#256: Why We’re Not Surprised About The DEI Rollbacks
Polarizing topic incoming…DEI.
When The Toy Coach was picking up steam, many people told me a focus on DEI and being black would be to the benefit of my business. There were so many opportunities to speak on and about diversity and struggle as a person of color that it was hard to feel justified looking the other way at those opportunities.
My instincts told me that the DEI initiatives and opportunities offered, while tempting, were not solid ground to build a business upon….and unfortunately, I was right.
This episode explores my personal feelings about the DEI initiative rollbacks that started with the US federal government and spilled out into a few corporations, how we feel, what we think, and what we’ll do now.
Be sure to check the show notes for links to black-owned businesses you may be interested in buying from.
Creators talking about the DEI rollbacks referenced in this podcast:
📷Instagram: @thepeachfuzz.co
📷Instagram: @brittanyncole
📷Instagram: @domothecreative
📷Instagram: @thecaseforchange
📷Instagram: @theeprettyvandal
Listen For These Important Moments
[00:35] - The DEI Rollback Phenomenon
[03:54] - Personal Experiences and Insights
[09:08] - Challenges and Realities of DEI Initiatives
[15:55] - Adapting to DEI Rollbacks
[20:09] - Supporting BIPOC and Queer Brands
[26:34] - Statistics on Black-Owned Businesses
[29:31] - Conclusion and Final Thoughts
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This episode is brought to you by www.thetoycoach.com
Black Owned Business Shopping Guide: https://www.addierawr.com/black-owned-business-shopping-guide
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[00:00:00] Azhelle Wade: You are listening to Making It In The Toy Industry episode number 256.
[00:00:23] Azhelle Wade: Hey there, toy people. Azhelle Wade here and welcome back to another episode of Making It In The Toy Industry. This is a weekly podcast brought to you by thetoycoach.com. For today's episode, I've got to talk about a topic that will not leave my feed.
[00:00:40] Azhelle Wade: It's something you can't get away from here in the U. S. And it's the topic of DEI rollbacks that started with the federal government ordering to cancel a number of federal programs, putting workers on leave, and then being followed by many corporations who in 2020, 2021, in the wake of Black Lives Matter, rolled out these sweeping DEI promises and have now been willingly falling in line with this new directive to roll back DEI.
[00:01:14] Azhelle Wade: It's no secret that Target has become the poster child of this DEI rollback after having so publicly led this charge when Black Lives Matter was trending. Their diversity team is being turned into a retailer experience team. And they have just are pulling back on a number of their desired metrics for diversifying the product lines in their store.
[00:01:46] Azhelle Wade: Now while DEI has been predominantly associated with providing opportunities to black and brown people, as this movement really picked up when we had Black Lives Matter, DEI programs also support the LGBTQ community.
[00:02:02] Azhelle Wade: And there are federal and corporate programs that also protect not just racial minorities, but also women and those with disabilities. So for today's podcast episode, because I cannot get away from the topic on social media, and it is affecting people in the toy industry who had their product in stores like Target as a part of these DEI initiatives.
[00:02:23] Azhelle Wade: So I'm going to talk about the DEI rollbacks from my perspective and that of a few friends and colleagues that have shared their perspectives with me. Now, I won't name any names for these private conversations, you know, just the general consensus, but there are a number of queer and BIPOC creators who have expressed their sentiments online. So I will be linking to and occasionally mentioning them as we get to that part of this conversation.
[00:02:52] Azhelle Wade: So first topic I want to highlight is we are not surprised. We're not surprised at the rollback at all.
[00:03:00] Azhelle Wade: In 2023, Target took a huge stand for LGBTQ products and they brought in a number of creators and designers, including this creator, Peach Fuzz Co. I'll link her Instagram in the show notes. And they brought in all of this product to support that community after a bunch of conservative anti-LGBTQ backlash, they pulled a number of those products out of the store and stopped a number of contracts, even once the product was already produced, they just assumingly destroyed the product.
[00:03:33] Azhelle Wade: But we are not surprised. And many of us who I've talked to and many of the creators online have always been aware that this was gonna happen aware that these initiatives were not gonna last forever. And some of us decided not to build our businesses of the back of them because of that fear. So about two years ago, I'd say, maybe three, when my business, The Toy Coach was in its early stages and I was just getting a number of TV and media attention because I was working myself in absolute ruin, but I also just made all the right connections in TV. And at the time you weren't required to be in LA to get a lot of those opportunities that would normally require me to be out there. So it just made it a lot easier for me to gain visibility. And because of the time. In 2020, 2021, even 2022 a lot of shoots that normally did happen in LA were now happening in New York, near where I lived and, you know, kind of all over the world, it was just a much more global production process.
