When you are going to start your dream business or prepare to plan for the upcoming days, the most important fact you should consider is knowing and understanding the running business statistics and trends. The SME (small-medium enterprise) industry has a lot of impact on today’s overall business growth and employment.

As an entrepreneur or startup business owner, you should be aware of running industry trends, challenges, and what experts say. In this post, we have described some of the most significant SME statistics that would help you prepare and design your entire sales game.

Recent SME industry stats

Before jumping to the growing marketing trends and experts’ predictions, let’s check out some of the recent SME statistics to know what is going on around the small-medium business world and its outputs.

SME owners are happy with the outcomes

Guidant Financial and Lending Club jointly surveyed more than 2700 SME companies and presented a report describing their happiness and confidence levels, challenges, education, age, etc. This would help you both understand recent market trends, growth, and what would happen.

Based on the 2018 outcomes, over 80% of the SME owners rated their happiness at an average of 8. Since 78% of the business reports profits, it’s easy to understand that they would be happy with their current situation. But the surprising fact is that over 53% of the SME entrepreneurs rated 9 or above out of 10!

The picture is so clear, 2018 was an excellent year of growth for their projects!

Confidence level of the SME entrepreneurs

According to the survey, around 50% of the SME company owners rated their confidence level on an average of 8 and above. Politics plays a major role in business these days. When around 70% of them say they are very confident with the running and increasing growth, you should take it as a very positive signal.

Although, the situation isn’t the same across the countries, on average it’s enough to go ahead and start the journey.

What do you think?

Education isn’t a barrier to meeting success!

Despite the changes in the share of entrepreneurs with high-level degrees, the largest segment of small business ownership education remains at the high school level, at 33 percent of small business owners surveyed. -Guidant Financial

Even these days, some people think education is essential for starting a business and achieving success. The data shows a different situation. Around 50% of entrepreneurs didn’t even complete their graduation. We know the game-changing business stories like Microsoft, Facebook, and so on.

So, if you have a smart idea and you know how to take it to the next level, don’t worry about your educational status! Just move on.

Middle-aged people are leading today’s SME industry

When we talk about or debate SMEs, we see only young or teenage entrepreneurs around us. They get the entire focus. It’s not a bad practice, but the data shows a different picture! Today, over 50% of SME entrepreneurs are middle-aged, and they are leading the overall industry. Check out the below image.

So, whatever your age, just ignore it and go ahead. Solve a problem or offer something that people need.

Who knows what is waiting for you?

SMEs offer over two-thirds of the total employment

It’s a Canadian Survey report. As you can see, around 90% of our employment is offered and controlled by the SME industry. This means a lot! Our lives depend on the SMEs.

Percentage and profit growth

Last year, around 80% of the SME companies made a profit in the United Kingdom. The situation is the same both in the USA and Canada. While SMEs are leading the overall business world, it’s a good sign for business owners and employees that the market is growing and providing good returns.

SMEs survival rate

With running growth and profit percentages, it’s also important to know the survival rate of SMEs. Yes, indeed, many of the SMEs can’t survive in the long run. As you can see in this Canadian survey report, the number of SMEs has fallen by half within only ten years.

The business survival rate for the goods-producing sector was 47.8 percent in 2018, compared with 42.9 percent for the service-producing sector.

That means over 50% of the small-medium companies die before a period of 10 years.

The question is- why?

That’s the concern. In the last part of this post, we have described some significant reasons and common mistakes made by SMEs that will help you save your business and get a go.

Entrepreneurs in action and experts’ prediction

We have presented some good news and described some positive information from last year. Now is the time to show you some statistics that will help you prepare.

Let’s have a look at what challenges are waiting for you in the upcoming days. You will also be able to know the top marketing channels and tools that are considered to be used mostly by SME entrepreneurs.

Before that, check out what industries are leading the entire SME sector.

Guidant Financial found the service, food, health-beauty, retail, and home service industries as the top 5 SME businesses in 2018. Surely, the service and software industries are going to lead the future business world.

Now, have a look at the below infographic, which shows the top marketing goals and challenges, including useful marketing tools, channels, and content marketing choices. It’s prepared based on the opinions of successful SME entrepreneurs in 2018 by Infusion Soft.

What do experts say about SMEs?

You should listen to the experts who have been leading the market for years. Business News Daily collected some experts’ talks and their predictions to help you out. We are presenting the top 5 SME predictions that you should look for.

