Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joining us now Dwayne Deeson, who is a business strategist,
to talk about the effects on small businesses in our
country when it comes to the tariffs, and also the
discussion of China when it comes to the market reacting
the other day because of the tariff situation. Dwayne, welcome in.
Thanks for being.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Here, Oh, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
So when all this discussion started, everybody's freaking out, Oh
my gosh, this is going to kill us. It's going
to be horrible. And all of a sudden, you know,
the great negotiator, mister Donald Trump worked it. I were oh, okay,
all right, now things are starting to look better for us. Okay,
maybe take a deep breath. We know the market is
quite the emotional reaction beast and sometimes you know, needs
to just slow down and take a deep breath, but
the market doesn't do that. So but in reality, now
(00:40):
that we've seen these tariffs, you know, implemented, our small
business is feeling a tough time because of this or
is it going to be okay?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Well, I think I think they're in for a little
bit of a bumpy road, particularly in the next few weeks,
because we have the upcoming meeting with Trump and the leader,
and really the outcome of that is always a little rocky.
Both of them start just posture and they both start
claiming that they're going to implement much stronger tariffs, and
sometimes those talks break down and these new tariffs do
(01:14):
come into place. So it could be rocky for a
little while here, particularly for the next few weeks. Hopefully
at that point they come to an agreement at the meeting,
or very well could be another probably tough Christmas season,
shall we say.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Yeah, well, you know, let's I want to get your
perspective on Donald Trump and his skills of negotiating. We
certainly have seen what he's been doing recently globally when
it comes to conflicts and wars, but when it comes
to the economy as well. As I mentioned early on,
there was a lot of scare and knee jerk reaction
to the discussion of what he was doing and balancing
the tariffs and trade agreements to better benefit the United States.
(01:50):
And you know, as the seas calm, everybody kind of
smoothed out and it looked, okay, do you believe in
the point with China? And I would say, maybe you
agree or not that the China discussion is probably the
biggest one when it comes to countries and tariffs in
the discussion, and that's why probably they've been put, you know,
not that the back burner, but given more time to
(02:12):
work things out. Do you believe at the end of
the day when it comes to China and the United
States that both parties will be happy?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Well, I think I think both parties will come to agreement.
I think no one's ever fully happy with these types
of things. But I think part of this is going
to be that China has a little bit more leverage
than they had last time. We did this lastly on
the first President Trump term, and this time they have
the rare earth minerals that they're that they have almost
(02:39):
a near monopoly on that they're they're exercising that their
their power and that and they have a little bit
more endurance in taking paine because you can't complain there,
so so they can take a bit more pain than
we can. But with the site those two items, we
actually have a lot of leverage on China. Their economy
is not particularly strong, and we buy from them more
(03:00):
than they buy from us, So I think we probably
have a net stronger position but it's not the say
that they don't have some leverage. And Trump is very
savvy in these type of things and probably knows that.
And I think because of that, they're going to come
up with something that is going to be reasonable on
both ends. I'm going to stop short the same. Both
sides will be happy.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Okay, Well, if listen, you know, if I have listeners
right now that own small businesses, and in Alabama, a
small business, I guess everywhere defined is a business with
less than five hundred people, and that's about ninety percent
of the businesses in Alabama and probably in a lot
of states. But if you've got somebody listening right now
that's a president of this small business, they've got a
(03:42):
couple of hundred people that work for them, what do
you tell them as far as how to navigate through
what's going on with the tariffs and the crunches that
they're feeling right now.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Well, the extent that they are buying goods overseas, you know,
it's hard not to have to deal with tariffs in
some manner. If you're thetic sourced, then obviously you're probably
in a much stronger position. But if you're going to
be buying goods from overseas. I think sometimes the best
thing you can do is have some diversity and supply chain,
look around and see where else you can buy these
(04:13):
goods from so that you're not beholden to a sudden change.