[00:04:41] Azhelle Wade: So it made it a lot easier for me to get involved. And it did not have to do with a necessary DEI initiative, but it did have to do with just kind of the change of society at the time. And in that time when my business was just super visible, I had a number of people reaching out to mentor and guide me.
[00:05:00] Azhelle Wade: And a lot of those people had advice from black and brown people to white people. And it was interesting because some advice did overlap and a few people suggested that I lean in and focus on being black, being a Black female inventor and really try to use my platform to support and uplift and promote other Black female inventors.
[00:05:28] Azhelle Wade: So for myself, from a business perspective, I remember thinking, well, that's not a tangible long term idea. And I remember thinking, my niche, the toy industry, is already super niche. Do we really need to niche further down?
[00:05:43] Azhelle Wade: But you know at the same time, yeah, it's a beautiful sentiment. I, myself, as a black female inventor and having been a professional toy creator, now having my own business to kind of do whatever I want, thinking from a personal perspective, you know, yeah, I guess it would be really nice for there to be a program or a system or something that was designed to help me, but I am and believe I am more than just a black female inventor in the toy industry.
[00:06:10] Azhelle Wade: And I don't want my work, my brand, my ideas to be restricted to the limits of what's expected from other black and brown people or what has been done by other black and brown people I wanted to be looked at it under the scope of what is done by all companies and organizations, what has been done by all inventors. I want to challenge myself in that way. I want to win in that way. So I did consider the advice. I did envision like what it would look like if my Instagram were rebranded to lean this way? What it would look like if podcasts were leaning this way?
[00:06:47] Azhelle Wade: And it just didn't, I don't know, it didn't feel necessary or good to niche down that way in an already small niche and as I thought about it more some of my most beloved students are those who create products that celebrate Chinese culture or family life in like Midwestern America or children's mental well being in Australia. So I try to imagine a world in which those people wouldn't come into my circle, my world, into Toy Creators Academy because my circle was just so closed off to be hyper focused on one minority group, which side note, over time will all be a melting pot and meld into like one giant amalgamation of, you know, races, but that's another story, just sounded absolutely absurd to me. You know, it just didn't quite make any sense for me. I love that being a black woman in the business that I've built in the position that I have makes other minorities, queer and BIPOC people, feel safer to approach me and be part of my community.
[00:08:00] Azhelle Wade: But I also love that I have everyone from people in the UK and Australia and white people in America who are comfortable hanging out with me and working with me as well. Like I did not want to limit that. I wanted to create a space for any person, any small startup that was just starting out with a dream to build their toy brand that had a mission.
[00:08:22] Azhelle Wade: That was my key thing. Like I want a mission that improves the lives of kids and kidults. So in some way makes them better, happier, smarter, because I didn't want the cutthroat nature, the take a piece of your pie nature, the underbelly side of the toy industry to get ahold of these people with great mission driven ideas and suck all the joy out of that idea before they even had a chance to realize it.
[00:08:47] Azhelle Wade: And I found absolutely no benefit in focusing on just one race over another to make that happen further beyond that, like beyond the personal, you know, intrinsic values that I found that I just felt, you know, aligning myself that way because society and culture is now paying attention to this because people died. Aside from that, it was also pretty clear to me and my other friends in the Black and Brown community that Black Lives Matter was, at the time, was going to be a moment in time.
[00:09:21] Azhelle Wade: It did last longer than many of us expected and the DEI initiatives lasted longer across many companies, much longer than we expected. But we knew. That it was a moment in time that we needed to capitalize on and run with to expand what we really want to do, because this was the closest to support and I don't know, reparations we might ever get.
[00:09:45] Azhelle Wade: So in a nutshell, seeing DEI rollback is not surprising to us. However, seeing the swiftness and shamelessness of the rollback. From companies that were so public about being a part of this movement. That is a little surprising, but we do have to remind ourselves these are corporations. Corporations need dollars.
[00:10:08] Azhelle Wade: Corporations are looking for ROI. They're looking to increase revenue year after year. And if it seems like outwardly, the majority is rolling one way, corporations are going to roll over. And go that way because that's what their investors are going to want. That's where the dollars are going to go. And that's what they're going to care about.
