All Markets Summit+: Small Business Recovery

After small business owners were forced to shutter in the past year, there are new signs of optimism for this vital engine of economic growth. The road to recovery won’t be certain or easy, and the Yahoo Finance AMS+: Small Business Recovery program explores how small businesses can return to prosperity. Small business owners at the forefront of the recovery effort discuss their challenges and successes. Among the topics covered: access to capital to restart and expand, what new bank and government-backed loan programs are available, how small businesses can reconnect with consumers, and the prospect of some businesses moving permanently online. Sponsored by Wells Fargo.

Video Transcript

- From Yahoo Finance, this is All Markets Summit Plus-- Small Business Recovery. Small businesses are a backbone of the US economy, employing half the workforce and delivering more than 40% of the country's GDP. During the pandemic, this vital sector took a massive hit. But now, as the country opens up, small business is getting back to business, rebuilding, reimagining, a long-awaited return to prosperity. Join us now for a look at the challenges and opportunities ahead on this All Markets Summit Plus-- Small Business Recovery.

SEANA SMITH: Welcome to Yahoo Finance's very special All Markets Summit Plus-- Small Business M brought to you by Wells Fargo. I'm Seana Smith.

ADAM SHAPIRO: And I'm Adam Shapiro. Over the next hour, we will take a deep dive into the health of the US economy and state of small business as America reopens its doors. Joining us now is Tom Sullivan, vise president of small business policy at the US Chamber of Commerce. And Tom, it's good to have you here. What are you hearing from businesses that are members of the chamber, especially small business owners, about what they need next in this process of reopening the economy?

TOM SULLIVAN: Well, thank you Seana. Thank you, Adam, and thank you, Seana. We're hearing from small businesses that things are looking pretty good. Keep in mind, we represent three million businesses. About 96% of our membership have fewer than 100 employees, 75% of our membership have fewer than 10 employees, and that includes members of about 500 trade associations in between 1,600 and 2,000 local, state, and regional Chambers of Commerce.

When I say that things are looking pretty good and we're hearing positive things, I'm basing that on a quarterly index that we do with our partner MetLife. Our last small business index showed, looking at my notes here, it showed an index level of 55.9. And that's actually up three points from the end of last year, which is very positive.

I think the pragmatic view of things, though, is that we've still got a long way to go to reach the index level of 71.7, which is what the index was pre-pandemic. So things are looking good, but we've still got a long way to go. And that's consistent with what I hear every day from small businesses.

SEANA SMITH: So Tom, when you mentioned that gap right there, I guess what's needed in order for us to get to that 70-plus level? Is it more assistance from the government? Is it something else? What's needed?

TOM SULLIVAN: So there's two parts to it. Seana, thank you for that question. So the first part is the gratitude small business owners have for the federal aid. I mean, just this past week, the PPE exhausted its funding except for a little bit that's left for community financial institutions. And over the course of 13 months, SBA helped loan money that will hopefully all be converted to grants to over 8 million small businesses.

So there's this enormous gratitude. And that gratitude continues to SBA running its Shuttered Venue Operator grant program and the recently launched Restaurant Revitalization Fund grant program. So those targeted aid packages are still needed. But what we're starting to hear from small businesses is a desperate need to find qualified and willing employees. And in that sense, they're starting to tell Washington, DC, please don't make it harder for me to recover.

So for instance, there's a Protect Right to Organize Act that's passed the House of Representatives. Small businesses are telling us, don't penalize me for going out on my own and becoming a freelancer, which the Protect Right to Organize Act, the PRO Act, will do. And that Pro Act is embedded in the president's infrastructure plan. So small businesses are saying, thank you for the aid, but now, please, Washington don't make it more difficult for me to recover.

And we're hearing the same thing when it comes to tax rates. Small businesses want infrastructure improvements, but they-- 1.4 million small businesses that are organized as C corporations do not want a tax hike. They want to be able to get tax savings and reinvest that back into their small businesses so that they can grow their way out of a very difficult 13 to 15 months.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Tom, we've just had a bunch of guests in our last hour telling us about the labor shortages they face today. And even the stuff you just mentioned, it's going to take months, if not longer, if it gets through in the debate. What could, if anything, the government do right now to help with the labor shortage?