For example, if the things seen in China and all
of a sudden, Trump goes through with his one hundred
percent additional tariff threat, and you're not, all of a
sudden in a bind, you don't have ability to go
somewhere else. There's other strategies you can implement where you
stock up a little bit early on coases supplies before
(04:33):
the tariffs hit, but now you're carrying inventory. So I
would say that'd be second to my first recommendation. And
then which you really just don't want to be in
a position, is that if things get messy, you have
to pay the tariff, and now you have to try
to pass that along for your customers. You can't afford
to absorb that level of tariff.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
You know, being able to pivot in business situations. And
Bill Belichick used to say it all the time, if
all of a sudden, we you know, draft three wide receivers,
We're not going to be running the ball as much
as we did last year. You know, we got to
pivot to use the talent we've got. So is it
to the point I think we're small business owners need
to be considering pivoting right now before it gets really
(05:12):
crazy and you're forced to do that. Are we at
that point?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
I think? I think we are trying to settle. The
issue with China is probably not going away in its entirety.
I think tariffs are in a new era where we're
going to have ebbs and flows of times when it
gets a little bit more rough. China says they're going
to play nice, and let's say we come up in
an agreement in the next two or three months, and
then in six months they just kind of get rare
(05:37):
Earth again or something like that, and it escalates all over again.
So I think you just don't want to be in
a position where you're sourcing your product from one location
where you can be subject to a blow up in tariffs,
in political dispute, So you really, I think you should have,
if you can afford to that, have diversity and supply
(05:57):
chain so that you're just not stuck with beholden to
to the whims of what might be other countries the
deciding that they want to play tough with the United
States or vice versa.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I know it's probably on an individual basis, but do
you think we're to the point where people need to
be considering to pivot into a completely different business where
you depend on domestic supply versus the big supplies outside
of the United States.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Well, you know, I never recommend someone leaving and what
they do, and if they are successful at it and
they're profitable, obviously, if they're losing money on something, you
can't stay in that business. That doesn't make sense. That's
not a good way to protect your future. So I
think you should look at that and play it out
and see how things evolve in that way. Always, if
(06:41):
there's businesses that look for the long term that they're
just going to be too volatile and too risky for
you to be part of that business, then you should
maybe the best of part of that business that has
that risk. But I stop short of telling businesses that
they should shut down or try to pursue something else
that they're not necessarily good at it, and they're in
that business is usually because that's their bread and butter.
(07:02):
That's not what they know how to do right, and
I don't think we're at a point where we should
have abandon ship on that.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
All right, very good, Well, I enjoyed our talk rather Dwayne.
Thank you so much, and we'll do it again soon. Dwayne,
decent business strategies,
Joining us now Dwayne Deeson, who is a business strategist,
to talk about the effects on small businesses in our
country when it comes to the tariffs, and also the
discussion of China when it comes to the market reacting
the other day because of the tariff situation. Dwayne, welcome in.
Thanks for being.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Here, Oh, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
So when all this discussion started, everybody's freaking out, Oh
my gosh, this is going to kill us. It's going
to be horrible. And all of a sudden, you know,
the great negotiator, mister Donald Trump worked it. I were oh, okay,
all right, now things are starting to look better for us. Okay,
maybe take a deep breath. We know the market is
quite the emotional reaction beast and sometimes you know, needs
to just slow down and take a deep breath, but
the market doesn't do that. So but in reality, now
(00:40):
that we've seen these tariffs, you know, implemented, our small
business is feeling a tough time because of this or
is it going to be okay?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Well, I think I think they're in for a little
bit of a bumpy road, particularly in the next few weeks,
because we have the upcoming meeting with Trump and the leader,
and really the outcome of that is always a little rocky.
Both of them start just posture and they both start
claiming that they're going to implement much stronger tariffs, and
sometimes those talks break down and these new tariffs do
(01:14):
come into place. So it could be rocky for a
little while here, particularly for the next few weeks. Hopefully
at that point they come to an agreement at the meeting,
or very well could be another probably tough Christmas season,
shall we say.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Yeah, well, you know, let's I want to get your
perspective on Donald Trump and his skills of negotiating. We
certainly have seen what he's been doing recently globally when
it comes to conflicts and wars, but when it comes
to the economy as well. As I mentioned early on,
there was a lot of scare and knee jerk reaction
to the discussion of what he was doing and balancing
the tariffs and trade agreements to better benefit the United States.
(01:50):
And you know, as the seas calm, everybody kind of
smoothed out and it looked, okay, do you believe in
the point with China? And I would say, maybe you
agree or not that the China discussion is probably the
biggest one when it comes to countries and tariffs in
the discussion, and that's why probably they've been put, you know,
not that the back burner, but given more time to
(02:12):
work things out. Do you believe at the end of
the day when it comes to China and the United
States that both parties will be happy?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Well, I think I think both parties will come to agreement.
