Last fall we conducted a series of interviews asking small business owners and managers about their views on the impact of the recession on their businesses.
The most interesting result of this work was that well over half of the small business owners and managers talked about the opportunities they see. And despite the recession, roughly 1/3 were quite optimistic about their business opportunities in the coming year. We called this group Optimistic Small Businesses and posted on them last month.
Over the last week several surveys have been released covering this topic. Survey results released yesterday by Intuit show that 89% of the small business owners they surveyed said they see opportunities for their businesses despite the recession. And 60% said they still believe their businesses will grow in the coming year.
Echoing this data, UPS released survey results showing that 86% of small business owners expect their company to be in the same or better financial shape in one year. Also, only 10% expect to reduce employment over the next year.
Our research has consistently shown that regardless of the current economy, small business owners and managers are positive about the future of their firms. This is still the case even in the face of a very difficult economic environment.
Of course we want to see how small businesses fared after one year of recession and find out if they are still as upbeat about 2010.
It would be no surprise to find that that they were overly optimistic.
- Curtis
http://ShipItOnTheSide.com - Build a software startup as a side job.
Posted by: Curtis Gray | January 28, 2009 at 12:51 PM
entrepreneurs by nature are optimistic. they have to be. tenacity against the odds, fight on, play for broke, seeing opportunities in crisis. if entrepreneurial traits weren't so, they would not be entrepreneurs in the first place.
the best ones however, marry optimism with real world data / market reconnaissance.
i'm not surprised that several surveys report this trend. it's tainted with shades of self-delusion. no doubt times are tough. sme's are closing left and right. it's about survival and innovation until the next relaxation phase i.e. economic recovery. we'll be surprised at how much innovation success stories will be out there amidst the out of business signs. this is classic business cycle behavior and capitalism's double edge.
Posted by: Mark Bantigue | January 28, 2009 at 10:30 PM
Thank you for the helpful information. I bookmarked your site, and I hope you keep up the good work on making your blog a success!
Posted by: Rachael S. | January 29, 2009 at 07:32 AM
We will be tracking this through the recession to see how well optimistic businesses do.
Most of the firms we describe as optimistic are run by experienced owners/managers and have a track record. Because of this, we think they will do fine.
Steve
Posted by: Steve | January 31, 2009 at 10:33 AM
I continue to find a lot of value in your blog. I did a quick survey of some of our clients and found that these statistics you mentioned are not far off from our small smaple of clients. I wrote a blog post on it and reference your blog here:
http://cfowise.com/site/Home/AboutUS/OurTeam/KenKaufman/KenKaufmansBlog/tabid/104/EntryId/752/Economy-is-Down-But-Is-Small-Business-Really-Up.aspx.
All the nest
Posted by: Ken Kaufman | February 03, 2009 at 05:55 PM