TOM SULLIVAN: So a couple of things. There are a lot of federal aid initiatives that are just now hitting the street. I mentioned Shuttered Venue Operator grants. Restaurant Revitalization Fund. Let's not forget that a good percentage of these eight million small businesses that received PPP loans, they've got to convert those into grants through what's called forgiveness. So the federal government should be immediately shifting into helping those small business owners figure it out with the least amount of paperwork, the least amount of hassle, so that those small business owners can focus on what is becoming very, very clear-- it is not going to be easy to find qualified and willing employees.

We think that it's best for small business owners to be able to focus exclusively on that challenge ahead that will grow Main Street instead of looking in the rearview mirror and trying to do red tape and paperwork just to simply take advantage of a number of federal programs that are designed to help them. So we really are laser focused at the US Chamber of Commerce to convince the Washington, DC, federal bureaucracy to make it as easy as possible for small businesses to grow. And we've seen some positive things, but we've got a ways to go.

SEANA SMITH: Tom, speaking of helping Main Street grow, what do you see just in terms of new businesses? Because we know many people obviously weren't starting businesses. Some were, clearly. But on a larger scale, many people weren't during the pandemic. Has that started to pick up again?

TOM SULLIVAN: Seana, again, two responses to that great question. So the first is tremendous news. So we see through data from the Census Bureau on likely new employer firms that we're actually already outpacing by a multiplier of 3 to 5 times the growth rate coming out of the last recession. So things look really, really good from a new startup perspective.

But again, small business owners are telling us in Washington, DC, don't kill the goose laying the golden egg. Passing the Protect the Right to Organize Act is actually going to penalize folks who are starting a new business and deciding to be a freelancer. We think that that is a step backwards, not a step forward. So we're fighting that type of approach with everything we got.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Very quickly, as we start to wrap up, the other issue small businesses would face is supply. And I'm not talking labor supply-- materials. The big headline this week has been the shortage of chicken. Are you hearing from small business owners frustrations, whether it be increases in prices for things like PVC or that kind of issue with other input items?

TOM SULLIVAN: We are. So just yesterday, I spoke with a remarkable small business owner in Jackson, Mississippi. And he issued a warning. He said, folks, get your ketchup. Because as a restaurateur who buys things in bulk, he's already seeing a shortage of ketchup. And here is a leader in a community that is actually-- he just opened a business. So this answers Seana's question. He just opened a business two weeks ago.

He just hosted a vaccine clinic in the parking lot of his bakery called Broad Street Bakery in Jackson, Mississippi. And so if he's concerned about something as really one of the leaders in the entire country when it comes to small business, then we should all be worried. And his message to us in Washington, DC, was when you're looping businesses together, whether it's on tax rates or supply chain or employment challenges, make sure that you're sensitive to the unique positions of small business, because in this case, when it comes to a federal reaction, one size does not fit all when it comes to a Main Street small business.

SEANA SMITH: Tom Sullivan of the US Chamber of Commerce. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us today. Coming up next here on Yahoo Finance, our editor in chief speaks with economist Dambisa Moyo about the economic recovery and why she says we're not out of the woods just yet. We're back with more on that in just two minutes.

- This presentation of Yahoo Finance's special All Markets Summit Plus-- Small Business Recovery is brought to you by Wells Fargo.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

ANDY SERWER: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance's special All Markets Summit Plus-- Small Business Recovery. The COVID-19 pandemic took a big toll on America's small businesses in 2020, but now as the country begins to open back up, we have reason to be optimistic about our economic recovery. Joining me now is Dambisa Moyo, economist and author of a new book on boards and how boards work. Dambisa, nice to see you.

DAMBISA MOYO: Hi, Andy. Nice to see you. Thank you for having me.

ANDY SERWER: So as I mentioned, the COVID-19 downturn really did hit those small businesses harder than the big ones. What can we glean from the initial US economic recovery about how small businesses will fare?

DAMBISA MOYO: Well, I think it's really important to put things in context. We absolutely are in for an amazing rebound. And we're already seeing evidence of that. I mean, every day you wake up the markets are at a new high, and we're seeing great numbers in terms of sentiment and some of the initial numbers on GDP. Not just in the United States, but globally also.

But I think it's really important not to lose sight that a rebound is not a fundamental structural recovery, and there's a lot of stuff that still needs to be resolved. Things like the amount of debt. We've not yet started to think about that debt drag and how that might play out. As you know, just around the COVID crisis, 14% of US corporations are what they call zombies, and by that I mean they're not even able to cover the cost of their interest on their debt using their cash flows.

