Harvard University has always been known to be elite, especially using their acceptance rate as a barometer, but when compared to getting a job at Walmart it isn’t tough enough. Walmart has a tougher acceptance rate in some places!
FACT: Harvard admitted just 5.9% of applicants however when a new Walmart opened in D.C., 23,000 people vied for 600 job openings. That means just 2.6% were accepted. |
Mobile responsive websites get special treatment from the new Google algorithm, mostly due to the fact that mobile searches have finally overtaken those done on desktops.
FACT: According to Kim Keller @ Home Business Magazine there are more Web searches done via mobile devices than on desktop. Because of the boost, Google gives more weight and relevance to sites that are optimized for mobile. This is a good time to spruce up your mobile site! |
Innovation is at an all-time high and large companies with their giant budgets are leading the way. Large companies are so forward thinking that they keep the patent office very busy.
FICTION: According to an article by John Boitnott, many of us think of research laboratories at massive corporations as being the home of innovation, but, again, it turns out that small businesses often do it better. In fact, they produce 16 times more patents per employee than large companies. |
We all know that the number of small businesses outnumber the large corporations but to what extent…currently small businesses have a 100 to 1 advantage.
FICTION: Small businesses certainly do outnumber the corporations. According to an article written by Aimee Groth and Kim Bhasin of Business Insider and sourced from United States Small Business Association Office of Advocacy the real number is more like 1,162 to 1. |
That famous “new car smell” is actually an aroma that manufacturers of automobiles spray in new cars to entice consumers to purchase the cars.
FICTION: According to an article on the Live Science website by Contributor, Charles Q. Choi that famous “new car smell” is a non-toxic combination of over 50 volatile organic compounds. It has no toxic effect but can irritate allergies or asthma. |
There are thousands of non-alcoholic beverage brands but only about 40 of them have revenue over a billion dollars and Coca-Cola owns 20 of them.
FACT: The Coca-Cola company is “swimming in billion-dollar franchises”. They currently own 20 of these billion-dollar brands which helps them reach over 43 billion in annual revenue. |
Starbucks is the largest coffee house chain in the world in terms of revenue, but the cost of healthcare is actually a higher budget spend for them than the coffee beans.
FACT: According to Jessica Misener of BuzzFeed, Starbucks spends more on health care insurance for its employees ($300 million) than on coffee beans. |
Ikea was a topic of a Fact or Fiction Friday a while back, it was about how the company was named. Here’s one about the items found there. All of the product names are based on words spelled backwards in the founders’ native language.
FICTION: According to an article written by Jeremy Miller of Sticky Branding, the naming system was created by Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA’s founder. Kamprad struggled with dyslexia, and he had trouble remembering the order of the numbers in item codes. So, he swapped the numbers for names. This made it easier for him to remember each item, and as a result he made fewer mistakes when filling out forms. The naming system is brilliant in its simplicity and scalability. Each product is named after Swedish towns and villages, humans, and other applicable Swedish words |
As much as it seems like everyone in the US shops at Walmart the actual number is closer to 20% of the population shopping there on a weekly basis!
FICTION: According to India Times writer, Anjali Bisaria, every week, without fail, nearly one-third of the US’s population visits the Walmart stores. That’s about 100 million customers visiting Walmart to satisfy their shopping needs. |
If you combine movies, spectator sports, theme parks, cruise ships, and recorded music you would still not generate more revenue than gambling.
FACT: According to a post by PBS (WHGH), a public television station, with support from statistics from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority…the amount of money Americans legally wagered has risen 2,800% as well. |
Lately it seems that TV advertising is all about auto insurance. Although this is not exactly the case, the insurance industry comes in second to the automobile industry itself.
FICTION: According to an article on Mental Floss, written by Ian Lender, cereal is the second-largest advertiser on television today, behind only automobiles in TV advertising dollars. |
Burgers and nuggets and Fries, oh my! McDonalds is known around the world, most notably known for its consistency with its burgers. But their first menu item was actually another American staple, the hot dog.
FACT: According to Jane McGrath of How Stuff Works (www.howstuffworks.com) McDonald's, the company that would come to represent what people love or hate about America, has humble roots in the Great Depression. In the 1930s, brothers Dick and Mac McDonald were struggling to make a living running a movie theater in California when they noticed that a nearby hot dog stand always seemed to do a lot of business. With a $5,000 loan, the McDonald brothers started the Airdrome hot dog stand in 1937 [source: Kroc]. By 1940, they moved it from Monrovia to San Bernardino and changed the name to McDonald's Barbeque [source: Young]. |
The study of foreign languages has been around for centuries, but the wide-spread use of English is relatively new. Today, there are 4x more people that speak English as a nonnative speaker then those of native speakers.
