Running on Coffee and Christ
We are an energetic couple, focused on building a community that is able to impact their families, friends, and their world by; Growing their Faith, Improving their Fitness, and Pursuing their Future.
The topics we discuss, revolve around the hopes that YOU are inspired to better yourself and that you could dare to dream above and beyond all that you have ever imagined for yourself.
Running on Coffee and Christ
Episode 14: Small Business: We All Want to Grow Together.
The untold reality of small business life lurks beneath the surface of your favorite local shops, cafés, and services. While customers see the welcoming smiles and carefully crafted products, they rarely glimpse the late-night inventory counts, payroll struggles, and supply chain battles happening behind closed doors.
"Rolling in dough" couldn't be further from truth for most small business owners. We share our eye-opening experiences with merchandise ordering, where despite our best planning, we found ourselves at the bottom of priority lists compared to big box stores ordering thousands of units. These aren't complaints—they're windows into the complex world of entrepreneurship that requires patience, persistence, and passion that extends far beyond profit margins.
Your support creates ripples throughout your community in ways you might never imagine. That $5 coffee helps pay a college student's tuition. The boutique purchase funds a family's back-to-school shopping. Every dollar spent locally circulates within your community rather than disappearing into corporate coffers. And your word-of-mouth recommendations carry more weight than any expensive marketing campaign ever could.
Small businesses face seasonal ebbs and flows that require constant adaptation. Summer months bring vacation disruptions, changing routines, and new opportunities to serve differently. We're discovering innovative ways to maintain connections with traveling customers while welcoming visitors exploring our small town. These challenges stretch us, but they also spark creativity that enhances the character of our community.
Next time you're deciding where to spend your hard-earned money, remember that choosing local means investing in the very fabric of your community—the people, relationships, and unique character that make it home. Share your favorite local spots, tell their stories, and become part of the vital support system that allows small businesses not just to survive, but to thrive and serve in meaningful ways.
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Music from #InAudio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5NgiN3KLb4
Hey everyone and welcome back to the Running on Coffee and Cross podcast. We're here again, yep, we are very happy to be with you again. I think this is episode 14. It is April 30th, the last day of this month. I can't believe we're already heading into May. I know when May hits, it feels like everything just goes fast forward.
Speaker 2:Well, everything changes Like you're at the end of the school year you're going into the summer, people have all these things that they're wanting to change about their life and plans. Go do this, go do that. Finish up this.
Speaker 1:Your daily routine is about to change. After this month you might not be having to get the kids up, You're not having to run to this or that. You're having to get your kids somewhere else because you work and they're having to stay with someone else or whatever. And then sometimes it just slows down a little bit and maybe you're going to go on some vacations and I know, at the shop things change in the summer as well, and us, being a new business, I know that we've had to figure out a a lot of things, um, by the seat of our pants and um, we still haven't figured it out. I remember our first summer. We thought that we were going to be like so slammed and it was it like dramatically got slower.
Speaker 2:And, well, everyone's routine changed and we realized that this is the season where people go like our normal customers were going on vacation, um, um, and they would even ask, you know, like before they headed out, like, hey, is there any way we can get something to go on the road, you know, to last? And that I think conversations like that with our customer helps us, inspires us to create new products, to be able to allow them, you know, that opportunity.
Speaker 2:So some of them do take, like a, you know, a latte tote that's a 96 ounce so they can put it in their fridge and just have their normal drink that they get every day while they're on vacation.
Speaker 1:Because I know when we've gone on vacation, we've had a hard time finding coffee shops that we actually enjoy.
Speaker 2:A lot of times it's a hit and miss because you have a taste preference right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah so like, if you have a taste preference for a dark roast but you come to our shop and you know we're medium to light roast, um, without going in with an open mind, uh, you might not. It might not trigger those emotional responses like you had in the past because you had a great family get together and you drank a really dark roast and it just triggers an emotional response in you when you, when you taste that, so you kind of are drawn towards it, so you're just not getting what you're accustomed to or you're used to when you're on vacation. Sometimes we hit and sometimes we miss.
