Sage Advice for Entrepreneurs from Andrew Goodman

In the world of Google AdWords e-books and consultants, Andrew Goodman is my “competitor.”

He’s the “other” AdWords guru out there, based in Toronto. His first book actually came out a year before mine. Rivals may have their rivalries, but I have great respect for Andrew, his knowledge, and his contribution of sensibility to the often irrational world of Internet marketing.

Andrew recently wrote an article that I just thought was spot-on brilliant, deeply insightful, and 100% relevant to everything I’ve been talking about today. Stick around and listen to Andrew. He’s got some very wise words for you here.

Turning the $100,000 Corner

By Andrew Goodman

Although we often hear that small business is the heart and soul of the economy, it gets a disproportionately small amount of ink. Sound advice is tough to find. Maybe that’s because every situation is so different. More likely, it’s because information is filtered through the lens of those who finance business. It’s tough to make a profit lending money to “mom and pop,” or at the very least, there is little incentive to help them actually succeed. So that’s not who runs the ads in the magazines. And that’s not what they write about. Big deals and big money rule the business press.

Watching Google AdWords fund the growth of one of the world’s largest technology companies has always been so interesting to me because so many of Google’s 280,000 global advertisers are small accounts. It really is a huge engine of growth.

According to OECD estimates, in Canada (just for example), small businesses contribute 45% to the nation’s GDP. Some are quite small: there are 1.1 million firms with revenue under $100,000. And small firms created 63% of new jobs last year.

Many of them are the smallest of the small. 88.6% of these companies have 1-9 employees.