Welcome to Off the Grid, a podcast for small business owners who want to leave social media without losing all their clients. Hello, and welcome to Off The Grid, a podcast about sharing your creative work, making money online, and doing that without relying on social media. I'm your host, Amelia Hruby. I am the founder of Softer Sounds Podcast Studio and the author of the recently published book, Your Attention is Sacred Except on Social Media. And today, I am landing in your pod feed with a tiny pep talk for Black Friday.

I wanted to record this because as creative small business owners, there are so many paths through today and this weekend and the holiday season. And I think that it's important to remind us that whatever path you're taking, you can do it in the spirit of radical generosity and energetic sovereignty. So Black Friday is commonly critiqued as a super consumerist holiday where the capitalist values of The US have spilled over all over ecommerce around the world and created these sort of false periods of extreme buying and spending and more, more, more culture. And in many ways, I think that's perfectly correct. That's a great analysis of what Black Friday has been since it gained modern popularity, I think in the eighties.

I believe it started perhaps back in the fifties, but the name comes from a market crash in the late eighteen hundreds. So the name of Black Friday ties it to the trials and tribulations of The US stock market. Although I think back then it was the gold market. So there is this inherent connection between Black Friday, the history of capitalism in The US, and also I think the present and future of capitalism around the world. And for that reason, many small business owners I know choose to opt out of Black Friday, and that choice makes sense to me.

I get it. You don't wanna take part in this consumerist celebration of capitalism. I think that's one way to think about it. That said, I don't think it's the only way to think about Black Friday as a small business owner. For many of us, this is a great time to actually buy from the sales that bigger companies are having.

Black Friday is a great time to get discounts on tech and software for your business. It's a time to grab annual deals on the tools you're already using so you can save some money as you use them over the course of the year. It can be a great time to upgrade a computer or a phone or a monitor if you need a new one. And it can be a great time to not only spend money with those big brands or tech companies so you save a few dollars, but also to invest in your fellow small business owners and creators. And that's why I personally enjoy Small Business Saturday.

I like shining a light on those creators. I like spending money with them and helping their businesses succeed. And that's why I created the off the grid small biz gift guide, which you can see in the show notes. And I shared it with the community earlier this week because this is a time when many people are spending, including probably some of you listening to this, including myself. And one way that I grapple with that is that I spend money with business owners I know.

I spend money with business owners I admire. I spend money with business owners who are making a direct impact on their local communities and their personal lives with their businesses. And so I think that this is one way we can approach Black Friday, which is with the question of how can this sort of period of Black Friday, small business Saturday, Cyber Monday, how can it nourish my business? Not just how can I get the best deals or like what's my spending budget, but what are the things that my business really needs right now? What are the things that the businesses I really meaningfully care about need right now?

And can these few days be a time when we all pour into ourselves and each other? That's one way that I like to think about this time. As a small business owner, I've also been thinking about what it means to offer discounts and promotions over Black Friday or Small Business Saturday or Cyber Monday or any of the other days that people come up with during these weeks of holiday sales. And while I totally understand choosing to opt out of that period and not offering a discount or promotion through your business, it also makes sense to me that during a period when many people are spending joyfully, that is a time when we might want to offer our own discounts and promotions. We might want to ride that wave of sales.

We might want to, like, hop on that rising tide or resist it. I think that there are reasons for both choices. And sometimes I get frustrated when I see service providers get really sanctimonious about how they're not doing Black Friday when I don't think Black Friday is best suited to their type of business anyway. When they don't run a business where people expect discounts and promotions all the time. I think that if you're running a product based business, this is a time when customers really expect sales and discounts, and they may actually have been waiting to purchase from you to see what you're doing and how you're approaching it.

And so I'm not here to tell you, don't offer a sale. And I'm not even here to tell you it's ethical to opt out of Black Friday. I think that we all have to make really nuanced choices in the landscapes of our businesses. And let me tell you, at the end of this year, 2025, I want every small business owner I know to be finding ways to bring in the cash flow that's been missing all year. I want my product makers, my painters, my sculptors, my stationary designers, my food products babes.

Like, I want all of you to be doing whatever Black Friday sale is gonna help you bring money in the door and keep those doors open through next year. And if that is all about Black Friday for you, then I love that. And I wanna buy from you and I wanna support you. I also wanna buy from you and support you during all the other times of the year. But I think it can be a little bit head spinning when you try to ask a question like, what is ethical to do over Black Friday?

When in fact, the things that are not ethical to do over Black Friday are things that are not ethical to do any day and things that most of the small business owners I work with are never doing. Right? We're not raising prices in the weeks before Black Friday so we can claim that we discounted it 60% when actually it's the same price it was eight weeks ago. We're not sending 10 emails a day pushing urgency, telling people these deals are going away forever and they'll never get to experience this again in all caps. We're not covering our entire websites and countdown timers.

I'm a fan of a countdown timer where it makes sense. I'm annoyed when they are everywhere. Right? But I don't personally know anyone doing that. I don't see my interweb members doing that.

Don't I see my clubhouse folks doing that. That's not what we're doing. I don't think that we're leaning into the capitalist consumerism of Black Friday. I think that we're leaning into the commerce and care of Black Friday. Because the other thing about this for me is that even though the reason that all of this started on Black Friday had to do with a market crash, it also does come right around a beautiful holiday season when many of us are looking for gifts for people and when we quite clearly have that nesting instinct to bring more things into our home to get ready for winter.

