The sad truth is that half of the businesses in our community will not exist five years from now, and in 10 years only a third of them will actually be still in business. One of the greatest fears of a small business owner is, staying alive and staying in business.

I got a chance to discuss various topics related to the financial health of small businesses with my guest, Safie Russell, a CPA with a Masters in Taxation. Safie has an extensive background in finances with over 18 years, starting out with the Big Four working in public accounting, worked with business accounts of all different sizes, and is now serving the small business community through her own company. SDR Consulting Inc, helps small businesses from formation all the way through to tax preparation and all the stuff in between. In this discussion she provides insights to some questions that I posed on behalf of small businesses owners.

Why do you think so many small businesses fail within their first five years?

What...

This an oldie..but a goodie.

The message is so on point at this time of the year and especially in this season.

Take time to reflect as we end the first half of the year and be grateful that GOD has blessed us with life and the strength to enter into the 2nd half of the year.

Join me as I pause and reflect on so many things that have transpired over the past few months and take stock of progress towards the goals we set.

This is really an opportune time to take advantage of having EXTRA time and really sit down and do all the things that you never have time to do, whether it's enough of marketing, of training, of planning. This is the time that you want to take to do those things because, I'm telling you, coming out of this is going to be a different world. Customers are going to be more discerning. Many customers are going to ask "Where am I going to spend my hard-earned dollar?" Some of them may not even have an income, but they're still going to need to eat and they're going to be much more discerning, much more picky about who they patronize.

So if you're not open at this time, it's really important that you take advantage of the opportunity with no one around, employees not in the space, to really look at how you're doing business and, what's going to be your plan coming out of this? It can't be business as usual because the world is going to change, and we really have got to look at...