FACT: According to Caroline Picard of Good Housekeeping (and supported by an article by Judith Thurman of The New Yorker), Four times more people speak English as a foreign language than as a native one. It's the most widely spoken tongue in the world, with nearly two billion people learning it as a second language and only 350 million people speaking it natively. |
This may come as a bit weird and surprising but the comic book company, Marvel at one time owned the rights to the word “Zombie” and shares the trademark to the phrase “Super Hero”.
FACT: According to AbeBooks' Reading Copy, Marvel once owned the rights to the word zombie. As improbable as it sounds, Marvel attempted to trademark the word zombie in comic book titles after publishing Tale of the Zombie in 1973. By the time the trademark was approved two years later, the series was coming to an end. Marvel lost the trademark in 1996 but it wasn’t long before it was once again trademarking the armies of the undead, registering the words Marvel Zombies to protect its comic series of the same name. With DC, Marvel also trademarked the phrase ‘Super Hero’. |
Dasani is a bottled water company, owned by Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola owns one of the purest springs in the world which they use to bottle Dasani.
FICTION: According to Natural News staff writer, Ethan A. Huff, “even though the majority of the impurities have admittedly been removed from Dasani water, and minerals added back in, many people do not realize that the water contained in Dasani bottles is not actually from a natural spring.” |
If Greenland and Iceland combined their respective populations, they would have something in common with Walmart…The total population of these two countries combined would equal the number of full time employees the Walmart employees.
FICTION: According Business Insiders, Walmart has more full-time employees - 2.1 million, than seven times the population of Iceland. When you add the population of Greenland the ratio lowers to just over 5 times. |
As popular as LLC’s are the top choice for the legal structure for small businesses is to register as an S-Corp. This is due in part because of the way taxes are paid to the government.
FACT: According to the National Association of Small Business’s 2015 Economic Report says, the majority of small businesses surveyed are S-corporations (42%), followed by LLCs (23%). |
The company 3M is #97 this year of the Fortune 500 list and has been on this list for the last 24 years. But an interesting fact about them is that they got their name from the original 3 founders names that all stated with the letter “M”.
FICTION: According the 3M website the original name of the organization was Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company and was founded by 5 men not 3. The original founders were: Dr. J. Danley Budd, Henry. S. Bryan, William A. McGonagle, John Dwan and Hermon W. Cable in Two Harbors, MN. |
Starting a small business has long been an American ideal. With all the talk around technology, software, and the latest and greatest products the most successful companies started today are still service based and home grown.
FACT: According to Fit Small Business the top 5 small businesses to start in 2018 were as follows: 1. Landscaping, 2. Child Day Care, 3. Pet Spa, 4. Roofing Company, and 5. Currier Service. |
Estimated as one of the most valuable brands in the world, Coca-Cola’s iconic red-and-white logo is said to be recognized by 94% of the globe’s population. When launched in China the characters used to represent Coca-Cola read ke kou ke le, which means “Delicious Happiness”.
FACT: According to Lifestyle Network, one of the most valuable brands in the world, Coca-Cola’s iconic red-and-white logo is recognized by 94% of the globe’s population. |
The business world is getting more and more particular as to who we do business with. So much that we have an expectation that most, if not all business owners have college degrees.
FICTION: According to an article by Justin Bariso at Inc.com approximately 51% of all business owners have college degrees. This isn’t quite what we think of as most and of course certainly isn’t all. College degrees are obviously not a necessity for business success. |
The iPhone is currently the best selling product of all time. It has recently topped the charts after just over 12 years on the market.
FICTION: According to an article written by Steve Blakeman for Digital Market Asia and several google checks, the best-selling product of all time is still the Rubik’s Cube. Keep in mind though that the Rubik’s Cube was invented in 1974 which gives it quite the head start over the 2007 introduction of the iPhone. We’ll keep our eye on the race! |
Apple uses an algorithm to determine the best time to launch products as well as the time of day to announce these launches.
