Relying too much on any single one thing can get you killed. If the only thing tying you to the life raft is a single rope should anything happen to the rope then you’ll be a goner. Relying on any one thing is dangerous, sometimes sure you have to take risks and stick your neck out there but operating by having one single thing that could end you for any long period of time is foolish. If you’re relying on one way of doing something and that something suddenly is no longer valid you’ll be done. Always have multiple levels that you can fall back on and use.
For example let’s say you go to do battle against an enemy. Now for the sake of making my point let’s say that this battle is inevitable and that there is no turning back. Now let’s say you get to the battle and engage with your opponent. Now let’s say during the battle your sword breaks. Say your sword was your only weapon and what you put all your training into you’d be screwed. So you pull out your ax and continue fighting then your ax is broken. But you yank our your knife. And so on and so forth. A bit of a stretched analogy but you get the point. Never rely only any single one thing too much.
One Product
Let’s say that you make your living from selling kindle books. You know everything that there is to know about the platform. You now which niches are hot, what keywords sell like crazy, and have a plethora of different books with multiple pen names across all different types of genres. You’re making 10k a month with minimum maintenance. All you have to do is pay your ghost writers 2k a month and then there’s 1k for other expenses. So you’re netting 7k a month from this business. So you sit back relax and enjoy the fruits of your labor.
Then for some reason Amazon decided to ban your main kindle account. You fight tooth and nail to get it reinstated but it’s not going to happen. Suddenly your income drops to 2k a month. You can’t pay rent and are panicking. Sure you have some money saved up but it’s only going to last so long. Then Amazon changes their algorithms and your income drops again and now you’re only making 200$ a month from kindle books. That’s not even enough to pay your ghost writers much less live off of. You are now back at ground zero (though you do have all of that experience). If only you had branched out to other avenues instead of sitting back relaxing while relying on one thing.
One Person
You’ve worked hard to start your business. Now you have one of the biggest marketing agency in your county and the best part is it’s only you and one other person who works under you. You’re living high and enjoying everything that comes along with making good money and having a business that is very profitable with low overhead. You give your single employee good pay and have them do most of the work. They’re the ones that talk to the clients, have connections with them, and run a good portion of the business. “I’m a genius” you think, hell this is pretty much passive income.
Then the economy tightens, alright no big deal it’s all good. Then your employee comes and asks you for a raise because of all the work he’s been doing. And you grant him it, heck you couldn’t run the business without him. Then a short time later he asks for another raise. You reluctantly grant him it but tell him “This is it, I gotta eat you know” he smiles and leaves. Then the next day he tells you he is leaving for another company that offered him a better deal. You paying him more helped him negotiate that deal (though he won’t tell you that). Then you’re screwed. You should have never let someone else have such much power.
One Client
You do copywriting work. It was tough starting out but you got in touch with a man who is in charge of a huge firm that needs all types of copywriting done for them all of the time. At first you were in heated competition with other freelancers yet every time you outperformed them by a sizable margin. The man shook his head “Damn son if I had ten copywriters like you I’d be a billionaire!” you feel good as you collect the check from him. Then the next project comes up and it’s a doozy. Twenty five grand for the copy, you’re counting on this and have turned down numerous other jobs. After all this one client is so profitable who needs them?
You are in competition with another freelancer although competition hardly describes it. She’s brand new and doesn’t know the difference between a feature and benefit. You’re surprised she’s even here or making it at a freelancer, no matter. You both submit work, you’re work outperforms hers by a margin of ten to one. You laugh thinking about cashing that fat check. Then to your surprise your client goes with her and you never hear from him again and have to go back to begging from scraps from others you turned down. Turns out what she lacked in copywriting skills she made up for in blowjob skills.
Summary
Never ever rely on any one thing. That is a guaranteed way to get screwed in business and in life. Never depend on any one product, revenue stream, market, marketing method, producer, person, or anything else. And never get too comfortable. Comfort will lull you to your death like the sirens did to sailors. Once you get on revenue stream down that isn’t the time to rest on your laurels that’s the time to bust your ass building out another one. Focus on one object until successful but then as soon as you reach success with that focus on the next and never get too comfortable. Always think about what would happen should your golden goose die.
If you have any questions you would like to see answered in a future post send them to me at charlessledge001 (at) gmail (dot) com. If you found value in this post then I would encourage you to share this site with someone who may need it as well as check out my books here. I appreciate it. You can follow me on Twitter here.
-Charles Sledge