So real issues structurally in terms of debt. And of course, inflation. You know, on the one hand, you would think that the inflationary pressures could benefit small businesses. Clearly, there's aggregate demand that had been shut in last year with the quarantine and with COVID. As that comes back and large businesses continue to rely on smaller institutions-- you know they're about 75% to 85% of how economies run. But everything from the subcontractors and the delivery of a lot of inputs and goods and services to larger supply chains-- what happens this year will be absolutely consequential in terms of small business, their recovery.

ANDY SERWER: E-commerce poses a challenge for small companies that don't have economies of scale. How can small businesses adapt?

DAMBISA MOYO: Well, e-commerce, the reality is the jury's still out. Again, before COVID hit in earnest in 2020, we were already talking about what the implications of digitization could be and specifically around e-commerce. So many aspects in terms of what would it mean for employment. Like, would it actually reduce costs and really enhance the balance sheet as companies could actually preserve cash and use the cash on their balance sheets instead of paying salaries but start to think about using it for R&D? That was sort of on the upside.

But on the downside, there's still a lot of work that needs to be done in terms of risks of [INAUDIBLE]. We're generally thinking about e-commerce beyond social networks and consumerism. What does e-commerce mean for a lot of the bigger costs that businesses have had to endure such as health care costs? Is there an angle on e-commerce that might feed into this discussion?

ANDY SERWER: Right. You said last year that the pandemic would lead to a larger role for the government in the economy, and we've certainly seen that with the Biden agenda so far. What's your assessment of federal spending so far when it comes to supporting small businesses, and will we need more of it?

DAMBISA MOYO: Well, at a very superficial level, on the one hand, the United States desperately needs infrastructure, desperately. Not just traditional infrastructure in the forms of roads and airports and ports in general-- we already know that. The American Society of Civil Engineers talks about American infrastructure being graded D-plus. This is not a formula for success.

So that's great. But on the other hand, $6 trillion of cash flowing in with 85% of us looking to receive a $1,400 check-- I mean, you have to chime in to the normal queries about what does that mean for taxation longer term? What does it mean for inflation? So those structural long term effects were something that might basically make us swoon in the short term. What does that mean longer term? And I think businesses are probably going to have to be very thoughtful about how they think about those windfalls, even if they're below that 400,000, certainly on the income tax side.

But you know, I think the jury's still out. Will it pass? I mean, there's a whole lot of stuff that needs to get going before that. But I think to the extent that we invest in not just traditional infrastructure but also in digitization where the US is woefully lacking in many areas, I think it could be good for the economy.

ANDY SERWER: Your new book, "How Boards Work and How They Can Work Better In a Chaotic World," focuses on government structures-- the governance structures, I should say-- of larger corporations, especially as they navigate issues like sustainability and diversity. What management lessons, though, can small businesses learn from their bigger counterparts?

DAMBISA MOYO: You know, I think it's quite simply that judgment matters. Like, we just have to get back to basics. Good judgment is going to carry you a long way. I think that, and I fear, actually, that it's very easy to get obsessed with metrics and the broader sort of ESG agenda. And that's critically important. Don't get me wrong.

But we're going to have to have judgment and make sure that we're not fighting discrimination with discrimination. We don't want to lose the high-performing white guy. We want to make sure that our efforts in climate change are not alienating people who are continually living in the areas of energy poverty.

And then more generally, whatever we end up doing on the ESG agenda-- and it's so broad. Worker advocacy, data privacy, areas of obesity, gun control, voter rights. I mean, this is a whole sort of smorgasbord of things to tackle. We want to make sure that we're not just focused on risk mitigation on the downside. We've got to grow, and so we've got to think about upside opportunities as well.

So that, to me, is critically the biggest point. I fear that the ESG agenda, perhaps inadvertently, has tended to focus on risk mitigation. CO2 emissions. How are we thinking about [INAUDIBLE]? And we're not really pushing or fostering that discussion around what does this mean for allocating that additional marginal dollar that we have in our pocket, and that's where I think the conversation needs to go.

ANDY SERWER: Author and economist Dambisa Moyo, and her new book is, "How Boards Work and How They Can Work Better In a Chaotic World." Thanks so much for coming on.

DAMBISA MOYO: Pleasure, Andy. Thank you.

DAMBISA MOYO: More of Yahoo Finance's All Markets Summit Plus-- Small Business Recovery right after this.

- This presentation of Yahoo Finance's special All Markets Summit Plus-- Small Business Recovery is brought to you by Wells Fargo.

