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Would Small Business Owners Do It All Again?

Would Small Business Owners Do It All Again?

by Dennis Jacobe

Anyone who has run a small business knows that it can be a challenging way to make a living. Small-business owners wear many different hats. They typically have little leeway with regard to pricing -- they're usually price-takers on the buy-side with no ability to leverage their suppliers, and price-givers on the sell-side with no ability to leverage their customers. The government generally makes the whole situation worse, forcing small business owners to deal with enormous regulatory burdens and paperwork that was designed with much larger companies in mind.

Given these day-to-day challenges and the relatively poor business environment of the past few years, it probably wouldn't be too surprising to find that many of the nation's small business owners are discouraged and wish they had done something else with their lives. However, just the opposite is true, according to the new Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index survey* (see "Small Businesses Offer Hope for Job Creation" for more on this new Index).

Small Business Owner Satisfaction

More than 8 in 10 of the nation's small business owners say they are satisfied with being a small business owner. More than half (56%) are very or extremely satisfied, and 30% are somewhat satisfied. Only 13% say they are not too satisfied or not at all satisfied.

Small Business Owner Success

Nearly all small business owners feel that they are at least somewhat successful at what they do. Forty-one percent feel that they are very or extremely successful at being a small business owner. Another 56% say they feel somewhat successful, while only 3% say they feel they are not too successful or not at all successful.

Better Off Financially?

Three-fourths of small business owners say they are better off financially than they would be working for some other company in the same field.

Although the majority of small business owners feel that they are better off financially than they would be otherwise, they also recognize that they usually work considerably more hours than employees of other companies do. Do small business owners feel they're better off financially simply because they work so many hours?

On this question, small business owners are more evenly divided -- about half of the nation's small business owners (48%) feel that they earn more per hour in their business than they would earn as an employee of another company. Thirty-six percent say they earn less per hour, and 14% say they earn about the same.

Do It Again?

Despite the poor economic conditions of the past several years and the inherent challenges they face, small business owners are not only satisfied with their occupation, but almost uniformly feel successful. Add to this that most feel they are better off financially than they would be otherwise, and it is not surprising that 81% of the nation's small business owners say they would become small business owners again instead of doing something else. Nor is it unreasonable to expect public policy-makers to do more to build on this success, by more aggressively encouraging Americans to become small business owners.

*The new Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index is not based on a survey of the bank's small business customers. Instead, it is based on a nationally representative random survey of small business owners from across the United States. For this initial baseline survey report, Gallup conducted telephone interviews with 591 small business owners (having $20 million or less in annual sales) over the period of Aug. 5 to Aug. 20, 2003. For results based on this total sample of small business owners, one can say with 95% confidence that the margin of error is ±4 percentage points.


Gallup https://news.gallup.com/poll/9586/Would-Small-Business-Owners-All-Again.aspx
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