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Types of Small Business

Small business means different things to different people. For the
sake of simplicity, in this report we’ll usually use the term “small
businesses” to refer to the following segments:

Two major classifications used in this report:

1.    Microbusiness: Basic financial needs, such as Quicken
support, simple invoicing,
credit card processing, bill payment, home equity credit lines, and tax
reporting; usually sole proprietorships, partnerships, or S-corps (includes
self-employed); often with less than 20 employees; total revenue of $50,000
to $1 million annually; total credit lines of less than $250,000.

2.    Small Business: More complex financial needs, such as
accounting support, invoicing, payment processing, bill payment, commercial
credit lines, tax reporting, and internal security and fraud controls; less
than 500 employees; total revenue of $1 to 10 million annually; total credit
lines more than $250,000.

Other business types included in above classifications:

·      In-formation Business: Initially, may be more interested in
advice and information on credit, payment processing, and other banking
services; depending on many factors, may move rapidly towards launch and
need to quickly establish accounts and line up financing. Financial needs
vary depending on the business plan and funding.

·      SOHO (small office, home office): Smaller, work-from-home
sole proprietorships. It can also be used to describe mobile workers such as
home-based salespeople in insurance and manufacturing. We classify these
companies as microbusinesses.

·      Self–employed: Persons who primarily work for
themselves, either as contractors, consultants, or commission-based sales
reps. We classify these individuals as microbusinesses.

·      SMB/SME (small and medium business/enterprise): Usually
refers to the largest segment of “small” businesses, companies with at least
several million in annual revenues. We classify these companies as small
businesses.

Primary Data Source

The primary data source for this report is TNS Financial Services
Group (formerly NFO WorldGroup-Financial Services, and before that,
PSI Global). Our thanks to EVP Maria Erickson and her staff for
answering our questions and making data from their Small Business and
SOHO studies available. For more information on purchasing financial
services research contact Ms. Erickson at (813) 227-8562.

The Small Business and the Affluent Entrepreneur 2003 Study
was fielded between April and May 2003; the owners of 3000 U. S.-based
small businesses with annual sales between $500,000 and
$10 million were contacted by telephone or mail to provide the most
accurate and reliable
information possible.

Using the same methodology, 900 small businesses were contacted for
the SOHO and the Entrepreneur Study 2002 between September and
October 2002.

 

The big picture in small business

Small businesses exist in all markets, in every town and at
every crossing. Using a broad definition that includes smaller part-time
business endeavors, there are more than 20 million businesses in the United
States, one of every five households. And that understates the market
potential. If you also include the personal product usage of the
“business-owning” segment, the total could be as much as 50% of your
revenues.

Depending on the definition, as many as 30 million business
entities exist in the United States, including self-employed or part-time
sideline businesses such as selling collectibles on eBay, or as few as 1.2
million if you only look at companies with at least $1 million in annual
revenues
. For the purposes of this report, we are defining the total small business
market as 23 million, a figure taken from U.S. Small Business Administration
statistics¹.

The total includes

·         16 million self-employed/contractors

·         6.0 million microbusinesses with revenues less
than $1 million

·         1.3 million of that is the larger small business
with revenues of $1 to $10 million

Small businesses account for:

·         99% of all employers

·         51% of private sector employment

·         67% of net new jobs

·         52% of U.S. gross domestic product

Furthermore:

·         600,000 new businesses are started each year¹

·         13% of U.S. households own privately held
businesses²

·         Business-owning households had higher income, more
education, significantly higher net worth, and were led by individuals in
the prime age group 35-60²

·         Boeing Employees Credit Union’s recent
survey showed that 50,000 of its 350,000 (14%) members reported owning
businesses or being key decision-makers in one³

·         IDC reports there are now 15 million U.S.
home-based businesses, 10 million full-time and
5 million part-time⁴

·         More than 400,000 people make most or all of their
living from selling on eBay⁵

