Interesting how you can find wholly contradictory predictions for what lies ahead for small businesses in this recession. It seems like the consensus view lies in this paradox: if your business isn’t torpedoed entirely by the weak economy, you might just find this environment the perfect opportunity to grow – even eat some other guys’ lunches.

As a “small business” owner myself, naturally we’re eager to leapfrog over the torpedo-ing and move straight to the lunch-eating. (We’re getting ready to release some very attractive numbers on our business for our third-anniversary, so watch this space for more on that soon.)

Start with the bad news: Reuters reported a survey last week in which small business owners’ optimism took a nosedive. According to the National Federation of Independent Business, the index of small business optimism for October fell 5.4 points to 87.5, the third lowest reading since the survey’s inception. Compare that, however, to this recent New York Times article by Paul B. Brown: “Not a Bad Time for Small Businesses to Raise Prices”. Huh: are worlds colliding here, or what?

Everybody seems to agree that non-essential cost-saving is key to ride out these tough market conditions. Inc. offers “5 Ways to Save Money in a Bad Economy” for entrepreneurs, while Entrepreneur attempts to top that with 50 ways and InsideCRM’s 78 ways.

Smart Money ran a story recently that’s near and dear to our own philosophy here at TK. Entitled “A Marketing Tool That’s Obvious, Overlooked and Cheap” and reported by Patti Simone, the article points out that excellent customer service can work wonders for client attraction, retention and satisfaction – whether your marketing budget is flush or flushed. With our customer-service kudos in broker surveys from Kiplinger’s, Barron’s and – yes – Smart Money, we couldn’t agree more.

I know a lot of you folks are self-employed or small business owners; what are you reading that’s particularly persuasive on this subject? And does this economic environment pose more of a threat, an opportunity or potentially both for your business?

[image: IMG_3017 by ewedistrict on flickr]
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During the tough times clients tend to seek us out more than in good times. So, in our case the current economic environment presents an opportunity for our company. By the way I would like to add some kudos for you and your staff at Trade King. I believe you provide the best service to your customers than any Broker I have worked with in my lifetime.

Lamp, that's quite a compliment. I'm so glad to hear we're making the grade (and then some) for you, and I'll make sure to share your compliments with the folks who man our phones, chat and email. Thanks for sharing!