Author Archives: Mike Simmons

CEO of WIMS Consulting. Marketing, CRM, Business Development for Entrepreneurs. Outsourced CMO

Sea Level Rising and What the Future Holds

Where are we headed?

What exactly does it mean to be sustainable and do behaviors that people follow determine if they are or are not following a sustainable lifestyle or does sustainability have to be engrained into the core philosophy of an individual?

I do not know the answer to this question, and I will not attempt to get to the bottom of what drives people to choose sustainable choices be it monetary, spiritual, or moral. In the past few months I have found myself thinking about not what draws people to becoming sustainable but the deeper question of does it matter how we live and how can we, as individuals make decisions that will help protect the earth. The earth needs to be protected not only for future generations but for those of us alive because the world and unexpected climate events are already impacting the world and causing irreversible effects. Instead of playing a blame game of who should take the burden of climate change the only path forward is to work with individuals, non-profit institutions, and corporations. While full cooperation is impossible the world needs cooperation on a stage never seen before to offset the costs on the economy and more importantly the environment.

Center for Climate Integrity

A recent report from the Center for Climate Integrity highlights the pressing nature of sea level change and how this one aspect of climate change will have immense impacts on coastal communities, the economy of the entire nation, and millions of Americans. This study highlights impacts of one of the major aspects of climate change being rising sea levels and how to handle the costs of these changes. Coastal regions have vast importance on ecological, economic, and cultural importance with vibrant communities. These communities also are home to many marine mammals, birds, and unique ecosystems including salt marshes and lowlands which add to the beauty of the coastal communities and can help as carbon sinks in marshlands that can reduce carbon emissions in the atmosphere.

Coastal Impacts

Beyond the beauty of these coastal regions, commercial fisheries and farms in these coastal regions provide fresh food and jobs. Many of the areas which will be hardest hit by the increased sea levels are popular tourist destinations which provide a valuable tax base and employment opportunities to communities. From the Florida Keys to the Eastern Shore of Maryland and the Outer Banks of North Carolina popular summer destinations face increased risks of rising sea levels. North Carolina, faces the third highest cost in the lower 48 from rising sea levels with projected increased costs in the Old North State to be over $35 billion by 2040. This places the economic costs behind only Florida and Louisiana and part of the total costs which could exceed $400 billion over the next 20 years with many of the costs incurred over the next decade.

Projected costs to build sea walls by state. Credit Center for Climate Integrity

Now what

The first step in advocacy is understanding the issues at hand, gaining background information about the causes of climate change and sea level rising will allow for beginning the dialogue on these issues. Here in North Carolina, some unique geography in the northeast part of the state means the one congressional district, the 3^rd District, has the highest economic impact of any congressional district in the nation representing over 80% of the total cost in the state from sea level rise. While congressional district boundaries change the impacts of coastal changes from rising sea levels will dramatically impact the tourist centers of the Outer Banks.

The small coastal communities that many people only think about during yearly beach trips or when shrimp cocktails are order face uphill battles and will bear the brunt of the burden of rising sea levels. All is not lost. Actions can be made which will help protect the coastal communities including reaching out to local politicians, beginning conversations about how to combat climate change, and making purchases when possible to companies that value sustainability. The fight to protect our coasts is not over and by understanding that actions can be taken the coastal ecosystems can be protected.

The costs of climate change can not be thought of as after thoughts because communities are already dealing with the effects of climate change and rising sea levels. The impacts of climate change are not set in stone and can be minimized through advocacy, taking individual decisions to reduce your carbon footprint, and taking the steps to hold large corporations accountable for their carbon emissions and incentive sustainable investments.

Sources

Debruyn, Jason. “Rising Seas To Cost NC $35B In Just 20 Years, New Study Finds.” WUNC 91.5 North Carolina Public Radio. Retrieved from https://www.wunc.org/post/rising-seas-cost-nc-35b-just-20-years-new-study-finds.

