Who benefits?

Just who benefits when a small business is successful? The easy answer is ‘everyone’, but the devil is in the detail. So here are some numbers…

There are 5.4 million private micro-businesses in the United Kingdom*. A micro-business is classified as any business that has fewer than 10 employees. You might be a little surprised to know that of those, 4.5 million have no employees, are under the VAT threshold and are not registered for PAYE.

If just 1% of these 5.4m businesses could each fill an extra five appointmentsa month (assuming that each transaction generates on average £60) this is the impact this would have:

• 54,000 businesses filling five more appointments a month – just over one a week
• 270,000 more transactions a month – 3.2m more per year
• Increasing their combined revenue by £16.2m per month, or £194.4m per year

That’s a lot of money.

What if they could do more?

But what if these small businesses filled 15, 20 or 30 more appointments a month?

The average sole trader/micro-business owner works a nine-hour day (I know – some work a lot more) for six days a week. That’s potentially 216 hour-long appointments available each month per person, and obviously that increases based on the number of staff.

So, two staff would total 432 appointments a month, four equals 864 total appointments, etc…

Now, not all of those potential working hours are filled with appointments, so there’s scope to fill some of them. What if 1% were able to fill more of those slots?

(Note: if 1% of small businesses in the US alone filled five extra appointments per month, this would generate $13.4bn a year).

So who would benefit from this?

Well, credit/debit payment systems such as Square & iZettle. They charge on average 1.75% per transaction.

Our 1% of the small business pool in the UK will have generated an extra £3.4m for them a year just from filling five more appointments each month. If they fill an extra 30 a month then Square & iZettle benefit from an additional £20.4m per year.

And again, that’s just the UK.

But let’s not forget that the bulk of this money is now in the hands of our small businesses.

This money will need to be deposited into accounts, so our banks are benefiting too. The business will have used up stock in servicing their extra appointments, so product will need to be purchased. As our 1% of UK micro-businesses thrive, they may need to grow and this leads to employment, which will then require legal, insurance and further accountancy services.

And let’s not dig into how much extra money a profitable business will cause to flow into a local economy as staff use more services like bars and restaurants.

Well, we all do.

The message here is that when small businesses thrive, we all benefit.

The numbers show just how much impact there can be when small businesses are able to fill five extra appointments a month and how staggering the numbers become when they have the opportunity to fill even more.

We are doing our bit

This is why the me:now app was designed  – to help small businesses advertise when these appointments are available. We want to see small businesses be successful – we can see the benefits for everyone.

It’s also the reason why me:now gives every small business five listings every month… for free.

Find out more at www.menow.co.uk/how/

*ONS Business Population Data 2017