In the spirit of Halloween, eVoice released the results of a survey that asked thousands of businesses in all 50 states what scares them the most. The winner: finding new customers and hanging onto existing ones.

The survey was sent via email to customers and visitors to eVoice’s website, and it really shows us the truth of owning a business – that it’s hard to earn and keep customers, especially when it’s all about staying connected. More than one in three respondents said that they feared missing an important call from potential business, which even outranked looking unprofessional and forgetting a client’s name. Over a third of the participants indicated that missing a single important phone call lost them a customer, so the fear is not unfounded by any means.

Still, over half of the participants expected a better holiday season than last year, despite their fears and lack of business this year.

The point is that even though times are hard and people are fearful, they keep moving forward and they find hope. They prepare – 72% have moved part of their businesses to a website – and they are moving to virtual phone systems, but they keep on keeping on, even when the outlook is bleak.

Take a lesson from your fellow small business owners and keep moving forward, even when the ghosts and the vampires make you want to turn back. By the way – 5% of small businesses are superstitious, so maybe some horseshoes are in order.

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