The Death of Small Business?

This year has been nothing short of a vomit-inducing frenetic subcompact car ride for the consumer products industry. Twists, turns, potholes, collapsed bridges and government speed bumps have all posed an enormous challenge while trying to navigate the roads of small business in 2009. And as we head into summer's end of the year buyers forgot, it's hard to not ask if the tiny car has finally breached the guard rail and tumbled to its firey demise.

Or perhaps the wayward vehicle was overmatched by a larger, more unstoppable force than its pitiful meandering attempt at reaching recovery. That force inevitably being unemployment, looming inflation, and a host of other economic indicators that point more towards a wasteland than a destination.

Whatever the methods historians deem culpable for its demise, small business seems to have written it's own epithet in the shadows of the titans who have fallen before them. It is more of a summary of what could have been than a grand farewell, more of a footnote in the obituary section of the of the community newsletter. Small businesses have closed their doors, shut off their lights and left countless vacancies in malls, office parks and warehouses across the fruited plain with little or no recognition of the dashed aspirations, broken dreams and time lost on the individuals and families who had one glimmering yet fleeting opportunity.

While the causes of this tragedy are many, as with any mourning process, curious and angered parties will beg the question “where did this magnificent death spiral begin?” Was it the slumbering pilot named deregulation who nodded off at the wheel? Was it the Washington politicians with their interminable dangerous construction zones of waste and ignorance? Was it the greedy corporate executives and loan predators slamming their fat, money-filled armored vehicles into the unsuspecting small business Prius? What made small business die and why did it have to?

Our company has been slow to embrace any one particular event, group of individuals or course of action that bares the sole brunt or responsibility for the current economic condition and the toll it has taken on many small businesses and not just among our own clients. This is not some feeble cliché or attempt to placate all interested readers. We look at the current economic situation and what it means for our industry, but Beacon Consultants does not mourn, at least not yet.

Why? The short and perhaps surprising answer is that because small business is not dead. The markets and big box competition may have forced the tiny, battered vehicle over the steep ravine and into a ball of flame and smoke, but miraculously the driver, passengers and family dog, dazed and bruised have stumbled from the twisted, mangled, burning wreckage to a safe distance.

While this fantastic scene may be made for Hollywood, it is a vivid image of what we believe has and will continue to happen with our industry. Because small business is not about what kind of vehicle you drive, but who is driving it. The entrepreneurial spirit can never be broken. The vehicle make and model and the roads it travels on along with the weather may change. Yes, even the biggest and strongest of motorized transportation can be destroyed. But the one who charts the course, the people who steer the vessel and are responsible for making its destination, they too have a destiny.

Beacon Consultants does not believe in business, we do not believe in markets or government or money. We believe in people charting their course, making their own dreams and watching them come true. While markets, governments, businesses and money will wax and wane with the passage of time, we cannot accept the death of small business as inevitable.

We only accept the changes that death and life bring.

Consumer Rebound?

Stocks are up over 4% for the year.

And that's all. Big deal, right? In this age of lightning fast digital communications we are often very quick to embrace the figure du jour and assign a tremendous amount of value to it. Unemployment is at recent record highs, consumer confidence is way down, there is still work left to do before a consumer products market rebound takes shape.

So what indicator do you feel is the best for sensing when this rebound will take place? And when will this happen? How do you see it playing out? Beacon Consultants, while having several ideas, takes no real official stance as to how and when this will all play out, but is very willing and ready to hear all of your comments. So have at it. We all need to stick together.