Small Business Outlook For 2009

The National Small Business Association just released a major report on the outlook for Small Business in 2009. Its press release is printed below. The National Business Association is an advocate for the interests of small business owners and lobbies for their interests in state and national legislatures and agencies. It represents more than 150,000 small businesses nationally. Founded in 1937 it is the oldest national advocate for small businesses. In 1980, 1986, and 1995 it took the lead in initiating White House Conferences on Small Business. Their report reflects the impact of the Recession on their members. As we have previously mentioned in our posts this traditionally optimistic group is finding it increasingly difficult to maintain that optimism. Altogether the outlook for 2009 is bleak. The complete report may be accessed through the "major report" link above.

NSBA Year-End Economic Report

Jan 12, 2009

NSBA today released a report detailing how small business is faring in the recession, and things aren’t going well. According to the NSBA 2008 Year-End Economic Report, 91 percent of small businesses surveyed over the last two weeks in December said the national economy today is worse off than five years ago, up significantly from 68 percent in August 2008.

The report found significant decreases in anticipated economic growth for the coming year with a mere 3 percent anticipating growth for the U.S. economy—down from 21 percent in August. The number of small-business owners who cited economic uncertainty as one of their top three challenges was up from 53 percent in August to 75 percent—a 42 percent shift in just four months.

“Beyond the significant concerns small-business owners expressed about the overall U.S. economy, more than one-third are not confident about the future of their own business,” stated NSBA President Todd O. McCracken. “Coming from traditionally up-beat entrepreneurs, this number ought to send a strong message to Congress—as they craft an economic stimulus package—that small business is struggling.”

Small businesses are dealing with dramatic decreases in growth of revenues, profits and employee size. Each of these key indicators declined between August and December with the number of small businesses hiring new employees in the past 12 months dropping from 30 percent in August to just 18 percent in December, creating an overall net job loss. Projected job growth didn’t fare any better.

Financing continues to be a problem for small-business owners who reported increased reliance on credit cards—nearly half (49 percent) used credit cards in the past 12 months to finance their business. Making matters worse, respondents who reported worsening credit card terms increased from 63 percent in August to 69 percent in the December. Although regulations have recently been approved that will address some of the problems small businesses are facing, the new rules failed to include business-specific credit cards, making broad reform a critical issue.

“NSBA’s Year-End Economic Report exemplifies the difficult position in which we small businesses find ourselves today,” said NSBA Chair Keith Ashmus. “Given the historic role we have played in job creation, any impediment to our ability to create jobs could make for an extended recession and more difficult recovery.”

2009 Berkshire Athenaeum Workshops

With the new year and the newly renovated Reference and Local History departments, computer and business workshops have been announced for January and February. You can view the entire schedule of workshops by going to the Berkshire Athenaeum's home page and clicking on Computer Class Schedule for January & February.

I am scheduled to lead many of these workshops. My schedule follows:
1) Email Workshops: January 8 and 22, February 5 and 25;
2) Finding Business Resources Online: January 15 and February 12; and
3) Free Websites Useful to Small Business: January 29 and February 26.

All workshops start at 10 a.m. and will end 1 hour later at 11 a.m. They will be held in the Athenaeum's new Computer Lab, which shares space with the Berkshire Author's Room, directly off of the Local History department. These are our first workshops in the new computer lab. Starting times are based on workshops held previously. The times are on a trial basis. If we find these times are inconvenient for whatever reason, we may change them in the future. Let us know whether these times are good or inconvenient for you. I personally may be reached at 413-499-9480 ext 110 or 202. Also PreRegistration is necessary. Just give the Reference Department a call at 499-9480 ext 202.

Let me give you a brief breakdown of the Workshops I will be leading.

Email - Email is one of the most popular activities on the Reference Department computers. This workshop will have a "hands-on" approach to creating a basic free Email account and will distinquish between different providers. We'll look at Yahoo and Gmail. The aim of the workshop is to get you started. This is an introductory workshop, for beginners. It will be a "no frills" introduction. Bring your questions and be prompt.

Finding Free Business Resources Online - There is a host of Business and Finacial sites online. How to distinquish between quality information and junk. We will look at several resource rich sites; sites that prove useful time and again in providing access to quality business and financial information. A list of these sites will be provided. It is expected that this workshop will focus on 2 or 3 sites, due to their depth and resources provided. Bring your questions, observations, and suggestions of other sites that you may want me to cover in the future. PreRegistration is necessary. Call the Reference Department at number listed above. Workshop will start promptly at 10 a.m.

Free Websites Useful to Small Business - This workshop could be considered part b to the other business workshop, though this is a stand alone workshop and the other is not a prerequisite. There are many free tools online to aid you in running your business, obtaining contacts, and providing such things as free Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Calendars, Business Reference, Tools for Mailing lists and so forth. We will look at several of these free business utilities; provide a list of sites for further reference, and look at your needs. PreRegistration is necessary. We start promptly at 10 a.m. and anticipate follow-up with regard to any questions you may have.

