to make sure you are successful. We’re helping you and we’re successful and we’re helping you be successful.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:40] And then when a person engages with Salesforce, are they dealing with a kind of a live human or is this a kind of automated interaction?

Enrique Ortegon: [00:11:51] Both. I mean, all digital world. We’re an artificial intelligence. It’s so relevant and important these days. If you want to reach a human, you will reach a human. If you want to interact digitally with a chatbot, you can do that. And if we can solve your problem, we’ll do it that way, too.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:07] So now are there any kind of takeaways from this report that you would say this is the low hanging fruit that people can take action on today?

Enrique Ortegon: [00:12:18] I would say there are four things that we learn from this report that are very important. One is that small and medium businesses are prioritizing both customer and employees needs in this new digital world, right? They’re engaging with them in the channel of their choice and the device of their choice right at a time of their choice. And given the flexibility to engage digitally as well as in person, which means there’s an acceleration of digitalization, which also means there is a prioritization of security with digitalization comes the importance of keeping customers and companies data secure, right? And the fourth thing that I’ll say and we’ve seen is really interesting. You see it. You talk all the time with small and medium business owners and leaders and entrepreneurs, hard times, uncertainty, crises and challenges. They’re not as strange to this. I mean, they are sometimes, you know, they’re perennial optimists, right? But what they’re finding is the changes are coming in a faster way and a more unpredictable ways. So they’re now incorporating the scenario planning practices into their management style and into their management practices. So four things prioritized customers and employees needs accelerate utilization, focus on security, cybersecurity and incorporating this in their planning through their management style.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:43] I couldn’t agree more. I think that that is so important with these small and mid-sized businesses, especially to have that kind of support and community to help them through these challenging times because a lot of folks feel like they’re going at it alone and they don’t have a kind of a place to turn. I think one of the benefits of partnering with a Salesforce company is that community of Salesforce, folks that are users of Salesforce and the community that you’ve established over the years to help each other. And that is just the worth the price of admission by itself. I think, because it is kind of the Wild West out there and you need as much help as you can in order to survive.

Enrique Ortegon: [00:14:24] You know, I could not have said that that early. That’s just phenomenal. We do have a trailblazer community, which is millions of people who are certified, who use Salesforce, who are evangelists of Salesforce and who help each other learn advance, right? Help certainly give us feedback. As a company, they help each other and be successful in this ecosystem. But most importantly, if you’re a small and medium business leader, owner, an entrepreneur, you’re not alone. Ninety nine point nine percent of the businesses in this country are small or medium businesses. Forty seven percent of the people who are employed in this customer are employed by industry in this country are employed by small or medium business. And in this week, what I’ll say is an opportunity for all of us to recognize to celebrate small, medium businesses by a small user, small write, reviews, post and social media channels and use overall, you know, spread the love for small and medium businesses. I said before, and I will continue to say small and medium businesses are the foundation of our economy and the fabric of our society. We need them and they need us. So let’s go out there and, you know, spread the small business love.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:37] I couldn’t agree more. And the sad fact is, and this is my mission and this is why Business RadioX exists, is because we’re trying to be the voice of those small to midsize business owners. Because sadly, even though ninety nine point nine percent of the businesses are small and midsize, the zero point one percent of the businesses take all the headlines and all the media attention away from all the other ones. So we’re trying to be that voice of business and give them a chance to be heard. And I think that it’s critically important because those are the folks that are supporting the community. They’re the ones. They are supporting the church and the schools and the Little League teams. They’re the ones doing the hard work and they’re kind of the unsung heroes of those communities.

Enrique Ortegon: [00:16:18] At least we’re together on this campaign to make sure small and medium businesses continue to be around, continue to support our economy, continue to support our societies and our communities. We’re in this one big symbiotic circle. And I agree with you. So you and me, we’re hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder in this. We’re advocates, we’re evangelists and staunch supporters forever or small and medium businesses.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:44] So now if somebody wants to get their hands on this report, where can they find it?

Enrique Ortegon: [00:16:48] Salesforce.com SMB trends?

Lee Kantor: [00:16:52] Good stuff, Enrique. Thank you so much for sharing your story today. You and your firm are doing important work and we appreciate you.

Enrique Ortegon: [00:16:59] Thank you, Lee. It’s been a pleasure and go a small business love.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:02] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Atlanta Business Radio.