Small businesses are doing well — and so are the companies who sell to them.

(This post originally appeared on The Washington Post)

It’s been a pretty good year for most small businesses. Optimism is up and so are sales. But it’s not just small business owners who benefit when times are good. It’s the companies that sell to small businesses that also benefit.

According to this report on CNBC.com, big companies that get their revenue from small businesses have seen their shares increase about 38 percent since the election.

Who’s benefiting? Intuit — the maker of QuickBooks and other software aimed at small companies has seen its stock rise about 31 percent since the beginning of the year. Payroll processor Paychex’s stock has risen about 14 percent during the same period and Web hosting service GoDaddy’s stock has increased 42 percent. PayPal handles millions of transactions from many small businesses both off and online and Shopify is a popular e-commerce and point-of-sale software maker for small merchants and both companies have seen their shares double in value since the beginning of the year. (Some of these companies are clients of my company, The Marks Group. Stock prices are taken from closing shares on Nov. 6).

Things have been good — and there could be more good things to come.

For example, the GOP’s tax reform proposals could, if passed, not only lower corporate rates but also cut taxes for the many small businesses that file their returns as “pass-through” entities. The elimination of the estate tax, simplification of brackets and the increase in standard deductions could also have a big impact on the typical small business owner’s cash flow.

Then there’s regulations. Trump has withdrawn or delayed more than 800 proposed regulations since becoming president and he has plans to cut back even more. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross believes that these rollbacks make up a “good portion” of the country’s economic growth and some on Wall Street agree

“Small business owners have been thrilled at the prospect of deregulation under the Trump administration,” writes David Kostin, Goldman’s chief equity strategist, in a note to clients and as reported by CNBC.

“Trump has canceled 860 rules and regulations that had been imposed by the Obama administration, and there’s barely a single CEO that comes to my office who isn’t thrilled with the regulatory relief,” said Ross.

All of this is potentially good news for small businesses like mine . . . and could be even better news for the companies that sell to us.