SEANA SMITH: Yahoo Finance's Melody Hahm had a chance to speak with Lauren Paddleford and Eunice Byun of Shopify VP and Material co-founders and CEO. Let's listen to what they had to say.

LOREN PADELFORD: I think what we've seen over the last year is a testament to the resilience of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs stood up in a big way and adapted, pivoted their businesses to engage challenging times. And as a result, we saw really great examples, and we have one of those great merchants with Eunice and Material on with us today of taking advantage of opportunities when you see them.

So while we definitely see countries opening up around the world and people going back to, quote, unquote, normal behavior, we don't see a slowdown in demand. People are still shopping. People are still spending money. Online continues to be the predominant mechanism for engagement with customers. And we don't think that's going to go away. We think the mix continues to change. So physical will open back up, and people will start to shop in physical. But your online store and your omni-channel approach continues to be the dominant mechanism for retailers over the last 12 months, and we think that continues forever.

MELODY HAHM: Give us a more granular kind of understanding of the industries that you have seen kind of prove their resiliency. I know it's a case by case basis, but from what I can tell, beauty products, food, clothing, seem to be some spotlights when you think about the areas that have done a successful job pivoting. Why do you think that's the case?

LOREN PADELFORD: Yeah, you're right. It is very broad. We see it across a number of categories. Home fitness obviously went crazy during the pandemic because everyone still needed to be healthy. So I think we really saw a broad exposure of products being adopted. We saw that ebb and flow throughout the year. So early on, it was all the work at home products.

And while those continue to be big categories, as the pandemic wore on, you saw a shift to cosmetics came back. It was a little soft at the beginning. It came back about midway through as people realized, hey, I got to be on these web calls all the time. Still need to look good. Still need to feel good. So I think it's a really great story about how resilient we are as consumers, but also resilient entrepreneurs are as just business operators.

MELODY HAHM: Yeah. And Eunice, speaking of ebbs and flows, I know Material Kitchen has been around since 2017 making some beautiful, affordable kitchenware. Give us a sense of how your business has grown and how Shopify has really helped you succeed during this time.

EUNICE BYUN: You know, we saw early on in the pandemic our sales up 350% just immediately because people recognizing that they may not have the goods and the equipment that they needed. Even now as cities are starting to open up, they're still holding on to some of these great skills that they acquired during the pandemic. So we've been able to expand into some new categories like tabletop and ceramics and really just starting to adjust the way in which we even think about the types of products that our customers are looking for.

MELODY HAHM: Eunice, when you think about the future vision of where Material products can be found-- I thought it was always fascinating, perhaps over the last five years prior to the pandemic, there was this huge push for e-commerce players to then open brick and mortar in central locations. Really expensive real estate, whether it's the Caspers or Warby Parkers of the world. How are you thinking about that now, now that the pandemic has happened and sort of upended the way we think about physical stores?

EUNICE BYUN: Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I think for us, what we've recognized is that we need to be connecting with our customers at every touch point that they care to engage with us. And I think that's where Shopify has been in particular such a great platform for us to build off of because you can plug into it in so many different ways. And so if we are doing something where it's a pop-up shop, there is a way for us to do so and still run that through Shopify.

And that's helped streamline all the data to make sure that we understand where are people shopping, what channels are they particularly finding out about us, and where is that actual transaction happening? So I think that being able to just ensure that it's a consistent experience and that wherever our customers are encountering us that they're getting something that feels really authentic to who we are as Material.

MELODY HAHM: You know, Lauren, speaking about the health of the consumer, we did see household income rise at a record pace, actually, of 21.1% for the month of March. When you think about the macro picture here, and I know Shopify has a stake in the firm. You own about 20% of the company, and finding creative ways to get consumers to buy more products. Do you feel like there will be a point of saturation? Are we even close to that point? Can everyone, should everyone continue to think about becoming an entrepreneur? I'm curious your vision there.

LOREN PADELFORD: Well, so it's a great question, and-- Shopify is an entrepreneurship company. So we fundamentally believe and are trying to reduce remove the barriers to entry for entrepreneurs. We do think it's a great time to be an entrepreneur. More businesses are being started now than have been in the last decade. That is a signal to the world that you can start. That the barriers to entry are no longer as big as they used to be, and you can be a big brand and create a big story relatively quickly.

