“If you’re not a little afraid, and the other vendor in the room is telling you you shouldn’t be, then either ‘one of us is in the wrong room’ or you’re not thinking big enough” – says Matt Ridings in this post, written in the context of a small company’s sales efforts. Growth will necessarily happen at the expense of fear.
Matt Ridings continues – “Fear is a good thing, it’s almost universally true that ‘the larger the opportunity the larger the challenge’”. That says it all. If you’re not a little bit afraid, then maybe you are not going after the right size of opportunities.
Not long ago I grasped a great opportunity to grow significantly my company. It came with some risk associated. The risk was quite high, just not so high as to bankrupt the company after some risk engineering. I decided to go for it. Time will tell whether the opportunity will materialize.
Funny, I was about to write ‘time will tell if it was the right decision’ but that is absolutely wrong. Whether the opportunity materializes will be the result of my effort (a little bit) and of luck and other external factors I can’t control (a lot). So, the decision was the right one. Whether the opportunity materializes is something else.
It’s tough to ‘think big’ and when I re-read my post on thinking big posted in June 2012 a few months after I started my company, I see how much a way remains for me to be comfortable with the fear it entails. It is getting better though – and growth ambitions for myself and my company combine into an exciting mix!
