NA ÍNTEGRA: Luiza Trajano revela como os pequenos negócios podem driblar a crise dos juros

Good morning.

Hi, good morning, Felipe. Good morning, Dani. How are you guys doing? Everything good?

Well, Felipe and Dani, everyone listening. I've lived through every kind of crisis you can think of. Every kind of crisis. I think I've spent more time living in crisis than not, right? Because globally we have this war that disrupts oil, the cost of oil, and oil interferes not just for us, but for everyone. The cost of oil is very serious, that's not in our hands. On the other hand, for me, the worst thing, on the other hand, we have very good employment. You know that a developing economy lives off employment and credit. So, as long as there's very good employment, the only way for money to enter the economy is through employment. So, we have one of the highest employment rates, we have some very positive things, but there's one thing that I think hinders a lot, a lot, a lot, which is high interest rates. I think what hinders retail the most is high interest rates, and it mainly affects the small and micro entrepreneur, and the big one too, but the small one is, I think, the one that suffers most. And interest rates started to show signs of coming down, which generates a good thing. Then this global crisis comes along that hinders a lot, but Brazil is a country that overcomes crises through a lot of hard work. We overcome crises just as Magalu has overcome them until today.

Oh Dani, we work very well with credit approval and with collections, because default is a... I say that default is a termite, right, that has already caused so much trouble. So, of course, the default rates haven't decreased, but for us, it also hasn't reached a level much higher than what we expected with a high interest rate crisis. So, for us, but we know the population is indebted, the government is even taking some measures to reduce it, but I think the population, besides being indebted, is in no condition to buy much, because very high interest rates make it difficult to buy, right? And making it difficult to buy hinders credit, which is the other leg I mentioned to you. So, it's not good in any way. And it's a fight I have very strongly to lower interest rates. We have one of the highest interest rates in the world. Regardless of the side, we know the federal government in this election year is already working on some measures to facilitate credit for specific sectors. Just yesterday there was an announcement for taxi drivers, for app-based car drivers and so on. Isn't there a problem there in the medium term, that is, in the transition from 2026 to 2027, an indebtedness that ends up hitting commerce directly or indirectly, which is your area of operation, Luiza? Shouldn't we be thinking about that point too?

Ah, Felipe, all my life the government has made, not just this one, but others, some concessions for certain segments, especially during election time. And when the market is good, employment is good, interest rates are at a manageable level, it's super... we're used to living like that. I don't think that giving a concession to taxis now will hinder things in the future. If it manages to generate more volume, more productivity, that brings more money into the market. The problem is putting more money into the market and having more productivity. But I don't feel it's a segment that will hinder the future. What hinders are much more global things, as you mentioned at the beginning: high interest rates, land, global instability. One day it's one thing, another day it's another. That hinders a lot.

Well, first, there's no golden advice, right? If Luiza Trajano doesn't have it, what do we do for the rest of our lives? No, but what I can say is, first, focus on sales. Sales have to be made, and maybe with a smaller profit margin to be able to sell cheaper in a short period of time and for cash. But what's very important at this moment is cash flow. So I tell small businesses this a lot: they have to be very careful with what goes out, because not everything that comes in is profit, not everything that comes in can be spent. So it's like having two rackets in your hand. One you have to sell to survive, and the other you have to sell consciously and also fight to collect. I've lived through many moments like this. I think I'm the person who has lived through the most crises in this country. You saw a time when Collor took all the money out of the economy, only 50 cruzeiros were left. Imagine taking all the money out of the economy, all of it, from small businesses, large businesses, individuals, corporations. So, it's possible to survive in a country that still has a lot of consumption to be done. We need to build 10 million homes in 10 years to have a level of social equality with developed countries. Most people don't have air conditioning, don't have a fully automatic washing machine, and don't have what they'd like. So it's not even consumerism, it's having what some have, it's giving opportunity to others. So in a country where we don't have any crisis... you see we had a natural crisis in the south and how did Brazilians unite? Japan has to have huge stores just for earthquakes, preparing for earthquakes. So, a country with great economic diversity, a country that still has necessary consumption for the next 15, 20 years, there's no point in getting discouraged, you have to keep going if your business is doing well. If it's not, then it's not. And look for cheaper money from places that are offering it. And another thing I tell the financial people a lot is the Credit Score. The Credit Score needs to be more available for small and medium-sized businesses. The CRCOR needs to be more adapted to this. There's a lot of money stuck in some banks that can't be released because the credit score, the file that releases the credit, is from 10, 15 years ago, and we are in a different reality now. So I think everything needs to be cross-referenced.

