Editor’s note: This commentary is by Andy Robinson, who lives and works in Plainfield.
[F]or the last 20 years, including 13 in Vermont, I have owned and operated a one-person business. I am a consultant, trainer and author, working primarily with nonprofits but also the occasional government or corporate client.
Responses to my recent commentary on VTDigger got me thinking about all the other sole proprietors I do business with. It’s a long list:
• I hire several contractors to support my consulting practice with specialized skills, such as graphic design and website management. They are all sole proprietors.
• As needed, I team up with other consultants, trainers and facilitators. A colleague and I just started a project together in Boston that neither of us would have been able to tackle alone. Like me, she’s one-person business.
• For many years, I used a professional tax preparer who worked from home.
• I travel a lot for work with the help of a travel agent. Yes, this is old-school, but the additional cost is modest and the service is terrific. When the airlines drop the ball – and they inevitably do – it’s wonderful to have to someone who will fight those battles on my behalf.
• Like many Vermonters, I buy maple syrup from a neighbor who taps, boils and bottles it himself. Most of what I purchase is shipped as gifts to out-of-state clients, so this is another business-to-business relationship.
All hail the micro-entrepreneurs! We may be small, but we are mighty. We pay taxes. We contribute to our communities. We don’t have employees, but when you look at the money we spend with other businesses, we definitely create jobs.
• When my spouse and I visit the Montpelier farmer’s market, pretty much everything we buy – meat, cheese, eggs, veggies – is produced by family-owned and -operated businesses. At a recent market, I purchased beer from a Burlington couple who had converted their garage to a brewery – the quintessential Vermont microenterprise.
• Last fall, we hired a local carpenter for a home improvement project. When he needed an extra hand, he recruited a friend. Both are sole proprietors.
• And let’s not forget the guys who deliver firewood in the spring and plow our driveway in the winter. They are sole proprietors, too.
Most of these people don’t aspire to own or run larger businesses, or add extra employees. They have already “scaled up,” and for them – as for me – running a one-person enterprise is just about right.
Lest we dismiss these efforts as “niche businesses,” consider the economic impact. According to Doug Hoffer, state auditor of accounts, there are almost 60,000 non-employer firms (sole proprietors and two-person partnerships) in Vermont. They total 18 percent of the workforce, generating $2.4 billion – almost 10 percent of our state’s economic activity. By way of comparison, this is 60 percent greater than the economic impact of Vermont’s ski industry.
All hail the micro-entrepreneurs! We may be small, but we are mighty. We pay taxes. We contribute to our communities. We don’t have employees, but when you look at the money we spend with other businesses, we definitely create jobs. If we all disappeared tomorrow, the economy would slowly grind to a halt.
Unfortunately, we are invisible to many economic development experts, who keep searching for the next mega-employer, like Ahab chasing his white whale. If you’re obsessing about one big thing, sometimes you miss the little things.
Cairn Cross is a venture capitalist who advises Shap Smith, Speaker of the Vermont House, on economic policy. As reported on VPR, “Cross says the days of anchor-employment behemoths like IBM are over. And he says the surest route to economic success is to lure the entrepreneurs … Convincing those people to make their lives in Vermont, according to Cross, has more to do with clean lakes, quality schools – even great local beer – than it does with tweaks to tax codes and business regulations.”
Some of these entrepreneurs will start small and scale up, hiring new employees. Others will remain as sole proprietors, making a living, paying their own way, and supporting their families, peers and communities. Any sensible economic development policy must embrace both outcomes, because they both define success.
As we work to build a sustainable economic future for our state, let’s look at the whole picture. As we recruit larger employers, let’s not sacrifice our assets, such as clean lakes and quality schools, which make Vermont attractive to so many successful one-person businesses.
