People, including potential customers, are more motivated to avoid loss than to pursue gain. Fear is stronger than greed.

We also tend to perceive taking action as more risky than not taking action.

These are probably good ways to stay alive if you are a creature trying to avoid being eaten by a predator. They are survival instincts.

So what if you are trying to motivate yourself or someone else to do more than survive, to take action with a potential loss involved?

One way might be to work with this natural fear of loss, by creating an awareness of the potential losses involved in not taking action (not leading, not starting, not purchasing).

Here’s the reality. Inactivity is more risky than activity for humans who aim to do more than survive. And we have more to gain than we have to lose, so in the grand scheme of things potential gain is greater than potential loss. (This is only true of anyone who currently possesses less than half of all the good things on earth.)

In living and in selling, it’s worth balancing these common illusions with some reality from the other side.    

Leadership is having the courage to step out and be in front without permission from everyone or assurance from anyone that everything is going to be ok.

Leadership is valuing people, truth, and results highly enough to say and do uncomfortable things, knowing in advance those things will create conflict.

Stepping out in front is an essential act of leadership, but only when people actually follow does the one in front become a leader.

By directing people and resources toward a common goal, leaders accomplish things that would not otherwise have been accomplished, even though all the people and resources needed were already present before the leader led.

Nothing too big for one person to do alone can be accomplished without leadership, and thus leadership is of great interest to all who dream big.

A lot of information is lost when data are aggregated into averages and statistics. For example, the best books often get mediocre 2.5 star average reviews on Amazon. Why? That statistic conceals the reality that nobody is giving the book a 2.5 star rating, they either love it and give it a 5 or hate it and give it a 1. The statistic says apathy, the granular data says controversy.

Considering data at a more granular level uncovers meaningful variations that cancel each other out at the aggregate level.

For example, web site stats are useful, but I also like to look at the path an individual visitor took through our web site. This granular look often suggests areas of confusion, or sometimes draws my attention to weaker parts of the site that can use work.

Another application of this idea is to use itemization to stimulate creativity. For example I recently broke the pre-sale customer experience at one of my companies into about twenty distinct steps. I brainstormed how we might improve each step, even the ones that don’t normally seem the most important.

Give yourself the mental limitation of considering only one part of the whole at a time to encourage new combinations of non-obvious ideas.

The three most important questions I ask myself when tossing a new business idea around in my head are:

1. Will the potential customers find the product or service really helpful?
2. Can we do such a good job providing it that the potential customers find it more helpful than their other options?
3. Can we inform potential customers about our helpful product or service in a cost-effective way?

This post relates to question #2. Since there is so much competition out there, it helps a great deal to have some unfair advantages, especially in the early years of a startup.

By unfair advantages I mean existing core competencies, relationships with key people in the market, synergies with other businesses, etc. Why compete on a level playing field when you can compete on the part of the field where you have the biggest advantages?

Here’s a personal example. When we started ATS Rentals, a nationwide online audio, video, and projection equipment rental company, we had the following unfair advantages:

• I had previous college work and job experience in a/v and broadcasting technology. I could do my own equipment repairs during the startup phase.
• My most senior employee at my existing business had a degree in video and film production, and tons of gear knowledge.
• I had experience from a previous business of mine that specialized in e-commerce web site development. I could develop the software to run the web site, booking, and shipping system for just the cost of my time.
• We had an existing customer service staff, warehouse, and shipping infrastructure in place that we could share with the new startup. We had everything in place to test-market the concept without hiring a single employee or building out any facilities.
• I had my own capital to fund the startup, avoiding the cost of obtaining financing and carrying the insurance, etc that would be required by the bank or investors.

My point is not that I or my companies are special. My point is I picked a business that fit what we had and were good at, so we would be starting with some unfair advantages.

You have unfair advantages too. Everyone does. I encourage you to know what they are and work them into your plans. Be unfair to your competition on purpose.

Five months ago I bought a Kindle. It was novel and fun. People next to me on airplanes asked about it because they hadn’t seen one before. I read lots of books with it and I loved it.

I received my iPad yesterday. Within three hours I put my Kindle up for sale on eBay. Here’s the link. Amazon makes a free Kindle app for the iPad, giving me access to all my Kindle books on my new device. And the iPad can do a zillion things my Kindle can’t. (I’m writing this on my iPad.)

I have never felt the pace of change so whiplash fast before. What a challenge for technology companies, and for all of us, to succeed in a world of change at breakneck speed. I actually feel bad for Amazon and Jeff Bezos today. I think Kindle took longer to develop than it took to get seriously trumped. But the iPad will be trumped soon enough too. There is no pause button on this race.

I believe in accepting reality. Reality is, the pace of technological and economic change is faster than ever and it’s only going to get faster still.

To some degree this reality re-sorts the skills needed to succeed. Willingness to risk, to fail, to change on purpose, to end things and start new ones are all valuable skills in a change-dominated economy.

Change is scary. I think there are rewards to those leaders who embrace the pace in spite of the fear.