Past performance is no guarantee of future results, as the old business truism says. But you also may have heard that you can’t know where you’re going without knowing where you have been.

To get a sense of which industries small businesses are growing in, the analysts at Raleigh, N.C.-headquartered private-company financial-information company Sageworks ran some numbers for Entrepreneur.com. Here’s a look at the industries where U.S. companies with $10 million or less in annual sales have shown the highest and lowest percentage change from Jan. 1 to Dec 31, 2012. As a benchmark, the average growth rate across all U.S. small businesses in the time period was 8 percent, says Libby Bierman, an analyst at Sageworks.


Fastest-Growth Industries for U.S. Small Businesses in 2012

• Residential building construction: 14.77 percent
• Building custom software and servers for businesses: 14.29 percent
• Machinery, equipment, and supplies merchant wholesalers: 13.75 percent
• Management, scientific, and technical consulting services: 12.31 percent
• Architectural, engineering, and related services: 11.40 percent
• Foundation, structure, and building exterior contractors: 11.37 percent
• Building finishing contractors who make additions, alterations, maintenance and repairs: 11.32 percent
• General freight trucking: 10.41 percent
• Services to buildings and dwellings, including pest exterminators, janitorial services, and landscaping: 10.11 percent
• Other specialty trade contractors, including site preparation activities and other specialized trades: 10.04 percent

Slowest-Growth Industries for U.S. Small Businesses in 2012

• Skilled nursing care facilities: -3.29 percent
• Printing and related support activities: 1.86 percent
• Automotive repair and maintenance: 2.81 percent
• Offices of physicians: 3.00 percent
• Highway, street, and bridge construction: 4.24 percent
• Insurance agencies, brokerages, and other insurance-related activities: 4.32 percent
• Lessors of real estate: 5.07 percent
• Other miscellaneous manufacturing including jewelry and silverware, sporting and athletic goods, dolls, toys, and games, office supplies other than paper, and signs: 5.55 percent
• Offices of health practitioners other than physicians and dentists, including chiropractors, optometrists, mental health practitioners, speech and occupational therapists: 5.98 percent
• Other amusement and recreation services including bowling centers, golf courses, and recreational centers: 6.03 percent

The good news for entrepreneurs is that much of the fastest growth is in service businesses, which can be started without a lot of money to buy equipment and inventory, says Bierman. Software development, management consulting and architecture firms have been frontrunners have been for a few years now, says Bierman.

Not all of the businesses on the fastest-growing list are service based. In particular, the residential housing market has just started to recover, and that is supporting businesses related to the construction industry, including foundation and exterior construction and specialty contractors. A lot of construction projects were abandoned during the recession and so part of the bounce in construction is businesses and individuals picking back up old half-finished projects.

Business services and construction are looking strong in the coming years. “They provide services that are, maybe not critical, but very much needed by other businesses and people who are trying to even grow their homes,” Bierman says. “I don’t see these industries going anywhere. Maybe their growth rate won’t be as high as it has been, but I don’t think it will be a decline anytime soon.”

A list of the fastest-growing industries for all businesses would include manufacturing, says Bierman, but most successful manufacturers have more than $10 million in annual revenue. “Manufacturing as a whole has been something that has pretty positive news lately,” she says. “If those manufacturers are having pull, the middlemen, or the wholesalers that are transacting those sales, will continue to see growth, too.”

During the depths of the recession, many industries were contracting. Now, almost all industries are growing, albeit some at more sluggish rates. The slower-growth companies are not seeing impressive growth rates because they are entrenched in technology that is becoming obsolete, such as printing. But some of those industries are seeing slower growth simply because they have relatively inelastic demand. For example, an economic recession does not change the fact that sick people need to go to the doctor. The growth rate for physician’s offices does not typically change drastically.

Overall, the home health-care industry has seen positive growth rates in revenue over the past year as consumers look for an alternative to moving into a nursing care facility, says Bierman. Skilled nursing care facilities come up on this list as a shrinking, but that’s partly because of the restrictions placed on the data. For this research, Sageworks included only those businesses with less than $10 million in annual revenue. The decline in skilled nursing care facilities may be an indication that smaller facilities are losing ground to their larger competitors or home health care alternatives, she says.

If you thinking about starting your own business, what industry are you considering and why? Leave a note below and let us know.
































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Think of the last time you struggled to focus on a boring or difficult task. Your wandering attention probably felt like it was outside your control, as if you suddenly lost the ability to focus and didn't know how to regain it. We all feel that way sometimes.

Even in those moments, when you feel like you're fighting against your own instincts, you can stop procrastinating and get focused. You just need to recharge your willpower.


"Willpower gives you the energy and endurance to deal with challenges, the ability to persevere in the face of setbacks, and the strength to tolerate conflict or stress that might otherwise make us run away from goals or projects we care about," says Kelly McGonigal, a Stanford psychologist and author of The Willpower Instinct (Avery, 2011).

Your willpower works like a muscle -- it needs to be trained, developed, and maintained. "A lot of people will tell me they have no willpower," McGonigal says. "But nothing I've come across suggests a willpower gene."

Anyone can learn to improve their willpower, so here are five tips to get you started:

1. Remember your goals. If your willpower feels drained, think of the task at hand as a necessary stepping stone to help you achieve your goals. "Willpower is very easily depleted if its disconnected from your values and goals," McGonigal says.

For example, if you dislike invoicing, then viewing it as an isolated task will make it hard to muster the energy to do it. If you recast it as one of the many ways you build a thriving business, then the passion you feel for your business will help motivate you to focus on -- and even enjoy -- the invoicing.

2. Practice coping with stress. When you're working toward a goal, you are bound to hit tough times. To reach ambitious goals, you need to persist in stressful conditions, even when anxiety, fear, or even boredom threaten to sap your willpower.

Mindfulness helps you cope with stress and strengthen willpower. Try mindfulness meditation, or better yet, do hot yoga to learn to stay with discomfort and find some serenity within it. "It's almost like a willpower workout," McGonigal says.

3. Forgive your mistakes. You are bound to make mistakes, but your willpower will be stronger if you take those errors in stride. "Forgiving yourself for your mistakes increases motivation and engagement with goals," McGonigal says.

Treat your own failure with the kindness you'd offer a friend, but note the ways that you can do a better job next time. "That's very different than the usual self-criticism or ego-boosting," McGonigal says. It allows you to bounce back and grow at the same time.

4. Connect with colleagues. Willpower naturally rises when we feel recognized and appreciated for our work. "We think of willpower as being so tough and individual, but the more connected people feel, the more willpower they have," McGonigal says.

When you feel unmotivated or distracted, go talk to a co-worker or invite your colleagues to lunch. The simple pleasure of working with people you care about toward a common goal is a surprisingly effective way to restore your willpower.

5. Trust that it will get easier. We often struggle to stay engaged during difficult tasks because we imagine, sometimes unconsciously, that they will continue to be just as hard in the future. We feel defeated or hopeless and give up.

To combat that feeling, remember that your skill improves with practice. "Appreciate that a task is difficult but don't tell yourself the story that it's always going to be difficult," McGonigal says. Most likely, the task will be a little bit easier every time you try it.






































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