Not everyone can own Microsoft. I mean people can buy shares but for the purposes of this article and this little introduction, know it is impossible forever. Big business dominates the news and everyone cares whether or not their favourite retailer or conglomerate will tank or remain in profit so little thought is spared for small business owners and it turns out not many people know a lot. So here I am, messenger extraordinaire getting the word out packaged as some bite-sized content.
Right, did you know that more than 50 per cent of start-ups will fail within the first four years? Always good to get the bad news out the way first. The good news, however, is that 46% of those failures are down to staff incompetence! Okay stay with me here, no, it’s not great but after your first failure, you are 30% more likely to succeed with a second venture, statistical evidence that learning to fail is a key component of success.
Some interesting figures on the demographics of business owners are: 51% of small business owners are 50-88 years old, 33% are 35-49 and only 16% are younger than 35. So give yourself a pat on your back if you’re in your mid-thirties and younger, you’ve broken the mould and have time to fail nice and early so that huge success can come a little later! I joke, I have the utmost faith in anyone able to start their own business that young, who would disagree that it wasn’t impressive?
Any individualists out there look away now because your business is apparently likely to make three times as much money and less likely to fail if you have two owners rather than one. The numbers don’t lie and two heads are almost certainly better than one in business.
The three best industries if someone wants to start a business are: accounting/finance, management and estate agencies. All start-ups in these sectors have 58% of their attempts in profit after four years. A very specific business that also comes under that figure of a 58% success rate is that of dental offices, interestingly enough.
Of course, for every business sector hitting the heights there is one suffering by default. Oil and Gas extraction and Beverage Manufacture are the two sectors where a potential start-up is likely to fail with shops like off licences and grocers also not likely to make that coveted four-year mark.
Not to say that one can’t become a start-up whiz but it seems that a staggering 95% of people who do own small businesses also have a bachelors degree. So seeing the world through the prism of education can only be a good thing as you will have acquired knowledge and skills to make your business a success.
Lastly, most businesses fail because they tried to scale up too much too soon. ‘Patience is a virtue’ isn’t just a glib truism, it’s something to live your life by. You can wait it out or become an overnight success; your pace is your pace.
If you want to market your small business, why not use The Job Auction to list your skill and get your name out there. Skill Auctions are all the rage, you set the price for the work, so you’re in control, why not give it a try.
