The best reality is showing just how real running a small business can be

By Amanda Brinkman

What would you do for $500,000? If you are a small business owner and you have a chance at some of that money and a business and marketing makeover, would you allow a film crew into your house, your business, your life? How honest would you be?

And then, could you let a team of experts – who were perfect strangers only a few months ago – capture your story and release it to the world before you had a chance to see it?

Small business owners take leaps of faith every single day, just opening their doors. They rely on their belief in themselves to sell products, share advice, employ workers and generally, do this super courageous thing: run a business.

The Small Business Revolution shines a spotlight on these selfless people, giving them the platform to be real, to show the rest of the world what it takes to be a small business owner. This content platform goes deep into the nuances of family, be it the kind you are born into or the family you create when a business becomes part of your soul.

In Wabash, Indiana, and now in Bristol Borough, Pennsylvania, business owners lined up for the chance to tell us they didn’t have a business plan, or a solid understanding of their cash flow, or a genuine lease, or even a clear grasp of what their business is all about. Over the course of two seasons, there have been embarrassing revelations they have embraced, because small business stories are authentic.

Authentic. It is a word I live by and share often when I talk about content marketing. I’ve shared the word with thousands of people in the last three years as our Deluxe team has crisscrossed the country connecting our love of small business with the rest of the world.

Authenticity is impossible to fake:

• You can’t fake the tears of a business owner who shares her stories of leaving home at age 16 and learning to make each day work
• You can’t fake the fear in the eyes of a business owner facing down a landlord who wants to double his rent.
• You can’t fake the worry of a restaurateur who endures the lean times with the busy times in search of balance.
• You can’t fake the passion of an owner who not only wants to be successful, but empower women to find joy in just being who they are.

Small business owners expose their emotions daily. So maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that they open up, despite our cameras and give us their true selves, and give other small business owners and the public that glimpse into what is reality.

Reality isn’t a group of strangers living on an island and voting each other off. And it isn’t housewives creating artificial drama for the camera.

Reality is the husband and wife owner of an auto shop learning from a group of marketing professionals and a business guru from Shark Tank that they are doing a great job. All they need is a little guidance.

Bringing a camera to capture that type of reality is a privilege I will never take for granted.

In reality, you can’t fake that kind of authenticity.