Speaker 2:That's right you just got to try it, and that's part of the journey is just trying the small coffee shops that when you go to on vacation or when you go somewhere, just trying them out, tasting and seeing. Because, if it's a location that you want to revisit again, well then. You know, you've got opportunity to try it multiple times different places, but you wind up finding that one and you're like, oh, can't wait to go back because I'm going to be near that shop.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and it's so important to support local. I mean, we're so thankful that you still support your local shop by taking something with you, because that gives us business while you're gone, you know, especially if you're a regular, you know. And then also, yes, we want you to support those small shops that are at the beach or in the mountains or wherever you're going. But that's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about the importance of small business and the importance of supporting those small and local businesses, because, guys, without you we would not make it. But there are so many hurdles that small businesses have to overcome on a daily basis that I think people really don't quite understand. And I also think that people have a misconception that, because you own a business, that you're just like rolling in the dough. And I can tell you that is not true. It takes a while to build any business. For a business to be very profitable, it's going to take time. Nothing comes easy. It's just like with our running. You know, know it takes a while to build that base. You know, I have talked about where I want to be in my running and I talk about it in years. Not, it's not what I'm wanting to achieve is not going to happen in weeks or months. It's going to take years to get there, and that's the same way it is with small businesses. It takes years.
Speaker 1:I know that there are people that I've talked to now that have very successful small businesses that are profitable, that they can kind of relax a little bit, okay, because you're always going to be working it, but it didn't start that way for them. You know, everything has to start very grassroots, and just because a business isn't, um, I guess raking in these huge profits within a year doesn't mean that they're not successful. In fact, I would really question that, because it's like, wow, you know, and I know in our first year, uh, when you first open, you're going to get flooded, and that's one piece of advice I would like to give anybody that's starting a new business is, when you first open, you are going to be flooded with customers because they want to see what this new thing is, and then, after that first year, or after the first six months first year, you're going to see a dwindle. You are, you are going to see it, and I feel like that's when we really started figuring out how we wanted to grow and build the business.
Speaker 2:You have to have. You know you're going to have a base Um, you're going to have the curiosity seekers at the beginning and then you're going to have a base that really sticks with you and you want to learn from that base, because our goal is to serve, our goal is to serve our customer.
Speaker 2:Um, there's a reason why a lot of the drinks that I might drink, my customer might not know about it, like I know that in America we have made trendy terms from European traditional coffee into terms that make sense to us in our American version of them. You know, like a cappuccino or a cortado or something like that, or a macchiato. They're trendy terms, but a lot of people don't a cortado or something like that or a macchiato. They're trendy terms, but a lot of people don't want the traditional European version of that. They want something that has been Americanized and knowing that we are serving our customer and wanting to give them the best possible product, having the best ingredients that go into those drinks, but understanding that our goal is to make them have the same experience that we would experience on vacation or when we went shopping or when we went somewhere together as a family.
Speaker 2:We went to a local coffee shop and we sat down and we enjoyed our time together as a family, you know, as friends or as a group. However, it was that you're meeting at those shops. That was the goal was to be able to experience togetherness or or be able to accomplish some sort of goal, whether you're studying or whether you were working on something you know. It's important that that atmosphere is here and that they're able to receive a product that's going to cause them to have a complete experience, not necessarily just coming for coffee because we talked about this, the past like coffee is one of those things. Like that, people are like, oh, what's the latest, the greatest, the this flavor, add this. But it's the whole atmosphere that we want to bring to them to be able to allow them to say, hey, when I go back in this area, I'm going back to that shop, you know because, of that emotional response that connection, whether it was through the family or just because you get enjoy the environment I think that's what you're going to get with small businesses.
Speaker 1:You're going to a small town coffee shop. You are going to get more of that experience than you are necessarily if you went to Starbucks Dunkin'. What is it? Seven Brews, Is that one?
Speaker 2:Dutch Brothers, Dutch Brothers Now.
Speaker 1:I want to be very clear. I am not hating on any of those companies, because to me, we need them as well. Um, they started small at some point, you know. So I know I'm never one that wants to hate on big business or corporations, um, because they did start small at some point, um, but I will say, um, it's very important, though, if you live in a small town where you do have the luxury of having small businesses around you, like even a coffee shop. I know there's several towns here in Blount County that offer coffee shops. Please go to them.
