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There are slogans like "banking made simple, what is in your wallet, or trust us, and we will help you". But what happens when those avenues are not there to help you? Financial institutions have good ways of doing business and bad ways of not doing business for certain people. These backdoor policies are methods banks use to circumvent standard regulations or controls. These policies can involve hidden fees or charges not disclosed to the customers.

Banks may use complex financial instruments to obscure risk levels. They have also been shown to be determined by several factors, including race, sex, and ethnicity. This leads to ethical concerns and potential legal repercussions. Tune into this episode and listen to see how to protect yourself and your business if you need to.

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Thank you all for Hooking Up With Us for 200 podcast episodes. We know most podcasts don't make it past episode 10, and we are eternally grateful for you all. We will recap some of our favorite podcast episodes and topics, and we want you all to ride down memory lane with us. Tune in and Watch4thehook as always.

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Back in 2023, on Episode 39: Understanding Premiumization, we talked about how sometimes doing more for your brand can help it stand out. The caveat to doing more for your business is that you may have to spend more on your business, and that can be a problem.

Premiumization did not uniformly decline as inflation rose; rather, it shifted from a broad-based trend to a more selective one, with consumers becoming more discerning about which products they deem worthy of a higher price tag. While some categories saw a pullback, many premium products remained resilient as customers opted for "affordable luxuries" or traded down in other areas to justify spending on higher-quality items.

Tune in to see you dial it back, stay the same, or went bigger during these harder economic times.

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Small business owners can expect enhanced digital tools, improved service, and continued tax relief from the IRS this Season. We would love to know who is there to help small businesses in the IRS with how they have gutted the Federal job sector since the beginning of 2025.

Every year, business tax filing criteria keep changing, and the tax deductions for small businesses get smaller and smaller year after year. They will say the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) helps small businesses, but in actuality, it helps the Big/Large Business owners more than anything. Tune into this episode and see if you and your businesses are being helped or hindered this year.

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The economic impacts of WAR are overwhelmingly negative, characterized by significant long-term Gross Domestic Product (GDP) losses, massive destruction of capital, increased public debt, and persistently high inflation!!!

While short-term gains can occur in specific sectors (like Defense) due to increased government spending- sometimes termed "military Keynesianism"- these gains are temporary, localized, and are usually outweighed by the disruption of civil production and the destruction of infrastructure. Tune in to this episode to hear how bad WAR is for Small Business Owners!!!

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Last year, the U.S. economy was gutted due to the government's directed attacks on D.E.I. initiatives and jobs associated with those programs. This year, it is WAR that not many constituents deem necessary or beneficial for us as a country.

A WAR with Iran primarily impacts small business owners through rising energy and shipping costs, increased supply chain disruptions, and reduced consumer spending due to economic uncertainty. Increased fuel prices and logistical issues from regional instability, particularly in the Middle East, can significantly raise operational expenses, forcing businesses to choose between absorbing costs or raising prices. Tune into this episode and listen to our concerns.

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A.I. can be your friend or foe. It can help or hinder your business, but your own understanding of A.I. will play heavily on how effects your business. A.I. can help you fake it to you make it, or it can seal your fate when it comes time for you to put up or shut up. Not a lot of fluff in this episode description, pull up this episode and listen to what is going on.

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Big business was all over the tongue of the Orange Tyrant last night, but he never mentioned the backbone of the American economy, the Small Businesses. Q1 2026 Small Business Report states 41% of small business owners cite inflation as their top concern. Yet tariffs and their implementation on countries where we had a 0% for 0% tariff swap still go unaddressed. What that meant was that countries with which we had good standing, we had a free trade market with, which kept unnecessary taxes and fees from being passed down to consumers who were purchasing said products. Tune in to this episode and see what is possibly the state of the union of your business.