The results from the first quarter of 2009 are now in and it appears that the main problem affecting UK small businesses is the fall in consumer demand, experienced by 64% of SMEs. Surprisingly, only 25% of them felt that their access to finance has been affected by the downturn. 

The other main effects of the poor economy were issues concerning suppliers and trade credit (14%) or having to shed key staff and deal with morale problems (13%). 

Falling demand has hurt businesses the most in the West Midlands (75% affected) and the least in Scotland (only 56%). Welsh businesses were also hit badly (65%), along with those in East Anglia (71%) and the North (62%). 

The main side-effect of the fall in demand has been reduced cashflow and delayed payment of bills, resulting in small firms usually being owed more by their customers than they owe suppliers. 

According to Professor Robin Jarvis, head of ACCA’s small business unit, this recession is quite different to 1991 in that “business are now much more concerned about falling demand and are relatively less concerned about the availability of finance.” He suggests the Government should therefore be focusing on stimulating consumer demand to hasten our economic recovery. 

Tip of the hat to the ACCA for providing this information 

Here are some of my favourite small business blog posts from around the world by some of my favourite small business blogs:

• Web Worker Daily writes about finding work on the web, could not be more topical if you tried in these times. Samuel talks about ’sideline jobs’, or what I call a business ‘on the side’.
• Shama has one of my favorites this week with ‘101 Ways to Rock and Be Rocked by Twitter’ – I was rocked – great post if you ever wanted to know what twitter is all about.
• Small Biz Labs has a wonderful collection of links around coworking, ever wanted to work in an office and take your kids to work every day, then have a look.
• Tom Lindstrom has also some useful information about twitter, a little video on how to set up a professional profile, I did have a look.
• Teresa Morrow – eMoms at Home – gives you five ways to cannibalize your business. Go and read and then chew it up.
• Worst Economic Crisis Since The Great Depression: Who’s To Blame? This is a long rant, but it is a good rant.
• Can I Start A Business? – John has taken to answering questions of his readers, the way to go.
• Jason talks about who small business owners trust more their accountants or their bank managers? Go on – have a guess.
• Kathie is wondering if she is becoming a hermit? Last time we meet, she wasn’t!

That is it for this week, next week I’ll let you know again what I found and liked in the small business blogging scene. To all my American readers ‘Happy Thanksgiving’. — ST.

I read some good articles last week and want to share them with you here:

• Web Worker Daily has a business example of a 100% Online We Consulting Firm, as I hope a growing trend.
• Jason Holden follows one of my favorite themes in Online accountant and online accounting?.
• Shama Hyder, apart from getting me onto twitter, has a great interview with TheFreeLanceNation.com.
• Wendy Piersall is telling all us bloggers how to monetize your blog, in nine different ways.
• The Digerati Life blog will let you know How To Safely Borrow For A House Purchase, as the US House votes to license mortgage brokers.
• John Jantsch has two pieces I liked – How to SCORE some seriously good start-up help AND NYC doing small business right.

That is my little round-up for this week and your weekend. I hope you will enjoy some of these links, and undoubtedly you will find more great stuff while following these links. Let me know if you find anything I should mention here. ST.

After a long night at the AccountancyAge Awards 2007, I’m very happy to announce that Goodman-Jones have won the prestigious award for “Best use of Internet: Practice” again, for the second year running. It has to be said it was a close race with the other two contenders for the title. It was nice to meet Phil Woodgate and some of his colleagues again.

My conversations of the evening have been focused around my changing attitude toward the accounting profession, and I was quite surprised to find that most of my conversation partners agreed with me on my assessment of the “backward looking profession” and it’s damaging effect on very small business, which has been a constant source of concern for me in the past few years. Hence WinWeb’s complete change in it’s way to market. I had no idea that my views on this are so well known in the profession – with obvious little effect, of cause – which kind of proves my point.

The attraction of the evening was Boris Johnson – hopefully our new mayor for London, I certainly wish him every success – with his as usual very “eloquently” put points about the state London is in. Having had the pleasure to hear him speak, make his points, there is no question in my mind, that he is the right man for the job. Some of you might say, “that is not difficult, after what Ken Livingstone has done in the past years”! While that is true, I feel we would get back to some sensible ideas, like our London buses, what was wrong with the route master busses(?), or why is Ken spending Londoners money on a space program?

