Pepperdine University Center for Applied Research – Private Capital Markets Project just released their
2012 Economic Forecast: Insights from Small and Mid-Sized Business Owners on January 18th, 2012. In January, 2012, they surveyed chief executives from 3,118 U.S. small and medium sized business owners with a median age of 55 to 64.
Below are some of the highlights of this most current research, followed by some demographics of the participating executives. These current statistics are valuable concrete measures of the mood and response in the market among CEOs.
1. Hiring is being postponed.
47% of businessess <$5M will be hiring 0 employees this year and 34% will only hire 1-2 people
27% of businesses $5-100M will be hiring 0 employees this year and only 21% will hire 12 people
2.To increase business value in 2012, 46% of these businesses will increase revenue through sales of existing products/services and 33% will increase revenues through sales of new products/services.
3. On average 26% of surveyed companies said a lack of home equity as a potential source of business capital is restricting growth opportunities and 17% said it was restricting their ability to hire new employees – all from the lack of home equity even for firms $5-100M!
4. On average 49% of surveyed companies said a lack of bank loans as a potential source of business capital is restricting growth opportunities and 37% said it was restricting their ability to hire new employees – all from the lack of bank loans.
5. These businesses were very clear in their support for various economic policies for 2012.
79% and 64% respectively were in favor of a balanced U.S. government budget and further extensions of the reduced payroll tax periods. At the same time, the majority of these businesses (65%, 66% and 77% respectively) were opposed to increasing the U.S. government debt limit, U.S. government policies/actions to financially support struggling European economies, and policies/actions to weaken the U.S. dollar.
6. 96% were in favor of decreasing federal expenditures while only 19% were in favor of increasing revenues from business income taxation.
Check out the graph on page 23 of the report here for the graphical impact of which presidential candidate if elected would likely have on your business. The results by candidate as well as by revenue size are instructive. [I don't have permission to reproduce it here].
Here are a few of the demographic features of the business sampling used for this data:
Company Revenue Distribution:
16% $1 – 100K
23% $100- 500K
14% $500K- 1M
25% $1M- 10M
7% $10M- 50M
6% $50M- >500M
Number of Employees
51% have 0-5 employees
28% have 6-20 employees
15% have 21-50 employees
11% have over 100 employees
Kerri Salls
Exit Strategist
P.S. If you have any questions relating to exiting your business, please email me. I’d be happy to assist in whatever way I can.
