Small businesses are the beauty of America. The idea that any regular person has the right and ability to work towards success, no matter where they’re starting from, is something not every country can boast. Yes, local small businesses can sometimes seem lesser when compared to multi-million dollar corporations and large supply chains, but don’t underestimate the quality a local merchant can offer over major conglomerates. Here is a list of benefits that come from supporting your local small businesses and giving back to your community and your country.
Superior Quality
A local business owner won’t have the luxury of sitting in an office cashing checks while a massive factory of workers, who share no passion for the business, are mass producing products for them. Instead, they have to hand craft the items themselves or have their family or fellow community members help them build their product. With their good name on the line, they have to see their customers face to face as they sell their product, creating a social obligation to do it right and do it well. A sloppy product affects more than just their legacy, but also their day to day life. It’s easy for a major corporation that has been passed down to their heirs through generations to lose its passion for legacy.
Customer Service and Southern Hospitality
What separates a local business from a major corporation more than anything else? Heart. When you shop from your local businesses, these merchants actually care for the people in their community because they are a part of it. So they want to please the customer not just for their business sake, but because they are helping a friend who is in need. You help them and they help you, the way things should be. Add to that, we here in the south are well known for our southern hospitality and friendliness, that is something you do not receive from a major corporation who’s customer service line typically consists of a room full of a hundred people all on the phone who view you as nothing more than another number to check off the list. Those people don’t care about you or your needs. Removing the heart and connectedness of business makes it strictly transactional, which typically removes quality as well.
Small Businesses Create More Jobs and Help Evolve Your Local Economy
Small businesses are the backbone of our country. A locally owned mom and Pop store can offer new opportunities for wealth and success to those in a town so small that they’ve been stuck at the same low paying job for decades with no chance of escape because that job has always been the only option they have. Working for a local business owned by a member of your community better ensures that you will be treated well and with dignity as an employee, instead of being treated like another headache. According to the small business administration, the 2019 small business profile show that small businesses added 1.8 million net new jobs in the United States during the latest year studied. Meaning supporting local businesses not only helps to better your local economy, but can help rebuild the national economy as well.
Support Your Community
On top of supporting the economy— As I mentioned earlier, supporting your local shops also helps to bring back that good small town, southern mentality of everyone helps everyone when anyone in the community is in need. They say you should become the change you want to see, and I know many people are aching to bring back connected communities like we used to have back in the day. There is so much strife and division in our country now that we are in desperate need of healing. Becoming a part of that change and assisting others who want that back as well can really aid in restoring the old-school American values.
Support The American Dream
Speaking of American values, this country was founded on supportive communities and freedom for any one person to pursue any level of success they believe they can reach, no matter how high they have to look up to do so. The pros of supporting locally run businesses do more than just provide you with better quality, better service and an improved economy, but also helps to keep that American dream of belief in yourself and your success alive in your community. If one person can succeed, then anyone can.