Speaker 2:When we're in those areas of the county, we go to them because we know that it is a luxury, like you said to be able to have that experience, and not just with coffee shops, with any kind of restaurant, any kind of boutique or anything like that. You get to experience something there that you can't experience in a big box store.
Speaker 2:I know we were talking about earlier, about some brands that we sell here in the shop that we've had some struggles with because we are a small business, you know, and that that we're we're. We feel like our hands are tied sometimes on some of the brands that we represent because we don't we don't have the ability to buy a hundred thousand dollars in merchandise in one order. We're only going to have a certain amount on our shelves.
Speaker 1:That we can actually supply. Yes, it doesn't make sense. Okay, and I will get very specific about this, for instance, because I have people reaching out to me weekly, daily when are you going to get new Burlabo? Burlabo was one of those companies that we decided to start carrying. I have, obviously, I have a teenage son and I have young adult nephews and so I listen to a lot of things that they say and what they're into, and we really wanted to expand our offerings to men as well, and Burlap was one of those companies that we decided to go with.
Speaker 1:It was definitely a higher ticketed item was one of those companies that we decided to go with. It was definitely a higher ticketed item. It's going to be for people that understand the value of what they're getting. You know, this wasn't going to be just a $15 t-shirt, this was going to be like a $40 t-shirt. But then there was also really great other merchandise that went with it, like shorts, joggers. You guys know what Burlabo is and really, really, the company has exploded. Now, when we, when we, did our first couple of orders with them, um, it went great. The ordering process was fantastic. And then, right around christmas time which I would have been ordering my christmas stuff, probably like in october, um, and honestly, big box stores would probably have already had their orders in, like maybe in they probably already have their orders in right now for the next Christmas because they can.
Speaker 1:Um, but now I I would not put my Christmas order in until October so that my stuff can go out on the shelf by Black Friday. So what I realized was that there was um. Now they didn't tell me that there was going to be any delays. I just did my order as normal and I ordered quite a bit of merchandise for our shop. We're talking about probably around $3,000 worth of merchandise like wholesale costs. Okay, so that's a big deal to a business our size. Okay, but I felt confident about it and had so many people reaching out about it. Well, I had had this stuff ordered for. Actually I probably ordered in September or maybe even August, because like a month went by and I hadn't heard anything from them.
Speaker 1:Like I hadn't even gotten a shipping update or anything like that of when it was going to go out. And then another month passed and I'm starting to get really concerned and so I had to reach out and be like you know, hey, I'm super excited about getting my order. I just kind of wanted to know a lead time on this and they said we've had. Then they messaged us and they're like we're so sorry about this. We've just experienced. Basically, what happened is is they exploded, and I don't think that they had the logistics and supply chain measures in hand to handle it. And how that affects us is, as a small business, we're going to come very low on the total poll to them, and I don't mean that they're bad people. Okay, I really think that they didn't anticipate the demand that came. I don't know if they had manufacturing issues, if they just couldn't produce it quickly enough or what, but they did really work hard to get me my product. So I thought, well, I want to make sure that I order.
Speaker 2:Well in advance. Well in advance for my spring and summer line. It's time to figure it out.
Speaker 1:Guys, I still have not been able to order.
Speaker 2:Burlabo, they've locked it down.
Speaker 1:They've locked it down. So I was going to order in January for my spring and summer lines, I think, and they are once again they are struggling so much with so with too much business on, honestly, because the things that I had to pick from when I was actually going to order were just drawings. They didn't even have pictures of this stuff. I was having to go from sketches. Um, insanity. Honestly, I was like wow, okay, but that was was okay.
Speaker 1:I picked out what I wanted and I go to order it and it says this is frozen until the end of June. And I'm like what, the end of June? Like at that point, guys, you know that you've already bought your summer and spring stuff by then, like, you know what you're going to be getting. Because I had someone reach out to me hey, are you going to have burlabo swimming trunks? No, no, unfortunately I'm not. So right now and I'm not saying that we're never going to get Burlabo again, but right now they have locked down at least small businesses Now, places like, if you go to Academy Dick's, or like Bell, these places are going to have it because they are fulfilling all of their orders first, because, like Calvin said, they're ordering thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars worth of merchandise.
Speaker 2:Which y'all look, it makes sense.
Speaker 1:It does.
