Roy Kroc, founder of McDonalds said “If you’re afraid to take risks, get the hell out of business.”
And congratulations. You took a risk when you invested your time into reading this!
While it may have been a minimal investment with minimal risk, it was a risk. You could have lost countless hours reading these blogs that you could have been getting new clients. So it wasn’t such a small risk after all.
My hope is that you’ve found immense value in my articles. That you’ve used some of the strategies and got a great return on your investment!
But you can’t run a successful business on hope. You must take risks.
Drew Houston launched Dropbox in 2007 and by 2011, Dropbox caught the eye of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs who told Drew that he was coming to take over the Dropbox market with his iCloud service. Drew didn’t sell to Apple and instead continued to build his company that is now valued at more than $18 billion.
Ben Silbermann left the security of working for Google to start the virtual pinboard site. You may now use it. It’s called Pinterest. At it’s initial launch Ben’s business failed. Ben was willing to take more risk, gathered a group of his closest friends and continued to invest in and build Pinterest. Pinterest is now valued at about $9 billion.
The failure to take risks, to even avoid them, is the demise of many businesses every day.
Block Buster was a nationally recognized business. Their stores were packed and the lines were long on any given Friday night. Where did they fail? They failed to take the risk! Because they didn’t take the risk of moving into the digital space, Block Buster is now a thing of the past.
Kodak once dominated the photographic film market and now their company is a name of nostalgia. Just as Block Buster they failed to risk moving into the digital market. They felt the impact of not taking a risk!
Xerox, the inventor of the PC, failed to risk going digital because it was too expensive and the financial investment was too risky. And where are they now?
Be willing to take the risks your business needs to grow and thrive!
Be willing to take risks:
- Stop stifling your growth
- Be known for innovation
- Stop missing opportunities