Small businesses rate Idaho and Texas friendliest states, California and New York among least friendly
There are a lot of “business climate rankings”, but there aren’t any that draw upon considerable data from small business owners themselves. The Thumbtack.com Small Business Survey is the only survey to draw data from an extensive, nationwide universe of job creators and entrepreneurs themselves in order to investigate the best places in the country to do business.
“6,000 small business owners have told an unusually nuanced story about what they value in their state or city government,” said Sander Daniels, co-founder of Thumbtack.com. “Although Texas and Idaho clearly come out on top as the nation’s friendliest states towards small business, entrepreneurs value a lot more than just low tax rates. Easy-to-understand licensing regulations and well-publicized training programs are often overlooked as critical tools necessary to support small business.”
Some of the survey’s key findings include:
- Texas had three of the top five cities (Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio and Austin), while California was home to the bottom three (Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento).
- Small businesses said licensing requirements were nearly twice as important as tax rates in determining overall business-friendliness.
- Among small business owners nationally, women were 9% more likely than men to feel supported by their state governments.
- An important predictor of small business friendliness was whether small business owners are aware of the state or local government offering training programs for small businesses.
- Nationwide, small businesses owned by politically conservative entrepreneurs were 17% healthier than small businesses owned by politically liberal entrepreneurs.
- Idaho, Nevada and Delaware had the most small business-friendly tax codes; California and New Mexico had the least-friendly tax codes.
- Nebraska small business owners were the most optimistic about their business improving during 2012, while Iowans were the least optimistic.
- The South was the most small business-friendly region of the country, while New England was rated the least small business-friendly.
The full results can be seen here and include full sets of rankings, dozens of easily searchable quotes from small businesses nationwide, regional comparisons within states, and Census data comparing states’ and cities’ key demographics against those of other states and cities.
“With comparatively few regulations or government oversight on small businesses, Texas is truly a small-business-friendly state. For the most part, Texas refrains from imposing ridiculous regulations and requirements that only a large corporation can keep up with or afford, and this makes a big difference.”
Survey methodology
Thumbtack.com surveyed 6,022 small businesses across the United States. The survey asked questions about the friendliness of states towards small business and about small business finances, such as:
- “In general, how would you rate your state’s support of small business owners?”
- “Would you discourage or encourage someone from starting a new business in your state?” and
- “How would you rate your company’s financial situation today?”
Thumbtack.com and Kauffman ranked states and cities against one another along 21 metrics. The full methodology paper can be found here.
What is Thumbtack.com?
24 Ideas for Facebook Image Tests [Infographic]
If you haven’t heard, the biggest factor determining if your ad gets clicked on Facebook is the image. Add in the fact that Facebook ads get stale fast (like 3-5 days) and you can burn through a lot of testing ideas in a hurry. So here is a cool infographic with 24 ideas you can test to keep your Facebook ads fresh and keep that CTR high.
AdChop – More Profitable Ad Campaigns
Latest AdWords Interface Change
Google is at it again, this time tweaking the way I view my audiences, networks, placements, etc. In the screenshot below you’ll see the new “Display Network” tab:
If you look at the subsequent navigation you see the following areas are all contained in the Display Network tab:
- Display Keywords
- Placements
- Topics
- Interests & Remarketing
Personally this won’t make much difference to me, but I know there will be plenty of beginner to intermediate AdWords users who are going to be thrown for a loop by this. What do you think? Good idea or not?
Worst. Shopping. Cart. Ever.
The other day a friend of mine sent over a screenshot of what is perhaps the worst shopping cart I’ve ever seen. I’ll give you the play-by-play after the break, but behold:
If you want a bigger version, just click on the image below, but here are just the worst offenses on this page:
- Proceed To Checkout is a little link – Initially I thought it was a text link for the Empty Cart button since it was just below the button, but as it turns out, that’s the most important link. Don’t subjugate the main action. Ever.
- Huge Red Empty Cart Button – First of all, why do you ever need to give your users a huge button that nukes everything they’ve done on your site in one fell swoop? Second, even if you feel it’s helpful, why would you make it a big button with the most contrasting color? If you’re going to put it on the page at all, make it a tiny little text link.
- Delete this item is bolded – Again, why are you drawing attention to an undesirable action? Of course people may want to take an item out of the cart, but don’t feature it.
- What’s with the social buttons – Am I really going to tweet, Facebook like, or +1 a shopping cart?
- Recent Posts in the footer – I’m pretty sure at this point you probably want me to finish checkout, not read your blog, so take out the links to your recent posts.
Win a Dell XPS 15z Laptop
Dell is inviting you to participate in a treasure hunt and the grand prize is a brand new Dell XPS 15z laptop. Follow the seven clues leading to the winning landing page on Dell.com by visiting the Dell laptops page where the first clue is waiting for you.
In addition, Dell is giving away ten gift certificates worth $499 good toward the purchase of $500 or more in Dell products. To enter this sweepstakes, simply Tweet, blog, or share the Treasure Hunt on Google+. Be sure to use the #delltreasure hashtag whenever you share and follow all the official rules found on Dell.com.
Happy treasure hunting!
