Kruse Kronicle

Why Amish businesses don’t fail

—

by

mwkruse
in ,

CNN: Why Amish businesses don't fail

(CNNMoney.com) — Want to find America's most successful entrepreneurs? Skip Silicon Valley and Manhattan; head to the rural Amish enclaves.

Amish businesses have an eye-popping 95% success rate at staying open at least five years, according to author Erik Wesner's new book, Success Made Simple: An Inside Look at Why Amish Businesses Thrive.

It's a statistic he backs up with a variety of academic surveys, drawing particularly on a 2009 report by Elizabethtown College sociology professor Donald Kraybill. Studying several Amish settlements, Kraybill found failure rates ranging from 2.6% and 4.2%; interviews with loan officers, accountants and industry professions in other Amish regions yielded additional anecdotal evidence of closure rates significantly south of 10%.

Compare that to the average five-year survival rate for new businesses across the United States, which hovers just under 50%. So what's the secret?

Wesner, who worked in business management and sales before immersing himself in all things Amish, thinks it lies in the culture, which emphasizes "qualities like hard work and cooperation." Networking through Facebook doesn't exactly have the same community-building pull as teaming up with neighbors to build a barn, and few Americans these days can point to a childhood where they awoke regularly at dawn to milk the cows.

Another key advantage is that Amish business owners tend to stick with what they know. …

Comments

5 responses to “Why Amish businesses don’t fail”

  1. PamBG Avatar
    PamBG

    I don’t idealize the Amish and, in many ways, I’m troubled by a complete withdrawal from “worldliness”.
    However, I suspect that the Amish have a sense of what is “wholesome” in economic life. The Amish grow useful crops, raise useful animals, make and sell useful products. I can’t imagine an Amish farmer deciding to “play” the corn futures market for a bet.
    In many ways, our own society has lost touch with this sense of our economy being genuinely useful in creating that which is needful to sustain human life. I think that in many ways this is a moral problem.
    And just because I can’t resist…when some of us suggest that a sense of community is needed in our world beyond those we can see face-to-face and beyond the Church, we are called nasty left-wing socialists by many. ;-D

    Reply
  2. Michael W. Kruse Avatar
    Michael W. Kruse

    Pam, I fully agree that we need to have a sense of empathy and solidarity with others outside our community. The problem is figuring out how we might live in “community” with 300 million of our closest friends. 🙂 My experience is that when I raise the information problem present for mass society when it comes to distribution is that I called a cold-hearted laissez-faire capitalist. 😉 It isn’t “either/or” but the need for dynamic information feedback loop can’t be ignored.
    I think your are right about Amish values. Even outside the Amish community, the vast majority of businesses that succeed are not led by brash business owners. They are overwhelming led by prudent people with exceptional work ethics. The Amish have a high percentage of this folks and strong family support networks.

    Reply
  3. PamBG Avatar
    PamBG

    The problem is figuring out how we might live in “community” with 300 million of our closest friends. 🙂
    What is a “problem” in this context is probably how to effectively help others. The administrative aspects of helping are daunting and challenging.
    But what is not at all a problem is viewing other people as individuals who God intentionally created, who he knew from before their birth and who we are therefore called to treat with the same respect and concern as the people we can see.
    Laissez-faire capitalism says we have no responsibility along these lines whatsoever. So let people bet on CDOs derivatives even though this is a use of capital that produces nothing; it’s a free market. Let the US dumb subsidized rice on Ghana and destroy Ghanaian domestic rice production; the US has the political and economic power to do this and Ghana doesn’t have the power to stop us.
    Actually, we could stop the latter activity relatively quickly if we really loved our Ghanaian rice-farmer neighbor. And I think we could significantly regulate unproductive financial derivatives and the creation of new ones if we tried.
    Not so difficult at all, really.
    At least we agree about the Amish. 🙂

    Reply
  4. Michael W. Kruse Avatar
    Michael W. Kruse

    I certainly agree with your first two paragraphs but I’m uncertain who it is that your laissez-faire capitalism concerns are addressed to. I don’t believe in it. I never have.
    I’m actually getting a copy of the book about the Amish. Looking forward to reading it.

    Reply
  5. PamBG Avatar
    PamBG

    I certainly agree with your first two paragraphs but I’m uncertain who it is that your laissez-faire capitalism concerns are addressed to. I don’t believe in it. I never have.
    OK, then I’ve grossly misunderstood our initial conversations and we’re speaking past each other. Quite possible as I’ve suspected that this might be the case. I’ll just try to keep reading.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Discover more from Kruse Kronicle

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading