Business & Marketing Lessons From Las Vegas - Risks vs. Gambling

A lot of times we equate our doings in our businesses to gambling. If you’re one of the people that thinks this way, you might want to reconsider! Save your gambling for Las Vegas.

If you feel like you’re gambling with your business, it’s because you haven’t invested in the proper planning and strategy you need. You may be doing things willy nilly, by the seat of your pants, or just throwing mud on the wall without really thinking about why you’re doing what you’re doing, or how to do it.

Risk, on the other hand, is different than gambling in that it’s the chance you take when you have a system or a plan and it may or may not produce the exact results you expect.
Risk is calculated, gambling typically isn’t as much.

Professional gamblers in Las Vegas take risks. They go in with systems and thought processes, and they take calculated chances. Now, they may not always walk away with the big win they wanted, but they wouldn’t be professional gamblers if they walked out completely empty handed, maybe even owing, because they went in without a plan, without an idea.

You can take a lot of the gamble-feeling out of your business, too.

Start by getting more familiar with your goals. Really identify them, write them down if you need to. By adjusting your process and staying focused on your goals you can invest some thought into why and how to do things to accomplish your goals.

Once you know what your goals are for the project or your business in general, then you can set up your plan so it’s in alignment with those goals and you can now be focused and make calculated decisions about what you want to do and why. If you always start with the end in mind when you look at a project or marketing campaign, your intended outcome will direct you to the appropriate risks to take.

As entrepreneurs and small business owners, sometimes you don’t want to spend time planning, you just want to be doing things and chasing the next bright shiny object, but in the long run, your business will suffer when you do that.

When you develop that systematic approach you can take calculated risks without losing everything or ending up deeper in the hole.

Stop treating your business, your marketing, and your systems like gambling. Save your gambling for when you go to Las Vegas.