Regardless of Political Bent, Owners Agree Small Businesses Aren’t Getting Their Due

In today’s environment of deep political divisions, Republican and Democrat small business owners agree on one important topic. Unfortunately, new polls indicate their area of cross-party concord is their shared opinion that this segment of the economy isn’t getting a fair share of the benefits of continued U.S. economic growth, and are being ignored by our political leaders.

That bipartisan agreement among entrepreneurs was the major takeaway from the latest CNBC-SurveyMonkey Small Business Confidence Index Q2 2024. Collectively,  company owners aired many of the same so-called “vibecession” sentiments of the wider U.S. population: feelings the economic situation is iffy at best, despite abundant evidence indicating growth is strong, unemployment is low, and inflation–while still higher than desired–has generally decreased. 

Entrepreneurs share that malaise for reasons particular to their own businesses, objectives, and perspectives.

For starters, nearly 64 percent of small business owners said they’ve “experienced no benefits from this year’s stock market performance,” which is often cited by politicians and commentators as Exhibit A of U.S. economic vigor. Business owners, however, appeared to contest Wall Street’s fortunes as a valid metric in the first place.

Only 17 percent believed stock market surges have a positive impact on their businesses, with 15 percent calling any such effects negative. Indeed, the primacy of financial market performance as a yardstick of economic progress was only one way in which poll participants said they felt locked on the outside of national priorities, looking in as disconnected observers.

Fully 73 percent of respondents said they had little confidence in the business objectives pursued by national leaders. That cohort considered those policies to “favor large companies over small businesses,” aimed primarily at keeping bigger, publicly traded corporations on growth trajectories that fuel Wall Street’s record bull run. Despite the wider political differences dividing respondents on other matters, 79 percent of GOP backers and 71 of Democrats shared that outlook.

That margin of difference was nearly as slim on the question of whether small business owners have any ability to influence policymaking. Just over 90 percent of Republican respondents said they had no voice in those deliberations, with 82 percent of Democrats concurring. That fed into the 86 percent of entrepreneurs admitting their fears about “small businesses being ignored or left behind by today’s business policies.”

If all that agreement seems at odds with today’s fraught political climate, company owners did manage to lock horns on at least one question. While 60 percent of Democrat bosses considered the economy “good” or “excellent,” 64 Republicans refuted that with the view it’s “poor.”

Meanwhile, a concurrent CNBC-SurveyMonkey Workforce Survey April 2024 found U.S. employees slightly more satisfied than in the previous poll, but with a lot of younger people yearning to become their own bosses as entrepreneurs.

Overall, the survey found 86 percent of workers were satisfied with their jobs; 73 percent felt they’re well-paid; 91 percent considered their work meaningful; and 73 reported morale among company peers as either excellent or good. 

The outliers? Gen Z members aged 27 and younger, nearly half of whom characterized themselves as “coasting” at work, while 42 percent said they only turned up for the paycheck. 

The upshot of that, said CNBC, was that “54 (percent) of Gen Z adults say that they think they’d be happier owning their own business than working a normal day job.”

In the spirit of helping those and other young people longing to launch their own businesses–yet being unsure whether they could make those work–CNBC asked local entrepreneurs to address Colorado’s Junior Achievement Free Enterprise Center.

The main pieces of advice those similarly precocious but financially accomplished founders drew from their experiences may prove useful to even established business owners looking to grow further.

• Embrace what makes you different, drawing strength in particular from your unappreciated traits, limitations, or background diversity that others consider handicaps.
• Value adaptability as a major asset in working around problems, and take those challenges on as opportunities to try new solutions–learning from failures along the way.
• Surround yourself with the right people: individuals who share your goals, believe in the company and its objectives, and will back you up in times of success and adversity alike.
• Rely on that carefully selected team and show members equal measures of confidence they’ll succeed, and help and direction in your expectations they give all of themselves to the collective effort.