At last week's Start-up Seminar I said it was important not to trust everyone you meet and everything you hear if you want to succeed in business.

Client confidentiality often prevents me from giving examples but coincidentally the evening before the seminar I was at a Cumbria Chamber of Commerce meeting in Kendal. Mandy Dixon, the K Shopping Village manager, was also at the meeting and, to cut a long story short, the retailers in Kendal believe that their businesses will be hit if the Shopping Village is redeveloped and the number of shops is increased. To counter their objections Mandy Dixon a few years ago helped introduce a free bus service from the Shopping Village into the town (The Kendal Klipper).

On Monday she announced that the bus service over a period of eight weeks this summer carried 22,000 passengers. A wonderful boost for the town centre shops you would think until you check the actual passenger numbers.

The true figure was 8608. Bearing in mind this was passengers going into and coming out of town and the last passenger survey showed more locals used the bus than tourists the picture is slightly different.

The moral of this story is to be very wary of other peoples statistics, surveys, views, etc especially if you are the one who will suffer if they are wrong.

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