Speaker 2:You know we're not harping on Burlapo, but from a business perspective, from a small business perspective, say like right now, our goal is to expand. Where we're at 100%, people say, hey, when you're going to open a second location, third location, all that stuff, now we're, we're, we're. Our focus is solely on trying to get this as perfect as we possibly can and serve this community because we our heart is here.
Speaker 1:You know, yes, um, and we want to be able to offer you the things so that you don't have to drive off somewhere to get it. But what we want you guys to understand is sometimes it's difficult for a small business to be able to tap into those things. We have another company I'm not going to name them because I know that we are going to eventually have them. They're watching us for three years to see what we're going to do before they even let us sell their product. I get it. They don't want to do anything that's going to harm their brand.
Speaker 2:that's going to harm their brand, right.
Speaker 1:So right now we're currently looking at other men's lines that we want to carry, while we're waiting for Burlabo to kind of iron out their supply chain issues and manufacturing, um, and then we've got other lines with with the women that we're going to start carrying as well. But, um, you know the importance of shopping, small though. So think about this, think about when I've ordered like three, four $5,000 worth of merchandise for for somebody like you know it's it's a gamble, right, it's a gamble because I'm hoping that you're going to come and buy it from me Number one, you know, cause you can go and buy it somewhere else, but we really need you to buy it from us, right, so that we can continue to offer those things to our community.
Speaker 2:The goal is to to serve, obviously. So if we want to serve the community, the community is saying, hey, this is something that we can use, this is something that we need. We want to be able to supply that. So the uh underestimating the importance of your word of mouth. If you notice that we have something that you enjoy, whether it's a food product, or whether it's a coffee product, or whether it's merchandise or even like a rental spaces or we're having events, your word of mouth for your small businesses and your community is priceless.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:It is 100% priceless. I think we undervalue how much people have influence in their community. Like when it comes to because, you know, our bubble is fairly small. The amount of people we actually contact in our everyday day-to-day our touch points seems pretty small.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But you don't realize how impactful your words actually are Right To those people that are in your purview. So it may be just like someone at the grocery store or someone at the gas station that you see regularly. They're going to have more. Your words will have more weight with them than any kind of advertisement there is out there when you say, hey, someone says I like your shirt, oh, I got it. At such and such, your small business depends not just ours, but every small business depends on so much word of mouth in the community of what they have to offer. Yeah, I had a birthday party there and they have a space for rental. You know, like communicating that is, it's priceless, you know it was such a good time, or or something like that.
Speaker 2:And it's local, um any any small business that you have in your community. Just just share the love, talk about them, you know. Share it with people that are trying to find hey, we're going shopping, or something like that. Let them know that they're an option.
Speaker 1:Yes, because your small business owners are fighting tooth and nail to make it every single day and they're having to juggle so many balls that it becomes very difficult. For instance, I know a lot of people might not think that we're in the shop much anymore, but trust me, we're here. We're having to handle so many things in the back office and I still feel like we don't have enough time to efficiently and effectively do those things the way that we want to, because there's so many requirements that we have government wise and there's no checklist. There's nobody saying hey, sharecroppers, make sure that you've done this, this, this, this, this, no, just one day you might get a letter in the mail and be like hey, you didn't do this and we're like what you know? So we've learned.
Speaker 2:You know we've had bumps and bruises that we've had to learn and learn from other small business, just communicating with other small business and and small businesses in a local community. They're not fighting against each other, they're fighting they're fighting their own battles, you know, and a lot of times they collaborate, they try to get together and bounce ideas.
Speaker 1:We want to be collaborative.
Speaker 2:We like bouncing ideas off people and letting other people bounce ideas off of us, because we want to make sure that you know like our area is able to thrive and we're not just surviving. We want everyone to benefit, because our area becomes somewhere where people want to go to. On a weekend where they want to go to, because there's more for us to offer in our community. When there's more small businesses, it's kind of like you know you don't have to tear down a tower to build your tower next to it, If you both have the same goal in mind and if that's to bring people and offer them something in your community.
Speaker 2:They'll come back to your community more often than not.
Speaker 1:Correct. So, like anytime we have like something new pop up here in Snead, to me that's great. It gives more people reason to come to Snead. So it's like they might come to Cottonfield to eat their dinner or to eat a steak, or to go to Allen Mix and eat some barbecue, and they might stop by here and get some ice cream and coffee, or they'll be like I didn't know that Snead had a coffee shop.