I look forward to your participation in these workshops and to your suggestions for others that we may have.

Thanks for your support of our Business Blog. Call me, Richard Fairfield, with any questions you may have.

The Berkshire Athenaeum and the Reference Department is located at 1 Wendell Avenue, in Downtown Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

Happy New Year 2009.

Happy New Year Or Is It?!!

We start 2009 with a question, is it truly a Happy New Year or is it just a continuation of the disaster that was 2008? Another way of saying this is Where are we going in 2009? Will things continue to get worse?

Several things have caused us to frame this first post of the New Year this way.

1). The Business Press and Business itself has been relentlessly optimistic in the past. This is especially true of entrepreneurial supporting magazines such as Entrepreneur and Inc. The daily news does not always enter into these magazine's topics. That is no longer true. Both these magazines have bleak prognoses for 2009. Along with the rest of the Business Press, 2009 is to be the "year of recovery". The situation has gotten so bleak, that Mark Hendricks wrote an editorial for Entrepreneur's January 2009 issue calling it "Crappy New Year", and there was no "tongue in cheek". Hendrick's focuses on the credit crisis, its impact on small and large business enterprise. He cites the the July 2008 Senior Loan Office Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices. Their report noted "65% of senior bank loan officers reported that they recently tightened standards for small business seeking loans during the second quarter of 2008. That's an all time high since record keeping began in1990." (You can read the entire editorial by clicking on the highlighted "crappy new year" above or at the Berkshire Athenaeum, where we have many subscriptions to Business magazines or online at entrepreneur.com.) Hendricks also emphasizes that 69% of small business have cut back on operating and capital expenses. This is true also for States where the economic crisis has caused continuing severe economic cutbacks. In President-Elect Obamas infrastructure plan may end replacing money's States have lost in cutting back their budgets. Locally, the town of Pittsfield has experienced cutbacks and job freeze, KB Toys declared bankruptcy December 10, Linens and Things closed and Berkshire Bank applied for and received $40 million from the national bank bailout fund.

2) Speaking of President-Elect Obama, he has been saying with great frequency to anyone who will listen that things are going to get worse before they get better. Whatever National Recovery plan engendered by the new Obama administration may be operating on very fragile ground. The events of 2007 and 2008 will not be ended by chronological end of year 2008. They will remain in the foreground and impact any Obama plan.

3) This gets us to our third point. We all want a return to an optimistic future and will be impatient to see change, real change, one that benefits all, not just a few. So far there has been no plan, no central organizing vision that unites business, labor, the overall public. A plan and vision are a necessary part of National Recovery. The current situation has been non reflective crisis management, trying to "put a finger in the dike" when there are only flood conditions. A national commission, like the commission of civil disorders constituted during the 1960s by President Johnson. That commisslion examined the very soul of America and was controversial. A new rexamination is needed. This is not just credit fallout, housing crisis, or bank and automotive crisis. This is a system breakdown and crisis of historic proportions. Our very daily assumptions about the role of the economy, government, priivate and public sphere need to reexamined. Who are we as a people? What happened and how was it allowed to happen? A critical eye should look under every stone? What is government to be in the 21st century? How are sectors to be united in a comprehensive and comprehensible fashion? What ideas, if any, need to be discarded? What new ideas will be brought forward to determine the road ahead? Inevitably, we are talking about the remaking and reordering of our society and who will benefit. Have laws been broken? If so what redress will be needed. This national commission should be independent and of the highest integrity. It should generate new ideas and a no holds barred critical analysis of what has gone wrong and why and provide the foundation for future directions. Whether a commission of some other form, a comprehensive national plan requiring sacrifice and commitment from all is necessary. It is these kinds of plans in the past that restored hope international, whether it was the New Deal, the Marshal Plan or the New Frontier or the Great Society. It is vestiges from these plans that have kept the United States from total collapse, agencies such as the FDIC, Social Security, and Unemployment are still critical ideas that originated during the Great Depression. The Works Progress Administration may be the model for Obama's infrastructure plan but so too was Eisenhower's National Highway Transportation plan, which created the Interstate Highway system and led to unparalleled economic and social development of the United States during the post World War II and Korean War. There is pullback now from that development.

What will the National Recovery be? Will it be genuine promise or more of the same. And what role for small and large business, labor and government. At the very least, we are living in interesting times. The central issue: What outcome is expected and will we survive?!! What are the basic needs of society and how should they be met? If basic needs cannot be met, how will we survive as a people. The sign in the road ahead suggests "New Directions Needed". As in the end of a year, it will be out with old ideas and institutions that no longer work and in with the new which will bring forward old institutions and ideas that do work along with genuine new ideas and vision that provides the basis for building a new "society" that all can buy into.

Happy New Year!!