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If you want to know what's on the mind of the small business owner right now in light of the difficult economy, Michael Alter says all you need to do is ask.

And with that direct approach, his company has produced the SurePayroll Small Business Scorecard, designed to take the pulse of small companies and measure the outlook their owners have.

SurePayroll, based in Glenview, Ill., is a national payroll service with more than 25,000 small-business customers. The Scorecard's May survey, which was just released, Alter said, had 73 percent of the respondents indicating they are optimistic about the small-business economy.

That's an improvement from April when only 66 percent of respondents were optimistic.

"The optimism appears to be fueled by the fact that many small-business owners have managed to maintain or grow revenues and profits, even in a down economy," he said. "As one of our optimists put it: 'Everything has cycles. There is money to be made in an up-and-down economy, depending on how you look at the opportunities.' "

Some other observations: Good execution, specifically hard work and top-notch customer service, will get a small firm through rough times. The troubles that large corporations are having are creating opportunities for smaller firms to step in and take up the slack.

The business owners who do not share the positive outlook said they were pessimistic because of increasing government regulation, intensified competition from large rivals, the loss of major customers and a drop in customer demand.

The Scorecard also broke out some data by state.

Florida's small firms reported that their number of employees was up 3.4 percent for the year, as of May 31, but the average size of paychecks was down 5.4 percent. In fact, the drop in average paycheck size was the case in most geographic areas. Alter observed that one of the reasons that small companies have been able to add staff is that the price of a new employee has never been lower.

His final conclusion, and one I suspect is the case with many businesses, is that most small-company owners have figured out how to hang on or even take advantage of events to continue growing their companies. Resilience, creativity and being nimble — that's the stuff of today's entrepreneur.