Speaker 1:Or when they're here and we have done this many times they're like hey, have you tried the bakery that's right down the road? They're like oh, I didn't know that there was a bakery. Yes, there is, you know. And so, um, to me, we, we all, should collaborate to make each other better, because it makes our town more appealing for people to come to. Yeah, now, like when it comes to the um, the things that business owners, small business owners are having to juggle, you know like you may come in and think that was expensive right, oh yeah, how many times have you been to a small business and you might think that was high.
Speaker 1:Well, let me just tell you something Everything is high. The bills that we have to pay on a weekly basis, like our trucks that are coming in, or all of our suppliers, the coffee itself, those things cost the business owner's money, and one of the things that we're having to do in that office is figure out, hmm, because we don't want to overcharge our customer, right?
Speaker 1:But, we also cannot make it as a business if we are not profitable, correct or pay our employees. So you know, having to sit down and do the math, you have to get down to ounces, down to the ingredients, the price of the cup. You know, I've had people that were upset if we charged them a dollar for a cup of ice water, the cup and the sticker and the straw and the ice. None of that was free to us. So I get it, I get it. You know, like, as a customer, but from a business standpoint, like, change your perspective a little bit. You know little bit, we have to do those things and there might be products that we charge less on and so we might have to charge more on this one.
Speaker 2:I always kind of look at it from this perspective that if we were to give away a glass of water it's not really that big of a deal. If we were to give away a glass of water it's not really that big of a deal? No, but if I give someone a glass of water, the next customer that I serve gets their drink profit-free.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:You know, yes. And it's like that may not be a big deal, but if you do that multiple times a day over a year, 365 days out of the year, people get accustomed to that and it eats into it. And you're trying to grow and you're trying to survive and you want, you want every ounce of your profit that you make to go back into the business to help it become better to offer more.
Speaker 2:So you know when, when you say hey, you know, like companies like Burlap, oh, hey, we are wanting to expand our line and you become more of a priority because you are able to carry more of their product. That's the goal and I understand Burlapost started out small. Everyone has an idea.
Speaker 1:A lot of the vendors that we use in our store, in our gift shop, are small business owners throughout the United States. We have been very strategic about that because some people will be like, hey, where do you get these knobs? And we'll say ohio, and they might be like ohio, it's. You know, it's a mom and pop in ohio that's hand making these knobs, you know, and that's a small business that we're supporting in our country. Um, it takes us all to, you know, to make it all work.
Speaker 2:But so when you know, and you know that knife company they're fighting to go big too. Sure, you know, everyone's trying to fight to, to to thrive, you know. And they want their name to become big.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Everyone wants their name to become big. Exactly. To be able to not just grow, but to offer more.
Speaker 1:Right. So like when you come in, like when you buy your lunch from us or your breakfast or your drink, like you're literally helping to pay for a college student that's living here in sneed, that is uh, you know they're on those stepping stones of getting their big kid job you know, the big adult, another employee to uh the education department.
Speaker 2:She's gonna start uh teaching and that's. We knew this from the beginning.
Speaker 1:You know, like that was a goal she had and we lost, we lost our callie, um, a few months ago because she's in the medical field. Like you know, once they start getting up and and more in their schooling, you know, it gets more rigorous and they're having to do internships and things like that. So they leave us and our our to us. Our job is that when they're here with us, that we, that they leave, better than when they came to us. Hopefully they've learned some skills, yes, even in a small town coffee shop, that there's something that we can teach our employees. But just know that what you're supporting when you do come and visit our small town coffee shop, that you're supporting these people, visit our small town coffee shop, that you're supporting these people that, uh, you know you might be helping, um, I don't know, fund somebody's? Uh, you know one of our employees oh, some of our employees like, it's a side job to them. That is their extra money. It might be their money that they're going to take their family on vacation or, um, you know, to pay for back to school clothes and things like that, um, things like that.