“Study: U.S. Costal Communities Face More Than $400 Billion in Seawall Costs by 2040.” IGSD: Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development. http://www.igsd.org/study-u-s-costal-communities-face-more-than-400-billion-in-seawall-costs-by-2040/.

Salesforce Heads North

In June 2019 Salesforce announced that it would be purchasing Tableau in a deal worth over $15.7 billion. This deal will allow San Francisco based Salesforce to expand its presence in Seattle creating a second headquarters in Seattle, home of Tableau, like what Seattle-based Amazon did with its HQ2 competition last year. I was in the Seattle area on vacation as the news broke and was able to read local newspapers on this deal from the local perspective which went beyond the financial terms of the agreement.

This deal represents the second largest acquisition in the history of the state of Washington and shows the power of the technology sector in the Pacific Northwest and willingness of companies to expand beyond Silicon Valley (Romano, Seattle Times). With a presence of 1,000 employees already in Seattle, Salesforce is familiar with the business climate in Washington. Moving forward this acquisition is not an outlier and additional companies in the cloud computing space will look to expand their operations and establish additional offices beyond their initial headquarters.

This trend poses the opportunity for companies to benefit from the strengths of different metropolitan areas while also increasing the expectations the residents of these cities have of these companies to become stewards of the community and provide jobs to locals. This deal will change the entire landscape and power dynamics in the CRM and Business Intelligence world. This deal seems to represent a move by Salesforce to invest in research and development through the purchase of Tableau which may signal slowing internal innovation (Moorehead, Forbes). This deal comes after Salesforce paid $300 million to integrate the companies non-profit arm, Salesforce.org, into the companies for-profit side (Salesforce Press Release). This deal will have a substantial impact to the overall company and could create anywhere from $150 to $200 million this Fiscal Year depending on when the deal closes. These strategic changes show how Salesforce is moving beyond CRM and taking the potentially risky decision of incorporating its non-profit wing into its for-profit business. Although Salesforce has been on the leading edge of philanthropic causes with rising housing prices and inequality in the San Francisco Bay area and Seattle areas Salesforce will be held accountable and pushed to create more equitable growth as their operations expand.

Seattle is a city that has long struggled with homelessness and affordable housing. While the city is the thirteenth largest city it has the third largest homeless population. Driving through Seattle and talking with locals on my recent trip to the city I heard and saw homeless camps and the stories of how homelessness and affordability is an issue impacting suburbs across the Seattle area with camps in view of I-5.

While Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has led his company to be a leader of philanthropic efforts and combating homelessness, he is entering a new arena in Seattle (Romano, Seattle Times). Long a leader in giving back Salesforce pledges 1% of profits, products, and employee time to philanthropic efforts. Marc and Lynne Benioff have signed the Giving Pledge and are leading advocates in the San Francisco area working to combat homelessness. Lynne Benioff cofounded a program in 2011 to provide shelters for families around San Francisco. Tableau also has taken on a philanthropic approach as well and pledged $100 million in grants and technology to global health and equality organizations (Romano, Seattle Times).

This merger has just occurred, but challenges persist moving forward. Benioff says that Tableau will operate independent of Salesforce and affirmed that this is a merger of two equals. This is rarely the case in mergers as power dynamics and even the slightest of differences can cause division between leaders in the merged companies. Time will tell how this deal will be remembered but one thing is certain which is that this will not be the last big software deal of the year.

Links

Image from: Romano, Benjamin. “Why Salesforce is shelling out $15.7 billion in stock for Seattle’s Tableau, in one of the NW’s largest acquisitions?” Seattle Times. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/technology/salesforce-buying-seattle-based-tableau-for-15-7-billion-in-stock-one-of-the-northwests-largest-acquisitions/.

Moorehead, Patrick. “Salesforce.com’s Tableau Acquisition: Admitting Organic Innovation Failure?” Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2019/06/18/salesforces-tableau-acquisition-admitting-organic-innovation-failure/.

