Obama Talks Small Business Directly with Franchisees
Obama talked small business with those who are directly affected: small business owners.
Imagine getting a call from President Obama? And not just any call, but a call that he wanted to meet with you, a small business owner, and talk about issues affecting small businesses?
That’s what happened to Steve Wheat and Bobby Pancake, partners in High 5 LLC, a six-unit franchisee of Buffalo Wild Wings based in Bear, Delaware.
The meeting took place on June 11th, and included Obama, Pancake, Wheat, a general manager of a Buffalo Wild Wings in Dover, Delaware, and two owners of a technology company in Rockville, Maryland.
Pancake called the meeting “intimate.”
“We talked about getting the banks to loosen up so business can grow,” he said. “We told him that if Congress were able to make changes, we would like to build a couple more restaurants and add more jobs. He was really interested in what we had to say.”
Specifically, Wheat said, the president discussed the need to raise the cap on SBA loans from $2 million to $5 million.
Following the meeting in the Oval Office, the group convened for a press conference, during which the Obama discussed the Small Business Jobs Initiatives and the need to “make it easier for smaller firms to hire and to grow.”
Noting that small businesses historically have created two-thirds of all new jobs in the country, Obama said, “we’re going to need to make sure that small companies are able to open up and expand and add names to their payroll” in order to replace the millions of jobs lost during the recession.
Think Obama’s meeting with small business owners will jump start any changes for small business?
