Group Scarcity Mindset at its WORST!
Oct 15, 2021
Trigger warning: GROUP SCARCITY MINDSET AT IT’S WORST!
I’ve seen this meme floating around and I’m pretty sure if you’re a business owner, it doesn’t feel good to read. So I’m here to call bullsh*t because it is, and continuing to spread it as truth is just going to hurt small business where it hurts— the fragile mindset of small business owners at holiday time. Misery loves company and posts like this tend to encourage the “I’m having such a slow month” comments more than normal.
A couple of things:
1. Yeah, it sucks that corporations like Walmart and Target made way more money during the pandemic; especially when Walmart has been actively leveraging our taxpayer dollars to fund federal subsidies for their employees that they pay crappy, super low wages. Not cool at all.
2. The money corporations make isn’t always tied to small businesses LOSING money or customers. This is scarcity mindset at its most refined- blaming one party’s success for another’s downfall.
3. Small businesses that can pivot, have a great audience, and show up consistently will last for a long time. I have plenty of clients in groups and 1:1 who are doing $5000-500,000 in sales revenue per month this year (and some were higher last year DURING said pandemic.)
4. The 20% that have closed are potentially natural turnover of mismanaged businesses, ones who don’t keep up, or ones who can’t keep up due to personal reasons. The SBA in 2019 (pre-pandemic) estimated that 20% of new businesses fail in the first year and 50% fail within the first 5 years. To me, this is the natural cycle of small businesses just being spotlighted for this meme. We have seen older people retire at a higher rate, 2 MILLION more than analysts predicted, during this pandemic. How many of those might be small biz owners? We don’t know.
5. Can’t we just ask the public to shop local WITHOUT MAKING THEM FEEL GUILTY?
I’m not in a place to gaslight anyone if they are struggling in their business right now. That’s not what this is about. If you are struggling and have questions or need encouragement- post in here and ask for help! That’s what this community and I are here for!
I really want to encourage you to not believe everything you read- especially if it feels like it’s something that’s getting shared a lot. Dig deeper, ask if this applies to you, double-check the facts. Fake news spreads in our industry just as much as any other. Be aware of believing what you choose to believe, not just what you might see.