The Risk of Success

“If you’re planning to make it big, you’re going to have to take major chances and separate yourself from the competition.”

That was the general advice I heard when I first started Eastern Union at the age of 25. I had skeptics of course, but many encouraged me to go for it—as a new business, what did we have to lose??

As a result, Abe and I embraced going the road less traveled and paved our own path forward. As I’ve mentioned in past weeks, that included unusual commission structures, attending marketing events that nobody in our industry did, and pushing the status quo in our sales process.

When I first went off on my own, I had three primary milestones I wanted to reach:

1. Match my compensation at my previous position.
2. Grow a team to the amount of deal volume my team was doing in my previous position.
3. And my big, audacious goal, reach $2B in deal volume—the entire amount the company did the last year I worked for them.

Thank God, with the help of God, we were able to cross each milestone and beyond! Those people were right—separating ourselves from the competition turned Eastern Union into a force to be reckoned with.?

Interestingly enough, when Eastern Union broke $2B in transaction volume, the advice people gave me began to change.?

Once you’ve had some success, people start encouraging you to play it safe. Protect your interests and stick with what you know. Copy your competition so you don’t lose out.

In all fairness, their intentions were good. It’s human nature to want to protect the things we value. The thing is, if you let others sow seeds of fear into your business, your growth will stagnate.?

Jeff Bezos refers to this mindset shift as the difference between a Day 1 company culture and a Day 2 company culture. He intentionally pushes Amazon to live like they are a Day 1 company despite its success, which means they show up daily like a brand-new company eager to prove and reinvent themselves.

As more people encouraged me to mimic what other successful companies were doing and avoid unchartered waters, my response was simple: why would we change the innovative thinking that made us successful in the first place??

People were going to love us or hate us, but taking calculated risks was part of our DNA. We had finally proved ourselves as a company with, Baruch Hashem, a sterling reputation—now wasn’t the time to try to be someone else.?

In a world where there are already a million businesses offering the same product or service as you, you can never lose that “Day 1” mindset and hunger to find better ways to do things. By being willing to try new things and go against the grain, your business will become more valuable and grow in demand.

Here’s what I realized: Whenever you start anything, you have nothing to lose—and that’s one of your biggest competitive advantages. You aren’t operating from a place of fear. You stay flexible, open, and receptive to change.?

Once you’ve reached a certain level of success, suddenly the narrative is no longer about how to get there, it’s about how to stay there.

At that point, it’s easy to bunker down and only take the safe and proven options for growth.?

I say this on the heels of the latest story about Steve Jobs’ daughter criticizing Apple for creating a new iPhone that’s almost indistinguishable from their last model. Apple has always been synonymous with cutting-edge, risk-taking technology, but they’ve been accused of playing it safe ever since Jobs passed away. Every company is at risk of falling into this trap.

Amazon became one of the largest publicly traded businesses in the world by protecting a Day 1 company culture and taking calculated risks. Jeff Bezos said, “The only way to get above-average returns is to take risks and many won’t pay off. Our whole history as a company is about taking risks; many of which have failed and many of which will fail, but we’ll continue to take big risks.”

As you grow, you have to keep taking levels of risk each step of the way. Don't lose sight of what got you to where you are now and don't be afraid to continue taking chances—it's how great businesses are built!