Succeeding in small business

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Alberta will pay tribute to small business women and men, the backbone of the province's economy, from Oct. 22-28.

Small business is the biggest employer, the biggest innovator, the biggest taxpayer and the biggest source of future growth.

The 1989 Small Business Week is focusing on Changing Markets in the 90s.

There was a time when a small business owner could be content with selling his goods, services and technology to his friends and neighbors. The world was stable. No longer.

The world is an increasingly complex and competitive place.

New products and technologies are creating new challenges and new opportunities for today's enterprising entrepreneur.

Today's small business owner must adjust or perish.

Most of them have adjusted and are playing an important role in developing and sustaining the Alberta economy.

A small business employs less than 100 people and does less than $2 million in business each year. But as a group they're responsible for 97 per cent of all the business done in Alberta. they are small business, but they're big news.

What sets the small businessperson apart from others is the willingness to invest time, energy and financial resources to make the business a success.

The key ingredient in the small business formula is energy, according to the Alberta Chamber of Commerce.

"A small business owner devotes his heart and soul to the enterprise often at the expense of family and friends. The vision becomes his master -- he or she a slave to the cause," a Chamber news release says.

"To succeed a person needs more than working capital, a gambler's nerve or a wall full of business degrees. To succeed a person needs to be a human dynamo -- to be able to work 25 hours a day, seven days a week to make it work. It takes

boundless energy."

According to the Chamber, small business people are "almost always individualists. They are not the type to blindly follow the pack. They are leaders, who have grown stronger, more knowledgeable and more confident through life's

experiences.

"They are optimists. It takes a lot of faith and courage to survive the false starts, near failures and disappointments that every small business person continues to drive forward with determination and conviction, seeking new opportunities."

According to the Chamber, failure is a "blessing disguise" in the life of a small business person.

"History suggests one of the main ingredients in the formula for success is failure. Successful entrepreneurs almost always experience some failure on the path to building a strong, vibrant business."