Entrepreneurs Want Work-Life Balance - Who Doesn't?

MasterCard recently put its most recent survey results that showed 96% of small business owners find it important to manage their work-life balance. More than half of the respondents said that owning your own business makes it easier to balance than other workers. 83% said that they rarely or never miss important personal events because of work.

Some of the other findings on achieving work-life balance were:

• Not having enough money to meet business and personal needs (21 percent) and rarely being able to fully turn off from the job when they're away from it (16 percent) where the top factors noted as interfering with work-life balance
  
  
• Making enough money to meet or exceed business and personal needs (30 percent) and having flexible working hours (28 percent), were the top factors noted that help small business owners achieve work-life balance
  
  
• When asked what work-related factors best help them to achieve work-life balance, better organizing business and personal priorities (29 percent); and hiring and retaining competent employees that could assume some responsibilities (21 percent) were among the top factors cited.
  
  
• Sixty-one percent of small business owners said that they work between 8-12 hours a day

When asked what they would do if they received a $100,000 injection to their business to use towards improving their work-life balance, the entrepreneurs responded:

• Invest or save it (49 percent)
  
  
• Paying off personal loans and other debts (29 percent)
  
  
• Upgrades or improvements/expansions for your business (26 percent)
  
  
• Paying off business loans and other debts (27 percent)
  
  
• Purchase business equipment and/or supplies (25 percent)
  
  
• Donate it/give to charity (25 percent)
  
  
• Employees (i.e. increased salaries, improved benefits, bonuses, or time off) (20 percent)
  

Small Business Credit Card Market Heats Up

With the consumer credit card market maturing, companies are looking to small businesses to continue their growth. In fact, the fastest growing segment in the broader commercial credit card market is small business. According to marketingresearch.com, credit card companies are only
capturing 10% of small business spending - $427 billion this year and $740 billion by 2010.

How are the credit card companies going after the SMB market?

The big three, Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, have all created small business programs such as reward points, sophisticated data reporting tools, and allied merchant card points.

Discover, the new kid on the block, launched its only commercial card, the the Discover Small Business Card, last summer and is aggressively going after new business. They have increased the rewards to include cash rebates of up to 5% on office supplies, 2% on gas, and 1% on other purchases.

In response, American Expressed launched the SimplyCash business card to match the Discover Small Business Card cash back features.

Discover has also made it easier for small business owners to sign up and use their card. Other features include the ability to download the card's statements to QuickBooks; fee-free purchase checks with the same float as the credit card (for paying suppliers who do not accept cards); the ability to change the card credit limits for individual employees online in real time; and primary protection on car rentals.

In Q1 of 2007 (ending February), Discover had record transaction volume up 13% to $30.3 billion and the fifth consecutive quarter of managed receivables growth. While detailed revenue or income figures are not provided for Discover, parent company Morgan Stanley had a 70% increase in first quarter net income to a record $2.7 and cited "robust performance in corporate credit trading" as one of the reasons.

Offering a better product by listening to their customers and making it easy for small businesses to sign up and use their credit cards has proven so far to be a winning combination for Discover.

Small Business Outlook For 2007

In order to sell to small businesses, you first must understand them. MasterCard Worldwide recently released its Annual Small Business Survey. It's a poll of 4,000 small business around the world who manage businesses with 1-99 employees.

Optimistic For 2007: Looking ahead to 2007, more small business owners are optimistic (28%) than not (21%) and see the future to be promising. Entrepreneurs from the United States and Australia, 66% and 65% respectively feel that 2007 will be a promising year for them.

Working In And On The Business: The average entrepreneur works more than 50 hours a week and spend 18 of those hours on administrative tasks. The more employees an entrepreneur has, the more time is spent on administrative tasks. Solopreneurs spend 7 hours on admin tasks per week while those with 2-9 employees spend 18 hours per week on administration. Owners with 10 or more employees spend 31 hours per week on average on admin responsibilities.

Competitive Challenge: The number one challenge small businesses feel they will face with their business in 2007 is competition. Other top challenges are cost increases and sales / business development.

Motivation To Work: The top two motivating factors for small business owners are making enough money to cover living expenses (70%) and having more control over the future (64%). Other important considerations are providing employment, contributing to society / the community, building something that can be passed on to their family, and being their own boss.

The survey also discusses trends in year-end bonuses, job fulfillment, and business control. You can read the entire article here.