Salesforce Press Releases. “Salesforce and Salesforce.org Combine to Drive Greater Philanthropic Impact and Success for Social Good Organizations.” https://investor.salesforce.com/press-releases/press-release-details/2019/Salesforce-and-Salesforceorg-Combine-to-Drive-Greater-Philanthropic-Impact-and-Success-for-Social-Good-Organizations/default.aspx.

The Cost/Benefit of Being a Student Athlete by Evan Shirreffs

Picture walking out of your dorm room at 5am on a Friday morning with a jug of water in one hand and a granola bar in the other. With sleep still in your eyes you’re wondering, “what will the workout be like today? Intense conditioning or a grueling squat day?”

Then, as you reach the door to the parking lot, you encounter a few students stumbling around, standing in their outfits from the evening before. One of them lost their student ID at some point during the night in between shots of liquor and their failed attempt at chasing after that one cute girl from Calculus class. Lucky for them, here you come to the rescue before they pass out in the bushes.

During my first few weeks on campus as a football player at the University of Miami, this moment put into perspective what the following few years would encompass.

Sooner or later, every student-athlete has experienced a similar moment that made them realize the depths of dedication it takes to play a sport in college. To say it is a job is honestly an understatement. Do not even get me started with compensation, but the pure will it even takes to commit to such a rigorous lifestyle is much more demanding than any job could ever be, and that’s coupled with much less reward.

What job is so physically taxing that by the end of an early morning lift session, you need to take a nap before most of your colleagues are even awake? What job gives you twice as much “optional” work as mandatory work, yet expects all of it to still get done despite the repeated statements that, “school comes before football?” If this was truly the case, then why would my only free time to study be after hours in the library with the thought of that early morning practice distracting my efforts to learn the importance of a balance sheet, or developing a business model for a business world that I have only heard of in theory and not yet experienced?

Learning class material was never the issue for me. It’s a bit easier to go into an exam with a general concept of what will be on it, and BS an answer that will satisfy your professor. If you BS your preparation for football however, you will be exposed by your opponent. And he will let you know about it before you even get to the sideline to get ripped by your coaches and teammates as well. As a quarterback, I need to know everything that all the other ten guys on the field are doing. The amount of focus it takes to go through hours of daily practice, meetings, and film is something that is quite difficult to understand until you must do it. No other position is like that; few positions in business are like that either.

Yet with all the challenges involved, the cool thing about committing to something like this lifestyle is the absence of regret, and the feeling of satisfaction that comes from doing everything in your power to succeed, even if the venture results in failure. In a society so focused on perfection, it is hard to see the value in failure. Football has taught me that success is never possible without failure.

I have lost battles for starting jobs, had coaches that did not believe in my style of play, I missed games because of injuries, not performed when my number was called, but none of that is what defines me. Failure not only showed me that I was not as badass as I thought by beating me down during some of the toughest moments of my life, but it gave me the opportunity to overcome obstacles during those times that makes success so much sweeter.

Failure gives you the chance to learn how to respond when things are not going your way. It humbles you when you most need it. This has been the single most impactful lesson learned from football. When you accept that the outcome you are working so hard for may not be attainable, you learn to fall in love with the grind and process of even giving yourself the opportunity to reach the result you are striving for.

As I sit behind my computer screen gathering my thoughts on my final collegiate football season to come, and my eventual “transfer” into the real world of business, I cannot help but smile at the opportunities ahead. I have no idea what the future holds, but I know that nothing I face in life will be as hard as the days of being a student-athlete. I understand that there is so much to still be learned, but there is no doubt in my mind that I will be successful in whatever career path I take. In all honesty, I just fear not finding that one thing in the real world that I am as passionate about as football. But I know that when I find it, I will make a difference in this world.

-Evan Shirreffs

WIMS Client Spotlight: Introducing Vitafy – Matching Patients and Doctors Nationwide

The Healthcare industry is in the midst of change and disruption. Large healthcare and insurance firms seem to dominate the market, leaving little room for the consumer to understand or make informed healthcare choices. Vitafy’s mission is to shift power (or verified information) back to the providers and patients.

