When Sbane Talks, People Listen

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SBANE critics, like John Motley, a lobbyist for the rival National Federation of Independent Business, cite such anomalies and accuse the organization of elitism. The NFIB, which supported Reagan in the tax fight, claims to rely solely on membership polls to set its association policy. That, says Motley, is much more democratic "than 20 guys sitting around a suburban Boston country club saying they represent the business community of New England."

SBANE committees don't meet at country clubs, but Motley has a point. Regional associations like SBANE have tiny staffs. Members do most of the work, and the positions that emerge from that work will reflect the views of the activist minority.There's some danger that in an organization like SBANE the committee members and board members "may get too distant from the really little guy," says Leo McDonough, executive vice-president of the Smaller Manufacturers Council of Pittsburgh.

The influence SBANE exerts on events in Washington is out of proportion to the size of its membership, especially when you consider that until last year SBANE didn't even have a Washington office. Even now it shares just one Washington lobbyist with more than a dozen other regional associations.

Part of the reason SBANE has this clout is simple geography. Because its members are spread over six states -- instead of just one state or even just one city -- it has a claim on 12 senators and 25 representatives.

More important, however, is how SBANE uses its access to this substantial congressional delegation. Most associations try to influence members of Congress while they're in Washington. SBANE prefers to work at home.

It has successfully encouraged many New England legislators to create small business task forces, liberally laced with SBANE members. The periodic task force meetings with the legislators take place in New England, away from the political pressure and posturing that permeate Washington. "It's the difference," says one SBANE member, "between holding a business meeting on-site and off-site." New England legislators also routinely attend SBANE chapter meetings, and some meet informally with SBANE directors.

These sessions with constitutents who happen to be small businesspeople give legislators ideas and information they wouldn't be likely to get in Washington from a battery of paid lobbyists. The informality of the relationship makes for open doors. "SBANE's a household name around this office," says an aide to Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.). Rep. Nick Mavroules (D-Mass.), who sits on the Armed Services Subcommittee on Procurement, checks out any procurement-related legislation with SBANE before acting on it, according to a senior aide. A member of Sen. Warren Rudman's (R-N.H.) small business task force says Rudman routinely sends the group ideas and proposals for their comment.

Bear in mind that this is not a one-way exchange. Small business constituents who sit on a lawmaker's task force or meet with him frequently are likely to get friendly with him, and the more friendly they become the more likely they are to contribute, ask their friends and employees to contribute, or even host a fund-raiser at the appropriate time. As an organization SBANE has no political action committee and endorses no candidates, but its activist members do get involved in campaigns.

One other reason SBANE stands out in the crowd of regional business associations is that it has been swimming in Washington's political waters longer than any of the others. And, in the judgment of most of the other groups, SBANE knows best what it's doing. Markus Trice, staff coordinator for the Cincinnati Institute for Small Enterprise, calls SBANE the "godfather group." Indeed, SBANE is parent to an emerging coalition of regional associations, which only last year took a name: Small Business United.

For more than 35 years, SBANE has been holding annual presentations of small business issues in Washington for members of Congress. One by one over the past 10 years, other regional groups teamed up with SBANE, and the formal creation of SBU last year was the next logical step.

Lewis Shattuck, SBANE's executive vice-president, was SBU's first chairman. "Everybody's comfortable with SBANE's position as first among equals in the coalition," says John Polk, executive director of Cleveland's Council of Smaller Enterprises.

Beyond its affiliation with SBU, SBANE is seeking internal growth as well. A projected membership of 2,000 by the end of this year and 5,000 by 1985 will "increase our credibility and help us play the numbers game with the national associations in Washington," says Peter Webster, last year's president. To meet its growth goals, SBANE recently hired its first full-time marketing director and four commissioned sales-people.

Clearly, SBANE will never be able to match numbers with the NFIB (over 500,000 members) or with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (nearly 220,000). Besides, history suggests that bigness is not always healthy for small business organizations.

"One of the strengths SBANE has," says Jack Rennie, a director, "is that when I go to Washington to testify, the congressmen like the fact that I'm clearly a small businessman from New England, giving my honest, on-the-scene opinion." SBANE doesn't want to grow so big or expand so far that it loses that quality, which is its real strength.

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