This Thanksgiving holiday as you drive over the river & through the woods to grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving dinner with turkey & pumpkin pie I encourage you to look out the window and observe all the small businesses that provide employment, products, and services to their communities.

Small businesses, as defined by the U.S. Small Business Administration, are any business with less than 500 employees. This significant economic engine created by approximately 29 million small businesses in the United States accounts for 99.7% of all business in America and employs approximately 57 million people according to the SBA. As a couple of points of reference, in September 2017, about 127.24 million people were employed on a full-time basis in the United States and the employed staffs of Microsoft (120,849), Boeing (174,225), and Amazon (541,900) combined were approximately 840,000 or 1.5% of the number of people employed by small businesses in America.

Small businesses are the life blood of the United States. They provide an unfettered ladder of opportunity regardless of gender, race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation to anyone that has the desire to create, innovate, provide, or sell products and services as an entrepreneur. They also provide local, attainable, jobs for anyone willing to work and demonstrate value for those who would rather contribute than lead a business. No other country in the world provides an equal opportunity in terms of low barriers to entry to business or employment and a level playing field in terms of rules & regulations for entrepreneurship to America.

IBA, as the oldest business brokerage firm in the Pacific Northwest, has the honor of representing business owners in the sale of their businesses and learning about the broad spectrum of business models that provide income to support their families to entrepreneurs and their employees in Washington, Oregon, & Alaska. We are thankful for the clients we have served in 2017 whether they manufactured parts for Boeing or provided a venue for teenagers on a first date to get Menchie’s frozen yogurt. We recognize we would not have turkey & pumpkin pie on our individual tables without you.

We are also thankful for the generosity of the windows in our automobiles as we travel to join friends & family over the Thanksgiving holiday. A look out the window in “any town” USA will see evidence of what is possible in America for the individuals willing to be entrepreneurs. I encourage you to tip your hat to the successful small business owners at your Thanksgiving table and in your community or ponder what you can achieve if you are willing to take the risk and allocate the assets necessary to take a few steps down the path of entrepreneurship.

IBA, the Pacific Northwest’s premier business brokerage firm since 1975, is available as an information resource to the media, business brokerage, and mergers & acquisitions community on subjects relevant to the purchase & sale of privately held companies and family owned businesses. IBA is recognized as one of the best business brokerage firms in the nation based on its long track record of successfully negotiating “win-win” business sale transactions in environments of full disclosure employing “best practices”.