(bright music) - [Announcer] Support for "Building a Business in Illinois" comes from the Springfield Sangamon Growth Alliance.

Springfield and Sangamon County, the place to be for business.

(upbeat music) Thanks for joining us.

I'm Fred Martino.

"In Focus" today, starting and growing a business in Illinois.

Upfront, when Ashley Striplin decided to start a business, she came up with a unique idea.

An art studio for anyone.

It's called Dabble and Ashley was named New and Emerging Business Owner of the Year in 2024 by the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce.

(upbeat music) Lots of local folks and businesses come to Dabble to make creations individually or as a team, but believe it or not, when folks are traveling and discover this business, they also stop by.

There have been visitors from as far away as Japan.

Tell me how you got the idea to start this business.

- So before I started Dabble, I worked in the corporate world.

I worked for a bank for nine years and a title company for three years.

And if you wanna know what the most thankless job in the whole world might be, it is title work.

So my soul was kind of slowly dying, sitting behind a desk, and I had all of these goals and dreams.

It was about in that thought process that my sister, who lives in China, came to me just before my daughter's second birthday and brought me this idea of opening an arts and crafts studio.

I personally thought she was nuts coming to me with the idea because I did not dabble in the arts and crafts.

To me, arts and crafts looked like messiness and glue and things that weren't where they were supposed to be, and glitter in my dryer, and not anything I wanted to dabble in at the time.

So I didn't know why she thought I would be the person for the job, but I did know that I needed a life change.

I needed something to make me feel more fulfilled, something to make me feel more happy, and something that would allow me to be there for my family in a way that I couldn't be working for corporate America.

So she came up with the idea because there are little shops in China like this that are just walk-in friendly, people just walk in from the big cities off of the streets and it's a very social thing.

They go around and see what other people are doing.

A lot of them are very experienced in arts and crafts because they just put so much value on it, on their creativity.

And so we wanted to bring that, that social, casual art aspect to the Springfield community.

- Dabble offers all sorts of possibilities for art.

Everything from resin creations using simple molds to terrariums, and of course, if you have a lot of talent, you can paint anything you'd like.

Even a Cheshire Cat.

And how long have you been making lava lamps with folks?

- [Ashley] It's been about a year and a half.

- Year and a half.

And it's popular?

- It is.

It's very popular.

- I bet, I bet.

- Yeah.

- And it took some work.

- It did.

It took me about 20 hours of experimenting.

So I joke around that everybody's part of the Mad Scientist Club now because I was losing my mind trying to get it to work.

- I am gonna choose this one, which is lavender.

- Good choice.

- 'Cause this is for my wife.

She will like that color, I think.

- Okay.

So this is just a mixture of rubbing alcohols and I never give away exactly how to do it.

- Okay.

Well it took 20 hours.

- Yeah.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) This is gonna last as long as the bottle stays intact.

- [Fred] Very cool.

And there it goes.

(Fred laughs) Art and science come together.

- [Ashley] I know, I love collaborations.

(Fred laughs) - Tell me about the diversity of your clients.

Who comes to make a project here?

- So families are generally who we see walk through our door.

Typically, it's people who want to bond with kids or bond with other adults.

I think our youngest Dabbler has been three and our oldest Dabbler I think was in their 80s or 90s.

And just people from all walks of life.

I mean, we have people who come from a lower class family.

We have people who come from the wealthier side and everybody finds something that brings them the joy of creativity.

- Now, in addition to walk-ins, I know you also have classes at Dabble.

- Yes, absolutely, we have classes.

So of course we do have our casual side for walk-ins, but for people who feel that they need just a little bit more hands-on assistance or there's something more specialized that they're interested in learning, we offer a wide variety of classes.

We do crochet, we do do it yourself lava lamps, we do candle making.

We just had our first chunky blanket hand crochet class yesterday.

We have kids classes, things like All Paint that teaches kids how to do, you know, certain painting techniques.

We have, I mean, just all, we have faux stained glass.

I mean, it's just, we have so much that people can dabble in.

It's a lot of fun for people who need a little bit more structure in their creativity.

- What's been the reaction?

- When they get through the door and they get settled in, I mean, they just, they light up.

They're inspired.

The vibes that they get from just walking in the shop and speaking with us.

It's like they leave everything that they're battling outside of the door.

And the most important thing right now is what kind of glitter are you going to put into your charcuterie board?

