By Content Team
Updated on: August 15, 2017
We surveyed over one thousand small business owners to gauge sentiments on the state of their businesses, their investment plans in the coming months and challenges they face. We targeted owners who have 5-200 employees and had been in business for at least two years.
The idea to explore trends affecting SMB’s was born from a passion at Reliant to serve business owners in the best ways possible. Delivering personalized customer experiences and cultivating long-term relationships are our top priority. We’ll have more to release from the report in the upcoming days but for now, we want to share just a few of our findings.
Of our respondents, 53 percent had a Gross Annual Revenue between two hundred and fifty-one thousand and one million dollars over the past 12 months. Just over 23 percent made less than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and a little over 21 percent came in between one million and ten million dollars. Only 2 percent grossed over ten million dollars.
We were also able to determine how owners planned to invest for growth in the next 6 months. Marketing was the most prominent area of investment at just over 18 percent, followed by increasing staff at precisely 18 percent. Facility upgrades came in at 17 percent followed by staff training and new products both at just over 13 percent. Investment in technology came in last at a little over 12 percent. Almost 8 percent had no plans to invest at all.
According to our survey, the biggest impact on business was customer spending, at 20 percent. 19 percent felt that local government business regulations impacted their business. 18 percent cited the effectiveness of U.S. government as a factor, followed by competitors (17 percent), healthcare costs (12 percent), the minimum wage increase (10 percent). The impact of local crime was 2 percent.
Our full report will cover additional insights. We hope it will provide the perfect looking glass into influencing factors for small business growth, something we support every working day. Stay tuned next week for the full report.