Small businesses, the backbone of local communities and employment.

But there's a new report that came out that said millions of jobs are vulnerable as a silver tsunami looms over U.S. small businesses.

Now, I've heard the phrase silver tsunami referred to health care, memory centers,

things of that nature. But this report is saying that there are a lot of businesses that are

owned by people 55 and older and they lack succession plans to pass their companies on and therefore may just be shutting down small businesses

huge part of the economy they employ more than 62 million americans and make up about 43% of

the u.s. GDP yeah so think of as i'll use an example that i know i know guy that owns an HVAC company, heating and air conditioning and plumbing and electrical and that sort of thing. And he was the second generation. So his dad started the business. And then he took it over and ran it. And none of his kids have any interest in running it. And so he's kind of stuck, not quite sure what to do with this. He could sell it to,

you know, some of the big HVAC companies out there, but he's not quite sure what to do with this.

And so that's what this is talking about here. So think of small business owners like that,

small retail organizations, small service owners like HVAC and plumbing and heating and air conditioning,

those are who that this article is talking about. So they're saying that without some clear

plans for leadership transition, millions of jobs could be at risk if these businesses

close instead of transferring ownership. And the owners, they often build these decades-long

customer relationships. And that is hard to replace as well.

Many buyers aren't lined up to take over.

And even if you did have a buyer that was lined up to take over, that built-in relationship is no longer there.

Well, here's what a lot of these, and I think that what you'll end up seeing is, is a lot of these small

business owners that try to sell to people that are already working in their business.

Yeah. So if you've got somebody, if I'm a small business owner, maybe an employee.

Exactly. If I'm a small business owner and I've got, you know, my right hand guy or somebody

else who really kind of has been there a long time and knows the business. And the good thing about this is a lot of times some of these small business owners will finance it already. So if you're saying, well, I've got this HVAC company and it's worth $3 million and I'm an employee and I'm like, I don't got $3 million. And I don't have any assets and there's no way a bank's

going to give me $3 million.

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