And I do mean small: We work from home, extra bedrooms furnished with desks and all manner of digital
paraphernalia, with several 1099 Associates working from their own homes. I manage customer service, marketing, and IT, and Fred handles any spreadsheet containing numbers, signing up clients, and the critical act of carefully and politely nudging seller and buyer toward consensus. We’ve owned other companies, one that had a payroll of 12 if you include my mother who came in once a week to detail client activity on a 5×7 card using a pencil. It was a long time ago.
By definition, some small businesses are actually big, at least by my standards. The U.S. Small Business Administration defines sizes by NAICS code, so it varies by industry. They also consider revenue and employment figures, and using those, a small business might range from $1,000,000 in revenue to over $40,000,000, and employ 100 to over 1500. I don’t know where that puts The Quincy Group, but I think I just heard the ripping sound of our logo and website being sucked into a space/time continuum.
The most recent statistics show that there are 33.2 million small businesses in this country that account for 99.9 percent of all businesses that exist. That made me go hmmm, but that’s what Google tells me. I’m sure there are plenty of people employed by small businesses who don’t even know they’re working for one, and could, this very minute, be thinking, “I’m gonna get the hell out of this big company and work for a small business.”
I’ll leave the parsing of all this arcane info to someone else, but I’ll say this: If you’re a business owner, hurrah to you, not just this week but 52 weeks a year! And if you’re considering buying your own business, huzzah! And if you’d like to talk to someone who has deep experience in all facets of ownership, managing, and selling, Fred will spend some time with you. That’s right. I’m offering him to you free, like cheese samples at Costco, because I am also Sales Manager.
Cheers!
Pat Detmer
May 3, 2023