Vitafy is a newly launched healthcare provider directory that includes the nation’s largest database of medical professionals and physicians. Every medical specialist has a unique profile that is customizable and includes quality metrics, comparisons, interactive reviews, and offers price transparency.

They have over 4 million providers listed from over 800 specialties across all 50 states. However, rather than just posting this publicly available data, which can often be inaccurate, they allow Vitafy member Physicians to leverage it to your advantage. They enable the Vitafy members to take back control of the information that’s out there about them to ensure it’s accurate, up to date, and working for you, not against you. We also help make it significantly easier for patients to find you and simplify the process of the, being able to reach out and book an appointment.

Their innovative platform gives you the doctors, a panoramic view of your information, along with the ability to update and maintain it. In addition to their specific information, it also provides comparative analysis insights on how you compare to other providers in the area on a variety of data points. The value of having this control is immediate and without all the red tape and layers. Vitafy member Physicians and Medical Professionals can directly influence the perception the market has of them and generate more new patient inquiries and appointments.

Vitafy believes in a relationship with our members. So, they’ve developed three affordable packages that even include regular consultation with Google Marketing advisors.

They are committed to you and will be continuously adding new and innovative features. We’d be honored if you’d give their platform a shot and join them on their mission to help shift the power back to the providers and patients! Enter the Promo Code: HCPM201 for a 16% discount on your premium plan.

Summer Reset

Where has the year gone!!!??? Is this a thought that is going through your mind too? The calendar has turned to June and the temperature has increased. The summer travel season kicked off Memorial Day and will last through Labor Day with millions of Americans taking trips from National Parks to beaches. In addition to the much-needed break and the refresher a summer vacation offers the opportunity to revisit goals from earlier in the year, make new goals, and improve the world around you.

The best way to hold yourself accountable to goals is to set ones that push you towards success while having realistic time frames. Instead of making a series of goals in January for the entire year plan out different times in the year for goal setting and make more realistic goals. Break down goals by season and plan goals for the winter, spring, summer, and fall. Now that the summer is here take some time to take steps back and revisit what priorities you have. During this season of travel and relaxation goals and improved decision-making go hand in hand.

Everyone has different ways of formulating goals and inevitably you are the best person at determining if you can reach your goals. By understanding how some of your past goals have gone future goal making may be easier to make. I know that for me I need to be in the right mindset to begin making goals and often set time aside to clean and organize things to push myself into setting and achieving my goals. The beautiful thing about people is that everyone is different, and no two people will take the same path and establish the same series of goals. Instead of following the conventional New Years Resolution, find a system that works for you to create goals so that you are working with a strong framework to ensure that the path you set out on is built with a good foundation.

As the warm months of June, July, and August take hold I will offer a few suggestions on how you can get into a mindset to help yourself make the most effective goals on both the personal and professional level. Take time to unplug and walk away from technology to revisit where you stand in your life and what changes need to be done. The noise of the internet, particularly social media, can drive decisions to be based on short term outcomes and not with a focus on long-term sustainability. Take a weekend or a week to go and experience the world outside of the internet sphere and use this experience to think about and prioritize what is important in your own life.

Whatever goals you set aside take the time to identify someone who can help you along the process. I am a strong believer in collaboration and the power it can add. Seeking assistance when needed shows the ability to take a step in the right direction while working through processes with someone else and gain their opinion. Listening to others is important and can be difficult, more so for some people. Listening to others and taking the time to gather information and talk things out with others before making critical decisions can be crucial. Being in the right mindset and talking with others can spur new ideas and open new perspectives.

Summer serves as an opportunity to visit new places, grilling with friends, and taking family vacations which provide lifelong memories but also can cause stress levels to increase through planning and coordinating group activities. These projects and endeavors should be undertaken in a meaningful manner where they serve the goal of making everyone’s experience more enjoyable. Take the time to make reflections on what occurred and use these experiences to strengthen your goal making process.