And we don't see that slowing down. You asked, are we near a peak? I don't think we're anywhere close to a peak. I think we're at the beginning. I think we're seeing now the potential of entrepreneurs. And when you look at it from a macroeconomic perspective, the growth rate of entrepreneurial businesses is eclipsing the growth rate of big box.

And that shows you that we as consumers want to shop local. Right of consumers want to shop at a local store. We want to shop from brands who have a good story. We want to know the people and the companies that we buy things from. And that lines up directly with the entrepreneurs like Eunice who can tell a story and say, this is why we built this. We built this for you. Versus the faceless corporations that just work purely on cost benefit. And so it's a great time to be an entrepreneur. It's a great time to start something. And we see that accelerating not slowing down.

ADAM SHAPIRO: And a special Thanks to Lauren Pedelford and Eunice Byun. When we come back, more AMS Plus after this commercial break. America's vaccine rollout is giving a huge boost to the US economy as the drop in coronavirus cases is allowing local governments and businesses to successfully reopen. So joining us now, Rhett Buttle, public private strategist founder and national business advisor to the Biden campaign. It's good to have you here.

And a two-part question for you. What is it, 47% of this economy is powered by small businesses. Because we had a guest on at the top of the hour from the Chamber of Commerce who was saying that the pending PRO Act would hurt small business. So what do you want people to know going forward, especially from the perspective of small business?

RHETT BUTTLE: So that's right. I mean, look. Two out of every three new jobs in this country are created by small business. Just under half of Americans are employed by a small business. They're a crucial piece of the puzzle. I think what we're seeing in the research and what we hear from small business owners right now is that investment is the most important thing that they need to get their businesses back up on track.

Access to capital is a huge part of that. We saw the PPP help with some of that. The Biden administration came in, made that a little bit more equitable for small businesses and business owners of color, which was really helpful. And just this week, we saw the roll out of the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, which the funds there are going fast, and it's really helping a critical part of our sector.

And so if you think about workers, you think about your local restaurant, help is here, and help is on the way. And so a lot of that has been good news. But there's more work to do, and we need more investment to make sure that consumers have money in their pockets. For small businesses to thrive, we need those consumers to be spending money. And that's really where our focus has been.

SEANA SMITH: And in order for small businesses to thrive really right now, we need more and more people to get vaccinated. I know you have the Reimagine Main Street Initiative that's helping small businesses lead the way on this. I'm curious just what you found so far just in terms of small businesses, the roles that they're playing in this, and what feedback they are getting from their workers.

RHETT BUTTLE: Yeah, and so it's a really great initiative. We launched Reimagine Main Street. And part of that initiative, we've been focused on providing education and resources to small business owners about vaccinations. And part of that is just because of the critical role small business owners play in our communities, their trusted messengers. People turn to their employees about where to get information.

And so we thought, these folks can be vaccine leaders. And so we did some research, and we saw that small business owners see this attached to the livelihood of their business. The faster the vaccines roll out, the faster their businesses can get up to speed. Quite frankly, they're getting these questions from their employees.

So we've been trying to help arm them with the tools that they need to be responsive to their employees and their communities. And so far, we've seen a lot of positivity to this idea that small business owners can be leaders, vaccine leaders in their communities, and help their employees and communities get vaccinated so that we can get our economy up and going more quickly.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Are you hearing from these small business owners and operators about staff that might be apprehensive about getting the vaccine? And how do you counsel them to assist those people to get the inoculation?

RHETT BUTTLE: So really, we want everyone to make the decision that's best for themselves. And for business owners, most of them are taking a educational approach, which is I'm providing you, my employees, with some educational tools. I'm trying to give you science-based data, which is really important.

But most of them are taking the approach of letting their employees make their own choice. And that seems to be working. That doesn't mean that employees don't have questions. But obviously, at the same time, when they talk to their employer, get their questions answered, hear about the scientific data, that really tends to allow folks to think about getting the vaccine and really allows them to then think that it makes the best decision. We're also seeing them play an important role with their communities. So as business owners are speaking out and talking about the importance of vaccination, people are seeing the business owners respond to that, and it's also driving a lot of positivity in communities as well across the country.

SEANA SMITH: Any sense of how many small businesses are requiring their workers to get vaccinated?

RHETT BUTTLE: We don't know by the numbers. We did ask in our survey. We did a fairly large survey. We had over 3,000 employer respondents. And we saw somewhere between 10% and 12% were thinking about requiring it. A lot of those folks were in fields where it kind of made sense to have a mandatory requirement, but most folks are taking this more educational and incentives-based approach. We're seeing lots of large employers do that as well. And we really think an incentives-based approach is where we're at in allowing employees with the research, the data, and the scientific information to make the decision that's best for them and their families.

