Avoid Risk, Sure. Then Die!

By Richard Laermer, Guest Author

As some of you know, I’m the author of the book Punk Marketing (www.punkmarketing.com). The first article of the Punk Marketing Manifesto is probably the most powerful rule in marketing—and in business. Simply put it is Avoid Risk and Die.Some of our greatest successes as a country and as a people have been achieved based on our ability to take big risks & realize gigantic rewards.

Now I’m not saying go out with your profits from this quarter and buy thousands of lottery tickets (indeed that’s risk). Calculated Risks on clearly defined project parameters, goals and potential (looming) disasters present a strange and wonderful opportunity for success that outweighs potential for failure. Failure, however, can be exciting.

How many times have you seen a new product or service or slice of marketing only to think, “I thought of doing that once… but I didn’t because [insert lame excuse here]. Oh well, I guess it was a good idea, at least that makes me feel good that I thought of it. Blah, blah, blah.”

This shouldn’t make you feel good. It should make you feel just awful—or at least worse than good— because if you had a tremendous idea and you let [lame excuse] get in the way of making that happen, you gave up opportunities because of [lame excuse]. You lost the opportunity to get yourself and that beloved business ahead; you dropped potential business; you mislaid prospective customers … Does that really seem okay to you?

It seems like it does to most business people (marketers, listen up) because it was only potential. But let’s say you walk into your boss’ or clients’ office tomorrow and say, “I had this tremendous idea but I was too [lame excuse] to bring it up at the development meeting. I wanted to let you know that X company is doing it and it seems to be working really well for them.” So in other words, “Listen to me next time I have a terrific thought.”

And, uh, what do you think the boss is thinking? How much is that so-called potential worth when it’s working for someone else?
Ideas are a dime per 12. Work and execution of said idea means something. It’s guts to get up and express an idea even under the looming presence of scary “potential.” Because potentially, yep, people could laugh at you. They might say you’re dumb. Your idea could be tried and flop. It can actually ruin your standing in the company. But until you recognize that avoiding risk will absolutely have the same consequence, you are always going to be squelching the best, most creative things in your head just because you [insert lame excuse here].

Now, do you want to be the kind of person who lives by the rules of the excuse mentality or do you want to be purely Punk?