(1)     SBA Research Summary #211, “Small Business Share
of Economic Growth,” Jan. 2002

(2)     George W. Haynes, Assistant Professor at Montana
State, and Charles Ou, SBA Economist, presented an Advocacy Working Paper at
the Conference of Entrepreneurial and Financial Research in April 2002

(3)     American Banker, 4/13/04

(4)     2004 estimates from IDC as cited in The Wall
Street Journal, 6/17/2004

(5)     Estimate from AuctionDrop, a company that earns
commissions selling merchandise on consignment through Ebay, as cited in
The Wall Street Journal, 6/17/2004

 

Who wants to be a microbusiness?

 

Table 3 Number of U.S. Home-based Businesses Type Number Change 2004 vs. 1999 2004 1999 Number % Full-time 9.9 million 9.6 million +300,000 +3.1% Part-time 5.2 million 6.9 million (1.7 million) (32%) Total 15.1 million 16.5 million (1.4 million) (8.5%) Source: IDC, as cited in The Wall Street Journal, 6/17/04

Everyone it seems. While American attitudes towards big business have
declined markedly during the past four years thanks scandals at Enron,
MCI, and others, the small business remains on a pedestal. Its
human nature to root for the underdog, and the smaller the business the
bigger their perceived disadvantage.  

As you plan your business offerings, keep in mind that a majority of
Americans aspire to run their own business; fully two-thirds (67%) profess a
longing to be in business for themselves. And thanks to computers and the
Internet, there are 15 million home-based businesses in the U.S., 400,000 of
which make their living from selling on eBay. Surprisingly, though, the
number of part-time, home-based businesses has fallen dramatically in the
past five years, probably victims of the flat economy
(see Table 3, above).

Since most tax experts recommend separate personal and business
transaction accounts for even the smallest business, companion
personal/business checking, savings, and card products can be a lucrative
niche for financial institutions. Once you’ve convinced retail households
running businesses from home to add a business transaction account, you can
cross-sell credit and accounting services as the businesses grow.

Channel Preferences

 

Table 4 Primary Banking Channel Among Businesses using Online Financial Services Traditional 16% Online banking 33% Equal mix 51% Total 100% Source: Gartner G2, 2002

When it comes to financial matters, small businesses want it all, every
channel, all the time, at the lowest cost. Even among online business
banking users, only one-third say that the online channel is primary

(see Table 4, right). Although businesses may want it all,
they often do not have the resources or inclination to shop aggressively for
the lowest-cost source. The smaller the business, the likelier it is the
principal or a spouse handles banking matters. And these owners are unlikely
to make it a priority to wring every last dollar out of the cost of their
financial services. The story is quite different if the business has a
dedicated bookkeeper or financial manager on staff. This person may have
both the time and motivation to comparison shop; it’s a feather in their cap
if they find cost savings. So you may want to segment your business
customers, not
on total revenues, but on whether the owner handles the banking. And shower
special
attention on staffers hired to handle the
business’s financial affairs.  

 

 

Table 5

Number of U.S. Small Businesses by Annual Revenues

Source: TNS Financial Services Group, Small Business data 4/03, SOHO/Entrepreneur
data 10/02, updated to year-end 2003 by Online Banking Report, +/- 20%

 

Table 6

U.S. Businesses Entities by Annual Revenues
not including self-employed/contractors

Source: TNS Financial Small Business Market Study 2002, 4/03
(commercial banking numbers from 4/00); updated to year-end 2003 by Online
Banking Report, =/- 20%

¹The person at the company that handles the majority of
banking activities

²Could be serviced by commercial banking department depending
on circumstances

 

Table 7

U.S. Small, Micro, and Self-Employed Businesses Using Online
Banking and/or Bill Pay

millions, n = 23 million (2003)

Source: Online Banking Report estimates 6/04; accuracy estimated at plus or
minus 30% U.S.
All = All small businesses including self-employed, n = 23 million (2002)
Larger = Small and microbusinesses with annual revenues between $50,000 and
$10 million, not including self-employed and contractors, n = 7.3 million
(2003)

