posted by nat ceg on September 27, 2007 at 05:47 AM PST
I agree very much to your concept and conclusion so far, while I also have something to add.
In reality, the small businesses[service sector] are usually "packed" with customers, except for retail sector.
The new business owners therefore are under more pressure just to maintaining the current business-flow.
Because they are new, they [most of the time], do not have a good biz-model or accounting-model. [that's a killer]
They are NOT under pressure to expand, unlike internet businesses.
Also due to the busy day-to-day operation, the owners are less likely to try out new sales/services strategies, other than doing it the old way - An understandable, risk avoiding behavior.
To summarize:
new/small [100k~500k revenue] business owners are:
1. new to the market
2. confident with their own strategies
3. too busy to be expanding/being ambitious
4. had difficult managing personal networks/life
5. avoid risks [for those successful ones]
6. don't want to be "standouts"
7. too little time to think for themselves
8. human psy: avoid new stuff, unless proven
9. employee problems [ the BIGGEST killer]
that's what I generalized through talking to business owners [sole traders, partners]
