But if you've tried to invest in the sector, you've likely been let down because most small businesses are private. One way is via larger public companies whose customers are mostly small, private ones. In today's hot economy, where small businesses are thriving, it's no surprise that companies serving this market of 22 million customers are also doing well. The group includes payroll processors, staffing agencies, and other outsourcers, plus specialty lenders and office superstores.
Small outfits tend to fail more often than big ones.
Some of Wall Street's heaviest hitters have caught on to the small-business game. If you want to follow Clayton, Dubilier's example, you'll have to do some digging. The only shortcut we found was a database from Zacks Investment Research. Beyond that, we screened Morningstar and Value Line for finance, business service, specialty retail, and business-information stocks. Then we slogged through company documents to pick out those that specifically say they cater to small and midsize companies, tossing back any that concentrated on a single industry or region.