Speaker 1:These people are the heart and soul of our town and we try to be very we want to give back to our community and so I don't want you to think that we're being stingy by charging a dollar for a water cup, because at the end of the day, we give a lot of things away, and when the teams come in and wanting support for this, a sign out here, and I, and wanting support for this, a sign out here, and I also want to segue this We've kind of set up a policy that we do not give to have signs at sporting, I guess, events or whatever you take the $100 or however much it is, and actually use it towards the team or whatever it is that you're needing so that you can actually get more of the money, because we feel like when we go to those places, we don't read those signs that are out there.
Speaker 2:And obviously we can't always say yes, we can't. It's just the ebb and flow of life.
Speaker 1:Because, another thing, we are a small business, we're really we're babies, we're tiny, uh we because we are trying to pour back into the business and pour into our employees.
Speaker 2:We don't have a ton of, we don't have a huge advertising budget, you know so, but we do try to help where we can so I want to segue into something else um, we talked earlier about um, the, the startup, and understanding where to go from there and the things that you miss If there is a politician out there, whatever community this reaches out to.
Speaker 2:however, many years down the road that you hear this podcast that's been recorded and saved on the world wide web. Okay, if you're a politician, know this. If you want to have an impact in your community, support your small business, find out everything that they need to know to be able to thrive, create some sort of documentation or holding their hand as they're getting started, because the mom and pop baker, they love baking and they want to offer what they have to everyone else.
Speaker 1:And make a living at it.
Speaker 2:But they might not be good communicators, they might not be good financial gurus, they might not be good marketers. They might not understand taxes and employment, wages and insurance and everything. They might not understand all of that, but they want to offer something. If you want to have an impact in your community and gain support, listen politicians, here you go, support them.
Speaker 1:Agree.
Speaker 2:Find a way to help them navigate the world of small business and you can see your community grow. Look, if you're a politician. What do you want?
Speaker 1:Revenue, you want your community to grow.
Speaker 2:You want to have revenue. You want to be able to give back to your community better roads, better education, better environments, better. Whatever it is you want to give, you've got to grow your community. In order to do that, you've got to have business owners, entrepreneurs, who are willing to put in the sweat equity to have as little amount of hurdles as possible to be able to do that.
Speaker 1:And you might think, well, it's the job of the business owner to go get educated. I'm going to tell you, I have a degree in logistics and business and communications. They do not teach you all of these things in college. They absolutely do not. You are flying blind, honestly, and we are figuring it out. But we have a burden that we want people that are wanting to start, because we need people to start small businesses. That is what makes America so great, great. You know, goodness?
Speaker 2:yes, I love driving through a community and seeing all the little mom and pops, because yes it's like wow, these people are are really invested in their community. This would be a great place to live you know like I want to live here because because people care about this area, they care about their community. It just makes sense it does.
Speaker 1:So I, you know, and we have so much support in our community. We we feel thankful and to the the extended communities as well, from where we are at in snead, we've had so much support and we we've gained customers from the Huntsville and Gadsden and all those areas too that are now becoming regulars because they're passing through this area and you build relationships with them, and we're so thankful for that. We're so thankful for the support of our local um, our local customers. And you know that's this summer, you know we were getting ready to um, we will have a big push for what we're going to be offering this summer. We try to uh have things where families can come together, you know, because you might not be going on a vacation and and you might just be here and we so we want to offer things that are free for you to come and do with your family.
Speaker 1:And for the last two years so this will be our third year going into it we do a summer reading series where we're reading a series of books for kids to come and read and we do some kind of activity or snack with them. It's just one time a week and you might can come two times out of the summer. You might can get to come to all of the times, it doesn't matter. We just want to be able to offer that to you, and I think we're going to have some other things that we're offering and, with our running community, I'm really excited about what the summer is is going to bring.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now L, our youngest. Uh, her reading has exploded this year, like like it's, just like clicked, I think it's clicked with her and she's reading her own books, all of her own, and it's like, wow, this is amazing. And she was reading this book the other day, a brand new one that she got, and she was reading it with emphasis. Right, that's a joy that I have when I read kids' books.
Speaker 2:It's like I try to create characters and voices to go along with it. And she was doing that and I was like, man, you need to read during our summer reading program and it's like you know, you always get inspired with ideas, because it's like I enjoy hearing her read now.
Speaker 1:I want other people to enjoy it.
