Tag Archive for 'Small Business Advocate Poll'

POLL RESULTS: Veteran’s Day is this week. Please let us know where you fall on this list.

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on 9:23 am
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

The Question:

Veteran’s Day is this week. Please let us know where you fall on this list.

24% - I am a Veteran with active duty experience.
12% - I’m a Veteran with Guard/Reserve experience.
49% - I’m not a Veteran, but a close member of my family is.
15% - I’m not a Veteran and don’t have any in my close family.

Jim’s Comments:
As you can see, a little more than one-third of our respondents have military experience. This number will drop over time as the Baby Boomer generation shuffles off this mortal coil. Boomers are the last generation that came of age during the last military draft period and the Vietnam war, so their numbers are slanted toward military experience.
Around 1973 the U.S. transitioned to a volunteer military. It says a lot about the character of young Americans who have continued to enlist in service to a grateful nation, even in times of war. Clearly, when America needs defending from bad actors from within and from without, that defense is going to come from a smaller percentage of the population than ever before who are willing to stand a post as a volunteer.
Consequently, in the future, America will need to revere and support our veterans even more than in the past.
Thank you to all who have served.
Thanks for playing along. Please participate in this week’s poll below.
http://survey.constantcontact.com/poll/a07ebu97btmigy06nz6/start.html

The Big Three: Boomers, Gen X, and the Millennials

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on 11:37 am
in Communication
. 0 Comments

Never before has the workplace been so diversified in terms of generations. Indeed, there are five different generational forces at play in the workplace today. But our focus here is on what I’m calling, “The Big Three.”

Generation Y
The new kids on the block (18-32), this group has two aliases: Millennials and entitlement generation. The way Gen Y approaches job and career has created not a little workplace disruption. Not so much tech savvy as tech dependent, their heads are full of content, but often short on context.

Generation X
Tech savvy, independent, and seekers of work-life-balance, Gen X (33-47), is wedged in the middle.  The smallest of the Big Three, Gen X endeavors to defend their own unique expectations and values between their two generational borders.

Baby Boomers
The senior of the three groups, Boomers (48-69) have tenure and have earned and expect a level of respect and deference from the younger folks. But how ironic that the “Me” generation is struggling to share the workplace with the entitlement generation?

We wanted to know how this three generation dynamic was working out, so recently in our online small business poll we asked:  “Are differences in communicating and expectations between the generations a problem in the workplace today?” Here’s what we learned.

Moving down the scale from worse case to best, one-fourth of our audience said, “Yes, it’s a big problem and getting worse,” while a smaller group allowed that, “it has been a big problem, but is improving.” The largest number, a little over half, reported, “We’ve had some issues, but we’re managing it.” And 21% reported no problems now or in the past.

When we asked our small business audience a similar question four years ago, 62% said, “More improvement is needed.” With our new poll indicating that almost three-fourths are okay with the progress of generational comity, can we assume that while we may not all like where the generations are, we like the trend?

Professionally speaking, Gen Y should acknowledge that they’re standing on the shoulders of Baby Boomers and seek out the valuable context this generation can provide them. Boomers must recognize that Gen Y is coming online with a level of immediately useful skills and relevant perspectives that Boomers didn’t have when they were pups. And like a middle child, Gen X has to establish their own relevance between the first-born and the baby.

Write this on a rock … Generational harmony requires patience, tolerance, and respect going in all directions.

Small Business Advocate Poll: Small Business Prospects over the Next Four Years

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on 4:27 pm
in Government and Regulations
. 0 Comments

The Question:
Please tell us how you feel about the prospects for your small business over the next four years based on the influence of this one fact: President Obama has been reelected.

14% - This result will be good for my business.

68% - This result will not be good for my business.

16% - It’s too soon to tell.

My Comments:
For the past four years, we’ve polled small business owners about their prospects during and following the Great Recession. We’ve also asked what they think about President Obama’s policies. Based on our polling, as well as other surveys result I’ve reported on my radio program, the majority of small business owners are not pro-Obama.

Nevertheless, with Obama’s 2nd term now a reality, we wanted to know how small business owners feel about this, so in our most recent poll we asked this question: “Please tell us how you feel about the prospects for your small business over the next four years based on the influence of this one fact: President Obama has been reelected.” Here’s what we learned:

Those who said, “This result will be good for my business,” represented 14% of our sample, with 16% reasoning that, “It’s too soon to tell.” But the big group - 70% - allowed that, “This result will not be good for my business.”

As I predicted last January, I still believe small business owners will not hold up growth plans for four more years regardless of who wins the election, but our survey would indicate that they will pursue opportunities with great caution and judiciousness, which I fear will not contribute to rapid economic recovery in 2013.

###

This week on The Small Business Advocate Show, I talked more about the new issues small businesses will have to deal with in the new normal of the next four years, including many new regulations, diminished privacy and U.N. influence. Click here to download or listen.

Check out more of Jim’s great content HERE!

Take this week’s poll HERE!

Watch Jim’s videos HERE!

Small Business Advocate Poll: Game-changer?

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on 3:01 pm
in Government and Politics
. 0 Comments

Debates between presidential candidates aren’t always game-changers. But sometimes they are, like the one just competed.