I think no one's ever fully happy with these types
of things. But I think part of this is going
to be that China has a little bit more leverage
than they had last time. We did this lastly on
the first President Trump term, and this time they have
the rare earth minerals that they're that they have almost
(02:39):
a near monopoly on that they're they're exercising that their
their power and that and they have a little bit
more endurance in taking paine because you can't complain there,
so so they can take a bit more pain than
we can. But with the site those two items, we
actually have a lot of leverage on China. Their economy
is not particularly strong, and we buy from them more
(03:00):
than they buy from us, So I think we probably
have a net stronger position but it's not the say
that they don't have some leverage. And Trump is very
savvy in these type of things and probably knows that.
And I think because of that, they're going to come
up with something that is going to be reasonable on
both ends. I'm going to stop short the same. Both
sides will be happy.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Okay, Well, if listen, you know, if I have listeners
right now that own small businesses, and in Alabama, a
small business, I guess everywhere defined is a business with
less than five hundred people, and that's about ninety percent
of the businesses in Alabama and probably in a lot
of states. But if you've got somebody listening right now
that's a president of this small business, they've got a
(03:42):
couple of hundred people that work for them, what do
you tell them as far as how to navigate through
what's going on with the tariffs and the crunches that
they're feeling right now.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Well, the extent that they are buying goods overseas, you know,
it's hard not to have to deal with tariffs in
some manner. If you're thetic sourced, then obviously you're probably
in a much stronger position. But if you're going to
be buying goods from overseas. I think sometimes the best
thing you can do is have some diversity and supply chain,
look around and see where else you can buy these
(04:13):
goods from so that you're not beholden to a sudden change.
For example, if the things seen in China and all
of a sudden, Trump goes through with his one hundred
percent additional tariff threat, and you're not, all of a
sudden in a bind, you don't have ability to go
somewhere else. There's other strategies you can implement where you
stock up a little bit early on coases supplies before
(04:33):
the tariffs hit, but now you're carrying inventory. So I
would say that'd be second to my first recommendation. And
then which you really just don't want to be in
a position, is that if things get messy, you have
to pay the tariff, and now you have to try
to pass that along for your customers. You can't afford
to absorb that level of tariff.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
You know, being able to pivot in business situations. And
Bill Belichick used to say it all the time, if
all of a sudden, we you know, draft three wide receivers,
We're not going to be running the ball as much
as we did last year. You know, we got to
pivot to use the talent we've got. So is it
to the point I think we're small business owners need
to be considering pivoting right now before it gets really
(05:12):
crazy and you're forced to do that. Are we at
that point?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
I think? I think we are trying to settle. The
issue with China is probably not going away in its entirety.
I think tariffs are in a new era where we're
going to have ebbs and flows of times when it
gets a little bit more rough. China says they're going
to play nice, and let's say we come up in
an agreement in the next two or three months, and
then in six months they just kind of get rare
(05:37):
Earth again or something like that, and it escalates all over again.
So I think you just don't want to be in
a position where you're sourcing your product from one location
where you can be subject to a blow up in tariffs,
in political dispute, So you really, I think you should have,
if you can afford to that, have diversity and supply
(05:57):
chain so that you're just not stuck with beholden to
to the whims of what might be other countries the
deciding that they want to play tough with the United
States or vice versa.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I know it's probably on an individual basis, but do
you think we're to the point where people need to
be considering to pivot into a completely different business where
you depend on domestic supply versus the big supplies outside
of the United States.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Well, you know, I never recommend someone leaving and what
they do, and if they are successful at it and
they're profitable, obviously, if they're losing money on something, you
can't stay in that business. That doesn't make sense. That's
not a good way to protect your future. So I
think you should look at that and play it out
and see how things evolve in that way. Always, if
(06:41):
there's businesses that look for the long term that they're
just going to be too volatile and too risky for
you to be part of that business, then you should
maybe the best of part of that business that has
that risk. But I stop short of telling businesses that
they should shut down or try to pursue something else
that they're not necessarily good at it, and they're in
that business is usually because that's their bread and butter.
(07:02):
That's not what they know how to do right, and
I don't think we're at a point where we should
have abandon ship on that.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
All right, very good, Well, I enjoyed our talk rather Dwayne.
Thank you so much, and we'll do it again soon. Dwayne,
decent business strategies,
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