And that is an amazing feeling to have when there's so much going on in people's lives.

I mean, life is hard, and to have that escape even for an hour is just amazing.

So yeah, it's just, it's kind of a mixture of emotions to be honest.

You know, I feel like everybody sees something a little bit different when they walk in here.

- What keeps you going?

- Well, again, my family definitely keeps me going.

Having the support of my sister and mom, my co-owners, has been foundational for me.

There's no way I could have maintained such a positive attitude and maintain such determination without their support.

My husband has been just amazing.

You know, I joke that for probably the first six months, he played a single father role being married because I was just, I couldn't be there.

I had so much going on, but there's never been a time where he has made me feel like I'm not doing enough and having that kind of, that kind of support system at home has been just, I could never put into words the appreciation that I have for the people that surround me.

So definitely find something you're passionate about and just build yourself a good support system.

I mean, the people that you surround yourself with is probably the most important thing when you decide you're going to start a business.

(upbeat music) - Thanks to Ashley for speaking with us, and I am very pleased now to welcome the president and CEO of the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce, Mike Murphy.

Mike, great to have you here.

- I'm happy to be here.

Thanks so much for asking me.

- Well, thank you again, Mike.

I've had a chance to sit down with you in person in Springfield, and it's great to have a chance to do this for our entire region to talk about this important issue.

At the end of that feature about Ashley Striplin and her business Dabble, she talks about the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people when you're starting a business.

And I know the Chamber provides a lot of resources for business owners, but also a lot of support in the journey.

Tell us about that work that you and others do and its importance, not only for the Springfield region, but all of Illinois.

- Sure.

I'd love to.

I was a former member of the Chamber.

I was a small business person myself for several years.

I've only been in this capacity for three years.

But prior to that, I was in the restaurant business and my last operation was a small little diner here in Springfield.

And I remember the Chamber asked me that very question, what do we bring to you?

Why are you excited about being a member of the Chamber?

And I described it very simply.

The Chamber makes me bigger.

And what I mean by that is, I worked for some major corporations in the restaurant business before.

I was a corporate guy for Domino's Pizza for Central Illinois and Central Northern Indiana.

My office was in Chicago and then we had our main office in Ann Arbor.

We had HR departments, accounting departments, anything, legal departments, anything you want.

Well, guess what I had at Charlie Parker's?

I had me.

And so- - You right?

- Yes, exactly.

And so the Chamber, the Chamber and everything they brought made me bigger, made Charlie Parker's a bigger operation than what it was because now all of a sudden I did have some people who would help me out with HR, I did have some people who would advocate for me, and just along those lines.

And so, you know, one thing we do is we take a small business like Dabble and we give them some resources that they wouldn't have on their own.

- Yeah, I really enjoyed spending some time with Ashley, seeing her business, and seeing the excitement that she had for starting that business.

And what a neat place that is.

So certainly talking about support, giving an award each year, and she was the New and Emerging Business Owner of the Year in 2024 by the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce.

I'm guessing that those things are also helpful, that, you know, that kind of encouragement and the chance to talk with fellow business owners about their journey.

- Yeah, I was just gonna say that.

I think one of the greatest things I enjoy about that day.

By the way, I was nominated twice and I never won.

So (laughs) as a Small Business of the Year.

But what's great about it is you get to talk to some of your peers and see some of the challenges that you're having and you realize you're not alone in this.

And so that's one thing we do is not only with that event, but other events, we give our members an opportunity to come together and work with each other and hopefully build relationships and build partnerships as well.

That's, when I, we just had our gala a couple weeks ago and in my speech I talked about, we're all in this together and our mission is to enhance our members' success and advocate on their behalf.

And I gave all of our membership a challenge to make our mission, their mission.

Let's enhance all of our members' success and advocate for all of our members by, you know, helping them out.

'Cause I said it very simply, when one of our members succeed, we all succeed.

And when one of our members struggle, it impacts us all because that's taking jobs outta the workplace, that could be your customer.

And so we're all in this together and so I think that's one of the things that the Chamber, we make an intentional effort to make sure our members have an opportunity to network with each other.

- Yeah.

Well Mike, as you know, thousands of people nationwide get help from small business development centers in starting a business as well and those centers provide continuing training too.

Give us your view of how that program is working.

- Oh, it's great.

It's Kevin Lusk and his group, they do a tremendous job.

