By the Bootstraps

My favorite source of Chicago small business news, Crain’s Chicago Business, spoke to three women in Chicago’s business world. These women – Laurel Bellows, Venita Fields and Maria Pinto – spoke with Crain’s about the economy’s effect on entrepreneur’s hoping to get their stores off the group during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Bellows told said she believed the recession created new opportunities for businesses. Rents are affordable and industries are more willing to negotiate cheaper rates, where they may have been less flexible in the past, said Laurel Bellows, an area lawyer.

Pinto – best known as one of First Lady Michelle Obama’s favorite Chicago designers – stressed networking’s importance during the recession.

“There are business groups and resources out there that you can afford,” Pinto said “Many people who have been extremely successful find great joy out of helping other people.”

The Kansas City, Missouri-based organization the Kauffman Foundation backed their findings. It found the country “might be on the cusp of an entrepreneurship boom, triggered by the recession, an aging population and less job security,” the Crain’s report said.

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In recent years it seems as though the Second City’s meat and potatoes past has given way to a “foodie” present. Industry professionals and connoisseurs are making room on their dance cards for a number of delicious and innovative restaurants in the city.

Our new found role seems to have trickled down to small businesses: various restaurants and stores offer cooking lessons to customers. For example Andersonville’s The Wooden Spoon sells high quality cookware in the front of the store but in the back you’ll find a full scale kitchen setup, with a half-moon countertop set in front of the stove for easy viewing and demonstration. Students leave each class having made at least three dishes they can replicate at home. During the August 21 “Grill and Sip” class, chefs-in-training will learn how to make mini chicken sliders with Asian slaw and orzo with shrimp and vegetables, just to name a few. Class prices range from $65 – $85.

The Wooden Spoon’s class schedule is online and the Chicago Tribune has compiled a list of over 150 options available throughout the city.

Photo Credit: “Cooking in a Pan”

The Wooden Spoon
5047 N. Clark Avenue
Chicago, IL 60640
(773) 293-3190

Wicker Park area boutiques large and small will gather to support Dress for Success Chicago, an organization that provides professional dress to disadvantaged women trying to reenter the work force. This Thursday between 4-8 p.m., check in at clothing boutique Tangerine (1719 N. Damen) to begin an evening of shopping and service. Tickets are $30 for non Young Executives for Success members and all purchases from participating stores are 15-20% off.

More than 300 supporters of President Barack Obama’s push for health care reform gathered in Chicago’s Federal Plaza Tuesday evening. The crowd listened as national and local figures – for example Gov. Pat Quinn, Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias and former Cigna executive Wendell Potter – gave speeches on the need for quality health care and an end to denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions.

The national health care reform debate has an affect on small businesses. Critics of Obama’s $1 trillion health-care makeover say its mandate that employers help pay for employee’s health care will deter small business owners from hiring (a big no-no considering small businesses hire 40 percent of the nation’s work force). Entrepreneurs whose businesses have a payroll of less than $250,000 are exempt but “businesses that do not offer health coverage to their workers would pay an 8 percent payroll tax to help subsidize coverage,” according to the New York Times’s “You’re the Boss” blog. This tallies up to 5 percent of businesses in the country who will feel the pinch in their revenues.

According to the Census Bureau, the average revenue of firms of this size was $1,768,000 in 2002. So these businesses will pay about 2 percent of their revenue as a penalty under the new law. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but it actually is.

Through the writer’s calculations, “You’re the Boss” says that these businesses stand to lose 39 percent of their revenue under tax policy.

It’s clear this debate isn’t as black and white as either side would have one believe.

The owner of Logan Square’s Mega Mall – which is home to 70 businesses – continues to battle with Chicago officials who want the property. Officials have “already taken steps that would eventually lead to a sale under eminent domain,” Chicagotalks reports.

Closing the shopping center would have both positive and negative effects. According to the report, officials want the site to become a park as part of its initiative to bring open spaces to the West Side neighborhood; the idea of a grocery store has also been thrown around for this “food desert,” an area with limited access to healthy food options. However the 70 business owners at the Mega Mall will lose their businesses – relocation in this economy may be a daunting prospect for some owners.

For more on this story, read the article “Future of Logan Square Mega Mall in Limbo” at local blog Chicagotalks.

Photo credit: “Sterile mall”

In the video from the last entry, President Obama had this message for small business owner’s across the nation:

I want to say to every American running a small business or hoping to run a small business one day. You deserve a chance. America needs you to have that chance. As president, I will continue to do everything in my power to ensure you have the opportunity to contribute to your community, to our economy and to the future of the United States of America.

Want to know exactly how he plans to go about that? Here’s a PDF of his and Vice President Joe Biden’s plans for small businesses. You can also check Politifact for updates and explanations of his campaign promises.

Obama and Biden’s Small Business Initiatives

Something very prevalent in the world of small businesses is their inability to get loans. The lack of liquidity in the credit market makes it hard to get a loan, even for small businesses with the best of credit. Since many believe small businesses can propel the nation out of the recession, I wondered what President Barack Obama’s plans were to address the issue. read more »

The New York Times has an article focusing on a Miami-based family operation that may face closure because of the recession and the unique nature of their business.

The Great Recession, especially its stranglehold on credit and new construction, appears to have mortally wounded what the Depression could not kill.

“It’s not ‘Oh, I don’t have a job, I have to go find a new one,’ ” Mr. [Scott] Peterson (who works for his family business, Harold A. Peterson Steeplejack) said. “We’re losing a corporation that is 83 years old. We’re losing our house. We’re losing our credit. We’re losing, other than our own physical bodies, everything.”

Harold A. Peterson Steeplejack, an 83-years-old business built on repairing steeples and flagpole installations, will close this year because it can’t afford the business’ steep overhead costs. In the report, Scott Peterson, the grandson of the company’s founder, said he had been rejected for small business loans because his credit score was too low.

Unfortunately the Peterson’s story isn’t an unique one: American businesses with only one to 19 employees lost 757,000 jobs from second quarter 2007 to third quarter 2008, according to the report. How many of these are small family businesses isn’t readily available, but the Times says the number of Americans with small businesses is in the millions.

Photo credit: Vintage family from England

A federal increase of the minimum wage happened last Friday, jumping to $7.25 from $6.55. The increase will bring a extra $1,500 a year before taxes for the 4 million Americans who earn minimum wage. Ninety-one percent of small businesses pay above the minimum wage, according to David Ferreira of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. So how will the increase affect small business owners already experiencing cash flow problems because of the recession? Listen to a recent edition of NPR’s Tell Me More for a discussion of this very issue.

Marguerite Garden’s owner Marguerite Gluck said she was heartened by her customers purchasing as much as they could afford to keep her in business. It got me wondering: Do you continue shopping at your favorite local stores to give them business during the recession?

Photo credit: “cash register”