FICTION: According to HuffPost writer Betsy Isaacson, all of Apple’s big product reveals generally happen 40 minutes into presentations. As a matter of fact, in iPhone ads the time is always 9:42 a.m. or 9:41 a.m. to represent the same time as these reveals at the presentations. |
Originally Apple was more than the two Steve’s (Jobs & Wazniak) there was a third partner who sold his shares in the company after just 12 days. His shares today would be worth over $30 Billion!
FACT: According to CNBCs’ Kerima Greene, the third founder of Apple, Ronald Wayne had a 10% stake. He left the fledgling company after 12 days and forfeited his shares for $800…had he kept it, that stake would be worth $35 billion today. |
Being one of the wealthiest countries in the world has its privileges, the US economy has been strong enough to consider more than 50% of the population as wealthy.
FICTION: According to an article titled; Six Waltons Have More Wealth Than the Bottom 30% of Americans, by Forbes contributor Tim Worstall, if you have $10 in your pocket and no debts, you are wealthier than 25% of Americans. |
The second largest pizza chain in the US, Dominos at one point was owned by two brothers. One of which took full possession of the company for the exchange of his 1959 VW Beetle.
FACT: According to an article written by Chris Higgins of Mental Floss, about eight months after taking over an ailing pizza restaurant, Jim Monaghan wanted out. He owned 50% of the business (which today rakes in over $10 billion annually) and cashed out by taking the beat-up '59 Volkswagen Beetle the brothers had bought as a delivery car. |
We all know that small businesses are the heartbeat of the economy…but just how fast is that heartbeat. How about at a rate of approximately 1,000 businesses per day! There are 1,000 businesses started each day…that’s a fast heartbeat.
FICTION: According to the Small Business Association, there are about 627,00 businesses started per year. This equates to approximately 1700 per day, slightly higher than 1,000. |
In an effort to save the tax payers money, the treasury has done studies showing the U.S. one-dollar bill has been estimated to be a cost savings over its coin counterpart.
FICTION: According to a report by JOSEPH STRAW, MATTHEW LYSIAK, and RHEANA MURRAY of the New York Daily News, A new report by congressional auditors claims that replacing dollar bills with dollar coins could save taxpayers $4.4 billion over 30 years. The coins last for decades, but the bills wear out and must be replaced every four or five years, the auditors found. |
IKEA is a company from Älmhult, Sweden. A popular furniture store that has 313 stores in 38 different countries/territories but did you know that the name IKEA comes from a popular dish served cold. FACT or FICTION?
FICTION: The name actually came from the initials of the founder Ingvar Kamprad, plus the initials of the property and village he grew up in, Elmtaryd Agunnaryd. |
Employees at large, U.S. based companies spend a lot less time working on their actual job than people think. This number can be as low as 45% of their day is working on primary job duties.
FACT: According to a new survey from AtTask conducted by Harris Poll found that U.S. employees at large-sized companies (1000 employees or more) only spend 45 percent of their time on primary job duties. Their respondents reported spending 14 percent of their workweek on email (which is believable, as 91 percent reported that they use email to communicate with their team). The other 40 percent of their working hours were spent on meetings, administrative tasks, and "interruptions." |
With Millennials having a lot more influence and Generation Z now entering the workforce, the vast majority of businesses are now being started by people under 40 by far.
FICTION: According to Guidant Financial, while 2018 business news has focused on Generation Z beginning to enter the workforce and millennials continuing the disrupt industries with ambitious start-ups, small business continues to be ruled by boomers. 57 percent of small business owners surveyed were over the age of 50, a small increase year over year. |
84% (up from 72%) of both small and mid-sized business owners expected their business to perform better in 2018 than in 2017. 90% of both small and mid-sized businesses were confident that their business would grow in 2018, compared to 80% in Q4 2016.
FACT: According to Dun & Bradstreet, Since PCA (Private Capital Access) began in 2012, expectations for overall business performance improvement in the upcoming year are at a record high. |
The entrepreneur environment has been consistently growing over the past 20 years however, startups being started by women have passed this 44% growth rate by more than double!
FACT: According a blog by Salesforce.com siting American Express, over the past 20 years (1997–2017), the number of women-owned businesses have grown 114% compared to the overall national growth rate of 44% for all businesses. You go, girls! |
The median income for small business owners is around $59,000 per year, with most people falling into the range of $26,000 to $153,000.
