Zainep Mahmoud, senior director Capital One business says the biggest take-away from their survey is that small business owners are very optimistic about the future. Nearly three quarters of their respondents actually report that their business financial position are either the same or better than pre-pandemic levels which is an incredible feat after the year and a half we all experienced.
When asked are some are some of the things that are on the horizon for small business Zainep says 70% of the respondents expected their sales to increase over the next six months and are actively investing in growing their businesses. So not only have they shown that they have gotten through the pandemic they are projecting growth.
When the pandemic hit Zainep says she thinks it was a huge wake-up call to a lot of small business around need to invest in technology and e-commerce. She says one of the pieces is actually adopting technology to almost pandemic-proof their businesses but there is also a couple of other features that are top-of-mind for small business owners as well.
One is inflation. Small business owners don’t know how inflation will impact consumer demand for their products and services or impact their cost of goods.
The second is hiring. Zainep says they found that a third of the respondents actually had challenges hiring which could impact their sales forecast and supply chain issues have been very real, everything from listing raw materials for their goods and products all the way through shipping delays to their customers. This is a big impact that small business owners are focused upon managing through.
What advice does she have for small business considering those factors? Zainep says one of the biggest things is to leverage the sources that are out there. She says at Capital One they have a ton of educational resources, tools, even financial products if small businesses need them and so they need to use the educational tools to make sure they are adopting the technology that they need. Zainep goes on to say there are also opportunities to engage with nonprofit organizations who specifically focus on small businesses and community development financial institutions as well, both of which we actually support at Capital One and small business owners can leverage them for both educational resources and financial resources if needed.
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