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Small Business Survey 2004

The Small Business Survey was undertaken in the Spring of 2004 as part of the Suffolk Small Business Project, a pro bono futures project looking at future options for the Suffolk Small Business community out to the year 2020.

Inspired by the work of Marilyn Hamilton of Global Learning Connections, Abbotsford, Canada, our primary objective was to produce a Spiral Profile of the Suffolk Small Business community in order to use it as a benchmark against which we could measure the services provided for small businesses. We hoped that the survey would generate other interesting data, but our primary focus was the Spiral Profile.

Those who are unfamiliar with the theory of Spiral Dynamics might like to follow the link and read the short introduction before going any further with the survey.

Faced with the question of how one measures the Spiral Profile of a community, we were struck with the simplicity of the solution that offered itself - we would simply ask the members of the community where they are on the Spiral. Of course, we would not have expected to ask this question directly as we would have expected few people to be able to answer the question with any great precision. In order to get to the result that we wanted, we needed to ask a number of surrogate questions and to interpret the response of those surveyed to provide a locus in the Spiral.

After some consultation and deliberation, we decided upon five questions to be included in the survey:

1. What are the benefits of running your own business?

2. What is great about doing business in Suffolk?

3. What hinders the Suffolk small business community?

4. What would improve the Suffolk small business community?

5. How would you describe the Suffolk small business community?

A fuller discussion of each question can be found in the section outlining the survey results. For the moment, we only need to note that the first question would act as the lead question for the business surveyed, and that the subsequent four questions would act as triangulation points in our interpretation as to where each business was on the Spiral.

The question then arose over who would represent the Suffolk small business community. Much of the research in Suffolk that has previously been conducted has been with a sample of the small businesses who are registered for Value Added Tax (known as VAT in the UK - it is a form of Sales Tax). The problem with this sample is that is does not include the micro-businesses who are below the compulsory VAT registration threshold - currently a turnover of £58,000 per annum (€81,200 or US$ 101,500). This is a serious problem with generating an unbiased sample because many of the smaller micro-businesses are naturally excluded from a sample that only includes those businesses registered for VAT. We wanted our survey to capture fully the full range of small business, including those micro-businesses who are too small to face compulsory registration for VAT.

With this end in mind, we decided to survey the entire membership of the Ipswich and Suffolk Small Business Association, as this this would generate a full range of small businesses, from the very small to the reasonably large. We decided to exclude the multi-national businesses who are ISSBA members - along with the Government Agencies who are ISSBA members - on the grounds that these ISSBA members are not small businesses. The 2003 membership base gave us a sample size of 224 small businesses. From this, we managed to secure a response from 110 ISSBA members, with 48 members declining to take part in the survey, and an inability on our part to establish contact with 66 members.

The inability to establish contact with 66 members (29.4% of the survey sample) underlines the high attrition rate within the small business community. The most frequently encountered reason for being unable to establish contact with the member was that they had ceased trading. In a buoyant local labour market, the temptation of a steady income is quite a pull for those who are struggling in their business endeavours. The 48 members who declined to take part in the survey (21.4% of the survey sample) tended to state the view that they did not have the time to answer the questions. This may have disguised other motives (they may have thought that we were selling them something or they simply mistrusted our motives). However, we do acknowledge that a full answer to the questions in the survey would represent a significant investment in time for those responding.

We had considered a postal survey of the ISSBA membership, but we rejected this as we felt that it would not capture the essence of what we were looking for. We deliberately framed open questions because we were attempting to access the attitudes of the ISSBA members towards the Suffolk small business community. Instead, we decided to conduct a telephone survey of the membership, as this would allow for interaction between the surveyor and the surveyed, which, we felt, would lead to better quality results. However, telephone surveys are time consuming, and, in making this decision, we were conscious that it would consume a great deal of staff resources.

The five questions in the survey formed the basis around which the telephone interview was conducted. Each telephone interview took between 20 to 45 minutes, and was conducted by a director of The Greenways Partnership. We did think about sharing the burden, but we took the view that, in order to produce consistency in the recording of the responses - which was a very subjective task - it would be best if the same person conducted the survey. Notes were taken during the interview and summarised at the end of each interview. The summaries were then collated and interpreted according to the metrics of the survey. They are reported on the subsequent web pages.

In all, we secured responses from 110 ISSBA members (49.2% of the survey sample). We had originally hoped for a larger response than this. However, the response received was comparable with other similar surveys, and, more importantly, represents a statistically significant response at the 99% Confidence Level. We feel quite assured in the robustness of the sample, and we feel that the results drawn from the survey can be relied upon to a greater extent. The following web pages outline the results of the survey in detail.

For all enquiries, please contact us by E-mail at enquiries@greenways-partnership.com.

Spiral Profiling™, Networking Tips™ and Monchers™ are a Trademarks of The Greenways Partnership Limited, a company incorporated in England, Reg Number 2825001. Registered office; 6 Greenways Close, Ipswich, Suffolk IP1 3RB, United Kingdom. UK Data Protection Registration Number Z7277556.

Busy-Ness™ is a Trademark of Design By Accident Limited, a company incorporated in England, Reg Number 2825001. Registered office; 6 Greenways Close, Ipswich, Suffolk IP1 3RB, United Kingdom. The Greenways Partnership Limited promotes Busy-Ness™ under an exclusive UK Licence.

Introduction