While many people favour risk mitigation more than taking risk, I believe taking calculated risk in business is the only way to grow.
What do I mean by this? To try something new, develop a new concept, new idea or new approach that takes you away from how you are currently doing things. Why? Because, as Milton Berle once famously said, “If opportunity does not knock, build a door”.
What I believe Milton Berle meant in these famed words was that in order to create opportunity in your business, you must try new things and take calculated risks.
Here are three ways to approach calculated risk and create new business opportunities.
1) Assess how you find new business. Then, take an entirely different approach. Have you ever tried to find new clients via social media? Or how about hosting an event that your best clients can bring friends to? I mean a great event, something that anyone would want to go to…
2) Look at your product range – do you offer anything innovative? Or at least a new way of connecting with your existing product range? Technology has improved in leaps and bounds, and it may pay for you to do some research to discover how technology can provide new and improved ways to do business, talk to clients and implement your service
3) Identify a true gap in the market – there are plenty, and no one knows your business better than you – so how do you fill that gap and let people know about it? For example, when we started No More Practice, I knew many advice professionals who wanted to learn about growing their business, but they did not have the time to spend out of office in traditional education. By filming real business owners going through change and growth in their business, we were able to deliver real insight – in a fast paced reality TV format – over the web. The idea evolved from there, but it all came from seeing the gap.
Knowing that things need to change is not really taking a risk, but rather creating an opportunity. And opportunity truly is the lifeblood of a successful business.
Vanessa Stoykov is the founder of No More Practice, and the founder of the parent company, evolution media group in 1999. She has over 20 years’ experience in financial services as both a journalist and business owner. She is an award winning chief executive who is passionate about creating education and communications to help the wealth industry and consumers fulfill their prosperity potential.
