National Coalition Requests That the Small Business Administration Stop Fabricating Small Business Contracting Numbers ...

PETALUMA, CA--(Marketwire -06/07/12)- The following is a statement by the American Small Business League:

A coalition of small business advocates, trade organizations, businesses and non-profit organizations led by the American Small Business League (ASBL) has sent letters to the Small Business Administration (SBA), Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requesting greater transparency in federal small business contracting. This precedes the release of the SBA's annual Small Business Procurement Scorecard, which is due out this summer and known for overstating the percentage of contract dollars awarded to small businesses.
www.asbl.com/karenmills.pdf
www.asbl.com/jeffreyzients.pdf
www.asbl.com/joejordan.pdf

"The government must ensure that small business data is accurate and timely -- small businesses and the public deserve to know whether the government is actually close to small business contracting goals," said Scott Amey, General Counsel at the Project on Government Oversight (POGO). "Moreover, enhanced competition and small business opportunities are good for taxpayers and great for the economy."

The federal government has a statutory goal of awarding 23 percent of the total value of all prime contract dollars to legitimate small businesses, but has never accomplished this goal. To make matters worse, the SBA overstates the percentage of federal contracts awarded to small businesses by including contracts awarded to large businesses. The SBA also overstates the percentage of contracts awarded to small businesses by dramatically understating the federal acquisitions budget, including classified and unclassified contracts.

"It is important to accurately report federal agencies' priorities and performance levels in meeting the 23 percent small business goal set by Congress in 1997 that goes unmet year after year," said Roger A. Campos, President & CEO of the Minority Business RoundTable. "Failing to meet these goals has cost America's small and minority businesses billions in lost opportunities."

Since 2003, more than a dozen federal investigations have found billions of dollars in federal small business contracts flowing into the hands of corporate giants. Following fiscal year 2011, which ended in September, the SBA Office of Inspector General named the fact that procurement flaws allow large firms to obtain small business awards and agencies to count contracts performed by large firms towards their small business goals as the SBA's top management challenge for the seventh consecutive year.

"During his campaign, President Obama promised to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants," said Lloyd Chapman, President of the ASBL. "It is time for President Obama to force the SBA to stop fabricating these numbers. They need to tell the truth, which is that small businesses get a small fraction of what the SBA says they do."

The undersigned individuals and organizations have endorsed this effort:

American Small Business League (ASBL)
Project on Government Oversight (POGO)
Minority Business Round Table (MBRT)
Fairness in Procurement Alliance (FPA)
Charles Tiefer, Professor of Government Contracting, University of Baltimore Law School
Oregon State Chamber of Commerce
Fox Cities Chamber of Commerce
North Clackamas County Chamber of Commerce
Leadville/Lake County Chamber of Commerce
Simi Valley Chamber of Commerce
Greater Los Angeles African American Chamber of Commerce
The Blount Partnership
Manhattan Chamber of Commerce
Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Minnesota
Regional Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (Southern California)
Business Coalition for Fair Competition (BCFC)
Mechanical Contractors Association of America (MCAA)
African American Chamber of Commerce of Western Pennsylvania
Queens Chamber of Commerce
Eyes Cream Shades
Public Citizen
Hispanic Chamber of Commerce for Ohio
Washington (Il) Chamber of Commerce
Ayden Chamber of Commerce
Melbourne Regional Chamber of East Central Florida

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Twitter hopes to ring up big numbers from small business self-serve ads - CNET News

If it works as hoped, the new program will let Twitter tap into a huge roster of new advertisers

Twitter for small business

(Credit: Twitter)

Twitter has finally begun a slow-motion roll-out of a plan to generate more business from small businesses with a self-serve ad program.

Initially, only a small group of businesses will have access to this new advertising opportunity -- Twitter says the number participating small businesses over the coming weeks will "steadily increase." If it works as advertised-no pun intended-this could be a very big deal as it will tap into a huge demographic of potential advertising. The hope is that this will have the same sort of impact on Twitter's business that AdWords had on Google's.

That's a tall order but at least Twitter's finally out of the gate. In February, Twitter announced plans to let small businesses to set up advertising accounts on their own over Twitter where, among other things, they could highlight promotions and messages in their customers' Twitter timelines. The program revolves around promoted accounts and promoted tweets. With promoted accounts: the service will examine a company's current followers, searching for people with similar interests and then recommend who to follow.

With promoted tweets, a business gets charged when someone follows their account or engages with a promoted tweet. A spokesman for Twitter declined to comment on the financial arrangements beyond the official statement.

In a video Twitter produced, it offers the following:

"You determine the limit of how much you want to spend per day and how much you want to spend per new follower or engagement," Twitter said in a video announcement of the program. "So there are never any surprises. You can also decide where geographically where you want your content to be promoted."

Not exactly a gabfest, but it is what it is.

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