It’s easy to find small business statistics that tell us things such as 52 percent of small businesses are home-based or that small businesses account for more than 65 percent of all new jobs. Those are cool stats, to be sure, but what do they have to do with your small business? Probably nothing – there’s little this information could do to help you yield greater profits. The following ten statistics, however, are critical to your small business success . Use them as benchmarks to gauge your own business performance.
1. Average annual revenue of small business: $3.6 million (Entrepreneur)
The average small business brings in $3.6 million in annual revenue; of course, this figure doesn’t lend itself to deciphering the actual profitability of a small business or the take-home pay of its owners, but it does offer a nice “par” figure you should aim to exceed.
What if you don’t bring in $3.6 million? Does it mean your small business is a failure? No, of course not – some business models do not require large revenues to succeed. A sole entrepreneur, for example, who earns $200,000 in revenues and takes home $150,000 of that could hardly be considered a failure; while a multi-employee firm that brings in $4 million but spends $4.5 million to make it would definitely be considered a failure.
The revenue figure is relative, but it does shed some light on what the average small business is doing.
2. Average annual revenue of small business with website: $5.03 million (Entrepreneur)
Do you still doubt the power of the web? If so, you’re missing out an opportunity to substantially increase revenue. One of the most important considerations is that operating a website rarely, if ever, costs $1.5 million per year; in fact, outside of the most massively-marketed websites you’d likely be hard-pressed to identify a site that cost even $500,000 to operate every year. Thus, that additional revenue earned through having a website could prove to yield incredible profits.
3. Percentage of small businesses with websites: 53 (Statistic Brain)
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