uccess stories… They motivate us and inspire us. The narrative of a typical success story often revolves around a “regular” young individual who dropped out of college or left their job and poured all their money, energy and passion into this one idea with no guarantee of the outcome. “From Zero to Hero.” The concept of a successful business that was completely planned from the beginning, and built on a clear, solid strategy helps us better navigate our fear of the unknown. Exploring successful business plans creates a common perception that if we examine, analyze and adjust the lessons learned to our own business needs and ideas, we can work our way to the top. Shortly, when we find something that works, we tend to go after it. Many businesses were built on this single principle. However, the stories that are told often paint a smooth, linear picture of the journey, and tend to overlook the bumpy process hiding behind the road to success. This, in turn, often leads brands to put all their business eggs into one basket. The Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Business Say you are about to host a dinner party at home. You browse through a bunch of recipes online and you naturally get drawn to the ones that have many positive user reviews. First of all, a positive review means that the people who followed the cooking instructions ended up getting what they expected— if they could succeed, why would that not be the case with you too? Secondly, the positive reviews serve as a confirmation that a lot of people found the dish to be very tasty. People often stick to successful recipes with the idea that they can emulate that success. The same goes for businesses. Uncertainty is all around us, never more so than today, and ambiguity tends to scare people arguably even more than any negative certainty. This is why business success stories are so appealing. We are trained to believe that the most successful companies are the ones who chose a niche, took a risk, and dedicated all their efforts, resources, and money to the one idea that was bound to make them successful. The idea that one can recreate the same strategy and get the same results often leads to what arguably can turn out to be one of the biggest mistakes — only having one single plan. THE PLAN. This article argues that an alternative way of dealing with uncertainty is far away from picking a strategy and throwing everything you have behind it hoping to have the very same linear path that is described in the success stories. The alternative I suggest is having a Plan B— strategies you can put into practice if the recipe goes wrong, or if you simply do not have all the ingredients to make it as good. After all, the success stories often downplay certain aspects that played a significant part in the overall success — some unique advantage, or a hefty investor backing the company. Is putting all your business eggs into one basket a dangerous strategy for affiliate marketers? The real question here is whether affiliates should try to diversify their offerings or find a specific strategy and concentrate all their efforts on making it work. ESSENTIALS OF HAVING A PLAN B G P W A t i m e s . o r g 26
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