Although, Boris was not that dismissive about the space program, since it included the possibility of shooting Ken into space, clearly one of the more “realistic” policies Boris would follow, if voted into office! IMO, his manifesto is getting better and better. That is of cause if we are talking about a one-way ticket to ride, Boris?

I for one, would prefer to live in London, where we can get up in the morning with a smile on our faces, about a serious point made the “Boris Way”, rather than being embarrassed and upset by an intolerable and arrogant Mayor, who clearly does not understand even the basics of the problems we face in the future, a trait he shares with many in his party, especially when it comes to micro- and small business issues.

All in, I enjoyed last evening immensely and thank AccountancyAge for putting up a great show. ST.

Jennifer Lee emailed me yesterday, to tell me about this event:

“Hello Stefan, I’m writing to let you know that Senator John Kerry, Chair of the U.S. Senate on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, will be live online tomorrow, Nov. 14 at 4 p.m. ET, to take questions from small business owners on Slate.com. He’ll answer questions on health care, tax incentives, entrepreneurial development and other small business issues. …..”

Since I’m otherwise engaged today, I will miss this event too – but the good news is you don’t have to.

You can submit questions to him, so get involved. ST.

WinWeb is to sponsor the Accountancy Age Award 2007 in the category: Best use of Internet in Practice for the second year. The event is held as last year at the Battersea Park Arena, Battersea, London, in the evening on November 14th, 2007.

This award is the most appropriate award for us to sponsor, since – incredibly – we are still the only online accounting software provider, with an ICAEW approval. It is two years since we first received our accreditation. It is surprising to me that not more accreditations have been made so far, the world is moving online. In accountancy the world is probably turning a bit slower, that makes these awards even more important.

Last year our friends at Goodman-Jones won the price, it will be interesting to see who will win it this year, especially as Goodman Jones is shortlisted again:

• BRAL
• Goodman Jones
• Morris Owen

I wish all the shortlisted candidates good luck and thank those who are not on the list for their great attempts to win the award and hope they will try again next year.

Yours truly will be presenting the award and I look forward to meeting one or two of you at the event. Should be a great night. ST.

Last week I received an invitation from ZANA Network to be their guest at the first ever small and medium business Global Export Summit in Washington, D.C.

For me the main topic is:

“….. US small and medium business under representation in the global marketplace; risk-mitigating resources for small and medium businesses and the economic impact and even reduction of the U.S. trade deficit derived from global participation by small and medium businesses. “

So, should you be in D.C. on the November 14th, the summit will take place from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. in the Reagan Building, you can register for free. Members of the U.S. government and different departments are there and you can make your voice heard. Which would be a good thing, since most politicians need help with understanding some of the basics about small business. There is also a great line-up of companies wanting to help those, who are interested in exporting.

We used to have separate products called ExportOffice and GlobalOffice, which were especially designed for the very small exporting business, but we learned in time, that our OnlineOffice provided all the needed components as well, so we simply-fied our product offering in this regard.

I will not be there since WinWeb sponsors an award at the UK Accountancy Age Awards, Best use of Internet in Practice, I’m committed to present the award in person. But, I’m sending an colleague of mine, Mr. Göran Thorell – should you be around, go and find him and talk to him about your exporting ideas, I’ll be blogging about the Global Export Summit again, after the event.

I would have loved to go, since I firmly believe the small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtusal assistants is highly under represented in the global market place.

Opportunities are everywhere, you just need to see them. ST.

Disclosure: All travel arrangements for this event for my colleague are being paid for by ZANA Network LLC.

Jason had an article about the fact that over 60% of business start-up activity comes from people aged over 50:

“….. Figures released indicate that the average ’silver startup’ will work alone and from home with an average annual turnover of £67,500, and with one in ten turning over more than £100,000. Not bad for a home based business, but imagine what you could do with business support? …”

He calls them “silver startups”, I had never heard this term before, the term I know is “Boomer Startups” – whatever it is, it is good news. We all get older and have a much healthier life in older age, so why not do something you enjoy and make a business out of it.