[00:10:26] Azhelle Wade: We as Black and Brown people, BIPOC people, we are much more used to an under the rug, behind closed doors, kind of make up excuses for why we didn't get the job or the shelf placement type of situation. We're not quite used to this, this kind of brazen pullback and rollback and disinterest.
[00:10:46] Azhelle Wade: The loss itself is not surprising, but the way it's happening is. So let's move on to the other part. The other topic I want to cover in this conversation is the worst parts of DEI initiatives, what we're not going to miss. And I think we're going to do so much better without.
[00:11:04] Azhelle Wade: Many DEI initiatives began because it was essentially a social currency play. These big companies, in this terrible time in America wanted to be seen as caring and understanding. They wanted something to spend their money on that could be a tax write off and a deduction. They wanted to not be seen as racist. They didn't want to ostracize a seemingly huge and growing part of their consumer base who at the time was quite empowered with additional funds from COVID relief packages.
[00:11:41] Azhelle Wade: And then from the economy, you know, boom, that happened from everybody being home and spending their money on consumable goods. So as they're seeing this consumer base grow, they're seeing it as an opportunity to lean in and pander to a consumer base that they had previously ignored.
[00:12:01] Azhelle Wade: So this was an opportunity for them to build some major street cred while doing the right thing. So internally, I'm sure these companies, there's probably somebody who really believed in the mission who now had a way to sell it. They had an angle, they had the numbers, they had the proof of the pudding that this was going to be a valuable thing to invest in.
[00:12:24] Azhelle Wade: The support was overwhelmingly positive for those that came out in support. And how could it not be? At the time we were literally watching minorities being treated unfairly on police cameras. We're watching them getting killed. It was like, I mean, yeah, it was something that could not be ignored, could not be dismissed.
[00:12:46] Azhelle Wade: There was just a lot of hate that needed to be squashed and needed to be shown that that's not okay. So bringing in toy and game products from diverse creators that are expressing love for these cultures and appreciation. It just seemed like the right way to handle it and the right thing to do.
[00:13:06] Azhelle Wade: The statements and the initiatives to support BIPOC communities was seen by the public, heard, respected. I mean, just adulated. Like we put these companies on a pedestal every time a new post came out where a company would state their mission and their commitment to DEI. It was, they were the company to support.
[00:13:27] Azhelle Wade: But here is the underside of that experience. And this is from my personal experience and some conversations I've had with close friends and colleagues. DEI initiatives that at the time opened doors for us, but we still had to make it through those doors. Yeah. We were finally getting the callback interviews.
[00:13:47] Azhelle Wade: We're finally getting the heart to get meetings. We're finally getting an opportunity to show what skills we've been building for years, what companies we've been building for years from our knowledge to our product lines, to our business acumen. And when we make it on the team or we sign the deal or rejoin the organization and we're there at a high level, suddenly we're feeling like, "Oh, we made it!"
[00:14:12] Azhelle Wade: Only to quickly realize the "appreciation", and I say that word in quotes, for our voice and our perspective was actually a shallow promise, a promise made by those, not that they didn't care, but they didn't fully grasp what it was they were committing to. The difference of opinion that would walk into the room. The challenge and struggle it would take to lift a black brand that yes, was already lifted by, you know, everything going on in the world with Black Lives Matter.
[00:14:44] Azhelle Wade: And yes, they might have a huge community that they built on their own with no support. But we still knew, and they did not know, that there were still going to be work required to help uplift our products to the sales numbers that, you know, their most popular brands are doing week over week. So feeling unheard and unsupported, lost, and even confused as to why we were brought into these spaces was a common thread and conversation among many of us.
[00:15:19] Azhelle Wade: It was a new world to navigate. To excel in this world, some of us broke standards. Some of us did things differently. Others of us decided we're going to toe the line, keep quiet, keep the space. What was the point though of being accepted into these spaces if we weren't going to be seen, truly heard, or utilized to our fullest potential?
[00:15:40] Azhelle Wade: Well, we had to figure it out and we tried to help each other figure it out. We shared notes, opportunities, contacts, grants, loans, more, whatever we could do to help each other make it easier to excel in these new spaces. As the DEI well started to run dry, I'd say around 2023, a lot of our businesses were threatened.
[00:16:02] Azhelle Wade: There are a lot of organizations that were closed fully and competition formed between BIPOC people. Mindset started to revert back to a time where there was only room for one of us, which is an interesting angle, not often explored with the emergence of DEI program for minorities. It is a blessing and a curse.