The summer is not a break but should serve as a reset period. Our world is constantly going at full pace yet many of the most important things that will happen in our lives are the simple things that we might miss if we do not take the time to enjoy them. Take the time moving forward to thank those around you in service industry positions, write meaningful handwritten letters to loved ones, and partake in community events to improve the place where you live. These rewarding tasks will reap many rewards and can improve your outlook on life and push you to make better decision while also becoming more present in your life. We only get one life to live so let’s take steps to make it the best life we can for ourselves and those around us. Start with the simple things making an effort to improve your life and in the process making the world around all of us a better and more civil place because it is needed more than ever in our current time.

2019 World Cup

2019 FIFA World Cup

From June 7^th through July 7^th the FIFA Women’s World Cup will be held across nine French cities to be crowned as the best team in the world. This serves as one of the major sporting events of the year and will draw major media attention from around the world. The start of the World Cup is less than two weeks away and the events of the games will be the culmination of years of hard work and dedication by players, coaches, and event organizers.

Major sporting events like this serve as an insight into the complexities of organizing major events on the world stage with world class athletes and major global media attention. Project management from coaching and players making complex decisions in the middle of a game to the years of planning from local and national politicians, business owners, and stadium operators. From the soccer pitch to the logistics and planning all aspects of the Word Cup must be planned out using project management frameworks from executing to reflecting on how plays and designs play out.

The Game

The course of a sporting event provides many opportunities to take on leadership roles under pressure and uncertainty. This includes the opportunity for players who have smaller roles to make major plays to shape the outcome of the game. A good team member will understand that their individual decisions to the collective decisions made by the team will position itself in a better overall position even if certain players must limit their role on the team to improve the cohesiveness of the team.

The glory of scoring the winning goal can only occur behind the decisions made by players on the field under the instruction of coaches, dietitians, and a complex training regimen. The ability to get a team into championship shape occurs over years and is not an overnight process. This is a lesson which everyone can learn when working on projects. To succeed putting in the time is necessary. Every team needs a strong support system who can provide tips and help along the process from inception to completion. The stars of the American soccer team have been training and finalizing their preparations for the World Cup, in a similar way to how officials from FIFA and across France are in the final stages of preparing venues for the World Cup.

Setting the Stage

The players, media, coaches, and fans who will be descending on France will be staying at accommodations and attending games across the country in stadiums from Paris to Nice. The work that goes into preparing for a World Cup goes far beyond the soccer field and includes upgrades to stadiums and constructing new amenities for those visiting France. When the World Cup commences remember it is a marvel in project management from the perspective of the players, the decisions they have made leading up to and during the games, along with the organizers of the event, the decisions they have made in the past and the decisions they make through the Word Cup.

The WIMS World is Expanding!

As business has continued growing rapidly for WIMS Consulting, the preexisting business model of leveraging elite independent contractors to assist with client projects has needed to evolve. So, we’ve begun growing more in-house as well in order to focus on enhancing client service by way of emphasizing project management and streamlining operations. Simultaneously, we’re more focused on continuing to grow and take on new challenges as well.

What’s been happening with my company’s EolianVR and Augmented Reality Real Estate (ARRE) either which have been exploding with growth recently too. We’ve landed deals with government entities, major health care companies, and are closing in on major real estate companies from brokers to developers to architects as we’ve refocused on improving development. We’ve also just filed a full patent to further expand on our provisional patent. It’s been an insane year and it’s not even halfway through yet. By the way we’re also hiring (Unity Developers particularly, and front end even more specifically).

Just wanted to take a few moments to update those that may be interested on some of latest developments in our world.

We’ve had Craig Oliver on as a project manager for a while now yet his role is continuing to evolve and grow with experience.

Tom Schaefer, Jr. has been brought on as a strategic partner to head up our business development efforts in both Charlotte and Miami (and beyond).