And I think that there are ways that Black Friday and major corporations turn that instinct into something really destructive. And they try to force us into becoming consumerists. But we don't have to engage with this season that way. So I suppose that's my pep talk for Black Friday. If you're listening to this, you've probably already know if you're doing a sale or if you're doing a promotion or if you're opting out.

Right? But I think it's important to have that reminder of however you decided to navigate today and the upcoming days and weeks. I hope that that decision aligns with what you and your business need during this season. Not what you think you should be doing. Not what business coaches tell you to do.

And if what you and your business need is to buy a bunch of stuff that's on sale while you can afford it, awesome. If what you and your business need is to offer a big promotion and bring sales in the door, love it. If what you and your business need is to opt out entirely because you and your business don't need anything right now, that's beautiful. I love that for you too. We can critique and reject the capitalist aspects of this sales season while also supporting our businesses in surviving and thriving through 2025 and beyond.

That's the pep talk I wanted to give you today. As I wrap it up, three things. One, go check out the off the grid small biz gift guide. If you are shopping today or you just wanna support some cool people through the holiday season, there are amazing products, services, books, and all sorts of things in there, as well as some lovely discounts just for the off the grid crew. So head there if you're doing some shopping today or bookmark it if you're gonna be shopping soon.

And then I myself have two Black Friday ish promotions going on. One's actually been happening all month. So at Softer Sounds, our podcast launch course, your podcast is a portal, is on sale for only $99 through the end of the weekend. So if there is a podcast dream tucked away in your heart or sitting on your to do list, I hope you'll buy the course. It is full of videos, voice messages, and text lessons to guide you through the eight stages of launching a podcast.

Plus, there are embodied somatic and magical practices to help you with the tender parts that come alongside the technical aspects of podcasting. You can find all that at softersounds.studio/portal or linked in the show notes. Again, it's only $99 through the end of the weekend. And then my book is on super sale technically starting tomorrow, but I turned on the sale early just case you're listening to this. So I have made the Your Attention is Sacred except on Social Media ebooks 10 for today and tomorrow only.

So you can get an ebook for $10 if you buy today, Black Friday or tomorrow, small business Saturday. And the paperbacks are only $20 . So you can find all of that at offthegrid.fun/attention. Go get your books. Go get your podcast course.

Go check out the gift guide if that aligns with your needs. Again, not here to tell you to buy if you don't need to buy, but I wanted to offer some really generous discounts so that if you have been wanting to buy a book, but you couldn't quite afford the prices I had it at, this is the weekend. This is the time when I am able to just generously offer that discount. I can't do it all the time because I also need to earn money from publishing my book. But I decided that for small business Saturday, that's a moment when I can radically generously cut the price in half. You hear how that works?

It's like when I operate from energetic sovereignty, I can proceed with radical generosity and invite you to do the same. That's the other thing. Okay. One more piece about Black Friday before I go. Sometimes when people talk about why Black Friday is unethical, they talk about how it sort of forces people to buy more.

And I'm always here to critique the behavioral manipulation of advertisers and the coercive tactics of particularly, like, big giant ecommerce companies. Yes. Let's critique that. But also, I don't wanna talk about my customers and clients like they're just brain dead zombies who couldn't help but buy from me. Like, that's not the case.

Also, like, we're not brain dead zombies if we go on, you know, the Best Buy website either. Like, I treat the people who buy from me like they are intelligent because you are intelligent and sovereign because I trust that you know what you want and need. And that if you're buying from me, you're doing that from a place of, again, energetic sovereignty, from a place of making a clear and conscious choice. And as a result, I don't need to like infantilize you and be like, well, I can't offer a Black Friday sale what if somebody's just shopping when they don't really need to be shopping? Like, I can't know that, and I don't want to operate on the assumption of that.

And if you have bought something from me and then later realized maybe I didn't really have the funds for that or maybe wasn't quite in the budget or whatever it was, like, I still hope that whatever you purchased was full of value, and you're able to fit that into your life in ways that make sense for you. Anyway, that's just always a pet peeve of mine is sometimes people critique Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday from the perspective of, like, we have to protect the shoppers from themselves. And I'm like, that's so patronizing. We are all smart, savvy people here, and I want all of us to operate from our energetic sovereignty and offer ourselves and each other radical generosity. So that's my pep talk, maybe tiny bit of a rant for Black Friday.

I hope your business is thriving. It feels so weird to say that at the 2025. My business is stumbling across that finish line, but here we go. Let's stumble together. Or if you're sprinting, I'm cheering you on.

And I will be back next week with our final episode of the year. Isn't that wild? It's so close to the end of 2025, my friends. We're almost there. We've almost made it.

I send you so much care and the coziest weekend. And until next time, I will see you off the grid. Thanks for listening to off the grid. Don't forget to grab your free living social media toolkit at offthegrid.fun/toolkit. This podcast is a softer sounds production.

Our music is by Melissa Kaitlyn Carter of Making Audio Magic, and our logo is by N'atelier Studio. I'm your host, Amelia Hruby. And until next time, I'll see you off the grid and on the interweb.