Is Less News Better News?
Dave Walker
Advancing the Business-to-Small-Business (B2SMB) Ecosystem - Fortune 50 CMO, Agency CEO, Entrepreneur & Investor
I have a range of Google alerts that bring me a steady stream of news about Small Business, Business-to-Small-Business, AI-to-Small-Business, etc. The flow of reporting, opinion pieces, press releases and research informs much of what I write about here.
Important to note, at least as I’ve experienced for 15+ years now: Google alerts do not self-limit the volume of triggered content brought each morning. It’s like your 5-year old running breathlessly into the room with not one, not two but a hunnert paper butterflies. “Look what I made!” Some days are thick with alerts. Some days - especially recent days - can get pretty sparse.
As I was pre-occupied with our #LeadersForum earlier this month - all-consuming for a window of 2 weeks - I came back this week with a lot of alerts to catch up on, and as I made my way through 100+ stories here’s what struck me.
It’s getting pretty quiet out there.
I first noticed that news emanating from Washington - news that impacts SMBs - has diminished to a trickle compared to the first four months of the year. Exceptions are two stories cited below - one on the growing destructiveness of tariffs (and tariff uncertainty) on Small Business, and one on the “big, beautiful budget bill” that places a heavy boot on the neck of America’s most precious resource, entrepreneurs.
For perhaps entirely different reasons, the alerts on AI have also slowed, their substance diluting. Has the noise around AI caused everyone to cover their ears? Or has that flurry of self-promotion - “see what I’m doing with AI” - like the seagulls in Finding Nemo - exhausted itself?
Yes, my sample size of 2-3 weeks is small, and certainly not pronouncement worthy. This week’s news that Score is being DOGE’d down the drain, that the SBA is about to be as under-funded as after-school enrichment in Alabama, that National Small Business Week was - what? wait! - we had a National Small Business Week?
I’ll just say - in the interest of future bragging rights - that I predict two trends are being foreshadowed right now.
Trend 1 - the negative impact of Washington on America’s SMBs is drifting and dulling. Defiance is real, but more powerfully, distraction is something Small Business owners know viscerally they cannot afford. They have work to do.
Trend 2 - the gap between AI experimentation and AI scale is real, especially for SMBs. Those surveys and polls we saw last year that the majority of SMBs were “unimpressed” with AI? Their minds haven’t changed. Mark Cuban is probably right: AI is a tool, not a revolution. The sooner AI2SMB becomes a sharpened tool set the better.
I’ll keep myself posted.
Now on to the news!
Of Course They Found a Workaround
First story cited below comes from Deep in the Heart of Texas (!) declaring that yes, tariffs are bad for SMBs. I offer it purely as evidence that pretty much everyone at this point has made up their mind on that one. But the second link is to a terrific segment from CNBC that shows how our vast, vast complex of laws made over 250+ years has created a loophole for everything. I’d like to introduce you to the “First Sale Rule.”
Big? Yes. Beautiful? Nope. Not for SMBs.
Gene Marks CPA , who I believe is one of America’s best Small Business experts, opines for The Hill , “Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ is going to be a big ugly problem for small business.” Taking his cue from Shark Tank’s @Kevin Leary, Gene writes “The bill, which the House just passed, is potentially creating a more worrying problem that will impact all of these businesses: a looming inflation and interest rate bomb.” A bomb, you say? Yes, when you increase the next 10-year’s worth of US government interest payments on our national debt to $13.2 TRILLION, that tends to leave a pretty big blast zone. “If you’re running a small business — or any business, for that matter — the impact is higher future costs to buy goods and services and higher interest rates to finance growth and investment.”
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/5316274-house-gop-big-beautiful-bill-risks/
Do Better, NFIB
When you release your quarterly survey of SMB Members with a headline declaring “SMB Optimism,” it’s problematic when you summarize your survey this way: “Small business optimism declined in all four industry sectors (surveyed), but most notably among small retailers and manufacturers largely due to more pessimistic views about future business conditions, supply chain disruptions, and ongoing labor quality concerns.” I often praise these surveys from Holly Wade for their extraordinary detail, which are on display here and worth a study, but it’s disappointing to see this kind of head-fakery. And stating that 60% of SMBs feel excellent or good about their business health? Does that mean 40% feel queasy or like shit?
Follow the Money - Always
Jevgenijs Kazanins gives an incredibly rich overview of the SMB banking, lending, payments and money management landscape right now. You might get dizzy from the wide range of charts, graphs, lists and logos, BUT trust me, you’ll get enlightened by the revolution going on in SMB Fin & Fintech - how SMBs are getting smarter, better resourced and tooled-up to love their money.
You’ll feel like you were there: our photo gallery from the Sonoma Leaders’ Forum is online now here: https://b2smbi.com/leaders-forum-2025-photos/
Is your enterprise “AI2SMB Ready”? Take our survey here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScB5fXXUiwnGtYHw5bXL6F9VEua-jWP-2sdTFV-arlHpPyC8A/viewform
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The Between2Bs podcast returns on June 11. Check out past episodes on your favorite streaming service, or on our YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mwMTJSgYBQ&t=417s .
Lost Farm, people. IYKYK.
Dave
We hate technical issues... 😁