BUSINESS COMMENT
Coast River Business Journal
May 2021 • 13
Small business recovery takes a village
Here’s how to do your part
By Jessica Newhall
Clatsop Community College
Small Business Development Center
Recently, I took advantage of a lovely s pring
evening with a stroll around the downtown of Asto-
ria. Along my path I heard a sound that was at once
pleasantly familiar but also simultaneously jarring in
that it had so long been absent from my life. I looked
to where it was coming from and saw couples and
small groups gathered around safely distanced bar-
rels outside Blaylock’s Whiskey Bar and they were
having a grand ole time! It was then that it struck
me how long it had been since I had heard this kind
of noise- of people actively enjoying each other’s
company and fully participating in life! This fi lled
me with a sense of hope for a future post-pandemic.
Unfortunately, not more than a week later, Clatsop
County businesses and consumers were back on the
roller coaster, as we moved into “ High Risk” with a
real probability that “Extreme Risk” could well be
on its heels.
To say this was disappointing was an understate-
ment. When the approval and rollout of the vaccine
commenced, a sense of optimism in society began to
arise. Virus contractions, hospitalizations and death
rates started to shrink from their heightened levels
following the holidays. Businesses began to reopen
and stabilize. Schools started going back to in-per-
son. Sports started up again. Unfortunately, though,
this reopening has not been without its challenges.
Vaccine rollout has experienced some stumbles and,
as viruses do amongst the unvaccinated, the num-
bers of individuals infected and hospitalized began
rising. So here we fi nd ourselves, well over a year
into the pandemic, likely exhausted, frustrated and
not surprisingly, our will to seemingly hold our
breath and wait until the all clear is sounded for us to
get back to normal life is waning.
For small business owners, particularly those
whose business models are severely impacted by the
changing risk levels, the return of this instability is
incredibly draining— physically and emotionally. At
the Small Business Development Center, our team
of small business advisors has been working with
business owners on how to manage through this—
and one of the striking challenges that business own-
ers report facing is their own customer’s reluctance
to support their recovery. So, we thought it would be
helpful to share some tips on how you can help small
businesses recover as we move forward:
• Consider local and small fi rst. Before you
click “buy” on that Amazon order, consider whether
you could fi nd those same products, or similar, some-
where locally— hopefully at a small, independently
owned store. Yes, you may have to put in the extra
eff ort of driving to the location or paying a slightly
higher price, however you will be supporting local
business owners and jobs and therefore keeping your
dollars invested in your community.
• Patience is a virtue. With our tighter labor
supply, many small businesses are struggling to
fi nd enough employees to be fully staff ed. This can
mean longer lines to check out or waiting a bit more
for your food to be prepared and served. If you fi nd
yourself getting frustrated, perhaps consider how
you can channel that energy into something posi-
tive: practicing some deep breathing, turn to the per-
son behind you in line and strike up a conversation,
or simply fi nd something on your phone to distract
yourself during your wait. Those who are serving
you will thank you for your patience and you will
have created goodwill all around!
• Embrace fl exibility. We have become an “on
demand” society— accustomed to getting what we
want, when we want it. Yet over the last year we
have had to, albeit reluctantly, acknowledge that the
adage, “ you don’t always get what you want” may
in fact be something we have to accept. Yet some-
times when we don’t get exactly what we want we
are able to discover something new and exciting. So,
if the café is out of your selection, or the store does
not have exactly what you were looking for and sug-
gests an alternative, perhaps consider what the thrill
of discovery of trying something new or diff erent
Jessica Newhall
might bring to your life.
• Practice kindness. One of the biggest chal-
lenges business owners are facing is rude custom-
ers taking their frustrations out on the very staff try-
ing to serve them. If you fi nd yourself getting a bit
hot under the collar, try to remember that these are
challenging times for everyone, we are all in this
together and that small business owners and their
employees are likely doing the best they can under
incredibly challenging circumstances. Before you
lash out in person or online, ask yourself what you
are hoping to accomplish out of doing so and could
there be a better, more reasoned way to handle your
feelings?
• Consider vaccination. We are currently at a
35% vaccination rate in the US. That means 65%
of our population is still unvaccinated. The bottom
line is that until the government and society feel we
have this virus under control there is going to be no
return to stability and normalcy for any of us, small
businesses included. Widespread vaccination is the
clearest and fastest path to achieving that. So, if you
are holding out on vaccination, perhaps it is worth
thinking about what your choice means for our abil-
ity to put these challenging times behind us.
One individual, one business owner, one con-
sumer cannot get this done on their own. The sooner
we acknowledge our individual responsibility to
each other, work towards common solutions and
build goodwill, the faster we get to the recovery we
all crave. The time is now for us all to do our part so
our world, community, economy and lives can move
forward.
Jessica Newhall is the associate director and
Small Business Management program manager
for the Clatsop Community College Small Busi-
ness Development Center. She can be reached at
jnewhall@clatsopcc.edu.
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