Chad M
Chief Economist & Director of Economic Research at U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy
Small business owners: what are your predictions for your business in 2009? Would you say that you are optimistic or pessimistic about growing your business, hiring new workers, etc.?
Chad Moutray is the chief economist and director of economic research for the U.S. Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy. After reviewing your responses, he will post a summary on his personal blog, http://moutray.wordpress.com.
Answers (11)
For small businesses such as mine, its a unique situation - mostly positive.
Costs:
Costs of doing business are coming down, transport cost is coming down, its easier to find staff, salary costs are coming down.
Income:
Having a low cost base means cost effectiveness and offering my products to clients at a lower cost than my larger sized competitors. This means that distributors and retailers earn more margin from my products that others, thus they would ideally do more business with me to keep their bottom line in check.
Overall its optimistic in 2009 for growing business.
Vishal
Body Essentials LLC
Dave M
Phoenix Signs where our signs put more dollar signs into your business!
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To do well in a recession, you must have a business with a product or service that isn't discretionary spending for your potential customers. We tend to see an up tick in new business start ups during these types of economy and that is good for our business.
We are projecting an slight up year in volume but we also expect slimmer margins in a very competitive environment.
Norm J
Director - Technical Architecture by Day; Alpaca Owner / Producer by night
While the economy will have an impact, I expect that the number of small business startups will actually grow in 2009. Many of these startups may be in the network marketing industry as this is a distribution method for high quality products that allows the consumer to re-direct their discretionary spend into themselves. Being part of a network, then allows them to leverage their investments and their time.
Larger companies are also recognizing that the network marketing distribution model is often times, more profitable for them in regard to marketing, operating and distribution costs.
Entry into this business paradigm is low when compared to store front businesses, thus it is attractive to those that don't want to risk the investment associated to a franchise or store front retail business, yet want all of the advantages of being a business owner. This business paradigm is also proving to be an excellent method for existing business owners to generate an additional stream of revenue.
While there is alot to be concerned with in 2009, I am optomistic in regard to small business growth for the upcoming year.
Eugene R
CEO
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It never helped to be pessimistic. Usually we get what we epect, hence, I am utterly optimistic.
Links:
Most small businesses don't need 10,000 customers, mine for instance usually works with about 15 - 20 companies per year. Even in the worst economy I'm confident that I can find 50 good companies and that 20 of those will hire us. It will be more difficult to do in 2009 than it was in 2008, so I'm not forecasting wild growth, but we will grow slightly while positioning ourselves for future growth.
I guess you could call that optimistic!
Brad
PS I'm linking to an article I wrote on the subject if you are looking for more...
Links:
Greg P
President ♦ Bluefin Productions Inc.
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I see a good things in 2009.
Our industry in general is not doing well, though.
We are in the AV Services and Lighting, Sound, Video Production for Corporate Meetings and Events.
Many companies are cutting back on their meetings, trade shows and events. As a result, many of my comrades are seeing adverse affects.
I have a small staff and keep a close eye on overhead. I ramp up with temps when need and demand rise. Many of my competitors have large offices, warehouses, and equipment, etc. They are feeling a lot of pressure to produce a certain number each month.
Four us, we have a few new clients in addition to our long term relationships. We didn't grow at an absurd pace and are working at a steady pace, now.
I think 2009 will be good for us.
Thomas "
AMA Austin President. Consultant. Author. Mac Geek. @myerman on Twitter.
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Expenses and overhead going way down.
Access to credit and loans disappearing.
Cost of opening up new revenue streams on Web very inexpensive.
Options for virtual hosting and applications add new opportunities.
Microtransactions and very small apps (like on iPhones) add more opportunities.
I am optimistic, but I am trying to serve a narrow niche and keep very low overhead.
Links:
Josh C
General Manager at Web Industries; Itinerant Writer; and Decent Little League Coach
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Hi Chad,
We are a provider of custom outsource manufacturing solutions. I think our business will be flat--a combination of some losses in our older customers and products, combined with gains with new customers in some of the nano- flexible materials that are being developed.
We have to keep moving up the market and as long as we do, I'm optimistic in the long run.
Josh.
Richard P
CEO at PA & Associates, Inc - leveraging our proven bid framework to negotiate world-class DHL/FedEx/UPS agreements
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We may be a bit unique in this regard; we are a cost-reduction company focusing on negotiating world-class carrier agreements (FedEx, UPS).
We are forecasting a doubling of our business just on the signed agreements in Q4. A number of additional prospects have instructed us to call them in January.
We are quite optimistic that our service offering is going to be a fit for all of 2009 in the market we concentrate in (mid-market and large-market companies). To that end, we continue to provide complimentary services and staff accordingly.
Kenneth C
Experienced manager, entrpreneur, small business coach & mentor, chief operating officer
Best Answers in: Starting Up (2)
We at This Is It Shops are considerably optimistic about 2009, and beyond. Operating several "e-tail" sites caused us much pessimism in 2008, especially with experts predicting a downturn in both brick and mortar and e-commerce retail sales this holiday season. Because of those projections, and the downturn in the economy, we altered our projected growth in sales volume from a hoped for 20% increase to 10%. Much to our surprise, sales volume actually spiked when the economy took a nosedive and our projections were blown out of the water - sales volume increased a whopping 35% over last year.
We attribute this to our commitment to customer service and project that, like the trend has been since we began online operations, we will continue to grow in 2009.
