The FPB found that micro businesses (those with fewer than nine employees) were the most likely to grow their business in the next six months, with the majority expecting to do so through a concerted sales and marketing campaign.
The survey of FPB members, found that 13% of companies are already experiencing a rise in their order books and 15% expect this increase in sales to occur in the next quarter.
45% of respondents expect to expand their business in the next year
45% of the respondents expect to expand their business in the next year and 37% said they intend to take on new staff by September 2010.
This optimistic outlook is most likely to be negatively affected by the difficulty of accessing finance, with 77% of respondents reporting that they had seen the terms and conditions of lending worsen in the last calendar year, with many being forced to provide more security to cover their current lending.
A mere 4% said that they had seen access to working capital improve this year, 65% said it was harder to access finance for growth and 68% said the cost of finance had increased.
Commenting on the findings, FPB Chief Executive Phil Orford said they reflected a mood of ‘cautious optimism' among small businesses.
"These figures show that, while things are certainly still very tough for many small businesses, there is a feeling that we are perhaps through the worst of it and things should soon start to improve.
"However, a lot of our members are still reporting crippling problems in accessing finance and there is a fair amount of animosity towards the banks over the issue. Ironically, as the economy picks up, this situation could actually get worse as smaller firms find they are unable to get the credit they need to keep up with their order books."