We’ve got interns Evan Shirreffs and Taisha Johnson who are helping with marketing, CRM, finance, and additional projects as well. Their roles will continue to expand as well heading into the summer.

Further, we’ll soon be announcing new partnerships as they’re formalized within the next month or two with people/firms in Los Angeles/San Diego, Atlanta, and New York in addition to more in Charlotte/Miami to go with our existing ones.

We’ve also got some new packages rolling out over the new few weeks to leverage our partnerships with Picnic Table Video Productions and Novelty Technology.

We are committed to working with the best and brightest team to ensure we bring the greatest possible solutions to our clients, maximize the value we bring to them, and to ensure they grow their revenue to unprecedented levels.

What is 10X?

If you’re an entrepreneur, a sales professional, work within your city’s start-up ecosystem, or are a follower of one of the dozens of personal/professional growth coaches, chances are you’ve seen or heard of “10X”. This has become a hot term in the last half-decade, and I wanted to break down my interpretation of what this means, and how it’s meant to be applied to your efforts. It started as a way to describe the “best” engineers who are 10 times as productive as their “worst” counterparts in the field of software development. The term has been appropriated, perhaps most famously by Grant Cardone in his book “The 10X Rule”, as an understanding of the levels of effort and thinking required to break out of the average results and truly succeed.

The first component in The 10X Rule (get it here free, just pay shipping) takes a closer look at how we think about success, and how we set goals. While we’re taught “slow and steady wins the race”, this puts our mindset in a place where average is OK. However, average is a sliding scale. If everyone is struggling, your struggles are justified. We set smaller “realistic” goals, limiting our belief in what is possible. I believe this way of thinking is rooted in the fear of failure, so we celebrate even the smallest victories. Failure is necessary for growth. As we fail, we learn what doesn’t work and improve our efforts for the next attempt. Welcome failure, set audacious goals that are “10X” what you originally thought possible. 10 new clients a month instead of 1. Raise $1 million for your start up instead of $100K. Thinking in these magnitudes, even a “failure” of getting 3 new clients or raising $200K is still better than the original goals.

Now thinking at a higher level than before is great, but making them happen can seem daunting. This is where the second part kicks in, and understanding the order of magnitude of your actions comes into play. Break down what it takes to reach your goal. Does it take 5 meetings to get that 1 client? Schedule 50. Does it take 10 calls to get 5 meetings? Make 100 calls. Don’t have 100 people to call? Start building your network by sharing what you do with others and ask them if they know anyone that fits your ideal client profile (ICP). Start somewhere and create the activity to get to the next step.

“But Tom, I’m a solopreneur and I’m already working 60 hour weeks, I can’t possibly work 600 hours a week, it’s impossible.” or “Those numbers aren’t realistic, in my industry a 20% growth is considered a huge margin.” Excuses are a justification of our fears. We stay in a comfort zone to avoid failure. Well a solopreneur can leverage tools like CRM to manage a sales and marketing strategy, making scalability much more attainable. A strong digital marketing campaign can grow an audience 100 times what was previously done with more traditional methods at a fraction of the price (and often at no cost at all). The fear of failure is stopping more people from succeeding than the actual failures ever will. Stop thinking small and start doing, because nothing ever happens overnight, and every great journey begins with a single step.

If you enjoyed reading this article, let us know in the comments below and remember to sign up for our newsletter via the form below.

WIMS Client Spotlight: Pineapple Consulting

Pineapple Consulting Firm was created with only one goal: to help small businesses succeed. It helps how synergistic that is with WIMS Consulting, as not only is there a client relationship, but it really fits our model of creating partnerships too.

While Pineapple is eager to help however they can, they have a particular specialization centered around analytics and efficiency. Specifically, they are wizards when it comes to Excel, spreadsheets, lead generation, and project management (something we’re really interested in helping businesses with right now at WIMS Consulting too).

