As Trump Enters The White House, Solution Provider CEOs Optimistic About Jobs, 2017 Revenue Growth

As Donald Trump takes the oath of office Friday to become the 45th president of the United States, solution provider executives expect his administration to have a positive impact on their businesses, projecting revenue growth and the hiring of new employees in the coming year.

This week, CRN asked its audience to reply to a variety of questions about the 58th Inauguration Day activities in Washington D.C., their companies and their business outlook for 2017. For this story, we used the subset of replies out the 118 respondents who identified themselves as CEO, CFO, Owner, Proprietor or Partners.

"I think it will be somewhat positive. I'll know more tomorrow," said Paul Wolfson, owner and lead investigator for Dallas Legal Technology, which provides technology consulting and private investigation services in Dallas and Washington D.C. "I don't know quite what to think of Trump."

[Related: Cisco's Chambers Double Down On The Market After Trump's Win]

Most of the CEOs surveyed said that Donald Trump's presidency would have a somewhat positive (16.9 percent) or mostly positive (22.9 percent) impact on their companies. The next most popular responses were quite neutral – They selected "Neither positive nor negative impact" (13.6 percent) almost as much as "Not sure" (14.4 percent).

"For 2017, everything's kind of baked in already," says Amy Gerber, COO of Tel-Affinity, a Boston-based telecom sales agent and services broker. "Over the next few months, the question will be: 'Does the administration project an air of confidence and competence?' If CEOs are not feeling confident then, in 2018, we'll see spending start to plummet."

One of our questions that netted a variety of responses was: "How often has Donald Trump's election and plans for his presidency come up in the conversations you have with customers, either in person, on the phone or online, over the last six months?" Most survey respondents said, "Not too often" (27.1 percent) or "Somewhat often" (28 percent). Nearly one-quarter of respondents (23.7 percent), however, said Trump's presidency plans come up in conversations "Very often."

Trump's presidency does come up in conversations with customers, but "not in a business context, except for small business owners hoping that access to capital will loosen up a little bit," Wolfson said.

Wolfson said a key topic for his company is being able to get access to credit to fund investigations and longer-term projects. "This [Obama] administration has not been small business friendly," Wolfson said. "Since 2008, I have become a completely self-funded company."

Others are less likely to trust Trump, given his own business track record. "I do not think he'll actually do anything he says he's going to do," Gerber said.

Many small business owners are hopeful that Trump will make it easier for them to run their companies and hire more people. Donald Trump's approach to the economy, according to his public statements, has been that he wants to create more jobs in the U.S., curb the outsourcing of jobs to other countries, and he's voiced support for traditional Republican economic priorities, like rolling back regulations for corporations and big banks and cutting taxes for employers.

When asked how they expect revenues to change in 2017, most of the CRN CEO respondents said revenues were going up. It's worth noting that, in this poll, we did not ask if folks felt Trump's presidency would inspire revenue or economic growth. That said, the replies indicate that 2017 will be a growth year for solution providers. Nearly one-third (29.7 percent) say they expect revenues to increase between 10 and 19 percent this year, while 26.3 percent of the respondents said they expect revenue growth of "20 percent or more."

Of course, the revenue growth, changes in healthcare and access to small business capital go together. Wolfson said it's tough to expand his business if projects involve a "significant" capital expenditure. "I can't float my entire checking account for each client," he said.

Regarding employer-provided health insurance, Wolfson also hopes that the new administration can give business owners a way to cover their employees that keeps costs under control. "I have to pay my employees and the cost of healthcare is prohibitive and, in the past, I have lost good employees because historically insurance companies can cherry-pick who they cover."

"As a small business owner, with a small payroll, I see the biggest impact on my business being whatever [Trump] does with healthcare," Gerber said.

Wolfson notes that the Affordable Care Act has allowed him to cover employees he wouldn't otherwise be able to, but he fears any changes that would make the costs skyrocket. "Insurance companies have so much impact on small businesses. There's no way you can run a competitive business without healthcare," he said.

The ability to provide health coverage does impact headcount and the CRN survey showed that solution providers don't see headcount growing quite as fast as revenues this year.

CRN's CEO audience respondents said most (44.9 percent) expect that their employee numbers will stay the same in 2017. There were some (27.1 percent) that look forward to seeing their employee ranks grow between 1 and 9 percent. Most of our survey respondents, it should be noted, work at firms with fewer than 100 people.

What is not clear, however, is whether any optimism around hiring is directly linked to Trump's presidency.

"[Trump] talks about bringing back jobs, as opposed to empowering innovation and technology and creating new kinds of jobs," Gerber said. "A lot of businesses that I work with in technology are all about innovation … These are going to be some interesting times."