Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the PKF Texas – Entrepreneur’s Playbook® page of the PKF Texas website.
As a student of history, I have learned that many things in our lives move in cycles. Business is no different. So my question to you today is: What is the best time to gain the maximum financial opportunity for your business? And when is the point of the greatest financial risk to your business?
Do you know the answer?
Well if you said that today’s business cycle (at the low point of the valley) is the time for the maximum financial opportunity you would be correct. And at the highest point (the top of the bell curve) of the business cycle is the point of maximum financial risk.
So how did I arrive at that conclusion? Well let’s check some statistics from the Kauffman Foundation
• “In the past 30 years, literally all net job creation in this country has taken place in firms less than five years old…..”
• “…600,000 new firms are formed every year in America…about one per minute”
• “Half of today’s Fortune 500 companies were founded in a recession or bear market…entrepreneurs are not easily discouraged.”
• “Despite recession, US entrepreneurial activity rises in 2009 to highest rate in 14 years…558,000 businesses were created each month…exceeding start ups in the peak 1999-2000 technology boom”
If you ever had any doubt about what economic activity generates the American economy, you should no longer have any doubt. It’s the small business enterprise with owner/entrepreneurs that make our country go. And as a student of history, that’s the way it’s been since the 18th century. Entrepreneurs in the colonies made this country the success it is today. The American experiment as it is sometimes referred to is about entrepreneurs and their commitment to our ideals and freedoms we have today.
I want to wish everyone a wonderful 4th of July holiday and celebrate the success of American entrepreneurs.