Things like business plans and even acquiring a FEIN number and stuff like that.

We don't have the resources and support to do that to new member, you know, to new businesses coming up.

'Cause if you remember what I said, our mission is to enhance our members' success and advocate on their behalf.

So all of our resources come from our members and that's where we have to use our resources as well, towards our membership.

And so somebody like the Small Business Development Center, that receives a lot of grants and funding from government sources, they have the opportunity to help everybody.

And I refer, very seldom does a week go by where I don't talk about them to somebody who contacts us and I say, "Well, this is where you need to start."

And they do a tremendous job and I'm really proud of what they do and I'm proud of our relationship with them.

- Yeah, yeah, really great places all over Illinois and all over the country.

I've had a chance to go through a few SBDC meetings and trainings and they're fantastic and give people a lot of good information.

I wanna give you a chance, too, Mike, to talk about what you think that Illinois could be doing to make starting and running a business easier in the state.

- Well, you know, we're not exactly known to be a business friendly state.

We put some challenges there and I understand some of the reasons for it, but the mandates that they put on us, it just makes it tough.

One thing I always want is a level playing field.

You know, what are our neighboring states doing and how can we emulate them as opposed to being just what California and New York does?

It seems like the general assembly is really, really hot to keep up with what's going on in California and New York, but doesn't worry about what's going on in Indiana, Iowa, you know, Missouri and Michigan.

And that bothers me.

You know, things that I'm gonna talk about, like secure choice, where we mandate that any business over, with five or more employees, have a retirement plan.

I'm not opposed to retirement plans, just the fact that the way this one's structured, it puts a lot of burden, administrative burden, on the operators.

And so you gotta track hours.

You only have 30 days.

You gotta make sure somebody's registered with them and even though you don't have an employer contribution, so you know, the state says it doesn't cost the employer anything, well, yes it does.

It costs us a lot of administration time and efforts.

And stuff like that.

You know, the recent, the paid leave off, the administering of that is just as cumbersome as letting the people have their time off.

Minimum wage, franchise tax is something that I really get upset about.

When I was in the general assembly in 2019, we thought we did away with the franchise tax, 'cause that was something we negotiated to have a bipartisan budget.

And to be honest with you, they kind of back walked a little bit on that.

That was supposed to be eliminated in five years.

And they implemented a little bit, but then they stopped.

And what this franchise tax does, I used to, literally cost me, oh, probably five times as much to have my accountant figure out how much I had to pay the state than what I had to pay the state.

It was just, if you Google franchise tax, it won't take you very long to find articles about how cumbersome this is in Illinois to figure it out.

And it collects such a small amount, but it's just so cumbersome, and so things like that, we don't make it easy.

Now, I will say this, Illinois has done some good things recently.

Giving the governor a closing fund I think was huge because now he has the ability to give some enticements to a large manufacturer who's thinking about coming here.

Well what was, you know, you heard me earlier say a level playing field.

Well our surrounding states have that and we didn't.

And so I said, I will always say this and I believe it.

If we have a level playing field, Illinois will win.

We will win.

We have tremendous transportation in Illinois.

We have great workforce being right here in the middle of the country.

We have an opportunity to win if we just get out of our way.

- Well, Mike, let's get to that in terms of the even playing field, because one of the issues, as you know, is Illinois tax policy as well.

Concern about the state's ability to attract new residents, keep people here as well.

High property taxes are a concern, amid other issues.

As you noted, you served in the general assembly and you know this issue well.

What's your take?

- Well, first of all, this shocks people when I talk about property tax.

It's not a state issue, really, it's a local issue.

When you go look at your property tax, you will not find one state tax on your property tax.

It's 100% local.

Now here's where the state gets involved with their unfunded mandates.

- Hmm.

- So what, you know, 'cause they don't receive, the state doesn't receive any money.

I laugh when I see somebody who's running for a state office talking about high property tax.

They're not gonna, you know, how can they cut property tax?

Look at your bill.

I know my bill, for example, is 67%, it goes to the school.

67% of my property tax goes to the school.

- But as you point out, the local communities may have to meet state standards so that they, yeah, right.

- Anticipating this question, I looked up something.

Since 1982, Illinois General Assembly has imposed 700 mandates on schools.

That's averaged 18 a year.

And then we talk about the next highest portion of your property tax, municipalities.

