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[music]
When it comes to competing for jobs and industries, we're on one team, and that is
the American team.
Small Business Week is an opportunity to bring together some of the most innovative small
businesses in the country, and as you look around the room, you see that this is how
America is going to win the future.
So what I'm really looking forward to in attending is to meet as many interesting people, other business owners…
SBA and the government are doing a great job of helping us understand what opportunities
are out there.
This is an opportunity to come and meet Federal agencies, small business officers, people
who are actually on the front line trying to accomplish things.
It's a unique event and that you're really networking and talking with people from all
over the U.S.
Having conversations with small businesses and being able to talk about what their needs
and their wants are is a critical part of running that business.
It's up to us to stop focusing on the past and start looking to the future.
All of you are here today for a very good reason, which is to work on your business
and not necessarily work in your business.
It's great to have all the winners here, I've been reading up on you, I know that we've
got folks here who build bridges in Wyoming, who provide home healthcare in Rhode Island...
It is the best time of year, we have the most amazing stories...
You're giving this country a double boost: you're creating jobs, and you're helping
the Federal government provide the most innovative products. [applause]
What I'd like to do is start by defining social media.
We're really at the core of it; we're not communicating as humans
any differently than we were thousands of years ago.
Social media is just the newest way to market.
Thinking about your social media strategy, you need to think about what percentage of
my customers need to be brand-new customers, and what percentage need to be repeat customers.
What we're focusing on in today's panel is high-growth firms and high-growth entrepreneurship.
I think our culture's still the same, and frankly, our salary structure hasn't even
changed that much.
Ninety seven percent of all purchasing starts with a web search.
We cannot live for ourselves alone.
Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads.
First, I'd like to know, who had fun today? [cheers]
If you look at this country and its history, it’s really founded by entrepreneurs willing
to take risks. We need to do things to celebrate their work and be supportive and
help provide resources.
Ninety five percent of the world customers are outside the borders of the United States.
That’s who we need to sell to.
You don’t necessarily have to open an office abroad in order to service that market.
This is about all of you today, and I want to congratulate, on behalf of the President,
the winners of the 2011 Small Business Person of the Year Award.
Ladies and gentlemen, please help me recognize the National Small Business Person of the
Year for 2011, Rick Cochran, the president and CEO of Mobile Medical International Corporation
of Vermont.
I’m thankful very much for my team, my wonderful, wonderful staff, and people who have the same
passion, and the dreams, the hopes, the desires that I do.
So thank you, thank you, thank you for being here, for all the work you do to keep America's
economy growing and getting stronger.
Please remember one thing: the only people who fail in business are the ones who give up.
But if we’re going to turn this economy around, it’s going to come from the small
businesses, they generate the jobs.
I'm not sorry for even one day of these five and a half years since I decided to go into
business.
Small businesses are the backbone of our economy.
The business owners here at National Small Business Week are the cream of the crop.
They're here to learn more.
The information I'm receiving is invaluable.
If you ask me, what do entrepreneurs need to be doing today? The most important thing
in America to do today is to create a job.
We're going to do that because of the small businesses like the ones we're honoring during
Small Business Week. They're the ones who are going to help us.
This is how we're going to out-compete the rest of the world.
You're the rock stars. Congratulations. Keep up the good work!