According to a recent study…

A.D.D. moment: don’t you just love it when an article starts out that way? When I see that, especially as the very first sentence in an article it’s hard not to roll my eyes. I like data. Some of my favorite books are written by data guys like Malcolm Gladwell, Marcus Buckingham, and Jim Collins. These guys based much of their findings on large data sets. My friend Martin likes to quote that, a single data point is of no value at all. So when an article (or even worse, a White Paper) starts off with “According to a recent study…” anywhere in the first couple of paragraphs, well, I just cross my arms, tilt my head, and say “mmmmhmmmm” like a sassy black woman from a booty-shaking comedy.

So, anyway, according to a recent study… ehem… small business growth increases during a recession. I won’t bore you with my conspiracy theories about “the media” chomping at the bit for the last SEVEN YEARS to say we’re in a recession… nor about their GLEE over the declaration of the current recession. Sorry, I bored you anyway…  But the data seems to correlate the conclusions of the study. It seems to say that during a recession big corporate jobs are lost and, rather than just dying or leaving the country, Americans tend to start small businesses.

And when businesses get started they need to really focus on marketing and sales to grow.

It’s easy to pontificate about a trend here. An increase in new small businesses plus the growth of the Internet equals more online marketing and sales software.

I really like this prediction because of Flowerpot, the marketing and sales software we’ve been designing. My business plan includes the description of Flowerpot as the “Quickbooks of sales and marketing.” It really is different from anything out there.

Hat tip to sking at Small Business Labs.