[00:16:23] Azhelle Wade: Instead of fighting for a top spot amongst everyone in the world and showing our skill against everyone and anyone, what ends up happening is we're infighting. We're kind of climbing on top of each other, leaving another behind just to get to the top. And it's something many Black women, we've discussed this in the past on my podcast and other platforms.
[00:16:47] Azhelle Wade: Even before this major rollout of public DEI initiatives, companies did often have a kind of like an underlying morality around why do we not have any black people in the room or why do we not have any black dolls in the line? So there was this kind of like in most companies or many companies, I should say there was this mentality of like, let's not look bad or let's not anger anyone, or let's try to not leave people out.
[00:17:16] Azhelle Wade: And so there was this, you know, assurance of like, let's try to get one black person on the team or let's try to get one black doll in the line. And it was an unspoken guideline you would see happen and it created in itself this unspoken competition amongst minorities competing for that same one spot.
[00:17:38] Azhelle Wade: It often would feel like, oof, if they already have, you know, this black person here, they might not have space for me or they might not make space for me. They might not feel that they need to entertain me because they've already filled that moral requirement.
[00:17:52] Azhelle Wade: So while these like public DEI initiatives opened up so many more spots and opportunities, it also actually created more competition within the community because it created more opportunities, and that's where I have such a struggle with DEI initiatives and programs.
[00:18:10] Azhelle Wade: Like, I love the idea that we get the opportunity where people are going to be hyper focusing on us and what we can do and not kind of pushing us to the side or ignoring us. However, instead of us competing against the whole world and seeing everyone as our competition, it definitely becomes a situation where we look at each other as our competition, which is the opposite of what we as a community need.
[00:18:38] Azhelle Wade: We need each other support and these DEI initiatives as great as they are. Once we get them, right? And we're part of them and "Oh girl, you're in target too." Like you go like, great. Yeah, that's great. But once we're competing against each other, that's when it actually starts to tear our community apart.
[00:18:57] Azhelle Wade: So without these initiatives in some organizations, like as these things roll back, I actually see the opportunity for us to navigate back to a place where we all know we have to work 10 times harder to achieve what they have to achieve, right? And we're going to do that work, become better, stronger, more skilled as we often do, and we will be able to feel even more righteous when we do still get that placement, still join that organization, still make those big calls.
[00:19:35] Azhelle Wade: And I'm here for it. The DEI initiatives are great, but I do have to say like any time, you know, somebody back when this was a big part of the outreach I would get for the toy coach, when somebody would want me to speak at an event because they want me to talk about, you know, what it's like as a black woman in the industry, I'd say, yeah, great.
[00:19:56] Azhelle Wade: But I could actually talk about so much more. Like I don't only need to talk about this topic. So in some ways it feels better to us too, to be seen beyond the color of our skin. Okay. So I'm going to move on to my last topic about all of this, and that is what are we going to do? What are we all going to do?
[00:20:15] Azhelle Wade: Oh my gosh. Like, what are we going to do? So if your algorithm is anything like mine, #Target and #DEI videos are finding you daily. They are finding me daily and I'm seeing a mix of startup black founders that are urging their followers to support them by going to Target stores. And then other founders who are encouraging you to boycott stores that are rolling back their DEI initiatives and that's everywhere from like Target to Walmart and many more.
[00:20:45] Azhelle Wade: And then there's even some established black brands that have licensed products that are pulling their lines early in sign of protest. There are black speakers on my timeline whose talks focus on DEI, who've had their talks canceled and others who have noticed like a quick pullback from brands they were working with.
[00:21:06] Azhelle Wade: These brand owners are now looking for ways to take back control of their brands, right? And I implore you to do the same if this is going to affect you. So they're looking at moving to more private sites where they have more full control. So like away from Instagram, let's say, and moving toward like Substack to engage with their audience or to privately owned email lists to Patreon accounts.
[00:21:32] Azhelle Wade: And this is going to be their method for their audience members that want to stay engaged. A lot of them are refocusing on D2C sales and finding other retail store homes that align with their own beliefs. You know, a lot of these Bipoc business owners are realizing that building a business on one landowner's rented land is not sustainable.