Municipalities in the last couple years, 29 unfunded mandates was sent to the governor in 2022 and 35 were sent in 2023.

So these unfunded mandates are just driving up your property tax.

It's not because of the inefficiency of local government.

It's not that, it's not like our schools are being run poorly.

But every year we give them some new requirement.

And I said more than one time, we should do away with all school boards, 'cause the general assembly wants to be everybody's school board.

(Fred laughs) They really do.

They wanna run every school.

And I say let the locals run the schools and the states should support it.

You know, I'm not saying we can just let 'em run crazy.

We have to have some guide rails.

- Yeah.

Sure, sure.

- But we don't give them guide rails.

We give them handcuffs.

- Yeah, so good, that's good context for people because not everyone understands the dynamics of the issue.

We only have about four minutes left and I have two more questions for you, so I want to give you a little time to talk about both of them 'cause these are also important issues.

Complex issues, but very important issues too.

The federal government.

There's a lot of change coming, change that's already begun.

What do you want to see from the federal government to make it easier for people, not only in Illinois, but in every state to start and to expand their business?

- Well, once again, do away with some mandates.

The federal government, a year ago, instituted this thing, Corporate Transparency Act, which was just going to be a very cumbersome thing for small businesses to have to apply to.

They were gonna have to go to an attorney, pay some money.

And what's sad is, the government already has every piece of information that they're asking for.

They just don't know how to consolidate it.

And it's, quit doing those things.

If it's not really gonna help, that's one thing.

You know, what's going on in the federal government right now is refreshing and scary at the same time.

I think there's need for some changes, a clean up.

I just hope that at the end of the day, we understand businesses drive jobs, jobs allow people to live the life they deserve and desire.

- Yeah.

Okay.

Well, Mike, a couple minutes left and I wanted to give you a chance to talk more about the Chamber.

The Chamber continues to grow and evolve.

Let's talk about what you're working on for the year ahead and beyond.

- Sure.

Well, I'm really excited.

Our body of work's been really good.

2024 was a great year.

We were recognized as a five star accredited chamber.

There's less than, yeah, 1% of the chambers across the country received that.

Only six in the state of Illinois.

So we're gonna continue our body of work that we've been doing.

But a couple things I want to add.

We started a young professional program just two years ago, so starting a third.

It's called Rise.

They are just, I couldn't be more proud of what they've been doing.

I look forward to seeing what 2025 is gonna bring them.

They're having their first leadership conference in April.

That's gonna be great.

We're gonna work on retail and hospitality task force.

I think they have some unique challenges.

So I'm gonna bring my members and work together and see how we can be better by working together.

And we're going to continue to work.

One of our challenges here in Springfield is lack of minority businesses, part of the Chamber, I'm gonna work on that in 2025.

And once again, continue the great work of our development policy council to make sure zoning and permitting is easier.

It's not just the state and the federal government who sometimes gets in the way of business.

City governments can do that as well.

And so this development policy council has made great strides this last year with zoning and permitting issues that we face here in Springfield.

- Lots of exciting things happening.

In that final 90 seconds or so, Mike, anything else that you wanted to add?

I know that there's probably, we could talk for another hour, 'cause you're always excited about what's happening in Springfield, but I wanna give you that chance.

- Well, I'm very bullish on Springfield.

I think we have some great things happening.

We're getting ready to have our rail relocation completed in 2027.

That's gonna open up our medical district, allow us to build a linear park right through the middle of town that's going to attract all kinds of people.

The Scheels Sports Complex is very transformational for our city.

We're gonna have 125 sports teams in here every weekend.

We're building the world's largest indoor sporting, inflatable sporting dome, the world's largest, and it's just gonna be a sight to see.

I don't know if you've been by our Scheels Sporting Goods store out there.

It's a monstrous place.

You could put a couple of those inside this dome that we're building.

And so I'm really excited about the opportunities that's going to help that area develop.

And we just got a lot of good things going in here in Springfield and I think the future's very bright.

- It always feels that way when I talk to you, Mike, it's great to have you here today.

And again, thanks for sharing your insights and information about what's happening.

- You know, next time you come up, I need you to buy you breakfast.

- (laughs) Looking forward to it.

Mike Murphy, he is president and CEO of the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce.

Mike, have a good one.

- You have a great one.

Thank you so much.

- And thank you for being with us at home.

For everyone at WSIU, I'm Fred Martino.

Have a great week.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues)