Small Business Trends 2024: What Are Trends In Small Businesses? 📈

Business Diversification

In our poll this year, female small business owners experienced a blow, which is consistent with national trends.

This year, females accounted for only 22.35 percent of the questioned business owners, while males made up the vast majority (77.47 percent ). Only about 1% of respondents chose an identity other than female or male.

The majority of survey participants were described as Caucasian or White (84.75 percent ). At around 4% apiece, individuals who identified as “Black or African American,” “Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish Origin,” and “Asian or Asian-American” came in second and third, respectively.

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Indigenous Americans accounted for 1.21 percent of the company owners polled. Respondents from the Middle East or North Africa made up 1.04 percent of the total, while Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders comprised less than 1%.

While prior year’s polls showed an increase in the variety of small biz owners, there is no evidence of that pattern this year. We can’t say if this is due to the pandemic’s effects or a difference in this year’s sample techniques.

My mission is to improve the number of individuals who prosper in small companies, particularly entrepreneurs of color, other disadvantaged groups, and women in business.

I genuinely hope that the diversity of these numbers will continue to grow in the coming years.

Affiliation With a Political Party

Independent or unaffiliated voters turned out in droves in this election. 1/3 of voters (31.87%) said they didn’t “conform to or feel recognized by any political party.” Republicanism was identified by around 41% of those polled.

Democratic identification was given by 22% of those polled. Only about 6% of those polled said they supported a different political party.

In 2024, How Will Small Businesses Look?

Running a small business can be incredibly challenging. In fact, research shows that only about 50% of small businesses survive their first five years, and only about one-third of them make it to the 10-year mark.

The survey supports these findings, as over 51% of respondents reported having businesses that were 0-5 years old, while 22.68% reported having businesses that were 6-10 years old.

Around 11% of business owners said their companies were 11-15 years old, while fewer than 8% said their companies were 16 years or older.

Finally, about 7% of businesses surveyed had not yet started but could not be classified as open.

Independence

Independent, non-franchise enterprises made up a narrow majority of businesses (58.98 percent).

In particular, 31.76 percent of respondents said they launched their firms by buying an existing turnkey facility. This was just a smidgeon more than entrepreneurs who created their own business from the ground up (27.22 percent ).

Franchisees made up 41.02 percent of those who responded to the study, and they largely preferred opening a new franchise site (31.00 percent) to buying an established franchise location (10.02 percent ).

Industry

Retail (shopfront, eCommerce, or some other kind of) was the most popular industry category this year, accounting for 15.05 percent of the total. Food & Restaurants came in second (13.71 percent), followed by business services (10.10 percent ).

Beauty, Health & Fitness services (9.71 percent) & Residential and Business Services (9.33 percent) rounded out the top five industries this year.

The poll revealed that less than 6 percent of the 14 categories had a percentage of business owners profitable.

Given the difficulties of the last several years, it’s no wonder that 35 percent of business owners say their company is not profitable. But that’s not an issue as well. Over half of the enterprises examined are five years old or younger.

Given the conventional knowledge that it takes 2 – 3 years for a business to become successful, it’s understandable that many of them have yet to do so.

The act must go on, and small business owners are no exception. While few people want to establish another location or start a new service (12.10 percent), even fewer want to sell their company (10.02 percent ).

A large percentage of business owners (51.80%) are focused on expanding their current location, while the remaining 26% are concerned with maintaining the current state of their business.

Increasing personnel (51.04 percent), expanding or upgrading their firm (41.02 percent), and investing in online marketing were the top three goals for business owners in 2022. (39.70 percent ).

Given the current high cost of building, the second statement, expanding or upgrading the firm, is especially shocking. It’s likely that entrepreneurs are rushing to complete expansions in order to seal in reduced business lending interest rates.

At the onset, potential business owners will have an advantage if they focus on these three things: hiring trustworthy employees, investing in online marketing, and providing a competitive customer experience.

Hiring In The Midst of The Great Resignation

Over 50% of respondents named staff recruitment and retention as being 1 of their top 3 issues, and when asked how tough it was, 70.73 percent of those who sought to hire said it was somewhat or extremely challenging compared to previous years.

Changes in operations in reaction to COVID-19 (32.14 percent), shortage of capital/cash flow (31.57 percent), & administrative work (23.25 percent) were the top three issues behind retention & recruitment.

According to popular reporting, a significant minority of entrepreneurs expressed concern about rising costs of commodities and supply chain concerns.

However, when questioned about the causes of the difficulty in filling vacancies, several patterns appeared.

The top two challenges, according to business owners, are a limited number of applications (46.86 percent) & competitiveness from other firms (30.43 percent), accompanied by a lack of required job experience (27.05 percent) or technical competency (23.67 percent) in the applicants that DO apply.

Small Business Reaction

Entrepreneurs have overwhelmingly (63.17 percent) boosted wages in response to issues with retention and recruitment. Thirty-three percent are battling the Great Resignation by putting up a significant effort to keep present personnel.

Expanding enrollment advertising efforts (22.93 percent), enhancing perks (17.80 percent), and awarding recruiting bonuses were the final three techniques in the top five (16.34 percent ).

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Despite the fact that we surveyed the most challenging roles to fill, no particular position type emerged as being more or less problematic, showing that the Great Resignation had an impact across all skill sets and verticals.

What Are the Skills that Candidates Are Lacking?

Communication (54.55 percent), teamwork (46.56 percent), sales and client relationship management (38.36 percent), analytical thinking & problem-solving (36.36 percent), and flexibility were the five most important personnel skills cited by small business owners.

Regrettably, more than 1/3 of respondents said that candidates lacked analytical thinking and communication abilities on a regular basis.

Businesses also expressed concern about candidates’ lack of adaptability, time management skills, sales & customer relationship management abilities & openness to criticism.

Is Small Business Still Affected by the Pandemic?

The impact of the pandemic on Americans’ lives has made respondents wary of adopting strong opinions.

When asked how they felt about small companies in today’s political atmosphere, less than 5 percent of business owners said they felt very confident. Eleven percent expressed extreme skepticism.

The majority were “somewhat” confident (31.62 percent) or unconfident (31.62 percent) (32.30 percent ). The remainder of 20% were indifferent.

When questioned about the pandemic’s long-term implications, however, the majority of responders (46.74 percent) expressed some or high confidence.

A little more than 27% of business owners said they were somewhat unconfident, and 7.56 percent said they were very unconfident. 18% of owners said they were unconcerned.

Given that 54.60 percent of entrepreneurs believe the pandemic’s effects are still being felt, this is a significant indicator of optimism among American small businesses.

The good news continues: 83.36 percent of business owners believe their company will endure the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Future of Small Business In The United States

Small businesses employ 46.8% of the private workforce and have been the driving force behind the COVID recovery. According to our research, fewer than a quarter of small businesses have laid off or furloughed employees. America’s lifeblood is a small enterprise.

While the brunt of the COVID-19 epidemic & the Great Resignation appear to be behind us, running a small business was never simple.