It’s difficult to gauge whether people are surprised that Romney performed so commandingly, or that Obama came in third in a two-man debate. Either way, in terms of being a game-changer, this debate is being scored as one of the top three in more than a half-century.

We wanted to know what our audience’s expectations were for this debate, so in our online poll last week, we asked this question: “The first of three Presidential debates will take place this week. How will these events impact your vote?” Here’s what we learned:

Only 12% said the debate results would not change their plan to vote for the Obama/Biden ticket. The big number from our survey - 73% - said the debate would not change their vote for Romney/Ryan. Just 15% admitted that they thought the debates would influence their final decision.

If our audience is representative of the small business sector, it’s a solid Romney/Ryan constituency, which shouldn’t surprise anyone, least of all the Obama campaign. But with his poor debate performance this week, it can’t be good news for President Obama that 15% of our folks were looking forward to the debate for something to help them make their decision.

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Last week on The Small Business Advocate Show, I talked about the first presidential debate with Rich Galen, Republican strategist, publisher of the popular cyber-column, Mullings.com and frequent political talking head. Click on one of the links below to download or listen to what we had to say.

Who won the first Obama-Romney debate?

The Obama-Romney debate was beautifully unstructured

Was the first Obama-Romney debate a game changer?

Check out more great SBA content HERE!

Watch Jim’s videos HERE!

Take this week’s poll HERE!

Small Business Advocate Poll: Political conventions, Does anybody care?

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on 12:12 pm
in Government and Politics
. 0 Comments

The Question:
How much of the Republican Party Convention will you watch this week?

42% - As much as possible

32% - Probably just the last night

15% - None - conventions are no longer relevant

10% - Not interested in the Romney/Ryan message

My Comments:
The first political convention was held in 1766 to nominate a candidate for governor of Connecticut. The first convention to nominate a president was in 1831 held by the Mason Party, with Democrats and Republicans holding their first conventions in 1832.

Since the first presidential conventions - and for most of America’s political history - they served the purpose of selecting the nominee of each party, including many hotly contested and acrimonious events. For most of the past half century, however, conventions have served little more than to be a showcase for the incumbent and/or the last candidate standing in each party after the primary process - about 99% production and 1% nominating process.

Consequently, with the possibility of virtually no drama or surprises, conventions have become less of a big deal in America in the past generation. Indeed, where broadcast television networks once practiced the term they coined of “gavel to gavel” coverage, the big three - ABC, NBC and CBS - have reduced coverage from three or four hours a day for five convention days, to only the last hour each day.

We wanted to know how our small business audience felt about watching the GOP convention this year, so last week we asked this question: “How much of the Republican Party Convention will you watch this week?” Here’s what you told us.

One in ten of our respondents said, “Not interested in the Romney/Ryan message,” 15% said, “None - the conventions are no longer relevant,” and almost one third of our sample said, “Probably just the last night.” But the big number, 42%, said “As much as possible.”

This week the Democrats will stage their convention in Charlotte, N.C., where the Obama-Biden team will be nominated again. So our new poll asks the same question as last week, except for the party name change. Please make sure to register your answer.

It will be interesting to see how the new poll compares to last week’s response. I’ll have a final comment on both surveys next week. Stay tuned.

Check out more great SBA content HERE!

Watch Jim’s videos HERE!

Take this week’s poll HERE!

Small Business Advocate Poll: No poor man every gave me a job

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on 12:23 pm
in Government and Politics
. 3 Comments

The Question:
How do you feel about the fact that presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, is very wealthy?

22% - I’m concerned his wealth prevents him from connecting with average Americans.

78% - His wealth came from business experience, something America needs right now.

0% - Undecided

My Commentary:
Of course, it’s not shocking to learn that the two presidential candidates are resorting to negative ads against their opponents. It’s not for nothing that politics, it has been said, “ain’t bean bag,” or is a “blood sport.”

Of course, notwithstanding the 1804 duel in which VP Aaron Burr killed Secretary of Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, that last reference has been metaphorical.

Another thing we’ve learned about negative ads is that they seem to work. What does that say about us? Merely an electoral proclivity, or an indictment of our society?

One of the negative strategies the Obama campaign has been using is to take shots at Mitt Romney’s wealth. The angle of attack is that such a wealthy person cannot connect with the workaday lives of the majority of Americans.

We wanted to know how our audience felt about Mitt Romney’s financial situation, so last week we asked this question: “How do you feel about the fact that presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, is very wealthy?” Here’s what you told us.

Just more than one-fifth of our sample said, “I’m concerned his wealth prevents him from connecting with average Americans. All the rest, 78%, allowed that Mitt Romney’s wealth, ” … came from business experience, something America needs right now.” Perhaps the most telling response was that no one was “Undecided.”

Of course, in America, especially in 2012, a campaign strategy attacking financial success might not have the desired response by the middle class and lower economic strata. This year, perhaps more than any in recent memory, that proverbial remark by a working class stiff, “No poor man ever gave me a job,” might be what more of us are thinking, rather than “he doesn’t connect with me”

Based on our poll, this seems to be true of small business owners.

Check out more great SBA content HERE!

Take this week’s poll HERE!


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