Small business owners is a term I use throughout this site, because these remarkable people are the focus of everything I do here. In fact, there’s a better than 9 in 10 probability that you are a small business owner yourself, such is the targeted nature of the site and its readership. So, it’s little wonder that readers often ask me;
When you talk about small business owners, what actual size of business are you referring to Jim?
Small business owners & numbers
I have no hard and fast rule for determining what a small business is. After all, you can have businesses with just a handful of employees, turning over millions, and businesses that employ 100 people, which hardly cover their costs. Is it right to refer to Bob as a small business owner, if his internationally respected business is extremely profitable and turns over ten million a year; just because he “only” employs 3 people? I don’t know.
Until recently, Twitter would have been classed as a small business in The USA and The EU; despite raising hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and having tens of millions of users. That’s because in The EU (European Union), a small business is one with fewer than 50 employees and in The United States, the term is commonly applied to businesses with fewer than 100 employees. Some agencies use a more effective combination of employee numbers and revenue figures, but these vary a lot in how they are used. Getting it right is a real challenge.
The Small business owners I write for
Governments, business organizations and banks etc must have a hard limit for what THEY class as a small business, for allocation of; grants, loans, taxation, health and safety etc. I allow myself a little more scope when writing for small business owners here on the blog. I typically think of my readership as being on the lower end of the numbers mentioned earlier.
In short: I write for business owners, who typically don’t have access to in-house, high level marketing expertise. These range from freelancers, trainers, coaches and consultants, to businesses employing several hundred people.
Over to you!
I would like to know what you regard as a small business? Do you go by employee number, turnover / revenue or another metric? Is it possible to measure a business by the size of its thinking, or is that nuts? What do you think?
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Photo: Louise Docker
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Never actually thought about it, but it does pose an interesting question. The best answer I can give is that I would go by revenue of the business even if the business only employs a few people. I am using this reasoning of what would be a small business and what wouldn’t because the company making millions or billions with only those few people has the extra income to expand their workforce if they opted to chose to. So simply put, if a business was making 10 million a year profit with two people, I would not consider that a small business, but the company with 10 people making 100k a year, I would consider small business. Might not seem rationale, but the company with more money often has more choices in regards to how that money is spent.
I have always thought of a small business ower as a one man/woman band. It definatley makes you think as some of the posts above. Good topic
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