Next, a lot of your competitors are sitting on their hands waiting for something to happen. If you are out there making something happen, you have a huge advantage. I think Winston Churchill’s statement during WWII sums up our current state pretty well, “This is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure.”

This leads us to the next advantage. Your business is part of the solution. Small business is the back bone of the American economy. Our own President acknowledges this. So, running a well oiled successful small business, in today’s turbulent economy, only sets you up for greater success as the economy moves forward into more rewarding times.

Now, do I think it is going to be easy? Absolutely not! It’s going to take creativity, thought, planning and implementation on a huge level. Your business is going to need to have a rock solid strategy from top to bottom. In today’s business environment, any hole in your business model will quickly lead to a sinking ship.

So what can you do as an entrepreneur to ensure success? First, get a strong business plan. Plans help you set a course for success. They show you were your strong points are and where your challenges are. Next, be willing to make adjustments based on the information you gather that will impact your business plan and create a strategy for implementing your plan. Finally, follow through with the plan. I have seen more small businesses than I care to remember set themselves up for failure based on their lack of follow through. They have a great plan, but never implement it and end up dying off or just winging it. In today’s economy this is truly a recipe for disaster.

Lastly, as Nike likes to say ‘JUST DO IT’. Whatever it takes, do it! Don’t be afraid to ask for help there are a lot of places out there to get help. You can go to the Small Business Administration, the Internet has a ton of information and advice, local business groups, or even other local business owners themselves. Business owners can be the greatest resource because in many cases, they have been there and done that.

Unfortunately, small businesses have never recieved the type of support that they are due given the percentage of the economy that they truly represent. According to the SBA – Small Business Administration small businesses:

1. Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms!
2. Employ about half of all private sector employees
3. Make up 97.3 percent of all identified exporters…
3. Have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually over the last decade
4. Create more than half of all non-farm private gross domestic product (GDP)

Here’s the gist of it; these small businesses that have such a marked and profound impact on the US economy, employing the majority of our workforce, are failing at an alarming rate! More statistics from the SBA: In 2007 there were an estimated 637,100 new businesses started. Approximately 560,300 small businesses were closed with approximately 28,322 ending in bankruptcy. Do the math… And here’s the epidemic part. It’s been this way for a very long time and it’s getting worse!

Here’s something else. Again according to the SBA a full one third of new businesses close their doors within the first two years. Fifty six percent close their doors after just four years and sixty nine percent go out of business by year number seven. In summary, our economy is dependant to a very large and growing extent on small businesses, more than half of whom never make it to their fith year anniversary. This, as stated above, is a problem of epidemic proportion and demands immediate attention. 

We will endeavor in this blog to provide information, tips, methodologies, concepts, plans, resources, contact information, success stories and critical thinking in an effort to overcome the small business epidemic in America.

We thank you in advance for your interest and consideration and welcome your comments – It’s going to be an interesting trip!