What types of small businesses could best weather the economic turbulence?
Look at tourism – the number of visitors is well over 40 million. And neighborhood-based businesses could fare well. What types of small businesses might suffer most? There’s some worry about businesses that serve Wall Street firms – the copy shops, messenger services, graphics businesses, law firms, accountants, headhunters. What worries are your staffers hearing about from small business owners that are related to the economy? We’ve seen an increase in the number of companies asking for training funds. They need to retrain their employees to avoid waste. For instance, there’s a noodle maker who’s concerned because of rising flour prices. And financing is harder to get than ever. It’s going to become more and more a focus of ours as banks become more cautious. What word of caution – or encouragement – do you want to offer small business owners? We’ve been through so much in the past. I think of Ed Koch with his thumbs up in the air in the toughest times, asking, “How am I doing?” This