FACT: According to PayScale, the median income for a small business owner is around $59,000 per year, with most people falling into the range of $26,000 to $153,000. PayScale also says that geographic location has the largest influence on the owner’s income, so those in high cost-of-living areas need not resign themselves to eating peanuts should they set out on their own. |
The State of Massachusetts is among the top three fastest-growing states for women-owned firms, as of a study done in 2016.
FICTION: According to an article by Kristian Rivera of FitSmallBusiness.com and his source Womenable 2016, the top three fastest-growing states for women-owned firms are Florida, Georgia, and Texas. |
We all know small businesses are the lifeblood of the economy, but the lifeblood of neighborhood businesses are immigrants. Neighborhood small businesses are more likely to be founded by immigrants.
FACT: According to the American Immigration Council, while immigrants comprise 13% of the country’s total population and 16% of the labor force, they make up 18% of business owners overall and own 28% of “main street” businesses (defined as retail, accommodation and food services, and neighborhood services). These are the types of businesses that contribute to neighborhood vitality. |
We all know small business owners do a lot for their companies but what we sometimes forget is just how much. The actual number of areas of the business they are personally responsible for is 4 to 5.
FICTION: According to a survey by Salesforce.com, Two-thirds of SMB owners and leaders (or 66%) are personally responsible for 3 of the following areas of their business: Operations, Finance, Sales, Marketing, Human Resources, Customer Service, Product Development, or IT. |
With approximately 7 billion people on the planet, the number of Facebook users has finally surpassed the number of people using email. Facebook currently has about 2 billion users.
FICTION: According to Lifewire, by the beginning of 2018 there were 3.7 billion email users around the world. This make roughly 54% of the world’s population. Still beating Facebook by a almost double the amount of users. |
Using factors like; Young adult dwellers, Higher education, Local employment, Income vs. rent, Start-up surges…Boston ranks only 8th in top 10 cities for Entrepreneurs and Startups.
FACT: According to business.org, Boston does rank 8th in the Top 10 Cities for Entrepreneurs and Startups. Surprising cities ranked higher are: Minneapolis, Minnesota @ #3, Columbus, Ohio @ #5, and Nashville, Tennessee @ #6. No surprise that San Francisco is ranked #1. We thought it would be higher too!! |
The success rate of small businesses is on the rise, but the fact remains that the most-risky businesses to start are in the restaurant industry, the retail store markets, and direct sales.
FACT: According to Small Business Trends, the most tried and failed businesses are those in the restaurant (up to 60% failure rate), retail stores (up to 80% within 5 years) and direst sales markets (up to 99% of reps suffering significant losses). |
The United States is known for entrepreneurship, so much so that worldwide it affords startups the shortest time to organize as a company. Meaning the shortest number of days from date of filing to becoming a company.
FICTION: According to Get Busy Media, it takes just 6 days to start a business in the United States. This however is not the shortest time; these three countries have a shorter number of days to create a startup: New Zealand -- 1 day | Singapore -- 3 days | Saudi Arabia -- 5 days |
Finance, insurance, and real estate sit on top of the pyramid when judging startups with the highest success rates.
FACT: According to Serious Startup, the industries with the highest success rates were finance, insurance, and real estate — 58 percent of these businesses were still operating after 4 years. |
When speaking of startup opportunities, information companies are an awesome place to start and tend to do very well when speaking of success rates!
FICTION: According to Serious Startup, of all the startup opportunities the most like to fail IS information companies. The success rate after 4 years is 37%. |
The most profitable business to start is in the accounting and tax service space. These businesses have an average profit margin of around 18%.
FACT: According to Entrepenuer.Com, Accounting and tax services takes the top spot on the list of the most profitable type of small business with a generous 18.4 percent net profit margin followed by real-estate services (15.2 percent), law firms (14.5 percent) |
Profitability in small business is lower than most people think…the percentage of profitable small businesses is only around 25%!
FICTION: According to Small Business Trends and their sources, more small businesses are profitable than not. As facts go, they say that 40% are profitable, 30% break even, and 30% are continually losing money. |
The leading cause of failure in the small business world is NOT the lack of experience, the leading cause of failure is Incompetence!
FACT: According to the Indiana Small Business Development Center, 46% of small businesses fail due to incompetence as opposed to only 11% due to the lack of experience. |
Non- employer businesses make up the vast majority of small businesses and approximately 50% of non-employer earn more than $250,000 in revenue per year.