Their service offerings include:

Data Analytics
- Inform decisions and strategies for the best results.
- Data gathering, manipulation, and visualization with expertise in Excel.
Financial Analysis
- Cost benefit analysis, Financial modelling and projections all in customizable Excel tools.
Project Management
- Lead a project from idea development all the way to post-execution monitoring.
Lead Generation/Data Scraping
- Extract leads and data from online and present it in easily manageable files.

They work with a wide variety of industries, but have a niche surrounding professional service firms. Pineapple’s founder has an extensive background in the financial services and wealth management industry. However they also work with startups of all sizes, accounting, banking, insurance, real estate, non-profits, and health care among others.

The company is based in Charlotte, NC but of course is able to work with clients from throughout the country.

Click here to check out their website and let them know that I sent you!

2019 Small Business Week

This week, May 5^th to May 11^th, 2019, is National Small Business Week, which is a great time to think about the importance of small businesses in our economy. In addition to this piece I would also direct you to my colleague Michael Simmons piece on 2019 Small Business Week which is filled with valuable Small Business Resources. In this post I will be looking into the data behind small businesses in America and tackle some of the FAQ’s about small businesses. During this week small business owners and their employees are celebrated for their contributions to the economy, society, and their local community. The value of these companies goes well beyond the economic impact they provide as they contribute to the culture and identity of local communities.

Small Business Data

Small businesses across America serve as the engine steering economic growth of the economy in general. The Small Business Association’s Office of Advocacy has complied data and answers to common asked questions about small businesses. There are over 29.6 million small businesses in America and these organizations create many jobs in all corners of the nation. The impact of these small businesses account for 63% of net new private-sector jobs created and in total account for 59 million jobs which is almost half of all jobs across the nation (47.5%). These figures are impressive and show the scope and volume of economic activity provided by small businesses.

Small Business FAQs

What is the composition of small businesses in the US?

The role of small businesses is felt across the US economy and contributes to the economy in different ways. Most of the small businesses are nonemployer firms, in total these firms account for 80% of small business and number around 24.3 million of the 30.2 million businesses while the other 20% of small businesses, around 5.9 million total businesses have paid employees.

How do these small businesses fit into the wider economy?

Some of the stats regarding the importance of small businesses to the greater economy are very impressive and show how the greater economy would greatly suffer. This includes the 40.8% of all private-sector payrolls paid by small business and 32.9% of known export value amounting to $440 billion of the total $1.3 trillion in export value. These figures show the value that small businesses create and highlight how the resilient business leaders across America and beyond generate economic growth through the power of exports.

What is the survival rate of small businesses?

The one-year survival rate of businesses started in 2016 was 79.8%, the most recent data available meaning that almost 4 in 5 businesses survive their first year. The five-year survival rate has differed over the past decade with firms started in 2006 and weathering through the great recession have a 45.4% rate of still being in operation after five years. Companies established in 2011 as the economic recovery was into effect had a five-year survival rate of 51% showing how external macroeconomic factors also have an impact on the survival rate of a small business.

Small Business Week Actions

Everyone can take some small steps to support small businesses both this week and throughout the year. Buying from small businesses when possible is one way to support them and offers the opportunity to learn about the business owner and their employees. From here a connect and relationship can be formed with the business and then the business can become a part of your routine. In addition to becoming a customer of different small businesses people can lobby local and national politicians to support legislation that is favorable for small business growth. One of the simplest ways to help small business owners is to thank them for what they are doing and provide validation that they are making a meaningful impact on the community.

Sources

National Small Business Week. SBA. U.S. Small Business Administration. https://www.sba.gov/national-small-business-week.

SBA Office of Advocacy. Frequently Asked Questions, August 2018. https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/advocacy/Frequently-Asked-Questions-Small-Business-2018.pdf.

Simmons, Michael. “WIMS Celebrates National Small Business Week 2019!” WIMS Guide. https://www.wimsguide.com/tag/small-business-week/.