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In the early 90’s, non-employer businesses number less than 15 million (US Census Bureau). Also called “solopreneurs” these freelancers today are estimated at 42 million (Freelancers Union) and the Small Business Administration says that there are 3 new non-employer startups for every employer startup. These solopreneurs represent 1/3 of the US workforce and are predicted to be half or 70 million by 2020. Despite this meteoric growth, there is very little published in formation about whothese freelancers and solopreneurs are and politicians and mainstream media completely overlook this segment of the US workforce! US Answer, a cloud-based small business answering service that focuses exclusively on very small businesses and freelancers has found that although these non-employer businesses include everything from nannies and dog groomers to fitness trainers and lawyers, the largest group is IT professionals comprising almost 30%. The second largest is digital marketers (SEO services, online advertising, web design etc.) They are predominantly located in 6 major metropolitan areas: - Los Angeles
- New York City
- Miami
- Dallas
- San Francisco
- Phoenix
The astonishing growth of these small businesses means substantially increased competition for them especially in the major metropolitan areas where they congregate. There are 3 basic things that these very small businesses can do to be more competitive: - Build a Google+ page – Google+ lets companies quickly get on the first page of a search for key words related to their services. The stark reality is that most of their competitors do not have a Google+ page giving the ones that do an extreme advantage in Google Search.
- Feature their telephone number prominently on this page
- Engage one of the new cloud-based answering services like US Answer and Main Virtual Office, the answer the calls they can’t.
Forbes has estimated that 80% of callers that are sent to voicemail, hang up. For this competitive marketplace, this will not be acceptable for many freelancers and solopreneurs. The good news is new cloud-based answering services have emerged in the last 3 years leveraging the Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) network. These companies are focused on the smallest of small businesses and are substantially more affordable than most of the other answering service companies that have built their platforms on the 134-year-old public telephone network. About Jim Plunkett Formerly a lead engineer on the cleanup of the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites, Jim entered the dot com world in 1999, Co-founding Vacation Harbor (think Air B&B 1.0). Jim is presently Co-founder of US Answer a cloud-based answering service and mobile app for small businesses.
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US Answer, answering service, phone answering, telephone answering,
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