Everyone agrees on a broad level that small businesses are vital to the American economy. However, most people would be surprised to know just how important. The United States Small Business Administration keeps records and statistics on small business in the United States and some of their findings are surprising.

First, the typical perception of a small business as a mom and pop operation with just a few, if any, employees is not the entire picture. The Small Business Administration defines a small business as an independently business with less than 500 employees. There are an estimated 23 million businesses in the United States that meet that classification. In some smaller towns in the United States, these businesses represent a major source of employment.

In fact, small businesses as defined by the Small Business Administration represent 99.7 percent of all the employers in the country and employ half of all private sector employees. More than 45% of the private sector payroll is generated by small business. Over the last decade small businesses have accounted for 60 to 80% of all new jobs created on an annual basis.

Although a large percentage of small businesses are in the retail and service sectors, small businesses are rapidly making gains in the technology sector. 41% of high tech workers like engineers, scientists and computer programmers are employed by small businesses. Employees at small businesses produce 13 to 14 times more patents than those employed by larger companies.  Read more...

Poor financing is the number two reason small businesses fail, falling right behind poor management. Sufficient funding is paramount to the success of small businesses, and small business grants can be the answer to the problem. If business owners have the necessary knowledge about how to find and properly request grants, they have a better shot at creating a successful business that will be open longer and prosper.

There are over 300 different grants and loans available for small businesses that are just starting out. The grants range from $25,000 up to $1,000,000 depending on the size and projected success rate of the business. There are also grants available to help small businesses grow or expand. Grants are not the same as loans because they do not have to be repaid. A grant is considered free money, as well as an investment to promote the success of small businesses and the U.S. economy. Money for grants comes from income taxes. Obtaining a small business grant does not require credit checks or deposits, even if the owners have experienced bankruptcy in the past.

There are a number of helpful websites that send small businesses government grant packages for free, excluding the cost of shipping. These packages include information on how to find grants, how to prepare a grant request, and how to apply for grants pertaining to a specific business. Some of the providers are Government Funding Solutions, Grant Master, and Grant Wizard.  Read more...

So, you’ve decided that the Internet has a lot to offer you by the means of starting your own small business. So what is it that you have to do first?

Well, what type of small business is it that you are going to start? After you have figured this out, whether it is an information site or selling products online, you might need to go to the many different Internet advertising sites that will help you generate traffic to the your new Internet small business.

The next step, may be to decide what products you are going to have on your small business web site. This way you have an idea as far as the inventory and other information you will need. Building a web site for your small business.

There are many web sites available to help you as far as promoting your small business such as adverting sites and marketing sites as well.

When starting a small business on the Internet you’ll want some means of getting visitors to your site, this being said the advertising company you go with should be a reliable one. Once again, you can do the research and find many different advertising agencies as well as web sites that can help you with this.

Usually small businesses that start out on the Internet without the help or support of any kind of advertising, marketing or helpful tools will not last very long and you will soon find your small business on the Internet suffering, if not being taken off of the Internet completely.  Read more...

As the economy continues to tank so do the number of Americans without health insurance-and the number small business owners who can afford to insure their employees.

A recent survey by the NFIB Research Foundation, a small business advocacy group, showed that only 47 percent of small business owners offer employee health benefits. Those employing 20 or more people are more than twice as likely to offer employee health benefits as those with fewer than 10.

The survey found that the low numbers are primarily the result of new small businesses opting not to cover employees. Most small businesses who offer benefits have offered them for a while and are reluctant to drop them for fear of losing good employees.

”It’s much better for employee morale if a small-business owner never offers health benefits, than it is to offer them and then be forced to take it away because it is too expensive to continue,” said William J. Dennis, NFIB’s senior research fellow. “Small-business owners experience considerable turmoil in their early years. They often experience cash flow problems and are reluctant to incur additional expenses such as health insurance. What’s new to this picture is that it appears that new small-business owners are waiting longer or choosing not to offer health insurance benefits to their employees at all.”

The fact that new small businesses are choosing not to offer benefits is a disturbing trend because of the swift turnover of the small business population. If the trend continues, the number of employers who never offer benefits will increase. And that will hurt small businesses because it will limit thet talent pool from which they draw.  Read more...

Over the past decade more and more people are getting fired, getting downsized, or getting fed up with their corporate jobs and embark on the journey as a small business owner. Unfortunately, most of the new small business owners fail to consider their marketing plans or strategy. There are many marketing concepts for small business marketing to consider and plan for, but here is our list of Top 10 Marketing Concepts For Small Business Marketing.

Marketing Concept # 1: Consistency

Consistency is the number one marketing concept for small business marketing only because it is left out of marketing concepts for so many businesses. I have worked with a long list of clients, big and small, that are extremely inconsistent in all areas of their marketing. Consistency helps lower the cost of marketing and increase the effectiveness of branding.

Marketing Concept # 2: Planning

Once small business owners decide to be consistent with their marketing, planning is the next major concept to engage. Planning is the most vital part of small business marketing or any level of marketing, for that matter, and so many owners, marketing managers, and even CMOs plan poorly. Put the time into planning your marketing strategy, budget, and other concepts presented here to ensure success.

Marketing Concept # 3: Strategy

 Read more...

What are small businesses?

Small businesses are businesses with less staff. The staff limit is different for different areas. These businesses are generally owned by individuals or are started in partnerships. Other criterions to decide small businesses are the turnover and profit. The less is the turnover or the profit, the smaller is the business. The smallest businesses are called as ‘micro businesses’ and those managed by families are called as ‘mom’s and pop’s business’. These smaller businesses generally have employees in number from 0 to 10. Many a times, the owners are the workers in these businesses.

Advantages in small business:

The basic advantage of starting a small business is that you need less capital and money to start the business. Also, one can start a small business on part time basis. The basics of a successful business are the regular modifications that one does to it. In small businesses these modifications can be easily done as one does not need to follow any trend or face any compulsions in small business unlike in big businesses. Also, a small business can give much more to its customers than a big one as they have the power to provide each and every customer the required personal attention and take into account all the suggestions and even implement some of them. Small businesses provide daily bread to many a people and thus are very important.

Marketing small businesses:  Read more...