Half of all UK small businesses fail within the first three years, 80% fail within the first five years.
That's a statistic I've heard fairly often. Which would be fine, if it were true. Only it isn't.
8% of businesses fail to survive more than one year, 28% cease trading within three years and about 40% fail to survive more than four years. *
Mark Pinsent recently noted anti-alcohol lobby groups increased statistics about French drinking habits to suit their cause. It became accepted knowledge. So I wonder who was trying to sell small business consultancy/services to double this statistic?
Now if journalists checked their facts, they would have discovered this mistake and this rumour wouldn't have spread (Cue: Churnalism).
Anyone else curious about drug-related deaths, online piracy levels or the threat of terrorism?
* Statistics i've discovered doing my dissertation.
Citation needed please!
Posted by: | Friday, 04 April 2008 at 13:28
ha, if you must know.
Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform and Federation of Small Businesses
Posted by: Richard Millington | Friday, 04 April 2008 at 13:49
Spot on Richard. Cracking example of Churnalism. The "Half of all UK small businesses fail within the first three years" soundbite has almost become accepted wisdom. And no wonder. Stick it into Google and there are stacks of results.
Posted by: Stephen Waddington | Monday, 07 April 2008 at 08:43
I had a look on the BERR website and couldn't find it - can you give the full website or publication please? Otherwise it's just your word against the press.
Also, it does seem fairly likely that in a case like this, gathering stats would be faily hard to do, but you might well get conflicting figures.
I do think that the industry needs to concern itself more with statistical and referencing rigour, or else it's not surprising why people perpetuate the image of PR as unsubstantiated facts and spin.
Posted by: | Monday, 07 April 2008 at 09:51
Anonymous: Look at the BERR small business survival rate statistics.
http://stats.berr.gov.uk/ed/survival/Key%20Results1.pdf
These are the official statistics on the issue. I haven't found anything else supported by empirical evidence.
I suspect, if anything, that the 50% statistic has been brought over from the USA and become a fact.
Posted by: Richard Millington | Monday, 07 April 2008 at 10:27
Thank you :)
Posted by: | Monday, 07 April 2008 at 12:17
Lies, damn lies and statistics...Somehow it just seemed appropriate!
Posted by: Samantha Wilcox | Tuesday, 08 April 2008 at 20:14
Richard,
If you're able to get yourself up to the big smoke next week, this event may be of interest to you, given your post - and the debate raging in the media and PR at present:
http://files.lewispr.com/mailer/themediaaccused
Posted by: Will Sturgeon | Friday, 11 April 2008 at 11:29
Hi Will,
Sadly I can't make it next week. Have a dissertation i'm working flat out to finish at the moment, and a massive copywriting project that needs a final revision.
I would love to come though, will you blog how it goes?
Posted by: Richard Millington | Saturday, 12 April 2008 at 01:30
I'm fairly sure I/we will!
Posted by: Will Sturgeon | Tuesday, 15 April 2008 at 08:35
This is a great post Richard! Incredibly helpful. I have to write a theoretical business plan for one of my modules next week and those stats should come in very handy. I'm hoping to do a plan for a blog monitoring service aimed at medium sized companies. Does anyone have any experience of this that might help me?
Good luck with the dissertation! Those last few days can be a bit of a nightmare. Also, thanks for adding my blog to your Good Reads section. I appreciate it.
Posted by: Matthew Watson | Wednesday, 16 April 2008 at 03:22