A positive spin: are entrepreneurs winning the battle for public approval? - maintaining small business' positive image

Small business is the engine that drives the national economy. Small business is the number-one job creator. Small business is the savior of downsized employees cast callously aside by big corporations. Small business is the business of America.

Sound familiar? Chances are, you've heard rhetoric of this sort on more than a few occasions during the past few years, as small business looms ever larger in the public consciousness. So far, so good, right? Yet even as we celebrate the higher profile small business now enjoys, we cannot help but wonder about the hazards that come from increased exposure and - arguably - increased political clout. It's a question worth addressing: How do entrepreneurs maintain a positive public image even as they battle against business bugaboos such as government regulations and minimum wage hikes?

"Most of America understands that small business is the engine that has created not most of the jobs, but literally the net increase in jobs since 1989," says Bennie Thayer, president and CEO of the National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE). "So the public understands that small business is what's carrying this country."

"Small business definitely has an advantage over big business," echoes Karen Kerrigan, president of the Washington, DC-based Small Business Survival Committee, an advocacy organization. "There's more of a brotherhood between the American public and small business. [The public] can relate to the hardworking entrepreneur [much more easily] than the bureaucratic big business."

Yet doesn't small business run the risk of losing this public empathy when its advocates vocally oppose measures such as the increase in the minimum wage and the failed health-care reform package of a couple years ago? According to Todd McCracken, acting president of Washington, DC-based National Small Business United, it's important to set the health-care debate in its proper context.

"We have not been opposed to health-care reform," McCracken insists. "But we did have some real concerns about the employer mandates the Clinton administration chose to pursue in a health-care bill - and we expressed those concerns as best we could."

Ultimately, says Kerrigan, the best way to guard against a negative image of small business is to make sure the public is fully briefed on why entrepreneurs are wielding their political clout in the way they do. "We try to do that," she says, "but it's extremely hard to explain [our positions on issues] in 30 seconds. However, it's very easy for the other side to say '[Small] business is working with these pro-business members of Congress to slash workplace safety.' That you can say in just 15 seconds."

And so the battle to win public approval continues for entrepreneurs and the organizations that represent their interests in our nation's capitol. On this, the eve of a newly elected 105th Congress, perhaps there is no better time to take stock and re-evaluate - to paraphrase a former president - the whole "image thing." Given a hard-earned seat at the table, small business doesn't want to commit the public relations gaffes that big business has. As Kerrigan observes, "Big business is not well-liked in this country." For now, at least, the same cannot be said for small business.

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