Table 8

Annual Growth Rate of Small, Micro and Self-Employed Businesses
Using Online Banking

millions of net new U.S. small business online banking users and
percent change from previous year

&

Source: Online Banking Report estimates, 6/04; accuracy estimated at plus or
minus 30%

 

Introduction

 

Table 1 Strategic Imperatives for Small Business Success 1.       Identify small business owners within your consumer base and market 2.       Facilitate contact with a human at the bank 3.       Begin a credit relationship with the business 4.       Bank the personal business of the business owner 5.       Provide value-added services for a fee Source: Online Banking Report, 5/04

The purpose of this report is to help financial institutions use online delivery to increase sales, profits, and market share in the small business market. Although, much of the report is applicable to large and small businesses, our main focus is on the smallest segment, the self-employed and so-called microbusiness, businesses with less than $1 million in annual sales. For the sake of clarity, we’ll use the term “small business” throughout this report. 

 

We’ll look at the market through the eyes of a financial institution product manager, the background of both authors. Hundreds of ideas and tactics are presented, some with more emphasis than others. All support five key strategic imperatives for approaching this market (see Table 1 above).

While small businesses have lagged consumers in adopting online banking, recent research by
James Van Dyke’s Javelin Strategy & Research http://www.javelinstrategy.com/  shows that the gap has been eliminated. Javelin’s April 2004 study shows that 56% of all online households used online banking during the past 30 days, compared to 58% of households where the primary financial manager is self-employed (a good proxy of microbusiness ownership). About the only significant difference in behavior was in the usage of Quicken or Money software, where 28% of business owners used it during the past 30 days compared to 17% of non-self-employed (see Table 2 below). Small business owners also tended to visit the branch more often, especially for deposits with 80% having made a branch deposit in the past 30 days compared to 66% of all online households.

Table 2

 

Online Banking Usage: Self-Employed Online Households vs. All Online Households

Source: Javelin Strategy, May 2004 survey of 2,196 U.S. online households fielded April 2004; screened to be primary household financial manager
SELF = self-employed only (n = 163); NOT = all others (n = 2033); ALL = entire sample (N = 2196)    

Major strategic imperatives

1. Identify small business owners within your consumer
base and market

Since it’s time-consuming and expensive to attract small
businesses from your competitors, your first priority is to mine your own
consumer base for them. Customer surveys, website usage, and deposit
activity are good indicators of small business ownership.

2. Facilitate contact with a human at the bank

To maximize your share of wallet, it’s essential that each
business owner have a human point of contact at the bank. And it needs to be
someone high enough in the organization that they are not turning over every
nine months, one of the biggest complaints small businesses have about their
banking relationships. To maximize efficiency, this human interaction should
be supported with online tools such as email and instant messaging.

3. Begin a credit relationship

More often that not, small businesses use lending
relationships to determine who they consider to be their primary financial
institution. If you are serious about growing your small business share, you
must be aggressive in granting credit to small business owners. And it
needn’t be a commercial loan. More often it will be a consumer product,
especially tied to home equity. The business owner doesn’t care how you
classify the credit internally, they care that you are lending cash to grow
their business.

4. Bank the personal business of the business owner

Some small business owners insist on banking their personal
business at a different bank,
either because of personal relationships or privacy/security fears of mixing
personal and business accounts. 

5. Provide value-added services for a fee

After decades of being beaten up by consumers over every fee
on the schedule, financial institutions are wary of charging fees to their
retail-like small business customers. But, despite what they may say in a
focus group, once they have established an account, small businesses are
loathe moving and are relatively insensitive to pricing. If a business owner
values their time at $100 per hour and it takes 10 to 15 hours to switch
accounts, that’s a $1000 to $1500 soft-dollar cost to moving. However,
startup businesses are another matter. When shopping for their initial
banking relationship, a new business could be swayed by a couple dollars per
month. That’s why Barclays’ strategy of offering new businesses a
host of initial free banking and professional consultations is so brilliant.

