Is the Election Killing Small Businesses?

We were chatting with a media executive recently who made an unsurprising observation: Business is great, thanks to the election.

Since we’re always trying to gauge the state of the entrepreneurial economy, we asked: Are small businesses advertising?

We found the answer to be both intriguing and sad: For the most part, they can’t afford to.

Ads are selling at a premium due to demand. Most small businesses can’t afford the current rates.

Promoting one job or many?

The political process is squeezing them out. That may not make much of a difference in an economy experiencing slow growth, but what about elections during boom times?

Political ads help one person get a job – be it a local, state or national office. When a small business promotes, it may lead to tens, hundreds or thousands of them.

Should it affect the timing of your startup?

More importantly, this conversation also made us think about a common question. We’re often asked: When is the best time to start a business?

Our answer has been: There really isn’t one. You can make the case for starting up in just about any market.

Some of the biggest success stories were started in a recession. Others started in a boom. Still others started in between the two.

However, this conversation made us think about something we had never given much thought to before:

If you rely on major media to get the word out for your product or service, you may want to start in a year with no elections. And you may especially want to avoid a Presidential election year.

What do you think? Is the political process killing small businesses? Should you consider this when starting up?

Image in this post from stock.xchng