Speaker 2:So another segue. I'll kind of jump on something else. You know we have it's running on Coffee and Christ podcast, right, um? So a lot of times we're going to talk about business. We're a lot. We'll talk about, um, things of our faith, um, and we'll talk about things of running, um and with. As far as a small business is concerned, we were talking about this earlier about how we love running runs five Ks, 10 Ks, you know, whatever we love running them because of the experience we get with them. You know there's every race has a different experience. We run one in Huntsville called Cotton Row.
Speaker 2:That it's just massive right like it's huge and and it's really fun because it brings an atmosphere to um, the thought of memorializing our veterans and and those who served in our military um that have passed that have passed, you know, and, and it's a memorial day.
Speaker 1:Run memorial day run.
Speaker 2:That's right. Um, so it really does have that somber but excitement and you're and you're all kind of thinking of the same things and you're running. It's really good environment. Um, but some of the best runs I know of that we've run have been small yes like, like a small business or an individual. Like how about miles for molly? That's something that we've run have been small. Yes, like a small business or an individual.
Speaker 1:How about Miles for Molly? That's something that we do every year. That's in June and it's not even chip-timed.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:It's. You know someone's calling out your time when you run across there. It's very, it's simple, yet it is so big Like it's very well organized, very well organized, but obviously when you add chip timing and all these things, those things add to the cost of the run, which take away from what you're actually trying to raise money for, and they're usually raising money for. Their daughter is in a wheelchair and has health issues. So sometimes the money has gone, like I know. One year it was to put a shower, you know, so that she could roll her wheelchair in there, but then other years they've.
Speaker 1:you know they're giving back to other families.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because they're in a community all to themselves.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Of people with health struggles.
Speaker 1:You know, they know of others that are on that same journey.
Speaker 1:So the mother continues to host this event because she knows there's people with that need, and it's always on Molly's birthday too, and so we've seen her go from little girl Now I believe she's going to be 17 this year, which is crazy to me, but that's in Locust Fort, so that's a local run. I know that there's one in Highland Lake this weekend. If you've never had the opportunity to run at Highland Lake, you need to experience it at least one time. It's very hilly. Highland Lake was some of the first runs that I ever did and it didn't deter me from wanting to run, even though they were extremely difficult. But if I'm not mistaken, I think that that run is to benefit the animal shelter. Yeah, I believe it is um. And then we have in may.
Speaker 1:Also on may 17th, um, the oneonta cross country team has their own fundraiser. Um, it's a's a you can have. You can have your choice of a 5k, 10k, 15k or 20k, and it's all the same price. You can pick whichever run that you want to do. I believe it's a $49 run. You get a t-shirt, but it's at Palisades, it's the race to the tower, so it is a trail run, true trail run with true hills.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, uh, it's. It's definitely not an easy run, but once you finish, once you go across the finish line, you go, you climb up the fire tower and that's where your medal is. And some people might be like, oh, I'm not doing that, I just I won't get my medal. Somebody can get it for you, because it's okay if you're afraid of heights, but that is something like kind of cool, that's at the end of that run. It's okay if you're afraid of heights, but that is something like kind of cool.
Speaker 1:That's at the end of that run and you get all the way up that fire tower and you can just look across and just see you know all of the county, all of the county yes, but those are, those are local runs that I know that are coming up and of course, we have ours in november, the saturday before thanksgiving every year but you have runs like in your communities also, that we might not be exposed to on the other side of the world.
Speaker 2:whatever you do, those runs are important to those people because they're a lot of times. I don't know of any run that doesn't have some sort of benefit that they're representing, you know some sort of nonprofit that they represent. That's the goal of the small run community.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Like we've talked about, we're going to start up a run club. You know like we want to have a run club that that just promotes running itself, um, but but the actual runs they're for something.
Speaker 1:There's four yes, they are, and and we really want you paying attention because I would say, in the next week or two we are going to be introducing our run club and a couple of runs that we're going to have this summer that will also feed into our big run in November that we host. We've got a lot of special announcements that are going to be coming with the run and we're just trying to iron out the last minute details and, once again, being small business, it's another ball that we've thrown into the juggling match.
Speaker 2:Let's try to squeeze time into playing this.
