New York small business owners are more optimistic than the rest of the nation, says a Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute study.
One finding reported that 56 percent of small business owners in New York predicted their overall revenues in 2010 will increase, as opposed to the 24 percent that predicted an increase in 2009.
The survey also revealed that 54 percent of New Yorkers confidently say they plan to expand their business over the next 12 to 24 months, as opposed to the 45 percent nationally.?“The Guardian Life Index: What Matters Most to America”™s Small Business Owners,” surveyed 1,200 small business owners with two to 99 employees across 12 key industry sectors.
Health care and the environment led the list for sector expansion.
Mark Wolf, director of the Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute, said New Yorkers”™ confidence in business forecasting could stem from a particular geographic trait.
“We”™ve done other research proprietary to Guardian Life, and we”™ve found that some business owners (in New York) have owned businesses prior to the one they own now and it could be a spirit of inspiration to want to set out and try something new,” Wolf said. “New York is a magnet for people coming from other nations and states. There is that fast-paced activity.”
The top issues of concern for small business owners in 2009 were “my customers, my employees and myself.”
More small business owners are now “looking to expand knowledge and wisdom and not just what generates numbers up and down,” Wolf said.
There still remains one constant.
“Small businesses tend to be ledger-minded and they don”™t spend what they don”™t have,” Wolf said. “Larger companies can go to the capital markets and raise money. It”™s all about perpetuating the forward momentum. Small businesses are more about the household budget with what”™s on paper.”
