What is a small business?
The Office of Advocacy defines a small business for research purposes as an independent business having fewer than 500 employees.

How important are small businesses to the U.S. economy?
Small firms:
Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.
Employ about half of all private sector employees.
Pay nearly 45 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
Have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually over the last decade.
Create more than half of nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP).
Hire 40 percent of high tech workers (such as scientists, engineers, and computer workers).
Are 52 percent home-based and 2 percent franchises.
Made up 97.3 percent of all identified exporters and produced 28.9 percent of the known export value in FY 2006.
Produce 13 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms; these patents are twice as likely as large firm patents to be among the one percent most cited.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census and International Trade Administration

"Small businesses create more than half the new jobs. They contribute about half the country’s gross domestic product." ~ Thomas Oliver "Little help for small businesses" The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sunday, February 01, 2009

We all obsess about providing services to the Fortune 1000 (for the most part) in this country and what have they rewarded us with? Layoffs and hiring freezes. You think they're worried about how we're going to pay our mortgages or feed our kids?
NOT!
10,000 on the Dow has seemed to be the marker for my business over the last several years - when the Dow is above 10,000 I am flat out slammed - the higher it goes the slammiered I am. At 10,000? The phones immediately go quiet - under 10,000? Forget about it! Corporate America shuts down the coffers faster than a spring-loaded trap. Let's put our heads together and figger out how we can get our services out to the providers of 80% of the jobs in this country. Hoovers lists 321,851 PRIVATELY OWNED enterprise headquarters in the United States with 86,753 of them with 100 or more employees and 12,158 of them w/1000 or more employees and 6,116 of them w/2,000 or more employees and 1,015 w/10,000 or more employees and 45 w/100,000 or more employees. But don't let those (relatively) small numbers discourage you.
CA has 3.4 million small businesses
TX has 2.1 million small businesses
NY has 1.9 million small businesses
IL has 1.1 million small businesses
OH has 901,247 small businesses
GA has 867,636 small businesses
MA has 595,959 small businesses
AZ has 474,508 small businesses
Find data on your state's Small Business Profiles for the States and Territories here. (Figures mostly from 2006, last year compiled)

I don't know about you but I think in the coming months this is where I'm going to focus my marketing efforts! What are you going to do?

Facts about Small Businesses here (data seems to be a few years old) .
U.S. SBA Office of Advocacy www.sba.gov/advo/stats/sbfaq.pdf+small+business+80%25+jobs&hl=e...">Frequently Asked Questions, 2008
Getting a Job in Small Business