Speaker 1:Yes, but there is strategic reasons for the things that we do. While I say that we are flying by the seat of the pants, we also are not. The things that we are picking and doing and promoting are very intentional, um, for what we see. As I don't know, and I can't remember if we've talked about vision on, if we've had specific talks about having vision on our podcast or not, I know that I've talked to, uh, I've had luncheons where I've spoken about it to groups, but it's very important that the things that you're doing are going towards your vision, your ultimate goals of what you're trying to achieve. And so, honestly too, I think it's really hard at the beginning of a business and the baby years of it, because you are having to do so much.
Speaker 2:Well, you're learning.
Speaker 1:You're on, you're learning, you're tired, you've got dark circles in your eyes because you're not sleeping. You're also trying to maintain a marriage, a home, a family. You know those things don't stop because you're, you know you own a business. So support your local businesses, and we're not just talking about supporting sharecroppers, you know. Support your local heating, and we're not just talking about, uh, supporting sharecroppers. You know. Support your local heating and air guy. Yeah, support your local pest controls. Um, support your local gas station that is is ran, you know, managed and ran by the people that you go to church with. Or support your local barbecue restaurant. And be thankful that there are people out there that are willing to really sacrifice a lot in order to have those businesses. They are not simply laying back, doing nothing and rolling in the dough. It's not happening. It's not true.
Speaker 2:When we're making our Sam's Run, we're running across those bakers that are getting their five pound bags of powdered sugar at the same grocery store on the same Saturday night. When everyone else is out enjoying a Saturday night, we're trying to plan for Monday.
Speaker 1:Yes, there's been times that I know we were going in Sam's and Crystal from Crystal's bakery was coming out. We talked. She just sent me a message while we were doing this podcast. She was asking me if I needed some cocoa, like those are the things that, uh, small business owners should be there for each other, you know? Or it's like hey, um, you know, um, laura at Alamance has continued, said hey, if you're out of cups, or you know, it's anything like it's if you need something, or if I need something, we should be able to count on each other.
Speaker 2:I need a cup of sugar, or you know, whatever, um, because we're all in this together, yeah, we really are with you know, your relationship with christ or whatever, uh, wherever you are in your journey, um, your, your faith, you know we're all in it together and we're all trying to find what God's role is in our life and what our ministry is being able to get with other people and talk about that and to grow in your faith. It's super important to not isolate yourself. You know, we talk about the importance of actually going to church and of actually being in a congregation, actually being in a congregation, and it's not about, you know, just receiving, but it's about giving and it's about growing together as a body of Christ.
Speaker 1:I would love to emphasize the importance of going to church locally. I don't want to step on any toes but you know, when it came to in the early days of them building the church, you know, and all the letters to the churches, these were churches that you know it was local to them. That's what the one that you know, if they were in Corinth they weren't going to go to the church that was in Ephesus. You know, and I know you might be like well, you don't know, the church hurt that I've had. Or you know, I'm just, I want to go to the here's.
Speaker 1:Another thing, guys, you know I want to go to this church over here that's bigger and has more to offer. Well, you know, once again, as a small business, I might not have the things to offer that some of the bigger coffee shops can. It doesn't make it that. It doesn't mean that my business isn't good and that my business isn't serving. So same thing with the church. Smaller churches might not have as much to offer because they don't have the hands and feet there simply to offer or the funding. They need you, we need you in your own community, ministering to your community, not going to another community and doing it.
Speaker 1:And I'll just I don't know why I said that I'm just going to leave that there. I have no judgment about where anybody's going to church, but I think it's very important that you serve where you live.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, the same concept of your word when it comes to word of mouth for small business has so much importance or impact on people's thoughts. Your word when it comes to supporting your local church and actually representing Christ has so much impact because it is your first-person perspective, it's your experience that you're relaying to other people about what's happened in your life and about what God is doing for you, and it matters. A lot of people say I don't have a testimony. Yes, you do, yes, you do.
Speaker 2:And it matters and the people will listen to your testimony. So I just encourage y'all you know support your small business, support your local churches, support your local run clubs. Do everything you can to encourage people to better themselves grow closer to the Lord.
Speaker 1:Support where you live and support your community. Support where you live where you live, your community support where you live. Right, all right, we love y'all and we will see you next time. May the lord bless you and keep you and make his face shine upon you.