Small business owners restless over economic concerns
SnagAJob.com survey finds 29 percent of business owners with 100 employees or fewer rank customers scaling back as chief concernRICHMOND, Va., July 1, 2008 – More than half of small business owners point to side effects of the economy as business issues most likely to be weighing on their mind, according to a recent survey.
SnagAJob.com, a website that matches hourly workers with jobs, commissioned a survey conducted by IPSOS Public Affairs that found that 29 percent of small business owners are “most likely up at night with worry” about consumers tightening their wallets and clients scaling back orders, ranking this as their top concern. Meanwhile, 28 percent of small business owners with 100 or fewer employees ranked cash-flow problems as their No. 1 worry.
“Consumers are tightening their belts to help pay for rising gas and food prices, and this survey shows that today’s economic conditions also affect the mom-and-pop business around the corner, perhaps even more so than the huge corporate entities we follow through quarterly earnings,” said Shawn Boyer, chief executive officer and founder of SnagAJob.com and the National Small Business Person of the Year, an honor bestowed by the U.S. Small Business Administration. “Small businesses don’t have the cash reserves that larger companies do, and as consumers and clients cut back on demand, a cash-flow problem becomes all the more pronounced. This is a great time for small business owners to get creative about enticing their customers to do more business, while at the same time looking for ways to decrease operational expenses.”
In 2006, there were 26.8 million small businesses in the United States with fewer than 500 employees, according to estimates from the Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration. Data compiled by the Office of Advocacy says that two-thirds of new small businesses survive at least two years, and 44 percent survive at least four years.
The findings of the SnagAJob.com small business survey:
As a small business owner and given the current economy, what items are most likely to keep you up at night with worry? [Respondents asked to rank 1, 2, 3.]
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Consumers tightening their wallets/Clients scaling back orders/demand
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29%*
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Cash-flow problems
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28%
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Transportation costs
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15%
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Maintaining customer satisfaction
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14%
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Health insurance costs
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9%
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Credit crisis has extended to small business - harder to get loans
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2%
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Staffing concerns
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2%
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*Percent of small business owners listing a given answer as their top concern when asked to rank their top-three worries from the list above.
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Survey methodology:
This online survey was conducted by IPSOS Public Affairs, a third-party research firm, on behalf of SnagAJob.com between June 10-12, 2008. Respondents included 543 small business owners who operate a business with up to and including 100 employees. The margin of error for the entire survey is 4.21% at a 95% confidence level.