Small business statistics are easy to find and they inform us about things, such as, 52% of small businesses are home-based and small businesses account for more than 65% of all new jobs. These are some interesting stats, but what do they have to do with your business? Maybe, this information can help you yield more profits. Similarly, the following 9 stats are just as critical for any small business and they can be used as a benchmark to gauge performance of your business.
Keeping the stats aside, a huge number of small businesses mainly follow just one thread and that’s of competition. The competition is for customer attention, customer loyalty, market opportunities, social media status, media buzz and much more. You market your business to get in front of the right customers at the right time for the right offer. Being invisible in the market won’t work.
What if you are unable to make $3.6m on an average and you think your startup business didn’t flourish properly? Does that mean your small business is a failure? No, that’s not the case because many business models do not require that huge an amount of revenue to thrive in the market.
In this modern era, no one can doubt the power of the web and no small business can survive without its online existence. If you still doubt that then you are missing out on an opportunity to increase your revenues extensively. The additional revenues generated through having a website may result in incredible profits.
Non-employer businesses make up a majority of small businesses which in turn makes an average of $44,000 annual revenue. Non-employer businesses are rigorously limited by time; it is impossible for one person to do everything on daily basis and without having help it is difficult to maximize profits.
One of the negative things about social media is that if any of your online complaint goes unanswered it might go viral in no time and ruin your company’s reputation. In order to avoid that, you must use the social mediums positively and address all the problems and complaints promptly and publicly. Once you start dealing with your customers individually and give swift feedback, it will create a positive image in their minds and they will end up spreading positive word of mouth about your brand.
This attitude displays nothing but your commitment towards customers and how much you value them and their opinions and ultimately will earn you long term business opportunities.
Having a website for your business isn’t an option but a necessity for small businesses these days. According to the stats, only 53% of the small businesses have actually developed their websites, rest are still under-developed which may bring harm to the business by inflicting a negative image and not generating any leads.
Now this is an astounding figure! This means that small businesses spend up to 80 hours every year, dealing directly with their federal taxes and that’s a waste of two weeks’ time. At least, it wouldn’t be that costly if businesses could hire a seasonal CPA.
Businesses now need to be available on all possible platforms, especially, those which are preferred by their customers. Your business must have a strong mobile presence so that your customers could reach you through any device. 51% of customers are prone to buying via mobile-optimized sites and 4.8 billion people own cellphones worldwide.
If you were targeting only young and tech savvy customers then this rate could’ve been greater. If three quarters or more of your customers are socially active on different social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, then your business must have its own social media marketing campaigns. The best way to motivate your customers is that you start living them and try to reveal the human side of your company. A strategic approach towards building your brand image through social media will affect your sales positively, and most importantly, it will connect you with your customers on different online platforms.
Operating and owning a small business means you are vulnerable to all sorts of challenges, but the rewards of defeating those challenges could be incredible. The study of statistics may offer some kind of benchmarks and help you analyze your business.
<br /><a href="https://www.surveycrest.com/blog/statistics-to-thrive-small-business/"><br /><img src="https://www.surveycrest.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/9-Critical-Small-Business-Statistics.jpg" title="Staggering Statistics to Thrive in Small Business" alt="Staggering Statistics to Thrive in Small Business" border="0" /><br /></a></p>
<p>by <a href="http://www.surveycrest.com/">Surveycrest.com</a><br />
Kelvin Stiles is a tech enthusiast and works as a marketing consultant at SurveyCrest – FREE online survey software and publishing tools for academic and business use. He is also an avid blogger and a comic book fanatic.