Business owners have generally positive outlook

The scale is one to five, with one being awful and five being mostly positive. What's your business' outlook for the rest of the year?

Readers of my Business Owners' Blog who responded to a "How We're Doing" survey last week collectively posted a 3.68 on the outlook scale. No one projected lower than three, the midpoint. That's pretty positive.

So is the fact that 58 percent marked "Not as bad as it could have been" when asked about their business' experience over the past six months. Forty-two percent marked "We did surprisingly well." No one chose the third option, "Worse than I expected."

A significant but perhaps not terribly surprising 78 percent indicated they have relied more on the web to generate business during the recession. Stepped up e-mail marketing and ads placed on other web sites were typical uses.

The Blog, BOB for short, actually is an e-newsletter I send periodically to about 200 business owners. Because BOB readers are very much like you and me, I thought you might be interested in a condensed version of the survey results. There's no pretense of a scientific survey, just six questions I asked that e-newsletter readers answered.

The comments from BOB readers - anonymous because that's what I promised - were especially insightful. Here's a sampling:

If you reduced expenses over the past six months, what did you do?

• Cut out clients who should have been shown the door months ago.

• Stopped postage paid mailers. Changed phone carrier. Stepped up collections.

• We kept all staff but reduced hours. Reduced staff salaries 10 percent; owners took a 30 percent cut. Offered all staff loans from the company, for family needs, at 1 point over what we pay for money. Also offered food, beverages and family staples, sold by our distributors, at our cost plus handling and tax.

What issues do you face as you plan your business' comeback?

• Consumer confidence and the media's reporting biases. Viability of the larger financial institutions. Small business' access to capital.

• Receivables. Keeping fees down to help cash-strapped clients.

• Healthcare costs, taxes and consumer confidence.

• Collections. Maintaining current pricing. Thinking about retirement.

• Staying focused on actions closest to the money. Balancing action with spirit to create inspired rather than panic-driven action. Helping prospects and clients stay calm and positive.

• Financing and cash flow. Despite doing well during this recession, our bank lines of credit were reduced significantly. It is fair to say that banks abandoned their customers when the market collapsed.

• Getting customers to begin spending again. People may become used to smaller budgets and not be willing to return to pre-recession pricing.

• Healthcare costs. Inflation caused by government spending money it doesn't have.

• Questions, comments to Jim Kendall, JKendall@121MarketingResources.com. © 2009 121 Marketing Resources, Inc.