ADAM SHAPIRO: So what happens next once we have them vaccinated? Small businesses are still not out of the woods, or are they?

RHETT BUTTLE: So vaccination's just one part of this. We really think about this in three ways. So the first piece is getting that access to capital to small businesses they need. When small businesses-- they say cash is king, and that's true. And the government's helping there. We're also seeing the private sector step up and make resources available to businesses.

Piece 2 is this vaccination piece so that we can get people, workers back into jobs and get businesses open and things like that. And then piece 3 is really building back better and really thinking about the sort of large investments we need to make. So partially there, there's a policy play. So I think there's a stimulus package and an investment package that Congress is considering right now. We think that would be really helpful to getting the economy going in the right direction.

And then another piece is digitization and really helping small business owners think about how did they go online and expand their customer base here at home and abroad? So it's really a multifaceted puzzle that we're thinking about here as sort of this Build Back Better program. But along the way, we have some work to do. But I think we're all encouraged by what we're seeing.

SEANA SMITH: Do you think we're on the other side of this? And why I ask this is, how many, I guess, small businesses that are struggling right now do you potentially see still failing over the next couple of months?

RHETT BUTTLE: Yeah. I mean, so the sad story is not all business owners are going to make it out of this crisis. We saw too many, obviously, not make it already, and there's some that are still struggling. I think we've seen a lot more positive signs in the last few months.

We haven't seen the complete-- I don't think we will really understand sort of the complete damage that we've seen. We're out in the field actually right now with some additional research to get a better understanding of what this looks like, so I would be happy to come back and report that back.

But the other piece that we're seeing, and some of your earlier guest were saying this, is in some ways, this actually created an explosion of entrepreneurship. And so that is one sort of glimmer, a glimmer of hope in what has been a really difficult year. We're seeing all sorts of new businesses pop up, and that to me is sort of the heart of the American spirit. We're an entrepreneurial country by nature, and we're seeing some of that flourish even coming out of COVID-19.

SEANA SMITH: Rhett Buttle. Great to have you on the program. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us. Coming up next, cooking up a plan. How celebrity Andrew Zimmern is helping America's food service industry stage a comeback. We have more on that and the other side of the break.

- This presentation of Yahoo Finance's special All Markets Summit Plus-- Small Business Recovery is brought to you by Wells Fargo.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MELODY HAHM: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance's special All Markets Summit-- Small Business Recovery. America's restaurant industry was among the hardest hit as businesses were forced to shut down during the pandemic. Here to talk more about this and much more is Emma and James Beard award-winning TV personality, chef, author, and social activist, Andrew Zimmern. So Andrew, I want to get some fresh thoughts, right? As we see the country reopening, we see vaccinations sort of in mass distribution right now, how are you feeling having been in this industry for so long after sort of reacting to this unprecedented year?

ANDREW ZIMMERN: I feel like Charles Dickens. I remember "The Tale of Two Cities." The opening line-- "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." our industry has been hardest hit of any. We have had to be most resilient. We've been forced to pivot, re-pivot, zig and zag more than any other industry.

And yet, at the same time, having just visited Atlanta a few weeks ago to see a food hall opening where 18 entrepreneurs all held on to their dream for two years and made it through to see their small business take flight, my heart is warmed. And today at noon, the application process begins at the SBA for the Restaurant Relief Fund.

The portal has been open for three days. I believe we've seen record numbers. I believe one in five restaurants in America have already signed up, which you can do on the portal now ahead of the actual site opening where the applications will be triaged. Focusing, and I think very rightfully so, on restaurants that make less than $500,000 a year that are owned by women, that are owned by people of color, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, to let groups that have been traditionally disenfranchised have first bite at the financial apple.

So on one hand, I'm feeling very positive. On the other hand, I'm mourning the loss of a substantial piece of our industry over the last 15 months.

MELODY HAHM: You know, when you think about that grieving process, I know one of the action items you were able to participate in is cofounding the Independent Restaurant Coalition. Tell me more about the work that you've been able to do and how much work is ahead.