I agree with him, with added business support and a small business infrastructure, we could help many more entrepreneurs to be more successful in business long term.

As I said so often before, this startup boom is just getting started, we will see much more in years to come, across all age groups. ST.

U.S. Small Business Administration, the Office of Advocacy has just released the latest figures for 2004 on small business activities, and the central statement is:

Small Business has added 1.9 Million New Jobs.

Other updated profiles show that:

• In 2006, the nation had an estimated 26.8 million small businesses, of which 6.1 milion were employer firms.
• Small businesses employed 50.9 percent of the nation’s non-farm private workforce in 2004.
• America had 1.1 million Asian-owned firms, 1.2 million Black-owned firms, 1.6 million Hispanic-owned firms, 201,400 Native American-owned firms, and 28,900 Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander-owned firms in 2002 (latest data). (Note: cannot be totaled, as business owners chose multiple ethnic and racial categories).
• Women-owned firms totaled 6.5 million and generated $940.8 billion in revenues in 2002 (latest data).

“Small businesses are America’s job-creating dynamo,” said Dr. Chad Moutray, Chief Economist for the Office of Advocacy. “Clearly policy-makers need to consider their impact on small business when they are making policy decisions.”

I say – here are some civil-servance in-tune with their small business feelings. I hope our PM Gordon Brown is taking notes. ST.

John Crickett compiled a “The Top 100 Business Blogs” list and I’m delighted to see, I made it to position 70 – he says:

“…… I’ve gathered together a list of what I believe are the Top 100 Business Blogs on the Internet. ….. The blogs are listed in order of their Technorati rankings (T), their Alexa rankings (A) are show as well. “

John defines a Business blog as “one that provides business ideas, advice, commentary or feedback on business in general.” He’s excluded sites that he feels are primarily a news based site or that is merely posting content from other sources and sites that are too new or have not been updated for over a month.

I would like to thank John for his work, here is his list – the rankings are correct at the time of posting:

