{"id":2090,"slug":"anti-pattern-single-percentage","title":"Anti-pattern — single hard percentage or dollar figure","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","candid-team"],"topics":["precision-credibility-tradeoff"],"reference_body":"**Anti-pattern:** \"You should spend $14,750 on your website\" / \"Your digital maturity is 47%\" / \"You need 8.2% of revenue on marketing.\"\n\n**Why it fails:** False precision the data does not support (sister brief [[research-brief-smb-widget-spend-benchmarks-june-2026]]); becomes a liability the moment reality diverges ([[pena-marin-2019-precision-backfires-when-wrong]]).\n\n**Replace with:** A tier + a range with confidence flag.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"pena-marin-2019-precision-backfires-when-wrong","title":"Pena-Marin et al. 2019 — precise estimates BACKFIRE when shown wrong","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-smb-widget-presenting-tiers-june-2026","title":"Research brief: SMB widget presentation layer — tiered results without overclaiming (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-23T19:16:03.512Z","updated_at":"2026-06-23T19:16:03.512Z"}