Check out 7 Silly Myths About The Economy, Jobs, Taxes & Small Business...

Posted on Inc.com, July 18, 2012
By Gene Marks

7 Silly Myths About the Economy, Jobs, Taxes & Small Business

America's Got Talent is the No. 1 show. Spider-Man is the No. 1 movie. Call me Maybe is the top song in the country. Who's the most popular guy in Washington D.C.?

Why, me! The small-business guy. Everyone's buzzing about me. That's because I represent more than 20 million others who are supposedly just like me. According to the National Federation of Independent Business, my confidence is down. Oh, no! But don't worry! The President and Congress are battling over ways to help me succeed. Hooray!

I appreciate everyone's concern. And I certainly love the attention. But, really, I don't want to waste your time. My technology company has 600 small business customers. And I agree that I probably don't have the right to speak on behalf of the other 19,999,400 small businesses in the country. But then again, why not? I know that small businesses will be an important part of this year's election. We're already getting a lot of attention from the media. So let me help explain a few things. And put to rest a few silly myths about us.

Silly Myth #1: Small Businesses collectively oppose higher taxes....

To read the full article, and find out the other 6 myths and their explanations... click here.

Check out this great article... When Reducing Barriers Leads to More Failed Businesses.

By Scott Shane
The Journal of the American Enterprise Institute
Wednesday, May 09, 2012

While you get more business formation if you reduce the barriers to starting companies, you don't necessarily get more successful entrepreneurship.

To read this insightful article... and Mr. Shane's great take on the recent comments from Mitt Romney and the Obama reaction... click here.

"Romney's logic is sounder than the president's. Allowing entrepreneurs to keep more of the profits from running their own businesses provides an incentive to overcome obstacles, like a lack of capital. If you tax entrepreneurs heavily, you reduce their incentive to overcome these obstacles and make them more likely to close down their companies."

Check out A struggle to sell small businesses | PressDemocrat.com

A struggle to sell small businesses

By Robert Digitale
The Press Democrat
August 29, 2010

Carmen Campos spent two years seeking the right location for her second Carmen's Burger Bar.

Campos wanted a more visible building than her original restaurant, which sits tucked in a residential neighborhood in Santa Rosa's Town & Country Village. She found it in a small strip center next to Wells Fargo Center on Mark West Springs Road at Old Red Highway.

Campos and her husband, Alvaro Ramos, bought the shuttered pizzeria on the site and last month opened it for business. Already the couple and 14 employees are matching the sales at the original location, even though the new site is still awaiting a full liquor license.

"We're making more burgers than they are," Campos said Thursday afternoon at the Larkfield location.

Carmen's is bright spot in the battered world of small business sales.

More common are tales of owners reeling from depressed business values, buyers who can't get loans and business brokers who, over the past three years, have seen transactions plummet.

"I think the industry's probably off 50 percent from what it was," said Al Statz, owner of Exit Strategies, a business brokerage in Petaluma.

Sales of Sonoma County small businesses - cafes, markets, auto parts stores and more - declined 44 percent from 2007 to 2009, according to BizBen.com of Dublin, an online website for the sale of businesses. Sales statewide declined 46 percent.

To read the full article... click here.

Let's discuss economic "recovery" for local small businesses...

By the local Business Sherpa himself, Larry Battershell.

The longer I talk to small business owners around the Indianapolis area and listen to endless tales of woe, the more convinced I am that the much touted economic "recovery" is not either U shaped or W shaped but more of a descending staircase--down a few steps-plateau, down a few more steps--plateau,etc....guess its better than a fast plunge on free falling elevator....... I will keep looking for the "green shoots".