According to the SBA, small businesses represent 99.7% of all employer firms. In 2006, there were 26.7 million small businesses in the United States, according to Office of Advocacy estimates. In short, small business are the backbone of the US Economy! It’s no surprise then, that general services (used primarily by professional services) is actually the 3rd most popular category on vFlyer (Real estate is #1 and Auto is #2).

Kelsey Group analyst Michael Boland has been a big believer in the "Webification" of small and mid-sized businesses. Webification is about making it easier for small business to establish and expand their a web presence. I recently spoke with Mike about trends in the small business space and talked about what I saw as the three stages of webification. There include:

• Web presence
  Services focused on establishing a web presence for small businesses and helping them distribute information.
• Web commerce
  Front-office and e-commerce application focused on sales and marketing.
• Web applications
  Back-office applications aimed productivity, efficiency and cost-cutting.

vFlyer touches small businesses in a number of these stages. First it provide the services and functionality to immediately give small business an online web presence and allows them to build out flyers and a gallery around their products or services. vFlyer also provides a marketing platform that helps companies engage in web commerce by distributing their listings, products or services to leading online market places. vFlyer also provides small business users with web application functionality to create and manage listings, distribute marketing material via email and SMS, and monitor custom response and interaction though a comprehensive set of reporting tools.

The following are examples of the wide range of small business using vFlyer to get the word out and get customers in:

• Interior Decorator (Kenneth Bordewick Interior Design)
• Real Estate Services (Doug Reynolds – Prudential)
• Home Improvement (Golden Gate Enterprises)
• Auto Mechanic (Mobile Repairs)
• Marketing Consulting (Prevail PR)
• Translation Services (Yazmin Llams)
• Notary Public (The Document Diva)
• Photography (Don Baham Photography)
• Personal Trainer (The Event Division)
• Computer Services (DoctorMac)
• Mortgage Brokers (Tierra Funding Group)
• Auto Broker (TC Autos)
• Preschool (Little Steps Preschool)
• Traffic School (Bay Area Traffic School Online)
• Architect (FDP Design)
• Artist (Chris Ohlig)
• Insurance (Farmers Insurance Group)
• Home Stating (Primp This House)
• Wedding Planner (Monterey Wedding)