ANDREW ZIMMERN: Well, thank you very much. The founding of the IRC was something that happened very spontaneously over the course of a week. 20, 30 of us getting on a phone and Zoom calls and saying, yes, we're going to do this thing. And the best thing that we ever did was maintain our singleness of purpose. We decided that we were going to focus on legislative challenges on Capitol Hill and get laws to help provide grants of different types to help sustain our industry. Focusing on real-time laws that could positively affect our industry and then seeing that happen today with the SBA portal being opened providing $25-plus billion to the restaurant industry is fantastic.

But it's just a start. When demand is so high, when you say a fifth of our industry has applied for grants already in the portal's not even open, we know that we need more money. We were originally asking for $120 billion in grant relief. A drop in the bucket considering that in the fourth quarter of last year alone, we lost that much money in GDP from restaurants.

You have to remember, it's the supply chain going in. 93% of the money made in a restaurant goes out the back door into neighborhoods and communities. We represent 5% of GDP in this country. Well over $1 trillion. And we represent-- you know, we're largest employer of single moms, returning citizens, second largest employer of immigrants. First depending on whose data you look at.

Sadly, the economic hit lags behind. I think there are a lot of restaurants that are going to close in the next month because they just can't qualify for money and they've taken on so much debt. That's really been the sorrowful story of the last 13 months. In the pivoting and pivoting and repositioning of their businesses, restaurants have taken on debt and/or spent every last time they have. And so they can't continue any longer unless they get this relief. That $25 billion is going to get eaten up by 5 o'clock noon. And we need further grant relief from the US government.

MELODY HAHM: Yeah, when you think about the future or promise of future stimulus, have you been in talks with some of those lawmakers you just mentioned? What have been the dialogues looking like? As you point out, that $28 billion-plus, I think some several thousand dollars to working families with children, that can't nearly be enough for what we have to recoup.

ANDREW ZIMMERN: It can't. And the challenge, of course, is getting in line. Now, we have the ears of a senate majority leader, of House Majority Leader Pelosi. So we have the right people committed to helping restaurants. We just know that it takes a lot more than that commitment. You have to be there in the room when that pen hits the paper.

And that's our challenge. And we're going to be focusing in the coming months on making sure we're in talks with the Biden administration. We know the right government agencies. We've been in concert working with the SBA to make sure that this restaurant relief fund gets doled out and quickly so that we can move on to getting more funds. So we're positioned well. We just have a lot of work ahead of us.

MELODY HAHM: Some really fascinating insights there and perspective. Thank you so much to Andrew Zimmern. Loved speaking with you today.

ANDREW ZIMMERN: Take care. Thank you.

MELODY HAHM: More of Yahoo Finance's All Markets Summit-- Small Business Recovery right after this quick break. Stick around.

SEANA SMITH: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance's special All Market Segment Plus-- Small Business Recovery. We are gauging the health of one of the most important and vital parts of the economy. And I spoke with Mary Mack, Wells Fargo's senior executive, vise president, and CEO of consumer and small business about what she's seeing in terms of an economic recovery on Main Street. Let's listen.

MARY MACK: You know, we're starting to see the same things that we're all starting to see as consumers. There's more optimism amongst the small business community that's surprised all of us in their resiliency, their flexibility. We look at studies that would suggest 75% of small businesses have had to figure out a different way to operate. And they're doing that. So we're encouraged, but there's still a long road ahead. There's a lot of resiliency work that we all need to do.

SEANA SMITH: And speaking of that long road ahead, we know the government's efforts help small businesses. We've seen multiple rounds of PPP. The latest round, that deadline was extended here to the end of May. Is the government, in your view, doing enough to help small businesses, or is more help needed?

MARY MACK: Well, we've been encouraged by the extensions because that has given access to more businesses. We're seeing that. We're seeing a number of businesses coming in for a second round loan. But we're also seeing a number of businesses that are accessing PPP for the first time. And that's encouraging.

But we know the government made some changes to ensure access to under-served communities to smaller businesses. We saw that, and actually execute some outreach to about 550,000 of our small businesses in low to moderate income and historically under-served communities. And what we saw was a number of them were just able to access for the first time the PPP dollars. And again, we were encouraged by the, I don't know, close to 20,000 that came in as a result of that outreach.

SEANA SMITH: Mary, Mary Wells Fargo now also has an Open for Business fund that's boosting access to minority lending. What has demand been like for this initiative?