[00:21:55] Azhelle Wade: And if they wanna survive, they've got to adapt. Something we've talked about a lot with the Instagram outages is, you know, you don't wanna build your entire audience on one platform, and that be the only way that you can reach them, because if the Instagram goes down, what are you gonna do? Right? I think people are now recognizing that being primarily in one retail store can have much the same negative effect where if that store chooses to drop your product, or if that store just has like a bad time in the media, that could negatively affect your entire business. It could shut down your entire business.
[00:22:31] Azhelle Wade: As a business owner who might be affected by the DEI rollbacks that are happening, you know, don't just sit down and wait for it to hit you or hit the stores that you're in. Now is the time to like just sure up your email list. Make sure that you're engaging in your audiences through email in a delightful and meaningful way that they want to respond to and engage with.
[00:22:55] Azhelle Wade: Plan your quarterly promotions so you can boost sales over high spend times of the years, fix up your online shopping carts and make sure that you have easy pay options like Apple Pay and PayPal integrated. So the checkout process feels as seamless and easy as Amazon. Invest in retargeting ads that remind your existing followers and consumers that you exist.
[00:23:20] Azhelle Wade: So the next time that they run out of hair product or toilet paper, or they need stationery, or they need a gift for their birthday party they're going to for their niece or nephew that your brand's name is at the top of their mind, the tip of their tongue. You have to do what you can to make it easy for consumers to support your brand.
[00:23:40] Azhelle Wade: Their convenience is everything to consumers these days. And the reason that these big companies are growing so much. The Targets, the Walmarts, the Amazons is because of convenience. They will deliver to your door. They have everything in one place. You know, that's why they are growing. That's why it's so hard for someone to boycott this incredible store that has like literally everything their family needs in one week. So how can they possibly find the time or means to boycott the store and jump to like 10, 20 different stores in their neighborhood to get everything they need, right?
[00:24:16] Azhelle Wade: So what you need to do as a brand owner is integrate convenience into your shopping experience as much as possible. Have sales, limited time sales that are exclusive to your website. So people want to buy direct from you.
[00:24:36] Azhelle Wade: And now we as consumers, if we truly want to support BIPOC and even queer brands that we love and admire, that maybe at one point we're in these major stores, but now they, you know, are being taken out. I mean, we've got to do a little bit of leg work to support these brands.
[00:24:56] Azhelle Wade: I know convenience is tempting. Amazon has all your information saved. But if we really believe in these small brands, why not buy directly from them? If their products work in our hair, if their designs fit our aesthetic, if their vibes match our own, we've got to be less lazy to find these companies, direct sites, and order directly from them. I was recently on the hunt for a humidifier and I did a ton of research before deciding which one I was going to buy. And when it became the time to buy, of course, it would have been so much easier to just hop on Amazon, search for that humidifier. It's there, of course it was there and just purchase from there.
[00:25:38] Azhelle Wade: But you know what? When I researched the story of this brand of this humidifier, it was created by a doctor for his family because he couldn't find one that was safe for them to use. And because of the convenient layout and design of his site, it wasn't much more effort to go on his site and purchase the humidifier there because they had Apple Pay integrated.
[00:26:00] Azhelle Wade: It was super easy and quick. So I really do think with like, you know, our technology increasing so quickly and people becoming more and more familiar with different payment tools, like Link and Apple Pay and PayPal, that it is just as easy now to purchase a product direct from the creator site, especially if they have these payment processes linked in.
[00:26:21] Azhelle Wade: So we just have to do the extra work of, "Okay, I'm not going to be lazy. I'm going to go to this creator site and I'm going to support them directly because I need this money to go directly to them so their business and brands can grow."
[00:26:34] Azhelle Wade: Before I close out this episode, I did want to look at the numbers. I found myself very interested to see how many black owned businesses there were in the U. S. and it's kind of a hard statistic to find. It seems easier to find black owned employer businesses, meaning they're a business with more than one employee on the books.
[00:26:53] Azhelle Wade: So it seems there's over 3. 7 million Black owned business in the United States. However, there are just over 160 plus thousand that have at least one employee. And those businesses with at least one employee are what I was able to find the data for. So I just kind of wanted to look at that data. I was curious how those businesses were growing.
[00:27:17] Azhelle Wade: And I'm, I just kind of want to have a record to see after these DEI rollbacks, if and how that might affect the number of businesses that are in operation moving forward. So in 2019, there were 134, 000 black owned employer businesses, again, businesses with more than one employee, and that's an all sectors of the U.S. Economy, which was an 8 percent hike from the 124, 000 black owned employer businesses in 2018. These are numbers from the census. gov. I will put the link in the show notes. In 2021, the number of black owned employer businesses increased by 14. 3%, roughly by 20, 000 businesses, taking it to a total of 161, 031 employer businesses. The largest annual increase since the release of the first annual business survey in 2017.
