TWO NATIONAL SURVEYS FIND

SMALL-BUSINESS OWNERS OPTIMISTIC

The results of two nationwide surveys sponsored by UPS show America’s entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well.

 In the first survey, conducted between September and October of last year, 91 percent of small-business owners or managers said they expect their company to be in the same or better financial shape in a year than it is today.  A follow-up survey, conducted in mid-December, after economic conditions worsened, showed only a small decline in the first survey’s optimism, with 86 percent of small-businesses owners expecting their company to be in the same or better financial shape in one year.

Importantly, this optimism is rooted in realism as small-business owners surveyed do not project a speedy economic recovery. In the first survey, almost half (47 percent) of small-business owners said they believe that the U.S. economy will begin to improve in 2010 or later. That number climbed to 67 percent in the December survey.

Small-business owners may be particularly optimistic for one important reason: they love what they do. When asked in the first survey what else they would do if money were no object, more than one-third (37 percent) said they would continue running their businesses and 12 percent said they would invest more money in their companies. Only 13 percent said they would retire.