Compared to the first quarter of this year, businesses said sales improved in the second quarter of this year, according to a fresh survey from the National Association for Business Economics. On average, businesses said they’re raising prices, and operations are more efficient.For consumers, that rosy picture might seem odd, given the war with Iran, the seesawing price of fuel and other inputs, and the inflation rate.To be clear, businesses didn’t report a glowing economic outlook. It was more of a tempered-but-optimistic picture.“[Businesses are] cautious, but they’re not contracting,” said Nich Tremper, senior economist at payroll processor Gusto.He said yes, revenue is higher, but so are expenses — so profit margins are staying pretty flat. The real show of confidence, Tremper said, is that businesses are still hiring people.“You don't hire into a recession,” he said. “[Businesses] are not seeing things that are making them worry about the future or or stop hiring. Frankly, that's the biggest bet that somebody can make, and it's something that we're seeing month over month.”But this cautiously optimistic picture from businesses came in the same quarter that the University of Michigan reported consumer sentiment at a record low. In other words, the sellers feel fine, while the buyers are feeling worried.“This has been the landscape for years now,” said Holly Wade, executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business Research Center. She said the biggest impact to a business is its sales. “Consumers are still out there spending, and businesses are still investing, and that's what drives, you know, business conditions,” Wade said.The reason both can be true at the same time is, in short, inflation.“Inflation impacts consumers and businesses simultaneously,” said Lester Jones, a survey research economist with the National Association for Business Economics, which put out the survey. He said inflation makes the labor market tight: “We know unemployment numbers are down. We know that wages continue to rise.”And as wages rise, consumers can buy more stuff. But that also makes inflation worse.“We're in a little bit of a dance right now between consumers, between businesses, between these global economic events that are kind of moving things forward,” Jones said.For now, he said, it looks like businesses and consumers will keep on dancing. Because businesses in the survey also said they expect sales and profits on average to keep rising.