[00:28:10] Azhelle Wade: What's interesting is with black Americans representing only 14 percent of the population, only 2. 7 percent of all businesses with employees were black owned in 2021. Really interesting. So that was a statistic from brookings.edu. Also we'll put the link in the show notes in 2024, there were an estimated 194, 585 black or African American owned business with over about 61. 2 billion in payroll. I'll put the link to that in the show notes as well. That statistic was from census. gov. So if we look over the years, it seems to be an average of about 20 percent growth of these black businesses since 2017. Obviously, really picking up post pandemic. So I mean, this is a big part of the U.S. Economy.
[00:29:01] Azhelle Wade: That's going to be shifted and affected. Now, I don't know how many of those businesses kind of made their business on the back of DEI initiatives. I do have some colleagues that I met through training programs
[00:29:15] Azhelle Wade: so I'm hoping that with the resources and funds and brands, they were able to build up in that time that they're able to shift into another area of business.
[00:29:31] Azhelle Wade: So, before I jump into the summary of today's episode, I'd like to take a quick break and please ask you to leave a rating or review for this podcast.
[00:29:40] Azhelle Wade: Also, if you have a moment, share this episode with a friend. It means a lot when you share my episode. So that other people can discover this podcast and listen and learn with us each and every week.
[00:29:51] Azhelle Wade: So here's a quick conclusion of what we talked about today. The DEI rollback that just started at the federal level is really maddening to me.
[00:30:00] Azhelle Wade: And I'm so sorry we couldn't do our normal toy focused only episode this week, but this has just been on my mind and I couldn't bring myself to talk or write about anything else. Like I, did try even in the process of recording this, I've been hesitant to as unsure as if I should share this episode.
[00:30:22] Azhelle Wade: And that's why you might've noticed it's coming out a little bit late. But a lesson that one of my students actually recently taught me in my TCA accelerator program is instead of getting bogged down by everything that's going wrong right now is to focus on what I can monetarily support with the revenue I generate in my own business.
[00:30:42] Azhelle Wade: This student has incredible product that I cannot wait to share with you. Carrie, if you're listening, you know that I'm talking about you. And Carrie just told me, you know, you've got to focus on building your business and building your wealth. And then when you're in a place where you can give back, then you can focus on supporting the people and the causes that you believe in.
[00:31:04] Azhelle Wade: And I just love that piece of advice. It's really hard sometimes when you're working in the toy industry and you know, that technically what you're creating is products that will be used and thrown away or hopefully donated that you're like is what I'm doing meaningful or does it matter enough?
[00:31:21] Azhelle Wade: And, you know, when you think about the bigger picture of what you're bringing into the economy then yes, it does matter. And I appreciate that from you, Carrie. And I encourage anyone listening to do the same, to look at your business as a way to generate revenue for whatever causes you believe in.
[00:31:39] Azhelle Wade: And instead of pumping your money into Amazon, just consider going directly to the brand you love. Usually their websites have a better experience anyway, and they might have an email list you can sign up for to get like 10 or 15 percent off. I told you my story of needing a humidifier and how I went directly to that creator's page.
[00:32:00] Azhelle Wade: And I learned so much about the person behind the brand. So I was even more confident in my purchase because I went to their actual website. I did the same thing when buying a gift for my husband. I did not go to Amazon, though that was definitely an option. I went right to the site of the company that produced it.
[00:32:18] Azhelle Wade: And luckily the checkout processes these days of so many online purchases has been simplified with tools like Link and PayPal and Apple Pay. So you can give more profit to the business owner themselves without affecting your convenience or your comfort. Now, if you enjoyed this episode today, again, please share it with a friend.
[00:32:38] Azhelle Wade: It was a hard one for me to make, even as I'm recording it, I'm still unsure if I should release it. So, if this episode resonated with you or mattered to you in any way, please, please share it. Honestly, if you want to hate share it, go for it. You do you, boo. As always, thank you so much for spending this time with me today.
[00:32:55] Azhelle Wade: I know your time is valuable and there are a ton of podcasts out there. So it truly means the world to me that you tune into this one until next week. I'll see you later, toy people.
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