Do you know which country has the highest suicide rate in the world?
Apologies in advance for the bleak subject matter…
Yesterday I was in a discussion with some work colleagues about suicide, and more specifically about the fact that it’s the single biggest killer of men under the age of 45 in the UK.
The conversation moved on until someone made the statement that Finland has the highest suicide rate in the world.
Everyone swallowed this “fact”, even though it’s quite a long way from the truth.
I had to look this up last year, and in case you’re interested, Finland has the 29th highest (we’re 122nd).
But the room of highly educated, professional people was convinced that it was true. And they didn’t want to hear any other version of “the truth”.
And that got me to thinking about other things that business owners and managers believe to be the ‘truth’ about marketing and business:
“Direct mail is dead”“Facebook ads are perfect for every business”
“Our members would never pay on a monthly DD basis, it has to be a once a year payment”
What aspect of your business do you “know” can’t be done differently? Or what marketing have you tried and “know” it doesn’t work?
Challenge for the next week – question one part of your life, business or private, where you “know” the answer – you might be pleasantly surprised!
P.S. The actual answer is Russia by the way – 48.9 suicides per 100,000 people, which is very sad. If you know anyone struggling with this sort of thing, it’s really important to make sure they get professional help – the following web pages contain useful resources:
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Suicide/Pages/Prevention.aspx
http://www.haveigotaproblem.com/categories/10/mental-health