FICTION: According to Forbes Magazine Contributor Jason Nazar only about 3.2% of non-employer businesses earn over $250,000 where well over 50% of them make less than $25,000 annually. |
Even though websites are an absolute, a necessity so to speak, the percentage of small businesses that have one is less than 60%.
FACT: According to Statistic Brain Research Institute only about 53% of small businesses actually have websites. Even more surprising the majority of those are under-developed. |
Only about 60% of small businesses perform/fill the role of the marketing department for themselves. About 40% outsource this to an agency or expert.
FICTION: According to Forbes Magazine Contributor, Brian Sutter. Almost 71% of small businesses do all of their own marketing in-house. But, the small businesses that are happiest with their marketing performance hired outside agencies to handle it for them. |
Presentations are used quite frequently in sales to “close the deal” but interestingly the facts and statistics of the presentation is not what gets the most memory attention. Stories are remembered more than the facts and figures of the presentation!
FACT: According to Chip and Dan Heath - https://heathbrothers.com/about/ (a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Senior Fellow at Duke University’s CASE center, respectively!) “After a presentation, 63% of attendees remember stories. Only 5% remember statistics.” |
Entrepreneurship is on the rise, but not in women owned businesses. Over the last 20 years women owned businesses have declined as compared to the remaining categories of ownership.
FICTION: (of course!)…According to American Express, from 1997 – 2017 the number of women-owned businesses has rocketed past the rest at a rate of 114% growth which is more than double the overall national growth rate of 44% for all businesses. Girl Power!! |
In 2016 the one-year survival rate for small businesses hit 79.9%, which is the highest since 2006.
Fact: The survival rates did hit 79.9% in 2016, which is the highest since 2006. Consider also that about 50% of these businesses survive 5 years or longer, and about 33% survive 10 years or more. This is according to Forbes Contributor, Mary Ellen Biery. |
The U.S. business market, or business ownership is made up of less than 14% of owners who are foreign-born, or immigrants.
FICTION: Foreign-born or immigrant business owners make up about 14.4% or one-seventh of all U.S. Business owners, most of these businesses are in accommodation and food service (29.1%) and transportation and warehousing (27.5%), according to Forbes Contributor, Mary Ellen Biery |
Let’s try another state - New Hampshire, in 2016 there were more than 20,000 loans granted by New Hampshire lending institutions. These loans in total were over $300 million.
FACT: According to the 2018 Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy report New Hampshire lending institutions granted 24,500 loans under $100,000 each but totaling $378 Million. Their information comes from the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) |
How about a gender question…the number of women owned businesses is 9.9 million and collectively they’re average annual revenue is less than $100,000.
FICTION: According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy, the 9.9 million women owned businesses account for approximately $1.4 Trillion in revenue which averages out to about $141,000 in annual revenue per business. |
Let’s give you another State specific stat to chew on…In Massachusetts, Cape Cod has the highest percentage number of small business in the state?
FACT: Cape Cod, Massachusetts has the highest percentage of small businesses in the state at 67% to 100% of businesses being classified as small businesses, according to SBA Office of Advocacy. |
Let’s give you a State specific stat to chew on…in January 2018, the national unemployment rate and the Massachusetts unemployment rate were both below 4%!
FICTION: According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy, the national unemployment rate was at 4.1% while Massachusetts was below it at 3.5%...Nice job Massachusetts! |
Take your best guess at this one…as of 2014 there were 29.6 million small businesses (less than 500 employees) in the U.S. Of these, approximately 10% or 2.96 Million were reported to have paid employees.
FICTION: According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy, not 10% but 20% or 5.8 million small businesses (less than 500 employees) were reported to have paid employees as of 2014. |
50% of all net new jobs come from the small business sector (less than 500 employees). Fact or Fiction???
FICTION: The total number of all net new jobs coming from the small business sector (less than 500 employees) in not 50%. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Business Employment Dynamics, Since the end of the Great Recession, small businesses (fewer than 500 employees) have created 62% (8.3 million) of the net new private-sector jobs (13.4 million), matching their historic rate over the last 25 years. |
Micro Businesses (firms with 1-9 employees) are the most common kind of employer firm, but they account for a relatively small share of employment. - FACT or FICTION?
FACT: According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Business Employment Dynamics - America's 3.7 Million Micro- Businesses make up 75.3% of all private-sector employers in 2013, but they only provide 10.8% of private-sector jobs! |
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