By Bob Meyer

We often take for granted what a “gift” we have here in the USA, where we are so fortunate to be in the midst of such riches. Considering that…

“Small business is the third-largest economy in the world, behind the U.S. and Japan.”
—Steve Alesio, President,
American Express Small Business Services

This sector has never grown as fast and furiously as it has in recent years. The number of companies with fewer than 100 employees has increased nearly 50% since the early 1990s, and small business has created most of the new jobs in the country.

Now some 25 million small enterprises account for about half the nation’s employment and more than a third of the gross domestic product. (All the goods and services produced.)

To reach this huge number of new companies marketers will have to reinvent the way they do business. Salespeople can’t knock on 25 million doors the way they called on the top few hundred big corporations.

Cultivating relationships with entrepreneurs will be done through networks. And in the coming year we can expect more focus toward the growing, established, trade exchange networks.

The amount and increasingly top-quality goods and services available through the trade exchanges world-wide will continue to expand.

Barter companies and trade exchange networks, in the USA and globally are found in the right-hand column under “Top Resources.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 1st, 2007 at 10:18 am and is filed under Entrepreneurs & Small Business, Marketing, Purchasing & Financing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.