MARY MACK: Really high, demand for Open for Business. So we decided after the first round of PPP that we all knew more was needed. And so what we committed to do was take 100% of our gross processing fees-- it's about $420 million-- from the first round and put it directly back into small business recovery. Working with Community development Financial Institutions, CFIs, working with technical assistance in those businesses that need to retool or resiliency efforts. And we went out to the broad community across the country, received a number of applications, and we're now getting that money out into those communities.

SEANA SMITH: Mary, what advice would you have or do you have for small business owners trying to expand or trying to start their business for the first time in this extremely challenging environment?

MARY MACK: Well, there are a lot of resources out there. So businesses and business owners need to focus on the strength of their credit and their credit history. That's really important. But access the small business site. Organizations like Wells Fargo, we have a ton of resources online available for small businesses. Build a business plan. Get help. Get advice.

We're investing in broader communities like Minority Depository Institutions, MDIs, that serve some of the historically under-served communities to make sure that everybody has access to those resources. So avail yourself of it. It might be a trusted friend, a colleague, somebody you've seen doing this before who's already navigated some of this road. But get advice. Lean on it. Ask for help. It's a really important part of the process. And find a trusted advisor to help you through it.

SEANA SMITH: Mary, how long do you expect it to take for small businesses to return to, quote, unquote, normal operations? And then within that realm, we know that there's been so many changes in behavior here over the last 12 months. When we look at what the new normal is going to look like for small businesses, what is that in your view?

MARY MACK: Well, that's exactly what my answer to your question was going to be-- we'll have to figure out what normal is first. And I think it'll continue to evolve. I've said a lot that if this pandemic had been what we thought it was, maybe a year ago, and we were all navigating this for weeks or months, you might not have seen some of the permanent behavior change that I suspect we'll see over time.

And again, as I mentioned, over 75% of companies that we see are figuring out how to retool. I'm just impressed and amazed, really, at the grit and resiliency that we see as they redefine what their model is and figure out who the consumer is and how the consumer behaves going forward. I don't know that that's going to be a static answer either. It'll probably continue to evolve.

SEANA SMITH: And speaking of the consumer, the credit performance on the consumer side for Wells Fargo has improved here. What do you expect to interest in terms of spending trends for the second half of this year?

MELODY HAHM: Well, we're seeing the latest round of stimulus has been really important to consumers. We did see some spending pick up after those stimulus payments were out. And we could see people begin to lean back into things that a lot of us haven't done. Travel, entertainment, other things that were beginning to crawl back up.

So we'll see. I'm impressed with the responsibility and the focus on controlling debt. Really taking care of your own finances first. That, I think, is a very healthy sign for the consumer. But we do anticipate that we'll continue to improve over time as everybody gets more comfortable, we've got more access, we develop more immunity through vaccines, et cetera, throughout the country. So we're looking forward to that.

That was Mary Mack, Wells Fargo CEO of consumer and small business. And Adam, a couple of things stuck out from my conversation with her. One was one thing that we've heard, actually, throughout the past hour-- that small businesses are getting more optimistic at this point. That they are recovering. That they are a little bit more positive here over the next couple of months.

SEANA SMITH: But the one thing though that she did say was the number that still needs help. In the latest round of the PPP loans, a number of small businesses were still getting loans for the first time. So I think that speaks to yes, things have improved. But still, a number of these small businesses are not in this spot of where they optimally would like to be right now.

You know, it's interesting. What stands out from the different discussions that we've heard is getting back to normal. We're not there yet. I love the story that we heard from Mr Sullivan about the baker who offered the vaccination clinic, you might call it, in the parking lot. I mean, talk about a good way perhaps to even drive business.

But then on the flip side, you have the issue of making sure your employees are vaccinated. And there are, of course-- we talked about this with one of the guests-- that some employees are afraid to get the vaccination. So there's that issue, and then the supply issue, because what was it? Get your ketchup now with something that Sullivan said from the Chamber of Commerce. Small businesses that only face a labor problem, getting people back to work because there's demand now. But there's also supply issues that they're facing.

Yeah, certainly. And that's the case across the country. And we heard that from a couple of our guests. It's not just particular areas that are facing this, it's across the country. And I think Rhett Butler really put it well with saying that vaccination is really the key to getting so many of these small businesses back to where we were pre-pandemic, of course,

The one issue, though, is convincing those people who have been a little bit hesitant up to this point as to why they should be getting the vaccine. To hopefully, more and more of the employees and also the customers will get on board with that, but we will see.

ADAM SHAPIRO: All right. We appreciate your joining us for this hour. And this wraps up our All Market Summit Plus. Thank you for being here.