What keeps small business owners up at night? It seems so obvious. It’s the first guess anybody dealing with them would make. But here’s a survey that — to the extent any survey does — proves it. 

Thanks to Marketing Profs I found Constant Contact’s (the email marketing company) Small Business Pulse survey for 2012. And with the illustration below we see that what keeps small business owners up at night, their first and biggest concern, is getting more customers.

You can click on that link for a larger view of the original, or click here to download the full report. 

Aside: I added “to the extent that any survey does” above because we should never forget that surveys are only as valid as the way survey respondents were chosen and how well they actually represent the group they stand for. Stay skeptical. For example, another portion of this survey shows that the group favors email marketing over all other marketing tools … but then the survey was taken by an email marketing company, of the opinions of its own customers. So wouldn’t that selection tend to value email marketing higher than the average small business owners? 

In this case, however, the results sure do coincide with common knowledge and common wisdom. Are you surprised that small business owners are most concerned about attracting new customers? And their second concern is keeping the customers they already have? 

Second question: For the entrepreneurs in the crowd, thinking of starting a business … what does this tell you about the business offerings that will or won’t work for small business owners?