Happy Tuesday, Reader!

When times get hard and uncertain, our instinct is often to retreat.

We stay online because it feels safer than showing up in person with all our messy humanity on display. We avoid the discomfort of real conversations about how we're actually doing. We keep our heads down and try to push through alone.

But here's what I'm seeing after nearly 20 years of working with small businesses through multiple economic crises:

The small businesses doing best in this moment of chaotic uncertainty aren't the ones with the biggest ad budgets or the most sophisticated automation. They're the ones leaning INTO community instead of away from it.

The Real Competitive Advantage Is Showing Up for Each Other

​I've written before about Placebinding™, the practice of intentionally being where you are, with whoever else is there, in relationship with a community that cannot be replicated online. This isn't networking in the cold, calculating sense. It's the ancient and essential practice of showing up physically for the people who matter.

I saw this play out recently at Cordelia, a restaurant in Cleveland, and wrote about it on my Substack. Every person on their team had a recommendation for somewhere else in town to eat, which is exactly what a business rooted in its community looks like.

Right now, Placebinding™ is more than just good business strategy. It’s how we get through the hard seasons.

Your employees need to see your face and know you're in this with them. Your clients need the reassurance that comes from sitting across a table together, even if it's just for coffee. Your community needs businesses that show up in real life, committed to the place they call home.

And you? You need other humans who understand what you're navigating. In person, where someone can look you in the eye and remind you that you're not alone.

What Showing Up Looks Like Right Now

This doesn't have to be complicated. In fact, the simpler the better when we're all already stretched thin.

Here are some ways to practice Placebinding™ this week:

• Have a team coffee or lunch where work talk is off-limits. Just be humans together.
  ​
• Show up at a local community event, even if you're not sponsoring it.
  ​
• Schedule one face-to-face client meeting instead of defaulting to Zoom.
  ​
• Grab coffee with another business owner who gets it.

The businesses that survive hard times are the ones that remember this:

We're not building empires. We're building communities. And communities show up for each other, especially when things get difficult.

This week, commit to ONE in-person connection. Put it on your calendar right now, before the week fills up with everything else.

Your business needs it. And more importantly, your soul needs it.

With you in this,

Renia C.

P.S. - Two on Tuesdays is where my thoughts land once they’ve had time to settle. If you’d like the earlier, less filtered version, come find me on Substack. It’s free to subscribe, and it’s where the Cordelia story started.

​
​

​​​​​