Small Business Owners Will Lead the Recovery

Why will the "little guys" lead the way? It's just that they always have and they probably always will. After all, small business owners are the biggest job creators, even when compared to an octopus-like federal government that is inclined to spread its tentacles across the land.

In part, this growth is inevitable because entrepreneurs are incurable optimists. Who but an optimist would have the audacity to start - and the resilience to run - an enterprise that in most cases is underfinanced and unsupported by a hierarchy of experienced predecessors and mentors?

Of course, there are different grades of optimists. President John F. Kennedy, who never was a businessman, once described himself as an optimist without illusion. That may be arguable, but this is not: The aggressive type of entrepreneurs who will lead us out of the economic woods, though some may suffer an occasional illusion, are more likely to be visionaries than they are merely dreamers like their less storm-worthy counterparts.

And they are neither allergic to hard work nor a willingness to change direction on a dime when it becomes apparent that a course correction is indicated.

A recent poll of 776 small-business owners conducted by City Business Journals Network showed that despite the fact 70 percent of those responding said they remained very concerned about the economy, small-business owners are more optimistic about the future than they were immediately after the Presidential election. In November, only 37 percent expected their business prospects to improve. By January, that number had grown to 63 percent. Indeed, this represents a healthy trend, even for such a hearty variety.

Entrepreneurs by the score must - and are -- reevaluating their marketing areas to determine how they not only can drive business through their doors and/or visitors to their Website, but how they can drive revenues, too. On the Web, this might include offering new services, or, even, data than will enhance their current offerings while building some brand loyalty.

The new breed

Though our firm, too, has experienced some client defections during the recession, these have been largely offset by some new additions to our client roster. This "new breed" of recession-battling companies seems to have a few characteristics in common.

• Each has a viable business model that has stood the test of time.

• Each has a firm (and invariably accurate) conviction that they are better than most of their competitors.

• They are led by insightful, rock-ribbed innovators, which is how they gained their enviable pre-recession standing in the first place.

• A careful appraisal of the general landscape, with a particular focus on their field, has caused them to direct their skills of innovation toward the adoption of meaningful remedies.

• They have been willing to devote the necessary effort and (sometimes extremely strained) financial resources to the new direction or posture they have chosen.

• And, yes, they are mindful of the fact that companies who market during a recession not only surpass their more reticent competitors in the now, but bounce back stronger and higher when normalcy returns to the market (about 275% stronger than others, according to a McGraw Hill study).
Wouldn't it be great if more businesses could "think small" in a like manner?