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| Drama Llama soap (Photo credit: Sara’s Soaps) |
I am coming off a tremendous mixed bag of a holiday selling season. My shows were slower than usual, but my seasonal online sales were smokin’! I’m grateful for every dollar I earned. I want to start this new year right by helping people realize how much small businesses help their local communities.
I sell soaps and body products. From there, I portion out a percentage of my sales for my own pay. I use that money to go shopping for my family and for gifts for people. I pay local taxes out of that money. Then I may meet a friend for coffee at our local coffee shop. I buy cupcakes for my daughters’ birthdays from the local indie bakery. I’ll pick up some locally grown produce for my family’s dinner. My girls and I get haircuts. These people have to pay local taxes from what they earn, too.
All this money works together for our community. Several local small businesses sponsor youth sports teams, something they wouldn’t be able to do without income themselves, and without that sponsorship, kids might have to go without uniforms for soccer, baseball/softball, football or cheerleading. The money our town makes upkeeps our roads, improves our schools (which need all the help they can get!), draws movie and TV production companies to our area, and builds up our downtown area. It’s a pretty awesome domino effect, all because a bunch of people decided to buy some soap. When you “shop small,” 70% of that income stays in the local community. This simply doesn’t happen with your big box stores selling products which are mass-produced overseas.
Buy local, support local.
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