Imagine your neighborhood or city without any of its small, local businesses.

Coffee shops, hair and nail salons, corner stores, spas, boutique clothing stores, consignment shops, restaurants, craft stores, bars, fruit markets, shoe/bike/tire repair shops, laundromats, art supply stores, gift shops, gas stations, pet stores, and more – all gone.

What would be left? What would the streets look like? Desolate, depressing, empty, boring, abandoned… like a regular day on a zombie apocalypse TV show?

Just how much of a presence and impact do small businesses have on our communities? The Small Business Administration (SBA) reports 28 million small businesses operating in the U.S. alone. And since 1995, those small businesses have generated 66% of all new jobs in the United States. Small businesses are a big deal.