1. Copy Blogger T: 36 A: 7,825
2. Seth Godin T: 47 A: 10,314
3. MicroPersuasion T: 169 A: 33,643
4. How To Change The World T: 180 A: 14,709
5. Freelance Switch T: 312 A: 10,638
6. A VC T: 1,226 A: 27,737
7. Rough Type T: 1,253 A: 69,429
8. Successful Blog T: 1,432 A: 44,935
9. Small Business Canada T: 1,517 A: N/A
10. David Allen, Getting Things Done T: 1,549 A: 53,592
11. Springwise T: 1,913 A: 23,858
12. Small Biz Trends T: 2,155 A: 63,364
13. Fast Company T: 2,310 A: 12,141
14. Instigator Blog T: 2,477 A: 58,816
15. Occam’s Razor T: 2,548 A: 45,541
16. Smart Wealthy Rich T: 2,879 A: 79,415
17. eMoms At Home T: 3,443 A: 27,125
18. Escape from Cubicle Nation T: 3,467 A: 202,751
19. The Marketing Technology Blog T: 3,496 A: 47,038
20. Business Pundit T: 3,724 A: 114,669
21. The Engaging Brand T: 4,404 A: 433,644
22. Influential Marketing Blog T: 4,779 A: 98,886
23. Drew McLellan – The Marketing Minute T: 4,820 A: 129,669
24. The Digerati Life T: 4,873 A: 53,353
25. Success From The Nest T: 4,908 A: 95,008
26. Business Blog Consulting T: 5,186 A:237,901
27. Church Of The Customer T: 5,576 A: 250,201
28. Todd And T: 5,643 A: 161, 019
29. Net Business Blog T: 5,936 A: 36,107
30. Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing T: 6,583 A: 92,784
31. Bootstrapper T: 7,497 A: 50,304
32. About.com Entrepreneurs T: 7,797 A: N/A
33. Blogtrepreneur T: 7,897 A: 53,011
34. Branding & Marketing T: 8,200 A: 710,326
35. Duct Tape Marketing T: 8,985 A: 31,714
36. Simplenomics T: 10,252 A:288,753
37. Freelance Folder T: 10,543 A: 63,590
38. Business Opportunities Weblog T: 11,018 A: 16,213
39. HELLO, My Name Is Blog T: 11,395 A: 422,218
40. Self Made Minds T: 11,704 A: 39,719
41. Sox First T: 12,894 A: 994,161
42. Young Go Getter T: 14,239 A: 45,373
43. Trust Matters T: 15,462 A: 58,403
44. Small Biz Survival T: A: 18,074 A: 875,069
45. The Personal MBA T: 19,207 A: 142,649
46. The Entrepreneurial Mind T: 21,958, A: 155,166
47. Blog Business World T: 23,025 A: 252,405
48. Working At Home On The Internet T: 23,247 A: 423,900
49. Biz Informer T: 24,631 A: 904,745
50. EmpowerWomenNow T: 25,837 A: 117,085
51. Biz Plan Hacks T: 27,048 A: 1,335,732
52. CreateBusinessGrowth T: 32,949 A:197,290
53. Business Opportunities and Ideas T: 33,205 A: 282,805
54. The KISS Business T: 35,496 A: 621,082
55. Startup Spark T: 35,747 A: 386,949
56. Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing Blog T: 41,092 A: 467,418
57. MindPetals T: 41,714 A: 128,487
58. Marketing Deviant T: 43,764 A: 281,072
59. Go Big Network T: 44,842 A: 25,303
60. Cool Business Ideas T: 49,679 A: 187,126
61. Neville’s Financial Blog T: 52,048 A: 140,296
62. Atlantic Canada’s Small Business Blog :T 52,589 A: 795,253
63. College Startup T: 53,143 A: 184,398
64. Reflections Of A Biz Driven Life T: 79,365 A: 361,398
65. Branding Blog T: 93,462 A: 1,110,518
66. Carnival Of The Capitalists T: 93,462 A: 1,897,375
67. Young Entrepreneur T: 104,933 A: 26,491
68. Marketing Genius T: 132,066 A: 2,222,119
69. Better For Business T: 137,774 A: 590,797
70. The Small Business Blog T: 140,824 A: 577,490
71. Focused Mind T: 162,356 A: 520,971
72. Small Business Tips T: 166,367 A: 74,005
73. Lifes Perspective T: 194,358 A: 179,801
74. Business Opportunities Blog T: 199,700 A: 832,678
75. The Savvy Entrepreneur T: 224,227 A: 391,147
76. Egg Marketing Blog T: 231,062 A: 740,867
77. The Franchise King Blog T: 273,240 A: 520,732
78. Small Business Entrepreneur T: 317,977 A: 883,094
79. The Great Startup Game T: 331,293 A: 421,492
80. Work At Home Start Up Guide T: 345,597 A: 1,190,178
81. Dorm Room Biz T: 360,865 A: 957,072
82. Startup Blog T: 377,609 A: 2,552,189
83. Open Inovators T: 395,824 A: 1,230,257
84. Get Entrepreneurial T: 437,475 A: 446,085
85. Bplans Blog T: 437,475 A: 1,373,525
86. Stuff4Restaurants T: 461,534 A: 298,982
87. Canadian Entrepreneur T: 484,461 A: 237,901
88. Strategize T: 487,964 A: 2,856,731
89. The Marketing Spot T: 587,893 A: 2,550,840
90. The Ravings Of A Mad Entrepreneurial Scientist T: 587,893 A: 566,836
91. More Than We Know T: 871,446 A: 2,964,420
92. Solo Entrepreneur T: 1,212,405 A: 471,491
93. Stuff4Business T: 1,391,575 A: 298,982
94. Consultant Journal T: 4,262,598 A: 667,342
95. Startup Addict Musings T: 4,446,976 A: 1,03390,690
96. Edith Yeung T: 8,911,336 A: 125,290
97. Boostrap Me T: 8,911,336 A: 550,348
98. The Selling Sherpa T: Not Listed A: 772,292
99. BizzBangBuzz T: Not Listed A: 1,484,797
100. The Freestyle Entrepreneur T: Not Listed A: 1,519,518

This little list should keep you busy over the weekend, go and have a look. I’ll be checking out the competition. ST.