Manage your customers, they will take care of your business

‘Customers today have more choices than ever, and they have shown they will gravitate towards those who prioritise the delivery of fast, seamless, and personalised service. This is true whether they are ordering lunch, getting their car repaired, or making a financial transaction. In my industry of financial services, we’ve already seen large legacy companies start to fall behind smaller startups that offer better user experiences.’

– Bernardo Martinez, U.S. managing director at Funding Circle

The business world will see more personalised marketing trends

‘Marketing is becoming increasingly personal, and this trend will keep going as we move into the new year. No longer will stock images, generic nurturing campaigns, or impersonal calls to action convince consumers. To succeed, you’ll have to provide high-value and personalised content every step of the way.’

– Harrison Doan, director of analytics at Saatva

Customer review will change the game

‘Today, customer reviews influence more than 95 percent of online customers before they decide to purchase. Moreover, more than 90 percent of people step back from buying the things online which do not have any reviews, good or bad. In the coming years, these customer reviews will be the greatest influencer of any business.’

– Andrei Vasilescu, CEO and digital marketing expert at DontPayFull

Voice search and reshaping SEO

‘Voice recognition technology has continued to improve, and, as a result, voice searches have increased in popularity. It’s popular because of its ease of use and speed. It’s safer for people on the go (or in a car) to search via voice command than by typing. This will reshape search engine optimization.’

– Alex Membrillo, CEO of Cardinal Digital Marketing

Businesses will prioritize employee happiness

‘Businesses (will be) focusing on employee engagement and happiness. Because unemployment is at historic lows, keeping employees engaged and happy is critical to retaining good people. Furthermore, many people are unhappy with the state of our country and the world right now. Keeping them happier at work … boosts productivity 10 to 25 percent.’

– Scott Crabtree, chief happiness officer at Happy Brain Science

Common mistakes made by startup entrepreneurs

As we mentioned earlier that around half of the businesses fail to survive in the long run. So that the question is what’s the reason behind their failure? Take a look at below reasons/mistakes that are common in the SME industry. And SMEs fail today or tomorrow for ignoring them.

Priority to confidence over capital

A common approach in the startup entrepreneurs is being emotional with their ideas and overconfident about their success. Most of the times they just deny reality. One of the main points is to start the journey without enough capital. At the middle of the way, when they can’t manage the required capital; the project just falls down.

Ignoring reinvestment

Another big mistake is avoiding or ignoring the reinvestment. First time when they make profits, started to buy new cars, house, luxury things and forget about reinvestment. At a point when they need more money for their project they discover empty accounts and experience the failure.

Lack of proper guideline and structuring

Like any other fields, you need a mentor from whom you can get timely advice and proper guidance. Many of the SMEs die for lack of timely guidance and structuring. Business isn’t a childhood game, especially in this heavy competitive age. They fail who don’t care it.

Failure in dealing with people

You have perfect products/services, a well-designed plan, and structure but the problem is you don’t know how to smartly deal with people. There are high chances of failure in your business. Dealing with your employees, business partners and also customers is same important from the very beginning of your journey.

Taking too much works and greed

Startup projects require much more time and patience than established businesses. But many entrepreneurs started taking too many works and responsibilities at ones. And the problem is they can’t manage the situation, they offer too little in return of so many expectations.

Another fact is sometimes managers or employees started to take extra facilities and unethical advantages. This approach harms businesses in many ways. And as a result, businesses experience inevitable failure.

More mistakes like these are-

• Failing to Adapt the Changes
• Inexperience and Lack of Cash Flow
• Reliance Only on One Key Customer

Growing SME trends that you should know

This is one of the most significant facts you should be aware of. According to different surveys, customers will demand more control over their information in the upcoming days. Banks will refuse to fund for SMEs, so that alternative lending like venture capital or angel investing will continue to grow.

Subscription package (weekly-monthly buying) will get more and more popularity overtimes. And everything could be personalized will be personalized- better user experience, personalized package, etc. and more. Because customers these days are more likely to buy from the brands who offer a personalized experience.

Companies will start providing and showing more social responsibility. Facebook already declared that they will change their algorithm to favor content from friends and families. And solutions like AI chatbots will lead the future of digital marketing.

Now, have a look at below infographic and discover the whole picture of digital transformation trends.

Wrapping up on useful SME statistics

Proper industry knowledge and understanding the running trends is always important for a business of any sector. For SMEs, it’s a must. In this post, we have covered essential SME statistics that would help you see the whole picture with ease.

Now, it’s your turn to prepare or reconsider your plan to start and continue growing in 2023.