Small Business Archives

Host Unlimited Domains for $0.01

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 at 1:17 pm  
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I usually don’t pass along promotions, but this one is a dandy! I’ve been a customer of this company for a few months now and can’t complain so I don’t feel guilty about promoting them.

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Anyway, deals like this don’t come down the pike that often so I thought I’d pass it along.

Survey: Small companies cut hiring plans

Thursday, March 15th, 2007 at 7:47 pm  
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The share of small businesses planning to hire in the near future fell in February, the survey by the National Federation of Independent Business says, underlining weakness in overall job growth during the month.

NFIB says 13% of the 725 small companies surveyed last month planned to hire in the next three months, down four points from January. Despite that shift, the trade association says in a note: “Overall, job creation should continue to be reasonably strong, assuming owners can find a few qualified applicants or that higher wage offers convince some individuals to re-enter the labor force.”

The NFIB survey results followed the U.S. Labor Department’s report on Friday showing companies of all sizes created just 97,000 jobs in February, the fewest in two years.

Small Business Facts

Sunday, December 10th, 2006 at 11:24 pm  
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Small Businesses:

  • Represent 99.9% of the approximate 25.8 million businesses in the US (2005 Census)
  • Represent 99.7% of all employer firms
  • Employ half of all private sector employees
  • Pay > 45% of total U.S. payroll
  • Have generated 60-80% of nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP)
  • Produce 13-14 times more patents/employee than large patenting firms
  • Are 53% home based and 3% franchises
  • 80% fail within 5 years
  • 96% fail within 10 years
  • 85% of leadership teams spend less than one hour/week on business strategy
  • 90% of strategies fail due to execution

*Source: US Bureau of the Census

Small Businesses in Kentucky:

  • In 2004, there were 317,115 small businesses in KY (increase of 2% over 2003)
  • 179,264 of those were self employed people (increase of 4.4% over 2003)

*Source: US Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Statistics

Women Owned Businesses in KY:

  • In 2002, there were 77,232 WOB’s which was an increase of 17% from 1997.
  • Generated $9.5 billion in revenues
  • Represented 31.4% of the self-employed people

*Source: US Dept of Labor, Bureau of Statistics

FrustrationCommon Issues Facing Small Businesses

  • Cash Flow
  • Finding & Retaining Talent
  • New Customer Generation
  • Customer Service

Small businesses often lack:

  • Strategic planning staff
  • Competitive research analysts
  • Large IT functions
  • Large HR staff
  • Systematic approach

Frequent needs of small businesses

  • Improve upon current success
  • Focused direction for action (strategy)
  • Appropriate involvement by Senior Management
  • Strategic use of technology
  • Better training of staff
  • Quality people
  • Effective use of consultants, VARs, vendors, and CPAs
  • Clearly defined vision which employees can connect with and are motivated by