 

Unique attributes of the small business segment

·         Small businesses crave stability in their financial relationships;
they want to deal with a company they are sure will be there in the future. More
importantly, they want a relationship with a real human who knows their
business and won’t let anything fall through the cracks during management or
business upheaval. What they look for in a provider is expertise, a long track
record, fair pricing, and easy-to-use reliable products.

·         Their sourcing of transactional banking services does not provide
competitive advantage to businesses large or small. It’s a relatively minor
infrastructure expense. However, credit services can make or break a business,
so that’s often the key to the relationship.

·         Online banking, while gaining in importance, is a relatively low
priority for most business customers who care more about the relationship with
their loan/biz banking officer, branch convenience, credit lines, loans,
rates/fees, and customer service.

·         It’s vitally important for most microbusinesses to connect with a
human during the initial sales process – someone the business owner believes
will have a positive impact on credit decisions.
In fact, business owners may value the bond with their banking officer
more than the relationship with the bank.

·         Businesses don’t have the time or inclination to adjust their
systems and procedures for relatively marginal convenience improvements. That’s
why, until recently, they’ve lagged consumers in online banking adoption. But,
once started they will often become fiercely loyal online banking customers.

·         Given the combined value of their personal and business financial
services expenditures, and the owners’ optimistic perception of future growth in
both, small businesses want to be treated like the important customers they are.

Implications

·         Smaller businesses have long been dismissed as lacking sufficient
revenue potential to justify the labor required to serve them; however, that
assumption is dead wrong. The combined net interest margin from business and
personal financial products is $35 billion per year with good prospects for
growth

·         The smaller the business, the better the opportunity. Larger small
businesses already have established banking relationships and are on the radar
screen of every big-bank officer in the area. Each of those wins will be
hard-fought and expensive. The better opportunities are in the nearly invisible
microbusiness category, especially among self-employed professionals and
businesses in formation. However, non-banks such as Intuit, First Data,
and PayPal have made in-roads in certain product categories and will
attempt to leverage those relationships to up-sell other services.

·         Credit integration, overall financial counseling, and positive
representation to the inevitable loan committee are a must. Clients often have
good knowledge of the availability and prices of available capital options. Home
equity secured lending, with underwriting flexible enough to accommodate the
self-employed, is especially important when serving microbusinesses

·         Epayment companies such as PayPal, iPay
http://www.ipaymybills.com/ , and
Fidesic)  that enable microbusinesses to easily accept credit
cards and ACH payments, can be an effective means of finding new customers.

 

Oft-overlooked segment is lucrative online opportunity

With more than $2 trillion in assets and liabilities up for grabs, the small
business market remains attractive to financial institutions of all sizes.
Smaller businesses are the lifeblood of many community banks, while the
mega-banks look to the segment for growth opportunities. Even credit unions are
jumping on the bandwagon, creating services to court small business owners. This
report focuses on the online channel and how it can be used to improve profits
and market share in the small business market, especially the smallest
companies, the 6+ million so-called microbusiness with annual revenues less than
$1 million.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you include all the home-based
businesses, self-employed, contractors, independent sales agents, brokers, and
those actively looking to launch a business, the number of “business oriented”
households approaches 30% of all U.S. households.

Although most banks market aggressively to the 1.2 million larger small
businesses with annual revenues of $1 to $10 million, the other 20+ million
businesses mostly fly under the radar of most banks, and make do with
consumer-oriented financial services.

 

However, as remote check scanning and other innovations lessen the
need for convenient local branches, a new breed of direct banking competitor
will be trolling for new accounts nationwide. But, incumbent financial
institutions hold strong advantages in trust and convenience and will be
difficult to unseat so long as their online services remain at parity with the
competition.

Jim Bruene, Editor & Founder
jim@netbanker.com