With adrenalin flowing from Herman Cain’s opening presentation Jim Blasingame settled the America's Small Business Summit crowd down with a simple question:

“What is the largest economy in the world?”

An easy one right? The United States?  But our small business owners were going to fall for a trick question and everyone stayed silent to let Jim reveal the twist.

 “Small Business USA”

That is the largest economy in the world is not just the United States, but specifically our small business economy.  And two of our small business owners, David Mulendorf and Darlene Miller joined Andrew Sherman and Karen Kerrigan to talk about how they got into business, and why they stay. A common theme quickly developed – business has been tough and not just because of the economy. Some selections from the introductions:

Muhlendorf – We wouldn’t be a success if it wasn’t for the passion that our employees bring to the job every day…I would love to be able to get up every morning and focus on satisfying our customers, but too often I have to focus on satisfying government.

Miller – Running a business is not easy, living the American dream is not easy. But it is worth it, to create jobs, and create value…we are not ready to invest because of uncertainty in the economy and government.

Sherman – There are more lawyers being hired by the Federal Government than I have ever seen before -- that is bad news for those who are trying to play by the rules…We need to get serious about innovation. Our intellectual capital is our greatest strength.

Kerrigan – I see a lot of concern among entrepreneurs at growing regulatory costs – both in money and in time.

We then went to the Q&A, there was general agreement that uncertainty is the enemy of job creation -- uncertainty about the economy and government.  Entrepreneurs can battle uncertainty in the economy, but they need clarity in regulation and capital formation.  If we are too busy fighting fires and filling out forms we can’t grow.  Our businesses can’t be a hamster on a wheel, they need to be free to explore new territory. One manufacturer told Karen Kerrigan that the 1099 filing requirement in the health care reform bill could mean that they would have to prepare over 3,000 forms a year for everyone in their supply chain.

Then the conversation switched to credit and how to get it. Several of the companies in the room had lost credit lines because their bank took TARP money -- with the strict credit rating restrictions, banks had to jettison small businesses.  On credit standards, as always happens in Washington, the pendulum has swung too far and small businesses are taking the hit.  More and more of the economy is driven by intangible assets and our accounting rules have not kept up.  Too much is ignored by banks when entrepreneurs are trying to raise capital.

But there was optimism. Our business owners talked about how in the B2B space companies are moving from being vendors and more to being partners; and how innovation and technology are the keys to making it through economic hard times.  Perhaps the best advice though came from Andrew Sherman, who (channeling Vince Lombardi?) said:

"If you feel like you are under attack, the very best thing that you can do is to go home and grow your business."