Well, let's talk economically. You had other difficulties back then. Capital was much harder to get, it was much less available in the market for companies, especially for retail companies, it was much harder. You had much more national competition than international competition, which is very healthy, but it's a competition with much more difference in positioning. So today you have much more international competition, which has a side where you can ally and even have some advantages from it, but it's harder for the small garment maker, for the small factory owner, it's much harder, and for the big one too. And you have a huge technological change. Meaning, whoever didn't ally with digital won't survive. At the same time, look how interesting, physical stores have never been as strong as they are currently, but they also have to be digital, they have to be omnichannel. So these are very interesting differences, but always for that moment, the lack of capital, the lack of capital availability was a very big problem for me, but I didn't have such... I had competition from right here that fought with the same criteria. On the other hand, when digital came in, Magalu was one that sought to enter digital, despite having lived in that era for almost 40 years physically. Suddenly we have digital coming in, artificial intelligence that will revolutionize. Now we've had three big changes, right? The internet, then mobile that changed, and now it's going to be a tsunami. Look, artificial intelligence is very, very serious. What I've been telling small businesses is to ally with it, to show it to them, because it will help you cut costs, it will help you remove a lot of things. Don't try to go without it, and it's very easy to get into. I've been helping many small businesses, saying: 'It's like you enter WhatsApp, download an artificial intelligence and get in.' So today there are other problems. But what I want to make very clear, and now I'm going to talk about women, what I want to make very clear is that in each moment you're living, you have that problem that at that moment was also big for you. Looking back today, you say: 'Wow, that one was small compared to what I'm living today.' But we learn to live with problems in a calmer way too.

But let me answer Felipe as a woman now, and you help me too, Dani. So it's like this, Felipe, we've evolved a lot. I come from a family where I don't fight for myself, I was born an entrepreneur, from an entrepreneurial woman, as we didn't call it back then, but I increasingly saw the greater difficulty of being a woman, of being in front of something, and that structural machismo that existed, which wasn't out of malice. Men were raised in a totally mechanical management style. So, you see? So I just want to make it very clear that we have evolved a lot, just as Black people have, but we have a lot to evolve, and our fight now, now speaking a bit about the summit, so we thank the men too who helped us evolve, they were intelligent, right, Dani? Because in reality they were intelligent. As Dani said, the woman decides even the car she's going to buy, she decides the computer she's going to buy, she decides the color of the paint she's going to put on, she decides everything. And the woman from a simpler class, I say she's the minister of finance, she manages little, she still raises children, still puts them in school and does everything else. So we've evolved and we can't deny that. But what the summit is seeking, Dani, is an evolution, because we understand that when... and what we want is to sit at the table in high positions together with men. We don't want to run them over, we want to be together. So we are seeking this summit in all professions, 50% by 2030 of women in high positions, because now we've evolved, but we have to reach... how many bank presidents are there still? We are only 18% in politics. And it's not even for me, because I'm already in a position, but my fight is because I understand how many times I was called, Felipe, because I was a woman to participate on a board. How much my role as a woman made a difference. Of course I have experience, but women also acquire experience. So, when I say that having two, three, four women on a board to solve a problem, there's a very big difference when you bring them together. Just yesterday I was in a group of 12 company presidents that helped found the IDV and I was the only woman, not that the IDV now has more women than when it was founded 20 years ago. Suddenly I turn and say: 'Let me give you my feminine perspective. My way of seeing processes is different from yours.' So it balances things out. That's how we founded the IDV 20 years ago. So today what we fight for is to have more women, Dani, which is the summit, it's the first professions summit. We're going to have all professions, including general services, all professions. We're going to have them there to show that we can jump to 50% and join men. And we're inviting Felipe, men to join us at this summit too. Feel invited. But without you men helping us, we won't get there, you know? It's together with men that I say, a man has a granddaughter or a daughter or will have a granddaughter, he doesn't want her to earn 20% less because she's a woman. He doesn't want her to not be able to be president of a company just because she's a woman. He wants her to be able to be whatever she wants. When it hits daughters, granddaughters, you know that's really true. But today we have many men allies and I say they are... they saw that our moment has arrived too. So this summit will be for 10,000 people, for 10,000 women and men invited. We will have more than 8, 10 stages together, where we will be talking about agriculture, business, finance, technology, all of this, and what is the role of women and what we need to do for us to be 50% by 2030. Jumping to 50% is our fight.

I'm going to demand, I'm going to demand my registration. A kiss. Bye, bye. Thank you.